the end of the afternoon, none remained but the Goussots and the two
farm-labourers.
Old Goussot at once explained his plan. By day, they were to search. At
night, they were to keep an incessant watch. It would last as long as it
had to. Hang it, old Trainard was a man like other men; and men have to
eat and drink! Old Trainard must needs, therefore, come out of his earth
to eat and drink.
"At most," said Goussot, "he can have a few crusts of bread in his
pocket, or even pull up a root or two at night. But, as far as drink's
concerned, no go. There's only the spring. And he'll be a clever dog if
he gets near that."
He himself, that evening, took up his stand near the spring. Three
hours later, his eldest son relieved him. The other brothers and the
farm-hands slept in the house, each taking his turn of the watch and
keeping all the lamps and candles lit, so that there might be no
surprise.
So it went on for fourteen consecutive nights. And for fourteen days,
while two of the men and Mother Goussot remained on guard, the five
others explored the Heberville ground.
At the end of that fortnight, not a sign.
The farmer never ceased storming. He sent for a retired
detective-inspector who lived in the neighbouring town. The inspector
stayed with him for a whole week. He found neither old Trainard nor the
least clue that could give them any hope of finding old Trainard.
"It's a bit thick!" repeated Farmer Goussot. "For he's there, the
rascal! As far as being anywhere goes, he's there. So...."
Planting himself on the threshold, he railed at the enemy at the top of
his voice:
"You blithering idiot, would you rather croak in your hole than fork out
the money? Then croak, you pig!"
And Mother Goussot, in her turn, yelped, in her shrill voice:
"Is it prison you're afraid of? Hand over the notes and you can hook
it!"
But old Trainard did not breathe a word; and the husband and wife tired
their lungs in vain.
Shocking days passed. Farmer Goussot could no longer sleep, lay
shivering with fever. The sons became morose and quarrelsome and never
let their guns out of their hands, having no other idea but to shoot the
tramp.
It was the one topic of conversation in the village; and the Goussot
story, from being local at first, soon went the round of the press.
Newspaper-reporters came from the assize-town, from Paris itself, and
were rudely shown the door by Farmer Goussot.
"Each man his own house," he said. "You mind your business. I mind mine.
It's nothing to do with any one."
"Still, Farmer Goussot...."
"Go to blazes!"
And he slammed the door in their face.
Old Trainard had now been hidden within the walls of Heberville for
something like four weeks. The Goussots continued their search as
doggedly and confidently as ever, but with daily decreasing hope, as
though they were confronted with one of those mysterious obstacles which
discourage human effort. And the idea that they would never see their
money again began to take root in them.
* * * * *
One fine morning, at about ten o'clock, a motor-car, crossing the
village square at full speed, broke down and came to a dead stop.
The driver, after a careful inspection, declared that the repairs would
take some little time, whereupon the owner of the car resolved to wait
at the inn and lunch. He was a gentleman on the right side of forty,
with close-cropped side-whiskers and a pleasant expression of face; and
he soon made himself at home with the people at the inn.
Of course, they told him the story of the Goussots. He had not heard it
before, as he had been abroad; but it seemed to interest him greatly. He
made them give him all the details, raised objections, discussed various
theories with a number of people who were eating at the same table and
ended by exclaiming:
"Nonsense! It can't be so intricate as all that. I have had some
experience of this sort of thing. And, if I were on the premises...."
"That's easily arranged," said the inn-keeper. "I know Farmer
Goussot.... He won't object...."
The request was soon made and granted. Old Goussot was in one of those
frames of mind when we are less disposed to protest against outside
interference. His wife, at any rate, was very firm:
"Let the gentleman come, if he wants to."
The gentleman paid his bill and instructed his driver to try the car on
the high-road as soon as the repairs were finished:
"I shall want an hour," he said, "no more. Be ready in an hour's time."
Then he went to Farmer Goussot's.
He did not say much at the farm. Old Goussot, hoping against hope, was
lavish with information, took his visitor along the walls down to the
little door opening on the fields, produced the key and gave minute
details of all the searches that had been made so far.
Oddly enough, the stranger, who hardly spoke, seemed not to listen
either. He merely looked, with a rather vacant gaze. When they had been
round the estate, old Goussot asked, anxiously:
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"Do you think you know?"
