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

by Maurice Leblanc

  Dr. Guéroult now took a sip from the cup;

  “Faugh!” he exclaimed, spitting it out again. “There’s no mistake about it....”

  Lupin, on his side, was examining the bottle containing the medicine; and he asked:

  “Where is this bottle kept in the daytime?”

  But Jeanne was unable to answer. She had put her hand to her heart and, wan-faced, with staring eyes, seemed to be suffering great pain:

  “It hurts ... it hurts,” she stammered.

  The two men quickly carried her to her room and laid her on the bed:

  “She ought to have an emetic,” said Lupin.

  “Open the cupboard,” said the doctor. “You’ll see a medicine-case.... Have you got it?... Take out one of those little tubes.... Yes, that one.... And now some hot water.... You’ll find some on the tea-tray in the other room.”

  Jeanne’s own maid came running up in answer to the bell. Lupin told her that Mlle. Darcieux had been taken unwell, for some unknown reason.

  He next returned to the little dining-room, inspected the sideboard and the cupboards, went down to the kitchen and pretended that the doctor had sent him to ask about M. Darcieux’s diet. Without appearing to do so, he catechized the cook, the butler, and Baptiste, the lodge-keeper, who had his meals at the manor-house with the servants. Then he went back to the doctor:

  “Well?”

  “She’s asleep.”

  “Any danger?”

  “No. Fortunately, she had only taken two or three sips. But this is the second time to-day that you have saved her life, as the analysis of this bottle will show.”

  “Quite superfluous to make an analysis, doctor. There is no doubt about the fact that there has been an attempt at poisoning.”

  “By whom?”

  “I can’t say. But the demon who is engineering all this business clearly knows the ways of the house. He comes and goes as he pleases, walks about in the park, files the dog’s chain, mixes poison with the food and, in short, moves and acts precisely as though he were living the very life of her — or rather of those — whom he wants to put away.”

  “Ah! You really believe that M. Darcieux is threatened with the same danger?”

  “I have not a doubt of it.”

  “Then it must be one of the servants? But that is most unlikely! Do you think ...?”

  “I think nothing, doctor. I know nothing. All I can say is that the situation is most tragic and that we must be prepared for the worst. Death is here, doctor, shadowing the people in this house; and it will soon strike at those whom it is pursuing.”

  “What’s to be done?”

  “Watch, doctor. Let us pretend that we are alarmed about M. Darcieux’s health and spend the night in here. The bedrooms of both the father and daughter are close by. If anything happens, we are sure to hear.”

  There was an easy-chair in the room. They arranged to sleep in it turn and turn about.

  In reality, Lupin slept for only two or three hours. In the middle of the night he left the room, without disturbing his companion, carefully looked round the whole of the house and walked out through the principal gate.

  He reached Paris on his motor-cycle at nine o’clock in the morning. Two of his friends, to whom he telephoned on the road, met him there. They all three spent the day in making searches which Lupin had planned out beforehand.

  He set out again hurriedly at six o’clock; and never, perhaps, as he told me subsequently, did he risk his life with greater temerity than in his breakneck ride, at a mad rate of speed, on a foggy December evening, with the light of his lamp hardly able to pierce through the darkness.

  He sprang from his bicycle outside the gate, which was still open, ran to the house and reached the first floor in a few bounds.

  There was no one in the little dining-room.

  Without hesitating, without knocking, he walked into Jeanne’s bedroom:

  “Ah, here you are!” he said, with a sigh of relief, seeing Jeanne and the doctor sitting side by side, talking.

  “What? Any news?” asked the doctor, alarmed at seeing such a state of agitation in a man whose coolness he had had occasion to observe.

  “No,” said Lupin. “No news. And here?”

  “None here, either. We have just left M. Darcieux. He has had an excellent day and he ate his dinner with a good appetite. As for Jeanne, you can see for yourself, she has all her pretty colour back again.”

  “Then she must go.”

  “Go? But it’s out of the question!” protested the girl.

  “You must go, you must!” cried Lupin, with real violence, stamping his foot on the floor.

