“I begin to think I must be dreaming,” she said. “Here I am talking with a... an artist, who has just struck my husband and in a few minutes is going to take my jewels. Yet instead of calling for help, I am listening to him. Actually listening to him with pleasure. I begin to understand you, Mr.... Mr. Flow. You are a seducer of women, and you must have as many accomplices as there are women in Paris. People are not lying when they talk about your conquests.”
“On the contrary,” I said, “they are lying. But you must not tell anyone I told you that, for I enjoy my legendary reputation. It’s a lie nevertheless. I love only one woman, and I cannot have her. I have never been unfaithful to her. I shall never love anyone but her.... But I am forgetting what brought me here. Already I have been chatting with you for ten minutes. And the masters of our craft have laid down the rule that one must always work without delay. Will you therefore tell me, Madame, where your necklace is? I will take it and leave you free to care for your husband.”
“Alas, you guessed right,” she sighed. “It is in the little table.”
I opened the drawer and found a necklace and various rings, evidently of great value. I was about to stuff them into my pocket when I detected a tear in the corner of Mme. Parmin’s eye.
“Come, come!” I said. “You mustn’t cry. I am going to ask you a practical question. How much do you think these jewels are worth?”
“I am not thinking about the money now,” she answered.
“Neither am I. Money means nothing to me. I want to steal ten million to-night, but it is for amusement and glory.”
“Then you will give them back?”
“Perhaps. I don’t know about that yet. I surely will give them to someone. But not necessarily to their owners. I might use them for some charitable purpose. In any case, my greatest desire now is that you should not cry. You can take back any of these jewels that hold a sentimental value. The necklace, I know, hasn’t any.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because nobody would ever make a love gift of a necklace worth a million, and this one certainly is worth that much.”
“Two million!”
“Yes, two for the buyer, but only one for the seller. However, whichever it may be, it was not a love present. It was probably a present from your husband, who no doubt wanted to give you pleasure, but was also satisfying his own pride. Consequently, the necklace is mine. But you may choose what you like out of the rest.”
“Do you mean that?”
“Yes.”
She stretched out a charming hand towards a magnificent emerald that lay among the rings.
“Even this one?”
“Certainly. I will make you a present of whatever pleases you.”
She then chose a diamond, and said:
“Each time I look at it, I shall think of Mr. Flow.” In her pink silk nightgown she was a ravishing creature, and I could not help telling her so. The smile that warmed her eyes stirred an echo in my breast. But I must not forget my rôle of Mr. Flow!
“There!” I said lightly. “Now there is nothing left but to find the other eight million somewhere else in the house. Would you do me a great favour?”
“Oh!” she sighed, “what favour could I do you, Mr. Flow?”
“Simply tell me the shortest way to Mme. Chavrier’s room.”
“You are going to take her jewels, too?”
“Naturally. I have lost a lot of time talking to you, and although I cannot say I exactly wasted it, I have certainly employed it in a dangerous way. And now you must help me.”
“Will you take everything she has?”
“Probably.”
“Even her blue diamond?”
“If it doesn’t mean over a quarter of an hour’s work, I will take the blue diamond with the rest. For in a little while it will begin to be light.”
“How I wish I could see your face!” she exclaimed.
“Impossible,” I answered, “for to-night my mask is my true face.”
“And if I tell you where the blue diamond is?”
“Then I shall take off my mask to examine it.”
“Turn to the left in the hall. The first door is Edmond Chavrier’s. The second is a bathroom. The third is Marguerite’s.”
“Marguerite?”
“That is Mme. Chavrier’s name. Her jewels are in the Louis XVth bureau, at the right of the bed. But the blue diamond is in one of those little secret compartments — you know, a little panel between the drawers that you push.”
“Yes, I know those old-fashioned chests, and their secret compartments that any child could find.”
“Good. Now hurry.... I never expected to be doing anything like this. I must be crazy.”
“I am going. But first I must take certain precautions.” I leaned over towards the telephone which had cost M. Parmin an hour’s consciousness. She watched me curiously.
“What are you going to do — cut the wire? Are you... are you afraid I will call somebody?”
“Wouldn’t it be perfectly natural for you to do so?”
“It would be despicable of me!”
Her eyes gleamed, and I saw that she was indignant. How strange life is! Women hardly paid any attention to Antonin Rose. But the moment he ceased to be an honest man, they found him irresistible. I had just knocked this woman’s husband unconscious, and stolen her necklace and all but two of her rings. I was about to rob her friend. Yet it was evident she was already beginning to love me. And the moralists preach honesty to our young men!...
Yet did I dare trust her?
She leaned close to me, quivering with intensity.
“Shall I give you my word of honour?”
Like Don Juan I replied, “A woman’s honour is on her lips. I accept your word of honour.”
I drew her towards me before she had grasped the meaning of my words, and pressed her lips.
She returned my kiss.
