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

to the Grand Journal this evening. The world has been waiting for news of me long enough. It must be gasping with impatience. Write.”

He dictated:

“To the Editor of the Grand Journal:

“I must apologize to your readers for disappointing their legitimate impatience.

“I have escaped from prison and I cannot possibly reveal how I escaped. In the same way, since my escape, I have discovered the famous secret and I cannot possibly disclose what the secret is nor how I discovered it.

“All this will, some day or other, form the subject of a rather original story which my biographer-in-ordinary will publish from my notes. It will form a page of the history of France which our grandchildren will read with interest.

“For the moment, I have more important matters to attend to. Disgusted at seeing into what hands the functions which I once exercised have fallen, tired of finding the Kesselbach-Altenheim case still dragging along, I am discharging M. Weber and resuming the post of honor which I occupied with such distinction and to the general satisfaction under the name of M. Lenonnand.

“I am, Sir,

“Your obedient servant.

“ArsŽne Lupin, “Chief of the Detective-service.”

At eight o’clock in the evening, ArsŽne Lupin and Jean Doudeville walked into Caillard’s, the fashionable restaurant, Lupin in evening-clothes, but dressed like an artist, with rather wide trousers and a rather loose tie, and Doudeville in a frock-coat, with the serious air and appearance of a magistrate.

They sat down in that part of the restaurant which is set back and divided from the big room by two columns.

A head-waiter, perfectly dressed and supercilious in manner, came to take their orders, note-book in hand. Lupin selected the dinner with the nice thought of an accomplished epicure:

“Certainly,” he said, “the prison ordinary was quite acceptable; but, all the same, it is nice to have a carefully-ordered meal.”

He ate with a good appetite and silently, contenting himself with uttering, from time to time, a short sentence that marked his train of thought:

“Of course, I shall manage… but it will be a hard job… Such an adversary!… What staggers me is that, after six months’ fighting, I don’t even know what he wants!… His chief accomplice is dead, we are near the end of the battle and yet, even now, I can’t understand his game… What is the wretch after?… My own plan is quite clear: to lay hands on the grand-duchy, to shove a grand-duke of my own making on the throne, to give him GeneviŽve for a wife… and to reign. That is what I call lucid, honest and fair. But he, the low fellow, the ghost in the dark: what is he aiming at?”

Recalled:

“Waiter!”

The head-waiter came up:

“Yes, sir?”

“Cigars.”

The head-waiter stalked away, returned and opened a number of boxes.

“Which do you recommend?”

“These Upmanns are very good, sir.”

Lupin gave Doudeville an Upmann, took one for himself and cut it. The head-waiter struck a match and held if for him. With a sudden movement, Lupin caught him by the wrist:

“Not a word… I know you… Your real name is Dominique Lecas!”

The man, who was big and strong, tried to struggle away. He stifled a cry of pain: Lupin had twisted his wrist.

“Your name is Dominique… you live in the Rue de la Pompe, on the fourth floor, where you retired with a small fortune acquired in the service—listen to me, you fool, will you, or I’ll break every bone in your body!—acquired in the service of Baron Altenheim, at whose house you were butler.”

The other stood motionless, his face pallid with fear. Around them, the small room was empty. In the restaurant beside it, three gentlemen sat smoking and two couples were chatting over their liquors.

“You see, we are quiet… we can talk.”

“Who are you? Who are you?”

“Don’t you recollect me? Why, think of that famous luncheon in the Villa Dupont!… You yourself, you old flunkey, handed me the plate of cakes… and such cakes!”

“Prince… Prince…” stammered the other.

“Yes, yes, Prince ArsŽne, Prince Lupin in person… Aha, you breathe again!… You’re saying to yourself that you have nothing to fear front Lupin, isn’t that it? Well, you’re wrong, old chap, you have everything to fear.” He took a card from hk pocket and showed it to him. “There, look, I belong to the police now. Can’t be helped: that’s what we all come to in the end, all of us robber-kings and emperors of crime.”

“Well?” said the head-waiter, still greatly alarmed.

“Well, go to that customer over there, who’s calling you, get him what he wants and come back to me. And no nonsense, mind you: don’t go trying to get away. I have ten men outside, with orders to keep their eyes on you. Be off.”

The head-waiter obeyed. Five minutes after, lie returned and, standing in front of the table, with his back to the restaurant, as though discussing the quality of the cigars with his customers, he said:

“Well? What is it?”

Lupin laid a number of hundred-franc notes in a row on the table:

“One note for each definite answer to my questions.”

“Done!”

“Now then. How many of you were there with Baron Altenheim?”

“Seven, without counting myself.”

“No more?”

“No. Once only, we picked up some workmen in Italy to make the underground passage from the Villa des Glycines, at Garches.”

“Were there two underground passages?”

“Yes, one led to the Pavilion Hortense and the other branched off from the first and ran under Mrs. Kesselbach’s house.”

“What was the object?”

“To carry off Mrs. Kesselbach.”

“Were the two maids, Suzanne and Gertrude, accomplices?”

“Yes.”

“Where are they?”

“Abroad.”

“And your seven pals, those of the Altenheim gang?”

“I have left them. They are still going on.”

“Where can I find them?”

