5
An Abduction

Herlock Sholmes did not turn a hair. Should he protest? Or accuse these two men? It was useless. Unless there was some proof, of which he had none, and which he did not want to waste time looking for, no one would believe him.

Very tense, and with clenched fists, he was thinking only of how not to betray his rage and feeling of disappointment in front of a triumphant Ganimard. He said goodbye to those pillars of society, the Leroux brothers, and left.

In the hallway, he made a detour to a low door which was clearly the entrance to the cellar and picked up a small red-coloured stone. It was a garnet.

He went outside and, turning round, read this inscription, near the house number 40: Lucien Destange, architect, 1877.

And there was the same inscription at number 42.

“There’s always a double exit,” he thought. “Number 40 and number 42 are connected. Why didn’t I think of it? I should have stayed with the two officers last night.”

He spoke to these two men:

“Two men came out of that door while I was away, didn’t they?”

And he pointed to the door of the house next door.

“Yes, a gentleman and a lady.”

He took the arm of the chief inspector, leading him away:

“Monsieur Ganimard, you’ve had too good a laugh to regret the little inconvenience I caused you…”

“Oh, I don’t hold it against you at all.”

“Exactly. But the best jokes don’t last for ever, and I think that we should bring it to an end.”

“I share that view.”

“Here we are on the seventh day already. In three days’ time it is essential that I should be in London.”

“Oh I see.”

“And I will be there, Monsieur. I must ask you to keep yourself at the ready during the night of Tuesday to Wednesday.”

“For an expedition of the same kind?” asked Ganimard cheekily.

“Yes, Monsieur, of the same kind.”

“And which will end up with what?”

“With the capture of Lupin.”

“Do you think so?”

“I swear to you on my honour, Monsieur.”

Sholmes said goodbye and allowed himself to take a little rest in the nearest hotel, after which, cheered up and feeling self-confident, he returned to Rue Chalgrin, slipped two louis in the concierge’s hand, made sure that the Leroux brothers had left, learnt that the house belonged to a M. Harmingeat and, equipped with a candle, he went down into the cellar by the little door next to which he had picked up the garnet.

At the bottom of the stairs he found another of an identical shape.

“I was not mistaken,” he thought. “This is where the two properties are connected… Let me see, will my skeleton key open the vault reserved for the tenant on the ground floor? Yes, perfect… now let’s examine these wine racks… Ah, here are some spots where the dust has been removed… and on the ground there are some footprints…”

A faint noise made him prick up his ears. He quickly closed the door, put out the candle and hid himself behind a stack of empty crates. After a few seconds, he noticed that one of the iron racks was rocking gently, pulling away with it a whole piece of the wall to which it was attached. There was a gleam of light cast by a lantern. An arm appeared. And a man came in.

He was bent double like someone searching for something. He disturbed the dust with the ends of his fingers, and several times he got up and threw something into a cardboard box that he was holding in his left hand. Then he wiped out the traces of his footprints, as well as those prints left by Lupin and the Blonde Woman, and came towards the wine rack.

He uttered a husky cry and fell down. Sholmes had pounced on him. It was the matter of a moment, and carried out in the simplest way possible. The man found himself stretched out on the ground, his ankles bound and his wrists tied up.

The Englishman leant over him.

“How much do you want to make you speak? To say what you know?”

The man replied with such an ironic smile that Sholmes understood the pointlessness of his question.

He contented himself with exploring the pockets of his captive, but his investigations only produced a bunch of keys, a handkerchief and the small cardboard box which the person had been using, and which contained a dozen garnets identical to the ones that Sholmes had collected. These were meagre spoils!

What is more, what was he going to do with this man? Wait till his friends came to his aid and hand them all over to the police? What was the point? What advantage would he gain from this in his fight with Lupin?

He hesitated, when his examination of the box caused him to make up his mind. It bore the following address: “Léonard, jeweller, Rue de la Paix.”

He decided simply to abandon the man. He pushed the wine rack back, closed the cellar and left the house. From a post office he wired a message to M. Destange, that he could not come till the following day. Then he went off to the jeweller’s to return the garnets.

“Madame has sent me with these stones. They have become detached from a piece of jewellery which she bought here.”

Sholmes got it right. The shopkeeper replied:

“Yes indeed… The lady in question telephoned me. She will be coming by herself this afternoon.”

It was not till five o’clock that Sholmes, stationed on the pavement, caught sight of a woman wrapped up in a thick veil, the shape of which was suspicious. He could see her putting on the counter an antique piece of jewellery decorated with garnets.

She left again immediately, and went off on foot to do some shopping. She went up near Clichy and along some streets which the Englishman did not know. As night was falling, he followed her, without being noticed by the concierge, into a five-storey house that was split into two parts and therefore had countless tenants. He went as far as the second floor. Two minutes later the Englishman tried his luck, and very carefully tried, one after the other, the keys on the bunch which he had acquired. The fourth one opened the lock.

