Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-thief (Penguin Classics)

by Leblanc, Maurice

  “Tush!” said the Englishman. “It was even superfluous. In the copy belonging to the Bibliothèque Nationale the drawing of the tunnel ends on the left, as you know, in a circle, and on the right, as you do not know, in a little cross, which is so faintly marked that it can only be seen through a magnifying-glass. This cross obviously points to the chapel.”

  Poor Devanne could not believe his ears.

  “It’s wonderful, marvellous, and just as simple as A B C! How is it that the mystery was never seen through?”

  “Because nobody ever united the three or four necessary elements; that is to say, the two books and the quotations… nobody, except Arsène Lupin and myself.”

  “But I also,” said Devanne, “and the Abbé Gélis… we both of us knew as much about it as you, and yet…”

  Holmes smiled.

  “Monsieur Devanne, it is not given to all the world to succeed in solving riddles.”

  “But I have been hunting for ten years. And you, in ten minutes…”

  “Pooh! It’s a matter of habit.”

  They walked out of the chapel, and the Englishman exclaimed:

  “Hullo, a motor-car waiting!”

  “Why, it’s mine!”

  “Yours? But I thought the chauffeur hadn’t returned?”

  “No more he had… I can’t make out…”

  They went up to the car, and Devanne said to the chauffeur:

  “Victor, who told you to come here?”

  “Monsieur Velmont, sir,” replied the man.

  “Monsieur Velmont? Did you meet him?”

  “Yes, sir, near the station, and he told me to go to the chapel.”

  “To go to the chapel! What for?”

  “To wait for you, sir… and your friend.”

  Devanne and Sherlock Holmes exchanged glances. Devanne said:

  “He saw that the riddle would be child’s play to you. He has paid you a delicate compliment.”

  A smile of satisfaction passed over the detective’s thin lips. The compliment pleased him. He jerked his head and said:

  “He’s a man, that! I took his measure the moment I saw him.”

  “So you’ve seen him?”

  “We crossed on my way here.”

  “And you knew that he was Horace Velmont—I mean to say, Arsène Lupin?”

  “No, but it did not take me long to guess as much… from a certain irony in his talk.”

  “And you let him escape?”

  “I did… although I had only to put out my hand… five gendarmes rode past us.”

  “But, bless my soul, you’ll never get an opportunity like that again…”

  “Just so, Monsieur Devanne,” said the Englishman, proudly. “When Sherlock Holmes has to do with an adversary like Arsène Lupin, he does not take opportunities… he creates them…”

  But time was pressing, and as Lupin had been so obliging as to send the motor, Devanne and Holmes settled themselves in their seats. Victor started the engine, and they drove off. Fields, clumps of trees sped past. The gentle undulations of the Caux country levelled out before them. Suddenly Devanne’s eyes were attracted to a little parcel in one of the carriage pockets.

  “Hullo! What’s this? A parcel! Whom for? Why, it’s for you!”

  “For me?”

  “Read for yourself: ‘Sherlock Holmes, Esq., from Arsène Lupin!’ ”

  The Englishman took the parcel, untied the string, and removed the two sheets of paper in which it was wrapped. It was a watch.

  “Oh!” he said, accompanying his exclamation with an angry gesture….

  “A watch,” said Devanne. “Can he have…?”

  The Englishman did not reply.

  “What! It’s your watch? Is Arsène Lupin returning you your watch? Then he must have taken it!… He must have taken your watch! Oh, this is too good! Sherlock Holmes’ watch spirited away by Arsène Lupin! Oh, this is too funny for words! No, upon my honor… you must excuse me…. I can’t help laughing!”

  He laughed till he cried, utterly unable to restrain himself. When he had done, he declared, in a tone of conviction:

  “Yes, he’s a man, as you said.”