I hurried down the dark hall to the third door, and softly turned the knob. Once inside the room, I went straight to the bureau and gathered up everything I could find in it. Next the secret panel. It slid back, and the blue diamond lay before me. I slipped it into my pocket. All this had taken less than two minutes, and not a sound. In the silence, I heard the rise and fall of light breathing. Marguerite Chavrier was sleeping in blissful peace.
In the hall, concealed behind her door, I found Mme. Parmin waiting for me tremulously. She was pale and threw herself into my arms, clinging to me passionately.
“My darling! My darling! I am frightened....” And then: “Did you take everything? Have you got the blue diamond? You are sure? How could you do it so quickly?”
I showed her my booty. She gazed at it with a sigh of admiration.
“You got everything! Even the blue diamond. Isn’t it beautiful?”
I dropped it into her hand.
“That’s for you.”
But she shrank away. “Oh, no! I couldn’t. She is my friend.”
She was thoughtful for a moment. Then she drew from her finger the emerald ring which she had begged from me.
“Here,” she breathed, “this is my own. I give it to you to remember me by. Swear that you will always keep it.”
I gave her my promise. Then she whispered:
“But I will keep the little diamond ring so I will have something to remember Mr. Flow by.
“Take off your mask,” she pleaded. “You said you would. Please take it off. What are you afraid of?”
“Nothing....”
I took off the mask. She gazed into my eyes and threw her arms around my neck.
“Now I know the real face of the Man of a Hundred and One Masks, and he is handsome! I love you! Promise I shall see you again. Will you? When?...”
“On the Champs-Elysées, in two days,” I suggested. It was safe to do that; I needn’t go when the time came. I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes to three. It was time to go. It would soon be light.
Mme. Parmin whispered a t
housand vows in my ear. As I was about to step out the window, a scruple stopped me.
“Here, take your jewels! I will keep the emerald for your sake. But I can’t take the others. I prefer to carry away only your kiss.”
She refused, and begged me to hurry. She feared for my safety.
She was right. I was behaving insanely. I should have left long ago with my ten million. Had I wanted to be caught I wouldn’t have acted differently. Yet I longed to do one more reckless thing before I left.
“You will not take back the jewels?”
“No! Hurry, you must go! And don’t forget, day after to-morrow....”
But I was groping in my bag. I took out two or three small objects.
“Let me pass!
I thrust her aside, went back into the hall, and straight to the room of the sugar king, Edmond Chavrier.
I entered with no precautions against making a noise. Inside, I switched on the light. But Chavrier did not wake up.
He was a large man, with purplish cheeks, stiff white hair, this captain of industry. Against the farther wall stood a large safe.
I approached the sleeper and grasped him by the shoulder. He awoke at once and stared at me in bewilderment.
“Good morning, Edmond!” I said in a cordial tone. “You don’t know me, Edmond, but I know you. I entered your house just now by a window and took the jewels of your friends, the Parmins. But, on thinking it over, it strikes me it is bad form to rob guests. It isn’t their fault that they have accepted the hospitality of a house that is so poorly protected as yours. Don’t move, Edmond! If you do, it will go hard with you....”
For after his first moment of stupor, Chavrier had gathered himself together and was about to leap out of bed.
“Don’t move, Edmond! I have brought back your friends’ jewels. You can return them yourself.”
And I tossed Mme. Parmin’s rings and necklace on his bed.
He seized them and clutched them firmly, as if to say, “Now let me see you try to get them back!”
When his hands closed tightly over the jewels, I threw myself upon him, and pressed a wad of cotton saturated with chloroform on his face. I hoped he heard my last words:
“I don’t need your friends’ jewels, Edmond. I have the blue diamond...
Should I open the safe? It was a heavy one, and would take time. But the sky was cloudy and dawn would be late.... Besides, I had Durin’s saw.
Half an hour later I emerged from his room. I found Mme. Parmin half crazed with terror.
My husband has just opened his eyes,” she whispered. “He may have heard everything we said.... And how shall I ever explain why I didn’t call for help? You have ruined me....”
I begged her to be quiet. I held the chloroform over her husband’s face, and then, helping her back to bed, offered the reeking cotton to her. She welcomed it eagerly.
“Yes, yes. Then it will look as if I had not known anything.”
“Breathe deeply, my love....”
IV.
EDMOND CHAVRIER BEHAVES FOOLISHLY
THE FOLLOWING OFFICIAL statement appeared the next day in the Paris News:
“At a cabinet meeting held this morning, the Minister of the Interior took up with his colleagues the measures he deems necessary to check the spreading crime wave and assure the safety of Parisians.”
How futile! Yet no doubt many people took the announcement seriously.
What could the Minister of the Interior do to check me? I was merely Antonin Rose, a young lawyer with no clients, who ate dinner every evening at one of the cheapest restaurants in the neighbourhood. Certainly no one was going to suspect me of having stolen ten million the previous night.
Ten million, without counting the bonds from the safe, and putting the lowest possible valuation on the jewels.
All the Minister of the Interior could do would be to summon the head of the police department and say firmly:
“I want you to arrest this Mr. Flow. I’ve heard enough about him.”
And he would answer:
“I will do my best, sir.”