In the total darkness which filled them, he could make out some completely empty rooms, like those of an uninhabited apartment, with all the doors left open. But at the end of a corridor, the gleam of a lamp was coming through and, approaching on tiptoe, he could see, in the one-way mirror which separated the sitting room from the room next to it, the veiled woman, who was taking off her coat and hat, before putting them on the only seat in the room and wrapping herself in a velvet dressing gown.

He also saw her go towards the fireplace and push an electric button. Half of the panel which extended to the right of the fireplace moved sideways, slid along in the same plane as the surface of the wall and fitted into the thick part of the panel next to it.

As soon as the gap became large enough the woman went through… and disappeared, taking the lamp with her.

The system was quite simple, and Sholmes operated it.

He walked along in the darkness, feeling his way, but immediately his face came up against something soft. By the light of a match, he could see that he was in a tiny room cluttered up with dresses and other clothes hanging on racks. He made his way through and stopped in front of a doorway enclosed by a tapestry or at least by the reverse side of a tapestry. As his match had gone out, he could see some light which was coming through the loose and worn weave of the old material.

So he looked through.

The Blonde Woman was there, right in front of his eyes and within reach.

She extinguished her lamp and put on the electric light. For the first time Sholmes could see her face fully illuminated. He started. The woman that he had finally caught up with after so many detours and manoeuvres was none other than Clotilde Destange.

Clotilde Destange, the murderer of Baron d’Hautrec and the thief who had taken the blue diamond! Clotilde Destanges, the mysterious lady friend of Arsène Lupin! The Blonde Woman in fact!

“For God’s sake!” he thought. “What a stupid ass I am! Because Lupin’s friend is blonde and Clotilde is brunette, I didn’t dream of drawing a connection between the two women! As if the Blonde Woman could remain blonde after the murder of the baron and the theft of the diamond.

Sholmes looked at a part of the room, which was an elegant woman’s boudoir, decorated with light-coloured draperies and precious ornaments. A mahogany chaise longue was lying on a low step. Clotilde had sat down on it, and remained motionless with her head between her hands. And, after a few moments, he noticed that she was crying. Great tears ran down her pale cheeks, slipped towards her mouth and fell, drop after drop, onto her velvet bodice. Other tears followed them incessantly, as though arising from an inexhaustible spring. It was the saddest possible spectacle to see this dismal and resigned despair expressed by the slow rolling of those tears.

But then a door opened behind her. Arsène Lupin came in.

They looked at each other for a long time without uttering a word. Then he knelt down next to her, rested his head on her bosom and put his arms around her, and in the movement with which he embraced the young woman there was a profound tenderness and much pity. They did not move. A sweet silence united them, and the tears flowed less abundantly.

“I would very much like to make you happy!” he murmured.

“I am happy.”

“No you’re not. You’re crying… Your tears distress me, Clotilde.”

Despite everything, she let herself be taken in by his affectionate voice, and she listened, eager for hope and happiness. A smile softened her face, but it was a smile which still contained so much sadness! He begged her:

“Don’t be sad, Clotilde. You must not be; you don’t have the right to be.”

She displayed her slender and supple white hands to him, and said solemnly:

“As long as these hands remain my hands I shall be sad, Maxime.”

“But why?”

“They have killed.”

Maxime exclaimed:

“Be quiet! Don’t think of that… the past is dead; the past doesn’t matter.”

He kissed her long pale hands, and she looked at him with a brighter smile, as if each kiss were erasing a little the horrible memory.

“You must love me, Maxime. You must love me, because no other woman will love you as I do. I have done things to please you, and I am still doing them, not just because you order me to, but because it is what you secretly desire. I have carried out acts which all my instincts and conscience are appalled by, but I cannot resist… everything I do, I do mechanically, because it is useful to you and you want me to… and I am ready to do it again and for ever.”

He said with bitterness:

“Oh, Clotilde, why did I get you mixed up in my adventurous life? I ought to have remained the Maxime Bermond that you loved five years ago, and not let you get to know… the other man that I am.”

She said in a very low voice:

“I also love this other man, and I don’t regret anything.”

“Yes you do – you regret your past life, your life in the open.”

“I regret nothing when you are here,” she said passionately. “Nothing is wrong any more, nothing is a crime any more when my eyes see you. What does it matter if I am miserable far away from you, if I suffer, weep and feel horror at everything I do! Your love erases it all… I accept everything… But you must love me.”

“I don’t love you because I have to, Clotilde, but for the sole reason that I do love you.”

“Are you sure?” she asked trustingly.

“I am as sure of myself as I am sure of you. But my existence is violent and frantic, and I cannot always devote to you the time that I should wish.”

She immediately panicked.

“What is it? A new danger? Tell me quickly.”

