It is sometimes an ungrateful task to tell the story of Arsène Lupin's
life, for the reason that each of his adventures is partly known to the
public, having at the time formed the subject of much eager comment,
whereas his biographer is obliged, if he would throw light upon what is
not known, to begin at the beginning and to relate in full detail all
that which is already public property.
It is because of this necessity that I am compelled to speak once more of
the extreme excitement which the news of that shocking series of crimes
created in France, in Europe and throughout the civilized world. The
public heard of four murders practically all at once, for the particulars
of Cosmo Mornington's will were published two days later.
There was no doubt that the same person had killed Cosmo Mornington,
Inspector Vérot, Fauville the engineer, and his son Edmond. The same
person had made the identical sinister bite, leaving against himself or
herself, with a heedlessness that seemed to show the avenging hand of
fate, a most impressive and incriminating proof, a proof which made
people shudder as they would have shuddered at the awful reality: the
marks of his or her teeth, the teeth of the tiger!
And, in the midst of all this bloodshed, at the most tragic moment
of the dismal tragedy, behold the strangest of figures emerging from
the darkness!
An heroic adventurer, endowed with astounding intelligence and insight,
had in a few hours partly unravelled the tangled skeins of the plot,
divined the murder of Cosmo Mornington, proclaimed the murder of
Inspector Vérot, taken the conduct of the investigation into his own
hands, delivered to justice the inhuman creature whose beautiful white
teeth fitted the marks as precious stones fit their settings, received a
cheque for a million francs on the day after these exploits and, finally,
found himself the probable heir to an immense fortune.
And here was Arsène Lupin coming to life again!
For the public made no mistake about that, and, with wonderful intuition,
proclaimed aloud that Don Luis Perenna was Arsène Lupin, before a close
examination of the facts had more or less confirmed the supposition.
"But he's dead!" objected the doubters.
To which the others replied:
"Yes, Dolores Kesselbach's corpse was recovered under the still smoking
ruins of a little chalet near the Luxemburg frontier and, with it, the
corpse of a man whom the police identified as Arsène Lupin. But
everything goes to show that the whole scene was contrived by Lupin, who,
for reasons of his own, wanted to be thought dead. And everything shows
that the police accepted and legalized the theory of his death only
because they wished to be rid of their everlasting adversary.
"As a proof, we have the confidences made by Valenglay, who was Prime
Minister at the time and whom the chances of politics have just replaced
at the head of the government. And there is the mysterious incident on
the island of Capri when the German Emperor, just as he was about to be
buried under a landslip, was saved by a hermit who, according to the
German version, was none other than Arsène Lupin."
To this came a fresh objection:
"Very well; but read the newspapers of the time: ten minutes
afterward, the hermit flung himself into the sea from Tiberius' Leap."
And the answer:
"Yes, but the body was never found. And, as it happens, we know that a
steamer picked up a man who was making signals to her and that this
steamer was on her way to Algiers. Well, a few days later, Don Luis
Perenna enlisted in the Foreign Legion at Sidi-bel-Abbes."
Of course, the controversy upon which the newspapers embarked on this
subject was carried on discreetly. Everybody was afraid of Lupin; and the
journalists maintained a certain reserve in their articles, confined
themselves to comparing dates and pointing out coincidences, and
refrained from speaking too positively of any Lupin that might lie hidden
under the mask of Perenna.
But, as regards the private in the Foreign Legion and his stay in
Morocco, they took their revenge and let themselves go freely.
Major d'Astrignac had spoken. Other officers, other comrades of
Perenna's, related what they had seen. The reports and daily orders
concerning him were published. And what became known as "The Hero's
Idyll" began to take the form of a sort of record each page of which
described the maddest and unlikeliest of facts.
At Médiouna, on the twenty-fourth of March, the adjutant, Captain Pollex,
awarded Private Perenna four days' cells on a charge of having broken out
of camp past two sentries after evening roll call, contrary to orders,
and being absent without leave until noon on the following day. Perenna,
the report went on to say, brought back the body of his sergeant, killed
in ambush. And in the margin was this note, in the colonel's hand:
"The colonel commanding doubles Private Perenna's award, but mentions his
name in orders and congratulates and thanks him."
