The Hollow Needle; Further adventures of Arsène Lupin by Maurice Leblanc (accelerated reader books .TXT) 📗

Beautrelet, you see, of all the unbridled joys which I have tasted in my adventurous life, there is not one that equals the joy with which her look fills me when she is pleased with me. I feel quite weak then, and I should like to cry—” Was he crying? Beautrelet had an intuition that his eyes were wet with tears. Tears in Lupin’s eyes!—Tears of love!

They were nearing an old gate that served as an entrance to the farm. Lupin stopped for a moment and stammered:

“Why am I afraid?—I feel a sort of weight on my chest. Is the adventure of the Hollow Needle not over? Has destiny not accepted the issue which I selected?”

Raymonde turned round, looking very anxious.

“Here comes Césarine. She’s running.”

The exciseman’s wife was hurrying from the farm as fast as she could. Lupin rushed up to her:

“What is it? What has happened? Speak!”

Choking, quite out of breath, Césarine stuttered:

“A man—I saw a man this morning!

“A man—I saw a man in the sitting-room.”

“The Englishman of this morning?”

“Yes—but in a different disguise.”

“Did he see you?”

“No. He saw your mother. Mme. Valméras caught him as he was just going away.”

“Well?”

“He told her that he was looking for Louis Valméras, that he was a friend of yours.”

“Then?”

“The madame said that her son had gone abroad—for years.”

“And he went away?”

“No, he made signs through the window that overlooks the plain—as if he were calling to some one.”

Lupin seemed to hesitate. A loud cry tore the air. Raymonde moaned:

“It’s your mother—I recognize—”

He flung himself upon her and, dragging her away, in a burst of fierce passion:

“Come—let us fly—you first.”

But, suddenly, he stopped, distraught, overcome:

“No, I can’t do it—it’s too awful. Forgive me—Raymonde—that poor woman down there—Stay here. Beautrelet, don’t leave her.”

He darted along the slope that surrounds the farm, turned and followed it, at a run, till he came to the gate that opens on the plain.

Raymonde, whom Beautrelet had been unable to hold back, arrived almost as soon as he did; and Beautrelet, hiding behind the trees, saw, in the lonely walk that led from the farm to the gate, three men, of whom one, the tallest, went ahead, while the two others were holding by the arms a woman who tried to resist and who uttered moans of pain.

The daylight was beginning to fade. Nevertheless, Beautrelet recognized Holmlock Shears. The woman seemed of a certain age. Her livid features were set in a frame of white hair.

They all four came up.

They reached the gate. Shears opened one of the folding leaves.

Then Lupin strode forward and stood in front of him.

The encounter appeared all the more terrible inasmuch as it was silent, almost solemn.

For long moments, the two enemies took each other’s measure with their eyes. An equal hatred distorted the features of both of them. Neither moved.

Then Lupin spoke, in a voice of terrifying calmness:

“Tell your men to leave that woman alone.”

“No.”

It was as though both of them feared to engage in the supreme struggle, as though both were collecting all their strength. And there were no words wasted this time, no insults, no bantering challenges. Silence, a deathlike silence.

Mad with anguish, Raymonde awaited the issue of the duel. Beautrelet had caught her arms and was holding her motionless.

After a second, Lupin repeated:

“Order your men to leave that woman alone.”

“No.”

Lupin said:

“Listen, Shears—”

But he interrupted himself, realizing the silliness of the words. In the face of that colossus of pride and will-power which called itself Holmlock Shears, of what use were threats?

Resolved upon the worst, suddenly he put his hand to his jacket pocket. The Englishman anticipated his movement and, leaping upon his prisoner, thrust the barrel of his revolver within two inches of her temple:

“If you stir a limb, I fire!”

At the same time his two satellites drew their weapons and aimed them at Lupin.

Lupin drew himself up, stifled the rage within him and, coolly, with his hands in his pockets and his breast exposed to the enemy, began once more:

“Shears, for the third time, let that woman be—”

The Englishman sneered:

“I have no right to touch her, I suppose? Come, come, enough of this humbug! Your name isn’t Valméras any more than it’s Lupin: you stole the name just as you stole the name of Charmerace. And the woman whom you pass off as your mother is Victoire, your old accomplice, the one who brought you up—”[12]

[12] Arsène Lupin, play in four acts, by Maurice Leblanc and Francis de Croisset.

Shears made a mistake. Carried away by his longing for revenge, he glanced across at Raymonde, whom these revelations filled with horror. Lupin took advantage of his imprudence. With a sudden movement, he fired.

“Damnation!” bellowed Shears, whose arm, pierced by a bullet, fell to his side. And, addressing his men, “Shoot, you two! Shoot him down!”

But already Lupin was upon them: and not two seconds had elapsed before the one on the right was sprawling on the ground, with his chest smashed, while the other, with his jaw broken, fell back against the gate.

“Hurry up, Victoire. Tie them down. And now, Mr. Englishman, it’s you and I.”

He ducked with an oath:

“Ah, you scoundrel!”

Shears had picked up his revolver with his left hand and was taking aim at him.

A shot—a cry of distress—Raymonde had flung herself between the two men, facing the Englishman. She staggered back, brought her hand to her neck, drew herself up, spun round on her heels and fell at Lupin’s feet.

“Raymonde!—Raymonde!”

He threw himself upon her, took her in his arms and pressed her to him.

“Dead—” he said.

There was a moment of stupefaction. Shears seemed confounded by his own act. Victoire stammered:

“My poor boy—my poor boy—”

Beautrelet went up to the young woman and stooped to examine her. Lupin repeated:

“Dead—dead—”

He said it in a reflective tone, as though he did not yet understand. But his face became hollow, suddenly transformed, ravaged by grief. And then he was seized with a sort of madness, made senseless gestures, wrung his hands, stamped his feet, like a child that suffers more than it is able to bear.

“You villain!” he cried, suddenly, in an access of hatred.

And, flinging Shears back with a formidable blow, he took him by the throat and dug his twitching fingers into his flesh.

The Englishman gasped, without even struggling.

“My boy—my boy—” said Victoire, in a voice of entreaty.

Beautrelet ran up. But Lupin had already let go and stood sobbing beside his enemy stretched upon the ground.

O pitiful sight! Beautrelet never forgot its tragic horror, he who knew all Lupin’s love for Raymonde and all that the great adventurer had sacrificed of his own being to bring a smile to the face of his well-beloved.

Night began to cover the field of battle with a shroud of darkness. The three Englishmen lay bound and gagged in the tall grass. Distant songs broke the vast silence of the plain. It was the farm-hands returning from their work.

Lupin drew himself up. He listened to the monotonous voices. Then he glanced at the happy homestead of the Neuvillette, where he had hoped to live peacefully with Raymonde. Then he looked at her, the poor, loving victim, whom love had killed and who, all white, was sleeping her last, eternal sleep.

The men were coming nearer, however.

Then Lupin bent down, took the dead woman in his powerful arms, lifted the corpse with a single effort and, bent in two, stretched it across his back:

“Let us go, Victoire.”

“Let us go, dear.”

“Good-bye, Beautrelet,” he said.

And, bearing his precious and awful burden followed by his old servant, silent and fierce he turned toward the sea and plunged into the darkness of the night.

THE END