“Oh, nothing more serious. And yet…”

“Yet what?”

“Well, he’s on our track.”

“Sholmes?”

“Yes. It was he who got Ganimard involved in this business at the Hungarian restaurant. It was he who this very night stationed two officers on the Rue Chalgrin. I have proof of this, because Ganimard searched the house this morning, and Sholmes accompanied him. And another thing…”

“Another thing?”

“Well, there is something else: one of our men is missing, Jeanniot.”

“The concierge?”

“Yes.”

“But I’m the one who sent him this morning to Rue Chalgrin, to pick up the garnets which had fallen from my pocket.”

“There’s no doubt that Sholmes walked into the trap.”

“None at all. The garnets have been taken back to the jeweller’s on Rue de la Paix.”

“So, what’s happened to him since?”

“Oh, Maxime, I’m afraid!”

“There’s nothing to be frightened of. But I admit that the situation is very serious. What does he know? Where is he hiding? His strength consists in keeping himself apart. Nothing can betray what he’s doing.”

“So what have you decided?”

“To be extremely cautious, Clotilde. A long time ago I made up my mind to change my place of abode and change it to that other place, in that impregnable refuge which you know about. Sholmes’s intervention has made it necessary to hurry things up. When a man like him is on your track, it has to be said that inevitably he will reach the end of that track. So I have prepared everything. The day after tomorrow, Wednesday, I’ll be moving house. It will be finished by midday. At two o’clock I myself will be able to leave the place, after having removed the last traces of evidence that we were living there. Until then…”

“Until then?”

“We must not see each other, and no one must see you, Clotilde. Don’t go out. I’m not afraid for myself, but I am afraid of everything when it concerns you.”

“It’s impossible that the Englishman could manage to get to me.”

“Everything is possible with him. I don’t trust him. Yesterday, when I was almost surprised by your father, I had come to search through the cabinet that contains the very old records of M. Destange. There was danger present. And it’s everywhere. I sense the enemy prowling in the shadows and getting nearer and nearer. I sense that he is watching us… that he is spreading his nets around us. It is one of those intuitions which never mislead me.”

“In that case,” she said, “leave, Maxime, and don’t think of my tears any more. I will be strong and I will wait till the danger is averted. Goodbye Maxime.”

She embraced him for a long time. And it was she who pushed him outside. Sholmes heard the sound of their voices going away.

Boldly, and highly excited by the same need to take action, in spite of everything, which had been stimulating him since the previous day, he went into an antechamber, at the far end of which there was a staircase. But just as he was going to go down, the sound of conversation came to him from the lower floor, and he thought it would be preferable to follow a corridor which curved round and led him to another staircase. At the bottom of this staircase he was surprised to see pieces of furniture, the shape and location of which he was already familiar with. There was a half-open door. He went into a large round room. It was M. Destange’s library.

“Perfect! Admirable!” he murmured. “Now I understand it all. Clotilde’s boudoir, that is to say that of the Blonde Woman, is connected to one of the apartments of the house next door, and the exit of the house next door is not onto the Place Malesherbes but onto the Rue Montchanin, as far as I can remember… Marvellous! And now I understand how Clotilde Destange can meet her beloved while maintaining her reputation as a person who never goes out. And I understand also how Arsène Lupin appeared suddenly near me, yesterday, in the gallery: there must be another connection between the apartment next door and this library…”

And concluded as follows:

“Another house that has been tampered with. And another case, no doubt, of the architect being Destange! It’s now a matter of taking advantage of my getting in here to confirm the contents of the cabinet… and to do some research on other things which have been tampered with.”

Sholmes went up into the gallery and hid himself behind the drapes on the handrail. He stayed there until late in the evening. A servant came to put out the electric lights. An hour later the Englishman operated the spring mechanism of his lamp and went towards the cabinet.

As he already knew, it contained very old papers on architecture, files, estimates and account books. On the second shelf there stood a set of registers, organized by date.

He took down in turn the volumes relating to recent years, and immediately studied the summary pages, and more especially items under the letter H. Finally, after discovering the name Harmingeat, accompanied by the number 63, he consulted page 63 and read there:

Hermingeat, 40 Rue Chalgrin.

There followed details of work carried out for this client with a view to installing a stove in his house. And in the margin there was this note:

See MB file.

“Ah! I know this MB file well,” he said to himself. “That’s the one I need. With that I shall be able to learn about the present home of M. Lupin.”

It was not until morning that he discovered, in the second half of a register, the special file in question.

It consisted of fifteen pages. One was a copy of the page devoted to M. Harmingeat on Rue Chalgrin. Another provided details of the work carried out for M. Vatinel, the owner of 25 Rue Clapeyron. And another was reserved for Baron d’Hautrec, at 134 Avenue Henri-Martin. There was also one for the Château de Crozon, and eleven others for various property owners in Paris.

