Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-thief (Penguin Classics)

by Leblanc, Maurice

  “Has he had his dinner?”

  “Yes,” replied the governor.

  “Dieuzy, cut those pieces of macaroni into very thin shreds and open that bit of bread…. Is there nothing there?”

  “No, sir.”

  M. Dudouis examined the plates, the fork, the spoon, and, lastly, the knife—a regulation knife with a rounded blade. He twisted the handle to the left and then to the right. When turned to the right the handle gave way and became unscrewed. The knife was hollow, and served as a sheath for a slip of paper.

  “Pooh!” he said, “that’s not very artful for a man like Arsène. But let us waste no time. Do you go to the restaurant, Dieuzy, and make your inquiries.”

  Then he read:

  “I leave it to you. Let H. P. follow every day at a distance. I shall go in front. I shall see you soon, my dear and adorable friend.”

  “At last!” cried M. Dudouis, rubbing his hands. “Things are going better, I think. With a little assistance from our side the escape will succeed… just enough to enable us to bag the accomplices.”

  “And suppose Arsène Lupin slips through your fingers?” said the governor.

  “We shall employ as many men as are necessary. If, however, he shows himself too clever… well, then, so much the worse for him! As for the rest of the gang, since the leader refuses to talk the others must be made to.”

  The fact was that Arsène Lupin did not talk much. For some months M. Jules Bouvier, the examining magistrate, had been exerting himself to no purpose. The interrogatories were reduced to uninteresting colloquies between the magistrate and Maitre Danval, one of the leaders of the bar, who, for that matter, knew as much and as little about the defendant as the man in the street.

  From time to time, out of politeness, Arsène Lupin would let fall a remark:

  “Quite so, sir; we are agreed. The robbery at the Crédit Ly-onnais, the robbery in the Rue de Babylone, the uttering of the forged notes, the affair of the insurance policies, the burglaries at the Châteaux d’Armesnil, de Gouret, d’Imblevain, des Gro-seillers, du Malaquis: that’s all my work.”6

  “Then perhaps you will explain…”

  “There’s no need of it. I confess to everything in the lump—everything, and ten times as much.”

  Tired out, the magistrate had suspended these wearisome interrogatories. He resumed them, after being shown the two intercepted missives. And regularly at twelve o’clock every day Arsène Lupin was taken from the Santé to the police-station in a van, with a number of other prisoners. They left again at three or four in the day.

  One afternoon the return journey took place under exceptional conditions. As the other criminals from the Santé had not yet been examined, it was decided to take Arsène Lupin back first. He therefore stepped into the van alone.

  These prison-vans, vulgarly known as paniers à salade, or salad-baskets, in France, and as “Black Marias” in England, are div!ided lengthwise by a central passage, giving admittance to ten compartments or boxes, five on each side. Each of these boxes is so arranged that its occupant has to adopt a sitting posture, and the five prisoners are consequently seated one beside the other, and are separated by parallel partitions. A municipal guard sits at the end and watches the central passage.

  Arsène was placed in the third box on the right, and the heavy vehicle started. He perceived that they had left the Quai de l’Horloge, and were passing before the Palais de Justice. When they reached the middle of the Pont Saint-Michel he pressed his outer foot—that is to say, his right foot, as he had always done—against the sheet-iron panel that closed his cell. suddenly something was thrown out of gear, and the panel opened outward imperceptibly. He saw that he was just between the two wheels.

  He waited, with a watchful eye. The van went along the Boulevard Saint-Michel at a foot’s pace. At the Carrefour Saint-Germain it pulled up. A dray-horse had fallen. The traffic was stopped, and soon there was a block of cabs and omnibuses.

  Arsène Lupin put out his head. Another prison-van was standing beside the one in which he was sitting. He raised the panel farther, put his foot on one of the spokes of the hind wheel, and jumped to the ground.

  A cab-driver saw him, choked with laughing, and then tried to call out. But his voice was lost in the din of the traffic, which had started afresh. Besides, Arsène Lupin was already some distance away.

