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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Hollow Needle, by Maurice Leblanc
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: The Hollow Needle
+
+Author: Maurice Leblanc
+
+Release Date: October 11, 2001 [eBook #4017]
+[Last updated: July 18, 2022]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Charles Franks, Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOLLOW NEEDLE ***
+
+
+
+
+The Hollow Needle
+
+FURTHER ADVENTURES OF ARSÈNE LUPIN
+
+by Maurice Leblanc
+
+AUTHOR OF
+“ARSÈNE LUPIN,” “THE BLONDE LADY,” ETC.
+
+TRANSLATED BY ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
+
+
+Contents
+
+ Chapter I. The Shot
+ Chapter II. Isidore Beautrelet, Sixth-form Schoolboy
+ Chapter III. The Corpse
+ Chapter IV. Face to Face
+ Chapter V. On the Track
+ Chapter VI. An Historic Secret
+ Chapter VII. The Treatise of the Needle
+ Chapter VIII. From Cæsar to Lupin
+ Chapter IX. Open, Sesame!
+ Chapter X. The Treasures of the Kings of France
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+Valméras loved Raymonde’s melancholy charm
+
+She put the gun to her shoulder, calmly took aim and fired
+
+Two huge letters, each perhaps a foot long, appeared cut in relief in
+the granite of the floor
+
+“We’re going now. What do you think of my cockle-shell, Beautrelet?”
+
+
+THE HOLLOW NEEDLE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+THE SHOT
+
+
+Raymonde listened. The noise was repeated twice over, clearly enough to
+be distinguished from the medley of vague sounds that formed the great
+silence of the night and yet too faintly to enable her to tell whether
+it was near or far, within the walls of the big country-house, or
+outside, among the murky recesses of the park.
+
+She rose softly. Her window was half open: she flung it back wide. The
+moonlight lay over a peaceful landscape of lawns and thickets, against
+which the straggling ruins of the old abbey stood out in tragic
+outlines, truncated columns, mutilated arches, fragments of porches and
+shreds of flying buttresses. A light breeze hovered over the face of
+things, gliding noiselessly through the bare motionless branches of the
+trees, but shaking the tiny budding leaves of the shrubs.
+
+And, suddenly, she heard the same sound again. It was on the left and
+on the floor below her, in the living rooms, therefore, that occupied
+the left wing of the house. Brave and plucky though she was, the girl
+felt afraid. She slipped on her dressing gown and took the matches.
+
+“Raymonde—Raymonde!”
+
+A voice as low as a breath was calling to her from the next room, the
+door of which had not been closed. She was feeling her way there, when
+Suzanne, her cousin, came out of the room and fell into her arms:
+
+“Raymonde—is that you? Did you hear—?”
+
+“Yes. So you’re not asleep?”
+
+“I suppose the dog woke me—some time ago. But he’s not barking now.
+What time is it?”
+
+“About four.”
+
+“Listen! Surely, some one’s walking in the drawing room!”
+
+“There’s no danger, your father is down there, Suzanne.”
+
+“But there is danger for him. His room is next to the boudoir.”
+
+“M. Daval is there too—”
+
+“At the other end of the house. He could never hear.”
+
+They hesitated, not knowing what course to decide upon. Should they
+call out? Cry for help? They dared not; they were frightened of the
+sound of their own voices. But Suzanne, who had gone to the window,
+suppressed a scream:
+
+“Look!—A man!—Near the fountain!”
+
+A man was walking away at a rapid pace. He carried under his arm a
+fairly large load, the nature of which they were unable to distinguish:
+it knocked against his leg and impeded his progress. They saw him pass
+near the old chapel and turn toward a little door in the wall. The door
+must have been open, for the man disappeared suddenly from view and
+they failed to hear the usual grating of the hinges.
+
+“He came from the drawing room,” whispered Suzanne.
+
+“No, the stairs and the hall would have brought him out more to the
+left—Unless—”
+
+The same idea struck them both. They leant out. Below them, a ladder
+stood against the front of the house, resting on the first floor. A
+glimmer lit up the stone balcony. And another man, who was also
+carrying something, bestrode the baluster, slid down the ladder and ran
+away by the same road as the first.
+
+Suzanne, scared to the verge of swooning, fell on her knees,
+stammering:
+
+“Let us call out—let us call for help—”
+
+“Who would come? Your father—and if there are more of them left—and
+they throw themselves upon him—?”
+
+“Then—then—we might call the servants—Your bell rings on their floor.”
+
+“Yes—yes—perhaps, that’s better. If only they come in time!”
+
+Raymonde felt for the electric push near her bed and pressed it with
+her finger. They heard the bell ring upstairs and had an impression
+that its shrill sound must also reach any one below.
+
+They waited. The silence became terrifying and the very breeze no
+longer shook the leaves of the shrubs.
+
+“I’m frightened—frightened,” said Suzanne.
+
+And, suddenly, from the profound darkness below them, came the sound of
+a struggle, a crash of furniture overturned, words, exclamations and
+then, horrible and ominous, a hoarse groan, the gurgle of a man who is
+being murdered—
+
+Raymonde leapt toward the door. Suzanne clung desperately to her arm:
+
+“No—no—don’t leave me—I’m frightened—”
+
+Raymonde pushed her aside and darted down the corridor, followed by
+Suzanne, who staggered from wall to wall, screaming as she went.
+Raymonde reached the staircase, flew down the stairs, flung herself
+upon the door of the big drawing room and stopped short, rooted to the
+threshold, while Suzanne sank in a heap by her side. Facing them, at
+three steps’ distance, stood a man, with a lantern in his hand. He
+turned it upon the two girls, blinding them with the light, stared long
+at their pale faces, and then, without hurrying, with the calmest
+movements in the world, took his cap, picked up a scrap of paper and
+two bits of straw, removed some footmarks from the carpet, went to the
+balcony, turned to the girls, made them a deep bow and disappeared.
+
+Suzanne was the first to run to the little boudoir which separated the
+big drawing-room from her father’s bedroom. But, at the entrance, a
+hideous sight appalled her. By the slanting rays of the moon, she saw
+two apparently lifeless bodies lying close to each other on the floor.
+She leaned over one of them:
+
+“Father!—Father!—Is it you? What has happened to you?” she cried,
+distractedly.
+
+After a moment, the Comte de Gesvres moved. In a broken voice, he said:
+
+“Don’t be afraid—I am not wounded—Daval?—Is he alive?—The knife?—The
+knife?—”
+
+Two men-servants now arrived with candles. Raymonde flung herself down
+before the other body and recognized Jean Daval, the count’s private
+secretary. A little stream of blood trickled from his neck. His face
+already wore the pallor of death.
+
+Then she rose, returned to the drawing room, took a gun that hung in a
+trophy of arms on the wall and went out on the balcony. Not more than
+fifty or sixty seconds had elapsed since the man had set his foot on
+the top rung of the ladder. He could not, therefore, be very far away,
+the more so as he had taken the precaution to remove the ladder, in
+order to prevent the inmates of the house from using it. And soon she
+saw him skirting the remains of the old cloister. She put the gun to
+her shoulder, calmly took aim and fired. The man fell.
+
+“That’s done it! That’s done it!” said one of the servants. “We’ve got
+this one. I’ll run down.”
+
+“No, Victor, he’s getting up.... You had better go down by the
+staircase and make straight for the little door in the wall. That’s the
+only way he can escape.”
+
+Victor hurried off, but, before he reached the park, the man fell down
+again. Raymonde called the other servant:
+
+“Albert, do you see him down there? Near the main cloister?—”
+
+“Yes, he’s crawling in the grass. He’s done for—”
+
+“Watch him from here.”
+
+“There’s no way of escape for him. On the right of the ruins is the
+open lawn—”
+
+“And, Victor, do you guard the door, on the left,” she said, taking up
+her gun.
+
+“But, surely, you are not going down, miss?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” she said, with a resolute accent and abrupt movements; “let
+me be—I have a cartridge left—If he stirs—”
+
+She went out. A moment later, Albert saw her going toward the ruins. He
+called to her from the window:
+
+“He’s dragged himself behind the cloister. I can’t see him. Be careful,
+miss—”
+
+Raymonde went round the old cloisters, to cut off the man’s retreat,
+and Albert soon lost sight of her. After a few minutes, as he did not
+see her return, he became uneasy and, keeping his eye on the ruins,
+instead of going down by the stairs he made an effort to reach the
+ladder. When he had succeeded, he scrambled down and ran straight to
+the cloisters near which he had seen the man last. Thirty paces
+farther, he found Raymonde, who was searching with Victor.
+
+“Well?” he asked.
+
+“There’s no laying one’s hands on him,” replied Victor.
+
+“The little door?”
+
+“I’ve been there; here’s the key.”
+
+“Still—he must—”
+
+“Oh, we’ve got him safe enough, the scoundrel—He’ll be ours in ten
+minutes.”
+
+The farmer and his son, awakened by the shot, now came from the farm
+buildings, which were at some distance on the right, but within the
+circuit of the walls. They had met no one.
+
+“Of course not,” said Albert. “The ruffian can’t have left the
+ruins—We’ll dig him out of some hole or other.”
+
+They organized a methodical search, beating every bush, pulling aside
+the heavy masses of ivy rolled round the shafts of the columns. They
+made sure that the chapel was properly locked and that none of the
+panes were broken. They went round the cloisters and examined every
+nook and corner. The search was fruitless.
+
+There was but one discovery: at the place where the man had fallen
+under Raymonde’s gun, they picked up a chauffeur’s cap, in very soft
+buff leather; besides that, nothing.
+
+The gendarmerie of Ouville-la-Rivière were informed at six o’clock in
+the morning and at once proceeded to the spot, after sending an express
+to the authorities at Dieppe with a note describing the circumstances
+of the crime, the imminent capture of the chief criminal and “the
+discovery of his headgear and of the dagger with which the crime had
+been committed.”
+
+At ten o’clock, two hired conveyances came down the gentle slope that
+led to the house. One of them, an old-fashioned calash, contained the
+deputy public prosecutor and the examining magistrate, accompanied by
+his clerk. In the other, a humble fly, were seated two reporters,
+representing the _Journal de Rouen_ and a great Paris paper.
+
+The old château came into view—once the abbey residence of the priors
+of Ambrumésy, mutilated under the Revolution, both restored by the
+Comte de Gesvres, who had now owned it for some twenty years. It
+consists of a main building, surmounted by a pinnacled clock-tower, and
+two wings, each of which is surrounded by a flight of steps with a
+stone balustrade. Looking across the walls of the park and beyond the
+upland supported by the high Norman cliffs, you catch a glimpse of the
+blue line of the Channel between the villages of Sainte-Marguerite and
+Varengeville.
+
+Here the Comte de Gesvres lived with his daughter Suzanne, a delicate,
+fair-haired, pretty creature, and his niece Raymonde de Saint-Véran,
+whom he had taken to live with him two years before, when the
+simultaneous death of her father and mother left Raymonde an orphan.
+Life at the château was peaceful and regular. A few neighbors paid an
+occasional visit. In the summer, the count took the two girls almost
+every day to Dieppe. He was a tall man, with a handsome, serious face
+and hair that was turning gray. He was very rich, managed his fortune
+himself and looked after his extensive estates with the assistance of
+his secretary, Jean Daval.
+
+Immediately upon his arrival, the examining magistrate took down the
+first observations of Sergeant Quevillon of the gendarmes. The capture
+of the criminal, imminent though it might be, had not yet been
+effected, but every outlet of the park was held. Escape was impossible.
+
+The little company next crossed the chapter-hall and the refectory,
+both of which are on the ground floor, and went up to the first story.
+They at once remarked the perfect order that prevailed in the drawing
+room. Not a piece of furniture, not an ornament but appeared to occupy
+its usual place; nor was there any gap among the ornaments or
+furniture. On the right and left walls hung magnificent Flemish
+tapestries with figures. On the panels of the wall facing the windows
+were four fine canvases, in contemporary frames, representing
+mythological scenes. These were the famous pictures by Rubens which had
+been left to the Comte de Gesvres, together with the Flemish
+tapestries, by his maternal uncle, the Marqués de Bobadilla, a Spanish
+grandee.
+
+M. Filleul remarked:
+
+“If the motive of the crime was theft, this drawing room, at any rate,
+was not the object of it.”
+
+“You can’t tell!” said the deputy, who spoke little, but who, when he
+did, invariably opposed the magistrate’s views.
+
+“Why, my dear sir, the first thought of a burglar would be to carry off
+those pictures and tapestries, which are universally renowned.”
+
+“Perhaps there was no time.”
+
+“We shall see.”
+
+At that moment, the Comte de Gesvres entered, accompanied by the
+doctor. The count, who did not seem to feel the effects of the attack
+to which he had been subjected, welcomed the two officials. Then he
+opened the door of the boudoir.
+
+This room, which no one had been allowed to enter since the discovery
+of the crime, differed from the drawing room inasmuch as it presented a
+scene of the greatest disorder. Two chairs were overturned, one of the
+tables smashed to pieces and several objects—a traveling-clock, a
+portfolio, a box of stationery—lay on the floor. And there was blood on
+some of the scattered pieces of note-paper.
+
+The doctor turned back the sheet that covered the corpse. Jean Daval,
+dressed in his usual velvet suit, with a pair of nailed boots on his
+feet, lay stretched on his back, with one arm folded beneath him. His
+collar and tie had been removed and his shirt opened, revealing a large
+wound in the chest.
+
+“Death must have been instantaneous,” declared the doctor. “One blow of
+the knife was enough.”
+
+“It was, no doubt, the knife which I saw on the drawing-room
+mantelpiece, next to a leather cap?” said the examining magistrate.
+
+“Yes,” said the Comte de Gesvres, “the knife was picked up here. It
+comes from the same trophy in the drawing room from which my niece,
+Mlle. de Saint-Véran, snatched the gun. As for the chauffeur’s cap,
+that evidently belongs to the murderer.”
+
+M. Filleul examined certain further details in the room, put a few
+questions to the doctor and then asked M. de Gesvres to tell him what
+he had seen and heard. The count worded his story as follows:
+
+“Jean Daval woke me up. I had been sleeping badly, for that matter,
+with gleams of consciousness in which I seemed to hear noises, when,
+suddenly opening my eyes, I saw Daval standing at the foot of my bed,
+with his candle in his hand and fully dressed—as he is now, for he
+often worked late into the night. He seemed greatly excited and said,
+in a low voice: ‘There’s some one in the drawing room.’ I heard a noise
+myself. I got up and softly pushed the door leading to this boudoir. At
+the same moment, the door over there, which opens into the big drawing
+room, was thrown back and a man appeared who leaped at me and stunned
+me with a blow on the temple. I am telling you this without any
+details, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, for the simple reason that I
+remember only the principal facts, and that these facts followed upon
+one another with extraordinary swiftness.”
+
+“And after that?—”
+
+“After that, I don’t know—I fainted. When I came to, Daval lay
+stretched by my side, mortally wounded.”
+
+“At first sight, do you suspect no one?”
+
+“No one.”
+
+“You have no enemy?”
+
+“I know of none.”
+
+“Nor M. Daval either?”
+
+“Daval! An enemy? He was the best creature that ever lived. M. Daval
+was my secretary for twenty years and, I may say, my confidant; and I
+have never seen him surrounded with anything but love and friendship.”
+
+“Still, there has been a burglary and there has been a murder: there
+must be a motive for all that.”
+
+“The motive? Why, it was robbery pure and simple.”
+
+“Robbery? Have you been robbed of something, then?”
+
+“No, nothing.”
+
+“In that case—?”
+
+“In that case, if they have stolen nothing and if nothing is missing,
+they at least took something away.”
+
+“What?”
+
+“I don’t know. But my daughter and my niece will tell you, with
+absolute certainty, that they saw two men in succession cross the park
+and that those two men were carrying fairly heavy loads.”
+
+“The young ladies—”
+
+“The young ladies may have been dreaming, you think? I should be
+tempted to believe it, for I have been exhausting myself in inquiries
+and suppositions ever since this morning. However, it is easy enough to
+question them.”
+
+The two cousins were sent for to the big drawing room. Suzanne, still
+quite pale and trembling, could hardly speak. Raymonde, who was more
+energetic, more of a man, better looking, too, with the golden glint in
+her brown eyes, described the events of the night and the part which
+she had played in them.
+
+“So I may take it, mademoiselle, that your evidence is positive?”
+
+“Absolutely. The men who went across the park were carrying things away
+with them.”
+
+“And the third man?”
+
+“He went from here empty-handed.”
+
+“Could you describe him to us?”
+
+“He kept on dazzling us with the light of his lantern. All that I could
+say is that he is tall and heavily built.”
+
+“Is that how he appeared to you, mademoiselle?” asked the magistrate,
+turning to Suzanne de Gesvres.
+
+“Yes—or, rather, no,” said Suzanne, reflecting. “I thought he was about
+the middle height and slender.”
+
+M. Filleul smiled; he was accustomed to differences of opinion and
+sight in witnesses to one and the same fact:
+
+“So we have to do, on the one hand, with a man, the one in the drawing
+room, who is, at the same time, tall and short, stout and thin, and, on
+the other, with two men, those in the park, who are accused of removing
+from that drawing room objects—which are still here!”
+
+M. Filleul was a magistrate of the ironic school, as he himself would
+say. He was also a very ambitious magistrate and one who did not object
+to an audience nor to an occasion to display his tactful resource in
+public, as was shown by the increasing number of persons who now
+crowded into the room. The journalists had been joined by the farmer
+and his son, the gardener and his wife, the indoor servants of the
+château and the two cabmen who had driven the flies from Dieppe.
+
+M. Filleul continued:
+
+“There is also the question of agreeing upon the way in which the third
+person disappeared. Was this the gun you fired, mademoiselle, and from
+this window?”
+
+“Yes. The man reached the tombstone which is almost buried under the
+brambles, to the left of the cloisters.”
+
+“But he got up again?”
+
+“Only half. Victor ran down at once to guard the little door and I
+followed him, leaving the second footman, Albert, to keep watch here.”
+
+Albert now gave his evidence and the magistrate concluded:
+
+“So, according to you, the wounded man was not able to escape on the
+left, because your fellow-servant was watching the door, nor on the
+right, because you would have seen him cross the lawn. Logically,
+therefore, he is, at the present moment, in the comparatively
+restricted space that lies before our eyes.”
+
+“I am sure of it.”
+
+“And you, mademoiselle?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And I, too,” said Victor.
+
+The deputy prosecutor exclaimed, with a leer:
+
+“The field of inquiry is quite narrow. We have only to continue the
+search commenced four hours ago.”
+
+“We may be more fortunate.”
+
+M. Filleul took the leather cap from the mantel, examined it and,
+beckoning to the sergeant of gendarmes, whispered:
+
+“Sergeant, send one of your men to Dieppe at once. Tell him to go to
+Maigret, the hatter, in the Rue de la Barre, and ask M. Maigret to tell
+him, if possible, to whom this cap was sold.”
+
+The “field of inquiry,” in the deputy’s phrase, was limited to the
+space contained between the house, the lawn on the right and the angle
+formed by the left wall and the wall opposite the house, that is to
+say, a quadrilateral of about a hundred yards each way, in which the
+ruins of Ambrumésy, the famous mediæval monastery, stood out at
+intervals.
+
+They at once noticed the traces left by the fugitive in the trampled
+grass. In two places, marks of blackened blood, now almost dried up,
+were observed. After the turn at the end of the cloisters, there was
+nothing more to be seen, as the nature of the ground, here covered with
+pine-needles, did not lend itself to the imprint of a body. But, in
+that case, how had the wounded man succeeded in escaping the eyes of
+Raymonde, Victor and Albert? There was nothing but a few brakes, which
+the servants and the gendarmes had beaten over and over again, and a
+number of tombstones, under which they had explored. The examining
+magistrate made the gardener, who had the key, open the chapel, a real
+gem of carving, a shrine in stone which had been respected by time and
+the revolutionaries, and which, with the delicate sculpture work of its
+porch and its miniature population of statuettes, was always looked
+upon as a marvelous specimen of the Norman-Gothic style. The chapel,
+which was very simple in the interior, with no other ornament than its
+marble altar, offered no hiding-place. Besides, the fugitive would have
+had to obtain admission. And by what means?
+
+The inspection brought them to the little door in the wall that served
+as an entrance for the visitors to the ruins. It opened on a sunk road
+running between the park wall and a copsewood containing some abandoned
+quarries. M. Filleul stooped forward: the dust of the road bore marks
+of anti-skid pneumatic tires. Raymonde and Victor remembered that,
+after the shot, they had seemed to hear the throb of a motor-car.
+
+The magistrate suggested:
+
+“The man must have joined his confederates.”
+
+“Impossible!” cried Victor. “I was here while mademoiselle and Albert
+still had him in view.”
+
+“Nonsense, he must be somewhere! Outside or inside: we have no choice!”
+
+“He is here,” the servants insisted, obstinately.
+
+The magistrate shrugged his shoulders and went back to the house in a
+more or less sullen mood. There was no doubt that it was an unpromising
+case. A theft in which nothing had been stolen; an invisible prisoner:
+what could be less satisfactory?
+
+It was late. M. de Gesvres asked the officials and the two journalists
+to stay to lunch. They ate in silence and then M. Filleul returned to
+the drawing room, where he questioned the servants. But the sound of a
+horse’s hoofs came from the courtyard and, a moment after, the gendarme
+who had been sent to Dieppe entered.
+
+“Well, did you see the hatter?” exclaimed the magistrate, eager at last
+to obtain some positive information.
+
+“I saw M. Maigret. The cap was sold to a cab-driver.”
+
+“A cab-driver!”
+
+“Yes, a driver who stopped his fly before the shop and asked to be
+supplied with a yellow-leather chauffeur’s cap for one of his
+customers. This was the only one left. He paid for it, without
+troubling about the size, and drove off. He was in a great hurry.”
+
+“What sort of fly was it?”
+
+“A calash.”
+
+“And on what day did this happen?”
+
+“On what day? Why, to-day, at eight o’clock this morning.”
+
+“This morning? What are you talking about?”
+
+“The cap was bought this morning.”
+
+“But that’s impossible, because it was found last night in the park. If
+it was found there, it must have been there; and, consequently, it must
+have been bought before.”
+
+“The hatter told me it was bought this morning.”
+
+There was a moment of general bewilderment. The nonplussed magistrate
+strove to understand. Suddenly, he started, as though struck with a
+gleam of light:
+
+“Fetch the cabman who brought us here this morning! The man who drove
+the calash! Fetch him at once!”
+
+The sergeant of gendarmes and his subordinate ran off to the stables.
+In a few minutes, the sergeant returned alone.
+
+“Where’s the cabman?”
+
+“He asked for food in the kitchen, ate his lunch and then—”
+
+“And then—?”
+
+“He went off.”
+
+“With his fly?”
+
+“No. Pretending that he wanted to go and see a relation at Ouville, he
+borrowed the groom’s bicycle. Here are his hat and greatcoat.”
+
+“But did he leave bare-headed?”
+
+“No, he took a cap from his pocket and put it on.”
+
+“A cap?”
+
+“Yes, a yellow leather cap, it seems.”
+
+“A yellow leather cap? Why, no, we’ve got it here!”
+
+“That’s true, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, but his is just like it.”
+
+The deputy sniggered:
+
+“Very funny! Most amusing! There are two caps—One, the real one, which
+constituted our only piece of evidence, has gone off on the head of the
+sham flyman! The other, the false one, is in your hands. Oh, the fellow
+has had us nicely!”
+
+“Catch him! Fetch him back!” cried M. Filleul. “Two of your men on
+horseback, Sergeant Quevillon, and at full speed!”
+
+“He is far away by this time,” said the deputy.
+
+“He can be as far as he pleases, but still we must lay hold of him.”
+
+“I hope so; but I think, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, that your
+efforts should be concentrated here above all. Would you mind reading
+this scrap of paper, which I have just found in the pocket of the
+coat?”
+
+“Which coat?”
+
+“The driver’s.”
+
+And the deputy prosecutor handed M. Filleul a piece of paper, folded in
+four, containing these few words written in pencil, in a more or less
+common hand:
+
+“Woe betide the young lady, if she has killed the governor!”
+
+The incident caused a certain stir.
+
+“A word to the wise!” muttered the deputy. “We are now forewarned.”
+
+“Monsieur le Comte,” said the examining magistrate, “I beg you not to
+be alarmed. Nor you either, mademoiselle. This threat is of no
+importance, as the police are on the spot. We shall take every
+precaution and I will answer for your safety. As for you, gentlemen. I
+rely on your discretion. You have been present at this inquiry, thanks
+to my excessive kindness toward the Press, and it would be making me an
+ill return—”
+
+He interrupted himself, as though an idea had struck him, looked at the
+two young men, one after the other, and, going up to the first, asked:
+
+“What paper do you represent, sir?”
+
+“The _Journal de Rouen_.”
+
+“Have you your credentials?”
+
+“Here.”
+
+The card was in order. There was no more to be said. M. Filleul turned
+to the other reporter:
+
+“And you, sir?”
+
+“I?”
+
+“Yes, you: what paper do you belong to?”
+
+“Why, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, I write for a number of
+papers—all over the place—”
+
+“Your credentials?”
+
+“I haven’t any.”
+
+“Oh! How is that?”
+
+“For a newspaper to give you a card, you have to be on its regular
+staff.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, I am only an occasional contributor, a free-lance. I send
+articles to this newspaper and that. They are published or declined
+according to circumstances.”
+
+“In that case, what is your name? Where are your papers?”
+
+“My name would tell you nothing. As for papers, I have none.”
+
+“You have no paper of any kind to prove your profession!”
+
+“I have no profession.”
+
+“But look here, sir,” cried the magistrate, with a certain asperity,
+“you can’t expect to preserve your incognito after introducing yourself
+here by a trick and surprising the secrets of the police!”
+
+“I beg to remark, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, that you asked me
+nothing when I came in, and that therefore I had nothing to say.
+Besides, it never struck me that your inquiry was secret, when
+everybody was admitted—including even one of the criminals!”
+
+He spoke softly, in a tone of infinite politeness. He was quite a young
+man, very tall, very slender and dressed without the least attempt at
+fashion, in a jacket and trousers both too small for him. He had a pink
+face like a girl’s, a broad forehead topped with close-cropped hair,
+and a scrubby and ill-trimmed fair beard. His bright eyes gleamed with
+intelligence. He seemed not in the least embarrassed and wore a
+pleasant smile, free from any shade of banter.
+
+M. Filleul looked at him with an aggressive air of distrust. The two
+gendarmes came forward. The young man exclaimed, gaily:
+
+“Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, you clearly suspect me of being an
+accomplice. But, if that were so, would I not have slipped away at the
+right moment, following the example of my fellow-criminal?”
+
+“You might have hoped—”
+
+“Any hope would have been absurd. A moment’s reflection, Monsieur le
+Juge d’Instruction, will make you agree with me that, logically
+speaking—”
+
+M. Filleul looked him straight in the eyes and said, sharply:
+
+“No more jokes! Your name?”
+
+“Isidore Beautrelet.”
+
+“Your occupation?”
+
+“Sixth-form pupil at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly.”
+
+M. Filleul opened a pair of startled eyes.
+
+“What are you talking about? Sixth-form pupil—”
+
+“At the Lycée Janson, Rue de la Pompe, number—”
+
+“Oh, look here,” exclaimed M. Filleul, “you’re trying to take me in!
+This won’t do, you know; a joke can go too far!”
+
+“I must say, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, that your astonishment
+surprises me. What is there to prevent my being a sixth-form pupil at
+the Lycée Janson? My beard, perhaps? Set your mind at ease: my beard is
+false!”
+
+Isidore Beautrelet pulled off the few curls that adorned his chin, and
+his beardless face appeared still younger and pinker, a genuine
+schoolboy’s face. And, with a laugh like a child’s, revealing his white
+teeth:
+
+“Are you convinced now?” he asked. “Do you want more proofs? Here, you
+can read the address on these letters from my father: ‘_To Monsieur
+Isidore Beautrelet, Indoor Pupil, Lycée Janson-de-Sailly_.’”
+
+Convinced or not, M. Filleul did not look as if he liked the story. He
+asked, gruffly:
+
+“What are you doing here?”
+
+“Why—I’m—I’m improving my mind.”
+
+“There are schools for that: yours, for instance.”
+
+“You forget, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, that this is the
+twenty-third of April and that we are in the middle of the Easter
+holidays.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, I have every right to spend my holidays as I please.”
+
+“Your father—”
+
+“My father lives at the other end of the country, in Savoy, and he
+himself advised me to take a little trip on the North Coast.”
+
+“With a false beard?”
+
+“Oh, no! That’s my own idea. At school, we talk a great deal about
+mysterious adventures; we read detective stories, in which people
+disguise themselves; we imagine any amount of terrible and intricate
+cases. So I thought I would amuse myself; and I put on this false
+beard. Besides, I enjoyed the advantage of being taken seriously and I
+pretended to be a Paris reporter. That is how, last night, after an
+uneventful period of more than a week, I had the pleasure of making the
+acquaintance of my Rouen colleague; and, this morning, when he heard of
+the Ambrumésy murder, he very kindly suggested that I should come with
+him and that we should share the cost of a fly.”
+
+Isidore Beautrelet said all this with a frank and artless simplicity of
+which it was impossible not to feel the charm. M. Filleul himself,
+though maintaining a distrustful reserve, took a certain pleasure in
+listening to him. He asked him, in a less peevish tone:
+
+“And are you satisfied with your expedition?”
+
+“Delighted! All the more as I had never been present at a case of the
+sort and I find that this one is not lacking in interest.”
+
+“Nor in that mysterious intricacy which you prize so highly—”
+
+“And which is so stimulating, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction! I know
+nothing more exciting than to see all the facts coming up out of the
+shadow, clustering together, so to speak, and gradually forming the
+probable truth.”
+
+“The probable truth! You go pretty fast, young man! Do you suggest that
+you have your little solution of the riddle ready?”
+
+“Oh, no!” replied Beautrelet, with a laugh.
+
+“Only—it seems to me that there are certain points on which it is not
+impossible to form an opinion; and others, even, are so precise as to
+warrant—a conclusion.”
+
+“Oh, but this is becoming very curious and I shall get to know
+something at last! For I confess, to my great confusion, that I know
+nothing.”
+
+“That is because you have not had time to reflect, Monsieur le Juge
+d’Instruction. The great thing is to reflect. Facts very seldom fail to
+carry their own explanation!”
+
+“And, according to you, the facts which we have just ascertained carry
+their own explanation?”
+
+“Don’t you think so yourself? In any case, I have ascertained none
+besides those which are set down in the official report.”
+
+“Good! So that, if I were to ask you which were the objects stolen from
+this room—”
+
+“I should answer that I know.”
+
+“Bravo! My gentleman knows more about it than the owner himself. M. de
+Gesvres has everything accounted for: M. Isidore Beautrelet has not. He
+misses a bookcase in three sections and a life-size statue which nobody
+ever noticed. And, if I asked you the name of the murderer?”
+
+“I should again answer that I know it.”
+
+All present gave a start. The deputy and the journalist drew nearer. M.
+de Gesvres and the two girls, impressed by Beautrelet’s tranquil
+assurance, listened attentively.
+
+“You know the murderer’s name?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And the place where he is concealed, perhaps?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+M. Filleul rubbed his hands.
+
+“What a piece of luck! This capture will do honor to my career. And can
+you make me these startling revelations now?”
+
+“Yes, now—or rather, if you do not mind, in an hour or two, when I
+shall have assisted at your inquiry to the end.”
+
+“No, no, young man, here and now, please.” At that moment Raymonde de
+Saint-Véran, who had not taken her eyes from Isidore Beautrelet since
+the beginning of this scene, came up to M. Filleul:
+
+“Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction—”
+
+“Yes, mademoiselle?”
+
+She hesitated for two or three seconds, with her eyes fixed on
+Beautrelet, and then, addressing M. Filleul:
+
+“I should like you to ask monsieur the reason why he was walking
+yesterday in the sunk road which leads up to the little door.”
+
+It was an unexpected and dramatic stroke. Isidore Beautrelet appeared
+nonplussed:
+
+“I, mademoiselle? I? You saw me yesterday?”
+
+Raymonde remained thoughtful, with her eyes upon Beautrelet, as though
+she were trying to settle her own conviction, and then said, in a
+steady voice:
+
+“At four o’clock in the afternoon, as I was crossing the wood, I met in
+the sunk road a young man of monsieur’s height, dressed like him and
+wearing a beard cut in the same way—and I received a very clear
+impression that he was trying to hide.”
+
+“And it was I?”
+
+“I could not say that as an absolute certainty, for my recollection is
+a little vague. Still—still, I think so—if not, it would be an unusual
+resemblance—”
+
+M. Filleul was perplexed. Already taken in by one of the confederates,
+was he now going to let himself be tricked by this self-styled
+schoolboy? Certainly, the young man’s manner spoke in his favor; but
+one can never tell!
+
+“What have you to say, sir?”
+
+“That mademoiselle is mistaken, as I can easily show you with one word.
+Yesterday, at the time stated, I was at Veules.”
+
+“You will have to prove it, you will have to. In any case, the position
+is not what it was. Sergeant, one of your men will keep monsieur
+company.”
+
+Isidore Beautrelet’s face denoted a keen vexation.
+
+“Will it be for long?”
+
+“Long enough to collect the necessary information.”
+
+“Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, I beseech you to collect it with all
+possible speed and discretion.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“My father is an old man. We are very much attached to each other—and I
+would not have him suffer on my account.”
+
+The more or less pathetic note in his voice made a bad impression on M.
+Filleul. It suggested a scene in a melodrama. Nevertheless, he
+promised:
+
+“This evening—or to-morrow at latest, I shall know what to think.”
+
+The afternoon was wearing on. The examining magistrate returned to the
+ruins of the cloisters, after giving orders that no unauthorized
+persons were to be admitted, and patiently, methodically, dividing the
+ground into lots which were successively explored, himself directed the
+search. But at the end of the day he was no farther than at the start;
+and he declared, before an army of reporters who, during that time, had
+invaded the château:
+
+“Gentlemen, everything leads us to suppose that the wounded man is
+here, within our reach; everything, that is, except the reality, the
+fact. Therefore, in our humble opinion, he must have escaped and we
+shall find him outside.”
+
+By way of precaution, however, he arranged, with the sergeant of
+gendarmes, for a complete watch to be kept over the park and, after
+making a fresh examination of the two drawing rooms, visiting the whole
+of the château and surrounding himself with all the necessary
+information, he took the road back to Dieppe, accompanied by the deputy
+prosecutor.
+
+Night fell. As the boudoir was to remain locked, Jean Daval’s body had
+been moved to another room. Two women from the neighborhood sat up with
+it, assisted by Suzanne and Raymonde. Downstairs, young Isidore
+Beautrelet slept on the bench in the old oratory, under the watchful
+eye of the village policeman, who had been attached to his person.
+Outside, the gendarmes, the farmer and a dozen peasants had taken up
+their position among the ruins and along the walls.
+
+All was still until eleven o’clock; but, at ten minutes past eleven, a
+shot echoed from the other side of the house.
+
+“Attention!” roared the sergeant. “Two men remain here: you,
+Fossier—and you, Lecanu—The others at the double!”
+
+They all rushed forward and ran round the house on the left. A figure
+was seen to make away in the dark. Then, suddenly, a second shot drew
+them farther on, almost to the borders of the farm. And, all at once,
+as they arrived, in a band, at the hedge which lines the orchard, a
+flame burst out, to the right of the farmhouse, and other flames also
+rose in a thick column. It was a barn burning, stuffed to the ridge
+with straw.
+
+“The scoundrels!” shouted the sergeant. “They’ve set fire to it. Have
+at them, lads! They can’t be far away!”
+
+But the wind was turning the flames toward the main building; and it
+became necessary, before all things, to ward off the danger. They all
+exerted themselves with the greater ardor inasmuch as M. de Gesvres,
+hurrying to the scene of the disaster, encouraged them with the promise
+of a reward. By the time that they had mastered the flames, it was two
+o’clock in the morning. All pursuit would have been vain.
+
+“We’ll look into it by daylight,” said the sergeant. “They are sure to
+have left traces: we shall find them.”
+
+“And I shall not be sorry,” added M. de Gesvres, “to learn the reason
+of this attack. To set fire to trusses of straw strikes me as a very
+useless proceeding.”
+
+“Come with me, Monsieur le Comte: I may be able to tell you the
+reason.”
+
+Together they reached the ruins of the cloisters. The sergeant called
+out:
+
+“Lecanu!—Fossier!”
+
+The other gendarmes were already hunting for their comrades whom they
+had left standing sentry. They ended by finding them at a few paces
+from the little door. The two men were lying full length on the ground,
+bound and gagged, with bandages over their eyes.
+
+“Monsieur le Comte,” muttered the sergeant, while his men were being
+released; “Monsieur le Comte, we have been tricked like children.”
+
+“How so?”
+
+“The shots—the attack on the barn—the fire—all so much humbug to get us
+down there—a diversion. During that time they were tying up our two men
+and the business was done.”
+
+“What business?”
+
+“Carrying off the wounded man, of course!”
+
+“You don’t mean to say you think—?”
+
+“Think? Why, it’s as plain as a pikestaff! The idea came to me ten
+minutes ago—but I’m a fool not to have thought of it earlier. We should
+have nabbed them all.” Quevillon stamped his foot on the ground, with a
+sudden attack of rage. “But where, confound it, where did they go
+through? Which way did they carry him off? For, dash it all, we beat
+the ground all day; and a man can’t hide in a tuft of grass, especially
+when he’s wounded! It’s witchcraft, that’s what it is!—”
+
+Nor was this the last surprise awaiting Sergeant Quevillon. At dawn,
+when they entered the oratory which had been used as a cell for young
+Isidore Beautrelet, they realized that young Isidore Beautrelet had
+vanished.
+
+On a chair slept the village policeman, bent in two. By his side stood
+a water-bottle and two tumblers. At the bottom of one of those tumblers
+a few grains of white powder.
+
+On examination, it was proved, first, that young Isidore Beautrelet had
+administered a sleeping draught to the village policeman; secondly,
+that he could only have escaped by a window situated at a height of
+seven or eight feet in the wall; and lastly—a charming detail,
+this—that he could only have reached this window by using the back of
+his warder as a footstool.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+ISIDORE BEAUTRELET, SIXTH-FORM SCHOOLBOY
+
+
+From the _Grand Journal_.
+
+LATEST NEWS
+
+
+DOCTOR DELATTRE KIDNAPPED
+A MAD PIECE OF CRIMINAL DARING
+
+
+At the moment of going to press, we have received an item of news which
+we dare not guarantee as authentic, because of its very improbable
+character. We print it, therefore, with all reserve.
+
+Yesterday evening, Dr. Delattre, the well-known surgeon, was present,
+with his wife and daughter, at the performance of _Hernani_ at the
+Comédie Française. At the commencement of the third act, that is to
+say, at about ten o’clock, the door of his box opened and a gentleman,
+accompanied by two others, leaned over to the doctor and said to him,
+in a low voice, but loud enough for Mme. Delattre to hear:
+
+“Doctor, I have a very painful task to fulfil and I shall be very
+grateful to you if you will make it as easy for me as you can.”
+
+“Who are you, sir?”
+
+“M. Thézard, commissary of police of the first district; and my
+instructions are to take you to M. Dudouis, at the prefecture.”
+
+“But—”
+
+“Not a word, doctor, I entreat you, not a movement—There is some
+regrettable mistake; and that is why we must act in silence and not
+attract anybody’s attention. You will be back, I have no doubt, before
+the end of the performance.”
+
+The doctor rose and went with the commissary. At the end of the
+performance, he had not returned. Mme. Delattre, greatly alarmed, drove
+to the office of the commissary of police. There she found the real M.
+Thézard and discovered, to her great terror, that the individual who
+had carried off her husband was an impostor.
+
+Inquiries made so far have revealed the fact that the doctor stepped
+into a motor car and that the car drove off in the direction of the
+Concorde.
+
+Readers will find further details of this incredible adventure in our
+second edition.
+
+Incredible though it might be, the adventure was perfectly true.
+Besides, the issue was not long delayed and the _Grand Journal_, while
+confirming the story in its midday edition, described in a few lines
+the dramatic ending with which it concluded:
+
+THE STORY ENDS
+AND
+GUESS-WORK BEGINS
+
+
+Dr. Delattre was brought back to 78, Rue Duret, at nine o’clock this
+morning, in a motor car which drove away immediately at full speed.
+
+No. 78, Rue Duret, is the address of Dr. Delattre’s clinical surgery,
+at which he arrives every morning at the same hour. When we sent in our
+card, the doctor, though closeted with the chief of the detective
+service, was good enough to consent to receive us.
+
+“All that I can tell you,” he said, in reply to our questions, “is that
+I was treated with the greatest consideration. My three companions were
+the most charming people I have ever met, exquisitely well-mannered and
+bright and witty talkers: a quality not to be despised, in view of the
+length of the journey.”
+
+“How long did it take?”
+
+“About four hours and as long returning.”
+
+“And what was the object of the journey?”
+
+“I was taken to see a patient whose condition rendered an immediate
+operation necessary.”
+
+“And was the operation successful?”
+
+“Yes, but the consequences may be dangerous. I would answer for the
+patient here. Down there—under his present conditions—”
+
+“Bad conditions?”
+
+“Execrable!—A room in an inn—and the practically absolute impossibility
+of being attended to.”
+
+“Then what can save him?”
+
+“A miracle—and his constitution, which is an exceptionally strong one.”
+
+“And can you say nothing more about this strange patient?”
+
+“No. In the first place, I have taken an oath; and, secondly, I have
+received a present of ten thousand francs for my free surgery. If I do
+not keep silence, this sum will be taken from me.”
+
+“You are joking! Do you believe that?”
+
+“Indeed I do. The men all struck me as being very much in earnest.”
+
+This is the statement made to us by Dr. Delattre. And we know, on the
+other hand, that the head of the detective service, in spite of all his
+insisting, has not yet succeeded in extracting any more precise
+particulars from him as to the operation which he performed, the
+patient whom he attended or the district traversed by the car. It is
+difficult, therefore, to arrive at the truth.
+
+This truth, which the writer of the interview confessed himself unable
+to discover, was guessed by the more or less clear-sighted minds that
+perceived a connection with the facts which had occurred the day before
+at the Château d’Ambrumésy, and which were reported, down to the
+smallest detail, in all the newspapers of that day. There was evidently
+a coincidence to be reckoned with in the disappearance of a wounded
+burglar and the kidnapping of a famous surgeon.
+
+The judicial inquiry, moreover, proved the correctness of the
+hypothesis. By following the track of the sham flyman, who had fled on
+a bicycle, they were able to show that he had reached the forest of
+Arques, at some ten miles’ distance, and that from there, after
+throwing his bicycle into a ditch, he had gone to the village of
+Saint-Nicolas, whence he had dispatched the following telegram:
+
+A. L. N., _Post-office_ 45, Paris.
+    Situation desperate. Operation urgently necessary. Send celebrity
+    by national road fourteen.
+
+
+The evidence was undeniable. Once apprised the accomplices in Paris
+hastened to make their arrangements. At ten o’clock in the evening they
+sent their celebrity by National Road No. 14, which skirts the forest
+of Arques and ends at Dieppe. During this time, under cover of the fire
+which they themselves had caused, the gang of burglars carried off
+their leader and moved him to an inn, where the operation took place on
+the arrival of the surgeon, at two o’clock in the morning.
