2
You see, my old friend,” said Sholmes to Wilson, brandishing the letter by pneumatic post from Arsène Lupin, “what infuriates me about this affair is constantly feeling the eyes of that damned gentleman on me. None of my most secret thoughts escape him. I behave like an actor whose every move is controlled by strict stage directions, who goes where and who says what, because a superior will want it that way. Do you understand, Wilson?”
Wilson would certainly have understood if he had not been in the profound sleep of a man whose temperature fluctuated between forty and forty-one degrees. But whether he heard it or not was of no importance to Sholmes, who continued:
“I have to call upon all my energy and implement all my resources, so as not to become disheartened. It’s fortunate that with me, these teasing little things are just so many pinpricks that stimulate me. Once the burning sensation of the sting has been eased, and the wound to my pride has been healed, I always manage to say: ‘Have fun, my good fellow. At some point you will give yourself away.’ For finally, Wilson, wasn’t it Lupin who, by his first telegram to me and by the thought which it suggested to little Henriette, wasn’t it he who provided me with the secret of his correspondence with Alice Demun? You forget that detail, old friend.”
He wandered up and down the room, his footsteps resounding, running the risk that he would wake up his old friend.
“In the end, things aren’t going too badly, and if the paths I’m following are a little obscure, I am beginning to find my way again. First of all, I’m going to find out for certain about Monsieur Bresson. Ganimard and I are going to meet on the banks of the Seine, at the spot where Bresson threw in his package, and that gentleman’s role will become clear to us. As for the rest, it’s a game that has to be played between Alice Demun and me. My opponent is of slim stature, eh Wilson? And don’t you think that I’ll soon understand the phrase in the album and know the meaning of the two isolated letters, that C and that H? For it all depends on that, Wilson.”
At that very moment Mademoiselle came in and, noticing that Sholmes was waving his arms about, said to him quietly:
“Mr Sholmes, I shall have to tell you off if you wake my patient. It’s not nice of you to disturb him. The doctor orders utter peace and quiet.”
He looked at her without saying a word, surprised, as on the first day, by her inexplicable calmness.
“Why are you looking at me, Mr Sholmes? No reason? I think there is… you seem to have some ulterior motive… What is it? Please answer me.”
She asked him with her bright, open face and artless eyes, with her smiling mouth and with her whole manner too, her hands folded together, and her bust leaning gently forward. There was so much candour in her that it made the Englishman feel angry. He went up to her and said in low voice.
“Bresson killed himself yesterday evening.”
She repeated it without seeming to understand:
“Bresson killed himself yesterday…”
And really the expression on her face showed no signs of tenseness. There was nothing to reveal the effort of having to lie.
“You were warned,” he said to her, irritated, “otherwise you would have at least winced… Oh, you’re stronger than I thought… But why do you pretend?”
He seized the illustrated album that he had just put on a nearby table and, opening it at the page which had been cut up, he said:
“Could you tell me in what order one should arrange the letters which are missing here, so that one can understand the exact import of the note which you sent to Bresson four days before the theft of the Jewish lamp?”
“In what order?… Bresson?… the theft of the Jewish lamp?”
She repeated the words slowly, to work out their meaning.
He insisted.
“Yes. Here are the letters used… on this piece of paper. What did you say to Bresson?”
“The letters used… what I said…”
Suddenly she burst out laughing:
“So that’s it! I understand! I am an accomplice to the theft! There’s a Monsieur Bresson who took the lamp and who killed himself. And I’m the friend of this gentleman. Oh, how funny!”
“So, who did you go to see yesterday evening on the second floor of a house in the Avenue des Ternes?”
“Who? Why it was my milliner, Mademoiselle Langeais. Are my milliner and my friend Monsieur Bresson supposed to be one and the same person?”
Despite everything, Sholmes was suspicious. To put someone off the track, one can feign terror, delight, anxiety, all possible feelings, but not in any way indifference, not happy and carefree laughter.
But he said one more thing to her:
“One last word: yesterday evening, at the Gare du Nord, why did you approach me? And why did you beg me to leave again at once without concerning myself about the theft?”
“Oh, you’re too inquisitive, Mr Sholmes,” she replied, still laughing in the most natural way. To punish you, you shall learn nothing, and in addition you must look after the patient while I go to the chemist’s… I have an urgent prescription… I must hurry.”
She went out.
“I’ve been conned,” murmured Sholmes, “not only have I got nothing out of her, but it is I who have exposed myself.”
And he remembered the case of the blue diamond and the questioning that he made Clotilde Destange endure. Wasn’t it the same kind of calmness that the Blonde Woman had confronted him with, and wasn’t he finding himself face to face again with one of those creatures who, directly affected by his influence, remained astonishingly calm even when they feared danger.
“Sholmes… Sholmes…”
He went over to Wilson, who was calling him and leant towards him.
“What is it, old friend? Does it hurt?”
Wilson moved his lips without being able to speak. Finally after great effort, he stammered:
“No… Sholmes… it’s not her… it can’t possibly be her.”
“What are you talking about? I tell you that it’s her! It’s only when I’m confronted by one of Lupin’s creatures, trained and served up by him, that I lose my head and act so stupidly. She knows all about the album. I bet that in less than an hour Lupin will be informed. In less than an hour? What am I saying? Straight away! The chemist’s and the urgent prescription! It’s all a trick!”
He slipped away quickly, went down the Avenue de Messine and caught sight of Mademoiselle going into a chemist’s. She reappeared ten minutes later, with some small flasks and a bottle wrapped in white paper. But, when she was coming back up the avenue, she was accosted by a man who was following her, with his cap in his hand and an obsequious manner, as if he was asking for charity.
She stopped and gave him some money and then went on her way.
“She spoke to him,” the Englishman said to himself.
Rather than a certainty, it was an intuition that he felt, but strong enough to make him change his tactics. Leaving the young woman, he set off on the track of the false beggar.
Thus they arrived, one behind the other, at the place Saint-Ferdinand, and the man wandered for a long time around Bresson’s house, raising his eyes to the second floor from time to time, and watching the people who were going into the house.