  The Englishman did not move a muscle. With his eyes fixed on the fleeting horizon he spoke not a word until they reached Dieppe. His silence was terrible, unfathomable, more violent than the fiercest fury. On the landing-stage he said simply, this time without betraying any anger, but in a tone that revealed all the iron will and energy of his remarkable personality:

  “Yes, he’s a man, and a man on whose shoulder I shall have great pleasure in laying this hand with which I now grasp yours, Monsieur Devanne. And I have an idea, mark you, that Arsène Lupin and Sherlock Holmes will meet again some day…. Yes, the world is too small for them not to meet…. And, when they do!…”

  FLASHES OF SUNLIGHT

  “Lupin,” I said, “tell me something about yourself.”

  “Why, what would you have me tell you? Everybody knows my life!” replied Lupin, who lay drowsing on the sofa in my study.

  “Nobody knows it!” I protested. “People know from your letters in the newspapers that you were mixed up in this case, that you started that case. But the part which you played in it all, the plain facts of the story, the upshot of the mystery: these are things of which they know nothing.”

  “Pooh! A heap of uninteresting twaddle!”

  “What! Your present of fifty thousand francs to Nicolas Dugrival’s wife! Do you call that uninteresting? And what about the way in which you solved the puzzle of the three pictures?”

  Lupin laughed:

  “Yes, that was a queer puzzle, certainly. I can suggest a title for you if you like: what do you say to The Sign of the Shadow}”1

  “And your successes in society and with the fair sex?” I continued. “The dashing Arsène’s love-affairs!… And the clue to your good actions? Those chapters in your life to which you have so often alluded under the names of The Wedding-ring, Shadowed by Death,2 and so on!… Why delay these confidences and confessions, my dear Lupin?… Come, do what I ask you!…”

  It was at the time when Lupin, though already famous, had not yet fought his biggest battles; the time that preceded the great adventures of The Hollow Needle and 813. He had not yet dreamt of annexing the accumulated treasures of the French Royal House3 nor of changing the map of Europe under the Kaiser’s nose:4 he contented himself with milder surprises and humbler profits, making his daily effort, doing evil from day to day and doing a little good as well, naturally and for the love of the thing, like a whimsical and compassionate Don Quixote.

  He was silent; and I insisted:

  “Lupin, I wish you would!”

  To my astonishment, he replied:

  “Take a sheet of paper, old fellow, and a pencil.”

  I obeyed with alacrity, delighted at the thought that he at last meant to dictate to me some of those pages which he knows how to clothe with such vigour and fancy, pages which I, unfortunately, am obliged to spoil with tedious explanations and boring developments.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “Quite.”

  “Write down, 20, 1, 11, 5, 14, 15.”

  “What?”

  “Write it down, I tell you.”

  He was now sitting up, with his eyes turned to the open window and his fingers rolling a Turkish cigarette. He continued:

  “Write down, 21, 14, 14, 5….”

  He stopped. Then he went on:

  “3, 5, 19, 19…”

  And, after a pause:

  “5, 18, 25…”

  Was he mad? I looked at him hard and, presently, I saw that his eyes were no longer listless, as they had been a little before, but keen and attentive and that they seemed to be watching, somewhere, in space, a sight that apparently captivated them.

  Meanwhile, he dictated, with intervals between each number:

  “18,9, 19, 11, 19…”

  There was hardly anything to be seen through the window but a patch of
blue sky on the right and the front of the building opposite, an old private house, whose shutters were closed as usual. There was nothing particular about all this, no detail that struck me as new among those which I had had before my eyes for years….

  “1, 2….”

  And suddenly I understood… or rather I thought I understood, for how could I admit that Lupin, a man so essentially level-headed under his mask of frivolity, could waste his time upon such childish nonsense? What he was counting was the intermittent flashes of a ray of sunlight playing on the dingy front of the opposite house, at the height of the second floor!

  “15, 22…” said Lupin.

  The flash disappeared for a few seconds and then struck the house again, successively, at regular intervals, and disappeared once more.

  I had instinctively counted the flashes and I said, aloud:

  “5….”

  “Caught the idea? I congratulate you!” he replied, sarcastically.