The visitor stood for a moment without answering. Then he said:
"No, nothing."
"Why, of course not!" cried the farmer, throwing up his arms. "How
should you know! It's all hanky-panky. Shall I tell you what I think?
Well, that old Trainard has been so jolly clever that he's lying dead in
his hole ... and the bank-notes are rotting with him. Do you hear? You
can take my word for it."
The gentleman said, very calmly:
"There's only one thing that interests me. The tramp, all said and done,
was free at night and able to feed on what he could pick up. But how
about drinking?"
"Out of the question!" shouted the farmer. "Quite out of the question!
There's no water except this; and we have kept watch beside it every
night."
"It's a spring. Where does it rise?"
"Here, where we stand."
"Is there enough pressure to bring it into the pool of itself?"
"Yes."
"And where does the water go when it runs out of the pool?"
"Into this pipe here, which goes under ground and carries it to the
house, for use in the kitchen. So there's no way of drinking, seeing
that we were there and that the spring is twenty yards from the house."
"Hasn't it rained during the last four weeks?"
"Not once: I've told you that already."
The stranger went to the spring and examined it. The trough was formed
of a few boards of wood joined together just above the ground; and the
water ran through it, slow and clear.
"The water's not more than a foot deep, is it?" he asked.
In order to measure it, he picked up from the grass a straw which he
dipped into the pool. But, as he was stooping, he suddenly broke off and
looked around him.
"Oh, how funny!" he said, bursting into a peal of laughter.
"Why, what's the matter?" spluttered old Goussot, rushing toward the
pool, as though a man could have lain hidden between those narrow
boards.
And Mother Goussot clasped her hands.
"What is it? Have you seen him? Where is he?"
"Neither in it nor under it," replied the stranger, who was still
laughing.
He made for the house, eagerly followed by the farmer, the old woman and
the four sons. The inn-keeper was there also, as were the people from
the inn who had been watching the stranger's movements. And there was a
dead silence, while they waited for the extraordinary disclosure.
"It's as I thought," he said, with an amused expression. "The old chap
had to quench his thirst somewhere; and, as there was only the
spring...."
"Oh, but look here," growled Farmer Goussot, "we should have seen him!"
"It was at night."
"We should have heard him ... and seen him too, as we were close by."
"So was he."
"And he drank the water from the pool?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"From a little way off."
"With what?"
"With this."
And the stranger showed the straw which he had picked up:
"There, here's the straw for the customer's long drink. You will see,
there's more of it than usual: in fact, it is made of three straws stuck
into one another. That was the first thing I noticed: those three straws
fastened together. The proof is conclusive."
"But, hang it all, the proof of what?" cried Farmer Goussot, irritably.
The stranger took a shotgun from the rack.
"Is it loaded?" he asked.
"Yes," said the youngest of the brothers. "I use it to kill the sparrows
with, for fun. It's small shot."
"Capital! A peppering where it won't hurt him will do the trick."
His face suddenly assumed a masterful look. He gripped the farmer by the
arm and rapped out, in an imperious tone:
"Listen to me, Farmer Goussot. I'm not here to do policeman's work; and
I won't have the poor beggar locked up at any price. Four weeks of
starvation and fright is good enough for anybody. So you've got to swear
to me, you and your sons, that you'll let him off without hurting him."
"He must hand over the money!"
"Well, of course. Do you swear?"
"I swear."
The gentleman walked back to the door-sill, at the entrance to the
orchard. He took a quick aim, pointing his gun a little in the air, in
the direction of the cherry tree which overhung the spring. He fired. A
hoarse cry rang from the tree; and the scarecrow which had been
straddling the main branch for a month past came tumbling to the ground,
only to jump up at once and make off as fast as its legs could carry it.
There was a moment's amazement, followed by outcries. The sons darted in
pursuit and were not long in coming up with the runaway, hampered as he
was by his rags and weakened by privation. But the stranger was already
protecting him against their wrath:
"Hands off there! This man belongs to me. I won't have him touched.... I
hope I haven't stung you up too much, Trainard?"
