The Crystal Stopper - Maurice Leblanc (best ereader for epub .txt) 📗

“It’s not true!⁠ ⁠… It’s a lie⁠ ⁠… to madden me⁠ ⁠… Oh, I know you: you are capable of anything! Confess! It won’t be on Tuesday, will it? In two days! No, no⁠ ⁠… I tell you, we have four days yet, five days, in which to save him⁠ ⁠… Confess it, confess it!”

She had no strength left, exhausted by this fit of rebellion; and her voice uttered none but inarticulate sounds.

He looked at her for a moment, then poured himself out a glass of champagne and drank it down at a gulp. He took a few steps up and down the room, came back to her and said:

“Listen to me, darling⁠ ⁠…”

The insult made her quiver with an unexpected energy. She drew herself up and, panting with indignation, said:

“I forbid you⁠ ⁠… I forbid you to speak to me like that. I will not accept such an outrage. You wretch!⁠ ⁠…”

He shrugged his shoulders and resumed:

“Pah, I see you’re not quite alive to the position. That comes, of course, because you still hope for assistance in some quarter. Prasville, perhaps? The excellent Prasville, whose right hand you are⁠ ⁠… My dear friend, a forlorn hope⁠ ⁠… You must know that Prasville is mixed up in the Canal affair! Not directly: that is to say, his name is not on the list of the Twenty-Seven; but it is there under the name of one of his friends, an ex-deputy called Vorenglade, Stanislas Vorenglade, his man of straw, apparently: a penniless individual whom I left alone and rightly. I knew nothing of all that until this morning, when, lo and behold, I received a letter informing me of the existence of a bundle of documents which prove the complicity of our one and only Prasville! And who is my informant? Vorenglade himself! Vorenglade, who, tired of living in poverty, wants to extort money from Prasville, at the risk of being arrested, and who will be delighted to come to terms with me. And Prasville will get the sack. Oh, what a lark! I swear to you that he will get the sack, the villain! By Jove, but he’s annoyed me long enough! Prasville, old boy, you’ve deserved it⁠ ⁠…”

He rubbed his hands together, revelling in his coming revenge. And he continued:

“You see, my dear Clarisse⁠ ⁠… there’s nothing to be done in that direction. What then? What straw will you cling to? Why, I was forgetting: M. Arsène Lupin! Mr. Growler! Mr. Masher!⁠ ⁠… Pah, you’ll admit that those gentlemen have not shone and that all their feats of prowess have not prevented me from going my own little way. It was bound to be. Those fellows imagine that there’s no one to equal them. When they meet an adversary like myself, one who is not to be bounced, it upsets them and they make blunder after blunder, while still believing that they are hoodwinking him like mad. Schoolboys, that’s what they are! However, as you seem to have some illusions left about the aforesaid Lupin, as you are counting on that poor devil to crush me and to work a miracle in favour of your innocent Gilbert, come, let’s dispel that illusion. Oh! Lupin! Lord above, she believes in Lupin! She places her last hopes in Lupin! Lupin! Just wait till I prick you, my illustrious windbag!”

He took up the receiver of the telephone which communicated with the hall of the hotel and said:

“I’m No. 129, mademoiselle. Would you kindly ask the person sitting opposite your office to come up to me?⁠ ⁠… Huh!⁠ ⁠… Yes, mademoiselle, the gentleman in a gray felt hat. He knows. Thank you, mademoiselle.”

Hanging up the receiver, he turned to Clarisse:

“Don’t be afraid. The man is discretion itself. Besides, it’s the motto of his trade: ‘Discretion and dispatch.’ As a retired detective, he has done me a number of services, including that of following you while you were following me. Since our arrival in the south, he has been less busy with you; but that was because he was more busy elsewhere. Come in, Jacob.”

He himself opened the door, and a short, thin man, with a red moustache, entered the room.

“Please tell this lady, Jacob, in a few brief words, what you have done since Wednesday evening, when, after letting her get into the train-de-luxe which was taking me from the Gare de Lyon to the south, you yourself remained on the platform at the station. Of course, I am not asking how you spent your time, except in so far as concerns the lady and the business with which I entrusted you.”

Jacob dived into the inside-pocket of his jacket and produced a little notebook of which he turned over the pages and read them aloud in the voice of a man reading a report:

“Wednesday evening, 8:15. Gare de Lyon. Wait for two gents, Growler and Masher. They come with another whom I don’t know yet, but who can only be M. Nicole. Give a porter ten francs for the loan of his cap and blouse. Accost the gents and tell them, from a lady, ‘that they were gone to Monte Carlo.’ Next, telephone to the porter at the Hôtel Franklin. All telegrams sent to his boss and dispatched by said boss will be read by said hotel-porter and, if necessary, intercepted.

“Thursday. Monte Carlo. The three gents search the hotels.

“Friday. Flying visits to La Turbie, the Cap d’Ail, Cap Martin. M. Daubrecq rings me up. Thinks it wiser to send the gents to Italy. Make the porter of the Hôtel Franklin send them a telegram appointing a meeting at San Remo.

“Saturday. San Remo. Station platform. Give the porter of the Ambassadeurs-Palace ten francs for the loan of his cap. The three gents arrive. They speak to me. Explain to them that a lady traveller, Mme. Mergy, is going on to Genoa, to the Hôtel Continental. The gents hesitate. M. Nicole wants to get out. The others hold him back. The train starts. Good luck, gents! An hour later, I take