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

by Maurice Leblanc

  She had spoken slowly, without embarrassment, and Velmont did not doubt for a second that she was telling the absolute truth. He kept silent; and she, becoming anxious again, asked:

  “Do you suppose ... that my husband ...?”

  He took her hand and, while examining the plain gold ring, said:

  “The puzzle lies here. Your husband, I don’t know how, knows of the substitution of one ring for the other. His mother will be here at twelve o’clock. In the presence of witnesses, he will compel you to take off your ring; and, in this way, he will obtain the approval of his mother and, at the same time, will be able to obtain his divorce, because he will have the proof for which he was seeking.”

  “I am lost!” she moaned. “I am lost!”

  “On the contrary, you are saved! Give me that ring ... and presently he will find another there, another which I will send you, to reach you before twelve, and which will bear the date of the 23rd of October. So....”

  He suddenly broke off. While he was speaking, Yvonne’s hand had turned ice-cold in his; and, raising his eyes, he saw that the young woman was pale, terribly pale:

  “What’s the matter? I beseech you ...”

  She yielded to a fit of mad despair:

  “This is the matter, that I am lost!... This is the matter, that I can’t get the ring off! It has grown too small for me!... Do you understand?... It made no difference and I did not give it a thought.... But to-day ... this proof ... this accusation.... Oh, what torture!... Look ... it forms part of my finger ... it has grown into my flesh ... and I can’t ... I can’t....”

  She pulled at the ring, vainly, with all her might, at the risk of injuring herself. But the flesh swelled up around the ring; and the ring did not budge.

  “Oh!” she cried, seized with an idea that terrified her. “I remember ... the other night ... a nightmare I had.... It seemed to me that some one entered my room and caught hold of my hand.... And I could not wake up.... It was he! It was he! He had put me to sleep, I was sure of it ... and he was looking at the ring.... And presently he will pull it off before his mother’s eyes.... Ah, I understand everything: that working jeweller!... He will cut it from my hand to-morrow.... You see, you see.... I am lost!...”

  She hid her face in her hands and began to weep. But, amid the silence, the clock struck once ... and twice ... and yet once more. And Yvonne drew herself up with a jerk:

  “There he is!” she cried. “He is coming!... It is three o’clock!... Let us go!...”

  She grabbed at her cloak and ran to the door ... Velmont barred the way and, in a masterful tone:

  “You shall not go!”

  “My son.... I want to see him, to take him back....”

  “You don’t even know where he is!”

  “I want to go.”

  “You shall not go!... It would be madness....”

  He took her by the wrists. She tried to release herself; and Velmont had to employ a little force to overcome her resistance. In the end, he succeeded in getting her back to the sofa, then in laying her at full length and, at once, without heeding her lamentations, he took the canvas strips and fastened her wrists and ankles:

  “Yes,” he said, “It would be madness! Who would have set you free? Who would have opened that door for you? An accomplice? What an argument against you and what a pretty use your husband would make of it with his mother!... And, besides, what’s the good? To run away means accepting divorce ... and what might that not lead to?... You must stay here....”

  She sobbed:

  “I’m frightened.... I’m frightened ... this ring burns me.... Break it.... Take it away.... Don’t let him find it!”

  “And if it is not found on your finger, who will have broken it? Again an accomplice.... No, you must face the music ... and face it boldly, for I answer for everything.... Believe me ... I answer for everything.... If I have to tackle the Comtesse d’Origny bodily and thus delay the interview.... If I had to come myself before noon ... it is the real wedding-ring that shall be taken from your finger — that I swear! — and your son shall be restored to you.”

  Swayed and subdued, Yvonne instinctively held out her hands to the bonds. When he stood up, she was bound as she had been before.

  He looked round the room to make sure that no trace of his visit remained. Then he stooped over the countess again and whispered:

  “Think of your son and, whatever happens, fear nothing.... I am watching over you.”

  She heard him open and shut the door of the boudoir and, a few minutes later, the hall-door.

  At half-past three, a motor-cab drew up. The door downstairs was slammed again; and, almost immediately after, Yvonne saw her husband hurry in, with a furious look in his eyes. He ran up to her, felt to see if she was still fastened and, snatching her hand, examined the ring. Yvonne fainted....

  She could not tell, when she woke, how long she had slept. But the broad light of day was filling the boudoir; and she perceived, at the first movement which she made, that her bonds were cut. Then she turned her head and saw her husband standing beside her, looking at her:

  “My son ... my son ...” she moaned. “I want my son....”

  He replied, in a voice of which she felt the jeering insolence:

  “Our son is in a safe place. And, for the moment, it’s a question not of him, but of you. We are face to face with each other, probably for the last time, and the explanation between us will be a very serious one. I must warn you that it will take place before my mother. Have you any objection?”

  Yvonne tried to hide her agitation and answered:

  “None at all.”

  “Can I send for her?”

  “Yes. Leave me, in the meantime. I shall be ready when she comes.”

  “My mother is here.”

  “Your mother is here?” cried Yvonne, in dismay, remembering Horace Velmont’s promise.

  “What is there to astonish you in that?”

