tT
















THE STRANGE CHARACTER KNOWN AS
ARSEiNE LUPIN WAS CREATED AND
FIRST GIVEN TOTTHE ENGLISH-SPEAKING
WORLD THROUGH THE REMARKABLE
EXPLOITS NARRATED IN THIS VOLUME
Copyright, 1907, by
Alexander Tkixeira db Mattos.
p-r1nted in the united states of america
1>-P


CONTENTS
CldAP.
PAGE
I
L
The Arrest of Arsene Lupin . . .
If
. 29
ijll.
The Escape of Arsene Lupin . . .
• 65
IV.
The Mysterious Railway Passenger
. 103
r
The Queen's Necklace ......
• 133
VI.
. 165
yii.
. 225
VIII. The Black Pearl
• 247
X Holmlock Shears Arrives too Late . 273





THE ARREST OF
ARSENE LUPIN





THE EXPLOITS OF
ARSENE LUPIN
I
THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
THE strangest of journeys! And yet it had
, begun so well! I, for my part, had never
made a voyage that started under better auspices.
The Provence is a swift and comfortable trans-
atlantic liner, commanded by the most genial of
men. The company gathered on board was of a
very select character. Acquaintances were formed
and amusements organized. We had the delight-
ful feeling of being separated from the rest of the
world, reduced to our own devices, as though upon
an unknown island, and obliged, therefore, to
rnake friends with one another. And we grew
more and more intimate. . . .
Have you ever reflected on the element of orig-
inality and surprise contained in this grouping of a
x


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
number of people who, but a day earlier, had never
seen one another, and who are now, for a few days,
destined to live together in the closest contact,
between the infinite sky and the boundless sea,
defying the fury of the ocean, the alarming on-
slaught of the waves, the malice of the winds, and
the distressing calmness of the slumbering waters?
Life itself, in fact, with its storms and its great-
nesses, its monotony and its variety, becomes a
sort of tragic epitome; and that, perhaps, is why
we enjoy with a fevered haste and an intensified
delight this short voyage of which we see the er>d
at the very moment when we embark upon it. j
But, of late years, a thing has happened thkt
adds curiously to the excitement of the passagb.
The little floating island is no longer entirely
separated from the world from which we believed
ourselves cut adrift. One link remains, and is at
intervals tied and at intervals untied in mid-ocean.
The wireless telegraph! As who should say |a
summons from another world, whence we receive
news in the most mysterious fashion! The im-
agination no longer has the resource of picturing
wires along which the invisible message glides*!
the mystery is even more insoluble, more poetic^
and we must have recourse to the winds to explain
the new miracle. 1
And so, from the start, we felt that we werq
2


THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
being followed, escorted, even preceded by that
distant voice which, from time to time, whispered
to one of us a few words from the continent which
we had quitted. Two of my friends spoke to
me. Ten others, twenty others sent to all of us,
through space, their sad or cheery greetings.
Now, on the stormy afternoon of the second day,
when we were five hundred miles from the French
coast, the wireless telegraph sent us a message of
the following tenor:
"Arsene Lupin on board your ship, first class, fair
hair, wound on right forearm, travelling alone under
alias R
At that exact moment, a violent thunderclap
burst in the dark sky. The electric waves were
interrupted. The rest of the message failed to
reach us. We knew only the initial of the name
under which Arsene Lupin was concealing his
identity.
Had the news been any other, I have no doubt
but that the secret would have been scrupulously
kept by the telegraph-clerks and the captain and
his officers. But there are certain events that
appear to overcome the strictest discretion. Be-
fore the day was past, though no one could have
f,old how the rumor had got about, we all knew
3


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
that the famous Arsene Lupin was hidden in our
midst.
Arsene Lupin in our midst! The mysterious
housebreaker whose exploits had been related in
all the newspapers for months! The baffling indi-
vidual with whom old Ganimard, our greatest
detective, had entered upon that duel to the death
of which the details were being unfolded in so
picturesque a fashion! Arsene Lupin, the fas-
tidious gentleman who confines his operations to
country-houses and fashionable drawing-rooms,
and who one night, after breaking in at Baron
Schormann's, had gone away empty-handed, leav-
ing his visiting-card:
ARSENE LUPIN
Gentleman-Burglar
with these words added in pencil:
"Will return when your things are genuine."
Arsene Lupin, the man with a thousand dis-
guises, by turns chauffeur, opera-singer, book-
maker, gilded youth, young man, old man,
Marseillese bagman, Russian doctor, Spanish:
bull-fighter!

4


THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
Picture the situation: Arsene Lupin moving
about within the comparatively restricted compass
of a transatlantic liner, nay—more, within the small
space reserved to the first-class passengers—where
one might come across him at any moment, in the
saloon, the drawing-room, the smoking-room!
Why, Arsene Lupin might be that gentleman over
there . • . or this one close by ... or my neighbor
at table • . . or the passenger sharing my state-
room. . . .
"And just think, this is going to last for five
days!" cried Miss Nellie Underdown, on the fol-
lowing day. "Why, it's awful! I do hope they'll
catch him!" And, turning to me, "Do say, Mon-
sieur d'Andrezy, you're such friends with the cap-
tain, haven't you heard anything?"
I wished that I had, if only to please Nellie
Underdown. She was one of those magnificent
creatures that become the cynosure of all eyes
wherever they may be. Their beauty is as daz-
zling as their fortune. A court of fervent enthu-
siasts follow in their train.
She had been brought up in Paris by her French
mother, and was now on her way to Chicago to
join her father, Underdown, the American million-
aire. A friend, Lady Gerland, was chaperoning
her on the voyage.
I had paid her some slight attentions from the
5


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
first. But, almost immediately, in the rapid in-
timacy of ocean travel, her charms had gained
upon me, and my emotions now exceeded those of
a mere flirtation whenever her great dark eyes
met mine. She, on her side, received my devotion
with a certain favor. She condescended to laugh
at my jokes and to be interested in my stories.
A vague sympathy seemed to respond to the
assiduity which I displayed.
One rival alone, perhaps, could have given me
cause for anxiety: a rather good-looking fellow,
well-dressed and reserved in manner, whose si-
lent humor seemed at times to attract her
more than did my somewhat "butterfly" Parisian
ways.
He happened to form one of the group of ad-
mirers surrounding Miss Underdown at the mo-
ment when she spoke to me. We were on deck,
comfortably installed in our chairs. The storm
of the day before had cleared the sky. It was a
delightful afternoon.
"I have heard nothing very definite," I replied.
"But why should we not be able to conduct our
own inquiry just as well as old Ganimard, Lupin's
personal enemy, might do?"
"I say, you're going very fast!"
"Why? Is the problem so complicated?"
"Most complicated."
6


THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
"You only say that because you forget the clews
which we possess towards its solution."
"Which clews?"
"First, Lupin is travelling under the name of
Monsieur R ."
"That's rather vague."
"Secondly, he's travelling alone."
"If you consider that a sufficient detail!"
"Thirdly, he is fair."
"Well, then r"
"Then we need only consult the list of first-class
passengers and proceed by elimination."
I had the list in my pocket. I took it oiat and
glanced through it:
"To begin with, I see that there are only thirteen
persons whose names begin with an R."
"Only thirteen?"
"In the first class, yes. Of these thirteen R's,
as you can ascertain for yourself, nine are accom-
panied by their wives, children, or servants. That
leaves four solitary passengers: the Marquis de
Raverdan .
"Secretary of legation," interrupted Miss Under-
down. "I know him."
"Major Rawson . . ."
"That's my uncle," said some one.
"Signor Rivolta ..."
"Here!" cried one of us, an Italian, whose
7


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
face disappeared from view behind a huge black
beard.
Miss Underdown had a fit of laughing:
"That gentleman is not exactly fair!"
"Then," I continued, "we are bound to con-
clude that the criminal is the last on the
list."
"Who is that?"
"Monsieur Rozaine. Does any one know Mon-
sieur Rozaine?"
No one answered. But Miss Underdown, turn-
ing to the silent young man whose assiduous pres-
ence by her side vexed me, said:
"Well, Monsieur Rozaine, have you nothing to
say?"
All eyes were turned upon him. He was fair-
haired!
I must admit I felt a little shock pass through
me. And the constrained silence that weighed
down upon us showed me that the other passen-
gers present also experienced that sort of choking
feeling. The thing was absurd, however, for,
after all, there was nothing in his manner to war-
rant our suspecting him.
"Have I nothing to say?" he replied. "Well,
you see, realizing what my name was and the color
of my hair and the fact that I am travelling by
myself, I have already made a similar inquiry
8


THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
and arrived at the same conclusion. My opinion,
therefore, is that I ought to be arrested."
He wore a queer expression as he uttered these
words. His thin, pale lips grew thinner and paler
still. His eyes were bloodshot.
There was no doubt but that he was jesting.
And yet his appearance and attitude impressed us.
Miss Underdown asked, innocently:
"But have you a wound?"
"That's true," he said. "The wound is miss-
ing."
With a nervous movement, Jie pulled up his cuff
and uncovered his arm. But a sudden idea struck
me. My eyes met Miss Underdown's: he had
shown his left arm.
And, upon my word, I was on the point of re-
marking upon this, when an incident occurred to
divert our attention. Lady Gerland, Miss Under-
down's friend, came running up.
She was in a state of great agitation. Her fellow-
passengers crowded round her; and it was only
after many efforts that she succeeded in stammer-
ing out:
"My jewels! . . . My pearls! . . . They've all
been stolen!"
No, they had not all been stolen, as we subse-
quently discovered; a much more curious thing
had happened: the thief had made a selection!
9


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
From the diamond star, the pendant of uncut
rubies, the broken necklaces and bracelets, he had
removed not the largest, but the finest, the most
precious stones—those, in fact, which had the
greatest value and at the same time occupied the
smallest space. The settings were left lying on
the table. I saw them, we all saw them, stripped
of their gems like flowers from which the fair,
bright-colored petals had been torn.
And to carry out this work, he had had, in
broad daylight, while Lady Gerland was taking
tea, to break in the door of the state-room in a
frequented passage, to discover a little jewel-case
purposely hidden at the bottom of a bandbox, to
open it and make his choice!
We all uttered the same cry. There was but
one opinion among the passengers when the theft
became known : it was Arsene Lupin. And, in-
deed, the theft had been committed in his own
complicated, mysterious, inscrutable . . . and yet
logical manner, for we realized that, though it
would have been difficult to conceal the cumber-
some mass which the ornaments as a whole would
have formed, he would have much less trouble
with such small independent objects as single
pearls, emeralds, and sapphires.
At dinner this happened: the two seats to the
right and left of Rozaine remained unoccupied.
10


THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
And, in the evening, we knew that he had been
sent for by the captain.
His arrest, of which no one entertained a doubt,
caused a genuine relief. We felt at last that we
could breathe. We played charades in the saloon.
We danced. Miss Underdown, in particular, dis-
played an obstreperous gayety which made it
clear to me that, though Rozaine's attentions might
have pleased her at first, she no longer gave them a
thought. Her charm conquered me entirely. At
midnight, under the still rays of the moon, I de-
clared myself her devoted lover in emotional terms
which she did not appear to resent.
But, the next day, to the general stupefaction,
it became known that the charges brought against
him were insufficient. Rozaine was free.
It seemed that he was the son of a wealthy
Bordeaux merchant. He had produced papers
which were in perfect order. Moreover, his arms
showed not the slightest trace of a wound.
"Papers, indeed!" exclaimed Rozaine's enemies.
"Birth-certificates! Tush! Why, Arsene Lupin
can supply them by the dozen! As for the wound,
it only shows that he never had a wound . . .
or that he has removed its traces!"
Somebody suggested that, at the time when the
theft was committed, Rozaine — this had been
proved—was walking on deck. In reply to this it


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
was urged that, with a man of Rozaine's stamp, It
was not really necessary for the thief to be present
at his own crime. And, lastly, apart from all other
considerations, there was one point upon which
the most sceptical had nothing to say: who but
Rozaine was travelling alone, had fair hair, and
was called by a name beginning with the letter R?
Who but Rozaine answered to the description in
the wireless telegram?
And when Rozaine, a few minutes before lunch,
boldly made for our group, Lady Gerland and Miss
Underdown rose and walked away.
It was a question of pure fright.
An hour later a manuscript circular was passed
from hand to hand among the staff of the vessel,
the crew, and the passengers of all classes. M.
Louis Rozaine had promised a reward of ten thou-
sand francs to whosoever should unmask Arsene
Lupin or discover the possessor of the stolen
jewels.
"And if no one helps me against the ruffian,"
said Rozaine to the captain, "Til settle his business
myself/'
The contest between Rozaine and Arsene Lupin,
or rather, in the phrase that soon became current,
between Arsene Lupin himself and Arsene Lupin,
was not lacking in interest.
It lasted two days. Rozaine was observed wan-
12


THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
dering to right and left, mixing with the crew,
questioning and ferreting on every hand. His
shadow was seen prowling about at night.
The captain, on his side, displayed the most
active energy. The Provence was searched from
stem to stern, in every nook and corner. Every
state-room was turned out, without exception,
under the very proper pretext that the stolen ob-
jects must be hidden somewhere—anywhere rather
than in the thiePs own cabin.
"Surely they will end by finding something?"
asked Miss Underdown. "Wizard though he may
be, he can't make pearls and diamonds invis-
ible."
"Of course they will," I replied, "or else they
will have to search the linings of our hats and
clothes and anything that we carry about with us."
And, showing her my five-by-four Kodak, with
which I never wearied of photographing her in all
manner of attitudes, I added, "Why, even in a
camera no larger than this there would be room
to stow away all Lady Gerland's jewels. You
pretend to take snapshots and the thing is done."
"Still, I have heard say that every burglar
always leaves a clew of some kind behind him."
"There is one who never does: Arsene Lupin."
"Why?"
"Whv f Because he thinks not only of the crime


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
which he is committing, but of all the circumstances
that might tell against him/'
"You were more confident at first."
"Ah, but I had not seen him at work then!"
"And so you think . .
"I think that we are wasting our time."
As a matter of fact, the investigations produced
no result whatever, or, at least, that which was
produced did not correspond with the general
effort: the captain lost his watch.
He was furious, redoubled his zeal, and kept an
even closer eye than before on Rozaine, with whom
he had several interviews. The next day, with a
delightful irony, the watch was found among the
second officer's collars.
All this was very wonderful, and pointed clearly
to the humorous handiwork of a burglar, if you like,
but an artist besides. He worked at his profession
for a living, but also for his amusement. He gave
the impression of a dramatist who thoroughly
enjoys his own plays and who stands in the
wings laughing heartily at the comic dialogue
and diverting situations which he himself has in-
vented.
He was decidedly an artist in his way; and,
when I observed Rozaine, so gloomy and stubborn,
and reflected on the two-faced part which this
curious individual was doubtless playing, I was
14


THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
unable to speak of him without a certain feeling
of admiration.
Well, on the night but one before our arrival in
America, the officer of the watch heard groans on
the darkest portion of the deck. He drew nearer,
went up, and saw a man stretched at full length,
with his head wrapped Li a thick, gray muffler,
and his hands tied together with a thin cord.
They unfastened his bonds, lifted him, and gave
him a restorative.
The man was Rozaine.
Yes, it was Rozaine, who had been attacked in
the course of one of his expeditions, knocked down,
and robbed. A visiting-card pinned to his clothes
bore these words:
"Arsene Lupin accepts M. Rozaine's ten thousand
francs, with thanks."
As a matter of fact, the stolen pocket-book con-
tained twenty thousand-franc notes.
Of course, the unfortunate man was accused of
counterfeiting this attack upon his own person.
But, apart from the fact that it would have been
impossible for him to bind himself in this way, it
was proved that the writing on the card differed
absolutely from Rozaine's handwriting, whereas
it was exactly like that of Arsene Lupin, as re-
*5


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
produced in an old newspaper which had been
found on board.
So Rozaine was not Arsene Lupin! Rozaine
was Rozaine, the son of a Bordeaux merchant!
And Arsene Lupin's presence had been asserted
once again and by means of what a formidable
act!
Sheer terror ensued. The passengers no longer
dared stay alone in their cabins nor wander un-
accompanied to the remoter parts of the ship.
Those who felt sure of one another kept prudent-
ly together. And even here an instinctive mis-
trust divided those who knew one another best.
The danger no longer threatened from a solitary
individual kept under observation and therefore
less dangerous. Arsene Lupin now seemed to be
... to be everybody. Our over-excited imagina-
tions ascribed to him the possession of a miracu-
lous and boundless power. We supposed him
capable of assuming the most unexpected dis-
guises, of being by turns the most respectable
Major Rawson, or the most noble Marquis de
Raverdan, or even—for we no longer stopped at
the accusing initial—this or that person known
to all, and travelling with wife, children, and
servants.
The wireless telegrams brought us no news;
at least, the captain did not communicate them
16


THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
to us. And this silence was not calculated to re-
assure us.
It was small wonder, therefore, that the last
day appeared interminable. The passengers lived
in the anxious expectation of a tragedy. This
time it would not be a theft; it would not be a
mere assault; it would be crime—murder. No
one was willing to admit that Arsene Lupin would
rest content with those two insignificant acts of
larceny. He was absolute master of the ship; he
reduced the officers to impotence; he had but to
wreak his will upon us. He could do as he pleased;
he held our lives and property in his hands.
These were delightful hours to me, I confess,
for they won for me the confidence of Nellie
Underdown. Naturally timid and impressed by
all these events, she spontaneously sought at my
side the protection which I was happy to offer
her.
In my heart, I blessed Arsene Lupin. Was it
not he who had brought us together? Was it
not to him that I owed the right to abandon my-
self to my fondest dreams? Dreams of love and
dreams more practical: why not confess it? The
d'Andrezys are of good Poitevin stock, but the
gilt of their blazon is a little worn; and it did not
seem to me unworthy of a man of family to tlunk
of restoring the lost lustre of his name.
*7


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
Nor, I was convinced, did these dreams offend
Nellie. Her smiling eyes gave me leave to in-
dulge them. Her soft voice bade me hope.
And we remained side by side until the last
moment, with our elbows resting on the bulwark
rail, while the outline of the American coast grew
more and more distinct.
The search had been abandoned. All seemed
expectation. From the first-class saloon to the
steerage, with its swarm of emigrants, every one
was waiting for the supreme moment when the
insoluble riddle would be explained. Who was
Arsene Lupin? Under what name, under what
disguise was the famous Arsene Lupin lurking?
The supreme moment came. If I live to be
a hundred, never shall I forget its smallest de-
tail.
"How pale you look, Nellie!" I said, as she
leaned, almost fainting, on my arm.
"And you, too. Oh, how you have changed!"
she replied.
"Think what an exciting minute this is and
how happy I am to pass it at your side. I won-
der, Nellie, if your memory will sometimes lin-
ger ..."
All breathless and fevered, she was not listen-
ing. The gang-plank was lowered. But, be-
fore we were allowed to cross it, men came on
18


THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
board: custom-house officers, men in uniform,
postmen.
Nellie murmured:
"I shouldn't be surprised even if we heard
that Arsene Lupin had escaped during the cross-
ing!"
"He may have preferred death to dishonor,
and plunged into the Atlantic rather than sub-
mit to arrest!"
"Don't jest about it," said she, in a tone of
vexation.
Suddenly I gave a start and, in answer to her
question, I replied:
"Do you see that little old man standing by
the gang-plank?"
"The one in a green frock-coat with an um-
brella?"
"That's Ganimard."
"Ganimard?"
"Yes, the famous detective who swore that he
would arrest Arsene Lupin with his own hand.
Ah, now I understand why we received no news
from this side of the ocean. Ganimard was here,
and he does not care to have any one interfering
in his little affairs."
"So Arsene Lupin is sure of being caught?"
"Who can tell? Ganimard has never seen
him, I believe, except made-up and disguised.
T9


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
Unless he knows the name under which he is
travelling ..."
"Ah," she said, with a woman's cruel curios-
ity, "I should love to see the arrest!"
"Have patience," I replied. "No doubt Ar-
sene Lupin has already observed his enemy's
presence. He will prefer to leave among the last,
when the old man's eyes are tired."
The passengers began to cross the gang-plank.
Leaning on his umbrella with an indifferent air,
Ganimard seemed to pay no attention to the
throng that crowded past between the two hand-
rails. I noticed that one of the ship's officers,
standing behind him, whispered in his ear from
time to time.
The Marquis de Raverdan, Major Rawson,
Rivolta, the Italian, went past, and others and
many more. Then I saw Rozaine approaching.
Poor Rozaine! He did not seem to have re-
covered from his misadventures!
"It may be he, all the same," said Nellie.
"What do you think?"
"I think it would be very interesting to have
Ganimard and Rozaine in one photograph.
Would you take the camera? My hands are so
full."
I gave it to her, but too late for her to use it.
Rozaine crossed. The officer bent over to Gani-
zo


THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
mard's, ear; Ganimard gave a shrug of the shoul-
ders; and Rozaine passed on.
But then who, in Heaven's name, was Arsene
Lupin?
"Yes," she said, aloud, "who is it?"
There were only a score of people left. Nellie
looked at them, one after the other, with the be-
wildered dread that he was not one of the twenty
I said to her:
"We cannot wait any longer."
She moved on. I followed her. But we had
not taken ten steps when Ganimard barred our
passage.
"What does this mean?" I exclaimed.
"One moment, sir. What's your hurry?"
"I am escorting this young lady."
"One moment," he repeated, in a more mys-
terious voice.
He stared hard at me, and then, looking me
straight in the eyes, said:
"Arsene Lupin, I believe.50
I gave a laugh.
"No, Bernard d'Andrezy, simply."
"Bernard d'Andrezy died in Macedonia, three
years ago."
"If Bernard d'Andrezy were dead I could not
be here. And it's not so. Here are my pa-
pers."
21


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"They are his papers. And I shall be pleased
to tell you how you became possessed of them."
"But you are mad! Arsene Lupin took his
passage under a name beginning with R."
"Yes, another of your tricks — a false scent
upon which you put the people on the other side.
Oh, you have no lack of brains, my lad! But,
this time, your luck has turned. Come, Lupin,
show that you're a good loser."
I hesitated for a second. He struck me a
smart blow on the right forearm. I gave a cry
of pain. He had hit the unhealed wound men-
tioned in the telegram.
There was nothing for it but to submit. I
turned to Miss Underdown. She was listening,
with a white face, staggering where she stood.
Her glance met mine, and then fell upon the
Kodak which I had handed her. She made a
sudden movement, and I received the impression,
the certainty, that she had understood. Yes, it
was there—between the narrow boards covered
with black morocco, inside the little camera
which I had taken the precaution to place in
her hands before Ganimard arrested me—it was
there that Rozaine's twenty thousand francs
and Lady Gerland's pearls and diamonds lay
concealed.
Now I swear that, at this solemn moment, with
22


THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
Ganimard and two of his minions around me,
everything was indifferent to me—my arrest, the
hostility of my fellow-men, everything, save only
this: the resolve which Nellie Underdown would
take in regard to the object I had given into her
charge.
Whether they had this material and decisive
piece of evidence against me, what cared I? The
only question that obsessed my mind was, would
Nelly furnish it or not?
Would she betray me? Would she ruin me?
Would she act as an irreconcilable foe, or as a
woman who remembers, and whose contempt is
softened by a touch of indulgence—a shade of
sympathy?
She passed before me. I bowed very low, with-
out a word. Mingling with the other passengers,
she moved towards the gang-board, carrying my
Kodak in her hand.
"Of course," I thought, "she will not dare to,
in public. She will hand it over presently—in an
hour/*
But, on reaching the middle of the plank, with
a pretended movement of awkwardness, she drop-
ped the Kodak in the water, between the land-
ing-stage and the ship's side.
Then I watched her walk away.
Her charming profile was lost in the crowd,
23


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
came into view again, and disappeared. It was
over—over for good and all.
For a moment I stood rooted to the deck, sad
and, at the same time, pervaded with a sweet and
tender emotion. Then, to Ganimard's great as-
tonishment, I sighed:
"Pity, after all, that Fm a rogue!"
It was in these words that Arsene Lupin, one
winter's evening, told me the story of his arrest.
Chance and a series of incidents which I will
some day describe had established between us
bonds of . . . shall I say friendship? Yes, I vent-
ure to think that Arsene Lupin honors me with
a certain friendship; and it is owing to this friend-
ship that he occasionally drops in upon me un-
expectedly, bringing into the silence of my study
his youthful gayety, the radiance of his eager life,
his high spirits—the spirits of a man for whom
fate has little but smiles and favors in store.
His likeness? How can I trace it? I have
seen Arsene Lupin a score of times, and each
time a different being has stood before me ... or
rather the same being under twenty distorted
images reflected by as many mirrors, each image
having its special eyes, its particular facial out-
line, its own gestures, profile and character.
"I myself," he once said to me," have forgotten
24


THE ARREST OF ARSENE LUPIN
what I am really like. I no longer recognize
myself in a glass."
A paradoxical whim of the imagination, no
doubt; and yet true enough as regards those who
come into contac: with him, and who are un-
aware of his infinite resources, his patience, his
unparalleled skill in make-up, and his prodigious
faculty for changing even the proportions of his
face and altering the relations of his features one
to the other.
"Why," he asked, "should I have a definite,
fixed appearance? Why not avoid the dangers
attendant upon a personality that is always the
same? My actions constitute my identity suffi-
ciently."
And he added, with a touch of pride:
"It is all the better if people are never able to
say with certainty: 6There goes Arsene Lupin.'
The great thing is that they should say without
fear of being mistaken: 'That action was per-
formed by Arsene Lupin/"
It is some of those actions of his, some of those
exploits, that I will endeavor to narrate, thanks
to the confidences with which he has had the
kindness to favor me on certain winter evenings
in the silence of my study. . . .





ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON





H
ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
EVERY tripper by the banks of the Seine
must have noticed, between the ruins of
Jumieges and those of Saint-Wandrille, the curi-
ous little feudal castle of the Malaquis, proudly
seated on its rock in mid-stream. A bridge con-
nects it with the road. The base of its turrets
seem to make one with the granite that bears it—
a huge block detached from a mountain-top, and
flung where it stands by some formidable con-
vulsion of nature. All around the calm water of
the broad river ripples among the reeds, while
water-wagtails perch trembling on the top of the
moist pebbles.
The history of the Malaquis is as rough as its
name, as harsh as its outlines, and consists of
endless fights, sieges, assaults, sacks, and mas-
sacres. Stories are told in the Caux district, late
at night, with a shiver, of the crimes committed
there. Mysterious legends are conjured up.
There is talk of a famous underground passage
29


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
that led to the Abbey of Jumieges and to the
manor-house of Agnes Sorel, once the favorite of
Charles VII.
This erstwhile haunt of heroes and robbers is
now occupied by Baron Nathan Cahorn—or Baron
Satan, as he used to be called on the Bourse, where
he made his fortune a little too suddenly. The
ruined owners of the Malaquis had to sell the
abode of their ancestors to him for a song. Here
he installed his wonderful collections of pictures
and furniture, of pottery and carved wood. He
lives here alone, with three old servants. No
one ever enters the doors. No one has ever be-
held, in the setting of these ancient halls, his
three Rubens, his two Watteaus, his pulpit carved
by Jean Goujon, and all the other marvels snatch-
ed by force of money from before the eyes of the
wealthiest frequenters of the public salesrooms.
Baron Satan leads a life of fear. He is afraid,
not for himself, but for the treasures which he
has accumulated with so tenacious a passion and
with the perspicacity of a collector whom not the
most cunning of dealers can boast of having ever
taken in. He loves his curiosities with all the
greed of a miser, with all the jealousy of a lover.
Daily, at sunset, the four iron-barred doors
that command both ends of the bridge and the
entrance to the principal court are locked and
30


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"I shall want your signature, monsieur le baron."
He signed the receipt, cursing as he did so.
Then he took the letter, waited until the postman
had disappeared round the turn of the road, and,
after taking a few steps to and fro, leaned against
the parapet of the bridge and opened the envelope.
It contained a sheet of ruled paper, headed, in
writing:
"Prison de la Santey Paris."
He looked at the signature:
"Arsene Lupin."
Utterly dumfounded, he read:
"Monsieur le Baron,—In the gallery that connects
your two drawing-rooms there is a picture by Philippe de
Champaigne, an excellent piece of work, which I admire
greatly. I also like your Rubens pictures and the smaller
of your two Watteaus. In the drawing-room on the
right I note the Louis XIII. credence-table, the Beau-
vais tapestries, the Empire stand, signed by Jacob, and
the Renaissance chest. In the room on the left the whole
of the case of trinkets and miniatures.
"This time I will be satisfied with these objects, which,
I think, can be easily turned into cash. I will therefore
ask you to have them properly packed, and to send them
to my name, carriage paid, to the Gare de BatignolleS,
on or before this day week, failing which I will myself
see to their removal on the night of Wednesday, the 27th
32


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
instant. In the latter case, as is only fair, I shall not be
content with the above-mentioned objects.
"Pray excuse the trouble which I am giving you, and
believe me to be Yours veiy truly,
"Arsene Lupin."
"P. S.—Be sure not to send me the larger of the two
Watteaus. Although you paid thirty-thousand francs
for it at the salesrooms, it is only a copy, the original
having been burned under the Directoiy, by Barras, in
one of his orgies. See Garat's unpublished Memoirs.
"I do not care either to have the Louis XV. chatelaine,
which appears to me to be of doubtful authenticity."
This letter thoroughly upset Baron Cahorn.
It would have alarmed him considerably had it
been signed by any other hand. But signed by
Arsene Lupin! . . .
He was a regular reader of the newspapers,
knew of everything that went on in the way of
theft and crime, and had heard all about the ex-
ploits of the infernal housebreaker. He was quite
aware that Lupin had been arrested in America
by his enemy, Ganimard; that he was safely under
lock and key; and that the preliminaries to his
trial were now being conducted . . . with great
difficulty, no doubt! But he also knew that one
could always expect anything of Arsene Lupin.
Besides, this precise knowledge of the castle, of
the arrangement of the pictures and furniture
33


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
was a very formidable sign. Who had informed
Lupin of things which nobody had ever seen?
The baron raised his eyes and gazed at the
frowning outline of the Malaquis, its abrupt pedes-
tal, the deep water that surrounds it. He shrug-
ged his shoulders. No, there was no possible dan-
ger. No one in the world could penetrate to the
inviolable sanctuary that contained his collections.
No one in the world, perhaps; but Arsene
Lupin? Did doors, draw-bridges, walls, so much
as exist for Arsene Lupin? Of what use were
the most ingeniously contrived obstacles, the most
skilful precautions, once that Arsene Lupin had
decided to attain a given object? . . .
That same evening he wrote to the public
prosecutor at Rouen. He enclosed the threaten-
ing letter, and demanded police protection.
The reply came without delay: the said Arsene
Lupin was at that moment a prisoner at the Sante,
where he was kept under strict surveillance and
not allowed to write. The letter, therefore, could
only be the work of a hoaxer. Everything went
to prove this: logic, common sense, and the actual
facts. However, so as to make quite sure, the
letter had been submitted to a handwriting expert,
who declared that, notwithstanding certain points
of resemblance, it was not in the prisoner's writing.
"Notwithstanding certain points of resem-
34


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
blance." The baron saw only these five be-
wildering words, which he regarded as the con-
fession of a doubt which alone should have been
enough to justify the intervention of the police.
His fears increased. He read the letter over and
over again. "I will myself see to their removal."
And that fixed date, the night of Wednesday the
27th of September!
Of a naturally suspicious and silent disposition,
he dared not unburden himself to his servants,
whose devotion he did not consider proof against
all tests. And yet, for the first time for many
years, he felt a need to speak, to take advice.
Abandoned by the law of his country, he had no
hope of protecting himself by his own resources,
and was nearly going to Paris to beg for the assist-
ance of some retired detective or other.
Two days elapsed. On the third day, as he
sat reading his newspapers, he gave a start of
delight. The Reveil de Caudebec contained the
following paragraph:
"We have had the pleasure of numbering among our
visitors, for nearly three weeks, Chief-Inspector Gani-
mard, one of the veterans of the detective service.- M.
Ganimard, for whom his last feat, the arrest of Arsene
Lupin, has woa an European reputation, is enjoying a
rest from his arduous labors and spending a short holiday
fishing for bleak and gudgeon in the Seine."
35


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
Ganimard! The very man that Baron Cahorn
wanted! Who could baffle Lupin's plans better
than the cunning and patient Ganimard?
The baron lost no time. It is a four-mile walk
from the castle to the little town of Caudebec.
He did the distance with a quick and joyous step,
stimulated by the hope of safety.
After many fruitless endeavors to discover the
chief-inspector's address, he went to the office of
the Reveily which is on the quay. He found the
writer of the paragraph, who, going to the win-
dow, said:
"Ganimard! Why, you're sure to meet him,
rod in hand, on the quay. That's where I picked
up with him, and read his name, by accident, on
his fishing-rod. Look, there he is, the little old
man in the frock-coat and a straw hat, under the
trees!"
"A frock-coat and a straw hat?"
"Yes. He's a queer specimen—close-tongued,
and a trifle testy."
Five minutes later the baron accosted the
famous Ganimard, introduced himself, and made
an attempt to enter into conversation. Failing in
this, he broached the question frankly, and laid
his case before him.
The other listened without moving a muscle
or taking his eyes from the water. Then he turn-
36


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
ed his head to the baron, eyed him from head to
foot with a look of profound pity, and said:
"Sir, it is not usual for criminals to warn the
people whom they mean to rob. Arsene Lupin,
in particular, never indulges in that sort of
bounce/'
"Still . . ."
"Sir, if I had the smallest doubt, believe me,
the pleasure of once more locking up that dear
Lupin would outweigh every other consideration.
Unfortunately, the youth is already in prison."
"Suppose he escapes? . . ."
"People don't escape from the Same."
"But Lupin . . ."
"Lupin no more than another."
"Still . . ."
"Very well, if he does escape, so much the
better; Fll nab him again. Meanwhile you can
sleep soundly and cease frightening my fish."
The conversation was ended. The baron re-
turned home feeling more or less reassured by
Ganimard's unconcern. He saw to his bolts,
kept a watch upon his servants, and another
forty-eight hours passed, during which he almost
succeeded in persuading himself that, after all,
his fears were groundless. There was no doubt
about it: as Ganimard had said, criminals don't
warn the people whom they mean to rob.
37


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
The date was drawing near. On the morning
of Tuesday the twenty-sixth nothing particular
happened. But at three o'clock in the afternoon
a boy rang and handed in this telegram:
"No goods Batignolles. Get everything ready for to-
morrow night. Arsene."
Once again Cahorn lost his head—so much so
that he asked himself whether he would not do
better to yield to Arsene Lupin's demands.
He hurried off to Caudebec. Ganimard was
seated on a camp-stool fishing on the same spot
as before. The baron handed him the telegram
without a word.
"Well?" said the detective.
"Well what? It's for to-morrow!"
"What is?"
"The burglary! The theft of my collections!"
Ganimard turned to him, and, folding his
arms across his chest, cried in a tone of impa-
tience:
"Why, you don't really mean to say that you
think I'm going to trouble myself about this stupid
business?"
"What fee will you take to spend Wednesday
night at the castle?"
"Not a penny. Don't bother me!"
38


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
"Name your own price. I am a rich man—a
very rich man."
The brutality of the offer took Ganimard aback.
He replied, more calmly:
"I am here on leave and I have no right to . .
"No one shall know. I undertake to be silent,
whatever happens."
"Oh, nothing will happen,"
"Well, look here, is three thousand francs
enough?"
The inspector took a pinch of snuff, reflected,
and said:
"Very well. But it's only fair to tell you that
you are throwing your money away."
"I don't mind."
"In that case . . . And besides, after all, one
can never tell with that devil of a Lupin! He
must have a whole gang at his orders. . . . Are
you sure of your servants?"
"Well, I . . ."
"Then we must not rely upon them, I'll wire
to two of my own men; then we shall feel safer.
. . . And now leave me; we must not be seen
together. To-morrow evening at nine o'clock." r
On the morning of the next day, the date fixed
by Arsene Lupin, Baron Cahorn took down his
trophy of arms, polished up his pistols, and made
39


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
a thorough inspection of the Malaquis without
discovering anything suspicious.
At half-past eight in the evening he dismissed
his servants for the night. They slept in a wing
facing the road, but set a little way back, and right
at the end of the castle. As soon as he was alone
he softly opened the four doors. In a little while
he heard footsteps approaching.
Ganimard introduced his assistants—two pow-
erfully built fellows, with bull necks, and huge,
strong hands—and asked for certain explanations.
After ascertaining the disposition of the place he
carefully closed and barricaded every issue by
which the threatened rooms could be entered.
He examined the walls, raised the tapestries,
and finally installed his detectives in the central
gallery.
"No nonsense, do you understand? You're not
here to sleep. At the least sound open the win-
dows on the court and call me. Keep a look-out
also on the water-side. Thirty feet of steep cliff
doesn't frighten blackguards of that stamp."
He locked them in, took away the keys, and
said to the baron:
"And now to our post."
He had selected as the best place in which to
spend the night a small room contrived in the
thickness of the outer walls, between the two
40


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
main doors. It had at one time been the watch-
man's lodge. A spy-hole opened upon the bridge,
another upon the court. In one corner was what
looked like the mouth of a well.
"You told me, did you not, monsieur le baron,
that this well is the only entrance to the under-
ground passage, and that it has been stopped
up since the memory of man?"
"Yes."
"Therefore, unless there should happen to be
another outlet, unknown to any but Arsene Lupin,
which seems pretty unlikely, we can be easy in
our minds."
He placed three chairs in a row, settled him-
self comfortably at full length, lit his pipe and
sighed.
"Upon my word, monsieur le baron, I must
be very eager to build an additional story to the
little house in which I mean to end my days to
accept so elementary a job as this. I shall tell
the story to our friend Lupin; he'll split his sides
with laughter."
The baron did not laugh. With ears pricked
up he questioned the silence with ever-growing
restlessness. From time to time he leaned over
the well and plunged an anxious eye into the
yawning cavity.
The clock struck eleven; midnight; one o'clock.
4i


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
Suddenly he seized the arm of Ganimard, who
woke with a start.
"Do you hear that?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"It's myself, snoring!"
"No, no, listen. . . ."
"Oh yes, it's a motor-horn."
"Well?"
"Well, it's as unlikely that Lupin should come
by motor-car as that he should use a battering-
ram to demolish your castle. So I should go to
sleep if I were you, monsieur le baron ... as
I shall have the honor of doing once more. Good-
night!"
This was the only alarm. Ganimard resumed
his interrupted slumbers, and the baron heard
nothing save his loud and regular snoring.
At break of day they left their cell. A great
calm peace—the peace of the morning by the
cool water-side—reigned over the castle. Cahorn,
beaming with joy, and Ganimard, placid as ever,
climbed the staircase. Not a sound. Nothing
suspicious.
"What did I tell you, monsieur le baron?
I really ought not to have accepted ... I feekj
ashamed of myself . . ."
42


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
He took the keys and entered the gallery.
On two chairs, with bent bodies and hanging
arms, sat the two detectives, fast asleep.
"What, in the name of all the . . growled
the inspector.
At the same moment the baron uttered a cry:
"The pictures! . . . The credence-tabfe! . ."
He stammered and spluttered, with his hand
outstretched towards the dismantled walls, with
their bare nails and slack cords. The Watteau
and the three Rubens had disappeared! The
tapestries had been removed, the glass - cases
emptied of their trinkets!
"And my Louis XVI sconces! . . . And the
Regency chandelier! . . . And my twelfth-cen-
tury Virgin! . .
He ran from place to place, maddened, in
despair. Distraught with rage and grief, he
quoted the purchase-prices, added up his losses,
piled up figures, all promiscuously, in indistinct
words and incompleted phrases. He stamped
with his feet, flung himself about, and, in short,
behaved like a ruined man who had nothing
before him but suicide.
If anything could have consoled him it would
have been the sight of Ganimard's stupefaction.
Contrary to the baron, the inspector did not
move. He seemed petrified, and, with a dazed
4 43


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
eye, examined things. The windows? They
were fastened. The locks of the doors? Un-
touched. There was not a crack in the ceiling,
not a hole in the floor. Everything was in per-
fect order. The whole thing must have been
carried out methodically, after an inexprfble and
logical plan.
"Arsene Lupin! . . . Arsene Lupin!" he mut-
tered, giving way. . . .
Suddenly he leaped upon the two detectives,
as though at last overcome with rage, and shook
them and swore at them furiously. They did not
wake up.
"The deuce!" he said. "Can they have been
?"
He leaned over and closely scrutinized them,
one after the other; they were both asleep, but
their sleep was not natural. He said to the
baron:
"They have been put to sleep."
"But by whom?"
"By him, of course ... or by his gang, acting
under his instructions. It's a trick in his own
manner. I recognize his touch."
"In that case, I am undone; the thing is hope-
less."
"Hopeless."
"But this is abominable!—it's monstrous!"
44


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
"Lodge an information."
"What's the good?"
"Well, you may as well try . . . the law has its
resources. . . ."
"The law! But you can see for yourself. . . .
Why, a!?|gpis very moment, when you might be
looking for a clew, discovering something, you're
not even stirring!"
"Discover something, with Arsene Lupin! But,
my dear sir, Arsene Lupin never leaves anything
behind him! There's no chance with Arsene
Lupin! I am beginning to wonder whether he
got himself arrested by me of his own free will
in America!"
"Then I must give up the hope of recovering
my pictures or anything! But he has stolen the
pearls of my collection. I would give a fortune
to get them back. If there's nothing to be done
against him, let him name his price."
Ganimard looked at him steadily.
"That's a sound notion. Do you stick to
it?"
"Yes, yes, yes! But why do you ask?"
"I have an idea."
"What idea?"
"We'll talk of it if nothing comes of the in-
quiry. . . . Only, not a word about me to a soul
if you wish me to succeed."
45


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
And he added, between his teeth:
"Besides, I have nothing to be proud of."
The two men gradually recovered conscious-
ness, with the stupefied look of men awakening
from an hypnotic sleep. They opened astounded
eyes, tried to make out what had happened.
Ganimard questioned them. They remembered
nothing.
"Still, you must have seen somebody."
"No."
"Try and think."
"No."
"Did you have a drink?"
They reflected, and one of them replied:
"Yes, I had some water."
"Out of that bottle there?"
"Yes."
"I had some too," said the other.
Ganimard smelled the water, tasted it. It had
no particular scent or flavor.
"Come," he said, "we are wasting our time.
Problems set by Arsene Lupin can't be solved in
five minutes. But, by jingo, I swear Fll catch
him! He's won the second bout. The rubber
game to me!"
That day a charge of aggravated larceny was
laid by Baron Cahorn against Arsene Lupin, a
prisoner awaiting trial at the Sante.
46


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
immense cellars, in which the lords of the Mala-
quis had been used to pile up their provisions
and munitions of war. They sounded the very
bowels of the rock. All to no purpose. They
discovered not the slightest trace of a tunnel. No
secret passage existed.
Very well, was the answer on every side, but
pictures and furniture don't vanish like ghosts.
They go out through doors and windows, and the
people that take them also go in and out through
doors and windows. Who are these people?
How did they get in? And how did they get
out?
The public prosecutor of Rouen, persuaded of
his own incompetence, asked for the assistance of
the Paris police. M. Dudouis, the chief of the
detective service, sent the most efficient blood-
hounds in his employ. He himself paid a forty-
eight hours' visit to the Malaquis, but met with
no better success.
It was after his return that he sent for Chief-
Inspector Ganimard, whose services he had so
often had occasion to value.
Ganimard listened in silence to the instructions
of his superior, and then, tossing his head, said:
"I think we shall be on a false scent while we
continue to search the castle. The solution lies
elsewhere."
48


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRI.SON
"With Arsene Lupin! If you think that, then
you believe that he took part in the burglary."
"I do think so. I go further: I consider it
certain."
"Come, Ganimard, this is ridiculous. Arsene
Lupin is in prison."
"Arsene Lupin is in prison, I agree. He is
being watched, I grant you. But if he had his
legs in irons, his hands bound, and his mouth
gagged I should still be of the same opinion."
"But why this persistency?"
"Because no one else is capable of contriving
a plan on so large a scale, and of contriving it in
such a way that it succeeds ... as this has suc-
ceeded."
"Words, Ganimard!"
"They are true words, for all that. Only, it's
no use looking for underground passages, for
stones that turn on a pivot, and stuff and non-
sense of that kind. Our friend does not employ
any of those antiquated measures. He is a man
of to-day, or, rather, of to-morrow."
"And what do you conclude?"
"I conclude by asking you straight to let me
spend an hour with Lupin."
"In his cell?"
"Yes. We were on excellent terms during the
crossing from America, and I venture to think
49


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
that he is not without a friendly feeling for the
man who arrested him. If he can tell me what
I want to know, without compromising himself,
he will be quite willing to spare me an unneces-
sary journey."
It was just after mid-day when Ganimard was
shown into Arsene Lupin's cell. Lupin, who was
lying on his bed, raised his head, and uttered an
exclamation of delight.
"Well, this is a surprise! Dear old Ganimard
here!"
"Himself."
"I have hoped for many things in this retreat
of my own choosing, but for none more eagerly
than the pleasure of welcoming you here."
"You are too good."
"Not at all, not at all I have the liveliest feel-
ings of esteem for you."
"I am proud to hear it."
"I have said so a thousand times: Ganimard
is our greatest detective. He's almost—see how
frank I am—almost as good as Holmlock Shears.
But, really, I'm awfully sorry to have nothing bet-
ter than this stool to offer you. And not a drink
of any kind! Not so much as a glass of beer!
Do forgive me: I am only passing through!"
Ganimard smiled and sat down, and the pris-
50


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
oner, glad of the opportunity of speaking, con-
tinued:
"By Jove, what a treat to see a decent man's
face! I am sick of the looks of all those spies
who go through my cell and my pockets ten times
a day, to make sure that I am not planning an
escape. Gad, how fond the government must
be of me!"
"They show their taste."
"No, no! I should be so happy if they would
let me lead my quiet little life."
"On other people's money."
"Just so. It would be so simple. But I'm
letting my tongue run on. I'm talking nonsense,
and I dare say you're in a hurry. Come, Gani-
mard, tell me to what I owe the honor of this
visit?"
"The Cahorn case," said Ganimard, straight
out.
"Stop! Wait a bit. . . . You see, I have so
many on hand! First, let me search my brain
for the Cahorn pigeon-hole. . . . Ah, I have it!
Cahorn case, Chateau du Malaquis, Seine - In-
ferieure. . . . Two Rubens, a Watteau, and a few
minor trifles."
"Trifles!"
"Oh yes; all this is of small importance. I
have bigger things on hand. However, you're
5*


