Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-thief (Penguin Classics)

by Leblanc, Maurice

  “What evidence?… There is no lack of evidence…. For instance…” He was silent, and reflected for a few seconds. Then he continued: “For instance, it is incredible that the child could have brought a foot-bridge from the outside and taken it away again unperceived. He must have employed what lay ready to hand. In the little room where Henriette did her cooking, were there not some shelves against the wall on which she kept her pots and pans?”

  “There were two shelves, as far as I remember.”

  “We must find out if these shelves were really fixed to the wooden brackets that supported them. If so, we are entitled to believe that the child unscrewed them and then fastened them together. Perhaps, also, if there was a range, we shall discover a stove-hook or plate-lifter which he would have employed to open the hinged pane.”

  The count went out without a word, and this time the others did not even feel that little touch of anxiety attendant upon the unknown which they had experienced on the first occasion. They knew, they knew absolutely, that Floriani’s views were correct. There emanated from that man an impression of such strict certainty that they listened to him not as though he were deducting facts one from the other, but as though he were describing events the accuracy of which it was easy to verify as he proceeded. And no one felt surprised when the count returned and said:

  “Yes, it’s the child… there’s no doubt about it… everything proves it…”

  “Did you see the shelves… the plate-lifter?”

  But Madame de Dreux-Soubise exclaimed:

  “The child!… You mean his mother. Henriette is the only guilty person. She must have compelled her son to…”

  “No,” said the chevalier, “the mother had nothing to do with it.”

  “Come, come! They lived in the same room; the child cannot have acted unknown to Henriette.”

  “They occupied the same room; but everything happened in the adjoining recess, at night, while the mother was asleep.”

  “And what about the necklace?” said the count. “It would have been found among the child’s things.”

  “I beg your pardon. He used to go out. The very morning when you found him with his book he had come back from school, and perhaps the police, instead of exhausting their resources against the innocent mother, would have been better advised to make a search there, in his desk, among his lesson-books.”

  “Very well. But the two thousand francs which Henriette received every year: is not that the best sign of her complicity?”

  “Would she have written to thank you for the money if she had been an accomplice? Besides, was she not kept under supervision? Whereas the child was free, and had every facility for going to the nearest town, seeing a dealer, and selling him a diamond cheaply, or two diamonds, as the case demanded… the only condition being that the money should be sent from Paris, in consideration of which the transaction would be repeated next year.”

  The Dreux-Soubises and their guests were oppressed by an undefinable sense of uneasiness. There was really in Floriani’s tone and attitude something more than that certainty which had so greatly irritated the count from the beginning. There was something resembling irony—an irony, moreover, that seemed hostile rather than sympathetic and friendly, as it ought to have been. The count affected to laugh.

  “All this is delightfully ingenious. Accept my compliments. What a brilliant imagination you possess!”

  “No, no, no!” cried Floriani, with more seriousness. “I am not imagining anything; I am recalling circumstances which were inevitably such as I have described them to you.”

  “What do you know of them?”

  “What you yourself have told me. I picture the life of the mother and the child down there in the country: the mother falling ill, the tricks and inventions of the little fellow to sell the stones and save his mother, or at least to ease her last moments. Her illness carries her off. She dies. Years pass. The child grows up, becomes a man. And then—this time, I am willing to admit that I am giving scope to my imagination—suppose that this man should feel a longing to return to the places where his childhood was spent, that he sees them once again, that he finds the people who have suspected and accused his mother: think of the poignant interest of such an interview in the old house under whose roof the different stages of the drama were enacted!”

  His words echoed for a moment or two in the restless silence, and the faces of M. and Mme. de Dreux revealed a desperate endeavor to understand, combined with an agonizing dread of understanding. The count asked, between his teeth:

  “Tell me, sir! Who are you?”

  “I? Why, the Cavaliere Floriani, whom you met at Palermo, and whom you have had the kindness to invite to your house time after time.”

  “Then what is the meaning of this story?”