Sholmes copied this list of eleven names and eleven addresses, and then he put things back in their places, opened a window and jumped down onto the deserted square, having taken care to push back the shutters.

In his hotel room he lit his pipe with the solemnity he usually devoted to this act, and, surrounded by clouds of smoke, he studied the conclusions that could be drawn from the MB file – or, in other words, the Maxime Bermond alias Arsène Lupin file.

At eight o’clock, he sent the following message to Ganimard by pneumatic post:

I shall probably be going this morning to Rue Pergolèse and shall entrust to you a person whose capture is of the highest importance. In any case, please stay at home tonight and tomorrow, Wednesday, until midday, and arrange to have thirty men at your disposal.

Then, on the boulevard, he selected a motorized cab whose driver pleased him with his nice, cheerful, but not very intelligent face, and had himself taken to place Malesherbes, about fifty feet away from the Destange mansion.

“My man, close your vehicle,” he said to the driver, “put up the collar of your fur coat and wait patiently. In an hour and a half, start your engine up. As soon as I’m back, set off for Rue Pergolèse.”

Just as he was crossing the threshold of the mansion, he had a final moment of hesitation. Wasn’t it wrong to be so concerned about the Blonde Woman while Lupin was finishing his preparations for his departure? And wouldn’t it be better, with the help of the list of buildings, to look first for the home of his opponent?

“Bah!” he said to himself. “When the Blonde Woman is my prisoner I’ll be in charge of the situation.”

And he rang the bell.

M. Destange was already in the library. They worked for a while and Sholmes was looking for an excuse to go up to Clotilde’s room, when the young woman came in, greeted her father and sat down in the small room and started to write.

From his seat, Sholmes could see her leaning on the table, and from time to time she sat meditating with her pen in the air and a pensive expression. He waited for a while, and then, taking a volume in his hand, said to M. Destange:

“This is the very book that Mlle Destange asked me to take to her as soon as I came upon it.”

He went into the little room and placed himself in front of Clotilde in such a way that her father could not see him, and he said:

“I am M. Stickmann, M. Destange’s new secretary.”

“Oh,” she said, without getting up. “So my father has changed his secretary?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle, and I would like to speak to you.”

“Please sit down, Monsieur. I have finished.”

She added a few words to her letter, signed it, sealed the envelope, pushed away her papers, pressed the button on a telephone, got her dressmaker on the line, asked her to hurry up and finish a travel coat which she needed urgently, and finally turned to Sholmes:

“I am at your disposal, Monsieur. But can’t our conversation take place in front of my father?”

“No, Mademoiselle, and I must beg you to not even raise your voice. It is preferable that M. Destange should not hear us at all.”

“For whose sake is it preferable?”

“For yours, Mademoiselle.”

“I can’t allow any conversation that my father cannot hear.”

“It is however very necessary that you allow this one.”

They both stood up, exchanging glances.

And she said:

“Speak, Monsieur.”

Still standing, he said as follows:

“You must excuse me if I am mistaken about certain secondary details. What I can guarantee is the general accuracy of what I shall reveal.”

“No empty words, please, just the facts.”

By this interruption, thrown in suddenly, he sensed that the young woman was on her guard. He continued:

“Very well, I shall come straight to the point. So, it was five years ago that your father happened to meet a certain M. Maxime Bermond, who introduced himself to him as a contractor… or architect – I can’t be more specific. The fact remains that M. Destange became fond of this young man, and as the state of his health no longer allowed him to attend to his business, he entrusted to M. Bermond the tasks of carrying out some of the orders he had accepted on behalf of some old clients, and which seemed to be suited to the skills of his collaborator.”

Sholmes stopped. It seems to him that the paleness of the young woman had become heightened. Yet it was with the greatest calm that she said:

“I don’t know the facts which you have imparted to me, Monsieur, and above all I do not know in what way they can be of interest to me.”

“In this respect, Mademoiselle, that the fact is that Maxime Bermond is, to call him by his right name – which you know as well as I do – Arsène Lupin.”

She burst out laughing.

“That’s not possible! Arsène Lupin? M. Maxime Bermond is really called Arsène Lupin?”

“As I have the honour of informing you, Mademoiselle, and since you refuse to understand what I’m telling you without my spelling it out, I will add that Arsène Lupin has found here, to accomplish his plans, a lady friend, in fact more than a friend, a blind accomplice and… passionately devoted to him.”

She stood up and, without showing any emotion, or at least with so little emotion that Sholmes was struck at such self-control, she said:

“I don’t know the point of your behaviour, Monsieur, and I don’t want to know it. I must ask you therefore not to add another word and to leave.”

“It was not my intention to impose my presence on you indefinitely,” replied Sholmes, as calm as she was. “Only I am determined not to leave this house alone.”

“And who will accompany you, Monsieur?”

“You!”

“Me?”