After the fight of Ber-Réchid, Lieutenant Fardet's detachment being
obliged to retreat before a band of four hundred Moors, Private Perenna
asked leave to cover the retreat by installing himself in a _kasbah_.
"How many men do you want, Perenna?"
"None, sir."
"What! Surely you don't propose to cover a retreat all by yourself?"
"What pleasure would there be in dying, sir, if others were to die as
well as I?"
At his request, they left him a dozen rifles, and divided with him the
cartridges that remained. His share came to seventy-five.
The detachment got away without being further molested. Next day, when
they were able to return with reinforcements, they surprised the Moors
lying in wait around the _kasbah_, but afraid to approach. The ground was
covered with seventy-five of their killed.
Our men drove them off. They found Private Perenna stretched on the floor
of the _kasbah_. They thought him dead. He was asleep!
He had not a single cartridge left. But each of his seventy-five bullets
had gone home.
What struck the imagination of the public most, however, was Major Comte
d'Astrignac's story of the battle of Dar-Dbibarh. The major confessed
that this battle, which relieved Fez at the moment when we thought that
all was lost and which created such a sensation in France, was won before
it was fought and that it was won by Perenna, alone!
At daybreak, when the Moorish tribes were preparing for the attack,
Private Perenna lassoed an Arab horse that was galloping across the
plain, sprang on the animal, which had no saddle, bridle, nor any sort of
harness, and without jacket, cap, or arms, with his white shirt bulging
out and a cigarette between his teeth, charged, with his hands in his
trousers-pockets!
He charged straight toward the enemy, galloped through their camp, riding
in and out among the tents, and then left it by the same place by which
he had gone in.
This quite inconceivable death ride spread such consternation among the
Moors that their attack was half-hearted and the battle was won without
resistance.
This, together with numberless other feats of bravado, went to make up
the heroic legend of Perenna. It threw into relief the superhuman energy,
the marvellous recklessness, the bewildering fancy, the spirit of
adventure, the physical dexterity, and the coolness of a singularly
mysterious individual whom it was impossible not to take for Arsène
Lupin, but a new and greater Arsène Lupin, dignified, idealized, and
ennobled by his exploits.
One morning, a fortnight after the double murder in the Boulevard
Suchet, this extraordinary man, who aroused such eager interest and who
was spoken of on every side as a fabulous and more or less impossible
being: one morning, Don Luis Perenna dressed himself and went the rounds
of his house.
It was a comfortable and roomy eighteenth-century mansion, situated at
the entrance to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, on the little Place du
Palais-Bourbon. He had bought it, furnished, from a rich Hungarian, Count
Malonyi, keeping for his own use the horses, carriages, motor cars, and
taking over the eight servants and even the count's secretary, Mlle.
Levasseur, who undertook to manage the household and to receive and get
rid of the visitors--journalists, bores and curiosity-dealers--attracted
by the luxury of the house and the reputation of its new owner.
After finishing his inspection of the stables and garage, he walked
across the courtyard and went up to his study, pushed open one of the
windows and raised his head. Above him was a slanting mirror; and this
mirror reflected, beyond the courtyard and its surrounding wall, one
whole side of the Place du Palais-Bourbon.
"Bother!" he said. "Those confounded detectives are still there. And this
has been going on for a fortnight. I'm getting tired of this spying."
He sat down, in a bad temper, to look through his letters, tearing up,
after he had read them, those which concerned him personally and making
notes on the others, such as applications for assistance and requests for
interviews. When he had finished, he rang the bell.
"Ask Mlle. Levasseur to bring me the newspapers."
She had been the Hungarian count's reader as well as his secretary; and
Perenna had trained her to pick out in the newspapers anything that
referred to him, and to give him each morning an exact account of the
proceedings that were being taken against Mme. Fauville.
Always dressed in black, with a very elegant and graceful figure, she had
attracted him from the first. She had an air of great dignity and a grave
and thoughtful face which made it impossible to penetrate the secret of
her soul, and which would have seemed austere had it not been framed in a
cloud of fair curls, resisting all attempts at discipline and setting a
halo of light and gayety around her.