Dominique hesitated. Lupin unfolded two notes of a thousand francs each and said:

“Your scruples do you honor, Dominique. There’s nothing for it but to swallow them like a man and answer.”

Dominique replied:

“You will find them at No. 3, Route de la Revolte, Neuilly. One of them is called the Broker.”

“Capital. And now the name, the real name of Altenheim. Do you know it?”

“Yes, Ribeira.”

“Dominique, Dominique, you’re asking for trouble. Ribeira was only an assumed name. I asked you the real name.”

“Parbury.”

“That’s another assumed name.”

The head-waiter hesitated. Lupin unfolded three hundred franc notes.

“Pshaw, what do I care!” said the man. “After all, he’s dead, isn’t he? Quite dead.”

“His name,” said Lupin.

“His name? The Chevalier de Malreich.”

Lupin gave a jump in his chair:

“What? What do you say? The Chevalier—say it again—the Chevalier…?”

“Raoul de Malreich.”

A long pause. Lupin, with his eyes fixed before him, thought of the mad girl at Veldenz, who had died by poison: Isilda bore the same name, Malreich. And it was the name borne by the small French noble who came to the court of Veldenz in the eighteenth century.

He resumed his questions:

“What country did this Malreich belong to?”

“He was of French origin, but born in Germany… I saw some papers once… that was how I came to know his name… Oh, if he had found it out, he would have wrung my neck, I believe!”

Lupin reflected and said:

“Did he command the lot of you?”

“Yes.”

“But he had an accomplice, a partner?”

“Oh hush… hush…!”

The head-waiter’s face suddenly expressed the most intense alarm. Lupin noticed the same sort of terror and repulsion which he himself felt when he thought of the murderer.

“Who is he? Have you seen him?”

“Oh, don’t let us talk of that one… it doesn’t do to talk of him.”

“Who is he, I’m asking you.”

“He is the master… the chief. Nobody knows him.”

“But you’ve seen him, you. Answer me. Have you seen him?”

“Sometimes, in the dark… at night. Never by daylight. His orders come on little scraps of paper… or by telephone.”

“His name?”

“I don’t know it. We never used to speak of him. It was unlucky.”

“He dresses in black, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, in black. He is short and slender… with fair hair…”

“And he kills, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, he kills… he kills where another might steal a bit of bread.”

His voice shook. He entreated:

“Let us stop this… it won’t do to talk of him… I tell you… it’s unlucky.”

Lupin was silent, impressed, in spite of himself, by the man’s anguish. He sat long thinking and then rose and said to the head-waiter:

“Here, here’s your money; but, if you want to live in peace, you will do well not to breathe a word of our conversation to anybody.”

He left the restaurant with Doudeville and walked to the Porte Saint-Denis without speaking, absorbed in all that he had heard. At last, he seized his companion’s arm and said:

“Listen to me, Doudeville, carefully. Go to the Gare du Nord. You will get there in time to catch the Luxemburg express. Go to Veldenz, the capital of the grand-duchy of Zweibrucken-Veldenz. At the town-hall, you will easily obtain the birth-certificate of the Chevalier de Malreich and further information about the family. You will be back on the day after tomorrow: that will be Saturday.”

“Am I to let them know at the detective-office?”

“I’ll see to that. I shall telephone that you are ill. Oh, one word more: on Saturday, meet me at twelve o’clock in a little caf£ on the Route de la Revoke, called the Restaurant Buffalo. Come dressed as a workman.”

The next day, Lupin, wearing a short smock and a cap, went down to Neuilly and began his investigations at No. 3, Route de la Revoke. A gateway opened into an outer yard; and here he found a huge block of workmen’s dwellings, a whole series of passages and workshops, with a swarming population of artisans, women and brats. In a few minutes, he had won the good-will of the portress, with whom he chatted for an hour on the most varied topics. During this hour, he saw three men pass, one after the other, whose manner struck him:

“That’s game,” he thought, “and gamy game at that!… They follow one another by scent!… Look quite respectable, of course, but with the eye of the hunted deer which knows that the enemy is all around and that every tuft, every blade of grass may conceal an ambush.”

That afternoon and on the Saturday morning, he pursued his inquiries and made certain that Altenheim’s seven accomplices all lived on the premises. Four of them openly followed the trade of second-hand clothes-dealers. Two of the others sold newspapers; and the third described himself as a broker and was nicknamed accordingly.

They went in and out, one after the other, without appearing to know one another. But, in the evening, Lupin discovered that they met in a sort of coach-house situated right at the back of the last of the yards, a place in which the Broker kept his wares piled up: old iron, broken kitchen-ranges, rusty stove-pipes… and also, no doubt, the best part of the stolen goods.

“Come,” he said, “the work is shaping nicely. I asked my cousin of Germany for a month and I believe a fortnight will be enough for my purpose. And what I like about it is that I shall start operations with the scoundrels who made me take a header in the Seine. My poor old Gourel, I shall revenge you at last. And high time too!”

At twelve o’clock on Saturday, he went to the Restaurant Buffalo, a little low-ceilinged room to which bricklayers and cab-drivers resorted for their mid-day meal. Some one came and sat down beside him:

“It’s done, governor.”

“Ah, is it you, Doudeville? That’s right! I’m dying to know.