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
one of them ever thought that Arsene Lupin
would be silly enough to choose so obvious a
hiding-place. That's just what I reckoned on."
Ganimard exclaimed, in amusement:
"What a funny chap you are! You're beyond
me! Come, tell me the story."
"Oh, I say! Not so fast! Initiate you into
all my secrets . . . reveal my little tricks to you?
That's a serious matter."
"Was I wrong in thinking that I could rely on
you to oblige me?"
"No, Ganimard, and, as you insist upon it . . ."
Arsene Lupin took two or three strides across
his cell. Then, stopping:
"What do you think of my letter to the baron?"
he asked.
"I think you wanted to have some fun, to tickle
the gallery a bit."
"Ah, there you go! Tickle the gallery, indeed!
Upon my word, Ganimard, I gave you credit for
more sense! Do you really imagine that I, Ar-
sene Lupin, waste my time with such childish
pranks as that? Is it likely that I should have
written the letter if I could have rifled the baron
without it? Do try and understand that the
letter was the indispensable starting-point—the
main-spring that set the whole machine in mo-
tion. Look here, let us proceed in order, and,
53


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
if yau like, prepare the Malaquis burglary to-
gether/'
"Very well."
"Now follow me. I have to do with an im-
pregnable and closely guarded castle. Am I to
throw up the game and give up the treasures
which I covet because the castle that contains
them happens to be inaccessible?"
"Clearly not."
"Am I to try to carry it by assault, as in the old
days, at the head of a band of adventurers?"
"That would be childish."
"Am I to enter it by stealth?"
"Impossible."
"There remains only one way, which is to
get myself invited by the owner of the aforesaid
castle."
"It's an original idea."
"And so easy! Suppose that one day the said
owner receives a letter, warning him of a plot
hatched against him by one Arsene Lupin, a noto-
rious housebreaker. What is he sure to do?"
"Send the letter to the public prosecutor."
"Who will laugh at him, because the said
Lupin is actually locked up! The natural con-
sequence is the utter bewilderment of the worthy
man, who is ready and anxious to ask the assist-
ance of the first-comer. Am I right?"
54


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
"Quite so."
"And if he happens to read in the local news-
sheet that a famous detective is staying in the
neighborhood . . ."
"He will go and apply to that detective."
"Exactly. But, on the other hand, let us as-
sume that, foreseeing this inevitable step, Arsene
Lupin has asked one of his ablest friends to take
up his quarters at Caudebec, to pick up acquaint-
ance with a contributor to the Reveil, a paper to
which the baron, mark you, subscribes, and to
drop a hint that he is so-and-so, the famous
detective. What will happen next?"
"The contributor will send a paragraph to the
Reveil, stating that the detective is staying at
Caudebec."
"Exactly; and one of two things follows: either
the fish (I mean Cahorn) does not rise to the
bait, in which case nothing happens, or else (and
this is the more likely presumption) he nib-
bles, in which case you have our dear Cahorn
imploring the assistance of one of my own friends
against me!"
"This is becoming more and more original."
"Of course the sham detective begins by re-
fusing. Thereupon a telegram from Arsene Lu-
pin. Dismay of the baron, who renews his en-
treaties with my friend, and offers him so much
55


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
to watch over his safety. The friend aforesaid
accepts, and brings with him two chaps of our
gang, who, during the night, while Cahorn is
kept in sight by his protector, remove a certain
number of things through the window, and lower
them with ropes into a barge freighted for the pur-
pose. It's as simple as . . . Lupin."
"And it's just wonderful," cried Ganimard,
"and I have no words in which to praise the
boldness of the idea and the ingenuity of the
details! But I can hardly imagine a detective
so illustrious that his name should have attracted
and impressed the baron to that extent."
"There is one and one only."
"Who?"
"The most illustrious of them all, the arch-
enemy of Arsene Lupin—in short, Inspector Gani-
mard."
"What! myself?"
"Yourself, Ganimard. And that's the delight-
ful part-of it: if you go down and persuade the
baron to talk you will end by discovering that
it is your duty to arrest yourself, just as you ar-
rested me in America. A humorous revenge,
what? I shall have Ganimard arrested by Gani-
mard!"
Arsene Lupin laughed long and loud, while the
inspector bit his lips with vexation. The joke
56


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
did not appear to him worthy of so much merri-
ment.
The entrance of a warder gave him time to
recover. The man brought the meal which Ar-
sene Lupin, by special favor, was allowed to have
sent in from the neighboring restaurant. After
placing the tray on the table he went away.
Arsene sat down, broke his bread, ate a mouth-
ful or two, and continued:
"But be easy, my dear Ganimard, you will not
have to go down there. I am going to reveal a
thing to you that will strike you dumb: the Cahorn
case is about to be withdrawn/'
"What?"
"About to be withdrawn, I said."
"Nonsense! I have just left the chief."
"And then? Does Monsieur Dudouis know
more than I do about what concerns me? You
must learn that Ganimard—excuse me—that the
sham Ganimard has remained on very good terms
with Baron Cahorn. The baron—and this is
the main reason why he has kept the thing quiet
—has charged him with the very delicate mission
of negotiating a deal with me; and the chances
are that, by this time, on payment of a certain
sum, the baron is once more in possession of his
pet knicknacks, in return for which he will with-
draw the charge. Wherefore, there is no ques-
57


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
tion of theft. Wherefore, the public prosecutor
will have to abandon . . ."
Ganimard gazed at the prisoner with an air
of stupefaction.
"But how do you know all this?"
"I have just received the telegram I was ex-
pecting."
"You have just received a telegram?"
"This very moment, my friend. I was too
polite to read it in your presence. But if you
will allow me . . ."
"You're poking fun at me, Lupin."
"Be so good, my dear friend, as to cut off the
top of that egg gently. You will see for your-
self that I am not poking fun at you."
Ganimard obeyed mechanically, and broke the
egg with the blade of a knife. A cry of surprise
escaped him. The shell was empty but for a
sheet of blue paper. At Arsene's request, he un-
folded it. It was a telegram, or, rather, a portion
of a telegram, from which the postal indications
had been removed. He read:
"Arrangement settled. Hundred thousand spondulics
delivered. All well."
"Hundred thousand spondulics?" he uttered.
"Yes, a hundred thousand francs. It's not
58


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
much, but these are hard times And my gen-
eral expenses are so heavy! If you knew the
amount of my budget . . . it's like the budget of
a big town!"
Ganimard rose to go. His ill-humor had left
him. He thought for a few moments, and cast
a mental glance over the whole business, to try
to discover a weak point. Then, in a voice that
frankly revealed his admiration as an expert, he
said:
"It's a good thing that there are not dozens like
you, or there would be nothing for us but to shut
up shop."
Arsene Lupin assumed a modest simper, and
replied:
"Oh, I had to do something to amuse myself,
to occupy my spare time . . . especially as this
stroke could only succeed while I was in prison."
"What do you mean?" exclaimed Ganimard.
"Your trial, your defence, your examination: isn't
that enough for you to amuse yourself with?"
"No, because I have decided not to attend my
trial."
"Oh, I say!"
Arsene Lupin repeated, deliberately:
"I shall not attend my trial."
"Really!"
"Why, my dear fellow, you surely don't think
s 59


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
that I mean to rot in gaol? The mere suggestion
is an insult. Let me tell you that Arsene Lupin
remains in prison as long as he thinks fit, and nbt
2l moment longer."
"It might have been more prudent to begin
by not entering it," said the inspector, iron-
ically.
"Ah, so you're chaffing me, sirrah? Do you
remember that you had the honor to effect my
arrest? Well, learn from me, my respectable
friend, that no one, neither you nor another, could
have laid a hand upon me if a much more im-
portant interest had not occupied my attention
at that critical moment."
"You surprise me."
"A woman had cast her eyes upon me, Gani-
mard, and I loved her. Do you realize all that
the fact implies when a woman whom one
loves casts her eyes upon one? I cared about
little else, I assure you. And that is why Fm
here."
"Since some considerable time, allow me to
observe."
"I was anxious to forget. Don't laugh; it was
a charming adventure, and I still have a touching
recollection of it . . . And then I am suffering a
little from nervous prostration. We lead such a
feverish existence nowadays! It's a good thing
60


ARSENE LUPIN IN PRISON
to take a rest-cure from time to time. And there's
no place for it like this. They carry out the cure
in all its strictness at the Sante."
"Arsene Lupin," said Ganimard, "you're pull-
ing my leg/'
"Ganimard," replied Lupin, "this is Friday.
On Wednesday next I'll come and smoke a cigar
with you in the Rue Pergolese at four o'clock in
the afternoon."
"Arsene Lupin, I shall expect you."
They shook hands like two friends who have
a proper sense of each other's value, and the old
detective turned towards the door.
. "Ganimard!"
Ganimard looked round.
"What is it?"
"Ganimard, you've forgotten your watch."
"My watch?"
"Yes, I've just found it in my pocket."
He returned it, with apologies.
"Forgive me. They've taken mine, but that's
no reason why I should rob you of yours — es-
pecially as I have a chronometer here which
keeps perfect time and satisfies all my require-
ments."
He took out of the drawer a large, thick, com-
fortable-looking gold watch, hanging to a heavy
chain.
61


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"And out of whose pocket does this come?"
asked Ganimard.
Arsene Lupin carelessly inspected the initials:
J. B.'. . . Oh yes, I remember: Jules Bou-
vier, my examining magistrate, a charming fel-
low. . .


THE ESCAPE OF
ARSENE LUPIN





Ill
THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
ARSENE LUPIN finished his mid-day meal,
took a good cigar from his pocket, and com-
placently studied the gold-lettered inscription on
its band. At that moment the door of his cell
opened. He had just a second in which to throw
the cigar into the drawer of the table and to move
away. The warden came in to tell him that it was
time to take his exercise.
"I was waiting for you, old chap!" cried Lupin,
with his unfailing good-humor.
They went out together. Hardly had they
turned the corner of the passage when two men
entered the cell and began to make a minute
examination. One of these was Inspector Dieuzy,
the other Inspector Folenfant.
They wanted to have the matter settled once
and for all. There was no doubt about it: Arsene
Lupin was keeping up a correspondence with the
outside world and communicating with his confi-
dants. Only the day before the Grand Journal
65


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
had published the following lines, addressed to its
legal contributor:
"Sir,—In an article published a few days ago you
ventured to express yourself concerning me in utterly
unwarrantable terms. I shall come and call you to
account a day or two before my trial commences.
"Yours faithfully,
"Arsene Lupin,"
The handwriting was Arsene Lupin's. There-
fore, he was sending letters. Therefore, he was
receiving letters. Therefore, it was certain that
he was preparing the escape which he had so
arrogantly announced.
The position was becoming intolerable. By
arrangement with the examining magistrate, M.
Dudouis himself, the head of the detective service,
went to the Sante to explain to the prison governor
the measures which it was thought advisable to
take, and on his arrival he sent two of his men to
the prisoner's cell.
The men raised every one of the flag-stones, took
the bed to pieces, did all that is usually done in
such cases, and ended by discovering nothing.
They were about to abandon their search when the
warden came running in, and said:
"The drawer .. . look in the drawer of the table!
66


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
I thought I saw him shut it when I came in just
now."
They looked, and Dleuzy exclaimed:
"Gad, we've caught our customer this time!"
Folenfant stopped him.
"Don't do anything, my lad; let the chief take
the inventory."
"Still, this Havana . . ."
"Leave it alone, and let us tell the chief."
Two minutes later M. Dudouis was exploring
the contents of the drawer. He found, first, a
collection of press-cuttings concerning Arsene
Lupin; next, a tobacco-pouch, a pipe, and some
foreign post-paper; and, lastly, two books.
He looked at the titles: Carlyle's Heroes and
Hero-worship, in English, and a charming Elzevir,
in the contemporary binding: a German transla-
tion of the Manual of Epictetus, published at Ley-
den in 1634. He glanced through them, and ob-
served that every page was scored, underlined, and
annotated. Were these conventional signs, or were
they marks denoting the reader's devotion to a
particular book?
"We'll go into this in detail," said M. Du-
douis.
He investigated the tobacco-pouch, the pipe.
Then, taking up the magnificent cigar in its gold
band:
67


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE-LUPIN
"By Jove!" he cried, "our friend does himself
well! A Henry Clay!"
With the mechanical movement of a smoker he
put it to his ear and crackled it. An exclamation
escaped him. The cigar had given way under the
pressure of his fingers! He examined it more
attentively, and soon perceived something that
showed white between the leaves of the tobacco.
And carefully, with the aid of a pin, he drew out
a scroll of very thin paper, no thicker than a tooth-
pick. It was a note. He unrolled it, and read the
following words, in a small, female hand:
"Maria has taken the other's place. Eight out of ten
are prepared. On pressing outside foot, metal panel
moves upward. H. P. will wait from 12 to 16 daily.
But where? Reply at once. Have no fear: your friend
is looking after you."
M. Dudouis reflected for a moment aad said:
"That's clear enough. . . , Maria, the prison-van
. . . the eight compartments. . . . Twelve to sixteen;
that is, from twelve to four o'clock. . .
"But who is H. P.? Who is to wait for him?"
"H. P. stands for horse-power, of course — a
motor-car."
He rose and asked:
"Had the prisoner finished his lunch?"
68


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
"Yes."
"And, as he has not yet read this message, as
the condition of the cigar shows, the chances are
that he had only just received it."
"By what means?"
"How can I tell? In his food; inside a roll or a
potato."
"That's impossible. He was only permitted to
have his meals from the outside so that we might
trap him and we have found nothing."
/ "We will look for Lupin's reply this evening.
Meantime keep him out of his cell. I will take
this to Monsieur Bouvier, the examining magis-
trate. If he agrees, we will have the letter photo-
graphed at once, and in an hour's time you can
put these other things back in the drawer, together
with an exactly similar cigar containing the orig-
inal message. The prisoner must not be allowed
to suspect anything."
It was not without a certain curiosity that M.
Dudouis, accompanied by Inspector Dieuzy, re-
turned to the office of the Sante in the evening.
In a corner, on the stove, were three plates.
"Has he had his dinner?"
"Yes," replied the governor.
"Dieuzy, cut those pieces of macaroni into very
thin shreds and open that bit of bread. ... Is there
nothing there?"
69


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"No, sir."
M. Dudouis examined the plates, the fork, the
spoon, and, lastly, the knife—a regulation knife
with a rounded blade. He twisted the handle to
the left and then to the right. When turned to the
right the handle gave way and became unscrewed.
The knife was hollow, and served as a sheath for a
slip of paper.
"Pooh!" he said, "that's not very artful for a
man like Arsene. But let us waste no time. Do
you go to the restaurant, Dieuzy, and make your
inquiries."
Then he read:
"I leave itVto you. Let H
distance. I shall go in front,
dear and adorable friend."
"At last!" cried M. Dudouis, rubbing his hands.
"Things are going better, I think. With a little
assistance from our side the escape will succeed
. . . just enough to enable us to bag the accom-
plices."
"And suppose Arsene Lupin slips through your
fingers ?" said the governor.
"We shall employ as many men as are necessary.
If, however, he shows himself too clever . . . well,
then, so much the worse for him! As for the rest
. P. follow every day at a
I shall see you soon, my
70


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
of the gang, since the leader refuses to talk the
others must be made to."
The fact was that Arsene Lupin did not talk
much. For some months M. Jules Bouvier, the
examining magistrate, had been exerting himself to
no purpose. The interrogatories were reduced to
uninteresting colloquies between the magistrate
and Maitre Danval, one of the leaders of the bar,
who, for that matter, knew as much and as little
about the defendant as the man in the street.
From time to time, out of politeness, Arsene
Lupin would let fall a remark:
"Quite so, sir; we are agreed. The robbery at
the Credit Lyonnais, the robbery in the Rue de
Babylone, the uttering of the forged notes, the
affair of the insurance policies, the burglaries at
the Chateaux d'Armesnil, de Gouret, d'Xmblevain,
des Groseillers, du Malaquis: that's all my work."
"Then perhaps you will explain . . ."
"There's no need of it. I confess to everything
in the lump—everything, and ten times as much."
Tired out, the magistrate had suspended these
wearisome interrogatories. He resumed them,
after being shown the two intercepted missives.
And regularly at twelve o'clock every day Arsene
Lupin was taken from the Sante to the police-
station in a van, with a number of other prisoners.
They left again at three or four in the day.
7i


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
One afternoon the return journey took place
under exceptional conditions. As the other crim-
inals from the Sante had not yet been examined,
it was decided to take Arsene Lupin back first.
He therefore stepped into the van alone.
These prison-vans, vulgarly known as panzers a
salade, or salad-baskets, in France, and as "Black
Marias" in England, are divided lengthwise by a
central passage, giving admittance to ten compart-
ments or boxes, five on each side. Each of these
boxes is so arranged that its occupant has to adopt
a sitting posture, and the five prisoners are con-
sequently seated one beside the other, and are
separated by parallel partitions. A municipal
guard sits at the end and watches the central
passage.
Arsene was placed in the third box on the right,
and the heavy vehicle started. He perceived that
they had left the Quai de PHorloge, and were
passing before the Palais de Justice. When they
reached the middle of the Pont Saint-Michel he
pressed his outer foot—that is to say, his right
foot, as he had always done—against the sheet-iron
panel that closed his cell. Suddenly something
was thrown out of gear, and the panel opened out-
ward ^imperceptibly. He saw that he was just
between the two wheels.
He waited, with a watchful eye. The van went
7*


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
along the Boulevard Saint-Michel at a foot's pace.
At the Carrefour Saint-Germain it pulled up. A
dray-horse had fallen. The traffic was stopped,
and soon there was a block of cabs and omni-
buses.
Arsene Lupin put out his head. Another prison-
van was standing beside the one in which he was
sitting. He raised the panel farther, put his foot
on one of the spokes of the hind wheel, and jumped
to the ground.
A cab-driver saw him, choked with laughing,
and then tried to call out. But his voice was lost
in the din of the traffic, which had started afresh.
Besides, Arsene Lupin was already some distance
away.
He had taken a few steps at a run; but, crossing
to the left-hand pavement, he turned back, cast a
glance around him, and seemed to be taking his
breath, like a man who is not quite sure which
direction he means to follow. Then, making up
his mind, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and,
with the careless air of a person taking a stroll,
continued to walk along the boulevard.
The weather was mild: it was a bright, warm
autumn day. The cafes were full of people. He
sat down outside one of them.
He called for a bock and a packet of cigarettes.
He emptied his glass with little sips, calmly smoked
73


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
a cigarette and lit a second. Lastly, he stood up
and asked the waiter to fetch the manager.
The manager came, and Arsene said, in a voice
loud enough to be heard by all around:
"I am very sorry, but I have come out without
my purse. Possibly you know my name and will
not mind trusting me for a day or two: I am
Arsene Lupin."
The manager looked at him, thinking he was
joking. But Arsene repeated:
"Lupin, a prisoner at the Sante, just escaped.
I venture to hope that my name inspires you with
every confidence."
And he walked away amid the general laughter
before the other dreamed of raising a protest.
He slanted across the Rue Soufflot, and turned
down the Rue Saint-Jacques. He proceeded along
this street quietly, looking at the shop-windows,
and smoking one cigarette after the other. On
reaching the Boulevard de Port-Royal he took
his bearings, asked the way, and walked straight
towards the Rue de la Sante. Soon the frowning
walls of the prison came into view. He skirted
them, and, going up to the municipal guard who
was standing sentry at the gate, raised his hat, and
said:
"Is this the Sante Prison?"
"Yes."
7+


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
"I want to go back to my cell, please. The van
dropped me on the way, and I should not like to
abuse . . ."
The guard grunted.
"Look here, my man, you just go your road, and
look sharp about it!"
"I beg your pardon, but my road lies through
this gate. And, if you keep Arsene Lupin out, it
may cost you dear, my friend."
"Arsene Lupin! What's all this?"
"I am sorry I haven't a card on me," said
Arsene, pretending to feel in his pockets.
The guard, utterly nonplussed, eyed him from
head to foot. Then, without a word and as
though in spite of himself, he rang a bell. The
iron door opened.
A few minutes later the governor hurried into
the office, gesticulating and pretending to be in a
violent rage. Arsene smiled.
"Come, sir, don't play a game with me! What!
You take the precaution to bring me back alone
in the van, you prepare a nice little block in the
traffic, and you think that I am going to take to
my heels and rejoin my friends! And what about
the twenty detectives escorting us on foot, on
bicycles, and in cabs? They'd have made short
work of me: I should never have got off alive!
Perhaps that was what they were reckoning on?"
6 75


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
Shrugging his shoulders, he added: "I beg you,
sir, don't let them trouble about me. When I
decide to escape I shall want nobody's assistance/'
Two days later the Echo de France, which was
undoubtedly becoming the official gazette of the
exploits of Arsene Lupin—he was said to be one
of the principal shareholders—published the fullest
details of his attempted escape. The exact text
of the letters exchanged between the prisoner and
his mysterious woman friend, the means employed
for this correspondence, the part played by the
police, the drive along the Boulevard Saint-Michel,
the incident at the Cafe Soufflot—everything was
told in print. It was known that the inquiries of
Inspector Dieuzy among the waiters of the restau-
rant had led to no result. And, in addition, the
public were made aware of this bewildering fact,
which showed the infinite variety of the resources
which the man had at his disposal: the prison-van
in which he had been carried was "faked" from
end to end, and had been substituted by his accom-
plices for one of the six regular vans that com-
pose the prison service.
No one entertained any further doubt as to
Arsene Lupin's coming escape. He himself pro-
claimed it in categorical terms, as was shown by
his reply to M. Bouvier on the day after the inci-
dent. The magistrate having bantered him on
76


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
object did he divulge them? And by what
means?
They changed Arsene Lupin's cell, moved him
to a lower floor. The magistrate, on his side,
closed the examination, and delivered the materials
for the indictment.
A two months' silence ensued. These two
months Arsene Lupin passed stretched on his bed,
with his face almost constantly turned to the wall.
The change of cell seemed to have crushed his
spirits. He refused to see his counsel. He ex-
changed hardly a word with his wardens.
In the fortnight immediately preceding his trial
he seemed to revive. He complained of lack of
air. He was sent into the yard for exercise very
early in the morning with a man on either side of
him.
Meanwhile public curiosity had not abated.
The news of his escape was expected daily; it was
almost hoped for, so greatly had he caught the
fancy of the crowd with his pluck, his gayety, his
variety, his inventive genius, and the mystery of
his life. Arsene Lupin was bound to escape. It
was inevitable. People were even astonished that
he put it off so long. Every morning the prefect
of police asked his secretary:
"Well, isn't he gone yet?"
"No, sir."
78


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
Rostat, who, eight years ago, was acting as as-
sistant to Dickson, the conjurer, was none other
than Arsene Lupin. It seems probable that the
Russian student who, six years ago, used to attend
Dr. Aider's laboratory at St. Louis' Hospital, and
who often astonished the master by the ingenious
character of his hypotheses on bacteriology and by
the boldness of his experiments in the diseases of
the skin—it seems probable that he too was none
other than Arsene Lupin. So was the professor
of Japanese wrestling, who established himself in
Paris long before jiu-jitsu had been heard of. So,
we believe, was the racing cyclist who won the
great prize at the Exhibition, took his ten thousand
francs, and has never been seen since. So, per-
haps, was the man who saved so many people from
burning at the Charity Bazaar, helping them
through the little dormer window . . . and robbing
them of their belongings."
The judge paused for a moment, and con-
cluded:
"Such was that period which seems to have
been devoted entirely to a careful preparation for
the struggle upon which you had embarked against
society, a methodical apprenticeship in which you
improved your force, your energy, and your skill
to the highest pitch of perfection. Do you admit
t;he accuracy of these facts?"
81