Her voice had a soft and musical tone which Perenna loved to hear; and,
himself a little perplexed by Mlle. Levasseur's attitude of reserve, he
wondered what she could think of him, of his mode of life, and of all
that the newspapers had to tell of his mysterious past.
"Nothing new?" he asked, as he glanced at the headings of the articles.
She read the reports relating to Mme. Fauville; and Don Luis could see
that the police investigations were making no headway. Marie Fauville
still kept to her first method, that of weeping, making a show of
indignation, and assuming entire ignorance of the facts upon which she
was being examined.
"It's ridiculous," he said, aloud. "I have never seen any one defend
herself so clumsily."
"Still, if she's innocent?"
It was the first time that Mlle. Levasseur had uttered an opinion or
rather a remark upon the case. Don Luis looked at her in great surprise.
"So you think her innocent, Mademoiselle?"
She seemed ready to reply and to explain the meaning of her
interruption. It was as though she were removing her impassive mask and
about to allow her face to adopt a more animated expression under the
impulse of her inner feelings. But she restrained herself with a visible
effort, and murmured:
"I don't know. I have no views."
"Possibly," he said, watching her with curiosity, "but you have a doubt:
a doubt which would be permissible if it were not for the marks left by
Mme. Fauville's own teeth. Those marks, you see, are something more than
a signature, more than a confession of guilt. And, as long as she is
unable to give a satisfactory explanation of this point--"
But Marie Fauville vouchsafed not the slightest explanation of this or of
anything else. She remained impenetrable. On the other hand, the police
failed to discover her accomplice or accomplices, or the man with the
ebony walking-stick and the tortoise-shell glasses whom the waiter at the
Café du Pont-Neuf had described to Mazeroux and who seemed to have played
a singularly suspicious part. In short, there was not a ray of light
thrown upon the subject.
Equally vain was all search for the traces of Victor, the Roussel
sister's first cousin, who would have inherited the Mornington bequest in
the absence of any direct heirs.
"Is that all?" asked Perenna.
"No," said Mlle. Levasseur, "there is an article in the _Echo de
France_--"
"Relating to me?"
"I presume so, Monsieur. It is called, 'Why Don't They Arrest Him?'"
"That concerns me," he said, with a laugh.
He took the newspaper and read:
"Why do they not arrest him? Why go against logic and prolong an
unnatural situation which no decent man can understand? This is the
question which everybody is asking and to which our investigations enable
us to furnish a precise reply.
"Two years ago, in other words, three years after the pretended death of
Arsène Lupin, the police, having discovered or believing they had
discovered that Arsène Lupin was really none other than one Floriani,
born at Blois and since lost to sight, caused the register to be
inscribed, on the page relating to this Floriani, with the word
'Deceased,' followed by the words 'Under the alias of Arsène Lupin.'
"Consequently, to bring Arsène Lupin back to life, there would be wanted
something more than the undeniable proof of his existence, which would
not be impossible. The most complicated wheels in the administrative
machine would have to be set in motion, and a decree obtained from the
Council of State.
"Now it would seem that M. Valenglay, the Prime Minister, together with
the Prefect of Police, is opposed to making any too minute inquiries
capable of opening up a scandal which the authorities are anxious to
avoid. Bring Arsène Lupin back to life? Recommence the struggle with
that accursed scoundrel? Risk a fresh defeat and fresh ridicule? No, no,
and again no!
"And thus is brought about this unprecedented, inadmissible,
inconceivable, disgraceful situation, that Arsène Lupin, the hardened
thief, the impenitent criminal, the robber-king, the emperor of burglars
and swindlers, is able to-day, not clandestinely, but in the sight and
hearing of the whole world, to pursue the most formidable task that he
has yet undertaken, to live publicly under a name which is not his own,
but which he has incontestably made his own, to destroy with impunity
four persons who stood in his way, to cause the imprisonment of an
innocent woman against whom he himself has accumulated false evidence,
and at the end of all, despite the protests of common sense and thanks
to an unavowed complicity, to receive the hundred millions of the
Mornington legacy.
