Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17)

by Maurice Leblanc

  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 Sante 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:

  “ALEXIS DAUBRECQ, 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