  “And is it now ... is it at once that you want to ...?

  “Yes.”

  “Why?... Why not this evening?... Why not to-morrow?”

  “To-day and now,” declared the count. “A rather curious incident happened in the course of last night, an incident which I cannot account for and which decided me to hasten the explanation. Don’t you want something to eat first?”

  “No ... no....”

  “Then I will go and fetch my mother.”

  He turned to Yvonne’s bedroom. Yvonne glanced at the clock. It marked twenty-five minutes to eleven!

  “Ah!” she said, with a shiver of fright.

  Twenty-five minutes to eleven! Horace Velmont would not save her and nobody in the world and nothing in the world would save her, for there was no miracle that could place the wedding-ring upon her finger.

  The count, returning with the Comtesse d’Origny, asked her to sit down. She was a tall, lank, angular woman, who had always displayed a hostile feeling to Yvonne. She did not even bid her daughter-in-law good-morning, showing that her mind was made up as regards the accusation:

  “I don’t think,” she said, “that we need speak at length. In two words, my son maintains....”

  “I don’t maintain, mother,” said the count, “I declare. I declare on my oath that, three months ago, during the holidays, the upholsterer, when laying the carpet in this room and the boudoir, found the wedding-ring which I gave my wife lying in a crack in the floor. Here is the ring. The date of the 23rd of October is engraved inside.”

  “Then,” said the countess, “the ring which your wife carries....”

  “That is another ring, which she ordered in exchange for the real one. Acting on my instructions, Bernard, my man, after long searching, ended by discovering in the outskirts of Paris, where he now lives, the little jeweller to whom she went. This man remembers perfectly and is willing to bear witness that his customer did not tell him to engrave a date, but a name. He has forgotten the name, but the man who used to work with him in his shop may b
e able to remember it. This working jeweller has been informed by letter that I required his services and he replied yesterday, placing himself at my disposal. Bernard went to fetch him at nine o’clock this morning. They are both waiting in my study.”

  He turned to his wife:

  “Will you give me that ring of your own free will?”

  “You know,” she said, “from the other night, that it won’t come off my finger.”

  “In that case, can I have the man up? He has the necessary implements with him.”

  “Yes,” she said, in a voice faint as a whisper.

  She was resigned. She conjured up the future as in a vision: the scandal, the decree of divorce pronounced against herself, the custody of the child awarded to the father; and she accepted this, thinking that she would carry off her son, that she would go with him to the ends of the earth and that the two of them would live alone together and happy....

  Her mother-in-law said:

  “You have been very thoughtless, Yvonne.”

  Yvonne was on the point of confessing to her and asking for her protection. But what was the good? How could the Comtesse d’Origny possibly believe her innocent? She made no reply.

  Besides, the count at once returned, followed by his servant and by a man carrying a bag of tools under his arm.

  And the count said to the man:

  “You know what you have to do?”

  “Yes,” said the workman. “It’s to cut a ring that’s grown too small.... That’s easily done.... A touch of the nippers....”

  “And then you will see,” said the count, “if the inscription inside the ring was the one you engraved.”

  Yvonne looked at the clock. It was ten minutes to eleven. She seemed to hear, somewhere in the house, a sound of voices raised in argument; and, in spite of herself, she felt a thrill of hope. Perhaps Velmont has succeeded.... But the sound was renewed; and she perceived that it was produced by some costermongers passing under her window and moving farther on.

  It was all over. Horace Velmont had been unable to assist her. And she understood that, to recover her child, she must rely upon her own strength, for the promises of others are vain.

  She made a movement of recoil. She had felt the workman’s heavy hand on her hand; and that hateful touch revolted her.

  The man apologized, awkwardly. The count said to his wife:

  “You must make up your mind, you know.”

  Then she put out her slim and trembling hand to the workman, who took it, turned it over and rested it on the table, with the palm upward. Yvonne felt the cold steel. She longed to die, then and there; and, at once attracted by that idea of death, she thought of the poisons which she would buy and which would send her to sleep almost without her knowing it.

  The operation did not take long. Inserted on the slant, the little steel pliers pushed back the flesh, made room for themselves and bit the ring. A strong effort ... and the ring broke. The two ends had only to be separated to remove the ring from the finger. The workman did so.

  The count exclaimed, in triumph:

  “At last! Now we shall see!... The proof is there! And we are all witnesses....”

  He snatched up the ring and looked at the inscription. A cry of amazement escaped him. The ring bore the date of his marriage to Yvonne: “23rd of October”!...

  We were sitting on the terrace at Monte Carlo. Lupin finished his story, lit a cigarette and calmly puffed the smoke into the blue air.

  I said:

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Why, the end of the story....”

  “The end of the story? But what other end could there be?”

  “Come ... you’re joking ...”

  “Not at all. Isn’t that enough for you? The countess is saved. The count, not possessing the least proof against her, is compelled by his mother to forego the divorce and to give up the child. That is all. Since then, he has left his wife, who is living happily with her son, a fine lad of sixteen.”

  “Yes ... yes ... but the way in which the countess was saved?”