+
+About that there was no doubt. At Pontoise, at Gournay, at Forges,
+Chief-inspector Ganimard, who was sent specially from Paris, with
+Inspector Folenfant, as his assistant, ascertained that a motor car had
+passed in the course of the previous night. The same on the road from
+Dieppe to Ambrumésy. And, though the traces of the car were lost at
+about a mile and a half from the château, at least a number of
+footmarks were seen between the little door in the park wall and the
+abbey ruins. Besides, Ganimard remarked that the lock of the little
+door had been forced.
+
+So all was explained. It remained to decide which inn the doctor had
+spoken of: an easy piece of work for a Ganimard, a professional ferret,
+a patient old stager of the police. The number of inns is limited and
+this one, given the condition of the wounded man, could only be one
+quite close to Ambrumésy. Ganimard and Sergeant Quevillon set to work.
+Within a circle of five hundred yards, of a thousand yards, of fifteen
+hundred yards, they visited and ransacked everything that could pass
+for an inn. But, against all expectation, the dying man persisted in
+remaining invisible.
+
+Ganimard became more resolved than ever. He came back to sleep at the
+château, on the Saturday night, with the intention of making his
+personal inquiry on the Sunday. On Sunday morning, he learned that,
+during the night, a posse of gendarmes had seen a figure gliding along
+the sunk road, outside the wall. Was it an accomplice who had come back
+to investigate? Were they to suppose that the leader of the gang had
+not left the cloisters or the neighborhood of the cloisters?
+
+That night, Ganimard openly sent the squad of gendarmes to the farm and
+posted himself and Folenfant outside the walls, near the little door.
+
+A little before midnight, a person passed out of the wood, slipped
+between them, went through the door and entered the park. For three
+hours, they saw him wander from side to side across the ruins,
+stooping, climbing up the old pillars, sometimes remaining for long
+minutes without moving. Then he went back to the door and again passed
+between the two inspectors.
+
+Ganimard caught him by the collar, while Folenfant seized him round the
+body. He made no resistance of any kind and, with the greatest
+docility, allowed them to bind his wrists and take him to the house.
+But, when they attempted to question him, he replied simply that he
+owed them no account of his doings and that he would wait for the
+arrival of the examining magistrate. Thereupon, they fastened him
+firmly to the foot of a bed, in one of the two adjoining rooms which
+they occupied.
+
+At nine o’clock on Monday morning, as soon as M. Filleul had arrived,
+Ganimard announced the capture which he had made. The prisoner was
+brought downstairs. It was Isidore Beautrelet.
+
+“M. Isidore Beautrelet!” exclaimed M. Filleul with an air of rapture,
+holding out both his hands to the newcomer. “What a delightful
+surprise! Our excellent amateur detective here! And at our disposal
+too! Why, it’s a windfall!—M. Chief-inspector, allow me to introduce to
+you M. Isidore Beautrelet, a sixth-form pupil at the Lycée
+Janson-de-Sailly.”
+
+Ganimard seemed a little nonplussed. Isidore made him a very low bow,
+as though he were greeting a colleague whom he knew how to esteem at
+his true value, and, turning to M. Filleul:
+
+“It appears, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, that you have received a
+satisfactory account of me?”
+
+“Perfectly satisfactory! To begin with, you were really at
+Veules-les-Roses at the time when Mlle. de Saint-Véran thought she saw
+you in the sunk road. I dare say we shall discover the identity of your
+double. In the second place, you are in very deed Isidore Beautrelet, a
+sixth-form pupil and, what is more, an excellent pupil, industrious at
+your work and of exemplary behavior. As your father lives in the
+country, you go out once a month to his correspondent, M. Bernod, who
+is lavish in his praises of you.”
+
+“So that—”
+
+“So that you are free, M. Isidore Beautrelet.”
+
+“Absolutely free?”
+
+“Absolutely. Oh, I must make just one little condition, all the same.
+You can understand that I can’t release a gentleman who administers
+sleeping-draughts, who escapes by the window and who is afterward
+caught in the act of trespassing upon private property. I can’t release
+him without a compensation of some kind.”
+
+“I await your pleasure.”
+
+“Well, we will resume our interrupted conversation and you shall tell
+me how far you have advanced with your investigations. In two days of
+liberty, you must have carried them pretty far?” And, as Ganimard was
+preparing to go, with an affectation of contempt for that sort of
+practice, the magistrate cried, “Not at all, M. Inspector, your place
+is here—I assure you that M. Isidore Beautrelet is worth listening to.
+M. Isidore Beautrelet, according to my information, has made a great
+reputation at the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly as an observer whom nothing
+escapes; and his schoolfellows, I hear, look upon him as your
+competitor and a rival of Holmlock Shears!”
+
+“Indeed!” said Ganimard, ironically.
+
+“Just so. One of them wrote to me, ‘If Beautrelet declares that he
+knows, you must believe him; and, whatever he says, you may be sure
+that it is the exact expression of the truth.’ M. Isidore Beautrelet,
+now or never is the time to vindicate the confidence of your friends. I
+beseech you, give us the exact expression of the truth.”
+
+Isidore listened with a smile and replied:
+
+“Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, you are very cruel. You make fun of
+poor schoolboys who amuse themselves as best they can. You are quite
+right, however, and I will give you no further reason to laugh at me.”
+
+“The fact is that you know nothing, M. Isidore Beautrelet.”
+
+“Yes, I confess in all humility that I know nothing. For I do not call
+it ‘knowing anything’ that I happen to have hit upon two or three more
+precise points which, I am sure, cannot have escaped you.”
+
+“For instance?”
+
+“For instance, the object of the theft.”
+
+“Ah, of course, you know the object of the theft?”
+
+“As you do, I have no doubt. In fact, it was the first thing I studied,
+because the task struck me as easier.”
+
+“Easier, really?”
+
+“Why, of course. At the most, it’s a question of reasoning.”
+
+“Nothing more than that?”
+
+“Nothing more.”
+
+“And what is your reasoning?”
+
+“It is just this, stripped of all extraneous comment: on the one hand,
+_there has been a theft_, because the two young ladies are agreed and
+because they really saw two men running away and carrying things with
+them.”
+
+“There has been a theft.”
+
+“On the other hand, _nothing has disappeared_, because M. de Gesvres
+says so and he is in a better position than anybody to know.”
+
+“Nothing has disappeared.”
+
+“From those two premises I arrive at this inevitable result: granted
+that there has been a theft and that nothing has disappeared, it is
+because the object carried off has been replaced by an exactly similar
+object. Let me hasten to add that possibly my argument may not be
+confirmed by the facts. But I maintain that it is the first argument
+that ought to occur to us and that we are not entitled to waive it
+until we have made a serious examination.”
+
+“That’s true—that’s true,” muttered the magistrate, who was obviously
+interested.
+
+“Now,” continued Isidore, “what was there in this room that could
+arouse the covetousness of the burglars? Two things. The tapestry
+first. It can’t have been that. Old tapestry cannot be imitated: the
+fraud would have been palpable at once. There remain the four Rubens
+pictures.”
+
+“What’s that you say?”
+
+“I say that the four Rubenses on that wall are false.”
+
+“Impossible!”
+
+“They are false _a priori_, inevitably and without a doubt.”
+
+“I tell you, it’s impossible.”
+
+“It is very nearly a year ago, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, since a
+young man, who gave his name as Charpenais, came to the Château
+d’Ambrumésy and asked permission to copy the Rubens pictures. M. de
+Gesvres gave him permission. Every day for five months Charpenais
+worked in this room from morning till dusk. The copies which he made,
+canvases and frames, have taken the place of the four original pictures
+bequeathed to M. de Gesvres by his uncle, the Marqués de Bobadilla.”
+
+“Prove it!”
+
+“I have no proof to give. A picture is false because it is false; and I
+consider that it is not even necessary to examine these four.”
+
+M. Filleul and Ganimard exchanged glances of unconcealed astonishment.
+The inspector no longer thought of withdrawing. At last, the magistrate
+muttered:
+
+“We must have M. de Gesvres’s opinion.”
+
+And Ganimard agreed:
+
+“Yes, we must have his opinion.”
+
+And they sent to beg the count to come to the drawing room.
+
+The young sixth-form pupil had won a real victory. To compel two
+experts, two professionals like M. Filleul and Ganimard to take account
+of his surmises implied a testimony of respect of which any other would
+have been proud. But Beautrelet seemed not to feel those little
+satisfactions of self-conceit and, still smiling without the least
+trace of irony, he placidly waited.
+
+M. de Gesvres entered the room.
+
+“Monsieur le Comte,” said the magistrate, “the result of our inquiry
+has brought us face to face with an utterly unexpected contingency,
+which we submit to you with all reserve. It is possible—I say that it
+is possible—that the burglars, when breaking into the house, had it as
+their object to steal your four pictures by Rubens—or, at least, to
+replace them by four copies—copies which are said to have been made
+last year by a painter called Charpenais. Would you be so good as to
+examine the pictures and to tell us if you recognize them as genuine?”
+
+The count appeared to suppress a movement of annoyance, looked at
+Isidore Beautrelet and at M. Filleul and replied, without even
+troubling to go near the pictures:
+
+“I hoped, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, that the truth might have
+remained unknown. As this is not so, I have no hesitation in declaring
+that the four pictures are false.”
+
+“You knew it, then?”
+
+“From the beginning.”
+
+“Why didn’t you say so?”
+
+“The owner of a work is never in a hurry to declare that that work is
+not—or, rather, is no longer genuine.”
+
+“Still, it was the only means of recovering them.”
+
+“I consider that there was another and a better.”
+
+“Which was that?”
+
+“Not to make the secret known, not to frighten my burglars and to offer
+to buy back the pictures, which they must find more or less difficult
+to dispose of.”
+
+“How would you communicate with them?”
+
+As the count did not reply, Isidore answered for him:
+
+“By means of an advertisement in the papers. The paragraph inserted in
+the agony column of the _Journal_, the _Écho de Paris_ and the _Matin_
+runs, ‘Am prepared to buy back the pictures.’”
+
+The count agreed with a nod. Once again, the young man was teaching his
+elders. M. Filleul showed himself a good sportsman.
+
+“There’s no doubt about it, my dear sir,” he exclaimed. “I’m beginning
+to think your school-fellows were not quite wrong. By Jove, what an
+eye! What intuition! If this goes on, there will be nothing left for M.
+Ganimard and me to do.”
+
+“Oh, none of this part was so very complicated!”
+
+“You mean to say that the rest was more so I remember, in fact, that,
+when we first met you seemed to know all about it. Let me see, a far as
+I recollect, you said that you knew the name of the murderer.”
+
+“So I do.”
+
+“Well, then, who killed Jean Daval? Is the man alive? Where is he
+hiding?”
+
+“There is a misunderstanding between us, Monsieur le Juge
+d’Instruction, or, rather, you have misunderstood the facts from the
+beginning The murderer and the runaway are two distinct persons.”
+
+“What’s that?” exclaimed M. Filleul. “The man whom M. de Gesvres saw in
+the boudoir and struggled with, the man whom the young ladies saw in
+the drawing-room and whom Mlle. de Saint-Véran shot at, the man who
+fell in the park and whom we are looking for: do you suggest that he is
+not the man who killed Jean Daval?”
+
+“I do.”
+
+“Have you discovered the traces of a third accomplice who disappeared
+before the arrival of the young ladies?”
+
+“I have not.”
+
+“In that case, I don’t understand.—Well, who is the murderer of Jean
+Daval?”
+
+“Jean Daval was killed by—”
+
+Beautrelet interrupted himself, thought for a moment and continued:
+
+“But I must first show you the road which I followed to arrive at the
+certainty and the very reasons of the murder—without which my
+accusation would seem monstrous to you.—And it is not—no, it is not
+monstrous at all.—There is one detail which has passed unobserved and
+which, nevertheless, is of the greatest importance; and that is that
+Jean Daval, at the moment when he was stabbed, had all his clothes on,
+including his walking boots, was dressed, in short, as a man is dressed
+in the middle of the day, with a waistcoat, collar, tie and braces. Now
+the crime was committed at four o’clock in the morning.”
+
+“I reflected on that strange fact,” said the magistrate, “and M. de
+Gesvres replied that Jean Daval spent a part of his nights in working.”
+
+“The servants say, on the contrary, that he went to bed regularly at a
+very early hour. But, admitting that he was up, why did he disarrange
+his bedclothes, to make believe that he had gone to bed? And, if he was
+in bed, why, when he heard a noise, did he take the trouble to dress
+himself from head to foot, instead of slipping on anything that came to
+hand? I went to his room on the first day, while you were at lunch: his
+slippers were at the foot of the bed. What prevented him from putting
+them on rather than his heavy nailed boots?”
+
+“So far, I do not see—”
+
+“So far, in fact, you cannot see anything, except anomalies. They
+appeared much more suspicious to me, however, when I learned that
+Charpenais the painter, the man who copied the Rubens pictures, had
+been introduced and recommended to the Comte de Gesvres by Jean Daval
+himself.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, from that to the conclusion that Jean Daval and Charpenais were
+accomplices required but a step. I took that step at the time of our
+conversation.”
+
+“A little quickly, I think.”
+
+“As a matter of fact, a material proof was wanted. Now I had discovered
+in Daval’s room, on one of the sheets of the blotting-pad on which he
+used to write, this address: ‘Monsieur _A.L.N., Post-office_ 45,
+_Paris_.’ You will find it there still, traced the reverse way on the
+blotting-paper. The next day, it was discovered that the telegram sent
+by the sham flyman from Saint-Nicolas bore the same address: ‘_A.L.N.,
+Post-office_ 45.’ The material proof existed: Jean Daval was in
+correspondence with the gang which arranged the robbery of the
+pictures.”
+
+M. Filleul raised no objection.
+
+“Agreed. The complicity is established. And what conclusion do you
+draw?”
+
+“This, first of all, that it was not the runaway who killed Jean Daval,
+because Jean Daval was his accomplice.”
+
+“And after that?”
+
+“Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, I will ask you to remember the first
+sentence uttered by Monsieur le Comte when he recovered from fainting.
+The sentence forms part of Mlle. de Gesvres’ evidence and is in the
+official report: ‘I am not wounded.—Daval?—Is he alive?—The knife?’ And
+I will ask you to compare it with that part of his story, also in the
+report, in which Monsieur le Comte describes the assault: ‘The man
+leaped at me and felled me with a blow on the temple!’ How could M. de
+Gesvres, who had fainted, know, on waking, that Daval had been stabbed
+with a knife?”
+
+Isidore Beautrelet did not wait for an answer to his question. It
+seemed as though he were in a hurry to give the answer himself and to
+avoid all comment. He continued straightway:
+
+“Therefore it was Jean Daval who brought the three burglars to the
+drawing room. While he was there with the one whom they call their
+chief, a noise was heard in the boudoir. Daval opened the door.
+Recognizing M. de Gesvres, he rushed at him, armed with the knife. M.
+de Gesvres succeeded in snatching the knife from him, struck him with
+it and himself fell, on receiving a blow from the man whom the two
+girls were to see a few minutes after.”
+
+Once again, M. Filleul and the inspector exchanged glances. Ganimard
+tossed his head in a disconcerted way. The magistrate said:
+
+“Monsieur le Comte, am I to believe that this version is correct?”
+
+M. de Gesvres made no answer.
+
+“Come, Monsieur le Comte, your silence would allow us to suppose—I beg
+you to speak.”
+
+Replying in a very clear voice, M. de Gesvres said:
+
+“The version is correct in every particular.”
+
+The magistrate gave a start.
+
+“Then I cannot understand why you misled the police. Why conceal an act
+which you were lawfully entitled to commit in defense of your life?”
+
+“For twenty years,” said M. de Gesvres, “Daval worked by my side. I
+trusted him. If he betrayed me, as the result of some temptation or
+other, I was, at least, unwilling, for the sake of the past, that his
+treachery should become known.”
+
+“You were unwilling, I agree, but you had no right to be.”
+
+“I am not of your opinion, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction. As long as
+no innocent person was accused of the crime, I was absolutely entitled
+to refrain from accusing the man who was at the same time the culprit
+and the victim. He is dead. I consider death a sufficient punishment.”
+
+“But now, Monsieur le Comte, now that the truth is known, you can
+speak.”
+
+“Yes. Here are two rough drafts of letters written by him to his
+accomplices. I took them from his pocket-book, a few minutes after his
+death.”
+
+“And the motive of his theft?”
+
+“Go to 18, Rue de la Barre, at Dieppe, which is the address of a
+certain Mme. Verdier. It was for this woman, whom he got to know two
+years ago, and to supply her constant need of money that Daval turned
+thief.”
+
+So everything was cleared up. The tragedy rose out of the darkness and
+gradually appeared in its true light.
+
+“Let us go on,” said M. Filluel after the count had withdrawn.
+
+“Upon my word,” said Beautrelet, gaily, “I have said almost all that I
+had to say.”
+
+“But the runaway, the wounded man?”
+
+“As to that, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, you know as much as I do.
+You have followed his tracks in the grass by the cloisters—you have—”
+
+“Yes, yes, I know. But, since then, his friends have removed him and
+what I want is a clue or two as regards that inn—”
+
+Isidore Beautrelet burst out laughing:
+
+“The inn! The inn does not exist! It’s an invention, a trick to put the
+police on the wrong scent, an ingenious trick, too, for it seems to
+have succeeded.”
+
+“But Dr. Delattre declares—”
+
+“Ah, that’s just it!” cried Beautrelet, in a tone of conviction. “It is
+just because Dr. Delattre declares that we mustn’t believe him. Why,
+Dr. Delattre refused to give any but the vaguest details concerning his
+adventure! He refused to say anything that might compromise his
+patient’s safety!—And suddenly he calls attention to an inn!—You may be
+sure that he talked about that inn because he was told to. You may be
+sure that the whole story which he dished up to us was dictated to him
+under the threat of terrible reprisals. The doctor has a wife. The
+doctor has a daughter. He is too fond of them to disobey people of
+whose formidable power he has seen proofs. And that is why he has
+assisted your efforts by supplying the most precise clues.”
+
+“So precise that the inn is nowhere to be found.”
+
+“So precise that you have never ceased looking for it, in the face of
+all probability, and that your eyes have been turned away from the only
+spot where the man can be, the mysterious spot which he has not left,
+which he has been unable to leave ever since the moment when, wounded
+by Mlle. de Saint-Véran, he succeeded in dragging himself to it, like a
+beast to its lair.”
+
+“But where, confound it all?—In what corner of Hades—?”
+
+“In the ruins of the old abbey.”
+
+“But there are no ruins left!—A few bits of wall!—A few broken
+columns!”
+
+“That’s where he’s gone to earth. Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction!”
+shouted Beautrelet. “That’s where you will have to look for him! It’s
+there and nowhere else that you will find Arsène Lupin!”
+
+“Arsène Lupin!” yelled M. Filleul, springing to his feet.
+
+There was a rather solemn pause, amid which the syllables of the famous
+name seemed to prolong their sound. Was it possible that the vanquished
+and yet invisible adversary, whom they had been hunting in vain for
+several days, could really be Arsène Lupin? Arsène Lupin, caught in a
+trap, arrested, meant immediate promotion, fortune, glory to any
+examining magistrate!
+
+Ganimard had not moved a limb. Isidore said to him:
+
+“You agree with me, do you not, M. Inspector?”
+
+“Of course I do!”
+
+“You have not doubted either, for a moment have you, that he managed
+this business?”
+
+“Not for a second! The thing bears his signature. A move of Arsène
+Lupin’s is as different from a move made by another man as one face is
+from another. You have only to open your eyes.”
+
+“Do you think so? Do you think so?” said M. Filleul.
+
+“Think so!” cried the young man. “Look, here’s one little fact: what
+are the initials under which those men correspond among themselves? ‘A.
+L. N.,’ that is to say, the first letter of the name Arsène and the
+first and last letters of the name Lupin.”
+
+“Ah,” said Ganimard, “nothing escapes you! Upon my word, you’re a fine
+fellow and old Ganimard lays down his arms before you!”
+
+Beautrelet flushed with pleasure and pressed the hand which the
+chief-inspector held out to him. The three men had drawn near the
+balcony and their eyes now took in the extent of the ruins. M. Filleul
+muttered:
+
+“So he ought to be there.”
+
+“_He is there_,” said Beautrelet, in a hollow voice. “He has been there
+ever since the moment when he fell. Logically and practically, he could
+not escape without being seen by Mlle. de Saint-Véran and the two
+servants.”
+
+“What proof have you?”
+
+“His accomplices have furnished the proof. On the very morning, one of
+them disguised himself as a flyman and drove you here—”
+
+“To recover the cap, which would serve to identify him.”
+
+“Very well, but also and more particularly to examine the spot, find
+out and see for himself what had become of the ‘governor.’”
+
+“And did he find out?”
+
+“I presume so, as he knew the hiding-place. And I presume that he
+became aware of the desperate condition of his chief, because, under
+the impulse of his alarm, he committed the imprudence to write that
+threat: ‘Woe betide the young lady, if she has killed the governor!’”
+
+“But his friends were able to take him away afterward?”
+
+“When? Your men have never left the ruins. And where could they have
+moved him to? At most, a few hundred yards away, for one doesn’t let a
+dying man travel—and then you would have found him. No, I tell you, he
+is there. His friends would never have removed him from the safest of
+hiding-places. It was there that they brought the doctor, while the
+gendarmes were running to the fire like children.”
+
+“But how is he living? How will he keep alive? To keep alive you need
+food and drink.”
+
+“I can’t say. I don’t know. But he is there, I will swear it. He is
+there, because he can’t help being there. I am as sure of it as if I
+saw as if I touched him. He is there.”
+
+With his finger outstretched toward the ruins, he traced in the air a
+little circle which became smaller and smaller until it was only a
+point. And that point his two companions sought desperately, both
+leaning into space, both moved by the same faith in Beautrelet and
+quivering with the ardent conviction which he had forced upon them.
+Yes, Arsène Lupin was there. In theory and in fact, he was there:
+neither of them was now able to doubt it.
+
+And there was something impressive and tragic in knowing that the
+famous adventurer was lying in some dark shelter, below the ground,
+helpless, feverish and exhausted.
+
+“And if he dies?” asked M. Filleul, in a low voice.
+
+“If he dies,” said Beautrelet, “and if his accomplices are sure of it,
+then see to the safety of Mlle. de Saint-Véran. Monsieur le Juge
+d’Instruction, for the vengeance will be terrible.”
+
+A few minutes later and in spite of the entreaties of M. Filleul, who
+would gladly have made further use of this fascinating auxiliary,
+Isidore Beautrelet, whose holidays ended that day, went off by the
+Dieppe Road. He stepped from the train in Paris at five o’clock and, at
+eight o’clock, returned to the Lycée Janson together with his
+schoolfellows.
+
+Ganimard, after a minute, but utterly useless exploration of the ruins
+of Ambrumésy, returned to Paris by the fast night-train. On reaching
+his apartment in the Rue Pergolese, he found an express letter awaiting
+him:
+
+_Monsieur l’Inspecteur Principal:_
+    Finding that I had a little time to spare at the end of the day, I
+    have succeeded in collecting a few additional particulars which are
+    sure to interest you.
+    Arsène Lupin has been living in Paris for twelve months under the
+    name of Étienne de Vaudreix. It is a name which you will often come
+    across in the society notes or the sporting columns of the
+    newspapers. He is a great traveler and is absent for long periods,
+    during which, by his own account, he goes hunting tigers in Bengal
+    or blue foxes in Siberia. He is supposed to be in business of some
+    kind, although nobody is able to say for certain what his business
+    is.
+    His present address is 38, Rue Marbeuf; and I will call your
+    attention to the fact that the Rue Marbeuf is close to Post-office
+    Number 45. Since Thursday the twenty-third of April, the day before
+    the burglary at Ambrumésy, there has been no news at all of Étienne
+    de Vaudreix.
+    With very many thanks for the kindness which you have shown me,
+    believe me to be,
+
+
+Monsieur l’Inspecteur Principal,
+Yours sincerely,
+ISIDORE BEAUTRELET.
+
+
+P.S.—Please on no account think that it cost me any great trouble to
+obtain this information. On the very morning of the crime, while M.
+Filleul was pursuing his examination before a few privileged persons, I
+had the fortunate inspiration to glance at the runaway’s cap, before
+the sham flyman came to change it. The hatter’s name was enough, as you
+may imagine, to enable me to find the clue that led to the
+identification of the purchaser and his address.
+
+
+The next morning, Ganimard called at 36, Rue Marbeuf. After questioning
+the concierge, he made him open the door of the ground-floor flat on
+the right, a very comfortable apartment, elegantly furnished, in which,
+however, he discovered nothing beyond some cinders in the fireplace.
+Two friends had come, four days earlier, to burn all compromising
+papers.
+
+But, just as he was leaving, Ganimard passed the postman, who was
+bringing a letter for M. de Vaudreix. That afternoon, the public
+prosecutor was informed of the case and ordered the letter to be given
+up. It bore an American postmark and contained the following lines, in
+English:
+
+DEAR SIR:
+    I write to confirm the answer which I gave your representative. As
+    soon as you have M. de Gesvres’s four pictures in your possession,
+    you can forward them as arranged.
+    You may add the rest, if you are able to succeed, which I doubt.
+    An unexpected business requires my presence in Europe and I shall
+    reach Paris at the same time as this letter. You will find me at
+    the Grand Hôtel.
+
+
+Yours faithfully,
+EPHRAIM B. HARLINGTON.
+
+
+That same day, Ganimard applied for a warrant and took Mr. E. B.
+Harlington, an American citizen, to the police-station, on a charge of
+receiving and conspiracy.
+
+Thus, within the space of twenty-four hours, all the threads of the
+plot had been unraveled, thanks to the really unforeseen clues supplied
+by a schoolboy of seventeen. In twenty-four hours, what had seemed
+inexplicable became simple and clear. In twenty-four hours, the scheme
+devised by the accomplices to save their leader was baffled; the
+capture of Arsène Lupin, wounded and dying, was no longer in doubt, his
+gang was disorganized, the address of his establishment in Paris and
+the name which he assumed were known and, for the first time, one of
+his cleverest and most carefully elaborated feats was seen through
+before he had been able to ensure its complete execution.
+
+An immense clamor of astonishment, admiration and curiosity arose among
+the public. Already, the Rouen journalist, in a very able article, had
+described the first examination of the sixth-form pupil, laying stress
+upon his personal charm, his simplicity of manner and his quiet
+assurance. The indiscretions of Ganimard and M. Filleul, indiscretions
+to which they yielded in spite of themselves, under an impulse that
+proved stronger than their professional pride, suddenly enlightened the
+public as to the part played by Isidore Beautrelet in recent events. He
+alone had done everything. To him alone the merit of the victory was
+due.
+
+The excitement was intense. Isidore Beautrelet awoke to find himself a
+hero; and the crowd, suddenly infatuated, insisted upon the fullest
+information regarding its new favorite. The reporters were there to
+supply it. They rushed to the assault of the Lycée Janson-de-Sailly,
+waited for the day-boarders to come out after schoolhours and picked up
+all that related, however remotely, to Beautrelet. It was in this way
+that they learned the reputation which he enjoyed among his
+schoolfellows, who called him the rival of Holmlock Shears. Thanks to
+his powers of logical reasoning, with no further data than those which
+he was able to gather from the papers, he had, time after time,
+proclaimed the solution of very complicated cases long before they were
+cleared up by the police.
+
+It had become a game at the Lycée Janson to put difficult questions and
+intricate problems to Beautrelet; and it was astonishing to see with
+what unhesitating and analytical power and by means of what ingenious
+deductions he made his way through the thickest darkness. Ten days
+before the arrest of Jorisse, the grocer, he showed what could be done
+with the famous umbrella. In the same way, he declared from the
+beginning, in the matter of the Saint-Cloud mystery, that the concierge
+was the only possible murderer.
+
+But most curious of all was the pamphlet which was found circulating
+among the boys at the school, a typewritten pamphlet signed by
+Beautrelet and manifolded to the number of ten copies. It was entitled,
+_Arsène Lupin and his method, showing in how far the latter is based
+upon tradition and in how far original. Followed by a comparison
+between English humor and French irony._
+
+It contained a profound study of each of the exploits of Arsène Lupin,
+throwing the illustrious burglar’s operations into extraordinary
+relief, showing the very mechanism of his way of setting to work, his
+special tactics, his letters to the press, his threats, the
+announcement of his thefts, in short, the whole bag of tricks which he
+employed to bamboozle his selected victim and throw him into such a
+state of mind that the victim almost offered himself to the plot
+contrived against him and that everything took place, as it were, with
+his own consent.
+
+And the work was so just, regarded as a piece of criticism, so
+penetrating, so lively and marked by a wit so clever and, at the same
+time, so cruel that the lawyers at once passed over to his side, that
+the sympathy of the crowd was summarily transferred from Lupin to
+Beautrelet and that, in the struggle engaged upon between the two, the
+schoolboy’s victory was loudly proclaimed in advance.
+
+Be this as it may, both M. Filleul and the Paris public prosecutor
+seemed jealously to reserve the possibility of this victory for him. On
+the one hand, they failed to establish Mr. Harlington’s identity or to
+furnish a definite proof of his connection with Lupin’s gang.
+Confederate or not, he preserved an obstinate silence. Nay, more, after
+examining his handwriting, it was impossible to declare that he was the
+author of the intercepted letter. A Mr. Harlington, carrying a small
+portmanteau and a pocket-book stuffed with bank-notes, had taken up his
+abode at the Grand Hôtel: that was all that could be stated with
+certainty.
+
+On the other hand, at Dieppe, M. Filleul lay down on the positions
+which Beautrelet had won for him. He did not move a step forward.
+Around the individual whom Mlle. de Saint-Véran had taken for
+Beautrelet, on the eve of the crime, the same mystery reigned as
+heretofore. The same obscurity also surrounded everything connected
+with the removal of the four Rubens pictures. What had become of them?
+And what road had been taken by the motor car in which they were
+carried off during the night?
+
+Evidence of its passing was obtained at Luneray at Yerville, at Yvetot
+and at Caudebec-en-Caux, where it must have crossed the Seine at
+daybreak in the steam-ferry. But, when the matter came to be inquired
+into more thoroughly, it was stated that the motor car was an uncovered
+one and that it would have been impossible to pack four large pictures
+into it unobserved by the ferryman.
+
+It was very probably the same car; but then the question cropped up
+again: what had become of the four Rubenses?
+
+These were so many problems which M. Filleul unanswered. Every day, his
+subordinates searched the quadrilateral of the ruins. Almost every day,
+he came to direct the explorations. But between that and discovering
+the refuge in which Lupin lay dying—if it were true that Beautrelet’s
+opinion was correct—there was a gulf fixed which the worthy magistrate
+did not seem likely to cross.
+
+And so it was natural that they should turn once more to Isidore
+Beautrelet, as he alone had succeeded in dispelling shadows which, in
+his absence, gathered thicker and more impenetrable than ever. Why did
+he not go on with the case? Seeing how far he had carried it, he
+required but an effort to succeed.
+
+The question was put to him by a member of the staff of the _Grand
+Journal_, who had obtained admission to the Lycée Janson by assuming
+the name of Bernod, the friend of Beautrelet’s father. And Isidore very
+sensibly replied:
+
+“My dear sir, there are other things besides Lupin in this world, other
+things besides stories about burglars and detectives. There is, for
+instance, the thing which is known as taking one’s degree. Now I am
+going up for my examination in July. This is May. And I don’t want to
+be plucked. What would my worthy parent say?”
+
+“But what would he say if you delivered Arsène Lupin into the hands of
+the police?”
+
+“Tut! There’s a time for everything. In the next holidays—”
+
+“Whitsuntide?”
+
+“Yes—I shall go down on Saturday the sixth of June by the first train.”
+
+“And, on the evening of that Saturday, Lupin will be taken.”
+
+“Will you give me until the Sunday?” asked Beautrelet, laughing.
+
+“Why delay?” replied the journalist, quite seriously.
+
+This inexplicable confidence, born of yesterday and already so strong,
+was felt with regard to the young man by one and all, even though, in
+reality, events had justified it only up to a certain point. No matter,
+people believed in him! Nothing seemed difficult to him. They expected
+from him what they were entitled to expect at most from some phenomenon
+of penetration and intuition, of experience and skill. That day of the
+sixth of June was made to sprawl over all the papers. On the sixth of
+June, Isidore Beautrelet would take the fast train to Dieppe: and Lupin
+would be arrested on the same evening.
+
+“Unless he escapes between this and then,” objected the last remaining
+partisans of the adventurer.
+
+“Impossible! Every outlet is watched.”
+
+“Unless he has succumbed to his wounds, then,” said the partisans, who
+would have preferred their hero’s death to his capture.
+
+And the retort was immediate:
+
+“Nonsense! If Lupin were dead, his confederates would know it by now,
+and Lupin would be revenged. Beautrelet said so!”
+
+And the sixth of June came. Half a dozen journalists were looking out
+for Isidore at the Gare Saint-Lazare. Two of them wanted to accompany
+him on his journey. He begged them to refrain.
+
+He started alone, therefore, in a compartment to himself. He was tired,
+thanks to a series of nights devoted to study, and soon fell asleep. He
+slept heavily. In his dreams, he had an impression that the train
+stopped at different stations and that people got in and out. When he
+awoke, within sight of Rouen, he was still alone. But, on the back of
+the opposite seat, was a large sheet of paper, fastened with a pin to
+the gray cloth. It bore these words:
+
+“Every man should mind his own business. Do you mind yours. If not, you
+must take the consequences.”
+
+“Capital!” he exclaimed, rubbing his hands with delight. “Things are
+going badly in the adversary’s camp. That threat is as stupid and
+vulgar as the sham flyman’s. What a style! One can see that it wasn’t
+composed by Lupin.”
+
+The train threaded the tunnel that precedes the old Norman city. On
+reaching the station, Isidore took a few turns on the platform to
+stretch his legs. He was about to re-enter his compartment, when a cry
+escaped him. As he passed the bookstall, he had read, in an
+absent-minded way, the following lines on the front page of a special
+edition of the _Journal de Rouen;_ and their alarming sense suddenly
+burst upon him:
+
+STOP-PRESS NEWS
+
+
+We hear by telephone from Dieppe that the Château d’Ambrumésy was
+broken into last night by criminals, who bound and gagged Mlle. de
+Gesvres and carried off Mlle. de Saint-Véran. Traces of blood have been
+seen at a distance of five hundred yards from the house and a scarf has
+been found close by, which is also stained with blood. There is every
+reason to fear that the poor young girl has been murdered.
+
+
+Isidore Beautrelet completed his journey to Dieppe without moving a
+limb. Bent in two, with his elbows on his knees and his hands plastered
+against his face, he sat thinking.
+
+At Dieppe, he took a fly. At the door of Ambrumésy, he met the
+examining magistrate, who confirmed the horrible news.
+
+“You know nothing more?” asked Beautrelet.
+
+“Nothing. I have only just arrived.”
+
+At that moment, the sergeant of gendarmes came up to M. Filleul and
+handed him a crumpled, torn and discolored piece of paper, which he had
+picked up not far from the place where the scarf was found. M. Filleul
+looked at it and gave it to Beautrelet, saying:
+
+“I don’t suppose this will help us much in our investigations.”
+
+Isidore turned the paper over and over. It was covered with figures,
+dots and signs and presented the exact appearance reproduced below:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+THE CORPSE
+
+
+At six o’clock in the evening, having finished all he had to do, M.
+Filluel, accompanied by M. Brédoux, his clerk, stood waiting for the
+carriage which was to take him back to Dieppe. He seemed restless,
+nervous. Twice over, he asked:
+
+“You haven’t seen anything of young Beautrelet, I suppose?”
+
+“No, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, I can’t say I have.”
+
+“Where on earth can he be? I haven’t set eyes on him all day!”
+
+Suddenly, he had an idea, handed his portfolio to Brédoux, ran round
+the château and made for the ruins. Isidore Beautrelet was lying near
+the cloisters, flat on his face, with one arm folded under his head, on
+the ground carpeted with pine-needles. He seemed drowsing.
+
+“Hullo, young man, what are you doing here? Are you asleep?”
+
+“I’m not asleep. I’ve been thinking.”
+
+“Ever since this morning?”
+
+“Ever since this morning.”
+
+“It’s not a question of thinking! One must see into things first, study
+facts, look for clues, establish connecting links. The time for
+thinking comes after, when one pieces all that together and discovers
+the truth.”
+
+“Yes, I know.—That’s the usual way, the right one, I dare say.—Mine is
+different.—I think first, I try, above all, to get the general hang of
+the case, if I may so express myself. Then I imagine a reasonable and
+logical hypothesis, which fits in with the general idea. And then, and
+not before, I examine the facts to see if they agree with my
+hypothesis.”
+
+“That’s a funny method and a terribly complicated one!”
+
+“It’s a sure method, M. Filleul, which is more than can be said of
+yours.”
+
+“Come, come! Facts are facts.”
+
+“With your ordinary sort of adversary, yes. But, given an enemy endowed
+with a certain amount of cunning, the facts are those which he happens
+to have selected. Take the famous clues upon which you base your
+inquiry: why, he was at liberty to arrange them as he liked. And you
+see where that can lead you, into what mistakes and absurdities, when
+you are dealing with a man like Arsène Lupin. Holmlock Shears himself
+fell into the trap.”
+
+“Arsène Lupin is dead.”
+
+“No matter. His gang remains and the pupils of such a master are
+masters themselves.”
+
+M. Filleul took Isidore by the arm and, leading him away:
+
+“Words, young man, words. Here is something of more importance. Listen
+to me. Ganimard is otherwise engaged at this moment and will not be
+here for a few days. On the other hand, the Comte de Gesvres has
+telegraphed to Holmlock Shears, who has promised his assistance next
+week. Now don’t you think, young man, that it would be a feather in our
+cap if we were able to say to those two celebrities, on the day of
+their arrival, ‘Awfully sorry, gentlemen, but we couldn’t wait. The
+business is done’?”
+
+It was impossible for M. Filleul to confess helplessness with greater
+candor. Beautrelet suppressed a smile and, pretending not to see
+through the worthy magistrate, replied:
+
+“I confess. Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, that, if I was not present
+at your inquiry just now, it was because I hoped that you would consent
+to tell me the results. May I ask what you have learned?”
+
+“Well, last night, at eleven o’clock, the three gendarmes whom Sergeant
+Quevillon had left on guard at the château received a note from the
+sergeant telling them to hasten with all speed to Ouville, where they
+are stationed. They at once rode off, and when they arrived at
+Ouville—”
+
+“They discovered that they had been tricked, that the order was a
+forgery and that there was nothing for them to do but return to
+Ambrumésy.”
+
+“This they did, accompanied by Sergeant Quevillon. But they were away
+for an hour and a half and, during this time, the crime was committed.”
+
+“In what circumstances?”
+
+“Very simple circumstances, indeed. A ladder was removed from the farm
+buildings and placed against the second story of the château. A pane of
+glass was cut out and a window opened. Two men, carrying a dark
+lantern, entered Mlle. de Gesvres’s room and gagged her before she
+could cry out. Then, after binding her with cords, they softly opened
+the door of the room in which Mlle. de Saint-Véran was sleeping. Mlle.
+de Gesvres heard a stifled moan, followed by the sound of a person
+struggling. A moment later, she saw two men carrying her cousin, who
+was also bound and gagged. They passed in front of her and went out
+through the window. Then Mlle. de Gesvres, terrified and exhausted,
+fainted.”
+
+“But what about the dogs? I thought M. de Gesvres had bought two almost
+wild sheep-dogs, which were let loose at night?”
+
+“They were found dead, poisoned.”
+
+“By whom? Nobody could get near them.”
+
+“It’s a mystery. The fact remains that the two men crossed the ruins
+without let or hindrance and went out by the little door which we have
+heard so much about. They passed through the copsewood, following the
+line of the disused quarries. It was not until they were nearly half a
+mile from the château, at the foot of the tree known as the Great Oak,
+that they stopped—and executed their purpose.”
+
+“If they came with the intention of killing Mlle. de Saint-Véran, why
+didn’t they murder her in her room?”
+
+“I don’t know. Perhaps the incident that settled their determination
+only occurred after they had left the house. Perhaps the girl succeeded
+in releasing herself from her bonds. In my opinion, the scarf which was
+picked up was used to fasten her wrists. In any case, the blow was
+struck at the foot of the Great Oak. I have collected indisputable
+proofs—”
+
+“But the body?”
+
+“The body has not been found, but there is nothing excessively
+surprising in that. As a matter of fact, the trail which I followed
+brought me to the church at Varengeville and the old cemetery perched
+on the top of the cliff. From there it is a sheer precipice, a fall of
+over three hundred feet to the rocks and the sea below. In a day or
+two, a stronger tide than usual will cast up the body on the beach.”
+
+“Obviously. This is all very simple.”
+
+“Yes, it is all very simple and doesn’t trouble me in the least. Lupin
+is dead, his accomplices heard of it and, to revenge themselves, have
+killed Mlle. de Saint-Véran. These are facts which did not even require
+checking. But Lupin?”
+
+“What about him?”
+
+“What has become of him? In all probability, his confederates removed
+his corpse at the same time that they carried away the girl; but what
+proof have we? None at all. Any more than of his staying in the ruins,
+or of his death, or of his life. And that is the real mystery, M.
+Beautrelet. The murder of Mlle. Raymonde solves nothing. On the
+contrary, it only complicates matters. What has been happening during
+the past two months at the Château d’Ambrumésy? If we don’t clear up
+the riddle, young man, others will give us the go-by.”
+
+“On what day are those others coming?”
+
+“Wednesday—Tuesday perhaps—”
+
+Beautrelet seemed to be making an inward calculation and then declared:
+
+“Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, this is Saturday. I have to be back at
+school on Monday evening. Well, if you will have the goodness to be
+here at ten o’clock exactly on Monday morning, I will try to give you
+the key to the riddle.”
+
+“Really, M. Beautrelet—do you think so? Are you sure?”
+
+“I hope so, at any rate.”
+
+“And where are you going now?”
+
+“I am going to see if the facts consent to fit in with the general
+theory which I am beginning to perceive.”
+
+“And if they don’t fit in?”
+
+“Well, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction,” said Beautrelet, with a laugh,
+“then it will be their fault and I must look for others which, will
+prove more tractable. Till Monday, then?”
+
+“Till Monday.”
+
+A few minutes later, M. Filleul was driving toward Dieppe, while
+Isidore mounted a bicycle which he had borrowed from the Comte de
+Gesvres and rode off along the road to Yerville and Caudebec-en-Caux.
+
+There was one point in particular on which the young man was anxious to
+form a clear opinion, because this just appeared to him to be the
+enemy’s weakest point. Objects of the size of the four Rubens pictures
+cannot be juggled away. They were bound to be somewhere. Granting that
+it was impossible to find them for the moment, might one not discover
+the road by which they had disappeared?
+
+What Beautrelet surmised was that the four pictures had undoubtedly
+been carried off in the motor car, but that, before reaching Caudebec,
+they were transferred to another car, which had crossed the Seine
+either above Caudebec or below it. Now the first horse-boat down the
+stream was at Quillebeuf, a greatly frequented ferry and, consequently,
+dangerous. Up stream, there was the ferry-boat at La Mailleraie, a
+large, but lonely market-town, lying well off the main road.
+
+By midnight, Isidore had covered the thirty-five or forty miles to La
+Mailleraie and was knocking at the door of an inn by the waterside. He
+slept there and, in the morning, questioned the ferrymen.
