Kitabı oku: «Arsene Lupin», sayfa 4
CHAPTER VI
AGAIN THE CHAROLAIS
Hardly had the door closed behind the millionaire when the head of M. Charolais appeared at one of the windows opening on to the terrace. He looked round the empty hall, whistled softly, and stepped inside. Inside of ten seconds his three sons came in through the windows, and with them came Jean, the millionaire's chauffeur.
"Take the door into the outer hall, Jean," said M. Charolais, in a low voice. "Bernard, take that door into the drawing-room. Pierre and Louis, help me go through the drawers. The whole family is going to Paris, and if we're not quick we shan't get the cars."
"That comes of this silly fondness for warning people of a coup," growled Jean, as he hurried to the door of the outer hall. "It would have been so simple to rob the Paris house without sending that infernal letter. It was sure to knock them all silly."
"What harm can the letter do, you fool?" said M. Charolais. "It's Sunday. We want them knocked silly for to-morrow, to get hold of the coronet. Oh, to get hold of that coronet! It must be in Paris. I've been ransacking this chateau for hours."
Jean opened the door of the outer hall half an inch, and glued his eyes to it. Bernard had done the same with the door opening into the drawing-room. M. Charolais, Pierre, and Louis were opening drawers, ransacking them, and shutting them with infinite quickness and noiselessly.
"Bureau! Which is the bureau? The place is stuffed with bureaux!" growled M. Charolais. "I must have those keys."
"That plain thing with the brass handles in the middle on the left—that's a bureau," said Bernard softly.
"Why didn't you say so?" growled M. Charolais.
He dashed to it, and tried it. It was locked.
"Locked, of course! Just my luck! Come and get it open, Pierre. Be smart!"
The son he had described as an engineer came quickly to the bureau, fitting together as he came the two halves of a small jemmy. He fitted it into the top of the flap. There was a crunch, and the old lock gave. He opened the flap, and he and M. Charolais pulled open drawer after drawer.
"Quick! Here's that fat old fool!" said Jean, in a hoarse, hissing whisper.
He moved down the hall, blowing out one of the lamps as he passed it. In the seventh drawer lay a bunch of keys. M. Charolais snatched it up, glanced at it, took a bunch of keys from his own pocket, put it in the drawer, closed it, closed the flap, and rushed to the window. Jean and his sons were already out on the terrace.
M. Charolais was still a yard from the window when the door into the outer hall opened and in came M. Gournay-Martin.
He caught a glimpse of a back vanishing through the window, and bellowed: "Hi! A man! A burglar! Firmin! Firmin!"
He ran blundering down the hall, tangled his feet in the fragments of the broken chair, and came sprawling a thundering cropper, which knocked every breath of wind out of his capacious body. He lay flat on his face for a couple of minutes, his broad back wriggling convulsively—a pathetic sight!—in the painful effort to get his breath back. Then he sat up, and with perfect frankness burst into tears. He sobbed and blubbered, like a small child that has hurt itself, for three or four minutes. Then, having recovered his magnificent voice, he bellowed furiously: "Firmin! Firmin! Charmerace! Charmerace!"
Then he rose painfully to his feet, and stood staring at the open windows.
Presently he roared again: "Firmin! Firmin! Charmerace! Charmerace!"
He kept looking at the window with terrified eyes, as though he expected somebody to step in and cut his throat from ear to ear.
"Firmin! Firmin! Charmerace! Charmerace!" he bellowed again.
The Duke came quietly into the hall, dressed in a heavy motor-coat, his motor-cap on his head, and carrying a kit-bag in his hand.
"Did I hear you call?" he said.
"Call?" said the millionaire. "I shouted. The burglars are here already. I've just seen one of them. He was bolting through the middle window."
The Duke raised his eyebrows.
"Nerves," he said gently—"nerves."
"Nerves be hanged!" said the millionaire. "I tell you I saw him as plainly as I see you."
"Well, you can't see me at all, seeing that you're lighting an acre and a half of hall with a single lamp," said the Duke, still in a tone of utter incredulity.
"It's that fool Firmin! He ought to have lighted six. Firmin! Firmin!" bellowed the millionaire.
They listened for the sonorous clumping of the promoted gamekeeper's boots, but they did not hear it. Evidently Firmin was still giving his master's instructions about the cars to Jean.