After an hour he went up onto the upper deck of a tram going towards Neuilly. Sholmes followed him up and sat behind him, a little farther back, and beside a gentleman who was concealed by the open pages of a newspaper. When they reached the fortifications the newspaper was lowered, and Sholmes saw that it was Ganimard, and, pointing to the other person, Ganimard said, close to his ear:
“That’s our man from last night, the one who was following Bresson. He’s been roaming around the square for an hour.”
“Nothing new concerning Bresson?” asked Sholmes.
“Yes, a letter arrived at his address this morning.”
“This morning? Then it was posted yesterday, before the sender could know about Bresson’s death.”
“Exactly. It’s in the examining magistrate’s hands. But I remember what it said: ‘He won’t accept any deal. He wants everything, the first object as well as those associated with the second case. Otherwise he will take action.’” And Ganimard added: “There’s no signature. As you can see, these few lines will hardly help us.”
“I don’t share your opinion at all, Monsieur Ganimard. On the contrary, those few lines seem to me to be extremely interesting.”
“And why, for Heaven’s sake?”
“For reasons which are quite personal to me,” replied Sholmes, with the lack of consideration which he usually adopted towards his colleague.
The tram stopped on the Rue du Château, its last stop. The other man got off and went away calmly.
Sholmes followed him so closely that Ganimard became alarmed:
“If he turns round, we’re done for.”
“He won’t turn round now.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s an accomplice of Arsène Lupin’s, and the fact that an accomplice of Lupin goes off like that, with his hands in his pockets, proves in the first place that he knows he is being followed, and secondly that he’s not afraid.”
“But why are we following so close behind him?”
“We’re not so close that he still can’t slip from our grasp in less than a minute. He’s too sure of himself.”
“Come on! That’s going too far! There are two officers with bikes over there, by the door of that café. If I seek their help in tackling that man, I don’t see how he can slip from my grasp.”
“That man does not seem to be concerned very much about that possibility. He’s seeking their help himself!”
“For goodness’ sake,” said Ganimard, “he’s got a nerve!”
The man had indeed gone towards the two officers just as they were about to mount their bicycles. He said a few words to them, then, suddenly, he jumped on a third bicycle, which was leaning against the wall of the café, and rode off quickly with the two officers.
The Englishman guffawed.
“Huh! Didn’t I tell you? One, two, three, and he’s off! And with whose help? With the help of two of your colleagues, Monsieur Ganimard. Oh, he’s got it all worked out, has Arsène Lupin! Officers on bikes in his pay! Didn’t I say to you that our man was much too calm!”
“So, what’s to be done?” exclaimed Ganimard, annoyed. “What should we do? It’s easy enough to laugh at it all!”
“Come on, don’t get angry. We’ll get our revenge. For the time being, we need to get some reinforcements.”
“Folenfant is waiting for me at the end of the Avenue de Neuilly.”
“Well, take that alley, and join me later.”
Ganimard went off, while Sholmes followed the bicycle tracks, made the more visible in the dust on the road by the fact that two of the bicycles were equipped with grooved tyres. And he soon saw that the tracks were leading him to the banks of the Seine, and that the three men had turned in the same direction as Bresson had gone the previous evening. Thus he came to the railing by which he and Ganimard had hidden themselves, and, a little farther off, he noticed a tangle of groove marks which proved that they had stopped at that spot. Just opposite there was a small strip of land which stuck out into the Seine, and at the end of it an old boat was moored.
That was where Bresson had thrown the package, or rather where he had dropped it. Sholmes went down the embankment and saw that, as the bank went down in a very gentle slope and the water of the river was low, it would be easy to retrieve the package, unless the three men had been there first.
“No, no,” he said to himself, “they haven’t had time… a quarter of an hour at the very most… and yet why did they come this way?”
There was an angler sitting in the boat. Sholmes asked him:
“You didn’t see three men on bikes?”
The angler shook his head.
The Englishman persisted:
“But you must have done… Three men… They just stopped a few feet away from you…”
The angler put his rod under his arm, took a notebook out of his pocket and wrote something on one of the pages. He tore it out and gave it to Sholmes.
The Englishman shook in great excitement. He had seen, with a quick glance, that in the middle of the page he was holding in his hand was the series of letters torn from the album:
CDEHNOPRZEO-237
The sun hung heavily on the river. The man had taken up his task again, sheltered by the vast cover of his straw hat, his jacket and waistcoat folded beside him. He was fishing attentively, with the float on his line drifting with the flow of the water.
A minute went by, a minute of solemn and awful silence.
“Is it him?” wondered Sholmes in almost painful anxiety.
As the truth dawned on him, he said:
“It’s him! It’s him! Only he is capable of staying there without trembling with anxiety, and having no fear of what might happen… And who else would know about the matter of the album? Alice warned him through a messenger.”
Suddenly the Englishman realized that his hand, his own hand, had seized the butt of his revolver, and that his eyes were focused on the man’s back, just below the nape of the neck. One move and the drama would be resolved, the life of this odd adventurer would have a miserable end.
The angler did not move.
Sholmes gripped his weapon nervously with a wild desire to shoot and have done with it, but at the same time with a horror at an action which was against his nature. Death was certain. It would all be over.
“Oh!” he thought to himself. “Let him get up and defend himself… otherwise so much the worse for him… just one more second… and I’ll shoot.”
But the sound of footsteps made him turn his head, and he caught sight of Ganimard, who was just arriving in the company of some inspectors.
Then, changing his plan, he took a run and in one bound leapt into the boat, the mooring rope of which broke under the excessive force. He fell on top of the man and clasped him bodily. They rolled about together at the bottom of the boat.
“Now what?” exclaimed Lupin, struggling. “What does this prove? When one of us has rendered the other powerless, that will be a great advantage! You wouldn’t know what to do with me, nor I with you. We’d be a right pair of idiots!”