+
+They consulted the counterfoils in the traffic-book. No motor-car had
+crossed on Thursday the 23rd of April.
+
+“A horse-drawn vehicle, then?” suggested Beautrelet. “A cart? A van?”
+
+“No, not either.”
+
+Isidore continued his inquiries all through the morning. He was on the
+point of leaving for Quillebeuf, when the waiter of the inn at which he
+had spent the night said:
+
+“I came back from my thirteen days’ training on the morning of which
+you are speaking and I saw a cart, but it did not go across.”
+
+“Really?”
+
+“No, they unloaded it onto a flat boat, a barge of sorts, which was
+moored to the wharf.”
+
+“And where did the cart come from?”
+
+“Oh, I knew it at once. It belonged to Master Vatinel, the carter.”
+
+“And where does he live?”
+
+“At Louvetot.”
+
+Beautrelet consulted his military map. The hamlet of Louvetot lay where
+the highroad between Yvetot and Caudebec was crossed by a little
+winding road that ran through the woods to La Mailleraie.
+
+Not until six o’clock in the evening did Isidore succeed in discovering
+Master Vatinel, in a pothouse. Master Vatinel was one of those artful
+old Normans who are always on their guard, who distrust strangers, but
+who are unable to resist the lure of a gold coin or the influence of a
+glass or two:
+
+“Well, yes, sir, the men in the motor car that morning had told me to
+meet them at five o’clock at the crossroads. They gave me four great,
+big things, as high as that. One of them went with me and we carted the
+things to the barge.”
+
+“You speak of them as if you knew them before.”
+
+“I should think I did know them! It was the sixth time they were
+employing me.”
+
+Isidore gave a start:
+
+“The sixth time, you say? And since when?”
+
+“Why every day before that one, to be sure! But it was other things
+then—great blocks of stone—or else smaller, longish ones, wrapped up in
+newspapers, which they carried as if they were worth I don’t know what.
+Oh, I mustn’t touch those on any account!—But what’s the matter? You’ve
+turned quite white.”
+
+“Nothing—the heat of the room—”
+
+Beautrelet staggered out into the air. The joy, the surprise of the
+discovery made him feel giddy. He went back very quietly to
+Varengeville, slept in the village, spent an hour at the mayor’s
+offices with the school-master and returned to the château. There he
+found a letter awaiting him “care of M. le Comte de Gesvres.” It
+consisted of a single line:
+
+“Second warning. Hold your tongue. If not—”
+
+“Come,” he muttered. “I shall have to make up my mind and take a few
+precautions for my personal safety. If not, as they say—”
+
+It was nine o’clock. He strolled about among the ruins and then lay
+down near the cloisters and closed his eyes.
+
+“Well, young man, are you satisfied with the results of your campaign?”
+
+It was M. Filleul.
+
+“Delighted, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction.”
+
+“By which you mean to say—?”
+
+“By which I mean to say that I am prepared to keep my promise—in spite
+of this very uninviting letter.”
+
+He showed the letter to M. Filleul.
+
+“Pooh! Stuff and nonsense!” cried the magistrate. “I hope you won’t let
+that prevent you—”
+
+“From telling you what I know? No, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction. I
+have given my word and I shall keep it. In less than ten minutes, you
+shall know—a part of the truth.”
+
+“A part?”
+
+“Yes, in my opinion, Lupin’s hiding-place does not constitute the whole
+of the problem. Far from it. But we shall see later on.”
+
+“M. Beautrelet, nothing that you do could astonish me now. But how were
+you able to discover—?”
+
+“Oh, in a very natural way! In the letter from old man Harlington to M.
+Étienne de Vaudreix, or rather to Lupin—”
+
+“The intercepted letter?”
+
+“Yes. There is a phrase which always puzzled me. After saying that the
+pictures are to be forwarded as arranged, he goes on to say, ‘You may
+add _the rest_, if you are able to succeed, which I doubt.’”
+
+“Yes, I remember.”
+
+“What was this ‘rest’? A work of art, a curiosity? The château contains
+nothing of any value besides the Rubenses and the tapestries. Jewelry?
+There is very little and what there is of it is not worth much. In that
+case, what could it be?—On the other hand, was it conceivable that
+people so prodigiously clever as Lupin should not have succeeded in
+adding ‘the rest,’ which they themselves had evidently suggested? A
+difficult undertaking, very likely; exceptional, surprising, I dare
+say; but possible and therefore certain, since Lupin wished it.”
+
+“And yet he failed: nothing has disappeared.”
+
+“He did not fail: something has disappeared.”
+
+“Yes, the Rubenses—but—”
+
+“The Rubenses and something besides—something which has been replaced
+by a similar thing, as in the case of the Rubenses; something much more
+uncommon, much rarer, much more valuable than the Rubenses.”
+
+“Well, what? You’re killing me with this procrastination!”
+
+While talking, the two men had crossed the ruins, turned toward the
+little door and were now walking beside the chapel. Beautrelet stopped:
+
+“Do you really want to know, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction?”
+
+“Of course, I do.”
+
+Beautrelet was carrying a walking-stick, a strong, knotted stick.
+Suddenly, with a back stroke of this stick, he smashed one of the
+little statues that adorned the front of the chapel.
+
+“Why, you’re mad!” shouted M. Filleul, beside himself, rushing at the
+broken pieces of the statue. “You’re mad! That old saint was an
+admirable bit of work—”
+
+“An admirable bit of work!” echoed Isidore, giving a whirl which
+brought down the Virgin Mary.
+
+M. Filleul took hold of him round the body:
+
+“Young man, I won’t allow you to commit—”
+
+A wise man of the East came toppling to the ground, followed by a
+manger containing the Mother and Child. . . .
+
+“If you stir another limb, I fire!”
+
+The Comte de Gesvres had appeared upon the scene and was cocking his
+revolver. Beautrelet burst out laughing:
+
+“That’s right, Monsieur le Comte, blaze away!—Take a shot at them, as
+if you were at a fair!—Wait a bit—this chap carrying his head in his
+hands—”
+
+St. John the Baptist fell, shattered to pieces.
+
+“Oh!” shouted the count, pointing his revolver. “You young
+vandal!—Those masterpieces!”
+
+“Sham, Monsieur le Comte!”
+
+“What? What’s that?” roared M. Filleul, wresting the Comte de Gesvres’s
+weapon from him.
+
+“Sham!” repeated Beautrelet. “Paper-pulp and plaster!”
+
+“Oh, nonsense! It can’t be true!”
+
+“Hollow plaster, I tell you! Nothing at all!”
+
+The count stooped and picked up a sliver of a statuette.
+
+“Look at it, Monsieur le Comte, and see for yourself: it’s plaster!
+Rusty, musty, mildewed plaster, made to look like old stone—but plaster
+for all that, plaster casts!—That’s all that remains of your perfect
+masterpiece!—That’s what they’ve done in just a few days!-That’s what
+the Sieur Charpenais who copied the Rubenses, prepared a year ago.” He
+seized M. Filleul’s arm in his turn. “What do you think of it, Monsieur
+le Juge d’Instruction? Isn’t it fine? Isn’t it grand? Isn’t it
+gorgeous? The chapel has been removed! A whole Gothic chapel collected
+stone by stone! A whole population of statues captured and replaced by
+these chaps in stucco! One of the most magnificent specimens of an
+incomparable artistic period confiscated! The chapel, in short, stolen!
+Isn’t it immense? Ah, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, what a genius the
+man is!”
+
+“You’re allowing yourself to be carried away, M. Beautrelet.”
+
+“One can’t be carried away too much, monsieur, when one has to do with
+people like that. Everything above the average deserves our admiration.
+And this man soars above everything. There is in his flight a wealth of
+imagination, a force and power, a skill and freedom that send a thrill
+through me!”
+
+“Pity he’s dead,” said M. Filleul, with a grin. “He’d have ended by
+stealing the towers of Notre-Dame.”
+
+Isidore shrugged his shoulders:
+
+“Don’t laugh, monsieur. He upsets you, dead though he may be.”
+
+“I don’t say not, I don’t say not, M. Beautrelet, I confess that I feel
+a certain excitement now that I am about to set eyes on him—unless,
+indeed, his friends have taken away the body.”
+
+“And always admitting,” observed the Comte de Gesvres, “that it was
+really he who was wounded by my poor niece.”
+
+“It was he, beyond a doubt, Monsieur le Comte,” declared Beautrelet;
+“it was he, believe me, who fell in the ruins under the shot fired by
+Mlle. de Saint-Véran; it was he whom she saw rise and who fell again
+and dragged himself toward the cloisters to rise again for the last
+time—this by a miracle which I will explain to you presently—to rise
+again for the last time and reach this stone shelter—which was to be
+his tomb.”
+
+And Beautrelet struck the threshold of the chapel with his stick.
+
+“Eh? What?” cried M. Filleul, taken aback. “His tomb?—Do you think that
+that impenetrable hiding-place—”
+
+“It was here—there,” he repeated.
+
+“But we searched it.”
+
+“Badly.”
+
+“There is no hiding-place here,” protested M. de Gesvres. “I know the
+chapel.”
+
+“Yes, there is, Monsieur le Comte. Go to the mayor’s office at
+Varengeville, where they have collected all the papers that used to be
+in the old parish of Ambrumésy, and you will learn from those papers,
+which belong to the eighteenth century, that there is a crypt below the
+chapel. This crypt doubtless dates back to the Roman chapel, upon the
+site of which the present one was built.”
+
+“But how can Lupin have known this detail?” asked M. Filleul.
+
+“In a very simple manner: because of the works which he had to execute
+to take away the chapel.”
+
+“Come, come, M. Beautrelet, you’re exaggerating. He has not taken away
+the whole chapel. Look, not one of the stones of this top course has
+been touched.”
+
+“Obviously, he cast and took away only what had a financial value: the
+wrought stones, the sculptures, the statuettes, the whole treasure of
+little columns and carved arches. He did not trouble about the
+groundwork of the building itself. The foundations remain.”
+
+“Therefore, M. Beautrelet, Lupin was not able to make his way into the
+crypt.”
+
+At that moment, M. de Gesvres, who had been to call a servant, returned
+with the key of the chapel. He opened the door. The three men entered.
+After a short examination Beautrelet said:
+
+“The flag-stones on the ground have been respected, as one might
+expect. But it is easy to perceive that the high altar is nothing more
+than a cast. Now, generally, the staircase leading to the crypt opens
+in front of the high altar and passes under it.”
+
+“What do you conclude?”
+
+“I conclude that Lupin discovered the crypt when working at the altar.”
+
+The count sent for a pickaxe and Beautrelet attacked the altar. The
+plaster flew to right and left. He pushed the pieces aside as he went
+on.
+
+“By Jove!” muttered M. Filleul, “I am eager to know—”
+
+“So am I,” said Beautrelet, whose face was pale with anguish.
+
+He hurried his blows. And, suddenly, his pickaxe, which, until then,
+had encountered no resistance, struck against a harder material and
+rebounded. There was a sound of something falling in; and all that
+remained of the altar went tumbling into the gap after the block of
+stone which had been struck by the pickaxe. Beautrelet bent forward. A
+puff of cold air rose to his face. He lit a match and moved it from
+side to side over the gap:
+
+“The staircase begins farther forward than I expected, under the
+entrance-flags, almost. I can see the last steps, there, right at the
+bottom.”
+
+“Is it deep?”
+
+“Three or four yards. The steps are very high—and there are some
+missing.”
+
+“It is hardly likely,” said M. Filleul, “that the accomplices can have
+had time to remove the body from the cellar, when they were engaged in
+carrying off Mlle. de Saint-Véran—during the short absence of the
+gendarmes. Besides, why should they?—No, in my opinion, the body is
+here.”
+
+A servant brought them a ladder. Beautrelet let it down through the
+opening and fixed it, after groping among the fallen fragments. Holding
+the two uprights firmly:
+
+“Will you go down, M. Filleul?” he asked.
+
+The magistrate, holding a candle in his hand, ventured down the ladder.
+The Comte de Gesvres followed him and Beautrelet, in his turn, placed
+his foot on the first rung.
+
+Mechanically, he counted eighteen rungs, while his eyes examined the
+crypt, where the glimmer of the candle struggled against the heavy
+darkness. But, at the bottom, his nostrils were assailed by one of
+those foul and violent smells which linger in the memory for many a
+long day. And, suddenly, a trembling hand seized him by the shoulder.
+
+“Well, what is it?”
+
+“B-beautrelet,” stammered M. Filleul. “B-beau-trelet—”
+
+He could not get a word out for terror.
+
+“Come, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, compose yourself!”
+
+“Beautrelet—he is there—”
+
+“Eh?”
+
+“Yes—there was something under the big stone that broke off the altar—I
+pushed the stone—and I touched—I shall never—shall never forget.—”
+
+“Where is it?”
+
+“On this side.—Don’t you notice the smell?—And then look—see.”
+
+He took the candle and held it towards a motionless form stretched upon
+the ground.
+
+“Oh!” exclaimed Beautrelet, in a horror-stricken tone.
+
+The three men bent down quickly. The corpse lay half-naked, lean,
+frightful. The flesh, which had the greenish hue of soft wax, appeared
+in places through the torn clothes. But the most hideous thing, the
+thing that had drawn a cry of terror from the young man’s lips, was the
+head, the head which had just been crushed by the block of stone, the
+shapeless head, a repulsive mass in which not one feature could be
+distinguished.
+
+Beautrelet took four strides up the ladder and fled into the daylight
+and the open air.
+
+M. Filleul found him again lying flat on the around, with his hands
+glued to his face:
+
+“I congratulate you, Beautrelet,” he said. “In addition to the
+discovery of the hiding-place, there are two points on which I have
+been able to verify the correctness of your assertions. First of all,
+the man on whom Mlle. de Saint-Véran fired was indeed Arsène Lupin, as
+you said from the start. Also, he lived in Paris under the name of
+Étienne de Vaudreix. His linen is marked with the initials E. V. That
+ought to be sufficient proof, I think: don’t you?”
+
+Isidore did not stir.
+
+“Monsieur le Comte has gone to have a horse put to. They’re sending for
+Dr. Jouet, who will make the usual examination. In my opinion, death
+must have taken place a week ago, at least. The state of decomposition
+of the corpse—but you don’t seem to be listening—”
+
+“Yes, yes.”
+
+“What I say is based upon absolute reasons. Thus, for instance—”
+
+M. Filleul continued his demonstrations, without, however, obtaining
+any more manifest marks of attention. But M. de Gesvres’s return
+interrupted his monologue. The comte brought two letters. One was to
+tell him that Holmlock Shears would arrive next morning.
+
+“Capital!” cried M. Filleul, joyfully. “Inspector Ganimard will be here
+too. It will be delightful.”
+
+“The other letter is for you, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction,” said the
+comte.
+
+“Better and better,” said M. Filleul, after reading it. “There will
+certainly not be much for those two gentlemen to do. M. Beautrelet, I
+hear from Dieppe that the body of a young woman was found by some
+shrimpers, this morning, on the rocks.”
+
+Beautrelet gave a start:
+
+“What’s that? The body—”
+
+“Of a young woman.—The body is horribly mutilated, they say, and it
+would be impossible to establish the identity, but for a very narrow
+little gold curb-bracelet on the right arm which has become encrusted
+in the swollen skin. Now Mlle. de Saint-Véran used to wear a gold
+curb-bracelet on her right arm. Evidently, therefore, Monsieur le
+Comte, this is the body of your poor niece, which the sea must have
+washed to that distance. What do you think, Beautrelet?”
+
+“Nothing—nothing—or, rather, yes—everything is connected, as you
+see—and there is no link missing in my argument. All the facts, one
+after the other, however contradictory, however disconcerting they may
+appear, end by supporting the supposition which I imagined from the
+first.”
+
+“I don’t understand.”
+
+“You soon will. Remember, I promised you the whole truth.”
+
+“But it seems to me—”
+
+“A little patience, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction. So far, you have
+had no cause to complain of me. It is a fine day. Go for a walk, lunch
+at the château, smoke your pipe. I shall be back by four o’clock. As
+for my school, well, I don’t care: I shall take the night train.”
+
+They had reached the out-houses at the back of the château. Beautrelet
+jumped on his bicycle and rode away.
+
+At Dieppe, he stopped at the office of the local paper, the _Vigie_,
+and examined the file for the last fortnight. Then he went on to the
+market-town of Envermeu, six or seven miles farther. At Envermeu, he
+talked to the mayor, the rector and the local policeman. The
+church-clock struck three. His inquiry was finished.
+
+He returned singing for joy. He pressed upon the two pedals turn by
+turn, with an equal and powerful rhythm; his chest opened wide to take
+in the keen air that blew from the sea. And, from time to time, he
+forgot himself to the extent of uttering shouts of triumph to the sky,
+when he thought of the aim which he was pursuing and of the success
+that was crowning his efforts.
+
+Ambrumésy appeared in sight. He coasted at full speed down the slope
+leading to the château. The top rows of venerable trees that line the
+road seemed to run to meet him and to vanish behind him forthwith. And,
+all at once, he uttered a cry. In a sudden vision, he had seen a rope
+stretched from one tree to another, across the road.
+
+His machine gave a jolt and stopped short. Beautrelet was flung three
+yards forward, with immense violence, and it seemed to him that only
+chance, a miraculous chance, caused him to escape a heap of pebbles on
+which, logically, he ought to have broken his head.
+
+He lay for a few seconds stunned. Then, all covered with bruises, with
+the skin flayed from his knees, he examined the spot. On the right lay
+a small wood, by which his aggressor had no doubt fled. Beautrelet
+untied the rope. To the tree on the left around which it was fastened a
+small piece of paper was fixed with string. Beautrelet unfolded it and
+read:
+
+“The third and last warning.”
+
+He went on to the château, put a few questions to the servants and
+joined the examining magistrate in a room on the ground floor, at the
+end of the right wing, where M. Filleul used to sit in the course of
+his operations. M. Filleul was writing, with his clerk seated opposite
+to him. At a sign from him, the clerk left the room; and the magistrate
+exclaimed:
+
+“Why, what have you been doing to yourself, M. Beautrelet? Your hands
+are covered with blood.”
+
+“It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” said the young man. “Just a fall
+occasioned by this rope, which was stretched in front of my bicycle. I
+will only ask you to observe that the rope comes from the château. Not
+longer than twenty minutes ago, it was being used to dry linen on,
+outside the laundry.”
+
+“You don’t mean to say so!”
+
+“Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, I am being watched here, by some one
+in the very heart of the place, who can see me, who can hear me and
+who, minute by minute, observes my actions and knows my intentions.”
+
+“Do you think so?”
+
+“I am sure of it. It is for you to discover him and you will have no
+difficulty in that. As for myself, I want to have finished and to give
+you the promised explanations. I have made faster progress than our
+adversaries expected and I am convinced that they mean to take vigorous
+measures on their side. The circle is closing around me. The danger is
+approaching. I feel it.”
+
+“Nonsense, Beautrelet—”
+
+“You wait and see! For the moment, let us lose no time. And, first, a
+question on a point which I want to have done with at once. Have you
+spoken to anybody of that document which Sergeant Quevillon picked up
+and handed you in my presence?”
+
+“No, indeed; not to a soul. But do you attach any value—?”
+
+“The greatest value. It’s an idea of mine, an idea, I confess, which
+does not rest upon a proof of any kind—for, up to the present, I have
+not succeeded in deciphering the document. And therefore I am
+mentioning it—so that we need not come back to it.”
+
+Beautrelet pressed his hand on M. Filleul’s and whispered:
+
+“Don’t speak—there’s some one listening—outside—”
+
+The gravel creaked. Beautrelet ran to the window and leaned out:
+
+“There’s no one there—but the border has been trodden down—we can
+easily identify the footprints—”
+
+He closed the window and sat down again:
+
+“You see, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, the enemy has even ceased to
+take the most ordinary precautions—he has not time left—he too feels
+that the hour is urgent. Let us be quick, therefore, and speak, since
+they do not wish us to speak.”
+
+He laid the document on the table and held it in position, unfolded:
+
+“One observation, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, to begin with. The
+paper consists almost entirely of dots and figures. And in the first
+three lines and the fifth—the only ones with which we have to do at
+present, for the fourth seems to present an entirely different
+character—not one of those figures is higher than the figure 5. There
+is, therefore, a great chance that each of these figures represents one
+of the five vowels, taken in alphabetical order. Let us put down the
+result.”
+
+He wrote on a separate piece of paper:
+
+  e . a . a . . e . . e . a . . a . .
+   a . . . e . e .        . e oi . e . . e .
+   . ou . . e . o . . . e . . e . o . . e
+   ai . ui . . e            . . eu . e
+
+
+Then he continued:
+
+“As you see, this does not give us much to go upon. The key is, at the
+same time, very easy, because the inventor has contented himself with
+replacing the vowels by figures and the consonants by dots, and very
+difficult, if not impossible, because he has taken no further trouble
+to complicate the problem.”
+
+“It is certainly pretty obscure.”
+
+“Let us try to throw some light upon it. The second line is divided
+into two parts; and the second part appears in such a way that it
+probably forms one word. If we now seek to replace the intermediary
+dots by consonants, we arrive at the conclusion, after searching and
+casting about, that the only consonants which are logically able to
+support the vowels are also logically able to produce only one word,
+the word _demoiselles_.”
+
+“That would refer to Mlle. de Gesvres and Mlle. de Saint-Véran.”
+
+“Undoubtedly.”
+
+“And do you see nothing more?”
+
+“Yes. I also note an hiatus in the middle of the last line; and, if I
+apply a similar operation to the beginning of the line, I at once see
+that the only consonant able to take the place of the dot between the
+diphthongs _fai_ and _ui_ is the letter _g_ and that, when I have thus
+formed the first five letters of the word, _aigui_, it is natural and
+inevitable that, with the two next dots and the final _e_, I should
+arrive at the word _aiguille_.”
+
+“Yes, the word _aiguille_ forces itself upon us.”
+
+“Finally, for the last word, I have three vowels and three consonants.
+I cast about again, I try all the letters, one after the other, and,
+starting with the principle that the two first letters are necessary
+consonants, I find that three words apply: _fleuve_, _preuve_ and
+_creuse_. I eliminate the words _fleuve_ and _preuve_, as possessing no
+possible relation to a needle, and I keep the word _creuse_.”
+
+“Making ‘hollow needle’! By jove! I admit that your solution is
+correct, because it needs must be; but how does it help us?”
+
+“Not at all,” said Beautrelet, in a thoughtful tone. “Not at all, for
+the moment.—Later on, we shall see.—I have an idea that a number of
+things are included in the puzzling conjunction of those two words,
+_aiguille creuse_. What is troubling me at present is rather the
+material on which the document is written, the paper employed.—Do they
+still manufacture this sort of rather coarse-grained parchment? And
+then this ivory color.—And those folds—the wear of those folds—and,
+lastly, look, those marks of red sealing-wax, on the back—”
+
+At that moment Beautrelet, was interrupted by Brédoux, the magistrate’s
+clerk, who opened the door and announced the unexpected arrival of the
+chief public prosecutor. M. Filleul rose:
+
+“Anything new? Is Monsieur le Procureur Général downstairs?”
+
+“No, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction. Monsieur le Procureur Général has
+not left his carriage. He is only passing through Ambrumésy and begs
+you to be good enough to go down to him at the gate. He only has a word
+to say to you.”
+
+“That’s curious,” muttered M. Filleul. “However—we shall see. Excuse
+me, Beautrelet, I shan’t be long.”
+
+He went away. His footsteps sounded outside. Then the clerk closed the
+door, turned the key and put it in his pocket.
+
+“Hullo!” exclaimed Beautrelet, greatly surprised. “What are you locking
+us in for?”
+
+“We shall be able to talk so much better,” retorted Brédoux.
+
+Beautrelet rushed toward another door, which led to the next room. He
+had understood: the accomplice was Brédoux, the clerk of the examining
+magistrate himself. Brédoux grinned:
+
+“Don’t hurt your fingers, my young friend. I have the key of that door,
+too.”
+
+“There’s the window!” cried Beautrelet.
+
+“Too late,” said Brédoux, planting himself in front of the casement,
+revolver in hand.
+
+Every chance of retreat was cut off. There was nothing more for Isidore
+to do, nothing except to defend himself against the enemy who was
+revealing himself with such brutal daring. He crossed his arms.
+
+“Good,” mumbled the clerk. “And now let us waste no time.” He took out
+his watch. “Our worthy M. Filleul will walk down to the gate. At the
+gate, he will find nobody, of course: no more public prosecutor than my
+eye. Then he will come back. That gives us about four minutes. It will
+take me one minute to escape by this window, clear through the little
+door by the ruins and jump on the motor cycle waiting for me. That
+leaves three minutes, which is just enough.”
+
+Brédoux was a queer sort of misshapen creature, who balanced on a pair
+of very long spindle-legs a huge trunk, as round as the body of a
+spider and furnished with immense arms. A bony face and a low, small
+stubborn forehead pointed to the man’s narrow obstinacy.
+
+Beautrelet felt a weakness in the legs and staggered. He had to sit
+down:
+
+“Speak,” he said. “What do you want?”
+
+“The paper. I’ve been looking for it for three days.”
+
+“I haven’t got it.”
+
+“You’re lying. I saw you put it back in your pocket-book when I came
+in.”
+
+“Next?”
+
+“Next, you must undertake to keep quite quiet. You’re annoying us.
+Leave us alone and mind your own business. Our patience is at an end.”
+
+He had come nearer, with the revolver still aimed at the young man’s
+head, and spoke in a hollow voice, with a powerful stress on each
+syllable that he uttered. His eyes were hard, his smile cruel.
+
+Beautrelet gave a shudder. It was the first time that he was
+experiencing the sense of danger. And such danger! He felt himself in
+the presence of an implacable enemy, endowed with blind and
+irresistible strength.
+
+“And next?” he asked, with less assurance in his voice.
+
+“Next? Nothing.—You will be free.—We will forget—”
+
+There was a pause. Then Brédoux resumed:
+
+“There is only a minute left. You must make up your mind. Come, old
+chap, don’t be a fool.—We are the stronger, you know, always and
+everywhere.—Quick, the paper—”
+
+Isidore did not flinch. With a livid and terrified face, he remained
+master of himself, nevertheless, and his brain remained clear amid the
+breakdown of his nerves. The little black hole of the revolver was
+pointing at six inches from his eyes. The finger was bent and obviously
+pressing on the trigger. It only wanted a moment—
+
+“The paper,” repeated Brédoux. “If not—”
+
+“Here it is,” said Beautrelet.
+
+He took out his pocket-book and handed it to the clerk, who seized it
+eagerly.
+
+“Capital! We’ve come to our senses. I’ve no doubt there’s something to
+be done with you.—You’re troublesome, but full of common sense. I’ll
+talk about it to my pals. And now I’m off. Good-bye!”
+
+He pocketed his revolver and turned back the fastening of the window.
+There was a noise in the passage.
+
+“Good-bye,” he said again. “I’m only just in time.”
+
+But the idea stopped him. With a quick movement, he examined the
+pocket-book:
+
+“Damn and blast it!” He grated through his teeth. “The paper’s not
+there.—You’ve done me—”
+
+He leaped into the room. Two shots rang out. Isidore, in his turn, had
+seized his pistol and fired.
+
+“Missed, old chap!” shouted Brédoux. “Your hand’s shaking.—You’re
+afraid—”
+
+They caught each other round the body and came down to the floor
+together. There was a violent and incessant knocking at the door.
+Isidore’s strength gave way and he was at once over come by his
+adversary. It was the end. A hand was lifted over him, armed with a
+knife, and fell. A fierce pain burst into his shoulder. He let go.
+
+He had an impression of some one fumbling in the inside pocket of his
+jacket and taking the paper from it. Then, through the lowered veil of
+his eyelids, he half saw the man stepping over the window-sill.
+
+The same newspapers which, on the following morning, related the last
+episodes that had occurred at the Château d’Ambrumésy—the trickery at
+the chapel, the discovery of Arsène Lupin’s body and of Raymonde’s body
+and, lastly, the murderous attempt made upon Beautrelet by the clerk to
+the examining magistrate—also announced two further pieces of news: the
+disappearance of Ganimard, and the kidnapping of Holmlock Shears, in
+broad daylight, in the heart of London, at the moment when he was about
+to take the train for Dover.
+
+Lupin’s gang, therefore, which had been disorganized for a moment by
+the extraordinary ingenuity of a seventeen-year-old schoolboy, was now
+resuming the offensive and was winning all along the line from the
+first. Lupin’s two great adversaries, Shears and Ganimard, were put
+away. Isidore Beautrelet was disabled. The police were powerless. For
+the moment there was no one left capable of struggling against such
+enemies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+FACE TO FACE
+
+
+One evening, five weeks later, I had given my man leave to go out. It
+was the day before the 14th of July. The night was hot, a storm
+threatened and I felt no inclination to leave the flat. I opened wide
+the glass doors leading to my balcony, lit my reading lamp and sat down
+in an easy-chair to look through the papers, which I had not yet seen.
+
+It goes without saying that there was something about Arsène Lupin in
+all of them. Since the attempt at murder of which poor Isidore
+Beautrelet had been the victim, not a day had passed without some
+mention of the Ambrumésy mystery. It had a permanent headline devoted
+to it. Never had public opinion been excited to that extent, thanks to
+the extraordinary series of hurried events, of unexpected and
+disconcerting surprises. M. Filleul, who was certainly accepting the
+secondary part allotted to him with a good faith worthy of all praise,
+had let the interviewers into the secret of his young advisor’s
+exploits during the memorable three days, so that the public was able
+to indulge in the rashest suppositions. And the public gave itself free
+scope. Specialists and experts in crime, novelists and playwrights,
+retired magistrates and chief-detectives, erstwhile Lecocqs and budding
+Holmlock Shearses, each had his theory and expounded it in lengthy
+contributions to the press. Everybody corrected and supplemented the
+inquiry of the examining magistrate; and all on the word of a child, on
+the word of Isidore Beautrelet, a sixth-form schoolboy at the Lycée
+Janson-de-Sailly!
+
+For really, it had to be admitted, the complete elements of the truth
+were now in everybody’s possession. What did the mystery consist of?
+They knew the hiding-place where Arsène Lupin had taken refuge and lain
+a-dying; there was no doubt about it: Dr. Delattre, who continued to
+plead professional secrecy and refused to give evidence, nevertheless
+confessed to his intimate friends—who lost no time in blabbing—that he
+really had been taken to a crypt to attend a wounded man whom his
+confederates introduced to him by the name of Arsène Lupin. And, as the
+corpse of Étienne de Vaudreix was found in that same crypt and as the
+said Étienne de Vaudreix was none other than Arsène Lupin—as the
+official examination went to show—all this provided an additional
+proof, if one were needed, of the identity of Arsène Lupin and the
+wounded man. Therefore, with Lupin dead and Mlle. de Saint-Véran’s body
+recognized by the curb-bracelet on her wrist, the tragedy was finished.
+
+It was not. Nobody thought that it was, because Beautrelet had said the
+contrary. Nobody knew in what respect it was not finished, but, on the
+word of the young man, the mystery remained complete. The evidence of
+the senses did not prevail against the statement of a Beautrelet. There
+was something which people did not know, and of that something they
+were convinced that he was in position to supply a triumphant
+explanation.
+
+It is easy, therefore, to imagine the anxiety with which, at first,
+people awaited the bulletins issued by the two Dieppe doctors to whose
+care the Comte de Gesvres entrusted his patient; the distress that
+prevailed during the first few days, when his life was thought to be in
+danger; and the enthusiasm of the morning when the newspapers announced
+that there was no further cause for fear. The least details excited the
+crowd. People wept at the thought of Beautrelet nursed by his old
+father, who had been hurriedly summoned by telegram, and they also
+admired the devotion of Mlle. Suzanne de Gesvres, who spent night after
+night by the wounded lad’s bedside.
+
+Next came a swift and glad convalescence. At last, the public were
+about to know! They would know what Beautrelet had promised to reveal
+to M. Filleul and the decisive words which the knife of the would-be
+assassin had prevented him from uttering! And they would also know
+everything, outside the tragedy itself, that remained impenetrable or
+inaccessible to the efforts of the police.
+
+With Beautrelet free and cured of his wound, one could hope for some
+certainty regarding Harlington, Arsène Lupin’s mysterious accomplice,
+who was still detained at the Santé prison. One would learn what had
+become, after the crime, of Brédoux the clerk, that other accomplice,
+whose daring was really terrifying.
+
+With Beautrelet free, one could also form a precise idea concerning the
+disappearance of Ganimard and the kidnapping of Shears. How was it
+possible for two attempts of this kind to take place? Neither the
+English detectives nor their French colleagues possessed the slightest
+clue on the subject. On Whit-Sunday, Ganimard did not come home, nor on
+the Monday either, nor during the five weeks that followed. In London,
+on Whit-Monday, Holmlock Shears took a cab at eight o’clock in the
+evening to drive to the station. He had hardly stepped in, when he
+tried to alight, probably feeling a presentiment of danger. But two men
+jumped into the hansom, one on either side, flung him back on the seat
+and kept him there between them, or rather under them. All this
+happened in sight of nine or ten witnesses, who had no time to
+interfere. The cab drove off at a gallop. And, after that, nothing.
+Nobody knew anything.
+
+Perhaps, also, Beautrelet would be able to give the complete
+explanation of the document, the mysterious paper to which. Brédoux,
+the magistrate’s clerk, attached enough importance to recover it, with
+blows of the knife, from the person in whose possession it was. The
+problem of the Hollow Needle it was called, by the countless solvers of
+riddles who, with their eyes bent upon the figures and dots, strove to
+read a meaning into them. The Hollow Needle! What a bewildering
+conjunction of two simple words! What an incomprehensible question was
+set by that scrap of paper, whose very origin and manufacture were
+unknown! The Hollow Needle! Was it a meaningless expression, the puzzle
+of a schoolboy scribbling with pen and ink on the corner of a page? Or
+were they two magic words which could compel the whole great adventure
+of Lupin the great adventurer to assume its true significance? Nobody
+knew.
+
+But the public soon would know. For some days, the papers had been
+announcing the approaching arrival of Beautrelet. The struggle was on
+the point of recommencing; and, this time, it would be implacable on
+the part of the young man, who was burning to take his revenge. And, as
+it happened, my attention, just then, was drawn to his name, printed in
+capitals. The _Grand Journal_ headed its front page with the following
+paragraph:
+
+_We have persuaded_
+
+
+M. ISIDORE BEAUTRELET
+
+
+_to give us the first right of printing his revelations. To-morrow,
+Tuesday, before the police themselves are informed, the_ Grand Journal
+_will publish the whole truth of the Ambrumésy mystery_.
+
+
+“That’s interesting, eh? What do you think of it, my dear chap?”
+
+I started from my chair. There was some one sitting beside me, some one
+I did not know. I cast my eyes round for a weapon. But, as my visitor’s
+attitude appeared quite inoffensive, I restrained myself and went up to
+him.
+
+He was a young man with strongly-marked features, long, fair hair and a
+short, tawny beard, divided into two points. His dress suggested the
+dark clothes of an English clergyman; and his whole person, for that
+matter, wore an air of austerity and gravity that inspired respect.
+
+“Who are you?” I asked. And, as he did not reply, I repeated, “Who are
+you? How did you get in? What are you here for?”
+
+He looked at me and said:
+
+“Don’t you know me?”
+
+“No—no!”
+
+“Oh, that’s really curious! Just search your memory—one of your
+friends—a friend of a rather special kind—however—”
+
+I caught him smartly by the arm:
+
+“You lie! You lie! No, you’re not the man you say you are—it’s not
+true.”
+
+“Then why are you thinking of that man rather than another?” he asked,
+with a laugh.
+
+Oh, that laugh! That bright and clear young laugh, whose amusing irony
+had so often contributed to my diversion! I shivered. Could it be?
+
+“No, no,” I protested, with a sort of terror. “It cannot be.”
+
+“It can’t be I, because I’m dead, eh?” he retorted. “And because you
+don’t believe in ghosts.” He laughed again. “Am I the sort of man who
+dies? Do you think I would die like that, shot in the back by a girl?
+Really, you misjudge me! As though I would ever consent to such a death
+as that!”
+
+“So it is you!” I stammered, still incredulous and yet greatly excited.
+“So it is you! I can’t manage to recognize you.”
+
+“In that case,” he said, gaily, “I am quite easy. If the only man to
+whom I have shown myself in my real aspect fails to know me to-day,
+then everybody who will see me henceforth as I am to-day is bound not
+to know me either, when he sees me in my real aspect—if, indeed, I have
+a real aspect—”
+
+I recognized his voice, now that he was no longer changing its tone,
+and I recognized his eyes also and the expression of his face and his
+whole attitude and his very being, through the counterfeit appearance
+in which he had shrouded it:
+
+“Arsène Lupin!” I muttered.
+
+“Yes, Arsène Lupin!” he cried, rising from his chair. “The one and only
+Arsène Lupin, returned from the realms of darkness, since it appears
+that I expired and passed away in a crypt! Arsène Lupin, alive and
+kicking, in the full exercise of his will, happy and free and more than
+ever resolved to enjoy that happy freedom in a world where hitherto he
+has received nothing but favors and privileges!”
+
+It was my turn to laugh:
+
+“Well, it’s certainly you, and livelier this time than on the day when
+I had the pleasure of seeing you, last year—I congratulate you.”
+
+I was alluding to his last visit, the visit following on the famous
+adventure of the diadem,[1] his interrupted marriage, his flight with
+Sonia Kirchnoff and the Russian girl’s horrible death. On that day, I
+had seen an Arsène Lupin whom I did not know, weak, down-hearted, with
+eyes tired with weeping, seeking for a little sympathy and affection.
+
+[1] _Arsène Lupin_, play in three acts and four scenes, by Maurice
+Leblanc and Francis de Croisset.]
+
+
+“Be quiet,” he said. “The past is far away.”
+
+“It was a year ago,” I observed.
+
+“It was ten years ago,” he declared. “Arsène Lupin’s years count for
+ten times as much as another man’s.”
+
+I did not insist and, changing the conversation:
+
+“How did you get in?”
+
+“Why, how do you think? Through the door, of course. Then, as I saw
+nobody, I walked across the drawing room and out by the balcony, and
+here I am.”
+
+“Yes, but the key of the door—?”
+
+“There are no doors for me, as you know. I wanted your flat and I came
+in.”
+
+“It is at your disposal. Am I to leave you?”
+
+“Oh, not at all! You won’t be in the way. In fact, I can promise you an
+interesting evening.”
+
+“Are you expecting some one?”
+
+“Yes. I have given him an appointment here at ten o’clock.” He took out
+his watch. “It is ten now. If the telegram reached him, he ought to be
+here soon.”
+
+The front-door bell rang.
+
+“What did I tell you? No, don’t trouble to get up: I’ll go.”
+
+With whom on earth could he have made an appointment? And what sort of
+scene was I about to assist at: dramatic or comic? For Lupin himself to
+consider it worthy of interest, the situation must be somewhat
+exceptional.
+
+He returned in a moment and stood back to make way for a young man,
+tall and thin and very pale in the face.
+
+Without a word and with a certain solemnity about his movements that
+made me feel ill at ease. Lupin switched on all the electric lamps, one
+after the other, till the room was flooded with light. Then the two men
+looked at each other, exchanged profound and penetrating glances, as
+if, with all the effort of their gleaming eyes, they were trying to
+pierce into each other’s souls.
+
+It was an impressive sight to see them thus, grave and silent. But who
+could the newcomer be?
+
+I was on the point of guessing the truth, through his resemblance to a
+photograph which had recently appeared in the papers, when Lupin turned
+to me:
+
+“My dear chap, let me introduce M. Isidore Beautrelet.” And, addressing
+the young man, he continued, “I have to thank you, M. Beautrelet,
+first, for being good enough, on receipt of a letter from me, to
+postpone your revelations until after this interview and, secondly, for
+granting me this interview with so good a grace.”
+
+Beautrelet smiled:
+
+“Allow me to remark that my good grace consists, above all, in obeying
+your orders. The threat which you made to me in the letter in question
+was the more peremptory in being aimed not at me, but at my father.”
+
+“My word,” said Lupin laughing, “we must do the best we can and make
+use of the means of action vouchsafed to us. I knew by experience that
+your own safety was indifferent to you, seeing that you resisted the
+arguments of Master Brédoux. There remained your father—your father for
+whom you have a great affection—I played on that string.”
+
+“And here I am,” said Beautrelet, approvingly.
+
+I motioned them to be seated. They consented and Lupin resumed, in that
+tone of imperceptible banter which is all his own:
+
+“In any case, M. Beautrelet, if you will not accept my thanks, you will
+at least not refuse my apologies.”
+
+“Apologies! Bless my soul, what for?”
+
+“For the brutality which Master Brédoux showed you.”
+
+“I confess that the act surprised me. It was not Lupin’s usual way of
+behaving. A stab—”
+
+“I assure you I had no hand in it. Brédoux is a new recruit. My
+friends, during the time that they had the management of our affairs,
+thought that it might be useful to win over to our cause the clerk of
+the magistrate himself who was conducting the inquiry.”
+
+“Your friends were right.”
+
+“Brédoux, who was specially attached to your person, was, in fact, most
+valuable to us. But, with the ardor peculiar to any neophyte who wishes
+to distinguish himself, he pushed his zeal too far and thwarted my
+plans by permitting himself, on his own initiative, to strike you a
+blow.”
+
+“Oh, it was a little accident!”
+
+“Not at all, not at all! And I have reprimanded him severely! I am
+bound, however, to say in his favor that he was taken unawares by the
+really unexpected rapidity of your investigation. If you had only left
+us a few hours longer, you would have escaped that unpardonable
+attempt.”
+
+“And I should doubtless have enjoyed the enormous advantage of
+undergoing the same fate as M. Ganimard and Mr. Holmlock Shears?”
+
+“Exactly,” said Lupin, laughing heartily. “And I should not have known
+the cruel terrors which your wound caused me. I have had an atrocious
+time because of it, believe me, and, at this moment, your pallor fills
+me with all the stings of remorse. Can you ever forgive me?”
+
+“The proof of confidence which you have shown me in delivering yourself
+unconditionally into my hands—it would have been so easy for me to
+bring a few of Ganimard’s friends with me—that proof of confidence
+wipes out everything.”
+
+Was he speaking seriously? I confess frankly that I was greatly
+perplexed. The struggle between the two men was beginning in a manner
+which I was simply unable to understand. I had been present at the
+first meeting between Lupin and Holmlock Shears, in the café near the
+Gare Montparnesse,[2] and I could not help recalling the haughty
+carriage of the two combatants, the terrific clash of their pride under
+the politeness of their manners, the hard blows which they dealt each
+other, their feints, their arrogance.
+
+[2] _Arsène Lupin versus Holmlock Shears_, by Maurice Leblanc.
+
+
+Here, it was quite different. Lupin, it is true, had not changed; he
+exhibited the same tactics, the same crafty affability. But what a
+strange adversary he had come upon! Was it even an adversary? Really,
+he had neither the tone of one nor the appearance. Very calm, but with
+a real calmness, not one assumed to cloak the passion of a man
+endeavoring to restrain himself; very polite, but without exaggeration;
+smiling, but without chaff, he presented the most perfect contrast to
+Arsène Lupin, a contrast so perfect even that, to my mind, Lupin
+appeared as much perplexed as myself.