And that would be all. Anything further would be impossible. Criminals would never be caught if they operated skilfully, and were not so vain as to boast of their exploits to other criminals who later betrayed them.
But I was skilful, and I kept my mouth shut. It was not in my nature to prattle of everything I did; I found satisfaction enough in knowing my own successes.
Those who like to boast will never know the deeper joy of saying to oneself, as one reads the papers: “It was I who did that. I am the man who has baffled all the police and reporters. The detectives of the whole world are after me; yet I walk freely among them and no one can stop me, for am I not a member of the Paris bar — a lawyer without reputation, perhaps, but of unquestioned honesty?”
And while all Paris wondered what had become of me, I had laid away a fortune of ten million in my bureau drawer, which I did not even lock. Ten million in my dingy little room in the rue des Bernardins.
Ten, did I say? If I could believe Edmond Chavrier, who was filling the papers with his laments, I had at least fifteen million, if not twenty. He set a fabulous value on the blue diamond. And he was tearing his hair, apparently not realizing that the whole city was enjoying itself at his expense.
To tell the truth, he would have irritated me if I had not had the satisfaction of toying with him that night. Now he was casting himself in an heroic rôle. Awakened out of a sound sleep, only my prodigious strength had overpowered him. But he would have his revenge. He offered half a million francs to anyone who should cause my arrest. And he tried to provoke me by defying me. “He entered my house once,” he told the reporters, “but I have now taken every precaution against him. He will never be able to get in again.”
The fool! Why should I want to get in again? I had taken everything the first time.
The most delightful part of the story, however, was Mme. Parmin’s account. She was still ill, according to her, from the excitement of “that horrible night.” She had “nearly died under the chloroform.” When she had seen me strike down her husband, she had thrown herself upon me with loud cries. She described me to the reporters as a giant, whose black eyes flashed lightning. I had a strong English accent, and wore a sweeping moustache. —
She was a dear to invent such a description! I was of medium height, my eyes were blue, and I was clean shaven. So there were still people in the world that one could trust!
Evidently the reporters had been struck by her beauty. They all referred to her as “the charming heroine,”
“that plucky young woman.” And how she must have enjoyed it! For, thanks to me, she was the woman of the hour. Her picture was on every front page.
For this very reason I feared to keep my engagement with her. It would not do to be seen with a woman who was so much in the public eye. Besides, it might occur to her that she could win new fame by causing the arrest of Mr. Flow.
Farewell, charming heroine!... Farewell, plucky young woman!... You already have given me the best a woman can give; your glance of love and your lips. I will keep the ring, since you wished it so. And if, some day, I ever grow unduly diffident, I will take it out and look at it. It will remind me that once I merely had to be seen to be loved.
Alas, the only woman who did not love me was precisely the one I adored. Where were you now, Helena? Did you never think of me? You had loved Mr. Flow, Helena?... Well, I was now Mr. Flow. Read what the papers were saying of me; how they were admiring my recklessness and my presence of mind. The Minister of the Interior had been compelled to take notice of me. You had loved thieves? Very well, I had stolen twenty or thirty million the night before — and one of these days I would give them back. For it pleased me to despise money; it was my whim to be honest. I was stealing for my health, under the doctor’s orders....
The newspapers began to wonder whether this time I was going to make restitution. To give up such a fortune, it seemed to
everyone, would be an act of folly. Paris waited impatiently.
Meanwhile, the police had grown zealous. They had arrested some poor devil at Calais as he was going aboard the boat for Dover. Later, of course, they had to release him with apologies. Did they imagine that Mr. Flow would let himself be taken like that? If he should ever be arrested, it would not be so simple.
As for Chavrier, he should pay for his impertinence! I drafted a paragraph, which I sent at once to the Paris News:
“Mr. Edmond Chavrier will not see his blue diamond again until he withdraws his insulting offer of a reward.
Mr. Flow gives him permission to set a price on his head, but not to make it cheap.”
This would put my friend, the sugar king, in a dilemma. If he withdrew his offer, he would look ridiculous; if he did not, he would not get back his blue diamond. My public warning had no sooner appeared than the reporters hurried to his house. But he would receive no one. He sent out word that he was ill. Obviously he was hesitating, unable to decide what to do. I would have given a good deal to know his thoughts at that particular moment.
Perhaps young Ruskin, feature writer of the Paris News, could tell me. It might be a good idea to arrange to meet him by chance. I knew where he usually lunched; a restaurant near the News office, where the waiters all knew him, read his stories regularly, and treated him with special consideration.
So, when noon came, I dropped in at the restaurant. He was seated at the table that was always reserved for him. Luckily, he was alone, and was glad to see me.
“Hello, Rose! Have you had lunch yet?” he greeted me cordially. “Sit down here.”
I replied that I would be delighted, and sat down. It was he who plunged into the subject that was on my mind:
“Have you read about Mr. Flow’s latest? That fellow takes the cake. My God, wouldn’t I like to interview him for just five minutes! If I could have him sitting here beside me, where you are now — wow!”
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 477