of rooms which she occupied on the ground-floor of a tower that flanked
the left wing. Her husband stopped at the entrance to the rooms and
said:
"I am going for a short stroll, Angelique. May I come to you here, when
I return?"
"Yes," she replied.
He left her and went up to the first floor, which had been assigned to
him as his quarters. The moment he was alone, he locked the door,
noiselessly opened a window that looked over the landscape and leant
out. He saw a shadow at the foot of the tower, some hundred feet or more
below him. He whistled and received a faint whistle in reply.
He then took from a cupboard a thick leather satchel, crammed with
papers, wrapped it in a piece of black cloth and tied it up. Then he
sat down at the table and wrote:
"Glad you got my message, for I think it unsafe to walk out of the
castle with that large bundle of securities. Here they are. You
will be in Paris, on your motor-cycle, in time to catch the morning
train to Brussels, where you will hand over the bonds to Z.; and he
will negotiate them at once.
"A. L.
"P. S.--As you pass by the Great Oak, tell our chaps that I'm
coming. I have some instructions to give them. But everything is
going well. No one here has the least suspicion."
He fastened the letter to the parcel and lowered both through the window
with a length of string:
"Good," he said. "That's all right. It's a weight off my mind."
He waited a few minutes longer, stalking up and down the room and
smiling at the portraits of two gallant gentlemen hanging on the wall:
"Horace de Sarzeau-Vendome, marshal of France.... And you, the Great
Conde ... I salute you, my ancestors both. Lupin de Sarzeau-Vendome will
show himself worthy of you."
At last, when the time came, he took his hat and went down. But, when he
reached the ground-floor, Angelique burst from her rooms and exclaimed,
with a distraught air:
"I say ... if you don't mind ... I think you had better...."
And then, without saying more, she went in again, leaving a vision of
irresponsible terror in her husband's mind.
"She's out of sorts," he said to himself. "Marriage doesn't suit her."
He lit a cigarette and went out, without attaching importance to an
incident that ought to have impressed him:
"Poor Angelique! This will all end in a divorce...."
The night outside was dark, with a cloudy sky.
The servants were closing the shutters of the castle. There was no light
in the windows, it being the duke's habit to go to bed soon after
dinner.
Lupin passed the gate-keeper's lodge and, as he put his foot on the
drawbridge, said:
"Leave the gate open. I am going for a breath of air; I shall be back
soon."
The patrol-path was on the right and ran along one of the old ramparts,
which used to surround the castle with a second and much larger
enclosure, until it ended at an almost demolished postern-gate. The
park, which skirted a hillock and afterward followed the side of a deep
valley, was bordered on the left by thick coppices.
"What a wonderful place for an ambush!" he said. "A regular cut-throat
spot!"
He stopped, thinking that he heard a noise. But no, it was a rustling of
the leaves. And yet a stone went rattling down the slopes, bounding
against the rugged projections of the rock. But, strange to say, nothing
seemed to disquiet him. The crisp sea-breeze came blowing over the
plains of the headland; and he eagerly filled his lungs with it:
"What a thing it is to be alive!" he thought. "Still young, a member of
the old nobility, a multi-millionaire: what could a man want more?"
At a short distance, he saw against the darkness the yet darker outline
of the chapel, the ruins of which towered above the path. A few drops of
rain began to fall; and he heard a clock strike nine. He quickened his
pace. There was a short descent; then the path rose again. And suddenly,
he stopped once more.
A hand had seized his.
He drew back, tried to release himself.
But some one stepped from the clump of trees against which he was
brushing; and a voice said; "Ssh!... Not a word!..."
He recognized his wife, Angelique:
"What's the matter?" he asked.
She whispered, so low that he could hardly catch the words:
"They are lying in wait for you ... they are in there, in the ruins,
with their guns...."
"Who?"
"Keep quiet.... Listen...."
They stood for a moment without stirring; then she said:
"They are not moving.... Perhaps they never heard me.... Let's go
back...."
"But...."
"Come with me."
Her accent was so imperious that he obeyed without further question. But
suddenly she took fright:
"Run!... They are coming!... I am sure of it!..."
True enough, they heard a sound of footsteps.
Then, swiftly, still holding him by the hand, she dragged him, with
irresistible energy, along a shortcut, following its turns without
hesitation in spite of the darkness and the brambles. And they very soon
arrived at the drawbridge.
