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

“I should like to know what Ganimard is doing? Is he tumbling down the other staircases to bar the entrance to the tunnel against me? No, he’s not such a fool as that. He must have left four men there⁠—and four men are sufficient⁠—” He stopped. “Listen⁠—they’re shouting up above. That’s it, they’ve opened the window and are calling to their fleet.⁠—Why, look, the men are busy on board the smacks⁠—they’re exchanging signals.⁠—The torpedo-boat is moving.⁠—Dear old torpedo-boat! I know you, you’re from the Havre.⁠—Guns’ crews to the guns!⁠—Hullo, there’s the commander!⁠—How are you, Duguay-Trouin?”

He put his arm through a cleft and waved his handkerchief. Then he continued his way downstairs:

“The enemy’s fleet have set all sail,” he said. “We shall be boarded before we know where we are. Heavens, what fun!”

They heard the sound of voices below them. They were just then approaching the level of the sea and they emerged, almost at once, into a large cave into which two lanterns were moving about in the dark.

A woman’s figure appeared and threw itself on Lupin’s neck:

“Quick, quick, I was so nervous about you. What have you been doing?⁠—But you’re not alone!⁠—”

Lupin reassured her:

“It’s our friend Beautrelet.⁠—Just think, Beautrelet had the tact⁠—but I’ll talk about that later⁠—there’s no time now.⁠—Charolais are you there? That’s right!⁠—And the boat?”

“The boat’s ready, sir,” Charolais replied,

“Fire away,” said Lupin.

In a moment, the noise of a motor crackled and Beautrelet, whose eyes were gradually becoming used to the gloom, ended by perceiving that they were on a sort of quay, at the edge of the water, and that a boat was floating before them.

“A motor boat,” said Lupin, completing Beautrelet’s observations. “This knocks you all of a heap, eh, Isidore, old chap?⁠—You don’t understand.⁠—Still, you have only to think.⁠—As the water before your eyes is no other than the water of the sea, which filters into this excavation each high tide, the result is that I have a safe little private roadstead all to myself.”

“But it’s closed,” Beautrelet protested. “No one can get in or out.”

“Yes, I can,” said Lupin; “and I’m going to prove it to you.”

He began by handing Raymonde in. Then he came back to fetch Beautrelet. The lad hesitated.

“Are you afraid?” asked Lupin.

“What of?”

“Of being sunk by the torpedo-boat.”

“No.”

“Then you’re considering whether it’s not your duty to stay with Ganimard, law and order, society and morality, instead of going off with Lupin, shame, infamy and disgrace.”

“Exactly.”

“Unfortunately, my boy, you have no choice. For the moment, they must believe the two of us dead⁠—and leave me the peace to which a prospective honest man is entitled. Later on, when I have given you your liberty, you can talk as much as you please⁠—I shall have nothing more to fear.”

By the way in which Lupin clutched his arm, Beautrelet felt that all resistance was useless. Besides, why resist? Had he not discovered and handed over the Hollow Needle? What did he care about the rest? Had he not the right to humor the irresistible sympathy with which, in spite of everything, this man inspired him?

The feeling was so clear in him that he was half inclined to say to Lupin:

“Look here, you’re running another, a more serious danger; Holmlock Shears is on your track.”

“Come along!” said Lupin, before Isidore had made up his mind to speak.

He obeyed and let Lupin lead him to the boat, the shape of which struck him as peculiar and its appearance quite unexpected.

Once on deck, they went down a little steep staircase, or rather a ladder hooked on to a trap door, which closed above their heads. At the foot of the ladder, brightly lit by a lamp, was a very small saloon, where Raymonde was waiting for them and where the three had just room to sit down.

Lupin took the mouthpiece of a speaking tube from a hook and gave the order:

“Let her go, Charolais!”

Isidore had the unpleasant sensation which one feels when going down in a lift: the sensation of the ground vanishing beneath you, the impression of emptiness, space. This time, it was the water retreating; and space opened out, slowly.

“We’re sinking, eh?” grinned Lupin. “Don’t be afraid⁠—we’ve only to pass from the upper cave where we were to another little cave, situated right at the bottom and half open to the sea, which can be entered at low tide. All the shellfish-catchers know it. Ah, ten seconds’ wait! We’re going through the passage and it’s very narrow, just the size of the submarine.”

“But,” asked Beautrelet, “how is it that the fishermen who enter the lower cave don’t know that it’s open at the top and that it communicates with another from which a staircase starts and runs through the Needle? The facts are at the disposal of the first-comer.”

“Wrong, Beautrelet! The top of the little public cave is closed, at low tide, by a movable platform, painted the color of the rock, which the sea, when it rises, shifts and carries up with it and, when it goes down, fastens firmly over the little cave. That is why I am able to pass at high tide. A clever notion, what? It’s an idea of my own. True, neither Caesar nor Louis XIV, nor, in short, any of my distinguished predecessors could have had it, because they did not possess submarines. They were satisfied with the staircase, which then ran all the way down to the little bottom cave. I did away with the last treads of the staircase and invented the trick of the movable ceiling: it’s a present I’m making to France⁠—Raymonde, my love, put out the lamp beside you⁠—we shan’t want it now⁠—on the contrary⁠—”

A pale light, which seemed to be of the same color as the water, met them as they left the cave and made its way into the cabin through the two portholes and through a thick glass skylight that projected above the planking of the deck and allowed the passengers to inspect