"There is the ignominious truth in a nutshell. It is well that it should
be stated. Let us hope, now that it stands revealed, that it will
influence the future conduct of events."
"At any rate, it will influence the conduct of the idiot who wrote that
article," said Lupin, with a grin.
He dismissed Mlle. Levasseur and rang up Major d'Astrignac on the
telephone.
"Is that you, Major? Perenna speaking."
"Yes, what is it?"
"Have you read the article in the _Echo de France_?"
"Yes."
"Would it bore you very much to call on that gentleman and ask for
satisfaction in my name?"
"Oh! A duel!"
"It's got to be, Major. All these sportsmen are wearying me with their
lucubrations. They must be gagged. This fellow will pay for the rest."
"Well, of course, if you're bent on it--"
"I am, very much."
* * * * *
The preliminaries were entered upon without delay. The editor of the
_Echo de France_ declared that the article had been sent in without a
signature, typewritten, and that it had been published without his
knowledge; but he accepted the entire responsibility.
That same day, at three o'clock, Don Luis Perenna, accompanied by Major
d'Astrignac, another officer, and a doctor, left the house in the Place
du Palais-Bourbon in his car, and, followed by a taxi crammed with the
detectives engaged in watching him, drove to the Parc des Princes.
While waiting for the arrival of the adversary, the Comte d'Astrignac
took Don Luis aside.
"My dear Perenna, I ask you no questions. I don't want to know how much
truth there is in all that is being written about you, or what your real
name is. To me, you are Perenna of the Legion, and that is all I care
about. Your past began in Morocco. As for the future, I know that,
whatever happens and however great the temptation, your only aim will be
to revenge Cosmo Mornington and protect his heirs. But there's one thing
that worries me."
"Speak out, Major."
"Give me your word that you won't kill this man."
"Two months in bed, Major; will that suit you?"
"Too long. A fortnight."
"Done."
The two adversaries took up their positions. At the second encounter, the
editor of the _Echo de France_ fell, wounded in the chest.
"Oh, that's too bad of you, Perenna!" growled the Comte d'Astrignac. "You
promised me--"
"And I've kept my promise, Major."
The doctors were examining the injured man. Presently one of them
rose and said:
"It's nothing. Three weeks' rest, at most. Only a third of an inch more,
and he would have been done for."
"Yes, but that third of an inch isn't there," murmured Perenna.
Still followed by the detectives' motor cab, Don Luis returned to the
Faubourg Saint-Germain; and it was then that an incident occurred which
was to puzzle him greatly and throw a most extraordinary light on the
article in the _Echo de France_.
In the courtyard of his house he saw two little puppies which belonged to
the coachman and which were generally confined to the stables. They were
playing with a twist of red string which kept catching on to things, to
the railings of the steps, to the flower vases. In the end, the paper
round which the string was wound, appeared. Don Luis happened to pass at
that moment. His eyes noticed marks of writing on the paper, and he
mechanically picked it up and unfolded it.
He gave a start. He had at once recognized the opening lines of the
article printed in the _Echo de France_. And the whole article was there,
written in ink, on ruled paper, with erasures, and with sentences added,
struck out, and begun anew.
He called the coachman and asked him:
"Where does this ball of string come from?"
"The string, sir? Why, from the harness-room, I think. It must have been
that little she-devil of a Mirza who--"
"And when did you wind the string round the paper?"
"Yesterday evening, Monsieur."
"Yesterday evening. I see. And where is the paper from?"
"Upon my word, Monsieur, I can't say. I wanted something to wind my
string on. I picked this bit up behind the coach-house where they fling
all the rubbish of the house to be taken into the street at night."
Don Luis pursued his investigations. He questioned or asked Mlle.
Levasseur to question the other servants. He discovered nothing; but one
fact remained: the article in the _Echo de France_ had been written, as
the rough draft which he had picked up proved, by somebody who lived in
the house or who was in touch with one of the people in the house.
The enemy was inside the fortress.
But what enemy? And what did he want? Merely Perenna's arrest?
All the remainder of the afternoon Don Luis continued anxious, annoyed by
the mystery that surrounded him, incensed at his own inaction, and
especially at that threatened arrest, which certainly caused him no
uneasiness, but which hampered his movements.
