813 - Maurice LeBlanc (best short novels of all time TXT) 📗
- Author: Maurice LeBlanc
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“No,” said Altenheim, shaking his head.”
“Then…?”
“It’s he… he…”
“What do you mean by ‘he’?… Did Lupin kill the chief?”
“No…”
Altenheim was clinging to existence with fierce obstinacy, eager to speak and to accuse… The secret which he wished to reveal was at the tip of his tongue and he was not able, did not know how to translate it into words.
“Come,” the deputy-chief insisted. “M. Lenormand is dead, surely?”
“No.”
“He’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand… Look here, these clothes? This frock-coat?…”
Altenheim turned his eyes toward Sernine. An idea struck M. Weber:
“Ah, I see! Lupin stole M. Lenormand’s clothes and reckoned upon using them to escape with…”
“Yes… yes…”
“Not bad,” cried the deputy-chief. “It’s quite a trick in his style. In this room, we should have found Lupin disguised as M. Lenormand, chained up, no doubt. It would have meant his safety; only he hadn’t tune. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Yes… yes…”
But, by the appearance of the dying man’s eyes, M. Weber felt that there was more, and that the secret was not exactly that. What was it, then? What was the strange and unintelligible puzzle which Altenheim wanted to explain before dying?
He questioned him again:
“And where is M. Lenormand himself?” ! “There…”
“What do you mean? Here?” ‘ “Yes.”
“But there are only ourselves here!”
“There’s… there’s…”
“Oh, speak!”
“There’s… Ser… Sernine.” j “Sernine!… Eh, what?”
“Sernine… Lenormand “
M. Weber gave a jump. A sudden light flashed across him.
“No, no, it’s not possible,” he muttered. “This is madness.”
He gave a side-glance at his prisoner. Sernine seemed to be greatly diverted and to be watching the scene with the air of a playgoer who is thoroughly amused and very anxious to know how the piece is going to end.
Altenheim, exhausted by his efforts, had fallen back at full length. Would he die before revealing the solution of the riddle which his strange words had propounded? M. Weber, shaken by an absurd, incredible surmise, which he did not wish to entertain and which persisted in his mind in spite of him, made a fresh, determined attempt:
“Explain the thing to us… What’s at the bottom of it? What mystery?”
The other seemed not to hear and lay lifeless, with staring eyes.
M. Weber lay down beside him, with his body touching him, and, putting great stress upon his words, so that each syllable should sink down to the very depths of that brain already merged in darkness, said:
“Listen… I have understood you correctly, have I not? Lupin and M. Lenormand…”
He needed an effort to continue, so monstrous did the words appear to him. Nevertheless, the baron’s dimmed eyes seemed to contemplate him with anguish. He finished the sentence, shaking with excitement, as though he were speaking blasphemy:
“That’s it, isn’t it? You’re sure? The two are one and the same?…”
The eyes did not move. A little blood trickled from one corner of the man’s mouth… He gave two or three sobs… A last spasm; and all was over…
A long silence reigned in that basement room filled with people.
Almost all the policemen guarding Sernine had turned round and, stupefied, not understanding or not willing to understand, they still listened to the incredible accusation which the dying scoundrel had been unable to put into words.
M. Weber took the little box which was in the parcel and opened it. It contained a gray wig, a pair of spectacles, a maroon-colored neckerchief and, in a false bottom, a pot or two of make-up and a case containing some tiny tufts of gray hair: in short, all that was needed to complete a perfect disguise in the character of M. Lenormand.
He went up to Sernine and, looking at him for a few seconds without speaking, thoughtfully reconstructing all the phases of the adventure, he muttered:
“So it’s true?”
Sernine, who had retained his smiling calmness, replied :
“The suggestion is a pretty one and a bold one. But, before I answer, tell your men to stop worrying me with those toys of theirs.”
“Very well,” said M. Weber, making a sign to his men. “And now answer.”
“What?”
“Are you M. Lenormand?”
“Yes.”
Exclamations arose. Jean Doudeville, who was there, while his brother was watching the secret outlet, Jean Doudeville, Sernine’s own acccomplice, looked at him in dismay. M. Weber stood undecided.
“That takes your breath away, eh?” said Sernine. “I admit that it’s rather droll… Lord, how you used to make me laugh sometimes, when we were working together, you and I, the chief and the deputy-chief!… And the funniest thing is that you thought our worthy M. Lenormand dead… as well as poor Gourel. But no, no, old chap: there’s life in the old dog yet!” He pointed to Altenheim’s corpse. “There, it was that scoundrel who pitched me into the water, in a sack, with a paving-stone round my waist. Only, he forgot to take away my knife. And with a knife one rips open sacks and cuts ropes. So you see, you unfortunate Altenheim: if you had thought of that, you wouldn’t be where you are!… But enough said… Peace to your ashes!”
M. Weber listened, not knowing what to think. At last, he made a gesture of despair, as though he gave up the idea of forming a reasonable opinion.
“The handcuffs,” he said, suddenly alarmed.
“If it amuses you,” said Sernine.
And, picking out Doudeville in the front row of his assailants, he put out his wrists:
“There, my friend, you shall have the honour… and don’t trouble to exert yourself… I’m playing square… as it’s no use doing anything else…”
He said this in a tone that gave Doudeville to understand that the struggle was finished for the moment and that there was nothing to do but submit.