“Yes, Mademoiselle, we shall leave this house together, and you will follow me, without making any protest, without uttering a word.”

What was strange about this scene was the absolute calmness of the adversaries. Rather than it being an implacable duel between two powerful wills, one would have said, from their attitude and the tone of their voices, that it was a courteous debate between two people who do not share the same opinion.

In the rotunda, from the large open bay window, M. Destange could be seen handling his books with measured movements.

Clotilde sat down again, shrugging her shoulders lightly. Herlock pulled out his watch.

“It is half-past ten. In five minutes we shall leave.”

“Otherwise?”

“Otherwise, I shall go and find M. Destange, and I shall tell him…”

“What?”

“The truth. I shall tell him about the dishonest life of Maxime Bermond, and I shall tell him about the double life of his accomplice.”

“Of his accomplice?”

“Yes, of the person they call the Blonde Woman, or of the woman who used to be blonde.”

“And what proof will you supply him with?”

“I shall take him to Rue Chalgrin and show him the passage that Arsène Lupin, taking advantage of the work he was in charge of, had made by his men, between number 40 and number 42, the passage which you both used the night before last.”

“And then?”

“Then I shall take M. Destange to the apartment of Maître Detinan, and we shall go down the backstairs by which you descended with Arsène Lupin, to escape from Ganimard. And together we shall look for the connection, no doubt similar, with the house next door, the house whose exit opens onto the Boulevard des Batignolles and not onto the Rue Clapeyron.”

“And after that?”

“After that I shall take M. Destange to the Château de Crozon, and it will be easy for him, knowing the type of work carried out by Arsène Lupin at the time of the restoration of the chateau, to discover the secret passages which Arsène Lupin had made by his men. He will confirm that these passages allowed the Blonde Woman to get in during the night, into the countess’s room, and to take the blue diamond from the mantelpiece, and allowed her two weeks later to get into Consul Bleichen’s room and hide this blue diamond at the bottom of a small bottle… quite a strange action, I admit, some small feminine form of revenge perhaps. I don’t know, and it’s not important.”

“And then?”

“Then,” Herlock said in a more serious voice, “I shall take M. Destange to 134 Avenue Henri-Martin, and we shall try to find out how the Baron d’Hautrec—”

“Be quiet! Be quiet!” the young girl mumbled, suddenly terrified… I forbid you to!… So you dare say that it was me… you accuse me…”

“I accuse you of having killed Baron d’Hautrec.”

“No, no, it’s slanderous.”

“You did kill Baron d’Hautrec, Mademoiselle. You entered his employment under the name of Antoinette Bréhat, with the aim of stealing the blue diamond from him, and you killed him.”

Again she murmured, shattered and reduced to begging:

“Please be quiet, Monsieur, I beg you. Since you know so many things, then you must know that I did not murder the baron.”

“I did not say that you murdered him, Mademoiselle. The Baron d’Hautrec was subject to bouts of madness that only Sister Auguste was able to bring under control. I learnt these details directly from her. In this person’s absence he must have pounced on you, and it was in the course of this struggle, to protect your own life, that you struck him. Horrified at such an act, you rang the bell and you ran away without even pulling from the finger of your victim the blue diamond which you had come to take. A moment later you brought back one of Lupin’s accomplices, a servant in the house next door, and together you carried the baron to his bed. Then you tidied up the room again… but still without daring to take the blue diamond. That’s what happened. So, I repeat, you did not murder the baron. But it was your hands which struck him.”

She had put her long slender hands together over her forehead, and she kept them there for a long time, motionless. At last, unfolding her fingers, she uncovered her sorrowful face and said:

“And you intend to tell all this to my father?”

“Yes, and I shall tell him that my witnesses will be Mlle Gerbois, who will be able to recognize the Blonde Woman; Sister Auguste, who will recognize Antoinette Bréhat; and the Countess de Crozon, who will recognize Mme de Réal. That is what I shall tell him.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” she said, recovering her composure when faced with the threat of immediate danger.

He got up and stepped towards the library. Clotilde stopped him:

“One moment, Monsieur.”

She thought for a moment, having regained her self-control again, and, very calmly, she asked him:

“You are Herlock Sholmes, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want from me?”

“What I want? I have undertaken a duel with Arsène Lupin, from which I must emerge as victor. In expectation of an outcome which should occur without delay, I estimate that a hostage as valuable as you will give me a considerable advantage over my opponent. So, you will follow me, Mademoiselle, and I shall entrust you to one of my friends. As soon as I have achieved my goal, you will be free.”

“And that is all?”

“That is all. I do not belong to the police force of your country, and consequently I do not feel I have any right… to dispense justice.”

She seemed to be determined. But she required a moment of respite. She closed her eyes and Sholmes looked at her: she had suddenly become calm, almost indifferent to the dangers surrounding her.

