The moment Lupin had finished lunch,
he at once and, so to speak, without transition, recovered
all his mastery and authority. The time for joking
was past; and he must no longer yield to his love of
astonishing people with claptrap and conjuring tricks.
Now that he had discovered the crystal stopper in
the hiding-place which he had guessed with absolute
certainty, now that he possessed the list of the Twenty-seven,
it became a question of playing off the last game of
the rubber without delay.
It was child’s play, no doubt,
and what remained to be done presented no difficulty.
Nevertheless, it was essential that he should perform
these final actions with promptness, decision and
infallible perspicacity. The smallest blunder
was irretrievable. Lupin knew this; but his strangely
lucid brain had allowed for every contingency.
And the movements and words which he was now about
to make and utter were all fully prepared and matured:
“Growler, the commissionaire
is waiting on the Boulevard Gambetta with his barrow
and the trunk which we bought. Bring him here
and have the trunk carried up. If the people
of the hotel ask any questions, say it’s for
the lady in N.”
Then, addressing his other companion:
“Masher, go back to the station
and take over the limousine. The price is arranged:
ten thousand francs. Buy a chauffeur’s cap
and overcoat and bring the car to the hotel.”
“The money, governor.”
Lupin opened a pocketbook which had
been removed from Daubrecq’s jacket and produced
a huge bundle of bank-notes. He separated ten
of them:
“Here you are. Our friend
appears to have been doing well at the club.
Off with you, Masher!”
The two men went out through Clarisse’s
room. Lupin availed himself of a moment when
Clarisse Mergy was not looking to stow away the pocketbook
with the greatest satisfaction:
“I shall have done a fair stroke
of business,” he said to himself. “When
all the expenses are paid, I shall still be well to
the good; and it’s not over yet.”
Then turning to Clarisse Mergy, he asked:
“Have you a bag?”
“Yes, I bought one when I reached
Nice, with some linen and a few necessaries; for I
left Paris unprepared.”
“Get all that ready. Then
go down to the office. Say that you are expecting
a trunk which a commissionaire is bringing from the
station cloakroom and that you will want to unpack
and pack it again in your room; and tell them that
you are leaving.”
When alone, Lupin examined Daubrecq
carefully, felt in all his pockets and appropriated
everything that seemed to present any sort of interest.
The Growler was the first to return.
The trunk, a large wicker hamper covered with black
moleskin, was taken into Clarisse’s room.
Assisted by Clarisse and the Growler, Lupin moved
Daubrecq and put him in the trunk, in a sitting posture,
but with his head bent so as to allow of the lid being
fastened:
“I don’t say that it’s
as comfortable as your berth in a sleeping-car, my
dear deputy,” Lupin observed. “But,
all the same, it’s better than a coffin.
At least, you can breathe. Three little holes
in each side. You have nothing to complain of!”
Then, unstopping a flask:
“A drop more chloroform? You seem to love
it!...”
He soaked the pad once more, while,
by his orders, Clarisse and the Growler propped up
the deputy with linen, rugs and pillows, which they
had taken the precaution to heap in the trunk.
“Capital!” said Lupin.
“That trunk is fit to go round the world.
Lock it and strap it.”
The Masher arrived, in a chauffeur’s livery:
“The car’s below, governor.”
“Good,” he said.
“Take the trunk down between you. It would
be dangerous to give it to the hotel-servants.”
“But if any one meets us?”
“Well, what then, Masher?
Aren’t you a chauffeur? You’re carrying
the trunk of your employer here present, the lady
in N, who will also go down, step into her motor...
and wait for me two hundred yards farther on.
Growler, you help to hoist the trunk up. Oh, first
lock the partition-door!”
Lupin went to the next room, closed
the other door, shot the bolt, walked out, locked
the door behind him and went down in the lift.
In the office, he said:
“M. Daubrecq has suddenly
been called away to Monte Carlo. He asked me
to say that he would not be back until Tuesday and
that you were to keep his room for him. His things
are all there. Here is the key.”
He walked away quietly and went after
the car, where he found Clarisse lamenting:
“We shall never be in Paris
to-morrow! It’s madness! The least
breakdown...”
