the moment lupin had finished lunch, he at once and, so to speak, without transition, recovered all his mastery and authority. the time for joking was past; and he must no longer yield to his love of astonishing people with claptrap and conjuring tricks. now that he had discovered the crystal stopper in the hiding-place which he had guessed with absolute certainty, now that he possessed the list of the twenty-seven, it became a question of playing off the last game of the rubber without delay.
it was child’s play, no doubt, and what remained to be done presented no difficulty. nevertheless, it was essential that he should perform these final actions with promptness, decision and infallible perspicacity. the smallest blunder was irretrievable. lupin knew this; but his strangely lucid brain had allowed for every contingency. and the movements and words which he was now about to make and utter were all fully prepared and matured:
“growler, the commissionaire is waiting on the boulevard gambetta with his barrow and the trunk which we bought. bring him here and have the trunk carried up. if the people of the hotel ask any questions, say it’s for the lady in no. 130.”
then, addressing his other companion:
“masher, go back to the station and take over the limousine. the price is arranged: ten thousand francs. buy a chauffeur’s cap and overcoat and bring the car to the hotel.”
“the money, governor.”
lupin opened a pocketbook which had been removed from daubrecq’s jacket and produced a huge bundle of bank-notes. he separated ten of them:
“here you are. our friend appears to have been doing well at the club. off with you, masher!”
the two men went out through clarisse’s room. lupin availed himself of a moment when clarisse mergy was not looking to stow away the pocketbook with the greatest satisfaction:
“i shall have done a fair stroke of business,” he said to himself. “when all the expenses are paid, i shall still be well to the good; and it’s not over yet.”
then turning to clarisse mergy, he asked:
“have you a bag?”
“yes, i bought one when i reached nice, with some linen and a few necessaries; for i left paris unprepared.”
“get all that ready. then go down to the office. say that you are expecting a trunk which a commissionaire is bringing from the station cloakroom and that you will want to unpack and pack it again in your room; and tell them that you are leaving.”
when alone, lupin examined daubrecq carefully, felt in all his pockets and appropriated everything that seemed to present any sort of interest.
the growler was the first to return. the trunk, a large wicker hamper covered with black moleskin, was taken into clarisse’s room. assisted by clarisse and the growler, lupin moved daubrecq and put him in the trunk, in a sitting posture, but with his head bent so as to allow of the lid being fastened:
“i don’t say that it’s as comfortable as your berth in a sleeping-car, my dear deputy,” lupin observed. “but, all the same, it’s better than a coffin. at least, you can breathe. three little holes in each side. you have nothing to complain of!”
then, unstopping a flask:
“a drop more chloroform? you seem to love it!...”
he soaked the pad once more, while, by his orders, clarisse and the growler propped up the deputy with linen, rugs and pillows, which they had taken the precaution to heap in the trunk.
“capital!” said lupin. “that trunk is fit to go round the world. lock it and strap it.”
the masher arrived, in a chauffeur’s livery:
“the car’s below, governor.”
“good,” he said. “take the trunk down between you. it would be dangerous to give it to the hotel-servants.”
“but if any one meets us?”
“well, what then, masher? aren’t you a chauffeur? you’re carrying the trunk of your employer here present, the lady in no. 130, who will also go down, step into her motor... and wait for me two hundred yards farther on. growler, you help to hoist the trunk up. oh, first lock the partition-door!”
lupin went to the next room, closed the other door, shot the bolt, walked out, locked the door behind him and went down in the lift.
in the office, he said:
“m. daubrecq has suddenly been called away to monte carlo. he asked me to say that he would not be back until tuesday and that you were to keep his room for him. his things are all there. here is the key.”
he walked away quietly and went after the car, where he found clarisse lamenting:
“we shall never be in paris to-morrow! it’s madness! the least breakdown...”
“that’s why you and i are going to take the train. it’s safer...”
he put her into a cab and gave his parting instructions to the two men:
“thirty miles an hour, on the average, do you understand? you’re to drive and rest, turn and turn about. at that rate, you ought to be in paris between six and seven to-morrow evening. but don’t force the pace. i’m keeping daubrecq, not because i want him for my plans, but as a hostage... and then by way of precaution... i like to feel that i can lay my hands on him during the next few days. so look after the dear fellow... give him a few drops of chloroform every three or four hours: it’s his one weakness... off with you, masher... and you, daubrecq, don’t get excited up there. the roof’ll bear you all right... if you feel at all sick, don’t mind... off you go, masher!”
he watched the car move into the distance and then told the cabman to drive to a post-office, where he dispatched a telegram in these words:
“m. prasville, prefecture de police, paris:
“person found. will bring you document eleven o’clock
to-morrow morning. urgent communication.
