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

by Maurice Leblanc

  “What reason?”

  “This, that Baroness Repstein has been murdered....”

  “Murdered!... The baroness!... But you’re mad!”

  “Murdered ... and probably that same evening.”

  “I tell you again, you are mad! How can the baroness have been murdered, when the police are following her tracks, so to speak, step by step?”

  “They are following the tracks of another woman.”

  “What woman?”

  “The murderer’s accomplice.”

  “And who is the murderer?”

  “The same man who, for the last fortnight, knowing that Lavernoux, through the situation which he occupied in this house, had discovered the truth, kept him imprisoned, forced him to silence, threatened him, terrorized him; the same man who, finding Lavernoux in the act of communicating with a friend, made away with him in cold blood by stabbing him to the heart.”

  “The doctor, therefore?”

  “Yes.”

  “But who is this doctor? Who is this malevolent genius, this infernal being who appears and disappears, who slays in the dark and whom nobody suspects?”

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “No.”

  “And do you want to know?”

  “Do I want to know?... Why, speak, man, speak!... You know where he is hiding?”

  “Yes.”

  “In this house?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it is he whom the police are after?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I know him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is it?”

  “You!”

  “I!...”

  Lupin had not been more than ten minutes with the baron; and the duel was commencing. The accusation was hurled, definitely, violently, implacably.

  Lupin repeated:

  “You yourself, got up in a false beard and a pair of spectacles, bent in two, like an old man. In short, you, Baron Repstein; and it is you for a very good reason, of which nobody has thought, which is that, if it was not you who contrived the whole plot, the case becomes inexplicable. Whereas, taking you as the criminal, you as murdering the baroness in order to get rid of her and run through those millions with another woman, you as murdering Lavernoux, your agent, in order to suppress an unimpeachable witness, oh, then the whole case is explained! Well, is it pretty clear? And are not you yourself convinced?”

  The baron, who, throughout this conversation, had stood bending over his visitor, waiting for each of his words with feverish avidity, now drew himself up and looked at Lupin as though he undoubtedly had to do with a madman. When Lupin had finished speaking, the baron stepped back two or three paces, seemed on the point of uttering words which he ended by not saying, and then, without taking his eyes from his strange visitor, went to the fireplace and rang the bell.

  Lupin did not make a movement. He waited smiling.

  The butler entered. His master said:

  “You can go to bed, Antoine. I will let this gentleman out.”

  “Shall I put out the lights, sir?”

  “Leave a light in the hall.”

  Antoine left the room and the baron, after taking a revolver from his desk, at once came back to Lupin, put the weapon in his pocket and said, very calmly:

  “You must excuse this little precaution, sir. I am obliged to take it in case you should be mad, though that does not seem likely. No, you are not mad. But you have come here with an object which I fail to grasp; and you have sprung upon me an accusation of so astounding a character that I am curious to know the reason. I have experienced so much disappointment and undergone so much suffering that an outrage of this kind leaves me indifferent. Continue, please.”

  His voice shook with emotion and his sad eyes seemed moist with tears.

  Lupin shuddered. Had he made a mistake? Was the surmise which his intuition had suggested to him and which was based upon a frail groundwork of slight facts, was this surmise wrong?

  His attention was caught by a detail: through the opening in the baron’s waistcoat he saw the point of the pin fixed in the tie and was thus able to realize the unusual length of the pin. Moreover, the gold stem was triangular and formed a sort of miniature dagger, very thin and very delicate, yet formidable in an expert hand.

  And Lupin had no doubt but that the pin attached to that magnificent pearl was the weapon which had pierced the heart of the unfortunate M. Lavernoux.

  He muttered:

  “You’re jolly clever, monsieur le baron!”

