Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-thief (Penguin Classics)

by Leblanc, Maurice

  Devanne ran down the steps. Under the awnings, carefully packed and wrapped up, were his pictures, his furniture, his works of art of all kinds.

  The sergeant replied to the questions put to him by producing the order which the adjutant on duty had given him, and which the adjutant himself had received that morning in the orderly room. The order stated that No. 2 company of the fourth battalion was to see that the goods and chattels deposited at the Halleux cross-roads, in the Forest of Arques, were delivered at three o’clock to M. Georges Devanne, the owner of Thibermen-sil Castle. It bore the signature of Colonel Beauvel.

  “I found everything ready for us at the cross-roads,” added the sergeant, “laid out on the grass, under the charge of… any one passing. That struck me as queer, but… well, sir, the order was plain enough!”

  One of the officers examined the signature: it was a perfect copy, but forged.

  The band had stopped. The wagons were emptied, and the furniture carried in-doors.

  In the midst of this excitement Nellie Underdown was left standing alone at one end of the terrace. She was grave and anxious, full of vague thoughts, which she did not seek to formulate. Suddenly she saw Velmont coming up to her. She wished to avoid him, but the corner of the balustrade that borders the terrace hemmed her in on two sides, and a row of great tubs of shrubs—orange-trees, laurels, and bamboos—left her no other way of escape than that by which Velmont was approaching. She did not move. A ray of sunlight quivered on her golden hair, shaken by the frail leaves of a bamboo-plant. She heard a soft voice say:

  “I have kept the promise I made you last night.”

  Arsène Lupin stood by her side, and there was no one else near them.

  He repeated, in a hesitating attitude and a timid voice:

  “I have kept the promise I made you last night.”

  He expected a word of thanks, a gesture at least, to prove the interest which she took in his action. She was silent.

  Her scorn irritated Arsène Lupin, and at the same time he received a profound sense of all that separated him from Nellie, now that she knew the truth. He would have liked to exonerate himself, to seek excuses, to show his life in its bolder and greater aspects. But the words jarred upon him before they were uttered, and he felt the absurdity and the impertinence of any explanation. Then, overcome by a flood of recollections, he murmured, sadly:

  “How distant the past seems! Do you remember the long hours on the deck of the Provence?… Ah, stay… one day you had a rose in your hand, as you have to-day, a pale rose, like this one…. I asked you for it… you seemed not to hear…. However, when you had gone below, I found the rose… you had dropped it, no doubt… I have kept it ever since….”

  She still made no reply. She seemed very far from him. He continued:

  “For the sake of those dear hours, do not think of what you know. Let the past be joined to the present! Let me be not the man whom you saw last night, but your fellow-passenger on that voyage! Oh, turn your eyes and let them look at me, if only for a second, as they looked at me then… I implore you…. Am I not the same man that I was?”

  She raised her eyes, as he asked, and looked at him. Then, without a word, she placed her finger on a ring which he wore on his right hand. Only the circlet was visible, but the bezel, turned inward, was formed of a marvellous ruby.

  Arsène Lupin blushed scarlet. The ring belonged to Georges Devanne.

  He gave a bitter smile:

  “You are right,” he said. “What has been will always be. Arèsene Lupin is and can be no one but Arsène Lupin; and not even a memory can exist between you and him… Forgive me… I ought to have understood that my very presence near you must seem an outrage….”

  He made way for her, hat in hand, and Nellie passed before him along the balustrade. He felt tempted to hold her back, to beseech her. His courage failed him, and he followed her with his eyes, as he had done on the day long past when she crossed the gang-plank on their arrival at New York. She went up the stairs that lead to the door. For another instant her dainty figure was outlined against the marble of the entrance-hall. Then he saw her no more.

  A cloud covered the sun. Arsène Lupin stood motionless, gazing at the marks of the little footprints in the sand. Suddenly he gave a start; on the edge of the bamboo-tub against which Nellie had leaned lay the rose, the pale-pink rose for which he had not dared ask her… This one, too, had been dropped, no doubt. But dropped by accident or intention?

