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

by Maurice Leblanc

  “No.”

  “Mme. Mergy will kill herself.”

  “No, she won’t.”

  “I tell you she will.”

  “And I tell you she will not.”

  “But she’s tried to, once.”

  “That’s just the reason why she won’t try again.”

  “Well, then...”

  “No.”

  Lupin, after a moment, went on:

  “I expected that. Also, I thought, on my way here, that you would hardly tumble to the story of Dr. Vernes and that I should have to use other methods.”

  “Lupin’s methods.”

  “As you say. I had made up my mind to throw off the mask. You pulled it off for me. Well done you! But that doesn’t change my plans.”

  “Speak.”

  Lupin took from a pocketbook a double sheet of foolscap paper, unfolded it and handed it to Daubrecq, saying:

  “Here is an exact, detailed inventory, with consecutive numbers, of the things removed by my friends and myself from your Villa Marie-Therese on the Lac d’Enghien. As you see, there are one hundred and thirteen items. Of those one hundred and thirteen items, sixty-eight, which have a red cross against them, have been sold and sent to America. The remainder, numbering forty-five, are in my possession... until further orders. They happen to be the pick of the bunch. I offer you them in return for the immediate surrender of the child.”

  Daubrecq could not suppress a movement of surprise:

  “Oho!” he said. “You seem very much bent upon it.”

  “Infinitely,” said Lupin, “for I am persuaded that a longer separation from her son will mean death to Mme. Mergy.”

  “And that upsets you, does it... Lothario?”

  “What!”

  Lupin planted himself in front of the other and repeated:

  “What! What do you mean?”

  “Nothing... Nothing... Something that crossed my mind... Clarisse Mergy is a young woman still and a pretty woman at that.”

  Lupin shrugged his shoulders:

  “You brute!” he mumbled. “You imagine that everybody is like yourself, heartless and pitiless. It takes your breath away, what, to think that a shark like me can waste his time playing the Don Quixote? And you wonder what dirty motive I can have? Don’t try to find out: it’s beyond your powers of perception. Answer me, instead: do you accept?”

  “So you’re serious?” asked Daubrecq, who seemed but little disturbed by Lupin’s contemptuous tone.

  “Absolutely. The forty-five pieces are in a shed, of which I will give you the address, and they will be handed over to you, if you call there, at nine o’clock this evening, with the child.”

  There was no doubt about Daubrecq’s reply. To him, the kidnapping of little Jacques had represented only a means of working upon Clarisse Mergy’s feelings and perhaps also a warning for her to cease the contest upon which she had engaged. But the threat of a suicide must needs show Daubrecq that he was on the wrong track. That being so, why refuse the favourable bargain which Arsène Lupin was now offering him?

  “I accept,” he said.

  “Here’s the address of my shed: 99, Rue Charles-Lafitte, Neuilly. You have only to ring the bell.”

  “And suppose I send Prasville, the secretary-general, instead?”

  “If you send Prasville,” Lupin declared, “the place is so arranged that I shall see him coming and that I shall have time to escape, after setting fire to the trusses of hay and straw which surround and conceal your credence-tables, clocks and Gothic virgins.”

  “But your shed will be burnt down...”

  “I don’t mind that: the police have their eye on it already. I am leaving it in any case.”

  “And how am I to know that this is not a trap?”

  “Begin by receiving the goods and don’t give up the child till afterward. I trust you, you see.”

  “Good,” said Daubrecq; “you’ve foreseen everything. Very well, you shall have the nipper; the fair Clarisse shall live; and we will all be happy. And now, if I may give you a word of advice, it is to pack off as fast as you can.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Eh?”

  “I said, not yet.”

  “But you’re mad! Prasville’s on his way!”

  “He can wait. I’ve not done.”

  “Why, what more do you want? Clarisse shall have her brat. Isn’t that enough for you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “There is another son.”

  “Gilbert.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “I want you to save Gilbert.”

  “What are you saying? I save Gilbert!”

