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

think so, Sire?”

“Why, what a man knows he doesn’t have to hunt for! And you have been hunting for ten good hours! Doesn’t it strike you as a case for an immediate return to prison?”

Lupin seemed thunderstruck:

“Did not Your Imperial Majesty fix twelve o’clock tomorrow as the last limit?”

“Why wait?”

“Why? Well, to allow me to complete my work!”

“Your work? But it’s not even begun, M. Lupin.”

“There Your Imperial Majesty is mistaken.”

“Prove it… and I will wait until tomorrow.”

Lupin reflected and, speaking in a serious tone:

“Since Your Imperial Majesty requires proofs in order to have confidence in me, I will furnish them. The twelve rooms leading out of this gallery each bear a different name, which is inscribed in French—obviously by a French decorative artist—over the various doors. One of the inscriptions, less damaged by the fire than the others, caught my eye as I was passing along the gallery. I examined the other doors: all of them bore hardly legible traces of names carved over the pediments. Thus I found a ‘D’ and an ‘E’ the first and last letters of ‘Diane.’ I found an ‘A’ and ‘LON’ which pointed to ‘Apollon.’ These are the French equivalents of Diana and Apollo, both of them mythological deities. The other inscriptions presented similar characteristics. I discovered traces of such names as Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and so on. This part of the problem was solved: each of the twelve rooms bears the name of an Olympian god or goddess; and the letters APOON, completed by Isilda, point to the Apollo Room or Salle d’Apollon. So it is here, in the room in which we now are, that the letters are hidden. A few minutes, perhaps, will suffice in which to discover them.”

“A few minutes or a few years… or even longer!” said the Emperor, laughing.

He seemed greatly amused; and the count also displayed a coarse merriment.

Lupin asked:

“Would Your Imperial Majesty be good enough to explain?”

“M. Lupin, the exciting investigation which you have conducted to-day and of which you are telling us the brilliant results has already been made by me… yes, a fortnight ago, in the company of your friend Holmlock Shears. Together we questioned little Isilda;together, we employed the same method in dealing with her that you did; and together we observed the names in the gallery and got as far as this room, the Apollo Room.”

Lupin turned livid. He spluttered:

“Oh, did Shears get… as far as… this?”

“Yes, after four days’ searching. True, it did not help us, for we found nothing. All the same, I know that the letters are not here.”

Trembling with rage, wounded in his innermost pride, Lupin fired up under the gibe, as though he had been lashed with a whip. He had never felt humiliated to such a degree as this. In this fury, he could have strangled the fat Waldemar, whose laughter incensed him. Containing himself with an effort, he said:

“It took Shears four days, Sire, and me only four hours. And I should have required even less, if I had not been thwarted in my search.”

“And by whom, bless my soul? By my faithful count? I hope he did not dare…!”

“No, Sire, but by the most terrible and powerful of my enemies, by that infernal being who killed his own accomplice Altenheim.”

“Is he here? Do you think so?” exclaimed the Emperor, with an agitation which showed that he was familiar with every detail of the dramatic story.

“He is wherever I am. He threatens me with his constant hatred. It was he who guessed that I was M. Lenormand, the chief of the detective-service; it was he who had me put in prison; it was he, again, who pursued me, on the day when I came out. Yesterday.aiming at me in the motor, he wounded Count von Waldemar.”

“But how do you know, how can you be sure that he is at Veldenz?”

“Isilda has received two gold coins, two French coins!”

“And what is he here for? With what object?”

“I don’t know, Sire, but he is the very spirit of evil. Your Imperial Majesty must be on your guard: he is capable of anything and everything.”

“It is impossible! I have two hundred men in the ruins. He cannot have entered. He would have been seen.”

“Some one has seen him, beyond a doubt.”

“Who?”

“Isilda.”

“Let her be questioned! Waldemar, take your prisoner to where the girl is.” Ç

Lupin showed his bound hands:

“It will be a tough battle. Can I fight like this?”

The Emperor said to the count:

“Unfasten him… And keep me informed.”

In this way, by a sudden effort, bringing the hateful vision of the murder into the discussion, boldly, without evidence, ArsŽne Lupin gained time and resumed the direction of the search:

“Sixteen hours stilli” he said to himself, “it’s more than I want.”

He reached the premises occupied by Isilda, at the end of the old outbuildings. These buildings served as barracks for the two hundred soldiers guarding the ruins; and the whole of this, the left wing, was reserved for the officers.

Isilda was not there. The count sent two of his men to look for her. They came back. No one had seen the girl.

Nevertheless, she could not have left the precincts of the ruins. As for the Renascence palace, it was, so to speak, invested by one-half of the troops; and no one was able to obtain admittance.

At last, the wife of a subaltern who lived in the next house declared that she had been sitting at her window all day and that the girl had not been out.

“If she hadn’t gone out,” said Waldemar, “she would be here now: and she is not here.”

Lupin observed:

“Is there a floor above?”

“Yes, but from this room to the upper floor there is no staircase.”