“clarisse.”
clarisse and lupin reached the station by half-past two.
“if only there’s room!” said clarisse, who was alarmed at the least thing.
“room? why, our berths are booked!”
“by whom?”
“by jacob... by daubrecq.”
“how?”
“why, at the office of the hotel they gave me a letter which had come for daubrecq by express. it was the two berths which jacob had sent him. also, i have his deputy’s pass. so we shall travel under the name of m. and mme. daubrecq and we shall receive all the attention due to our rank and station. you see, my dear madam, that everything’s arranged.”
the journey, this time, seemed short to lupin. clarisse told him what she had done during the past few days. he himself explained the miracle of his sudden appearance in daubrecq’s bedroom at the moment when his adversary believed him in italy:
“a miracle, no,” he said. “but still a remarkable phenomenon took place in me when i left san remo, a sort of mysterious intuition which prompted me first to try and jump out of the train—and the masher prevented me—and next to rush to the window, let down the glass and follow the porter of the ambassadeurs-palace, who had given me your message, with my eyes. well, at that very minute, the porter aforesaid was rubbing his hands with an air of such satisfaction that, for no other reason, suddenly, i understood everything: i had been diddled, taken in by daubrecq, as you yourself were. heaps of little details flashed across my mind. my adversary’s scheme became clear to me from start to finish. another minute... and the disaster would have been beyond remedy. i had, i confess, a few moments of real despair, at the thought that i should not be able to repair all the mistakes that had been made. it depended simply on the time-table of the trains, which would either allow me or would not allow me to find daubrecq’s emissary on the railway-platform at san remo. this time, at last, chance favoured me. we had hardly alighted at the first station when a train passed, for france. when we arrived at san remo, the man was there. i had guessed right. he no longer wore his hotel-porter’s cap and frock-coat, but a jacket and bowler. he stepped into a second-class compartment. from that moment, victory was assured.”
“but... how...?” asked clarisse, who, in spite of the thoughts that obsessed her, was interested in lupin’s story.
“how did i find you? lord, simply by not losing sight of master jacob, while leaving him free to move about as he pleased, knowing that he was bound to account for his actions to daubrecq. in point of fact, this morning, after spending the night in a small hotel at nice, he met daubrecq on the promenade des anglais. they talked for some time. i followed them. daubrecq went back to the hotel, planted jacob in one of the passages on the ground-floor, opposite the telephone-office, and went up in the lift. ten minutes later i knew the number of his room and knew that a lady had been occupying the next room, no. 130, since the day before. ‘i believe we’ve done it,’ i said to the growler and the masher. i tapped lightly at your door. no answer. and the door was locked.”
“well?” asked clarisse.
“well, we opened it. do you think there’s only one key in the world that will work a lock? so i walked in. nobody in your room. but the partition-door was ajar. i slipped through it. thenceforth, a mere hanging separated me from you, from daubrecq and from the packet of tobacco which i saw on the chimney-slab.”
“then you knew the hiding-place?”
“a look round daubrecq’s study in paris showed me that that packet of tobacco had disappeared. besides...”
“what?”
“i knew, from certain confessions wrung from daubrecq in the lovers’ tower, that the word marie held the key to the riddle. since then i had certainly thought of this word, but with the preconceived notion that it was spelt m a r i e. well, it was really the first two syllables of another word, which i guessed, so to speak, only at the moment when i was struck by the absence of the packet of tobacco.”
“what word do you mean?”
