When Daubrecq the deputy came in from
lunch on the day after the police had searched his
house he was stopped by Clemence, his portress, who
told him that she had found a cook who could be thoroughly
relied on.
The cook arrived a few minutes later
and produced first-rate characters, signed by people
with whom it was easy to take up her references.
She was a very active woman, although of a certain
age, and agreed to do the work of the house by herself,
without the help of a man-servant, this being a condition
upon which Daubrecq insisted.
Her last place was with a member of
the Chamber of Deputies, Comte Saulevat, to whom Daubrecq
at once telephoned. The count’s steward
gave her a perfect character, and she was engaged.
As soon as she had fetched her trunk,
she set to work and cleaned and scrubbed until it
was time to cook the dinner.
Daubrecq dined and went out.
At eleven o’clock, after the
portress had gone to bed, the cook cautiously opened
the garden-gate. A man came up.
“Is that you?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s I, Lupin.”
She took him to her bedroom on the
third floor, overlooking the garden, and at once burst
into lamentations:
“More of your tricks and nothing
but tricks! Why can’t you leave me alone,
instead of sending me to do your dirty work?”
“How can I help it, you dear
old Victoire? When I want a person of respectable
appearance and incorruptible morals, I think of you.
You ought to be flattered.”
See The Hollow Needle
by Maurice Leblanc, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de
Mattos, and later volumes of the Lupin
series.
“That’s all you care about
me!” she cried. “You run me into danger
once more; and you think it’s funny!”
“What are you risking?”
“How do you mean, what am I risking? All
my characters are false.”
“Characters are always false.”
“And suppose M. Daubrecq finds out? Suppose
he makes inquiries?”
“He has made inquiries.”
“Eh? What’s that?”
“He has telephoned to the steward
of Comte Saulevat, in whose service you say that you
have had the honour of being.”
“There, you see, I’m done for!”
“The count’s steward could not say enough
in your praise.”
“He does not know me.”
“But I know him. I got
him his situation with Comte Saulevat. So you
understand...”
Victoire seemed to calm down a little:
“Well,” she said, “God’s
will be done... or rather yours. And what do
you expect me to do in all this?”
“First, to put me up. You
were my wet-nurse once. You can very well give
me half your room now. I’ll sleep in the
armchair.”
“And next?”
“Next? To supply me with such food as I
want.”
“And next?”
“Next? To undertake, with
me and under my direction, a regular series of searches
with a view...”
“To what?”
“To discovering the precious object of which
I spoke to you.”
“What’s that?”
“A crystal stopper.”
“A crystal stopper... Saints
above! A nice business! And, if we don’t
find your confounded stopper, what then?”
Lupin took her gently by the arm and, in a serious
voice:
“If we don’t find it,
Gilbert, young Gilbert whom you know and love, will
stand every chance of losing his head; and so will
Vaucheray.”
“Vaucheray I don’t mind... a dirty rascal
like him! But Gilbert...”
“Have you seen the papers this
evening? Things are looking worse than ever.
Vaucheray, as might be expected, accuses Gilbert of
stabbing the valet; and it so happens that the knife
which Vaucheray used belonged to Gilbert. That
came out this morning. Whereupon Gilbert, who
is intelligent in his way, but easily frightened,
blithered and launched forth into stories and lies
which will end in his undoing. That’s how
the matter stands. Will you help me?”
Thenceforth, for several days, Lupin
moulded his existence upon Daubrecq’s, beginning
his investigations the moment the deputy left the
house. He pursued them methodically, dividing
each room into sections which he did not abandon until
he had been through the tiniest nooks and corners
and, so to speak, exhausted every possible device.
Victoire searched also. And nothing
was forgotten. Table-legs, chair-rungs, floor-boards,
mouldings, mirror- and picture-frames, clocks, plinths,
curtain-borders, telephone-holders and electric fittings:
everything that an ingenious imagination could have
selected as a hiding-place was overhauled.
And they also watched the deputy’s
least actions, his most unconscious movements, the
expression of his face, the books which he read and
the letters which he wrote.
It was easy enough. He seemed
to live his life in the light of day. No door
was ever shut. He received no visits. And
his existence worked with mechanical regularity.