She put her arm in his. The gate-keeper touched his cap. They crossed
the courtyard and entered the castle; and she led him to the corner
tower in which both of them had their apartments:
"Come in here," she said.
"To your rooms?"
"Yes."
Two maids were sitting up for her. Their mistress ordered them to retire
to their bedrooms, on the third floor.
Almost immediately after, there was a knock at the door of the outer
room; and a voice called:
"Angelique!"
"Is that you, father?" she asked, suppressing her agitation.
"Yes. Is your husband here?"
"We have just come in."
"Tell him I want to speak to him. Ask him to come to my room. It's
important."
"Very well, father, I'll send him to you."
She listened for a few seconds, then returned to the boudoir where her
husband was and said:
"I am sure my father is still there."
He moved as though to go out:
"In that case, if he wants to speak to me...."
"My father is not alone," she said, quickly, blocking his way.
"Who is with him?"
"His nephew, Jacques d'Emboise."
There was a moment's silence. He looked at her with a certain
astonishment, failing quite to understand his wife's attitude. But,
without pausing to go into the matter:
"Ah, so that dear old d'Emboise is there?" he chuckled. "Then the fat's
in the fire? Unless, indeed...."
"My father knows everything," she said. "I overheard a conversation
between them just now. His nephew has read certain letters.... I
hesitated at first about telling you.... Then I thought that my
duty...."
He studied her afresh. But, at once conquered by the queerness of the
situation, he burst out laughing:
"What? Don't my friends on board ship burn my letters? And they have let
their prisoner escape? The idiots! Oh, when you don't see to everything
yourself!... No matter, its distinctly humorous.... D'Emboise versus
d'Emboise.... Oh, but suppose I were no longer recognized? Suppose
d'Emboise himself were to confuse me with himself?"
He turned to a wash-hand-stand, took a towel, dipped it in the basin and
soaped it and, in the twinkling of an eye, wiped the make-up from his
face and altered the set of his hair:
"That's it," he said, showing himself to Angelique under the aspect in
which she had seen him on the night of the burglary in Paris. "I feel
more comfortable like this for a discussion with my father-in-law."
"Where are you going?" she cried, flinging herself in front of the door.
"Why, to join the gentlemen."
"You shall not pass!"
"Why not?"
"Suppose they kill you?"
"Kill me?"
"That's what they mean to do, to kill you ... to hide your body
somewhere.... Who would know of it?"
"Very well," he said, "from their point of view, they are quite right.
But, if I don't go to them, they will come here. That door won't stop
them.... Nor you, I'm thinking. Therefore, it's better to have done with
it."
"Follow me," commanded Angelique.
She took up the lamp that lit the room, went into her bedroom, pushed
aside the wardrobe, which slid easily on hidden castors, pulled back an
old tapestry-hanging, and said:
"Here is a door that has not been used for years. My father believes the
key to be lost. I have it here. Unlock the door with it. A staircase in
the wall will take you to the bottom of the tower. You need only draw
the bolts of another door and you will be free."
He could hardly believe his ears. Suddenly, he grasped the meaning of
Angelique's whole behaviour. In front of that sad, plain, but
wonderfully gentle face, he stood for a moment discountenanced, almost
abashed. He no longer thought of laughing. A feeling of respect, mingled
with remorse and kindness, overcame him.
"Why are you saving me?" he whispered.
"You are my husband."
He protested:
"No, no ... I have stolen that title. The law will never recognize my
marriage."
"My father does not want a scandal," she said.
"Just so," he replied, sharply, "just so. I foresaw that; and that was
why I had your cousin d'Emboise near at hand. Once I disappear, he
becomes your husband. He is the man you have married in the eyes of
men."
"You are the man I have married in the eyes of the Church."
"The Church! The Church! There are means of arranging matters with the
Church.... Your marriage can be annulled."
"On what pretext that we can admit?"
He remained silent, thinking over all those points which he had not
considered, all those points which were trivial and absurd for him, but
which were serious for her, and he repeated several times:
"This is terrible ... this is terrible.... I should have
anticipated...."
And, suddenly, seized with an idea, he clapped his hands and cried:
"There, I have it! I'm hand in glove with one of the chief figures at
the Vatican. The Pope never refuses me anything. I shall obtain an
audience and I have no doubt that the Holy Father, moved by my
entreaties...."