  “You can, if you like; it only means taking a little trouble.” Until that moment Daubrecq had remained quite calm. He now suddenly blazed out and, striking the table with his fist:

  “No,” he cried, “not that! Never! Don’t reckon on me!... No, that would be too idiotic!”

  He walked up and down, in a state of intense excitement, with that queer step of his, which swayed him from right to left on each of his legs, like a wild beast, a heavy, clumsy bear. And, with a hoarse voice and distorted features, he shouted:

  “Let her come here! Let her come and beg for her son’s pardon! But let her come unarmed, not with criminal intentions, like last time! Let her come as a supplicant, as a tamed woman, as a submissive woman, who understands and accepts the situation... Gilbert? Gilbert’s sentence? The scaffold? Why, that is where my strength lies! What! For more than twenty years have I awaited my hour; and, when that hour strikes, when fortune brings me this unhoped-for chance, when I am at last about to know the joy of a full revenge — and such a revenge! — you think that I will give it up, give up the thing which I have been pursuing for twenty years? I save Gilbert? I? For nothing? For love? I, Daubrecq?... No, no, you can’t have studied my features!”

  He laughed, with a fierce and hateful laugh. Visibly, he saw before him, within reach of his hand, the prey which he had been hunting down so long. And Lupin also summoned up the vision of Clarisse, as he had seen her several days before, fainting, already beaten, fatally conquered, because all the hostile powers were in league against her.

  He contained himself and said:

  “Listen to me.”

  And, when Daubrecq moved away impatiently, he took him by the two shoulders, with that superhuman strength which Daubrecq knew, from having felt it in the box at the Vaudeville, and, holding him motionless in his grip, he said:

  “One last word.”

  “You’re wasting your breath,” growled the deputy.

  “One last word. Listen, Daubrecq: forget Mme. Mergy, give up all the nonsensical and imprudent acts which your pride and your passions are making you commit; put all that on one side and think only of your interest...”

  “My interest,” said Daubrecq, jestingly, “always coincides with my pride and with what you call my passions.”

  “Up to the present, perhaps. But not now, not now that I have taken a hand in the business. That constitutes a new factor, which you choose to ignore. You are wrong. Gilbert is my pal. Gilbert is my chum. Gilbert has to be saved from the scaffold. Use your influence to that end, and I swear to you, do you hear, I swear that we will leave you in peace. Gilbert’s safety, that’s all I ask. You will have no more battles to wage with Mme. Mergy, with me; there will be no more traps laid for you. You will be the master, free to act as you please. Gilbert’s safety, Daubrecq! If you refuse...”

  “What then?”

  “If you refuse, it will be war, relentless war; in other words, a certain defeat for you.”

  “Meaning thereby...”

  “Meaning thereby that I shall take the list of the Twenty-seven from you.”

  “Rot! You think so, do you?”

  “I swear it.”

  “What Prasville and all his men, what Clarisse Mergy, what nobody has been able to do, you think that you will do!”

 
“I shall!”

  “And why? By favour of what saint will you succeed where everybody else has failed? There must be a reason?”

  “There is.”

  “What is it?”

  “My name is Arsène Lupin.”

  He had let go of Daubrecq, but held him for a time under the dominion of his authoritative glance and will. At last, Daubrecq drew himself up, gave him a couple of sharp taps on the shoulder and, with the same calm, the same intense obstinacy, said:

  “And my name’s Daubrecq. My whole life has been one desperate battle, one long series of catastrophes and routs in which I spent all my energies until victory came: complete, decisive, crushing, irrevocable victory. I have against me the police, the government, France, the world. What difference do you expect it to make to me if I have M. Arsène Lupin against me into the bargain? I will go further: the more numerous and skilful my enemies, the more cautiously I am obliged to play. And that is why, my dear sir, instead of having you arrested, as I might have done — yes, as I might have done and very easily — I let you remain at large and beg charitably to remind you that you must quit in less than three minutes.”

  “Then the answer is no?”

  “The answer is no.”

  “You won’t do anything for Gilbert?”

  “Yes, I shall continue to do what I have been doing since his arrest — that is to say, to exercise indirect influence with the minister of justice, so that the trial may be hurried on and end in the way in which I want to see it end.”