Standing on his straw legs wrapped round with strips of tattered cloth,
with his arms and his whole body clad in the same materials, his head
swathed in linen, tightly packed like a sausage, the old chap still had
the stiff appearance of a lay-figure. And the whole effect was so
ludicrous and so unexpected that the onlookers screamed with laughter.
The stranger unbound his head; and they saw a veiled mask of tangled
grey beard encroaching on every side upon a skeleton face lit up by two
eyes burning with fever.
The laughter was louder than ever.
"The money! The six notes!" roared the farmer.
The stranger kept him at a distance:
"One moment ... we'll give you that back, sha'n't we, Trainard?"
And, taking his knife and cutting away the straw and cloth, he jested,
cheerily:
"You poor old beggar, what a guy you look! But how on earth did you
manage to pull off that trick? You must be confoundedly clever, or else
you had the devil's own luck.... So, on the first night, you used the
breathing-time they left you to rig yourself in these togs! Not a bad
idea. Who could ever suspect a scarecrow?... They were so accustomed to
seeing it stuck up in its tree! But, poor old daddy, how uncomfortable
you must have felt, lying flat up there on your stomach, with your arms
and legs dangling down! All day long, like that! The deuce of an
attitude! And how you must have been put to it, when you ventured to
move a limb, eh? And how you must have funked going to sleep!... And
then you had to eat! And drink! And you heard the sentry and felt the
barrel of his gun within a yard of your nose! Brrrr!... But the
trickiest of all, you know, was your bit of straw!... Upon my word, when
I think that, without a sound, without a movement so to speak, you had
to fish out lengths of straw from your toggery, fix them end to end, let
your apparatus down to the water and suck up the heavenly moisture drop
by drop.... Upon my word, one could scream with admiration.... Well
done, Trainard...." And he added, between his teeth, "Only you're in a
very unappetizing state, my man. Haven't you washed yourself all this
month, you old pig? After all, you had as much water as you wanted!...
Here, you people, I hand him over to you. I'm going to wash my hands,
that's what I'm going to do."
Farmer Goussot and his four sons grabbed at the prey which he was
abandoning to them:
"Now then, come along, fork out the money."
Dazed as he was, the tramp still managed to simulate astonishment.
"Don't put on that idiot look," growled the farmer. "Come on. Out with
the six notes...."
"What?... What do you want of me?" stammered old Trainard.
"The money ... on the nail...."
"What money?"
"The bank-notes."
"The bank-notes?"
"Oh, I'm getting sick of you! Here, lads...."
They laid the old fellow flat, tore off the rags that composed his
clothes, felt and searched him all over.
There was nothing on him.
"You thief and you robber!" yelled old Goussot. "What have you done with
it?"
The old beggar seemed more dazed than ever. Too cunning to confess, he
kept on whining:
"What do you want of me?... Money? I haven't three sous to call my
own...."
But his eyes, wide with wonder, remained fixed upon his clothes; and he
himself seemed not to understand.
The Goussots' rage could no longer be restrained. They rained blows upon
him, which did not improve matters. But the farmer was convinced that
Trainard had hidden the money before turning himself into the scarecrow:
"Where have you put it, you scum? Out with it! In what part of the
orchard have you hidden it?"
"The money?" repeated the tramp with a stupid look.
"Yes, the money! The money which you've buried somewhere.... Oh, if we
don't find it, your goose is cooked!... We have witnesses, haven't
we?... All of you, friends, eh? And then the gentleman...."
He turned, with the intention of addressing the stranger, in the
direction of the spring, which was thirty or forty steps to the left.
And he was quite surprised not to see him washing his hands there:
"Has he gone?" he asked.
Some one answered:
"No, he lit a cigarette and went for a stroll in the orchard."
"Oh, that's all right!" said the farmer. "He's the sort to find the
notes for us, just as he found the man."
"Unless ..." said a voice.
"Unless what?" echoed the farmer. "What do you mean? Have you something
in your head? Out with it, then! What is it?"
But he interrupted himself suddenly, seized with a doubt; and there was
a moment's silence. The same idea dawned on all the country-folk. The
stranger's arrival at Heberville, the breakdown of his motor, his
manner of questioning the people at the inn and of gaining admission to
the farm: were not all these part and parcel of a put-up job, the trick
of a cracksman who had learnt the story from the papers and who had come
to try his luck on the spot?...