  He seized it eagerly. Some of the petals fell off. He picked them up, one by one, as though they were relics….

  “Come,” he said to himself, “I have nothing more to do here. Let us see to our retreat. The more so as, if Sherlock Holmes takes up the matter, it may become too hot for me.”

  The park was deserted, save for a group of gendarmes standing near the lodge at the entrance. Lupin plunged into the underwood, scaled the wall, and took the nearest way to the station—a path winding through the fields. He had been walking for eight or nine minutes when the road narrowed, boxed in between two slopes; and, as he reached this pass, he saw some one enter it at the opposite end.

  It was a man of, perhaps, some fifty summers, pretty powerfully built and clean-shaven, whose dress accentuated his foreign appearance. He carried a heavy walking-stick in his hand and a travelling-bag slung round his neck.

  The two men crossed each other. The foreigner asked, in a hardly perceptible English accent:

  “Excuse me, sir… can you tell me the way to the castle?”

  “Straight on and turn to the left when you come to the foot of the wall. They are waiting for you impatiently.”

  “Ah!”

  “Yes, my friend Devanne was announcing your visit to us last night.”

  “He made a great mistake if he said too much.”

  “And I am happy to be the first to pay you my compliments. Sherlock Holmes has no greater admirer than myself.”

  There was the slightest shade of irony in his voice, which he regretted forthwith, for Sherlock Holmes took a view of him from head to foot with an eye at once so all-embracing and so piercing that Arsène Lupin felt himself seized, caught, and registered by that glance more exactly and more essentially than he had ever been by any photographic apparatus.

  “The snapshot’s taken,” he thought. “It will never be worth my while to disguise myself when this joker is about. Only… did he recognize me or not?”

  They exchanged bows. But a noise of hoofs rang out, the clinking sound of horses trotting along the road. It was the gendarmes. The two men had to fall back against the slope, in the tall grass, to save themselves from being knocked over. The gendarmes passed, and as they were riding in single file, at quite a distance each from the other, this took some time. Lupin thought:

  “It all depends upon whether he recognized me. If so, does he intend to take his advantage?…”

  When the last horseman had passed, Sherlock Holmes drew himself up and, without saying a word, brushed the dust from his clothes. The strap of his bag had caught in a branch of thorns. Arsène Lupin hastened to release him. They looked at each other for another second. And if any one could have surprised them at that moment he would have beheld a stimulating sight in the first meeting of these two men, both so out of the common, so powerfully armed, both really superior characters, and inevitably destined by their special aptitudes to come into collision, like two equal forces which the order of things drives one against the other in space.

  Then the Englishman said:

  “I am much obliged to you.”

  “At your service,” replied Lupin.

  They went their respective ways—Lupin to the station, Sherlock Holmes to the castle.

  The examining magistrate and the public prosecutor had left, after a long but fruitless investigation, and the others were awaiting Sherlock Holmes with an amount of curiosity fully justified by his reputation. They were a little disappointed by his very ordinary appearance, which was so different fro
m the pictures which they had formed of him. There was nothing of the novel-hero about him, nothing of the enigmatic and diabolical personality which the idea of Sherlock Holmes evokes in us. However, Devanne exclaimed, with exuberant delight:

  “So you have come at last! This is indeed a joy! I have so long been hoping… I am almost glad of what has happened, since it gives me the pleasure of seeing you. But, by the way, how did you come?”

  “By train.”

  “What a pity! I sent my motor to the landing-stage to meet you!”

  “An official arrival, I suppose,” growled the Englishman, “with a brass-band marching ahead! An excellent way of helping me in my business.”

  This uninviting tone disconcerted Devanne, who, making an effort to jest, retorted:

  “The business, fortunately, is easier than I wrote to you.”

