unsophisticated beauty of the design, over the faded colours, over the
life-like grouping of the figures and the pitiful sadness of the scene.
Poor Edith Swan-neck stood drooping like an overweighted lily. Her white
gown revealed the lines of her languid figure. Her long, tapering hands
were outstretched in a gesture of terror and entreaty. And nothing could
be more mournful than her profile, over which flickered the most
dejected and despairing of smiles.
"A harrowing smile," remarked one of the critics, to whom the others
listened with deference. "A very charming smile, besides; and it reminds
me, Colonel, of the smile of Mme. Sparmiento."
And seeing that the observation seemed to meet with approval, he
enlarged upon his idea:
"There are other points of resemblance that struck me at once, such as
the very graceful curve of the neck and the delicacy of the hands ...
and also something about the figure, about the general attitude...."
"What you say is so true," said the colonel, "that I confess that it was
this likeness that decided me to buy the hangings. And there was another
reason, which was that, by a really curious chance, my wife's name
happens to be Edith. I have called her Edith Swan-neck ever since." And
the colonel added, with a laugh, "I hope that the coincidence will stop
at this and that my dear Edith will never have to go in search of her
true-love's body, like her prototype."
He laughed as he uttered these words, but his laugh met with no echo;
and we find the same impression of awkward silence in all the accounts
of the evening that appeared during the next few days. The people
standing near him did not know what to say. One of them tried to jest:
"Your name isn't Harold, Colonel?"
"No, thank you," he declared, with continued merriment. "No, that's not
my name; nor am I in the least like the Saxon king."
All have since agreed in stating that, at that moment, as the colonel
finished speaking, the first alarm rang from the windows--the right or
the middle window: opinions differ on this point--rang short and shrill
on a single note. The peal of the alarm-bell was followed by an
exclamation of terror uttered by Mme. Sparmiento, who caught hold of her
husband's arm. He cried:
"What's the matter? What does this mean?"
The guests stood motionless, with their eyes staring at the windows. The
colonel repeated:
"What does it mean? I don't understand. No one but myself knows where
that bell is fixed...."
And, at that moment--here again the evidence is unanimous--at that
moment came sudden, absolute darkness, followed immediately by the
maddening din of all the bells and all the gongs, from top to bottom of
the house, in every room and at every window.
For a few seconds, a stupid disorder, an insane terror, reigned. The
women screamed. The men banged with their fists on the closed doors.
They hustled and fought. People fell to the floor and were trampled
under foot. It was like a panic-stricken crowd, scared by threatening
flames or by a bursting shell. And, above the uproar, rose the colonel's
voice, shouting:
"Silence!... Don't move!... It's all right!... The switch is over there,
in the corner.... Wait a bit.... Here!"
He had pushed his way through his guests and reached a corner of the
gallery; and, all at once, the electric light blazed up again, while the
pandemonium of bells stopped.
Then, in the sudden light, a strange sight met the eyes. Two ladies had
fainted. Mme. Sparmiento, hanging to her husband's arm, with her knees
dragging on the floor, and livid in the face, appeared half dead. The
men, pale, with their neckties awry, looked as if they had all been in
the wars.
"The tapestries are there!" cried some one.
There was a great surprise, as though the disappearance of those
hangings ought to have been the natural result and the only plausible
explanation of the incident. But nothing had been moved. A few valuable
pictures, hanging on the walls, were there still. And, though the same
din had reverberated all over the house, though all the rooms had been
thrown into darkness, the detectives had seen no one entering or trying
to enter.
"Besides," said the colonel, "it's only the windows of the gallery that
have alarms. Nobody but myself understands how they work; and I had not
set them yet."
People laughed loudly at the way in which they had been frightened, but
they laughed without conviction and in a more or less shamefaced
fashion, for each of them was keenly alive to the absurdity of his
conduct. And they had but one thought--to get out of that house where,
say what you would, the atmosphere was one of agonizing anxiety.