The two oars slipped into the water. The boat drifted away. Cries could be heard going to and fro along the bank, and Lupin continued:
“What a carry-on, sir! Have you lost your senses? Such stupid behaviour at your age! And a big boy like you! Shame on you, you naughty boy!…”
He managed to free himself.
Exasperated, and determined to do anything, Herlock Sholmes put his hand to his pocket. He let out a curse: Lupin had taken his revolver.
So, he got down on his knees and tried to grasp one of the oars in order to reach the bank, while Lupin tried desperately to reach the other one, in order to gain open water.
“Whether you’ve got one or not,” said Lupin, “whatever the case, it’s not important. If you’ve got an oar, I’ll stop you from using it… And you’ll do the same to me. But there you are, that’s life, we try to act, without the least reason for doing so, since it’s always fate which decides. There you are, you see, it’s fate… it’s on old Lupin’s side… Victory! The current’s in my favour!”
The boat was indeed starting to drift away.
“Watch out!” cried Lupin.
Someone on the riverbank was pointing a revolver. He lowered his head. There was the sound of a detonation, and a little water shot up in the air near them. Lupin burst out laughing.
“Well, bless my soul, it’s Ganimard! But that’s a bad thing you’re doing there, Ganimard. You have no right to shoot except in the case of legitimate self-defence. Does poor old Arsène make you so violent that you forget all your obligations?…Well, here we go again! But, you poor chap, it’ll be my beloved Maestro that you’ll hit.”
He defended Sholmes with his body and, standing up in the boat, facing Ganimard, he said:
“Fine! Now I feel easy about it. Aim here, Ganimard, right in the heart!… Higher… To the left… Oh, missed!… Damned clumsy of you!… Want to try another shot?… But you’re trembling, Ganimard… On my command, alright?… Calmly now!… One, two, three, fire!… Missed! Good God, have the government issued you with children’s toys as pistols?”
He showed off a long revolver, heavy but slim, and he fired without taking aim.
The inspector put his hand to his hat: a bullet had pierced it.
“What do you think, Ganimard? Oh, it’s made by a good factory. Show your respect, gentlemen; it’s the revolver of my noble friend, Maestro Herlock Sholmes!”
And, with a twist of his arm, he threw the weapon at the very feet of Ganimard.
Sholmes could not stop himself from smiling and admiring him. What ebullience! What youthful and spontaneous delight! And how he seemed to be amusing himself! One could say that the feeling of danger gave him a physical sense of joy, and that being alive had no other purpose for this extraordinary man than the pursuit of dangers which he then enjoyed warding off.
On each side of the river, however, people were gathering, and Ganimard and his men were following the boat which was rocking about in open water, and being gently drawn away by the current. Capture was certain, dead certain in fact.
“Confess, Maestro,” exclaimed Lupin, as he turned towards the Englishman, “that you wouldn’t give up your place at the moment for all the gold in the Transvaal!1 You’ve got a seat in the front row of the stalls! But first and foremost, the prologue… after which we shall jump in one bound straight to the fifth act, the capture or escape of Arsène Lupin. So, my dear Maestro, I have a question to put to you, and I must beg you, in order to avoid any ambiguity, to reply with a yes or a no. Will you give up your involvement in this case? There’s still time for me to be able to put right the wrong you have done. Later I wouldn’t be able to do it. Agreed?”
“No.”
Lupin’s face became tense. This obstinacy obviously irritated him. He continued:
“I insist. More for your sake than mine. I insist, as I am certain that you will be the first to regret your intervention. For the last time: yes or no?”
“No.”
Lupin crouched down, removed one of the planks at the bottom of the boat and, for a few minutes, was doing something, the nature of which Sholmes could not make out. Then he got up, sat down next to the Englishman and spoke to him in the following way:
“I think, Maestro, that we came to this riverbank for the same reasons: to fish for the object that Bresson got rid of, right? For my part, I have made arrangements to meet some friends, and I was, as my rough-and-ready costume indicates, about to carry out a little exploration in the depths of the Seine, when my friends announced your approach.
“I confess moreover that I wasn’t surprised, having been informed hour by hour, dare I say, about the progress of your investigation. It’s so easy! As soon as anything the least thing likely to be of interest to me occurs on the Rue Murillo, in no time at all a telephone call is made, and I am warned about it! You will understand that in such circumstances…”
He stopped. The plank that he had moved aside was now rising up, and, all around it, little spurts of water were filtering through.
“Damn! I don’t know how I did it, but I have every reason to think that there’s a leak at the bottom of this old boat. Aren’t you afraid, Maestro?”
Sholmes shrugged his shoulders. Lupin continued:
“You will understand then that in these circumstances, and knowing in advance that you would seek a fight the more passionately I tried hard to avoid it, it was much more pleasant for me to engage with you in a game, the outcome of which is certain, since I have all the trumps in my hand. And I wanted to make our encounter as glorious as possible, so that your defeat would become universally known about, and some other Countess de Crozon or Baron d’Imblevalle wouldn’t be tempted to seek your help against me. Besides, my dear Maestro, please do not consider…”
He interrupted himself again and, using his half-closed hands as though they were a spyglass, he looked at the banks.
“Damn! They have hired a superb boat, a real warship, and they are rowing hard. In less than five minutes, they’ll be boarding us, and I’ll be lost. Mr Sholmes, a word of advice: throw yourself on top of me, tie me up and hand me over to the authorities of my country… Do you like this plan?… Unless in the meantime we’ve been shipwrecked, in which case the only thing left for us to do is to prepare our wills. What do you think?”
They exchanged looks. Now Sholmes understood Lupin’s manoeuvre: he had pierced a hole in the bottom of the boat. The water was rising.
It reached the soles of their boots. Then it covered their feet: they did not move at all.
It went over their ankles: the Englishman grabbed his tobacco pouch, rolled a cigarette and lit it.