  He at once mastered himself, spoke a few words of apology and then, for three or four minutes, preserved a complete silence, which the doctor and Jeanne were careful not to disturb.

  At last, he said to the young girl:

  “You shall go to-morrow morning, mademoiselle. It will be only for one or two weeks. I will take you to your friend at Versailles, the one to whom you were writing. I entreat you to get everything ready to-night ... without concealment of any kind. Let the servants know that you are going.... On the other hand, the doctor will be good enough to tell M. Darcieux and give him to understand, with every possible precaution, that this journey is essential to your safety. Besides, he can join you as soon as his strength permits.... That’s settled, is it not?”

  “Yes,” she said, absolutely dominated by Lupin’s gentle and imperious voice.

  “In that case,” he said, “be as quick as you can ... and do not stir from your room....”

  “But,” said the girl, with a shudder, “am I to stay alone to-night?”

  “Fear nothing. Should there be the least danger, the doctor and I will come back. Do not open your door unless you hear three very light taps.”

  Jeanne at once rang for her maid. The doctor went to M. Darcieux, while Lupin had some supper brought to him in the little dining-room.

  “That’s done,” said the doctor, returning to him in twenty minutes’ time. “M. Darcieux did not raise any great difficulty. As a matter of fact, he himself thinks it just as well that we should send Jeanne away.”

  They then went downstairs together and left the house.

  On reaching the lodge, Lupin called the keeper.

  “You can shut the gate, my man. If M. Darcieux should want us, send for us at once.”

  The clock of Maupertuis church struck ten. The sky was overcast with black clouds, through which the moon broke at moments.

  The two men walked on for sixty or seventy yards.

  They were nearing the village, when Lupin gripped his companion by the arm:

  “Stop!”

  “What on earth’s the matter?” exclaimed the doctor.

  “The matter is this,” Lupin jerked out, “that, if my calculations turn out right, if I have not misjudged the business from start to finish, Mlle. Darcieux will be murdered before the night is out.”

  “Eh? What’s that?” gasped the doctor, in dismay. “But then why did we go?”

  “With the precise object that the miscreant, who is watching all our movements in the dark, may not postpone his crime and may perpetrate it, not at the hour chosen by himself, but at the hour which I have decided upon.”

  “Then we are returning to the manor-house?”

  “Yes, of course we are, but separately.”

  “In that case, let us go at once.”

  “Listen to me, doctor,” said Lupin, in a steady voice, “and let us waste no time in useless words. Above all, we must defeat any attempt to watch us. You will therefore go straight home and not come out again until you are quite certain that you have not been followed. You will then make for the walls of the property, keeping to the left, till you come to the little door of the kitchen-garden. Here is the key. When the church clock strikes eleven, open the door very gently and walk right up to the terrace at the back of the house. The fifth window is badly fastened. You have only to climb ove
r the balcony. As soon as you are inside Mlle. Darcieux’s room, bolt the door and don’t budge. You quite understand, don’t budge, either of you, whatever happens. I have noticed that Mlle. Darcieux leaves her dressing-room window ajar, isn’t that so?”

  “Yes, it’s a habit which I taught her.”

  “That’s the way they’ll come.”

  “And you?”

  “That’s the way I shall come also.”

  “And do you know who the villain is?”

  Lupin hesitated and then replied:

  “No, I don’t know.... And that is just how we shall find out. But, I implore you, keep cool. Not a word, not a movement, whatever happens!”

  “I promise you.”

  “I want more than that, doctor. You must give me your word of honour.”

  “I give you my word of honour.”

  The doctor went away. Lupin at once climbed a neighbouring mound from which he could see the windows of the first and second floor. Several of them were lighted.

  He waited for some little time. The lights went out one by one. Then, taking a direction opposite to that in which the doctor had gone, he branched off to the right and skirted the wall until he came to the clump of trees near which he had hidden his motor-cycle on the day before.

  Eleven o’clock struck. He calculated the time which it would take the doctor to cross the kitchen-garden and make his way into the house.

  “That’s one point scored!” he muttered. “Everything’s all right on that side. And now, Lupin to the rescue? The enemy won’t be long before he plays his last trump ... and, by all the gods, I must be there!...”

