Kitabı oku: «The Crystal Stopper», sayfa 15

Prasville once more took his hat, coat and stick, went downstairs, stepped into a taxi and drove to Vorenglade’s flat.

Here he was told that the ex-deputy was expected home from London at six o’clock that evening.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon. Prasville therefore had plenty of time to prepare his plan.

He arrived at the Gare du Nord at five o’clock and posted all around, in the waiting-rooms and in the railway-offices, the three or four dozen detectives whom he had brought with him.

This made him feel easy. If M. Nicole tried to speak to Vorenglade, they would arrest Lupin. And, to make assurance doubly sure, they would arrest whosoever could be suspected of being either Lupin or one of Lupin’s emissaries.

Moreover, Prasville made a close inspection of the whole station. He discovered nothing suspicious. But, at ten minutes to six, Chief-inspector Blanchon, who was with him, said:

“Look, there’s Daubrecq.”

Daubrecq it was; and the sight of his enemy exasperated the secretary-general to such a pitch that he was on the verge of having him arrested. But he reflected that he had no excuse, no right, no warrant for the arrest.

Besides, Daubrecq’s presence proved, with still greater force, that everything now depended on Stanislas Vorenglade. Vorenglade possessed the letters: who would end by having them? Daubrecq? Lupin? Or he, Prasville?

Lupin was not there and could not be there. Daubrecq was not in a position to fight. There could be no doubt, therefore, about the result: Prasville would reenter into possession of his letters and, through this very fact, would escape Daubrecq’s threats and Lupin’s threats and recover all his freedom of action against them.

The train arrived.

In accordance with orders, the stationmaster had issued instructions that no one was to be admitted to the platform. Prasville, therefore, walked on alone, in front of a number of his men, with Chief-inspector Blanchon at their head.

The train drew up.

Prasville almost at once saw Stanislas Vorenglade at the window of a first-class compartment, in the middle of the train.

The ex-deputy alighted and then held out his hand to assist an old gentleman who was travelling with him.

Prasville ran up to him and said, eagerly:

“Vorenglade… I want to speak to you…”

At the same moment, Daubrecq, who had managed to pass the barrier, appeared and exclaimed:

“M. Vorenglade, I have had your letter. I am at your disposal.”

Vorenglade looked at the two men, recognized Prasville, recognized Daubrecq, and smiled:

“Oho, it seems that my return was awaited with some impatience! What’s it all about? Certain letters, I expect?”

“Yes… yes…” replied the two men, fussing around him.

“You’re too late,” he declared.

“Eh? What? What do you mean?”

“I mean that the letters are sold.”

“Sold! To whom?”

“To this gentleman,” said Vorenglade, pointing to his travelling-companion, “to this gentleman, who thought that the business was worth going out of his way for and who came to Amiens to meet me.”

The old gentleman, a very old man wrapped in furs and leaning on his stick, took off his hat and bowed.

“It’s Lupin,” thought Prasville, “it’s Lupin, beyond a doubt.”

And he glanced toward the detectives, was nearly calling them, but the old gentleman explained:

“Yes, I thought the letters were good enough to warrant a few hours’ railway journey and the cost of two return tickets.”

“Two tickets?”

“One for me and the other for one of my friends.”

“One of your friends?”

“Yes, he left us a few minutes ago and reached the front part of the train through the corridor. He was in a great hurry.”

Prasville understood: Lupin had taken the precaution to bring an accomplice, and the accomplice was carrying off the letters. The game was lost, to a certainty. Lupin had a firm grip on his victim. There was nothing to do but submit and accept the conqueror’s conditions.

“Very well, sir,” said Prasville. “We shall see each other when the time comes. Good-bye for the present, Daubrecq: you shall hear from me.” And, drawing Vorenglade aside, “As for you, Vorenglade, you are playing a dangerous game.”

“Dear me!” said the ex-deputy. “And why?”

The two men moved away.

Daubrecq had not uttered a word and stood motionless, as though rooted to the ground.

The old gentleman went up to him and whispered:

“I say, Daubrecq, wake up, old chap… It’s the chloroform, I expect…”

Daubrecq clenched his fists and gave a muttered growl.

“Ah, I see you know me!” said the old gentleman. “Then you will remember our interview, some months ago, when I came to see you in the Square Lamartine and asked you to intercede in Gilbert’s favour. I said to you that day, ‘Lay down your arms, save Gilbert and I will leave you in peace. If not, I shall take the list of the Twenty-seven from you; and then you’re done for.’ Well, I have a strong suspicion that done for is what you are. That comes of not making terms with kind M. Lupin. Sooner or later, you’re bound to lose your boots by it. However, let it be a lesson to you.