“maryland, maryland tobacco, the only tobacco that daubrecq smokes.”
and lupin began to laugh:
“wasn’t it silly? and, at the same time, wasn’t it clever of daubrecq? we looked everywhere, we ransacked everything. didn’t i unscrew the brass sockets of the electric lights to see if they contained a crystal stopper? but how could i have thought, how could any one, however great his perspicacity, have thought of tearing off the paper band of a packet of maryland, a band put on, gummed, sealed, stamped and dated by the state, under the control of the inland revenue office? only think! the state the accomplice of such an act of infamy! the inland r-r-r-revenue awfice lending itself to such a trick! no, a thousand times no! the regie [*] is not perfect. it makes matches that won’t light and cigarettes filled with hay. but there’s all the difference in the world between recognizing that fact and believing the inland revenue to be in league with daubrecq with the object of hiding the list of the twenty-seven from the legitimate curiosity of the government and the enterprising efforts of arsene lupin! observe that all daubrecq had to do, in order to introduce the crystal stopper, was to bear upon the band a little, loosen it, draw it back, unfold the yellow paper, remove the tobacco and fasten it up again. observe also that all we had to do, in paris, was to take the packet in our hands and examine it, in order to discover the hiding-place. no matter! the packet itself, the plug of maryland made up and passed by the state and by the inland revenue office, was a sacred, intangible thing, a thing above suspicion! and nobody opened it. that was how that demon of a daubrecq allowed that untouched packet of tobacco to lie about for months on his table, among his pipes and among other unopened packets of tobacco. and no power on earth could have given any one even the vaguest notion of looking into that harmless little cube. i would have you observe, besides...” lupin went on pursuing his remarks relative to the packet of maryland and the crystal stopper. his adversary’s ingenuity and shrewdness interested him all the more inasmuch as lupin had ended by getting the better of him. but to clarisse these topics mattered much less than did her anxiety as to the acts which must be performed to save her son; and she sat wrapped in her own thoughts and hardly listened to him.
* the department of the french excise which holds the
monopoly for the manufacture and sale of tobacco, cigars,
cigarettes and matches—translator’s note.
“are you sure,” she kept on repeating, “that you will succeed?”
“absolutely sure.”
“but prasville is not in paris.”
“if he’s not there, he’s at the havre. i saw it in the paper yesterday. in any case, a telegram will bring him to paris at once.”
“and do you think that he has enough influence?”
“to obtain the pardon of vaucheray and gilbert personally. no. if he had, we should have set him to work before now. but he is intelligent enough to understand the value of what we are bringing him and to act without a moment’s delay.”
“but, to be accurate, are you not deceived as to that value?”
“was daubrecq deceived? was daubrecq not in a better position than any of us to know the full power of that paper? did he not have twenty proofs of it, each more convincing than the last? think of all that he was able to do, for the sole reason that people knew him to possess the list. they knew it; and that was all. he did not use the list, but he had it. and, having it, he killed your husband. he built up his fortune on the ruin and the disgrace of the twenty-seven. only last week, one of the gamest of the lot, d’albufex, cut his throat in a prison. no, take it from me, as the price of handing over that list, we could ask for anything we pleased. and we are asking for what? almost nothing ... less than nothing... the pardon of a child of twenty. in other words, they will take us for idiots. what! we have in our hands...”
he stopped. clarisse, exhausted by so much excitement, sat fast asleep in front of him.
they reached paris at eight o’clock in the morning.
lupin found two telegrams awaiting him at his flat in the place de clichy.
one was from the masher, dispatched from avignon on the previous day and stating that all was going well and that they hoped to keep their appointment punctually that evening. the other was from prasville, dated from the havre and addressed to clarisse:
“impossible return to-morrow monday morning. come to my office
five o’clock. reckon on you absolutely.”
“five o’clock!” said clarisse. “how late!”
“it’s a first-rate hour,” declared lupin.
“still, if...”
“if the execution is to take place to-morrow morning: is that what you mean to say?... don’t be afraid to speak out, for the execution will not take place.”
“the newspapers...”
“you haven’t read the newspapers and you are not to read them. nothing that they can say matters in the least. one thing alone matters: our interview with prasville. besides...”
he took a little bottle from a cupboard and, putting his hand on clarisse’s shoulder, said:
“lie down here, on the sofa, and take a few drops of this mixture.”
“what’s it for?”
“it will make you sleep for a few hours... and forget. that’s always so much gained.”
“no, no,” protested clarisse, “i don’t want to. gilbert is not asleep. he is not forgetting.”
“drink it,” said lupin, with gentle insistence. she yielded all of a sudden, from cowardice, from excessive suffering, and did as she was told and lay on the sofa and closed her eyes. in a few minutes she was asleep.
lupin rang for his servant:
“the newspapers... quick!... have you bought them?”
