“Yes,” grunted Ya-Bon, who always approved, on principle.
“Very well. It now remains to be seen what that shower of sparks means. I thought for a moment that, as we had our first visit from the Zeppelins a week ago . . . are you listening to me?”
“Yes.”
“I thought that it was a treacherous signal with a view to a second Zeppelin visit . . .”
“Yes.”
“No, you idiot, it’s not yes. How could it be a Zeppelin signal when, according to the conversation which I overheard, the signal had already been given twice before the war. Besides, is it really a signal?”
“No.”
“How do you mean, no? What else could it be, you silly ass? You’d do better to hold your tongue and listen to me, all the more as you don’t even know what it’s all about. . . . No more do I, for that matter, and I confess that I’m at an utter loss. Lord, it’s a complicated business, and I’m not much of a hand at solving these problems.”
Patrice Belval was even more perplexed when he came to the bottom of the Rue de la Tour. There were several roads in front of him, and he did not know which to take. Moreover, though he was in the middle of Passy, not a spark shone in the dark sky.
“It’s finished, I expect,” he said, “and we’ve had our trouble for nothing. It’s your fault, Ya-Bon. If you hadn’t made me lose precious moments in snatching you from the arms of your beloved we should have arrived in time. I admit Angèle’s charms, but, after all . . .”
He took his bearings, feeling more and more undecided. The expedition undertaken on chance and with insufficient information was certainly yielding no results; and he was thinking of abandoning it when a closed private car came out of the Rue Franklin, from the direction of the Trocadéro, and some one inside shouted through the speaking-tube:
“Bear to the left . . . and then straight on, till I stop you.”
Now it appeared to Captain Belval that this voice had the same foreign inflection as one of those which he had heard that morning at the restaurant.
“Can it be the beggar in the gray hat,” he muttered, “one of those who tried to carry off Little Mother Coralie?”
“Yes,” grunted Ya-Bon.
“Yes. The signal of the sparks explains his presence in these parts. We mustn’t lose sight of this track. Off with you, Ya-Bon.”
But there was no need for Ya-Bon to hurry. The car had gone down the Rue Raynouard, and Belval himself arrived just as it was stopping three or four hundred yards from the turning, in front of a large carriage-entrance on the left-hand side.
Five men alighted. One of them rang. Thirty or forty seconds passed. Then Patrice heard the bell tinkle a second time. The five men waited, standing packed close together on the pavement. At last, after a third ring, a small wicket contrived in one of the folding-doors was opened.
There was a pause and some argument. Whoever had opened the wicket appeared to be asking for explanations. But suddenly two of the men bore heavily on the folding-door, which gave way before their thrust and let the whole gang through.
There was a loud noise as the door slammed to. Captain Belval at once studied his surroundings.
The Rue Raynouard is an old country-road which at one time used to wind among the houses and gardens of the village of Passy, on the side of the hills bathed by the Seine. In certain places, which unfortunately are becoming more and more rare, it has retained a provincial aspect. It is skirted by old properties. Old houses stand hidden amidst the trees: that in which Balzac lived has been piously preserved. It was in this street that the mysterious garden lay where Arsène Lupin discovered a farmer-general’s diamonds hidden in a crack of an old sundial.
The Confessions of Arsène Lupin. By Maurice Leblanc. Translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. III. The Sign of the Shadow.
The car was still standing outside the house into which the five men had forced their way; and this prevented Patrice Belval from coming nearer. It was built in continuation of a wall and seemed to be one of the private mansions dating back to the First Empire. It had a very long front with two rows of round windows, protected by gratings on the ground-floor and solid shutters on the story above. There was another building farther down, forming a separate wing.
“There’s nothing to be done on this side,” said the captain. “It’s as impregnable as a feudal stronghold. Let’s look elsewhere.”
From the Rue Raynouard, narrow lanes, which used to divide the old properties, make their way down to the river. One of them skirted the wall that preceded the house. Belval turned down it with Ya-Bon. It was constructed of ugly pointed pebbles, was broken into steps and faintly lighted by the gleam of a street-lamp.
