Notwithstanding my friendly relations
with Lupin and the many flattering proofs of his confidence
which he has given me, there is one thing which I
have never been quite able to fathom, and that is the
organization of his gang.
The existence of the gang is an undoubted
fact. Certain adventures can be explained only
by countless acts of devotion, invincible efforts of
energy and powerful cases of complicity, representing
so many forces which all obey one mighty will.
But how is this will exerted? Through what intermediaries,
through what subordinates? That is what I do not
know. Lupin keeps his secret; and the secrets
which Lupin chooses to keep are, so to speak, impenetrable.
The only supposition which I can allow
myself to make is that this gang, which, in my opinion,
is very limited in numbers and therefore all the more
formidable, is completed and extended indefinitely
by the addition of independent units, provisional
associates, picked up in every class of society and
in every country of the world, who are the executive
agents of an authority with which, in many cases, they
are not even acquainted. The companions, the
initiates, the faithful adherents men who
play the leading parts under the direct command of
Lupin move to and fro between these secondary
agents and the master.
Gilbert and Vaucheray evidently belonged
to the main gang. And that is why the law showed
itself so implacable in their regard. For the
first time, it held accomplices of Lupin in its clutches declared,
undisputed accomplices and those accomplices
had committed a murder. If the murder was premeditated,
if the accusation of deliberate homicide could be
supported by substantial proofs, it meant the scaffold.
Now there was, at the very least, one self-evident
proof, the cry for assistance which Leonard had sent
over the telephone a few minutes before his death:
“Help!... Murder!... I shall be killed!...”
The desperate appeal had been heard
by two men, the operator on duty and one of his fellow-clerks,
who swore to it positively. And it was in consequence
of this appeal that the commissary of police, who was
at once informed, had proceeded to the Villa Marie-Therese,
escorted by his men and a number of soldiers off duty.
Lupin had a very clear notion of the
danger from the first. The fierce struggle in
which he had engaged against society was entering upon
a new and terrible phase. His luck was turning.
It was no longer a matter of attacking others, but
of defending himself and saving the heads of his two
companions.
A little memorandum, which I have
copied from one of the note-books in which he often
jots down a summary of the situations that perplex
him, will show us the workings of his brain:
“One definite fact, to begin
with, is that Gilbert and Vaucheray humbugged me.
The Enghien expedition, undertaken ostensibly with
the object of robbing the Villa Marie-Therese, had
a secret purpose. This purpose obsessed their
minds throughout the operations; and what they were
looking for, under the furniture and in the cupboards,
was one thing and one thing alone: the crystal
stopper. Therefore, if I want to see clear ahead,
I must first of all know what this means. It is
certain that, for some hidden reason, that mysterious
piece of glass possesses an incalculable value in
their eyes. And not only in theirs, for, last
night, some one was bold enough and clever enough to
enter my flat and steal the object in question from
me.”
This theft of which he was the victim
puzzled Lupin curiously.
Two problems, both equally difficult
of solution, presented themselves to his mind.
First, who was the mysterious visitor? Gilbert,
who enjoyed his entire confidence and acted as his
private secretary, was the only one who knew of the
retreat in the Rue Matignon. Now Gilbert was in
prison. Was Lupin to suppose that Gilbert had
betrayed him and put the police on his tracks?
In that case, why were they content with taking the
crystal stopper, instead of arresting him, Lupin?
But there was something much stranger
still. Admitting that they had been able to force
the doors of his flat and this he was compelled
to admit, though there was no mark to show it how
had they succeeded in entering the bedroom? He
turned the key and pushed the bolt as he did every
evening, in accordance with a habit from which he never
departed. And, nevertheless the fact
was undeniable the crystal stopper had
disappeared without the lock or the bolt having been
touched. And, although Lupin flattered himself
that he had sharp ears, even when asleep, not a sound
had waked him!
He took no great pains to probe the
mystery. He knew those problems too well to hope
that this one could be solved other than in the course
of events. But, feeling very much put out and
exceedingly uneasy, he then and there locked up his
entresol flat in the Rue Matignon and swore that he
would never set foot in it again.
