“I was saved, because the retreat was dug out on the side where you were moving and because, being dark itself, it cast no light. All that I now had to do was to wait.
“I listened quietly to your threatening speeches. I let the things you flung down the well go past me. And, when I thought you had gone back to Florence, I was preparing to leave my refuge, to return to the light of day, and to fall upon you from behind, when—”
Don Luis turned the cripple over, as though he were a parcel which he was tying up with string, and continued:
“Have you ever been to Tancarville, the old feudal castle in Normandy, on the banks of the Seine? Haven’t you? Well, you must know that, outside the ruins of the keep, there is an old well which, like many other wells of the period, possesses the peculiarity of having two openings, one at the top, facing the sky, and the other a little lower down, hollowed out sideways in the wall and leading to one of the rooms of the keep.
“At Tancarville this second opening is nowadays closed with a grating. Here it was walled up with a layer of small stones and plaster. And it was just the recollection of Tancarville that made me stay, all the more as there was no hurry, since you had had the kindness to inform me that Florence would not join me in the next world until four o’clock. I therefore inspected my refuge and soon realized that, as I had already felt by intuition, it was the foundation of a building which was now demolished and which had the garden laid out on its ruins.
“Well, I went on, groping my way and following the direction which, above ground, would have taken me to the grotto. My presentiments were not deceived. A gleam of daylight made its way at the top of a staircase of which I had struck the bottom step. I went up it and heard the sound of your voice.”
Don Luis turned the cripple over and over and was pretty rough about it.
Then he resumed:
“I wish to impress upon you, my dear sir, that the upshot would have been exactly similar if I had attacked you directly and from the start in the open air. But, having said this, I confess that chance favoured me to some purpose. It has often failed me, in the course of our struggle, but this time I had no cause to complain.
“I felt myself in such luck that I never doubted for a second that, having found the entrance to the subterranean passage, I should also find the way out. As a matter of fact, I had only to pull gently at the slight obstacle of a few stacked bricks which hid the opening in order to make my exit amid the remains of the castle keep.
“Guided by the sound of your voice, I slipped through the stones and thus reached the back of the grotto in which Florence lay. Amusing, wasn’t it?
“You can imagine what fun it was to hear you make your little speeches: ‘Answer me, yes or no, Florence. A movement of your head will decide your fate. If it’s yes, I shall release you. If it’s no, you die. Answer me, Florence! A sign of your head: is the answer yes or no?’ And the end, above all, was delicious, when you scrambled to the top of the grotto and started roaring from up there: ‘It’s you who have asked to die, Florence. You asked for it and you’ve got it!’
“Just think what a joke it was: at that moment there was no one in the grotto! Not a soul! With one effort, I had drawn Florence toward me and put her under shelter. And all that you were able to crush with your avalanche of rocks was one or two spiders, perhaps, and a few flies dozing on the flagstones.
“The trick was done and the farce was nearly finished. Act first: Arsène Lupin saved. Act second: Florence Levasseur saved. Act third and last: the monster vanquished … absolutely and with a vengeance!”
Don Luis stood up and contemplated his work with a satisfied eye.
“You look like a sausage, my son!” he cried, yielding at last to his sarcastic nature and his habit of treating his enemies familiarly. “A regular sausage! A bit on the thin side, perhaps: a saveloy for poor people! But there, you don’t much care what you look like, I suppose? Besides, you’re rather like that at all times; and, in any case, you’re just the thing for the little display of indoor gymnastics which I have in mind for you. You’ll see: it’s an idea of my own, a really original idea. Don’t be impatient: we shan’t be long.”
He took one of the guns which the cripple had brought to the well and tied to the middle of the gun the end of a twelve or fifteen yards’ length of rope, fastening the other end to the cords with which the cripple was bound, just behind his back. He next took his captive round the body and held him over the well:
“Shut your eyes, if you feel at all giddy. And don’t be frightened. I’ll be very careful. Ready?”
He put the cripple down the yawning hole and next took hold of the rope which he had just fastened. Then, little by little, inch by inch, cautiously, so that it should not knock against the sides of the well, the bundle was let down at arm’s length.
When it reached a depth of twelve yards or so, the gun stopped its further descent and there it remained, slung in the dark and in the exact centre of the narrow circumference.
Don Luis set light to a number of pieces of paper, which went whirling down, shedding their sinister gleams upon the walls. Then, unable to resist the craving for a last speech, he leaned over, as the scoundrel had done, and grinned:
“I selected the place with care, so that you shouldn’t catch cold. I’m bound to look after you, you see. I promised Florence that I wouldn’t kill you; and I promised the French Government to hand you over alive as soon as possible. Only, as I didn’t know what to do with you until to-morrow morning, I’ve hung you up in the air.
“It’s a pretty trick, isn’t it? And you ought to appreciate it, for it’s so like your own way of doing things. Just think: the gun is resting on its two ends, with hardly an inch to spare. So, if you start wriggling, or moving, or even breathing too hard, either the barrel or the butt end’ll give way; and down you go! As for me, I’ve nothing to do with it!