“That’s why you and I
are going to take the train. It’s safer...”
He put her into a cab and gave his
parting instructions to the two men:
“Thirty miles an hour, on the
average, do you understand? You’re to drive
and rest, turn and turn about. At that rate, you
ought to be in Paris between six and seven to-morrow
evening. But don’t force the pace.
I’m keeping Daubrecq, not because I want him
for my plans, but as a hostage... and then by way
of precaution... I like to feel that I can lay
my hands on him during the next few days. So look
after the dear fellow... Give him a few drops
of chloroform every three or four hours: it’s
his one weakness... Off with you, Masher...
And you, Daubrecq, don’t get excited up there.
The roof’ll bear you all right... If you
feel at all sick, don’t mind... Off you
go, Masher!”
He watched the car move into the distance
and then told the cabman to drive to a post-office,
where he dispatched a telegram in these words:
“M. Prasville, Prefecture de Police,
Paris:
“Person found. Will bring you document
eleven o’clock
to-morrow morning. Urgent communication.
“Clarisse.”
Clarisse and Lupin reached the station by half-past
two.
“If only there’s room!”
said Clarisse, who was alarmed at the least thing.
“Room? Why, our berths are booked!”
“By whom?”
“By Jacob... by Daubrecq.”
“How?”
“Why, at the office of the hotel
they gave me a letter which had come for Daubrecq
by express. It was the two berths which Jacob
had sent him. Also, I have his deputy’s
pass. So we shall travel under the name of M.
and Mme. Daubrecq and we shall receive all the
attention due to our rank and station. You see,
my dear madam, that everything’s arranged.”
The journey, this time, seemed short
to Lupin. Clarisse told him what she had done
during the past few days. He himself explained
the miracle of his sudden appearance in Daubrecq’s
bedroom at the moment when his adversary believed
him in Italy:
“A miracle, no,” he said.
“But still a remarkable phenomenon took place
in me when I left San Remo, a sort of mysterious intuition
which prompted me first to try and jump out of the
train and the Masher prevented me and
next to rush to the window, let down the glass and
follow the porter of the Ambassadeurs-Palace, who had
given me your message, with my eyes. Well, at
that very minute, the porter aforesaid was rubbing
his hands with an air of such satisfaction that, for
no other reason, suddenly, I understood everything:
I had been diddled, taken in by Daubrecq, as you yourself
were. Heaps of llttle details flashed across
my mind. My adversary’s scheme became clear
to me from start to finish. Another minute...
and the disaster would have been beyond remedy.
I had, I confess, a few moments of real despair, at
the thought that I should not be able to repair all
the mistakes that had been made. It depended
simply on the time-table of the trains, which would
either allow me or would not allow me to find Daubrecq’s
emissary on the railway-platform at San Remo.
This time, at last, chance favoured me. We had
hardly alighted at the first station when a train passed,
for France. When we arrived at San Remo, the
man was there. I had guessed right. He no
longer wore his hotel-porter’s cap and frock-coat,
but a jacket and bowler. He stepped into a second-class
compartment. From that moment, victory was assured.”
“But... how...?” asked
Clarisse, who, in spite of the thoughts that obsessed
her, was interested in Lupin’s story.
“How did I find you? Lord,
simply by not losing sight of Master Jacob, while
leaving him free to move about as he pleased, knowing
that he was bound to account for his actions to Daubrecq.
In point of fact, this morning, after spending the
night in a small hotel at Nice, he met Daubrecq on
the Promenade des Anglais. They talked
for some time. I followed them. Daubrecq
went back to the hotel, planted Jacob in one of the
passages on the ground-floor, opposite the telephone-office,
and went up in the lift. Ten minutes later I
knew the number of his room and knew that a lady had
been occupying the next room, N, since the day
before. ‘I believe we’ve done it,’
I said to the Growler and the Masher. I tapped
lightly at your door. No answer. And the
door was locked.”
“Well?” asked Clarisse.
“Well, we opened it. Do
you think there’s only one key in the world
that will work a lock? So I walked in. Nobody
in your room. But the partition-door was ajar.
