“I hope so. Our men are on the track.”
“They are on the track, but they have to check that track at every town, at every village, by inquiries made of every peasant they meet; they have to find out if the motor has not branched off somewhere; and they are wasting time. I shall go straight for the scoundrel.”
“By what miracle?”
“That must be my secret for the present, Monsieur le Président.”
“Very well. Is there anything you want?”
“This map of France.”
“Take it.”
“And a couple of revolvers.”
“Monsieur le Préfet will be good enough to ask his inspectors for two revolvers and to give them to you. Is that all? Any money?”
“No, thank you, Monsieur le Président. I always carry a useful fifty thousand francs in my pocket-book, in case of need.”
“In that case,” said the Prefect of Police, “I shall have to send some one with you to the lockup. I presume your pocket-book was among the things taken from you.”
Don Luis smiled:
“Monsieur le Préfet, the things that people can take from me are never of the least importance. My pocket-book is at the lockup, as you say. But the money—”
He raised his left leg, took his boot in his hands and gave a slight twist to the heel. There was a little click, and a sort of double drawer shot out of the front of the sole. It contained two sheafs of bank notes and a number of diminutive articles, such as a gimlet, a watch spring, and some pills.
“The wherewithal to escape,” he said, “to live and — to die. Good-bye,
Monsieur le Président.”
In the hall M. Desmalions told the inspectors to let their prisoner go free. Don Luis asked:
“Monsieur le Préfet, did Deputy Chief Weber give you any particulars about the brute’s car?”
“Yes, he telephoned from Versailles. It’s a deep-yellow car, belonging to the Compagnie des Comètes. The driver’s seat is on the left. He’s wearing a gray cloth cap with a black leather peak.”
“Thank you, Monsieur le Préfet.”
And he left the house.
* * * * *
An inconceivable thing had happened. Don Luis was free. Half an hour’s conversation had given him the power of acting and of fighting the decisive battle.
He went off at a run. At the Trocadéro he jumped into a taxi.
“Go to Issy-les-Moulineaux!” he cried. “Full speed! Forty francs!”
The cab flew through Passy, crossed the Seine and reached the
Issy-les-Moulineaux aviation ground in ten minutes.
None of the aeroplanes was out, for there was a stiff breeze blowing. Don
Luis ran to the sheds. The owners’ names were written over the doors.
“Davanne,” he muttered. “That’s the man I want.”
The door of the shed was open. A short, stoutish man, with a long red face, was smoking a cigarette and watching some mechanics working at a monoplane. The little man was Davanne himself, the famous airman.
Don Luis took him aside and, knowing from the papers the sort of man that he was, opened the conversation so as to surprise him from the start:
“Monsieur,” he said, unfolding his map of France, “I want to catch up some one who has carried off the woman I love and is making for Nantes by motor. The abduction took place at midnight. It is now about eight o’clock. Suppose that the motor, which is just a hired taxi with a driver who has no inducement to break his neck, does an average of twenty miles an hour, including stoppages — in twelve hours’ time — that is to say, at twelve o’clock — our man will have covered two hundred and forty miles and reached a spot between Angers and Nantes, at this point on the map.”
“Les Ponts-de-Drive,” agreed Davanne, who was quietly listening.
“Very well. Suppose, on the other hand, that an aeroplane were to start from Issy-les-Moulineaux at eight o’clock in the morning and travel at the rate of sixty miles an hour, without stopping — in four hours’ time — that is to say, at twelve o’clock — it would reach Les Ponts-de-Drive at the exact same moment as the motor. Am I right?”
“Perfectly.”
“In that case, if we agree, all is well. Does your machine carry a passenger?”
“Sometimes she does.”
“We’ll start at once. What are your terms?”
“It depends. Who are you?”
“Arsène Lupin.”
“The devil you are!” exclaimed Davanne, a little taken aback.
“I am Arsène Lupin. You must know the best part of what has happened from reading about it in the papers. Well, Florence Levasseur was kidnapped last night. I want to save her. What’s your price?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s too much!”
“Perhaps, but the adventure amuses me. It will be an advertisement.”
“Very well. But your silence is necessary until to-morrow. I’ll buy it.
Here’s twenty thousand francs.”
Ten minutes later Don Luis was dressed in an airman’s suit, cap, and goggles; and an aeroplane rose to a height of two thousand five hundred feet to avoid the air currents, flew above the Seine, and darted due west across France.
Versailles, Maintenon, Chartres….
Don Luis had never been up in an aeroplane. France had achieved the conquest of the air while he was fighting with the Legion and in the plains of the Sahara. Nevertheless, sensitive though he was to new impressions — and what more exciting impression could he have than this? — he did not experience the heavenly delight of the man who for the first time soars above the earth. What monopolized his thoughts, strained his nerves, and excited his whole being to an exquisite degree was the as yet impossible but inevitable sight of the motor which they were pursuing.
Amid the tremendous swarm of things beneath them, amid the unexpected din of the wings and the engine, in the immensity of the sky, in the infinity of the horizon, his eyes sought nothing but that, and his ears admitted no other sound than the hum of the invisible car. His were the mighty and brutal sensations of the hunter chasing his game. He was the bird of prey whom the distraught quarry has no chance of escaping.