He went to the Chamber in the afternoon, to the club
in the evening.
“Still,” said Lupin, “there
must be something that’s not orthodox behind
all this.”
“There’s nothing of the
sort,” moaned Victoire. “You’re
wasting your time and we shall be bowled out.”
The presence of the detectives and
their habit of walking up and down outside the windows
drove her mad. She refused to admit that they
were there for any other purpose than to trap her,
Victoire. And, each time that she went shopping,
she was quite surprised that one of those men did
not lay his hand upon her shoulder.
One day she returned all upset.
Her basket of provisions was shaking on her arm.
“What’s the matter, my
dear Victoire?” said Lupin. “You’re
looking green.”
“Green? I dare say I do. So would
you look green...”
She had to sit down and it was only
after making repeated efforts that she succeeded in
stuttering:
“A man... a man spoke to me... at the fruiterer’s.”
“By jingo! Did he want you to run away
with him?”
“No, he gave me a letter...”
“Then what are you complaining about? It
was a love-letter, of course!”
“No. ‘It’s
for your governor,’ said he. ‘My governor?’
I said. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘for
the gentleman who’s staying in your room.’”
“What’s that?”
This time, Lupin had started:
“Give it here,” he said,
snatching the letter from her. The envelope bore
no address. But there was another, inside it,
on which he read:
“Monsieur Arsène Lupin,
c/o Victoire.”
“The devil!” he said.
“This is a bit thick!” He tore open the
second envelope. It contained a sheet of paper
with the following words, written in large capitals:
“Everything you
are doing is useless and dangerous... Give it
up.”
Victoire uttered one moan and fainted.
As for Lupin, he felt himself blush up to his eyes,
as though he had been grossly insulted. He experienced
all the humiliation which a duellist would undergo
if he heard the most secret advice which he had received
from his seconds repeated aloud by a mocking adversary.
However, he held his tongue.
Victoire went back to her work. As for him, he
remained in his room all day, thinking.
That night he did not sleep.
And he kept saying to himself:
“What is the good of thinking?
I am up against one of those problems which are not
solved by any amount of thought. It is certain
that I am not alone in the matter and that, between
Daubrecq and the police, there is, in addition to
the third thief that I am, a fourth thief who is working
on his own account, who knows me and who reads my game
clearly. But who is this fourth thief? And
am I mistaken, by any chance? And... oh, rot!...
Let’s get to sleep!...”
But he could not sleep; and a good part of the night
went in this way.
At four o’clock in the morning
he seemed to hear a noise in the house. He jumped
up quickly and, from the top of the staircase, saw
Daubrecq go down the first flight and turn toward
the garden.
A minute later, after opening the
gate, the deputy returned with a man whose head was
buried in an enormous fur collar and showed him into
his study.
Lupin had taken his precautions in
view of any such contingency. As the windows
of the study and those of his bedroom, both of which
were at the back of the house, overlooked the garden,
he fastened a rope-ladder to his balcony, unrolled
it softly and let himself down by it until it was
level with the top of the study windows.
These windows were closed by shutters;
but, as they were bowed, there remained a semi-circular
space at the top; and Lupin, though he could not hear,
was able to see all that went on inside.
He then realized that the person whom
he had taken for a man was a woman: a woman who
was still young, though her dark hair was mingled
with gray; a tall woman, elegantly but quite unobtrusively
dressed, whose handsome features bore the expression
of weariness and melancholy which long suffering gives.
“Where the deuce have I seen
her before?” Lupin asked himself. “For
I certainly know that face, that look, that expression.”
She stood leaning against the table,
listening impassively to Daubrecq, who was also standing
and who was talking very excitedly. He had his
back turned to Lupin; but Lupin, leaning forward, caught
sight of a glass in which the deputy’s image
was reflected. And he was startled to see the
strange look in his eyes, the air of fierce and brutal
desire with which Daubrecq was staring at his visitor.
It seemed to embarrass her too, for
she sat down with lowered lids. Then Daubrecq
leant over her and it appeared as though he were ready
to fling his long arms, with their huge hands, around
her. And, suddenly, Lupin perceived great tears
rolling down the woman’s sad face.
