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

THE ruins of Veldenz are well known to all who visit the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle. They comprise the remains of the old feudal castle, built in 1377 by the Archbishop of Fistingen, an enormous dungeon-keep, gutted by Turenne’s troops, and the walls, left standing in their entirety, of a large Renascence palace, in which the grand-dukes of Zweibrucken lived for three centuries.

It was this palace that was sacked by Hermann II.‘s rebellious subjects. The empty windows display two hundred yawning cavities on the four frontages. All the wainscoting, the hangings and most of the furniture were burnt. You walk on the scorched girders of the floors; and the sky can be seen at intervals through the ruined ceilings.

Lupin, accompanied by his escort, went over the whole building in two hours’ time:

“I am very pleased with you, my dear count. I don’t think I ever came across a guide so well posted in his subject, nor—which is rare—so silent. And now, if you don’t mind, we will go to lunch.”

As a matter of fact, Lupin knew no more than at the first moment and his perplexity did nothing but increase. To obtain his release from prison and to strike the imagination of his visitor, he had bluffed, pretending to know everything; and he was still seeking for the best place at which to begin to seek.

“Things look bad,” he said to himself, from time to time. “Things are looking about as bad as they can look.”

His brain, moreover, was not as clear as usual. He was obsessed by an idea, the idea of “the other one,” the murderer, the assassin, whom he knew to be still clinging to his footsteps.

How did that mysterious personality come to be on his tracks? How had he heard of Lupin’s leaving prison and of his rush to Luxemburg and Germany? Was it a miraculous intuition? Or was it the outcome of definite information? But, if so, at what price, by means of what promises or threats was he able to obtain it? -

All these questions haunted Lupin’s mind.

At about four o’clock, however, after a fresh walk through the ruins, in the course of which he had examined the stones, measured the thickness of the walls, investigated the shape and appearance of things, all to no purpose, he asked the count:

“Is there no one left who was in the service of the last grand-duke who lived in the castle?”

“All the servants of that time went different ways. Only one of them continued to live in the district.”

“Well?”

“He died two years ago.”

“Any children?”

“He had a son, who married and who was dismissed, with his wife, for disgraceful conduct. They left their youngest child behind, a little girl, Isilda.”

“Where does she live?”

“She lives here, at the end of these buildings. The old grandfather used to act as a guide to visitors, in the days when the castle was still open to the public. Little Isilda has lived in the ruins ever since. She was allowed to remain out of pity. She is a poor innocent, who is hardly able to talk and does not know what she says.”

“Was she always like that?”

“It seems not. Her reason went gradually, when she was about ten years old.”

“In consequence of a sorrow, of a fright?”

“No, for no direct cause, I am told. The father was a drunkard and the mother committed suicide in a fit of madness.”

Lupin reflected and said:

“I should like to see her.”

The count gave a rather curious smile:

“You can see her, by all means.”

She happened to be in one of the rooms which had been set apart for her. Lupin was surprised to find an attractive little creature, too thin, too pale, but almost pretty, with her fair hair and her delicate face. Her sea-green eyes had the vague, dreamy look of the eyes of blind people.

He put a few questions to which Isilda gave no answer and others to which she replied with incoherent sentences, as though she understood neither the meaning of the words addressed to her nor those which she herself uttered.

He persisted, taking her very gently by the hand and asking her in an affectionate tone about the time when she still had her reason, about her grandfather, about the memories which might be called up by her life as a child playing freely among the majestic ruins of the castle.

She stood silent, with staring eyes; impassive, any emotion which she might have felt was not enough to rouse her slumbering intelligence.

Lupin asked for a pencil and paper and wrote down the number 813.

The count smiled again.

“Look here, what are you laughing at?” cried Lupin, irritably.

“Nothing… nothing… I’m very much interested, that’s all—”

Isilda looked at the sheet of paper, when he showed it to her, and turned away her head, with a vacant air.

“No bite!” said the count, satirically.