+
+No, there was no doubt about it: in the presence of that frail
+stripling, with cheeks smooth as a girl’s and candid and charming eyes,
+Lupin was losing his ordinary self-assurance. Several times over, I
+observed traces of embarrassment in him. He hesitated, did not attack
+frankly, wasted time in mawkish and affected phrases.
+
+It also looked as though he wanted something. He seemed to be seeking,
+waiting. What for? Some aid?
+
+There was a fresh ring of the bell. He himself ran and opened the door.
+He returned with a letter:
+
+“Will you allow me, gentlemen?” he asked.
+
+He opened the letter. It contained a telegram. He read it—and became as
+though transformed. His face lit up, his figure righted itself and I
+saw the veins on his forehead swell. It was the athlete who once more
+stood before me, the ruler, sure of himself, master of events and
+master of persons. He spread the telegram on the table and, striking it
+with his fist, exclaimed:
+
+“Now, M. Beautrelet, it’s you and I!”
+
+Beautrelet adopted a listening attitude and Lupin began, in measured,
+but harsh and masterful tones:
+
+“Let us throw off the mask—what say you?—and have done with
+hypocritical compliments. We are two enemies, who know exactly what to
+think of each other; we act toward each other as enemies; and therefore
+we ought to treat with each other as enemies.”
+
+“To treat?” echoed Beautrelet, in a voice of surprise.
+
+“Yes, to treat. I did not use that word at random and I repeat it, in
+spite of the effort, the great effort, which it costs me. This is the
+first time I have employed it to an adversary. But also, I may as well
+tell you at once, it is the last. Make the most of it. I shall not
+leave this flat without a promise from you. If I do, it means war.”
+
+Beautrelet seemed more and more surprised. He said very prettily:
+
+“I was not prepared for this—you speak so funnily! It’s so different
+from what I expected! Yes, I thought you were not a bit like that! Why
+this display of anger? Why use threats? Are we enemies because
+circumstances bring us into opposition? Enemies? Why?”
+
+Lupin appeared a little out of countenance, but he snarled and, leaning
+over the boy:
+
+“Listen to me, youngster,” he said. “It’s not a question of picking
+one’s words. It’s a question of a fact, a positive, indisputable fact;
+and that fact is this: in all the past ten years, I have not yet
+knocked up against an adversary of your capacity. With Ganimard and
+Holmlock Shears I played as if they were children. With you, I am
+obliged to defend myself, I will say more, to retreat. Yes, at this
+moment, you and I well know that I must look upon myself as worsted in
+the fight. Isidore Beautrelet has got the better of Arsène Lupin. My
+plans are upset. What I tried to leave in the dark you have brought
+into the full light of day. You annoy me, you stand in my way. Well,
+I’ve had enough of it—Brédoux told you so to no purpose. I now tell you
+so again; and I insist upon it, so that you may take it to heart: I’ve
+had enough of it!”
+
+Beautrelet nodded his head:
+
+“Yes, but what do you want?”
+
+“Peace! Each of us minding his own business, keeping to his own side!”
+
+“That is to say, you free to continue your burglaries undisturbed, I
+free to return to my studies.”
+
+“Your studies—anything you please—I don’t care. But you must leave me
+in peace—I want peace.”
+
+“How can I trouble it now?”
+
+Lupin seized his hand violently:
+
+“You know quite well! Don’t pretend not to know. You are at this moment
+in possession of a secret to which I attach the highest importance.
+This secret you were free to guess, but you have no right to give it to
+the public.”
+
+“Are you sure that I know it?”
+
+“You know it, I am certain: day by day, hour by hour, I have followed
+your train of thought and the progress of your investigations. At the
+very moment when Brédoux struck you, you were about to tell all.
+Subsequently, you delayed your revelations, out of solicitude for your
+father. But they are now promised to this paper here. The article is
+written. It will be set up in an hour. It will appear to-morrow.”
+
+“Quite right.”
+
+Lupin rose, and slashing the air with his hand,
+
+“It shall not appear!” he cried.
+
+“It shall appear!” said Beautrelet, starting up in his turn.
+
+At last, the two men were standing up to each other. I received the
+impression of a shock, as if they had seized each other round the body.
+Beautrelet seemed to burn with a sudden energy. It was as though a
+spark had kindled within him a group of new emotions: pluck,
+self-respect, the passion of fighting, the intoxication of danger. As
+for Lupin, I read in the radiance of his glance the joy of the duellist
+who at length encounters the sword of his hated rival.
+
+“Is the article in the printer’s hands?”
+
+“Not yet.”
+
+“Have you it there—on you?”
+
+“No fear! I shouldn’t have it by now, in that case!”
+
+“Then—”
+
+“One of the assistant editors has it, in a sealed envelope. If I am not
+at the office by midnight, he will have set it up.”
+
+“Oh, the scoundrel!” muttered Lupin. “He has provided for everything!”
+
+His anger was increasing, visibly and frightfully. Beautrelet chuckled,
+jeering in his turn, carried away by his success.
+
+“Stop that, you brat!” roared Lupin. “You’re forgetting who I am—and
+that, if I wished—upon my word, he’s daring to laugh!”
+
+A great silence fell between them. Then Lupin stepped forward and, in
+muttered tones, with his eyes on Beautrelet’s:
+
+“You shall go straight to the _Grand Journal_.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Tear up your article.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“See the editor.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Tell him you made a mistake.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“And write him another article, in which you will give the official
+version of the Ambrumésy mystery, the one which every one has
+accepted.”
+
+“No.”
+
+Lupin took up a steel ruler that lay on my desk and broke it in two
+without an effort. His pallor was terrible to see. He wiped away the
+beads of perspiration that stood on his forehead. He, who had never
+known his wishes resisted, was being maddened by the obstinacy of this
+child. He pressed his two hands on Beautrelet’s shoulder and,
+emphasizing every syllable, continued:
+
+“You shall do as I tell you, Beautrelet. You shall say that your latest
+discoveries have convinced you of my death, that there is not the least
+doubt about it. You shall say so because I wish it, because it has to
+be believed that I am dead. You shall say so, above all, because, if
+you do not say so—”
+
+“Because, if I do not say so—?”
+
+“Your father will be kidnapped to-night, as Ganimard and Holmlock
+Shears were.”
+
+Beautrelet gave a smile.
+
+“Don’t laugh—answer!”
+
+“My answer is that I am very sorry to disappoint you, but I have
+promised to speak and I shall speak.”
+
+“Speak in the sense which I have told you.”
+
+“I shall speak the truth,” cried Beautrelet, eagerly. “It is something
+which you can’t understand, the pleasure, the need, rather, of saying
+the thing that is and saying it aloud. The truth is here, in this brain
+which has guessed it and discovered it; and it will come out, all naked
+and quivering. The article, therefore, will be printed as I wrote it.
+The world shall know that Lupin is alive and shall know the reason why
+he wished to be considered dead. The world shall know all.” And he
+added, calmly, “And my father shall not be kidnapped.”
+
+Once again, they were both silent, with their eyes still fixed upon
+each other. They watched each other. Their swords were engaged up to
+the hilt. And it was like the heavy silence that goes before the mortal
+blow. Which of the two was to strike it?
+
+Lupin said, between his teeth:
+
+“Failing my instructions to the contrary, two of my friends have orders
+to enter your father’s room to-night, at three o’clock in the morning,
+to seize him and carry him off to join Ganimard and Holmlock Shears.”
+
+A burst of shrill laughter interrupted him:
+
+“Why, you highwayman, don’t you understand,” cried Beautrelet, “that I
+have taken my precautions? So you think that I am innocent enough, ass
+enough, to have sent my father home to his lonely little house in the
+open country!” Oh, the gay, bantering laughter that lit up the boy’s
+face! It was a new sort of laugh on his lips, a laugh that showed the
+influence of Lupin himself. And the familiar form of address which he
+adopted placed him at once on his adversary’s level. He continued:
+
+“You see, Lupin, your great fault is to believe your schemes
+infallible. You proclaim yourself beaten, do you? What humbug! You are
+convinced that you will always win the day in the end—and you forget
+that others can have their little schemes, too. Mine is a very simple
+one, my friend.”
+
+It was delightful to hear him talk. He walked up and down, with his
+hands in his pockets and with the easy swagger of a boy teasing a caged
+beast. Really, at this moment, he was revenging, with the most terrible
+revenges, all the victims of the great adventurer. And he concluded:
+
+“Lupin, my father is not in Savoy. He is at the other end of France, in
+the centre of a big town, guarded by twenty of our friends, who have
+orders not to lose sight of him until our battle is over. Would you
+like details? He is at Cherbourg, in the house of one of the keepers of
+the arsenal. And remember that the arsenal is closed at night and that
+no one is allowed to enter it by day, unless he carries an
+authorization and is accompanied by a guide.”
+
+He stopped in front of Lupin and defied him, like a child making faces
+at his playmate:
+
+“What do you say to that, master?”
+
+For some minutes, Lupin had stood motionless. Not a muscle of his face
+had moved. What were his thoughts? Upon what action was he resolving?
+To any one knowing the fierce violence of his pride the only possible
+solution was the total, immediate, final collapse of his adversary. His
+fingers twitched. For a second, I had a feeling that he was about to
+throw himself upon the boy and wring his neck.
+
+“What do you say to that, master?” Beautrelet repeated.
+
+Lupin took up the telegram that lay on the table, held it out and said,
+very calmly:
+
+“Here, baby, read that.”
+
+Beautrelet became serious, suddenly, impressed by the gentleness of the
+movement. He unfolded the paper and, at once, raising his eyes,
+murmured:
+
+“What does it mean? I don’t understand.”
+
+“At any rate, you understand the first word,” said Lupin, “the first
+word of the telegram—that is to say, the name of the place from which
+it was sent—look—‘Cherbourg.’”
+
+“Yes—yes,” stammered Beautrelet. “Yes—I understand—‘Cherbourg’-and
+then?”
+
+“And then?—I should think the rest is quite plain: ‘Removal of luggage
+finished. Friends left with it and will wait instructions till eight
+morning. All well.’ Is there anything there that seems obscure? The
+word ‘luggage’? Pooh, you wouldn’t have them write ‘M. Beautrelet,
+senior’! What then? The way in which the operation was performed? The
+miracle by which your father was taken out of Cherbourg Arsenal, in
+spite of his twenty body-guards? Pooh, it’s as easy as A B C! And the
+fact remains that the luggage has been dispatched. What do you say to
+that, baby?”
+
+With all his tense being, with all his exasperated energy, Isidore
+tried to preserve a good countenance. But I saw his lips quiver, his
+jaw shrink, his eyes vainly strive to fix upon a point. He lisped a few
+words, then was silent and, suddenly, gave way and, with his hands
+before his face, burst into loud sobs:
+
+“Oh, father! Father!”
+
+An unexpected result, which was certainly the collapse which Lupin’s
+pride demanded, but also something more, something infinitely touching
+and infinitely artless. Lupin gave a movement of annoyance and took up
+his hat, as though this unaccustomed display of sentiment were too much
+for him. But, on reaching the door, he stopped, hesitated and then
+returned, slowly, step by step.
+
+The soft sound of the sobs rose like the sad wailing of a little child
+overcome with grief. The lad’s shoulders marked the heart-rending
+rhythm. Tears appeared through the crossed fingers. Lupin leaned
+forward and, without touching Beautrelet, said, in a voice that had not
+the least tone of pleasantry, nor even of the offensive pity of the
+victor:
+
+“Don’t cry, youngster. This is one of those blows which a man must
+expect when he rushes headlong into the fray, as you did. The worst
+disasters lie in wait for him. The destiny of fighters will have it so.
+We must suffer it as bravely as we can.” Then, with a sort of
+gentleness, he continued, “You were right, you see: we are not enemies.
+I have known it for long. From the very first, I felt for you, for the
+intelligent creature that you are, an involuntary sympathy—and
+admiration. And that is why I wanted to say this to you—don’t be
+offended, whatever you do: I should be extremely sorry to offend
+you—but I must say it: well, give up struggling against me. I am not
+saying this out of vanity—nor because I despise you—but, you see, the
+struggle is too unequal. You do not know—nobody knows all the resources
+which I have at my command. Look here, this secret of the Hollow Needle
+which you are trying so vainly to unravel: suppose, for a moment, that
+it is a formidable, inexhaustible treasure—or else an invisible,
+prodigious, fantastic refuge—or both perhaps. Think of the superhuman
+power which I must derive from it! And you do not know, either, all the
+resources which I have within myself—all that my will and my
+imagination enable me to undertake and to undertake successfully. Only
+think that my whole life—ever since I was born, I might almost say—has
+tended toward the same aim, that I worked like a convict before
+becoming what I am and to realize, in its perfection, the type which I
+wished to create—which I have succeeded in creating. That being so—what
+can you do? At that very moment when you think that victory lies within
+your grasp, it will escape you—there will be something of which you
+have not thought—a trifle—a grain of sand which I shall have put in the
+right place, unknown to you. I entreat you, give up—I should be obliged
+to hurt you; and the thought distresses me.” And, placing his hand on
+the boy’s forehead, he repeated, “Once more, youngster, give up. I
+should only hurt you. Who knows if the trap into which you will
+inevitably fall has not already opened under your footsteps?”
+
+Beautrelet uncovered his face. He was no longer crying. Had he heard
+Lupin’s words? One might have doubted it, judging by his inattentive
+air.
+
+For two or three minutes, he was silent. He seemed to weigh the
+decision which he was about to take, to examine the reasons for and
+against, to count up the favorable and unfavorable chances. At last, he
+said to Lupin:
+
+“If I change the sense of the article, if I confirm the version of your
+death and if I undertake never to contradict the false version which I
+shall have sanctioned, do you swear that my father will be free?”
+
+“I swear it. My friends have taken your father by motor car to another
+provincial town. At seven o’clock to-morrow morning, if the article in
+the _Grand Journal_ is what I want it to be, I shall telephone to them
+and they will restore your father to liberty.”
+
+“Very well,” said Beautrelet. “I submit to your conditions.”
+
+Quickly, as though he saw no object in prolonging the conversation
+after accepting his defeat, he rose, took his hat, bowed to me, bowed
+to Lupin and went out. Lupin watched him go, listened to the sound of
+the door closing and muttered:
+
+“Poor little beggar!”
+
+At eight o’clock the next morning, I sent my man out to buy the _Grand
+Journal_. It was twenty minutes before he brought me a copy, most of
+the kiosks being already sold out.
+
+I unfolded the paper with feverish hands. Beautrelet’s article appeared
+on the front page. I give it as it stood and as it was quoted in the
+press of the whole world:
+
+THE AMBRUMÉSY MYSTERY
+
+
+I do not intend in these few sentences to set out in detail the mental
+processes and the investigations that have enabled me to reconstruct
+the tragedy—I should say the twofold tragedy—of Ambrumésy. In my
+opinion, this sort of work and the judgments which it entails,
+deductions, inductions, analyses and so on, are only interesting in a
+minor degree and, in any case, are highly commonplace. No, I shall
+content myself with setting forth the two leading ideas which I
+followed; and, if I do that, it will be seen that, in so setting them
+forth and in solving the two problems which they raise, I shall have
+told the story just as it happened, in the exact order of the different
+incidents.
+
+It may be said that some of these incidents are not proved and that I
+leave too large a field to conjecture. That is quite true. But, in my
+view, my theory is founded upon a sufficiently large number of proved
+facts to be able to say that even those facts which are not proved must
+follow from the strict logic of events. The stream is so often lost
+under the pebbly bed: it is nevertheless the same stream that reappears
+at intervals and mirrors back the blue sky.
+
+The first riddle that confronted me, a riddle not in detail, but as a
+whole, was how came it that Lupin, mortally wounded, one might say,
+managed to live for five or six weeks without nursing, medicine or
+food, at the bottom of a dark hole?
+
+Let us start at the beginning. On Thursday the sixteenth of April, at
+four o’clock in the morning, Arsène Lupin, surprised in the middle of
+one of his most daring burglaries, runs away by the path leading to the
+ruins and drops down shot. He drags himself painfully along, falls
+again and picks himself up in the desperate hope of reaching the
+chapel. The chapel contains a crypt, the existence of which he has
+discovered by accident. If he can burrow there, he may be saved. By
+dint of an effort, he approaches it, he is but a few yards away, when a
+sound of footsteps approaches. Harassed and lost, he lets himself go.
+The enemy arrives. It is Mlle. Raymonde de Saint-Véran.
+
+This is the prologue or rather the first scene of the drama.
+
+What happened between them? This is the easier to guess inasmuch as the
+sequel of the adventure gives us all the necessary clues. At the girl’s
+feet lies a wounded man, exhausted by suffering, who will be captured
+in two minutes. _This man has been wounded by herself_. Will she also
+give him up?
+
+If he is Jean Daval’s murderer, yes, she will let destiny take its
+course. But, in quick sentences, he tells her the truth about this
+awful murder committed by her uncle, M. de Gesvres. She believes him.
+What will she do?
+
+Nobody can see them. The footman Victor is watching the little door.
+The other, Albert, posted at the drawing-room window, has lost sight of
+both of them. _Will she give up the man she has wounded?_
+
+The girl is carried away by a movement of irresistible pity, which any
+woman will understand. Instructed by Lupin, with a few movements she
+binds up the wound with his handkerchief, to avoid the marks which the
+blood would leave. Then, with the aid of the key which he gives her,
+she opens the door of the chapel. He enters, supported by the girl. She
+locks the door again and walks away. Albert arrives.
+
+If the chapel had been visited at that moment or at least during the
+next few minutes, before Lupin had had time to recover his strength, to
+raise the flagstone and disappear by the stairs leading to the crypt,
+he would have been taken. But this visit did not take place until six
+hours later and then only in the most superficial way. As it is, Lupin
+is saved; and saved by whom? By the girl who very nearly killed him.
+
+Thenceforth, whether she wishes it or no, Mlle. de Saint-Véran is his
+accomplice. Not only is she no longer able to give him up, but she is
+obliged to continue her work, else the wounded man will perish in the
+shelter in which she has helped to conceal him. Therefore she
+continues.
+
+For that matter, if her feminine instinct makes the task a compulsory
+one, it also makes it easy. She is full of artifice, she foresees and
+forestalls everything. It is she who gives the examining magistrate a
+false description of Arsène Lupin (the reader will remember the
+difference of opinion on this subject between the cousins). It is she,
+obviously, who, thanks to certain signs which I do not know of,
+suspects an accomplice of Lupin’s in the driver of the fly. She warns
+him. She informs him of the urgent need of an operation. It is she, no
+doubt, who substitutes one cap for the other. It is she who causes the
+famous letter to be written in which she is personally threatened. How,
+after that, is it possible to suspect her?
+
+It is she, who at that moment when I was about to confide my first
+impressions to the examining magistrate, pretends to have seen me, the
+day before, in the copsewood, alarms M. Filleul on my score and reduces
+me to silence: a dangerous move, no doubt, because it arouses my
+attention and directs it against the person who assails me with an
+accusation which I know to be false; but an efficacious move, because
+the most important thing of all is to gain time and close my lips.
+
+Lastly, it is she who, during forty days, feeds Lupin, brings him his
+medicine (the chemist at Ouville will produce the prescriptions which
+he made up for Mlle. de Saint-Véran), nurses him, dresses his wound,
+watches over him _and cures him_.
+
+Here we have the first of our two problems solved, at the same time
+that the Ambrumésy mystery is set forth. Arsène Lupin found, close at
+hand, in the château itself, the assistance which was indispensable to
+him in order, first, not to be discovered and, secondly, to live.
+
+He now lives. And we come to the second problem, corresponding with the
+second Ambrumésy mystery, the study of which served me as a conducting
+medium. Why does Lupin, alive, free, at the head of his gang,
+omnipotent as before, why does Lupin make desperate efforts, efforts
+with which I am constantly coming into collision, to force the idea of
+his death upon the police and the public?
+
+We must remember that Mlle. de Saint-Véran was a very pretty girl. The
+photographs reproduced in the papers after her disappearance give but
+an imperfect notion of her beauty. That follows which was bound to
+follow. Lupin, seeing this lovely girl daily for five or six weeks,
+longing for her presence when she is not there, subjected to her charm
+and grace when she is there, inhaling the cool perfume of her breath
+when she bends over him, Lupin becomes enamored of his nurse. Gratitude
+turns to love, admiration to passion. She is his salvation, but she is
+also the joy of his eyes, the dream of his lonely hours, his light, his
+hope, his very life.
+
+He respects her sufficiently not to take advantage of the girl’s
+devotion and not to make use of her to direct his confederates. There
+is, in fact, a certain lack of decision apparent in the acts of the
+gang. But he loves her also, his scruples weaken and, as Mlle. de
+Saint-Véran refuses to be touched by a love that offends her, as she
+relaxes her visits when they become less necessary, as she ceases them
+entirely on the day when he is cured—desperate, maddened by grief, he
+takes a terrible resolve. He leaves his lair, prepares his stroke and,
+on Saturday the sixth of June, assisted by his accomplices, he carries
+off the girl.
+
+This is not all. The abduction must not be known. All search, all
+surmises, all hope, even, must be cut short. Mlle. de Saint-Véran must
+pass for dead. There is a mock murder: proofs are supplied for the
+police inquiries. There is doubt about the crime, a crime, for that
+matter, not unexpected, a crime foretold by the accomplices, a crime
+perpetrated to revenge the chief’s death. And, through this very
+fact—observe the marvelous ingenuity of the conception—through this
+very fact, the belief in this death is, so to speak, stimulated.
+
+It is not enough to suggest a belief; it is necessary to compel a
+certainty. Lupin foresees my interference. I am sure to guess the
+trickery of the chapel. I am sure to discover the crypt. And, as the
+crypt will be empty, the whole scaffolding will come to the ground.
+
+_The crypt shall not be empty._
+
+In the same way, the death of Mlle. de Saint-Véran will not be
+definite, unless the sea gives up her corpse.
+
+_The sea shall give up the corpse of Mlle. de Saint-Véran._
+
+The difficulty is tremendous. The double obstacle seems insurmountable.
+Yes, to any one but Lupin, but not to Lupin.
+
+As he had foreseen, I guess the trickery of the chapel, I discover the
+crypt and I go down into the lair where Lupin has taken refuge. His
+corpse is there!
+
+Any person who had admitted the death of Lupin as possible would have
+been baffled. But I had not admitted this eventuality for an instant
+(first, by intuition and, secondly, by reasoning). Pretense thereupon
+became useless and every scheme vain. I said to myself at once that the
+block of stone disturbed by the pickaxe had been placed there with a
+very curious exactness, that the least knock was bound to make it fall
+and that, in falling, it must inevitably reduce the head of the false
+Arsène Lupin to pulp, in such a way as to make it utterly
+irrecognizable.
+
+Another discovery: half an hour later, I hear that the body of Mlle. de
+Saint-Véran has been found on the rocks at Dieppe—or rather a body
+which is considered to be Mlle. de Saint-Véran’s, for the reason that
+the arm has a bracelet similar to one of that young lady’s bracelets.
+This, however, is the only mark of identity, for the corpse is
+irrecognizable.
+
+Thereupon I remember and I understand. A few days earlier, I happened
+to read in a number of the _Vigie de Dieppe_ that a young American
+couple staying at Envermeu had committed suicide by taking poison and
+that their bodies had disappeared on the very night of the death. I
+hasten to Envermeu. The story is true, I am told, except in so far as
+concerns the disappearance, because the brothers of the victims came to
+claim the corpses and took them away after the usual formalities. The
+name of these brothers, no doubt, was Arsène Lupin & Co.
+
+Consequently, the thing is proved. We know why Lupin shammed the murder
+of the girl and spread the rumor of his own death. He is in love and
+does not wish it known. And, to reach his ends, he shrinks from
+nothing, he even undertakes that incredible theft of the two corpses
+which he needs in order to impersonate himself and Mlle. de
+Saint-Véran. In this way, he will be at ease. No one can disturb him.
+No one will ever suspect the truth which he wishes to suppress.
+
+No one? Yes—three adversaries, at the most, might conceive doubts:
+Ganimard, whose arrival is hourly expected; Holmlock Shears, who is
+about to cross the Channel; and I, who am on the spot. This constitutes
+a threefold danger. He removes it. He kidnaps Ganimard. He kidnaps
+Holmlock Shears. He has me stabbed by Brédoux.
+
+One point alone remains obscure. Why was Lupin so fiercely bent upon
+snatching the document about the Hollow Needle from me? He surely did
+not imagine that, by taking it away, he could wipe out from my memory
+the text of the five lines of which it consists! Then why? Did he fear
+that the character of the paper itself, or some other clue, could give
+me a hint?
+
+Be that as it may, this is the truth of the Ambrumésy mystery. I repeat
+that conjecture plays a certain part in the explanation which I offer,
+even as it played a great part in my personal investigation. But, if
+one waited for proofs and facts to fight Lupin, one would run a great
+risk either of waiting forever or else of discovering proofs and facts
+carefully prepared by Lupin, which would lead in a direction
+immediately opposite to the object in view. I feel confident that the
+facts, when they are known, will confirm my surmise in every respect.
+
+So Isidore Beautrelet, mastered for a moment by Arsène Lupin,
+distressed by the abduction of his father and resigned to defeat,
+Isidore Beautrelet, in the end, was unable to persuade himself to keep
+silence. The truth was too beautiful and too curious, the proofs which
+he was able to produce were too logical and too conclusive for him to
+consent to misrepresent it. The whole world was waiting for his
+revelations. He spoke.
+
+On the evening of the day on which his article appeared, the newspapers
+announced the kidnapping of M. Beautrelet, senior. Isidore was informed
+of it by a telegram from Cherbourg, which reached him at three o’clock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+ON THE TRACK
+
+
+Young Beautrelet was stunned by the violence of the blow. As a matter
+of fact, although, in publishing his article, he had obeyed one of
+those irresistible impulses which make a man despise every
+consideration of prudence, he had never really believed in the
+possibility of an abduction. His precautions had been too thorough. The
+friends at Cherbourg not only had instructions to guard and protect
+Beautrelet the elder: they were also to watch his comings and goings,
+never to let him walk out alone and not even to hand him a single
+letter without first opening it. No, there was no danger. Lupin,
+wishing to gain time, was trying to intimidate his adversary.
+
+The blow, therefore, was almost unexpected; and Isidore, because he was
+powerless to act, felt the pain of the shock during the whole of the
+remainder of the day. One idea alone supported him: that of leaving
+Paris, going down there, seeing for himself what had happened and
+resuming the offensive.
+
+He telegraphed to Cherbourg. He was at Saint-Lazare a little before
+nine. A few minutes after, he was steaming out of the station in the
+Normandy express.
+
+It was not until an hour later, when he mechanically unfolded a
+newspaper which he had bought on the platform, that he became aware of
+the letter by which Lupin indirectly replied to his article of that
+morning:
+
+_To the Editor of the Grand Journal._
+
+
+SIR: I cannot pretend but that my modest personality, which would
+certainly have passed unnoticed in more heroic times, has acquired a
+certain prominence in the dull and feeble period in which we live. But
+there is a limit beyond which the morbid curiosity of the crowd cannot
+go without becoming indecently indiscreet. If the walls that surround
+our private lives be not respected, what is to safeguard the rights of
+the citizen?
+
+Will those who differ plead the higher interest of truth? An empty
+pretext in so far as I am concerned, because the truth is known and I
+raise no difficulty about making an official confession of the truth in
+writing. Yes, Mlle. de Saint-Véran is alive. Yes, I love her. Yes, I
+have the mortification not to be loved by her. Yes, the results of the
+boy Beautrelet’s inquiry are wonderful in their precision and accuracy.
+Yes, we agree on every point. There is no riddle left. There is no
+mystery. Well, then, what?
+
+Injured to the very depths of my soul, bleeding still from cruel
+wounds, I ask that my more intimate feelings and secret hopes may no
+longer be delivered to the malevolence of the public. I ask for peace,
+the peace which I need to conquer the affection of Mlle. de Saint-Véran
+and to wipe out from her memory the thousand little injuries which she
+has had to suffer at the hands of her uncle and cousin—this has not
+been told—because of her position as a poor relation. Mlle. de
+Saint-Véran will forget this hateful past. All that she can desire,
+were it the fairest jewel in the world, were it the most unattainable
+treasure, I shall lay at her feet. She will be happy. She will love me.
+
+But, if I am to succeed, once more, I require peace. That is why I lay
+down my arms and hold out the olive-branch to my enemies—while warning
+them, with every magnanimity on my part, that a refusal on theirs might
+bring down upon them the gravest consequences.
+
+One word more on the subject of Mr. Harlington. This name conceals the
+identity of an excellent fellow, who is secretary to Cooley, the
+American millionaire, and instructed by him to lay hands upon every
+object of ancient art in Europe which it is possible to discover. His
+evil star brought him into touch with my friend Étienne de Vaudreix,
+_alias_ Arsène Lupin, _alias_ myself. He learnt, in this way, that a
+certain M. de Gesvres was willing to part with four pictures by Rubens,
+ostensibly on the condition that they were replaced by copies and that
+the bargain to which he was consenting remained unknown. My friend
+Vaudreix also undertook to persuade M. de Gesvres to sell his chapel.
+The negotiations were conducted with entire good faith on the side of
+my friend Vaudreix and with charming ingenuousness on the side of Mr.
+Harlington, until the day when the Rubenses and the carvings from the
+chapel were in a safe place and Mr. Harlington in prison. There remains
+nothing, therefore, to be done but to release the unfortunate American,
+because he was content to play the modest part of a dupe; to brand the
+millionaire Cooley, because, for fear of possible unpleasantness, he
+did not protest against his secretary’s arrest; and to congratulate my
+friend Étienne de Vaudreix, because he is revenging the outraged
+morality of the public by keeping the hundred thousand francs which he
+was paid on account by that singularly unattractive person, Cooley.
+
+Pray, pardon the length of this letter and permit me to be, Sir,
+
+Your obedient servant,
+ARSÈNE LUPIN.
+
+
+Isidore weighed the words of this communication as minutely, perhaps,
+as he had studied the document concerning the Hollow Needle. He went on
+the principle, the correctness of which was easily proved, that Lupin
+had never taken the trouble to send one of his amusing letters to the
+press without absolute necessity, without some motive which events were
+sure, sooner or later, to bring to light.
+
+What was the motive for this particular letter? For what hidden reason
+was Lupin confessing his love and the failure of that love? Was it
+there that Beautrelet had to seek, or in the explanations regarding Mr.
+Harlington, or further still, between the lines, behind all those words
+whose apparent meaning had perhaps no other object than to suggest some
+wicked, perfidious, misleading little idea?
+
+For hours, the young man, confined to his compartment, remained pensive
+and anxious. The letter filled him with mistrust, as though it had been
+written for his benefit and were destined to lead him, personally, into
+error. For the first time and because he found himself confronted not
+with a direct attack, but with an ambiguous, indefinable method of
+fighting, he underwent a distinct sensation of fear. And, when he
+thought of his good old, easy-going father, kidnapped through his
+fault, he asked himself, with a pang, whether he was not mad to
+continue so unequal a contest. Was the result not certain? Had Lupin
+not won the game in advance?
+
+It was but a short moment of weakness. When he alighted from his
+compartment, at six o’clock in the morning, refreshed by a few hours’
+sleep, he had recovered all his confidence.
+
+On the platform, Froberval, the dockyard clerk who had given
+hospitality to M. Beautrelet, senior, was waiting for him, accompanied
+by his daughter Charlotte, an imp of twelve or thirteen.
+
+“Well?” cried Isidore.
+
+The worthy man beginning to moan and groan, he interrupted him, dragged
+him to a neighboring tavern, ordered coffee and began to put plain
+questions, without permitting the other the slightest digression:
+
+“My father has not been carried off, has he? It was impossible.”
+
+“Impossible. Still, he has disappeared.”
+
+“Since when?”
+
+“We don’t know.”
+
+“What!”
+
+“No. Yesterday morning, at six o’clock, as I had not seen him come down
+as usual, I opened his door. He was gone.”
+
+“But was he there on the day before, two days ago?”
+
+“Yes. On the day before yesterday, he did not leave his room. He was a
+little tired; and Charlotte took his lunch up to him at twelve and his
+dinner at seven in the evening.”
+
+“So it was between seven o’clock in the evening, on the day before
+yesterday, and six o’clock on yesterday morning that he disappeared?”
+
+“Yes, during the night before last. Only—”
+
+“Only what?”
+
+“Well, it’s like this: you can’t leave the arsenal at night.”
+
+“Do you mean that he has not left it?”
+
+“That’s impossible! My friends and I have searched the whole naval
+harbor.”
+
+“Then he has left it!”
+
+“Impossible, every outlet is guarded!”
+
+Beautrelet reflected and then said:
+
+“What next?”
+
+“Next, I hurried to the commandant’s and informed the officer in
+charge.”
+
+“Did he come to your house?”
+
+“Yes; and a gentleman from the public prosecutor’s also. They searched
+all through the morning; and, when I saw that they were making no
+progress and that there was no hope left, I telegraphed to you.”
+
+“Was the bed disarranged in his room?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor the room disturbed in any way?”
+
+“No. I found his pipe in its usual place, with his tobacco and the book
+which he was reading. There was even this little photograph of yourself
+in the middle of the book, marking the page.”
+
+“Let me see it.”
+
+Froberval passed him the photograph. Beautrelet gave a start of
+surprise. He had recognized himself in the snapshot, standing, with his
+two hands in his pockets, on a lawn from which rose trees and ruins.
+
+Froberval added:
+
+“It must be the last portrait of yourself which you sent him. Look, on
+the back, you will see the date, 3 April, the name of the photographer,
+R. de Val, and the name of the town, Lion—Lion-sur-Mer, perhaps.”
+
+Isidore turned the photograph over and read this little note, in his
+own handwriting:
+
+“R. de Val.—3.4—Lion.”
+
+He was silent for a few minutes and resumed:
+
+“My father hadn’t shown you that snapshot yet?”
+
+“No—and that’s just what astonished me when I saw it yesterday—for your
+father used so often to talk to us about you.”
+
+There was a fresh pause, greatly prolonged. Froberval muttered:
+
+“I have business at the workshop. We might as well go in—”
+
+He was silent. Isidore had not taken his eyes from the photograph, was
+examining it from every point of view. At last, the boy asked:
+
+“Is there such a thing as an inn called the Lion d’Or at a short league
+outside the town?”
+
+“Yes, about a league from here.”
+
+“On the Route de Valognes, is it?”
+
+“Yes, on the Route de Valognes.”
+
+“Well, I have every reason to believe that this inn was the
+head-quarters of Lupin’s friends. It was from there that they entered
+into communication with my father.”
+
+“What an idea! Your father spoke to nobody. He saw nobody.”
+
+“He saw nobody, but they made use of an intermediary.”
+
+“What proof have you?”
+
+“This photograph.”
+
+“But it’s your photograph!”
+
+“It’s my photograph, but it was not sent by me. I was not even aware of
+its existence. It was taken, without my knowledge, in the ruins of
+Ambrumésy, doubtless by the examining-magistrate’s clerk, who, as you
+know, was an accomplice of Arsène Lupin’s.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“Then this photograph became the passport, the talisman, by means of
+which they obtained my father’s confidence.”
+
+“But who? Who was able to get into my house?”
+
+“I don’t know, but my father fell into the trap. They told him and he
+believed that I was in the neighborhood, that I was asking to see him
+and that I was giving him an appointment at the Golden Lion.”
+
+“But all this is nonsense! How can you assert—?”
+
+“Very simply. They imitated my writing on the back of the photograph
+and specified the meeting-place: Valognes Road, 3 kilometres 400, Lion
+Inn. My father came and they seized him, that’s all.”
+
+“Very well,” muttered Froberval, dumbfounded, “very well. I admit
+it—things happened as you say—but that does not explain how he was able
+to leave during the night.”
+
+“He left in broad daylight, though he waited until dark to go to the
+meeting-place.”
+
+“But, confound it, he didn’t leave his room the whole of the day before
+yesterday!”
+
+“There is one way of making sure: run down to the dockyard, Froberval,
+and look for one of the men who were on guard in the afternoon, two
+days ago.—Only, be quick, if you wish to find me here.”
+
+“Are you going?”
+
+“Yes, I shall take the next train back.”
+
+“What!—Why, you don’t know—your inquiry—”
+
+“My inquiry is finished. I know pretty well all that I wanted to know.
+I shall have left Cherbourg in an hour.”
+
+Froberval rose to go. He looked at Beautrelet with an air of absolute
+bewilderment, hesitated a moment and then took his cap:
+
+“Are you coming, Charlotte?”
+
+“No,” said Beautrelet, “I shall want a few more particulars. Leave her
+with me. Besides, I want to talk to her. I knew her when she was quite
+small.”
+
+Froberval went away. Beautrelet and the little girl remained alone in
+the tavern smoking room. A few minutes passed, a waiter entered,
+cleared away some cups and left the room again. The eyes of the young
+man and the child met; and Beautrelet placed his hand very gently on
+the little girl’s hand. She looked at him for two or three seconds,
+distractedly, as though about to choke. Then, suddenly hiding her head
+between her folded arms, she burst into sobs.
+
+He let her cry and, after a while, said:
+
+“It was you, wasn’t it, who did all the mischief, who acted as
+go-between? It was you who took him the photograph? You admit it, don’t
+you? And, when you said that my father was in his room, two days ago,
+you knew that it was not true, did you not, because you yourself had
+helped him to leave it—?”
+
+She made no reply. He asked:
+
+“Why did you do it? They offered you money, I suppose—to buy ribbons
+with a frock—?”
+
+He uncrossed Charlotte’s arms and lifted up her head. He saw a poor
+little face all streaked with tears, the attractive, disquieting,
+mobile face of one of those little girls who seem marked out for
+temptation and weakness.
+
+“Come,” said Beautrelet, “it’s over, we’ll say no more about it. I will
+not even ask you how it happened. Only you must tell me everything that
+can be of use to me.—Did you catch anything—any remark made by those
+men? How did they carry him off?”
+
+She replied at once:
+
+“By motor car. I heard them talking about it—”
+
+“And what road did they take?”
+
+“Ah, I don’t know that!”
+
+“Didn’t they say anything before you—something that might help us?”
+
+“No—wait, though: there was one who said, ‘We shall have no time to
+lose—the governor is to telephone to us at eight o’clock in the
+morning—’”
+
+“Where to?”
+
+“I can’t say.—I’ve forgotten—”
+
+“Try—try and remember. It was the name of a town, wasn’t it?”
+
+“Yes—a name—like Château—”
+
+“Châteaubriant?—Château-Thierry?—”
+
+“No-no—”
+
+“Châteauroux?”
+
+“Yes, that was it—Châteauroux—”
+
+Beautrelet did not wait for her to complete her sentence. Already he
+was on his feet and, without giving a thought to Froberval, without
+even troubling about the child, who stood gazing at him in
+stupefaction, he opened the door and ran to the station:
+
+“Châteauroux, madame—a ticket for Châteauroux—”
+
+“Over Mans and Tours?” asked the booking-clerk.
+
+“Of course—the shortest way. Shall I be there for lunch?”
+
+“Oh, no!”
+
+“For dinner? Bedtime—?”
+
+“Oh, no! For that, you would have to go over Paris. The Paris express
+leaves at nine o’clock. You’re too late—”
+
+It was not too late. Beautrelet was just able to catch the train.
+
+“Well,” said Beautrelet, rubbing his hands, “I have spent only two
+hours or so at Cherbourg, but they were well employed.”
+
+He did not for a moment think of accusing Charlotte of lying. Weak,
+unstable, capable of the worst treacheries, those petty natures also
+obey impulses of sincerity; and Beautrelet had read in her affrighted
+eyes her shame for the harm which she had done and her delight at
+repairing it in part. He had no doubt, therefore, that Châteauroux was
+the other town to which Lupin had referred and where his confederates
+were to telephone to him.
+
+On his arrival in Paris, Beautrelet took every necessary precaution to
+avoid being followed. He felt that it was a serious moment. He was on
+the right road that was leading him to his father: one act of
+imprudence might ruin all.
+
+He went to the flat of one of his schoolfellows and came out, an hour
+later, irrecognizable, rigged out as an Englishman of thirty, in a
+brown check suit, with knickerbockers, woolen stockings and a cap, a
+high-colored complexion and a red wig. He jumped on a bicycle laden
+with a complete painter’s outfit and rode off to the Gare d’Austerlitz.
+
+He slept that night at Issoudun. The next morning, he mounted his
+machine at break of day. At seven o’clock, he walked into the
+Châteauroux post-office and asked to be put on to Paris. As he had to
+wait, he entered into conversation with the clerk and learnt that, two
+days before, at the same hour, a man dressed for motoring had also
+asked for Paris.
+
+The proof was established. He waited no longer.
+
+By the afternoon, he had ascertained, from undeniable evidence, that a
+limousine car, following the Tours road, had passed through the village
+of Buzancais and the town of Châteauroux and had stopped beyond the
+town, on the verge of the forest. At ten o’clock, a hired gig, driven
+by a man unknown, had stopped beside the car and then gone off south,
+through the valley of the Bouzanne. There was then another person
+seated beside the driver. As for the car, it had turned in the opposite
+direction and gone north, toward Issoudun.
+
+Beautrelet easily discovered the owner of the gig, who, however, had no
+information to supply. He had hired out his horse and trap to a man who
+brought them back himself next day.
+
+Lastly, that same evening, Isidore found out that the motor car had
+only passed through Issoudun, continuing its road toward Orleans, that
+is to say, toward Paris.
+
+From all this, it resulted, in the most absolute fashion, that M.
+Beautrelet was somewhere in the neighborhood. If not, how was it
+conceivable that people should travel nearly three hundred miles across
+France in order to telephone from Châteauroux and next to return, at an
+acute angle, by the Paris road?
+
+This immense circuit had a more definite object: to move M. Beautrelet
+to the place assigned to him.
+
+“And this place is within reach of my hand,” said Isidore to himself,
+quivering with hope and expectation. “My father is waiting for me to
+rescue him at ten or fifteen leagues from here. He is close by. He is
+breathing the same air as I.”
+
+He set to work at once. Taking a war-office map, he divided it into
+small squares, which he visited one after the other, entering the
+farmhouses making the peasants talk, calling on the schoolmasters, the
+mayors, the parish priests, chatting to the women. It seemed to him
+that he must attain his end without delay and his dreams grew until it
+was no longer his father alone whom he hoped to deliver, but all those
+whom Lupin was holding captive: Raymonde de Saint-Véran, Ganimard,
+Holmlock Shears, perhaps, and others, many others; and, in reaching
+them, he would, at the same time, reach Lupin’s stronghold, his lair,
+the impenetrable retreat where he was piling up the treasures of which
+he had robbed the wide world.
+
+But, after a fortnight’s useless searching, his enthusiasm ended by
+slackening and he very soon lost confidence. Because success was slow
+in appearing, from one day to the next, almost, he ceased to believe in
+it; and, though he continued to pursue his plan of investigations, he
+would have felt a real surprise if his efforts had led to the smallest
+discovery.
+
+More days still passed by, monotonous days of discouragement. He read
+in the newspapers that the Comte de Gesvres and his daughter had left
+Ambrumésy and gone to stay near Nice. He also learnt that Harlington
+had been released, that gentleman’s innocence having become
+self-obvious, in accordance with the indications supplied by Arsène
+Lupin.
+
+Isidore changed his head-quarters, established himself for two days at
+the Châtre, for two days at Argenton. The result was the same.