“And yet,” thought the Englishman, “does she still believe herself to be in danger? No, because Lupin is protecting her. With the help of Lupin nothing can touch you. Lupin is omnipotent, Lupin is infallible.”

“Mademoiselle,” he said. “I spoke of five minutes, but now more than thirty have passed.”

“Will you allow me to go to my room, Monsieur, and pack my things?”

“If you wish, Mademoiselle. I shall go and wait for you on Rue Montchanin. I am a good friend of the concierge, Jeanniot.”

“Oh, then you know…” she said in obvious dread.

“I know many things.”

“Very well. Then I’ll ring.”

Her hat and coat were brought for her, and Sholmes said to her:

“You must give M. Destange a reason which explains our departure, and this reason must necessarily explain your absence for several days.”

“There’s no point. I shall be here again this afternoon.”

Again they stared defiantly at each other, both of them smiling and ironic.

“How sure you are of him!” said Sholmes.

“Blindly.”

“Everything he does is good, isn’t it? Everything that he wants comes true. And you approve of it all and are ready to do everything for him.”

“I love him,” she said, trembling with passion.

“And you believe that he will save you?”

She shrugged her shoulders and, moving towards her father, she said to him:

“I’m taking you with me, Monsieur Stickmann. We’re going to the Bibliothèque Nationale.”

“Will you be back for dinner?”

“Perhaps… or rather no… but don’t worry about it.”

And she said firmly to Sholmes:

“I shall follow you, Monsieur.”

“Without reservation?”

“With my eyes closed.”

“If you try to escape, I shall call out, shout, and you will be arrested, and that will mean prison. Do not forget that there is a warrant out for the Blonde Woman.”

“I swear to you that I shall make no attempt to escape.”

“I believe you, so let’s go.”

Together, as he said they would, they left the house.

In the square the car was parked, but facing in the opposite direction. They could see the driver’s back and his cap, which almost covered the collar of his coat. As they approached, Sholmes could hear the purring of the engine. He opened the door, asked Clotilde to get in and then sat down beside her.

The vehicle abruptly drove off, reached the outer boulevards, the Avenue Hoche and the Avenue de la Grande-Armée.

Deep in thought, Herlock worked out his plans.

“Ganimard is at his home. I’ll leave the young woman in his hands… Shall I tell him who this young woman is? No, he will take her straight to the police cells, which will spoil everything. Once alone I shall consult the MB file, and the chase is on! And tonight, or tomorrow morning at the latest, I’ll go and find Ganimard as agreed, and I’ll hand over Arsène Lupin and his gang…”

He rubbed his hands, happy to feel at last his goal within his reach and to perceive that there was no serious obstacle separating him from it. And yielding to a need to be more expansive, which contrasted with his usual nature, he exclaimed:

“Please excuse me, Mademoiselle, if I display so much satisfaction. The battle was hard, and success is especially enjoyable for me.”

“Justifiable success, Monsieur, and which you have a right to delight in.”

“Thank you. But what an odd route we are taking! Didn’t the driver understand?”

At that moment they were leaving Paris via the Porte de Neuilly. What the devil! But the Rue Pergolèse wasn’t outside the city limits!

Sholmes lowered the glass pane.

“Hey, driver, you’ve made a mistake… Rue Pergolèse!…”

The man did not reply. And he repeated in a raised voice:

“I told you to go to Rue Pergolèse.”

The man still did not reply.

“Oh, you must be deaf, my friend. Or you’re just ill-willed… We’ve no reason to come to this area… Rue Pergolèse! I order you to turn back, and as quickly as you can.”

Still the same silence. The Englishman trembled with anxiety. He looked at Clotilde: an indefinable smile was creasing the young woman’s lips.

“Why are you smiling?…” he grumbled. “This incident has nothing to do with… it doesn’t change anything.”

“Absolutely nothing,” she replied.

Suddenly an idea struck him. Raising himself up halfway, he examined more carefully the man who was in the driving seat. His shoulders were slimmer, his posture more casual… A cold sweat ran over him, he clenched his hands, as the dreadful conviction formed clearly in his mind: this man was Arsène Lupin.

“Well now, Mr Sholmes, how do you like our little excursion?”

“Delightful, my dear Monsieur, truly delightful,” retorted Sholmes.

It had perhaps never been necessary for him to force himself to make such a tremendous effort to utter his words without his voice trembling, without any sign of the eruption in his whole being. But immediately, in a sort of enormous reaction, a flood of anger and hatred breached the dykes, overcame his will, and with a sudden movement he drew out his revolver and turned it on Mlle Destange.

“Stop, at this very minute, this second, or I’ll fire at the young lady.”

“I recommend you to aim at the cheek if you want to hit the temple,” replied Lupin without turning his head.

Clotilde said:

“Maxime, don’t go too fast, the cobblestones are slippery, and I am very scared.”

She was still smiling, with her eyes fixed on the cobblestones, with which the road bristled in front of the car.