And he applied himself forthwith to
the question of corresponding with Vaucheray or Gilbert.
Here a fresh disappointment awaited
him. It was so clearly understood, both at the
Santé Prison and at the Law Courts, that
all communication between Lupin and the prisoners
must be absolutely prevented, that a multitude of
minute precautions were ordered by the prefect of police
and minutely observed by the lowest subordinates.
Tried policemen, always the same men, watched Gilbert
and Vaucheray, day and night, and never let them out
of their sight.
Lupin, at this time, had not yet promoted
himself to the crowning honour of his career, the
post of chief of the detective-service, and, consequently,
was not able to take steps at the Law Courts to insure
the execution of his plans. After a fortnight
of fruitless endeavours, he was obliged to bow.
See 813, by Maurice
Leblanc, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos.
He did so with a raging heart and
a growing sense of anxiety.
“The difficult part of a business,”
he often says, “is not the finish, but the start.”
Where was he to start in the present
circumstances? What road was he to follow?
His thoughts recurred to Daubrecq
the deputy, the original owner of the crystal stopper,
who probably knew its importance. On the other
hand, how was Gilbert aware of the doings and mode
of life of Daubrecq the deputy? What means had
he employed to keep him under observation? Who
had told him of the place where Daubrecq spent the
evening of that day? These were all interesting
questions to solve.
Daubrecq had moved to his winter quarters
in Paris immediately after the burglary at the Villa
Marie-Therese and was now living in his own house,
on the left-hand side of the little Square Lamartine
that opens out at the end of the Avenue Victor-Hugo.
First disguising himself as an old
gentleman of private means, strolling about, cane
in hand, Lupin spent his time in the neighbourhood,
on the benches of the square and the avenue.
He made a discovery on the first day. Two men,
dressed as workmen, but behaving in a manner that left
no doubt as to their aims, were watching the deputy’s
house. When Daubrecq went out, they set off in
pursuit of him; and they were immediately behind him
when he came home again. At night, as soon as
the lights were out, they went away.
Lupin shadowed them in his turn.
They were detective-officers.
“Hullo, hullo!” he said
to himself. “This is hardly what I expected.
So the Daubrecq bird is under suspicion?”
But, on the fourth day, at nightfall,
the two men were joined by six others, who conversed
with them in the darkest part of the Square Lamartine.
And, among these new arrivals, Lupin was vastly astonished
to recognize, by his figure and bearing, the famous
Prasville, the erstwhile barrister, sportsman and
explorer, now favourite at the Elysee, who, for some
mysterious reason, had been pitchforked into the headquarters
of police as secretary-general, with the reversion
of the prefecture.
And, suddenly, Lupin remembered:
two years ago, Prasville and Daubrecq the deputy had
had a personal encounter on the Place du Palais-Bourbon.
The incident made a great stir at the time. No
one knew the cause of it. Prasville had sent
his seconds to Daubrecq on the same day; but Daubrecq
refused to fight.
A little while later, Prasville was
appointed secretary-general.
“Very odd, very odd,”
said Lupin, who remained plunged in thought, while
continuing to observe Prasville’s movements.
At seven o’clock Prasville’s
group of men moved away a few yards, in the direction
of the Avenue Henri-Martin. The door of a small
garden on the right of the house opened and Daubrecq
appeared. The two detectives followed close behind
him and, when he took the Rue-Taitbout train, jumped
on after him.
Prasville at once walked across the
square and rang the bell. The garden-gate was
between the house and the porter’s lodge.
The portress came and opened it. There was a
brief conversation, after which Prasville and his
companions were admitted.
“A domiciliary visit,”
said Lupin. “Secret and illegal. By
the strict rules of politeness, I ought to be invited.
My presence is indispensable.”
Without the least hesitation he went
up to the house, the door of which had not been closed,
and, passing in front of the portress, who was casting
her eyes outside, he asked, in the hurried tones of
a person who is late for an appointment:
“Have the gentlemen come?”
“Yes, you will find them in the study.”
