Lupin taken out of his Brazilian skin, Lupin revived from the dead,
Lupin translated, for the past six months, into Colonel Sparmiento,
travelling in Brittany, hearing of the discovery of the twelve
tapestries, buying them, planning the theft of the best of them, so as
to draw attention to himself, Lupin, and divert it from himself,
Sparmiento. Next, he brings about, in full view of the gaping public, a
noisy contest between Lupin and Sparmiento or Sparmiento and Lupin,
plots and gives the house-warming party, terrifies his guests and, when
everything is ready, arranges for Lupin to steal Sparmiento's tapestries
and for Sparmiento, Lupin's victim, to disappear from sight and die
unsuspected, unsuspectable, regretted by his friends, pitied by the
public and leaving behind him, to pocket the profits of the swindle...."
Ganimard stopped, looked the chief in the eyes and, in a voice that
emphasized the importance of his words, concluded:
"Leaving behind him a disconsolate widow."
"Mme. Sparmiento! You really believe....?
"Hang it all!" said the chief-inspector. "People don't work up a whole
business of this sort, without seeing something ahead of them ... solid
profits."
"But the profits, it seems to me, lie in the sale of the tapestries
which Lupin will effect in America or elsewhere."
"First of all, yes. But Colonel Sparmiento could effect that sale just
as well. And even better. So there's something more."
"Something more?"
"Come, chief, you're forgetting that Colonel Sparmiento has been the
victim of an important robbery and that, though he may be dead, at least
his widow remains. So it's his widow who will get the money."
"What money?"
"What money? Why, the money due to her! The insurance-money, of course!"
M. Dudouis was staggered. The whole business suddenly became clear to
him, with its real meaning. He muttered:
"That's true!... That's true!... The colonel had insured his
tapestries...."
"Rather! And for no trifle either."
"For how much?"
"Eight hundred thousand francs."
"Eight hundred thousand?"
"Just so. In five different companies."
"And has Mme. Sparmiento had the money?"
"She got a hundred and fifty thousand francs yesterday and two hundred
thousand to-day, while I was away. The remaining payments are to be made
in the course of this week."
"But this is terrible! You ought to have...."
"What, chief? To begin with, they took advantage of my absence to
settle up accounts with the companies. I only heard about it on my
return when I ran up against an insurance-manager whom I happen to know
and took the opportunity of drawing him out."
The chief-detective was silent for some time, not knowing what to say.
Then he mumbled:
"What a fellow, though!"
Ganimard nodded his head:
"Yes, chief, a blackguard, but, I can't help saying, a devil of a clever
fellow. For his plan to succeed, he must have managed in such a way
that, for four or five weeks, no one could express or even conceive the
least suspicion of the part played by Colonel Sparmiento. All the
indignation and all the inquiries had to be concentrated upon Lupin
alone. In the last resort, people had to find themselves faced simply
with a mournful, pitiful, penniless widow, poor Edith Swan-neck, a
beautiful and legendary vision, a creature so pathetic that the
gentlemen of the insurance-companies were almost glad to place something
in her hands to relieve her poverty and her grief. That's what was
wanted and that's what happened."
The two men were close together and did not take their eyes from each
other's faces.
The chief asked:
"Who is that woman?"
"Sonia Kritchnoff."
"Sonia Kritchnoff?"
"Yes, the Russian girl whom I arrested last year at the time of the
theft of the coronet, and whom Lupin helped to escape."[E]
[E] _Arsene Lupin._ The Novel of the Play. By Edgar Jepson and Maurice
Leblanc (Mills & Boon).
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. I was put off the scent, like everybody else, by Lupin's
machinations, and had paid no particular attention to her. But, when I
knew the part which she was playing, I remembered. She is certainly
Sonia, metamorphosed into an Englishwoman; Sonia, the most
innocent-looking and the trickiest of actresses; Sonia, who would not
hesitate to face death for love of Lupin."
"A good capture, Ganimard," said M. Dudouis, approvingly.
"I've something better still for you, chief!"
"Really? What?"
"Lupin's old foster-mother."
"Victoire?"[F]
[F] _The Hollow Needle._ By Maurice Leblanc. Translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos (Nash). _813_ By Maurice Leblanc. Translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (Mills & Boon).
"She has been here since Mme. Sparmiento began playing the widow; she's
the cook."
"Oho!" said M. Dudouis. "My congratulations, Ganimard!"
"I've something for you, chief, that's even better than that!"
M. Dudouis gave a start. The inspector's hand clutched his and was
shaking with excitement.
"What do you mean, Ganimard?"
"Do you think, chief, that I would have brought you here, at this late
hour, if I had had nothing more attractive to offer you than Sonia and
Victoire? Pah! They'd have kept!"
"You mean to say ...?" whispered M. Dudouis, at last, understanding the
chief-inspector's agitation.
"You've guessed it, chief!"
"Is he here?"
"He's here."
"In hiding?"
"Not a bit of it. Simply in disguise. He's the man-servant."