“here they are, governor.”
lupin opened one of them and at once read the following lines:
“arsene lupin’s accomplices”
“we know from a positive source that arsene lupin’s
accomplices, gilbert and vaucheray, will be executed
to-morrow, tuesday, morning. m. deibler has inspected
the scaffold. everything is ready.”
he raised his head with a defiant look.
“arsene lupin’s accomplices! the execution of arsene lupin’s accomplices! what a fine spectacle! and what a crowd there will be to witness it! sorry, gentlemen, but the curtain will not rise. theatre closed by order of the authorities. and the authorities are myself!”
he struck his chest violently, with an arrogant gesture:
“the authorities are myself!”
at twelve o’clock lupin received a telegram which the masher had sent from lyons:
“all well. goods will arrive without damage.”
at three o’clock clarisse woke. her first words were:
“is it to be to-morrow?”
he did not answer. but she saw him look so calm and smiling that she felt herself permeated with an immense sense of peace and received the impression that everything was finished, disentangled, settled according to her companion’s will.
they left the house at ten minutes past four. prasville’s secretary, who had received his chief’s instructions by telephone, showed them into the office and asked them to wait. it was a quarter to five.
prasville came running in at five o’clock exactly and, at once, cried:
“have you the list?”
“yes.”
“give it me.”
he put out his hand. clarisse, who had risen from her chair, did not stir.
prasville looked at her for a moment, hesitated and sat down. he understood. in pursuing daubrecq, clarisse mergy had not acted only from hatred and the desire for revenge. another motive prompted her. the paper would not be handed over except upon conditions.
“sit down, please,” he said, thus showing that he accepted the discussion.
clarisse resumed her seat and, when she remained silent, prasville said:
“speak, my friend, and speak quite frankly. i do not scruple to say that we wish to have that paper.”
“if it is only a wish,” remarked clarisse, whom lupin had coached in her part down to the least detail, “if it is only a wish, i fear that we shall not be able to come to an arrangement.”
prasville smiled:
“the wish, obviously, would lead us to make certain sacrifices.”
“every sacrifice,” said mme. mergy, correcting him.
“every sacrifice, provided, of course, that we keep within the bounds of acceptable requirements.”
“and even if we go beyond those bounds,” said clarisse, inflexibly.
prasville began to lose patience:
“come, what is it all about? explain yourself.”
“forgive me, my friend, but i wanted above all to mark the great importance which you attach to that paper and, in view of the immediate transaction which we are about to conclude, to specify—what shall i say?—the value of my share in it. that value, which has no limits, must, i repeat, be exchanged for an unlimited value.”
“agreed,” said prasville, querulously.
“i presume, therefore, that it is unnecessary for me to trace the whole story of the business or to enumerate, on the one hand, the disasters which the possession of that paper would have allowed you to avert and, on the other hand, the incalculable advantages which you will be able to derive from its possession?”
prasville had to make an effort to contain himself and to answer in a tone that was civil, or nearly so:
“i admit everything. is that enough?”
“i beg your pardon, but we cannot explain ourselves too plainly. and there is one point that remains to be cleared up. are you in a position to treat, personally?”
“how do you mean?”
“i want to know not, of course, if you are empowered to settle this business here and now, but if, in dealing with me, you represent the views of those who know the business and who are qualified to settle it.”
“yes,” declared prasville, forcibly.
“so that i can have your answer within an hour after i have told you my conditions?”
“yes.”
“will the answer be that of the government?”
“yes.”
clarisse bent forward and, sinking her voice:
“will the answer be that of the elysee?”
prasville appeared surprised. he reflected for a moment and then said:
“yes.”
“it only remains for me to ask you to give me your word of honour that, however incomprehensible my conditions may appear to you, you will not insist on my revealing the reason. they are what they are. your answer must be yes or no.”
“i give you my word of honour,” said prasville, formally.
clarisse underwent a momentary agitation that made her turn paler still. then, mastering herself, with her eyes fixed on prasville’s eyes, she said:
“you shall have the list of the twenty-seven in exchange for the pardon of gilbert and vaucheray.”
“eh? what?”
prasville leapt from his chair, looking absolutely dumbfounded:
“the pardon of gilbert and vaucheray? of arsene lupin’s accomplices?”
“yes,” she said.
