Kitabı oku: «The Golden Triangle: The Return of Arsène Lupin», sayfa 13

"Our grave will be near theirs," she murmured.

Little by little their ideas became confused and they began to think much as a man sees through a rising mist. They had had nothing to eat; and hunger now added its discomfort to the vertigo in which their minds were imperceptibly sinking. As it increased, their uneasiness and anxiety left them, to be followed by a sense of ecstasy, then lassitude, extinction, repose. The dread of the coming annihilation faded out of their thoughts.

Coralie, the first to be affected, began to utter delirious words which astonished Patrice at first:

"Dearest, there are flowers falling, roses all around us. How delightful!"

Presently he himself grew conscious of the same blissful exaltation, expressing itself in tenderness and joyful emotion. With no sort of dismay he felt her gradually yielding in his arms and abandoning herself; and he had the impression that he was following her down a measureless abyss, all bathed with light, where they floated, he and she, descending slowly and without effort towards a happy valley.

Minutes or perhaps hours passed. They were still descending, he supporting her by the waist, she with her head thrown back a little way, her eyes closed and a smile upon her lips. He remembered pictures showing gods thus gliding through the blue of heaven; and, drunk with pure, radiant light and air, he continued to circle above the happy valley.

But, as he approached it, he felt himself grow weary. Coralie weighed heavily on his bent arm. The descent increased in speed. The waves of light turned to darkness. A thick cloud came, followed by others that formed a whirl of gloom.

And suddenly, worn out, his forehead bathed in sweat and his body shaking with fever, he pitched forward into a great black pit..

CHAPTER XIV
A STRANGE CHARACTER

It was not yet exactly death. In his present condition of agony, what lingered of Patrice's consciousness mingled, as in a nightmare, the life which he knew with the imaginary world in which he now found himself, the world which was that of death.

In this world Coralie no longer existed; and her loss distracted him with grief. But he seemed to hear and see somebody whose presence was revealed by a shadow passing before his closed eyelids. This somebody he pictured to himself, though without reason, under the aspect of Siméon, who came to verify the death of his victims, began by carrying Coralie away, then came back to Patrice and carried him away also and laid him down somewhere. And all this was so well-defined that Patrice wondered whether he had not woke up.

Next hours passed.. or seconds. In the end Patrice had a feeling that he was falling asleep, but as a man sleeps in hell, suffering the moral and physical tortures of the damned. He was back at the bottom of the black pit, which he was making desperate efforts to leave, like a man who has fallen into the sea and is trying to reach the surface. In this way, with the greatest difficulty, he passed through one waste of water after another, the weight of which stifled him. He had to scale them, gripping with his hands and feet to things that slipped, to rope-ladders which, possessing no points of support, gave way beneath him.

Meanwhile the darkness became less intense. A little muffled daylight mingled with it. Patrice felt less greatly oppressed. He half-opened his eyes, drew a breath or two and, looking round, beheld a sight that surprised him, the embrasure of an open door, near which he was lying in the air, on a sofa. Beside him he saw Coralie, on another sofa. She moved restlessly and seemed to be in great discomfort.

"She is climbing out of the black pit," he thought to himself. "Like me, she is struggling. My poor Coralie!"

There was a small table between them, with two glasses of water on it. Parched with thirst, he took one of them in his hand. But he dared not drink.

At that moment some one came through the open door, which Patrice perceived to be the door of the lodge; and he observed that it was not old Siméon, as he had thought, but a stranger whom he had never seen before.

"I am not asleep," he said to himself. "I am sure that I am not asleep and that this stranger is a friend."

And he tried to say it aloud, to make certainty doubly sure. But he had not the strength.

The stranger, however, came up to him and, in a gentle voice, said:

"Don't tire yourself, captain. You're all right now. Allow me. Have some water."

The stranger handed him one of the two glasses; Patrice emptied it at a draught, without any feeling of distrust, and was glad to see Coralie also drinking.

"Yes, I'm all right now," he said. "Heavens, how good it is to be alive! Coralie is really alive, isn't she?"

He did not hear the answer and dropped into a welcome sleep.