Nogent-le-Rotrou, La Ferté-Bernard, Le Mans….
The two companions did not exchange a single word. Before him Perenna saw Davanne’s broad back and powerful neck and shoulders. But, by bending his head a little, he saw the boundless space beneath him; and nothing interested him but the white ribbon of road that ran from town to town and from village to village, at times quite straight, as though a hand had stretched it, and at others lazily winding, broken by a river or a church.
On this ribbon, at some place always closer and closer, were Florence and her abductor!
He never doubted it! The yellow taxi was continuing its patient and plucky little effort. Mile after mile, through plains and villages, fields and forests, it was making Angers, with Les Ponts-de-Drive after, and, right at the end of the ribbon, the unattainable goal: Nantes, Saint-Nazaire, the steamer ready to start, and victory for the scoundrel….
He laughed at the idea. As if there could be a question of any victory but his, the victory of the falcon over its prey, the victory of the flying bird over the game that runs afoot! Not for a second did he entertain the thought that the enemy might have slunk away by taking another road.
There are some certainties that are equivalent to facts. And this one was so great that it seemed to him that his adversaries were obliged to comply with it. The car was travelling along the road to Nantes. It would cover an average of twenty miles an hour. And as he himself was travelling at the rate of sixty miles, the encounter would take place at the spot named, Les Ponts-de-Drive, and at the hour named, twelve o’clock.
A cluster of houses, a huge castle, towers, steeples: Angers….
Don Luis asked Davanne the time. It was ten minutes to twelve.
Already Angers was a vanished vision. Once more the open country, broken
up with many-coloured fields. Through it all, a road.
And, on that road, a yellow motor.
The yellow motor! The brute’s motor! The motor with Florence Levasseur!
Don Luis’s joy contained no surprise. He knew so well that this was bound to happen!
Davanne turned round and cried:
“That’s the one, isn’t it?”
“Yes, go straight for them.”
The airship dipped through space and caught up the car almost at once. Then Davanne slowed his engine and kept at six hundred feet above the car and a little way behind.
From here they made out all the details. The driver was seated on the left. He wore a gray cap with a black peak. It was one of the deep-yellow taxis of the Compagnie des Comètes. It was the taxi which they were pursuing. And Florence was inside with her abductor.
“At last,” thought Don Luis, “I have them!”
They flew for some time, keeping the same distance.
Davanne waited for a signal which Don Luis was in no hurry to give. He was revelling in the sensation of his power, with a force made up of mingled pride, hatred, and cruelty. He was indeed the eagle hovering overhead with its talons itching to rend live flesh. Escaped from the cage in which he had been imprisoned, released from the bonds that fastened him, he had come all the way at full flight and was ready to swoop upon the helpless prey.
He lifted himself in his seat and gave Davanne his instructions:
“Be careful,” he said, “not to brush too close by them. They might put a bullet into us.”
Another minute passed.
Suddenly they saw that, half a mile ahead, the road divided into three, thus forming a very wide open space which was still further extended by two triangular patches of grass where the three roads met.
“Now?” asked Davanne, turning to Don Luis.
The surrounding country was deserted.
“Off you go!” cried Don Luis.
The aeroplane seemed to shoot down suddenly, as though driven by an irresistible force, which sent it flying like an arrow toward the mark. It passed at three hundred feet above the car, and then, all at once, checking its career, choosing the spot at which it meant to hit the target, calmly, silently, like a night-bird, steering clear of the trees and sign-posts, it alighted softly on the grass of the crossroads.
Don Luis sprang out and ran toward the motor, which was coming along at a rapid pace. He stood in the middle of the road, levelled his two revolvers, and shouted:
“Stop, or I fire!”
The terrified driver put on both brakes. The car pulled up.
Don Luis rushed to one of the doors.
“Thunder!” he roared, discharging one of his revolvers for no reason and smashing a window-pane.
There was no one in the car.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“THE SNARE IS LAID. BEWARE, LUPIN!”
THE POWER THAT had impelled Don Luis to battle and victory was so intense that it suffered, so to speak, no cheek. Disappointment, rage, humiliation, torture, were all swallowed up in an immediate desire for action and information, together with a longing to continue the chase. The rest was but an incident of no importance, which would soon be very simply explained.
The petrified taxi-driver was gazing wildly at the peasants coming from the distant farms, attracted by the sound of the aeroplane. Don Luis took him by the throat and put the barrel of his revolver to the man’s temple:
“Tell me what you know — or you’re a dead man.”
And when the unhappy wretch began to stammer out entreaties:
“It’s no use moaning, no use hoping for assistance…. Those people won’t get here in time. So there’s only one way of saving yourself: speak! Last night a gentleman came to Versailles from Paris in a taxi, left it and took yours: is that it?”
“Yes.”
“The gentleman had a lady with him?”
“Yes.”
“And he engaged you to take him to Nantes?”
“Yes.”