Two journalists stayed behind, however; and the colonel joined them,
after attending to Edith and handing her over to her maids. The three of
them, together with the detectives, made a search that did not lead to
the discovery of anything of the least interest. Then the colonel sent
for some champagne; and the result was that it was not until a late
hour--to be exact, a quarter to three in the morning--that the
journalists took their leave, the colonel retired to his quarters, and
the detectives withdrew to the room which had been set aside for them on
the ground-floor.
They took the watch by turns, a watch consisting, in the first place, in
keeping awake and, next, in looking round the garden and visiting the
gallery at intervals.
These orders were scrupulously carried out, except between five and
seven in the morning, when sleep gained the mastery and the men ceased
to go their rounds. But it was broad daylight out of doors. Besides, if
there had been the least sound of bells, would they not have woke up?
Nevertheless, when one of them, at twenty minutes past seven, opened the
door of the gallery and flung back the shutters, he saw that the twelve
tapestries were gone.
This man and the others were blamed afterward for not giving the alarm
at once and for starting their own investigations before informing the
colonel and telephoning to the local commissary. Yet this very excusable
delay can hardly be said to have hampered the action of the police. In
any case, the colonel was not told until half-past eight. He was dressed
and ready to go out. The news did not seem to upset him beyond measure,
or, at least, he managed to control his emotion. But the effort must
have been too much for him, for he suddenly dropped into a chair and,
for some moments, gave way to a regular fit of despair and anguish, most
painful to behold in a man of his resolute appearance.
Recovering and mastering himself, he went to the gallery, stared at the
bare walls and then sat down at a table and hastily scribbled a letter,
which he put into an envelope and sealed.
"There," he said. "I'm in a hurry.... I have an important engagement....
Here is a letter for the commissary of police." And, seeing the
detectives' eyes upon him, he added, "I am giving the commissary my
views ... telling him of a suspicion that occurs to me.... He must
follow it up.... I will do what I can...."
He left the house at a run, with excited gestures which the detectives
were subsequently to remember.
A few minutes later, the commissary of police arrived. He was handed the
letter, which contained the following words:
"I am at the end of my tether. The theft of those tapestries
completes the crash which I have been trying to conceal for the
past year. I bought them as a speculation and was hoping to get a
million francs for them, thanks to the fuss that was made about
them. As it was, an American offered me six hundred thousand. It
meant my salvation. This means utter destruction.
"I hope that my dear wife will forgive the sorrow which I am
bringing upon her. Her name will be on my lips at the last moment."
Mme. Sparmiento was informed. She remained aghast with horror, while
inquiries were instituted and attempts made to trace the colonel's
movements.
Late in the afternoon, a telephone-message came from Ville d'Avray. A
gang of railway-men had found a man's body lying at the entrance to a
tunnel after a train had passed. The body was hideously mutilated; the
face had lost all resemblance to anything human. There were no papers in
the pockets. But the description answered to that of the colonel.
Mme. Sparmiento arrived at Ville d'Avray, by motor-car, at seven o'clock
in the evening. She was taken to a room at the railway-station. When the
sheet that covered it was removed, Edith, Edith Swan-neck, recognized
her husband's body.
* * * * *
In these circumstances, Lupin did not receive his usual good notices in
the press:
"Let him look to himself," jeered one leader-writer, summing up the
general opinion. "It would not take many exploits of this kind for
him to forfeit the popularity which has not been grudged him
hitherto. We have no use for Lupin, except when his rogueries are
perpetrated at the expense of shady company-promoters, foreign
adventurers, German barons, banks and financial companies. And,
above all, no murders! A burglar we can put up with; but a
murderer, no! If he is not directly guilty, he is at least
responsible for this death. There is blood upon his hands; the
arms on his escutcheon are stained gules...."
The public anger and disgust were increased by the pity which Edith's
pale face aroused. The guests of the night before gave their version of
what had happened, omitting none of the impressive details; and a legend
formed straightway around the fair-haired Englishwoman, a legend that
assumed a really tragic character, owing to the popular story of the
swan-necked heroine.
And yet the public could not withhold its admiration of the
extraordinary skill with which the theft had been effected. The police
explained it, after a fashion. The detectives had noticed from the first
and subsequently stated that one of the three windows of the gallery was
wide open. There could be no doubt that Lupin and his confederates had
entered through this window. It seemed a very plausible suggestion.