Whether or not it was the sight of
those tears that made Daubrecq lose his head, with
a brusque movement he clutched the woman and drew her
to him. She repelled him, with a violence full
of hatred. And, after a brief struggle, during
which Lupin caught a glimpse of the man’s bestial
and contorted features, the two of them stood face
to face, railing at each other like mortal enemies.
Then they stopped. Daubrecq sat
down. There was mischief in his face, and sarcasm
as well. And he began to talk again, with sharp
taps on the table, as though he were dictating terms.
She no longer stirred. She sat
haughtily in her chair and towered over him, absent-minded,
with roaming eyes. Lupin, captivated by that
powerful and sorrowful countenance, continued to watch
her; and he was vainly seeking to remember of what
or of whom she reminded him, when he noticed that
she had turned her head slightly and that she was
imperceptibly moving her arm.
And her arm strayed farther and farther
and her hand crept along the table and Lupin saw that,
at the end of the table, there stood a water-bottle
with a gold-topped stopper. The hand reached the
water-bottle, felt it, rose gently and seized the stopper.
A quick movement of the head, a glance, and the stopper
was put back in its place. Obviously, it was
not what the woman hoped to find.
“Dash it!” said Lupin.
“She’s after the crystal stopper too!
The matter is becoming more complicated daily; there’s
no doubt about it.”
But, on renewing his observation of
the visitor, he was astounded to note the sudden and
unexpected expression of her countenance, a terrible,
implacable, ferocious expression. And he saw that
her hand was continuing its stealthy progress round
the table and that, with an uninterrupted and crafty
sliding movement, it was pushing back books and, slowly
and surely, approaching a dagger whose blade gleamed
among the scattered papers.
It gripped the handle.
Daubrecq went on talking. Behind
his back, the hand rose steadily, little by little;
and Lupin saw the woman’s desperate and furious
eyes fixed upon the spot in the neck where she intended
to plant the knife:
“You’re doing a very silly
thing, fair lady,” thought Lupin.
And he already began to turn over
in his mind the best means of escaping and of taking
Victoire with him.
She hesitated, however, with uplifted
arm. But it was only a momentary weakness.
She clenched her teeth. Her whole face, contracted
with hatred, became yet further convulsed. And
she made the dread movement.
At the same instant Daubrecq crouched
and, springing from his seat, turned and seized the
woman’s frail wrist in mid-air.
Oddly enough, he addressed no reproach
to her, as though the deed which she had attempted
surprised him no more than any ordinary, very natural
and simple act. He shrugged his shoulders, like
a man accustomed to that sort of danger, and strode
up and down in silence.
She had dropped the weapon and was
now crying, holding her head between her hands, with
sobs that shook her whole frame.
He next came up to her and said a
few words, once more tapping the table as he spoke.
She made a sign in the negative and,
when he insisted, she, in her turn, stamped her foot
on the floor and exclaimed, loud enough for Lupin to
hear:
“Never!... Never!...”
Thereupon, without another word, Daubrecq
fetched the fur cloak which she had brought with her
and hung it over the woman’s shoulders, while
she shrouded her face in a lace wrap.
And he showed her out.
Two minutes later, the garden-gate
was locked again. “Pity I can’t run
after that strange person,” thought Lupin, “and
have a chat with her about the Daubrecq bird.
Seems to me that we two could do a good stroke of
business together.”
In any case, there was one point to
be cleared up: Daubrecq the deputy, whose life
was so orderly, so apparently respectable, was in the
habit of receiving visits at night, when his house
was no longer watched by the police.
He sent Victoire to arrange with two
members of his gang to keep watch for several days.
And he himself remained awake next night.
As on the previous morning, he heard
a noise at four o’clock. As on the previous
morning, the deputy let some one in.
Lupin ran down his ladder and, when
he came to the free space above the shutters, saw
a man crawling at Daubrecq’s feet, flinging his
arms round Daubrecq’s knees in frenzied despair
and weeping, weeping convulsively.