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
During this speech the defendant had shifted
from foot to foot, with rounded back, and arms
hanging slackly before him. As the light increased
the spectators were able to distinguish his extreme
emaciation, his sunken jaws, his curiously promi-
nent cheek-bones, his earthen countenance, mottled
with little red stains, and framed in a sparse and
straggling beard. Prison had greatly aged and
withered him. The clean-cut profile, the attrac-
tive, youthful features which had so often been
reproduced in the papers, had passed away beyond
all recognition.
He seemed not to have heard the question. It
was twice repeated to him. At last he raised his
eyes, appeared to think, and then, making a violent
effort, muttered:
"Desire Baudru."
The judge laughed.
"I fail to follow exactly the system of defence
which you have adopted, Arsene Lupin. If it be
to play the irresponsible imbecile, you must please
yourself. As far as I am concerned, I shall go
straight to the point without troubling about your
fancies."
And he enumerated in detail the robberies,
swindles, and forgeries ascribed to Arsene Lupin.
Occasionally he put a question to the prisoner.
The latter gave a grunt or made no reply. Wit-
82


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
ness after witness entered the box. The evidence
of several of them was insignificant; others de-
livered more important testimony; but all of them
had one characteristic in common, which was that
each contradicted the other. The trial was shroud-
ed in a puzzling obscurity until Chief-Inspector
Ganimard was called, when the general interest
woke up.
Nevertheless, the old detective caused a certain
disappointment from the first. He seemed not so
much shy—he was too old a hand for that—as
restless and ill at ease. He kept turning his eyes
with visible embarrassment towards the prisoner.
However, with his two hands resting on the ledge
of the box, he described the incidents in which
he had taken part, his pursuit of Lupin across
Europe, his arrival in America. And the crowded
court listened to him greedily, as it would have
listened to the story of the most exciting advent-
ures. But towards the close of his evidence,
twice over, after alluding to his interviews with
Arsene Lupin, he stopped with an absent and
undecided air.
It was obvious that he was under the influence
of some obsession. The judge said:
"If you are not feeling well, you can stand down
and continue your evidence later."
"No, no, only . .
33


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
He stopped, took a long and penetrating look at
the prisoner, and said:
"Might I be allowed to see the prisoner more
closely? There is a mystery which I want to
clear up."
He stepped across to the dock, gazed at the
prisoner longer still, concentrating all his attention
upon him, and returned to the witness-box. Then,
in a solemn voice, he said:
"May it please the court, I swear that the man
before me is not Arsene Lupin."
A great silence greeted these words. The judge,
at first taken aback, exclaimed:
"What do you mean? What are you saying?
You are mad!"
The inspector declared, deliberately:
"At first sight one might be deceived by a like-
ness which, I admit, exists; but it needs only a
momentary examination. The nose, the mouth,
the hair, the color of the skin: why, it's not Arsene
Lupin at all. And look at the eyes: did he ever
have those drunkard's eyes?"
"Come, come, explain yourself, witness. What
do you mean?"
"I don't know. He must have substituted in
his place and stead some poor wretch who would
have been found guilty in his place and stead . . .
unless this man is an accomplice."
84


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
This unexpected denouement caused the greatest
sensation in court. Cries of laughter and astonish-
ment rose from every side. The judge gave in-
structions for the attendance of the examining
magistrate, the governor of the Sante, and the
warders—and suspended the sitting.
After the adjournment M. Bouvier and the
governor, on being confronted with the prisoner,
declared that there was only a very slight resem-
blance in features between the man and Arsene
Lupin.
"But, in that case," cried the judge, "who is this
man? Where does he come from? How does he
come to be in the dock?"
The two warders from the Sante were called.
To the general astonishment, they recognized the
prisoner, whom it had been their business to watch
by turns. The judge drew a breath.
But one of the warders went on to say:
"Yes, yes, I think it's the man."
"What do you mean by saying you think?"
"Well, I hardly ever saw him. He was handed
over to me at night, and for two months he was
always lying on his bed with his face to the
wall."
"But before those two months?"
"Oh, before that, he was not in Cell 24."
The governor of the prison explained:
.85


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"We changed his cell after his attempted es-
cape/'
"But you, as governor, must have seen him since
the last two months."
"No, I had no occasion to see him . . • he kept
quiet."
"And this man is not the prisoner who was given
into your keeping?"
"No."
"Then who is he?"
"I don't know."
"We have, therefore, to do with a substitution
of personalities effected two months ago. How do
you explain it?"
"I can't explain it."
"Then . . ."
In despair the judge turned to the prisoner, and,
in a coaxing voice, said:
"Prisoner, cannot you explain to me how and
since when you come to be in the hands of the
law?"
It seemed as though this benevolent tone dis-
armed the mistrust or stimulated the understand-
ing of the man. He strove to reply. At last,
skilfully and kindly questioned, he succeeded in
putting together a few sentences which revealed
that, two months before, he had been taken to
the police-station and charged with vagrancy. He
86


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
spent a night and a morning in the cells. Being
found to possess a sum of seventy-five centimes, he
was dismissed. But as he was crossing the yard
two officers had caught him by the arm and taken
him to the prison-van. Since that time he had
been living in Cell 24. . . . He had been comforta-
ble. . . . Had had plenty to eat. . . . Had slept
pretty well. ... So he had not protested. . . .
All this seemed probable. Amid laughter and a
great effervescence of spirits the judge adjourned
the case to another sitting for further inquiries.
The inquiries forthwith revealed the existence
of an entry in the gaol-book to the effect that, eight
weeks previously, a man of the name of Desire
Baudru had spent the night at the police-station.
He was released the next day, and left the station
at two o'clock in the afternoon. Well, at two
o'clock on that day, Arsene Lupin, after under-
going his final examination, had left the police-
station in the prison-van for the Sante.
Had the warders made a mistake? Had they
themselves, in an inattentive moment, deceived by
the superficial likeness, substituted this man for
their prisoner? This seemed hardly possible in
view of the length of their service.
Had the substitution been planned in advance?
Apart from the fact that the disposition of the
87


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
localities made this almost unrealizable, it would
have been necessary, in that case, that Baudru
should be an accomplice, and cause himself to be
arrested with the precise object of taking Arsene
Lupin's place. But, then, by what miracle could
a plan of this sort have succeeded, based, as it
was, entirely on a series of improbable chances,
of fortuitous meetings and fabulous mistakes?
Desire Baudru was subjected to the anthropo-
metrical test: there was not a single record corre-
sponding with his description. Besides, traces of
him were easily discovered. He was known at
Courbevoie, at Asnieres, at Levallois. He lived by
begging, and slept in one of those rag-pickers' huts
of which there are so many near the Barriere des
Ternes. He had disappeared from sight for about
a year.
Had he been suborned by Arsene Lupin? There
were no grounds for thinking so. And even if
this were so, it threw no light upon the prisoner's
escape. The marvel remained as extraordinary
as before. Of a score of suppositions put for-
ward in explanation, not one was satisfactory.
Of the escape alone there was no doubt: an in-
comprehensible, sensational escape, in which the
public as well as the authorities felt the effect
of a long preparation, a combination of wonder-
fully dove-tailed actions. And the upshot of
88


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
it all was to justify Arsene Lupin's boastful
prophecy:
"I shall not be present at my trial/3
After a month of careful investigations the puzzle
continued to present the same inscrutable char-
acter. Still, it was impossible to keep that poor
wretch of a Baudru indefinitely locked up. To
try him would have been absurd—what charge
was there against him? The magistrate signed
the order for his release. But the head of the
detective service resolved to keep an active super-
vision upon his movements.
The idea was suggested by Ganimard. In his
opinion, there was complicity and no accident
in the matter. Baudru was an instrument that
Arsene Lupin had employed with his amazing
skill. With Baudru at large, they might hope,
through him, to come upon Arsene Lupin, or, at
least, upon one of his gang.
Inspectors Folenfant and Dieuzy were told off
as assistants to Ganimard, and one foggy morn-
ing in January the prison gates were thrown open
to Desire Baudru.
At first he seemed rather embarrassed, and
walked like a man who has no very precise idea as
to how to employ his time. He went down the
Rue de la Sante and the Rue Saint-Jacques.
Stopping outside an old-clothes shop, he took off
89


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
his jacket and waistcoat, sold his waistcoat for a
few sous, put on his jacket again, and went on.
He crossed the Seine. At the Chatelet an omni-
bus passed him. He tried to get into it. It was
full. The ticket-collector advised him to take a
number. He entered the waiting-room.
Ganimard beckoned to his two men, and, keep*
ing his eyes on the office, said, quickly:
"Stop a cab . . . no, two cabs, that's better.
I'll take one of you with me. We'll follow him."
The men did as they were told. Baudru, how-
ever, did not appear. Ganimard went into the
waiting-room: there was no one there.
"What a fool I am!" he muttered. "I forgot
the other door."
The office, as a matter of fact, is connected with
the other office in the Rue Saint-Martin. Gani-
mard rushed through the communicating passage.
He was just in time to catch sight of Baudru on
the top of the omnibus from Batignolles to the
Jardin des Plantes, which was turning the corner
of the Rue de Rivoli. He ran after the omnibus
and caught it up. But he had lost his two assist-
ants, and was continuing the pursuit alone.
In his rage he felt like taking Baudru by the
collar without further form or ceremony. Was it
not by premeditation and thanks to an ingenious
trick that the so-called idiot had separated him
90


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUF^IN
from his two auxiliaries? He looked at Baudru.
The man was dozing where he sat, ami his head
shook From right to left. His moudh was half
open, his face wore an incredible expression of
stupidity. No, this was not an adversary capable
of taking old Ganimard in; chance had favored
him, that was all.
At the Carrefour des Galeries-Lafayette, Baudru
changed from the omnibus to the La Muette tram-
car. Ganimard followed his example. They went
along the Boulevard Haussmann and the Avenue
Victor-Hugo. Baudru alighted at the stopping-
place at La Muette, and, with a lounging step, en-
tered the Bois de Boulogne.
He passed from one alley to another, retraced
his steps, and went on again. What was he look-
ing for? Had he an object in view?
After an hour of these manoeuvres he seemed
tired and worn out. Catching sight of a bench,
he sat down upon it. The spot was not far from
Auteuil, on the brink of a little lake hidden among
the trees, and was absolutely deserted. Half an
hour elapsed. At last, losing patience, Ganimard
resolved to enter into conversation.
He therefore went up and took a seat by Bau-
dru's side. He lit a cigarette, drew a pattern in
the sand with the end of his walking-stick, and
said:


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"A cold day."
Silence. And suddenly in this silence a peal
of laughte*. rang out—a peal of glad and happy
laughter, the laughter of a child seized with a fit
of laughter, and utterly unable to keep from laugh-
ing, laughing, laughing. Ganimard felt his hair
literally and positively stand on end on his head.
That laugh, that infernal laugh, which he knew so
well! ...
With an abrupt movement he caught the man
by the lapels of his jacket, and gave him a violent
and penetrating look—looked at him even more
closely than he had done at the criminal court;
and, in truth, it was no longer the man he had
seen. It was the man, but, at the same time, it
was the other, the real man.
Aided by the wish which is father to the
thought, he rediscovered the glowing light in the
eyes, he filled in the sunken features, he saw the
real flesh under the wizened skin, the real mouth
through the grimace which deformed it. And it
was the other's eyes, it was the other's mouth, it
was—it was, above all—his keen, lively, mocking,
witty expression, so bright and so young!
"Arsene Lupin! Arsene Lupin!" he stammered.
And in a sudden access of rage he caught him
by the throat and tried to throw him down. Not-
withstanding his fifty years, he was still a man of
92


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
uncommon vigor, whereas his adversary seemed
quite out of condition. And what a master-stroke
it would be if he succeeded in bringing him back!
The struggle was short. Arsene Lupin hardly
made a movement in defence and Ganimard let
go as promptly as he had attacked. His right arm
hung numbed and lifeless by his side.
"If they taught you jiu-jitsu at the Quai des
Orfevres," said Lupin, "you would know that they
call this movement udi-shi-ghi in Japanese." And
he added, coldly: "Another second and I should
have broken your arm, and you would have had
no more than you deserve. What! You, an old
friend, whom I esteem, before whom I reveal my
incognito of my own accord, would you abuse my
confidence? It's very wrong of you! . . . Hullo,
what's the matter now?"
Ganimard was silent. This escape, for which
he held himself responsible—was it not he who,
by his sensational evidence, had diverted the ends
of justice ?—this escape seemed to him to mark the
disgrace of his career. A tear trickled slowly down
his cheek towards his gray mustache.
"Why, goodness me, Ganimard, don't take on
like that! If you hadn't spoken I should have
arranged for some one else to speak. Come? come,
how could I have allowed them to find a verdict
against Desire Baudru?"
93


THE: EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"So it was you that were there ?" muttered Gani-
mard. "And it is you that are here?"
"Yes, I, I, no one but me."
"Is it possible?"
"Oh, one needn't be a wizard for that. It is
enough, as that worthy judge said, to prepare
one's self for a dozen years or so in order to be
ready for every eventuality."
"But your face? Your eyes?"
"You can understand that when I worked for
eighteen months at St. Louis' with Dr. Altier it
was not for love of art. I felt that the man who
would one day have the honor of calling himself
Arsene Lupin ought to be exempt from the ordinary
laws of personal appearance and identity. You
can modify your appearance as you please. A
hypodermic injection of paraffin puffs up your skin
to just the extent desired. Pyrogallic acid turns
you into a Cherokee Indian. Celandine juice
adorns you with blotches and pimples of the most
pleasing kind. A certain chemical process affects
the growth pf your hair and beard, another the
sound of your voice. Add to that, two months of
dieting in Cell 24, incessant practice, at opening
my mouth with this particular grimace and carry-
ing my head at this angle and my back at this stoop.
Lastly, five drops of atrophine in the eyes to make
them haggard and dilated, and the trick is done!"
94


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
"I can't see how the warders . .
"The change was slow and progressive. They
could never have noticed its daily evolution."
"But Desire Baudru . . .?"
"Baudru is a real person. He is a poor, harm-
less beggar whom I met last year, and whose
features are really not quite unlike my own. Fore-
seeing an always possible arrest, I placed him in
safe-keeping, and applied myself from the first to
picking out the points of dissimilarity between us,
so as to diminish these in myself as far as I could.
My friends made him pass a night at the police-
station in such a way that he left it at about the
same time as I did and the coincidence could
be easily established. For, observe, it was neces-
sary that his passage should be traceable, else the
lawyers would have wanted to know who I was;
whereas, by offering them that excellent Baudru
I made it inevitable—do you follow me ?—inevita-
ble that they should jump at him, in spite of the
insurmountable difficulties of a substitution—pre-
fer to believe in that substitution rather than admit
their ignorance."
"Yes, yes, that's true," muttered Ganimard.
"And then," cried Arsene Lupin, "I held a
formidable trump in my hand, a card which I had
prepared from the start: the universal expectation
of my escape! And there you see the clumsy mis-
95


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
take into which you and all of you fell in this
exciting game which the law and I were playing,
with my liberty for the stakes: you again thought
that I was bragging, that I was intoxicated with
my successes, like the veriest greenhorn! Fancy
me, Arsene Lupin, guilty of such weakness! And,
just as in the Cahorn case, you failed to say to your-
selves: 'As soon as Arsene Lupin proclaims from
the house-tops that he means to escape he must
have some reason that obliges him to proclaim it/
But, hang it all, don't you see that, in order to
escape . . . without escaping, it was essential that
people should believe beforehand in my escape,
that it should be an article of faith, an absolute
conviction, a truth clear as daylight? And that is
what it became, in accordance with my will.
Arsene Lupin intended to escape, Arsene Lupin
did not intend to be present at his trial. And
when you stood up and said, 'That man is not
Arsene Lupin/ it would have been beyond human
nature for all those present not at once to believe
that I was not Arsene Lupin. Had only one per-
son expressed a doubt, had only one person uttered
this simple reservation, 'But suppose it is Arsene
Lupin?' . . . that very moment I should have been
lost. They had only to bend over and look at me,
not with the idea that I was not Arsene Lupin, as
you and the rest did, but with the idea that I might
96


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
be Arsene Lupin, and, in spite of all my precau-
tions, I should have been recognized. But I was
quite easy in my mind. It was logically and
psychologically impossible for anybody to have
that simple little idea."
He suddenly seized Ganimard's hand.
"Look here, Ganimard, confess that, a week
after our interview at the Same prison, you stayed
in for me, at four o'clock, as I asked you to?"
"And your prison-van?" said Ganimard, evad-
ing the question.
"Bluff, mere bluff. My friends had faked up
that old discarded van and substituted it for the
other, and they wanted to try the experiment.
But I knew that it was impracticable without the
co-operation of exceptional circumstances. Only I
thought it useful to complete this attempted escape
and to give it the proper publicity. A first escape,
boldly planned, gave to the second the full value
of an escape realized in advance."
"So the cigar . . ."
"Was scooped out by myself; and the knife,
too."
"And the notes?"
"Written by me."
"And the mysterious correspondent?"
"She and I were one. I can write any hand I
please."
97


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
Ganimard thought for a moment, and said:
"How was it that, when they took Baudru's
measurements in the anthropometrical room, these
were not found to coincide with the record of
Arsene Lupin?"
"Arsene Lupin's record does not exist/5
"Nonsense!"
"Or, at least, it is not correct. This is a ques-
tion to which I have devoted a good deal of study.
The Bertillon system allows for, first, a visual
description—and you have seen that this is not
infallible—and, next, a description by measure-
ments: measurements of the head, the fingers, the
ears, and so on. There is nothing to be done
against that."
"So?..."
"So I had to pay. Before my return from
America one of the clerks of the staff accepted a
definite bribe to enter one false measurement at
the start. This is enough to throw the whole
system out of gear, and to cause a record to stray
into a compartment diametrically opposite to the
compartment in which it ought to go. The Baudru
record could not, therefore, possibly agree with the
Arsene Lupin record."
There was another silence, and then Ganimard
asked:
"And what are you going to do now?"
98


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
"Now!" exclaimed Lupin. "I am going to
take a rest, feed myself up, and gradually become
myself again. It's all very well to be Baudru or
another, to change your personality as you would
your boots, and to select your appearance, your
voice, your expression, your handwriting. But
there comes a time when you cease to know your-
self amid all these changes, and that is very sad.
I feel at present as the man must have felt who lost
his shadow. I am going to look for myself . . .
and to find myself."
He walked up and down. The daylight was
waning. He stopped in front of Ganimard.
"We've said all that we had to say to each other,
I suppose?"
"No," replied the inspector. "I should like
to know if you intend to publish the truth
about your escape . . ♦ and the mistake I
made . . ."
"Oh, no one will ever know that it was Arsene
Lupin that was released. I have too great an
interest to serve in heaping up the most mysterious
darkness around me, and I should not dream of
depriving my flight of its almost miraculous char-
acter. So have no fear, my dear friend; and good-
bye. I am dining out to-night, and have only just
time to dress."
"I thought you were so anxious for a rest"
99


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"Alas, there are social engagements from which
it is impossible to escape. My rest must begfn
to-morrow/'
"And where are you dining, may I ask?"
"At the British Embassy/'


THE MYSTERIOUS
RAILWAY PASSENGER





IV
THE MYSTERIOUS RAILWAY PASSENGER
IHAD sent my motor-car to Rouen by road
on the previous day. I was to meet it by
train, and go on to some friends, who have a
house on the Seine.
A few minutes before we left Paris my com-
partment was invaded by seven gentlemen, five
of whom were smoking. Short though the jour-
ney by the fast train be, I did not relish the pros-
pect of taking it in such company, the more so
as the old-fashioned carriage had no corridor.
I therefore collected my overcoat, my newspapers,
and my railway guide, and sought refuge in one
of the neighboring compartments.
It was occupied by a lady. At the sight of
me, she made a movement of vexation which did
not escape my notice, and leaned towards a gentle-
man standing on the foot-board—her husband,
no doubt, who had come to see her off. The
gentleman took stock of me, and the examination
seemed to conclude to my advantage; for he whis-
103


THE MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER
The appearance of tfie new-comer, however,
and his bearing were such as to correct the bad
impression produced by the manner of his entrance.
He was neatly, almost smartly, dressed; his tie was
in good taste, his gloves clean; he had a powerful
face. . . . But, speaking of his face, where on earth
had I seen it before? For I had seen it: of that
there was no possible doubt; or at least, to be
accurate, I found within myself that sort of rec-
ollection which is left by the sight of an oft-seen
portrait of which one has never beheld the origi-
nal. And at the same time I felt the useless-
ness of any effort of memory that I might exert,
so inconsistent and vague was that recollection.
But when my eyes reverted to the lady I sat
astounded at the pallor and disorder of her feat-
ures. She was staring at her neighbor—he was
seated on the same side of the carriage—with an
expression of genuine, affright, and I saw one of
her hands steal trembling towards a little travel-
ling-bag that lay on the cushion a few inches from
her lap. She ended by taking hold of it, and
nervously drew it to her.
Our eyes met, and I read in hers so great an
amount of uneasiness and anxiety that I could
not help saying:
"I hope you are not unwell, madame.... Would
you like me to open the window?"
io5


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
She made no reply, but, with a timid gesture,
called my attention to the individual beside her.
I smiled as her husband had done, shrugged my
shoulders, and explained to her by signs that she
had nothing to fear, that I was there, and that,
besides, the gentleman in question seemed quite
harmless. v
Just then he turned towards us, contemplated
us, one after the other, from head to foot, and then
huddled himself into his corner, and made no
further movement.
A silence ensued; but the lady, as though she
had summoned up all her energies to perform an
act of despair, said to me, in a hardly audible
voice:
"You know he is in our train."
"Who?"
"Why, he ... he himself ... I assure you."
"Whom do you mean?"
"Arsene Lupin!"
She had not removed her eyes from the pas-
senger, and it was at him rather than at me that
she flung the syllables of that alarming name.
He pulled his hat down upon his nose. Was
this to conceal his agitation, or was he merely
preparing to go to sleep?
I objected.
"Arsene Lupin was sentenced yesterday, in
106


THE MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER
his absence, to twenty years' penal servitude.
It is not likely that he would commit the impru-
dence of showing himself in public to-day. Be-
sides, the newspapers have discovered that he
has been spending the winter in Turkey ever
since his famous escape from the Sante."
"HeJs in this train," repeated the lady, with
the ever more marked intention of being over-
heard by our companion. "My husband is a
deputy prison-governor, and the station-inspector
himself told us that they were looking for Arsene
Lupin."
"That is no reason why . . ."
"He was seen at the booking-office. He took
a ticket for Rouen."
"It would have been easy to lay hands upon
him."
"He disappeared. The ticket-collector at the
door of the waiting-room did not see him; but
they thought that he must have gone round by
the suburban platforms and stepped into the
express that leaves ten minutes after us."
"In that case, they will have caught him there."
"And supposing that, at the last moment, he
jumped out of that express and entered this, our
own train ... as he probably ... as he most cer-
tainly did?"
"In that case they will catch him here; for
8 107


