The Crystal Stopper by Maurice Leblanc (good book club books .txt) 📗

little, but firmer on his legs than one would have expected, tried his strength.

“Well” said Lupin, “the beggar doesn’t take long recovering. He can very well help in his own escape. There’s just one point that ruffles me: will he allow himself to be convinced? Will he consent to go with me? Will he not think that this miraculous assistance which comes to him straight from heaven is a trap laid by the marquis?”

But suddenly Lupin remembered the letter which he had made Daubrecq’s old cousins write, the letter of recommendation, so to speak, which the elder of the two sisters Rousselot had signed with her Christian name, Euphrasie.

It was in his pocket. He took it and listened. Not a sound, except the faint noise of Daubrecq’s footsteps on the flagstones. Lupin considered that the moment had come. He thrust his arm through the bars and threw the letter in.

Daubrecq seemed thunderstruck.

The letter had fluttered through the room and lay on the floor, at three steps from him. Where did it come from? He raised his head toward the window and tried to pierce the darkness that hid all the upper part of the room from his eyes. Then he looked at the envelope, without yet daring to touch it, as though he dreaded a snare. Then, suddenly, after a glance at the door, he stooped briskly, seized the envelope and opened it.

“Ah,” he said, with a sigh of delight, when he saw the signature.

He read the letter half-aloud:

“Rely implicitly on the bearer of this note. He has succeeded in discovering the marquis’ secret, with the money which we gave him, and has contrived a plan of escape. Everything is prepared for your flight. “EUPHRASIE ROUSSELOT”

He read the letter again, repeated, “Euphrasie... Euphrasie...” and raised his head once more.

Lupin whispered:

“It will take me two or three hours to file through one of the bars. Are Sebastiani and his sons coming back?”

“Yes, they are sure to,” replied Daubrecq, in the same low voice, “but I expect they will leave me to myself.”

“But they sleep next door?”

“Yes.”

“Won’t they hear?”

“No, the door is too thick.”

“Very well. In that case, it will soon be done. I have a rope-ladder. Will you be able to climb up alone, without my assistance?”

“I think so... I’ll try... It’s my wrists that they’ve broken... Oh, the brutes! I can hardly move my hands... and I have very little strength left. But I’ll try all the same... needs must...”

He stopped, listened and, with his finger to his mouth, whispered:

“Hush!”

When Sebastiani and his sons entered the room, Daubrecq, who had hidden the letter and lain down on his bed, pretended to wake with a start.

The huntsman brought him a bottle of wine, a glass and some food:

“How goes it, monsieur le depute?” he cried. “Well, perhaps we did squeeze a little hard... It’s very painful, that thumbscrewing. Seems they often did it at the time of the Great Revolution and Bonaparte... in the days of the chauffeurs. [*] A pretty invention! Nice and clean... no bloodshed... And it didn’t last long either! In twenty minutes, you came out with the missing word!” Sebastiani burst out laughing. “By the way, monsieur le depute, my congratulations! A capital hiding-place. Who would ever suspect it?... You see, what put us off, monsieur le marquis and me, was that name of Marie which you let out at first. You weren’t telling a lie; but there you are, you know: the word was only half-finished. We had to know the rest. Say what you like, it’s amusing! Just think, on your study-table! Upon my word, what a joke!”

* The name given to the brigands in the Vendee, who tortured their victims with fire to make them confess where their money was hidden.—Translator’s Note.

The huntsman rose and walked up and down the room, rubbing his hands:

“Monsieur le marquis is jolly well pleased, so pleased, in fact, that he himself is coming to-morrow evening to let you out. Yes, he has thought it over; there will be a few formalities: you may have to sign a cheque or two, stump up, what, and make good monsieur le marquis’ expense and trouble. But what’s that to you? A trifle! Not to mention that, from now on, there will be no more chains, no more straps round your wrists; in short, you will be treated like a king! And I’ve even been told—look here!—to allow you a good bottle of old wine and a flask of brandy.”

Sebastiani let fly a few more jests, then took the lamp, made a last examination of the room and said to his sons:

“Let’s leave him to sleep. You also, take a rest, all three of you. But sleep with one eye open. One never can tell...” They withdrew.

Lupin waited a little longer and asked, in a low voice:

“Can I begin?”

“Yes, but be careful. It’s not impossible that they may go on a round in an hour or two.”

Lupin set to work. He had a very powerful file; and the iron of the bars, rusted and gnawed away by time, was, in places, almost reduced to dust. Twice Lupin stopped to listen, with ears pricked up. But it was only the patter of a rat over the rubbish in the upper story, or the flight of some night-bird; and he continued his task, encouraged by Daubrecq, who stood by the door, ready to warn him at the least alarm.

“Oof!” he said, giving a last stroke of the file. “I’m glad that’s over, for, on my word, I’ve been a bit cramped in this cursed tunnel... to say nothing of the cold...”

He bore with all his strength upon the bar, which he had sawn from below, and succeeded in forcing it down sufficiently for a man’s body to slip between the two remaining bars. Next, he had to go back to the end of the embrasure, the wider part, where he had left the rope-ladder. After fixing it to the bars, he called Daubrecq:

“Psst!... It’s all right... Are you ready?”

“Yes... coming... One more second, while I listen... All right... They’re asleep... give me the ladder.”

Lupin lowered it and asked:

“Must I come down?”

“No... I feel a little weak... but I shall manage.”

Indeed, he reached the window of the embrasure pretty quickly and crept along the passage in the wake of his rescuer. The open air, however, seemed to make him giddy. Also, to give himself strength, he had drunk half the bottle of wine; and he had a fainting-fit that kept him lying on the stones of the embrasure for half an hour. Lupin, losing patience, was fastening him to one end of the rope, of which the other end was knotted