When he woke up, the crisis was over, though he still felt a buzzing in his head and a difficulty in drawing a deep breath. He stood up, however, and realized that all these sensations were not fanciful, that he was really outside the door of the lodge and that Coralie had drunk the glass of water and was peacefully sleeping.

"How good it is to be alive!" he repeated.

He now felt a need for action, but dared not go into the lodge, notwithstanding the open door. He moved away from it, skirting the cloisters containing the graves, and then, with no exact object, for he did not yet grasp the reason of his own actions, did not understand what had happened to him and was simply walking at random, he came back towards the lodge, on the other front, the one overlooking the garden.

Suddenly he stopped. A few yards from the house, at the foot of a tree standing beside the slanting path, a man lay back in a wicker long-chair, with his face in the shade and his legs in the sun. He was sleeping, with his head fallen forward and an open book upon his knees.

Then and not till then did Patrice clearly understand that he and Coralie had escaped being killed, that they were both really alive and that they owed their safety to this man whose sleep suggested a state of absolute security and satisfied conscience.

Patrice studied the stranger's appearance. He was slim of figure, but broad-shouldered, with a sallow complexion, a slight mustache on his lips and hair beginning to turn gray at the temples. His age was probably fifty at most. The cut of his clothes pointed to dandyism. Patrice leant forward and read the title of the book: The Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin. He also read the initials inside a hat lying on the grass: "L. P."

"It was he who saved me," said Patrice to himself, "I recognize him. He carried us both out of the studio and looked after us. But how was the miracle brought about? Who sent him?"

He tapped him on the shoulder. The man was on his feet at once, his face lit up with a smile:

"Pardon me, captain, but my life is so much taken up that, when I have a few minutes to myself, I use them for sleeping, wherever I may be.. like Napoleon, eh? Well, I don't object to the comparison… But enough about myself. How are you feeling now? And madame – 'Little Mother Coralie' – is she better? I saw no use in waking you, after I had opened the doors and taken you outside. I had done what was necessary and felt quite easy. You were both breathing. So I left the rest to the good pure air."

He broke off, at the sight of Patrice's disconcerted attitude; and his smile made way for a merry laugh:

"Oh, I was forgetting: you don't know me! Of course, it's true, the letter I sent you was intercepted. Let me introduce myself. Don Luis Perenna,³ a member of an old Spanish family, genuine patent of nobility, papers all in order… But I can see that all this tells you nothing," he went on, laughing still more gaily. "No doubt Ya-Bon described me differently when he wrote my name on that street-wall, one evening a fortnight ago. Aha, you're beginning to understand!.. Yes, I'm the man you sent for to help you. Shall I mention the name, just bluntly? Well, here goes, captain!.. Arsène Lupin, at your service."

Patrice was stupefied. He had utterly forgotten Ya-Bon's proposal and the unthinking permission which he had given him to call in the famous adventurer. And here was Arsène Lupin standing in front of him, Arsène Lupin, who, by a sheer effort of will that resembled an incredible miracle, had dragged him and Coralie out of their hermetically-sealed coffin.

He held out his hand and said:

"Thank you!"

"Tut!" said Don Luis, playfully. "No thanks! Just a good hand-shake, that's all. And I'm a man you can shake hands with, captain, believe me. I may have a few peccadilloes on my conscience, but on the other hand I have committed a certain number of good actions which should win me the esteem of decent folk.. beginning with my own. And so."

He interrupted himself again, seemed to reflect and, taking Patrice by a button of his jacket, said:

"Don't move. We are being watched."

"By whom?"

"Some one on the quay, right at the end of the garden. The wall is not high. There's a grating on the top of it. They're looking through the bars and trying to see us."

"How do you know? You have your back turned to the quay; and then there are the trees."

"Listen."

"I don't hear anything out of the way."

"Yes, the sound of an engine.. the engine of a stopping car. Now what would a car want to stop here for, on the quay, opposite a wall with no house near it?"

"Then who do you think it is?"

"Why, old Siméon, of course!"

"Old Siméon!"

"Certainly. He's looking to see whether I've really saved the two of you."

"Then he's not mad?"

"Mad? No more mad than you or I!"

"And yet."