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
A sharp pain .. . a piercing scream ... I awoke.
The man, my fellow-traveller, with one knee on
my chest, was clutching my throat.
I saw this very dimly, for my eyes were shot
with blood. I also saw the lady in a corner
writhing in a violent fit of hysterics. I did not
even attempt to resist. I should not have had
the strength for it had I wished to: my temples
were throbbing, I choked . . . my throat rattled. . . .
Another minute . . . and I should have been suf-
focated.
The man must have felt this. He loosened his
grip. Without leaving hold of me, with his right
hand he stretched a rope, in which he had pre-
pared a slipknot, and, with a quick turn, tied
my wrists together. In a moment I was bound,
gagged—rendered motionless and helpless.
And he performed this task in the most natural
manner in the world, with an ease that revealed
the knowledge of a master, of an expert in theft
and crime. Not a word, not a fevered movement.
Sheer coolness and audacity. And there lay I
on the seat, roped up like a mummy—I, Arsene
Lupin!
It was really ridiculous. And notwithstanding
the seriousness of the circumstances I could not
but appreciate and almost enjoy the irony of
the situation. Arsene Lupin "done" like a
no


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
addresses, lists of correspondents, letters of a com-
promising character. But, for the moment, a
more immediate and serious care was worrying
me: what was to happen next?
As may be readily imagined, the excitement
caused by my passing through the Gare Saint-
Lazare had not escaped me. As I was going to
stay with friends who knew me by the name of
Guillaume Berlat, and to whom my resemblance
to Arsene Lupin was the occasion of many a
friendly jest, I had not been able to disguise my-
self after my wont, and my presence had been
discovered. Moreover, a man, doubtless Arsene
Lupin, had been seen to rush from the express
into the fast train. Hence it was inevitable and
fated that the commissary of police at Rouen,
warned by telegram, would await the arrival of
the train, assisted by a respectable number of
constables, question any suspicious passengers, and
proceed to make a minute inspection of the car-
riages.
All this I had foreseen, and had not felt greatly
excited about it; for I was certain that the Rouen
police would display no greater perspicacity than
the Paris police, and that I should have been able
to pass unperceived: was it not sufficient for me, at
the wicket, carelessly to show my deputy's card,
thanks to which I had already inspired the ticket-
112


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
myself, which would have given him time to dis-
appear before his twofold misdeed was discovered?
He was still smoking, his eyes fixed on the view
outside, which a hesitating rain was beginning to
streak with long, slanting lines. Once, however,
he turned round, took up my railway guide, and
consulted it.
As for the lady, she . made every effort to con-
tinue fainting, so as to quiet her enemy. But a
fit of coughing, produced by the smoke, gave the
lie to her pretended swoon.
Myself, I was very uncomfortable, and had pains
all over my body. And I thought ... I planned
Pont-de-l'Arche . . . Oissel. . . . The train was
hurrying on, glad, drunk with speed. . . . Saint-
Etienne. . . .
At that moment the man rose and took two
steps towards us, to which the lady hastened to
reply with a new scream and a genuine fainting fit.
But what could his object be? He lowered the
window on our side. The rain was now falling in
torrents, and he made a movement of annoyance
at having neither umbrella nor overcoat. He
looked up at the rack: the lady's en-tout-cas was
there; he took it. He also took my overcoat and
put it on.
We were crossing the Seine. He turned up his
J14


THE MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER
trousers, and then, leaning out of the window,
raised the outer latch.
Did he mean to fling himself on the permanent
way? At the rate at which we were going it would
have been certain death. We plunged into the
tunnel pierced under the Cote Sainte-Catherine.
The man opened the door, and, with one foot, felt
for the step. What madness! The darkness, the
smoke, the din—all combined to give a fantastic
appearance to any such attempt. But suddenly
the train slowed up, the Westinghouse brakes coun-
teracted the movement of the wheels. In a minute
the pace from fast became normal, and decreased
still more. Without a doubt there was a gang at
work repairing this part of the tunnel; this would
necessitate a slower passage of the trains for some
days perhaps, and the man knew it.
He had only, therefore, to put his other foot on
the step, climb down to the foot-board, and walk
away quietly, not without first closing the door, and
throwing back the latch.
He had scarcely disappeared when the smoke
showed whiter in the daylight. We emerged into
a valley. One more tunnel, and we should be at
Rouen.
The lady at once recovered her wits, and her
first care was to bewail the loss of her jewels.
I gave her a beseeching glance. She understood,
"5


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
and relieved me of the gag which was stifling me.
She wanted also to unfasten my bonds, but I
stopped her.
"No, no; the police must see everything as it
was. I want them to be fully informed as regards
that blackguard's actions/'
"Shall I pull the alarm-signal?"
"Too late. You should have thought of that
while he was attacking me."
"But he would have killed me! Ah, sir, didn't
I tell you that he was travelling by this train? I
knew him at once, by his portrait. And now he's
taken my jewels!"
"They'll catch him, have no fear."
"Catch Arsene Lupin! Never."
"It all depends on you, madam. Listen. When
we arrive be at the window, call out, make a noise.
The police and porters will come up. Tell them
what you have seen in a few words: the assault
of which I was the victim, and the flight of Arsene
Lupin. Give his description: a soft hat, an um-
brella—yours—a gray frock-overcoat . . ."
"Yours," she said.
"Mine? No, his own. I didn't have one."
"I thought that he had none either when he got
in."
"He must have had . . . unless it was a coat
which some one left behind in the rack. In any
116


THE MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER
case, he had it when he got out, and that is the
essential thing. ... A gray frock-overcoat, remem-
ber. . . . Oh, I was forgetting . . . tell them your
name to start with. Your husband's functions
will stimulate the zeal of all those men."
We were arriving. She was already leaning out
of the window. I resumed, in a louder, almost
imperious voice, so that my words should sink
into her brain:
"Give my name also, Guillaume Berlat. If
necessary, say you know me . . . That will save
time . . . we must hurry on the preliminary in-
quiries . . . the important thing is to catch Arsene
Lupin . . . with your jewels. . . . You quite under-
stand, don't you? Guillaume Berlat, a friend of
your husband's."
"Quite . . . Guillaume Berlat."
She was already calling out and gesticulating.
Before the train had come to a stan^1 all a gentle-
man climbed in, followed by a number of other
men. The critical hour was at hand.
Breathlessly the lady exclaimed:
"Arsene Lupin ... he attacked us ... he has
stolen my jewels. ... I am Madame Renaud . . .
my husband is a deputy prison-governor. . . . Ah,
here's my brother, Georges Andelle, manager of
the Credit Rouennais. . . . What I want to say
is . . ."
117


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
She kissed a young man who had just come up,
and who exchanged greetings with the commissary.
She continued, weeping:
"Yes, Arsene Lupin. ... He flew at this gentle-
man's throat in his sleep. . . . Monsieur Berlat, a
friend of my husband's/'
"But where is Arsene Lupin?"
"He jumped out of the train in the tunnel, after
we had crossed the Seine."
"Are you sure it was he?"
"Certain. I recognized him at once. Besides,
he was seen at the Gare Saint-Lazare. He was
wearing a soft hat . . ."
"No; a hard felt hat, like this," said the com-
missary, pointing to my hat.
"A soft hat, I assure you," repeated Madame
Renaud, "and a gray frock-overcoat."
"Yes," muttered the commissary; "the telegram
mentions a gray frock-overcoat with a black velvet
collar."
"A black velvet collar, that's it!" exclaimed
Madame Renaud, triumphantly.
I breathed again. What a good, excellent friend
I had found in her!
Meanwhile the policemen had released me from
my bonds. I bit my lips violently till the blood
flowed. Bent in two, with my handkerchief to my
mouth, as seems proper to a man who has long been
118


THE MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER
sitting in a constrained position, and who bears on
his face the blood-stained marks of the gag, I said
to the commissary, in a feeble voice:
"Sir, it was Arsene Lupin, there is no doubt of
it. . . . You can catch him if you hurry. ... I
think I may be of some use to you. . .
The coach, which was needed for the inspection
by the police, was slipped. The remainder of the
train went on towards Le Havre. We were taken
to the station-master's office through a crowd of
on-lookers who filled the platform.
Just then I felt a hesitation. I must make some
excuse to absent myself, find my motor-car, and
be off. It was dangerous to wait. If anything
happened, if a telegram came from Paris, I was
lost.
Yes; but what about my robber? Left to my
own resources, in a district with which I was not
very well acquainted, I could never hope to come
up with him.
"Bah!" I said to myself. "Let us risk it, and
stay. It's a difficult hand to win, but a very
amusing one to play. And the stakes are worth
the trouble."
And as we were being asked provisionally to
repeat our depositions, I exclaimed:
"Mr. Commissary, Arsene Lupin is getting a
start of us. My motor is waiting for me in the
119


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
yard. If you will do me the pleasure to accept a
seat in it, we will try . . ."
The commissary gave a knowing smile.
"It's not a bad idea . . . such a good idea, in
fact, that it's already being carried out."
"Oh!"
"Yes; two of my officers started on bicycles . . .
some time ago."
"But where to?"
"To the entrance to the tunnel. There they
will pick up the clews and the evidence, and follow
the track of Arsene Lupin."
I could not help shrugging my shoulders.
"Your two officers will pick up no clews and no
evidence."
"Really!"
"Arsene Lupin will have arranged that no one
should see him leave the tunnel. He will have
taken the nearest road, and from there . . ."
"From there made for Rouen, where we shall
catch him."
"He will not go to Rouen."
"In that case, he will remain in the neighbor-
hood, where we shall be even more certain ..."
"He will not remain in the neighborhood."
"Oh! Then where will he hide himself?"
I took out my watch.
"At this moment Arsene Lupin is hanging
120


THE MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER
about the station at Darnetal. At ten-fifty—that
is to say, in twenty-two minutes from now—he
will take the train which leaves Rouen from the
Gare du Nord for Amiens."
"Do you think so? And how do you know?"
"Oh, it's very simple. In the carriage Arsene
Lupin consulted my railway guide. What for?
To see if there was another line near the place
where he disappeared, a station on that line, and
a train which stopped at that station. I have
just looked at the guide myself, and learned what
I wanted to know."
"Upon my word, sir," said the commissary,
"you possess marvellous powers of deduction.
What an expert you must be!"
Dragged on by my certainty, I had blundered
by displaying too much cleverness. He looked
at me in astonishment, and I saw that a suspicion
flickered through his mind. Only just, it is true;
for the photographs despatched in every direction
were so unlike, represented an Arsene Lupin so
different from the one that stood before him, that
he could not possibly recognize the original in
me, Nevertheless, he was troubled, restless, per-
plexed.
There was a moment of silence. A certain
ambiguity and doubt seemed to interrupt our
words. A shudder of anxiety passed through me.
121


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE
Was luck about to turn against me?
myself, I began to laugh.
"Ah well, there's nothing to sharpen one's wits
like the loss of a pocket-book and the desire to
find it again. And It seems to me that, if you
will give me two of your men, the three of us
might, perhaps . . ."
"Oh, please, Mr. Commissary," exclaimed
Madame Renaud, "do what Monsieur Berlat
suggests."
My kind friend's intervention turned the scale.
Uttered by her, the wife of an influential person,
the name of Berlat became mine in reality, and
conferred upon me an identity which no suspicion
could touch. The commissary rose.
"Believe me, Monsieur Berlat, I shall be only
too pleased to see you succeed. I am as anxious
as yourself to have Arsene Lupin arrested."
He accompanied me to my car. He introduced
two of his men to me: Honore Massol and Gaston
Delivet. They took their seats. I placed my-
self at the wheel. My chauffeur started the engine.
A few seconds later we had left the station. I
was saved.
I confess that as we dashed in my powerful
35-h.p. Moreau-Lepton along the boulevards that
skirt the old Norman city I was not without a
certain sense of pride. The engine hummed har-

122


THE MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER
momously. The trees sped behind us to right
and left. And now, free and out of danger, I had
nothing to do but to settle my own little private
affairs with the co-operation of two worthy repre-
sentatives of the law. Arsene Lupin was going
in search of Arsene Lupin!
Ye humble mainstays of the social order of
things, Gaston Delivet and Honore Massol, how
precious was your assistance to me! Where should
I have been without you? But for you, at how
many cross-roads should I have taken the wrong
turning! But for you, Arsene Lupin would have
gone astray and the other escaped!
But all was not over yet. Far from it. I had
first to capture the fellow and next to take pos-
session, myself, of the papers of which he had
robbed me. At no cost must my two satellites
be allowed to catch a sight of those documents,
much less lay hands upon them. To make us of
them and yet act independently of them was what
I wanted to do; and it was no easy matter.
We reached Darnetal three minutes after the
train had left. I had the consolation of learning
that a man in a gray frock-overcoat with a black
velvet collar had got into a second-class carriage
with a ticket for Amiens. There was no doubt
about it: my first appearance as a detective was a
promising one.
9 123


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
Delivet said:
"The train is an express, and does not stop be-
fore Monterolier-Buchy, in nineteen minutes from
now. If we are not there before Arsene Lupin,
he can go on towards Amiens, branch off to Cleres,
and, from there, make for Dieppe or Paris."
"How far is Monterolier?"
"Fourteen miles and a half."
"Fourteen miles and a half in nineteen min-
utes . . . We shall be there before he is."
It was a stirring race. Never had my trusty
Moreau-Lepton responded to my impatience with
greater ardor and regularity. It seemed to me as
though I communicated my wishes to her direct-
ly, without the intermediary of levers or handles.
She shared my desires. She approved of my
determination. She understood my animosity
against that blackguard Arsene Lupin. The
scoundrel! The sneak! Should I get the best of
him? Or would he once more baffle authority,
that authority of which I was the incarnation?
"Right!" cried Delivet.. . . "Left!. . . Straight
ahead!. . ."
We skimmed the ground. The mile-stones
looked like little timid animals that fled at our
approach.
And suddenly at the turn of a road a cloud
of smoke—the north express!
124


THE MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER
For half a mile it was a struggle side by side—■
an unequal struggle, of which the issue was cer-
tain—we beat the train by twenty lengths.
In three seconds we were on the platform in
front of the second class. The doors were flung
open. A few people stepped out. My thief was
not among them. We examined the carriages.
No Arsene Lupin.
"By Jove!" I exclaimed, "he must have rec-
ognized me in the motor while we were going
alongside of him, and jumped!"
The guard of the train confirmed my supposi-
tion. He had seen a man scrambling down the
embankment at two hundred yards from the station.
"There he is! . . . Look! ... At the level cross-
ing!"
I darted in pursuit, followed by my two satel-
lites, or, rather, by one of them; for the other,
Massol, turned out to be an uncommonly fast
sprinter, gifted with both speed and staying power.
In a few seconds the distance between him and
the fugitive was greatly diminished. The man
saw him, jumped a hedge, and scampered off
towards a slope, which he climbed. We saw
him, farther still, entering a little wood.
When we reached the wood we found Massol
waiting for us. He had thought it no use to go
on, lest he should lose us.
125


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"You were quite right, my dear fellow/5 I said.
"After a run like this our friend must be ex-
hausted. We've got him."
I examined the skirts of the wood while think-
ing how I could best proceed alone to arrest the
fugitive, in order myself to effect certain recov-
eries which the law, no doubt, would only have
allowed after a number of disagreeable inquiries.
Then I returned to my companions.
"Look here, it's very easy. You, Massol, take
up your position on the left. You, Delivet, on
the right. From there you can watch the whole
rear of the wood, and he can't leave it unseen by
you except by tliis hollow, where I shall stand.
If he does not come out, I'll go in and force him
back towards one or the other of you. You have
nothing to do, therefore, but wait. Oh, I was for-
getting: in case of alarm, I'll fire a shot."
Massol and Delivet moved off, each to his own
side. As soon as they were out of sight I made
my way into the wood with infinite precautions,
so as to be neither seen nor heard. It consisted of
close thickets, contrived for the shooting, and in-
tersected by very narrow paths, in which it wa's
only possible to walk by stooping, as though in
a leafy tunnel.
One of these ended in a glade, where the damp
grass showed the marks of footsteps. I followed
126


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"You ass!" I cried.
With one hand I parried the attack. With the
other I caught him a violent blow on the carotid
artery, the blow which is known as "the carotid
hook." He fell back stunned.
In my pocket-book I found my papers and
bank-notes. I took his own out of curiosity.
On an envelope addressed to him I read his name:
Pierre Onfrey.
I gave a start. Pierre Onfrey, the perpetra-
tor of the murder in the Rue Lafontaine at Au-
teuil! Pierre Onfrey, the man who had cut the
throats of Madame Delbois and her two daugh-
ters. I bent over him. Yes, that was the face
which, in the railway - carriage, had aroused in
me the memory of features which I had seen
before.
But time was passing. I placed two hundred-
franc notes in an envelope, with a visiting-card
bearing these words:
"Arsene Lupin to his worthy assistants, Honore
Massol and Gaston Delivet, with his best thanks."
I laid this where it could be seen, in the middle
of the room. Beside it I placed Madame Re-
naud's wrist-bag. Why should it not be restored
to the kind friend who had rescued me? I confess,
128


THE MYSTERIOUS PASSENGER
however, that I took from it everything that seem-
ed in any way interesting, leaving only a tortoise-
shell comb, a stick of lip-salve, and an empty
purse. Business is business, when all is said and
done! And, besides, her husband followed such
a disreputable occupation! . • .
There remained the man. He was beginning
to move. What was I to do? I was not quali-
fied either to save or to condemn him.
I took away his weapons, and fired my revolver
in the air.
"That will bring the two others," I thought.
"He must find a way out of his own difficulties.
Let fate take its course."
And I went down the hollow road at a run.
Twenty minutes later a cross-road which I had
noticed during our pursuit brought me back to
my car.
At four o'clock I telegraphed to my friends from
Rouen that an unexpected incident compelled
me to put off my visit. Between ourselves, I
greatly fear that, in view of what they must now
have learned, I shall be obliged to postpone it in-
definitely. It will be a cruel disappointment for
them!
At six o'clock I returned to Paris by L/Isle-
Adam, Enghien, and the Porte Bineau.
I gathered from the evening papers that the
129


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
police had at last succeeded in capturing Pierre
Onfrey.
The next morning—why should we despise^ the
advantages of intelligent advertisement ?—the Echo
de France contained the following sensational para-
graph:
"Yesterday, near Buchy, after a number of incidents,
Arsene Lupin effected the arrest of Pierre Onfrey. The
Auteuil murderer had robbed a lady of the name of
Renaud, the wife of the deputy prison-governor, in the
train between Paris and Le Havre. Arsene Lupin has
restored to Madame Renaud the wrist-bag which con-
tained her jewels, and has generously rewarded the two
detectives who assisted him in the matter of this dramatic
arrest/*


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE


V
THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
TWO or three times a year, on the occasion
of important functions, such as the balls at
the Austrian Embassy or Lady Billingstone's re-
ceptions, the Comtesse de Dreux-Soubise would
wear the Queen's Necklace.
This was really the famous necklace, the his-
toric necklace, which Bohmer and Bassenge, the
crown jewellers, had designed for the Du Barry,
which the Cardinal de Rohan-Soubise believed
himself to be presenting to Queen Marie-An-
toinette, and which Jeanne de Valois, Comtesse
de La Motte, the adventuress, took to pieces, one
evening in February, 1785, with the assistance of
her husband and their accomplice, Retaux de
Villette.
As a matter of fact, the setting alone was gen-
uine. Retaux de Villette had preserved it, while
Sieur de La Motte and his wife dispersed to the
four winds of heaven the stones so brutally un-
mounted, the admirable stones once so carefully
133


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
chosen by Bohmer. Later, Retaux sold it, in
Italy, to Gaston de Dreux-Soubise, the cardinal's
nephew and heir, who had been saved by his
uncle at the time of the notorious bankruptcy of
the Rohan-Guemenee family, and who, in grate-
ful memory of this kindness, bought up the few
diamonds that remained in the possession of Jef-
freys, the English jeweller, completed them with
others of much smaller value, but of identical
dimensions, and thus succeeded in reconstructing
the wonderful necklace in the form in which it
had left Bohmer and Bassenge's hands.
The Dreux-Soubises had plumed themselves
upon the possession of this ornament for nearly
a century. Although their fortune had been con-
siderably diminished by various circumstances,
they preferred to reduce their establishment
rather than part with the precious royal relic.
The reigning count in particular clung to it as a
man clings to the home of his fathers. For
prudence' sake, he hired a safe at the Credit
Lyonnais in which to keep it. He always fetched
it there himself on the afternoon of any day on
which his wife proposed to wear it; and he as reg-
ularly took it back the next morning.
That evening, at the Palais de Castille, then
occupied by Isabella II. of Spain, the Countess
had a great success, and King Christian of Den-
m


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
mark, in whose honor the reception was given, re-
marked upon her magnificent beauty. The gems
streamed round her slender neck. The thousand
facets of the diamonds shone and sparkled like
flames in the light of the brilliantly illuminated
rooms. None but she could have carried with
such ease and dignity the burden of that mar-
vellous jewel.
It was a twofold triumph which the Comte de
Dreux enjoyed most thoroughly, and upon which
he congratulated himself when they returned to
their bedroom in the old house in the Faubourg
Saint-Germain. He was proud of his wife, and
quite as proud, perhaps, of the ornament which
had shed its lustre upon his family for four gen-
erations. And the countess, too, derived from it
a vanity which was a little childish, and yet quite
in keeping with her haughty nature.
She took the necklace from her shoulders, not
without regret, and handed it to her-husband, who
examined it with admiring eyes, as though he had
never seen it before. Then, after replacing it in
its red morocco case, stamped with the cardinal's
arms, he went into an adjoining linen-closet,
originally a sort of alcove, which had been cut
off from the room, and which had only one en-
trance—a door at the foot of the bed. He hid it,
according to his custom, among the bandboxes
135


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
She ran to join him, and they made a feverish
search, throwing the bandboxes to the floor, and
demolishing the stacks of linen. And the count
kept on saying:
"It's useless. . . . All that we are doing is quite
useless. ... I put it up here, on this shelf."
"You may have forgotten."
"No, no; it was here, on this shelf, and nowhere
else."
They lit a candle, for the light in the little room
was bad, and removed ail the linen and all the dif-
ferent things with which it was crowded. And
when the closet was quite empty they were com-
pelled to admit, in despair, that the famous neck-
lace, the Queen's Necklace, was gone.
The countess, who was noted for her determined
character, wasted no time in vain lamentations,
but sent for the commissary of police, M. Valorbe,
whose sagacity and insight they had already had
occasion to appreciate. He was put in possession
of the details, and his first question was:
"Are you sure, monsieur le comte, that no
one can have passed throiigh your room at
night?"
"Quite sure. I am a very light sleeper, and,
besides, the bedroom door was bolted. I had to
unfasten it this morning when my wife rang for
the maid."
137


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"Is there no other inlet through which it is pos-
sible to enter the closet?"
"None."
"No window?"
"Yes, but it is blocked up."
"I should like to see it."
Candles were lit, and M. Valorbe at once re-
marked that the window was only blocked half-
way by a chest, which, besides, did not absolutely
touch the casements.
"It is close enough up to prevent its being moved
without making a great deal of noise."
"What does the window look out on?"
"On a small inner yard."
"And you have another floor above this?"
"Two; but at the level of the servants' floor
the yard is protected by a close-railed grating.
That is what makes the light so bad."
Moreover, when they moved the chest they
found that the window was latched, which would
have been impossible if any one had entered from
the outside.
"Unless," said the count, "he went out through
our room."
"In which case you would not have found the
door bolted in the morning."
The commissary reflected for a moment, and
then, turning to the countess, asked:
138


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
"Did your people know, madame, that you were
going to wear the necklace last night?"
"Certainly; I made no mystery about it. But
nobody knew that we put it away in the linen-
closet."
"Nobody?"
"No . . . unless . .
"I must beg you, madame, to be exact. It is a
most important point."
She said to her husband:
"I was thinking of Henriette."
"Henriette? She knew no more about it than
the others."
"Who is this lady?" asked M. Valorbe.
"One of my convent friends who quarrelled
with her family, and married a sort of artisan.
When her husband died I took her in here with
her son, and furnished a couple of rooms for them
in the house." And she added, with a certain
confusion: "She does me a few little services.
She is a very handy person."
"What floor does she live on?"
"On our own floor, not far off... at the end of
the passage. . . . And, now that I think of it, her
kitchen window . . ."
"Looks out on this yard?"
"Yes, it is just opposite."
A short silence followed upon this statement.


