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

There was a long silence. All four felt as if their hearts were ready to burst from their bodies; and they were afraid of what was coming.

“Please, please⁠ ⁠…” stammered Clarisse.

Lupin unfolded the paper.

There was a set of names written one below the other, twenty-seven of them, the twenty-seven names of the famous list: Langeroux, Dechaumont, Vorenglade, d’Albufex, Victorien Mergy and the rest.

And, at the foot, the signature of the chairman of the Two-Seas Canal Company, the signature written in letters of blood.

Lupin looked at his watch:

“A quarter to one,” he said. “We have twenty minutes to spare. Let’s have some lunch.”

“But,” said Clarisse, who was already beginning to lose her head, “don’t forget⁠ ⁠…”

He simply said:

“All I know is that I’m dying of hunger.”

He sat down at the table, cut himself a large slice of cold pie and said to his accomplices:

“Growler? A bite? You, Masher?”

“I could do with a mouthful, governor.”

“Then hurry up, lads. And a glass of champagne to wash it down with: it’s the chloroform-patient’s treat. Your health, Daubrecq! Sweet champagne? Dry champagne? Extra-dry?”

The moment Lupin had finished lunch, he at once and, so to speak, without transition, recovered all his mastery and authority. The time for joking was past; and he must no longer yield to his love of astonishing people with claptrap and conjuring tricks. Now that he had discovered the crystal stopper in the hiding-place which he had guessed with absolute certainty, now that he possessed the list of the Twenty-Seven, it became a question of playing off the last game of the rubber without delay.

It was child’s play, no doubt, and what remained to be done presented no difficulty. Nevertheless, it was essential that he should perform these final actions with promptness, decision and infallible perspicacity. The smallest blunder was irretrievable. Lupin knew this; but his strangely lucid brain had allowed for every contingency. And the movements and words which he was now about to make and utter were all fully prepared and matured:

“Growler, the commissionaire is waiting on the Boulevard Gambetta with his barrow and the trunk which we bought. Bring him here and have the trunk carried up. If the people of the hotel ask any questions, say it’s for the lady in No. 130.”

Then, addressing his other companion:

“Masher, go back to the station and take over the limousine. The price is arranged: ten thousand francs. Buy a chauffeur’s cap and overcoat and bring the car to the hotel.”

“The money, governor.”

Lupin opened a pocketbook which had been removed from Daubrecq’s jacket and produced a huge bundle of banknotes. He separated ten of them:

“Here you are. Our friend appears to have been doing well at the club. Off with you, Masher!”

The two men went out through Clarisse’s room. Lupin availed himself of a moment when Clarisse Mergy was not looking to stow away the pocketbook with the greatest satisfaction:

“I shall have done a fair stroke of business,” he said to himself. “When all the expenses are paid, I shall still be well to the good; and it’s not over yet.”

Then turning to Clarisse Mergy, he asked:

“Have you a bag?”

“Yes, I bought one when I reached Nice, with some linen and a few necessaries; for I left Paris unprepared.”

“Get all that ready. Then go down to the office. Say that you are expecting a trunk which a commissionaire is bringing from the station cloakroom and that you will want to unpack and pack it again in your room; and tell them that you are leaving.”

When alone, Lupin examined Daubrecq carefully, felt in all his pockets and appropriated everything that seemed to present any sort of interest.

The Growler was the first to return. The trunk, a large wicker hamper covered with black moleskin, was taken into Clarisse’s room. Assisted by Clarisse and the Growler, Lupin moved Daubrecq and put him in the trunk, in a sitting posture, but with his head bent so as to allow of the lid being fastened:

“I don’t say that it’s as comfortable as your berth in a sleeping-car, my dear deputy,” Lupin observed. “But, all the same, it’s better than a coffin. At least, you can breathe. Three little holes in each side. You have nothing to complain of!”

Then, unstopping a flask:

“A drop more chloroform? You seem to love it!⁠ ⁠…”

He soaked the pad once more, while, by his orders, Clarisse and the Growler propped up the deputy with linen, rugs and pillows, which they had taken the precaution to heap in the trunk.

“Capital!” said Lupin. “That trunk is fit to go round the world. Lock it and strap it.”

The Masher arrived, in a chauffeur’s livery:

“The car’s below, governor.”

“Good,” he said. “Take the trunk down between you. It would be dangerous to give it to the hotel-servants.”

“But if anyone meets us?”

“Well, what then, Masher? Aren’t you a chauffeur? You’re carrying the trunk of your employer here present, the lady in No. 130, who will also go down, step into her motor⁠ ⁠… and wait for me two hundred yards farther on. Growler, you help to hoist the trunk up. Oh, first lock the partition-door!”

Lupin went to the next room, closed the other door, shot the bolt, walked out, locked the door behind him and went down in the lift.

In the office, he said:

“M. Daubrecq has suddenly been called away to Monte Carlo. He asked me to say that he would not be back until Tuesday and that you were to keep his room for him. His things are all there. Here is the key.”

He walked away quietly and went after the car, where he found Clarisse lamenting:

“We shall never be in Paris tomorrow! It’s madness! The least breakdown⁠ ⁠…”

“That’s why you and I are going to take the train. It’s safer⁠ ⁠…”

He put her into a cab and gave his parting instructions to the two men:

“Thirty miles an hour, on the average, do you understand? You’re to drive and rest, turn and turn about. At that rate, you ought to be in Paris between six and