  He went to the window and leant out, as though to discover the exact direction followed by the ray of light. Then he came and lay on the sofa again, saying:

  “It’s your turn now. Count away!”

  The fellow seemed so positive that I did as he told me. Besides, I could not help confessing that there was something rather curious about the ordered frequency of those gleams on the front of the house opposite, those appearances and disappearances, turn and turn about, like so many flash signals.

  They obviously came from a house on our side of the street, for the sun was entering my windows slantwise. It was as though some one were alternately opening and shutting a casement, or, more likely, amusing himself by making sunlight flashes with a pocket-mirror.

  “It’s a child having a game!” I cried, after a moment or two, feeling a little irritated by the trivial occupation that had been thrust upon me.

  “Never mind, go on!”

  And I counted away…. And I put down rows of figures…. And the sun continued to play in front of me, with mathematical precision.

  “Well?” said Lupin, after a longer pause than usual.

  “Why, it seems finished…. There has been nothing for some minutes….”

  We waited and, as no more light flashed through space, I said, jestingly:

  “My idea is that we have been wasting our time. A few figures on paper: a poor result!”

  Lupin, without stirring from his sofa, rejoined:

  “Oblige me, old chap, by putting in the place of each of those numbers the corresponding letter of the alphabet. Count A as 1, B as 2 and so on. Do you follow me?”

  “But it’s idiotic!”

  “Absolutely idiotic, but we do such a lot of idiotic things in this life…. One more or less, you know!…”

  I sat down to this silly work and wrote out the first letters:

  “Take no…”

  I broke off in surprise:

  “Words!” I exclaimed. “Two English words meaning…”

  “Go on, old chap.”

  And I went on and the next letters formed two more words, which I separated as they appeared. And, to my great amazement, a complete English sentence lay before my eyes.

  “Done?” asked Lupin, after a time.

  “Done!… By the way, there are mistakes in the spelling….”

  “Never mind those and read it out, please…. Read slowly.”

  Thereupon I read out the following unfinished communication, which I will set down as it appeared on the paper in front of me:

  “Take no unnecessery risks. Above all, avoid atacks, approach ennemy with great prudance and…”

  I began to laugh:

  “And there you are! Fiat lux!5 We’re simply dazed with light! But, after all, Lupin, confess that this advice, dribbled out by a kitchen-maid, doesn’t help you much!”

  Lupin rose, without breaking his contemptuous silence, and took the sheet of paper.

  I remembered soon after that, at this moment, I happened to look at the clock. It was eighteen minutes past five.

  Lupin was standing with the paper in his hand; and I was able at my ease to watch, on his youthful features, that extraordinary mobility of expression which baffles all observers and constitutes his great strength and his chief safeguard. By what signs can one hope to identify a face which changes at pleasure, even without the help of make-up, and whose every transient expression seems to be the final, definite expression?… By what signs? There was one which I knew well, an invariable sign: Two little crossed wrinkles that marked his forehead whenever he made a powerful effort of concentration. And I saw it at that moment, saw the tiny tell-tale cross, plainly and deeply scored.

  He put down the sheet of paper and muttered:

  “Child’s play!”

  The clock struck half-past five.

  “What!” I cried. “Have you succeeded?… In twelve minutes?…”

  He took a few steps up and down the room, lit a cigarette and said:

  “You might ring up Baron Repstein, if you don’t mind, and tell him I shall be with him at ten o’clock this evening.”

  “Baron Repstein?” I asked. “The husband of the famous baroness?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Quite serious.”

  Feeling absolutely at a loss, but incapable of resisting him, I opened the telephone-directory and unhooked the receiver. But, at that moment, Lupin stopped me with a peremptory gesture and said, with his eyes on the paper, which he had taken up again:

  “No, don’t say anything…. It’s no use letting him know…. There’s something more urgent… a queer thing that puzzles me…. Why on earth wasn’t the last sentence finished? Why is the sentence…”

  He snatched up his hat and stick:

  “Let’s be off. If I’m not mistaken, this is a business that requires immediate solution; and I don’t believe I am mistaken.”