I slipped through it. Thenceforth, a mere hanging
separated me from you, from Daubrecq and from the packet
of tobacco which I saw on the chimney-slab.”
“Then you knew the hiding-place?”
“A look round Daubrecq’s
study in Paris showed me that that packet of tobacco
had disappeared. Besides...”
“What?”
“I knew, from certain confessions
wrung from Daubrecq in the Lovers’ Tower, that
the word Marie held the key to the riddle. Since
then I had certainly thought of this word, but with
the preconceived notion that it was spelt M A R I
E. Well, it was really the first two syllables of
another word, which I guessed, so to speak, only at
the moment when I was struck by the absence of the
packet of tobacco.”
“What word do you mean?”
“Maryland, Maryland tobacco, the only tobacco
that Daubrecq smokes.”
And Lupin began to laugh:
“Wasn’t it silly?
And, at the same time, wasn’t it clever of Daubrecq?
We looked everywhere, we ransacked everything.
Didn’t I unscrew the brass sockets of the electric
lights to see if they contained a crystal stopper?
But how could I have thought, how could any one, however
great his perspicacity, have thought of tearing off
the paper band of a packet of Maryland, a band put
on, gummed, sealed, stamped and dated by the State,
under the control of the Inland Revenue Office?
Only think! The State the accomplice of such
an act of infamy! The Inland R-r-r-revenue Awfice
lending itself to such a trick! No, a thousand
times no! The Regie is not perfect.
It makes matches that won’t light and cigarettes
filled with hay. But there’s all the difference
in the world between recognizing that fact and believing
the Inland Revenue to be in league with Daubrecq with
the object of hiding the list of the Twenty-seven
from the legitimate curiosity of the government and
the enterprising efforts of Arsène Lupin! Observe
that all Daubrecq had to do, in order to introduce
the crystal stopper, was to bear upon the band a little,
loosen it, draw it back, unfold the yellow paper, remove
the tobacco and fasten it up again. Observe also
that all we had to do, in Paris, was to take the packet
in our hands and examine it, in order to discover
the hiding-place. No matter! The packet itself,
the plug of Maryland made up and passed by the State
and by the Inland Revenue Office, was a sacred, intangible
thing, a thing above suspicion! And nobody opened
it. That was how that demon of a Daubrecq allowed
that untouched packet of tobacco to lie about for
months on his table, among his pipes and among other
unopened packets of tobacco. And no power on
earth could have given any one even the vaguest notion
of looking into that harmless little cube. I
would have you observe, besides...” Lupin
went on pursuing his remarks relative to the packet
of Maryland and the crystal stopper. His adversary’s
ingenuity and shrewdness interested him all the more
inasmuch as Lupin had ended by getting the better of
him. But to Clarisse these topics mattered much
less than did her anxiety as to the acts which must
be performed to save her son; and she sat wrapped
in her own thoughts and hardly listened to him.
The department of
the French excise which holds the
monopoly for the manufacture
and sale of tobacco, cigars,
cigarettes and matches Translator’s
Note.
“Are you sure,” she kept
on repeating, “that you will succeed?”
“Absolutely sure.”
“But Prasville is not in Paris.”
“If he’s not there, he’s
at the Havre. I saw it in the paper yesterday.
In any case, a telegram will bring him to Paris at
once.”
“And do you think that he has enough influence?”
“To obtain the pardon of Vaucheray
and Gilbert personally. No. If he had, we
should have set him to work before now. But he
is intelligent enough to understand the value of what
we are bringing him and to act without a moment’s
delay.”
“But, to be accurate, are you not deceived as
to that value?”
“Was Daubrecq deceived?
Was Daubrecq not in a better position than any of
us to know the full power of that paper? Did he
not have twenty proofs of it, each more convincing
than the last? Think of all that he was able
to do, for the sole reason that people knew him to
possess the list. They knew it; and that was
all. He did not use the list, but he had it.
And, having it, he killed your husband. He built
up his fortune on the ruin and the disgrace of the
Twenty-seven. Only last week, one of the gamest
of the lot, d’Albufex, cut his throat in a prison.