+
+Just then, he was nearly throwing up the game. Evidently, the gig in
+which his father had been carried off could only have furnished a
+stage, which had been followed by another stage, furnished by some
+other conveyance. And his father was far away.
+
+He was thinking of leaving, when, one Monday morning, he saw, on the
+envelope of an unstamped letter, sent on to him from Paris, a
+handwriting that set him trembling with emotion. So great was his
+excitement that, for some minutes, he dared not open the letter, for
+fear of a disappointment. His hand shook. Was it possible? Was this not
+a trap laid for him by his infernal enemy?
+
+He tore open the envelope. It was indeed a letter from his father,
+written by his father himself. The handwriting presented all the
+peculiarities, all the oddities of the hand which he knew so well.
+
+He read:
+
+Will these lines ever reach you, my dear son? I dare not believe it.
+
+During the whole night of my abduction, we traveled by motor car; then,
+in the morning, by carriage. I could see nothing. My eyes were
+bandaged. The castle in which I am confined should be somewhere in the
+midlands, to judge by its construction and the vegetation in the park.
+The room which I occupy is on the second floor: it is a room with two
+windows, one of which is almost blocked by a screen of climbing
+glycines. In the afternoon, I am allowed to walk about the park, at
+certain hours, but I am kept under unrelaxing observation.
+
+I am writing this letter, on the mere chance of its reaching you, and
+fastening it to a stone. Perhaps, one day, I shall be able to throw it
+over the wall and some peasant will pick it up.
+
+But do not be distressed about me. I am treated with every
+consideration.
+
+Your old father, who is very fond of you and very sad to think of the
+trouble he is giving you,
+
+BEAUTRELET.
+
+
+Isidore at once looked at the postmarks. They read, “Cuzion, Indre.”
+
+The Indre! The department which he had been stubbornly searching for
+weeks!
+
+He consulted a little pocket-guide which he always carried. Cuzion, in
+the canton of Éguzon—he had been there too.
+
+For prudence’s sake, he discarded his personality as an Englishman,
+which was becoming too well known in the district, disguised himself as
+a workman and made for Cuzion. It was an unimportant village. He would
+easily discover the sender of the letter.
+
+For that matter, chance served him without delay:
+
+“A letter posted on Wednesday last?” exclaimed the mayor, a respectable
+tradesman in whom he confided and who placed himself at his disposal.
+“Listen, I think I can give you a valuable clue: on Saturday morning,
+Gaffer Charel, an old knife-grinder who visits all the fairs in the
+department, met me at the end of the village and asked, ‘Monsieur le
+maire, does a letter without a stamp on it go all the same?’ ‘Of
+course,’ said I. ‘And does it get there?’ ‘Certainly. Only there’s
+double postage to pay on it, that’s all the difference.’”
+
+“And where does he live?”
+
+“He lives over there, all alone—on the slope—the hovel that comes next
+after the churchyard.—Shall I go with you?”
+
+It was a hovel standing by itself, in the middle of an orchard
+surrounded by tall trees. As they entered the orchard, three magpies
+flew away with a great splutter and they saw that the birds were flying
+out of the very hole in which the watch-dog was fastened. And the dog
+neither barked nor stirred as they approached.
+
+Beautrelet went up in great surprise. The brute was lying on its side,
+with stiff paws, dead.
+
+They ran quickly to the cottage. The door stood open. They entered. At
+the back of a low, damp room, on a wretched straw mattress, flung on
+the floor itself, lay a man fully dressed.
+
+“Gaffer Charel!” cried the mayor. “Is he dead, too?”
+
+The old man’s hands were cold, his face terribly pale, but his heart
+was still beating, with a faint, slow throb, and he seemed not to be
+wounded in any way.
+
+They tried to resuscitate him and, as they failed in their efforts,
+Beautrelet went to fetch a doctor. The doctor succeeded no better than
+they had done. The old man did not seem to be suffering. He looked as
+if he were just asleep, but with an artificial slumber, as though he
+had been put to sleep by hypnotism or with the aid of a narcotic.
+
+In the middle of the night that followed, however, Isidore, who was
+watching by his side, observed that the breathing became stronger and
+that his whole being appeared to be throwing off the invisible bonds
+that paralyzed it.
+
+At daybreak, he woke up and resumed his normal functions: ate, drank
+and moved about. But, the whole day long, he was unable to reply to the
+young man’s questions and his brain seemed as though still numbed by an
+inexplicable torpor.
+
+The next day, he asked Beautrelet:
+
+“What are you doing here, eh?”
+
+It was the first time that he had shown surprise at the presence of a
+stranger beside him.
+
+Gradually, in this way, he recovered all his faculties. He talked. He
+made plans. But, when Beautrelet asked him about the events immediately
+preceding his sleep, he seemed not to understand.
+
+And Beautrelet felt that he really did not understand. He had lost the
+recollection of all that had happened since the Friday before. It was
+like a sudden gap in the ordinary flow of his life. He described his
+morning and afternoon on the Friday, the purchases he had made at the
+fair, the meals he had taken at the inn. Then—nothing—nothing more. He
+believed himself to be waking on the morrow of that day.
+
+It was horrible for Beautrelet. The truth lay there, in those eyes
+which had seen the walls of the park behind which his father was
+waiting for him, in those hands which had picked up the letter, in that
+muddled brain which had recorded the whereabouts of that scene, the
+setting, the little corner of the world in which the play had been
+enacted. And from those hands, from that brain he was unable to extract
+the faintest echo of the truth so near at hand!
+
+Oh, that impalpable and formidable obstacle, against which all his
+efforts hurled themselves in vain, that obstacle built up of silence
+and oblivion! How clearly it bore the mark of Arsène Lupin! He alone,
+informed, no doubt, that M. Beautrelet had attempted to give a signal,
+he alone could have struck with partial death the one man whose
+evidence could injure him. It was not that Beautrelet felt himself to
+be discovered or thought that Lupin, hearing of his stealthy attack and
+knowing that a letter had reached him, was defending himself against
+him personally. But what an amount of foresight and real intelligence
+it displayed to suppress any possible accusation on the part of that
+chance wayfarer! Nobody now knew that within the walls of a park there
+lay a prisoner asking for help.
+
+Nobody? Yes, Beautrelet. Gaffer Charel was unable to speak. Very well.
+But, at least, one could find out which fair the old man had visited
+and which was the logical road that he had taken to return by. And,
+along this road, perhaps it would at last be possible to find—
+
+Isidore, as it was, had been careful not to visit Gaffer Charel’s hovel
+except with the greatest precautions and in such a way as not to give
+an alarm. He now decided not to go back to it. He made inquiries and
+learnt that Friday was market-day at Fresselines, a fair-sized town
+situated a few leagues off, which could be reached either by the rather
+winding highroad or by a series of short cuts.
+
+On the Friday, he chose the road and saw nothing that attracted his
+attention, no high walled enclosure, no semblance of an old castle.
+
+He lunched at an inn at Fresselines and was on the point of leaving
+when he saw Gaffer Charel arrive and cross the square, wheeling his
+little knife-grinding barrow before him. He at once followed him at a
+good distance.
+
+The old man made two interminable waits, during which he ground dozens
+of knives. Then, at last, he went away by a quite different road, which
+ran in the direction of Crozant and the market-town of Éguzon.
+
+Beautrelet followed him along this road. But he had not walked five
+minutes before he received the impression that he was not alone in
+shadowing the old fellow. A man was walking along between them,
+stopping at the same time as Charel and starting off again when he did,
+without, for that matter, taking any great precautions against being
+seen.
+
+“He is being watched,” thought Beautrelet. “Perhaps they want to know
+if he stops in front of the walls—”
+
+His heart beat violently. The event was at hand.
+
+The three of them, one behind the other, climbed up and down the steep
+slopes of the country and arrived at Crozant, famed for the colossal
+ruins of its castle. There Charel made a halt of an hour’s duration.
+Next he went down to the riverside and crossed the bridge.
+
+But then a thing happened that took Beautrelet by surprise. The other
+man did not cross the river. He watched the old fellow move away and,
+when he had lost sight of him, turned down a path that took him right
+across the fields.
+
+Beautrelet hesitated for a few seconds as to what course to take, and
+then quietly decided. He set off in pursuit of the man.
+
+“He has made sure,” he thought, “that Gaffer Charel has gone straight
+ahead. That is all he wanted to know and so he is going—where? To the
+castle?”
+
+He was within touch of the goal. He felt it by a sort of agonizing
+gladness that uplifted his whole being.
+
+The man plunged into a dark wood overhanging the river and then
+appeared once more in the full light, where the path met the horizon.
+
+When Beautrelet, in his turn, emerged from the wood, he was greatly
+surprised no longer to see the man. He was seeking him with his eyes
+when, suddenly, he gave a stifled cry and, with a backward spring, made
+for the line of trees which he had just left. On his right, he had seen
+a rampart of high walls, flanked, at regular distances, by massive
+buttresses.
+
+It was there! It was there! Those walls held his father captive! He had
+found the secret place where Lupin confined his victim.
+
+He dared not quit the shelter which the thick foliage of the wood
+afforded him. Slowly, almost on all fours, he bore to the right and in
+this way reached the top of a hillock that rose to the level of the
+neighboring trees. The walls were taller still. Nevertheless, he
+perceived the roof of the castle which they surrounded, an old Louis
+XIII. roof, surmounted by very slender bell-turrets arranged
+corbel-wise around a higher steeple which ran to a point.
+
+Beautrelet did no more that day. He felt the need to reflect and to
+prepare his plan of attack without leaving anything to chance. He held
+Lupin safe; and it was for Beautrelet now to select the hour and the
+manner of the combat.
+
+He walked away.
+
+Near the bridge, he met two country-girls carrying pails of milk. He
+asked:
+
+“What is the name of the castle over there, behind the trees?”
+
+“That’s the Château de l’Aiguille, sir.”
+
+He had put his question without attaching any importance to it. The
+answer took away his breath:
+
+“The Château de l’Aiguille?—Oh!—But in what department are we? The
+Indre?”
+
+“Certainly not. The Indre is on the other side of the river. This side,
+it’s the Creuse.”
+
+Isidore saw it all in a flash. The Château de l’Aiguille! The
+department of the Creuse! _L’Aiguille Creuse!_ The Hollow Needle! The
+very key to the document! Certain, decisive, absolute victory!
+
+Without another word, he turned his back on the two girls and went his
+way, tottering like a drunken man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+AN HISTORIC SECRET
+
+
+Beautrelet’s resolve was soon taken: he would act alone. To inform the
+police was too dangerous. Apart from the fact that he could only offer
+presumptions, he dreaded the slowness of the police, their inevitable
+indiscretions, the whole preliminary inquiry, during which Lupin, who
+was sure to be warned, would have time to effect a retreat in good
+order.
+
+At eight o’clock the next morning, with his bundle under his arm, he
+left the inn in which he was staying near Cuzion, made for the nearest
+thicket, took off his workman’s clothes, became once more the young
+English painter that he had been and went to call on the notary at
+Éguzon, the largest place in the immediate neighborhood.
+
+He said that he liked the country and that he was thinking of taking up
+his residence there, with his relations, if he could find a suitable
+house.
+
+The notary mentioned a number of properties. Beautrelet took note of
+them and let fall that some one had spoken to him of the Château de
+l’Aiguille, on the bank of the Creuse.
+
+“Oh, yes, but the Château de l’Aiguille, which has belonged to one of
+my clients for the last five years, is not for sale.”
+
+“He lives in it, then?”
+
+“He used to live in it, or rather his mother did. But she did not care
+for it; found the castle rather gloomy. So they left it last year.”
+
+“And is no one living there at present?”
+
+“Yes, an Italian, to whom my client let it for the summer season: Baron
+Anfredi.”
+
+“Oh, Baron Anfredi! A man still young, rather grave and
+solemn-looking—?”
+
+“I’m sure I can’t say.—My client dealt with him direct. There was no
+regular agreement, just a letter—”
+
+“But you know the baron?”
+
+“No, he never leaves the castle.—Sometimes, in his motor, at night, so
+they say. The marketing is done by an old cook, who talks to nobody.
+They are queer people—”
+
+“Do you think your client would consent to sell his castle?”
+
+“I don’t think so. It’s an historic castle, built in the purest Louis
+XIII. style. My client was very fond of it; and, unless he has changed
+his mind—”
+
+“Can you give me his name and address?”
+
+“Louis Valméras, 34, Rue du Mont-Thabor.”
+
+Beautrelet took the train for Paris at the nearest station. On the next
+day but one, after three fruitless calls, he at last found Louis
+Valméras at home. He was a man of about thirty, with a frank and
+pleasing face. Beautrelet saw no need to beat about the bush, stated
+who he was and described his efforts and the object of the step which
+he was now taking:
+
+“I have good reason to believe,” he concluded, “that my father is
+imprisoned in the Château de l’Aiguille, doubtless in the company of
+other victims. And I have come to ask you what you know of your tenant,
+Baron Anfredi.”
+
+“Not much. I met Baron Anfredi last winter at Monte Carlo. He had heard
+by accident that I was the owner of the Château de l’Aiguille and, as
+he wished to spend the summer in France, he made me an offer for it.”
+
+“He is still a young man—”
+
+“Yes, with very expressive eyes, fair hair—”
+
+“And a beard?”
+
+“Yes, ending in two points, which fall over a collar fastened at the
+back, like a clergyman’s. In fact, he looks a little like an English
+parson.”
+
+“It’s he,” murmured Beautrelet, “it’s he, as I have seen him: it’s his
+exact description.”
+
+“What! Do you think—?”
+
+“I think, I am sure that your tenant is none other than Arsène Lupin.”
+
+The story amused Louis Valméras. He knew all the adventures of Arsène
+Lupin and the varying fortunes of his struggle with Beautrelet. He
+rubbed his hands:
+
+“Ha, the Château de l’Aiguille will become famous!—I’m sure I don’t
+mind, for, as a matter of fact, now that my mother no longer lives in
+it, I have always thought that I would get rid of it at the first
+opportunity. After this, I shall soon find a purchaser. Only—”
+
+“Only what?”
+
+“I will ask you to act with the most extreme prudence and not to inform
+the police until you are quite sure. Can you picture the situation,
+supposing my tenant were not Arsène Lupin?”
+
+Beautrelet set forth his plan. He would go alone at night; he would
+climb the walls; he would sleep in the park— Louis Valméras stopped him
+at once:
+
+“You will not climb walls of that height so easily. If you do, you will
+be received by two huge sheep-dogs which belonged to my mother and
+which I left behind at the castle.”
+
+“Pooh! A dose of poison—”
+
+“Much obliged. But suppose you escaped them. What then? How would you
+get into the castle? The doors are massive, the windows barred. And,
+even then, once you were inside, who would guide you? There are eighty
+rooms.”
+
+“Yes, but that room with two windows, on the second story—”
+
+“I know it, we call it the glycine room. But how will you find it?
+There are three staircases and a labyrinth of passages. I can give you
+the clue and explain the way to you, but you would get lost just the
+same.”
+
+“Come with me,” said Beautrelet, laughing.
+
+“I can’t. I have promised to go to my mother in the South.”
+
+Beautrelet returned to the friend with whom he was staying and began to
+make his preparations. But, late in the day, as he was getting ready to
+go, he received a visit from Valméras.
+
+“Do you still want me?”
+
+“Rather!”
+
+“Well, I’m coming with you. Yes, the expedition fascinates me. I think
+it will be very amusing and I like being mixed up in this sort of
+thing.—Besides, my help will be of use to you. Look, here’s something
+to start with.”
+
+He held up a big key, all covered with rust and looking very old.
+
+“What does the key open?” asked Beautrelet.
+
+“A little postern hidden between two buttresses and left unused since
+centuries ago. I did not even think of pointing it out to my tenant. It
+opens straight on the country, just at the verge of the wood.”
+
+Beautrelet interrupted him quickly:
+
+“They know all about that outlet. It was obviously by this way that the
+man whom I followed entered the park. Come, it’s fine game and we shall
+win it. But, by Jupiter, we must play our cards carefully!”
+
+Two days later, a half-famished horse dragged a gipsy caravan into
+Crozant. Its driver obtained leave to stable it at the end of the
+village, in an old deserted cart-shed. In addition to the driver, who
+was none other than Valméras, there were three young men, who occupied
+themselves in the manufacture of wicker-work chairs: Beautrelet and two
+of his Janson friends.
+
+They stayed there for three days, waiting for a propitious, moonless
+night and roaming singly round the outskirts of the park. Once
+Beautrelet saw the postern. Contrived between two buttresses placed
+very close together, it was almost merged, behind the screen of
+brambles that concealed it, in the pattern formed by the stones of the
+wall.
+
+At last, on the fourth evening, the sky was covered with heavy black
+clouds and Valméras decided that they should go reconnoitring, at the
+risk of having to return again, should circumstances prove unfavorable.
+
+All four crossed the little wood. Then Beautrelet crept through the
+heather, scratched his hands at the bramble-hedge and, half raising
+himself, slowly, with restrained movements, put the key into the lock.
+He turned it gently. Would the door open without an effort? Was there
+no bolt closing it on the other side? He pushed: the door opened,
+without a creak or jolt. He was in the park.
+
+“Are you there, Beautrelet?” asked Valméras. “Wait for me. You two
+chaps, watch the door and keep our line of retreat open. At the least
+alarm, whistle.”
+
+He took Beautrelet’s hand and they plunged into the dense shadow of the
+thickets. A clearer space was revealed to them when they reached the
+edge of the central lawn. At the same moment a ray of moonlight pierced
+the clouds; and they saw the castle, with its pointed turrets arranged
+around the tapering spire to which, no doubt, it owed its name. There
+was no light in the windows; not a sound.
+
+Valméras grasped his companion’s arm:
+
+“Keep still!”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“The dogs, over there—look—”
+
+There was a growl. Valméras gave a low whistle. Two white forms leapt
+forward and, in four bounds, came and crouched at their master’s feet.
+
+“Gently—lie down—that’s it—good dogs—stay there.”
+
+And he said to Beautrelet:
+
+“And now let us push on. I feel more comfortable.”
+
+“Are you sure of the way?”
+
+“Yes. We are near the terrace.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“I remember that, on the left, at a place where the river terrace rises
+to the level of the ground-floor windows, there is a shutter which
+closes badly and which can be opened from the outside.”
+
+They found, when they came to it, that the shutter yielded to pressure.
+Valméras removed a pane with a diamond which he carried. He turned the
+window-latch. First one and then the other stepped over the balcony.
+They were now in the castle, at the end of a passage which divided the
+left wing into two.
+
+“This room,” said Valméras, “opens at the end of a passage. Then comes
+an immense hall, lined with statues, and at the end of the hall a
+staircase which ends near the room occupied by your father.”
+
+He took a step forward.
+
+“Are you coming, Beautrelet?”
+
+“Yes, yes.”
+
+“But no, you’re not coming—What’s the matter with you?”
+
+He seized him by the hand. It was icy cold and he perceived that the
+young man was cowering on the floor.
+
+“What’s the matter with you?” he repeated.
+
+“Nothing—it’ll pass off—”
+
+“But what is it?”
+
+“I’m afraid—”
+
+“You’re afraid?”
+
+“Yes,” Beautrelet confessed, frankly, “it’s my nerves giving way—I
+generally manage to control them—but, to-day, the silence—the
+excitement—And then, since I was stabbed by that magistrate’s clerk—But
+it will pass off—There, it’s passing now—”
+
+He succeeded in rising to his feet and Valméras dragged him out of the
+room. They groped their way along the passage, so softly that neither
+could hear a sound made by the other.
+
+A faint glimmer, however, seemed to light the hall for which they were
+making. Valméras put his head round the corner. It was a night-light
+placed at the foot of the stairs, on a little table which showed
+through the frail branches of a palm tree.
+
+“Halt!” whispered Valméras.
+
+Near the night-light, a man stood sentry, carrying a gun.
+
+Had he seen them? Perhaps. At least, something must have alarmed him,
+for he brought the gun to his shoulder.
+
+Beautrelet had fallen on his knees, against a tub containing a plant,
+and he remained quite still, with his heart thumping against his chest.
+
+Meanwhile, the silence and the absence of all movement reassured the
+man. He lowered his weapon. But his head was still turned in the
+direction of the tub.
+
+Terrible minutes passed: ten minutes, fifteen. A moonbeam had glided
+through a window on the staircase. And, suddenly, Beautrelet became
+aware that the moonbeam was shifting imperceptibly, and that, before
+fifteen, before ten more minutes had elapsed, it would be shining full
+in his face.
+
+Great drops of perspiration fell from his forehead on his trembling
+hands. His anguish was such that he was on the point of getting up and
+running away—But, remembering that Valméras was there, he sought him
+with his eyes and was astounded to see him, or rather to imagine him,
+creeping in the dark, under cover of the statues and plants. He was
+already at the foot of the stairs, within a few steps of the man.
+
+What was he going to do? To pass in spite of all? To go upstairs alone
+and release the prisoner? But could he pass?
+
+Beautrelet no longer saw him and he had an impression that something
+was about to take place, something that seemed foreboded also by the
+silence, which hung heavier, more awful than before.
+
+And, suddenly, a shadow springing upon the man, the night-light
+extinguished, the sound of a struggle—Beautrelet ran up. The two bodies
+had rolled over on the flagstones. He tried to stoop and see. But he
+heard a hoarse moan, a sigh; and one of the adversaries rose to his
+feet and seized him by the arm:
+
+“Quick!—Come along!”
+
+It was Valméras.
+
+They went up two storys and came out at the entrance to a corridor,
+covered by a hanging.
+
+“To the right,” whispered Valméras. “The fourth room on the left.”
+
+They soon found the door of the room. As they expected, the captive was
+locked in. It took them half an hour, half an hour of stifled efforts,
+of muffled attempts, to force open the lock. The door yielded at last.
+
+Beautrelet groped his way to the bed. His father was asleep.
+
+He woke him gently:
+
+“It’s I—Isidore—and a friend—don’t be afraid—get up—not a word.”
+
+The father dressed himself, but, as they were leaving the room, he
+whispered:
+
+“I am not alone in the castle—”
+
+“Ah? Who else? Ganimard? Shears?”
+
+“No—at least, I have not seen them.”
+
+“Who then?”
+
+“A young girl.”
+
+“Mlle. de Saint-Véran, no doubt.”
+
+“I don’t know—I saw her several times at a distance, in the park—and,
+when I lean out of my window, I can see hers. She has made signals to
+me.”
+
+“Do you know which is her room?”
+
+“Yes, in this passage, the third on the right.”
+
+“The blue room,” murmured Valméras. “It has folding doors: they won’t
+give us so much trouble.”
+
+One of the two leaves very soon gave way. Old Beautrelet undertook to
+tell the girl.
+
+Ten minutes later, he left the room with her and said to his son:
+
+“You were right—Mlle. de Saint-Véran—;”
+
+They all four went down the stairs. When they reached the bottom,
+Valméras stopped and bent over the man. Then, leading them to the
+terrace-room:
+
+“He is not dead,” he said. “He will live.”
+
+“Ah!” said Beautrelet, with a sigh of relief.
+
+“No, fortunately, the blade of my knife bent: the blow is not fatal.
+Besides, in any case, those rascals deserve no pity.”
+
+Outside, they were met by the dogs, which accompanied them to the
+postern. Here, Beautrelet found his two friends and the little band
+left the park. It was three o’clock in the morning.
+
+This first victory was not enough to satisfy Beautrelet. As soon as he
+had comfortably settled his father and Mlle. de Saint-Véran, he asked
+them about the people who lived at the castle, and, particularly, about
+the habits of Arsène Lupin. He thus learnt that Lupin came only every
+three or four days, arriving at night in his motor car and leaving
+again in the morning. At each of his visits, he called separately upon
+his two prisoners, both of whom agreed in praising his courtesy and his
+extreme civility. For the moment, he was not at the castle.
+
+Apart from him, they had seen no one except an old woman, who ruled
+over the kitchen and the house, and two men, who kept watch over them
+by turns and never spoke to them: subordinates, obviously, to judge by
+their manners and appearance.
+
+“Two accomplices, for all that,” said Beautrelet, in conclusion, “or
+rather three, with the old woman. It is a bag worth having. And, if we
+lose no time—”
+
+He jumped on his bicycle, rode to Éguzon, woke up the gendarmerie, set
+them all going, made them sound the boot and saddle and returned to
+Crozant at eight o’clock, accompanied by the sergeant and eight
+gendarmes. Two of the men were posted beside the gipsy-van. Two others
+took up their positions outside the postern-door. The last four,
+commanded by their chief and accompanied by Beautrelet and Valméras,
+marched to the main entrance of the castle.
+
+Too late. The door was wide open. A peasant told them that he had seen
+a motor car drive out of the castle an hour before.
+
+Indeed, the search led to no result. In all probability, the gang had
+installed themselves there picnic fashion. A few clothes were found, a
+little linen, some household implements; and that was all.
+
+What astonished Beautrelet and Valméras more was the disappearance of
+the wounded man. They could not see the faintest trace of a struggle,
+not even a drop of blood on the flagstones of the hall.
+
+All said, there was no material evidence to prove the fleeting presence
+of Lupin at the Château de l’Aiguille; and the authorities would have
+been entitled to challenge the statements of Beautrelet and his father,
+of Valméras and Mlle. de Saint-Véran, had they not ended by
+discovering, in a room next to that occupied by the young girl, some
+half-dozen exquisite bouquets with Arsène Lupin’s card pinned to them,
+bouquets scorned by her, faded and forgotten—One of them, in addition
+to the card, contained a letter which Raymonde had not seen. That
+afternoon, when opened by the examining magistrate, it was found to
+contain page upon page of prayers, entreaties, promises, threats,
+despair, all the madness of a love that has encountered nothing but
+contempt and repulsion.
+
+And the letter ended:
+
+I shall come on Tuesday evening, Raymonde. Reflect between now and
+then. As for me, I will wait no longer. I am resolved on all.
+
+
+Tuesday evening was the evening of the very day on which Beautrelet had
+released Mlle. de Saint-Véran from her captivity.
+
+The reader will remember the extraordinary explosion of surprise and
+enthusiasm that resounded throughout the world at the news of that
+unexpected issue: Mlle. de Saint-Véran free! The pretty girl whom Lupin
+coveted, to secure whom he had contrived his most Machiavellian
+schemes, snatched from his claws! Free also Beautrelet’s father, whom
+Lupin had chosen as a hostage in his extravagant longing for the
+armistice demanded by the needs of his passion! They were both free,
+the two prisoners! And the secret of the Hollow Needle was known,
+published, flung to the four corners of the world!
+
+The crowd amused itself with a will. Ballads were sold and sung about
+the defeated adventurer: _Lupin’s Little Love-Affairs!—Arsène’s Piteous
+Sobs!—The Lovesick Burglar! The Pickpocket’s Lament!_—They were cried
+on the boulevards and hummed in the artists’ studios.
+
+Raymonde, pressed with questions and pursued by interviewers, replied
+with the most extreme reserve. But there was no denying the letter, or
+the bouquets of flowers, or any part of the pitiful story! Then and
+there, Lupin, scoffed and jeered at, toppled from his pedestal.
+
+And Beautrelet became the popular idol. He had foretold everything,
+thrown light on everything. The evidence which Mlle. de Saint-Véran
+gave before the examining magistrate confirmed, down to the smallest
+detail, the hypothesis imagined by Isidore. Reality seemed to submit,
+in every point, to what he had decreed beforehand. Lupin had found his
+master.—
+
+Beautrelet insisted that his father, before returning to his mountains
+in Savoy, should take a few months’ rest in the sunshine, and himself
+escorted him and Mlle. de Saint-Véran to the outskirts of Nice, where
+the Comte de Gesvres and his daughter Suzanne were already settled for
+the winter. Two days later, Valméras brought his mother to see his new
+friends and they thus composed a little colony grouped around the Villa
+de Gesvres and watched over day and night by half a dozen men engaged
+by the comte.
+
+Early in October, Beautrelet, once more the sixth-form pupil, returned
+to Paris to resume the interrupted course of his studies and to prepare
+for his examinations. And life began again, calmer, this time, and free
+from incident. What could happen, for that matter. Was the war not
+over?
+
+Lupin, on his side, must have felt this very clearly, must have felt
+that there was nothing left for him but to resign himself to the
+accomplished fact; for, one fine day, his two other victims, Ganimard
+and Holmlock Shears, made their reappearance. Their return to the life
+of this planet, however, was devoid of any sort of glamor or
+fascination. An itinerant rag-man picked them up on the Quai des
+Orfèvres, opposite the headquarters of police. Both of them were
+gagged, bound and fast asleep.
+
+After a week of complete bewilderment, they succeeded in recovering the
+control of their thought and told—or rather Ganimard told, for Shears
+wrapped himself in a fierce and stubborn silence—how they had made a
+voyage of circumnavigation round the coast of Africa on board the yacht
+_Hirondelle_, a voyage combining amusement with instruction, during
+which they could look upon themselves as free, save for a few hours
+which they spent at the bottom of the hold, while the crew went on
+shore at outlandish ports.
+
+As for their landing on the Quai des Orfèvres, they remembered nothing
+about it and had probably been asleep for many days before.
+
+This liberation of the prisoners was the final confession of defeat. By
+ceasing to fight, Lupin admitted it without reserve.
+
+One incident, moreover, made it still more glaring, which was the
+engagement of Louis Valméras and Mlle. de Saint-Véran. In the intimacy
+created between them by the new conditions under which they lived, the
+two young people fell in love with each other. Valméras loved
+Raymonde’s melancholy charm; and she, wounded by life, greedy for
+protection, yielded before the strength and energy of the man who had
+contributed so gallantly to her preservation.
+
+The wedding day was awaited with a certain amount of anxiety. Would
+Lupin not try to resume the offensive? Would he accept with a good
+grace the irretrievable loss of the woman he loved? Twice or three
+times, suspicious-looking people were seen prowling round the villa;
+and Valméras even had to defend himself one evening against a so-called
+drunken man, who fired a pistol at him and sent a bullet through his
+hat. But, in the end, the ceremony was performed at the appointed hour
+and day and Raymonde de Saint-Véran became Mme. Louis Valméras.
+
+It was as though Fate herself had taken sides with Beautrelet and
+countersigned the news of victory. This was so apparent to the crowd
+that his admirers now conceived the notion of entertaining him at a
+banquet to celebrate his triumph and Lupin’s overthrow. It was a great
+idea and aroused general enthusiasm. Three hundred tickets were sold in
+less than a fortnight. Invitations were issued to the public schools of
+Paris, to send two sixth-form pupils apiece. The press sang pæans. The
+banquet was what it could not fail to be, an apotheosis.
+
+But it was a charming and simple apotheosis, because Beautrelet was its
+hero. His presence was enough to bring things back to their due
+proportion. He showed himself modest, as usual, a little surprised at
+the excessive cheering, a little embarrassed by the extravagant
+panegyrics in which he was pronounced greater than the most illustrious
+detectives—a little embarrassed, but also not a little touched.
+
+He said as much in a few words that pleased all his hearers and with
+the shyness of a child that blushes when you look at it. He spoke of
+his delight, of his pride. And really, reasonable and self-controlled
+as he was, this was for him a moment of never-to-be-forgotten
+exultation. He smiled to his friends, to his fellow-Jansonians, to
+Valméras, who had come specially to give him a cheer, to M. de Gesvres,
+to his father.
+
+When he had finished speaking; and while he still held his glass in his
+hand, a sound of voices came from the other end of the room and some
+one was gesticulating and waving a newspaper. Silence was restored and
+the importunate person sat down again: but a thrill of curiosity ran
+round the table, the newspaper was passed from hand to hand and, each
+time that one of the guests cast his eyes upon the page at which it was
+opened, exclamations followed:
+
+“Read it! Read it!” they cried from the opposite side.
+
+The people were leaving their seats at the principal table. M.
+Beautrelet went and took the paper and handed it to his son.
+
+“Read it out! Read it out!” they cried, louder.
+
+And others said:
+
+“Listen! He’s going to read it! Listen!”
+
+Beautrelet stood facing his audience, looked in the evening paper which
+his father had given him for the article that was causing all this
+uproar and, suddenly, his eyes encountering a heading underlined in
+blue pencil, he raised his hand to call for silence and began in a loud
+voice to read a letter addressed to the editor by M. Massiban, of the
+Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. His voice broke and fell,
+little by little, as he read those stupefying revelations, which
+reduced all his efforts to nothing, upset his notions concerning the
+Hollow Needle and proved the vanity of his struggle with Arsène Lupin:
+
+SIR:
+
+
+On the 17th of March, 1679, there appeared a little book with the
+following title: _The Mystery of the Hollow Needle. The Whole Truth now
+first exhibited. One hundred copies printed by myself for the
+instruction of the Court._
+
+At nine o’clock on the morning of that day, the author, a very young
+man, well-dressed, whose name has remained unknown, began to leave his
+book on the principal persons at court. At ten o’clock, when he had
+fulfilled four of these errands, he was arrested by a captain in the
+guards, who took him to the king’s closet and forthwith set off in
+search of the four copies distributed.
+
+When the hundred copies were got together, counted, carefully looked
+through and verified, the king himself threw them into the fire and
+burnt them, all but one, which he kept for his own purposes.
+
+Then he ordered the captain of the guards to take the author of the
+book to M. de Saint-Mars, who confined his prisoner first at Pignerol
+and then in the fortress of the Ile Sainte-Marguerite. This man was
+obviously no other than the famous Man with the Iron Mask.
+
+The truth would never have been known, or at least a part of the truth,
+if the captain in the guards had not been present at the interview and
+if, when the king’s back was turned, he had not been tempted to
+withdraw another of the copies from the chimney, before the fire got to
+it.
+
+Six months later, the captain was found dead on the highroad between
+Gaillon and Mantes. His murderers had stripped him of all his apparel,
+forgetting, however, in his right boot a jewel which was discovered
+there afterward, a diamond of the first water and of considerable
+value.
+
+Among his papers was found a sheet in his handwriting, in which he did
+not speak of the book snatched from the flames, but gave a summary of
+the earlier chapters. It referred to a secret which was known to the
+Kings of England, which was lost by them when the crown passed from the
+poor fool, Henry VI., to the Duke of York, which was revealed to
+Charles VII., King of France, by Joan of Arc and which, becoming a
+State secret, was handed down from sovereign to sovereign by means of a
+letter, sealed anew on each occasion, which was found in the deceased
+monarch’s death-bed with this superscription: “For the King of France.”
+
+This secret concerned the existence and described the whereabouts of a
+tremendous treasure, belonging to the kings, which increased in
+dimensions from century to century.
+
+One hundred and fourteen years later, Louis XVI., then a prisoner in
+the Temple, took aside one of the officers whose duty it was to guard
+the royal family, and asked:
+
+“Monsieur, had you not an ancestor who served as a captain under my
+predecessor, the Great King?”
+
+“Yes, sire.”
+
+“Well, could you be relied upon—could you be relied upon—”
+
+He hesitated. The officer completed the sentence:
+
+“Not to betray your Majesty! Oh, sire!—”
+
+“Then listen to me.”
+
+He took from his pocket a little book of which he tore out one of the
+last pages. But, altering his mind:
+
+“No, I had better copy it—”
+
+He seized a large sheet of paper and tore it in such a way as to leave
+only a small rectangular space, on which he copied five lines of dots,
+letters and figures from the printed page. Then, after burning the
+latter, he folded the manuscript sheet in four, sealed it with red wax,
+and gave it to the officer.
+
+“Monsieur, after my death, you must hand this to the Queen and say to
+her, ‘From the King, madame—for Your Majesty and for your son.’ If she
+does not understand—”
+
+“If she does not understand, sire—”
+
+“You must add, ‘It concerns the secret, the secret of the Needle.’ The
+Queen will understand.”
+
+When he had finished speaking, he flung the book into the embers
+glowing on the hearth.
+
+He ascended the scaffold on the 21st of January.
+
+It took the officer several months, in consequence of the removal of
+the Queen to the Conciergerie, before he could fulfil the mission with
+which he was entrusted. At last, by dint of cunning intrigues, he
+succeeded, one day, in finding himself in the presence of Marie
+Antoinette.
+
+Speaking so that she could just hear him, he said:
+
+“Madame, from the late King, your husband, for Your Majesty and your
+son.”
+
+And he gave her the sealed letter.
+
+She satisfied herself that the jailers could not see her, broke the
+seals, appeared surprised at the sight of those undecipherable lines
+and then, all at once, seemed to understand.
+
+She smiled bitterly and the officer caught the words:
+
+“Why so late?”
+
+She hesitated. Where should she hide this dangerous document? At last,
+she opened her book of hours and slipped the paper into a sort of
+secret pocket contrived between the leather of the binding and the
+parchment that covered it.
+
+“Why so late?” she had asked.
+
+It is, in fact, probable that this document, if it could have saved
+her, came too late, for, in the month of October next, Queen Marie
+Antoinette ascended the scaffold in her turn.
+
+Now the officer, when going through his family papers, came upon his
+ancestor’s manuscript. From that moment, he had but one idea, which was
+to devote his leisure to elucidating this strange problem. He read all
+the Latin authors, studied all the chronicles of France and those of
+the neighboring countries, visited the monasteries, deciphered
+account-books, cartularies, treaties; and, in this way, succeeded in
+discovering certain references scattered over the ages.
+
+In Book III of Cæsar’s _Commentaries on the Gallic War_ (MS. edition,
+Alexandria), it is stated that, after the defeat of Veridovix by G.
+Titullius Sabinus, the chief of the Caleti was brought before Cæsar and
+that, for his ransom, he revealed the secret of the Needle—
+
+The Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, between Charles the Simple and
+Rollo, the chief of the Norse barbarians, gives Rollo’s name followed
+by all his titles, among which we read that of Master of the Secret of
+the Needle.
+
+The _Saxon Chronicle_ (Gibson’s edition, page 134), speaking of William
+the Conqueror, says that the staff of his banner ended in a steel point
+pierced with an eye, like a needle.
+
+In a rather ambiguous phrase in her examination, Joan of Arc admits
+that she has still a great secret to tell the King of France. To which
+her judges reply, “Yes, we know of what you speak; and that, Joan, is
+why you shall die the death.”
+
+Philippe de Comines mentions it in connection with Louis XI., and,
+later, Sully in connection with Henry IV.: “By the virtue of the
+Needle!” the good king sometimes swears.
+
+Between these two, Francis I., in a speech addressed to the notables of
+the Havre, in 1520, uttered this phrase, which has been handed down in
+the diary of a Honfleur burgess; “The Kings of France carry secrets
+that often decide the conduct of affairs and the fate of towns.”
+
+All these quotations, all the stories relating to the Iron Mask, the
+captain of the guards and his descendant, I have found to-day in a
+pamphlet written by this same descendant and published in the month of
+June, 1815, just before or just after the battle of Waterloo, in a
+period, therefore, of great upheavals, in which the revelations which
+it contained were likely to pass unperceived.
+
+What is the value of this pamphlet? Nothing, you will tell me, and we
+must attach no credit to it. And this is the impression which I myself
+would have carried away, if it had not occurred to me to open Cæsar’s
+_Commentaries_ at the chapter given. What was my astonishment when I
+came upon the phrase quoted in the little book before me! And it was
+the same thing with the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte, with the _Saxon
+Chronicle_, with the examination of Joan of Arc, in short, with all
+that I have been able to verify up to the present.
+
+Lastly, there is an even more precise fact related by the author of the
+pamphlet of 1815. During the French campaign, he being then an officer
+under Napoleon, his horse dropped dead, one evening, and he rang at the
+door of a castle where he was received by an old knight of St. Louis.
+And, in the course of conversation with the old man, he learnt that
+this castle, standing on the bank of the Creuse, was called the Château
+de l’Aiguille, that it had been built and christened by Louis XIV., and
+that, by his express order, it was adorned with turrets and with a
+spire which represented the Needle. As its date it bore, it must still
+bear, the figure 1680.
+
+1680! One year after the publication of the book and the imprisonment
+of the Iron Mask! Everything was now explained: Louis XIV., foreseeing
+that the secret might be noised abroad, had built and named that castle
+so as to offer the quidnuncs a natural explanation of the ancient
+mystery. The Hollow Needle! A castle with pointed bell-turrets standing
+on the bank of the Creuse and belonging to the King. People would at
+once think that they had the key to the riddle and all enquiries would
+cease.
+
+The calculation was just, seeing that, more than two centuries later,
+M. Beautrelet fell into the trap. And this, Sir, is what I was leading
+up to in writing this letter. If Lupin, under the name of Anfredi,
+rented from M. Valméras the Château de l’Aiguille on the bank of the
+Creuse; if, admitting the success of the inevitable investigations of
+M. Beautrelet, he lodged his two prisoners there, it was because he
+admitted the success of the inevitable researches made by M. Beautrelet
+and because, with the object of obtaining the peace for which he had
+asked, he laid for M. Beautrelet precisely what we may call the
+historic trap of Louis XIV.
+
+And hence we come to this undeniable conclusion, that he, Lupin, by his
+unaided lights, without possessing any other facts than those which we
+possess, managed by means of the witchcraft of a really extraordinary
+genius, to decipher the undecipherable document; and that he, Lupin,
+the last heir of the Kings of France, knows the royal mystery of the
+Hollow Needle!
+
+Here ended the letter. But, for some minutes, from the passage that
+referred to the Château de l’Aiguille onward, it was not Beautrelet’s
+but another voice that read it aloud. Realizing his defeat, crushed
+under the weight of his humiliation, Isidore had dropped the newspaper
+and sunk into his chair, with his face buried in his hands.
+
+Panting, shaken with excitement by this incredible story, the crowd had
+come gradually nearer and was now pressing round.
+
+With a thrill of anguish, they waited for the words which he would say
+in reply, the objections which he would raise.
+
+He did not stir.
+
+Valméras gently uncrossed his hands and raised his head.
+
+Isidore Beautrelet was weeping.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+THE TREATISE OF THE NEEDLE
+
+
+It is four o’clock in the morning. Isidore has not returned to the
+Lycée Janson. He has no intention of returning before the end of the
+war of extermination which he has declared against Lupin. This much he
+swore to himself under his breath, while his friends drove off with
+him, all faint and bruised, in a cab.
+
+A mad oath! An absurd and illogical war! What can he do, a single,
+unarmed stripling, against that phenomenon of energy and strength? On
+which side is he to attack him? He is unassailable. Where to wound him?
+He is invulnerable. Where to get at him? He is inaccessible.
+
+Four o’clock in the morning. Isidore has again accepted his
+schoolfellow’s hospitality. Standing before the chimney in his bedroom,
+with his elbows flat on the mantel-shelf and his two fists under his
+chin, he stares at his image in the looking-glass. He is not crying
+now, he can shed no more tears, nor fling himself about on his bed, nor
+give way to despair, as he has been doing for the last two hours and
+more. He wants to think, to think and understand.
+
+And he does not remove his eyes from those same eyes reflected in the
+glass, as though he hoped to double his powers of thought by
+contemplating his pensive image, as though he hoped to find at the back
+of that mirrored Beautrelet the unsolvable solution of what he does not
+find within himself.
+
+He stands thus until six o’clock, and, little by little, the question
+presents itself to his mind with the strictness of an equation, bare
+and dry and cleared of all the details that complicate and obscure it.
+
+Yes, he has made a mistake. Yes, his reading of the document is all
+wrong. The word _aiguille_ does not point to the castle on the Creuse.
