the cupboards, went down to the kitchen and pretended that the doctor
had sent him to ask about M. Darcieux's diet. Without appearing to do
so, he catechized the cook, the butler, and Baptiste, the lodge-keeper,
who had his meals at the manor-house with the servants. Then he went
back to the doctor:
"Well?"
"She's asleep."
"Any danger?"
"No. Fortunately, she had only taken two or three sips. But this is the
second time to-day that you have saved her life, as the analysis of this
bottle will show."
"Quite superfluous to make an analysis, doctor. There is no doubt about
the fact that there has been an attempt at poisoning."
"By whom?"
"I can't say. But the demon who is engineering all this business clearly
knows the ways of the house. He comes and goes as he pleases, walks
about in the park, files the dog's chain, mixes poison with the food
and, in short, moves and acts precisely as though he were living the
very life of her--or rather of those--whom he wants to put away."
"Ah! You really believe that M. Darcieux is threatened with the same
danger?"
"I have not a doubt of it."
"Then it must be one of the servants? But that is most unlikely! Do you
think ...?"
"I think nothing, doctor. I know nothing. All I can say is that the
situation is most tragic and that we must be prepared for the worst.
Death is here, doctor, shadowing the people in this house; and it will
soon strike at those whom it is pursuing."
"What's to be done?"
"Watch, doctor. Let us pretend that we are alarmed about M. Darcieux's
health and spend the night in here. The bedrooms of both the father and
daughter are close by. If anything happens, we are sure to hear."
There was an easy-chair in the room. They arranged to sleep in it turn
and turn about.
In reality, Lupin slept for only two or three hours. In the middle of
the night he left the room, without disturbing his companion, carefully
looked round the whole of the house and walked out through the principal
gate.
* * * * *
He reached Paris on his motor-cycle at nine o'clock in the morning. Two
of his friends, to whom he telephoned on the road, met him there. They
all three spent the day in making searches which Lupin had planned out
beforehand.
He set out again hurriedly at six o'clock; and never, perhaps, as he
told me subsequently, did he risk his life with greater temerity than in
his breakneck ride, at a mad rate of speed, on a foggy December evening,
with the light of his lamp hardly able to pierce through the darkness.
He sprang from his bicycle outside the gate, which was still open, ran
to the house and reached the first floor in a few bounds.
There was no one in the little dining-room.
Without hesitating, without knocking, he walked into Jeanne's bedroom:
"Ah, here you are!" he said, with a sigh of relief, seeing Jeanne and
the doctor sitting side by side, talking.
"What? Any news?" asked the doctor, alarmed at seeing such a state of
agitation in a man whose coolness he had had occasion to observe.
"No," said Lupin. "No news. And here?"
"None here, either. We have just left M. Darcieux. He has had an
excellent day and he ate his dinner with a good appetite. As for Jeanne,
you can see for yourself, she has all her pretty colour back again."
"Then she must go."
"Go? But it's out of the question!" protested the girl.
"You must go, you must!" cried Lupin, with real violence, stamping his
foot on the floor.
He at once mastered himself, spoke a few words of apology and then, for
three or four minutes, preserved a complete silence, which the doctor
and Jeanne were careful not to disturb.
At last, he said to the young girl:
"You shall go to-morrow morning, mademoiselle. It will be only for one
or two weeks. I will take you to your friend at Versailles, the one to
whom you were writing. I entreat you to get everything ready to-night
... without concealment of any kind. Let the servants know that you are
going.... On the other hand, the doctor will be good enough to tell M.
Darcieux and give him to understand, with every possible precaution,
that this journey is essential to your safety. Besides, he can join you
as soon as his strength permits.... That's settled, is it not?"
"Yes," she said, absolutely dominated by Lupin's gentle and imperious
voice.
"In that case," he said, "be as quick as you can ... and do not stir
from your room...."
"But," said the girl, with a shudder, "am I to stay alone to-night?"
"Fear nothing. Should there be the least danger, the doctor and I will
come back. Do not open your door unless you hear three very light taps."
Jeanne at once rang for her maid. The doctor went to M. Darcieux, while
Lupin had some supper brought to him in the little dining-room.
"That's done," said the doctor, returning to him in twenty minutes'
time. "M. Darcieux did not raise any great difficulty. As a matter of
fact, he himself thinks it just as well that we should send Jeanne
away."