“But he changed his mind on the way and told you to put him down?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Before we got to Mans, in a little road on the right, with a sort of coach-house, looking like a shed, a hundred yards down it. They both got out there.”
“And you went on?”
“He paid me to.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred francs. And there was another fare waiting at Nantes that I was to pick up and bring back to Paris for a thousand francs more.”
“Do you believe in that other fare?”
“No. I think he wanted to put people off the scent by sending them after me to Nantes while he branched off. Still, I had my money.”
“And, when you left them, weren’t you curious to see what happened?”
“No.”
“Take care! A movement of my finger and I blow out your brains. Speak!”
“Well, yes, then. I went back on foot, behind a bank covered with trees. The man had opened the coach-house and was starting a small limousine car. The lady did not want to get in. They argued pretty fiercely. He threatened and begged by turns. But I could not hear what they said. She seemed very tired. He gave her a glass of water, which he drew from a tap in the wall. Then she consented. He closed the door on her and took his seat at the wheel.”
“A glass of water!” cried Don Luis. “Are you sure he put nothing else into the glass?”
The driver seemed surprised at the question and then answered:
“Yes, I think he did. He took something from his pocket.”
“Without the lady’s knowledge?”
“Yes, she didn’t see.”
Don Luis mastered his horror. After all it was impossible that the villain had poisoned Florence in that way, at that place, without anything to warrant so great a hurry. No, it was more likely that he had employed a narcotic, a drug of some sort which would dull Florence’s brain and make her incapable of noticing by what new roads and through what towns he was taking her.
“And then,” he repeated, “she decided to step in?”
“Yes; and he shut the door and got into the driver’s seat. I went away then.”
“Before knowing which direction they took?”
“Yes.”
“Did you suspect on the way that they thought that they were being followed?”
“Certainly. He did nothing but put his head out of the window.”
“Did the lady cry out at all?”
“No.”
“Would you know him again if you saw him?”
“No, I’m sure I shouldn’t. At Versailles it was dark. And this morning I was too far away. Besides, it’s curious, but the first time he struck me as very tall, and this morning, on the contrary, he looked quite a short man, as though bent in two. I can’t understand it at all.”
Don Luis reflected. It seemed to him that he had asked all the necessary questions. Moreover, a gig drawn by a quick-trotting horse was approaching the crossroads. There were two others behind it. And the groups of peasants were now quite near. He must finish the business.
He said to the chauffeur:
“I can see by your face that you intend to talk about me. Don’t do that, my man: it would be foolish of you. Here’s a thousand-franc note for you. Only, if you blab, I’ll make you repent it. That’s all I have to say to you.”
He turned to Davanne, whose machine was beginning to block the traffic, and asked:
“Can we start?”
“Whenever you like. Where are we going?”
Paying no attention to the movements of the people coming from every side, Don Luis unfolded his map of France and spread it out before him. He experienced a few seconds of anxiety at seeing the complicated tangle of roads and picturing the infinite number of places to which the villain might carry Florence. But he pulled himself together. He did not allow himself to hesitate. He refused even to reflect.
He was det
ermined to find out, and to find out everything, at once, without clues, without useless consideration, simply by the marvellous intuition which invariably guided him at any crisis in his life.
And his self-respect also required that he should give Davanne his answer without delay, and that the disappearance of those whom he was pursuing should not seem to embarrass him. With his eyes glued to the map, he placed one finger on Paris and another on Le Mans and, even before he had asked himself why the scoundrel had chosen that Paris-Le Mans-Angers route, he knew the answer to the question.
The name of a town had struck him and made the truth appear like a flash of lightning: Alençon! Then and there, by the light of his memory, he penetrated the mystery.
He repeated:
“Where are we going? Back again, bearing to the left.”
“Any particular place?”
“Alençon.”
“All right,” said Davanne. “Lend a hand, some of you. I can make an easy start from that field just there.”
Don Luis and a few others helped him, and the preparations were soon made. Davanne tested his engine. Everything was in perfect order.
At that moment a powerful racing car, with a siren yelling like a vicious animal, came tearing along the Angers Road and promptly stopped. Three men got out and rushed up to the driver of the yellow taxicab. Don Luis recognized them. They were Weber, the deputy chief, and the men who had taken him to the lockup the night before, sent by the Prefect of Police to follow up the scoundrel’s tracks.
They had a brief interchange of words with the cab-driver, which seemed to put them out; and they kept on gesticulating and plying him with fresh questions while looking at their watches and consulting their road maps.
Don Luis went up to them. He was unrecognizable, with his head wrapped in his aviation cap and his face concealed by his goggles. Changing his voice:
“The birds have flown, Mr. Deputy Chief,” he said.
Weber looked at him in utter amazement,
Don Luis grinned.
“Yes, flown. Our friend from the Ile Saint Louis is an artful dodger, you know. My lord’s in his third motor. After the yellow car of which you heard at Versailles last night, he took another at Le Mans — destination unknown.”
The deputy chief opened his eyes in amazement. Who was this person who was mentioning facts that had been telephoned to police headquarters only at two o’clock that morning? He gasped:
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 278