No, take it from me, as the price of handing over
that list, we could ask for anything we pleased.
And we are asking for what? Almost nothing ...
less than nothing... the pardon of a child of twenty.
In other words, they will take us for idiots.
What! We have in our hands...”
He stopped. Clarisse, exhausted
by so much excitement, sat fast asleep in front of
him.
They reached Paris at eight o’clock in the morning.
Lupin found two telegrams awaiting him at his flat
in the Place de
Clichy.
One was from the Masher, dispatched
from Avignon on the previous day and stating that
all was going well and that they hoped to keep their
appointment punctually that evening. The other
was from Prasville, dated from the Havre and addressed
to Clarisse:
“Impossible return to-morrow Monday morning.
Come to my office
five o’clock. Reckon on you absolutely.”
“Five o’clock!” said Clarisse.
“How late!”
“It’s a first-rate hour,” declared
Lupin.
“Still, if...”
“If the execution is to take
place to-morrow morning: is that what you mean
to say?... Don’t be afraid to speak out,
for the execution will not take place.”
“The newspapers...”
“You haven’t read the
newspapers and you are not to read them. Nothing
that they can say matters in the least. One thing
alone matters: our interview with Prasville.
Besides...”
He took a little bottle from a cupboard
and, putting his hand on Clarisse’s shoulder,
said:
“Lie down here, on the sofa,
and take a few drops of this mixture.”
“What’s it for?”
“It will make you sleep for
a few hours... and forget. That’s always
so much gained.”
“No, no,” protested Clarisse,
“I don’t want to. Gilbert is not asleep.
He is not forgetting.”
“Drink it,” said Lupin,
with gentle insistence. She yielded all of a
sudden, from cowardice, from excessive suffering, and
did as she was told and lay on the sofa and closed
her eyes. In a few minutes she was asleep.
Lupin rang for his servant:
“The newspapers... quick!... Have you bought
them?”
“Here they are, governor.”
Lupin opened one of them and at once read the following
lines:
“Arsene Lupin’s
accomplices”
“We know from a positive source
that Arsène Lupin’s accomplices, Gilbert and
Vaucheray, will be executed to-morrow, Tuesday,
morning. M. Deibler has inspected the scaffold.
Everything is ready.”
He raised his head with a defiant look.
“Arsène Lupin’s accomplices!
The execution of Arsène Lupin’s accomplices!
What a fine spectacle! And what a crowd there
will be to witness it! Sorry, gentlemen, but
the curtain will not rise. Theatre closed by
order of the authorities. And the authorities
are myself!”
He struck his chest violently, with an arrogant gesture:
“The authorities are myself!”
At twelve o’clock Lupin received
a telegram which the Masher had sent from Lyons:
“All well. Goods will arrive without damage.”
At three o’clock Clarisse woke. Her first
words were:
“Is it to be to-morrow?”
He did not answer. But she saw
him look so calm and smiling that she felt herself
permeated with an immense sense of peace and received
the impression that everything was finished, disentangled,
settled according to her companion’s will.
They left the house at ten minutes
past four. Prasville’s secretary, who had
received his chief’s instructions by telephone,
showed them into the office and asked them to wait.
It was a quarter to five.
Prasville came running in at five o’clock exactly
and, at once, cried:
“Have you the list?”
“Yes.”
“Give it me.”
He put out his hand. Clarisse,
who had risen from her chair, did not stir.
Prasville looked at her for a moment,
hesitated and sat down. He understood. In
pursuing Daubrecq, Clarisse Mergy had not acted only
from hatred and the desire for revenge. Another
motive prompted her. The paper would not be handed
over except upon conditions.
“Sit down, please,” he
said, thus showing that he accepted the discussion.
Clarisse resumed her seat and, when
she remained silent, Prasville said:
“Speak, my friend, and speak
quite frankly. I do not scruple to say that we
wish to have that paper.”
“If it is only a wish,”
remarked Clarisse, whom Lupin had coached in her part
down to the least detail, “if it is only a wish,
I fear that we shall not be able to come to an arrangement.”
Prasville smiled:
“The wish, obviously, would lead us to make
certain sacrifices.”