His plan was quite simple: if
any one met him, he would pretend to be a tradesman.
But there was no need for this subterfuge. He
was able, after crossing an empty hall, to enter a
dining-room which also had no one in it, but which,
through the panes of a glass partition that separated
the dining-room from the study, afforded him a view
of Prasville and his five companions.
Prasville opened all the drawers with
the aid of false keys. Next, he examined all
the papers, while his companions took down the books
from the shelves, shook the pages of each separately
and felt inside the bindings.
“Of course, it’s a paper
they’re looking for,” said Lupin.
“Bank-notes, perhaps...”
Prasville exclaimed:
“What rot! We shan’t find a thing!”
Yet he obviously did not abandon all
hope of discovering what he wanted, for he suddenly
seized the four bottles in a liqueur-stand, took out
the four stoppers and inspected them.
“Hullo!” thought Lupin.
“Now he’s going for decanter-stoppers!
Then it’s not a question of a paper? Well,
I give it up.”
Prasville next lifted and examined
different objects; and he asked:
“How often have you been here?”
“Six times last winter,” was the reply.
“And you have searched the house thoroughly?”
“Every one of the rooms, for
days at a time, while he was visiting his constituency.”
“Still... still...” And he added,
“Has he no servant at present?”
“No, he is looking for one.
He has his meals out and the portress keeps the house
as best she can. The woman is devoted to us...”
Prasville persisted in his investigations
for nearly an hour and a half, shifting and fingering
all the knick-knacks, but taking care to put everything
back exactly where he found it. At nine o’clock,
however, the two detectives who had followed Daubrecq
burst into the study:
“He’s coming back!”
“On foot?”
“Yes.”
“Have we time?”
“Oh, dear, yes!”
Prasville and the men from the police-office
withdrew, without undue haste, after taking a last
glance round the room to make sure that there was
nothing to betray their visit.
The position was becoming critical
for Lupin. He ran the risk of knocking up against
Daubrecq, if he went away, or of not being able to
get out, if he remained. But, on ascertaining
that the dining-room windows afforded a direct means
of exit to the square, he resolved to stay. Besides,
the opportunity of obtaining a close view of Daubrecq
was too good to refuse; and, as Daubrecq had been
out to dinner, there was not much chance of his entering
the dining-room.
Lupin, therefore, waited, holding
himself ready to hide behind a velvet curtain that
could be drawn across the glazed partition in case
of need.
He heard the sound of doors opening
and shutting. Some one walked into the study
and switched on the light. He recognized Daubrecq.
The deputy was a stout, thickset,
bull-necked man, very nearly bald, with a fringe of
gray whiskers round his chin and wearing a pair of
black eye-glasses under his spectacles, for his eyes
were weak and strained. Lupin noticed the powerful
features, the square chin, the prominent cheek-bones.
The hands were brawny and covered with hair, the legs
bowed; and he walked with a stoop, bearing first on
one hip and then on the other, which gave him something
of the gait of a gorilla. But the face was topped
by an enormous, lined forehead, indented with hollows
and dotted with bumps.
There was something bestial, something
savage, something repulsive about the man’s
whole personality. Lupin remembered that, in the
Chamber of Deputies, Daubrecq was nicknamed “The
Wild Man of the Woods” and that he was so labelled
not only because he stood aloof and hardly ever mixed
with his fellow-members, but also because of his appearance,
his behaviour, his peculiar gait and his remarkable
muscular development.
He sat down to his desk, took a meerschaum
pipe from his pocket, selected a packet of caporal
among several packets of tobacco which lay drying
in a bowl, tore open the wrapper, filled his pipe and
lit it. Then he began to write letters.
Presently he ceased his work and sat
thinking, with his attention fixed on a spot on his
desk.
He lifted a little stamp-box and examined
it. Next, he verified the position of different
articles which Prasville had touched and replaced;
and he searched them with his eyes, felt them with
his hands, bending over them as though certain signs,
known to himself alone, were able to tell him what
he wished to know.