  He went through the same performance as on the first occasion, pulled down the branch and hoisted himself to the top of the wall, from which he was able to reach the bigger boughs of the tree.

  Just then he pricked up his ears. He seemed to hear a rustling of dead leaves. And he actually perceived a dark form moving on the level thirty yards away:

  “Hang it all!” he said to himself. “I’m done: the scoundrel has smelt a rat.”

  A moonbeam pierced through the clouds. Lupin distinctly saw the man take aim. He tried to jump to the ground and turned his head. But he felt something hit him in the chest, heard the sound of a report, uttered an angry oath and came crashing down from branch to branch, like a corpse.

  Meanwhile, Doctor Guéroult, following Arsène Lupin’s instructions, had climbed the ledge of the fifth window and groped his way to the first floor. On reaching Jeanne’s room, he tapped lightly, three times, at the door and, immediately on entering, pushed the bolt:

  “Lie down at once,” he whispered to the girl, who had not taken off her things. “You must appear to have gone to bed. Brrrr, it’s cold in here! Is the window open in your dressing-room?”

  “Yes ... would you like me to ...?”

  “No, leave it as it is. They are coming.”

  “They are coming!” spluttered Jeanne, in affright.

  “Yes, beyond a doubt.”

  “But who? Do you suspect any one?”

  “I don’t know who.... I expect that there is some one hidden in the house ... or in the park.”

  “Oh, I feel so frightened!”

  “Don’t be frightened. The sportsman who’s looking after you seems jolly clever and makes a point of playing a safe game. I expect he’s on the look-out in the court.”

  The doctor put out the night-light, went to the window and raised the blind. A narrow cornice, running along the first story, prevented him from seeing more than a distant part of the courtyard; and he came back and sat down by the bed.

  Some very painful minutes passed, minutes that appeared to them interminably long. The clock in the village struck; but, taken up as they were with all the little noises of the night, they hardly noticed the sound. They listened, listened, with all their nerves on edge:

  “Did you hear?” whispered the doctor.

  “Yes ... yes,” said Jeanne, sitting up in bed.

  “Lie down ... lie down,” he said, presently. “There’s some one coming.”

  There was a little tapping sound outside, against the cornice. Next came a series of indistinct noises, the nature of which they could not make out for certain. But they had a feeling that the window in the dressing-room was being opened wider, for they were buffeted by gusts of cold air.

  Suddenly, it became quite clear: there was some one next door.

  The doctor, whose hand was trembling a little, seized his revolver. Nevertheless, he did not move, remembering the formal orders which he had received and fearing to act against them.

  The room was in absolute darkness; and they were unable to see where the adversary was. But they felt his presence.

  They followed his invisible movements, the sound of his footsteps deadened by the carpet; and they did not doubt but that he had already crossed the threshold of the room.

  And the adversary stopped. Of that they were certain. He was standing six steps away from the bed, motionless, undecided perhaps, seeking to pierce the darkness with his keen eyes.

  Jeanne’s hand, icy-cold and clammy, trembled in the doctor’s grasp.

  With his other hand, the doctor clutched his revolver, with his finger on the trigger. In spite of his pledged word, he did not hesitate. If the adversary touched the end of the bed, the shot would be fired at a venture.

  The adversary took another step and then stopped again. And there was something awful about that silence, that impassive silence, that darkness in which those human beings were peering at one another, wildly.

  Who was it looming in the murky darkness? Who was the man? What horrible enmity was it that turned his hand against the girl and what abominable aim was he pursuing?

  Terrified though they were, Jeanne and the doctor thought only of that one thing: to see, to learn the truth, to gaze upon the adversary’s face.

  He took one more step and did not move again. It seemed to them that his figure stood out, darker, against the dark space and that his arm rose slowly, slowly....

  A minute passed and then another minute....

  And, suddenly, beyond the man, on the right a sharp click.... A bright light flashed, was flung upon the man, lit him full in the face, remorselessly.