His plan was so humorous and his delight so artless that Angelique could
not help smiling; and she said:
"I am your wife in the eyes of God."
She gave him a look that showed neither scorn nor animosity, nor even
anger; and he realized that she omitted to see in him the outlaw and the
evil-doer and remembered only the man who was her husband and to whom
the priest had bound her until the hour of death.
He took a step toward her and observed her more attentively. She did not
lower her eyes at first. But she blushed. And never had he seen so
pathetic a face, marked with such modesty and such dignity. He said to
her, as on that first evening in Paris:
"Oh, your eyes ... the calm and sadness of your eyes ... the beauty of
your eyes!"
She dropped her head and stammered:
"Go away ... go ..."
In the presence of her confusion, he received a quick intuition of the
deeper feelings that stirred her, unknown to herself. To that spinster
soul, of which he recognized the romantic power of imagination, the
unsatisfied yearnings, the poring over old-world books, he suddenly
represented, in that exceptional moment and in consequence of the
unconventional circumstances of their meetings, somebody special, a
Byronic hero, a chivalrous brigand of romance. One evening, in spite of
all obstacles, he, the world-famed adventurer, already ennobled in song
and story and exalted by his own audacity, had come to her and slipped
the magic ring upon her finger: a mystic and passionate betrothal, as in
the days of the _Corsair_ and _Hernani_.... Greatly moved and touched,
he was on the verge of giving way to an enthusiastic impulse and
exclaiming:
"Let us go away together!... Let us fly!... You are my bride ... my
wife.... Share my dangers, my sorrows and my joys.... It will be a
strange and vigorous, a proud and magnificent life...."
But Angelique's eyes were raised to his again; and they were so pure and
so noble that he blushed in his turn. This was not the woman to whom
such words could be addressed.
He whispered:
"Forgive me.... I am a contemptible wretch.... I have wrecked your
life...."
"No," she replied, softly. "On the contrary, you have shown me where my
real life lies."
He was about to ask her to explain. But she had opened the door and was
pointing the way to him. Nothing more could be spoken between them. He
went out without a word, bowing very low as he passed.
* * * * *
A month later, Angelique de Sarzeau-Vendome, Princesse de Bourbon-Conde,
lawful wife of Arsene Lupin, took the veil and, under the name of Sister
Marie-Auguste, buried herself within the walls of the Visitation
Convent.
On the day of the ceremony, the mother superior of the convent received
a heavy sealed envelope containing a letter with the following words:
"For Sister Marie-Auguste's poor."
Enclosed with the letter were five hundred bank-notes of a thousand
francs each.
IX
THE INVISIBLE PRISONER
One day, at about four o'clock, as evening was drawing in, Farmer
Goussot, with his four sons, returned from a day's shooting. They were
stalwart men, all five of them, long of limb, broad-chested, with faces
tanned by sun and wind. And all five displayed, planted on an enormous
neck and shoulders, the same small head with the low forehead, thin
lips, beaked nose and hard and repellent cast of countenance. They were
feared and disliked by all around them. They were a money-grubbing,
crafty family; and their word was not to be trusted.
On reaching the old barbican-wall that surrounds the Heberville
property, the farmer opened a narrow, massive door, putting the big key
back in his pocket after his sons had passed in. And he walked behind
them, along the path that led through the orchards. Here and there stood
great trees, stripped by the autumn winds, and clumps of pines, the last
survivors of the ancient park now covered by old Goussot's farm.
One of the sons said:
"I hope mother has lit a log or two."
"There's smoke coming from the chimney," said the father.
The outhouses and the homestead showed at the end of a lawn; and, above
them, the village church, whose steeple seemed to prick the clouds that
trailed along the sky.
"All the guns unloaded?" asked old Goussot.
"Mine isn't," said the eldest. "I slipped in a bullet to blow a
kestrel's head off...."
He was the one who was proudest of his skill. And he said to his
brothers:
"Look at that bough, at the top of the cherry tree. See me snap it off."
On the bough sat a scarecrow, which had been there since spring and
which protected the leafless branches with its idiot arms.
He raised his gun and fired.
The figure came tumbling down with large, comic gestures, and was caught
on a big, lower branch, where it remained lying stiff on its stomach,
with a great top hat on its head of rags and its hay-stuffed legs
swaying from right to left above some water that flowed past the cherry
tree through a wooden trough.
