The Hollow Needle - Maurice Leblanc (ebook e reader .txt) 📗

“By Jove, the Needle was badly damaged when I succeeded in discovering it! One could see that no one had possessed the secret for more than a century, since Louis XVI and the Revolution. The tunnel was threatening to fall in. The stairs were in a shocking state. The water was trickling in from the sea. I had to prop up and strengthen and rebuild the whole thing.”

Beautrelet could not help asking:

“When you arrived, was it empty?”

“Very nearly. The kings did not use the Needle, as I have done, as a warehouse.”

“As a place of refuge, then?”

“Yes, no doubt, in times of invasion and during the civil wars. But its real destination was to be⁠—how shall I put it?⁠—the strongroom or the bank of the kings of France.”

The sound of blows increased, more distinctly now. Ganimard must have broken down the first door and was attacking the second. There was a short silence and then more blows, nearer still. It was the third door. Two remained.

Through one of the windows, Beautrelet saw a number of fishing-smacks sailing round the Needle and, not far away, floating on the waters like a great black fish, the torpedo-boat.

“What a row!” exclaimed Lupin. “One can’t hear one’s self speak! Let’s go upstairs, shall we? It may interest you to look over the Needle.”

They climbed to the floor above, which was protected, like the others, by a door which Lupin locked behind him.

“My picture gallery,” he said.

The walls were covered with canvases on which Beautrelet recognized the most famous signatures. There were Raphael’s Madonna of the Agnus Dei, Andrea del Sarto’s Portrait of Lucrezia Fede, Titian’s Salome, Botticelli’s Madonna and Angels and numbers of Tintorettos, Carpaccios, Rembrandts, Velasquez.

“What fine copies!” said Beautrelet, approvingly.

Lupin looked at him with an air of stupefaction:

“What! Copies! You must be mad! The copies are in Madrid, my dear fellow, in Florence, Venice, Munich, Amsterdam.”

“Then these⁠—”

“Are the original pictures, my lad, patiently collected in all the museums of Europe, where I have replaced them, like an honest man, with first-rate copies.”

“But some day or other⁠—”

“Some day or other, the fraud will be discovered? Well, they will find my signature on each canvas⁠—at the back⁠—and they will know that it was I who have endowed my country with the original masterpieces. After all, I have only done what Napoleon did in Italy.⁠—Oh, look, Beautrelet: here are M. de Gesvres’s four Rubenses!⁠—”

The knocking continued within the hollow of the Needle without ceasing.

“I can’t stand this!” said Lupin. “Let’s go higher.”

A fresh staircase. A fresh door.

“The tapestry-room,” Lupin announced.

The tapestries were not hung on the walls, but rolled, tied up with cord, ticketed; and, in addition, there were parcels of old fabrics which Lupin unfolded: wonderful brocades, admirable velvets, soft, faded silks, church vestments woven with silver and gold⁠—

They went higher still and Beautrelet saw the room containing the clocks and other timepieces, the book-room⁠—oh, the splendid bindings, the precious, undiscoverable volumes, the unique copies stolen from the great public libraries⁠—the lace-room, the knicknack-room.

And each time the circumference of the room grew smaller.

And each time, now, the sound of knocking was more distant. Ganimard was losing ground.

“This is the last room,” said Lupin. “The treasury.”

This one was quite different. It was round also, but very high and conical in shape. It occupied the top of the edifice and its floor must have been fifteen or twenty yards below the extreme point of the Needle.

On the cliff side there was no window. But on the side of the sea, whence there were no indiscreet eyes to fear, two glazed openings admitted plenty of light.

The ground was covered with a parqueted flooring of rare wood, forming concentric patterns. Against the walls stood glass cases and a few pictures.

“The pearls of my collection,” said Lupin. “All that you have seen so far is for sale. Things come and things go. That’s business. But here, in this sanctuary, everything is sacred. There is nothing here but choice, essential pieces, the best of the best, priceless things. Look at these jewels, Beautrelet: Chaldean amulets, Egyptian necklaces, Celtic bracelets, Arab chains. Look at these statuettes, Beautrelet, at this Greek Venus, this Corinthian Apollo. Look at these Tanagras, Beautrelet: all the real Tanagras are here. Outside this glass case, there is not a single genuine Tanagra statuette in the whole wide world. What a delicious thing to be able to say!⁠—Beautrelet, do you remember Thomas and his gang of church-pillagers in the South⁠—agents of mine, by the way? Well, here is the Ambazac reliquary, the real one, Beautrelet! Do you remember the Louvre scandal, the tiara which was admitted to be false, invented and manufactured by a modern artist? Here is the tiara of Saitapharnes, the real one, Beautrelet! Look, Beautrelet, look with all your eyes: here is the marvel of marvels, the supreme masterpiece, the work of no mortal brain; here is Leonardo’s Gioconda, the real one! Kneel, Beautrelet, kneel; all womankind stands before you in this picture.”

There was a long silence between them. Below, the sound of blows drew nearer. Two or three doors, no more, separated them from Ganimard. In the offing, they saw the black back of the torpedo-boat and the fishing-smacks cruising to and fro.

The boy asked:

“And the treasure?”

“Ah, my little man, that’s what interests you most! None of those masterpieces of human art can compete with the contemplation of the treasure as a matter of curiosity, eh?⁠—And the whole crowd will be like you!⁠—Come, you shall be satisfied.”

He stamped his foot, and, in so doing, made one of the discs composing the floor-pattern turn right over. Then, lifting it as though it were the lid of a box, he uncovered a sort of large round bowl, dug in the thickness of the rock. It was empty.

A little farther, he went through the same performance. Another large bowl appeared. It was also empty.

He did this three times over again. The three other bowls were empty.

“Eh,” grinned Lupin. “What