“By the way, here’s your pocketbook which I forgot to give you. Excuse me if you find it lightened of its contents. There were not only a decent number of bank-notes in it, but also the receipt from the warehouse where you stored the Enghien things which you took back from me. I thought I might as well save you the trouble of taking them out yourself. It ought to be done by now. No, don’t thank me: it’s not worth mentioning. Good-bye, Daubrecq. And, if you should want a louis or two, to buy yourself a new decanter-stopper, drop me a line. Good-bye, Daubrecq.”

He walked away.

He had not gone fifty steps when he heard the sound of a shot.

He turned round.

Daubrecq had blown his brains out.

“De profundis,” murmured Lupin, taking off his hat.

Two months later, Gilbert, whose sentence had been commuted to one of penal servitude for life, made his escape from the Ile de Re, on the day before that on which he was to have been transported to New Caledonia.

It was a strange escape. Its least details remained difficult to understand; and, like the two shots on the Boulevard Arago, it greatly enhanced Arsene Lupin’s prestige.

“Taken all round,” said Lupin to me, one day, after telling me the different episodes of the story, “taken all around, no enterprise has ever given me more trouble or cost me greater exertions than that confounded adventure which, if you don’t mind, we will call, The Crystal Stopper; or, Never Say Die. In twelve hours, between six o’clock in the morning and six o’clock in the evening, I made up for six months of bad luck, blunders, gropings in the dark and reverses. I certainly count those twelve hours among the finest and the most glorious of my life.”

“And Gilbert?” I asked. “What became of him?”

“He is farming his own land, way down in Algeria, under his real name, his only name of Antoine Mergy. He is married to an Englishwoman, and they have a son whom he insisted on calling Arsene. I often receive a bright, chatty, warm-hearted letter from him.”

“And Mme. Mergy?”

“She and her little Jacques are living with them.”

“Did you see her again?”

“I did not.”

“Really!”

Lupin hesitated for a few moments and then said with a smile:

“My dear fellow, I will let you into a secret that will make me seem ridiculous in your eyes. But you know that I have always been as sentimental as a schoolboy and as silly as a goose. Well, on the evening when I went back to Clarisse Mergy and told her the news of the day—part of which, for that matter, she already knew—I felt two things very thoroughly. One was that I entertained for her a much deeper feeling than I thought; the other that she, on the contrary, entertained for me a feeling which was not without contempt, not without a rankling grudge nor even a certain aversion.”

“Nonsense! Why?”

“Why? Because Clarisse Mergy is an exceedingly honest woman and because I am… just Arsene Lupin.”

“Oh!”

“Dear me, yes, an attractive bandit, a romantic and chivalrous cracksman, anything you please. For all that, in the eyes of a really honest woman, with an upright nature and a well-balanced mind, I am only the merest riff-raff.”

I saw that the wound was sharper than he was willing to admit, and I said:

“So you really loved her?”

“I even believe,” he said, in a jesting tone, “that I asked her to marry me. After all, I had saved her son, had I not?… So… I thought. What a rebuff!… It produced a coolness between us… Since then…”

“You have forgotten her?”

“Oh, certainly! But it required the consolations of one Italian, two Americans, three Russians, a German grand-duchess and a Chinawoman to do it!”

“And, after that…?”

“After that, so as to place an insuperable barrier between myself and her, I got married.”

“Nonsense! You got married, you, Arsene Lupin?”

“Married, wedded, spliced, in the most lawful fashion. One of the greatest names in France. An only daughter. A colossal fortune… What! You don’t know the story? Well, it’s worth hearing.”

And, straightway, Lupin, who was in a confidential vein, began to tell me the story of his marriage to Angelique de Sarzeau-Vendome, Princesse de Bourbon-Conde, to-day Sister Marie-Auguste, a humble nun in the Visitation Convent…⁵

But, after the first few words, he stopped, as though his narrative had suddenly ceased to interest him, and he remained pensive.

“What’s the matter, Lupin?”

“The matter? Nothing.”

“Yes, yes… There… now you’re smiling… Is it Daubrecq’s secret receptacle, his glass eye, that’s making you laugh?”

“Not at all.”

“What then?”

“Nothing, I tell you… only a memory.”

“A pleasant memory?”

“Yes!… Yes, a delightful memory even. It was at night, off the Ile de Re, on the fishing-smack in which Clarisse and I were taking Gilbert away.... We were alone, the two of us, in the stern of the boat… And I remember … I talked… I spoke words and more words… I said all that I had on my heart… And then… then came silence, a perturbing and disarming silence.”

“Well?”

“Well, I swear to you that the woman whom I took in my arms that night and kissed on the lips—oh, not for long: a few seconds only, but no matter!—I swear before heaven that she was something more than a grateful mother, something more than a friend yielding to a moment of susceptibility, that she was a woman also, a woman quivering with emotion …” And he continued, with a bitter laugh, “Who ran away next day, never to see me again.”

He was silent once more. Then he whispered:

“Clarisse… Clarisse… On the day when I am tired and disappointed and weary of life, I will come to you down there, in your little Arab house … in that little white house, Clarisse, where you are waiting for me…”