They all laughed. The father approved:
"A fine shot, my lad. Besides, the old boy was beginning to annoy me. I
couldn't take my eyes from my plate at meals without catching sight of
that oaf...."
They went a few steps farther. They were not more than thirty yards from
the house, when the father stopped suddenly and said:
"Hullo! What's up?"
The sons also had stopped and stood listening. One of them said, under
his breath:
"It comes from the house ... from the linen-room...."
And another spluttered:
"Sounds like moans.... And mother's alone!"
Suddenly, a frightful scream rang out. All five rushed forward. Another
scream, followed by cries of despair.
"We're here! We're coming!" shouted the eldest, who was leading.
And, as it was a roundabout way to the door, he smashed in a window with
his fist and sprang into the old people's bedroom. The room next to it
was the linen-room, in which Mother Goussot spent most of her time.
"Damnation!" he said, seeing her lying on the floor, with blood all over
her face. "Dad! Dad!"
"What? Where is she?" roared old Goussot, appearing on the scene. "Good
lord, what's this?... What have they done to your mother?"
She pulled herself together and, with outstretched arm, stammered:
"Run after him!... This way!... This way!... I'm all right ... only a
scratch or two.... But run, you! He's taken the money."
The father and sons gave a bound:
"He's taken the money!" bellowed old Goussot, rushing to the door to
which his wife was pointing. "He's taken the money! Stop thief!"
But a sound of several voices rose at the end of the passage through
which the other three sons were coming:
"I saw him! I saw him!"
"So did I! He ran up the stairs."
"No, there he is, he's coming down again!"
A mad steeplechase shook every floor in the house. Farmer Goussot, on
reaching the end of the passage, caught sight of a man standing by the
front door trying to open it. If he succeeded, it meant safety, escape
through the market square and the back lanes of the village.
Interrupted as he was fumbling at the bolts, the man turning stupid,
lost his head, charged at old Goussot and sent him spinning, dodged the
eldest brother and, pursued by the four sons, doubled back down the long
passage, ran into the old couple's bedroom, flung his legs through the
broken window and disappeared.
The sons rushed after him across the lawns and orchards, now darkened by
the falling night.
"The villain's done for," chuckled old Goussot. "There's no way out for
him. The walls are too high. He's done for, the scoundrel!"
The two farm-hands returned, at that moment, from the village; and he
told them what had happened and gave each of them a gun:
"If the swine shows his nose anywhere near the house," he said, "let fly
at him. Give him no mercy!"
He told them where to stand, went to make sure that the farm-gates,
which were only used for the carts, were locked, and, not till then,
remembered that his wife might perhaps be in need of aid:
"Well, mother, how goes it?"
"Where is he? Have you got him?" she asked, in a breath.
"Yes, we're after him. The lads must have collared him by now."
The news quite restored her; and a nip of rum gave her the strength to
drag herself to the bed, with old Goussot's assistance, and to tell her
story. For that matter, there was not much to tell. She had just lit the
fire in the living-hall; and she was knitting quietly at her bedroom
window, waiting for the men to return, when she thought that she heard
a slight grating sound in the linen-room next door:
"I must have left the cat in there," she thought to herself.
She went in, suspecting nothing, and was astonished to see the two doors
of one of the linen-cupboards, the one in which they hid their money,
wide open. She walked up to it, still without suspicion. There was a man
there, hiding, with his back to the shelves.
"But how did he get in?" asked old Goussot.
"Through the passage, I suppose. We never keep the back door shut."
"And then did he go for you?"
"No, I went for him. He tried to get away."
"You should have let him."
"And what about the money?"
"Had he taken it by then?"
"Had he taken it! I saw the bundle of bank-notes in his hands, the
sweep! I would have let him kill me sooner.... Oh, we had a sharp
tussle, I give you my word!"
"Then he had no weapon?'
"No more than I did. We had our fingers, our nails and our teeth. Look
here, where he bit me. And I yelled and screamed! Only, I'm an old woman
you see.... I had to let go of him...."
"Do you know the man?"
"I'm pretty sure it was old Trainard."
"The tramp? Why, of course it's old Trainard!" cried the farmer. "I
thought I knew him too.... Besides, he's been hanging round the house
these last three days. The old vagabond must have smelt the money. Aha,
Trainard, my man, we shall see some fun! A number-one hiding in the
first place; and then the police.... I say, mother, you can get up now,
can't you? Then go and fetch the neighbours.... Ask them to run for the
gendarmes.... By the by, the attorney's youngster has a bicycle.... How
that damned old Trainard scooted! He's got good legs for his age, he
has. He can run like a hare!"
