813 - Maurice LeBlanc (best short novels of all time TXT) 📗

other was livid, quivering with impotent strength.

“You milksop!” Sernine sneered. “I shall never make anything of you. Shall I tell you the truth? Well, you’re afraid of me. Yes, old chap, you never feel quite sure what may happen to you when you’re face to face with me. You want to act, whereas it’s my acts, my possible acts that govern the situation. No, it’s quite dear that you’re not the man yet to put out my star!”

He had not finished speaking when he felt himself seized round the throat and dragged backward. Some one hiding in the shrubbery, near the little door, had caught him by the head. He saw a hand raised, armed with a knife with a gleaming blade. The hand fell; the point of the knife caught him right in the throat.

At the same moment Altenheim sprang upon hint to finish him off; and they rolled over into the flower-borders. It was a matter of twenty or thirty seconds at most. Powerful and experienced wrestler as he was, Altenheim yielded almost immediately, uttering a cry of pain. Sernine rose and ran to the little door, which had just closed upon a dark form. It was too late. He heard the key turn in the lock. He was unable to open it.

“Ah, you scoundrel!” he said. “The day on which I catch you will be the day on which I shed my first blood! That I swear to God!…”

He went back, stooped and picked up the pieces of the knife, which had broken as it struck him.

Altenheim was beginning to move. Sernine asked:

“Well, baron, feeling better? You didn’t know that blow, eh? It’s what I call the direct blow in the solar plexus; that is to say, it snuffs out your vital sun like a candle. It’s clean, quick, painless… and infallible. Whereas a blow with a dagger…? Pooh! A man has only to wear a little steel-wove gorget, as I do, and he can set the whole world at defiance, especially your little pal in black, seeing that he always strikes at the throat, the silly monster!… Here, look at his favorite plaything.È , x. smashed to atoms!”

He offered him his hand:

“Come, get up, baron. You shall dine with me.And do please remember the secret of my superiority: an undaunted soul in an unassailable body.”

He went back to the club rooms, reserved a table for two, sat down on a sofa, and while waiting for dinner, soliloquized, under his breath:

“It’s certainly an amusing game, but it’s becoming dangerous. I must get it over… otherwise those beggars will send me to Paradise earlier than I want to go. The nuisance is that I can’t do anything before I find old Steinweg, for, when all is said, old Steinweg is the only interesting factor in the whole business; and my one reason for sticking to the baron is that I keep on hoping to pick up some clue or other. What the devil have they done with him? Altenheim is in daily communication with him: that is beyond a doubt; it is equally beyond a doubt that he is doing his utmost to drag out of him what he knows about the Kesselbach scheme. But where does he see him? Where has he got him shut up? With friends? In his own house, at 29, Villa Dupont?”

He reflected for some time, then lit a cigarette, took three puffs at it and threw it away. This was evidently a signal, for two young men came and sat down beside him. He did not seem to know them, but he conversed with them by stealth. It was the brothers Doudeville, got up that day like men of fashion.

“What is it, governor?”

“Take six of our men, go to 29, Villa Dupont and make your way in.”

“The devil! How?”

“In the name of the law. Are you not detective-inspectors? A search…”

“But we haven’t the right…”

“Take it.”

“And the servants? If they resist?”

“There are only four of them.”

“If they call out?”

“They won’t call out.”

“If Altenheim returns?”

“He won’t return before ten o’clock. I’ll see to it. That gives you two hours and a half, which is more than you require to explore the house from top to bottom. If you find old Steinweg, come and tell me.”

Baron Altenheim came up. Sernine went to meet him:

“Let’s have some dinner, shall we? That little incident in the garden has made me feel hungry. By the way, my dear baron, I have a few bits of advice to give you…”

They sat down to table.

After dinner, Sernine suggested a game of billiards. Altenheim accepted. When the game was over, they went to the baccarat-room. The croupier was just shouting:

“There are fifty louis in the bank. Any bids?”

“A hundred louis,” said Altenheim.

Sernine looked at his watch. Ten o’clock. The Doudevilles had not returned. The search, therefore, had been fruitless.

“Banco,” he said.

Altenheim sat down and dealt the cards:

“I give.”

“No.”

“Seven.”

“Six. I lose,” said Sernine. “Shall I double the stakes?”

“Very well,” said the baron.

He dealt out the cards.

“Eight,” said Sernine.

“Nine,” said the baron, laying his cards down.

Sernine turned on his heels, muttering:

“That costs me three hundred louis, but I don’t mind; it fixes him here.”

Ten minutes later his motor set him down in front of 29, Villa Dupont; and he found the Doudevilles and their men collected in the hall:

“Have you hunted out the old boy?”

“No.”

“Dash it! But he must be somewhere or other. Where are the four servants?”

“Over there, in the pantry, tied up, with the cook as well.”

