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

M. Formerie blushed and, without replying, continued:

“Only, henceforth, your examinations will take place here.”

“It’s quite right that the law should put itself out for Lupin!” said that gentleman.

The announcement of this decision, which interrupted his almost daily meetings with the Doudevilles, did not disturb Lupin. He had taken his precautions from the first day, by giving the Doudevilles all the necessary instructions and, now that the preparations were nearly completed, reckoned upon being able to turn old Steinweg’s confidences to the best account without delay and to obtain his liberty by one of the most extraordinary and ingenious schemes that had ever entered his brain.

His method of correspondence was a simple one; and he had devised it at once. Every morning he was supplied with sheets of paper in numbered packets. He made these into envelopes; and, every evening, the envelopes, duly folded and gummed, were fetched away. Now Lupin, noticing that his packet always bore the same number, had drawn the inference that the distribution of the numbered packets was always affected in the same order among the prisoners who had chosen that particular kind of work. Experience showed that he was right.

It only remained for the Doudevilles to bribe one of the employees of the private firm entrusted with the supply and dispatch of the envelopes. This was easily done; and, thenceforward, Lupin, sure of success, had only to wait quietly until the sign agreed upon between him and his friends appeared upon the top sheet of the packet.

On the sixth day, he gave an exclamation of delight:

“At last!” he said.

He took a tiny bottle from a hiding-place, uncorked it, moistened the tip of his forefinger with the liquid which it contained and passed his finger over the third sheet in the packet.

In a moment, strokes appeared, then letters, then words and sentences.

He read:

“All well. Steinweg free. Hiding in country. GeneviŽve Ernemont good health. Often goes H—tel Bristol to see Mrs. Kesselbach, who is ill. Meets Pierre Leduc there every time. Answer by same means. No danger.”

So communications were established with the outside. Once more, Lupin’s efforts were crowned with success. All that he had to do now was to execute his ‘ plan and lead the press campaign which he had prepared in the peaceful solitude of his prison.

Three days later, these few lines appeared in the Grand Journal:

“Quite apart from Prince Bismarck’s Memoirs, which, according to well-informed people, contain merely the official history of the events in which the great chancellor was concerned, there exists a series of confidential letters of no little interest.

“These letters have been recently discovered. We hear, on good authority, that they will be published almost immediately.”

My readers will remember the noise which these mysterious sentences made throughout the civilized world, the comments in which people indulged, the suggestions put forward and, in particular, the controversy that followed in the German press. Who had inspired those lines? What were the letters in question? Who had written them to the chancellor or who had received them from him? Was it an act of posthumous revenge? Or was it an indiscretion committed by one of Bismarck’s correspondents?

A second note settled public opinion as to certain points, but, at the same time, worked it up to a strange pitch of excitement. It ran as follows:

“To the Editor of the Grand Journal,

“Sante Palace,

“Cell 14, Second Division.’

“Sir,

“You inserted in your issue of Tuesday last a paragraph based upon a few words which I let fall, the other evening, in the course of a lecture, which I was delivering at the SantŽ on foreign politics. Your correspondent’s paragraph, although accurate in all essential particulars, requires a slight correction. The letters exist, as stated, and it is impossible to deny their exceptional importance, seeing that, for ten years, they have been the object of an uninterrupted search on the part of the government interested. But nobody knows where they are hidden and nobody knows a single word of what they contain.

“The public, I am convinced, will bear me no ill-will if I keep it waiting for some time before satisfying its legitimate curiosity. Apart from the fact that I am not in possession of all the elements necessary for the pursuit of the truth, my present occupation does not allow me to devote so much time as I could wish to this matter.

“All that I can say for the moment is that the letters were entrusted by the dying statesman to one of his most faithful friends and that this friend had eventually to suffer the serious consequences of his loyalty. Constant spying, domiciliary visits, nothing was spared him.

“I have given orders to two of the best agents of my secret police to take up this scent from the start in a position to get to the bottom of this exciting mystery.

“I have the honor to be Sir,

“Your obedient servant,

“ArsŽne Lupin.”

So it was ArsŽne Lupin who was conducting the case! It was he who, from his prison cell, was stage-managing the comedy or the tragedy announced in the first note. What luck! Everybody was delighted. With an artist like Lupin, the spectacle could not fail to be both picturesque and startling.

Three days later the Grand Journal contained the following letter from ArsŽne Lupin:

“The name of the devoted friend to whom I referred has been imparted to me. It was the Grand-Duke Hermann III., reigning (although dispossessed) sovereign of the Grand-duchy of Zweibrucken-Veldenz and a confidant of Prince Bismarck, whose entire friendship he enjoyed.

“A thorough search was made of his house by Count von W , at the head of twelve men. The result of this search was purely negative, but the grand-duke was nevertheless proved to be in possession of the papers.

“Where had he hidden them? This was a problem which probably nobody in the world would be able to solve at the present moment.