+Also, the word _demoiselles_ cannot be applied to Raymonde de
+Saint-Véran and her cousin, because the text of the document dates back
+for centuries.
+
+Therefore, all must be done over again, from the beginning.
+
+How?
+
+One piece of evidence alone would be incontestible: the book published
+under Louis XIV. Now of those hundred copies printed by the person who
+was presumed to be the Man with the Iron Mask only two escaped the
+flames. One was purloined by the captain of the guards and lost. The
+other was kept by Louis XIV., handed down to Louis XV., and burnt by
+Louis XVI. But a copy of the essential page, the page containing the
+solution of the problem, or at least a cryptographic solution, was
+conveyed to Marie Antoinette, who slipped it into the binding of her
+book of hours. What has become of this paper? Is it the one which
+Beautrelet has held in his hands and which Lupin recovered from him
+through Brédoux, the magistrate’s clerk? Or is it still in Marie
+Antoinette’s book of hours? And the question resolves itself into this:
+what has become of the Queen’s book of hours?
+
+After taking a short rest, Beautrelet consulted his friend’s father, an
+old and experienced collector, who was often called upon officially to
+give an expert opinion and who had quite lately been invited to advise
+the director of one of our museums on the drawing up of the catalogue.
+
+“Marie Antoinette’s book of hours?” he exclaimed. “Why, the Queen left
+it to her waiting-woman, with secret instructions to forward it to
+Count Fersen. After being piously preserved in the count’s family, it
+has been, for the last five years, in a glass case—”
+
+“A glass case?”
+
+“In the Musée Carnavalet, quite simply.”
+
+“When will the museum be open?”
+
+“At twenty minutes from now, as it is every morning.”
+
+Isidore and his friend jumped out of a cab at the moment when the doors
+of Madame de Sévigné’s old mansion were opening.
+
+“Hullo! M. Beautrelet!”
+
+A dozen voices greeted his arrival. To his great surprise, he
+recognized the whole crowd of reporters who were following up “the
+mystery of the Hollow Needle.” And one of them exclaimed:
+
+“Funny, isn’t it, that we should all have had the same idea? Take care,
+Arsène Lupin may be among us!”
+
+They entered the museum together. The director was at once informed,
+placed himself entirely at their disposal, took them to the glass case
+and showed them a poor little volume, devoid of all ornament, which
+certainly had nothing royal about it. Nevertheless, they were overcome
+by a certain emotion at the sight of this object which the Queen had
+touched in those tragic days, which her eyes, red with tears, had
+looked upon—And they dared not take it and hunt through it: it was as
+though they feared lest they should be guilty of a sacrilege—
+
+“Come, M. Beautrelet, it’s your business!”
+
+He took the book with an anxious gesture. The description corresponded
+with that given by the author of the pamphlet. Outside was a parchment
+cover, dirty, stained and worn in places, and under it, the real
+binding, in stiff leather. With what a thrill Beautrelet felt for the
+hidden pocket! Was it a fairy tale? Or would he find the document
+written by Louis XVI. and bequeathed by the queen to her fervent
+admirer?
+
+At the first page, on the upper side of the book, there was no
+receptacle.
+
+“Nothing,” he muttered.
+
+“Nothing,” they echoed, palpitating with excitement.
+
+But, at the last page, forcing back the book a little, he at once saw
+that the parchment was not stuck to the binding. He slipped his fingers
+in between—there was something—yes, he felt something—a paper—
+
+“Oh!” he gasped, in an accent almost of pain. “Here—is it possible?”
+
+“Quick, quick!” they cried. “What are you waiting for?”
+
+He drew out a sheet folded in two.
+
+“Well, read it!—There are words in red ink—Look!—it might be
+blood—pale, faded blood—Read it!—”
+
+He read:
+
+To you, Fersen. For my son.
+16 October, 1793.
+
+
+MARIE ANTOINETTE.
+
+
+And suddenly Beautrelet gave a cry of stupefaction. Under the queen’s
+signature there were—there were two words, in black ink, underlined
+with a flourish—two words:
+
+ARSÈNE LUPIN.
+
+
+All, in turns, took the sheet of paper and the same cry escaped from
+the lips of all of them:
+
+“Marie Antoinette!—Arsène Lupin!”
+
+A great silence followed. That double signature: those two names
+coupled together, discovered hidden in the book of hours; that relic in
+which the poor queen’s desperate appeal had slumbered for more than a
+century: that horrible date of the 16th of October, 1793, the day on
+which the Royal head fell: all of this was most dismally and
+disconcertingly tragic.
+
+“Arsène Lupin!” stammered one of the voices, thus emphasizing the scare
+that underlay the sight of that demoniacal name at the foot of the
+hallowed page.
+
+“Yes, Arsène Lupin,” repeated Beautrelet. “The Queen’s friend was
+unable to understand her desperate dying appeal. He lived with the
+keepsake in his possession which the woman whom he loved had sent him
+and he never guessed the reason of that keepsake. Lupin discovered
+everything, on the other hand—and took it.”
+
+“Took what?”
+
+“The document, of course! The document written by Louis XVI.; and it is
+that which I held in my hands. The same appearance, the same shape, the
+same red seals. I understand why Lupin would not leave me a document
+which I could turn to account by merely examining the paper, the seals
+and so on.”
+
+“And then?”
+
+“Well, then, since the document is genuine, since I have, with my own
+eyes, seen the marks of the red seals, since Marie Antoinette herself
+assures me, by these few words in her hand, that the whole story of the
+pamphlet, as printed by M. Massiban, is correct, because a problem of
+the Hollow Needle really exists, I am now certain to succeed.”
+
+“But how? Whether genuine or not, the document is of no use to you if
+you do not manage to decipher it, because Louis XVI. destroyed the book
+that gave the explanation.”
+
+“Yes, but the other copy, which King Louis XVI.’s captain of the guards
+snatched from the flames, was not destroyed.”
+
+“How do you know?”
+
+“Prove the contrary.”
+
+After uttering this defiance, Beautrelet was silent for a time and
+then, slowly, with his eyes closed, as though trying to fix and sum up
+his thoughts, he said:
+
+“Possessing the secret, the captain of the guards begins by revealing
+it bit by bit in the journal found by his descendant. Then comes
+silence. The answer to the riddle is withheld. Why? Because the
+temptation to make use of the secret creeps over him little by little
+and he gives way to it. A proof? His murder. A further proof? The
+magnificent jewel found upon him, which he must undoubtedly have taken
+from some royal treasure the hiding-place of which, unknown to all,
+would just constitute the mystery of the Hollow Needle. Lupin conveyed
+as much to me; Lupin was not lying.”
+
+“Then what conclusion do you draw, Beautrelet?”
+
+“I draw this conclusion, my friends, that it be a good thing to
+advertise this story as much as possible, so that people may know,
+through all the papers, that we are looking for a book entitled _The
+Treatise of the Needle_. It may be fished out from the back shelves of
+some provincial library.”
+
+The paragraph was drawn up forthwith; and Beautrelet set to work at
+once, without even waiting for it to produce a result. A first scent
+suggested itself: the murder was committed near Gaillon. He went there
+that same day. Certainly, he did not hope to reconstruct a crime
+perpetrated two hundred years ago. But, all the same, there are crimes
+that leave traces in the memories, in the traditions of a countryside.
+They are recorded in the local chronicles. One day, some provincial
+archaeologist, some lover of old legends, some student of the minor
+incidents of the life of the past makes them the subject of an article
+in a newspaper or of a communication to the academy of his departmental
+town.
+
+Beautrelet saw three or four of these archaeologists. With one of them
+in particular, an old notary, he examined the prison records, the
+ledgers of the old bailiwicks and the parish registers. There was no
+entry referring to the murder of a captain of the guards in the
+seventeenth century.
+
+He refused to be discouraged and continued his search in Paris, where
+the magistrate’s examination might have taken place. His efforts came
+to nothing.
+
+But the thought of another track sent him off in a fresh direction. Was
+there no chance of finding out the name of that captain whose
+descendant served in the armies of the Republic and was quartered in
+the Temple during the imprisonment of the Royal family? By dint of
+patient working, he ended by making out a list in which two names at
+least presented an almost complete resemblance: M. de Larbeyrie, under
+Louis XIV., and Citizen Larbrie, under the Terror.
+
+This already was an important point. He stated it with precision in a
+note which he sent to the papers, asking for any information concerning
+this Larbeyrie or his descendants.
+
+It was M. Massiban, the Massiban of the pamphlet, the member of the
+Institute, who replied to him:
+
+SIR:
+    Allow me to call your attention to the following passage of
+    Voltaire, which I came upon in his manuscript of _Le Siècle de
+    Louis XIV_. (Chapter XXV: _Particularités et anecdotes du régne_).
+    The passage has been suppressed in all the printed editions:
+
+
+“I have heard it said by the late M. de Caumartin, intendant of
+finance, who was a friend of Chamillard the minister, that the King one
+day left hurriedly in his carriage at the news that M. de Larbeyrie had
+been murdered and robbed of some magnificent jewels. He seemed greatly
+excited and repeated:
+
+“‘All is lost—all is lost—’
+
+“In the following year, the son of this Larbeyrie and his daughter, who
+had married the Marquis de Vélines, were banished to their estates in
+Provence and Brittany. We cannot doubt that there is something peculiar
+in this.”
+
+I, in my turn, will add that we can doubt it all the less inasmuch as
+M. de Chamillard, according to Voltaire, _was the last minister who
+possessed the strange secret of the Iron Mask_.
+
+You will see for yourself, Sir, the profit that can be derived from
+this passage and the evident link established between the two
+adventures. As for myself, I will not venture to imagine any very exact
+surmise as regards the conduct, the suspicions, and the apprehensions
+of Louis XIV. in these circumstances; but, on the other hand, seeing
+that M. de Larbeyrie left a son, who was probably the grandfather of
+Larbrie the citizen-officer, and also a daughter, is it not permissible
+to suppose that a part of the papers left by Larbeyrie came to the
+daughter and that among these papers was the famous copy which the
+captain of the guards saved from the flames?
+
+I have consulted the Country-house Year-book. There is a Baron de
+Vélines living not far from Rennes. Could he be a descendant of the
+marquis? At any rate, I wrote to him yesterday, on chance, to ask if he
+had not in his possession a little old book bearing on its title-page
+the word _aiguille;_ and I am awaiting his reply.
+
+It would give me the greatest pleasure to talk of all these matters
+with you. If you can spare the time, come and see me.
+
+I am, Sir, etc., etc.
+
+
+P.S.—Of course, I shall not communicate these little discoveries to the
+press. Now that you are near the goal, discretion is essential.
+
+
+Beautrelet absolutely agreed. He even went further: to two journalists
+who were worrying him that morning he gave the most fanciful
+particulars as to his plans and his state of mind.
+
+In the afternoon, he hurried round to see Massiban, who lived at 17,
+Quai Voltaire. To his great surprise, he was told that M. Massiban had
+gone out of town unexpectedly, leaving a note for him in case he should
+call. Isidore opened it and read:
+
+I have received a telegram which gives me some hope. So I am leaving
+town and shall sleep at Rennes. You might take the evening train and,
+without stopping at Rennes, go on to the little station of Vélines. We
+would meet at the castle, which is two miles and a half from the
+station.
+
+
+The programme appealed to Beautrelet, and especially the idea that he
+would reach the castle at almost the same time as Massiban, for he
+feared some blunder on the part of that inexperienced man. He went back
+to his friend and spent the rest of the day with him. In the evening,
+he took the Brittany express and got out at Vélines as six o’clock in
+the morning.
+
+He did the two and a half miles, between bushy woods, on foot. He could
+see the castle, perched on a height, from a distance: it was a hybrid
+edifice, a mixture of the Renascence and Louis Philippe styles, but it
+bore a stately air, nevertheless, with its four turrets and its
+ivy-mantled draw-bridge.
+
+Isidore felt his heart beat as he approached. Was he really nearing the
+end of his race? Did the castle contain the key to the mystery?
+
+He was not without fear. It all seemed too good to be true; and he
+asked himself if he was not once more acting in obedience to some
+infernal plan contrived by Lupin, if Massiban was not for instance, a
+tool in the hands of his enemy. He burst out laughing:
+
+“Tut, tut, I’m becoming absurd! One would really think that Lupin was
+an infallible person who foresees everything, a sort of divine
+omnipotence against whom nothing can prevail! Dash it all, Lupin makes
+his mistakes; Lupin, too, is at the mercy of circumstances; Lupin has
+an occasional slip! And it is just because of his slip in losing the
+document that I am beginning to have the advantage of him. Everything
+starts from that. And his efforts, when all is said, serve only to
+repair the first blunder.”
+
+And blithely, full of confidence, Beautrelet rang the bell.
+
+“Yes, sir?” said the servant who opened the door.
+
+“Can I see the Baron de Vélines?”
+
+And he gave the man his card.
+
+“Monsieur le baron is not up yet, but, if monsieur will wait—”
+
+“Has not some one else been asking for him, a gentleman with a white
+beard and a slight stoop?” asked Beautrelet, who knew Massiban’s
+appearance from the photographs in the newspapers.
+
+“Yes, the gentleman came about ten minutes ago; I showed him into the
+drawing room. If monsieur will come this way—”
+
+The interview between Massiban and Beautrelet was of the most cordial
+character. Isidore thanked the old man for the first-rate information
+which he owed to him and Massiban expressed his admiration for
+Beautrelet in the warmest terms. Then they exchanged impressions on the
+document, on their prospects of discovering the book; and Massiban
+repeated what he had heard at Rennes regarding M. de Vélines. The baron
+was a man of sixty, who had been left a widower many years ago and who
+led a very retired life with his daughter, Gabrielle de Villemon. This
+lady had just suffered a cruel blow through the loss of her husband and
+her eldest son, both of whom had died as the result of a motor-car
+accident.
+
+“Monsieur le baron begs the gentlemen to be good enough to come
+upstairs.”
+
+The servant led the way to the first floor, to a large, bare-walled
+room, very simply furnished with desks, pigeon-holes and tables covered
+with papers and account-books.
+
+The baron received them very affably and with the volubility often
+displayed by people who live too much alone. They had great difficulty
+in explaining the object of their visit.
+
+“Oh, yes, I know, you wrote to me about it, M. Massiban. It has
+something to do with a book about a needle, hasn’t it, a book which is
+supposed to have come down to me from my ancestors?”
+
+“Just so.”
+
+“I may as well tell you that my ancestors and I have fallen out. They
+had funny ideas in those days. I belong to my own time. I have broken
+with the past.”
+
+“Yes,” said Beautrelet, impatiently, “but have you no recollection of
+having seen the book?—”
+
+“Certainly, I said so in my telegram,” he exclaimed, addressing M.
+Massiban, who, in his annoyance, was walking up and down the room and
+looking out of the tall windows. “Certainly—or, at least, my daughter
+thought she had seen the title among the thousands of books that lumber
+up the library, upstairs—for I don’t care about reading myself—I don’t
+even read the papers. My daughter does, sometimes, but only when there
+is nothing the matter with Georges, her remaining son! As for me, as
+long as my tenants pay their rents and my leases are kept up—! You see
+my account-books: I live in them, gentlemen; and I confess that I know
+absolutely nothing whatever about that story of which you wrote to me
+in your letter, M. Massiban—”
+
+Isidore Beautrelet, nerve-shattered at all this talk, interrupted him
+bluntly:
+
+“I beg your pardon, monsieur, but the book—”
+
+“My daughter has looked for it. She looked for it all day yesterday.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Well, she found it; she found it a few hours ago. When you arrived—”
+
+“And where is it?”
+
+“Where is it? Why, she put it on that table—there it is—over there—”
+
+Isidore gave a bound. At one end of the table, on a muddled heap of
+papers, lay a little book bound in red morocco. He banged his fist down
+upon it, as though he were forbidding anybody to touch it—and also a
+little as though he himself dared not take it up.
+
+“Well!” cried Massiban, greatly excited.
+
+“I have it—here it is—we’re there at last!”
+
+“But the title—are you sure?—”
+
+“Why, of course: look!”
+
+“Are you convinced? Have we mastered the secret at last?”
+
+“The front page—what does the front page say?”
+
+“Read: _The Whole Truth now first exhibited. One hundred copies printed
+by myself for the instruction of the Court_.”
+
+“That’s it, that’s it,” muttered Massiban, in a hoarse voice. “It’s the
+copy snatched from the flames! It’s the very book which Louis XIV.
+condemned.”
+
+They turned over the pages. The first part set forth the explanations
+given by Captain de Larbeyrie in his journal.
+
+“Get on, get on!” said Beautrelet, who was in a hurry to come to the
+solution.
+
+“Get on? What do you mean? Not at all! We know that the Man with the
+Iron Mask was imprisoned because he knew and wished to divulge the
+secret of the Royal house of France. But how did he know it? And why
+did he wish to divulge it? Lastly, who was that strange personage? A
+half-brother of Louis XIV., as Voltaire maintained, or Mattioli, the
+Italian minister, as the modern critics declare? Hang it, those are
+questions of the very first interest!”
+
+“Later, later,” protested Beautrelet, feverishly turning the pages, as
+though he feared that the book would fly out of his hands before he had
+solved the riddle.
+
+“But—” said Massiban, who doted on historical details.
+
+“We have plenty of time—afterward—let’s see the explanation first—”
+
+Suddenly Beautrelet stopped. The document! In the middle of a left-hand
+page, his eyes saw the five mysterious lines of dots and figures! He
+made sure, with a glance, that the text was identical with that which
+he had studied so long; the same arrangement of the signs, the same
+intervals that permitted of the isolation of the word _demoiselles_ and
+the separation of the two words _aiguille_ and _creuse_.
+
+A short note preceded it:
+
+All the necessary indications, it appears, were reduced by King Louis
+XIII. into a little table which I transcribe below.
+
+
+Here followed the table of dots and figures.
+
+Then came the explanation of the document itself. Beautrelet read, in a
+broken voice:
+
+As will be seen, this table, even after we have changed the figures
+into vowels, affords no light. One might say that, in order to decipher
+the puzzle, we must first know it. It is, at most, a clue given to
+those who know the paths of the labyrinth.
+    Let us take this clue and proceed. I will guide you.
+    The fourth line first. The fourth line contains measurements and
+    indications. By complying with the indications and noting the
+    measurements set down, we inevitably attain our object, on
+    condition, be it understood, that we know where we are and whither
+    we are going, in a word, that we are enlightened as to the real
+    meaning of the Hollow Needle. This is what we may learn from the
+    first three lines. The first is so conceived to revenge myself on
+    the King; I had warned him, for that matter—
+
+
+Beautrelet stopped, nonplussed.
+
+“What? What is it?” said Massiban.
+
+“The words don’t make sense.”
+
+“No more they do,” replied Massiban. “‘The first is so conceived to
+revenge myself on the King—’ What can that mean?”
+
+“Damn!” yelled Beautrelet.
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Torn! Two pages! The next two pages! Look at the marks!”
+
+He trembled, shaking with rage and disappointment. Massiban bent
+forward.
+
+“It is true—there are the ends of two pages left, like bookbinders’
+guards. The marks seem pretty fresh. They’ve not been cut, but torn
+out—torn out with violence. Look, all the pages at the end of the book
+have been rumpled.”
+
+“But who can have done it? Who?” moaned Isidore, wringing his hands. “A
+servant? An accomplice?”
+
+“All the same, it may date back to a few months since,” observed
+Massiban.
+
+“Even so—even so—some one must have hunted out and taken the book—Tell
+me, monsieur,” cried Beautrelet, addressing the baron, “is there no one
+whom you suspect?”
+
+“We might ask my daughter.”
+
+“Yes—yes—that’s it—perhaps she will know.”
+
+M. de Vélines rang for the footman. A few minutes later, Mme. de
+Villemon entered. She was a young woman, with a sad and resigned face.
+Beautrelet at once asked her:
+
+“You found this volume upstairs, madame, in the library?”
+
+“Yes, in a parcel of books that had not been uncorded.”
+
+“And you read it?”
+
+“Yes, last night.”
+
+“When you read it, were those two pages missing? Try and remember: the
+two pages following this table of figures and dots?”
+
+“No, certainly not,” she said, greatly astonished. “There was no page
+missing at all.”
+
+“Still, somebody has torn—”
+
+“But the book did not leave my room last night.”
+
+“And this morning?”
+
+“This morning, I brought it down here myself, when M. Massiban’s
+arrival was announced.”
+
+“Then—?”
+
+“Well, I don’t understand—unless—but no.”
+
+“What?”
+
+“Georges—my son—this morning—Georges was playing with the book.”
+
+She ran out headlong, accompanied by Beautrelet, Massiban and the
+baron. The child was not in his room. They hunted in every direction.
+At last, they found him playing behind the castle. But those three
+people seemed so excited and called him so peremptorily to account that
+he began to yell aloud.
+
+Everybody ran about to right and left. The servants were questioned. It
+was an indescribable tumult. And Beautrelet received the awful
+impression that the truth was ebbing away from him, like water
+trickling through his fingers.
+
+He made an effort to recover himself, took Mme. de Villemon’s arm, and,
+followed by the baron and Massiban, led her back to the drawing room
+and said:
+
+“The book is incomplete. Very well. There are two pages torn out; but
+you read them, did you not, madame?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You know what they contained?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Could you repeat it to us?”
+
+“Certainly. I read the book with a great deal of curiosity, but those
+two pages struck me in particular because the revelations were so very
+interesting.”
+
+“Well, then, speak madame, speak, I implore you! Those revelations are
+of exceptional importance. Speak, I beg of you: minutes lost are never
+recovered. The Hollow Needle—”
+
+“Oh, it’s quite simple. The Hollow Needle means—”
+
+At that moment, a footman entered the room:
+
+“A letter for madame.”
+
+“Oh, but the postman has passed!”
+
+“A boy brought it.”
+
+Mme. de Villemon opened the letter, read it, and put her hand to her
+heart, turning suddenly livid and terrified, ready to faint.
+
+The paper had slipped to the floor. Beautrelet picked it up and,
+without troubling to apologize, read:
+
+Not a word! If you say a word, your son will never wake again.
+
+
+“My son—my son!” she stammered, too weak even to go to the assistance
+of the threatened child.
+
+Beautrelet reassured her:
+
+“It is not serious—it’s a joke. Come, who could be interested?”
+
+“Unless,” suggested Massiban, “it was Arsène Lupin.”
+
+Beautrelet made him a sign to hold his tongue. He knew quite well, of
+course, that the enemy was there, once more, watchful and determined;
+and that was just why he wanted to tear from Mme. de Villemon the
+decisive words, so long awaited, and to tear them from her on the spot,
+that very moment:
+
+“I beseech you, madame, compose yourself. We are all here. There is not
+the least danger.”
+
+Would she speak? He thought so, he hoped so. She stammered out a few
+syllables. But the door opened again. This time, the nurse entered. She
+seemed distraught:
+
+“M. Georges—madame—M. Georges—!”
+
+Suddenly, the mother recovered all her strength. Quicker than any of
+them, and urged by an unfailing instinct, she rushed down the
+staircase, across the hall and on to the terrace. There lay little
+Georges, motionless, on a wicker chair.
+
+“Well, what is it? He’s asleep!—”
+
+“He fell asleep suddenly, madame,” said the nurse. “I tried to prevent
+him, to carry him to his room. But he was fast asleep and his hands—his
+hands were cold.”
+
+“Cold!” gasped the mother. “Yes—it’s true. Oh dear, oh dear—_if he only
+wakes up!_”
+
+Beautrelet put his hand in his trousers pocket, seized the butt of his
+revolver, cocked it with his forefinger, then suddenly produced the
+weapon and fired at Massiban.
+
+Massiban, as though he were watching the boy’s movements, had avoided
+the shot, so to speak, in advance. But already Beautrelet had sprung
+upon him, shouting to the servants:
+
+“Help! It’s Lupin!”
+
+Massiban, under the weight of the impact, fell back into one of the
+wicker chairs. In a few seconds, he rose, leaving Beautrelet stunned,
+choking; and, holding the young man’s revolver in his hands:
+
+“Good!—that’s all right!—don’t stir—you’ll be like that for two or
+three minutes—no more. But, upon my word, you took your time to
+recognize me! Was my make-up as old Massiban so good as all that?”
+
+He was now standing straight up on his legs, his body squared, in a
+formidable attitude, and he grinned as he looked at the three petrified
+footmen and the dumbfounded baron:
+
+“Isidore, you’ve missed the chance of a lifetime. If you hadn’t told
+them I was Lupin, they’d have jumped on me. And, with fellows like
+that, what would have become of me, by Jove, with four to one against
+me?”
+
+He walked up to them:
+
+“Come, my lads, don’t be afraid—I shan’t hurt you. Wouldn’t you like a
+sugar-stick apiece to screw your courage up? Oh, you, by the way, hand
+me back my hundred-franc note, will you? Yes, yes, I know you! You’re
+the one I bribed just now to give the letter to your mistress. Come
+hurry, you faithless servant.”
+
+He took the blue bank-note which the servant handed him and tore it
+into tiny shreds:
+
+“The price of treachery! It burns my fingers.”
+
+He took off his hat and, bowing very low before Mme. de Villemon:
+
+“Will you forgive me, madame? The accidents of life—of mine
+especially—often drive one to acts of cruelty for which I am the first
+to blush. But have no fear for your son: it’s a mere prick, a little
+puncture in the arm which I gave him while we were questioning him. In
+an hour, at the most, you won’t know that it happened. Once more, all
+my apologies. But I had to make sure of your silence.” He bowed again,
+thanked M. de Vélines for his kind hospitality, took his cane, lit a
+cigarette, offered one to the baron, gave a circular sweep with his hat
+and, in a patronizing tone, said to Beautrelet:
+
+“Good-bye, baby.”
+
+And he walked away quietly, puffing the smoke of his cigarette into the
+servants’ faces.
+
+Beautrelet waited for a few minutes. Mme. de Villemon, now calmer, was
+watching by her son. He went up to her, with the intention of making
+one last appeal to her. Their eyes met. He said nothing. He had
+understood that she would never speak now, whatever happened. There,
+once more, in that mother’s brain, the secret of the Hollow Needle lay
+buried as deeply as in the night of the past.
+
+Then he gave up and went away.
+
+It was half-past ten. There was a train at eleven-fifty. He slowly
+followed the avenue in the park and turned into the road that led to
+the station.
+
+“Well, what do you say to that?”
+
+It was Massiban, or rather Lupin, who appeared out of the wood
+adjoining the road.
+
+“Was it pretty well contrived, or was it not? Is your old friend great
+on the tight-rope, or is he not? I’m sure that you haven’t got over it,
+eh, and that you’re asking yourself whether the so-called Massiban,
+member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, ever existed.
+But, of course, he exists. I’ll even show him to you, if you’re good.
+But, first, let me give you back your revolver. You’re looking to see
+if it’s loaded? Certainly, my lad. There are five charges left, one of
+which would be enough to send me _ad patres_.—Well, so you’re putting
+it in your pocket? Quite right. I prefer that to what you did up
+there.—A nasty little impulse, that, of yours!—Still, you’re young, you
+suddenly see—in a flash!—that you’ve once more been done by that
+confounded Lupin and that he is standing there in front of you, at
+three steps from you—and bang! You fire!—I’m not angry with you, bless
+your little heart! To prove it, I offer you a seat in my 100 h.p. car.
+Will that suit you?”
+
+He put his fingers to his mouth and whistled.
+
+The contrast was delicious between the venerable appearance of this
+elderly Massiban and the schoolboy ways and accent which Lupin was
+putting on. Beautrelet could not help laughing.
+
+“He’s laughed! He’s laughed!” cried Lupin, jumping for joy. “You see,
+baby, what you fall short in is the power of smiling; you’re a trifle
+serious for your age. You’re a very likeable boy, you have a charming
+candor and simplicity—but you have no sense of humor.” He placed
+himself in front of him. “Look here, bet you I make you cry! Do you
+know how I was able to follow up all your inquiry, how I knew of the
+letter Massiban wrote you and his appointment to meet you this morning
+at the Château de Vélines? Through the prattle of your friend, the one
+you’re staying with. You confide in that idiot and he loses no time,
+but goes and tells everything to his best girl. And his best girl has
+no secrets for Lupin.—What did I tell you? I’ve made you feel, anyhow;
+your eyes are quite wet!—Friendship betrayed: that upsets you, eh? Upon
+my word, you’re wonderful! I could take you in my arms and hug you! You
+always wear that look of astonishment which goes straight to my
+heart.—I shall never forget the other evening at Gaillon, when you
+consulted me.—Yes, I was the old notary!—But why don’t you laugh,
+youngster? As I said, you have no sense of a joke. Look here, what you
+want is—what shall I call it?—imagination, imaginative impulse. Now,
+I’m full of imaginative impulse.”
+
+A motor was heard panting not far off. Lupin seized Beautrelet roughly
+by the arm and in a cold voice, looking him straight in the eyes:
+
+“You’re going to keep quiet now, aren’t you? You can see there’s
+nothing to be done. Then what’s the use of wasting your time and
+energy? There are plenty of highway robbers in the world. Run after
+them and let me be—if not!—It’s settled, isn’t it?”
+
+He shook him as though to enforce his will upon him. Then he grinned:
+
+“Fool that I am! You leave me alone? You’re not one of those who let
+go! Oh, I don’t know what restrains me! In half a dozen turns of the
+wrist, I could have you bound and gagged—and, in two hours, safe under
+lock and key, for some months to come. And then I could twist my thumbs
+in all security, withdraw to the peaceful retreat prepared for me by my
+ancestors, the Kings of France, and enjoy the treasures which they have
+been good enough to accumulate for me. But no, it is doomed that I must
+go on blundering to the end. I can’t help it, we all have our
+weaknesses—and I have one for you. Besides, it’s not done yet. From now
+until you put your finger into the hollow of the Needle, a good deal of
+water will flow under the bridges. Dash it all, it took me ten days!
+Me! Lupin! You will want ten years, at least! There’s that much
+distance between us, after all!”
+
+The motor arrived, an immense closed car. Lupin opened the door and
+Beautrelet gave a cry. There was a man inside and that man was Lupin,
+or rather Massiban. Suddenly understanding, he burst out laughing.
+Lupin said:
+
+“Don’t be afraid, he’s sound asleep. I promised that you should see
+him. Do you grasp the situation now? At midnight, I knew of your
+appointment at the castle. At seven in the morning, I was there. When
+Massiban passed, I had only to collect him—give him a tiny prick with a
+needle—and the thing—was done. Sleep old chap, sleep away. We’ll set
+you down on the slope. That’s it—there—capital—right in the sun, then
+you won’t catch cold—good! And our hat in our hand.—Spare a copper,
+kind gentleman!—Oh. my dear old Massiban, so you were after Arsène
+Lupin!”
+
+It was really a huge joke to see the two Massibans face to face, one
+asleep with his head on his chest, the other seriously occupied in
+paying him every sort of attention and respect:
+
+“Pity a poor blind man! There, Massiban, here’s two sous and my
+visiting-card. And now, my lads, off we go at the fourth speed. Do you
+hear, driver? You’ve got to do seventy-five miles an hour. Jump in,
+Isidore. There’s a full sitting of the Institute to-day, and Massiban
+is to read a little paper, on I don’t know what, at half-past three.
+Well, he’ll read them his little paper. I’ll dish them up a complete
+Massiban, more real than the real one, with my own ideas, on the
+lacustrine inscriptions. I don’t have an opportunity of lecturing at
+the Institute ever day!—Faster, chauffeur: we’re only doing seventy-one
+and a half!—Are you afraid? Remember you’re with Lupin!—Ah, Isidore,
+and then people say that life is monotonous! Why, life’s an adorable
+thing, my boy; only one has to know—and I know—. Wasn’t it enough to
+make a man jump out of his skin for joy, just now, at the castle, when
+you were chattering with old Vélines and I, up against the window, was
+tearing out the pages of the historic book? And then, when you were
+questioning the Dame de Villemon about the Hollow Needle! Would she
+speak? Yes, she would—no, she wouldn’t—yes—no. It gave me gooseflesh, I
+assure you.—If she spoke, I should have to build up my life anew, the
+whole scaffolding was destroyed.—Would the footman come in time?
+Yes—no—there he is.—But Beautrelet will unmask me! Never! He’s too much
+of a flat! Yes, though—no—there, he’s done it—no, he hasn’t—yes—he’s
+eyeing me—that’s it—he’s feeling for his revolver!—Oh, the delight of
+it!—Isidore, you’re talking too much, you’ll hurt yourself!—Let’s have
+a snooze, shall we?—I’m dying of sleep.—Good night.”
+
+Beautrelet looked at him. He seemed almost asleep already. He slept.
+
+The motor-car, darting through space, rushed toward a horizon that was
+constantly reached and as constantly retreated. There was no impression
+of towns, villages, fields or forests; simply space, space devoured,
+swallowed up.
+
+Beautrelet looked at his traveling companion, for a long time, with
+eager curiosity and also with a keen wish to fathom his real character
+through the mask that covered it. And he thought of the circumstances
+that confined them, like that, together, in the close contact of that
+motor car. But, after the excitement and disappointment of the morning,
+tired in his turn, he too fell asleep.
+
+When he woke, Lupin was reading. Beautrelet leant over to see the title
+of the book. It was the _Epistolæ ad Lucilium_ of Seneca the
+philosopher.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+FROM CÆSAR TO LUPIN
+
+
+Dash it all, it took me ten days! Me! Lupin!
+
+You will want ten years, at least!—
+
+These words, uttered by Lupin after leaving the Château de Vélines, had
+no little influence on Beautrelet’s conduct.
+
+Though very calm in the main and invariably master of himself, Lupin,
+nevertheless, was subject to moments of exaltation, of a more or less
+romantic expansiveness, at once theatrical and good-humored, when he
+allowed certain admissions to escape him, certain imprudent speeches
+which a boy like Beautrelet could easily turn to profit.
+
+Rightly or wrongly, Beautrelet read one of these involuntary admissions
+into that phrase. He was entitled to conclude that, if Lupin drew a
+comparison between his own efforts and Beautrelet’s in pursuit of the
+truth about the Hollow Needle, it was because the two of them possessed
+identical means of attaining their object, because Lupin had no
+elements of success different from those possessed by his adversary.
+The chances were alike. Now, with the same chances, the same elements
+of success, the same means, ten days had been enough for Lupin.
+
+What were those elements, those means, those chances? They were
+reduced, when all was said, to a knowledge of the pamphlet published in
+1815, a pamphlet which Lupin, no doubt, like Massiban, had found by
+accident and thanks to which he had succeeded in discovering the
+indispensable document in Marie Antoinette’s book of hours.
+
+Therefore, the pamphlet and the document were the only two fundamental
+facts upon which Lupin had relied. With these he had built up the whole
+edifice. He had had no extraneous aid. The study of the pamphlet and
+the study of the document—full stop—that was all.
+
+Well, could not Beautrelet confine himself to the same ground? What was
+the use of an impossible struggle? What was the use of those vain
+investigations, in which, even supposing that he avoided the pitfalls
+that were multiplied under his feet, he was sure, in the end, to
+achieve the poorest of results?
+
+His decision was clear and immediate; and, in adopting it, he had the
+happy instinct that he was on the right path. He began by leaving his
+Janson-de-Sailly schoolfellow, without indulging in useless
+recriminations, and, taking his portmanteau with him, went and
+installed himself, after much hunting about, in a small hotel situated
+in the very heart of Paris. This hotel he did not leave for days. At
+most, he took his meals at the _table d’hôte_. The rest of the time,
+locked in his room, with the window-curtains close-drawn, he spent in
+thinking.
+
+“Ten days,” Arsène Lupin had said.
+
+Beautrelet, striving to forget all that he had done and to remember
+only the elements of the pamphlet and the document, aspired eagerly to
+keep within the limit of those ten days. However the tenth day passed
+and the eleventh and the twelfth; but, on the thirteenth day, a gleam
+lit up his brain and, very soon, with the bewildering rapidity of those
+ideas which develop in us like miraculous plants, the truth emerged,
+blossomed, gathered strength. On the evening of the thirteenth day, he
+certainly did not know the answer to the problem, but he knew, to a
+certainty, one of the methods which Lupin had, beyond a doubt,
+employed.
+
+It was a very simple method, hinging on this one question: Is there a
+link of any sort uniting all the more or less important historic events
+with which the pamphlet connects the mystery of the Hollow Needle?
+
+The great diversity of these events made the question difficult to
+answer. Still, the profound examination to which Beautrelet applied
+himself ended by pointing to one essential characteristic which was
+common to them all. Each one of them, without exception, had happened
+within the boundaries of the old kingdom of Neustria, which correspond
+very nearly with those of our present-day Normandy. All the heroes of
+the fantastic adventure are Norman, or become Norman, or play their
+part in the Norman country.
+
+What a fascinating procession through the ages! What a rousing
+spectacle was that of all those barons, dukes and kings, starting from
+such widely opposite points to meet in this particular corner of the
+world! Beautrelet turned the pages of history at haphazard: it was
+Rolf, or Rou, or Rollo, first Duke of _Normandy_, who was master of the
+secret of the Needle, according to the treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte!
+
+It was William the Conqueror, Duke of _Normandy_ and King of England,
+whose bannerstaff was pierced like a needle!
+
+It was at _Rouen_ that the English burnt Joan of Arc, mistress of the
+secret!
+
+And right at the beginning of the adventure, who is that chief of the
+Caleti who pays his ransom to Cæsar with the secret of the Needle but
+the chief of the men of the Caux country, which lies in the very heart
+of _Normandy?_
+
+The supposition becomes more definite. The field narrows. Rouen, the
+banks of the Seine, the Caux country: it really seems as though all
+roads lead in that direction. Two kings of France are mentioned more
+particularly, after the secret is lost by the Dukes of Normandy and
+their heirs, the kings of England, and becomes the royal secret of
+France; and these two are King Henry IV., who laid siege to Rouen and
+won the battle of Arques, near Dieppe, and Francis I., who founded the
+Havre and uttered that suggestive phrase:
+
+“The kings of France carry secrets that often decide the fate of
+towns!”
+
+Rouen, Dieppe, the Havre: the three angles of the triangle, the three
+large towns that occupy the three points. In the centre, the Caux
+country.
+
+The seventeenth century arrives. Louis XIV. burns the book in which a
+person unknown reveals the truth. Captain de Larbeyrie masters a copy,
+profits by the secret thus obtained, steals a certain number of jewels
+and dies by the hand of highway murderers. Now at which spot is the
+ambush laid? At Gaillon! At Gaillon, a little town on the road leading
+from Havre, Rouen or Dieppe to Paris!
+
+A year later, Louis XIV. buys a domain and builds the Château de
+l’Aiguille. Where does he select his site? In the Midlands of France,
+with the result that the curious are thrown off the scent and do not
+hunt about in Normandy.
+
+Rouen, Dieppe, the Havre—the Cauchois triangle—everything lies there.
+On one side, the sea; on another, the Seine: on the third, the two
+valleys that lead from Rouen to Dieppe.
+
+A light flashed across Beautrelet’s mind. That extent of ground, that
+country of the high tablelands which run from the cliffs of the Seine
+to the cliffs of the Channel almost invariably constituted the field of
+operations of Arsène Lupin. For ten years, it was just this district
+which he parcelled out for his purposes, as though he had his haunt in
+the very centre of the region with which, the legend of the Hollow
+Needle was most closely connected.
+
+The affair of Baron Cahorn?[3] Or the banks of the Seine, between Rouen
+and the Havre.
+
+[3] _The Seven of Hearts_, by Maurice Leblanc. II; _Arsène Lupin in
+Prison._
+
+
+The Thibermenil case?[4] At the other end of the tableland, between
+Rouen and Dieppe.
+
+[4] _The Seven of Hearts_. IX: _Holmlock Shears Arrives Too Late_.
+
+
+The Gruchet, Montigny, Crasville burglaries? In the midst of the Caux
+country.
+
+Where was Lupin going when he was attacked and bound hand and foot, in
+his compartment by Pierre Onfrey, the Auteuil murderer?[5] To Rouen.
+
+[5] _The Seven of Hearts_. IV: _The Mysterious Railway-passenger_.
+
+
+Where was Holmlock Shears, Lupin’s prisoner, put on board ship?[6] Near
+the Havre.
+
+[6] _Arsène Lupin versus Holmlock Shears_, by Maurice Leblanc, Chapter
+V: _Kidnapped_.
+
+
+And what was the scene of the whole of the present tragedy? Ambrumésy,
+on the road between the Havre and Dieppe.
+
+Rouen, Dieppe, the Havre: always the Cauchois triangle.
+
+And so, a few years earlier, possessing the pamphlet and knowing the
+hiding-place in which Marie Antoinette had concealed the document,
+Arsène Lupin had ended by laying his hand on the famous book of hours.
+Once in possession of the document, he took the field, “found” and
+settled down as in a conquered country.
+
+Beautrelet took the field.
+
+He set out in genuine excitement, thinking of the same journey which
+Lupin had taken, of the same hopes with which he must have throbbed
+when he thus went in search of the tremendous secret which was to arm
+him with so great a power. Would his, Beautrelet’s efforts have the
+same victorious results?
+
+He left Rouen early in the morning, on foot, with his face very much
+disguised and his bag at the end of a stick on his shoulder, like an
+apprentice doing his round of France. He walked straight to Duclair,
+where he lunched. On leaving this town, he followed the Seine and
+practically did not lose sight of it again. His instinct, strengthened,
+moreover, by numerous influences, always brought him back to the
+sinuous banks of the stately river. When the Château du Malaquis was
+robbed, the objects stolen from Baron Cahorn’s collection were sent by
+way of the Seine. The old carvings removed from the chapel at Ambrumésy
+were carried to the Seine bank. He pictured the whole fleet of pinnaces
+performing a regular service between Rouen and the Havre and draining
+the works of art and treasures from a countryside to dispatch them
+thence to the land of millionaires.
+
+“I’m burning! I’m burning!” muttered the boy, gasping under the truth,
+which came to him in a mighty series of shocks and took away his
+breath.
+
+The checks encountered on the first few days, did not discourage him.
+He had a firm and profound belief in the correctness of the supposition
+that was guiding him. It was bold, perhaps, and extravagant; no matter:
+it was worthy of the adversary pursued. The supposition was on a level
+with the prodigious reality that bore the name of Lupin. With a man
+like that, of what good could it be to look elsewhere than in the
+domain of the enormous, the exaggerated, the superhuman?
+
+Jumièges, the Mailleraye, Saint-Wandrille, Caudebec, Tancarville,
+Quillebeuf were places filled with his memories. How often he must have
+contemplated the glory of their Gothic steeples or the splendor of
+their immense ruins!
+
+But the Havre, the neighborhood of the Havre drew Isidore like a
+beacon-fire.
+
+“The kings of France carry secrets that often decide the fate of
+towns!”
+
+Cryptic words which, suddenly, for Beautrelet, shone bright with
+clearness! Was this not an exact statement of the reasons that
+determined Francis I. to create a town on this spot and was not the
+fate of the Havre-de-Grâce linked with the very secret of the Needle?
+
+“That’s it, that’s it,” stammered Beautrelet, excitedly. “The old
+Norman estuary, one of the essential points, one of the original
+centres around which our French nationality was formed, is completed by
+those two forces, one in full view, alive, known to all, the new port
+commanding the ocean and opening on the world; the other dim and
+obscure, unknown and all the more alarming, inasmuch as it is invisible
+and impalpable. A whole side of the history of France and of the royal
+house is explained by the Needle, even as it explains the whole story
+of Arsène Lupin. The same sources of energy and power supply and renew
+the fortunes of kings and of the adventurer.”