Lupin continued:
“Please do not consider this to be, my dear Maestro, anything more than the humble admission of my impotence in face of you. It means that I yield to you, except only for those battles in which my victory must be granted, so that I can avoid including those in which I did not choose the terrain. It means that I recognize that Sholmes is the one enemy that I fear, and that I acknowledge my anxiety until such times as Sholmes is diverted from my path. That, my dear Maestro, is what I wanted to say to you, since fate has accorded me the honour of holding a conversation with you. I regret only one thing, that this conversation has taken place while we are taking a footbath!… a situation which lacks a certain solemnity, I confess… What am I saying?… a footbath!… It’s more like a hip bath!”
The water had indeed reached the level of the bench where they were sitting, and the boat was sinking more and more.
Unruffled, Sholmes, with his cigarette between his lips, seemed to be absorbed in contemplating the sky. Not for all the world, facing this man surrounded by dangers, encircled by a mob, hounded by a pack of officers and yet still maintaining his good mood – no, not for all the world would he allow himself to show the slightest sign of restlessness.
“What!” they both seemed to be saying. “Should they be bothered by such trifles? Wasn’t it an everyday occurrence to drown in a river? Are they the sort of events worth paying attention to?” The one was talking away, and the other was daydreaming, both hiding under a similar mask of indifference the enormous clash of two proud minds.
One minute more and they would sink.
“The main thing,” as Lupin formulated it, “is to know if we will sink before or after the arrival of the champions of justice. It all depends on that. For it’s not a question of whether we’re sinking any more. Maestro, it is now the solemn time for us to make our wills. I leave all my fortune to Herlock Sholmes, English citizen, with the responsibility of… But, my God, how fast they are advancing, those champions of justice! Oh, the brave lads! It’s a pleasure to watch them. What precision in their oar strokes! What, is that you, Sergeant Folenfant? Bravo! The idea of using a warship is excellent. I shall recommend you to your superiors, Sergeant Folenfant… Is it a medal that you’re after? The matter’s settled… it’s a done deal. And what about your comrade Dieuzy, where is he? He’s on the left bank, isn’t he, in the middle of a hundred or so local people? So that, if I escape the shipwreck, I’ll be picked up on the left side by Dieuzy and his band of locals, or on the right side by Ganimard and the population of Neuilly. An unfortunate dilemma…”
There was a sudden eddy. The boat turned round on itself, and Sholmes had to hang on to the rowlocks.
“Maestro,” said Lupin, “I beg you to take off your jacket. It’ll be easier for you to swim. No? You refuse? Oh well, I’ll put mine on then.”
He slipped on his jacket, buttoned it up so that it was watertight like that of Sholmes, and sighed:
“What a tough man you are! And what a pity it is that you persist with this case, in which you certainly show the extent of your abilities, but all in vain! It’s true, you are wasting your genius…”
“Monsieur Lupin,” said Sholmes, emerging from his silence, “you talk much too much, and are often overconfident and thoughtless.”
“That’s a severe reproach.”
“In that way you have, without realizing it, provided me a moment ago with the information that I was looking for.”
“What! You were looking for some information and you didn’t tell me!”
“I don’t need anyone’s help. Three hours from now, I shall present Monsieur and Madame d’Imblevalle with the key to the mystery. The only response…”
He could not finish what he was saying. The boat had suddenly sunk, dragging the two of them down with it. It immediately emerged again, turned upside down, with its hull up in the air. There were loud cries on both banks, then an anxious silence, and suddenly new exclamations: one of the victims had reappeared.
It was Herlock Sholmes.
He was an excellent swimmer, and made his way with large arm strokes towards Folenfant’s boat.
“Have no fear, Mr Sholmes,” yelled the sergeant. “We’ll get you… Don’t flag… We’ll worry about him afterwards… We’ll get him. Come on… Just a little bit more, Mr Sholmes… Grab the rope…”
The Englishman seized the rope which they held out to him. But, as he was heaving himself on board, a voice behind him called out to him:
“The key to the mystery, my dear Maestro, by God yes, you’ll get it. I’m only surprised that you haven’t got it already. But then? What use will it be to you? Just when the battle will be lost for you…”
Sitting astride the hull, the sides of which he had just climbed up while holding forth, Arsène Lupin, now comfortably installed, continued his speech with solemn gestures, as if he hoped to convince the person he was talking to.
“You must understand, my dear Maestro, that there’s nothing you can do, absolutely nothing… You find yourself in the regrettable position of a gentleman…”
Folenfant took aim:
“Give yourself up, Lupin.”
“You are a boor, Sergeant Folenfant. You cut me off in the middle of what I was saying. As I was saying…”
“Give yourself up, Lupin.”
“Good God, Sergeant Folenfant, one only gives oneself up when one is danger. Well, you can’t claim to believe that I am in the least danger!”
“For the last time, Lupin, I command you to give yourself up.”
“Sergeant Folenfant, you have no intention whatsoever of killing me. At the most you mean to wound me, because you’re so afraid that I’ll escape. And what if by chance the wound were fatal? No, just think of the remorse you would feel, you poor old chap! It would make your old age a misery!”
A shot was fired.
Lupin wobbled, clung to the wreck for a moment, and then lost his grip and disappeared.
It was at exactly three o’clock when these events took place. At six o’clock precisely, just as he had announced, Herlock Sholmes, dressed in trousers that were too short and a jacket that was too tight, which he had borrowed from an innkeeper in Neuilly, and wearing also a cap and adorned with a flannel shirt with a silk cord, went into the boudoir on the Rue Murillo, after having informed Monsieur and Madame d’Imblevalle that he wanted to discuss some matters with them.
He found them walking to and fro. And he looked so comical in his odd clothes that they had to repress a strong desire to laugh. With a pensive air, and stooping down, he walked about like an automaton, from the window to the door, from the door to the window, making the same number of paces each time, and turning each time in the same direction.
He stopped, grasped an ornament, examined it mechanically, and then continued his walk.
Finally, placing himself in front of them, he asked:
“Is Mademoiselle here?”
“Yes, in the garden, with the children.”
“Monsieur le Baron, as the discussion we shall have will be a definitive one, I would like Mademoiselle Demun to be present.”