"What you mean is that Siméon used to protect you; that his object was to bring you two together; that he sent you the key of the garden-door; and so on and so on."

"Do you know all that?"

"Well, of course! If not, how could I have rescued you?"

"But," said Patrice, anxiously, "suppose the scoundrel returns to the attack. Ought we not to take some precautions? Let's go back to the lodge: Coralie is all alone."

"There's no danger."

"Why?"

"Because I'm here."

Patrice was more astounded than ever:

"Then Siméon knows you?" he asked. "He knows that you are here?"

"Yes, thanks to a letter which I wrote you under cover to Ya-Bon and which he intercepted. I told you that I was coming; and he hurried to get to work. Only, as my habit is on these occasions, I hastened on my arrival by a few hours, so that I caught him in the act."

"At that moment you did not know he was the enemy; you knew nothing?"

"Nothing at all."

"Was it this morning?"

"No, this afternoon, at a quarter to two."

Patrice took out his watch:

"And it's now four. So in two hours."

"Not that. I've been here an hour."

"Did you find out from Ya-Bon?"

"Do you think I've no better use for my time? Ya-Bon simply told me that you were not there, which was enough to astonish me."

"After that?"

"I looked to see where you were."

"How?"

"I first searched your room and, doing so in my own thorough fashion, ended by discovering that there was a crack at the back of your roll-top desk and that this crack faced a hole in the wall of the next room. I was able therefore to pull out the book in which you kept your diary and acquaint myself with what was going on. This, moreover, was how Siméon became aware of your least intentions. This was how he knew of your plan to come here, on a pilgrimage, on the fourteenth of April. This was how, last night, seeing you write, he preferred, before attacking you, to know what you were writing. Knowing it and learning, from your own words, that you were on your guard, he refrained. You see how simple it all is. If M. Masseron had grown uneasy at your absence, he would have been just as successful. Only he would have been successful to-morrow."

"That is to say, too late."

"Yes, too late. This really isn't his business, however, nor that of the police. So I would rather that they didn't meddle with it. I asked your wounded soldiers to keep silent about anything that may strike them as queer. Therefore, if M. Masseron comes to-day, he will think that everything is in order. Well, having satisfied my mind in this respect and possessing the necessary information from your diary, I took Ya-Bon with me and walked across the lane and into the garden."

"Was the door open?"

"No, but Siméon happened to be coming out at that moment. Bad luck for him, wasn't it? I took advantage of it boldly. I put my hand on the latch and we went in, without his daring to protest. He certainly knew who I was."

"But you didn't know at that time that he was the enemy?"

"I didn't know? And what about your diary?"

"I had no notion."

"But, captain, every page is an indictment of the man. There's not an incident in which he did not take part, not a crime which he did not prepare."

"In that case you should have collared him."

"And if I had? What good would it have done me? Should I have compelled him to speak? No, I shall hold him tightest by leaving him his liberty. That will give him rope, you know. You see already he's prowling round the house instead of clearing out. Besides, I had something better to do: I had first to rescue you two.. if there was still time. Ya-Bon and I therefore rushed to the door of the lodge. It was open; but the other, the door of the studio, was locked and bolted. I drew the bolts; and to force the lock was, for me, child's play. Then the smell of gas was enough to tell me what had happened, Siméon must have fitted an old meter to some outside pipe, probably the one which supplied the lamps on the lane, and he was suffocating you. All that remained for us to do was to fetch the two of you out and give you the usual treatment: rubbing, artificial respiration and so on. You were saved."

"I suppose he removed all his murderous appliances?" asked Patrice.

"No, he evidently contemplated coming back and putting everything to rights, so that his share in the business could not be proved, so too that people might believe in your suicide, a mysterious suicide, death without apparent cause; in short, the same tragedy that happened with your father and Little Mother Coralie's mother."

"Then you know?."

"Why, haven't I eyes to read with? What about the inscription on the wall, your father's revelations? I know as much as you do, captain.. and perhaps a bit more."

"More?"

"Well, of course! Habit, you know, experience! Plenty of problems, unintelligible to others, seem to me the simplest and clearest that can be. Therefore."