"Well, we may as well shut the windows, anyhow," said the Duke, proceeding to do so. "If you think Firmin would be any good, you might post him in this hall with a gun to-night. There could be no harm in putting a charge of small shot into the legs of these ruffians. He has only to get one of them, and the others will go for their lives. Yet I don't like leaving you and Germaine in this big house with only Firmin to look after you."
"I shouldn't like it myself, and I'm not going to chance it," growled the millionaire. "We're going to motor to Paris along with you, and leave Jean to help Firmin fight these burglars. Firmin's all right—he's an old soldier. He fought in '70. Not that I've much belief in soldiers against this cursed Lupin, after the way he dealt with that corporal and his men three years ago."
"I'm glad you're coming to Paris," said the Duke. "It'll be a weight off my mind. I'd better drive the limousine, and you take the landaulet."
"That won't do," said the millionaire. "Germaine won't go in the limousine. You know she has taken a dislike to it."
"Nevertheless, I'd better bucket on to Paris, and let you follow slowly with Germaine. The sooner I get to Paris the better for your collection. I'll take Mademoiselle Kritchnoff with me, and, if you like, Irma, though the lighter I travel the sooner I shall get there."
"No, I'll take Irma and Germaine," said the millionaire. "Germaine would prefer to have Irma with her, in case you had an accident. She wouldn't like to get to Paris and have to find a fresh maid."
The drawing-room door opened, and in came Germaine, followed by Sonia and Irma. They wore motor-cloaks and hoods and veils. Sonia and Irma were carrying hand-bags.
"I think it's extremely tiresome your dragging us off to Paris like this in the middle of the night," said Germaine pettishly.
"Do you?" said the millionaire. "Well, then, you'll be interested to hear that I've just seen a burglar here in this very room. I frightened him, and he bolted through the window on to the terrace."
"He was greenish-pink, slightly tinged with yellow," said the Duke softly.
"Greenish-pink? Oh, do stop your jesting, Jacques! Is this a time for idiocy?" cried Germaine, in a tone of acute exasperation.
"It was the dim light which made your father see him in those colours. In a bright light, I think he would have been an Alsatian blue," said the Duke suavely.
"You'll have to break yourself of this silly habit of trifling, my dear Duke, if ever you expect to be a member of the Academie Francaise," said the millionaire with some acrimony. "I tell you I did see a burglar."
"Yes, yes. I admitted it frankly. It was his colour I was talking about," said the Duke, with an ironical smile.
"Oh, stop your idiotic jokes! We're all sick to death of them!" said Germaine, with something of the fine fury which so often distinguished her father.
"There are times for all things," said the millionaire solemnly. "And I must say that, with the fate of my collection and of the coronet trembling in the balance, this does not seem to me a season for idle jests."
"I stand reproved," said the Duke; and he smiled at Sonia.
"My keys, Sonia—the keys of the Paris house," said the millionaire.
Sonia took her own keys from her pocket and went to the bureau. She slipped a key into the lock and tried to turn it. It would not turn; and she bent down to look at it.
"Why—why, some one's been tampering with the lock! It's broken!" she cried.
"I told you I'd seen a burglar!" cried the millionaire triumphantly. "He was after the keys."
Sonia drew back the flap of the bureau and hastily pulled open the drawer in which the keys had been.
"They're here!" she cried, taking them out of the drawer and holding them up.
"Then I was just in time," said the millionaire. "I startled him in the very act of stealing the keys."
"I withdraw! I withdraw!" said the Duke. "You did see a burglar, evidently. But still I believe he was greenish-pink. They often are. However, you'd better give me those keys, Mademoiselle Sonia, since I'm to get to Paris first. I should look rather silly if, when I got there, I had to break into the house to catch the burglars."
Sonia handed the keys to the Duke. He contrived to take her little hand, keys and all, into his own, as he received them, and squeezed it. The light was too dim for the others to see the flush which flamed in her face. She went back and stood beside the bureau.
"Now, papa, are you going to motor to Paris in a thin coat and linen waistcoat? If we're going, we'd better go. You always do keep us waiting half an hour whenever we start to go anywhere," said Germaine firmly.
The millionaire bustled out of the room. With a gesture of impatience Germaine dropped into a chair. Irma stood waiting by the drawing-room door. Sonia sat down by the bureau.
