Memoirs of Arsène Lupin - Maurice Leblanc (books like beach read TXT) 📗

a gentleman whose name no one knew, or why he had been arrested, or who had denounced him. The attentions I paid him and my piety won his confidence. He grew fond of me, and on the evening of the day on which he had been tried and condemned, he said to me:

“ ‘ “At dawn tomorrow, my child, the gendarmes are coming to conduct me to the scaffold, and I shall die without anyone knowing who I am. That is exactly as I wish it to be. I shall not even tell you. But circumstances render it necessary that I should entrust certain secrets to you and demand that you should listen to them as if you were grown up and later deal with them with the loyalty and coolness of a man. The mission with which I charge you is of the highest importance. I feel confident that you will be able to rise to the height of such a task and to keep, whatever happens, a secret in which the most important interests are involved.”

“ ‘Thereupon he informed me that he was a priest and, as such, the depositary of incalculable riches, in the form of precious stones of such quality that in each the highest possible value was attained in the smallest possible bulk. As they were acquired these precious stones had been hidden in the most original hiding-place in the world. In a corner of the Caux country, on common land on which everyone is at liberty to set foot, stands one of those huge blocks of stone which used to serve, and still serves, to mark the boundary of certain properties, of fields, orchards, meadows, woods, and so forth. This block of granite, with only its top above the earth and surrounded by bushes, had two or three natural holes in the top of it, filled up with earth in which grew small plants and wild flowers. Through one of these openings from which they carefully removed and replaced the lump of soil which closed it, into this open-air strongbox, they let fall these magnificent precious stones.

“ ‘The cavities in the stones had actually been filled with them, and since no other hiding-place had yet been chosen they had put the stones which had been acquired during the last few years into a sandalwood box which, a few days before his arrest, the priest had himself buried at the foot of the block of stone.

“ ‘He gave me directions for finding the place and communicated to me a formula, composed of a unique word, which, in the case of my forgetting the directions, would give me the hiding-place beyond any possibility of error.

“ ‘He then exacted a promise from me that, when peaceful times returned, that is to say, at a date which he accurately reckoned to be twenty years ahead, I should first go and make sure that everything was in its place, and that starting from that date I should be present at the high mass celebrated in the church of the village of Gueures every Easter Sunday.

“ ‘One Easter Sunday I should see a man dressed in black beside the holy water font. As soon as I should tell this man in black my name, he would take me close to the altar and point to a copper candlestick with seven branches, the candles in which were only lighted on feast-days. In response to this action of his I was to confide to him the formula which revealed the hiding-place.

“ ‘Those were the two signs by which we should recognize one another; and after exchanging them I was to lead him to the block of granite.

“ ‘I swore upon my eternal salvation to follow blindly the instructions he had given me. Next day the worthy priest mounted the scaffold.

“ ‘Although I was very young, monseigneur, when I took that oath, I have kept it religiously. On the death of my aunt des Aubes I enlisted as a drummer boy and went through all the wars of the Directoire and the Empire. On the fall of Napoleon, at the age of thirty, I was dismissed from the army, in which I had risen to the rank of colonel. My first step was to make my way to the hiding-place of the jewels. I easily found the block of granite. Then on the Easter Sunday of 1816, at Gueures church I saw on the altar the copper candlestick. That Sunday the man in black was not standing by the holy water font.

“ ‘I went to that church the next Easter Sunday and every Easter Sunday since, for in the meantime I had bought the Château de Gueures and after the manner of a scrupulous soldier I kept watch at the post assigned to me. I waited.

“ ‘I have been waiting fifty years, monseigneur. No one has come. Not only has no one come but I have never heard a word from anyone’s lips which had the slightest connection with the affair. The block of granite is in its place. Every Easter Sunday the verger lights the candles in the seven branches of the candlestick. But the man in black has never come to the meeting-place.

“ ‘What was I to do? To whom was I to address myself? Enter into communication with some ecclesiastical authority? Ask for an audience of the King of France? No. My mission was strictly defined. I had no right to interpret it in my own way.

“ ‘I remained silent. But after how many debates in my own mind! After what anguish at the thought that I might die and carry to my grave a secret of this immense importance!

“ ‘This evening, monseigneur, all my doubts and scruples have vanished. Your fortuitous coming to the château appears to me an undeniable manifestation of the Divine will. You are at once the spiritual and temporal power. As Archbishop you represent the Church. As senator you represent France. I run no risk of making a mistake in making a revelation to you of such interest both to