Lupin wrote the letters “APOON.”

Isilda paid no more attention than before.

He did not give up the experiment, but kept on writing the same letters, each time watching the girl’s face.

She did not stir, but kept her eyes fixed on the paper with an indifference which nothing seemed to disturb. Then, all at once, she seized the pencil, snatched the last sheet out of Lupin’s hands and, as though acting under a sudden inspiration, wrote two “L’s” in the middle of a space left open by Lupin.

He felt a thrill.

A word had been formed: “APOLLON.”

Meanwhile, Isilda clung to both pencil and paper and, with clutching fingers and a strained face, was struggling to make her hand submit to the hesitating orders of her poor little brain.

Lupin waited, feverishly.

She rapidly wrote another word, the word “DIANE.”

“Another word!… Another word!” shouted Lupin.

She twisted her fingers round the pencil, broke the lead, made a big “J” with the stump and, now utterly exhausted, dropped the pencil.

“Another word! I must have another word!” said Lupin, in a tone of command, catching her by the arm.

But he saw by her eyes, which had once more become indifferent, that that fleeting gleam of intelligence could not shine out again.

“Let us go,” he said.

He was walking away, when she ran after him and stood in his path. He stopped:

“What it is?”

She held out the palm of her hand.

“What? Money?… Is she in the habit of begging?” he asked the count.

“No,” said Waldemar, “and I can’t understand.”

Isilda took two gold coins from her pocket and chinked them together, gleefully.

Lupin looked at them. They were French coins, quite new, bearing the date of that year.

“Where did you get these?” asked Lupin, excitedly. “French money!… Who gave it you?… And when?… Was it to-day? Speak!… Answer!…” He shrugged his shoulders. “Fool that I am! As though she could answer!… My dear count, would you mind lending me forty marks?… Thanks… Here, Isilda, that’s for you.”

She took the two coins, jingled them with the others in the palm of her hand and then, putting out her arm, pointed to the ruins of the Renascence palace, with a gesture that seemed to call attention more particularly to the left wing and to the top of that wing.

Was it a mechanical movement? Or must it be looked upon as a grateful acknowledgment for the two gold coins?

He glanced at the count. Waldemar was smiling again.

“What makes the brute keep on grinning like that?” said Lupin to himself. “Any one would think that he was having a game with me.”

He went to the palace on the off-chance, attended by his escort.

The ground-floor consisted of a number of large reception-rooms, running one into the other and containing the few pieces of furniture that had escaped the fire.

On the first floor, on the north side, was a long gallery, out of which twelve handsome rooms opened all exactly alike.

There was a similar gallery on the second floor, but with twenty-four smaller rooms, also resembling one another. All these apartments were empty, dilapidated, wretched to look at.

Above, there was nothing. The attics had been burnt down.

For an hour, Lupin walked, ran, rushed about indefatigably, with his eyes on the lookout.

When it began to grow dusk, he hurried to one of his twelve rooms on the first floor, as if he were selecting it for special reasons known to himself alone. He was rather surprised to find the Emperor there, smoking and seated in an arm-chair which he had sent for.

Taking no notice of his presence, Lupin began an inspection of the room, according to the methods which he was accustomed to employ in such cases, dividing the room into sections, each of which he examined in turn.After twenty minutes of this work, he said:

“I must beg you, Sire, to be good enough to move. There is a fireplace here…”

The Emperor tossed his head:

“Is it really necessary for me to move?”

“Yes, Sire, this fireplace…”

“The fireplace is just the same as the others and the room is no different from its fellows.”

Lupin looked at the Emperor without understanding.

The Emperor rose and said, with a laugh:

“I think, M. Lupin, that you have been making just a little fun of me.”

“How do you mean, Sire?”

“Oh, it’s hardly worth mentioning! You obtained your release on the condition of handing me certain papers in which I am interested and you have not the smallest notion as to where they are. I have been thoroughly—what do you call it, in French?—_rouli_—‘done’!”

“Do you