Daubrecq, laughing, pushed him away
repeatedly, but the man clung to him. He behaved
almost like one out of his mind and, at last, in a
genuine fit of madness, half rose to his feet, took
the deputy by the throat and flung him back in a chair.
Daubrecq struggled, powerless at first, while his
veins swelled in his temples. But soon, with a
strength far beyond the ordinary, he regained the
mastery and deprived his adversary of all power of
movement. Then, holding him with one hand, with
the other he gave him two great smacks in the face.
The man got up, slowly. He was
livid and could hardly stand on his legs. He
waited for a moment, as though to recover his self-possession.
Then, with a terrifying calmness, he drew a revolver
from his pocket and levelled it at Daubrecq.
Daubrecq did not flinch. He even
smiled, with a defiant air and without displaying
more excitement than if he had been aimed at with a
toy pistol.
The man stood for perhaps fifteen
or twenty seconds, facing his enemy, with outstretched
arm. Then, with the same deliberate slowness,
revealing a self-control which was all the more impressive
because it followed upon a fit of extreme excitement,
he put up his revolver and, from another pocket, produced
his note-case.
Daubrecq took a step forward.
The man opened the pocketbook. A sheaf of banknotes
appeared in sight.
Daubrecq seized and counted them.
They were thousand-franc notes, and there were thirty
of them.
The man looked on, without a movement
of revolt, without a protest. He obviously understood
the futility of words. Daubrecq was one of those
who do not relent. Why should his visitor waste
time in beseeching him or even in revenging himself
upon him by uttering vain threats and insults?
He had no hope of striking that unassailable enemy.
Even Daubrecq’s death would not deliver him
from Daubrecq.
He took his hat and went away.
At eleven o’clock in the morning
Victoire, on returning from her shopping, handed Lupin
a note from his accomplices.
He opened it and read:
“The man who came to see Daubrecq
last night is Langeroux the deputy, leader of the
independent left. A poor man, with a large family.”
“Come,” said Lupin, “Daubrecq
is nothing more nor less than a blackmailer; but,
by Jupiter, he has jolly effective ways of going to
work!”
Events tended to confirm Lupin’s
supposition. Three days later he saw another
visitor hand Daubrecq an important sum of money.
And, two days after that, one came and left a pearl
necklace behind him.
The first was called Dachaumont, a
senator and ex-cabinet-minister. The second was
the Marquis d’Albufex, a Bonapartist deputy,
formerly chief political agent in France of Prince
Napoleon.
The scene, in each of these cases,
was very similar to Langeroux the deputy’s interview,
a violent tragic scene, ending in Daubrecq’s
victory.
“And so on and so forth,”
thought Lupin, when he received these particulars.
“I have been present at four visits. I shall
know no more if there are ten, or twenty, or thirty...
It is enough for me to learn the names of the visitors
from my friends on sentry-go outside. Shall I
go and call on them?... What for? They have
no reason to confide in me... On the other hand,
am I to stay on here, delayed by investigations which
lead to nothing and which Victoire can continue just
as well without me?”
He was very much perplexed. The
news of the inquiry into the case of Gilbert and Vaucheray
was becoming worse and worse, the days were slipping
by, and not an hour passed without his asking himself,
in anguish, whether all his efforts granting
that he succeeded would not end in farcical
results, absolutely foreign to the aim which he was
pursuing.
For, after all, supposing that he
did fathom Daubrecq’s underhand dealings, would
that give him the means of rescuing Gilbert and Vaucheray?
That day an incident occurred which
put an end to his indecision. After lunch Victoire
heard snatches of a conversation which Daubrecq held
with some one on the telephone. Lupin gathered,
from what Victoire reported, that the deputy had an
appointment with a lady for half-past eight and that
he was going to take her to a theatre:
“I shall get a pit-tier box,
like the one we had six weeks ago,” Daubrecq
had said. And he added, with a laugh, “I
hope that I shall not have the burglars in during
that time.”
There was not a doubt in Lupin’s
mind. Daubrecq was about to spend his evening
in the same manner in which he had spent the evening
six weeks ago, while they were breaking into his villa
at Enghien. To know the person whom he was to
meet and perhaps thus to discover how Gilbert and
Vaucheray had learnt that Daubrecq would be away from
eight o’clock in the evening until one o’clock
in the morning: these were matters of the utmost
importance.