Accordingly, when he was told at about ten o'clock that a man who gave
the name of Alexandre insisted on seeing him, he had the man shown in;
and when he found himself face to face with Mazeroux, but Mazeroux
disguised beyond recognition and huddled in an old cloak, he flung
himself on him as on a prey, hustling and shaking him.
"So it's you, at last?" he cried. "Well, what did I tell you? You can't
make head or tail of things at the police office and you've come for me!
Confess it, you numskull! You've come to fetch me! Oh, how funny it all
is! Gad, I knew that you would never have the cheek to arrest me, and
that the Prefect of Police would manage to calm the untimely ardour of
that confounded Weber! To begin with, one doesn't arrest a man whom one
has need of. Come, out with it! Lord, how stupid you look! Why don't you
answer? How far have you got at the office? Quick, speak! I'll settle the
thing in five seconds. Just tell me about your inquiry in two words, and
I'll finish it for you in the twinkling of a bed-post, in two minutes by
my watch. Well, you were saying--"
"But, Chief," spluttered Mazeroux, utterly nonplussed.
"What! Must I drag the words out of you? Come on! I'll make a start. It
has to do with the man with the ebony walking-stick, hasn't it? The one
we saw at the Café du Pont-Neuf on the day when Inspector Vérot was
murdered?"
"Yes, it has."
"Have you found his traces?"
"Yes."
"Well, come along, find your tongue!"
"It's like this, Chief. Some one else noticed him besides the waiter.
There was another customer in the café; and this other customer, whom I
ended by discovering, went out at the same time as our man and heard
him ask somebody in the street which was the nearest underground
station for Neuilly."
"Capital, that. And, in Neuilly, by asking questions on every side, you
ferreted him out?"
"And even learnt his name, Chief: Hubert Lautier, of the Avenue du Roule.
Only he decamped from there six months ago, leaving his furniture behind
him and taking nothing but two trunks."
"What about the post-office?"
"We have been to the post-office. One of the clerks recognized the
description which we supplied. Our man calls once every eight or ten days
to fetch his mail, which never amounts to much: just one or two letters.
He has not been there for some time."
"Is the correspondence in his name?"
"No, initials."
"Were they able to remember them?"
"Yes: B.R.W.8."
"Is that all?"
"That is absolutely all that I have discovered. But one of my fellow
officers succeeded in proving, from the evidence of two detectives, that
a man carrying a silver-handled ebony walking-stick and a pair of
tortoise-shell glasses walked out of the Gare d'Auteuil on the evening of
the double murder and went toward Renelagh. Remember the presence of Mme.
Fauville in that neighbourhood at the same hour. And remember that the
crime was committed round about midnight. I conclude from this--"
"That will do; be off!"
"But--"
"Get!"
"Then I don't see you again?"
"Meet me in half an hour outside our man's place."
"What man?"
"Marie Fauville's accomplice."
"But you don't know--"
"The address? Why, you gave it to me yourself: Boulevard Richard-Wallace,
No. 8. Go! And don't look such a fool."
He made him spin round on his heels, took him by the shoulders, pushed
him to the door, and handed him over, quite flabbergasted, to a footman.
He himself went out a few minutes later, dragging in his wake the
detectives attached to his person, left them posted on sentry duty
outside a block of flats with a double entrance, and took a motor cab
to Neuilly.
He went along the Avenue de Madrid on foot and turned down the Boulevard
Richard-Wallace, opposite the Bois de Boulogne. Mazeroux was waiting for
him in front of a small three-storied house standing at the back of a
courtyard contained within the very high walls of the adjoining property.
"Is this number eight?"
"Yes, Chief, but tell me how--"
"One moment, old chap; give me time to recover my breath."
He gave two or three great gasps.
"Lord, how good it is to be up and doing!" he said. "Upon my word, I was
getting rusty. And what a pleasure to pursue those scoundrels! So you
want me to tell you?"
He passed his arm through the sergeant's.