“Make him stop! Make him stop!” Sholmes said to her, mad with rage. “You can see that I am capable of doing anything!”

The barrel of the revolver brushed against the curls of her hair.

She murmured:

“Maxime is so careless! At this rate we are sure to skid.”

Sholmes put the weapon back in his pocket and seized the handle of the door, ready to jump out, despite the absurdity of such an act.

Clotilde said to him:

“Be careful, sir, there’s a car behind us.”

He turned round. There was indeed a car following them, a huge one, with a fierce appearance and a high bonnet, and blood-red in colour, with four men in leather jackets riding in it.

“Well, I’m being guarded. We must wait.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, with that over-proud submission of those who give in and wait for fate to turn against them. And while they were crossing the Seine, and were roaring through Suresnes, Rueil and Chatou, he sat motionless, resigned, in control of his anger and without bitterness. His only thought was to find out by what miracle Arsène Lupin had replaced the driver. He could not admit that the good fellow whom he had chosen that morning on the boulevard was an accomplice placed there in advance. Yet it must be that Arsène Lupin had been told beforehand, and he could not have been told until after that moment when he, Sholmes, had threatened Clotilde, since no one could have any suspicion about his plan beforehand. Well, since that moment Clotilde and he had not been parted from each other at all.

A memory struck him: the telephone connection which the young woman asked for, the conversation with her dressmaker. And suddenly he understood. Even before he had spoken to her, just by announcing that he wanted to discuss something with her as M. Destange’s new secretary, she had sensed the danger, guessed the name and aim of the visitor and, coldly and quite naturally, as though she was in reality carrying out the action which she seemed to be doing, she had called Lupin and asked for his help, with the pretence of his being a supplier, and using some expressions agreed on between them.

How Arsène Lupin had come, how this parked car, with its motor throbbing, had seemed suspicious to him and how he had bribed the driver, all that was unimportant. What fascinated Sholmes so much that it calmed his rage was the recollection of that moment, when an ordinary woman, a woman in love it is true, suppressing her nerves, overcoming her instincts, keeping her facial features completely still and even subduing the expression in her eyes, had pulled the wool over the eyes of old Herlock Sholmes.

What can one do against a man helped by such assistants, and who, by the sole influence of his authority, could instill in a woman such reserves of boldness and energy?

They crossed the Seine and went up the hill of Saint-Germain, but at five hundred metres beyond this town the cab slowed down. The other car drew level with it and both of them stopped. There was nobody else around.

“Mr Sholmes,” said Lupin, “please be so kind as to change vehicles. Ours is really so slow!”

“Of course!” exclaimed Sholmes, all the more obliging, as he did not have any choice.

“Please permit me also to lend you this fur coat, for we shall be going quite fast, and to offer you these two sandwiches… Yes, yes, please accept them. Who knows when you will have dinner!”

The four men had alighted. One of them came towards them, and when they removed the goggles which were masking them, Sholmes recognized the gentleman in the frock coat at the Hungarian restaurant. Lupin said to him:

“You will take this cab back to the driver from whom I hired it. He is waiting in the first wine bar on the right on the Rue Legendre. You will pay him the second instalment of a thousand francs that I promised him. Oh, I forgot, please give your goggles to Mr Sholmes.”

He discussed something with Mlle Destange, and then he settled down at the steering wheel and drove off, with Sholmes at their side, and one of his men behind him.

Lupin had not been exaggerating when he said they would be going “quite fast”. From the start they went at breathtaking speed. The horizon came to meet them, as though attracted by a mysterious force, and it disappeared at once, as though absorbed by an abyss to which other things also immediately rushed, trees, houses, plains and forests, with the tempestuous haste of a torrent sensing the approach of a chasm.

Sholmes and Lupin did not exchange a word. Above their heads the leaves of the poplar trees made a huge noise like waves, made rhythmic by the regular spacing of the trees. And the towns just faded away: Mantes, Vernon, Gaillon. From one hill to the next, from Bon-Secours to Canteleu, and Rouen, its suburbs, its port and its many kilometres of quays. Rouen seemed to be nothing but a street in a small town. And then came Duclair, Caudebec, the Pays de Caux, touching lightly its rolling plains in their powerful flight, and Lillebonne and Quillebeuf. And then suddenly they found themselves on the banks of the Seine, at the end of a small quay, along which there was lying a plain yacht with sturdy lines, the funnel of which was sending out curls of black smoke.

The car stopped. In two hours they had covered more than forty leagues.

A man came towards them wearing a blue uniform jacket and a cap trimmed with gold braid. He saluted them.

“Perfect, Captain!” exclaimed Lupin. “You received my telegram?”

“I received it.”

“And is the Hirondelle ready?”

“The Hirondelle is ready.”

