by Otto Penzler
Did he mean to fling himself on the permanent way? At the rate at which we were going it would have been certain death. We plunged into the tunnel pierced under the Cote Sainte-Catherine. The man opened the door, and, with one foot, felt for the step. What madness! The darkness, the smoke, the din—all combined to give a fantastic appearance to any such attempt. But suddenly the train slowed up, the Westinghouse brakes counteracted the movement of the wheels. In a minute the pace from fast became normal, and decreased still more. Without a doubt there was a gang at work repairing this part of the tunnel; this would necessitate a slower passage of the trains for some days perhaps, and the man knew it.
He had only, therefore, to put his other foot on the step, climb down to the foot-board, and walk away quietly, not without first closing the door, and throwing back the latch.
He had scarcely disappeared when the smoke showed whiter in the daylight. We emerged into a valley. One more tunnel, and we should be at Rouen.
The lady at once recovered her wits, and her first care was to bewail the loss of her jewels. I gave her a beseeching glance. She understood, and relieved me of the gag which was stifling me. She wanted also to unfasten my bonds, but I stopped her.
“No, no; the police must see everything as it was. I want them to be fully informed as regards that blackguard’s actions.”
“Shall I pull the alarm-signal?”
“Too late. You should have thought of that while he was attacking me.”
“But he would have killed me! Ah, sir, didn’t I tell you that he was travelling by this train? I knew him at once, by his portrait. And now he’s taken my jewels!”
“They’ll catch him, have no fear.”
“Catch Arsène Lupin! Never.”
“It all depends on you, madam. Listen. When we arrive be at the window, call out, make a noise. The police and porters will come up. Tell them what you have seen in a few words: the assault of which I was the victim, and the flight of Arsène Lupin. Give his description: a soft hat, an umbrella—yours—a gray frock-overcoat…”
“Yours,” she said.
“Mine? No, his own. I didn’t have one.”
“I thought that he had none either when he got in.”
“He must have had…unless it was a coat which some one left behind in the rack. In any case, he had it when he got out, and that is the essential thing….A gray frock-overcoat, remember….Oh, I was forgetting…tell them your name to start with. Your husband’s functions will stimulate the zeal of all those men.”
We were arriving. She was already leaning out of the window. I resumed, in a louder, almost imperious voice, so that my words should sink into her brain:
“Give my name also, Guillaume Berlat. If necessary, say you know me…That will save time…we must hurry on the preliminary inquiries…the important thing is to catch Arsène Lupin…with your jewels….You quite understand, don’t you? Guillaume Berlat, a friend of your husband’s.”
“Quite…Guillaume Berlat.”
She was already calling out and gesticulating. Before the train had come to a standstill a gentleman climbed in, followed by a number of other men. The critical hour was at hand.
Breathlessly the lady exclaimed:
“Arsène Lupin…he attacked us…he has stolen my jewels….I am Madame Renaud…my husband is a deputy prison-governor….Ah, here’s my brother, Georges Andelle, manager of the Credit Rouennais….What I want to say is…”
She kissed a young man who had just come up, and who exchanged greetings with the commissary. She continued, weeping:
“Yes, Arsène Lupin….He flew at this gentleman’s throat in his sleep….Monsieur Berlat, a friend of my husband’s.”
“But where is Arsène Lupin?”
“He jumped out of the train in the tunnel, after we had crossed the Seine.”
“Are you sure it was he?”
“Certain. I recognized him at once. Besides, he was seen at the Gare Saint-Lazare. He was wearing a soft hat…”
“No; a hard felt hat, like this,” said the commissary, pointing to my hat.
“A soft hat, I assure you,” repeated Madame Renaud, “and a gray frock-overcoat.”
“Yes,” muttered the commissary; “the telegram mentions a gray frock-overcoat with a black velvet collar.”
“A black velvet collar, that’s it!” exclaimed Madame Renaud, triumphantly.
I breathed again. What a good, excellent friend I had found in her!