  “What!” cried Lupin, beside himself with indignation. “It’s because of you, it’s for you...”

  “Yes, it’s for me, Daubrecq; yes, by Jove! I have a trump card, the son’s head, and I am playing it. When I have procured a nice little death-sentence for Gilbert, when the days go by and Gilbert’s petition for a reprieve is rejected by my good offices, you shall see, M. Lupin, that his mummy will drop all her objections to calling herself Mme. Alexis Daubrecq and giving me an unexceptionable pledge of her good-will. That fortunate issue is inevitable, whether you like it or not. It is foredoomed. All I can do for you is to invite you to the wedding and the breakfast. Does that suit you? No? You persist in your sinister designs? Well, good luck, lay your traps, spread your nets, rub up your weapons and grind away at the Complete Foreign-post-paper Burglar’s Handbook. You’ll need it. And now, good-night. The rules of open-handed and disinterested hospitality demand that I should turn you out of doors. Hop it!”

  Lupin remained silent for some time. With his eyes fixed on Daubrecq, he seemed to be taking his adversary’s size, gauging his weight, estimating his physical strength, discussing, in fine, in which exact part to attack him. Daubrecq clenched his fists and worked out his plan of defence to meet the attack when it came.

  Half a minute passed. Lupin put his hand to his hip-pocket. Daubrecq did the same and grasped the handle of his revolver.

  A few seconds more. Coolly, Lupin produced a little gold box of the kind that ladies use for holding sweets, opened it and handed it to Daubrecq:

  “A lozenge?”

  “What’s that?” asked the other, in surprise.

  “Cough-drops.”

  “What for?”

  “For the draught you’re going to feel!”

  And, taking advantage of the momentary fluster into which Daubrecq was thrown by his sally, he quickly took his hat and slipped away.

  “Of course,” he said, as he crossed the hall, “I am knocked into fits. But all the same, that bit of commercial-traveller’s waggery was rather novel, in the circumstances. To expect a pill and receive a cough-drop is by way of being a sort of disappointment. It left the old chimpanzee quite flummoxed.”

  As he closed the gate, a motor-car drove up and a man sprang out briskly, followed by several others.

  Lupin recognized Prasville:

  “Monsieur le secretaire-general,” he muttered, “your humble servant. I have an idea that, some day, fate will bring us face to face: and I am sorry, for your sake; for you do not inspire me with any particular esteem and you have a bad time before you, on that day. Meanwhile, if I were not in such a hurry, I should wait till you leave and I should follow Daubrecq to find out in whose charge he has placed the child whom he is going to hand back to me. But I am in a hurry. Besides, I can’t tell that Daubrecq won’t act by telephone. So let us not waste ourselves in vain efforts, but rather join Victoire, Achille and our precious bag.”

  Two hours later, Lupin, after taking all his measures, was on the lookout in his shed at Neuilly and saw Daubrecq turn out of an adjoining street and walk along with a distrustful air.

  Lupin himself opened the double doors:

  “Your things are in here, monsieur le depute,” he said. “You can go round and look. There is a job-master’s yard next door: you have only to ask for a van and a few men. Where is the child?”

  Daubrecq first inspected the articles and then took Lupin to the Avenue de Neuilly, where two closely veiled old ladies stood waiting with little Jacques.

  Lupin carried the child to his car, where Victoire was waiting for him.

  All this was done swiftly, without useless words and as though the parts had been got by heart and the various movements settled in advance, like so many stage entrances and exits.

  At ten o’clock in the evening Lupin kept his promise and handed little Jacques to his mother. But the doctor had to be hurriedly called in, for the child, upset by all those happenings, showed great signs of excitement and terror. It was more than a fortnight before he was sufficiently recovered to bear the strain of the removal which Lupin considered necessary. Mme. Mergy herself was only just fit to travel when the time came. The journey took place at night, with every possible precaution and under Lupin’s escort.

  He took the mother and son to a little seaside place in Brittany and entrusted them to Victoire’s care and vigilance.