“Is it really…”
“Please be a little patient, Monsieur. The truth will emerge clearly from the facts that I am going to put before you as accurately as possible.”
“Very well, Suzanne, would you?…”
Mme d’Imblevalle stood up and returned almost at once, accompanied by Alice Demun. Mademoiselle, a little paler than usual, remained standing, leaning against a table and not even asking why she had been summoned.
Sholmes did not appear to have seen her, and turning abruptly towards M. d’Imblevalle, he spoke in a tone which admitted no rejoinder:
“After several days of investigation, sir, and although certain events changed for a moment my way of viewing things, I must repeat to you what I told you from the very first: the Jewish lamp was stolen by someone living in this house.”
“And the name of the guilty party?”
“I know it.”
“And you have proof?”
“What I have will be sufficient to expose that person.”
“It is not sufficient that he be exposed. He must also return to us…”
“The Jewish lamp? It is in my possession.”
“And the opal necklace? And the snuffbox?”
“The opal necklace, the snuffbox, in short, everything which was stolen from you on the second occasion, is in my possession.”
Sholmes loved such coups de théâtre and this rather curt way of announcing his victories.
In fact, the baron and his wife seemed to be amazed, and regarded him with a silent curiosity which was the best form of praise.
He then continued his detailed recital of what he had done during the last three days. He talked about the discovery of the album, wrote on a sheet of paper the phrase formed by the cut-out letters, then told them about Bresson’s expedition to the banks of the Seine and about the adventurer’s suicide, and finally about the fight that he, Sholmes, had just undertaken with Lupin, the sinking of the boat and the disappearance of Lupin.
When he had finished, the baron said in a low voice:
“The only thing left for you to do is to reveal to us the name of the guilty party. So whom do you accuse?”
“I accuse the person who cut out the letters from this alphabet, and communicated with Arsène Lupin by means of these letters.”
“How do you know that this person’s correspondent is Arsène Lupin?”
“From Lupin himself.”
He held out a piece of wet, crumpled paper. It was the page that Lupin had torn from his notebook, in the boat, and on which he had written the phrase.
“And note,” Sholmes pointed out, with satisfaction, “that nothing obliged him to give me this page, and, consequently, let himself be recognized. It was simple mischievousness on his part which provided me with information.”
“Which provided you with information…” said the baron, “but I don’t see…”
Sholmes went over the letters and numbers again with a pencil:
CDEHNOPRZEO-237
“Well?” said M. d’Imblevalle, it’s the formula which you just showed us yourself.
“No. If you had mulled over this formula in all its possible senses, you would have seen at first glance, as I did, that it is not exactly like the first one.”
“In what way then?”
“It contains two extra letters, an E and an O.”
“Indeed, I hadn’t noticed.”
“Put these two letters together with the C and the H which were left after identifying the word répondez, and you will notice that the only possible word is ‘ECHO’.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means L’Écho de France, Lupin’s newspaper, his official mouthpiece, the one for which he reserves his special ‘communiqués’. ‘Reply to L’Écho de France, the small ads section, number 237.’ This was the key to the mystery that I was searching for so hard, and which Lupin supplied me with with such good grace. I’ve just come from the offices of L’Écho de France.”
“And what did you find out?”
“I discovered the whole detailed account of Arsène Lupin’s relationship with… his accomplice.”
Sholmes spread out seven copies of the newspaper open at the fourth page in each case, and from them he removed the following seven lines:
ARS. LUP. Lady impl. protect. 540.
540. Awaiting explanations. A.L.
A.L. Under control enemy. Lost.
540. Write address. Will make enquiries.
A.L. Murillo.
540. Park three o’clock. Violets.
237. Agreed Sat. Will be Sun. morn. park.
“And you call that a detailed account!” exclaimed M. d’Imblevalle.
“My God yes, and if you had paid a little attention, you would share my opinion. In the first place, a lady who signs herself 540 implores Arsène to protect her, to which Lupin responds with a demand for explanations. The lady replies that she is under the control of an enemy, no doubt Bresson, and that she is lost if someone does not come to her aid. Lupin, who is wary, and does not want to become involved in a discussion with this unknown woman, demands an address and offers to investigate. The lady hesitates for four days – you can check the dates – and finally, pressurized by events and influenced by Bresson’s threats, she provides the name of her street, Murillo. The next day, Arsène Lupin announces that he will be in the Parc Monceau at three o’clock, and asks his unknown correspondent to wear a bouquet of violets as a way identifying herself at the meeting point. Then there’s an eight-day gap in the correspondence. Arsène Lupin and the lady don’t need to write to each other via the newspaper: they are meeting each other or writing to each other directly. The plan is hatched: to satisfy the demands of Bresson, the lady will remove the Jewish lamp. It remains only to fix the day. The lady, who corresponds prudently by using cut and pasted words, decides on Sunday and adds: Reply Echo 237. Lupin replies that he agrees to this and will also be in the park Sunday morning. On Sunday morning the robbery took place.”
“Indeed, it all follows,” said the baron approvingly, “and we have the whole story.”
Sholmes continued:
“So, the robbery took place. The lady goes out on Sunday morning, gives an account to Lupin of what she has done, and takes the Jewish lamp to Bresson. It all happens just as Lupin had predicted. The authorities, taken in by an open window, four holes in the ground and two scratches on a balcony, immediately accept the hypothesis of a theft by breaking and entering. The lady feels easy in her mind.”
“Fine,” said the baron, “I admit that this explanation is very logical. But what about the second robbery?”
“The second robbery was provoked by the first. As the newspapers had reported how the Jewish lamp had disappeared, someone had the idea of repeating the attack and getting hold of what had not already been taken. And this time it was not a simulated robbery, but a real one, by real breaking and entering, and climbing up, etc.”
“It was Lupin, of course.”
“No, Lupin does not act so stupidly. Lupin doesn’t shoot at people for no apparent reason.”
“So, who was it?”