"Listen, Alexandre, and profit by my words. Remember this: when a person
is choosing initials for his address at a _poste restante_ he doesn't
pick them at random, but always in such a way that the letters convey a
meaning to the person corresponding with him, a meaning which will enable
that other person easily to remember the address."
"And in this case?"
"In this case, Mazeroux, a man like myself, who knows Neuilly and the
neighbourhood of the Bois, is at once struck by those three letters,
'B.R.W.,' and especially by the 'W.', a foreign letter, an English letter.
So that in my mind's eye, instantly, as in a flash, I saw the three
letters in their logical place as initials at the head of the words for
which they stand. I saw the 'B' of 'boulevard,' and the 'R' and the
English 'W' of Richard-Wallace. And so I came to the Boulevard
Richard-Wallace, And that, my dear sir, explains the milk in the
cocoanut."
Mazeroux seemed a little doubtful.
"And what do you think, Chief?"
"I think nothing. I am looking about. I am building up a theory on the
first basis that offers a probable theory. And I say to myself ... I say
to myself ... I say to myself, Mazeroux, that this is a devilish
mysterious little hole and that this house--Hush! Listen--"
He pushed Mazeroux into a dark corner. They had heard a noise, the
slamming of a door.
Footsteps crossed the courtyard in front of the house. The lock of the
outer gate grated. Some one appeared, and the light of a street lamp fell
full on his face.
"Dash it all," muttered Mazeroux, "it's he!"
"I believe you're right."
"It's he. Chief. Look at the black stick and the bright handle. And did
you see the eyeglasses--and the beard? What a oner you are, Chief!"
"Calm yourself and let's go after him."
The man had crossed the Boulevard Richard-Wallace and was turning into
the Boulevard Maillot. He was walking pretty fast, with his head up,
gayly twirling his stick. He lit a cigarette.
At the end of the Boulevard Maillot, the man passed the octroi and
entered Paris. The railway station of the outer circle was close by. He
went to it and, still followed by the others, stepped into a train that
took them to Auteuil.
"That's funny," said Mazeroux. "He's doing exactly what he did a
fortnight ago. This is where he was seen."
The man now went along the fortifications. In a quarter of an hour he
reached the Boulevard Suchet and almost immediately afterward the house
in which M. Fauville and his son had been murdered.
He climbed the fortifications opposite the house and stayed there for
some minutes, motionless, with his face to the front of the house. Then
continuing his road he went to La Muette and plunged into the dusk of the
Bois de Boulogne.
"To work and boldly!" said Don Luis, quickening his pace.
Mazeroux stopped him.
"What do you mean, Chief?"
"Well, catch him by the throat! There are two of us; we couldn't hope for
a better moment."
"What! Why, it's impossible!"
"Impossible? Are you afraid? Very well, I'll do it by myself."
"Look here, Chief, you're not serious!"
"Why shouldn't I be serious?"
"Because one can't arrest a man without a reason."
"Without a reason? A scoundrel like this? A murderer? What more do
you want?"
"In the absence of compulsion, of catching him in the act, I want
something that I haven't got."
"What's that?"
"A warrant. I haven't a warrant."
Mazeroux's accent was so full of conviction, and the answer struck Don
Luis Perenna as so comical, that he burst out laughing.
"You have no warrant? Poor little chap! Well, I'll soon show you if I
need a warrant!"
"You'll show me nothing," cried Mazeroux, hanging on to his companion's
arm. "You shan't touch the man."
"One would think he was your mother!"
"Come, Chief."
"But, you stick-in-the-mud of an honest man," shouted Don Luis, angrily,
"if we let this opportunity slip shall we ever find another?"
"Easily. He's going home. I'll inform the commissary of police. He will
telephone to headquarters; and to-morrow morning--"
"And suppose the bird has flown?"
"I have no warrant."
"Do you want me to sign you one, idiot?"
But Don Luis mastered his rage. He felt that all his arguments would be
shattered to pieces against the sergeant's obstinacy, and that, if
necessary, Mazeroux would go to the length of defending the enemy against
him. He simply said in a sententious tone:
"One ass and you make a pair of asses; and there are as many asses as
there are people who try to do police work with bits of paper,
signatures, warrants, and other gammon. Police work, my lad, is done with
one's fists. When you come upon the enemy, hit him. Otherwise, you stand
a chance of hitting the air. With that, good-night. I'm going to bed.