  He put his arm through mine, as we went down the stairs, and said:

  “I know what everybody knows. Baron Repstein, the company-promoter and racing-man, whose colt Etna won the Derby and the Grand Prix this year, has been victimized by his wife. The wife, who was well known for her fair hair, her dress and her extravagance, ran away a fortnight ago, taking with her a sum of three million francs, stolen from her husband, and quite a collection of diamonds, pearls and jewellery which the Princesse de Berny had placed in her hands and which she was supposed to buy. For two weeks the police have been pursuing the baroness across France and the continent: an easy job, as she scatters gold and jewels wherever she goes. They think they have her every moment. Two days ago, our champion detective, the egregious Ganimard, arrested a visitor at a big hotel in Belgium, a woman against whom the most positive evidence seemed to be heaped up. On enquiry, the lady turned out to be a notorious chorus-girl called Nelly Darbal. As for the baroness, she has vanished. The baron, on his side, has offered a reward of two hundred thousand francs to whosoever finds his wife. The money is in the hands of a solicitor. Moreover, he has sold his racing-stud, his house on the Boulevard Haussmann and his country-seat of Roquencourt in one lump, so that he may indemnify the Princesse de Berny for her loss.”

  “And the proceeeds of the sale,” I added, “are to be paid over at once. The papers say that the princess will have her money to-morrow. Only, frankly, I fail to see the connection between this story, which you have told very well, and the puzzling sentence…”

  Lupin did not condescend to reply.

  We had been walking down the street in which I live and had passed some four or five houses, when he stepped off the pavement and began to examine a block of flats, not of the latest construction, which looked as if it contained a large number of tenants:

  “According to my calculations,” he said, “this is where the signals came from, probably from that open window.”

  “On the third floor?”

  “Yes.”

  He went to the portress and asked her:

  “Does one of your tenants happe
n to be acquainted with Baron Repstein?”

  “Why, of course!” replied the woman. “We have M. La-vernoux here, such a nice gentleman; he is the baron’s secretary and agent. I look after his flat.”

  “And can we see him?”

  “See him?… The poor gentleman is very ill.”

  “Ill?”

  “He’s been ill a fortnight… ever since the trouble with the baroness…. He came home the next day with a temperature and took to his bed.”

  “But he gets up, surely?”

  “Ah, that I can’t say!”

  “How do you mean, you can’t say?”

  “No, his doctor won’t let any one into his room. He took my key from me.”

  “Who did?”

  “The doctor. He comes and sees to his wants, two or three times a day. He left the house only twenty minutes ago… an old gentleman with a grey beard and spectacles…. Walks quite bent…. But where are you going sir?”

  “I’m going up, show me the way,” said Lupin, with his foot on the stairs. “It’s the third floor, isn’t it, on the left?”

  “But I mustn’t!” moaned the portress, running after him. “Besides, I haven’t the key… the doctor…”

  They climbed the three flights, one behind the other. On the landing, Lupin took a tool from his pocket and, disregarding the woman’s protests, inserted it in the lock. The door yielded almost immediately. We went in.

  At the back of a small dark room we saw a streak of light filtering through a door that had been left ajar. Lupin ran across the room and, on reaching the threshold, gave a cry:

  “Too late! Oh, hang it all!”

  The portress fell on her knees, as though fainting.

  I entered the bedroom, in my turn, and saw a man lying half-dressed on the carpet, with his legs drawn up under him, his arms contorted and his face quite white, an emaciated, fleshless face, with the eyes still staring in terror and the mouth twisted into a hideous grin.

  “He’s dead,” said Lupin, after a rapid examination.

  “But why?” I exclaimed. “There’s not a trace of blood!”

  “Yes, yes, there is,” replied Lupin, pointing to two or three drops that showed on the chest through the open shirt. “Look, they must have taken him by the throat with one hand and pricked him to the heart with the other. I say, ‘pricked,’ because really the wound can’t be seen. It suggests a hole made by a very long needle.”