Doudeville fastened the handcuffs.
Without moving his lips or contracting a muscle of his face, Sernine whispered:
“27, Rue de Rivoli… GeneviŽve…”
M. Weber could not suppress a movement of satisfaction at the sight:
“Come along!” he said. “To the detective-office!”
“That’s it, to the detective-office!” cried Sernine. “M. Lenormand will enter ArsŽne Lupin in the jail-book; and ArsŽne Lupin will enter Prince Sernine.”
“You’re too clever, Lupin.”
“That’s true, Weber; we shall never get on, you and I.”
During the drive in the motorcar, escorted by three other cars filled with policemen, he did not utter a word.
They did not stay long at the detective office. M. Weber, remembering the escapes effected by Lupin, sent him up at once to the finger-print department and then took him to the Depot, whence he was sent on to the Sante Prison.
The governor had been warned by telephone and was waiting for him. The formalities of the entry of commitment and of the searching were soon got over; and, at seven o’clock in the evening, Prince Paul Sernine crossed the threshold of cell 14 in the second division:
“Not half bad, your rooms,” he declared, “not bad at all!… Electric light, central heating, every requisite… capital! Mr. Governor, I’ll take this room.”
He flung himself on the bed:
“Oh, Mr. Governor, I have one little favor to ask of you!”
“What is that?”
“Tell them not to bring me my chocolate before ten o’clock in the morning… I’m awfully sleepy.”
He turned his face to the wall. Five minutes later he was round asleep.
THERE was one wild burst of laughter over the whole face of the world.
True, the capture of ArsŽne Lupin made a big sensation; and the public did not grudge the police the praise which they deserved for this revenge so long hoped-for and now so fully obtained. The great adventurer was caught. That extraordinary, genial, invisible hero was shivering, like any ordinary criminal, between the four walls of a prison cell, crushed in his turn by that formidable power which is called the law and which, sooner or later, by inevitable necessity shatters the obstacles opposed to it and destroys the work of its adversaries..
All this was said, printed, repeated and discussed ad nauseam. The prefect of police was created a commander, M. Weber an officer of the Legion of Honor. The skill and courage of their humblest coadjutors were extolled to the skies. Cheers were raised and paeans of victory struck up. Articles were written and speeches made.
Very well. But one thing, nevertheless, rose above the wonderful concert of praise, these noisy demonstrations of satisfaction; and that was an immense, spontaneous, inextinguishable and tumultuous roar of laughter.
ArsŽne Lupin had been chief of the detective-service for four years!!!
He had been chief detective for four years and, really, legally, he was chief detective still, with all the rights which the title confers, enjoying the esteem of his chiefs, the favor of the government and the admiration of the public.
For four years, the public peace and the defence of property had been entrusted to ArsŽne Lupin. He saw that the law was carried out. He protected the innocent and pursued the guilty.
And what services he had rendered! Never was order less disturbed, never was crime discovered with greater certainty and rapidity. The reader need but take back his mind to the Denizou case, the robbery at the Credit Lyonnais, the attack on the Orleans express, the murder of Baron Dorf, forming a series of unforeseen and overwhelming triumphs, of magnificent feats of prowess fit to compare with the most famous victories of the most renowned detectives.*
[*The murder of Baron Dorf, that mysterious and disconcerting affair, will one day be the subject of a story which will give an idea of ArsŽne Lupin’s astonishing qualities as a detective.]
Not so very long before, in a speech delivered at the time of the fire at the Louvre and the capture of the incendiaries, Valenglay, the prime minister, had said, speaking in defence of the somewhat arbitrary manner in which M. Lenormand had acted on that occasion:
“With his great powers of discernment, his energy, his qualities of decision and execution, his unexpected methods, his inexhaustible resources, M. Lenormand reminds us of the only man who, if he were still alive, could hope to hold his own against him: I mean ArsŽne Lupin. M. Lenormand is an ArsŽne Lupin in the service of society.”
And, lo and behold, M. Lenonnand was none other than ArsŽne Lupin!
That he was a Russian prince, who cared! Lupin was an old hand at such changes of personality as that. But chief detective! What a delicious irony! What a whimsical humor in the conduct of that extraordinary life!
M. Lenormand!… ArsŽne Lupin!…
People were now able to explain to themselves the apparently miraculous feats of intelligence which had quite recently bewildered the crowd and baffled the police. They understood how his accomplice had been juggled away in the middle of the Palais de Justice itself, in broad daylight and on the appointed day. Had he himself not said:
“My process is so ingenious and so simple… How surprised people will be on the day when I am free to speak! ‘Is that all?’ I shall be asked. That is all; but it had to be thought of.”
It was, indeed, childishly simple: all you had to do was to be chief of the detective-service.
Well, Lupin was chief of the detective-service; and every police-officer obeying his orders had made himself the involuntary and unconscious accomplice of ArsŽne Lupin.
What a comedy! What admirable bluff! It was the monumental and consoling farce of these drab times of ours. Lupin in prison, Lupin irretrievably conquered was, in spite of himself, the great conqueror. From his cell he shone over Paris. He was more than ever the idol, more than ever the master.
When ArsŽne Lupin awoke next morning, in his room at
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