“Bresson, without a doubt, without the knowledge of the woman he had been blackmailing. It was Bresson who came in here, it was he I followed, and it was he who wounded my poor old friend Wilson.”
“Are you sure of this?”
“Absolutely. One of Bresson’s accomplices wrote a letter to him yesterday, before his suicide, which proves that talks were undertaken between this accomplice and Lupin to arrange for the return of all the objects stolen from your house. Lupin demanded all of them: ‘the first one’ (that means the Jewish lamp) ‘as well as those from the second job’. What is more, he kept a watch on Bresson. When he went to the banks of the Seine yesterday evening, one of Lupin’s companions was tailing him at the same time as we were.”
“What was Bresson going to do on banks of the Seine?”
“Warned of the progress of my investigation—”
“Warned by whom?”
“By the same woman, who was afraid quite rightly that the discovery of the Jewish lamp would lead to the discovery of her little adventure… So, Bresson, when he was warned, puts everything that could compromise him together into one package, and he throws it away at a spot where it is possible to find it again, once the danger is past. When he came back, hounded by Ganimard and by me, and having no doubt other infamous deeds on his conscience, he loses his head and kills himself.”
“But what did the package contain?”
“The Jewish lamp and your other ornaments.”
“So they’re not in your possession?”
“Immediately after the disappearance of Lupin, I took advantage of the bath that he forced me to take and had myself taken to the spot chosen by Bresson, and I found, wrapped in linen and oilcloth, the items stolen from you. Here they are on this table.”
Without saying a word, the baron cut the pieces of string, tore open in one go the wet linen and took out the lamp. He turned a nut on the base, and with both hands he put pressure on the receptacle, unscrewed it and opened it in two equal sections to reveal the fantastic gold object, set with rubies and emeralds.
It was intact.
Throughout this whole scene, which appeared to be quite natural, and consisting of a simple exposition of the facts, there was something which made it all horribly tragic. This was the categorical, direct and irrefutable accusation that Sholmes directed at Mademoiselle with every word he spoke. And there was also the disturbing silence of Alice Demun.
During this long, cruel accumulation of small pieces of evidence, one following the other, not a muscle of her face had moved. Not a spark of revolt or of fear had disturbed the calm of her clear gaze. What was she thinking? And above all, what would she say at the solemn moment when it would be necessary for her to reply, when she would have to defend herself and break that iron circle in which Herlock Sholmes had imprisoned her so easily?
The moment had come, and the young woman was silent.
“Speak! Speak!” exclaimed M. d’Imblevalle.
But she did not speak a word.
He insisted:
“One word would vindicate you… One word of protest, and I’d believe you.”
But she did not utter this word.
The baron went swiftly across the room, and came back again. He started speaking again, addressing himself to Sholmes:
“I must say no, sir. I cannot admit that it’s true! There are some crimes which are impossible, and this contradicts everything that I know, everything that I have observed over the past year.”
He placed his hand on the Englishman’s shoulder.
“And you yourself, sir, are you absolutely and definitely sure that you have not made a mistake?”
Sholmes hesitated, like a man who has been attacked unexpectedly and who cannot reply immediately. However, he smiled and said:
“Only the person whom I accuse was able, through the position which she holds in your household, to know that the Jewish lamp contained that magnificent jewel.”
“I can’t believe it,” murmured the baron.
“Then ask her about it.”
Indeed it was the only thing that he had not tried, due to the blind trust that the young girl inspired in him. However it was no longer possible to deny the evidence.
He went up to her and, looking into her eyes, he said:
“Was it you, Mademoiselle? Was it you who stole the jewel? And was it you who corresponded with Arsène Lupin and simulated the robbery?”
She answered:
“It was me, Monsieur.”
She did not lower her head. Her face revealed neither shame nor embarrassment.
“Is it possible?” murmured M.d’Imblevalle… I would never have believed it… you are the last person I would have suspected… How could you do it, you poor woman?”
“I did what Mr Sholmes said. On the night of Saturday to Sunday I came down into this boudoir, I took the lamp, and in the morning I brought it to… that man.”
“No,” objected the baron, “I cannot accept what you claim to be true.”
“Can’t accept? But why?”
“Because in the morning I found the bolt on the door to this boudoir locked.”
She blushed, lost her composure and looked at Sholmes, as if seeking his advice.
More than by the baron’s objection, Sholmes seemed to be struck by Alice Demun’s embarrassment. Didn’t she have anything to say in reply? Those confessions, which confirmed the explanation that he, Sholmes, had provided about the theft of the Jewish lamp, were they covering up a lie which an examination of the facts at once revealed?
The baron continued:
“This door was closed. I can confirm that I found the bolt just as I had left it the previous evening. If you had come in through this door, as you claim, then it would be necessary for someone to open it from the inside, that is to say from the boudoir or from our room. Well, there was no one inside these two rooms… there was no one but my wife and I.”
Sholmes bent over quickly and covered his face with both hands to mask his blushing. Something had struck him like a very sudden flash of light, and he was dazzled by it and ill at ease. Everything was revealed to him like a dark countryside from which the night suddenly withdraws.
Alice Demun was innocent.
Alice Demun was innocent. It was a blinding and certain truth, and it was at the same time an explanation of that kind of discomfort he had experienced since the first day in directing the terrible accusation against the young woman. Now he saw things clearly. He knew. One move, and straight away the irrefutable proof would present itself to him.
He raised his head again and, after a few seconds, as naturally as he could, he turned his eyes towards Mme d’Imblevalle.
She was pale, and it was that unusual paleness that comes over you at those merciless moments in life. Her hands, which she tried hard to hide, were trembling imperceptibly.
“One more second,” thought Sholmes, “and she will betray herself.”
He placed himself between her and her husband, in the urgent desire to ward off the dreadful danger that, through his fault, was threatening this man and woman. But when he caught sight of the baron, he shook to the depths of his being. The same revelation which had dazzled him in its clarity, now shone on M. d’Imblevalle’s face. The same process was taking place in the husband’s mind. Now he too understood! He realized!