Lastly, he grasped the knob on an
electric bell-push and rang. The portress appeared
a minute later.
He asked:
“They’ve been, haven’t they?”
And, when the woman hesitated about replying, he insisted:
“Come, come, Clemence, did you open this stampbox?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, I fastened the lid down
with a little strip of gummed paper. The strip
has been broken.”
“But I assure you,...” the woman began.
“Why tell lies,” he said,
“considering that I myself instructed you to
lend yourself to those visits?”
“The fact is...”
“The fact is that you want to
keep on good terms with both sides... Very well!”
He handed her a fifty-franc note and repeated, “Have
they been?”
“Yes.”
“The same men as in the spring?”
“Yes, all five of them... with another one,
who ordered them about.”
“A tall, dark man?”
“Yes.”
Lupin saw Daubrecq’s mouth hardening; and Daubrecq
continued:
“Is that all?”
“There was one more, who came
after they did and joined them... and then, just now,
two more, the pair who usually keep watch outside the
house.”
“Did they remain in the study?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And they went away when I came back? A
few minutes before, perhaps?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That will do.”
The woman left the room. Daubrecq
returned to his letter-writing. Then, stretching
out his arm, he made some marks on a white writing-tablet,
at the end of his desk, and rested it against the
desk, as though he wished to keep it in sight.
The marks were figures; and Lupin was able to read
the following subtraction-sum:
“9 8 = 1”
And Daubrecq, speaking between his
teeth, thoughtfully uttered the syllables:
“Eight from nine leaves one...
There’s not a doubt about that,” he added,
aloud. He wrote one more letter, a very short
one, and addressed the envelope with an inscription
which Lupin was able to decipher when the letter was
placed beside the writing-tablet:
“To Monsieur Prasville, Secretary-general
of the Prefecture of Police.”
Then he rang the bell again:
“Clemence,” he said, to the portress,
“did you go to school as a child?”
“Yes, sir, of course I did.”
“And were you taught arithmetic?”
“Why, sir...”
“Well, you’re not very good at subtraction.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because you don’t know
that nine minus eight equals one. And that, you
see, is a fact of the highest importance. Life
becomes impossible if you are ignorant of that fundamental
truth.”
He rose, as he spoke, and walked round
the room, with his hands behind his back, swaying
upon his hips. He did so once more. Then,
stopping at the dining-room, he opened the door:
“For that matter, there’s
another way of putting the problem. Take eight
from nine; and one remains. And the one who remains
is here, eh? Correct! And monsieur supplies
us with a striking proof, does he not?”
He patted the velvet curtain in which
Lupin had hurriedly wrapped himself:
“Upon my word, sir, you must
be stifling under this! Not to say that I might
have amused myself by sticking a dagger through the
curtain. Remember Hamlet’s madness and
Polonius’ death: ’How now! A
rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!’ Come along,
Mr. Polonius, come out of your hole.”
It was one of those positions to which
Lupin was not accustomed and which he loathed.
To catch others in a trap and pull their leg was all
very well; but it was a very different thing to have
people teasing him and roaring with laughter at his
expense. Yet what could he answer back?
“You look a little pale, Mr.
Polonius... Hullo! Why, it’s the respectable
old gentleman who has been hanging about the square
for some days! So you belong to the police too,
Mr. Polonius? There, there, pull yourself together,
I sha’n’t hurt you!... But you see,
Clemence, how right my calculation was. You told
me that nine spies had been to the house. I counted
a troop of eight, as I came along, eight of them in
the distance, down the avenue. Take eight from
nine and one remains: the one who evidently remained
behind to see what he could see. Ecce homo!”
“Well? And then?”
said Lupin, who felt a mad craving to fly at the fellow
and reduce him to silence.
“And then? Nothing at all,
my good man... What more do you want? The
farce is over. I will only ask you to take this
little note to Master Prasville, your employer.
Clemence, please show Mr. Polonius out. And,
if ever he calls again, fling open the doors wide to
him. Pray look upon this as your home, Mr. Polonius.
Your servant, sir!...”