They then went downstairs together and left the house.
On reaching the lodge, Lupin called the keeper.
"You can shut the gate, my man. If M. Darcieux should want us, send for
us at once."
The clock of Maupertuis church struck ten. The sky was overcast with
black clouds, through which the moon broke at moments.
The two men walked on for sixty or seventy yards.
They were nearing the village, when Lupin gripped his companion by the
arm:
"Stop!"
"What on earth's the matter?" exclaimed the doctor.
"The matter is this," Lupin jerked out, "that, if my calculations turn
out right, if I have not misjudged the business from start to finish,
Mlle. Darcieux will be murdered before the night is out."
"Eh? What's that?" gasped the doctor, in dismay. "But then why did we
go?"
"With the precise object that the miscreant, who is watching all our
movements in the dark, may not postpone his crime and may perpetrate it,
not at the hour chosen by himself, but at the hour which I have decided
upon."
"Then we are returning to the manor-house?"
"Yes, of course we are, but separately."
"In that case, let us go at once."
"Listen to me, doctor," said Lupin, in a steady voice, "and let us
waste no time in useless words. Above all, we must defeat any attempt to
watch us. You will therefore go straight home and not come out again
until you are quite certain that you have not been followed. You will
then make for the walls of the property, keeping to the left, till you
come to the little door of the kitchen-garden. Here is the key. When the
church clock strikes eleven, open the door very gently and walk right up
to the terrace at the back of the house. The fifth window is badly
fastened. You have only to climb over the balcony. As soon as you are
inside Mlle. Darcieux's room, bolt the door and don't budge. You quite
understand, don't budge, either of you, whatever happens. I have noticed
that Mlle. Darcieux leaves her dressing-room window ajar, isn't that
so?"
"Yes, it's a habit which I taught her."
"That's the way they'll come."
"And you?"
"That's the way I shall come also."
"And do you know who the villain is?"
Lupin hesitated and then replied:
"No, I don't know.... And that is just how we shall find out. But, I
implore you, keep cool. Not a word, not a movement, _whatever happens_!"
"I promise you."
"I want more than that, doctor. You must give me your word of honour."
"I give you my word of honour."
The doctor went away. Lupin at once climbed a neighbouring mound from
which he could see the windows of the first and second floor. Several of
them were lighted.
He waited for some little time. The lights went out one by one. Then,
taking a direction opposite to that in which the doctor had gone, he
branched off to the right and skirted the wall until he came to the
clump of trees near which he had hidden his motor-cycle on the day
before.
Eleven o'clock struck. He calculated the time which it would take the
doctor to cross the kitchen-garden and make his way into the house.
"That's one point scored!" he muttered. "Everything's all right on that
side. And now, Lupin to the rescue? The enemy won't be long before he
plays his last trump ... and, by all the gods, I must be there!..."
He went through the same performance as on the first occasion, pulled
down the branch and hoisted himself to the top of the wall, from which
he was able to reach the bigger boughs of the tree.
Just then he pricked up his ears. He seemed to hear a rustling of dead
leaves. And he actually perceived a dark form moving on the level thirty
yards away:
"Hang it all!" he said to himself. "I'm done: the scoundrel has smelt a
rat."
A moonbeam pierced through the clouds. Lupin distinctly saw the man take
aim. He tried to jump to the ground and turned his head. But he felt
something hit him in the chest, heard the sound of a report, uttered an
angry oath and came crashing down from branch to branch, like a corpse.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Doctor Gueroult, following Arsene Lupin's instructions, had
climbed the ledge of the fifth window and groped his way to the first
floor. On reaching Jeanne's room, he tapped lightly, three times, at the
door and, immediately on entering, pushed the bolt:
"Lie down at once," he whispered to the girl, who had not taken off her
things. "You must appear to have gone to bed. Brrrr, it's cold in here!
Is the window open in your dressing-room?"
"Yes ... would you like me to ...?"
"No, leave it as it is. They are coming."
"They are coming!" spluttered Jeanne, in affright.
"Yes, beyond a doubt."
"But who? Do you suspect any one?"
"I don't know who.... I expect that there is some one hidden in the
house ... or in the park."
"Oh, I feel so frightened!"