Don Luis hesitated whether to go on:

"No," he said, "it's better that I shouldn't speak. The mystery will be dispelled gradually. Let us wait. For the moment."

He again stopped, this time to listen:

"There, he must have seen you. And now that he knows what he wants to, he's going away."

Patrice grew excited:

"He's going away! You really ought to have collared him. Shall we ever find him again, the scoundrel? Shall we ever be able to take our revenge?"

Don Luis smiled:

"There you go, calling him a scoundrel, the man who watched over you for twenty years, who brought you and Little Mother Coralie together, who was your benefactor!"

"Oh, I don't know! All this is so bewildering! I can't help hating him… The idea of his getting away maddens me… I should like to torture him and yet."

He yielded to a feeling of despair and took his head between his two hands. Don Luis comforted him:

"Have no fear," he said. "He was never nearer his downfall than at the present moment. I hold him in my hand as I hold this leaf."

"But how?"

"The man who's driving him belongs to me."

"What's that? What do you mean?"

"I mean that I put one of my men on the driver's seat of a taxi, with instructions to hang about at the bottom of the lane, and that Siméon did not fail to take the taxi in question."

"That is to say, you suppose so," Patrice corrected him, feeling more and more astounded.

"I recognized the sound of the engine at the bottom of the garden when I told you."

"And are you sure of your man?"

"Certain."

"What's the use? Siméon can drive far out of Paris, stab the man in the back.. and then when shall we get to know?"

"Do you imagine that people can get out of Paris and go running about the high-roads without a special permit? No, if Siméon leaves Paris he will have to drive to some railway station or other and we shall know of it twenty minutes after. And then we'll be off."

"How?"

"By motor."

"Then you have a pass?"

"Yes, valid for the whole of France."

"You don't mean it!"

"I do; and a genuine pass at that! Made out in the name of Don Luis Perenna, signed by the minister of the interior and countersigned."

"By whom?"

"By the President of the Republic."

Patrice felt his bewilderment change all at once into violent excitement. Hitherto, in the terrible adventure in which he was engaged, he had undergone the enemy's implacable will and had known little besides defeat and the horrors of ever-threatening death. But now a more powerful will suddenly arose in his favor. And everything was abruptly altered. Fate seemed to be changing its course, like a ship which an unexpected fair wind brings back into harbor.

"Upon my word, captain," said Don Luis, "I thought you were going to cry like Little Mother Coralie. Your nerves are overstrung. And I daresay you're hungry. We must find you something to eat. Come along."

He led him slowly towards the lodge and, speaking in a rather serious voice:

"I must ask you," he said, "to be absolutely discreet in this whole matter. With the exception of a few old friends and of Ya-Bon, whom I met in Africa, where he saved my life, no one in France knows me by my real name. I call myself Don Luis Perenna. In Morocco, where I was soldiering, I had occasion to do a service to the very gracious sovereign of a neighboring neutral nation, who, though obliged to conceal his true feelings, is ardently on our side. He sent for me; and, in return, I asked him to give me my credentials and to obtain a pass for me. Officially, therefore, I am on a secret mission, which expires in two days. In two days I shall go back.. to whence I came, to a place where, during the war, I am serving France in my fashion: not a bad one, believe me, as people will see one day."

They came to the settee on which Coralie lay sleeping. Don Luis laid his hand on Patrice's arm:

"One word more, captain. I swore to myself and I gave my word of honor to him who trusted me that, while I was on this mission, my time should be devoted exclusively to defending the interests of my country to the best of my power. I must warn you, therefore, that, notwithstanding all my sympathy for you, I shall not be able to prolong my stay for a single minute after I have discovered the eighteen hundred bags of gold. They were the one and only reason why I came in answer to Ya-Bon's appeal. When the bags of gold are in our possession, that is to say, to-morrow evening at latest, I shall go away. However, the two quests are joined. The clearing up of the one will mean the end of the other. And now enough of words. Introduce me to Little Mother Coralie and let's get to work! Make no mystery with her, captain," he added, laughing. "Tell her my real name. I have nothing to fear: Arsène Lupin has every woman on his side."