  “Oh, nothing at all! It is a mere joke on my part. I am trying to picture to myself the delight which Henriette’s son, if he were still alive, would take in telling you that he is the only culprit, and that he became so because his mother was on the point of losing her place as a… as a domestic servant, which was her only means of livelihood, and because the child suffered at the sight of his mother’s unhappiness.”

  He had half risen from his seat, and, bending towards the countess, was expressing himself in terms of suppressed emotion. There was no doubt possible. The Cavaliere Floriani was none other than Henriette’s son. Everything in his attitude, in his words, proclaimed the fact. Besides, was it not his evident intention, his wish, to be recognized as such?

  The count hesitated. What line of conduct was he to adopt towards this daring individual? To ring the bell? Provoke a scandal? Unmask the villain who had robbed him? But it was so long ago! And who would believe this story of a guilty child? No, it was better to accept the position and pretend not to grasp its real meaning. And the count, going up to Floriani, said, playfully:

  “Your little romance is very interesting and very entertaining. It has quite taken hold of me, I assure you. But, according to you, what became of that exemplary young man, that model son? I trust that he did not stop on his prosperous road to fortune.”

  “Certainly not!”

  “Why, of course not! After so fine a start, too! At the age of six to capture the Queen’s Necklace, the celebrated necklace coveted by Marie-Antoinette!”

  “And to capture it, mind you,” said Floriani, entering into the count’s mood, “to capture it without its costing him the smallest unpleasantness, the police never taking it into their heads to examine the condition of the panes, or noticing that the window-ledge was too clean after he had wiped it so as to obliterate the traces of his feet on the thick dust…. You must admit that this was enough to turn the head of a scapegrace of his years. It was all too easy. He had only to wish and to put out his hand…. Well, he wished…”

  “And put out his hand?”

  “Both hands!” replied the chevalier, with a smile.

  A shudder passed through his hearers. What mystery concealed the life of this self-styled Floriani? How extraordinary must be the existence of this adventurer, a gifted thief at the age of six, who to-day, with the refined taste of a dilettante in search of an emotion, or, at most, to satisfy a sense of revenge, had come to brave his victim in that victim’s own house, audaciously, madly, and yet with all the good-breeding of a man of the world on a visit!

  He rose, and went up to the countess to take his leave. She suppressed a movement of recoil. He smiled.

  “Ah, madame, you are frightened! Have I carried my little comedy of drawing-room magic too far?”

  “Not at all, monsieur. On the contrary, the legend of that good son has interested me greatly, and I am happy to think that my necklace should have been the occasion of so brilliant a career. But does it not seem to you that the son of that… of that woman, of Henriette, was, above all things, obeying his natural vocation?”

  He started, felt the point of her remark, and replied:

  “I am sure he was; and, in fact, hi
s vocation must have been quite serious, or the child would have been discouraged.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, you know, most of the stones were false. The only real ones were the few diamonds bought of the English jeweller. The others had been sold, one by one, in obedience to the stern necessities of life.”

  “It was the Queen’s Necklace, monsieur, for all that,” said the countess, haughtily, “and that, it seems to me, is what Hen-riette’s son was unable to understand.”

  “He must have understood, madame, that, false or genuine, the necklace was, before all, a show thing, a sign-board.”

  M. de Dreux made a movement. His wife stopped him at once.

  “Monsieur,” she said, “if the man to whom you allude has the least vestige of shame…”

  She hesitated, shrinking before Floriani’s calm gaze. He repeated after her:

  “If he has the least feeling of shame…”

  She felt that she would gain nothing by speaking to him in this way; and, despite her anger and indignation, quivering with humiliated pride, she said, almost politely:

  “Monsieur, tradition says that Rétaux de Villette, when the Queen’s Necklace was in his hands, forced out all the diamonds with Jeanne de Valois, but he dared not touch the setting. He understood that the diamonds were but the ornaments, the accessories, whereas the setting was the essential work, the creation of the artist; and he respected it. Do you think that this man understood as much?”