"Don't be frightened. The sportsman who's looking after you seems jolly
clever and makes a point of playing a safe game. I expect he's on the
look-out in the court."
The doctor put out the night-light, went to the window and raised the
blind. A narrow cornice, running along the first story, prevented him
from seeing more than a distant part of the courtyard; and he came back
and sat down by the bed.
Some very painful minutes passed, minutes that appeared to them
interminably long. The clock in the village struck; but, taken up as
they were with all the little noises of the night, they hardly noticed
the sound. They listened, listened, with all their nerves on edge:
"Did you hear?" whispered the doctor.
"Yes ... yes," said Jeanne, sitting up in bed.
"Lie down ... lie down," he said, presently. "There's some one coming."
There was a little tapping sound outside, against the cornice. Next came
a series of indistinct noises, the nature of which they could not make
out for certain. But they had a feeling that the window in the
dressing-room was being opened wider, for they were buffeted by gusts of
cold air.
Suddenly, it became quite clear: there was some one next door.
The doctor, whose hand was trembling a little, seized his revolver.
Nevertheless, he did not move, remembering the formal orders which he
had received and fearing to act against them.
The room was in absolute darkness; and they were unable to see where the
adversary was. But they felt his presence.
They followed his invisible movements, the sound of his footsteps
deadened by the carpet; and they did not doubt but that he had already
crossed the threshold of the room.
And the adversary stopped. Of that they were certain. He was standing
six steps away from the bed, motionless, undecided perhaps, seeking to
pierce the darkness with his keen eyes.
Jeanne's hand, icy-cold and clammy, trembled in the doctor's grasp.
With his other hand, the doctor clutched his revolver, with his finger
on the trigger. In spite of his pledged word, he did not hesitate. If
the adversary touched the end of the bed, the shot would be fired at a
venture.
The adversary took another step and then stopped again. And there was
something awful about that silence, that impassive silence, that
darkness in which those human beings were peering at one another,
wildly.
Who was it looming in the murky darkness? Who was the man? What horrible
enmity was it that turned his hand against the girl and what abominable
aim was he pursuing?
Terrified though they were, Jeanne and the doctor thought only of that
one thing: to see, to learn the truth, to gaze upon the adversary's
face.
He took one more step and did not move again. It seemed to them that his
figure stood out, darker, against the dark space and that his arm rose
slowly, slowly....
A minute passed and then another minute....
And, suddenly, beyond the man, on the right a sharp click.... A bright
light flashed, was flung upon the man, lit him full in the face,
remorselessly.
Jeanne gave a cry of affright. She had seen--standing over her, with a
dagger in his hand--she had seen ... her father!
Almost at the same time, though the light was already turned off, there
came a report: the doctor had fired.
"Dash it all, don't shoot!" roared Lupin.
He threw his arms round the doctor, who choked out:
"Didn't you see?... Didn't you see?... Listen!... He's escaping!..."
"Let him escape: it's the best thing that could happen."
He pressed the spring of his electric lantern again, ran to the
dressing-room, made certain that the man had disappeared and, returning
quietly to the table, lit the lamp.
Jeanne lay on her bed, pallid, in a dead faint.
The doctor, huddled in his chair, emitted inarticulate sounds.
"Come," said Lupin, laughing, "pull yourself together. There is nothing
to excite ourselves about: it's all over."
"Her father!... Her father!" moaned the old doctor.
"If you please, doctor, Mlle. Darcieux is ill. Look after her."
Without more words, Lupin went back to the dressing-room and stepped out
on the window-ledge. A ladder stood against the ledge. He ran down it.
Skirting the wall of the house, twenty steps farther, he tripped over
the rungs of a rope-ladder, which he climbed and found himself in M.
Darcieux's bedroom. The room was empty.
"Just so," he said. "My gentleman did not like the position and has
cleared out. Here's wishing him a good journey.... And, of course, the
door is bolted?... Exactly!... That is how our sick man, tricking his
worthy medical attendant, used to get up at night in full security,
fasten his rope-ladder to the balcony and prepare his little games. He's
no fool, is friend Darcieux!"
He drew the bolts and returned to Jeanne's room. The doctor, who was
just coming out of the doorway, drew him to the little dining-room:
"She's asleep, don't let us disturb her. She has had a bad shock and
will take some time to recover."