  He had taken a few steps at a run; but, crossing to the left-hand pavement, he turned back, cast a glance around him, and seemed to be taking his breath, like a man who is not quite sure which direction he means to follow. Then, making up his mind, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and, with the careless air of a person taking a stroll, continued to walk along the boulevard.

  The weather was mild: it was a bright, warm autumn day. The cafés were full of people. He sat down outside one of them.

  He called for a bock and a packet of cigarettes. He emptied his glass with little sips, calmly smoked a cigarette and lit a second. Lastly, he stood up and asked the waiter to fetch the manager.

  The manager came, and Arsène said, in a voice loud enough to be heard by all around:

  “I am very sorry, but I have come out without my purse. Possibly you know my name and will not mind trusting me for a day or two: I am Arsène Lupin.”

  The manager looked at him, thinking he was joking. But Arsène repeated:

  “Lupin, a prisoner at the Sante, just escaped. I venture to hope that my name inspires you with every confidence.”

  And he walked away amid the general laughter before the other dreamed of raising a protest.

  He slanted across the Rue Soufflot, and turned down the Rue Saint-Jacques. He proceeded along this street quietly, looking at the shop-windows, and smoking one cigarette after the other. On reaching the Boulevard de Port-Royal he took his bearings, asked the way, and walked straight towards the Rue de la Sante. Soon the frowning walls of the prison came into view. He skirted them, and, going up to the municipal guard who was standing sentry at the gate, raised his hat, and said:

  “Is this the Santé Prison?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to go back to my cell, please. The van dropped me on the way, and I should not like to abuse…”

  The guard grunted.

  “Look here, my man, you just go your road, and look sharp about it!”

  “I beg your pardon, but my road lies through this gate. And, if you keep Arsène Lupin out, it may cost you dear, my friend.”

  “Arsène Lupin! What’s all this?”

  “I am sorry I haven’t a card on me,” said Arsène, pretending to feel in his pockets.

  The guard, utterly nonplussed, eyed him from head to foot. Then, without a word and as though in spite of himself, he rang a bell. The iron door opened.

  A few minutes later the governor hurried into the office, gesticulating and pretending to be in a violent rage. Arsène smiled.

  “Come, sir, don’t play a game with me! What! You take the precaution to bring me back alone in the van, you prepare a nice little block in the traffic, and you think that I am going to take to my heels and rejoin my friends! And what about the twenty detectives escorting us on foot, on bicycles, and in cabs? They’d have made short work of me: I should never have got off alive! Perhaps that was what they were reckoning on?” Shrugging his shoulders, he added: “I beg you, sir, don’t let them trouble about me. When I decide to escape I shall want nobody’s assistance.”

  Two days later the Écho de France, which was undoubtedly becoming the official gazette of the exploits of Arsène Lupin—he was said to be one of the principal shareholders—published the fullest details of his attempted escape. The exact text of the letters exchanged between the prisoner and his mysterious woman friend, the means employed for this correspondence, the part played by the police, the drive along the Boulevard Saint-Michel, the incident at the Café Soufflot—everything was told in print. It was known that the inquiries of Inspector Dieuzy among the waiters of the restaurant had led t
o no result. And, in addition, the public were made aware of this bewildering fact, which showed the infinite variety of the resources which the man had at his disposal: the prison-van in which he had been carried was “faked” from end to end, and had been substituted by his accomplices for one of the six regular vans that compose the prison service.

  No one entertained any further doubt as to Arsène Lupin’s coming escape. He himself proclaimed it in categorical terms, as was shown by his reply to M. Bouvier on the day after the incident. The magistrate having bantered him on the check which he had encountered, he looked at him and said, coldly:

  “Listen to me, sir, and take my word for it: this attempted escape formed part of my plan of escape.”

  “I don’t understand,” grinned the magistrate.

  “There is no need that you should.”