Still, in that case, how were they able, first, to climb the garden
railings, in coming and going, without being seen; secondly, to cross
the garden and put up a ladder on the flower-border, without leaving the
least trace behind; thirdly, to open the shutters and the window,
without starting the bells and switching on the lights in the house?
The police accused the three detectives of complicity. The magistrate
in charge of the case examined them at length, made minute inquiries
into their private lives and stated formally that they were above all
suspicion. As for the tapestries, there seemed to be no hope that they
would be recovered.
It was at this moment that Chief-inspector Ganimard returned from India,
where he had been hunting for Lupin on the strength of a number of most
convincing proofs supplied by former confederates of Lupin himself.
Feeling that he had once more been tricked by his everlasting adversary,
fully believing that Lupin had dispatched him on this wild-goose chase
so as to be rid of him during the business of the tapestries, he asked
for a fortnight's leave of absence, called on Mme. Sparmiento and
promised to avenge her husband.
Edith had reached the point at which not even the thought of vengeance
relieves the sufferer's pain. She had dismissed the three detectives on
the day of the funeral and engaged just one man and an old
cook-housekeeper to take the place of the large staff of servants the
sight of whom reminded her too cruelly of the past. Not caring what
happened, she kept her room and left Ganimard free to act as he pleased.
He took up his quarters on the ground-floor and at once instituted a
series of the most minute investigations. He started the inquiry
afresh, questioned the people in the neighbourhood, studied the
distribution of the rooms and set each of the burglar-alarms going
thirty and forty times over.
At the end of the fortnight, he asked for an extension of leave. The
chief of the detective-service, who was at that time M. Dudouis, came to
see him and found him perched on the top of a ladder, in the gallery.
That day, the chief-inspector admitted that all his searches had proved
useless.
Two days later, however, M. Dudouis called again and discovered Ganimard
in a very thoughtful frame of mind. A bundle of newspapers lay spread in
front of him. At last, in reply to his superior's urgent questions, the
chief-inspector muttered:
"I know nothing, chief, absolutely nothing; but there's a confounded
notion worrying me.... Only it seems so absurd.... And then it doesn't
explain things.... On the contrary, it confuses them rather...."
"Then ...?"
"Then I implore you, chief, to have a little patience ... to let me go
my own way. But if I telephone to you, some day or other, suddenly, you
must jump into a taxi, without losing a minute. It will mean that I have
discovered the secret."
Forty-eight hours passed. Then, one morning, M. Dudouis received a
telegram:
"Going to Lille.
"GANIMARD."
"What the dickens can he want to go to Lille for?" wondered the
chief-detective.
The day passed without news, followed by another day. But M. Dudouis had
every confidence in Ganimard. He knew his man, knew that the old
detective was not one of those people who excite themselves for nothing.
When Ganimard "got a move on him," it meant that he had sound reasons
for doing so.
As a matter of fact, on the evening of that second day, M. Dudouis was
called to the telephone.
"Is that you, chief?"
"Is it Ganimard speaking?"
Cautious men both, they began by making sure of each other's identity.
As soon as his mind was eased on this point, Ganimard continued,
hurriedly:
"Ten men, chief, at once. And please come yourself."
"Where are you?"
"In the house, on the ground-floor. But I will wait for you just inside
the garden-gate."
"I'll come at once. In a taxi, of course?"
"Yes, chief. Stop the taxi fifty yards from the house. I'll let you in
when you whistle."
Things took place as Ganimard had arranged. Shortly after midnight, when
all the lights were out on the upper floors, he slipped into the street
and went to meet M. Dudouis. There was a hurried consultation. The
officers distributed themselves as Ganimard ordered. Then the chief and
the chief-inspector walked back together, noiselessly crossed the garden
and closeted themselves with every precaution:
"Well, what's it all about?" asked M. Dudouis. "What does all this mean?
Upon my word, we look like a pair of conspirators!"
But Ganimard was not laughing. His chief had never seen him in such a
state of perturbation, nor heard him speak in a voice denoting such
excitement:
"Any news, Ganimard?"