"Jolly smart of him!" said the inn-keeper. "He must have taken the money
from old Trainard's pocket, before our eyes, while he was searching
him."
"Impossible!" spluttered Farmer Goussot. "He would have been seen going
out that way ... by the house ... whereas he's strolling in the
orchard."
Mother Goussot, all of a heap, suggested:
"The little door at the end, down there?..."
"The key never leaves me."
"But you showed it to him."
"Yes; and I took it back again.... Look, here it is."
He clapped his hand to his pocket and uttered a cry:
"Oh, dash it all, it's gone!... He's sneaked it!..."
He at once rushed away, followed and escorted by his sons and a number
of the villagers.
When they were halfway down the orchard, they heard the throb of a
motor-car, obviously the one belonging to the stranger, who had given
orders to his chauffeur to wait for him at that lower entrance.
When the Goussots reached the door, they saw scrawled with a brick, on
the worm-eaten panel, the two words:
"ARSENE LUPIN."
* * * * *
Stick to it as the angry Goussots might, they found it impossible to
prove that old Trainard had stolen any money. Twenty persons had to bear
witness that, when all was said, nothing was discovered on his person.
He escaped with a few months' imprisonment for the assault.
He did not regret them. As soon as he was released, he was secretly
informed that, every quarter, on a given date, at a given hour, under a
given milestone on a given road, he would find three gold louis.
To a man like old Trainard that means wealth.
X
EDITH SWAN-NECK
"Arsene Lupin, what's your real opinion of Inspector Ganimard?"
"A very high one, my dear fellow."
"A very high one? Then why do you never miss a chance of turning him
into ridicule?"
"It's a bad habit; and I'm sorry for it. But what can I say? It's the
way of the world. Here's a decent detective-chap, here's a whole pack of
decent men, who stand for law and order, who protect us against the
apaches, who risk their lives for honest people like you and me; and we
have nothing to give them in return but flouts and gibes. It's
preposterous!"
"Bravo, Lupin! you're talking like a respectable ratepayer!"
"What else am I? I may have peculiar views about other people's
property; but I assure you that it's very different when my own's at
stake. By Jove, it doesn't do to lay hands on what belongs to me! Then
I'm out for blood! Aha! It's _my_ pocket, _my_ money, _my_ watch ...
hands off! I have the soul of a conservative, my dear fellow, the
instincts of a retired tradesman and a due respect for every sort of
tradition and authority. And that is why Ganimard inspires me with no
little gratitude and esteem."
"But not much admiration?"
"Plenty of admiration too. Over and above the dauntless courage which
comes natural to all those gentry at the Criminal Investigation
Department, Ganimard possesses very sterling qualities: decision,
insight and judgment. I have watched him at work. He's somebody, when
all's said. Do you know the Edith Swan-neck story, as it was called?"
"I know as much as everybody knows."
"That means that you don't know it at all. Well, that job was, I
daresay, the one which I thought out most cleverly, with the utmost care
and the utmost precaution, the one which I shrouded in the greatest
darkness and mystery, the one which it took the biggest generalship to
carry through. It was a regular game of chess, played according to
strict scientific and mathematical rules. And yet Ganimard ended by
unravelling the knot. Thanks to him, they know the truth to-day on the
Quai des Orfevres. And it is a truth quite out of the common, I assure
you."
"May I hope to hear it?"
"Certainly ... one of these days ... when I have time.... But the
Brunelli is dancing at the Opera to-night; and, if she were not to see
me in my stall ...!"
I do not meet Lupin often. He confesses with difficulty, when it suits
him. It was only gradually, by snatches, by odds and ends of
confidences, that I was able to obtain the different incidents and to
piece the story together in all its details.
* * * * *
The main features are well known and I will merely mention the facts.
Three years ago, when the train from Brest arrived at Rennes, the door
of one of the luggage vans was found smashed in. This van had been
booked by Colonel Sparmiento, a rich Brazilian, who was travelling with
his wife in the same train. It contained a complete set of
tapestry-hangings. The case in which one of these was packed had been
broken open and the tapestry had disappeared.