“If you die, it’ll be a pretty little case of suicide. All you’ve got to do, old chap, is to keep quiet. And the beauty of my little contrivance is that it will give you a foretaste of the few nights that will precede your last hour, when they cut off your head. From this moment forward you are alone with your conscience, face to face with what you perhaps call your soul, without anything to disturb your silent soliloquy. It’s nice and thoughtful of me, isn’t it? …
“Well, I’ll leave you. And remember: not a movement, not a sigh, not a wink, not a throb of the heart! And, above all, no larks! If you start larking, you’re in the soup. Meditate: that’s the best thing you can do. Meditate and wait. Good-bye, for the present!”
And Don Luis, satisfied with his homily, went off, muttering:
“That’s all right. I won’t go so far as Eugène Sue, who says that great criminals should have their eyes put out. But, all the same, a little corporal punishment, nicely seasoned with fear, is right and proper and good for the health and morals.”
Don Luis walked away and, taking the brick path round the ruins, turned down a little road, which ran along the outer wall to a clump of fir trees, where he had brought Florence for shelter.
She was waiting for him, still aching from the horrible suffering which she had endured, but already in full possession of her pluck, mistress of herself, and apparently rid of all anxiety as to the issue of the fight between Don Luis and the cripple.
“It’s finished,” he said, simply. “To-morrow I will hand him over to the police.”
She shuddered. But she did not speak; and he observed her in silence.
It was the first time that they were alone together since they had been separated by so many tragedies, and next hurled against each other like sworn enemies. Don Luis was so greatly excited that, in the end, he could utter only insignificant sentences, having no connection with the thoughts that came rushing through his mind.
“We shall find the motor car if we follow this wall and then strike off to the left…. Do you think you can manage to walk so far? … When we’re in the car, we’ll go to Alen�
�on. There’s a quiet hotel close to the chief square. You can wait there until things take a more favourable turn for you — and that won’t be long, as the criminal is caught.”
“Let’s go,” she said.
He dared not offer to help her. For that matter, she stepped out firmly and her graceful body swung from her hips with the same even rhythm as usual. Don Luis once again felt all his old admiration and all his ardent love for her. And yet that had never seemed more remote than at this moment when he had saved her life by untold miracles of energy.
She had not vouchsafed him a word of thanks nor yet one of those milder glances which reward an effort made; and she remained the same as on the first day, the mysterious creature whose secret soul he had never understood, and upon whom not even the storm of terrible events had cast the faintest light.
What were her thoughts? What were her wishes? What aim was she pursuing?
These were obscure problems which he could no longer hope to solve.
Henceforth each of them must go his own way in life and each of them
could only remember the other with feelings of anger and spite.
“No!” he said to himself, as she took her place in the limousine. “No! The separation shall not take place like that. The words that have to be spoken between us shall be spoken; and, whether she wishes or not, I will tear the veil that hides her.”
* * * * *
The journey did not take long. At Alençon Don Luis entered Florence in the visitors’ book under the first name that occurred to him and left her to herself. An hour later he came and knocked at her door.
This time again he had not the courage at once to ask her the question which he had made up his mind to put to her. Besides, there were other points which he wished to clear up.
“Florence,” he said, “before I hand over that man, I should like to know what he was to you.”
“A friend, an unhappy friend, for whom I felt pity,” she declared. “I find it difficult to-day to understand my compassion for such a monster. But, some years ago, when I first met him, I became attached to him because of his wretchedness, his physical weakness, and all the symptoms of death which he bore upon him even then. He had the opportunity of doing me a few services; and, though he led a hidden life, which worried me in certain respects, he gradually and without my knowing it acquired a considerable influence over me.
“I believed in his insight, in his will, in his absolute devotion; and, when the Mornington case started, it was he, as I now realize, who guided my actions and, later, those of Gaston Sauverand. It was he who compelled me to practise lying and deceit, persuading me that he was working for Marie Fauville’s safety. It was he who inspired us with such suspicion of yourself and who taught us to be so silent, where he and his affairs were concerned, that Gaston Sauverand did not even dare mention him in his interview with you.
“I don’t know how I can have been so blind. But it was so. Nothing opened my eyes. Nothing made me suspect for a moment that harmless, ailing creature, who spent half his life in hospitals or nursing-homes, who underwent every possible sort of operation, and who, if he did sometimes speak to me of his love, must have known that he could not hope to—”
Florence did not finish her sentence. Her eyes had encountered Don Luis’s eyes; and she received a deep impression that he was not listening to what she said. He was looking at her; and that was all. The words she uttered passed unheard.
To Don Luis any explanation concerning the tragedy itself mattered nothing, so long as he was not enlightened on the one point that interested him, on Florence’s private thoughts about himself, thoughts of aversion, of contempt. Outside that, anything that she could say was vain and tedious.
He went up to her and, in a low voice, said:
“Florence, you know what I feel for you, do you not?”
She blushed, taken aback, as though the question was the very last that she expected to hear. Nevertheless, she did not lower her eyes, and she answered frankly:
“Yes, I know.”
