But, search and pry into the darkness as he might, the parcel was gone; and he had no doubt but that it was once more the mysterious being who had taken it.
“What a pity! The thing was so neatly arranged! The adventure would have resumed its natural course, and I should have achieved my aim with greater certainty … As it is, I must push along as fast as I can … Doudeville is at the Pavillon Hortense … My retreat is insured … No more nonsense … I must hurry and set things straight again, if I can … And we’ll attend to ‘him’ afterward … Oh, he’d better keep clear of my claws, that one!”
But an exclamation of stupor escaped his lips; he had come to the other door; and this door, the last before the garden-house, was shut. He flung himself upon it. What was the good? What could he do?
“This time,” he muttered, “I’m badly done!”
And, seized with a sort of lassitude, he sat down. He had a sense of his weakness in the face of the mysterious being. Altenheim hardly counted. But the other, that person of darkness and silence, the other loomed up before him, upset all his plans and exhausted him with his cunning and infernal attacks.
He was beaten.
Weber would find him there, like an animal run to earth, at the bottom of his cave.
“Ah, no!” he cried, springing up with a bound. “No! If there were only myself, well and good! … But there is Geneviève, Geneviève, who must be saved to-night … After all, the game is not yet lost … If the other one vanished just now, it proves that there is a second outlet somewhere near … Come, come, Weber and his merry men haven’t got me yet …”
He had already begun to explore the tunnel and, lantern in hand, was examining the bricks of which the horrible walls were formed, when a yell reached his ears, a dreadful yell that made his flesh creep with anguish.
It came from the direction of the trap-door. And he suddenly remembered that he had left the trap-door open, at the time when he intended to return to the Villa des Glycines.
He hurried back and passed through the first door. His lantern went out on the road; and he felt something, or rather somebody, brush past his knees, somebody crawl along the wall. And, at that same moment, he had a feeling that this being was disappearing, vanishing, he knew not which way.
Just then his foot knocked against a step.
“This is the outlet,” he thought, “the second outlet through which ‘he’ passes.”
Overhead, the cry sounded again, less loud, followed by moans, by a hoarse gurgling …
He ran up the stairs, came out in the basement room, and rushed to the baron.
Altenheim lay dying, with the blood streaming from his throat! His bonds were cut, but the wire that fastened his wrists and ankles was intact. His accomplice, being unable to release him, had cut his throat.
Sernine gazed upon the sight with horror. An icy perspiration covered his whole body. He thought of Geneviève, imprisoned, helpless, abandoned to the most awful of deaths, because the baron alone knew where she was hidden.
He distinctly heard the policemen open the little back door in the hall. He distinctly heard them come down the kitchen stairs.
There was nothing between him and them save one door, that of the basement room in which he was. He bolted the door at the very moment when the aggressors were laying hold of the handle.
The trap-door was open beside him; it meant possible safety, because there remained the second outlet.
“No,” he said to himself, “Geneviève first. Afterward, if I have time, I will think of myself.”
He knelt down and put his hand on the baron’s breast. The heart was still beating.
He stooped lower still:
“You can hear me, can’t you?”
The eyelids flickered feebly.
The dying man was just breathing. Was there anything to be obtained from this faint semblance of life?
The policemen were attacking the door, the last rampart.
Sernine whispered.
“I will save you … I have infallible remedies … One word only … Geneviève? …”
It was as though this word of hope revived the man’s strength. Altenheim tried to utter articulate sounds.
“Answer,” said Sernine, persisting. “Answer, and I will save you … Answer … It means your life to-day … your liberty to-morrow … Answer! …”
The door shook under the blows that rained upon it.
The baron gasped out unintelligible syllables. Leaning over him, affrighted, straining all his energy, all his will to the utmost, Sernine panted with anguish. He no longer gave a thought to the policemen, his inevitable capture, prison … But Geneviève … Geneviève dying of hunger, whom one word from that villain could set free! …
“Answer! … You must! …”
He ordered and entreated by turns. Altenheim stammered, as though hypnotized and defeated by that indomitable imperiousness:
“Ri … Rivoli …”
“Rue de Rivoli, is that it? You have locked her up in a house in that street … eh? Which number?”