  “Why so?”

  “Because the burglary took place last night.”

  “If you had not announced my visit beforehand, the burglary would probably have not taken place last night.”

  “When would it?”

  “To-morrow, or some other day.”

  “And then?”

  “Arsène Lupin would have been caught in a trap.”

  “And my things…?”

  “Would not have been carried off.”

  “My things are here.”

  “Here?”

  “They were brought back at three o’clock.”

  “By Lupin?”

  “By a quarter-master sergeant, in two military wagons!”

  Sherlock Holmes violently thrust his cap down upon his head and adjusted his bag; but Devanne, in a fever of excitement, exclaimed:

  “What are you doing?”

  “I am going.”

  “Why should you?”

  “Your things are here. Arsène Lupin is gone. There is nothing left for me to do.”

  “Why, my dear sir, I simply can’t get on without you. What happened last night may be repeated to-morrow, seeing that we know nothing of the most important part: how Arsène Lupin effected his entrance, how he left, and why, a few hours later, he proceeded to restore what he had stolen.”

  “Oh, I see; you don’t know…”

  The idea of a secret to be discovered mollified Sherlock Holmes.

  “Very well, let’s look into it. But at once, please, and, as far as possible, alone.”

  The phrase clearly referred to the bystanders. Devanne took the hint, and showed the Englishman into the guard-room. Holmes put a number of questions to him touching the previous evening, the guests who were present, and the inmates and frequenters of the castle. He next examined the two volumes of the Chronicle, compared the plans of the underground passage, made Devanne repeat the two sentences noted by the Abbé Gélis, and asked:

  “You’re sure it was yesterday that you first spoke of those two quotations?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “You had never mentioned them to Monsieur Horace Vel-mont?”

  “Never.”

  “Very well. You might order your car. I shall leave in an hour.”

  “In an hour?”

  “Arsène Lupin took no longer to solve the problem which you put to him.”

  “I!… Which I put to him…?”

  “Why, yes, Arsène Lupin or Velmont, it’s all the same.”

  “I thought as much…. Oh, the rascal!…”

  “Well, at ten o’clock last night you supplied Lupin with the facts which he lacked, and which he had been seeking for weeks. And during the course of the night Lupin found time to grasp these facts, to collect his gang, and to rob you of your property. I propose to be no less expeditious.”

  He walked from one end of the room to the other, thinking as he went, then sat down, crossed his long legs, and closed his eyes.

  Devanne waited in some perplexity.

  “Is he asleep? Is he thinking?”

  In any case, he went out to give his instructions. When he returned he found the Englishman on his knees at the foot of the staircase in the gallery, exploring the carpet.

  “What is it?”

  “Look at these candle-stains.”

  “I see… they are quite fresh…”

  “And you will find others at the top of the stairs, and more still around this glass case which Arsène Lupin broke open, and from which he removed the curiosities and placed them on this chair.”

  “And what do you conclude?”

  “Nothing. All these facts would no doubt explain the restitution which he effected. But that is a side of the question which I have no time to go into. The essential thing is the map of the underground passage.”

  “You still hope?…”

  “I don’t hope; I know. There’s a chapel at two or three hundred yards from the castle, is there not?”

  “Yes, a ruined chapel, with the tomb of Duke Rollo.”

  “Tell your chauffeur to wait near the chapel.”

  “My chauffeur is not back yet…. They are to let me know…. So, I see, you consider that the underground passage ends at the chapel. What indication…?”

  Sherlock Holmes interrupted him:

  “May I ask you to get me a ladder and a lantern?”

  “Oh, do you want a ladder and a lantern?”

  “I suppose so, or I wouldn’t ask you for them.”

  Devanne, a little taken aback by this cold logic, rang the bell. The ladder and the lantern were brought.