There came a sharp patter of rain against the windows.
"Rain! It only wanted that! It's going to be perfectly beastly!" cried Germaine.
"Oh, well, you must make the best of it. At any rate you're well wrapped up, and the night is warm enough, though it is raining," said the Duke. "Still, I could have wished that Lupin confined his operations to fine weather." He paused, and added cheerfully, "But, after all, it will lay the dust."
They sat for three or four minutes in a dull silence, listening to the pattering of the rain against the panes. The Duke took his cigarette-case from his pocket and lighted a cigarette.
Suddenly he lost his bored air; his face lighted up; and he said joyfully: "Of course, why didn't I think of it? Why should we start from a pit of gloom like this? Let us have the proper illumination which our enterprise deserves."
With that he set about lighting all the lamps in the hall. There were lamps on stands, lamps on brackets, lamps on tables, and lamps which hung from the roof—old-fashioned lamps with new reservoirs, new lamps of what is called chaste design, brass lamps, silver lamps, and lamps in porcelain. The Duke lighted them one after another, patiently, missing none, with a cold perseverance. The operation was punctuated by exclamations from Germaine. They were all to the effect that she could not understand how he could be such a fool. The Duke paid no attention whatever to her. His face illumined with boyish glee, he lighted lamp after lamp.
Sonia watched him with a smiling admiration of the childlike enthusiasm with which he performed the task. Even the stolid face of the ox-eyed Irma relaxed into grins, which she smoothed quickly out with a respectful hand.
The Duke had just lighted the twenty-second lamp when in bustled the millionaire.
"What's this? What's this?" he cried, stopping short, blinking.
"Just some more of Jacques' foolery!" cried Germaine in tones of the last exasperation.
"But, my dear Duke!—my dear Duke! The oil!—the oil!" cried the millionaire, in a tone of bitter distress. "Do you think it's my object in life to swell the Rockefeller millions? We never have more than six lamps burning unless we are holding a reception."
"I think it looks so cheerful," said the Duke, looking round on his handiwork with a beaming smile of satisfaction. "But where are the cars? Jean seems a deuce of a time bringing them round. Does he expect us to go to the garage through this rain? We'd better hurry him up. Come on; you've got a good carrying voice."
He caught the millionaire by the arm, hurried him through the outer hall, opened the big door of the chateau, and said: "Now shout!"
The millionaire looked at him, shrugged his shoulders, and said: "You don't beat about the bush when you want anything."
"Why should I?" said the Duke simply. "Shout, my good chap—shout!"
The millionaire raised his voice in a terrific bellow of "Jean! Jean! Firmin! Firmin!"
There was no answer.
CHAPTER VII
THE THEFT OF THE MOTOR-CARS
The night was very black; the rain pattered in their faces.
Again the millionaire bellowed: "Jean! Firmin! Firmin! Jean!"
No answer came out of the darkness, though his bellow echoed and re-echoed among the out-buildings and stables away on the left.
He turned and looked at the Duke and said uneasily, "What on earth can they be doing?"
"I can't conceive," said the Duke. "I suppose we must go and hunt them out."
"What! in this darkness, with these burglars about?" said the millionaire, starting back.
"If we don't, nobody else will," said the Duke. "And all the time that rascal Lupin is stealing nearer and nearer your pictures. So buck up, and come along!"
He seized the reluctant millionaire by the arm and drew him down the steps. They took their way to the stables. A dim light shone from the open door of the motor-house. The Duke went into it first, and stopped short.
"Well, I'll be hanged!" he cried,
Instead of three cars the motor-house held but one—the hundred horse-power Mercrac. It was a racing car, with only two seats. On them sat two figures, Jean and Firmin.
"What are you sitting there for? You idle dogs!" bellowed the millionaire.
Neither of the men answered, nor did they stir. The light from the lamp gleamed on their fixed eyes, which stared at their infuriated master.
"What on earth is this?" said the Duke; and seizing the lamp which stood beside the car, he raised it so that its light fell on the two figures. Then it was clear what had happened: they were trussed like two fowls, and gagged.
The Duke pulled a penknife from his pocket, opened the blade, stepped into the car and set Firmin free. Firmin coughed and spat and swore. The Duke cut the bonds of Jean.