Meanwhile the policemen had released me from my bonds. I bit my lips violently till the blood flowed. Bent in two, with my handkerchief to my mouth, as seems proper to a man who has long been sitting in a constrained position, and who bears on his face the blood-stained marks of the gag, I said to the commissary, in a feeble voice:
“Sir, it was Arsène Lupin, there is no doubt of it….You can catch him if you hurry….I think I may be of some use to you….”
The coach, which was needed for the inspection by the police, was slipped. The remainder of the train went on towards Le Havre. We were taken to the station-master’s office through a crowd of on-lookers who filled the platform.
Just then I felt a hesitation. I must make some excuse to absent myself, find my motor-car, and be off. It was dangerous to wait. If anything happened, if a telegram came from Paris, I was lost.
Yes; but what about my robber? Left to my own resources, in a district with which I was not very well acquainted, I could never hope to come up with him.
“Bah!” I said to myself. “Let us risk it, and stay. It’s a difficult hand to win, but a very amusing one to play. And the stakes are worth the trouble.”
And as we were being asked provisionally to repeat our depositions, I exclaimed:
“Mr. Commissary, Arsène Lupin is getting a start of us. My motor is waiting for me in the yard. If you will do me the pleasure to accept a seat in it, we will try…”
The commissary gave a knowing smile.
“It’s not a bad idea…such a good idea, in fact, that it’s already being carried out.”
“Oh!”
“Yes; two of my officers started on bicycles…some time ago.”
“But where to?”
“To the entrance to the tunnel. There they will pick up the clews and the evidence, and follow the track of Arsène Lupin.”
I could not help shrugging my shoulders.
“Your two officers will pick up no clews and no evidence.”
“Really!”
“Arsène Lupin will have arranged that no one should see him leave the tunnel. He will have taken the nearest road, and from there…”
“From there made for Rouen, where we shall catch him.”
“He will not go to Rouen.”
“In that case, he will remain in the neighborhood, where we shall be even more certain…”
“He will not remain in the neighborhood.”
“Oh! Then where will he hide himself?”
I took out my watch.
“At this moment Arsène Lupin is hanging about the station at Darnetal. At ten-fifty—that is to say, in twenty-two minutes from now—he will take the train which leaves Rouen from the Gare du Nord for Amiens.”
“Do you think so? And how do you know?”
“Oh, it’s very simple. In the carriage Arsène Lupin consulted my railway guide. What for? To see if there was another line near the place where he disappeared, a station on that line, and a train which stopped at that station. I have just looked at the guide myself, and learned what I wanted to know.”
“Upon my word, sir,” said the commissary, “you possess marvellous powers of deduction. What an expert you must be!”
Dragged on by my certainty, I had blundered by displaying too much cleverness. He looked at me in astonishment, and I saw that a suspicion flickered through his mind. Only just, it is true; for the photographs despatched in every direction were so unlike, represented an Arsène Lupin so different from the one that stood before him, that he could not possibly r
ecognize the original in me. Nevertheless, he was troubled, restless, perplexed.
There was a moment of silence. A certain ambiguity and doubt seemed to interrupt our words. A shudder of anxiety passed through me.
Was luck about to turn against me? Mastering myself, I began to laugh.
“Ah well, there’s nothing to sharpen one’s wits like the loss of a pocket-book and the desire to find it again. And it seems to me that, if you will give me two of your men, the three of us might, perhaps…”
“Oh, please, Mr. Commissary,” exclaimed Madame Renaud, “do what Monsieur Berlat suggests.”
My kind friend’s intervention turned the scale. Uttered by her, the wife of an influential person, the name of Berlat became mine in reality, and conferred upon me an identity which no suspicion could touch. The commissary rose.
“Believe me, Monsieur Berlat, I shall be only too pleased to see you succeed. I am as anxious as yourself to have Arsène Lupin arrested.”
He accompanied me to my car. He introduced two of his men to me: Honore Massol and Gaston Delivet. They took their seats. I placed myself at the wheel. My chauffeur started the engine. A few seconds later we had left the station. I was saved.