A loud din … followed by shouts of triumph … The door was down.
“Jump on him, lads!” cried M. Weber. “Seize him … seize both of them!”
And Sernine, on his knees:
“The number … answer … If you love her, answer … Why keep silence now?”
“Twenty … twenty-seven,” whispered the baron.
Hands were laid on Sernine. Ten revolvers were pointed at him.
He rose and faced the policemen, who fell back with instinctive dread.
“If you stir, Lupin,” cried M. Weber, with his revolver leveled at him, “I’ll blow out your brains.”
“Don’t shoot.” said Sernine, solemnly. “It’s not necessary. I surrender.”
“Humbug! This is another of your tricks!”
“No,” replied Sernine, “the battle is lost. You have no right to shoot. I am not defending myself.”
He took out two revolvers and threw them on the floor.
“Humbug!” M. Weber repeated, implacably. “Aim straight at his heart, lads! At the least movement, fire! At the least word, fire!”
There were ten men there. He placed five more in position. He pointed their fifteen right arms at the mark. And, raging, shaking with joy and fear, he snarled:
“At his heart! At his head! And no pity! If he stirs, if he speaks … shoot him where he stands!”
Sernine smiled, impassively, with his hands in his pockets. Death was there, waiting for him, at two inches from his chest, at two inches from his temples. Fifteen fingers were curled round the triggers.
“Ah,” chuckled M. Weber, “this is nice, this is very nice! … And I think that this time we’ve scored … and it’s a nasty look-out for you, Master Lupin! …”
He made one of his men draw back the shutters of a large air-hole, which admitted a sudden burst of day light, and he turned toward Altenheim. But, to his great amazement, the baron, whom he thought dead, opened his eyes, glazed, awful eyes, already filled with all the signs of the coming dissolution. He stared at M. Weber. Then he seemed to look for somebody and, catching sight of Sernine, had a convulsion of anger. He seemed to be waking from his torpor; and his suddenly reviving hatred restored a part of his strength.
He raised himself on his two wrists and tried to speak.
“You know him, eh?” asked M. Weber.
“Yes.”
“It’s Lupin, isn’t it?”
“Yes … Lupin …”
Sernine, still smiling, listened:
“Heavens, how I’m amusing myself!” he declared.
“Have you anything more to say?” asked M. Weber, who saw the baron’s lips making desperate attempts to move.
“Yes.”
“About M. Lenormand, perhaps?”
“Yes.”
“Have you shut him up? Where? Answer! …”
With all his heaving body, with all
his tense glance, Altenheim pointed to a cupboard in the corner of the room.
“There … there …” he said.
“Ah, we’re burning!” chuckled Lupin.
M. Weber opened the cupboard. On one of the shelves was a parcel wrapped in black cloth. He opened it and found a hat, a little box, some clothes … He gave a start. He had recognized M. Lenormand’s olive-green frock-coat.
“Oh, the villains!” he cried. “They have murdered him!”
“No,” said Altenheim, shaking his head.
“Then …?”
“It’s he … he …”
“What do you mean by ‘he’? … Did Lupin kill the chief?”
“No …”
Altenheim was clinging to existence with fierce obstinacy, eager to speak and to accuse … The secret which he wished to reveal was at the tip of his tongue and he was not able, did not know how to translate it into words.
“Come,” the deputy-chief insisted. “M. Lenormand is dead, surely?”
“No.”