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
Then M. Valorbe asked to be taken to Henri-
ette's rooms.
They found her busy sewing, while her son
. Raoul, a little fellow of six or seven, sat reading
beside her. Somewhat surprised at the sight of
the poor apartment which had been furnished for
her, and which consisted in all of one room with-
out a fireplace, and of a sort of recess or box-room
that did duty for a kitchen, the commissary ques-
tioned her. She seemed upset at hearing of the
robbery. The night before she had herself dress-
ed the countess, and fastened the necklace round
her throat.
"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "who would
ever have thought it?"
"And you have no idea, not the smallest ink-
ling? You know it is possible that the thief
may have passed through your room."
She laughed whole-heartedly, as though not im-
agining for a moment that the least suspicion could
rest upon her.
"Why, I never left my room! I never go out,
you know. And, besides, look!" She opened the
window of the kitchen. "There, it's quite three
yards to the ledge opposite."
"Who told you that we were considering the
likelihood of a theft committed by this way?"
"Why, wasn't the necklace in the closet?"
140


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
"How do you know?"
"Goodness me, I always knew that they put it
there at night! . . . They used to talk of it before
me. . . .
Her face, which was still young, but scored by
care and sorrow, showed great gentleness and
resignation. Nevertheless, in the silence that
ensued, it suddenly assumed an expression of
anguish, as though a danger had threatened its
owner. Henriette drew her son to her. The
child took her hand, and impressed a tender kiss
upon it.
"I presume/' said M. de Dreux to the commis-
sary, when they were alone again—"I presume
that you do not suspect her? I will answer for
her. She is honesty itself."
"Oh, I am quite of your opinion," declared M.
Valorbe. "At most, the thought of an unconscious
complicity passed through my mind. But I can
see that we must abandon this explanation ... it
does not in the least help to solve the problem that
faces us."
The commissary did not arrive any further with
the inquiry, which was taken up by the examining
magistrate, and completed in the course of the days
that followed. He questioned the servants, experi-
mented on the way in which the window of the
linen-closet opened and shut, explored the little
141


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
inner yard from top to bottom. ... It was all
fruitless. The latch was untouched. The window
could not be opened or closed from the outside.
The inquiries were aimed more particularly at
Henriette, for, in spite of everything, the question
always reverted in her direction. Her life was
carefully investigated. It was ascertained that in
three years she had only four times left the house,
and it was possible to trace her movements on each
of these occasions. As a matter of fact, she served
Madame de Dreux in the capacity of lady's maid
and dressmaker, and her mistress treated her with
a strictness to which all the servants, in confidence,
bore witness.
"Besides," said the magistrate, who, by the end
of the first week, had come to the same conclusions
as the commissary, "admitting that we know the
culprit—and we do not—we are no wiser as to the
manner in which the theft was committed. We
are hemmed in on either side by two obstacles—a
locked window and a locked door. There are two
mysteries: How could the thief get in? and, more
difficult still, How could he get out, and leave a
bolted door and a latched window behind him?"
After four months5 investigation the magistrate's
private impression was that M. and Mme. de
Dreux, driven by their monetary needs, which were
known to be considerable and pressing, had sold
142


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
the Queen's Necklace. He filed the case, and dis-
missed it from his mind.
The theft of the priceless jewel struck the Dreux-
Soubises a blow from which it took them long to
recover. Now that their credit was no longer
sustained by the sort of reserve-fund which the
possession of that treasure constituted, they found
themselves confronted with less reasonable credi-
tors and less willing money-lenders. They were
compelled to resort to energetic measures, to sell
and mortgage their property; in short, it would
have meant absolute ruin if two fat legacies from
distant relatives had not come in the nick of time
to save them.
They also suffered in their pride, as though they
had lost one of the quarterings of their coat. And,
strange to say, the countess wreaked her resentment
upon her old school friend. She bore her a real
grudge, and accused her openly. Henriette was
first banished to the servants' floor, and afterwards
given a day's notice to quit.
The life of M. and Mme. de Dreux passed with-
out any event of note. They travelled a great deal.
One fact alone must be recorded as belonging
to this period. A few months after Henrietta's
departure the countess received a letter from her
that filled her with amazement:
H3


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"Madame,—I do not know how to thank you. For it
was you, was it not, who sent me that? It must have
been you. No one else knows of my retreat in this little
village. Forgive me if I am mistaken, and, in any case,
accept the expression of my gratitude for your past
kindnesses."
What did she mean? The countess* past and
present kindnesses to Henriette amounted to a
number of acts of injustice. What was the mean-
ing of these thanks?
Henriette was called upon to explain, and replied
that she had received by post, in an unregistered
envelope, two notes of a thousand francs each.
She enclosed the envelope in her letter. It was
stamped with the Paris post-mark, and bore only
her address, written in an obviously disguised
hand.
Where did that two thousand francs come from?
Who had sent it? And why had it been sent v
The police made inquiries. But what possible
clew could they follow up in that darkness?
The same incident was repeated twelve months
later; and a third time; and a fourth time; and
every year for six years, with this difference: that
in the fifth and sixth year the amount sent was
doubled, which enabled Henriette, who hizd sud-
denly fallen ill, to provide for proper nursing.
144


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
There was another difference: the postal authori-
ties having seized one of the letters, on the pretext
that it was not registered, the two last letters were
handed in for registration—one at Saint-Germain,
the other at Suresnes. The sender had signed his
name first as Anquetry, next as Pechard. The
addresses which he gave were false.
At the end of six years Henriette died. The
riddle remained unsolved.
All these particulars are matters of public knowl-
edge. The case was one of those which stir men's
minds, and it was strange that this necklace, after
setting all France by the ears at the end of the
eighteenth century, should succeed in causing so
much renewed excitement more than a hundred
years later. But what I am now about to relate
is known to none, except the principals interested
and a few persons upon whom the count imposed
absolute secrecy. As it is probable that they will
break their promises sooner or later, I have no
scruple in tearing aside the veil; and thus my
readers will receive, together with the key to the
riddle, the explanation of the paragraph that ap-
peared in the newspapers two mornings ago—an
extraordinary paragraph, which added, if possible,
a fresh modicum of darkness and mystery to the ob-
scurity in which this drama was already shrouded,
H5


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
taken part with his father, a magistrate at Palermo,
and in which he had given evidence of his taste for
these matters and of his sound judgment.
"I confess," he said, "that I have sometimes
managed to succeed where the experts had aban-
doned all their attempts. But I am far from
considering myself a Sherlock Holmes. . . . And,
besides, I hardly know the facts. . ."
All faces were turned to the master of the
house, who was reluctantly compelled to recapitu-
late the details. The chevalier listened, reflected,
put a few questions, and murmured:
"It's odd ... at first sight the thing does not
seem to me so difficult to guess at."
The count shrugged his shoulders. But the
others flocked round the chevalier, who resumed,
in a rather dogmatic tone:
"As a general rule, in order to discover the
author of a theft or other crime, we have first to
determine how this theft or crime has been com-
mitted, or at least how it might have been com-
mitted. In the present case nothing could be
simpler, in my view, for we find ourselves face to
face not with a number of different suppositions,
but with one hard certainty, which is that the
individual was able to enter only by the door of
the bedroom or the window of the linen-closet.
Now, a bolted door cannot be opened from the
H7


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
outside. Therefore, he must have entered by the
window."
"It was closed, and it was found closed," said
M. de Dreux, flatly.
Floriani took no notice of the interruption, and
continued:
"In order to do so he had only to fix a bridge
of some sort—say, a plank or a ladder—between
the balcony outside the kitchen and the ledge
of the window; and, as soon as the jewel-
99
case ...
'".But I tell you the window was closed!" cried
the count, impatiently.
This time Floriani was obliged to reply. He
did so with the greatest calmness, like a man who
refuses to be put out by so insignificant an ob-
jection.
"I have no doubt that it was. But was there
no hinged pane?"
"What makes you think so?"
"To begin with, it is almost a rule in the case-
ment windows of that period. And, next, there
must have been one, because otherwise the theft
would be inexplicable."
"As a matter of fact, there was one, but it was
closed, like the window. We did not even pay
attention to it."
"That was £ mistake; for if you had paid
148


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
took two or three nervous strides across the room,
and, going up to Floriani, said:
"Nothing has been changed up there since that
day ... no one has set foot in that closet."
"In that case, monsieur, it is open to you to
assure yourself that my explanation is in accord-
ance with reality."
"It is in accordance with none of the facts which
the police ascertained. You have seen nothing,
you know nothing, and you go counter to all that
we have seen and to all that we know."
Floriani did not seem to remark the count's
irritation, and said, with a smile:
"Well, monsieur, I am trying to see plainly,
that is all. If I am wrong you have only to
prove me so. . . ."
"So I will, this very minute. ... I confess that,
in the long run, your assurance . . ."
M. de Dreux mumbled a few words more, and
then suddenly turned to the door and went out.
No one spoke a word. All waited anxiously,
as though convinced that a particle of the truth
was about to appear. And the silence was marked
by an extreme gravity.
At last the count was seen standing in the
doorway. He was pale, and singularly agitated.
He addressed his friends in a voice trembling with
emotion:
150


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
"I beg your pardon. . . . Monsieur Floriani's
revelations have taken me so greatly by surprise.
... I should never have thought . .
His wife asked him, eagerly:
"What is it? . . . Tell us! . . . Speak! . .
He stammered out:
"The cleft is there ... at the very place men-
tioned . . . down the side of the pane . . ."
Abruptly seizing the chevalier's arm, he said,
in an imperious tone:
"And now, monsieur, continue. ... I admit
that you have been right so far, but now . . . That
is not all.. . . Tell me . . . what happened, accord-
ing to you?"
Floriani gently released his arm, and, after a
moment's interval, said:
"Well, according to me, this is what happened:
The individual, whoever he was, knowing that
Madame de Dreux was going to wear the neck-
lace at the reception, put his foot-bridge in posi-
tion during your absence. He watched you
through the window, and saw you hide the dia-
monds. As soon as you were gone he passed
some implement down the pane and pulled the
ring."
"Very well; but the distance was too great to
allow of his reaching the latch of the window
through the hinged pane."
151


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
If so, we are entitled to believe that the child un-
screwed them and then fastened them together.
Perhaps, also, if there was a range, we shall dis-
cover a stove-hook or plate-lifter which he would
have employed to open the hinged pane."
The count went out without a word, and this
time the others did not even feel that little touch
of anxiety attendant upon the unknown which
they had experienced on the first occasion. They
knew, they knew absolutely, that Floriani's views
were correct. There emanated from that man an
impression of such strict certainty that they listened
to him not as though he were deducting facts one
from the other, but as though he were describing
events the accuracy of which it was easy to verify
as he proceeded. And no one felt surprised when
the count returned and said:
"Yes, it's the child . . . there's no doubt about
it. . . everything proves it . . ."
"Did you see the shelves . . . the plate-lifter?"
But Madame de Dreux-Soubise exclaimed:
"The child! . . . You mean his mother. Hen- ,
riette is the only guilty person. She must have
compelled her son to . . ."
"No," said the chevalier, "the mother had noth-
ing to do with it."
"Come, come! They lived in the same room;
the child cannot have acted unknown to Henrietta"
*53


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"They occupied the same room; but everything
happened in the adjoining recess, at night, while
the mother was asleep/'
"And what about the necklace ?" said the count.
"It would have been found among the child's
things."
"I beg your pardon. He used to go out. The
very morning when you found him with his book
he had come back from school, and perhaps the
police, instead of exhausting their resources against
the innocent mother, would have been better ad-
vised to make a search there, in his desk, among
his lesson-books."
"Very well. But the two thousand francs which
Henriette received every year: is not that the best
sign of her complicity?"
"Would she have written to thank you for the
money if she had been an accomplice? Besides,
was she not kept under supervision? Whereas the
child was free, and had every facility for going to
the nearest town, seeing a dealer, and selling him a
diamond cheaply, or two diamonds, as the case
demanded . . . the only condition being that the
money should be sent from Paris, in consideration
of which the transaction would be repeated next
year."
The Dreux-Soubises and their guests were op-
pressed by an undefinable sense of uneasiness.
15+


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
There was really in Floriani's tone and attitude
something more than that certainty which had so
greatly irritated the count from the beginning.
There was something resembling irony—an irony,
moreover, that seemed hostile rather than sympa-
thetic and friendly, as it ought to have been. The
count affected to laugh.
"All this is delightfully ingenious. Accept my
compliments. What a brilliant imagination you
possess!"
"No, no, no!" cried Floriani, with more serious-
ness. "I am not imagining anything; I am recall-
ing circumstances which were inevitably such as I
have described them to you."
"What do you know of them?"
"What you yourself have told me. I picture the
life of the mother and the child down there in the
country: the mother falling ill, the tricks and
inventions of the little fellow to sell the stones and
save his mother, or at least to ease her last mo-
ments. Her illness carries her off. She dies.
Years pass. The child grows up, becomes a man.
And then—this time, I am willing to admit that I
am giving scope to my imagination—suppose that
this man should feel a longing to return to the
places where his childhood was spent, that he sees
them once again, that he finds the people who have
suspected and accused his mother: think of the
155


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
not his evident intention, his wish, to be recog-
nized as such?
The count hesitated. What line of conduct was
he to adopt towards this daring individual? To
ring the bell? Provoke a scandal? Unmask the
villain who had robbed him? But it was so long
ago! And who would believe this story of a guilty
child? No, it was better to accept the position
and pretend not to grasp its real meaning. And
the count, going up to Floriani, said, playfully:
"Your little romance is very interesting and very
entertaining. It has quite taken hold of me, I
assure you. But, according to you, what became
of that exemplary young man, that model son? I
trust that he did not stop on his prosperous road
to fortune."
"Certainly not!"
"Why, of course not! After so fine a start, too!
At the age of six to capture the Queen's Necklace,
the celebrated necklace coveted by Marie-Antoi-
nette!"
"And to capture it, mind you," said Floriani,
entering into the count's mood, "to capture it
without its costing him the smallest unpleasant-
ness, the police never taking it into their heads
to examine the condition of the panes, or noticing
that the window-ledge was too clean after he had
wiped it so as to obliterate the traces of his feet
*57


THE ESCAPE OF ARSENE LUPIN
on the thick dust. . . . You must admit that this
was enough to turn the head of a scapegrace
of his years. It was all too easy. He had only
to wish and to put out his hand. . . . Well, he
wished . . ."
"And put out his hand?"
"Both hands!" replied the chevalier, with a
smile.
A shudder passed through his hearers. What
mystery concealed the life of this self-styled
Floriani? How extraordinary must be the exist-
ence of this adventurer, a gifted thief at the age
of six, who to-day, with the refined taste of a
dilettante in search of an emotion, or, at most,
to satisfy a sense of revenge, had come to brave
his victim in that victim's own house, audacious-
ly, madly, and yet with all the good-breeding of
a man of the world on a visit!
He rose, and went up to the countess to take
his leave. She suppressed a movement of recoil.
He smiled.
"Ah, madame, you are frightened! Have I
carried my little comedy of drawing-room magic
too far?"
"Not at all, monsieur. On the contrary, the
legend of that good son has interested me greatly,
and I am happy to think that my necklace should
have been the occasion of so brilliant a career.
158


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
But does it not seem to you that the son of that
. . . of that woman, of Henriette, was, above all
things, obeying his natural vocation?"
He started, felt the point of her remark, and re-
plied:
"I am sure he was; and, in fact, his vocation
must have been quite serious, or the child would
have been discouraged."
"Why?"
"Well, you know, most of the stones were false.
The only real ones were the few diamonds bought
of the English jeweller. The others had been
sold, one by one, in obedience to the stern neces-
sities of life."
"It was the Queen's Necklace, monsieur, for
all that," said the countess, haughtily, "and that,
it seems to me, is what Henriette's son was unable
to understand."
"He must have understood, madame, that,
false or genuine, the necklace was, before all, a
show thing, a sign-board."
M. de Dreux made a movement. His wife
stopped him at once.
"Monsieur," she said, "if the man to whom
you allude has the least vestige of shame . . ."
She hesitated, shrinking before Floriani's calm
gaze. He repeated after her:
"If he has the least feeling of shame . . ."
159


THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE
Four days later Madame de Dreux found a red
morocco case, stamped with the arms of the
Cardinal de Rohan, on her bedroom table. She
opened it. It contained the necklace of Marie-
Antoinette.
But as in the life of any logical and single-
minded man all things must needs concur tow-
ards the same object—and a little advertisement
never does any harm—the Echo de France of the
next day contained the following sensational par-
agraph:
"The Queen's Necklace, the famous historic jewel
stolen many years since from the Dreux-Soubise family,
has been recovered by Arsene Lupin. Arsene Lupin has
hastened to restore it to its lawful owners. This delicate
and chivalrous attention is sure to meet with universal
commendation."





THE SEVEN OF HEARTS





VI
THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
1HAVE often been asked this question:
"How did you come to know Arsene Lupin?"
No one doubts that I know him. The details
which I am able to heap up concerning his be-
wildering personality, the undeniable facts which
I set forth, the fresh proofs which I supply, the
interpretation which I provide of certain acts of
which others have seen only the outward manifes-
tations, without following their secret reasons or
their invisible mechanism: all this points, if not
to an intimacy, which Lupin's very existence
would render impossible, at least to friendly rela-
tions and an uninterrupted confidence.
But how did I come to know him? Why was I
favored to the extent of becoming his biographer?
Why I rather than another?
The answer presents no difficulty: accident
alone determined a selection in which my personal
merit goes for nothing. It was accident that
threw me across his path. It was by accident
i65


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
that I was mixed up in one of his most curious
and mysterious adventures; by accident, lastly
that I became an actor in a drama of which he
was the wonderful stage-manager, an obscure and
complicated drama bristling with such extraor-
dinary catastrophes that I feel a certain perplexity
as I sit down to describe them.
The first act passes in the course of that famous
night of the twenty-second of June which has been
so much discussed. And I may as well at once
confess that I attribute my somewhat abnormal
conduct on that occasion to the very peculiar con-
dition of mind in which I found myself when I
returned home. I had been dining with friends
at the Restaurant de la Cascade, and throughout
the evening, while we sat smoking and listening
to the Bohemian band and their melancholy
waltzes, we had talked of nothing but crimes,
robberies, lurid and terrifying adventures. This
is always a bad preparation for sleep.
The Saint-Martins had driven away in their
motor-car. Jean Daspry—the charming, reckless
Daspry, who was to meet his death, six months
later, in so tragic a fashion, on the Morocco fron-
tier—Jean Daspry and I walked back in the dark,
hot night. When we reached the little house at
Neuilly, on the Boulevard Maillot, where I had
been living for the past twelve months, he said:
166


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
"Do you never feel frightened?"
"What an idea!"
"Well, this little house of yours is very lonely:
no neighbors . . . surrounded by waste land . . .
I'm no coward, as you know. And yet . . ."
"By Jove, you're in a cheerful mood to-night!"
"Oh, I said that as I might have said any-
thing else. The Saint-Martins have impressed
me with their stories about burglars and high-
waymen."
We shook hands, and he walked away. I took
out my key, and opened the door.
"That's pleasant!" I muttered. "Antoine has
forgotten to leave a lighted candle for me."
And suddenly I remembered: Antoine was out;
I had given him his night off.
I at once resented the darkness and the silence.
I groped my way up-stairs to my room as quickly
as I could, and, contrary to my custom, turned the
key in the door, and shot the bolt.
The light of the candle restored my presence of
mind. Nevertheless, I was careful to take my
revolver—a big, long-range revolver—from its case,
and laid it beside my bed. This precaution com-
pleted my composure. I went to bed, and, as
usual, took up the book that lay on my night-table
to read myself to sleep.
A great surprise awaited me. In the place of
167


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
the paper-cutter with which I had marked my page
the night before I now found an envelope sealed
with five red seals. I seized it eagerly. It was
addressed in my name, accompanied by the word
"Urgent."
A letter! A letter addressed to me! Who could
have put it there? Somewhat nervously I tore
open the envelope, and read:
"From the moment when you open this letter, what-
ever happens, whatever you may hear, do not stir, do not
make a movement, do not utter a sound If you do
you are lost."
Now I am not a coward, and I know as well
as another how a man should bear himself in the
presence of real danger or smile at the fanciful
perils that alarm our imagination. But, I repeat,
I was in an abnormal and easily impressionable
frame of mind; my nerves were on edge. Besides,
was there not something perturbing in all this,
something inexplicable — enough to trouble the
most undaunted soul?
My fingers feverishly pressed the sheet of note-
paper, and my eyes incessantly read and reread
the threatening words:
"Do not make a movement, do not utter a sound. If
you do you are lost."
168


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
"Nonsense!" I thought. "It's a joke, a silly
trick r
I was on the point of laughing, I even tried to
laugh aloud. What was it prevented me? What
vague fear compressed my throat?
At least, I would blow out the candle. No, I
could not blow it out.
"Not a movement, or you are lost," said the
letter.
But why struggle against this kind of auto-sug-
gestion, which is often more urgent than the most
precise facts? There was nothing to do but to
close my eyes. I closed my eyes.
At that moment a light sound passed through
the silence, followed by a creaking noise. It
seemed to me to come from a large adjoining
room which I had fitted up as a study, and
from which I was separated only by the pas-
sage.
The approach of a real danger excited me, and
I felt that I was going to jump up, seize my revol-
ver, and rush into the other room. I did not jump
up. One of the curtains of the window on my left
had moved before my eyes.
There was no doubt possible; it had moved.
It was still moving! And I saw—oh, I distinctly
saw!—that in that narrow space between the cur-
tains and the window there stood a human form,
169


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
the thickness of which prevented the material from
hanging straight down.
And the being saw me, too; it was certain that
he could see me through the wide meshes of the
stuff. Then I understood all. While the others
were carrying off their booty, his mission consisted
in terrorizing me. Jump out of bed? Seize a
revolver? It was impossible ... he was there!
At the least movement, at the least sound, I was
lost.
A violent blow shook the house, followed by
smaller blows, in twos and threes, like those of a
hammer driving in tacks and rebounding—or, at
least, that was what I imagined in the confusion
of my brain; and other noises followed, a regular
din of different noises, which proved that my vis-
itors were doing as they pleased and acting in all
security.
They were right: I did not budge. Was it cow-
ardice on my part? No, it was annihilation rather,
a complete incapacity to move a single muscle.
Prudence also; for, after all, why struggle? Be-
hind that man were ten others, who would come
at his call. Was it worth while to risk my life to
save a few hangings and knick-knacks?
And this torture lasted all night long: an in-
tolerable torture, a terrible agony! The noise had
stopped, but I never ceased waiting for it to begin
170