“But, perhaps,” he continued, more eagerly, “you do not know how deeply I feel it? Perhaps you do not know that my life has no other aim but you?”
“I know that also,” she said.
“Then, if you know it,” he said, “I must conclude that it was just that which caused your hostility to me. From the beginning I tried to be your friend and I tried only to defend you. And yet from the beginning I felt that for you I was the object of an aversion that was both instinctive and deliberate. Never did I see in your eyes anything but coldness, dislike, contempt, and even repulsion.
“At moments of danger, when your life or your liberty was at stake, you risked committing any imprudence rather than accept my assistance. I was the enemy, the man to be distrusted, the man capable of every infamy, the man to be avoided, and to be thought of only with a sort of dread. Isn’t that hatred? Is there anything but hatred to explain such an attitude?”
Florence did not answer at once. She seemed to be putting off the moment at which to speak the words that rose to her lips. Her face, thin and drawn with weariness and pain, was gentler than usual.
“Yes,” she said, “there are other things than hatred to explain that attitude.”
Don Luis was dumfounded. He did not quite understand the meaning of the reply; but Florence’s tone of voice disconcerted him beyond measure, and he also saw that Florence’s eyes no longer wore their usual scornful expression and that they were filled with smiling charm. And it was the first time that Florence had smiled in his presence.
“Speak, speak, I entreat you!” he stammered.
“I mean to say that there is another feeling which explains coldness, mistrust, fear, and hostility. It is not always those whom we detest that we avoid with the greatest fear; and, if we avoid them, it is often because we are afraid of ourselves, because we are ashamed, because we rebel and want to resist and want to forget and cannot—”
She stopped; and, when he wildly stretched out his arms to her, as if beseeching her to say more and still more, she nodded her head, thus telling him that she need not go on speaking for him to read to the very bottom of her soul and discover the secret of love which she kept hidden there.
Don Luis staggered on his feet. He was intoxicated with happiness, almost suffered physical pain from that unexpected happiness. After the horrible minutes through which he had passed amid the impressive surroundings of the Old Castle, it appeared to him madness to admit that such extraordinary bliss could suddenly blossom forth in the commonplace setting of that room at a hotel.
He could have longed for space around him, forest, mountains, moonlight, a radiant sunset, all the beauty and all the poetry of the earth. With one rush, he had reached the very acme of happiness. Florence’s very life came before him, from the instant of their meeting to the tragic moment when the cripple, bending over her and seeing her eyes filled with tears, had shouted:
“She’s crying! She’s crying! What madness! But I know your secret, Florence! And you’re crying! Florence, Florence, you yourself want to die!”
It was a secret of love, a passionate impulse which, from the first day, had driven her all trembling toward Don Luis. Then it had bewildered her, filled her with fear, appeared to her as a betrayal of Marie and Sauverand and, by turns urging her toward and drawing her away from the man whom she loved and whom she admired for his heroism and loyalty, rending her with remorse and overwhelming her as though it were a crime, had ended by delivering her, feeble and disabled, to the diabolical influence of the villain who coveted her.
Don Luis did not know what to do, did not know in what words to express his rapture. His lips trembled. His eyes filled with tears. His nature prompted him to take her in his arms, to kiss her as a child kisses, full on the lips, with a full heart. But a feeling of intense respect paralyzed his yearning. And, overcome with emotion, he fell at Florence’s feet, stammering words of love and adoration.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LUPIN’S LUPINS
NEXT MORNING, A little before eight o’clock, Valenglay was talking in his own flat to the Prefect of Police, and asked:
“So you think as I do, my dear Prefect? He’ll come?”
“I haven’t the least doubt of it, Monsieur le Président. And he will come with the same punctuality that has been shown throughout this business. He will come, for pride’s sake, at the last stroke of eight.”
“You think so?”
“Monsieur le Président, I have been studying the man for months. As things now stand, with Florence Levasseur’s life in the balance, if he has not smashed the villain whom he is hunting down, if he does not bring him back bound hand and foot, it will mean that Florence Levasseur is dead and that he, Arsène Lupin, is dead.”
“Whereas Lupin is immortal,” said Valenglay, laughing. “You’re right.
Besides, I agree with you entirely. No one would be more astonished than
I if our good friend was not here to the minute. You say you were rung up
from Angers yesterday?”
“Yes, Monsieur le Président. My men had just seen Don Luis Perenna. He had gone in front of them, in an aeroplane. After that, they telephoned to me again from Le Mans, where they had been searching a deserted coach-house.
“You may be sure that the search had already been made by Lupin, and that we shall know the results. Listen: eight o’clock!”
At the same moment they heard the throbbing of a motor car. It stopped outside the house; and the bell rang almost immediately after. Orders had been given beforehand. The door opened and Don Luis Perenna was shown in.
To Valenglay and the Prefect of Police his arrival was certainly not unexpected, for they had just been saying that they would have been surprised if he had not come. Nevertheless, their attitude showed that astonishment which we all experience in the face of events that seem to pass the bounds of human possibility.
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 282