"Well," said the Duke, in a tone of cutting irony, "what new game is this? What have you been playing at?"
"It was those Charolais—those cursed Charolais!" growled Firmin.
"They came on us unawares from behind," said Jean.
"They tied us up, and gagged us—the swine!" said Firmin.
"And then—they went off in the two cars," said Jean.
"Went off in the two cars?" cried the millionaire, in blank stupefaction.
The Duke burst into a shout of laughter.
"Well, your dear friend Lupin doesn't do things by halves," he cried. "This is the funniest thing I ever heard of."
"Funny!" howled the millionaire. "Funny! Where does the fun come in? What about my pictures and the coronet?"
The Duke laughed his laugh out; then changed on the instant to a man of action.
"Well, this means a change in our plans," he said. "I must get to Paris in this car here."
"It's such a rotten old thing," said the millionaire. "You'll never do it."
"Never mind," said the Duke. "I've got to do it somehow. I daresay it's better than you think. And after all, it's only a matter of two hundred miles." He paused, and then said in an anxious tone: "All the same I don't like leaving you and Germaine in the chateau. These rogues have probably only taken the cars out of reach just to prevent your getting to Paris. They'll leave them in some field and come back."
"You're not going to leave us behind. I wouldn't spend the night in the chateau for a million francs. There's always the train," said the millionaire.
"The train! Twelve hours in the train—with all those changes! You don't mean that you will actually go to Paris by train?" said the Duke.
"I do," said the millionaire. "Come along—I must go and tell Germaine; there's no time to waste," and he hurried off to the chateau.
"Get the lamps lighted, Jean, and make sure that the tank's full. As for the engine, I must humour it and trust to luck. I'll get her to Paris somehow," said the Duke.
He went back to the chateau, and Firmin followed him.
When the Duke came into the great hall he found Germaine and her father indulging in recriminations. She was declaring that nothing would induce her to make the journey by train; her father was declaring that she should. He bore down her opposition by the mere force of his magnificent voice.
When at last there came a silence, Sonia said quietly: "But is there a train? I know there's a train at midnight; but is there one before?"
"A time-table—where's a time-table?" said the millionaire.
"Now, where did I see a time-table?" said the Duke. "Oh, I know; there's one in the drawer of that Oriental cabinet." Crossing to the cabinet, he opened the drawer, took out the time-table, and handed it to M. Gournay-Martin.
The millionaire took it and turned over the leaves quickly, ran his eye down a page, and said, "Yes, thank goodness, there is a train. There's one at a quarter to nine."
"And what good is it to us? How are we to get to the station?" said Germaine.
They looked at one another blankly. Firmin, who had followed the Duke into the hall, came to the rescue.
"There's the luggage-cart," he said.
"The luggage-cart!" cried Germaine contemptuously.
"The very thing!" said the millionaire. "I'll drive it myself. Off you go, Firmin; harness a horse to it."
Firmin went clumping out of the hall.
It was perhaps as well that he went, for the Duke asked what time it was; and since the watches of Germaine and her father differed still, there ensued an altercation in which, had Firmin been there, he would doubtless have taken part.
The Duke cut it short by saying: "Well, I don't think I'll wait to see you start for the station. It won't take you more than half an hour. The cart is light. You needn't start yet. I'd better get off as soon as the car is ready. It isn't as though I could trust it."
"One moment," said Germaine. "Is there a dining-car on the train? I'm not going to be starved as well as have my night's rest cut to pieces."
"Of course there isn't a dining-car," snapped her father. "We must eat something now, and take something with us."
"Sonia, Irma, quick! Be off to the larder and see what you can find. Tell Mother Firmin to make an omelette. Be quick!"
Sonia went towards the door of the hall, followed by Irma.
"Good-night, and bon voyage, Mademoiselle Sonia," said the Duke.
"Good-night, and bon voyage, your Grace," said Sonia.
The Duke opened the door of the hall for her; and as she went out, she said anxiously, in a low voice: "Oh, do—do be careful. I hate to think of your hurrying to Paris on a night like this. Please be careful."
"I will be careful," said the Duke.
The honk of the motor-horn told him that Jean had brought the car to the door of the chateau. He came down the room, kissed Germaine's hands, shook hands with the millionaire, and bade them good-night. Then he went out to the car. They heard it start; the rattle of it grew fainter and fainter down the long avenue and died away.