  “I have no doubt but that the setting exists. The child respected it.”

  “Well, monsieur, if ever you happen to meet him, tell him that he is acting unjustly in keeping one of those relics which are the property and the glory of certain families, and that though he may have removed the stones, the Queen’s Necklace continues to belong to the house of Dreux-Soubise. It is ours as much as our name or our honor.”

  The chevalier replied, simply:

  “I will tell him so, madame.”

  He bowed low before her, bowed to the count, bowed to all the visitors, one after the other, and went out.

  Four days later Madame de Dreux found a red morocco case, stamped with the arms of the Cardinal de Rohan, on her bedroom table. She opened it. It contained the necklace of Marie-Antoinette.

  But as in the life of any logical and single-minded man all things must needs concur towards the same object—and a little advertisement never does any harm—the Écho de France of the next day contained the following sensational paragraph:

  “The Queen’s Necklace, the famous historic jewel stolen many years since from the Dreux-Soubise family, has been recovered by Arsène Lupin. Arsène Lupin has hastened to restore it to its lawful owners. This delicate and chivalrous attention is sure to meet with universal commendation.”2

  SHERLOCK HOLMES ARRIVES TOO LATE

  “It’s really curious, your likeness to Arsène Lupin, my dear Velmont.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “Oh, just as everybody does—by his photographs, not one of which in the least resembles the others; but they all leave the impression of the same face… which is undoubtedly yours.”

  Horace Velmont seemed rather annoyed.

  “I suppose you’re right, Devanne. You’re not the first to tell me of it, I assure you.”

  “Upon my word,” persisted Devanne, “if you had not been introduced to me by my cousin d’Estavan, and if you were not the well-known painter whose charming sea-pieces I admire so much, I’m not sure but that I should have informed the police of your presence at Dieppe.”

  The sally was received with general laughter. There were gathered, in the great dining-room of Thibermesnil Castle, in addition to Velmont, the Abbé Gélis, rector of the village, and a dozen officers whose regiments were taking part in the manoeuvres in the neighborhood, and who had accepted the invitation of Georges Devanne, the banker, and his mother. One of them exclaimed:

  “But, I say, wasn’t Arsène Lupin seen on the coast after his famous performance in the train between Paris and Le Havre?”

  “Just so, three months ago; and the week after that I made the acquaintance, at the Casino, of our friend Velmont here, who has since honored me with a few visits: an agreeable preliminary to a more serious call which I presume he means to pay me one of these days… or, rather, one of these nights!”

  The company laughed once more, and moved into the old guard-room—a huge, lofty hall which occupies the whole of the lower portion of the Tour Guillaume, and in which Georges Devanne has arranged all the incomparable treasures accumulated through the centuries by the lords of Thibermesnil. It is filled and adorned with old chests and credence-tables, fire-dogs and candelabra. Splendid tapestries hang on the stone-walls. The deep embrasures of the four windows are furnished with seats and end in pointed casements with leaded panes. Between the door and the window on the left stands a monumental Renaissance book-case, on the pediment of which is inscribed, in gold letters, the word “THIBERMESNIL” and underneath it the proud motto of the family: “Fais ce que veulx.”1

  And as they were lighting their cigars, Devanne added:

  “But you will have to hurry, Velmont, for this is the last night on which you will have a chance.”

  “And why the last night?” said the painter, who certainly took the jest in very good part.

  Devanne was about to reply when his mother made signs to him. But the excitement of the dinner and the wish to interest his guests were too much for him:

  “Pooh!” he muttered. “Why shouldn’t I tell them? There’s no indiscretion to be feared now.”

  They sat round him, filled with a lively curiosity, and he declared, with the self-satisfied air of a man announcing a great piece of news:

  “To-morrow, at four o’clock in the afternoon, I shall have here, as my guest, Sherlock Holmes, the great English detective, for whom no mystery exists, the most extraordinary solver of riddles that has ever been known, the wonderful individual who might have been the creation of a novelist’s brain.”