Lupin left the house in the afternoon,
with Victoire’s assistance. He knew through
her that Daubrecq was coming home for dinner earlier
than usual.
He went to his flat in the Rue Chateaubriand,
telephoned for three of his friends, dressed and made
himself up in his favourite character of a Russian
prince, with fair hair and moustache and short-cut
whiskers.
The accomplices arrived in a motor-car.
At that moment, Achille, his man,
brought him a telegram, addressed to M. Michel Beaumont,
Rue Chateaubriand, which ran:
“Do not come to theatre this evening.
Danger of your
intervention spoiling everything.”
There was a flower-vase on the chimney-piece
beside him. Lupin took it and smashed it to pieces.
“That’s it, that’s
it,” he snarled. “They are playing
with me as I usually play with others. Same behaviour.
Same tricks. Only there’s this difference...”
What difference? He hardly knew.
The truth was that he too was baffled and disconcerted
to the inmost recesses of his being and that he was
continuing to act only from obstinacy, from a sense
of duty, so to speak, and without putting his ordinary
good humour and high spirits into the work.
“Come along,” he said to his accomplices.
By his instructions, the chauffeur
set them down near the Square Lamartine, but kept
the motor going. Lupin foresaw that Daubrecq,
in order to escape the detectives watching the house,
would jump into the first taxi; and he did not intend
to be outdistanced.
He had not allowed for Daubrecq’s cleverness.
At half-past seven both leaves of
the garden-gate were flung open, a bright light flashed
and a motor-cycle darted across the road, skirted
the square, turned in front of the motor-car and shot
away toward the Bois at a speed so great that they
would have been mad to go in pursuit of it.
“Good-bye, Daisy!” said
Lupin, trying to jest, but really overcome with rage.
He eyed his accomplices in the hope
that one of them would venture to give a mocking smile.
How pleased he would have been to vent his nerves
on them!
“Let’s go home,” he said to his
companions.
He gave them some dinner; then he
smoked a cigar and they set off again in the car and
went the round of the theatres, beginning with those
which were giving light operas and musical comedies,
for which he presumed that Daubrecq and his lady would
have a preference. He took a stall, inspected
the lower-tier boxes and went away again.
He next drove to the more serious
theatres: the Renaissance, the Gymnase.
At last, at ten o’clock in the
evening, he saw a pit-tier box at the Vaudeville almost
entirely protected from inspection by its two screens;
and, on tipping the boxkeeper, was told that it contained
a short, stout, elderly gentleman and a lady who was
wearing a thick lace veil.
The next box was free. He took
it, went back to his friends to give them their instructions
and sat down near the couple.
During the entr’acte, when the
lights went up, he perceived Daubrecq’s profile.
The lady remained at the back of the box, invisible.
The two were speaking in a low voice; and, when the
curtain rose again, they went on speaking, but in
such a way that Lupin could not distinguish a word.
Ten minutes passed. Some one
tapped at their door. It was one of the men from
the box-office.
“Are you M. lé Depute Daubrecq, sir?”
he asked.
“Yes,” said Daubrecq,
in a voice of surprise. “But how do you
know my name?”
“There’s a gentleman asking
for you on the telephone. He told me to go to
Box 22.”
“But who is it?”
“M. lé Marquis d’Albufex.”
“Eh?”
“What am I to say, sir?”
“I’m coming... I’m coming...”
Daubrecq rose hurriedly from his seat
and followed the clerk to the box-office.
He was not yet out of sight when Lupin
sprang from his box, worked the lock of the next door
and sat down beside the lady.
She gave a stifled cry.
“Hush!” he said. “I have to
speak to you. It is most important.”
“Ah!” she said, between
her teeth. “Arsène Lupin!” He was
dumbfounded. For a moment he sat quiet, open-mouthed.
The woman knew him! And not only did she know
him, but she had recognized him through his disguise!
Accustomed though he was to the most extraordinary
and unusual events, this disconcerted him.
He did not even dream of protesting and stammered:
“So you know?... So you know?...”