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
rug, flung down on the floor, I picked up a
card—a playing-card. It was a seven of hearts,
similar to the seven of hearts in any French pack
of cards; but it attracted my attention because of
a rather curious detail. The extreme lower end
of each of the seven red, heart-shaped pips was
pierced with a hole, the round and regular hole
made by the point of an awl.
That, and no more. A card, and a letter found
in a book! Beyond that, nothing. Was this
enough to avouch that I had not been the sport
of a dream?
I pursued my investigations throughout the
day. It was a large-sized room, out of all pro-
portion with the general smallness of the house,
and its decoration bore witness to the eccentric
taste of the man who had conceived it. The
floor was made of a mosaic of tiny, parti-colored
stones, forming large symmetrical designs. The
walls were covered with a similar mosaic, arranged
in panels representing Pompeian allegories, By-
zantine compositions, mediaeval frescos: a Bac-
chus sat astride a barrel; an emperor with a
golden crown and a flowing beard held a sword
uplifted in his right hand.
High up in the wall was a huge solitary win-
dow, something like the window of a studio. It
173


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
was always left open at night, and the probability
was that the men had entered by it with the aid
of a ladder. But here again there was no cer-
tainty. The posts of the ladder would necessarily
have left marks on the trodden ground of the yard:
there were no such marks. The grass of the waste
land surrounding the house would have been
freshly trampled: it was not.
I confess that the idea of applying to the police
never entered my head, so inconsistent arid: ab-
surd were the facts which I should have had t0 lay
before them. They would have laughed a|, me.
But the next day but one was the day f$f*my
column in the Gil Bias, for which I was then writ-
ing. Obsessed as I was by my adventure, I de-
seabed it at full length.
My article attracted some little attention, bii§fc
I could see that it was not taken seriously, and
that it was looked upon as a fanciful rather than
a true story. The Saint-Martins chaffed me about
it. Daspry, however, who was something of an
expert in these matters, came to see me, made me
explain the whole case to him, and studied it . . .
but with no more success than myself.
A few mornings later the bell at the front gate
rang, and Antoine came to tell me that a gentle-
man wished to speak to me. He had refused to
give his name. I asked him up.
174


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"And to do that? . .
"I must remain alone in this room."
I looked at him in surprise.
"I don't quite see . . ."
"It's an idea that came to me on reading your
article. Certain details establish a really remark-
able coincidence between your adventure and an-
other which was revealed to me by chance. If I
am wrong, it would be better for me to keep
silence. And the only way of finding out is for
me to remain alone . . ."
What was there underlying this proposal?
Later I remembered that, in making it, the man
wore an uneasy air, an anxious look. But at the
time, although feeling a little astonished, I saw
nothing particularly abnormal in his request.
And, besides, his curiosity stimulated me.
I replied:
"Very well. How long do you want?"
"Oh, three minutes, that's all. I shall join
you in three minutes from now."
I left the room and went down-stairs. I took
out my watch. One minute passed. Two min-
utes . . . What gave me that sense of oppression?
Why did those moments seem to me more solemn
than any others? . . .
Two minutes and a half. . . . Two minutes and
three-quarters .... And suddenly a shot resounded.
176


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
I rushed up the stairs in half a dozen strides, and
entered the room. A cry of horror escaped me.
The man lay motionless, on his left side, in the
middle of the floor. Blood trickled from his head,
mingled with portions of brains. A smoking re-
volver lay close by his hand.
He gave a single convulsion, and that was all.
But there was something that struck me even
more than this awful sight—something that was
the reason why I did not at once call out for help,
nor fling myself on my knees to see if the man
was still breathing: at two paces from him a
seven of hearts lay on the floor!
I picked it up. The lower point of each of the
seven pips was pierced with a hole. . . .
Half an hour later the commissary of police of
Neuilly arrived, followed, in a few moments, by
the police surgeon, and by M. Dudouis, the head
of the detective service. I was careful not to
touch the corpse. There was nothing to interfere
with their first observations.
These were brief, the more so as, at the be-
ginning, the officers discovered nothing, or very
little. There were no papers in the dead man's
pockets, no name on his clothes, no initials on
his linen; in short, there was no clew whatever
to his identity.
*7?


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
And in the room itself the same order pre-
vailed as before. The furniture had not been
moved, the different objects were all in their old
places. And yet the man had not come to see
me with the sole intention of killing himself, or
because he considered my house better suited
than another for the purpose of committing
suicide. There must have been some motive to
drive him to this act of despair, and this motive
must have resulted from some new fact ascer-
tained by himself in the course of the three min-
utes which he had spent alone.
But what fact? What had he seen? What had
he discovered? What frightful secret had he sur-
prised?
At the last moment, however, an incident oc-
curred which seemed to us of great importance.
Two policemen were stooping to lift the corpse in
order to carry it away on a stretcher when they
perceived that the left hand, till then closed and
shrunk, had become relaxed, and a crumpled vis-
iting-card fell from it. The card bore the words:

GEORGES ANDERMATT
37, Rue de Berry
178


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
What did this mean? Georges Andermatt was
a big Paris banker, the founder and chairman of
the Metal Exchange, which has done so much to
forward the prospects of the metal trade in France.
He lived in great style, kept a drag, motor-cars, a
racing-stable. His parties were very much fre-
quented, and Madame Andermatt was well known
for her charm and her personal beauty.
"Could that be the man's name?" I mur-
mured.
The head of the detective service bent over the
corpse.
"No. Monsieur Andermatt is a pale-faced man,
with hair just turning gray."
"But why that card?"
"Have you a telephone, sir?"
"Yes, it's in the hall. If you will come this
way . . ."
He turned up the directory, and asked for num-
ber 415.21.
"Is Monsieur Andermatt in? . . . My name is
Dudouis. . . . Please ask him to come with all
speed to 102, Boulevard Maillot. It's urgent."
Twenty minutes later M. Andermatt stepped
out of his car. He was told the reason why he
had been sent for, and was then taken up-stairs to
see the body.
He had a momentary emotion that contracted
179


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
his features, and said, in an undertone, as though
involuntarily:
"fetienne Varin."
"Do you know him?"
"No . . . or, at least, yes . . . but only by sight.
His brother . . ."
"He has a brother?"
"Yes, Alfred Varin. . . . His brother used to
come and ask me to assist him. ... I have forgot-
ten in what connection . . ."
"Where does he live?"
"The two brothers used to live together ... in
the Rue de Provence, I think."
"And have you no suspicion of the reason why
he shot himself?"
"None at all."
"Still, he was holding your card in his hand . . .
your card, with your name and address."
"I can't understand it. It's obviously a mere
accident which the inquiry will explain."
It was, in any case, a very curious accident, I
thought, and I felt that we all received the same
impression.
I noticed this impression again in the papers of
the next morning, and among all my friends with
whom I discussed the circumstance. Amid the
mysteries that complicated it, after the renewed and
disconcerting discovery of that seven of hearts seven
180


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
times pierced—after the two incidents, each as puz-
zling as the other, of which my house had been the
scene—that visiting-card seemed at last to promise
a glimpse of light. By its means they would arrive
at the truth.
But, contrary to the general expectation, M.
Andermatt furnished not a single clew.
"I have said all that I know," he repeated.
"What can I do more? I was the first to be thun-
derstruck by the fact that my card was found where
it was; and, like everybody else, I shall expect this
point to be cleared up."
It was not cleared up. The inquiry established
that the Varins were two brothers, of Swiss origin,
who had led a very checkered life under different
aliases, frequenting the gambling-houses and con-
nected with a whole gang of foreigners whose
movements had been watched, and who had dis-
persed after a series of burglaries in which their
participation was not proved until later. At No.
24, Rue de Provence, where the brothers Varin
had, in fact, lived six years before, no one knew
what had become of them.
I confess that, for my part, the case seemed to
me so intricate that I scarcely believed in the
possibility of a solution, and I tried hard to
banish it from my mind. But Jean Daspry, on
the contrary — and I saw a great deal of him
181


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
been designed by French engineers. These engineers,
after vainly seeking the support of their own government,
are said to have applied next, and with no more success,
to the British Admiralty. We need hardly say that we
publish this statement with all reserve."
I do not wish to insist too much upon facts of
an extremely delicate character which provoked
considerable excitement, as the reader will remem-
ber, in France. Nevertheless, since all danger of
international complications is now removed, I must
speak of an article in the Echo de France which
made a great deal of noise at the time, and which
threw a more or less vague light upon "The Seven
of Hearts Affair," as it was called.
Here it is, as it appeared under the signature of
"Salvator":
"THE SEVEN OF HEARTS AFFAIR
"a corner of the veil raised
"We will be brief. Ten years ago Louis Lacombe, a
young engineer in the mines, wishing to devote his time
and money to the studies which he was pursuing, resigned
his appointment, and hired a small house, at 102, Boule-
vard Maillot, which had recently been built and decorated
by an Italian nobleman. Through the intermediary of
two brothers called Varin, of Lausanne, one of whom
assisted him as a preparator in his experiments, while
183


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
the other went in search of financial backers for his
schemes, Lacombe entered into relations with M. Georges
Andermatt, who had then just founded the Paris Metal
Exchange.
"After a number of interviews he succeeded in inter-
esting M. Andermatt in the plans of a submarine upon
which he was engaged; and it was understood that, as
soon as the invention had been definitely perfected, M.
Andermatt would employ his influence to persuade the
Minister of Marine to grant a series of trials.
"For two years Louis Lacombe was constantly visiting
the Hotel Andermatt, and submitting his improvements
to the banker, until the day came when, having lighted
upon the final formula which he was seeking and being
fully satisfied with his labors, he asked M. Andermatt to
set to work on his side.
"On that day Louis Lacombe dined at the Ander-
matts\ He left the house at half - past eleven in the
evening. Since then he has not been seen by mortal
eyes.
"On reading the newspapers of the day we find that
the young man's family called in the police, and that the
public prosecutor took the matter up. But the inquiries
led to nothing, and it was generally believed that Louis
Lacombe, who was looked upon as an eccentric and
whimsical young fellow, had gone abroad without ac-
quainting any of his friends with his intentions.
"If we accept this somewhat improbable suggestion,
one question remains, a question of supreme importance
to the country: what became of the plans of the sub-
184


Lacombe brought to M. Andermatt, on the evening of h jpri
disappearance, a document which was essential to tl cl
complete understanding of the project—a sort of sun
mary of definite conclusions, valuations and measur >
ments contained in the other papers. Without th
document the plans remain imperfect, even as the doci
ment is useless without the plans. ^
"There is, therefore, still time to take action and fl
recover what belongs to us. In undertaking this ver^
difficult task we rely greatly upon the assistance of
Andermatt. He will be anxious to explain the apparent^
inexplicable conduct which he has maintained from tfe
first. He will say not only why he did not tell what hf
knew at the time of Etienne Varin's suicide, but also wh
he never mentioned the disappearance of the papers witl€
the existence of which he was acquainted. He will als«s
say why, for the past six years, he has had the brother|*(
Varin watched by detectives in his pay.
"We look to him for deeds, not words. If not. .
The article ended with this brutal implied threat]
But what force did it possess? What means of iw
timidation could "Salvator," the anonymous write|:t
of the article, hope to exercise over M. Andermatt
A host of reporters swept down upon the banke|
and a dozen interviews described the scorn witi
which he rejected the insinuations which seemef
to bring the matter home to him. Thereupc|G
the correspondent of the Echo de France retortA
with these three lines:
g
186


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
k"M. Andermatt may like it or dislike it, but from
■-day he is our collaborator in the work which we have
lidertaken."
t On the day when this rejoinder appeared Daspry
pd I dined together. After dinner, with the news-
apers spread out on my table before us, we dis-
ussed the case, and went into it from every point
f view, with the irritation which a man would
eel if he were walking indefinitely in the dark, and
onstantly stumbling over the same obstacles.
Suddenly—for the bell had not rung—the door
pened, and a lady covered with a thick veil,
entered unannounced.
I at once rose to meet her. She said:
"Are you the gentleman that lives here?"
"Yes, madame. But I am bound to say . .
"The gate on the boulevard was open/' she
explained.
"But the hall door?. . ."
She made no reply, and I reflected that she
pust have gone round by the tradesmen's entrance.
l hen she knew the way?
A rather embarrassing pause ensued. She
Doked at Daspry, I introduced him to her
aechanically-—as I would have done in a draw-
ig-room. Then I offered her a chair, and asked
Rr to tell me the object of her visit.
F I3. 187


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
She raised her veil, and I saw that she was da
with regular features, and that, though not v
pretty, she possessed an infinite charm, whi
came, above all, from her eyes—her grave, s
eyes.
She said, simply:
"I am Madame Andermatt."
"Madame Andermatt!" I repeated, more a
more surprised.
There was a fresh pause. And she resume
in a calm voice and an exceedingly quiet manne
"I have come about that matter . . . which y
know of. I thought that perhaps you might
able to give me some particulars . .
"Upon my word, madame, I know no mo
about it than what has appeared in the paper
Please tell me precisely how I can be of use
you."
"I don't know 0 . . I don't know . .
It was only then that I received an intuitio
that her calmness was assumed, and that a gre
agitation lay hidden under this air of perfe
security. And we were silent, both equally e
barrassed.
But Daspry, who had never ceased watchi
her, came up to her, and said:
"Will you allow me to put a few questions
you, madame?"
188


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
"Oh yes!" she cried. "I will speak if you do
that."
"You will speak . . . whatever the questions
may be?"
"Whatever they may be."
He reflected, and then asked:
"Did you know Louis Lacombe?"
"Yes, through my husband."
"When did you see him last?"
"On the evening when he dined with us."
"On that evening did nothing lead you to
think that you would never see him again?"
"No. He said something about a journey to
Russia, but it was only a vague allusion."
"So you expected to see him soon?"
"Yes, the next day but one, at dinner."
"And how do you account for his disappear-
ance?"
"I can't account for it."
"And Monsieur Andermatt?"
"I don't know."
"Still . .
"Don't ask me about that."
"The article in the Echo de France seems to
suggest . . ."
"What it seems to suggest is that the brothers
Varin had something to do with his disappear-
ance."
189


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"Is that your own opinion?"
"Yes."
"On what do you base your conviction?"
"When Louis Lacombe left us he was carry-
ing a portfolio containing all the papers relating
to his scheme. Two days after my husband and
one of the Varins, the one who is still alive, had
an interview, in the course of which my husband
acquired the certainty that those papers were in
the hands of the two brothers."
"And did he not lodge an information?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because there was something in the portfolio
besides Louis Lacombe's papers." {
"What was that?" )
She hesitated, made as though to answer, an j,
finally, kept silence. Daspry continued: i
"So that is the reason why your husband haa\
the two brothers watched without informing the
police. He hoped to recover both the papers
and that other . . . compromising thing, thanks
to which the two brothers levied a sort of black-
mail on him."
"On him . . . and on me."
"Ah, on you, too?"
"On me principally."
She uttered these three words in a dull voice.
190


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
Daspry observed her, took a few steps aside, and,
returning to her:
"Did you write to Louis Lacombe?"
"Certainly.. . . my husband had business . . ."
"Apart from those official letters, did you not
write Louis Lacombe . . . any other letters? . . .
Forgive me for insisting, but it is essential that
I should know the whole truth. Did you write
any other letters?"
She turned very red, and murmured:
"Yes."
"And are those the letters which the brothers
Varin had in their possession?"
"Yes."
"So Monsieur Andermatt knows?"
"He never saw them, but Alfred Varin told him
of their existence, and threatened to publish them
if my husband took action. My husband was
afraid ... he dreaded a scandal."
"Only he did all he could to obtain the letters
from them."
"He did all he could ... at least, I presume
so; for ever since the day of that last interview
with Alfred Varin, and after the few very vio-
lent words in which he told me of it, there has
been no intimacy, no confidence between my
husband and myself. We live together like two
strangers."
191


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"In that case, if you have nothing to lose, what
do you fear?"
"However indifferent I may have become to
him, I am the woman he once loved, the woman
he could still have loved—oh, I am certain of
that!" she whispered, in an eager voice. "He
would still have loved me if he had not obtained
possession of those accursed letters."
"What! Did he succeed? . . . But surely the
two brothers were on their guard?"
"Yes; and it seems that they even used to
boast of having a safe hiding-place."
"Well? . .
"I have every reason to believe that my husband
has discovered the hiding-place."
"Not really! Where was it?"
"Here."
I started.
"Here!"
"Yes; and I always suspected it. Louis La-
combe, who was very clever and had a passion for
mechanics, used to amuse himself, in his spare
time, by constructing locks and safes. The
brothers Varin must have discovered one of these
receptacles, and used it afterwards for the purpose
of hiding the letters . . . and other things as well,
no doubt."
"But they did not live here!" I exclaimed.


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
"This house stood empty until your arrival,
four months ago. They probably, therefore, used
to come here; and they will have thought, more-
over, that your presence need not hinder them on
, the day when they might want to withdraw all
their papers. But they reckoned without my hus-
band, who, on the night of the twenty-second of
June, forced the safe, took . . . what he was looking
for, and left his card behind him to make it quite
clear to the two brothers that the tables were
turned, and that he no longer had any cause to
fear them. Two days later, after seeing your
article in the Gil Bias, Etienne Varin came to
call on you in hot haste, was left alone in this
room, found the safe empty . . . and shot him-
self."
After a moment's silence, Daspry asked:
"This is a mere conjecture, is it not? Has
Monsieur Andermatt said anything to you?"
"No."
"Has his attitude towards you changed? Has
he seemed to you to be brooding or betrayed any
anxiety?"
"No."
"And don't you think that he would, if he had
found the letters? For my part, I don't believe
that he has them. In my opinion, it was some one
else who entered here."
193


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
"Your interests and his are Identical. It is
beyond all question that he is acting against the
survivor of the two brothers. He is seeking a
weapon against Alfred Varin, not against Monsieur
Andermatt. Help him."
"How?"
"Has your husband that document which com-
pletes Louis Lacombe's plans and allows them to
be employed?"
"Yes."
"Tell 'Salvator' so. If need be, try to procure
the document for him. In short, enter into
correspondence with him. What risk do you
run?"
The advice was daring, at first sight even dan-
gerous, but Madame Andermatt had very little
choice. Besides, as Daspry said, what was she
risking? If the unknown individual was an
enemy, this step rendered the situation no worse
than before. If he was a stranger pursuing some
private aim, he must attach but a secondary im-
portance to those letters.
In any case, it was an idea; and Madame Ander-
matt, in her mental disarray, was only too pleased
to fall in with it. She thanked us effusively, and
promised to keep us informed.
Two days later she sent us a line which she had
received in reply:
*95


THE-EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"The letters were not there. But set your mind at
rest: I shall have them. I am attending to everything.
"S."
I took up the note. It was in the same hand-
writing as the communication which I had found
in my bedside book on the evening of the twenty-
second'of June.
So Daspry was right: "Salvator" was the great
wire-puller in this affair.
We were beginning, in fact, to discern a few
gleams amid the surrounding darkness, and certain
points became illumined with an unexpected light.
But others remained obscure, such as the discovery
of the two sevens of hearts. I, on my side, always
harked back to this, being more puzzled, perhaps,
than I need have been by those two cards whose
seven pierced pips had struck my eyes in such
perturbing circumstances. What part did they
play in the drama? What importance were we
to attribute to them? What conclusion were we to
draw from the fact that the submarine built in
accordance with Louis Lacombe's plans bore the
name of the Seven of Hearts?
As for Daspry, he paid little attention to the two
cards, but devoted himself entirely to the study of
another problem, the solution of which struck him
196


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
as more urgent: he hunted indefatigably for the
famous hiding-piace.
"Who knows," he said, "that I shall not succeed
in finding the letters which Salvator failed" to find
. . . through inadvertence, perhaps? It seems
hardly credible that the Varins should have re-
moved from a place which they considered inac-
cessible the weapon of which they knew the ines-
timable value."
And he went on hunting. Soon the big room
had no secret left for him, and he extended his
investigations to all the other rooms in the house,
searched the inside and the outside, examined the
stones and bricks of the walls, lifted up the slates
of the roof.
One day he arrived with a pickaxe and a spade,
gave me the spade, kept the pickaxe, and, pointing
to the waste ground, said:
"Come along."
I followed him without enthusiasm. He divided
the ground into a number of sections, which he
inspected in sequence, until, in one corner, at the
angle formed by the walls of two adjoining proper-
ties, his attention was attracted by a heap of stones
and rubble overgrown with brambles and grass.
He attacked it forthwith.
I had to help him. For an hour we labored to
no purpose in the glaring sun. But when, after
197


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
removing the stones, we came to the ground itself
and opened it, Daspry's pickaxe laid bare a num-
ber of bones—the remains of a skeleton with shreds
of clothing still clinging to it.
And suddenly I felt myself turn pale. I saw,
stuck into the earth, a small iron plate, cut in
a rectangular shape, and seeming to bear some
red marks. I stooped. It was as I thought: the
iron plate was of the size of a playing-card, and
the marks, the color of red lead corroded in places,
were seven in number, arranged like the pips of
a seven of hearts, and pierced with a hole at each
of the seven points.
"Listen to me, Daspry," I said. "I've had
enough of all this business. It's very pleasant for
you, if it interests you. But I shall leave you to
enjoy it by yourself."
Was it the excitement? Was it the fatigue of
a piece of work carried out in the heat of too
fierce a sun? The fact remains that I staggered
as I went, and that I had to take to my bed, where
I remained for forty-eight hours in a burning
fever, and obsessed by skeletons that danced
around me and threw their blood-red hearts at
one another's heads.
Daspry was faithful to me. Every day he gave
me three or four hours of his time, though it is
198


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
true that he spent them in ferreting, tapping, and
poking around the big room.
"The letters are in there, in that room," he
came and told me, at intervals. "They're in
there. FU stake my life on it."
"Leave me alone, for goodness* sake," I re-
plied, with my hair standing on end.
On the morning of the third day I got up, feel-
ing very weak still, but cured. A substantial
lunch did me good. But an express letter which
I received at about five o'clock contributed even
more to complete my recovery and stimulated my
curiosity anew, in spite of everything.
The letter contained these words:
"Sir,—The play of which the first act was performed
on the night of the zzd of June is approaching its conclu-
sion. As the force of things requires that I should bring
the two principal characters face to face, and that this
confrontation should take place at your house, I shall be
infinitely obliged if you will let me have the use of your
house this evening. It would be a good thing if your
servant could be sent out from nine to eleven, and per-
haps it would be as well if you yourself would be so ex-
tremely kind as to leave the field free to the adversaries.
You were able to see for yourself, on the zzd of June,
that I made a point of respecting all your belongings.
I, for my part, would consider that I was insulting you
199


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
if I were for a moment to doubt your absolute discretion
with regard to Yours sincerely,
"Salvator."
I was delighted with the tone of courteous irony
in which this letter was couched, and with the
pretty wit of the request which it conveyed. It
was so charmingly free and unconstrained, and
my correspondent seemed so sure of my com-
pliance! I would not for the world have disap-
pointed him or replied to his confidence with in-
gratitude.
My servant, to whom I had given a ticket for
the theatre, was out at eight o'clock when Daspry
arrived. I showed him the letter. He said:
"Well?"
"Well, I shall leave the garden gate unlocked,
so that he can come in."
"And are you going out?"
"Not if I know it!"
"But he asks you to . .
"He asks me to be discreet. I shall be discreet.
But I am mad with curiosity to see what hap-
pens."
Daspry laughed:
"By Jove, you're right; and I shall stay too.
Something tells me that we sha'n't be bored . . ."
He was interrupted by a ring at the bell.
200