  Jeanne gave a cry of affright. She had seen — standing over her, with a dagger in his hand — she had seen ... her father!

  Almost at the same time, though the light was already turned off, there came a report: the doctor had fired.

  “Dash it all, don’t shoot!” roared Lupin.

  He threw his arms round the doctor, who choked out:

  “Didn’t you see?... Didn’t you see?... Listen!... He’s escaping!...”

  “Let him escape: it’s the best thing that could happen.”

  He pressed the spring of his electric lantern again, ran to the dressing-room, made certain that the man had disappeared and, returning quietly to the table, lit the lamp.

  Jeanne lay on her bed, pallid, in a dead faint.

  The doctor, huddled in his chair, emitted inarticulate sounds.

  “Come,” said Lupin, laughing, “pull yourself together. There is nothing to excite ourselves about: it’s all over.”

  “Her father!... Her father!” moaned the old doctor.

  “If you please, doctor, Mlle. Darcieux is ill. Look after her.”

  Without more words, Lupin went back to the dressing-room and stepped out on the window-ledge. A ladder stood against the ledge. He ran down it. Skirting the wall of the house, twenty steps farther, he tripped over the rungs of a rope-ladder, which he climbed and found himself in M. Darcieux’s bedroom. The room was empty.

  “Just so,” he said. “My gentleman did not like the position and has cleared out. Here’s wishing him a good journey.... And, of course, the door is bolted?... Exactly!... That is how our sick man, tricking his worthy medical attendant, used to get up at night in full security, fasten his rope-ladder to the balcony and prepare his little games. He’s no fool, is
friend Darcieux!”

  He drew the bolts and returned to Jeanne’s room. The doctor, who was just coming out of the doorway, drew him to the little dining-room:

  “She’s asleep, don’t let us disturb her. She has had a bad shock and will take some time to recover.”

  Lupin poured himself out a glass of water and drank it down. Then he took a chair and, calmly:

  “Pooh! She’ll be all right by to-morrow.”

  “What do you say?”

  “I say that she’ll be all right by to-morrow.”

  “Why?”

  “In the first place, because it did not strike me that Mlle. Darcieux felt any very great affection for her father.”

  “Never mind! Think of it: a father who tries to kill his daughter! A father who, for months on end, repeats his monstrous attempt four, five, six times over again!... Well, isn’t that enough to blight a less sensitive soul than Jeanne’s for good and all? What a hateful memory!”

  “She will forget.”

  “One does not forget such a thing as that.”

  “She will forget, doctor, and for a very simple reason....”

  “Explain yourself!”

  “She is not M. Darcieux’s daughter!”

  “Eh?”

  “I repeat, she is not that villain’s daughter.”

  “What do you mean? M. Darcieux....”

  “M. Darcieux is only her step-father. She had just been born when her father, her real father, died. Jeanne’s mother then married a cousin of her husband’s, a man bearing the same name, and she died within a year of her second wedding. She left Jeanne in M. Darcieux’s charge. He first took her abroad and then bought this country-house; and, as nobody knew him in the neighbourhood, he represented the child as being his daughter. She herself did not know the truth about her birth.”

  The doctor sat confounded. He asked:

  “Are you sure of your facts?”

  “I spent my day in the town-halls of the Paris municipalities. I searched the registers, I interviewed two solicitors, I have seen all the documents. There is no doubt possible.”

  “But that does not explain the crime, or rather the series of crimes.”

  “Yes, it does,” declared Lupin. “And, from the start, from the first hour when I meddled in this business, some words which Mlle. Darcieux used made me suspect that direction which my investigations must take. ‘I was not quite five years old when my mother died,’ she said. ‘That was sixteen years ago.’ Mlle. Darcieux, therefore, was nearly twenty-one, that is to say, she was on the verge of attaining her majority. I at once saw that this was an important detail. The day on which you reach your majority is the day on which your accounts are rendered. What was the financial position of Mlle. Darcieux, who was her mother’s natural heiress? Of course, I did not think of the father for a second. To begin with, one can’t imagine a thing like that; and then the farce which M. Darcieux was playing ... helpless, bedridden, ill....”