  The other, maintaining a rather scornful gravity, kept silence, as though he did not understand and as though waiting for the explanation to which he felt himself entitled. And, in spite of everything, this impassive attitude worried Arsène Lupin. Nevertheless, his conviction was so profound and, besides, he had staked so much on the adventure that he repeated:

  “Yes, jolly clever, for it is evident that the baroness only obeyed your orders in realizing your securities and also in borrowing the princess’s jewels on the pretence of buying them. And it is evident that the person who walked out of your house with a bag was not your wife, but an accomplice, that chorus-girl probably, and that it is your chorus-girl who is deliberately allowing herself to be chased across the continent by our worthy Ganimard. And I look upon the trick as marvellous. What does the woman risk, seeing that it is the baroness who is being looked for? And how could they look for any other woman than the baroness, seeing that you have promised a reward of two hundred thousand francs to the person who finds the baroness?... Oh, that two hundred thousand francs lodged with a solicitor: what a stroke of genius! It has dazzled the police! It has thrown dust in the eyes of the most clear-sighted! A gentleman who lodges two hundred thousand francs with a solicitor is a gentleman who speaks the truth.... So they go on hunting the baroness! And they leave you quietly to settle your affairs, to sell your stud and your two houses to the highest bidder and to prepare your flight! Heavens, what a joke!”

  The baron did not wince. He walked up to Lupin and asked, without abandoning his imperturbable coolness:

  “Who are you?”

  Lupin burst out laughing.

  “What can it matter who I am? Take it that I am an emissary of fate, looming out of the darkness for your destruction!”

  He sprang from his chair, seized the baron by the shoulder and jerked out:

  “Yes, for your destruction, my bold baron! Listen to me! Your wife’s three millions, almost all the princess’s jewels, the money you received to-day from the sale of your stud and your real estate: it’s all there, in your pocket, or in that safe. Your flight is prepared. Look, I can see the leather of your portmanteau behind that hanging. The papers on your desk are in order. This very night, you would have done a guy. This very night, disguised beyond recognition, after taking all your precautions, you would have joined your chorus-girl, the creature for whose sake you have committed murder, that same Nelly Darbal, no doubt, whom Ganimard arrested in Belgium. But for one sudden, unforeseen obstacle: the police, the twelve detectives who, thanks to Lavernoux’s revelations, have been posted under your windows. They’ve cooked your goose, old chap!... Well, I’ll save you. A word through the telephone; and, by three or four o’clock in the morning, twenty of my friends will have removed the obstacle, polished off the twelve detectives, and you and I will slip away quietly. My conditions? Almost nothing; a trifle to you: we share the millions and the jewels. Is it a bargain?”

  He was leaning over the baron, thundering at him with irresistible energy. The baron whispered:

  “I’m beginning to understand. It’s blackmail....”

  “Blackmail or not, call it what you please, my boy, but you’ve got to go through with it and do as I say. And don’t imagine that I shall give way at the last moment. Don’t say to yourself, ‘Here’s a gentleman whom the fear of the police will cause to think twice. If I run a big risk in refusing, he also will be risking the handcuffs, the cells and the rest of it, seeing
that we are both being hunted down like wild beasts.’ That would be a mistake, monsieur le baron. I can always get out of it. It’s a question of yourself, of yourself alone.... Your money or your life, my lord! Share and share alike ... if not, the scaffold! Is it a bargain?”

  A quick movement. The baron released himself, grasped his revolver and fired.

  But Lupin was prepared for the attack, the more so as the baron’s face had lost its assurance and gradually, under the slow impulse of rage and fear, acquired an expression of almost bestial ferocity that heralded the rebellion so long kept under control.

  He fired twice. Lupin first flung himself to one side and then dived at the baron’s knees, seized him by both legs and brought him to the ground. The baron freed himself with an effort. The two enemies rolled over in each other’s grip; and a stubborn, crafty, brutal, savage struggle followed.

  Suddenly, Lupin felt a pain at his chest:

  “You villain!” he yelled. “That’s your Lavernoux trick; the tie-pin!”

  Stiffening his muscles with a desperate effort, he overpowered the baron and clutched him by the throat victorious at last and omnipotent.