“Good. I would as soon they did not see me. Go all you others. Jean, stay outside and keep watch: Jacques, show me over the house.”

He quickly ran through the cellar, the ground floor, the first and second floors and the attic. He practically stopped nowhere, knowing that he would not discover in a few minutes what his men had not been able to discover in three hours. But he carefully noted the shape and the arrangement of the rooms, and looked for some little detail which would put him on the scent.

When he had finished, he returned to a bedroom which Doudeville had told him was Altenheim’s, and examined it attentively:

“This will do,” he said, raising a curtain that concealed a dark closet, full of clothes. “From here I can see the whole of the room.”

“But if the baron searches the house?”

“Why should he?”

“He will know that we have been here, through his servants.”

“Yes, but he will never dream that one of us is putting up here for the night. He will think that the attempt failed, that is all, so I shall stay.”

“And how will you get out?”

“Oh, that’s asking me more than I can tell you! The great thing was to get in. Here I am, and here I stay. Go, Doudeville, and shut the doors as you go.”

He sat down on a little box at the back of the cupboard. Four rows of hanging clothes protected him. Except in the case of a close investigation, he was evidently quite safe.

Two hours passed. He heard the dull sound of a horse’s hoofs and the tinkling of a collar-bell. A carriage stopped, the front door slammed and almost immediately he heard voices, exclamations, a regular outcry that increased, probably, as each of the prisoners was released from his gag.

“They are explaining the thing to him,” he thought. “The baron must be in a tearing rage. He now understands the reason for my conduct at the club tonight and sees that I have dished him nicely… Dished ? That depends… After all, I haven’t got Steinweg yet… That is the first thing that he will want to know: did they get Steinweg? To find this out, he will go straight to the hiding-place. If he goes up, it means that the hiding-place is upstairs. If he goes down, then it is in the basement.”

He listened. The sound of voices continued in the rooms on the ground floor, but it did not seem as if any one were moving. Altenheim must be cross-examining his confederates. It was half an hour before Sernine heard steps mounting the staircase.

“Then it must be upstairs,” he said to himself.” “But why did they wait so long?”

“Go to bed, all of you,” said Altenheim’s voice.

The baron entered his room with one of his men and shut the door:

“And I am going to bed, too, Dominique. We should be no further if we sat arguing all night.”

“My opinion is,” said the other, “that he came to fetch Steinweg.”

“That is my opinion, too; and that’s why I’m really enjoying myself, seeing that Steinweg isn’t here.”

“But where is he, after all? What have you done with him?”

“That’s my secret; and you know I keep my secrets to myself. All that I can tell you is that he is in safe keeping, and that he won’t get out before he has spoken.”

“So the prince is sold?”

“Sold is the word. And he has had to fork out to attain this fine result! Oh, I’ve had a good time tonight I… Poor prince!”

“For all that,” said the other, “we shall have to get rid of him.”

“Make your mind easy, old man; that won’t take long. Before a week’s out you shall have a present of a pocketbook made out of Lupin-skin. But let me go to bed now. I’m dropping with sleep.”

There was a sound of the door dosing. Then Sernine heard the baron push the bolt, empty his pockets, wind up his watch and undress. He seemed in a gay mood, whistling and singing, and even talking aloud:

“Yes, a Lupin-skin pocketbook… in less than a week… in less than four days!… Otherwise he’ll eat us up, the bully!… No matter, he missed his shot tonight… His calculation was right enough, though… Steinweg was bound to be here… Only, there you are!…”

He got into bed and at once switched off the light.

Sernine had come forward as far as the dividing curtain, which he now lifted slightly, and he saw the vague light of the night filtering through the windows, leaving the bed in profound darkness.

He hesitated. Should he leap out upon the baron, take hiTM by the throat and obtain from him by force and threats what he had not been able to obtain by craft? Absurd? Altenheim would never allow himself to be intimidated.

“I say, he’s snoring now,” muttered Sernine. “Well, I’m off. At the worst, I shall have wasted a night.”

He did not go. He felt that it would be impossible for him to go, that he must wait, that chance might yet serve his turn.

With infinite precautions, he took four or five coats and great-coats from their hooks, laid them on the floor, made himself comfortable and, with his back to the wall, went peacefully to sleep.

The baron was not an early riser. A clock outside was striking nine when he got out of bed and rang for his servant.

He read the letters which his man brought him, splashed about in his tub, dressed without saying a word and sat down to his table to write, while Dominique was carefully hanging up the clothes of the previous day in the cupboard and Sernine asking himself, with his fists ready to strike:

“I wonder if I shall have to stave in this fellow’s solar plexus?”

At ten o’clock the baron was ready:

“Leave me,” said he to the servant.

“There’s just this waistcoat…”

“Leave me, I say. Come back when I ring… not before.”

He shut the door himself, like