  Orders succeeded one another with the strictness and precision of military commands:

  “Put the ladder against the bookcase, to the left of the word Thibermesnil…”

  Devanne did as he was asked, and the Englishman continued:

  “More to the left… to the right…. Stop!… Go up…. Good…. The letters are all in relief, are they not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Catch hold of the letter H, and tell me whether it turns in either direction?”

  Devanne grasped the letter H, and exclaimed:

  “Yes, it turns! A quarter of a circle to the right! How did you discover that?…”

  Holmes, without replying, continued:

  “Can you reach the letter R from where you stand? Yes…. Move it about, as you would a bolt which you were pushing or drawing.”

  Devanne moved the letter R. To his great astonishment, something became unlatched inside.

  “Just so,” said Sherlock Holmes. All that you now have to do is to push your ladder to the other end; that is to say, to the end of the word Thibermesnil…. Good…. Now, if I am not mistaken, if things go as they should, the letter L will open like a shutter.”

  With a certain solemnity, Devanne took hold of the letter L. The letter L opened, but Devanne tumbled off his ladder, for the whole section of the bookcase comprised between the first and last letters of the word swung round upon a pivot and disclosed the opening of the tunnel.

  Sherlock Holmes asked, phlegmatically:

  “Have you hurt yourself?”

  “No, no,” said Devanne, scrambling to his feet. “I’m not hurt, but flurried, I admit…. Those moving letters… that yawning tunnel…”

  “And what then? Doesn’t it all fit in exactly with the Sully quotation?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Why, I’H tournoie, I’R fremit, et I’Ls’ ouvre…”4

  “But what about Louis XVI. ?”

  “Louis XVI. was a really capable locksmith. I remember reading a Treatise on Combination-locks which was ascribed to him. On the part of a Thibermesnil, it would be an act of good courtiership to show his sovereign this masterpiece of mechanics. By the way of a memorandum, the king wrote down ‘2–6–12’—that is to say, the second, sixth, and twelfth letters of the word: H, R, L.”

  “Oh, of course…. I am beginning to understand…. Only, look here…. I can see how you get out of this room, but I can’t see how Lupin got in; for, remember, he came from the outside.”

  Sherlock Holmes lit the lantern, and entered the undergro
und passage.

  “Look, you can see the whole mechanism here, like the works of a watch, and all the letters are reversed. Lupin, therefore, had only to move them from this side of the wall.”

  “What proof have you?”

  “What proof? Look at this splash of oil. He even foresaw that the wheels would need greasing,” said Holmes, not without admiration.

  “Then he knew the other outlet?”

  “Just as I know it. Follow me.”

  “Into the underground passage?”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “No; but are you sure you can find your way?”

  “I’ll find it with my eyes shut.”

  They first went down twelve steps, then twelve more, and again twice twelve more. Then they passed through a long tunnel whose brick walls showed traces of successive restorations, and oozed, in places, with moisture. The ground underfoot was damp.

  “We are passing under the pond,” said Devanne, who felt far from comfortable.

  The tunnel ended in a flight of twelve steps, followed by three other flights of twelve steps each, which they climbed with difficulty, and they emerged in a small hollow hewn out of the solid rock. The way did not go any farther.

  “Hang it all!” muttered Sherlock Holmes. “Nothing but bare walls. This is troublesome.”

  “Suppose we go back,” suggested Devanne, “for I don’t see the use of learning any more. I have seen all I want to.”

  But on raising his eyes the Englishman gave a sigh of relief: above their heads the same mechanism was repeated as at the entrance. He had only to work the three letters. A block of granite turned on a pivot. On the other side it formed Duke Rollo’s tombstone, carved with the twelve letters in relief, “THIBERMESNIL.” And they found themselves in the little ruined chapel of which Sherlock Holmes had spoken.

  “ ‘And you go to God’… that is to say, to the chapel,” said Holmes, quoting the end of the sentence.

  “Is it possible,” cried Devanne, amazed at the other’s perspicacity and keenness—”is it possible that this simple clew told you all that you wanted to know?”