  And when, in the course of this private interrogatory, which appeared at full length in the columns of the Écho de France, the magistrate resumed his cross-examination, Lupin exclaimed, with a weary air:

  “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! What is the use of going on? All these questions have no importance whatever.”

  “How do you mean, no importance?”

  “Of course not, seeing that I shall not attend my trial.”

  “You will not attend?…”

  “No, it’s a fixed idea of mine, an irrevocable decision. Nothing will induce me to depart from it.”

  This assurance, combined with the inexplicable indiscretions committed day after day, ended by enervating and disconcerting the officers of the law. Secrets were revealed, known to Arsène Lupin alone, the div!ulging of which could, therefore, come from none but him. But with what object did he div!ulge them? And by what means?

  They changed Arsène Lupin’s cell, moved him to a lower floor. The magistrate, on his side, closed the examination, and delivered the materials for the indictment.

  A two months’ silence ensued. These two months Arsène Lupin passed stretched on his bed, with his face almost constantly turned to the wall. The change of cell seemed to have crushed his spirits. He refused to see his counsel. He exchanged hardly a word with his wardens.

  In the fortnight immediately preceding his trial he seemed to revive. He complained of lack of air. He was sent into the yard for exercise very early in the morning with a man on either side of him.

  Meanwhile public curiosity had not abated. The news of his escape was expected daily; it was almost hoped for, so greatly had he caught the fancy of the crowd with his pluck, his gayety, his variety, his inventive genius, and the mystery of his life. Arsène Lupin was bound to escape. It was inevitable. People were even astonished that he put it off so long. Every morning the prefect of police asked his secretary:

  “Well, isn’t he gone yet?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then it will be to-morrow.”

  And on the day before the trial a gentleman called at the office of the Grand Journal, asked to see the legal contributor, flung his card at his head, and made a rapid exit. The card bore the words:

  “Arsène Lupin always keeps his promises.”

  It was in these conditions that the trial opened.

  The crowd was enormous. Everybody wanted to see the famous Arsène Lupin, and was enjoying in advance the way in which he was sure to baffle the presiding judge. The court was thronged with barristers, magistrates, reporters, artists, society men and women—with all, in fact, that go to make up a first-night audience in Paris.

  It was raining; the light was bad outside; it was difficult to see Arsène Lupin when his wardens ushered him into the dock. However, his torpid attitude, the manner in which he let himself fall into his chair, his indifferent and passive lack of movement, did not tell in his favor. His counsel—one of Maître Danval’s “devils,” the great man himself having regarded the part to which he was reduced as beneath him—spoke to him several times. He jerked his head and made no reply.

  The clerk of the court read the indictment. Then the presiding judge said:

  “Prisoner at the bar, stand up. Give your name, your age, and your occupation.”

  Receiving no answer, he repeated:

  “Your name—what is your name?”

  A thick and tired voice articulated the words:

  “Désiré Baudru.”

  There was a murmur in court. But the judge retorted:

  “Désiré Baudru? Is this a new incarnation? As it is about the eighth name to which you lay claim, and no doubt as imaginary as the rest, we will keep, if you don’t mind, to that of Arsène Lupin, under which you are more favorably known.”

  The judge consulted his notes, and continued:

  “For, notwithstanding all inquiries, it has been impossible to reconstruct your identity. You present the case, almost unparalleled in our modern society, of a man without a past. We do not know who you are, whence you come, where your childhood was spent—in short, we know nothing about you. You sprang up suddenly, three years ago, from an uncertain source, to reveal yourself as Arsène Lupin—that is to say, as a curious compound of intelligence and perversity, of criminality and generosity. The data which we have concerning you before that time are of the nature of suppositions. It seems probable that the so-called Ros-tat, who, eight years ago, was acting as assistant to Dickson, the conjurer, was none other than Arsène Lupin. It seems probable that the Russian student who, six years ago, used to attend Dr. Altier’s laboratory at St. Louis’ Hospital, and who often astonished the master by the ingenious character of his hypotheses on bacteriology and by the boldness of his experiments in the diseases of the skin—it seems probable that he too was none other than Arsène Lupin. So was the professor of Japanese wrestling, who established himself in Paris long before jiu-jitsu had been heard of. So, we believe, was the racing cyclist who won the great prize at the Exhibition, took his ten thousand francs, and has never been seen since. So, perhaps, was the man who saved so many people from burning at the Charity Bazaar, helping them through the little dormer window… and robbing them of their belongings.”7