“Every sacrifice,” said Mme. Mergy,
correcting him.
“Every sacrifice, provided,
of course, that we keep within the bounds of acceptable
requirements.”
“And even if we go beyond those bounds,”
said Clarisse, inflexibly.
Prasville began to lose patience:
“Come, what is it all about? Explain yourself.”
“Forgive me, my friend, but
I wanted above all to mark the great importance which
you attach to that paper and, in view of the immediate
transaction which we are about to conclude, to specify what
shall I say? the value of my share in it.
That value, which has no limits, must, I repeat, be
exchanged for an unlimited value.”
“Agreed,” said Prasville, querulously.
“I presume, therefore, that
it is unnecessary for me to trace the whole story
of the business or to enumerate, on the one hand, the
disasters which the possession of that paper would
have allowed you to avert and, on the other hand,
the incalculable advantages which you will be able
to derive from its possession?”
Prasville had to make an effort to
contain himself and to answer in a tone that was civil,
or nearly so:
“I admit everything. Is that enough?”
“I beg your pardon, but we cannot
explain ourselves too plainly. And there is one
point that remains to be cleared up. Are you in
a position to treat, personally?”
“How do you mean?”
“I want to know not, of course,
if you are empowered to settle this business here
and now, but if, in dealing with me, you represent
the views of those who know the business and who are
qualified to settle it.”
“Yes,” declared Prasville, forcibly.
“So that I can have your answer
within an hour after I have told you my conditions?”
“Yes.”
“Will the answer be that of the government?”
“Yes.”
Clarisse bent forward and, sinking her voice:
“Will the answer be that of the Elysee?”
Prasville appeared surprised. He reflected for
a moment and then said:
“Yes.”
“It only remains for me to ask
you to give me your word of honour that, however incomprehensible
my conditions may appear to you, you will not insist
on my revealing the reason. They are what they
are. Your answer must be yes or no.”
“I give you my word of honour,” said Prasville,
formally.
Clarisse underwent a momentary agitation
that made her turn paler still. Then, mastering
herself, with her eyes fixed on Prasville’s eyes,
she said:
“You shall have the list of
the Twenty-seven in exchange for the pardon of Gilbert
and Vaucheray.”
“Eh? What?”
Prasville leapt from his chair, looking absolutely
dumbfounded:
“The pardon of Gilbert and Vaucheray? Of
Arsène Lupin’s accomplices?”
“Yes,” she said.
“The murderers of the Villa
Marie-Therese? The two who are due to die to-morrow?”
“Yes, those two,” she
said, in a loud voice. “I ask? I demand
their pardon.”
“But this is madness! Why? Why should
you?”
“I must remind you, Prasville, that you gave
me your word...”
“Yes... yes... I know... But the thing
is so unexpected...”
“Why?”
“Why? For all sorts of reasons!”
“What reasons?”
“Well... well, but... think!
Gilbert and Vaucheray have been sentenced to death!”
“Send them to penal servitude: that’s
all you have to do.”
“Impossible! The case has
created an enormous sensation. They are Arsène
Lupin’s accomplices. The whole world knows
about the verdict.”
“Well?”
“Well, we cannot, no, we cannot go against the
decrees of justice.”
“You are not asked to do that.
You are asked for a commutation of punishment as an
act of mercy. Mercy is a legal thing.”
“The pardoning-commission has given its finding...”
“True, but there remains the president of the
Republic.”
“He has refused.”
“He can reconsider his refusal.”
“Impossible!”
“Why?”
“There’s no excuse for it.”
“He needs no excuse. The
right of mercy is absolute. It is exercised without
control, without reason, without excuse or explanation.
It is a royal prerogative; the president of the Republic
can wield it according to his good pleasure, or rather
according to his conscience, in the best interests
of the State.”
“But it is too late! Everything
is ready. The execution is to take place in a
few hours.”
“One hour is long enough to
obtain your answer; you have just told us so.”
“But this is confounded madness!
There are insuperable obstacles to your conditions.
I tell you again, it’s impossible, physically
impossible.”
“Then the answer is no?”
“No! No! A thousand times no!”