“He’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand … Look here, these clothes? This frock-coat? …”
Altenheim turned his eyes toward Sernine. An idea struck M. Weber:
“Ah, I see! Lupin stole M. Lenormand’s clothes and reckoned upon using them to escape with …”
“Yes … yes …”
“Not bad,” cried the deputy-chief. “It’s quite a trick in his style. In this room, we should have found Lupin disguised as M. Lenormand, chained up, no doubt. It would have meant his safety; only he hadn’t time. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Yes … yes …”
But, by the appearance of the dying man’s eyes, M. Weber felt that there was more, and that the secret was not exactly that. What was it, then? What was the strange and unintelligible puzzle which Altenheim wanted to explain before dying?
He questioned him again:
“And where is M. Lenormand himself?”
“There …”
“What do you mean? Here?”
“Yes.”
“But there are only ourselves here!”
“There’s … there’s …”
“Oh, speak!”
“There’s … Ser … Sernine.”
“Sernine! … Eh, what?”
“Sernine … Lenormand …”
M. Weber gave a jump. A sudden light flashed across him.
“No, no, it’s not possible,” he muttered. “This is madness.”
He gave a side-glance at his prisoner. Sernine seemed to be greatly diverted and to be watching the scene with the air of a playgoer who is thoroughly amused and very anxious to know how the piece is going to end.
Altenheim, exhausted by his efforts, had fallen back at full length. Would he die before revealing the solution of the riddle which his strange words had propounded? M. Weber, shaken by an absurd, incredible surmise, which he did not wish to entertain and which persisted in his mind in spite of him, made a fresh, determined attempt:
“Explain the thing to us … What’s at the bottom of it? What mystery?”
The other seemed not to hear and lay lifeless, with staring eyes.
M. Weber lay down beside him, with his body touching him, and, putting great stress upon his words, so that each syllable should sink down to the very depths of that brain already merged in darkness, said:
“Listen … I have understood you correctly, have I not? Lupin and M. Lenormand …”
He needed an effort to continue, so monstrous did the words appear to him. Nevertheless, the baron’s dimmed eyes seemed to contemplate him with anguish. He finished the sentence, shaking with excitement, as though he were speaking blasphemy:
“That’s it, isn’t it? You’re sure? The two are one and the same? …”
The eyes did not move. A little blood trickled from one corner of the man’s mouth … He gave two or three sobs … A last spasm; and all was over …
A long silence reigned in that basement room filled with people.
Almost all the policemen guarding Sernine had turned round and, stupefied, not understanding or not willing to understand, they still listened to the incredible accusation which the dying scoundrel had been unable to put into words.
M. Weber took the little box which was in the parcel and opened it. It contained a gray wig, a pair of spectacles, a maroon-colored neckerchief and, in a false bottom, a pot or two of make-up and a case containing some tiny tufts of gray hair: in short, all that was needed to complete a perfect disguise in the character of M. Lenormand.
He went up to Sernine and, looking at him for a few seconds without speaking, thoughtfully reconstructing all the phases of the adventure, he muttered:
“So it’s true?”
Sernine, who had retained his smiling calmness, replied:
“The suggestion is a pretty one and a bold one. But, before I answer, tell your men to stop worrying me with those toys of theirs.”
“Very well,” said M. Weber, making a sign to his men. “And now answer.”
“What?”
“Are you M. Lenormand?”
“Yes.”
Exclamations arose. Jean Doudeville, who was there, while his brother was watching the secret outlet, Jean Doudeville, Sernine’s own accomplice, looked at him in dismay. M. Weber stood undecided.
“That takes your breath away, eh?” said Sernine. “I admit that it’s rather droll … Lord, how you used to make me laugh sometimes, when we were working together, you and I, the chief and the deputy-chief! … And the funniest thing is that you thought our worthy M. Lenormand dead … as well as poor Gourel. But no, no, old chap: there’s life in the old dog yet!” He pointed to Altenheim’s corpse. “There, it was that scoundrel who pitched me into the water, in a sack, with a paving-stone round my waist. Only, he forgot to take away my knife. And with a knife one rips open sacks and cuts ropes. So you see, you unfortunate Altenheim: if you had thought of that, you wouldn’t be where you are! … But enough said … Peace to your ashes!”