Lupin hesitated. He would have
liked to talk big and to come out with a farewell
phrase, a parting speech, like an actor making a showy
exit from the stage, and at least to disappear with
the honours of war. But his defeat was so pitiable
that he could think of nothing better than to bang
his hat on his head and stamp his feet as he followed
the portress down the hall. It was a poor revenge.
“You rascally beggar!”
he shouted, once he was outside the door, shaking
his fist at Daubrecq’s windows. “Wretch,
scum of the earth, deputy, you shall pay for this!...
Oh, he allows himself...! Oh, he has the cheek
to...! Well, I swear to you, my fine fellow, that,
one of these days...”
He was foaming with rage, all the
more as, in his innermost heart, he recognized the
strength of his new enemy and could not deny the masterly
fashion in which he had managed this business.
Daubrecq’s coolness, the assurance with which
he hoaxed the police-officials, the contempt with
which he lent himself to their visits at his house
and, above all, his wonderful self-possession, his
easy bearing and the impertinence of his conduct in
the presence of the ninth person who was spying on
him: all this denoted a man of character, a strong
man, with a well-balanced mind, lucid, bold, sure
of himself and of the cards in his hand.
But what were those cards? What
game was he playing? Who held the stakes?
And how did the players stand on either side?
Lupin could not tell. Knowing nothing, he flung
himself headlong into the thick of the fray, between
adversaries desperately involved, though he himself
was in total ignorance of their positions, their weapons,
their resources and their secret plans. For,
when all was said, he could not admit that the object
of all those efforts was to obtain possession of a
crystal stopper!
One thing alone pleased him:
Daubrecq had not penetrated his disguise. Daubrecq
believed him to be in the employ of the police.
Neither Daubrecq nor the police, therefore, suspected
the intrusion of a third thief in the business.
This was his one and only trump, a trump that gave
him a liberty of action to which he attached the greatest
importance.
Without further delay, he opened the
letter which Daubrecq had handed him for the secretary-general
of police. It contained these few lines:
“Within reach of your hand, my dear
Prasville, within reach of your hand! You touched
it! A little more and the trick was done...
But you’re too big a fool. And to think
that they couldn’t hit upon any one better
than you to make me bite the dust. Poor old France!
“Good-bye, Prasville.
But, if I catch you in the act, it will be a
bad lookout for you: my maxim is to shoot at
sight.
“Daubrecq”
“Within reach of your hand,”
repeated Lupin, after reading the note. “And
to think that the rogue may be writing the truth!
The most elementary hiding-places are the safest.
We must look into this, all the same. And, also,
we must find out why Daubrecq is the object of such
strict supervision and obtain a few particulars about
the fellow generally.”
The information supplied to Lupin
by a private inquiry-office consisted of the following
details:
“AlexisDaubrecq, deputy of the Bouches-du-Rhone for the
past two
years; sits among the independent members.
Political opinions not
very clearly defined, but electoral position
exceedingly strong,
because of the enormous sums which he spends
in nursing his
constituency. No private income.
Nevertheless, has a house in
Paris, a villa at Enghien and another at Nice
and loses heavily at
play, though no one knows where the money comes
from. Has great
influence and obtains all he wants without making
up to ministers
or, apparently, having either friends or connections
in political
circles.”
“That’s a trade docket,”
said Lupin to himself. “What I want is
a domestic docket, a police docket, which will tell
me about the gentleman’s private life and enable
me to work more easily in this darkness and to know
if I’m not getting myself into a tangle by bothering
about the Daubrecq bird. And time’s getting
short, hang it!”
One of the residences which Lupin
occupied at that period and which he used oftener
than any of the others was in the Rue Chateaubriand,
near the Arc de l’Etoile. He was known
there by the name of Michel Beaumont. He had
a snug flat here and was looked after by a manservant,
Achille, who was utterly devoted to his interests
and whose chief duty was to receive and repeat the
telephone-messages addressed to Lupin by his followers.
Lupin, on returning home, learnt,
with great astonishment, that a woman had been waiting
to see him for over an hour:
“What! Why, no one ever
comes to see me here! Is she young?”