M. Gournay-Martin arose, and began putting out lamps. As he did so, he kept casting fearful glances at the window, as if he feared lest, now that the Duke had gone, the burglars should dash in upon him.
There came a knock at the door, and Jean appeared on the threshold.
"His Grace told me that I was to come into the house, and help Firmin look after it," he said.
The millionaire gave him instructions about the guarding of the house. Firmin, since he was an old soldier, was to occupy the post of honour, and guard the hall, armed with his gun. Jean was to guard the two drawing-rooms, as being less likely points of attack. He also was to have a gun; and the millionaire went with him to the gun-room and gave him one and a dozen cartridges. When they came back to the hall, Sonia called them into the dining-room; and there, to the accompaniment of an unsubdued grumbling from Germaine at having to eat cold food at eight at night, they made a hasty but excellent meal, since the chef had left an elaborate cold supper ready to be served.
They had nearly finished it when Jean came in, his gun on his arm, to say that Firmin had harnessed the horse to the luggage-cart, and it was awaiting them at the door of the chateau.
"Send him in to me, and stand by the horse till we come out," said the millionaire.
Firmin came clumping in.
The millionaire gazed at him solemnly, and said: "Firmin, I am relying on you. I am leaving you in a position of honour and danger—a position which an old soldier of France loves."
Firmin did his best to look like an old soldier of France. He pulled himself up out of the slouch which long years of loafing through woods with a gun on his arm had given him. He lacked also the old soldier of France's fiery gaze. His eyes were lack-lustre.
"I look for anything, Firmin—burglary, violence, an armed assault," said the millionaire.
"Don't be afraid, sir. I saw the war of '70," said Firmin boldly, rising to the occasion.
"Good!" said the millionaire. "I confide the chateau to you. I trust you with my treasures."
He rose, and saying "Come along, we must be getting to the station," he led the way to the door of the chateau.
The luggage-cart stood rather high, and they had to bring a chair out of the hall to enable the girls to climb into it. Germaine did not forget to give her real opinion of the advantages of a seat formed by a plank resting on the sides of the cart. The millionaire climbed heavily up in front, and took the reins.
"Never again will I trust only to motor-cars. The first thing I'll do after I've made sure that my collections are safe will be to buy carriages—something roomy," he said gloomily, as he realized the discomfort of his seat.
He turned to Jean and Firmin, who stood on the steps of the chateau watching the departure of their master, and said: "Sons of France, be brave—be brave!"
The cart bumped off into the damp, dark night.
Jean and Firmin watched it disappear into the darkness. Then they came into the chateau and shut the door.
Firmin looked at Jean, and said gloomily: "I don't like this. These burglars stick at nothing. They'd as soon cut your throat as look at you."
"It can't be helped," said Jean. "Besides, you've got the post of honour. You guard the hall. I'm to look after the drawing-rooms. They're not likely to break in through the drawing-rooms. And I shall lock the door between them and the hall."
"No, no; you won't lock that door!" cried Firmin.
"But I certainly will," said Jean. "You'd better come and get a gun."
They went to the gun-room, Firmin still protesting against the locking of the door between the drawing-rooms and the hall. He chose his gun; and they went into the kitchen. Jean took two bottles of wine, a rich-looking pie, a sweet, and carried them to the drawing-room. He came back into the hall, gathered together an armful of papers and magazines, and went back to the drawing-room. Firmin kept trotting after him, like a little dog with a somewhat heavy footfall.
On the threshold of the drawing-room Jean paused and said: "The important thing with burglars is to fire first, old cock. Good-night. Pleasant dreams."
He shut the door and turned the key. Firmin stared at the decorated panels blankly. The beauty of the scheme of decoration did not, at the moment, move him to admiration.
He looked fearfully round the empty hall and at the windows, black against the night. Under the patter of the rain he heard footsteps—distinctly. He went hastily clumping down the hall, and along the passage to the kitchen.
His wife was setting his supper on the table.
"My God!" he said. "I haven't been so frightened since '70." And he mopped his glistening forehead with a dish-cloth. It was not a clean dish-cloth; but he did not care.
"Frightened? What of?" said his wife.