“In that case, there is nothing left for us
to do but to go.”
She moved toward the door. M.
Nicole followed her. Prasville bounded across
the room and barred their way:
“Where are you going?”
“Well, my friend, it seems to
me that our conversation is at an end. As you
appear to think, as, in fact, you are certain that
the president of the Republic will not consider the
famous list of the Twenty-seven to be worth...”
“Stay where you are,” said Prasville.
He turned the key in the door and
began to pace the room, with his hands behind his
back and his eyes fixed on the floor.
And Lupin, who had not breathed a
word during the whole of this scene and who had prudently
contented himself with playing a colourless part,
said to himself:
“What a fuss! What a lot
of affectation to arrive at the inevitable result!
As though Prasville, who is not a genius, but not an
absolute blockhead either, would be likely to lose
the chance of revenging himself on his mortal enemy!
There, what did I say? The idea of hurling Daubrecq
into the bottomless pit appeals to him. Come,
we’ve won the rubber.”
Prasville was opening a small inner
door which led to the office of his private secretary.
He gave an order aloud:
“M. Lartigue, telephone
to the Elysee and say that I request the favour of
an audience for a communication of the utmost importance.”
He closed the door, came back to Clarisse and said:
“In any case, my intervention is limited to
submitting your proposal.”
“Once you submit it, it will be accepted.”
A long silence followed. Clarisse’s
features expressed so profound a delight that Prasville
was struck by it and looked at her with attentive
curiosity. For what mysterious reason did Clarisse
wish to save Gilbert and Vaucheray? What was
the incomprehensible link that bound her to those
two men? What tragedy connected those three lives
and, no doubt, Daubrecq’s in addition?
“Go ahead, old boy,” thought
Lupin, “cudgel your brains: you’ll
never spot it! Ah, if we had asked for Gilbert’s
pardon only, as Clarisse wished, you might have twigged
the secret! But Vaucheray, that brute of a Vaucheray,
there really could not be the least bond between Mme.
Mergy and him.... Aha, by Jingo, it’s my
turn now!... He’s watching me ... The
inward soliloquy is turning upon myself... ’I
wonder who that M. Nicole can be? Why has that
little provincial usher devoted himself body and soul
to Clarisse Mergy? Who is that old bore, if the
truth were known? I made a mistake in not inquiring...
I must look into this.... I must rip off the
beggar’s mask. For, after all, it’s
not natural that a man should take so much trouble
about a matter in which he is not directly interested.
Why should he also wish to save Gilbert and Vaucheray?
Why? Why should he?...” Lupin turned
his head away. “Look out!... Look
out!... There’s a notion passing through
that red-tape-merchant’s skull: a confused
notion which he can’t put into words. Hang
it all, he mustn’t suspect M. Lupin under M.
Nicole! The thing’s complicated enough as
it is, in all conscience!...”
But there was a welcome interruption.
Prasville’s secretary came to say that the audience
would take place in an hour’s time.
“Very well. Thank you,” said Prasville.
“That will do.”
And, resuming the interview, with
no further circumlocution, speaking like a man who
means to put a thing through, he declared:
“I think that we shall be able
to manage it. But, first of all, so that I may
do what I have undertaken to do, I want more precise
information, fuller details. Where was the paper?”
“In the crystal stopper, as we thought,”
said Mme. Mergy.
“And where was the crystal stopper?”
“In an object which Daubrecq
came and fetched, a few days ago, from the writing-desk
in his study in the Square Lamartine, an object which
I took from him yesterday.”
“What sort of object?”
“Simply a packet of tobacco,
Maryland tobacco, which used to lie about on the desk.”
Prasville was petrified. He muttered, guilelessly:
“Oh, if I had only known!
I’ve had my hand on that packet of Maryland a
dozen times! How stupid of me!”
“What does it matter?”
said Clarisse. “The great thing is that
the discovery is made.”
Prasville pulled a face which implied
that the discovery would have been much pleasanter
if he himself had made it. Then he asked:
“So you have the list?”
“Yes.”
“Show it to me.”