Lupin poured himself out a glass of water and drank it down. Then he
took a chair and, calmly:
"Pooh! She'll be all right by to-morrow."
"What do you say?"
"I say that she'll be all right by to-morrow."
"Why?"
"In the first place, because it did not strike me that Mlle. Darcieux
felt any very great affection for her father."
"Never mind! Think of it: a father who tries to kill his daughter! A
father who, for months on end, repeats his monstrous attempt four, five,
six times over again!... Well, isn't that enough to blight a less
sensitive soul than Jeanne's for good and all? What a hateful memory!"
"She will forget."
"One does not forget such a thing as that."
"She will forget, doctor, and for a very simple reason...."
"Explain yourself!"
"She is not M. Darcieux's daughter!"
"Eh?"
"I repeat, she is not that villain's daughter."
"What do you mean? M. Darcieux...."
"M. Darcieux is only her step-father. She had just been born when her
father, her real father, died. Jeanne's mother then married a cousin of
her husband's, a man bearing the same name, and she died within a year
of her second wedding. She left Jeanne in M. Darcieux's charge. He first
took her abroad and then bought this country-house; and, as nobody knew
him in the neighbourhood, he represented the child as being his
daughter. She herself did not know the truth about her birth."
The doctor sat confounded. He asked:
"Are you sure of your facts?"
"I spent my day in the town-halls of the Paris municipalities. I
searched the registers, I interviewed two solicitors, I have seen all
the documents. There is no doubt possible."
"But that does not explain the crime, or rather the series of crimes."
"Yes, it does," declared Lupin. "And, from the start, from the first
hour when I meddled in this business, some words which Mlle. Darcieux
used made me suspect that direction which my investigations must take.
'I was not quite five years old when my mother died,' she said. 'That
was sixteen years ago.' Mlle. Darcieux, therefore, was nearly
twenty-one, that is to say, she was on the verge of attaining her
majority. I at once saw that this was an important detail. The day on
which you reach your majority is the day on which your accounts are
rendered. What was the financial position of Mlle. Darcieux, who was her
mother's natural heiress? Of course, I did not think of the father for a
second. To begin with, one can't imagine a thing like that; and then the
farce which M. Darcieux was playing ... helpless, bedridden, ill...."
"Really ill," interrupted the doctor.
"All this diverted suspicion from him ... the more so as I believe that
he himself was exposed to criminal attacks. But was there not in the
family some person who would be interested in their removal? My journey
to Paris revealed the truth to me: Mlle. Darcieux inherits a large
fortune from her mother, of which her step-father draws the income. The
solicitor was to have called a meeting of the family in Paris next
month. The truth would have been out. It meant ruin to M. Darcieux."
"Then he had put no money by?"
"Yes, but he had lost a great deal as the result of unfortunate
speculations."
"But, after all, Jeanne would not have taken the management of her
fortune out of his hands!"
"There is one detail which you do not know, doctor, and which I learnt
from reading the torn letter. Mlle. Darcieux is in love with the brother
of Marceline, her Versailles friend; M. Darcieux was opposed to the
marriage; and--you now see the reason--she was waiting until she came of
age to be married."
"You're right," said the doctor, "you're right.... It meant his ruin."
"His absolute ruin. One chance of saving himself remained, the death of
his step-daughter, of whom he is the next heir."
"Certainly, but on condition that no one suspected him."
"Of course; and that is why he contrived the series of accidents, so
that the death might appear to be due to misadventure. And that is why
I, on my side, wishing to bring things to a head, asked you to tell him
of Mlle. Darcieux's impending departure. From that moment, it was no
longer enough for the would-be sick man to wander about the grounds and
the passages, in the dark, and execute some leisurely thought-out plan.
No, he had to act, to act at once, without preparation, violently,
dagger in hand. I had no doubt that he would decide to do it. And he
did."
"Then he had no suspicions?"
"Of me, yes. He felt that I would return to-night, and he kept a watch
at the place where I had already climbed the wall."
"Well?"
"Well," said Lupin, laughing, "I received a bullet full in the chest
... or rather my pocket-book received a bullet.... Here, you can see the
hole.... So I tumbled from the tree, like a dead man. Thinking that he
was rid of his only adversary, he went back to the house. I saw him
prowl about for two hours. Then, making up his mind, he went to the
coach-house, took a ladder and set it against the window. I had only to
follow him."