Goussot was holding his sides, revelling in the occurrence. He risked
nothing by waiting. No power on earth could help the tramp escape or
keep him from the sound thrashing which he had earned and from being
conveyed, under safe escort, to the town gaol.
The farmer took a gun and went out to his two labourers:
"Anything fresh?"
"No, Farmer Goussot, not yet."
"We sha'n't have long to wait. Unless old Nick carries him over the
walls...."
From time to time, they heard the four brothers hailing one another in
the distance. The old bird was evidently making a fight for it, was
more active than they would have thought. Still, with sturdy fellows
like the Goussot brothers....
However, one of them returned, looking rather crestfallen, and made no
secret of his opinion:
"It's no use keeping on at it for the present. It's pitch dark. The old
chap must have crept into some hole. We'll hunt him out to-morrow."
"To-morrow! Why, lad, you're off your chump!" protested the farmer.
The eldest son now appeared, quite out of breath, and was of the same
opinion as his brother. Why not wait till next day, seeing that the
ruffian was as safe within the demesne as between the walls of a prison?
"Well, I'll go myself," cried old Goussot. "Light me a lantern,
somebody!"
But, at that moment, three gendarmes arrived; and a number of village
lads also came up to hear the latest.
The sergeant of gendarmes was a man of method. He first insisted on
hearing the whole story, in full detail; then he stopped to think; then
he questioned the four brothers, separately, and took his time for
reflection after each deposition. When he had learnt from them that the
tramp had fled toward the back of the estate, that he had been lost
sight of repeatedly and that he had finally disappeared near a place
known as the Crows' Knoll, he meditated once more and announced his
conclusion:
"Better wait. Old Trainard might slip through our hands, amidst all the
confusion of a pursuit in the dark, and then good-night, everybody!"
The farmer shrugged his shoulders and, cursing under his breath, yielded
to the sergeant's arguments. That worthy organized a strict watch,
distributed the brothers Goussot and the lads from the village under his
men's eyes, made sure that the ladders were locked away and established
his headquarters in the dining-room, where he and Farmer Goussot sat and
nodded over a decanter of old brandy.
The night passed quietly. Every two hours, the sergeant went his rounds
and inspected the posts. There were no alarms. Old Trainard did not
budge from his hole.
The battle began at break of day.
It lasted four hours.
In those four hours, the thirteen acres of land within the walls were
searched, explored, gone over in every direction by a score of men who
beat the bushes with sticks, trampled over the tall grass, rummaged in
the hollows of the trees and scattered the heaps of dry leaves. And old
Trainard remained invisible.
"Well, this is a bit thick!" growled Goussot.
"Beats me altogether," retorted the sergeant.
And indeed there was no explaining the phenomenon. For, after all, apart
from a few old clumps of laurels and spindle-trees, which were
thoroughly beaten, all the trees were bare. There was no building, no
shed, no stack, nothing, in short, that could serve as a hiding-place.
As for the wall, a careful inspection convinced even the sergeant that
it was physically impossible to scale it.
In the afternoon, the investigations were begun all over again in the
presence of the examining-magistrate and the public-prosecutor's deputy.
The results were no more successful. Nay, worse, the officials looked
upon the matter as so suspicious that they could not restrain their
ill-humour and asked:
"Are you quite sure, Farmer Goussot, that you and your sons haven't been
seeing double?"
"And what about my wife?" retorted the farmer, red with anger. "Did she
see double when the scamp had her by the throat? Go and look at the
marks, if you doubt me!"
"Very well. But then where is the scamp?"
"Here, between those four walls."
"Very well. Then ferret him out. We give it up. It's quite clear, that
if a man were hidden within the precincts of this farm, we should have
found him by now."
"I swear I'll lay hands on him, true as I stand here!" shouted Farmer
Goussot. "It shall not be said that I've been robbed of six thousand
francs. Yes, six thousand! There were three cows I sold; and then the
wheat-crop; and then the apples. Six thousand-franc notes, which I was
just going to take to the bank. Well, I swear to Heaven that the money's
as good as in my pocket!"
"That's all right and I wish you luck," said the examining-magistrate,
as he went away, followed by the deputy and the gendarmes.