“Lend me a hand, Ya-Bon. The wall is too high. But perhaps with the aid of the lamp-post . . .”
Assisted by the negro, he hoisted himself to the lamp and was stretching out one of his hands when he noticed that all this part of the wall bristled with broken glass, which made it absolutely impossible to grasp. He slid down again.
“Upon my word, Ya-Bon,” he said, angrily, “you might have warned me! Another second and you would have made me cut my hands to pieces. What are you thinking of? In fact, I can’t imagine what made you so anxious to come with me at all costs.”
There was a turn in the lane, hiding the light, so that they were now in utter darkness, and Captain Belval had to grope his way along. He felt the negro’s hand come down upon his shoulder.
“What do you want, Ya-Bon?”
The hand pushed him against the wall. At this spot there was a door in an embrasure.
“Well, yes,” he said, “that’s a door. Do you think I didn’t see it? Oh, no one has eyes but Master Ya-Bon, I suppose.”
Ya-Bon handed him a box of matches. He struck several, one after the other, and examined the door.
“What did I tell you?” he said between his teeth. “There’s nothing to be done. Massive wood, barred and studded with iron. . . . Look, there’s no handle on this side, merely a key-hole. . . . Ah, what we want is a key, made to measure and cut for the purpose! . . . For instance, a key like the one which the commissionaire left for me at the home just now. . . .”
He stopped. An absurd idea flitted through his brain; and yet, absurd as it was, he felt that he was bound to perform the trifling action which it suggested to him. He therefore retraced his steps. He had the key on him. He took it from his pocket.
He struck a fresh light. The key-hole appeared. Belval inserted the key at the first attempt. He bore on it to the left: the key turned in the lock. He pushed the door: it opened.
“Come along in,” he said.
The negro did not stir a foot. Patrice could understand his amazement. All said, he himself was equally amazed. By what unprecedented miracle was the key just the key of this very door? By what miracle was the unknown person who had sent it him able to guess that he would be in a position to use it without further instructions? A miracle indeed!
But Patrice had resolved to act without trying to solve the riddle which a mischievous chance seemed bent upon setting him.
“Come along in,” he repeated, triumphantly.
Branches struck him in the face and he perceived that he was walking on grass and that there must be a garden lying in front of him. It was so dark that he could not see the paths against the blackness of the turf; and, after walking for a minute or two, he hit his foot against some rocks with a sheet of water on them.
“Oh, confound it!” he cursed. “I’m all wet. Damn you, Ya-Bon!”
He had not finished speaking when a furious barking was heard at the far end of the garden; and the sound at once came nearer, with extreme rapidity. Patrice realized that a watchdog, perceiving their presence, was rushing upon them, and, brave as he was, he shuddered, because of the impressiveness of this attack in complete darkness. How was he to defend himself? A shot would betray them; and yet he carried no weapon but his revolver.
The dog came dashing on, a powerful an
imal, to judge by the noise it made, suggesting the rush of a wild boar through the copsewood. It must have broken its chain, for it was accompanied by the clatter of iron. Patrice braced himself to meet it. But through the darkness he saw Ya-Bon pass before him to protect him, and the impact took place almost at once.
“Here, I say, Ya-Bon! Why did you get in front of me? It’s all right, my lad, I’m coming!”
The two adversaries had rolled over on the grass. Patrice stooped down, seeking to rescue the negro. He touched the hair of an animal and then Ya-Bon’s clothes. But the two were wriggling on the ground in so compact a mass and fighting so frantically that his interference was useless.
Moreover, the contest did not last long. In a few minutes the adversaries had ceased to move. A strangled death-rattle issued from the group.
“Is it all right, Ya-Bon?” whispered the captain, anxiously.
The negro stood up with a grunt. By the light of a match Patrice saw that he was holding at the end of his outstretched arm, of the one arm with which he had had to defend himself, a huge dog, which was gurgling, clutched round the throat by Ya-Bon’s implacable fingers. A broken chain hung from its neck.