Despairingly, Alice Demun tried to resist the inexorable truth.
“You are right, Monsieur, I was wrong. Indeed I did not enter this way. I went through the hallway and through the garden, and with the aid of a ladder…”
It was a supreme effort of devotion… but a useless one. Her words rang false. Her voice was not very assured, and the gentle creature’s eyes were no longer clear, nor did she have any longer that air of complete sincerity. She lowered her head in defeat.
The silence was terrible. Mme d’Imblevalle was waiting, her face deathly pale and made tense by anxiety and terror. The baron seemed to be still struggling, as if he did not want to believe in the collapse of his happiness.
Finally, he mumbled:
“Speak! Explain yourself!”
“I have nothing to say, my poor friend,” she said in a very low voice, her face twisted with pain.
“Then… Mademoiselle…”
“Mademoiselle saved me… through her devotion… her affection… and she accused herself…”
“Saved from what? From whom?”
“From that man.”
“Bresson.”
“Yes, it was me he was controlling with his threats… I got to know him at a friend’s house… and I was mad enough to listen to him… Oh, there was nothing that you cannot forgive… but I wrote two letters… letters which you will see… I bought them back from him… you know how… Oh have pity on me… I cried so much!”
“You! You! Suzanne!”
He raised his clenched fists to her, ready to strike her, ready to kill her. But he dropped his arms again, and he murmured again:
“You, Suzanne!… You!… Is it possible?”
In short disjointed phrases she related her depressing and commonplace adventure, her stunned awakening to the man’s infamy, her remorse, her panic, and she talked also about the admirable behaviour of Alice, how the young woman observed the despair of her mistress, dragging a confession out of her, and how she wrote to Lupin, and organized the story about the robbery to save her from the claws of Bresson.
“You, Suzanne, you,” repeated M. d’Imblevalle, bent over, struck down.
On the evening of that same day, the steamer Ville de Londres, which runs between Calais and Dover, was slipping slowly over the motionless water. The night was dark and calm. Peaceful clouds could be perceived above the ship, and all around light veils of mist separated it from the infinite space in which the moon and stars were spreading their radiance.
Most of the passengers had gone back to their cabins or the lounges. Some of the more intrepid ones, however, were walking on the deck or even dozing in the depths of large rocking chairs and under thick blankets. Here and there you could see the gleams of cigars, and you could hear, mixed with the light breath of the breeze, the murmur of voices which no one dared to raise in the great solemn silence.
One of the passengers, who was wandering about at a regular pace along the ship’s rail, stopped near someone lying on a bench, whom he examined, and as that person moved a little, he said to him:
“I thought you were sleeping, Mademoiselle Alice.”
“No, no, Mr Sholmes, I don’t want to sleep. I was just thinking.”
“About what? Would it be indiscreet to ask you?”
“I was thinking about Madame d’Imblevalle. She must be very sad. Her life is ruined.”
“Oh no, no,” he said swiftly. “Her mistake was not one of those that cannot be pardoned. Monsieur d’Imblevalle will forget such a failing. Already, when we were leaving, he was looking at her less harshly.”
“Perhaps… but it takes a long time to forget… and she will suffer.”
“Do you love her very much?”
“Very much. It was that which gave me such strength to smile when I was trembling with fear, and to look you in the face when I would have preferred to avoid your eyes.”
“And you’re unhappy to leave her?”
“Very unhappy. I have neither relatives nor friends… I only had her.”
“You will make friends,” said the Englishman, who was upset by her grief. “I promise you… I have relatives… a lot of influence… I can assure you that you won’t regret your situation.”
“Perhaps, but Madame d’Imblevalle won’t be there any more…”
They did not exchange any more words. Herlock Sholmes took two or three more turns round the deck, and then returned to settle down next to his travelling companion.
The curtain of mist cleared away and the clouds seemed to break apart in the sky. The stars were twinkling.
Sholmes pulled out his pipe from deep inside his Inverness cape, filled it, and struck four matches successively without managing to light them. As he had no more, he got up and spoke to a gentleman who was sitting a few feet away:
“Could you give me a light, please?”
The gentleman opened a box of matches and struck one. Immediately a flame shot up. By its light, Sholmes could see that it was Arsène Lupin.
If it had not been for a very small movement on the part of the Englishman, an imperceptible movement of recoil, Lupin could have assumed that his presence on board was already known to Sholmes, so well did the latter control himself, and with such natural ease did he stretch out his hand to his opponent.
“Still in good health, Monsieur Lupin?”
“Bravo!” exclaimed Lupin, from whom such self-control drew a cry of admiration.
“Bravo! And why?”
“What do you mean, why? You see me reappear before you like a phantom, after having been present at my dive into the Seine – and through pride, through a miracle of pride which I would describe as very completely British, you don’t even react with astonishment, not a word of surprise! Well, I repeat, bravo! It’s admirable!”
“It’s not admirable. From the way you fell off the boat, I could see very well that you were falling deliberately and that you had not been hit by the sergeant’s bullet.”
“And you left without knowing what had become of me?”
“What had become of you? I knew. Five hundred people were controlling the two riverbanks for a distance of one kilometre. From the moment you escaped death your capture was certain.”
“Yet, here I am.”
“Monsieur Lupin, there are two people in the world concerning whom nothing can astonish me: the first is myself and the second is you.”
Peace was concluded.
If Sholmes had not ben successful in his enterprises against Arsène Lupin, if Lupin remained the exceptional enemy he had to give up hope of catching and if in the course of their involvements with each other he always kept the upper hand, then the Englishman had nevertheless, by dint of his enormous tenacity, recovered the Jewish lamp just as he had recovered the blue diamond. Perhaps this time the result was less brilliant, especially from the public’s perspective, since Sholmes was obliged to keep quiet about the circumstances in which the Jewish lamp had been discovered, and to announce that he did not know the name of the guilty party. But between man and man, between Lupin and Sholmes, between detective and burglar, there was in all fairness neither winner nor loser. Each of them could claim to be equally victorious.