He snatched at the lady’s veil
and pulled it aside before she had time to defend
herself:
“What!” he muttered, with increased amazement.
“Is it possible?”
It was the woman whom he had seen
at Daubrecq’s a few days earlier, the woman
who had raised her dagger against Daubrecq and who
had intended to stab him with all the strength of
her hatred.
It was her turn to be taken aback:
“What! Have you seen me before?...”
“Yes, the other night, at his house...
I saw what you tried to do...”
She made a movement to escape.
He held her back and, speaking with great eagerness:
“I must know who you are,”
he said. “That was why I had Daubrecq telephoned
for.”
She looked aghast:
“Do you mean to say it was not the Marquis d’Albufex?”
“No, it was one of my assistants.”
“Then Daubrecq will come back?...”
“Yes, but we have time...
Listen to me... We must meet again... He
is your enemy... I will save you from him...”
“Why should you? What is your object?”
“Do not distrust me... it is
quite certain that our interests are identical...
Where can I see you? To-morrow, surely? At
what time? And where?”
“Well...”
She looked at him with obvious hesitation,
not knowing what to do, on the point of speaking and
yet full of uneasiness and doubt.
He pressed her:
“Oh, I entreat you... answer
me just one word... and at once... It would be
a pity for him to find me here... I entreat you...”
She answered sharply:
“My name doesn’t matter...
We will see each other first and you shall explain
to me... Yes, we will meet... Listen, to-morrow,
at three o’clock, at the corner of the Boulevard...”
At that exact moment, the door of
the box opened, so to speak, with a bang, and Daubrecq
appeared.
“Rats!” Lupin mumbled,
under his breath, furious at being caught before obtaining
what he wanted.
Daubrecq gave a chuckle:
“So that’s it...
I thought something was up... Ah, the telephone-trick:
a little out of date, sir! I had not gone half-way
when I turned back.”
He pushed Lupin to the front of the
box and, sitting down beside the lady, said:
“And, now my lord, who are we?
A servant at the police-office, probably? There’s
a professional look about that mug of yours.”
He stared hard at Lupin, who did not
move a muscle, and tried to put a name to the face,
but failed to recognize the man whom he had called
Polonius.
Lupin, without taking his eyes from
Daubrecq either, reflected. He would not for
anything in the world have thrown up the game at that
point or neglected this favourable opportunity of
coming to an understanding with his mortal enemy.
The woman sat in her corner, motionless,
and watched them both.
Lupin said:
“Let us go outside, sir. That will make
our interview easier.”
“No, my lord, here,” grinned
the deputy. “It will take place here, presently,
during the entr’acte. Then we shall not
be disturbing anybody.”
“But...”
“Save your breath, my man; you sha’n’t
budge.”
And he took Lupin by the coat-collar,
with the obvious intention of not letting go of him
before the interval.
A rash move! Was it likely that
Lupin would consent to remain in such an attitude,
especially before a woman, a woman to whom he had offered
his alliance, a woman and he now thought
of it for the first time who was distinctly
good-looking and whose grave beauty attracted him.
His whole pride as a man rose at the thought.
However, he said nothing. He
accepted the heavy weight of the hand on his shoulder
and even sat bent in two, as though beaten, powerless,
almost frightened.
“Eh, clever!” said the
deputy, scoffingly. “We don’t seem
to be swaggering quite so much.”
The stage was full of actors who were
arguing and making a noise.
Daubrecq had loosened his grasp slightly
and Lupin felt that the moment had come. With
the edge of his hand, he gave him a violent blow in
the hollow of the arm, as he might have done with
a hatchet.
The pain took Daubrecq off his guard.
Lupin now released himself entirely and sprang at
the other to clutch him by the throat. But Daubrecq
had at once put himself on the defensive and stepped
back and their four hands seized one another.
They gripped with superhuman energy,
the whole force of the two adversaries concentrating
in those hands. Daubrecq’s were of monstrous
size; and Lupin, caught in that iron vise, felt as
though he were fighting not with a man, but with some
terrible beast, a huge gorilla.