“the murderers of the villa marie-therese? the two who are due to die to-morrow?”
“yes, those two,” she said, in a loud voice. “i ask? i demand their pardon.”
“but this is madness! why? why should you?”
“i must remind you, prasville, that you gave me your word...”
“yes... yes... i know... but the thing is so unexpected...”
“why?”
“why? for all sorts of reasons!”
“what reasons?”
“well... well, but... think! gilbert and vaucheray have been sentenced to death!”
“send them to penal servitude: that’s all you have to do.”
“impossible! the case has created an enormous sensation. they are arsene lupin’s accomplices. the whole world knows about the verdict.”
“well?”
“well, we cannot, no, we cannot go against the decrees of justice.”
“you are not asked to do that. you are asked for a commutation of punishment as an act of mercy. mercy is a legal thing.”
“the pardoning-commission has given its finding...”
“true, but there remains the president of the republic.”
“he has refused.”
“he can reconsider his refusal.”
“impossible!”
“why?”
“there’s no excuse for it.”
“he needs no excuse. the right of mercy is absolute. it is exercised without control, without reason, without excuse or explanation. it is a royal prerogative; the president of the republic can wield it according to his good pleasure, or rather according to his conscience, in the best interests of the state.”
“but it is too late! everything is ready. the execution is to take place in a few hours.”
“one hour is long enough to obtain your answer; you have just told us so.”
“but this is confounded madness! there are insuperable obstacles to your conditions. i tell you again, it’s impossible, physically impossible.”
“then the answer is no?”
“no! no! a thousand times no!”
“in that case, there is nothing left for us to do but to go.”
she moved toward the door. m. nicole followed her. prasville bounded across the room and barred their way:
“where are you going?”
“well, my friend, it seems to me that our conversation is at an end. as you appear to think, as, in fact, you are certain that the president of the republic will not consider the famous list of the twenty-seven to be worth...”
“stay where you are,” said prasville.
he turned the key in the door and began to pace the room, with his hands behind his back and his eyes fixed on the floor.
and lupin, who had not breathed a word during the whole of this scene and who had prudently contented himself with playing a colourless part, said to himself:
“what a fuss! what a lot of affectation to arrive at the inevitable result! as though prasville, who is not a genius, but not an absolute blockhead either, would be likely to lose the chance of revenging himself on his mortal enemy! there, what did i say? the idea of hurling daubrecq into the bottomless pit appeals to him. come, we’ve won the rubber.”
prasville was opening a small inner door which led to the office of his private secretary.
he gave an order aloud:
“m. lartigue, telephone to the elysee and say that i request the favour of an audience for a communication of the utmost importance.”
he closed the door, came back to clarisse and said:
“in any case, my intervention is limited to submitting your proposal.”
“once you submit it, it will be accepted.”
a long silence followed. clarisse’s features expressed so profound a delight that prasville was struck by it and looked at her with attentive curiosity. for what mysterious reason did clarisse wish to save gilbert and vaucheray? what was the incomprehensible link that bound her to those two men? what tragedy connected those three lives and, no doubt, daubrecq’s in addition?
“go ahead, old boy,” thought lupin, “cudgel your brains: you’ll never spot it! ah, if we had asked for gilbert’s pardon only, as clarisse wished, you might have twigged the secret! but vaucheray, that brute of a vaucheray, there really could not be the least bond between mme. mergy and him.... aha, by jingo, it’s my turn now!... he’s watching me ... the inward soliloquy is turning upon myself... ‘i wonder who that m. nicole can be? why has that little provincial usher devoted himself body and soul to clarisse mergy? who is that old bore, if the truth were known? i made a mistake in not inquiring... i must look into this.... i must rip off the beggar’s mask. for, after all, it’s not natural that a man should take so much trouble about a matter in which he is not directly interested. why should he also wish to save gilbert and vaucheray? why? why should he?...” lupin turned his head away. “look out!... look out!... there’s a notion passing through that red-tape-merchant’s skull: a confused notion which he can’t put into words. hang it all, he mustn’t suspect m. lupin under m. nicole! the thing’s complicated enough as it is, in all conscience!...”
but there was a welcome interruption. prasville’s secretary came to say that the audience would take place in an hour’s time.