  Lupin burst out laughing:

  “My dear old chap” — Lupin sometimes condescends to address me in this affectionate manner— “my dear old chap, you may be rather smart at relating my exploits, but, by Jove, you do want to have the i’s dotted for you! I assure you, the countess did not ask for explanations!”

  “Very likely. But there’s no pride about me,” I added, laughing. “Dot those i’s for me, will you?”

  He took out a five-franc piece and closed his hand over it.

  “What’s in my hand?”

  “A five-franc piece.”

  He opened his hand. The five-franc piece was gone.

  “You see how easy it is! A working jeweller, with his nippers, cuts a ring with a date engraved upon it: 23rd of October. It’s a simple little trick of sleight-of-hand, one of many which I have in my bag. By Jove, I didn’t spend six months with Dickson, the conjurer, for nothing!”

  “But then ...?”

  “Out with it!”

  “The working jeweller?”

  “Was Horace Velmont! Was good old Lupin! Leaving the countess at three o’clock in the morning, I employed the few remaining minutes before the husband’s return to have a look round his study. On the table I found the letter from the working jeweller. The letter gave me the address. A bribe of a few louis enabled me to take the workman’s place; and I arrived with a wedding-ring ready cut and engraved. Hocus-pocus! Pass!... The count couldn’t make head or tail of it.”

  “Splendid!” I cried. And I added, a little chaffingly, in my turn, “But don’t you think that you were humbugged a bit yourself, on this occasion?”

  “Oh! And by whom, pray?”

  “By the countess?”

  “In what way?”

  “Hang it all, that name engraved as a talisman!... The mysterious Adonis who loved her and suffered for her sake!... All that story seems very unlikely; and I wonder whether, Lupin though you be, you did not just drop upon a pretty love-story, absolutely genuine and ... none too innocent.”

  Lupin looked at me out of the corner of his eye:

  “No,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  “If the countess made a misstatement in telling me that she knew that man before her marriage — and that he was dead — and if she really did love him in her secret heart, I, at least, have a positive proof that it was an ideal love and that he did not suspect it.”

  “And where is the proof?”

  “It is inscribed inside the ring which I myself broke on the countess’s finger ... and which I carry on me. Here it is. You can read the name she had engraved on it.”

  He handed me the ring. I read:

  “Horace Velmont.”

  There was a moment of silence between Lupin and myself; and, noticing it, I also observed on his face a certain emotion, a tinge of melancholy.

  I resumed:

  “What made you tell me this story ... to which you have often alluded in my presence?”

  “What made me ...?”

  He drew my attention to a woman, still exceedingly handsome, who was passing on a young man’s arm. She saw Lupin and bowed.

  “It’s she,” he whispered. “She and her son.”

  “Then she recognized you?”

  “She always recognizes me, whatever my disguise.”

  “But since the burglary at the Château de Thibermesnil, the police have identified the two names of Arsène Lupin and Horace Velmont.”

  “Yes.”

  “Therefore she knows who you are.”

  “Yes.”

  “And she bows to you?” I exclaimed, in spite of myself.

  He caught me by the arm and, fiercely:

  “Do you think that I am Lupin to her? Do you think that I am a burglar in her eyes, a rogue, a cheat?... Why, I might be the lowest of miscreants, I might be a murderer even ... and still she would bow to me!”

 
“Why? Because she loved you once?”

  “Rot! That would be an additional reason, on the contrary, why she should now despise me.”

  “What then?”

  “I am the man who gave her back her son!”

  THE SIGN OF THE SHADOW

  “I RECEIVED YOUR telegram and here I am,” said a gentleman with a grey moustache, who entered my study, dressed in a dark-brown frock-coat and a wide-brimmed hat, with a red ribbon in his buttonhole. “What’s the matter?”

  Had I not been expecting Arsène Lupin, I should certainly never have recognized him in the person of this old half-pay officer:

  “What’s the matter?” I echoed. “Oh, nothing much: a rather curious coincidence, that’s all. And, as I know that you would just as soon clear up a mystery as plan one....”

  “Well?”

  “You seem in a great hurry!”

  “I am ... unless the mystery in question is worth putting myself out for. So let us get to the point.”

  “Very well. Just begin by casting your eye on this little picture, which I picked up, a week or two ago, in a grimy old shop on the other side of the river. I bought it for the sake of its Empire frame, with the palm-leaf ornaments on the mouldings ... for the painting is execrable.”

  “Execrable, as you say,” said Lupin, after he had examined it, “but the subject itself is rather nice. That corner of an old courtyard, with its rotunda of Greek columns, its sun-dial and its fish-pond and that ruined well with the Renascence roof and those stone steps and stone benches: all very picturesque.”

  “And genuine,” I added. “The picture, good or bad, has never been taken out of its Empire frame. Besides, it is dated.... There, in the left-hand bottom corner: those red figures, 15. 4. 2, which obviously stand for 15 April, 1802.”

  “I dare say ... I dare say.... But you were speaking of a coincidence and, so far, I fail to see....”

  I went to a corner of my study, took a telescope, fixed it on its stand and pointed it, through the open window, at the open window of a little room facing my flat, on the other side of the street. And I asked Lupin to look through it.