Colonel Sparmiento started proceedings against the railway-company,
claiming heavy damages, not only for the stolen tapestry, but also for
the loss in value which the whole collection suffered in consequence of
the theft.
The police instituted inquiries. The company offered a large reward. A
fortnight later, a letter which had come undone in the post was opened
by the authorities and revealed the fact that the theft had been
carried out under the direction of Arsene Lupin and that a package was
to leave next day for the United States. That same evening, the tapestry
was discovered in a trunk deposited in the cloak-room at the Gare
Saint-Lazare.
The scheme, therefore, had miscarried. Lupin felt the disappointment so
much that he vented his ill-humour in a communication to Colonel
Sparmiento, ending with the following words, which were clear enough for
anybody:
"It was very considerate of me to take only one. Next time, I shall
take the twelve. _Verbum sap._
"A. L."
Colonel Sparmiento had been living for some months in a house standing
at the end of a small garden at the corner of the Rue de la Faisanderie
and the Rue Dufresnoy. He was a rather thick-set, broad-shouldered man,
with black hair and a swarthy skin, always well and quietly dressed. He
was married to an extremely pretty but delicate Englishwoman, who was
much upset by the business of the tapestries. From the first she
implored her husband to sell them for what they would fetch. The Colonel
had much too forcible and dogged a nature to yield to what he had every
right to describe as a woman's fancies. He sold nothing, but he
redoubled his precautions and adopted every measure that was likely to
make an attempt at burglary impossible.
To begin with, so that he might confine his watch to the garden-front,
he walled up all the windows on the ground-floor and the first floor
overlooking the Rue Dufresnoy. Next, he enlisted the services of a firm
which made a speciality of protecting private houses against robberies.
Every window of the gallery in which the tapestries were hung was fitted
with invisible burglar alarms, the position of which was known, to none
but himself. These, at the least touch, switched on all the electric
lights and set a whole system of bells and gongs ringing.
In addition to this, the insurance companies to which he applied refused
to grant policies to any considerable amount unless he consented to let
three men, supplied by the companies and paid by himself, occupy the
ground-floor of his house every night. They selected for the purpose
three ex-detectives, tried and trustworthy men, all of whom hated Lupin
like poison. As for the servants, the colonel had known them for years
and was ready to vouch for them.
After taking these steps and organizing the defence of the house as
though it were a fortress, the colonel gave a great house-warming, a
sort of private view, to which he invited the members of both his
clubs, as well as a certain number of ladies, journalists, art-patrons
and critics.
They felt, as they passed through the garden-gate, much as if they were
walking into a prison. The three private detectives, posted at the foot
of the stairs, asked for each visitor's invitation card and eyed him up
and down suspiciously, making him feel as though they were going to
search his pockets or take his finger-prints.
The colonel, who received his guests on the first floor, made laughing
apologies and seemed delighted at the opportunity of explaining the
arrangements which he had invented to secure the safety of his hangings.
His wife stood by him, looking charmingly young and pretty, fair-haired,
pale and sinuous, with a sad and gentle expression, the expression of
resignation often worn by those who are threatened by fate.
When all the guests had come, the garden-gates and the hall-doors were
closed. Then everybody filed into the middle gallery, which was reached
through two steel doors, while its windows, with their huge shutters,
were protected by iron bars. This was where the twelve tapestries were
kept.
They were matchless works of art and, taking their inspiration from the
famous Bayeux Tapestry, attributed to Queen Matilda, they represented
the story of the Norman Conquest. They had been ordered in the
fourteenth century by the descendant of a man-at-arms in William the
Conqueror's train; were executed by Jehan Gosset, a famous Arras weaver;
and were discovered, five hundred years later, in an old Breton
manor-house. On hearing of this, the colonel had struck a bargain for
fifty thousand francs. They were worth ten times the money.
But the finest of the twelve hangings composing the set, the most
uncommon because the subject had not been treated by Queen Matilda, was
the one which Arsene Lupin had stolen and which had been so fortunately
recovered. It portrayed Edith Swan-neck on the battlefield of Hastings,
seeking among the dead for the body of her sweetheart Harold, last of
the Saxon kings.