Telephone to me when the job is done."
He went home, furious, sick of an adventure in which he had not had elbow
room, and in which he had had to submit to the will, or, rather, to the
weakness of others.
But next morning when he woke up his longing to see the police lay hold
of the man with the ebony stick, and especially the feeling that his
assistance would be of use, impelled him to dress as quickly as he could.
"If I don't come to the rescue," he thought, "they'll let themselves be
done in the eye. They're not equal to a contest of this kind."
Just then Mazeroux rang up and asked to speak to him. He rushed to a
little telephone box which his predecessor had fitted up on the first
floor, in a dark recess that communicated only with his study, and
switched on the electric light.
"Is that you, Alexandre?"
"Yes, Chief. I'm speaking from a wine shop near the house on the
Boulevard Richard-Wallace."
"What about our man?"
"The bird's still in the nest. But we're only just in time."
"Really?"
"Yes, he's packed his trunk. He's going away this morning."
"How do they know?"
"Through the woman who manages for him. She's just come to the house and
will let us in."
"Does he live alone?"
"Yes, the woman cooks his meals and goes away in the evening. No one ever
calls except a veiled lady who has paid him three visits since he's been
here. The housekeeper was not able to see what she was like. As for him,
she says he's a scholar, who spends his time reading and working."
"And have you a warrant?"
"Yes, we're going to use it."
"I'll come at once."
"You can't! We've got Weber at our head. Oh, by the way, have you heard
the news about Mme. Fauville?"
"About Mme. Fauville?"
"Yes, she tried to commit suicide last night."
"What! Tried to commit suicide!"
Perenna had uttered an exclamation of astonishment and was very much
surprised to hear, almost at the same time, another cry, like an echo, at
his elbow. Without letting go the receiver, he turned round and saw that
Mlle. Levasseur was in the study a few yards away from him, standing with
a distorted and livid face. Their eyes met. He was on the point of
speaking to her, but she moved away, without leaving the room, however.
"What the devil was she listening for?" Don Luis wondered. "And why that
look of dismay?"
Meanwhile, Mazeroux continued:
"She said, you know, that she would try to kill herself. But it must have
taken a goodish amount of pluck."
"But how did she do it?" Perenna asked.
"I'll tell you another time. They're calling me. Whatever you do, Chief,
don't come."
"Yes," he replied, firmly, "I'm coming. After all, the least I can do is
to be in at the death, seeing that it was I who found the scent. But
don't be afraid. I shall keep in the background."
"Then hurry, Chief. We're delivering the attack in ten minutes."
"I'll be with you before that."
He quickly hung up the receiver and turned on his heel to leave the
telephone box. The next moment he had flung himself against the farther
wall. Just as he was about to pass out he had heard something click
above his head and he but barely had the time to leap back and escape
being struck by an iron curtain which fell in front of him with a
terrible thud.
Another second and the huge mass would have crushed him. He could feel it
whizzing by his head. And he had never before experienced the anguish of
danger so intensely.
After a moment of genuine fright, in which he stood as though petrified,
with his brain in a whirl, he recovered his coolness and threw himself
upon the obstacle. But it at once appeared to him that the obstacle was
unsurmountable.
It was a heavy metal panel, not made of plates or lathes fastened one to
the other, but formed of a solid slab, massive, firm, and strong, and
covered with the sheen of time darkened here and there with patches of
rust. On either side and at the top and bottom the edges of the panel
fitted in a narrow groove which covered them hermetically.
He was a prisoner. In a sudden fit of rage he banged at the metal with
his fists. He remembered that Mlle. Levasseur was in the study. If she
had not yet left the room--and surely she could not have left it when the
thing happened--she would hear the noise. She was bound to hear it. She
would be sure to come back, give the alarm, and rescue him.
He listened. He shouted. No reply. His voice died away against the walls
and ceiling of the box in which he was shut up, and he felt that the
whole house--drawing-rooms, staircases, and passages--remained deaf to
his appeal.