They held each other against the door,
bending low, like a pair of wrestlers groping and
trying to lay hold of each other. Their bones
creaked. Whichever gave way first was bound to
be caught by the throat and strangled. And all
this happened amid a sudden silence, for the actors
on the stage were now listening to one of their number,
who was speaking in a low voice.
The woman stood back flat against
the partition, looking at them in terror. Had
she taken sides with either of them, with a single
movement, the victory would at once have been decided
in that one’s favour. But which of them
should she assist? What could Lupin represent
in her eyes? A friend? An enemy?
She briskly made for the front of
the box, forced back the screen and, leaning forward,
seemed to give a signal. Then she returned and
tried to slip to the door.
Lupin, as though wishing to help her, said:
“Why don’t you move the chair?”
He was speaking of a heavy chair which
had fallen down between him and Daubrecq and across
which they were struggling.
The woman stooped and pulled away
the chair. That was what Lupin was waiting for.
Once rid of the obstacle, he caught Daubrecq a smart
kick on the shin with the tip of his patent-leather
boot. The result was the same as with the blow
which he had given him on the arm. The pain caused
a second’s apprehension and distraction, of which
he at once took advantage to beat down Daubrecq’s
outstretched hands and to dig his ten fingers into
his adversary’s throat and neck.
Daubrecq struggled. Daubrecq
tried to pull away the hands that were throttling
him; but he was beginning to choke and felt his strength
decreasing.
“Aha, you old monkey!”
growled Lupin, forcing him to the floor. “Why
don’t you shout for help? How frightened
you must be of a scandal!”
At the sound of the fall there came
a knocking at the partition, on the other side.
“Knock away, knock away,”
said Lupin, under his breath. “The play
is on the stage. This is my business and, until
I’ve mastered this gorilla...”
It did not take him long. The
deputy was choking. Lupin stunned him with a
blow on the jaw; and all that remained for him to do
was to take the woman away and make his escape with
her before the alarm was given.
But, when he turned round, he saw
that the woman was gone.
She could not be far. Darting
from the box, he set off at a run, regardless of the
programme-sellers and check-takers.
On reaching the entrance-lobby, he
saw her through an open door, crossing the pavement
of the Chaussee d’Antin.
She was stepping into a motor-car
when he came up with her.
The door closed behind her.
He seized the handle and tried to pull at it.
But a man jumped up inside and sent
his fist flying into Lupin’s face, with less
skill but no less force than Lupin had sent his into
Daubrecq’s face.
Stunned though he was by the blow,
he nevertheless had ample time to recognize the man,
in a sudden, startled vision, and also to recognize,
under his chauffeur’s disguise, the man who was
driving the car. It was the Growler and the Masher,
the two men in charge of the boats on the Enghien
night, two friends of Gilbert and Vaucheray: in
short, two of Lupin’s own accomplices.
When he reached his rooms in the Rue
Chateaubriand, Lupin, after washing the blood from
his face, sat for over an hour in a chair, as though
overwhelmed. For the first time in his life he
was experiencing the pain of treachery. For the
first time his comrades in the fight were turning
against their chief.
Mechanically, to divert his thoughts,
he turned to his correspondence and tore the wrapper
from an evening paper. Among the late news he
found the following paragraphs:
“The villa Marie-Therese
case”
“The real
identity of Vaucheray, one of the alleged
murderers of Leonard the valet, has at last
been ascertained.
He is a miscreant of the worst type, a hardened
criminal who
has already twice been sentenced for murder,
in default, under
another name.
“No doubt, the police will end by also
discovering the real name
of his accomplice, Gilbert. In any event,
the examining-magistrate
is determined to commit the prisoners for trial
as soon as possible.
“The public will have no reason to complain
of the delays of the law.”
In between other newspapers and prospectuses
lay a letter.
Lupin jumped when he saw it. It was addressed:
“Monsieur de Beaumont, Michel.”
“Oh,” he gasped, “a letter from
Gilbert!”
It contained these few words:
“Help, governor!... I am frightened.
I am frightened...”
Once again, Lupin spent a night alternating
between sleeplessness and nightmares. Once again,
he was tormented by atrocious and terrifying visions.