I confess that as we dashed in my powerful 35-h.p. Moreau-Lepton along the boulevards that skirt the old Norman city I was not without a certain sense of pride. The engine hummed harmoniously. The trees sped behind us to right and left. And now, free and out of danger, I had nothing to do but to settle my own little private affairs with the co-operation of two worthy representatives of the law. Arsène Lupin was going in search of Arsène Lupin!
Ye humble mainstays of the social order of things, Gaston Delivet and Honore Massol, how precious was your assistance to me! Where should I have been without you? But for you, at how many cross-roads should I have taken the wrong turning! But for you, Arsène Lupin would have gone astray and the other escaped!
But all was not over yet. Far from it. I had first to capture the fellow and next to take possession, myself, of the papers of which he had robbed me. At no cost must my two satellites be allowed to catch a sight of those documents, much less lay hands upon them. To make us of them and yet act independently of them was what I wanted to do; and it was no easy matter.
We reached Darnetal three minutes after the train had left. I had the consolation of learning that a man in a gray frock-overcoat with a black velvet collar had got into a second-class carriage with a ticket for Amiens. There was no doubt about it: my first appearance as a detective was a promising one.
Delivet said:
“The train is an express, and does not stop before Monterolier-Buchy, in nineteen minutes from now. If we are not there before Arsène Lupin he can go on towards Amiens, branch off to Cleres, and, from there, make for Dieppe or Paris.”
“How far is Monterolier?”
“Fourteen miles and a half.”
“Fourteen miles and a half in nineteen minutes…We shall be there before he is.”
It was a stirring race. Never had my trusty Moreau-Lepton responded to my impatience with greater ardor and regularity. It seemed to me as though I communicated my wishes to her directly, without the intermediary of levers or handles. She shared my desires. She approved of my determination. She understood my animosity against that blackguard Arsène Lupin. The scoundrel! The sneak! Should I get the best of him? Or would he once more baffle authority, that authority of which I was the incarnation?
“Right!” cried Delivet….“Left!…Straight ahead!…”
We skimmed the ground. The mile-stones looked like little timid animals that fled at our approach.
And suddenly at the turn of a road a cloud of smoke—the north express!
For half a mile it was a struggle side by side—an unequal struggle, of which the issue was certain—we beat the train by twenty lengths.
In three seconds we were on the platform in front of the second class. The doors were flung open. A few people stepped out. My thief was not among them. We examined the carriages. No Arsène Lupin.
“By Jove!” I exclaimed, “he must have recognized me in the motor while we were going alongside of him, and jumped!”
The guard of the train confirmed my supposition. He had seen a man scrambling down the embankment at two hundred yards from the station.
“There he is!…Look!…At the level crossing!”
I darted in pursuit, followed by my two satellites, or, rather, by one of them; for the other, Massol, turned out to be an uncommonly fast sprinter, gifted with both speed and staying power. In a few seconds the distance between him and the fugitive was greatly diminished. The man saw him, jumped a hedge, and scampered off towards a slope, which he climbed. We saw him, farther still, entering a little wood.
When we reached the wood we found Massol waiting for us. He had thought it no use to go on, lest he should lose us.
“You were quite right, my dear fellow,” I said. “After a run like this our friend must be exhausted. We’ve got him.”
I examined the skirts of the wood while thinking how I could best proceed alone to arrest the fugitive, in order myself to effect certain recoveries which the law, no doubt, would only have allowed after a number of disagreeable inquiries. Then I returned to my companions.
“Look here, it’s very easy. You, Massol, take up your position on the left. You, Delivet, on the right. From there you can watch the whole rear of the wood, and he can’t leave it unseen by you except by this hollow, where I shall stand. If he does not come out, I’ll go in and force him back towards one or the other of you. You have nothing to do, therefore, but wait. Oh, I was forgetting: in case of alarm, I’ll fire a shot.”