M. Weber listened, not knowing what to think. At last, he made a gesture of despair, as though he gave up the idea of forming a reasonable opinion.
“The handcuffs,” he said, suddenly alarmed.
“If it amuses you,” said Sernine.
And, picking out Doudeville in the front row of his assailants, he put out his wrists:
“There, my friend, you shall have the honour … and don’t trouble to exert yourself … I’m playing square … as it’s no use doing anything else …”
He said this in a tone that gave Doudeville to understand that the struggle was finished for the moment and that there was nothing to do but submit.
Doudeville fastened the handcuffs.
Without moving his lips or contracting a muscle of his face, Sernine whispered:
“27, Rue de Rivoli … Geneviève …”
M. Weber could not suppress a movement of satisfaction at the sight:
“Come along!” he said. “To the detective-office!”
“That’s it, to the detective-office!” cried Sernine. “M. Lenormand will enter Arsène Lupin in the jail-book; and Arsène Lupin will enter Prince Sernine.”
“You’re too clever, Lupin.”
“That’s true, Weber; we shall never get on, you and I.”
During the drive in the motor-car, escorted by three other cars filled with policemen, he did not utter a word.
They did not stay long at the detective office. M. Weber, remembering the escapes effected by Lupin, sent him up at once to the finger-print department and then took him to the Dépôt, whence he was sent on to the Santé Prison.
The governor had been warned by telephone and was waiting for him. The formalities of the entry of commitment and of the searching were soon got over; and, at seven o’clock in the evening, Prince Paul Sernine crossed the threshold of cell 14 in the second division:
&n
bsp; “Not half bad, your rooms,” he declared, “not bad at all! … Electric light, central heating, every requisite … capital! Mr. Governor, I’ll take this room.”
He flung himself on the bed:
“Oh, Mr. Governor, I have one little favor to ask of you!”
“What is that?”
“Tell them not to bring me my chocolate before ten o’clock in the morning … I’m awfully sleepy.”
He turned his face to the wall. Five minutes later he was sound asleep.
CHAPTER IX
“SANTÉ PALACE”
THERE WAS ONE WILD burst of laughter over the whole face of the world.
True, the capture of Arsène Lupin made a big sensation; and the public did not grudge the police the praise which they deserved for this revenge so long hoped-for and now so fully obtained. The great adventurer was caught. That extraordinary, genial, invisible hero was shivering, like any ordinary criminal, between the four walls of a prison cell, crushed in his turn by that formidable power which is called the law and which, sooner or later, by inevitable necessity shatters the obstacles opposed to it and destroys the work of its adversaries.
All this was said, printed, repeated and discussed ad nauseam. The prefect of police was created a commander, M. Weber an officer of the Legion of Honor. The skill and courage of their humblest coadjutors were extolled to the skies. Cheers were raised and pæans of victory struck up. Articles were written and speeches made.
Very well. But one thing, nevertheless, rose above the wonderful concert of praise, these noisy demonstrations of satisfaction; and that was an immense, spontaneous, inextinguishable and tumultuous roar of laughter.
Arsène Lupin had been chief of the detective-service for four years!!!
He had been chief detective for four years and, really, legally, he was chief detective still, with all the rights which the title confers, enjoying the esteem of his chiefs, the favor of the government and the admiration of the public.
For four years, the public peace and the defence of property had been entrusted to Arsène Lupin. He saw that the law was carried out. He protected the innocent and pursued the guilty.
And what services he had rendered! Never was order less disturbed, never was crime discovered with greater certainty and rapidity. The reader need but take back his mind to the Denizou case, the robbery at the Crédit Lyonnais, the attack on the Orléans express, the murder of Baron Dorf, forming a series of unforeseen and overwhelming triumphs, of magnificent feats of prowess fit to compare with the most famous victories of the most renowned detectives.
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