  There was a general exclamation. Sherlock Holmes at Thibermesnil! The thing was serious, then? Was Arsène Lupin really in the district?

  “Arsène Lupin and his gang are not very far away. Without counting Baron Cahorn’s mishap, to whom are we to ascribe the daring burglaries at Montigny and Gruchet and Crasville if not to our national thief? To-day it’s my turn.”

  “And have you had a warning, like Baron Cahorn?”

  “The same trick does not succeed twice.”

  “Then?…”

  “Look here.”

  He rose, and, pointing to a little empty space between two tall folios on one of the shelves of the bookcase, said:

  “There was a book here—a sixteenth-century book, entitled The Chronicles of Thibermesnil—which was the history of the castle since the time of its construction by Duke Rollo, on the site of a feudal fortress. It contained three engraved plates. One of them presented a general view of the domain as a whole; the second a plan of the building; and the third—I call your special attention to this—the sketch of an underground passage, one of whose outlets opens outside the first line of the ramparts, while the other ends here—yes, in this very hall where we are sitting. Now this book disappeared last month.”

  “By Jove!” said Velmont, “that’s a bad sign. Only it’s not enough to justify the intervention of Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Certainly it would not have been enough if another fact had not come to give its full significance to that which I have just told you. There was a second copy of the chronicle in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and the two copies differed in certain details concerning the underground passage, such as the addition of a sectional drawing, and a scale and a number of notes, not printed, but written in ink and more or less obliterated. I knew of these particulars, and I knew that the definite sketch could not be reconstructed except by carefully collating the two plans. Well, on the day after that on which my copy disappeared the one in the Bibliothèque Nationale was appli
ed for by a reader who carried it off without leaving any clew as to the manner in which the theft had been effected.”

  These words were greeted with many exclamations.

  “This time the affair grows serious.”

  “Yes; and this time,” said Devanne, “the police were roused, and there was a double inquiry which, however, led to no result.”

  “Like all those aimed at Arsène Lupin.”

  “Exactly. It then occurred to me to write and ask for the help of Sherlock Holmes, who replied that he had the keenest wish to come into contact with Arsène Lupin.”

  “What an honor for Arsène Lupin!” said Vermont. “But if our national thief, as you call him, should not be contemplating a project upon Thibermesnil, then there will be nothing for Sherlock Holmes to do but twiddle his thumbs.”

  “There is another matter which is sure to interest him: the discovery of the underground passage.”

  “Why, you told us that one end opened in the fields and the other here, in the guard-room!”

  “Yes, but in what part of it? The line that represents the tunnel on the plans finishes, at one end, at a little circle accompanied by the initials T. G., which, of course, stand for Tour Guillaume. But it’s a round tower, and who can decide at which point in the circle the line in the drawing touches?”

  Devanne lit a second cigar, and poured himself out a glass of Benedictine.2 The others pressed him with questions. He smiled with pleasure at the interest which he had aroused. At last, he said:

  “The secret is lost. Not a person in the world knows it. The story says that the high and mighty lords handed it down to one another, on their death-beds, from father to son, until the day when Geoffrey, the last of the name, lost his head on the scaffold, on the seventh of Thermidor, Year Second, in the nineteenth year of his age.”

  “Yes, but more than a century has passed since then; and it must have been looked for.”

  “It has been looked for, but in vain. I myself, after I bought the castle from the great-grand-nephew of Leribourg of the National Convention, had excavations made. What was the good? Remember that this tower is surrounded by water on every side, and only joined to the castle by a bridge, and that, consequently, the tunnel must pass under the old moats. The plan in the Bibliothèque Nationale shows a series of four staircases, comprising forty-eight steps, which allows for a depth of over ten yards, and the scale annexed to the other plan fixes the length at two hundred yards. As a matter of fact, the whole problem lies here, between this floor, that ceiling, and these walls; and, upon my word, I do not feel inclined to have them pulled down.”