  “You ass!” he cried. “If you hadn’t shown your cards, I might have thrown up the game! You have such a look of the honest man about you! But what a biceps, my lord!... I thought for a moment.... But it’s all over, now!... Come, my friend, hand us the pin and look cheerful.... No, that’s what I call pulling a face.... I’m holding you too tight, perhaps? My lord’s at his last gasp?... Come, be good!... That’s it, just a wee bit of string round the wrists; do you allow me?... Why, you and I are agreeing like two brothers! It’s touching!... At heart, you know, I’m rather fond of you.... And now, my bonnie lad, mind yourself! And a thousand apologies!...”

  Half raising himself, with all his strength he caught the other a terrible blow in the pit of the stomach. The baron gave a gurgle and lay stunned and unconscious.

  “That comes of having a deficient sense of logic, my friend,” said Lupin. “I offered you half your money. Now I’ll give you none at all ... provided I know where to find any of it. For that’s the main thing. Where has the beggar hidden his dust? In the safe? By George, it’ll be a tough job! Luckily, I have all the night before me....”

  He began to feel in the baron’s pockets, came upon a bunch of keys, first made sure that the portmanteau behind the curtain held no papers or jewels, and then went to the safe.

  But, at that moment, he stopped short: he heard a noise somewhere. The servants? Impossible. Their attics were on the top floor. He listened. The noise came from below. And, suddenly, he understood: the detectives, who had heard the two shots, were banging at the front door, as was their duty, without waiting for daybreak. Then an electric bell rang, which Lupin recognized as that in the hall:

  “By Jupiter!” he said. “Pretty work! Here are these jokers coming ... and just as we were about to gather the fruits of our laborious efforts! Tut, tut, Lupin, keep cool! What’s expected of you? To open a safe, of which you don’t know the secret, in thirty seconds. That’s a mere trifle to lose your head about! Come, all you have to do is to discover the secret! How many letters are there in the word? Four?”

  He went on thinking, while talking and listening to the noise outside. He double-locked the door of the outer room and then came back to the safe:

  “Four ciphers.... Four letters ... four letters.... Who can lend me a hand?... Who can give me just a tiny hint?... Who? Why, Lavernoux, of course! That good Lavernoux, seeing that he took the trouble to indulge in optical telegraphy at the risk of his life.... Lord, what a fool I am!... Why, of course, why, of course, that’s it!... By Jove, this is too exciting!... Lupin, you must count ten and suppress that distracted beating of your heart. If not, it means bad work.”

  He counted ten and, now quite calm, knelt in front of the safe. He turned the four knobs with careful attention. Next, he examined the bunch of keys, selected one of them, then another, and attempted, in vain, to insert them in the lock:

  “There’s luck in odd numbers,” he muttered, trying a third key. “Victory! This is the right one! Open Sesame, good old Sesame, open!”

  The lock turned. The door moved on its hinges. Lupin pulled it to him, after taking out the bunch of keys:

  “The millions are ours,” he said. “Baron, I forgive you!”

  And then he gave a single bound backward, hiccoughing with fright. His legs staggered beneath him. The keys jingled together in his fevered hand with a sinister sound. And, for twenty, for thirty seconds, despite the din that was being raised and the electric bells that kept ringing through the house, he stood there, wild-eyed, gazing at the most horrible, the most abominable sight: a woman’s body, half-dressed, bent in two in the safe, crammed in, like an over-large parcel ... and fair hair hanging down ... and blood ... clots of blood ... and livid flesh, blue in places, decomposing, flaccid.

  “The baroness!” he gasped. “The baroness!... Oh, the monster!...”

  He roused himself from his torpor, suddenly, to spit in the murderer’s face and pound him with his heels:

  “Take that, you wretch!... Take that, you villain!... And, with it, the scaffold, the bran-basket!...”

  Meanwhile, shouts came from the upper floors in reply to the detectives’ ringing. Lupin heard footsteps scurrying down the stairs. It was time to think of beating a retreat.

  In reality, this did not trouble him greatly. During his conversation with the baron, the enemy’s extraordinary coolness had given him the feeling that there must be a private outlet. Besides, how could the baron have begun the fight, if he were not sure of escaping the police?