“I must ask for twenty-four hours in which to solve it

“ArsŽne Lupin.”

And, twenty-four hours later, the promised note appeared:

“The famous letters are hidden in the feudal castle of Veldenz, the capital of the Grand-duchy of Zweibrucken. The castle was partly destroyed in the course of the nineteenth century.

“Where exactly are they hidden? And what are the letters precisely? These are the two problems which I am now engaged in unravelling; and I shall publish the solution in four days’ time.

“ArsŽne Lupin.”

On the day stated, men scrambled to obtain copies of the Grand Journal. To the general disappointment, the promised information was not given. The same silence followed on the next day and the day after.

What had happened?

It leaked out through an indiscretion at the Prefecture of Police. The governor of the SantS, it appeared, had been warned that Lupin was communicating with his accomplices by means of the packets of envelopes which he made. Nothing had been discovered; but it was thought best, in any case, to forbid all work to the insufferable prisoner.

To this the insufferable prisoner replied:

“As I have nothing to do now, I may as well attend to my trial. Please let my counsel, Maitre Quimbel, know.”

It was true. Lupin, who, hitherto, had refused to hold any intercourse with Maitre Quimbel, now consented to see him and to prepare his defence.

On the next day Maitre Quimbel, in cheery tones,asked for Lupin to be brought to the barristers’ room. He was an elderly man, wearing a pair of very powerful spectacles, which made his eyes seem enormous. He put his hat on the table, spread out his brief-case and at once began to put a series of questions which he had carefully prepared.

Lupin replied with extreme readiness and even volunteered a host of particulars, which Maitre Quimbel took down, as he spoke, on slips pinned one to the other.

“And so you say,” continued the barrister, with Jus head over his papers, “that, at that time…”

“I say that, at that time…” Lupin answered.

Little by little, with a series of natural and hardly perceptible movements, he leant elbows on the table. He gradually lowered his arms, slipped his hand under Maitre Quimbel’s hat put his finger into the leather band and took out one of those strips of paper, folded lengthwise, which the hatter inserts between the leather and the lining when the hat is a trifle too large.

He unfolded the paper. It was a message from Doudeville, written in a cipher agreed upon beforehand:

“I am engaged as indoor servant at Maitre Quimbel’s. You can answer by the same means without fear.

“It was L. M., the murderer, who gave away the envelope trick. A good thing that you foresaw this move!”

Hereupon followed a minute report of all the facts and comments caused by Lupin’s revelations. Lupin took from his pocket a similar strip of paper containing his instructions, quietly substituted it in the place of the other and drew his hand back again. The trick was played.

And Lupin’s correspondence with the Grand Journal was resumed without further delay.

“I apologize to the public for not keeping my promise. The postal arrangements at the Sante Palace are woefully inadequate.

“However, we are near the end. I have in hand all the documents that establish the truth upon an indisputable basis. I shall not publish them for the moment. Nevertheless, I will say this: among the letters are some that were addressed to the chancellor by one who, at that time, declared himself his disciple and his admirer and who was destined, several years after, to rid himself of that irksome tutor and to govern alone.

“I trust that I make myself sufficiently clear.”

And, on the next day:

“The letters were written during the late Emperor’s illness. I need hardly add more to prove their importance.”

Four days of silence, and then this final note, which caused a stir that has not yet been forgotten:

“My investigation is finished. I now know everything.

“By dint of reflection, I have guessed the secret of the hiding-place.

“My friends are going to Veldenz and, in spite of every obstacle, will enter the castle by a way which I am pointing out to them.

“The newspapers will then publish photographs of the letters, of which I already know the tenor; but I prefer to reproduce the whole text.

“This certain, inevitable publication will take place in a fortnight from to-day precisely, on the 22nd of August next.

“Between this and then I will keep silence… and wait.”

The communications to the Grand Journal did, in fact, stop for a time, but Lupin never ceased corresponding with his friends, “via the hat,” as they said among themselves. It was so simple! There was no danger. Who could ever suspect that Maitre Quimbel’s hat served Lupin as a letter-box?

Every two or three mornings, whenever he called, in fact, the celebrated advocate faithfully brought his client’s letters: letters from Paris, letters from the country, letters from Germany; all reduced and condensed by Doudeville into a brief form and cipher language. And, an hour later, Maitre Quimbel solemnly walked away, carrying Lupin’s orders.

7 Now, one day, the governor of the Sante received a telephone message, signed, “L. M.,” informing him that Maitre Quimbel was, in all probability, serving Lupin as his unwitting postman and that it would be advisable to keep an eye upon the worthy man’s visits. The governor told Maitre Quimbel, who thereupon resolved to bring his junior with him.

So, once again, in spite of all Lupin’s efforts, in spite of his fertile powers of invention, in spite of the marvels of ingenuity which he renewed after each defeat, once again Lupin found himself cut off from communication with the outside world by