+
+Beautrelet ferreted and snuffed from village to village, from the river
+to the sea, with his nose in the wind, his ears pricked, trying to
+compel the inanimate things to surrender their deep meaning. Ought this
+hill-slope to be questioned? Or that forest? Or the houses of this
+hamlet? Or was it among the insignificant phrases spoken by that
+peasant yonder that he might hope to gather the one little illuminating
+word?
+
+One morning, he was lunching at an inn, within sight of Honfleur, the
+old city of the estuary. Opposite him was sitting one of those heavy,
+red-haired Norman horse-dealers who do the fairs of the district, whip
+in hand and clad in a long smock-frock. After a moment, it seemed to
+Beautrelet that the man was looking at him with a certain amount of
+attention, as though he knew him or, at least, was trying to recognize
+him.
+
+“Pooh,” he thought, “there’s some mistake: I’ve never seen that
+merchant before, nor he me.”
+
+As a matter of fact, the man appeared to take no further interest in
+him. He lit his pipe, called for coffee and brandy, smoked and drank.
+
+When Beautrelet had finished his meal, he paid and rose to go. A group
+of men entered just as he was about to leave and he had to stand for a
+few seconds near the table at which the horse-dealer sat. He then heard
+the man say in a low voice:
+
+“Good-afternoon, M. Beautrelet.”
+
+Without hesitation, Isidore sat down beside the man and said:
+
+“Yes, that is my name—but who are you? How did you know me?”
+
+“That’s not difficult—and yet I’ve only seen your portrait in the
+papers. But you are so badly—what do you call it in French—so badly
+made-up.”
+
+He had a pronounced foreign accent and Beautrelet seemed to perceive,
+as he looked at him, that he too wore a facial disguise that entirely
+altered his features.
+
+“Who are you?” he repeated. “Who are you?”
+
+The stranger smiled:
+
+“Don’t you recognize me?”
+
+“No, I never saw you before.”
+
+“Nor I you. But think. The papers print my portrait also—and pretty
+often. Well, have you got it?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Holmlock Shears.”
+
+It was an amusing and, at the same time, a significant meeting. The boy
+at once saw the full bearing of it. After an exchange of compliments,
+he said to Shears:
+
+“I suppose that you are here—because of ‘him’?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“So—so—you think we have a chance—in this direction.”
+
+“I’m sure of it.”
+
+Beautrelet’s delight at finding that Shears’s opinion agreed with his
+own was not unmingled with other feelings. If the Englishman attained
+his object, it meant that, at the very best, the two would share the
+victory; and who could tell that Shears would not attain it first?
+
+“Have you any proofs? Any clues?”
+
+“Don’t be afraid,” grinned the Englishman, who understood his
+uneasiness. “I am not treading on your heels. With you, it’s the
+document, the pamphlet: things that do not inspire me with any great
+confidence.”
+
+“And with you?”
+
+“With me, it’s something different.”
+
+“Should I be indiscreet, if—?”
+
+“Not at all. You remember the story of the coronet, the story of the
+Duc de Charmerac?”[7]
+
+[7] _Arsène Lupin_, play in four acts, by Maurice Leblanc and Francis
+de Croisset.
+
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You remember Victoire, Lupin’s old foster-mother, the one whom my good
+friend Ganimard allowed to escape in a sham prison-van?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I have found Victoire’s traces. She lives on a farm, not far from
+National Road No. 25. National Road No. 25 is the road from the Havre
+to Lille. Through Victoire I shall easily get at Lupin.”
+
+“It will take long.”
+
+“No matter! I have dropped all my cases. This is the only one I care
+about. Between Lupin and me, it’s a fight—a fight to the death.”
+
+He spoke these words with a sort of ferocity that betrayed all his
+bitterness at the humiliations which he had undergone, all his fierce
+hatred of the great enemy who had tricked him so cruelly.
+
+“Go away, now,” he whispered, “we are observed. It’s dangerous. But
+mark my words: on the day when Lupin and I meet face to face, it will
+be—it will be tragic.”
+
+Beautrelet felt quite reassured on leaving Shears: he need not fear
+that the Englishman would gain on him. And here was one more proof
+which this chance interview had brought him: the road from the Havre to
+Lille passes through Dieppe! It is the great seaside road of the Caux
+country, the coast road commanding the Channel cliffs! And it was on a
+farm near this road that Victoire was installed, Victoire, that is to
+say, Lupin, for one did not move without the other, the master without
+the blindly devoted servant.
+
+“I’m burning! I’m burning!” he repeated to himself. “Whenever
+circumstances bring me a new element of information, it confirms my
+supposition. On the one hand, I have the absolute certainty of the
+banks of the Seine; on the other, the certainty of the National Road.
+The two means of communication meet at the Havre, the town of Francis
+I., the town of the secret. The boundaries are contracting. The Caux
+country is not large; and, even so, I have only the western portion of
+the Caux country to search.”
+
+He set to work with renewed stubbornness:
+
+“Anything that Lupin has found,” he kept on saying to himself, “there
+is no reason for my not finding.”
+
+Certainly, Lupin had some great advantage over him, perhaps a thorough
+acquaintance with the country, a precise knowledge of the local
+legends, or less than that, a memory: invaluable advantages these, for
+he, Beautrelet, knew nothing, was totally ignorant of the country,
+which he had first visited at the time of the Ambrumésy burglary and
+then only rapidly, without lingering.
+
+But what did it matter? Though he had to devote ten years of his life
+to this investigation, he would carry it to a successful issue. Lupin
+was there. He could see him, he could feel him there. He expected to
+come upon him at the next turn of the road, on the skirt of the next
+wood, outside the next village. And, though continually disappointed,
+he seemed to find in each disappointment a fresh reason for persisting.
+
+Often, he would fling himself on the slope by the roadside and plunge
+into wild examination of the copy of the document which he always
+carried on him, a copy, that is to say, with vowels taking the place of
+the figures:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Often, also, according to his habit, he would lie down flat on his
+stomach in the tall grass and think for hours. He had time enough. The
+future belonged to him.
+
+With wonderful patience, he tramped from the Seine to the sea, and from
+the sea to the Seine, going gradually farther, retracing his steps and
+never quitting the ground until, theoretically speaking, there was not
+a chance left of gathering the smallest particle upon it.
+
+He studied and explored Montivilliers and Saint-Romani and Octeville
+and Gonneville and Criquetot.
+
+At night, he knocked at the peasants’ doors and asked for a lodging.
+After dinner, they smoked together and chatted. He made them tell him
+the stories which they told one another on the long winter nights. And
+he never omitted to insinuate, slily:
+
+“What about the Needle? The legend of the Hollow Needle? Don’t you know
+that?”
+
+“Upon my word, I don’t—never heard of it—”
+
+“Just think—an old wives’ tale—something that has to do with a needle.
+An enchanted needle, perhaps.—I don’t know—”
+
+Nothing. No legend, no recollection. And the next morning he walked
+blithely away again.
+
+One day, he passed through the pretty village of Saint-Jouin, which
+overlooks the sea, and descending among the chaos of rocks that have
+slipped from cliffs, he climbed up to the tableland and went in the
+direction of the dry valley of Bruneval, Cap d’Antifer and the little
+creek of Belle-Plage. He was walking gaily and lightly, feeling a
+little tired, perhaps, but glad to be alive, so glad, even, that he
+forgot Lupin and the mystery of the Hollow Needle and Victoire and
+Shears, and interested himself in the sight of nature: the blue sky,
+the great emerald sea, all glittering in the sunshine.
+
+Some straight slopes and remains of brick walls, in which he seemed to
+recognize the vestiges of a Roman camp, interested him. Then his eyes
+fell upon a sort of little castle, built in imitation of an ancient
+fort, with cracked turrets and Gothic windows. It stood on a jagged,
+rugged, rising promontory, almost detached from the cliff. A barred
+gate, flanked by iron hand-rails and bristling spikes, guarded the
+narrow passage.
+
+Beautrelet succeeded in climbing over, not without some difficulty.
+Over the pointed door, which was closed with an old rusty lock, he read
+the words:
+
+FORT DE FRÉFOSSÉ
+
+
+He did not attempt to enter, but, turning to the right, after going
+down a little slope, he embarked upon a path that ran along a ridge of
+land furnished with a wooden handrail. Right at the end was a cave of
+very small dimensions, forming a sort of watch-tower at the point of
+the rock in which it was hollowed out, a rock falling abruptly into the
+sea.
+
+There was just room to stand up in the middle of the cave. Multitudes
+of inscriptions crossed one another on the walls. An almost square
+hole, cut in the stone, opened like a dormer window on the land side,
+exactly opposite Fort Fréfossé, the crenellated top of which appeared
+at thirty or forty yards’ distance.
+
+Beautrelet threw off his knapsack and sat down. He had had a hard and
+tiring day. He fell asleep for a little. Then the cool wind that blew
+inside the cave woke him up. He sat for a few minutes without moving,
+absent-minded, vague-eyed. He tried to reflect, to recapture his still
+torpid thoughts. And, as he recovered his consciousness, he was on the
+point of rising, when he received the impression that his eyes,
+suddenly fixed, suddenly wide-open, saw—
+
+A thrill shook him from head to foot. His hands clutched convulsively
+and he felt the beads of perspiration forming at the roots of his hair:
+
+“No, no,” he stammered. “It’s a dream, an hallucination. Let’s look:
+it’s not possible!”
+
+He plunged down on his knees and stooped over. Two huge letters, each
+perhaps a foot long, appeared cut in relief in the granite of the
+floor. Those two letters, clumsily, but plainly carved, with their
+corners rounded and their surface smoothed by the wear and tear of
+centuries, were a D and an F.
+
+D and F! Oh, bewildering miracle! D and F: just two letters of the
+document! Oh, Beautrelet had no need to consult it to bring before his
+mind that group of letters in the fourth line, the line of the
+measurements and indications! He knew them well! They were inscribed
+for all time at the back of his pupils, encrusted for good and all in
+the very substance of his brain!
+
+He rose to his feet, went down the steep road, climbed back along the
+old fort, hung on to the spikes of the rail again, in order to pass,
+and walked briskly toward a shepherd whose flock was grazing some way
+off on a dip in the tableland:
+
+“That cave, over there—that cave—”
+
+His lips trembled and he tried to find the words that would not come.
+The shepherd looked at him in amazement. At last, Isidore repeated:
+
+“Yes, that cave—over there—to the right of the fort. Has it a name?”
+
+“Yes, I should think so. All the Étretat folk like to call it the
+Demoiselles.”
+
+“What?—What?—What’s that you say?”
+
+“Why, of course—it’s the Chambre des Demoiselles.”
+
+Isidore felt like flying at his throat, as though all the truth lived
+in that man and he hoped to get it from him at one swoop, to tear it
+from him.
+
+The Demoiselles! One of the words, one of the only three known words of
+the document!
+
+A whirlwind of madness shook Beautrelet where he stood. And it rose all
+around him, blew upon him like a tempestuous squall that came from the
+sea, that came from the land, that came from every direction and
+whipped him with great lashes of the truth.
+
+He understood. The document appeared to him in its real sense. The
+Chambre des Demoiselles—Étretat—
+
+“That’s it,” he thought, his brain filled with light, “it must be that.
+But why didn’t I guess earlier?”
+
+He said to the shepherd, in a low voice:
+
+“That will do—go away—you can go—thank you.”
+
+The man, not knowing what to think, whistled to his dog and went.
+
+Left alone, Beautrelet returned to the fort. He had almost passed it
+when, suddenly, he dropped to the ground and lay cowering against a
+piece of wall. And, wringing his hands, he thought:
+
+“I must be mad! If ‘he’ were to see me! Or his accomplices! I’ve been
+moving about for an hour—!”
+
+He did not stir another limb.
+
+The sun went down. Little by little, the night mingled with the day,
+blurring the outline of things.
+
+Then, with little imperceptible movements, flat on his stomach,
+gliding, crawling, he crept along one of the points of the promontory
+to the extreme edge of the cliff.
+
+He reached it. Stretching out his hands, he pushed aside some tufts of
+grass and his head appeared over the precipice.
+
+Opposite him, almost level with the cliff, in the open sea rose an
+enormous rock, over eighty yards high, a colossal obelisk, standing
+straight on its granite base, which showed at the surface of the water,
+and tapering toward the summit, like the giant tooth of a monster of
+the deep. White with the dirty gray white of the cliff, the awful
+monolith was streaked with horizontal lines marked by flint and
+displaying the slow work of the centuries, which had heaped alternate
+layers of lime and pebble-stone one atop of the other.
+
+Here and there, a fissure, a break; and, wherever these occurred, a
+scrap of earth, with grass and leaves.
+
+And all this was mighty and solid and formidable, with the look of an
+indestructible thing against which the furious assault of the waves and
+storms could not prevail. And it was definite and permanent and grand,
+despite the grandeur of the cliffy rampart that commanded it, despite
+the immensity of the space in which it stood.
+
+Beautrelet’s nails dug into the soil like the claws of an animal ready
+to leap upon its prey. His eyes penetrated the wrinkled texture of the
+rock, penetrated its skin, so it seemed to him, its very flesh. He
+touched it, felt it, took cognizance and possession of it, absorbed and
+assimilated it.
+
+The horizon turned crimson with all the flames of the vanished sun; and
+long, red clouds, set motionless in the sky, formed glorious
+landscapes, fantastic lagoons, fiery plains, forests of gold, lakes of
+blood, a whole glowing and peaceful phantasmagoria.
+
+The blue of the sky grew darker. Venus shone with a marvelous
+brightness; then other stars lit up, timid as yet.
+
+And Beautrelet suddenly closed his eyes and convulsively pressed his
+folded arms to his forehead. Over there—oh, he felt as though he would
+die for joy, so great was the cruel emotion that wrung his heart!—over
+there, almost at the top of the Needle of Étretat, a little below the
+extreme point round which the sea-mews fluttered, a thread of smoke
+came filtering through a crevice, as though from an invisible chimney,
+a thread of smoke rose in slow spirals in the calm air of the twilight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+OPEN, SESAME!
+
+
+The Étretat Needle was hollow!
+
+Was it a natural phenomenon, an excavation produced by internal
+cataclysms or by the imperceptible action of the rushing sea and the
+soaking rain? Or was it a superhuman work executed by human beings,
+Gauls, Celts, prehistoric men?
+
+These, no doubt, were insoluble questions; and what did it matter? The
+essence of the thing was contained in this fact: The Needle was hollow.
+At forty or fifty yards from that imposing arch which is called the
+Porte d’Aval and which shoots out from the top of the cliff, like the
+colossal branch of a tree, to take root in the submerged rocks, stands
+an immense limestone cone; and this cone is no more than the shell of a
+pointed cap poised upon the empty waters!
+
+A prodigious revelation! After Lupin, here was Beautrelet discovering
+the key to the great riddle that had loomed over more than twenty
+centuries! A key of supreme importance to whoever possessed it in the
+days of old, in those distant times when hordes of barbarians rode
+through and overran the old world! A magic key that opens the cyclopean
+cavern to whole tribes fleeing before the enemy! A mysterious key that
+guards the door of the most inviolable shelter! An enchanted key that
+gives power and ensures preponderance!
+
+Because he knows this key, Cæsar is able to subdue Gaul. Because they
+know it, the Normans force their sway upon the country and, from there,
+later, backed by that support, conquer the neighboring island, conquer
+Sicily, conquer the East, conquer the new world!
+
+Masters of the secret, the Kings of England lord it over France, humble
+her, dismember her, have themselves crowned at Paris. They lose the
+secret; and the rout begins.
+
+Masters of the secret, the Kings of France push back and overstep the
+narrow limits of their dominion, gradually founding a great nation and
+radiating with glory and power. They forget it or know not how to use
+it; and death, exile, ruin follow.
+
+An invisible kingdom, in mid-water and at ten fathoms from land! An
+unknown fortress, taller than the towers of Notre Dame and built upon a
+granite foundation larger than a public square! What strength and what
+security! From Paris to the sea, by the Seine. There, the Havre, the
+new town, the necessary town. And, sixteen miles thence, the Hollow
+Needle, the impregnable sanctuary!
+
+It is a sanctuary and also a stupendous hiding-place. All the treasures
+of the kings, increasing from century to century, all the gold of
+France, all that they extort from the people, all that they snatch from
+the clergy, all the booty gathered on the battle-fields of Europe lie
+heaped up in the royal cave. Old Merovingian gold sous, glittering
+crown-pieces, doubloons, ducats, florins, guineas; and the precious
+stones and the diamonds; and all the jewels and all the ornaments:
+everything is there. Who could discover it? Who could ever learn the
+impenetrable secret of the Needle? Nobody.
+
+And Lupin becomes that sort of really disproportionate being whom we
+know, that miracle incapable of explanation so long as the truth
+remains in the shadow. Infinite though the resources of his genius be,
+they cannot suffice for the mad struggle which he maintains against
+society. He needs other, more material resources. He needs a sure place
+of retreat, he needs the certainty of impunity, the peace that allows
+of the execution of his plans.
+
+Without the Hollow Needle, Lupin is incomprehensible, a myth, a
+character in a novel, having no connection with reality.
+
+Master of the secret—and of such a secret!—he becomes simply a man like
+another, but gifted with the power of wielding in a superior manner the
+extraordinary weapon with which destiny has endowed him.
+
+So the Needle was hollow.
+
+It remained to discover how one obtained access to it.
+
+From the sea, obviously. There must be, on the side of the offing, some
+fissure where boats could land at certain hours of the tide.
+
+But on the side of the land?
+
+Beautrelet lay until ten o’clock at night hanging over the precipice,
+with his eyes riveted on the shadowy mass formed by the pyramid,
+thinking and pondering with all the concentrated effort of his mind.
+
+Then he went down to Étretat, selected the cheapest hotel, dined, went
+up to his room and unfolded the document.
+
+It was the merest child’s play to him now to establish its exact
+meaning. He at once saw that the three vowels of the word Étretat
+occurred in the first line, in their proper order and at the necessary
+intervals. This first line now read as follows:
+
+_e . a . a .. etretat . a .._
+
+
+What words could come before Étretat? Words, no doubt, that referred to
+the position of the Needle with regard to the town. Now the Needle
+stood on the left, on the west—He ransacked his memory and,
+recollecting that westerly winds are called vents d’aval on the coast
+and that the nearest porte was known as the Porte d’Aval, he wrote
+down:
+
+_“En aval d’Étretat . a ..”_
+
+
+The second line was that containing the word _Demoiselles_ and, at once
+seeing, in front of that word, the series of all the vowels that form
+part of the words _la chambre des_, he noted the two phrases:
+
+_“En aval d’Étretat. La Chambre des Demoiselles.”_
+
+
+The third line gave him more trouble; and it was not until some groping
+that, remembering the position, near the Chambre des Demoiselles, of
+the Fort de Fréfossé, he ended by almost completely reconstructing the
+document:
+
+_“En aval d’Étretat. La Chambre des Demoiselles. Sous le Fort de
+Fréfossé. L’Aiguille creuse.”_
+
+
+These were the four great formulas, the essential and general formulas
+which you had to know. By means of them, you turned _en aval_, that is
+to say, below or west of Étretat, entered the Chambre des Demoiselles,
+in all probability passed under Fort Fréfossé and thus arrived at the
+Needle.
+
+How? By means of the indications and measurements that constituted the
+fourth line:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+These were evidently the more special formulas to enable you to find
+the outlet through which you made your way and the road that led to the
+Needle.
+
+Beautrelet at once presumed—and his surmise was no more than the
+logical consequence of the document—that, if there really was a direct
+communication between the land and the obelisk of the Needle, the
+underground passage must start from the Chambre des Demoiselles, pass
+under Fort Fréfossé, descend perpendicularly the three hundred feet of
+cliff and, by means of a tunnel contrived under the rocks of the sea,
+end at the Hollow Needle.
+
+Which was the entrance to the underground passage? Did not the two
+letters D and F, so plainly cut, point to it and admit to it, with the
+aid, perhaps, of some ingenious piece of mechanism?
+
+The whole of the next morning, Isidore strolled about Étretat and
+chatted with everybody he met, in order to try and pick up useful
+information. At last, in the afternoon, he went up the cliff. Disguised
+as a sailor, he had made himself still younger and, in a pair of
+trousers too short for him and a fishing jersey, he looked a mere
+scape-grace of twelve or thirteen.
+
+As soon as he entered the cave, he knelt down before the letters. Here
+a disappointment awaited him. It was no use his striking them, pushing
+them, manipulating them in every way: they refused to move. And it was
+not long, in fact, before he became aware that they were really unable
+to move and that, therefore, they controlled no mechanism.
+
+And yet—and yet they must mean something! Inquiries which he had made
+in the village went to show that no one had ever been able to explain
+their existence and that the Abbé Cochet, in his valuable little book
+on Étretat,[8] had also tried in vain to solve this little puzzle. But
+Isidore knew what the learned Norman archaeologist did not know,
+namely, that the same two letters figured in the document, on the line
+containing the indications. Was it a chance coincidence: Impossible.
+Well, then—?
+
+[8] _Les Origines d’Étretat_. The Abbé Cochet seems to conclude, in the
+end, that the two letters are the initials of a passer-by. The
+revelations now made prove the fallacy of the theory.
+
+
+An idea suddenly occurred to him, an idea so reasonable, so simple that
+he did not doubt its correctness for a second. Were not that D and that
+F the initials of the two most important words in the document, the
+words that represented—together with the Needle—the essential stations
+on the road to be followed: the Chambre des _Demoiselles_ and Fort
+_Fréfossé:_ D for Demoiselles, F for Fréfossé: the connection was too
+remarkable to be a mere accidental fact.
+
+In that case, the problem stood thus: the two letters D F represent the
+relation that exists between the Chambre des Demoiselles and Fort
+Fréfossé, the single letter D, which begins the line, represents the
+Demoiselles, that is to say, the cave in which you have to begin by
+taking up your position, and the single letter F, placed in the middle
+of the line, represents Fréfossé, that is to say, the probable entrance
+to the underground passage.
+
+Between these various signs, are two more: first, a sort of irregular
+rectangle, marked with a stripe in the left bottom corner, and, next,
+the figure 19, signs which obviously indicate to those inside the cave
+the means of penetrating beneath the fort.
+
+The shape of this rectangle puzzled Isidore. Was there around him, on
+the walls of the cave, or at any rate within reach of his eyes, an
+inscription, anything whatever, affecting a rectangular shape?
+
+He looked for a long time and was on the point of abandoning that
+particular scent when his eyes fell upon the little opening, pierced in
+the rock, that acted as a window to the chamber.
+
+Now the edges of this opening just formed a rectangle: corrugated,
+uneven, clumsy, but still a rectangle; and Beautrelet at once saw that,
+by placing his two feet on the D and the F carved in the stone
+floor—and this explained the stroke that surmounted the two letters in
+the document—he found himself at the exact height of the window!
+
+He took up his position in this place and gazed out. The window looking
+landward, as we know, he saw, first, the path that connected the cave
+with the land, a path hung between two precipices; and, next, he caught
+sight of the foot of the hillock on which the fort stood. To try and
+see the fort, Beautrelet leaned over to the left and it was then that
+he understood the meaning of the curved stripe, the comma that marked
+the left bottom corner in the document: at the bottom on the left-hand
+side of the window, a piece of flint projected and the end of it was
+curved like a claw. It suggested a regular shooter’s mark. And, when a
+man applied his eye to this mark, he saw cut out, on the slope of the
+mound facing him, a restricted surface of land occupied almost entirely
+by an old brick wall, a remnant of the original Fort Fréfossé or of the
+old Roman _oppidum_ built on this spot.
+
+Beautrelet ran to this piece of wall, which was, perhaps, ten yards
+long. It was covered with grass and plants. There was no indication of
+any kind visible. And yet that figure 19?
+
+He returned to the cave, took from his pocket a ball of string and a
+tape-measure, tied the string to the flint corner, fastened a pebble at
+the nineteenth metre and flung it toward the land side. The pebble at
+most reached the end of the path.
+
+“Idiot that I am!” thought Beautrelet. “Who reckoned by metres in those
+days? The figure 19 means 19 fathoms[9] or nothing!”
+
+[9] The _toise_, or fathom, measured 1.949 metres.—_Translator’s Note_.
+
+
+Having made the calculation, he ran out the twine, made a knot and felt
+about on the piece of wall for the exact and necessarily one point at
+which the knot, formed at 37 metres from the window of the Demoiselles,
+should touch the Fréfossé wall. In a few moments, the point of contact
+was established. With his free hand, he moved aside the leaves of
+mullein that had grown in the interstices. A cry escaped him. The knot,
+which he held pressed down with his fore-finger, was in the centre of a
+little cross carved in relief on a brick. And the sign that followed on
+the figure 19 in the document was a cross!
+
+It needed all his will-power to control the excitement with which he
+was overcome. Hurriedly, with convulsive fingers, he clutched the cross
+and, pressing upon it, turned it as he would have turned the spokes of
+a wheel. The brick heaved. He redoubled his effort; it moved no
+further. Then, without turning, he pressed harder. He at once felt the
+brick give way. And, suddenly, there was the click of a bolt that is
+released, the sound of a lock opening and, on the right of the brick,
+to the width of about a yard, the wall swung round on a pivot and
+revealed the orifice of an underground passage.
+
+Like a madman, Beautrelet seized the iron door in which the bricks were
+sealed, pulled it back, violently and closed it. Astonishment, delight,
+the fear of being surprised convulsed his face so as to render it
+unrecognizable. He beheld the awful vision of all that had happened
+there, in front of that door, during twenty centuries; of all those
+people, initiated into the great secret, who had penetrated through
+that issue: Celts, Gauls, Romans, Normans, Englishmen, Frenchmen,
+barons, dukes, kings—and, after all of them, Arsène Lupin—and, after
+Lupin, himself, Beautrelet. He felt that his brain was slipping away
+from him. His eyelids fluttered. He fell fainting and rolled to the
+bottom of the slope, to the very edge of the precipice.
+
+His task was done, at least the task which he was able to accomplish
+alone, with his unaided resources.
+
+That evening, he wrote a long letter to the chief of the detective
+service, giving a faithful account of the results of his investigations
+and revealing the secret of the Hollow Needle. He asked for assistance
+to complete his work and gave his address.
+
+While waiting for the reply, he spent two consecutive nights in the
+Chambre des Demoiselles. He spent them overcome with fear, his nerves
+shaken with a terror which was increased by the sounds of the night. At
+every moment, he thought he saw shadows approach in his direction.
+People knew of his presence in the cave—they were coming—they were
+murdering him!
+
+His eyes, however, staring madly before them, sustained by all the
+power of his will, clung to the piece of wall.
+
+On the first night, nothing stirred; but, on the second, by the light
+of the stars and a slender crescent-moon, he saw the door open and
+figures emerge from the darkness: he counted two, three, four, five of
+them.
+
+It seemed to him that those five men were carrying fairly large loads.
+He followed them for a little way. They cut straight across the fields
+to the Havre road; and he heard the sound of a motor car driving away.
+
+He retraced his steps, skirting a big farm. But, at the turn of the
+road that ran beside it, he had only just time to scramble up a slope
+and hide behind some trees. More men passed—four, five men—all carrying
+packages. And, two minutes later, another motor snorted.
+
+This time, he had not the strength to return to his post; and he went
+back to bed.
+
+When he woke and had finished dressing, the hotel waiter brought him a
+letter. He opened it. It contained Ganimard’s card.
+
+“At last!” cried Beautrelet, who, after so hard a campaign, was really
+feeling the need of a comrade-in-arms.
+
+He ran downstairs with outstretched hands. Ganimard took them, looked
+at him for a moment and said:
+
+“You’re a fine fellow, my lad!”
+
+“Pooh!” he said. “Luck has served me.”
+
+“There’s no such thing as luck with ‘him,’” declared the inspector, who
+always spoke of Lupin in a solemn tone and without mentioning his name.
+
+He sat down:
+
+“So we’ve got him!”
+
+“Just as we’ve had him twenty times over,” said Beautrelet, laughing.
+
+“Yes, but to-day—”
+
+“To-day, of course, the case is different. We know his retreat, his
+stronghold, which means, when all is said, that Lupin is Lupin. He can
+escape. The Étretat Needle cannot.”
+
+“Why do you suppose that he will escape?” asked Ganimard, anxiously.
+
+“Why do you suppose that he requires to escape?” replied Beautrelet.
+“There is nothing to prove that he is in the Needle at present. Last
+night, eleven of his men left it. He may be one of the eleven.”
+
+Ganimard reflected:
+
+“You are right. The great thing is the Hollow Needle. For the rest, let
+us hope that chance will favor us. And now, let us talk.”
+
+He resumed his serious voice, his self-important air and said:
+
+“My dear Beautrelet, I have orders to recommend you to observe the most
+absolute discretion in regard to this matter.”
+
+“Orders from whom?” asked Beautrelet, jestingly. “The prefect of
+police?”
+
+“Higher than that.”
+
+“The prime minister?”
+
+“Higher.”
+
+“Whew!”
+
+Ganimard lowered his voice:
+
+“Beautrelet, I was at the Élysée last night. They look upon this matter
+as a state secret of the utmost gravity. There are serious reasons for
+concealing the existence of this citadel—reasons of military strategy,
+in particular. It might become a revictualling centre, a magazine for
+new explosives, for lately-invented projectiles, for anything of that
+sort: the secret arsenal of France, in fact.”
+
+“But how can they hope to keep a secret like this? In the old days, one
+man alone held it: the king. To-day, already, there are a good few of
+us who know it, without counting Lupin’s gang.”
+
+“Still, if we gained only ten years’, only five years’ silence! Those
+five years may be—the saving of us.”
+
+“But, in order to capture this citadel, this future arsenal, it will
+have to be attacked, Lupin must be dislodged. And all this cannot be
+done without noise.”
+
+“Of course, people will guess something, but they won’t know. Besides,
+we can but try.”
+
+“All right. What’s your plan?”
+
+“Here it is, in two words. To begin with, you are not Isidore
+Beautrelet and there’s no question of Arsène Lupin either. You are and
+you remain a small boy of Étretat, who, while strolling about the
+place, caught some fellows coming out of an underground passage. This
+makes you suspect the existence of a flight of steps which cuts through
+the cliff from top to bottom.”
+
+“Yes, there are several of those flights of steps along the coast. For
+instance, to the right of Étretat, opposite Bénouville, they showed me
+the Devil’s Staircase, which every bather knows. And I say nothing of
+the three or four tunnels used by the fishermen.”
+
+“So you will guide me and one-half of my men. I shall enter alone, or
+accompanied, that remains to be seen. This much is certain, that the
+attack must be delivered that way. If Lupin is not in the Needle, we
+shall fix up a trap in which he will be caught sooner or later. If he
+is there—”
+
+“If he is there, he will escape from the Needle by the other side, the
+side overlooking the sea.”
+
+“In that case, he will at once be arrested by the other half of my
+men.”
+
+“Yes, but if, as I presume, you choose a moment when the sea is at low
+ebb, leaving the base of the Needle uncovered, the chase will be
+public, because it will take place before all the men and women fishing
+for mussels, shrimps and shell-fish who swarm on the rocks round
+about.”
+
+“That is why I just mean to select the time when the sea is full.”
+
+“In that case, he will make off in a boat.”
+
+“Ah, but I shall have a dozen fishing-smacks, each of which will be
+commanded by one of my men, and we shall collar him—”
+
+“If he doesn’t slip through your dozen smacks, like a fish through the
+meshes.”
+
+“All right, then I’ll sink him.”
+
+“The devil you will! Shall you have guns?”
+
+“Why, of course! There’s a torpedo-boat at the Havre at this moment. A
+telegram from me will bring her to the Needle at the appointed hour.”
+
+“How proud Lupin will be! A torpedo-boat! Well, M. Ganimard, I see that
+you have provided for everything. We have only to go ahead. When do we
+deliver the assault?”
+
+“To-morrow.”
+
+“At night?”
+
+“No, by daylight, at the flood-tide, as the clock strikes ten in the
+morning.”
+
+“Capital.”
+
+Under his show of gaiety, Beautrelet concealed a real anguish of mind.
+He did not sleep until the morning, but lay pondering over the most
+impracticable schemes, one after the other.
+
+Ganimard had left him in order to go to Yport, six or seven miles from
+Étretat, where, for prudence’s sake, he had told his men to meet him,
+and where he chartered twelve fishing smacks, with the ostensible
+object of taking soundings along the coast.
+
+At a quarter to ten, escorted by a body of twelve stalwart men, he met
+Isidore at the foot of the road that goes up the cliff.
+
+At ten o’clock exactly, they reached the skirt of wall. It was the
+decisive moment.
+
+At ten o’clock exactly.
+
+“Why, what’s the matter with you, Beautrelet?” jeered Ganimard. “You’re
+quite green in the face!”
+
+“It’s as well you can’t see yourself, Ganimard,” the boy retorted. “One
+would think your last hour had come!”
+
+They both had to sit down and Ganimard swallowed a few mouthfuls of
+rum.
+
+“It’s not funk,” he said, “but, by Jove, this is an exciting business!
+Each time that I’m on the point of catching him, it takes me like that
+in the pit of the stomach. A dram of rum?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“And if you drop behind?”
+
+“That will mean that I’m dead.”
+
+“B-r-r-r-r! However, we’ll see. And now, open, sesame! No danger of our
+being observed, I suppose?”
+
+“No. The Needle is not so high as the cliff, and, besides, there’s a
+bend in the ground where we are.”
+
+Beautrelet went to the wall and pressed upon the brick. The bolt was
+released and the underground passage came in sight.
+
+By the gleam of the lanterns which they lit, they saw that it was cut
+in the shape of a vault and that both the vaulting and the floor itself
+were entirely covered with bricks.
+
+They walked for a few seconds and, suddenly, a staircase appeared.
+Beautrelet counted forty-five brick steps, which the slow action of
+many footsteps had worn away in the middle.
+
+“Blow!” said Ganimard, holding his head and stopping suddenly, as
+though he had knocked against something.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“A door.”
+
+“Bother!” muttered Beautrelet, looking at it. “And not an easy one to
+break down either. It’s just a solid block of iron.”
+
+“We are done,” said Ganimard. “There’s not even a lock to it.”
+
+“Exactly. That’s what gives me hope.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“A door is made to open; and, as this one has no lock, that means that
+there is a secret way of opening it.”
+
+“And, as we don’t know the secret—”
+
+“I shall know it in a minute.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“By means of the document. The fourth line has no other object but to
+solve each difficulty as and when it crops up. And the solution is
+comparatively easy, because it’s not written with a view to throwing
+searchers off the scent, but to assisting them.”
+
+“Comparatively easy! I don’t agree with you,” cried Ganimard, who had
+unfolded the document. “The number 44 and a triangle with a dot in it:
+that doesn’t tell us much!”
+
+“Yes, yes, it does! Look at the door. You see it’s strengthened, at
+each corner, with a triangular slab of iron; and the slabs are fixed
+with big nails. Take the left-hand bottom slab and work the nail in the
+corner: I’ll lay ten to one we’ve hit the mark.”
+
+“You’ve lost your bet,” said Ganimard, after trying.
+
+“Then the figure 44 must mean—”
+
+In a low voice, reflecting as he spoke, Beautrelet continued:
+
+“Let me see—Ganimard and I are both standing on the bottom step of the
+staircase—there are 45. Why 45, when the figure in the document is 44?
+A coincidence? No. In all this business, there is no such thing as a
+coincidence, at least not an involuntary one. Ganimard, be so good as
+to move one step higher up. That’s it, don’t leave this forty-fourth
+step. And now I will work the iron nail. And the trick’s done, or I’ll
+eat my boots!”
+
+The heavy door turned on its hinges. A fairly spacious cavern appeared
+before their eyes.
+
+“We must be exactly under Fort Fréfossé,” said Beautrelet. “We have
+passed through the different earthy layers by now. There will be no
+more brick. We are in the heart of the solid limestone.”
+
+The room was dimly lit by a shaft of daylight that came from the other
+end. Going up to it, they saw that it was a fissure in the cliff,
+contrived in a projecting wall and forming a sort of observatory. In
+front of them, at a distance of fifty yards, the impressive mass of the
+Needle loomed from the waves. On the right, quite close, was the arched
+buttress of the Porte d’Aval and, on the left, very far away, closing
+the graceful curve of a large inlet, another rocky gateway, more
+imposing still, was cut out of the cliff; the Manneporte,[10] which was
+so wide and tall that a three-master could have passed through it with
+all sail set. Behind and everywhere, the sea.
+
+[10] _Magna porta_.
+
+
+“I don’t see our little fleet,” said Beautrelet.
+
+“I know,” said Ganimard. “The Porte d’Aval hides the whole of the coast
+of Étretat and Yport. But look, over there, in the offing, that black
+line, level with the water—”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“That’s our fleet of war, Torpedo-boat No. 25. With her there, Lupin is
+welcome to break loose—if he wants to study the landscape at the bottom
+of the sea.”
+
+A baluster marked the entrance to the staircase, near the fissure. They
+started on their way down. From time to time, a little window pierced
+the wall of the cliff; and, each time, they caught sight of the Needle,
+whose mass seemed to them to grow more and more colossal.
+
+A little before reaching high-water level, the windows ceased and all
+was dark.
+
+Isidore counted the steps aloud. At the three hundred and fifty-eight,
+they emerged into a wider passage, which was barred by another iron
+door strengthened with slabs and nails.
+
+“We know all about this,” said Beautrelet. “The document gives us 357
+and a triangle dotted on the right. We have only to repeat the
+performance.”
+
+The second door obeyed like the first. A long, a very long tunnel
+appeared, lit up at intervals by the gleam of a lantern swung from the
+vault. The walls oozed moisture and drops of water fell to the ground,
+so that, to make walking easier a regular pavement of planks had been
+laid from end to end.
+
+“We are passing under the sea,” said Beautrelet. “Are you coming,
+Ganimard?”
+
+Without replying, the inspector ventured into the tunnel, followed the
+wooden foot-plank and stopped before a lantern, which he took down.
+
+“The utensils may date back to the Middle Ages, but the lighting is
+modern,” he said. “Our friends use incandescent mantles.”
+
+He continued his way. The tunnel ended in another and a larger cave,
+with, on the opposite side, the first steps of a staircase that led
+upward.
+
+“It’s the ascent of the Needle beginning,” said Ganimard. “This is more
+serious.”
+
+But one of his men called him:
+
+“There’s another flight here, sir, on the left.”
+
+And, immediately afterward, they discovered a third, on the right.
+
+“The deuce!” muttered the inspector. “This complicates matters. If we
+go by this way, they’ll make tracks by that.”
+
+“Shall we separate?” asked Beautrelet.
+
+“No, no—that would mean weakening ourselves. It would be better for one
+of us to go ahead and scout.”
+
+“I will, if you like—”
+
+“Very well, Beautrelet, you go. I will remain with my men—then there
+will be no fear of anything. There may be other roads through the cliff
+than that by which we came and several roads also through the Needle.
+But it is certain that, between the cliff and the Needle, there is no
+communication except the tunnel. Therefore they must pass through this
+cave. And so I shall stay here till you come back. Go ahead,
+Beautrelet, and be prudent: at the least alarm, scoot back again.”
+
+Isidore disappeared briskly up the middle staircase. At the thirtieth
+step, a door, an ordinary wooden door, stopped him. He seized the
+handle turned it. The door was not locked.
+
+He entered a room that seemed to him very low owing to its immense
+size. Lit by powerful lamps and supported by squat pillars, with long
+vistas showing between them, it had nearly the same dimensions as the
+Needle itself. It was crammed with packing cases and miscellaneous
+objects—pieces of furniture, oak settees, chests, credence-tables,
+strong-boxes—a whole confused heap of the kind which one sees in the
+basement of an old curiosity shop.
+
+On his right and left, Beautrelet perceived the wells of two
+staircases, the same, no doubt, that started from the cave below. He
+could easily have gone down, therefore, and told Ganimard. But a new
+flight of stairs led upward in front of him and he had the curiosity to
+pursue his investigations alone.
+
+Thirty more steps. A door and then a room, not quite so large as the
+last, Beautrelet thought. And again, opposite him, an ascending flight
+of stairs.
+
+Thirty steps more. A door. A smaller room.
+
+Beautrelet grasped the plan of the works executed inside the Needle. It
+was a series or rooms placed one above the other and, therefore,
+gradually decreasing in size. They all served as store-rooms.
+
+In the fourth, there was no lamp. A little light filtered in through
+clefts in the walls and Beautrelet saw the sea some thirty feet below
+him.
+
+At that moment, he felt himself so far from Ganimard that a certain
+anguish began to take hold of him and he had to master his nerves lest
+he should take to his heels. No danger threatened him, however, and the
+silence around him was even so great that he asked himself whether the
+whole Needle had not been abandoned by Lupin and his confederates.
+
+“I shall not go beyond the next floor,” he said to himself.
+
+Thirty stairs again and a door. This door was lighter in construction
+and modern in appearance. He pushed it open gently, quite prepared for
+flight. There was no one there. But the room differed from the others
+in its purpose. There were hangings on the walls, rugs on the floor.
+Two magnificent sideboards, laden with gold and silver plate, stood
+facing each other. The little windows contrived in the deep, narrow
+cleft were furnished with glass panes.
+
+In the middle of the room was a richly-decked table, with a lace-edged
+cloth, dishes of fruits and cakes, champagne in decanters and flowers,
+heaps of flowers.
+
+Three places were laid around the table.
+
+Beautrelet walked up. On the napkins were cards with the names of the
+party. He read first:
+
+“Arsène Lupin.”
+
+“Mme. Arsène Lupin.”
+
+He took up the third card and started back with surprise. It bore his
+own name:
+
+“Isidore Beautrelet!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+THE TREASURES OF THE KINGS OF FRANCE
+
+
+A curtain was drawn back.
+
+“Good morning, my dear Beautrelet, you’re a little late. Lunch was
+fixed for twelve. However, it’s only a few minutes—but what’s the
+matter? Don’t you know me? Have I changed so much?”
+
+In the course of his fight with Lupin, Beautrelet had met with many
+surprises and he was still prepared, at the moment of the final
+catastrophe, to experience any number of further emotions; but the
+shock which he received this time was utterly unexpected. It was not
+astonishment, but stupefaction, terror. The man who stood before him,
+the man whom the brutal force of events compelled him to look upon as
+Arsène Lupin, was—Valméras! Valméras, the owner of the Château de
+l’Aiguille! Valméras, the very man to whom he had applied for
+assistance against Arsène Lupin! Valméras, his companion on the
+expedition to Crozant! Valméras, the plucky friend who had made
+Raymonde’s escape possible by felling one of Lupin’s accomplices, or
+pretending to fell him, in the dusk of the great hall! And Valméras was
+Lupin!
+
+“You—you—So it’s you!” he stammered.
+
+“Why not?” exclaimed Lupin. “Did you think that you knew me for good
+and all because you had seen me in the guise of a clergyman or under
+the features of M. Massiban? Alas, when a man selects the position in
+society which I occupy, he must needs make use of his little social
+gifts! If Lupin were not able to change himself, at will, into a
+minister of the Church of England or a member of the Academy of
+Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, it would be a bad lookout for Lupin!
+Now Lupin, the real Lupin, is here before you, Beautrelet! Take a good
+look at him.”
+
+“But then—if it’s you—then—Mademoiselle—”
+
+“Yes, Beautrelet, as you say—”
+
+He again drew back the hanging, beckoned and announced:
+
+“Mme. Arsène Lupin.”