  Lupin went into the next room. It looked out on the garden. At the moment when the detectives were entering the house, he flung his legs over the balcony and let himself down by a rain-pipe. He walked round the building. On the opposite side was a wall lined with shrubs. He slipped in between the shrubs and the wall and at once found a little door which he easily opened with one of the keys on the bunch. All that remained for him to do was to walk across a yard and pass through the empty rooms of a lodge; and in a few moments he found himself in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Of course — and this he had reckoned on — the police had not provided for this secret outlet.

  “Well, what do you think of Baron Repstein?” cried Lupin, after giving me all the details of that tragic night. “What a dirty scoundrel! And how it teaches one to distrust appearances! I swear to you, the fellow looked a thoroughly honest man!”

  “But what about the millions?” I asked. “The princess’s jewels?”

  “They were in the safe. I remember seeing the parcel.”

  “Well?”

  “They are there still.”

  “Impossible!”

  “They are, upon my word! I might tell you that I was afraid of the detectives, or else plead a sudden attack of delicacy. But the truth is simpler ... and more prosaic: the smell was too awful!...”

  “What?”

  “Yes, my dear fellow, the smell that came from that safe ... from that coffin.... No, I couldn’t do it ... my head swam.... Another second and I should have been ill.... Isn’t it silly?... Look, this is all I got from my expedition: the tie-pin.... The bed-rock value of the pearl is thirty thousand francs.... But all the same, I feel jolly well annoyed. What a sell!”

  “One more question,” I said. “The word that opened the safe!”

  “Well?”

  “How did you guess it?”

  “Oh, quite easily! In fact, I am surprised that I didn’t think of it sooner.”

  “Well, tell me.”

  “It was contained in the revelations telegraphed by that poor Lavernoux.”

  “What?”

  “Just think, my dear chap, the mistakes in spelling....”

  “The mistakes in spelling?”

  “Why, of course! They were deliberate. Surely, you don’t imagine that the agent, the private secretary of the baron — who was a
company-promoter, mind you, and a racing-man — did not know English better than to spell ‘necessery’ with an ’e,’ ‘atack’ with one ‘t,’ ‘ennemy’ with two ‘n’s’ and ‘prudance’ with an ‘a’! The thing struck me at once. I put the four letters together and got ‘Etna,’ the name of the famous horse.”

  “And was that one word enough?”

  “Of course! It was enough to start with, to put me on the scent of the Repstein case, of which all the papers were full, and, next, to make me guess that it was the key-word of the safe, because, on the one hand, Lavernoux knew the gruesome contents of the safe and, on the other, he was denouncing the baron. And it was in the same way that I was led to suppose that Lavernoux had a friend in the street, that they both frequented the same café, that they amused themselves by working out the problems and cryptograms in the illustrated papers and that they had contrived a way of exchanging telegrams from window to window.”

  “That makes it all quite simple!” I exclaimed.

  “Very simple. And the incident once more shows that, in the discovery of crimes, there is something much more valuable than the examination of facts, than observations, deductions, inferences and all that stuff and nonsense. What I mean is, as I said before, intuition ... intuition and intelligence.... And Arsène Lupin, without boasting, is deficient in neither one nor the other!...”

  THE WEDDING-RING

  YVONNE D’ORIGNY KISSED her son and told him to be good:

  “You know your grandmother d’Origny is not very fond of children. Now that she has sent for you to come and see her, you must show her what a sensible little boy you are.” And, turning to the governess, “Don’t forget, Fräulein, to bring him home immediately after dinner.... Is monsieur still in the house?”

  “Yes, madame, monsieur le comte is in his study.”

  As soon as she was alone, Yvonne d’Origny walked to the window to catch a glimpse of her son as he left the house. He was out in the street in a moment, raised his head and blew her a kiss, as was his custom every day. Then the governess took his hand with, as Yvonne remarked to her surprise, a movement of unusual violence. Yvonne leant further out of the window and, when the boy reached the corner of the boulevard, she suddenly saw a man step out of a motor-car and go up to him. The man, in whom she recognized Bernard, her husband’s confidential servant, took the child by the arm, made both him and the governess get into the car, and ordered the chauffeur to drive off.