  “At last,” he reflected, when he had seen them settled, “there is no one between the Daubrecq bird and me. He can do nothing more to Mme. Mergy and the kid; and she no longer runs the risk of diverting the struggle through her intervention. By Jingo, we have made blunders enough! First, I have had to disclose myself to Daubrecq. Secondly, I have had to surrender my share of the Enghien movables. True, I shall get those back, sooner or later; of that there is not the least doubt. But, all the same, we are not getting on; and, in a week from now, Gilbert and Vaucheray will be up for trial.”

  What Lupin felt most in the whole business was Daubrecq’s revelation of the whereabouts of the flat. The police had entered his place in the Rue Chateaubriand. The identity of Lupin and Michel Beaumont had been recognized and certain papers discovered; and Lupin, while pursuing his aim, while, at the same time, managing various enterprises on which he had embarked, while avoiding the searches of the police, which were becoming more zealous and persistent than ever, had to set to work and reorganize his affairs throughout on a fresh basis.

  His rage with Daubrecq, therefore, increased in proportion to the worry which the deputy caused him. He had but one longing, to pocket him, as he put it, to have him at his bidding by fair means or foul, to extract his secret from him. He dreamt of tortures fit to unloose the tongue of the most silent of men. The boot, the rack, red-hot pincers, nailed planks: no form of suffering, he thought, was more than the enemy deserved; and the end to be attained justified every means.

  “Oh,” he said to himself, “oh, for a decent bench of inquisitors and a couple of bold executioners!... What a time we should have!”

  Every afternoon the Growler and the Masher watched the road which Daubrecq took between the Square Lamartine, the Chamber of Deputies and his club. Their instructions were to choose the most deserted street and the most favourable moment and, one evening, to hustle him into a motor-car.

  Lupin, on his side, got ready an old building, standing in the middle of a large garden, not far from Paris, which presented all the necessary conditions of safety and isolation and which he cal
led the Monkey’s Cage.

  Unfortunately, Daubrecq must have suspected something, for every time, so to speak, he changed his route, or took the underground or a tram; and the cage remained unoccupied.

  Lupin devised another plan. He sent to Marseilles for one of his associates, an elderly retired grocer called Brindebois, who happened to live in Daubrecq’s electoral district and interested himself in politics. Old Brindebois wrote to Daubrecq from Marseilles, announcing his visit. Daubrecq gave this important constituent a hearty welcome, and a dinner was arranged for the following week.

  The elector suggested a little restaurant on the left bank of the Seine, where the food, he said, was something wonderful. Daubrecq accepted.

  This was what Lupin wanted. The proprietor of the restaurant was one of his friends. The attempt, which was to take place on the following Thursday, was this time bound to succeed.

  Meanwhile, on the Monday of the same week, the trial of Gilbert and Vaucheray opened.

  The reader will remember — and the case took place too recently for me to recapitulate its details — the really incomprehensible partiality which the presiding judge showed in his cross-examination of Gilbert. The thing was noticed and severely criticised at the time. Lupin recognized Daubrecq’s hateful influence.

  The attitude observed by the two prisoners differed greatly. Vaucheray was gloomy, silent, hard-faced. He cynically, in curt, sneering, almost defiant phrases, admitted the crimes of which he had formerly been guilty. But, with an inconsistency which puzzled everybody except Lupin, he denied any participation in the murder of Leonard the valet and violently accused Gilbert. His object, in thus linking his fate with Gilbert’s, was to force Lupin to take identical measures for the rescue of both his accomplices.

  Gilbert, on the other hand, whose frank countenance and dreamy, melancholy eyes won every sympathy, was unable to protect himself against the traps laid for him by the judge or to counteract Vaucheray’s lies. He burst into tears, talked too much, or else did not talk when he should have talked. Moreover, his counsel, one of the Leaders of the bar, was taken ill at the last moment — and here again Lupin saw the hand of Daubrecq — and he was replaced by a junior who spoke badly, muddied the whole case, set the jury against him and failed to wipe out the impression produced by the speeches of the advocate-general and of Vaucheray’s counsel.