“Thank you, Ya-Bon. I’ve had a narrow escape. You can let him go now. He can’t do us any harm, I think.”
Ya-Bon obeyed. But he had no doubt squeezed too tight. The dog writhed for a moment on the grass, gave a few moans and then lay without moving.
“Poor brute!” said Patrice. “After all, he only did his duty in going for the burglars that we are. Let us do ours, Ya-Bon, which is nothing like as plain.”
Something that shone like a window-pane guided his steps and led him, by a series of stairs cut in the rocks and of successive terraces, to the level ground on which the house was built. On this side also, all the windows were round and high up, like those in the streets, and barricaded with shutters. But one of them allowed the light which he had seen from below to filter through.
Telling Ya-Bon to hide in the shrubberies, he went up to the house, listened, caught an indistinct sound of voices, discovered that the shutters were too firmly closed to enable him either to see or to hear and, in this way, after the fourth window, reached a flight of steps. At the top of the steps was a door.
“Since they sent me the key of the garden,” he said to himself, “there’s no reason why this door, which leads from the house into the garden, should not be open.”
It was open.
The voices indoors were now more clearly perceptible, and Belval observed that they reached him by the well of the staircase and that this staircase, which seemed to lead to an unoccupied part of the house, showed with an uncertain light above him.
He went up. A door stood ajar on the first floor. He slipped his head through the opening and went in. He found that he was on a narrow balcony which ran at mid-height around three sides of a large room, along book-shelves rising to the ceiling. Against the wall at either end of the room was an iron spiral staircase. Stacks of books were also piled against the bars of the railing which protected the gallery, thus hiding Patrice from the view of the people on the ground-floor, ten or twelve feet below.
He gently separated two of these stacks. At that moment the sound of voices suddenly increased to a great uproar and he saw five men, shouting like lunatics, hurl themselves upon a sixth and fling him to the ground before he had time to lift a finger in self-defense.
Belval’s first impulse was to rush to the victim’s rescue. With the aid of Ya-Bon, who would have hastened to his call, he would certainly have intimidated the five men. The reason why he did not act was that, at any rate, they were using no weapons and appeared to have no murderous intentions. After depriving their victim of all power of movement, they were content to hold him by the throat, shoulders and ankles. Belval wondered what would happen next.
One of the five drew himself up briskly and, in a tone of command, said:
“Bind him. . . . Put a gag in his mouth. . . . Or let him call out, if he wants to: there’s no one to hear him.”
Patrice at once recognized one of the voices which he had heard that morning in the restaurant. Its owner was a short, slim-built, well-dressed man, with an olive complexion and a cruel face.
“At last we’ve got him,” he said, “the rascal! And I think we shall get him to speak this time. Are you prepared to go all lengths, friends?”
One of the other four growled, spitefully:
“Yes. And at once, whatever happens!”
The last speaker had a big black mustache; and Patrice recognized the other man whose conversation at the restaurant he had overheard, that is to say, one of Coralie’s assailants, the one who had taken to flight. His gray-felt hat lay on a chair.
“All lengths, Bournef, whatever happens, eh?” grinned the leader. “Well, let’s get on with the work. So you refuse to give up your secret, Essarès, old man? We shall have some fun.”
All their movements must have been prepared beforehand and the parts carefully arranged, for the actions which they carried out were performed in an incredibly prompt and methodical fashion.
After the man was tied up, they lifted him into an easy-chair with a very low back, to which they fastened him round the chest and waist with a rope. His legs, which were bound together, were placed on the seat of a heavy chair of the same height as the arm-chair, with the two feet projecting. Then the victim’s shoes and socks were removed.
“Roll him along!” said the leader.
Between two of the four windows that overlooked the chimney was a large fire-place, in which burnt a red coal-fire, white in places with the intense heat of the hearth. The men pushed the two chairs bearing the victim until his bare feet were within twenty inches of the blazing coals.