“No... I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so!”
“She’s wearing a lace
shawl over her head, instead of a hat, and you can’t
see her face... She’s more like a clerk...
or a woman employed in a shop. She’s not
well-dressed...”
“Whom did she ask for?”
“M. Michel Beaumont,” replied the
servant.
“Queer. And why has she called?”
“All she said was that it was
about the Enghien business... So I thought that...”
“What! The Enghien business!
Then she knows that I am mixed up in that business...
She knows that, by applying here...”
“I could not get anything out
of her, but I thought, all the same, that I had better
let her in.”
“Quite right. Where is she?”
“In the drawing-room. I’ve put on
the lights.”
Lupin walked briskly across the hall
and opened the door of the drawing-room:
“What are you talking about?”
he said, to his man. “There’s no one
here.”
“No one here?” said Achille, running up.
And the room, in fact, was empty.
“Well, on my word, this takes
the cake!” cried the servant. “It
wasn’t twenty minutes ago that I came and had
a look, to make sure. She was sitting over there.
And there’s nothing wrong with my eyesight, you
know.”
“Look here, look here,”
said Lupin, irritably. “Where were you while
the woman was waiting?”
“In the hall, governor!
I never left the hall for a second! I should
have seen her go out, blow it!”
“Still, she’s not here now...”
“So I see,” moaned the man, quite flabbergasted.
“She must have got tired of
waiting and gone away. But, dash it all, I should
like to know how she got out!”
“How she got out?” said Lupin. “It
doesn’t take a wizard to tell that.”
“What do you mean?”
“She got out through the window.
Look, it’s still ajar. We are on the ground-floor...
The street is almost always deserted, in the evenings.
There’s no doubt about it.”
He had looked around him and satisfied
himself that nothing had been taken away or moved.
The room, for that matter, contained no knick-knack
of any value, no important paper that might have explained
the woman’s visit, followed by her sudden disappearance.
And yet why that inexplicable flight?
“Has any one telephoned?” he asked.
“No.”
“Any letters?”
“Yes, one letter by the last post.”
“Where is it?”
“I put it on your mantel-piece, governor, as
usual.”
Lupin’s bedroom was next to
the drawing-room, but Lupin had permanently bolted
the door between the two. He, therefore, had to
go through the hall again.
Lupin switched on the electric light and, the next
moment, said:
“I don’t see it...”
“Yes... I put it next to the flower-bowl.”
“There’s nothing here at all.”
“You must be looking in the wrong place, governor.”
But Achille moved the bowl, lifted
the clock, bent down to the grate, in vain: the
letter was not there.
“Oh blast it, blast it!”
he muttered. “She’s done it... she’s
taken it... And then, when she had the letter,
she cleared out... Oh, the slut!...”
Lupin said:
“You’re mad! There’s no way
through between the two rooms.”
“Then who did take it, governor?”
They were both of them silent.
Lupin strove to control his anger and collect his
ideas. He asked:
“Did you look at the envelope?”
“Yes.”
“Anything particular about it?”
“Yes, it looked as if it had
been written in a hurry, or scribbled, rather.”
“How was the address worded?...
Do you remember?” asked Lupin, in a voice strained
with anxiety.
“Yes, I remembered it, because it struck me
as funny...”
“But speak, will you? Speak!”
“It said, ‘Monsieur de Beaumont, Michel.’”
Lupin took his servant by the shoulders and shook
him:
“It said ‘de’ Beaumont? Are
you sure? And ‘Michel’ after ’Beaumont’?”
“Quite certain.”
“Ah!” muttered Lupin,
with a choking throat. “It was a letter
from Gilbert!”
He stood motionless, a little pale,
with drawn features. There was no doubt about
it: the letter was from Gilbert. It was the
form of address which, by Lupin’s orders, Gilbert
had used for years in corresponding with him.
Gilbert had at last after long waiting and
by dint of endless artifices found a means
of getting a letter posted from his prison and had
hastily written to him. And now the letter was
intercepted! What did it say? What instructions
had the unhappy prisoner given? What help was
he praying for? What stratagem did he suggest?