This time, M. Dudouis did not utter a word nor make a gesture. Lupin's
audacity confounded him.
Ganimard chuckled.
"It's no longer a threefold, but a fourfold incarnation. Edith Swan-neck
might have blundered. The master's presence was necessary; and he had
the cheek to return. For three weeks, he has been beside me during my
inquiry, calmly following the progress made."
"Did you recognize him?"
"One doesn't recognize him. He has a knack of making-up his face and
altering the proportions of his body so as to prevent any one from
knowing him. Besides, I was miles from suspecting.... But, this evening,
as I was watching Sonia in the shadow of the stairs, I heard Victoire
speak to the man-servant and call him, 'Dearie.' A light flashed in upon
me. 'Dearie!' That was what she always used to call him. And I knew
where I was."
M. Dudouis seemed flustered, in his turn, by the presence of the enemy,
so often pursued and always so intangible:
"We've got him, this time," he said, between his teeth. "We've got him;
and he can't escape us."
"No, chief, he can't: neither he nor the two women."
"Where are they?"
"Sonia and Victoire are on the second floor; Lupin is on the third."
M. Dudouis suddenly became anxious:
"Why, it was through the windows of one of those floors that the
tapestries were passed when they disappeared!"
"That's so, chief."
"In that case, Lupin can get away too. The windows look out on the Rue
Dufresnoy."
"Of course they do, chief; but I have taken my precautions. The moment
you arrived, I sent four of our men to keep watch under the windows in
the Rue Dufresnoy. They have strict instructions to shoot, if any one
appears at the windows and looks like coming down. Blank cartridges for
the first shot, ball-cartridges for the next."
"Good, Ganimard! You have thought of everything. We'll wait here; and,
immediately after sunrise...."
"Wait, chief? Stand on ceremony with that rascal? Bother about rules and
regulations, legal hours and all that rot? And suppose he's not quite so
polite to us and gives us the slip meanwhile? Suppose he plays us one of
his Lupin tricks? No, no, we must have no nonsense! We've got him: let's
collar him; and that without delay!"
And Ganimard, all a-quiver with indignant impatience, went out, walked
across the garden and presently returned with half-a-dozen men:
"It's all right, chief. I've told them, in the Rue Dufresnoy, to get
their revolvers out and aim at the windows. Come along."
These alarums and excursions had not been effected without a certain
amount of noise, which was bound to be heard by the inhabitants of the
house. M. Dudouis felt that his hand was forced. He made up his mind to
act:
"Come on, then," he said.
The thing did not take long. The eight of them, Browning pistols in
hand, went up the stairs without overmuch precaution, eager to surprise
Lupin before he had time to organize his defences.
"Open the door!" roared Ganimard, rushing at the door of Mme.
Sparmiento's bedroom.
A policeman smashed it in with his shoulder.
There was no one in the room; and no one in Victoire's bedroom either.
"They're all upstairs!" shouted Ganimard. "They've gone up to Lupin in
his attic. Be careful now!"
All the eight ran up the third flight of stairs. To his great
astonishment, Ganimard found the door of the attic open and the attic
empty. And the other rooms were empty too.
"Blast them!" he cursed. "What's become of them?"
But the chief called him. M. Dudouis, who had gone down again to the
second floor, noticed that one of the windows was not latched, but just
pushed to:
"There," he said, to Ganimard, "that's the road they took, the road of
the tapestries. I told you as much: the Rue Dufresnoy...."
"But our men would have fired on them," protested Ganimard, grinding his
teeth with rage. "The street's guarded."
"They must have gone before the street was guarded."
"They were all three of them in their rooms when I rang you up, chief!"
"They must have gone while you were waiting for me in the garden."
"But why? Why? There was no reason why they should go to-day rather than
to-morrow, or the next day, or next week, for that matter, when they had
pocketed all the insurance-money!"
Yes, there was a reason; and Ganimard knew it when he saw, on the table,
a letter addressed to himself and opened it and read it. The letter was
worded in the style of the testimonials which we hand to people in our
service who have given satisfaction:
"I, the undersigned, Arsene Lupin, gentleman-burglar, ex-colonel,
ex-man-of-all-work, ex-corpse, hereby certify that the person of
the name of Ganimard gave proof of the most remarkable qualities
during his stay in this house. He was exemplary in his behaviour,
thoroughly devoted and attentive; and, unaided by the least clue,
he foiled a part of my plans and saved the insurance-companies four
hundred and fifty thousand francs. I congratulate him; and I am
quite willing to overlook his blunder in not anticipating that the
downstairs telephone communicates with the telephone in Sonia
Kritchnoff's bedroom and that, when telephoning to Mr.
Chief-detective, he was at the same time telephoning to me to clear
out as fast as I could. It was a pardonable slip, which must not be
allowed to dim the glamour of his services nor to detract from the
merits of his victory.
"Having said this, I beg him to accept the homage of my admiration
and of my sincere friendship.
"ARSENE LUPIN"
End of Project Gutenberg's The Confessions of Arsene Lupin, by Maurice Leblanc