“In that case, Mr Sholmes?…”

The Englishman looked around him, and saw a group of people on the terrace of a café, and another nearer at hand. He hesitated for a moment, and then, understanding that, before anyone could intervene, he would be grabbed, taken on board and put into the bottom of the hold, he went across the gangway and followed Lupin into the captain’s cabin.

It was huge, meticulously clean and very bright with all its varnished panelling and the sparkling of all its brass.

Lupin closed the door again and, without any preamble, almost brutally, he said to Sholmes:

“What exactly do you know?”

“Everything.”

“Everything? Be more specific.”

In the intonation of his voice there was no longer that slightly ironical politeness that he affected towards the Englishman. It was the imperious accent of the master who is in the habit of giving orders and having everyone yield to him, even if that person is Herlock Sholmes.

They looked at each other, weighing each other up. Now they were enemies, declared and trembling enemies. A little agitated, Lupin continued:

“Several times, sir, I have encountered you crossing my path. That’s one time too many, and I’m fed up with wasting my time avoiding the traps that you have set for me. I warn you therefore that my behaviour towards you will depend on your response. What exactly do you know?”

“Everything, Monsieur, I tell you again.”

Arsène Lupin controlled himself and said in a clipped voice:

“I am going to tell you what it is that you know. You know that, under the name of Maxime Bermond, I… made alterations to fifteen houses constructed by M. Destange.”

“Yes.”

“And of these fifteen houses you know four of them.”

“Yes.”

“And you have the list of the eleven others.”

“Yes.”

“You made this list at Monsieur Destange’s house last night, no doubt.”

“Yes.”

“And as you assume that, among these eleven buildings, there is inevitably one which I have kept for my own use, for my needs and those of my friends, you have entrusted Ganimard with the task of joining battle and of discovering my retreat.”

“No.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’m acting alone, and that I was going to join battle by myself.”

“So, I have nothing to fear, since you are in my hands.”

“You have nothing to fear as long as I’m in your hands.”

“That means that you won’t be staying there?”

“No.”

Arsène Lupin moved towards the Englishman again and, putting one hand very gently on his shoulder, he said:

“Listen to me, sir: I am not in the mood for discussion, and you are not, unhappily for you, in a situation to thwart me. So, let’s get it over with.”

“Let’s get it over with.”

“You must give me your word of honour that you will not try to escape from this boat before you are in English territorial waters.”

“I give you my word of honour that I shall try to escape by all means possible,” replied Sholmes, indomitably.

“But, damn it, you know, however, that I only have to say the word to render you powerless. All these men obey me blindly. On a sign from me they will put a chain round your neck—”

“Chains break.”

“—and throw you overboard ten miles away from either coast.”

“I can swim.”

“A good answer,” exclaimed Lupin, laughing. “God forgive me, I was angry. Excuse me, Maestro… Let’s settle this. Do you accept the fact that I should take all necessary measures to ensure my security and that of my friends?”

“All necessary measures. But they are useless.”

“All right. But you don’t hold it against me for having taken them?”

“You are obliged to.”

“Then let’s go.”

Lupin opened the door and called the captain and two sailors. These seized the Englishman and, after having searched him, they tied up his legs and attached him to the captain’s bunk.

“Enough!” ordered Lupin. “To tell the truth, it is due to your obstinacy, sir, and the exceptional seriousness of the circumstances, that I dare to allow myself to…”

The sailors withdrew and Lupin said to the captain:

“Captain, a crew member will stay here at Mr Sholmes’s disposal, and you yourself will keep him company as much as possible. You should show him every respect. He is not a prisoner, but a guest. What time is it by your watch, Captain?”

“Five past two.”

Lupin checked his watch, and then a clock attached to the bulkhead in the cabin.

“Five past two… we agree. How long do you need to get to Southampton?”

“Nine hours, without hurrying.”

“Make it eleven. You must not reach land before the departure of the ship which leaves Southampton at midnight and arrives at Le Havre at eight o’clock in the morning. You understand, don’t you, Captain? I repeat: as it would be extremely dangerous for us all if the gentleman should return to France by that boat, you must not arrive at Southampton before one o’clock in the morning.”

“Understood.”

“Goodbye then, Maestro. Till next year, in this world or the next.”

“Till tomorrow.”

A few minutes later, Sholmes heard the car drive off, and suddenly, deep inside the Hirondelle, the steam puffed more violently. The boat moved off.

By getting on for three o’clock they had crossed the estuary of the Seine and were going out into the open sea. At that moment, stretched out on the bunk to which he was bound, Herlock Sholmes was sleeping deeply.

The following morning, on the tenth and last day of the battle undertaken by the two great rivals, L’Écho de France published this exquisite brief article:

Yesterday a deportation order was served by Arsène Lupin to Herlock Sholmes, the English detective. Served at midday, the order was carried out the same day. At one o’clock in the morning Sholmes disembarked at Southampton.