Forty minutes later Coralie was back in her room, well cared for and well watched. Patrice had taken a substantial meal, while Don Luis walked up and down the terrace smoking cigarettes.

"Finished, captain? Then we'll make a start."

He looked at his watch:

"Half-past five. We have more than an hour of daylight left. That'll be enough."

"Enough? You surely don't pretend that you will achieve your aim in an hour?"

"My definite aim, no, but the aim which I am setting myself at the moment, yes.. and even earlier. An hour? What for? To do what? Why, you'll be a good deal wiser in a few minutes!"

Don Luis asked to be taken to the cellar under the library; where Essarès Bey used to keep the bags of gold until the time had come to send them off.

"Was it through this ventilator that the bags were let down?"

"Yes."

"Is there no other outlet?"

"None except the staircase leading to the library and the other ventilator."

"Opening on the terrace?"

"Yes."

"Then that's clear. The bags used to come in by the first and go out by the second."

"But."

"There's no but about it, captain: how else would you have it happen? You see, the mistake people always make is to go looking for difficulties where there are none."

They returned to the terrace. Don Luis took up his position near the ventilator and inspected the ground immediately around. It did not take long. Four yards away, outside the windows of the library, was the basin with the statue of a child spouting a jet of water through a shell.

Don Luis went up, examined the basin and, leaning forwards, reached the little statue, which he turned upon its axis from right to left. At the same time the pedestal described a quarter of a circle.

"That's it," he said, drawing himself up again.

"What?"

"The basin will empty itself."

He was right. The water sank very quickly and the bottom of the fountain appeared.

Don Luis stepped into it and squatted on his haunches. The inner wall was lined with a marble mosaic composing a wide red-and-white fretwork pattern. In the middle of one of the frets was a ring, which Don Luis lifted and pulled. All that portion of the wall which formed the pattern yielded to his effort and came down, leaving an opening of about twelve inches by ten.

"That's where the bags of gold went," said Don Luis. "It was the second stage. They were despatched in the same manner, on a hook sliding along a wire. Look, here is the wire, in this groove at the top."

"By Jove!" cried Captain Belval. "But you've unraveled this in a masterly fashion! What about the wire? Can't we follow it?"

"No, but it will serve our purpose if we know where it finishes. I say, captain, go to the end of the garden, by the wall, taking a line at right angles to the house. When you get there, cut off a branch of a tree, rather high up. Oh, I was forgetting! I shall have to go out by the lane. Have you the key of the door? Give it me, please."

Patrice handed him the key and then went down to the wall beside the quay.

"A little farther to the right," Don Luis instructed him. "A little more still. That's better. Now wait."

He left the garden by the lane, reached the quay and called out from the other side of the wall:

"Are you there, captain?"

"Yes."

"Fix your branch so that I can see it from here. Capital."

Patrice now joined Don Luis, who was crossing the road. All the way down the Seine are wharves, built on the bank of the river and used for loading and unloading vessels. Barges put in alongside, discharge their cargoes, take in fresh ones and often lie moored one next to the other. At the spot where Don Luis and Patrice descended by a flight of steps there was a series of yards, one of which, the one which they reached first, appeared to be abandoned, no doubt since the war. It contained, amid a quantity of useless materials, several heaps of bricks and building-stones, a hut with broken windows and the lower part of a steam-crane. A placard swinging from a post bore the inscription:

BERTHOU

WHARFINGER & BUILDER

Don Luis walked along the foot of the embankment, ten or twelve feet high, above which the quay was suspended like a terrace. Half of it was occupied by a heap of sand; and they saw in the wall the bars of an iron grating, the lower half of which was hidden by the sand-heap shored up with planks.

Don Luis cleared the grating and said, jestingly:

"Have you noticed that the doors are never locked in this adventure? Let's hope that it's the same with this one."

His theory was confirmed, somewhat to his own surprise, and they entered one of those recesses where workmen put away their tools.

"So far, nothing out of the common," said Don Luis, switching on an electric torch. "Buckets, pick-axes, wheelbarrows, a ladder… Ah! Ah! Just as I expected: rails, a complete set of light rails!.. Lend me a hand, captain. Let's clear out the back. Good, that's done it."