+
+“Ah,” murmured the lad, confounded in spite of everything, “Mlle. de
+Saint-Véran!”
+
+“No, no,” protested Lupin. “Mme. Arsène Lupin, or rather, if you
+prefer, Mme. Louis Valméras, my wedded wife, married to me in
+accordance with the strictest forms of law; and all thanks to you, my
+dear Beautrelet.”
+
+He held out his hand to him.
+
+“All my acknowledgements—and no ill will on your side, I trust?”
+
+Strange to say, Beautrelet felt no ill will at all, no sense of
+humiliation, no bitterness. He realized so strongly the immense
+superiority of his adversary that he did not blush at being beaten by
+him. He pressed the offered hand.
+
+“Luncheon is served, ma’am.”
+
+A butler had placed a tray of dishes on the table.
+
+“You must excuse us, Beautrelet: my chef is away and we can only give
+you a cold lunch.”
+
+Beautrelet felt very little inclined to eat. He sat down, however, and
+was enormously interested in Lupin’s attitude. How much exactly did he
+know? Was he aware of the danger he was running? Was he ignorant of the
+presence of Ganimard and his men?
+
+And Lupin continued:
+
+“Yes, thanks to you, my dear friend. Certainly, Raymonde and I loved
+each other from the first. Just so, my boy—Raymonde’s abduction, her
+imprisonment, were mere humbug: we loved each other. But neither she
+nor I, when we were free to love, would allow a casual bond at the
+mercy of chance, to be formed between us. The position, therefore, was
+hopeless for Lupin. Fortunately, it ceased to be so if I resumed my
+identity as the Louis Valméras that I had been from a child. It was
+then that I conceived the idea, as you refused to relinquish your quest
+and had found the Château de l’Aiguille, of profiting by your
+obstinacy.”
+
+“And my silliness.”
+
+“Pooh! Any one would have been caught as you were!”
+
+“So you were really able to succeed because I screened you and assisted
+you?”
+
+“Of course! How could any one suspect Valméras of being Lupin, when
+Valméras was Beautrelet’s friend and after Valméras had snatched from
+Lupin’s clutches the girl whom Lupin loved? And how charming it was!
+Such delightful memories! The expedition to Crozant! The bouquets we
+found! My pretended love letter to Raymonde! And, later, the
+precautions which I, Valméras, had to take against myself, Lupin,
+before my marriage! And the night of your great banquet, Beautrelet,
+when you fainted in my arms! Oh, what memories!”
+
+There was a pause. Beautrelet watched Raymonde. She had listened to
+Lupin without saying a word and looked at him with eyes in which he
+read love, passion and something else besides, something which the lad
+could not define, a sort of anxious embarrassment and a vague sadness.
+But Lupin turned his eyes upon her and she gave him an affectionate
+smile. Their hands met over the table.
+
+“What do you say to the way I have arranged my little home,
+Beautrelet?” cried Lupin. “There’s a style about it, isn’t there? I
+don’t pretend that it’s as comfortable as it might be. And yet, some
+have been quite satisfied with it; and not the least of mankind,
+either!—Look at the list of distinguished people who have owned the
+Needle in their time and who thought it an honor to leave a mark of
+their sojourn.”
+
+On the walls, one below the other, were carved the following names:
+
+JULIUS CÆSAR
+CHARLEMAGNE ROLLO
+WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
+RICHARD CŒUR-DE-LEON
+LOUIS XI.
+FRANCIS I.
+HENRY IV.
+LOUIS XIV.
+ARSÈNE LUPIN
+
+
+“Whose name will figure after ours?” he continued. “Alas, the list is
+closed! From Cæsar to Lupin—and there it ends. Soon the nameless mob
+will come to visit the strange citadel. And to think that, but for
+Lupin, all this would have remained for ever unknown to men! Ah
+Beautrelet, what a feeling of pride was mine on the day when I first
+set foot on this abandoned soil. To have found the lost secret and
+become its master, its sole master! To inherit such an inheritance! To
+live in the Needle, after all those kings!—”
+
+He was interrupted by a gesture of his wife’s. She seemed greatly
+agitated.
+
+“There is a noise,” she said. “Underneath us.—You can hear it.”
+
+“It’s the lapping of the water,” said Lupin.
+
+“No, indeed it’s not. I know the sound of the waves. This is something
+different.”
+
+“What would you have it be, darling?” said Lupin, smiling. “I invited
+no one to lunch except Beautrelet.” And, addressing the servant,
+“Charolais, did you lock the staircase doors behind the gentleman?”
+
+“Yes, sir, and fastened the bolts.”
+
+Lupin rose:
+
+“Come, Raymonde, don’t shake like that. Why, you’re quite pale!”
+
+He spoke a few words to her in an undertone, as also to the servant,
+drew back the curtain and sent them both out of the room.
+
+The noise below grew more distinct. It was a series of dull blows,
+repeated at intervals. Beautrelet thought:
+
+“Ganimard has lost patience and is breaking down the doors.”
+
+Lupin resumed the thread of his conversation, speaking very calmly and
+as though he had really not heard:
+
+“By Jove, the Needle was badly damaged when I succeeded in discovering
+it! One could see that no one had possessed the secret for more than a
+century, since Louis XVI. and the Revolution. The tunnel was
+threatening to fall in. The stairs were in a shocking state. The water
+was trickling in from the sea. I had to prop up and strengthen and
+rebuild the whole thing.”
+
+Beautrelet could not help asking:
+
+“When you arrived, was it empty?”
+
+“Very nearly. The kings did not use the Needle, as I have done, as a
+warehouse.”
+
+“As a place of refuge, then?”
+
+“Yes, no doubt, in times of invasion and during the civil wars. But its
+real destination was to be—how shall I put it?—the strong-room or the
+bank of the kings of France.”
+
+The sound of blows increased, more distinctly now. Ganimard must have
+broken down the first door and was attacking the second. There was a
+short silence and then more blows, nearer still. It was the third door.
+Two remained.
+
+Through one of the windows, Beautrelet saw a number of fishing-smacks
+sailing round the Needle and, not far away, floating on the waters like
+a great black fish, the torpedo-boat.
+
+“What a row!” exclaimed Lupin. “One can’t hear one’s self speak! Let’s
+go upstairs, shall we? It may interest you to look over the Needle.”
+
+They climbed to the floor above, which was protected, like the others,
+by a door which Lupin locked behind him.
+
+“My picture gallery,” he said.
+
+The walls were covered with canvases on which Beautrelet recognized the
+most famous signatures. There were Raphael’s _Madonna of the Agnus
+Dei_, Andrea del Sarto’s _Portrait of Lucrezia Fede_, Titian’s
+_Salome_, Botticelli’s _Madonna and Angels_ and numbers of Tintorettos,
+Carpaccios, Rembrandts, Velasquez.
+
+“What fine copies!” said Beautrelet, approvingly.
+
+Lupin looked at him with an air of stupefaction:
+
+“What! Copies! You must be mad! The copies are in Madrid, my dear
+fellow, in Florence, Venice, Munich, Amsterdam.”
+
+“Then these—”
+
+“Are the original pictures, my lad, patiently collected in all the
+museums of Europe, where I have replaced them, like an honest man, with
+first-rate copies.”
+
+“But some day or other—”
+
+“Some day or other, the fraud will be discovered? Well, they will find
+my signature on each canvas—at the back—and they will know that it was
+I who have endowed my country with the original masterpieces. After
+all, I have only done what Napoleon did in Italy.—Oh, look, Beautrelet:
+here are M. de Gesvres’s four Rubenses!—”
+
+The knocking continued within the hollow of the Needle without ceasing.
+
+“I can’t stand this!” said Lupin. “Let’s go higher.”
+
+A fresh staircase. A fresh door.
+
+“The tapestry-room,” Lupin announced.
+
+The tapestries were not hung on the walls, but rolled, tied up with
+cord, ticketed; and, in addition, there were parcels of old fabrics
+which Lupin unfolded: wonderful brocades, admirable velvets, soft,
+faded silks, church vestments woven with silver and gold—
+
+They went higher still and Beautrelet saw the room containing the
+clocks and other time-pieces, the book-room—oh, the splendid bindings,
+the precious, undiscoverable volumes, the unique copies stolen from the
+great public libraries—the lace-room, the knicknack-room.
+
+And each time the circumference of the room grew smaller.
+
+And each time, now, the sound of knocking was more distant. Ganimard
+was losing ground.
+
+“This is the last room,” said Lupin. “The treasury.”
+
+This one was quite different. It was round also, but very high and
+conical in shape. It occupied the top of the edifice and its floor must
+have been fifteen or twenty yards below the extreme point of the
+Needle.
+
+On the cliff side there was no window. But on the side of the sea,
+whence there were no indiscreet eyes to fear, two glazed openings
+admitted plenty of light.
+
+The ground was covered with a parqueted flooring of rare wood, forming
+concentric patterns. Against the walls stood glass cases and a few
+pictures.
+
+“The pearls of my collection,” said Lupin. “All that you have seen so
+far is for sale. Things come and things go. That’s business. But here,
+in this sanctuary, everything is sacred. There is nothing here but
+choice, essential pieces, the best of the best, priceless things. Look
+at these jewels, Beautrelet: Chaldean amulets, Egyptian necklaces,
+Celtic bracelets, Arab chains. Look at these statuettes, Beautrelet, at
+this Greek Venus, this Corinthian Apollo. Look at these Tanagras,
+Beautrelet: all the real Tanagras are here. Outside this glass case,
+there is not a single genuine Tanagra statuette in the whole wide
+world. What a delicious thing to be able to say!—Beautrelet, do you
+remember Thomas and his gang of church-pillagers in the South—agents of
+mine, by the way? Well, here is the Ambazac reliquary, the real one,
+Beautrelet! Do you remember the Louvre scandal, the tiara which was
+admitted to be false, invented and manufactured by a modern artist?
+Here is the tiara of Saitapharnes, the real one, Beautrelet! Look,
+Beautrelet, look with all your eyes: here is the marvel of marvels, the
+supreme masterpiece, the work of no mortal brain; here is Leonardo’s
+_Gioconda_, the real one! Kneel, Beautrelet, kneel; all womankind
+stands before you in this picture.”
+
+There was a long silence between them. Below, the sound of blows drew
+nearer. Two or three doors, no more, separated them from Ganimard. In
+the offing, they saw the black back of the torpedo-boat and the
+fishing-smacks cruising to and fro.
+
+The boy asked:
+
+“And the treasure?”
+
+“Ah, my little man, that’s what interests you most! None of those
+masterpieces of human art can compete with the contemplation of the
+treasure as a matter of curiosity, eh?—And the whole crowd will be like
+you!—Come, you shall be satisfied.”
+
+He stamped his foot, and, in so doing, made one of the discs composing
+the floor-pattern turn right over. Then, lifting it as though it were
+the lid of a box, he uncovered a sort of large round bowl, dug in the
+thickness of the rock. It was empty.
+
+A little farther, he went through the same performance. Another large
+bowl appeared. It was also empty.
+
+He did this three times over again. The three other bowls were empty.
+
+“Eh,” grinned Lupin. “What a disappointment! Under Louis XI., under
+Henry IV., under Richelieu, the five bowls were full. But think of
+Louis XIV., the folly of Versailles, the wars, the great disasters of
+the reign! And think of Louis XV., the spendthrift king, with his
+Pompadour and his Du Barry! How they must have drawn on the treasure in
+those days! With what thieving claws they must have scratched at the
+stone. You see, there’s nothing left.”
+
+He stopped.
+
+“Yes, Beautrelet, there is something—the sixth hiding-place! This one
+was intangible. Not one of them dared touch it. It was the very last
+resource, the nest-egg, the something put by for a rainy day. Look,
+Beautrelet!”
+
+He stooped and lifted up the lid. An iron box filled the bowl. Lupin
+took from his pocket a key with a complicated bit and wards and opened
+the box.
+
+A dazzling sight presented itself. Every sort of precious stone
+sparkled there, every color gleamed, the blue of the sapphires, the red
+of the rubies, the green of the emeralds, the yellow of the topazes.
+
+“Look, look, little Beautrelet! They have squandered all the cash, all
+the gold, all the silver, all the crown pieces and all the ducats and
+all the doubloons; but the chest with the jewels has remained intact.
+Look at the settings. They belong to every period, to every century, to
+every country. The dowries of the queens are here. Each brought her
+share: Margaret of Scotland and Charlotte of Savoy; duchesses of
+Austria: Éléonore, Elisabeth, Marie-Thérèse, Mary of England and
+Catherine de Médicis; and all the arch—Marie Antoinette. Look at those
+pearls, Beautrelet! And those diamonds: look at the size of the
+diamonds! Not one of them but is worthy of an empress! The Pitt Diamond
+is no finer!”
+
+He rose to his feet and held up his hand as one taking an oath:
+
+“Beautrelet, you shall tell the world that Lupin has not taken a single
+one of the stones that were in the royal chest, not a single one, I
+swear it on my honor! I had no right to. They are the fortune of
+France.”
+
+Below them, Ganimard was making all speed. It was easy to judge by the
+reverberation of the blows that his men were attacking the last door
+but one, the door that gave access to the knicknack-room.
+
+“Let us leave the chest open,” said Lupin, “and all the cavities, too,
+all those little empty graves.”
+
+He went round the room, examined some of the glass cases, gazed at some
+of the pictures and, as he walked, said, pensively:
+
+“How sad it is to leave all this! What a wrench! The happiest hours of
+my life have been spent here, alone, in the presence of these objects
+which I loved. And my eyes will never behold them again and my hands
+will never touch them again—”
+
+His drawn face bore such an expression of lassitude upon it that
+Beautrelet felt a vague sort of pity for him. Sorrow in that man must
+assume larger proportions than in another, even as joy did, or pride,
+or humiliation. He was now standing by the window, and, with his finger
+pointing to the horizon, said:
+
+“What is sadder still is that I must abandon that, all that! How
+beautiful it is! The boundless sea—the sky.—On either side, the cliffs
+of Étretat with their three natural archways: the Porte d’Armont, the
+Porte d’Aval, the Manneporte—so many triumphal arches for the master.
+And the master was I! I was the king of the story, the king of
+fairyland, the king of the Hollow Needle! A strange and supernatural
+kingdom! From Cæsar to Lupin: what a destiny!” He burst out laughing.
+“King of fairyland! Why not say King of Yvetot at once? What nonsense!
+King of the world, yes, that’s more like it! From this topmost point of
+the Needle, I ruled the globe! I held it in my claws like a prey! Lift
+the tiara of Saitapharnes, Beautrelet.—You see those two telephones?
+The one on the right communicates with Paris: a private line; the one
+on the left with London: a private line. Through London, I am in touch
+with America, Asia, Australia, South Africa. In all those continents, I
+have my offices, my agents, my jackals, my scouts! I drive an
+international trade. I hold the great market in art and antiquities,
+the world’s fair! Ah, Beautrelet, there are moments when my power turns
+my head! I feel intoxicated with strength and authority.”
+
+The door gave way below. They heard Ganimard and his men running about
+and searching.
+
+After a moment, Lupin continued, in a low voice:
+
+“And now it’s over. A little girl crossed my path, a girl with soft
+hair and wistful eyes and an honest, yes, an honest soul—and it’s over.
+I myself am demolishing the mighty edifice.—All the rest seems absurd
+and childish to me—nothing counts but her hair—and her wistful eyes—and
+her honest little soul—”
+
+The men came up the staircase. A blow shook the door, the last door—
+
+Lupin seized the boy sharply by the arm:
+
+“Do you understand, Beautrelet, why I let you have things your own way
+when I could have crushed you, time after time, weeks ago? Do you
+understand how you succeeded in getting as far as this? Do you
+understand that I had given each of my men his share of the plunder
+when you met them the other night on the cliff? You do understand,
+don’t you? The Hollow Needle is the great adventure. As long as it
+belongs to me, I remain the great adventurer. Once the Needle is
+recaptured, it means that the past and I are parted and that the future
+begins, a future of peace and happiness, in which I shall have no
+occasion to blush when Raymonde’s eyes are turned upon me, a future—”
+
+He turned furiously toward the door:
+
+“Stop that noise, Ganimard, will you? I haven’t finished my speech!”
+
+The blows came faster. It was like the sound of a beam that was being
+hurled against the door. Beautrelet, mad with curiosity, stood in front
+of Lupin and awaited events, without understanding what Lupin was doing
+or contemplating. To give up the Needle was all very well; but why was
+he giving up himself? What was his plan? Did he hope to escape from
+Ganimard? And, on the other hand, where was Raymonde?
+
+Lupin, meantime, was murmuring, dreamily:
+
+“An honest man.—Arsène Lupin an honest man—no more robbery—leading the
+life of everybody else.—And why not? There is no reason why I should
+not meet with the same success.—But do stop that now, Ganimard! Don’t
+you know, you ass, that I’m uttering historic words and that Beautrelet
+is taking them in for the benefit of posterity?” He laughed. “I am
+wasting my time. Ganimard will never grasp the use of my historic
+words.”
+
+He took a piece of red chalk, put a pair of steps to the wall and
+wrote, in large letters:
+
+Arsène Lupin gives and bequeaths to France all the treasures contained
+in the Hollow Needle, on the sole condition that these treasures be
+housed at the Musée du Louvre in rooms which shall be known as the
+Arsène Lupin Rooms.
+
+
+“Now,” he said, “my conscience is at ease. France and I are quits.”
+
+The attackers were striking with all their might. One of the panels
+burst in two. A hand was put through and fumbled for the lock.
+
+“Thunder!” said Lupin. “That idiot of a Ganimard is capable of
+effecting his purpose for once in his life.”
+
+He rushed to the lock and removed the key.
+
+“Sold, old chap!—The door’s tough.—I have plenty of time—Beautrelet, I
+must say good-bye. And thank you!—For really you could have complicated
+the attack—but you’re so tactful!”
+
+While speaking, he moved toward a large triptych by Van der Weyden,
+representing the Wise Men of the East. He shut the right-hand panel
+and, in so doing, exposed a little door concealed behind it and seized
+the handle.
+
+“Good luck to your hunting, Ganimard! And kind regards at home!”
+
+A pistol-shot resounded. Lupin jumped back: “Ah, you rascal, full in
+the heart! Have you been taking lessons? You’ve done for the Wise Man!
+Full in the heart! Smashed to smithereens, like a pipe at the fair!—”
+
+“Lupin, surrender!” roared Ganimard, with his eyes glittering and his
+revolver showing through the broken panel of the door. “Surrender, I
+say!”
+
+“Did the old guard surrender?”
+
+“If you stir a limb, I’ll blow your brains out!”
+
+“Nonsense! You can’t get me here!”
+
+As a matter of fact, Lupin had moved away; and, though Ganimard was
+able to fire straight in front of him through the breach in the door,
+he could not fire, still less take aim, on the side where Lupin stood.
+Lupin’s position was a terrible one for all that, because the outlet on
+which he was relying, the little door behind the triptych, opened right
+in front of Ganimard. To try to escape meant to expose himself to the
+detective’s fire; and there were five bullets left in the revolver.
+
+“By Jove,” he said, laughing, “there’s a slump in my shares this
+afternoon! You’ve done a nice thing. Lupin, old fellow: you wanted a
+last sensation and you’ve gone a bit too far. You shouldn’t have talked
+so much.”
+
+He flattened himself against the wall. A further portion of the panel
+had given way under the men’s pressure and Ganimard was less hampered
+in his movements. Three yards, no more, separated the two antagonists.
+But Lupin was protected by a glass case with a gilt-wood framework.
+
+“Why don’t you help, Beautrelet?” cried the old detective, gnashing his
+teeth with rage. “Why don’t you shoot him, instead of staring at him
+like that?”
+
+Isidore, in fact, had not budged, had remained, till that moment, an
+eager, but passive spectator. He would have liked to fling himself into
+the contest with all his strength and to bring down the prey which he
+held at his mercy. He was prevented by some inexplicable sentiment.
+
+But Ganimard’s appeal for assistance shook him. His hand closed on the
+butt of his revolver:
+
+“If I take part in it,” he thought, “Lupin is lost. And I have the
+right—it’s my duty.”
+
+Their eyes met. Lupin’s were calm, watchful, almost inquisitive, as
+though, in the awful danger that threatened him, he were interested
+only in the moral problem that held the young man in its clutches.
+Would Isidore decide to give the finishing stroke to the defeated
+enemy?
+
+The door cracked from top to bottom.
+
+“Help, Beautrelet, we’ve got him!” Ganimard bellowed.
+
+Isidore raised his revolver.
+
+What happened was so quick that he knew of it, so to speak, only by the
+result. He saw Lupin bob down and run along the wall, skimming the door
+right under the weapon which Ganimard was vainly brandishing; and he
+felt himself suddenly flung to the ground, picked up the next moment
+and lifted by an invincible force.
+
+Lupin held him in the air, like a living shield, behind which he hid
+himself.
+
+“Ten to one that I escape, Ganimard! Lupin, you see, has never quite
+exhausted his resources—”
+
+He had taken a couple of brisk steps backward to the triptych. Holding
+Beautrelet with one hand flat against his chest, with the other he
+cleared the passage and closed the little door behind them.
+
+A steep staircase appeared before their eyes.
+
+“Come along,” said Lupin, pushing Beautrelet before him. “The land
+forces are beaten—let us turn our attention to the French fleet.—After
+Waterloo, Trafalgar.—You’re having some fun for your money, eh, my
+lad?—Oh, how good: listen to them knocking at the triptych now!—It’s
+too late, my children.—But hurry along, Beautrelet!”
+
+The staircase, dug out in the wall of the Needle, dug in its very
+crust, turned round and round the pyramid, encircling it like the
+spiral of a tobogganslide. Each hurrying the other, they clattered down
+the treads, taking two or three at a bound. Here and there, a ray of
+light trickled through a fissure; and Beautrelet carried away the
+vision of the fishing-smacks hovering a few dozen fathoms off, and of
+the black torpedo-boat.
+
+They went down and down, Isidore in silence, Lupin still bubbling over
+with merriment:
+
+“I should like to know what Ganimard is doing? Is he tumbling down the
+other staircases to bar the entrance to the tunnel against me? No, he’s
+not such a fool as that. He must have left four men there—and four men
+are sufficient—” He stopped. “Listen—they’re shouting up above. That’s
+it, they’ve opened the window and are calling to their fleet.—Why,
+look, the men are busy on board the smacks—they’re exchanging
+signals.—The torpedo-boat is moving.—Dear old torpedo-boat! I know you,
+you’re from the Havre.—Guns’ crews to the guns!—Hullo, there’s the
+commander!—How are you, Duguay-Trouin?”
+
+He put his arm through a cleft and waved his handkerchief. Then he
+continued his way downstairs:
+
+“The enemy’s fleet have set all sail,” he said. “We shall be boarded
+before we know where we are. Heavens, what fun!”
+
+They heard the sound of voices below them. They were just then
+approaching the level of the sea and they emerged, almost at once, into
+a large cave into which two lanterns were moving about in the dark.
+
+A woman’s figure appeared and threw itself on Lupin’s neck:
+
+“Quick, quick, I was so nervous about you. What have you been
+doing?—But you’re not alone!—”
+
+Lupin reassured her:
+
+“It’s our friend Beautrelet.—Just think, Beautrelet had the tact—but
+I’ll talk about that later—there’s no time now.—Charolais are you
+there? That’s right!—And the boat?”
+
+“The boat’s ready, sir,” Charolais replied,
+
+“Fire away,” said Lupin.
+
+In a moment, the noise of a motor crackled and Beautrelet, whose eyes
+were gradually becoming used to the gloom, ended by perceiving that
+they were on a sort of quay, at the edge of the water, and that a boat
+was floating before them.
+
+“A motor boat,” said Lupin, completing Beautrelet’s observations. “This
+knocks you all of a heap, eh, Isidore, old chap?—You don’t
+understand.—Still, you have only to think.—As the water before your
+eyes is no other than the water of the sea, which filters into this
+excavation each high tide, the result is that I have a safe little
+private roadstead all to myself.”
+
+“But it’s closed,” Beautrelet protested. “No one can get in or out.”
+
+“Yes, I can,” said Lupin; “and I’m going to prove it to you.”
+
+He began by handing Raymonde in. Then he came back to fetch Beautrelet.
+The lad hesitated.
+
+“Are you afraid?” asked Lupin.
+
+“What of?”
+
+“Of being sunk by the torpedo-boat.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then you’re considering whether it’s not your duty to stay with
+Ganimard, law and order, society and morality, instead of going off
+with Lupin, shame, infamy and disgrace.”
+
+“Exactly.”
+
+“Unfortunately, my boy, you have no choice. For the moment, they must
+believe the two of us dead—and leave me the peace to which a
+prospective honest man is entitled. Later on, when I have given you
+your liberty, you can talk as much as you please—I shall have nothing
+more to fear.”
+
+By the way in which Lupin clutched his arm, Beautrelet felt that all
+resistance was useless. Besides, why resist? Had he not discovered and
+handed over the Hollow Needle? What did he care about the rest? Had he
+not the right to humor the irresistible sympathy with which, in spite
+of everything, this man inspired him?
+
+The feeling was so clear in him that he was half inclined to say to
+Lupin:
+
+“Look here, you’re running another, a more serious danger; Holmlock
+Shears is on your track.”
+
+“Come along!” said Lupin, before Isidore had made up his mind to speak.
+
+He obeyed and let Lupin lead him to the boat, the shape of which struck
+him as peculiar and its appearance quite unexpected.
+
+Once on deck, they went down a little steep staircase, or rather a
+ladder hooked on to a trap door, which closed above their heads. At the
+foot of the ladder, brightly lit by a lamp, was a very small saloon,
+where Raymonde was waiting for them and where the three had just room
+to sit down.
+
+Lupin took the mouthpiece of a speaking tube from a hook and gave the
+order:
+
+“Let her go, Charolais!”
+
+Isidore had the unpleasant sensation which one feels when going down in
+a lift: the sensation of the ground vanishing beneath you, the
+impression of emptiness, space. This time, it was the water retreating;
+and space opened out, slowly.
+
+“We’re sinking, eh?” grinned Lupin. “Don’t be afraid—we’ve only to pass
+from the upper cave where we were to another little cave, situated
+right at the bottom and half open to the sea, which can be entered at
+low tide. All the shellfish-catchers know it. Ah, ten seconds’ wait!
+We’re going through the passage and it’s very narrow, just the size of
+the submarine.”
+
+“But,” asked Beautrelet, “how is it that the fishermen who enter the
+lower cave don’t know that it’s open at the top and that it
+communicates with another from which a staircase starts and runs
+through the Needle? The facts are at the disposal of the first-comer.”
+
+“Wrong, Beautrelet! The top of the little public cave is closed, at low
+tide, by a movable platform, painted the color of the rock, which the
+sea, when it rises, shifts and carries up with it and, when it goes
+down, fastens firmly over the little cave. That is why I am able to
+pass at high tide. A clever notion, what? It’s an idea of my own. True,
+neither Cæsar nor Louis XIV., nor, in short, any of my distinguished
+predecessors could have had it, because they did not possess
+submarines. They were satisfied with the staircase, which then ran all
+the way down to the little bottom cave. I did away with the last treads
+of the staircase and invented the trick of the movable ceiling: it’s a
+present I’m making to France—Raymonde, my love, put out the lamp beside
+you—we shan’t want it now—on the contrary—”
+
+A pale light, which seemed to be of the same color as the water, met
+them as they left the cave and made its way into the cabin through the
+two portholes and through a thick glass skylight that projected above
+the planking of the deck and allowed the passengers to inspect the
+upper layers of the sea. And, suddenly, a shadow glided over their
+heads.
+
+“The attack is about to take place. The fleet is investing the Needle.
+But, hollow as the Needle is, I don’t see how they propose to enter
+it.”
+
+He took up the speaking tube:
+
+“Don’t leave the bottom, Charolais. Where are we going? Why, I told
+you: to Port-Lupin. And at full speed, do you hear? We want water to
+land by—there’s a lady with us.”
+
+They skimmed over the rocky bed. The seaweed stood up on end like a
+heavy, dark vegetation and the deep currents made it wave gracefully,
+stretching and billowing like floating hair.
+
+Another shadow, a longer one.
+
+“That’s the torpedo-boat,” said Lupin. “We shall hear the roar of the
+guns presently. What will Duguay-Trouin do? Bombard the Needle? Think
+of what we’re missing, Beautrelet, by not being present at the meeting
+of Duguay-Trouin and Ganimard! The juncture of the land and naval
+forces! Hi, Charolais, don’t go to sleep, my man!”
+
+They were moving very fast, for all that. The rocks had been succeeded
+by sand-fields and then, almost at once, they saw more rocks, which
+marked the eastern extremity of Étretat, the Porte d’Amont. Fish fled
+at their approach. One of them, bolder than the rest, fastened on to a
+porthole and looked at the occupants of the saloon with its great,
+fixed, staring eyes.
+
+“That’s better,” cried Lupin. “We’re going now. What do you think of my
+cockle-shell, Beautrelet? Not so bad, is she? Do you remember the story
+of the Seven of Hearts,[11] the wretched end of Lacombe, the engineer,
+and how, after punishing his murderers, I presented the State with his
+papers and his plans for the construction of a new submarine: one more
+gift to France? Well, among the plans, I kept those of a submersible
+motor boat and that is how you come to have the honor of sailing in my
+company.”
+
+[11] _The Exploits of Arsène Lupin_. By Maurice Leblanc. VI: _The Seven
+of Hearts_.
+
+
+He called to Charolais:
+
+“Take us up, Charolais—there’s no danger now—”
+
+They shot up to the surface and the glass skylight emerged above the
+water.
+
+They were a mile from the coast, out of sight, therefore, and
+Beautrelet was now able to realize more fully at what a headlong pace
+they were traveling. First Fécamp passed before them, then all the
+Norman seaside places: Saint-Pierre, the Petits—Dalles, Veulettes,
+Saint-Valery, Veules, Quiberville. Lupin kept on jesting and Isidore
+never wearied of watching and listening to him, amazed as he was at the
+man’s spirits, at his gaiety, his mischievous ways, his careless chaff,
+his delight in life.
+
+He also noticed Raymonde. The young woman sat silent, nestling up
+against the man she loved. She had taken his hands between her own and
+kept on raising her eyes to him; and Beautrelet constantly observed
+that her hands were twitching and that the wistful sadness of her eyes
+increased. And, each time, it was like a dumb and sorrowful reply to
+Lupin’s sallies. One would have thought that his frivolous words, his
+sarcastic outlook on life, caused her physical pain.
+
+“Hush!” she whispered. “It’s defying destiny to laugh—so many
+misfortunes can reach us still!”
+
+Opposite Dieppe, they had to dive lest they should be seen by the
+fishing-craft. And twenty minutes later, they shot at an angle toward
+the coast and the boat entered a little submarine harbor formed by a
+regular gap between the rocks, drew up beside a jetty and rose gently
+to the surface.
+
+Lupin announced:
+
+“Port-Lupin!”
+
+The spot, situated at sixteen miles from Dieppe and twelve from the
+Tréport and protected, moreover, by the two landslips of cliff, was
+absolutely deserted. A fine sand carpeted the rounded slope of the tiny
+beach.
+
+“Jump on shore, Beautrelet—Raymonde, give me your hand. You, Charolais,
+go back to the Needle, see what happens between Ganimard and
+Duguay-Trouin and come back and tell me at the end of the day. The
+thing interests me tremendously.”
+
+Beautrelet asked himself with a certain curiosity how they were going
+to get out of this hemmed-in creek which was called Port-Lupin, when,
+at the foot of the cliff, he saw the uprights of an iron ladder.
+
+“Isidore,” said Lupin, “if you knew your geography and your history,
+you would know that we are at the bottom of the gorge of Parfonval, in
+the parish of Biville. More than a century ago, on the night of the
+twenty-third of August, 1803, Georges Cadoudal and six accomplices, who
+had landed in France with the intention of kidnapping the first consul,
+Bonaparte, scrambled up to the top by the road which I will show you.
+Since then, this road has been demolished by landslips. But Louis
+Valméras, better known by the name of Arsène Lupin, had it restored at
+his own expense and bought the farm of the Neuvillette, where the
+conspirators spent the first night and where, retired from business and
+withdrawing from the affairs of this world, he means to lead the life
+of a respectable country squire with his wife and his mother by his
+side. The gentleman-burglar is dead! Long live the gentleman-farmer!”
+
+After the ladder came a sort of gully, an abrupt ravine hollowed out,
+apparently, by the rains, at the end of which they laid hold of a
+makeshift staircase furnished with a hand-rail. As Lupin explained,
+this hand-rail had been placed where it was in the stead of the
+_estamperche_, a long rope fastened to stakes, by which the people of
+the country, in the old days, used to help themselves down when going
+to the beach.
+
+After a painful climb of half an hour, they emerged on the tableland,
+not far from one of those little cabins, dug out of the soil itself,
+which serve as shelters for the excisemen. And, as it happened, two
+minutes later, at a turn in the path, one of these custom-house
+officials appeared.
+
+He drew himself up and saluted.
+
+Lupin asked:
+
+“Any news, Gomel?”
+
+“No, governor.”
+
+“You’ve met no one at all suspicious-looking?”
+
+“No, governor—only—”
+
+“What?”
+
+“My wife—who does dressmaking at the Neuvillette—”
+
+“Yes, I know—Césarine—my mother spoke of her. Well?”
+
+“It seems a sailor was prowling about the village this morning.”
+
+“What sort of face had he?”
+
+“Not a natural face—a sort of Englishman’s face.”
+
+“Ah!” said Lupin, in a tone preoccupied. “And you have given Césarine
+orders—”
+
+“To keep her eyes open. Yes, governor.”
+
+“Very well. Keep a lookout for Charolais’s return in two or three hours
+from now. If there’s anything, I shall be at the farm.”
+
+He walked on and said to Beautrelet:
+
+“This makes me uneasy—is it Shears? Ah, if it’s he, in his present
+state of exasperation, I have everything to fear!”
+
+He hesitated a moment: “I wonder if we hadn’t better turn back. Yes, I
+have a nasty presentiment of evil.”
+
+Gently undulating plains stretched before them as far as the eye could
+see. A little to the left, a series of handsome avenues of trees led to
+the farm of the Neuvillette, the buildings of which were now in view.
+It was the retreat which he had prepared, the haven of rest which he
+had promised Raymonde. Was he, for the sake of an absurd idea, to
+renounce happiness at the very moment when it seemed within his reach?
+
+He took Isidore by the arm and, calling his attention to Raymonde, who
+was walking in front of them:
+
+“Look at her. When she walks, her figure has a little swing at the
+waist which I cannot see without quivering. But everything in her gives
+me that thrill of emotion and love: her movements and her repose, her
+silence and the sound of her voice. I tell you, the mere fact that I am
+walking in the track of her footsteps makes me feel in the seventh
+heaven. Ah, Beautrelet, will she ever forget that I was once Lupin?
+Shall I ever be able to wipe out from her memory the past which she
+loathes and detests?” He mastered himself and, with obstinate
+assurance. “She will forget!” he declared. “She will forget, because I
+have made every sacrifice for her sake. I have sacrificed the
+inviolable sanctuary of the Hollow Needle, I have sacrificed my
+treasures, my power, my pride—I will sacrifice everything—I don’t want
+to be anything more—but just a man in love—and an honest man, because
+she can only love an honest man. After all, why should I not be honest?
+It is no more degrading than anything else!”
+
+The quip escaped him, so to speak, unawares. His voice remained serious
+and free of all chaff. And he muttered, with restrained violence:
+
+“Ah, Beautrelet, you see, of all the unbridled joys which I have tasted
+in my adventurous life, there is not one that equals the joy with which
+her look fills me when she is pleased with me. I feel quite weak then,
+and I should like to cry—” Was he crying? Beautrelet had an intuition
+that his eyes were wet with tears. Tears in Lupin’s eyes!—Tears of
+love!
+
+They were nearing an old gate that served as an entrance to the farm.
+Lupin stopped for a moment and stammered:
+
+“Why am I afraid?—I feel a sort of weight on my chest. Is the adventure
+of the Hollow Needle not over? Has destiny not accepted the issue which
+I selected?”
+
+Raymonde turned round, looking very anxious.
+
+“Here comes Césarine. She’s running.”
+
+The exciseman’s wife was hurrying from the farm as fast as she could.
+Lupin rushed up to her:
+
+“What is it? What has happened? Speak!”
+
+Choking, quite out of breath, Césarine stuttered:
+
+“A man—I saw a man this morning!
+
+“A man—I saw a man in the sitting-room.”
+
+“The Englishman of this morning?”
+
+“Yes—but in a different disguise.”
+
+“Did he see you?”
+
+“No. He saw your mother. Mme. Valméras caught him as he was just going
+away.”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“He told her that he was looking for Louis Valméras, that he was a
+friend of yours.”
+
+“Then?”
+
+“The madame said that her son had gone abroad—for years.”
+
+“And he went away?”
+
+“No, he made signs through the window that overlooks the plain—as if he
+were calling to some one.”
+
+Lupin seemed to hesitate. A loud cry tore the air. Raymonde moaned:
+
+“It’s your mother—I recognize—”
+
+He flung himself upon her and, dragging her away, in a burst of fierce
+passion:
+
+“Come—let us fly—you first.”
+
+But, suddenly, he stopped, distraught, overcome:
+
+“No, I can’t do it—it’s too awful. Forgive me—Raymonde—that poor woman
+down there—Stay here. Beautrelet, don’t leave her.”
+
+He darted along the slope that surrounds the farm, turned and followed
+it, at a run, till he came to the gate that opens on the plain.
+
+Raymonde, whom Beautrelet had been unable to hold back, arrived almost
+as soon as he did; and Beautrelet, hiding behind the trees, saw, in the
+lonely walk that led from the farm to the gate, three men, of whom one,
+the tallest, went ahead, while the two others were holding by the arms
+a woman who tried to resist and who uttered moans of pain.
+
+The daylight was beginning to fade. Nevertheless, Beautrelet recognized
+Holmlock Shears. The woman seemed of a certain age. Her livid features
+were set in a frame of white hair.
+
+They all four came up.
+
+They reached the gate. Shears opened one of the folding leaves.
+
+Then Lupin strode forward and stood in front of him.
+
+The encounter appeared all the more terrible inasmuch as it was silent,
+almost solemn.
+
+For long moments, the two enemies took each other’s measure with their
+eyes. An equal hatred distorted the features of both of them. Neither
+moved.
+
+Then Lupin spoke, in a voice of terrifying calmness:
+
+“Tell your men to leave that woman alone.”
+
+“No.”
+
+It was as though both of them feared to engage in the supreme struggle,
+as though both were collecting all their strength. And there were no
+words wasted this time, no insults, no bantering challenges. Silence, a
+deathlike silence.
+
+Mad with anguish, Raymonde awaited the issue of the duel. Beautrelet
+had caught her arms and was holding her motionless.
+
+After a second, Lupin repeated:
+
+“Order your men to leave that woman alone.”
+
+“No.”
+
+Lupin said:
+
+“Listen, Shears—”
+
+But he interrupted himself, realizing the silliness of the words. In
+the face of that colossus of pride and will-power which called itself
+Holmlock Shears, of what use were threats?
+
+Resolved upon the worst, suddenly he put his hand to his jacket pocket.
+The Englishman anticipated his movement and, leaping upon his prisoner,
+thrust the barrel of his revolver within two inches of her temple:
+
+“If you stir a limb, I fire!”
+
+At the same time his two satellites drew their weapons and aimed them
+at Lupin.
+
+Lupin drew himself up, stifled the rage within him and, coolly, with
+his hands in his pockets and his breast exposed to the enemy, began
+once more:
+
+“Shears, for the third time, let that woman be—”
+
+The Englishman sneered:
+
+“I have no right to touch her, I suppose? Come, come, enough of this
+humbug! Your name isn’t Valméras any more than it’s Lupin: you stole
+the name just as you stole the name of Charmerace. And the woman whom
+you pass off as your mother is Victoire, your old accomplice, the one
+who brought you up—”[12]
+
+[12] _Arsène Lupin_, play in four acts, by Maurice Leblanc and Francis
+de Croisset.
+
+
+Shears made a mistake. Carried away by his longing for revenge, he
+glanced across at Raymonde, whom these revelations filled with horror.
+Lupin took advantage of his imprudence. With a sudden movement, he
+fired.
+
+“Damnation!” bellowed Shears, whose arm, pierced by a bullet, fell to
+his side. And, addressing his men, “Shoot, you two! Shoot him down!”
+
+But already Lupin was upon them: and not two seconds had elapsed before
+the one on the right was sprawling on the ground, with his chest
+smashed, while the other, with his jaw broken, fell back against the
+gate.
+
+“Hurry up, Victoire. Tie them down. And now, Mr. Englishman, it’s you
+and I.”
+
+He ducked with an oath:
+
+“Ah, you scoundrel!”
+
+Shears had picked up his revolver with his left hand and was taking aim
+at him.
+
+A shot—a cry of distress—Raymonde had flung herself between the two
+men, facing the Englishman. She staggered back, brought her hand to her
+neck, drew herself up, spun round on her heels and fell at Lupin’s
+feet.
+
+“Raymonde!—Raymonde!”
+
+He threw himself upon her, took her in his arms and pressed her to him.
+
+“Dead—” he said.
+
+There was a moment of stupefaction. Shears seemed confounded by his own
+act. Victoire stammered:
+
+“My poor boy—my poor boy—”
+
+Beautrelet went up to the young woman and stooped to examine her. Lupin
+repeated:
+
+“Dead—dead—”
+
+He said it in a reflective tone, as though he did not yet understand.
+But his face became hollow, suddenly transformed, ravaged by grief. And
+then he was seized with a sort of madness, made senseless gestures,
+wrung his hands, stamped his feet, like a child that suffers more than
+it is able to bear.
+
+“You villain!” he cried, suddenly, in an access of hatred.
+
+And, flinging Shears back with a formidable blow, he took him by the
+throat and dug his twitching fingers into his flesh.
+
+The Englishman gasped, without even struggling.
+
+“My boy—my boy—” said Victoire, in a voice of entreaty.
+
+Beautrelet ran up. But Lupin had already let go and stood sobbing
+beside his enemy stretched upon the ground.
+
+O pitiful sight! Beautrelet never forgot its tragic horror, he who knew
+all Lupin’s love for Raymonde and all that the great adventurer had
+sacrificed of his own being to bring a smile to the face of his
+well-beloved.
+
+Night began to cover the field of battle with a shroud of darkness. The
+three Englishmen lay bound and gagged in the tall grass. Distant songs
+broke the vast silence of the plain. It was the farm-hands returning
+from their work.
+
+Lupin drew himself up. He listened to the monotonous voices. Then he
+glanced at the happy homestead of the Neuvillette, where he had hoped
+to live peacefully with Raymonde. Then he looked at her, the poor,
+loving victim, whom love had killed and who, all white, was sleeping
+her last, eternal sleep.
+
+The men were coming nearer, however.
+
+Then Lupin bent down, took the dead woman in his powerful arms, lifted
+the corpse with a single effort and, bent in two, stretched it across
+his back:
+
+“Let us go, Victoire.”
+
+“Let us go, dear.”
+
+“Good-bye, Beautrelet,” he said.
+
+And, bearing his precious and awful burden followed by his old servant,
+silent and fierce he turned toward the sea and plunged into the
+darkness of the night.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
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