And, when Clarisse hesitated, he added:
“Oh, please, don’t be
afraid! The list belongs to you, and I will give
it back to you. But you must understand that I
cannot take the step in question without making certain.”
Clarisse consulted M. Nicole with
a glance which did not escape Prasville. Then
she said:
“Here it is.”
He seized the scrap of paper with
a certain excitement, examined it and almost immediately
said:
“Yes, yes... the secretary’s
writing: I recognize it.... And the signature
of the chairman of the company: the signature
in red.... Besides, I have other proofs....
For instance, the torn piece which completes the left-hand
top corner of this sheet...”
He opened his safe and, from a special
cash-box, produced a tiny piece of paper which he
put against the top left corner:
“That’s right. The
torn edges fit exactly. The proof is undeniable.
All that remains is to verify the make of this foreign-post-paper.”
Clarisse was radiant with delight.
No one would have believed that the most terrible
torture had racked her for weeks and weeks and that
she was still bleeding and quivering from its effects.
While Prasville was holding the paper
against a window-pane, she said to Lupin:
“I insist upon having Gilbert
informed this evening. He must be so awfully
unhappy!”
“Yes,” said Lupin.
“Besides, you can go to his lawyer and tell him.”
She continued:
“And then I must see Gilbert
to-morrow. Prasville can think what he likes.”
“Of course. But he must
first gain his cause at the Elysee.”
“There can’t be any difficulty, can there?”
“No. You saw that he gave way at once.”
Prasville continued his examination
with the aid of a magnifying-glass and compared the
sheet with the scrap of torn paper. Next, he took
from the cash-box some other sheets of letter-paper
and examined one of these by holding it up to the
light:
“That’s done,” he
said. “My mind is made up. Forgive
me, dear friend: it was a very difficult piece
of work.... I passed through various stages.
When all is said, I had my suspicions... and not without
cause...”
“What do you mean?” asked Clarisse.
“One second.... I must give an order first.”
He called his secretary:
“Please telephone at once to
the Elysee, make my apologies and say that I shall
not require the audience, for reasons which I will
explain later.”
He closed the door and returned to
his desk. Clarisse and Lupin stood choking, looking
at him in stupefaction, failing to understand this
sudden change. Was he mad? Was it a trick
on his part? A breach of faith? And was
he refusing to keep his promise, now that he possessed
the list?
He held it out to Clarisse:
“You can have it back.”
“Have it back?”
“And return it to Daubrecq.”
“To Daubrecq?”
“Unless you prefer to burn it.”
“What do you say?”
“I say that, if I were in your place, I would
burn it.”
“Why do you say that? It’s ridiculous!”
“On the contrary, it is very sensible.”
“But why? Why?”
“Why? I will tell you.
The list of the Twenty-seven, as we know for absolutely
certain, was written on a sheet of letter-paper belonging
to the chairman of the Canal Company, of which there
are a few samples in this cash-box. Now all these
samples have as a water-mark a little cross of Lorraine
which is almost invisible, but which can just be seen
in the thickness of the paper when you hold it up
to the light. The sheet which you have brought
me does not contain that little cross of Lorraine.”
The Cross of Lorraine
is a cross with two horizontal lines
or bars across the upper
half of the perpendicular beam.
Translator’s
Note.
Lupin felt a nervous trembling shake
him from head to foot and he dared not turn his eyes
on Clarisse, realizing what a terrible blow this was
to her. He heard her stammer:
“Then are we to suppose... that Daubrecq was
taken in?”
“Not a bit of it!” exclaimed
Prasville. “It is you who have been taken
in, my poor friend. Daubrecq has the real list,
the list which he stole from the dying man’s
safe.”
“But this one...”
“This one is a forgery.”
“A forgery?”
“An undoubted forgery.
It was an admirable piece of cunning on Daubrecq’s
part. Dazzled by the crystal stopper which he
flashed before your eyes, you did nothing but look
for that stopper in which he had stowed away no matter
what, the first bit of paper that came to hand, while
he quietly kept...”
Prasville interrupted himself.
Clarisse was walking up to him with short, stiff steps,
like an automaton. She said:
“Then...”
“Then what, dear friend?”
“You refuse?”