Massol and Delivet moved off, each to his own side. As soon as they were out of sight I made my way into the wood with infinite precautions, so as to be neither seen nor heard. It consisted of close thickets, contrived for the shooting, and intersected by very narrow paths, in which it was only possible to walk by stooping, as though in a leafy tunnel.
One of these ended in a glade, where the damp grass showed the marks of footsteps. I followed them, taking care to steal through the underwood. They led me to the bottom of a little mound, crowned by a tumble-down lath-and-plaster hovel.
“He must be there,” I thought. “He has selected a good post of observation.”
I crawled close up to the building. A slight sound warned me of his presence, and, in fact, I caught sight of him through an opening; with his back turned towards me.
Two bounds brought me upon him. He tried to point the revolver which he held in his hand. I did not give him time, but pulled him to the ground in such a way that his two arms were twisted and caught under him, while I held him pinned down with my knee upon his chest.
“Listen to me, old chap,” I whispered in his ear. “I am Arsène Lupin. You’ve got to give me back, this minute and without any fuss, my pocket-book and the lady’s wrist-bag…in return for which I’ll save you from the clutches of the police and enroll you among my friends. Which is it to be: yes or no?”
“Yes,” he muttered.
“That’s right. Your plan of this morning was cleverly thought out. We shall be good friends.”
I got up. He fumbled in his pocket, fetched out a great knife, and tried to strike me with it.
“You ass!” I cried.
With one hand I parried the attack. With the other I caught him a violent blow on the carotid artery, the blow which is known as “the carotid hook.” He fell back stunned.
In my pocket-book I found my papers and bank-notes. I took his own out of curiosity. On an envelope addressed to him I read his name: Pierre Onfrey.
I gave a start. Pierre Onfrey, the perpetrator of the murder in the Rue Lafontaine at Auteuil! Pierre Onfrey, the man who had cut the throats of Madame Delbois and her two daughters. I bent over him. Yes, that was the face which, in the railway-carriage, had aroused in me the memory of features which I had seen before.
But time was passing. I placed
two hundred-franc notes in an envelope, with a visiting-card bearing these words:
“Arsène Lupin to his worthy assistants, Honore Massol and Gaston Delivet, with his best thanks.”
I laid this where it could be seen, in the middle of the room. Beside it I placed Madame Renaud’s wrist-bag. Why should it not be restored to the kind friend who had rescued me? I confess, however, that I took from it everything that seemed in any way interesting, leaving only a tortoise-shell comb, a stick of lip-salve, and an empty purse. Business is business, when all is said and done! And, besides, her husband followed such a disreputable occupation!…
There remained the man. He was beginning to move. What was I to do? I was not qualified either to save or to condemn him.
I took away his weapons, and fired my revolver in the air.
“That will bring the two others,” I thought. “He must find a way out of his own difficulties. Let fate take its course.”
And I went down the hollow road at a run.
Twenty minutes later a cross-road which I had noticed during our pursuit brought me back to my car.
At four o’clock I telegraphed to my friends from Rouen that an unexpected incident compelled me to put off my visit. Between ourselves, I greatly fear that, in view of what they must now have learned, I shall be obliged to postpone it indefinitely. It will be a cruel disappointment for them!
At six o’clock I returned to Paris by L’Isle-Adam, Enghien, and the Porte Bineau.
I gathered from the evening papers that the police had at last succeeded in capturing Pierre Onfrey.
The next morning—why should we despise the advantages of intelligent advertisement?—the Echo de France contained the following sensational paragraph:
“Yesterday, near Buchy, after a number of incidents, Arsène Lupin effected the arrest of Pierre Onfrey. The Auteuil murderer had robbed a lady of the name of Renaud, the wife of the deputy prison-governor, in the train between Paris and Le Havre. Arsène Lupin has restored to Madame Renaud the wrist-bag which contained her jewels, and has generously rewarded the two detectives who assisted him in the matter of this dramatic arrest.”
Rogue: Six-Eye