So they chatted, as courteous adversaries who have laid down their weapons and who have a fair estimation of each other.
At Sholmes’s request, Lupin told him how he escaped.
“Just assuming that,” he said, “it can be called an escape. It was so simple! My friends were watching, since we had arranged to meet there to recover the Jewish lamp. Also, after having stayed a good half-hour under the upturned hull of the boat, I took advantage of a moment when Folenfant and his men were looking for my corpse along the riverbanks, and I got back onto the wreck. My friends only had to pick me up on their way in their motor boat, and to get away under the amazed eyes of five hundred people, as well as Ganimard and Folenfant.”
“Very nicely done!” exclaimed Sholmes. “A complete success! And now do you have some business in England?”
“Yes, a few accounts to be settled. But I was forgetting… How is Monsieur d’Imblevalle?”
“He knows everything.”
“Oh, my dear Maestro, what did I tell you? The harm can’t be put right now. Wouldn’t it have been better to let me act as I wanted to? One more day or two, and I would have got back the Jewish lamp and the ornaments from Bresson, I would have sent them to the d’Imblevalles. And those two good people would have been able to live peacefully side by side. Instead of that—”
“Instead of that,” chuckled Sholmes, “I clouded the issue and brought discord to the bosom of a family you were protecting.”
“My God, yes, I was protecting them. Is it essential to be always stealing, fooling people and doing wrong?”
“So, you do good as well?”
“When I have the time. And then it amuses me. I find it extremely funny that in this adventure with which we are concerned, I am the good genie who helps and saves, and you are the bad genie who brings despair and tears.”
“Tears! Tears!” protested the Englishman.
“Certainly! The d’Imblevalle household has been destroyed and Alice Demun is in tears.”
“She could not stay there. Ganimard would finally have found out about her, and through her they would have followed the trail back to Madame d’Imblevalle.”
“I’m completely of the same opinion as you, Maestro, but whose fault is it?”
Two men passed by in front of them. Sholmes said to Lupin, in a tone of voice which seemed to be slightly altered:
“Do you know who those two gentleman are?”
“I thought I recognized the ship’s captain.”
“And the other?”
“I don’t know.”
“It is Mr Austin Gilett. And Mr Austin Gilett has a position in England which corresponds to that of Monsieur Dudouis, your head of the Sûreté.”
“Oh what good luck! Would you be so kind as to introduce me? Monsieur Dudouis is one of my best friends, and I would be very happy to be able to say the same for Mr Austin Gilett.”
The two gentlemen came back.
“And what if I take you at your word, Monsieur Lupin?” said Sholmes getting up.
He had seized Arsène Lupin by the wrist and held him with an iron grip.
“Why are you gripping me so hard, Maestro? I’m quite ready to follow you.”
In fact, he let himself be led without the least resistance. The two gentlemen were going away.
Sholmes increased his pace. His nails dug right into Lupin’s flesh.
“Come on… come on,” he said in a muffled voice and in a frantic haste to settle everything as quickly as possible… Come on! Faster than that.”
But then he stopped dead. Alice Demun had followed them.
“What are you doing, Mademoiselle! It’s pointless… Don’t follow us!”
It was Lupin who replied:
“I beg you to notice, Maestro, that Mademoiselle is not coming willingly. I am gripping her wrist with a strength comparable to that which you are employing with respect to me.”
“And why?”
“What! But I am absolutely determined to introduce her too. Her role in the affair of the Jewish lamp is even more important than mine. An accomplice of Arsène Lupin, accomplice of Bresson, she should also tell them about the adventure of the Baronne d’Imblevalle. Something which will be extremely interesting to the authorities. And in this way you will have pursued your beneficial intervention to its utter limits, my noble Sholmes.”
The Englishman had let go the wrist of his prisoner. Lupin freed Mademoiselle.
They stayed there for a few moments motionless, facing each other. Then Sholmes went back to his bench and sat down. Lupin and the young woman also went back to their places. There was a long silence between them. Then Lupin said:
“You see, Maestro, whatever we do, we will never be on the same side. You are on one side of the gap, and I’m on the other. We can greet each other, hold out our hands to each other, talk for a while, but the gap is always there. You will always be Herlock Sholmes, detective, and I’ll be Arsène Lupin, burglar. And Herlock Sholmes will always submit, more or less spontaneously, more or less appropriately, to his instinct as a detective, which is to hound the burglar and ‘stick him inside’ if possible. And Arsène Lupin will always be consistent with the spirit of the burglar, avoiding the firm hand of the detective, and making fun of him, if it’s possible to do so. And this time, it’s possible. Ha, ha, ha!”
He burst out laughing. It was a mocking, cruel and hateful laugh.
Then suddenly, becoming serious, he leant towards the young woman.
“Be assured, Mademoiselle, that even if I were close to death, I would never betray you. Arsène Lupin never betrays anyone, especially those he loves and whom he admires. And you must permit me to tell you that I love you and admire the courageous and dear creature that you are.”
“If Mr Sholmes does not succeed in the steps he takes, Mademoiselle, present yourself to Lady Strongborough (you can easily discover her present place of abode), and hand to her this half of a card, saying to her the words ‘in faithful memory’. Lady Strongborough will devote herself to you like a sister.”
“Thank you,” said the young woman, “I shall go and visit the lady tomorrow.”
“And now, Maestro,” exclaimed Lupin, with the satisfied tone of a man who has fulfilled his duty, “I will wish you goodnight. We still have one hour of the crossing left. I shall make the most of it.”
He stretched out full length, and crossed his hands behind his head.
The sky had become clear in front of the moon. Against the stars and at sea level, its radiant clarity shone out. It was floating in the water, and the vast space, in which the last clouds were dissolving, seemed to belong to it.
The coastline stood out from the dark horizon. Some passengers stood up. The deck became covered with people. Mr Austin Gilett passed by in the company of two persons whom Sholmes recognized as English police officers.
On his bench Lupin was asleep…
1 Transvaal: A region in modern-day South Africa famous for its gold mines.