“Yes, there is.”

He pointed to a little door opening on a dark recess. In the shadow, he saw the first treads of a staircase as steep as a ladder.

“Please, my dear count,” he said to Waldemar, who wanted to go up, “let me have the honor.”

“Why?”

“There’s danger.”

He ran up and at once sprang into a low and narrow loft. A cry escaped him:

“Oh!”

“What is it?” asked the count, emerging in his turn.

“Here… on the floor… Isilda…”

He knelt down beside the girl, but, at the first glance, saw that she was simply stunned and that she bore no trace of a wound, except a few scratches on the wrists and hands. A handkerchief was stuffed into her mouth by way of a gag.

“That’s it,” he said. “The murderer was here with her. When we came, he struck her a blow with his fist and gagged her so that we should not hear her moans.”

“But how did he get away?”

“Through here… look… there is a passage connecting all the attics on the first floor.”

“And from there?”

“From there, he went down the stairs of one of the other dwellings.”

“But he would have been seen!”

“Pooh, who knows? The creature’s invisible. Never mind! Send your men to look. Tell them to search all the attics and all the ground-floor lodgings.”

He hesitated. Should he also go in pursuit of the murderer?

But a sound brought him back to the girl’s side. She had got up from the floor and a dozen pieces of gold money had dropped from her hands. He examined them. They were all French.”

“Ah,” he said, “I was right! Only, why so much gold? In reward for what?”

Suddenly, he caught sight of a book on the floor and stooped to pick it up. But the girl darted forward with a quicker movement, seized the book and pressed it to her bosom with a fierce energy, as though prepared to defend it against any attempt to take hold of it.

“That’s it,” he said. “The money was offered her for the book, but she refused to part with it. Hence the scratches on the hands. The interesting thing would be to know why the murderer wished to possess the book. Was he able to look through it first?”

He said to Waldemar:

“My dear count, please give the order.”

Waldemar made a sign to his men. Three of them threw themselves on the girl and, after a hard tussle,in which the poor thing stamped, writhed and screamed with rage, they took the volume from her.

“Gently, child,” said Lupin, “be calm… It’s all in a good cause… Keep an eye on her, with you? Meanwhile, I will have a look at the object in dispute.”

It was an odd volume of Montesquieu’s Voyage an temple de Guide, in a binding at least a century old. But Lupin had hardly opened it before he exclaimed:

“I say, I say, this is queer! There is a sheet of parchment stuck on each right hand page; and those sheets are covered with a very close, small handwriting.”

He read, at the beginning:

“Diary of the Chevalier Gilles De Malreche, French servant to His Royal Highness the Prince of Zwei-Bruckenveldenz, begun in the Year of Our Lord 1794”

“What! Does it say that?” asked the count.

“What surprises you?”’

“Isilda’s grandfather, the old man who died two years ago, was called Malreich, which is the German form of the same name.”

“Capital! Isilda’s grandfather must have been the son or the grandson of the French servant who wrote his dairy in an odd volume of Montesquieu’s works. And that is how the diary came into Isilda’s hands.”

He turned the pages at random:

“15 September, 1796. His Royal Highness went hunting.

“20 September, 1796. His Royal Highness went out riding. He was mounted on Cupidon.”

“By Jove!” muttered Lupin. “So far, it’s not very exciting.” He turned over a number of pages and read:

“12 March, 1803. I have remitted ten crowns to Hermann. He is giving music-lessons in London.”

Lupin gave a laugh:

“Oho! Hermann is dethroned and our respect comes down with a rush!”

“Yes,” observed Waldemar, “the reigning grand-duke was driven from his dominions by the French troops.”

Lupin continued:

“1809. Tuesday. Napoleon slept at Veldenz last night. I made His Majesty’s bed and this morning I emptied his slops.”

“Oh, did Napoleon stop at Veldenz?”

“Yes, yes, on his way back to the army, at the time of the Austrian campaign, which ended with the battle of Wagram. It was an honor of which the grand-duchal family were very proud afterwards.”

Lupin went on reading:

“28 October, 1814. His Royal Highness returned to his dominions.

“29 October, 1814. I accompanied His Royal Highness to the hiding-place last night and was happy to be able to show him that no one had guessed its existence. For that matter, who would have suspected that a hiding-place could be contrived in…”

Lupin stopped, with a shout. Isilda had suddenly escaped from the men guarding her, made a grab at him and taken to flight, carrying the book with her.

“Oh, the little mischief! Quick, you!… Go round by the stairs below. I’ll run after her by the passage.”

But she had slammed the door behind her and bolted it. He had to go down and run along the buildings with the others, looking for a staircase which would take them to the first floor.

The fourth house was the only one open. He went upstairs. But the passage was empty and he had to knock at doors, force locks and make his way into unoccupied rooms, while Waldemar, showing as much ardor in the pursuit as himself, pricked the curtains and hangings with the point of his sword.

A voice called out from the ground-floor, towards the right