"Yes, chief, and ... this time ...! But I can hardly believe it
myself.... And yet I'm not mistaken: I know the real truth.... It may be
as unlikely as you please, but it is the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth."
He wiped away the drops of perspiration that trickled down his forehead
and, after a further question from M. Dudouis, pulled himself together,
swallowed a glass of water and began:
"Lupin has often got the better of me...."
"Look here, Ganimard," said M. Dudouis, interrupting him. "Why can't you
come straight to the point? Tell me, in two words, what's happened."
"No, chief," retorted the chief-inspector, "it is essential that you
should know the different stages which I have passed through. Excuse me,
but I consider it indispensable." And he repeated: "I was saying, chief,
that Lupin has often got the better of me and led me many a dance. But,
in this contest in which I have always come out worst ... so far ... I
have at least gained experience of his manner of play and learnt to know
his tactics. Now, in the matter of the tapestries, it occurred to me
almost from the start to set myself two problems. In the first place,
Lupin, who never makes a move without knowing what he is after, was
obviously aware that Colonel Sparmiento had come to the end of his money
and that the loss of the tapestries might drive him to suicide.
Nevertheless, Lupin, who hates the very thought of bloodshed, stole the
tapestries."
"There was the inducement," said M. Dudouis, "of the five or six hundred
thousand francs which they are worth."
"No, chief, I tell you once more, whatever the occasion might be, Lupin
would not take life, nor be the cause of another person's death, for
anything in this world, for millions and millions. That's the first
point. In the second place, what was the object of all that disturbance,
in the evening, during the house-warming party? Obviously, don't you
think, to surround the business with an atmosphere of anxiety and
terror, in the shortest possible time, and also to divert suspicion from
the truth, which, otherwise, might easily have been suspected?... You
seem not to understand, chief?"
"Upon my word, I do not!"
"As a matter of fact," said Ganimard, "as a matter of fact, it is not
particularly plain. And I myself, when I put the problem before my mind
in those same words, did not understand it very clearly.... And yet I
felt that I was on the right track.... Yes, there was no doubt about it
that Lupin wanted to divert suspicions ... to divert them to himself,
Lupin, mark you ... so that the real person who was working the business
might remain unknown...."
"A confederate," suggested M. Dudouis. "A confederate, moving among the
visitors, who set the alarms going ... and who managed to hide in the
house after the party had broken up."
"You're getting warm, chief, you're getting warm! It is certain that the
tapestries, as they cannot have been stolen by any one making his way
surreptitiously into the house, were stolen by somebody who remained in
the house; and it is equally certain that, by taking the list of the
people invited and inquiring into the antecedents of each of them, one
might...."
"Well?"
"Well, chief, there's a 'but,' namely, that the three detectives had
this list in their hands when the guests arrived and that they still had
it when the guests left. Now sixty-three came in and sixty-three went
away. So you see...."
"Then do you suppose a servant?..."
"No."
"The detectives?"
"No."
"But, still ... but, still," said the chief, impatiently, "if the
robbery was committed from the inside...."
"That is beyond dispute," declared the inspector, whose excitement
seemed to be nearing fever-point. "There is no question about it. All my
investigations led to the same certainty. And my conviction gradually
became so positive that I ended, one day, by drawing up this startling
axiom: in theory and in fact, the robbery can only have been committed
with the assistance of an accomplice staying in the house. Whereas there
was no accomplice!"
"That's absurd," said Dudouis.
"Quite absurd," said Ganimard. "But, at the very moment when I uttered
that absurd sentence, the truth flashed upon me."
"Eh?"
"Oh, a very dim, very incomplete, but still sufficient truth! With that
clue to guide me, I was bound to find the way. Do you follow me, chief?"
M. Dudouis sat silent. The same phenomenon that had taken place in
Ganimard was evidently taking place in him. He muttered:
"If it's not one of the guests, nor the servants, nor the private
detectives, then there's no one left...."
"Yes, chief, there's one left...."
M. Dudouis started as though he had received a shock; and, in a voice
that betrayed his excitement:
"But, look here, that's preposterous."
"Why?"
"Come, think for yourself!"
"Go on, chief: say what's in your mind."
"Nonsense! What do you mean?"