Lupin looked round the room, which,
contrary to the drawing-room, contained important
papers. But none of the locks had been forced;
and he was compelled to admit that the woman had no
other object than to get hold of Gilbert’s letter.
Constraining himself to keep his temper, he asked:
“Did the letter come while the woman was here?”
“At the same time. The porter rang at the
same moment.”
“Could she see the envelope?”
“Yes.”
The conclusion was evident. It
remained to discover how the visitor had been able
to effect her theft. By slipping from one window
to the other, outside the flat? Impossible:
Lupin found the window of his room shut. By opening
the communicating door? Impossible: Lupin
found it locked and barred with its two inner bolts.
Nevertheless, a person cannot pass
through a wall by a mere operation of will. To
go in or out of a room requires a passage; and, as
the act was accomplished in the space of a few minutes,
it was necessary, in the circumstances, that the passage
should be previously in existence, that it should
already have been contrived in the wall and, of course,
known to the woman. This hypothesis simplified
the search by concentrating it upon the door; for
the wall was quite bare, without a cupboard, chimney-piece
or hangings of any kind, and unable to conceal the
least outlet.
Lupin went back to the drawing-room
and prepared to make a study of the door. But
he at once gave a start. He perceived, at the
first glance, that the left lower panel of the six
small panels contained within the cross-bars of the
door no longer occupied its normal position and that
the light did not fall straight upon it. On leaning
forward, he saw two little tin tacks sticking out
on either side and holding the panel in place, similar
to a wooden board behind a picture-frame. He had
only to shift these. The panel at once came out.
Achille gave a cry of amazement. But Lupin objected:
“Well? And what then?
We are no better off than before. Here is an empty
oblong, eight or nine inches wide by sixteen inches
high. You’re not going to pretend that
a woman can slip through an opening which would not
admit the thinnest child of ten years old!”
“No, but she can have put her
arm through and drawn the bolts.”
“The bottom bolt, yes,”
said Lupin. “But the top bolt, no:
the distance is far too great. Try for yourself
and see.”
Achille tried and had to give up the attempt.
Lupin did not reply. He stood
thinking for a long time. Then, suddenly, he
said:
“Give me my hat... my coat...”
He hurried off, urged by an imperative
idea. And, the moment he reached the street,
he sprang into a taxi:
“Rue Matignon, quick!...”
As soon as they came to the house
where he had been robbed of the crystal stopper, he
jumped out of the cab, opened his private entrance,
went upstairs, ran to the drawing-room, turned on the
light and crouched at the foot of the door leading
to his bedroom.
He had guessed right. One of
the little panels was loosened in the same manner.
And, just as in his other flat in
the Rue Chateaubriand, the opening was large enough
to admit a man’s arm and shoulder, but not to
allow him to draw the upper bolt.
“Hang!” he shouted, unable
any longer to master the rage that had been seething
within him for the last two hours. “Blast!
Shall I never have finished with this confounded business?”
In fact, an incredible ill-luck seemed
to dog his footsteps, compelling him to grope about
at random, without permitting him to use the elements
of success which his own persistency or the very force
of things placed within his grasp. Gilbert gave
him the crystal stopper. Gilbert sent him a letter.
And both had disappeared at that very moment.
And it was not, as he had until then
believed, a series of fortuitous and independent circumstances.
No, it was manifestly the effect of an adverse will
pursuing a definite object with prodigious ability
and incredible boldness, attacking him, Lupin, in
the recesses of his safest retreats and baffling him
with blows so severe and so unexpected that he did
not even know against whom he had to defend himself.
Never, in the course of his adventures, had he encountered
such obstacles as now.
And, little by little, deep down within
himself, there grew a haunting dread of the future.
A date loomed before his eyes, the terrible date which
he unconsciously assigned to the law to perform its
work of vengeance, the date upon which, in the light
of a wan April morning, two men would mount the scaffold,
two men who had stood by him, two comrades whom he
had been unable to save from paying the awful penalty...