Level with the ground and opposite the grating was a rectangular opening exactly similar to the one in the basin. The wire was visible above, with a number of hooks hanging from it.

"So this is where the bags arrived," Don Luis explained. "They dropped, so to speak, into one of the two little trollies which you see over there, in the corner. The rails were laid across the bank, of course at night; and the trollies were pushed to a barge into which they tipped their contents."

"So that.. ?"

"So that the French gold went this way.. anywhere you like.. somewhere abroad."

"And you think that the last eighteen hundred bags have also been despatched?"

"I fear so."

"Then we are too late?"

Don Luis reflected for a while without answering. Patrice, though disappointed by a development which he had not foreseen, remained amazed at the extraordinary skill with which his companion, in so short a time, had succeeded in unraveling a portion of the tangled skein.

"It's an absolute miracle," he said, at last. "How on earth did you do it?"

Without a word, Don Luis took from his pocket the book which Patrice had seen lying on his knees, The Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin, and motioned to him to read some lines which he indicated with his finger. They were written towards the end of the reign of Louis XVI and ran:

"We go daily to the village of Passy adjoining my home, where you take the waters in a beautiful garden. Streams and waterfalls pour down on all sides, this way and that, in artfully leveled beds. I am known to like skilful mechanism, so I have been shown the basin where the waters of all the rivulets meet and mingle. There stands a little marble figure in the midst; and the weight of water is strong enough to turn it a quarter circle to the left and then pour down straight to the Seine by a conduit, which opens in the ground of the basin."

Patrice closed the book; and Don Luis went on to explain:

"Things have changed since, no doubt, thanks to the energies of Essarès Bey. The water escapes some other way now; and the aqueduct was used to drain off the gold. Besides, the bed of the river has narrowed. Quays have been built, with a system of canals underneath them. You see, captain, all this was easy enough to discover, once I had the book to tell me. Doctus cum libro."

"Yes, but, even so, you had to read the book."

"A pure accident. I unearthed it in Siméon's room and put it in my pocket, because I was curious to know why he was reading it."

"Why, that's just how he must have discovered Essarès Bey's secret!" cried Patrice. "He didn't know the secret. He found the book among his employer's papers and got up his facts that way. What do you think? Don't you agree? You seem not to share my opinion. Have you some other view?"

Don Luis did not reply. He stood looking at the river. Beside the wharves, at a slight distance from the yard, a barge lay moored, with apparently no one on her. But a slender thread of smoke now began to rise from a pipe that stood out above the deck.

"Let's go and have a look at her," he said.

The barge was lettered:

LA NONCHALANTE. BEAUNE

They had to cross the space between the barge and the wharf and to step over a number of ropes and empty barrels covering the flat portions of the deck. A companion-way brought them to a sort of cabin, which did duty as a stateroom and a kitchen in one. Here they found a powerful-looking man, with broad shoulders, curly black hair and a clean-shaven face. His only clothes were a blouse and a pair of dirty, patched canvas trousers.

Don Luis offered him a twenty-franc note. The man took it eagerly.

"Just tell me something, mate. Have you seen a barge lately, lying at Berthou's Wharf?"

"Yes, a motor-barge. She left two days ago."

"What was her name?"

"The Belle Hélène. The people on board, two men and a woman, were foreigners talking I don't know what lingo… We didn't speak to one another."

"But Berthou's Wharf has stopped work, hasn't it?"

"Yes, the owner's joined the army.. and the foremen as well. We've all got to, haven't we? I'm expecting to be called up myself.. though I've got a weak heart."

"But, if the yard's stopped work, what was the boat doing here?"

"I don't know. They worked the whole of one night, however. They had laid rails along the quay. I heard the trollies; and they were loading up. What with I don't know. And then, early in the morning, they unmoored."

"Where did they go?"

"Down stream, Mantes way."

"Thanks, mate. That's what I wanted to know."

Ten minutes later, when they reached the house, Patrice and Don Luis found the driver of the cab which Siméon Diodokis had taken after meeting Don Luis. As Don Luis expected, Siméon had told the man to go to a railway-station, the Gare Saint-Lazare, and there bought his ticket.

"Where to?"

"To Mantes!"