“very well. thank you,” said prasville. “that will do.”
and, resuming the interview, with no further circumlocution, speaking like a man who means to put a thing through, he declared:
“i think that we shall be able to manage it. but, first of all, so that i may do what i have undertaken to do, i want more precise information, fuller details. where was the paper?”
“in the crystal stopper, as we thought,” said mme. mergy.
“and where was the crystal stopper?”
“in an object which daubrecq came and fetched, a few days ago, from the writing-desk in his study in the square lamartine, an object which i took from him yesterday.”
“what sort of object?”
“simply a packet of tobacco, maryland tobacco, which used to lie about on the desk.”
prasville was petrified. he muttered, guilelessly:
“oh, if i had only known! i’ve had my hand on that packet of maryland a dozen times! how stupid of me!”
“what does it matter?” said clarisse. “the great thing is that the discovery is made.”
prasville pulled a face which implied that the discovery would have been much pleasanter if he himself had made it. then he asked:
“so you have the list?”
“yes.”
“show it to me.”
and, when clarisse hesitated, he added:
“oh, please, don’t be afraid! the list belongs to you, and i will give it back to you. but you must understand that i cannot take the step in question without making certain.”
clarisse consulted m. nicole with a glance which did not escape prasville. then she said:
“here it is.”
he seized the scrap of paper with a certain excitement, examined it and almost immediately said:
“yes, yes... the secretary’s writing: i recognize it.... and the signature of the chairman of the company: the signature in red.... besides, i have other proofs.... for instance, the torn piece which completes the left-hand top corner of this sheet...”
he opened his safe and, from a special cash-box, produced a tiny piece of paper which he put against the top left corner:
“that’s right. the torn edges fit exactly. the proof is undeniable. all that remains is to verify the make of this foreign-post-paper.”
clarisse was radiant with delight. no one would have believed that the most terrible torture had racked her for weeks and weeks and that she was still bleeding and quivering from its effects.
while prasville was holding the paper against a window-pane, she said to lupin:
“i insist upon having gilbert informed this evening. he must be so awfully unhappy!”
“yes,” said lupin. “besides, you can go to his lawyer and tell him.”
she continued:
“and then i must see gilbert to-morrow. prasville can think what he likes.”
“of course. but he must first gain his cause at the elysee.”
“there can’t be any difficulty, can there?”
“no. you saw that he gave way at once.”
prasville continued his examination with the aid of a magnifying-glass and compared the sheet with the scrap of torn paper. next, he took from the cash-box some other sheets of letter-paper and examined one of these by holding it up to the light:
“that’s done,” he said. “my mind is made up. forgive me, dear friend: it was a very difficult piece of work.... i passed through various stages. when all is said, i had my suspicions... and not without cause...”
“what do you mean?” asked clarisse.
“one second.... i must give an order first.”
he called his secretary:
“please telephone at once to the elysee, make my apologies and say that i shall not require the audience, for reasons which i will explain later.”
he closed the door and returned to his desk. clarisse and lupin stood choking, looking at him in stupefaction, failing to understand this sudden change. was he mad? was it a trick on his part? a breach of faith? and was he refusing to keep his promise, now that he possessed the list?
he held it out to clarisse:
“you can have it back.”
“have it back?”
“and return it to daubrecq.”
“to daubrecq?”
“unless you prefer to burn it.”
“what do you say?”
“i say that, if i were in your place, i would burn it.”
“why do you say that? it’s ridiculous!”
“on the contrary, it is very sensible.”
“but why? why?”
“why? i will tell you. the list of the twenty-seven, as we know for absolutely certain, was written on a sheet of letter-paper belonging to the chairman of the canal company, of which there are a few samples in this cash-box. now all these samples have as a water-mark a little cross of lorraine which is almost invisible, but which can just be seen in the thickness of the paper when you hold it up to the light. the sheet which you have brought me does not contain that little cross of lorraine.” [*]
* the cross of lorraine is a cross with two horizontal lines
or bars across the upper half of the perpendicular beam.
—translator’s note.
lupin felt a nervous trembling shake him from head to foot and he dared not turn his eyes on clarisse, realizing what a terrible blow this was to her. he heard her stammer:
“then are we to suppose... that daubrecq was taken in?”
“not a bit of it!” exclaimed prasville. “it is you who have been taken in, my poor friend. daubrecq has the real list, the list which he stole from the dying man’s safe.”