“Certainly, I am obliged to; I have no choice.”
“You refuse to take that step?”
“Look here, how can I do what
you ask? It’s not possible, on the strength
of a valueless document...”
“You won’t do it?...
You won’t do it?... And, to-morrow morning...
in a few hours... Gilbert...”
She was frightfully pale, her face
sunk, like the face of one dying. Her eyes opened
wider and wider and her teeth chattered...
Lupin, fearing the useless and dangerous
words which she was about to utter, seized her by
the shoulders and tried to drag her away. But
she thrust him back with indomitable strength, took
two or three more steps, staggered, as though on the
point of falling, and, suddenly, in a burst of energy
and despair, laid hold of Prasville and screamed:
“You shall go to the Elysee!...
You shall go at once!... You must!... You
must save Gilbert!”
“Please, please, my dear friend, calm yourself...”
She gave a strident laugh:
“Calm myself!... When,
to-morrow morning, Gilbert... Ah, no, no, I am
terrified... it’s appalling.... Oh, run,
you wretch, run! Obtain his pardon!... Don’t
you understand? Gilbert... Gilbert is my
son! My son! My son!”
Prasville gave a cry. The blade
of a knife flashed in Clarisse’s hand and she
raised her arm to strike herself. But the movement
was not completed. M. Nicole caught her arm in
its descent and, taking the knife from Clarisse, reducing
her to helplessness, he said, in a voice that rang
through the room like steel:
“What you are doing is madness!...
When I gave you my oath that I would save him!
You must... live for him... Gilbert shall not
die.... How can he die, when... I gave you
my oath?...”
“Gilbert... my son...” moaned Clarisse.
He clasped her fiercely, drew her
against himself and put his hand over her mouth:
“Enough! Be quiet!...
I entreat you to be quiet.... Gilbert shall not
die...”
With irresistible authority, he dragged
her away like a subdued child that suddenly becomes
obedient; but, at the moment of opening the door,
he turned to Prasville:
“Wait for me here, monsieur,”
he commanded, in an imperative tone. “If
you care about that list of the Twenty-seven, the real
list, wait for me. I shall be back in an hour,
in two hours, at most; and then we will talk business.”
And abruptly, to Clarisse:
“And you, madame, a little
courage yet. I command you to show courage, in
Gilbert’s name.”
He went away, through the passages,
down the stairs, with a jerky step, holding Clarisse
under the arm, as he might have held a lay-figure,
supporting her, carrying her almost. A court-yard,
another court-yard, then the street.
Meanwhile, Prasville, surprised at
first, bewildered by the course of events, was gradually
recovering his composure and thinking. He thought
of that M. Nicole, a mere supernumerary at first, who
played beside Clarisse the part of one of those advisers
to whom we cling in the serious crises of our lives
and who suddenly, shaking off his torpor, appeared
in the full light of day, resolute, masterful, mettlesome,
brimming over with daring, ready to overthrow all the
obstacles that fate placed on his path.
Who was there that was capable of acting thus?
Prasville started. The question
had no sooner occurred to his mind than the answer
flashed on him, with absolute certainty. All the
proofs rose up, each more exact, each more convincing
than the last.
Hurriedly he rang. Hurriedly
he sent for the chief detective-inspector on duty.
And, feverishly:
“Were you in the waiting-room, chief-inspector?”
“Yes, monsieur lé secrétaire-general.”
“Did you see a gentleman and a lady go out?”
“Yes.”
“Would you know the man again?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t lose a moment,
chief-inspector. Take six inspectors with you.
Go to the Place de Clichy. Make inquiries about
a man called Nicole and watch the house. The
Nicole man is on his way back there.”
“And if he comes out, monsieur lé
secrétaire-general?”
“Arrest him. Here’s a warrant.”
He sat down to his desk and wrote a name on a form:
“Here you are, chief-inspector. I will
let the chief-detective know.”
The chief-inspector seemed staggered:
“But you spoke to me of a man
called Nicole, monsieur lé secrétaire-general.”
“Well?”
“The warrant is in the name of Arsène Lupin.”
“Arsène Lupin and the Nicole man are one and
the same individual.”