"Go on, chief."
"It's impossible! How can Sparmiento have been Lupin's accomplice?"
Ganimard gave a little chuckle.
"Exactly, Arsene Lupin's accomplice!... That explains everything. During
the night, while the three detectives were downstairs watching, or
sleeping rather, for Colonel Sparmiento had given them champagne to
drink and perhaps doctored it beforehand, the said colonel took down the
hangings and passed them out through the window of his bedroom. The room
is on the second floor and looks out on another street, which was not
watched, because the lower windows are walled up."
M. Dudouis reflected and then shrugged his shoulders:
"It's preposterous!" he repeated.
"Why?"
"Why? Because, if the colonel had been Arsene Lupin's accomplice, he
would not have committed suicide after achieving his success."
"Who says that he committed suicide?"
"Why, he was found dead on the line!"
"I told you, there is no such thing as death with Lupin."
"Still, this was genuine enough. Besides, Mme. Sparmiento identified the
body."
"I thought you would say that, chief. The argument worried me too. There
was I, all of a sudden, with three people in front of me instead of one:
first, Arsene Lupin, cracksman; secondly, Colonel Sparmiento, his
accomplice; thirdly, a dead man. Spare us! It was too much of a good
thing!"
Ganimard took a bundle of newspapers, untied it and handed one of them
to Mr. Dudouis:
"You remember, chief, last time you were here, I was looking through the
papers.... I wanted to see if something had not happened, at that
period, that might bear upon the case and confirm my supposition. Please
read this paragraph."
M. Dudouis took the paper and read aloud:
"Our Lille correspondent informs us that a curious incident has
occurred in that town. A corpse has disappeared from the local
morgue, the corpse of a man unknown who threw himself under the
wheels of a steam tram-car on the day before. No one is able to
suggest a reason for this disappearance."
M. Dudouis sat thinking and then asked:
"So ... you believe ...?"
"I have just come from Lille," replied Ganimard, "and my inquiries leave
not a doubt in my mind. The corpse was removed on the same night on
which Colonel Sparmiento gave his house-warming. It was taken straight
to Ville d'Avray by motor-car; and the car remained near the
railway-line until the evening."
"Near the tunnel, therefore," said M. Dudouis.
"Next to it, chief."
"So that the body which was found is merely that body, dressed in
Colonel Sparmiento's clothes."
"Precisely, chief."
"Then Colonel Sparmiento is not dead?"
"No more dead than you or I, chief."
"But then why all these complications? Why the theft of one tapestry,
followed by its recovery, followed by the theft of the twelve? Why that
house-warming? Why that disturbance? Why everything? Your story won't
hold water, Ganimard."
"Only because you, chief, like myself, have stopped halfway; because,
strange as this story already sounds, we must go still farther, very
much farther, in the direction of the improbable and the astounding. And
why not, after all? Remember that we are dealing with Arsene Lupin. With
him, is it not always just the improbable and the astounding that we
must look for? Must we not always go straight for the maddest
suppositions? And, when I say the maddest, I am using the wrong word. On
the contrary, the whole thing is wonderfully logical and so simple that
a child could understand it. Confederates only betray you. Why employ
confederates, when it is so easy and so natural to act for yourself, by
yourself, with your own hands and by the means within your own reach?"
"What are you saying?... What are you saying?... What are you saying?"
cried M. Dudouis, in a sort of sing-song voice and a tone of
bewilderment that increased with each separate exclamation.
Ganimard gave a fresh chuckle.
"Takes your breath away, chief, doesn't it? So it did mine, on the day
when you came to see me here and when the notion was beginning to grow
upon me. I was flabbergasted with astonishment. And yet I've had
experience of my customer. I know what he's capable of.... But this, no,
this was really a bit too stiff!"
"It's impossible! It's impossible!" said M. Dudouis, in a low voice.
"On the contrary, chief, it's quite possible and quite logical and quite
normal. It's the threefold incarnation of one and the same individual. A
schoolboy would solve the problem in a minute, by a simple process of
elimination. Take away the dead man: there remains Sparmiento and Lupin.
Take away Sparmiento...."
"There remains Lupin," muttered the chief-detective.