“but this one...”
“this one is a forgery.”
“a forgery?”
“an undoubted forgery. it was an admirable piece of cunning on daubrecq’s part. dazzled by the crystal stopper which he flashed before your eyes, you did nothing but look for that stopper in which he had stowed away no matter what, the first bit of paper that came to hand, while he quietly kept...”
prasville interrupted himself. clarisse was walking up to him with short, stiff steps, like an automaton. she said:
“then...”
“then what, dear friend?”
“you refuse?”
“certainly, i am obliged to; i have no choice.”
“you refuse to take that step?”
“look here, how can i do what you ask? it’s not possible, on the strength of a valueless document...”
“you won’t do it?... you won’t do it?... and, to-morrow morning... in a few hours... gilbert...”
she was frightfully pale, her face sunk, like the face of one dying. her eyes opened wider and wider and her teeth chattered...
lupin, fearing the useless and dangerous words which she was about to utter, seized her by the shoulders and tried to drag her away. but she thrust him back with indomitable strength, took two or three more steps, staggered, as though on the point of falling, and, suddenly, in a burst of energy and despair, laid hold of prasville and screamed:
“you shall go to the elysee!... you shall go at once!... you must!... you must save gilbert!”
“please, please, my dear friend, calm yourself...”
she gave a strident laugh:
“calm myself!... when, to-morrow morning, gilbert... ah, no, no, i am terrified... it’s appalling.... oh, run, you wretch, run! obtain his pardon!... don’t you understand? gilbert... gilbert is my son! my son! my son!”
prasville gave a cry. the blade of a knife flashed in clarisse’s hand and she raised her arm to strike herself. but the movement was not completed. m. nicole caught her arm in its descent and, taking the knife from clarisse, reducing her to helplessness, he said, in a voice that rang through the room like steel:
“what you are doing is madness!... when i gave you my oath that i would save him! you must... live for him... gilbert shall not die.... how can he die, when... i gave you my oath?...”
“gilbert... my son...” moaned clarisse.
he clasped her fiercely, drew her against himself and put his hand over her mouth:
“enough! be quiet!... i entreat you to be quiet.... gilbert shall not die...”
with irresistible authority, he dragged her away like a subdued child that suddenly becomes obedient; but, at the moment of opening the door, he turned to prasville:
“wait for me here, monsieur,” he commanded, in an imperative tone. “if you care about that list of the twenty-seven, the real list, wait for me. i shall be back in an hour, in two hours, at most; and then we will talk business.”
and abruptly, to clarisse:
“and you, madame, a little courage yet. i command you to show courage, in gilbert’s name.”
he went away, through the passages, down the stairs, with a jerky step, holding clarisse under the arm, as he might have held a lay-figure, supporting her, carrying her almost. a court-yard, another court-yard, then the street.
meanwhile, prasville, surprised at first, bewildered by the course of events, was gradually recovering his composure and thinking. he thought of that m. nicole, a mere supernumerary at first, who played beside clarisse the part of one of those advisers to whom we cling in the serious crises of our lives and who suddenly, shaking off his torpor, appeared in the full light of day, resolute, masterful, mettlesome, brimming over with daring, ready to overthrow all the obstacles that fate placed on his path.
who was there that was capable of acting thus?
prasville started. the question had no sooner occurred to his mind than the answer flashed on him, with absolute certainty. all the proofs rose up, each more exact, each more convincing than the last.
hurriedly he rang. hurriedly he sent for the chief detective-inspector on duty. and, feverishly:
“were you in the waiting-room, chief-inspector?”
“yes, monsieur le secretaire-general.”
“did you see a gentleman and a lady go out?”
“yes.”
“would you know the man again?”
“yes.”
“then don’t lose a moment, chief-inspector. take six inspectors with you. go to the place de clichy. make inquiries about a man called nicole and watch the house. the nicole man is on his way back there.”
“and if he comes out, monsieur le secretaire-general?”
“arrest him. here’s a warrant.”
he sat down to his desk and wrote a name on a form:
“here you are, chief-inspector. i will let the chief-detective know.”
the chief-inspector seemed staggered:
“but you spoke to me of a man called nicole, monsieur le secretaire-general.”
“well?”
“the warrant is in the name of arsene lupin.”
“arsene lupin and the nicole man are one and the same individual.”