In spite of his gag, the man uttered a hideous yell of pain, while his legs, in spite of their bonds, succeeded in contracting and curling upon themselves.
“Go on!” shouted the leader, passionately. “Go on! Nearer!”
Patrice Belval grasped his revolver.
“Oh, I’m going on too!” he said to himself. “I won’t let that wretch be . . .”
But, at this very moment, when he was on the point of drawing himself up and acting, a chance movement made him behold the most extraordinary and unexpected sight. Opposite him, on the other side of the room, in a part of the balcony corresponding with that where he was, he saw a woman’s head, a head glued to the rails, livid and terror-stricken, with eyes wide-open in horror gazing frenziedly at the awful scene that was being enacted below by the glowing fire.
Patrice had recognized Little Mother Coralie.
CHAPTER IV. BEFORE THE FLAMES
LITTLE MOTHER CORALIE! Coralie concealed in this house into which her assailants had forced their way and in which she herself was hiding, through force of circumstances which were incapable of explanation.
His first idea, which would at least have solved one of the riddles, was that she also had entered from the lane, gone into the house by the steps and in this way opened a passage for him. But, in that case, how had she procured the means of carrying out this enterprise? And, above all, what brought her here?
All these questions occurred to Captain Belval’s mind without his trying to reply to them. He was far too much impressed by the absorbed expression on Coralie’s face. Moreover, a second cry, even wilder than the first, came from below; and he saw the victim’s face writhing before the red curtain of fire from the hearth.
But, this time, Patrice, held back by Coralie’s presence, had no inclination to go to the sufferer’s assistance. He decided to model himself entirely upon her and not to move or do anything to attract her attention.
“Easy!” the leader commanded. “Pull him back. I expect he’s had enough.”
He went up to the victim:
“Well, my dear Essarès,” he asked, “what do you think of it? Are you happy? And, you know, we’re only beginning. If you don’t speak, we shall go on to the end, as the real chauffeur
s used to do in the days of the Revolution. So it’s settled, I presume: you’re going to speak?”
There was no answer. The leader rapped out an oath and went on:
“What do you mean? Do you refuse? But, you obstinate brute, don’t you understand the situation? Or have you a glimmer of hope? Hope, indeed! You’re mad. Who would rescue you? Your servants? The porter, the footman and the butler are in my pay. I gave them a week’s notice. They’re gone by now. The housemaid? The cook? They sleep at the other end of the house; and you yourself have told me, time after time, that one can’t hear anything over there. Who else? Your wife? Her room also is far away; and she hasn’t heard anything either? Siméon, your old secretary? We made him fast when he opened the front door to us just now. Besides, we may as well finish the job here. Bournef!”
The man with the big mustache, who was still holding the chair, drew himself up.
“Bournef, where did you lock up the secretary?”
“In the porter’s lodge.”
“You know where to find Mme. Essarès’ bedroom?”
“Yes, you told me the way.”
“Go, all four of you, and bring the lady and the secretary here!”
The four men went out by a door below the spot where Coralie was standing. They were hardly out of sight when the leader stooped eagerly over his victim and said:
“We’re alone, Essarès. It’s what I intended. Let’s make the most of it.”
He bent still lower and whispered so that Patrice found it difficult to hear what he said:
“Those men are fools. I twist them round my finger and tell them no more of my plans than I can help. You and I, on the other hand, Essarès, are the men to come to terms. That is what you refused to admit; and you see where it has landed you. Come, Essarès, don’t be obstinate and don’t shuffle. You are caught in a trap, you are helpless, you are absolutely in my power. Well, rather than allow yourself to be broken down by tortures which would certainly end by overcoming your resistance, strike a bargain with me. We’ll go halves, shall we? Let’s make peace and treat upon that basis. I’ll give you a hand in my game and you’ll give me one in yours. As allies, we are bound to win. As enemies, who knows whether the victor will surmount all the obstacles that will still stand in his path? That’s why I say again, halves! Answer me. Yes or no.”
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 191
