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

not for the reason that Bridget Rousselin wore across her forehead a bandeau set with seven jewels. He wished to learn what it meant; and it was undoubtedly he who had her house watched this morning.”

“Admitting that it is so, there is no way of our knowing it,” she objected.

“Oh, yes; there is,” he said.

“How? Who from?” she said quickly.

“Bridget Rousselin.”

“Bridget Rousselin?” she cried.

“Certainly. We’ve got to question her.”

“Question that woman?”

“Yes, that woman.”

“Then⁠—then⁠—she’s⁠—she’s alive!”

“Well, yes; she is.”

He rose again, pivoted on his heels once or twice in a sketchy little dance that was half cancan, half jig, and said:

“I beg you, Countess of Cagliostro, not to look at me with such furious eyes. If I hadn’t given you a bit of a shock with a view to weaken your power of resistance, you would not have whispered a word of that interesting story; and where should we be now? One day or other Beaumagnan would have scooped up the thousand millions and left poor little Josephine biting her nails. So come now! A sweet smile instead of that horrid scowl.”

“You had the audacity⁠ ⁠… You dared⁠ ⁠… And all those threats⁠ ⁠… All that pressure to make me speak⁠ ⁠… It was a farce! I’ll never forgive you⁠—never!”

“Oh, yes you will,” he said in a cheerful, mocking tone. “You’ll forgive me all right⁠—when you’ve recovered from that little wound to your vanity. All this has nothing to do with our love, you know. It counts for nothing between people devoted to one another, like us. One day one scratches, next day the other⁠ ⁠… until perfect concord is attained on every point.”

“Always supposing a rupture does not take place first,” she said between her teeth.

“A rupture? A rupture merely because I’ve relieved you of a few little secrets?”

But Josephine still looked so flabbergasted that he had to laugh outright, and fairly dancing up and down, like a delighted child, he went on:

“Lord, madam is annoyed!⁠ ⁠… And just because I’ve tried one of her own little tricks on her!⁠ ⁠… Really you ought not to lose your temper about a little thing like that.⁠ ⁠… It makes me laugh.”

She was no longer paying any attention to him. She pulled the rug off Leonard, pulled the handkerchief out of his mouth, and cut through his bonds.

Leonard leaped at Ralph, like a wild beast unchained.

“Don’t touch him!” she cried.

Leonard stopped short, shaking his fist in Ralph’s face.

“Behold the myrmidon!” said Ralph, laughing again. “Jumping up like a jack-in-the-box!”

Beside himself, the man foamed at the mouth and cried: “We shall meet again, my lad⁠—we shall meet again⁠—and if it isn’t for a hundred years⁠—”

“You also reckon in centuries⁠—like your mistress,” said Ralph.

“Go,” said Josephine, pushing Leonard towards the door. “Go. You will bring back the carriage.”

They exchanged a few words quickly, in a language Ralph did not understand; and the man went.

Then she turned to Ralph and said in a bitter voice: “And now?”

“Now?”

“Yes. What do you intend to do?”

“My intentions are perfectly honorable⁠—angelic in fact⁠—”

“Enough of this fooling! What do you mean to do? How do you propose to act?” she said sharply.

Of a sudden serious, he said: “I promise to act very differently from you who are always full of suspicion. I shall be what you have never been, a loyal friend who would blush to injure you.”

“That is to say?”

“That is to say I’m going to put the indispensable questions to Bridget Rousselin, and to put them so that you can hear her answers. Does that suit you?”

“Yes,” she said, but in a tone that showed that she was still irritated.

“In that case, stay here. It won’t take long. There’s no time to lose.”

“No time to lose?”

“No. Listen and you’ll understand. Don’t stir.”

Thereupon, leaving open the two doors of communication so that every word could be heard clearly, he went to the bed on which Bridget was lying.

The young actress smiled at him. In spite of her fear and of the fact that she had not caught a sound of what had been going on, she had at the sight of her deliverer a sense of security and confidence very comforting.

“I shan’t tire you,” he said. “I want to ask you a few questions. Are you in condition to answer them?”

“Certainly.”

“Ah well, you have been the victim of a madman of sorts whom the police have been watching and whom they’re going to shut up. So there is no longer any danger. But I want you to clear up a point if you can.”

“What is it?”

“What is this bandeau set with jewels? Who did you get it from?” he said.

He perceived that she hesitated. However she said: “They are stones I found in an old casket.”

“A wooden casket?” he asked quickly.

“Yes⁠—all smashed and not even locked. It was hidden under a heap of straw in a loft in the little house in the country my mother lived in.”

“Where?”

“At Lillebonne, between Rouen and le Havre.”

“I know. And where did the casket come from?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I never asked my mother.”

“You found the stones in the box just as they are now?”

“No. They were set in large silver rings,” she said.

“And those rings?”

“I had them last night in my makeup box at the theater; and a gentleman who came behind to compliment me on my acting caught sight of them and took a fancy to them.”

“Was he alone?”

“No. He had two friends with him. It seems he is a collector; and I let him have the rings then and there and promised to take the stones to him today at three o’clock that he might restore them to their original settings. He is going to give me a good price for them.”

“Have these rings inscriptions on the inside?” he asked.

“Yes: words in old-fashioned writing. But I never bothered about them.”

Ralph considered. Then he said in a very serious voice: “I advise you to keep this business a dead secret. If you don’t, it may have very unpleasant results, not for you, but for your mother. It’s uncommonly odd