The doctor reflected and said:
"You could have collared him earlier. Why did you let him come up? It
was a sore trial for Jeanne ... and unnecessary."
"On the contrary, it was indispensable! Mlle. Darcieux would never have
accepted the truth. It was essential that she should see the murderer's
very face. You must tell her all the circumstances when she wakes. She
will soon be well again."
"But ... M. Darcieux?"
"You can explain his disappearance as you think best ... a sudden
journey ... a fit of madness.... There will be a few inquiries.... And
you may be sure that he will never be heard of again."
The doctor nodded his head:
"Yes ... that is so ... that is so ... you are right. You have managed
all this business with extraordinary skill; and Jeanne owes you her
life. She will thank you in person.... But now, can I be of use to you
in any way? You told me that you were connected with the
detective-service.... Will you allow me to write and praise your
conduct, your courage?"
Lupin began to laugh:
"Certainly! A letter of that kind will do me a world of good. You might
write to my immediate superior, Chief-inspector Ganimard. He will be
glad to hear that his favourite officer, Paul Daubreuil, of the Rue de
Surene, has once again distinguished himself by a brilliant action. As
it happens, I have an appointment to meet him about a case of which you
may have heard: the case of the red scarf.... How pleased my dear M.
Ganimard will be!"
VII
A TRAGEDY IN THE FOREST OF MORGUES
The village was terror-stricken.
It was on a Sunday morning. The peasants of Saint-Nicolas and the
neighbourhood were coming out of church and spreading across the square,
when, suddenly, the women who were walking ahead and who had already
turned into the high-road fell back with loud cries of dismay.
At the same moment, an enormous motor-car, looking like some appalling
monster, came tearing into sight at a headlong rate of speed. Amid the
shouts of the madly scattering people, it made straight for the church,
swerved, just as it seemed about to dash itself to pieces against the
steps, grazed the wall of the presbytery, regained the continuation of
the national road, dashed along, turned the corner and disappeared,
without, by some incomprehensible miracle, having so much as brushed
against any of the persons crowding the square.
But they had seen! They had seen a man in the driver's seat, wrapped in
a goat-skin coat, with a fur cap on his head and his face disguised in a
pair of large goggles, and, with him, on the front of that seat, flung
back, bent in two, a woman whose head, all covered with blood, hung down
over the bonnet....
And they had heard! They had heard the woman's screams, screams of
horror, screams of agony....
And it was all such a vision of hell and carnage that the people stood,
for some seconds, motionless, stupefied.
"Blood!" roared somebody.
There was blood everywhere, on the cobblestones of the square, on the
ground hardened by the first frosts of autumn; and, when a number of men
and boys rushed off in pursuit of the motor, they had but to take those
sinister marks for their guide.
The marks, on their part, followed the high-road, but in a very strange
manner, going from one side to the other and leaving a zigzag track, in
the wake of the tires, that made those who saw it shudder. How was it
that the car had not bumped against that tree? How had it been righted,
instead of smashing into that bank? What novice, what madman, what
drunkard, what frightened criminal was driving that motor-car with such
astounding bounds and swerves?
One of the peasants declared:
"They will never do the turn in the forest."
And another said:
"Of course they won't! She's bound to upset!"
The Forest of Morgues began at half a mile beyond Saint-Nicolas; and the
road, which was straight up to that point, except for a slight bend
where it left the village, started climbing, immediately after entering
the forest, and made an abrupt turn among the rocks and trees. No
motor-car was able to take this turn without first slackening speed.
There were posts to give notice of the danger.
The breathless peasants reached the quincunx of beeches that formed the
edge of the forest. And one of them at once cried:
"There you are!"
"What?"
"Upset!"
The car, a limousine, had turned turtle and lay smashed, twisted and
shapeless. Beside it, the woman's dead body. But the most horrible,
sordid, stupefying thing was the woman's head, crushed, flattened,
invisible under a block of stone, a huge block of stone lodged there by
some unknown and prodigious agency. As for the man in the goat-skin
coat he was nowhere to be found.
* * * * *
He was not found on the scene of the accident. He was not found either
in the neighbourhood. Moreover, some workmen coming down the Cote de
Morgues declared that they had not seen anybody.
The man, therefore, had taken refuge in the woods.