"Burglars! Cut-throats!" said Firmin.
He told her of the fears of M. Gournay-Martin, and of his own appointment to the honourable and dangerous post of guard of the chateau.
"God save us!" said his wife. "You lock the door of that beastly hall, and come into the kitchen. Burglars won't bother about the kitchen."
"But the master's treasures!" protested Firmin. "He confided them to me. He said so distinctly."
"Let the master look after his treasures himself," said Madame Firmin, with decision. "You've only one throat; and I'm not going to have it cut. You sit down and eat your supper. Go and lock that door first, though."
Firmin locked the door of the hall; then he locked the door of the kitchen; then he sat down, and began to eat his supper. His appetite was hearty, but none the less he derived little pleasure from the meal. He kept stopping with the food poised on his fork, midway between the plate and his mouth, for several seconds at a time, while he listened with straining ears for the sound of burglars breaking in the windows of the hall. He was much too far from those windows to hear anything that happened to them, but that did not prevent him from straining his ears. Madame Firmin ate her supper with an air of perfect ease. She felt sure that burglars would not bother with the kitchen.
Firmin's anxiety made him terribly thirsty. Tumbler after tumbler of wine flowed down the throat for which he feared. When he had finished his supper he went on satisfying his thirst. Madame Firmin lighted his pipe for him, and went and washed up the supper-dishes in the scullery. Then she came back, and sat down on the other side of the hearth, facing him. About the middle of his third bottle of wine, Firmin's cold, relentless courage was suddenly restored to him. He began to talk firmly about his duty to his master, his resolve to die, if need were, in defence of his interests, of his utter contempt for burglars—probably Parisians. But he did not go into the hall. Doubtless the pleasant warmth of the kitchen fire held him in his chair.
He had described to his wife, with some ferocity, the cruel manner in which he would annihilate the first three burglars who entered the hall, and was proceeding to describe his method of dealing with the fourth, when there came a loud knocking on the front door of the chateau.
Stricken silent, turned to stone, Firmin sat with his mouth open, in the midst of an unfinished word. Madame Firmin scuttled to the kitchen door she had left unlocked on her return from the scullery, and locked it. She turned, and they stared at one another.
The heavy knocker fell again and again and again. Between the knocking there was a sound like the roaring of lions. Husband and wife stared at one another with white faces. Firmin picked up his gun with trembling hands, and the movement seemed to set his teeth chattering. They chattered like castanets.
The knocking still went on, and so did the roaring.
It had gone on at least for five minutes, when a slow gleam of comprehension lightened Madame Firmin's face.
"I believe it's the master's voice," she said.
"The master's voice!" said Firmin, in a hoarse, terrified whisper.
"Yes," said Madame Firmin. And she unlocked the thick door and opened it a few inches.
The barrier removed, the well-known bellow of the millionaire came distinctly to their ears. Firmin's courage rushed upon him in full flood. He clumped across the room, brushed his wife aside, and trotted to the door of the chateau. He unlocked it, drew the bolts, and threw it open. On the steps stood the millionaire, Germaine, and Sonia. Irma stood at the horse's head.
"What the devil have you been doing?" bellowed the millionaire. "What do you keep me standing in the rain for? Why didn't you let me in?"
"B-b-b-burglars—I thought you were b-b-b-burglars," stammered Firmin.
"Burglars!" howled the millionaire. "Do I sound like a burglar?"
At the moment he did not; he sounded more like a bull of Bashan. He bustled past Firmin to the door of the hall.
"Here! What's this locked for?" he bellowed.
"I—I—locked it in case burglars should get in while I was opening the front door," stammered Firmin.
The millionaire turned the key, opened the door, and went into the hall. Germaine followed him. She threw off her dripping coat, and said with some heat: "I can't conceive why you didn't make sure that there was a train at a quarter to nine. I will not go to Paris to-night. Nothing shall induce me to take that midnight train!"
"Nonsense!" said the millionaire. "Nonsense—you'll have to go! Where's that infernal time-table?" He rushed to the table on to which he had thrown the time-table after looking up the train, snatched it up, and looked at the cover. "Why, hang it!" he cried. "It's for June—June, 1903!"
"Oh!" cried Germaine, almost in a scream. "It's incredible! It's one of Jacques' jokes!"