  The judge paused for a moment, and concluded:

  “Such was that period which seems to have been devoted entirely to a careful preparation for the struggle upon which you had embarked against society, a methodical apprenticeship in which you improved your force, your energy, and your skill to the highest pitch of perfection. Do you admit the accuracy of these facts?”

  During this speech the defendant had shifted from foot to foot, with rounded back, and arms hanging slackly before him. As the light increased the spectators were able to distinguish his extreme emaciation, his sunken jaws, his curiously prominent cheek-bones, his earthen countenance, mottled with little red stains, and framed in a sparse and straggling beard. Prison had greatly aged and withered him. The clean-cut profile, the attractive, youthful features which had so often been reproduced in the papers, had passed away beyond all recognition.

  He seemed not to have heard the question. It was twice repeated to him. At last he raised his eyes, appeared to think, and then, making a violent effort, muttered:

  “Désiré Baudru.”

  The judge laughed.

  “I fail to follow exactly the system of defence which you have adopted, Arsène Lupin. If it be to play the irresponsible imbecile, you must please yourself. As far as I am concerned, I shall go straight to the point without troubling about your fancies.”

  And he enumerated in detail the robberies, swindles, and forgeries ascribed to Arsène Lupin. Occasionally he put a question to the prisoner. The latter gave a grunt or made no reply. Witness after witness entered the box. The evidence of several of them was insignificant; others delivered more important testimony; but all of them had one characteristic in common, which was that each contradicted the other. The trial was shrouded in a puzzling obscurity until Chief-Inspector Ganimard was called, when the general interest woke up.

  Nevertheless, the old detective caused a certain disappointment from the first. He seemed n
ot so much shy—he was too old a hand for that—as restless and ill at ease. He kept turning his eyes with visible embarrassment towards the prisoner. However, with his two hands resting on the ledge of the box, he described the incidents in which he had taken part, his pursuit of Lupin across Europe, his arrival in America. And the crowded court listened to him greedily, as it would have listened to the story of the most exciting adventures. But towards the close of his evidence, twice over, after alluding to his interviews with Arsène Lupin, he stopped with an absent and undecided air.

  It was obvious that he was under the influence of some obsession. The judge said:

  “If you are not feeling well, you can stand down and continue your evidence later.”

  “No, no, only…”

  He stopped, took a long and penetrating look at the prisoner, and said:

  “Might I be allowed to see the prisoner more closely? There is a mystery which I want to clear up.”

  He stepped across to the dock, gazed at the prisoner longer still, concentrating all his attention upon him, and returned to the witness-box. Then, in a solemn voice, he said:

  “May it please the court, I swear that the man before me is not Arsène Lupin.”

  A great silence greeted these words. The judge, at first taken aback, exclaimed:

  “What do you mean? What are you saying? You are mad!”

  The inspector declared, deliberately:

  “At first sight one might be deceived by a likeness which, I admit, exists; but it needs only a momentary examination. The nose, the mouth, the hair, the color of the skin: why, it’s not Arsène Lupin at all. And look at the eyes: did he ever have those drunkard’s eyes?”

  “Come, come, explain yourself, witness. What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. He must have substituted in his place and stead some poor wretch who would have been found guilty in his place and stead… unless this man is an accomplice.”

  This unexpected dénouement caused the greatest sensation in court. Cries of laughter and astonishment rose from every side. The judge gave instructions for the attendance of the examining magistrate, the governor of the Sante, and the warders—and suspended the sitting.