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
"Are they there already?" he said, quietly.
"Twenty minutes before their time? Impossible!'
I went to the hall, and pulled the cord that
opened the garden gate. A woman's figure came
down the path: it was Madame Andermatt.
She seemed greatly upset, and her voice caught
as she stammered out:
"My husband . . . he's on his way. ... He
has an appointment here . . . They're going to
give him the letters . . ."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"By accident. My husband had a message
during dinner."
"An express letter?"
"No, the message was telephoned. The ser-
vant handed it to me by mistake. My husband
took it from me at once, but it was too late. ... I
had read it."
"What did it say?"
"Something like this: cBe at the Boulevard
Maillot at nine this evening wTith the documents
relating to the business. In exchange, the let-
ters/ When dinner was over, I went up to my
room and came on here."
"Unknown to Monsieur Andermatt?"
"Yes."
Daspry looked at me.
"What do you think of it?"
201


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"I think what you think, that Monsieur Ander-
matt is one of the adversaries summoned."
"By whom? And for what purpose?"
"That is exactly what we shall see."
I took them to the big room. We found that
there was just space for the three of us under the
chimney-mantel, and that we could hide behind
the velvet curtain. Madame Andermatt sat down
between Daspry and myself. We had a view of
the whole room through the slits in the hangings.
The clock struck nine. A few minutes later
the garden gate grated on its hinges.
I confess that I felt a certain pang, and that a
new fever seized upon me. I was on the point
of discovering the key to the mystery! The be-
wildering adventure whose successive phases had
been unfolding themselves before me for weeks
was at last about to adopt its real meaning, and
the battle was to be fought before my eyes.
Daspry took Madame Andermatt's hand, and
whispered:
"Be sure that you do not make a movement.
Whatever you see or hear, remain impassive."
A man entered a room, and I at once recog-
nized Alfred Varin by his strong resemblance to
his brother Etienne. He had the same heavy
gait, the same dark, bearded face.
He came in with the anxious air of a man who
202


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
fence, not against the banker, but against the un-
known foe who had drawn him into this snare.
For the second time his eyes turned in our direc-
tion, and, with a quick step, he moved towards the
door.
M. Andermatt blocked his way.
"What are you doing, Varin?"
"There's more in this than meets the |^e. I
don't like it. Fm going. Good-night."
"One moment."
"Come, Monsieur Andermatt, don't insist;
you and I have nothing to say to each other." 1
"We have a great deal to say to each other,
and the opportunity is too good. . . ."
"Let me pass."
"No, no, no, you shall not pass."
Varin fell back, cowed by the banker's resolute
attitude, and mumbled:
"Be quick, then; say what you have to say, and
be done with it!"
One thing astonished me, and I had no doubt
that my two companions underwent the same
feeling of disappointment. Why was "Salvator"
not there? Did it not form part of his plan to
interfere? Did* the mere bringing together of
the banker and Varin appear to him enough? I
felt curiously ill at ease. By the fact of " Salva-
tor's" absence, this duel, desired and contrived by
204


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
Standing suddenly between the two adversaries,
facing Varin, he sneered:
"You're lucky, my friend, you're jolly lucky!
I aimed at your hand and hit your revolver/'
Both men stared at him in confusion. He said
to the banker:
"Forgive me, sir, for interfering in what does
not concern me. But really you play your cards
very badly. Let me hold them for you."
Turning to the other:
"Now, then, my lad; and play the game, please.
Hearts are trumps, and I lead the seven!"
And he banged the iron plate with the seven
red pips within three inches of Varin's nose.
Never did I see a man so taken aback. Livid,
his eyes starting from his head, his features dis-
torted with agony, Varin seemed hypnotized by
the sight before him.
"Who are you?" he stammered.
"I have already told you: a gentleman who
meddles with what does not concern him, . . .
but who meddles with it to the bitter end,"
"What do you want?"
"All that you've brought."
"I've brought nothing."
"Yes, you have, or you wouldn't have come.
You received a note this morning telling you to
be here at nine o'clock, and to bring all the papers
208


THE EXPLOITS QF ARSENE LUPIN
"Agreed."
Daspry turned to M. Andermatt.
"Be good enough, sir, to sign a check."
"But ... I haven't my . . ."
"Your check-book? Here it is."
Astounded, M. Andermatt fingered the check-
book which Daspry handed him.
"It's my check-book. . . . But how ...?"
"My dear sir, please don't waste words: you
have only to fill it in."
The banker took out his stylograph, and filled in
and signed the check. Varin held out his hand.
"Paws off!" said Daspry. "We've not done yet."
And to the banker:
"There was a question also of some letters which
you claim."
"Yes, a bundle of letters."
"Where are they, Varin?"
"I haven't them."
"Where are they, Varin?"
"I don't know. My brother took charge of them."
"They are hidden here, in this room."
"In that case, you know where they are."
"How should I know?"
"Considering it was you that went to the hiding-
place! You seem to be as well informed as . . .
'Salvator'!"
"The letters are not in the hiding-place."
210


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
"They are."
"Open it."
A look of distrust passed over Varin's face.*
Were Daspry and 6 Salvator' really one, as every-
thing led him to presume? If so, he risked noth-
ing by revealing a hiding-place that was already
known. If not, there was no point in . • .
"Open it," repeated Daspry.
"I haven't a seven of hearts."
"Yes, here's one," said Daspry, holding out the
iron plate.
Varin fell back in terror.
"No ... no ... I will not . .
"Never mind that. ..."
Daspry went up to the old emperor with the
flowing beard, climbed a chair, and applied the
seven of hearts to the bottom of the sword, against
the hilt, so that the edges of the plate exactly cov-
ered the two edges of the blade. Then, with the
point of an awl, which he pushed successively
through each of the seven holes contrived in the
end of the seven pips, he pressed upon seven of the
tiny stones composing the mosaic. When the
seventh stone was driven in, a catch was released,
and the whole of the emperor's bust turned on a
pivot, revealing a wide aperture arranged as a safe,
iron-cased and fitted with two shelves of gleaming
steel.
211


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"You see, Varin, the safe is empty."
"Just so. . . . Then my brother must have re-
moved the letters."
Daspry came back to the man, and said:
"Don't try to get the better of me. There is
another hiding-place. Where is it?"
"There isn't one."
"Is it money you want? How much?"
"Ten thousand francs."
"Monsieur Andermatt, are those letters worth
ten thousand francs to you?"
"Yes," said the banker, in a firm voice.
Varin shut the safe, took the seven of hearts, not
without a visible repugnance, and applied it to the
blade, at exactly the same place, against the hilt.
He drove the awl successively through the end of
the seven pips. There was a second release of a
catch, but, this time, an unexpected thing occurred:
only a part of the safe turned round, disclosing
a smaller safe, contrived in the thickness of the
door that closed the large one.
The bundle of letters was there, tied up with tape
and sealed. Varin gave it to Daspry, who asked:
"Is the check ready, Monsieur Andermatt?"
"Yes."
"And have you also the last document, which
Louis Lacombe left with you, completing the plans
of the submarine?"
212


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
"Yes."
The exchange was made. Daspry pocketed the
document and the check, and offered the oacket to
M. Andermatt.
"Here is what you wanted, sir."
The banker hesitated a moment, as though he
were afraid to touch those cursed pages which he
had been so eager to find. Then he took them,
with a nervous movement.
I heard a groan by my side. I caught hold of
Madame Andermatt's hand; it was icy cold.
And Daspry said to the banker:
"I think, sir, that our conversation is ended.
Oh, no thanks, I beg of you. It was a mere acci-
dent that enabled me to serve you."
M. Andermatt withdrew, taking with him his
wife's letters to Louis Lacombe.
"Splendid!" cried Daspry, with an air of delight.
"Everything is arranged for the best. You and I
have only to settle our business, my lad. Have
you the papers?"
"They are all here."
Daspry looked through them, examined them
closely, and stuffed them into his pocket.
"Quite right; you have kept your word."
"But . . ."
"But what?"
"The two checks? . . . The money? . .
213


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
"Very well. I have been done. Let's say no
more about it. One word, however . . . just one
word ... I want to know . . ."
"I am listening . . ."
"There was a cash-box in that safe, in the larger
of the two."
"Yes."
"Was it there when you came here on the night
of the twenty-second of June?"
"Yes."
"What was inside it?"
"All that the brothers Varin had locked up in it:
a very pretty collection of jewels, diamonds, and
pearls, picked up right and left by the brothers
aforesaid."
"And did you take it?"
"By Jove! what would you have done in my
place?"
"Then ... it was after he discovered the disap-
pearance of the cash-box that my brother com-
mitted suicide?"
"Probably. The disappearance of your corre-
spondence with Major van Lieben would hardly
have been enough. But the cash-box was another
matter. ... Is that all you wanted to know?"
"One thing more: your name?"
"You say that as though you were thinking of
revenge."


THE SEVEN OF HEARTS
"Well, but what happened?"
"The letters/' I said. "The letters which you
gave her husband."
He struck his forehead.
"What! She believed. . . . But, after all, why
shouldn't she believe? . . . Fool that I am!"
Madame Andermatt, when she had recovered
consciousness, listened to him greedily. He drew
from his pocket a little bundle similar in every
respect to that which M. Andermatt had taken
away with him.
"Here are your letters, madame—the real ones."
"But ... the others?"
"The others are like these, but were copied out
by me last night, and carefully altered. Your
husband will be all the better pleased when he
reads them, as he has no idea that they are not the
originals."
"But the writing . . ."
"There is no writing that can't be imitated."
She thanked him in the same terms of gratitude
which she would have addressed to a man of her
own station, and it was clear to me that she could
not have heard the last sentences exchanged be-
tween Varin and Arsene Lupin.
As for myself, I looked at him with a certain
perplexity, not quite knowing what to say to this
old friend who was revealing himself to me in so
217


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
unexpected a light. But Lupin, very much at his
ease, said:
"You can say good-bye to Jean Daspry."
"Really!"
"Yes, Jean Daspry is going abroad. I am send-
ing him to Morocco, where he will probably come
to an end quite worthy of him; in fact, he has
made up his mind."
"But Arsene Lupin remains . . .?"
"I should think so! Arsene Lupin is only at
the beginning of his career, and he fully means
to . . ."
An impulse of irresistible curiosity attracted me
to him, and, leading him to some distance from
Madame Andermatt, I asked:
"So you ended by discovering the second hiding-
place containing the letters?"
"It took me long enough, though! It was not
until yesterday afternoon while you were still in bed.
And yet goodness knows how easy it was! But
the simplest things always occur to one last." And
showing me the seven of hearts: "I had guessed
that, to open the large safe, one had to press this
card against the sword of the old boy in mosaic ..."
"How did you guess that?"
"Easily. From private information, I knew,
when I came here, on the evening of the twenty-
second of June . . ."
218


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
with its point up instead of down—Mthe position
of the seven pips was altered."
"Of course."
"It's very easy to say 'of course/ but I ought to
have thought of it."
"Another thing: you knew nothing about the
story of the letters until Madame Andermatt . . ."
"Spoke of it before me? Just so. I found
nothing ill the safe besides the cash-box, except
the correspondence of the two brothers, which
put me on the scent of their treason."
"So, when all is said, it was chance that made
you first reconstruct the history of the two broth-
ers, and next search for the plans and documents
of the submarine?"
"Pure chance."
"But what was your object in making those
researches? . . ."
Daspry interrupted me with a laugh.
"Bless my soul, how the thing interests you!"
"It interests me, madly."
"Well, presently, when I have seen Madame
Andermatt home and sent a messenger to the
Echo de France with a few lines which I want to
write, I will come back, and we will go into de-
tails."
He sat down and wrote one of those monu-
mental little paragraphs that delight his whimsical
220





MADAME IMBERT'S SAFE





VII
MADAME IMBERT'S SAFE
IT was three o'clock in the morning, and there
were still some half-dozen carriages in front of
one ofil^hose little artist's houses which form the
one and only side of the Boulevard Berthier. The
door opened. A group of guests, men and women,
came out into the street. Four carriages drove
off to right and left, and there remained upon the
pavement only two gentlemen, who parted com-
pany at the corner of the Rue de Courcelles, where
one of them lived. The other decided to go home
to the Porte-Maillot on foot.
He therefore crossed the Avenue de Villiers and
continued his road on the side opposite the for-
tifications. He found it pleasant walking in this
bright and frosty winter night. The sound of his
footsteps echoed gayly as he went.
But after some minutes he began to have the
disagreeable impression that he was being fol-
lowed; and, in fact, on turning round he per-
ceived the shadow of a man gliding between the
225


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
trees. He was not of a timid habit; nevertheless,
he hastened his steps in order to reach the Octroi
des Ternes as quickly as possible. But the man
behind him broke into a run; and, feeling more
or less anxious, he thought it better to face him
and to take his revolver from his pocket.
He did not have time to complete his purpose.
The man attacked him violently, and then and
there a fight commenced on the deserted boule-
vard—a fight at close quarters in which he at once
felt that he had the disadvantage. He stRmted
for help, struggled and was knocked down upon
a heap of flint-stones, caught by the throat and
gagged with a handkerchief, which his adversary
stuffed into his mouth. His eyes closed, his ears
buzzed, and he was on the point of losing con-
sciousness when suddenly the pressure was re-
lieved, and the man who had been stifling him
with the weight of his body rose to defend himself
in his turn against an unexpected attack.
A blow on the wrist from a walking-stick, a kick
on the ankle, and the man gave two groans of pain
and ran away, limping and swearing as he went.
Without condescending to go in pursuit, the
new-comer stooped and asked:
"Are you hurt, sir?"
The victim was not hurt, but quite dazed and
unable to stand. As luck would have it, one of
326


MADAME IMBERT'S SAFE
the officials of the octroi, attracted by the shouts,
came hastening up. A cab was hailed, and the
gentleman stepped into it, accompanied by his
rescuer, and was driven to his house in the Avenue
de la Grande-Armee.
On arriving at his door, now quite recovered, he
was lost in thanks.
"I owe you my life, sir, and you may be sure
that I shall never forget it. I do not wish to alarm
my wife at this time of night, but I want her to
thank you herself before the day is out."
He begged the other to come to lunch, and told
him his name—Ludovic Imbert; adding:
"May I know to whom I have the honor . . .?"
"Certainly," said the other, introducing himself.
"Arsene Lupin."
At that time—this was five years ago—Arsene
Lupin had not yet attained the celebrity which he
owed to the Cahorn case, his escape from the
Sante, and a number of other resounding exploits.
He was not even called Arsene Lupin. This name,
for which the future held such a brilliant renown
in store, was specially invented to denote M. Im-
bert's rescuer, who may be said to have won his
spurs in this encounter. Ready for the fray, it is
true, armed at all points, but without resources,
without the authority which success lends, Arsene
227


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
was but an apprentice in a profession of which he
was, erelong, to become a past-master.
It was only natural that he should feel an
emotion of delight when he woke up and remem-
bered the invitation of the night before. The goal
was within reach at last! At last he was under-
taking a work worthy of his powers and of his
talent! The Imbert millions: what a magnificent
prey for an appetite such as his!
He made a special toilet: a threadbare frock-
coat, shabby trousers, a rusty silk 'hat, frayed shirt-
collar and cuffs, the whole veiy clean, but having
all the appearance of poverty. Thus dressed out,
he walked aown the staircase of his lodgings at
Montmartre On reaching the third floor, without
stopping he tapped at a closed door with the knob
of his walking-stick. Leaving the house, he made
for the outer boulevards. A tram-car passed. He
jumped into it, and a man who had been walk-
ing behind him, the occupant of the third floor,
promptly took the seat beside him.
After a moment the man said:
"Well, governor?"
"Well, it's done."
"How do you mean?"
"Fm lunching there."
"You're lunching there?"
"You wouldn't have me risk a life as precious
228


MADAME IMBERT'S SAFE
as mine for nothing, I hope? I have snatched M.
Ludovic Imbert from the certain death which you
had prepared for him. Monsieur Ludovic Imbert
has a grateful nature. He has asked me to lunch."
A silence; and then the other ventured:
"So you're not giving it up?"
"My boy," said Arsene, "after plotting that
fittle assault of last night, after taking the trouble,
at three o'clock in the morning, along the fortifica-
tions, to give you a bang on the wrist and a kick
on the shin and running the risk of inflicting per-
sonal damage on my one and only friend, it's not
likely that I should give up the profits arising from
a rescue so carefully planned."
"But the unfavorable reports circulating about
the fortune . . ."
"Let them circulate! It is six months since I
first took the matter in hand; six months since I
began to collect information, to study the case, to
lay my snares, to question the servants, the money-
lenders, and the men of straw; six months since I
started shadowing the husband and wife. I don't
care whether the fortune proceeds from old Raw-
ford, as they contend, or from another source; but
I declare that it exists. And, as it exists, I mean
to have it."
"Jupiter! A hundred millions!"
"Say ten, or five—no matter! There are fat
229


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
bundles of securities in the safe. F1I be hanged
if I don't, sooner or later, lay hands on the key!"
The car stopped at the Place de l'Etoile.
"So, for the present . . .?"
"Nothing to be done. I'll let you know.
There's plenty of time."
Five minutes later Arsene Lupin climbed the
sumptuous staircase of the Hotel Imbert, and Lu-
dovic introduced him to his wife. Gervaise was a
nice little woman, round as a ball, and very talka-
tive. She gave him the warmest of greetings.
"We wanted to be by ourselves to entertain our
rescuer," she said.
And from the first they treated "our rescuer" as
a friend of long standing. By the time that the
dessert was reached the intimacy was complete,
and confidences were being exchanged at a great
pace. Arsene told the story of his own life and
the life of his father, an upright magistrate, de-
scribed his sad childhood, his present difficulties.
Gervaise, in her turn, talked of her youth, her
marriage, old Rawford's kindnesses, the hundred
millions which she had inherited, the obstacles
that delayed her entering into their enjoyment,
the loans which she had had to raise at exorbitant
rates of interest, her endless strife with Rawford's
nephews. And the oppositions! And the seques-
trations! In fact, the whole story!
230


MADAME IMBERT'S SAFE
"Just think, Monsieur Lupin, the scrip is there,
in the next room, in my husband's office, and if
we cut off a single coupon we lose everything!
The securities are there, in our safe, and we can-
not touch them!"
A thrill passed through M. Lupin's frame at
the thought of this proximity, and he felt very
clearly that he would never have enough elevation
of soul to entertain the same scruples as the worthy
lady.
"Ah, they are in there!" he murmured, with a
parched throat.
"They are in there."
Relations begun under such auspices as these
were bound to lead to closer ties still. In reply
to questions delicately worded, Arsene Lupin
confessed his poverty, his distress. The poor
fellow received his appointment, then and there,
as private secretary to the pair, at a salary of
one hundred and fifty francs a month. He was
to go on living where he was, but to come
every morning and receive his instructions for the
day's work. For his greater comfort, a room on
the second floor was placed at his disposal as a
study.
He chose one for himself. By what stroke of
luck did it happen to be immediately over Ludo-
vic's office?
231


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
It did not take Arsene long to perceive that his
secretaryship bore a furious likeness to a sinecure.
In two months he was given only four insignifi-
cant letters to copy out, and was only once called
to his employer's office, which permitted him only
once to catch an official glimpse of the safe. He
noted, besides, that the titular of this sinecure
was not even deemed worthy of figuring beside
Anquety the deputy, or Grouvel the leader of the
bar, for he was never invited to the famous fash-
ionable receptions.
He did not complain, for he much preferred to
keep to his modest little place in the shade. Nor
did he waste time. From the first he paid a cer-
tain number of clandestine visits to Ludovic's
office and presented his duty to the safe, which
remained none the less hermetically sealed. The
safe was a huge mass of cast-iron and steel, pre-
senting a surly and stubborn appearance, and
neither file nor crowbar could prevail against it.
Arsene Lupin was not an obstinate man.
"Where force fails, craft succeeds/' he said.
"The great thing is to keep one's eyes and ears
open."
He took the necessary measurements, and, after
much careful and difficult boring, inserted through
the floor of his room a piece of lead pipe, which
came out in the office ceiling, between two pro-
232


MADAME IMBERT'S SAFE
jections in the cornice.1 Through this pipe, which
served as both a speaking-tube and a spy-glass,
he hoped to hear and see.
Thenceforward he spent his days lying flat on
the floor of his room. And, as a matter of fact,
he often saw the Imberts in close conference before
the safe, turning up books and handling bundles
of papers. When they twisted in succession the
four knobs that worked the lock, he tried, in order
to learn the figure, to catch the number of notches
that were passed. He watched their movements,
listetpjil to their words. What did they do with
the key? Did they hide it somewhere?
One day he ran hurriedly down-stairs, having
seen them leave the room without locking the
safe. He boldly entered the office. They had
returned.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, I came to the wrong
door. . .
But Gervaise ran up to him and drew him into
the room.
"Come in, Monsieur Lupin," she said, "you're
at home here. Come and advise us. Which do
you think we ought to sell out? Foreigners or
Rentes?"
lIn the course of the alterations affected b}' the Tourist
Club, which, as the reader knows, became the purchaser of
the H6tel Imbert, this pipe was discovered by the workmen,
who were, of course, unable to explain its purpose.
233


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"But what about the opposition?" asked Lu-
pin, greatly astonished.
"Oh, it does not affect all the securities."
She flung open the door of the safe. The shelves
were heaped up with portfolios fastened with straps.
She took out one of them. But her husband pro-
tested:
"No, no, Gervaise, it would be madness to sell
foreign stock! It is going up. . . . Now, the
Rentes are as high as they are likely to go. What
do you think, my dear fellow?"
The dear fellow had no opinion on the subject;
however, he advised the sacrifice of the Rentes.
Thereupon she caught hold of another file of
papers, and from this file took a document at
random. It was a bond in the Three-per-Cents.
Ludovic put it in his pocket. In the afternoon,
accompanied by his secretary, he took the bond
to a broker to sell, and received forty-six thousand
francs for it.
In spite of what Gervaise had said, Arsene
Lupin did not feel at home. On the contrary, his
position in the Hotel Imbert filled him with sur-
prise. He often observed that the servants did
not know his name. They spoke of him as "mon-
sieur." Ludovic always referred to him as such.
"Tell monsieur . . . Has monsieur come?"
Why this enigmatical designation?
234


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
On five days in succession, instead of leaving
at six o'clock, as was his habit, he locked himself
into his room. He was supposed to have gone
out. Stretched at full length on the floor he
watched Ludovic's office.
On the sixth day, as the favorable circumstance
for which he was waiting had not occurred, he
went away in the middle of the night by the little
door in the court-yard, of which he had a key.
But on the seventh day he learned that the
Imberts, by way of replying to the malevolent
insinuations of their enemies, had offered to open
the safe.
"It's to-night or never," thought Lupin.
And, in fact, after dinner Ludovic went to his
office accompanied by Gervaise. They began to
turn over the pages of the books in the safe.
An hour passed, another hour. He heard the
servants going up to bed. Now there was no one
left on the first floor. Midnight struck. The Im-
berts went on with their work.
"Come on," muttered Lupin.
He opened his window. It looked out upon
the court-yard, and the space, on this moonless,
starless night, was dark. He took from his cup-
board a knotted rope, fastened it to the railing of
the balcony, stepped over, and let himself down
gently, with the help of a rain-spout, to the window
236


MADAME IMBERTS SAFE
beneath his own. It was the window of the office,
and the thick curtains veiled the interior from his
eyes. He stood for a moment motionless, stretch-
ing his ears, on the balcony.
Reassured by the silence, he gave a slight push
to the casement windows. If no one had made
it his business to test them, they ought to yield to
his pressure, for, in the course of the afternoon,
he had twisted the fastening in such a way as to
prevent it from entering the staples.
The casements gave way. Thereupon, with
infinite precautions, he opened them a little farther.
As soon as he was able to pass his head through he
stopped. A gleam of light filtered out between the
curtains, which did not quite meet. He saw Ger-
vaise and Ludovic sitting beside the safe.
Absorbed in their work, they exchanged but a
few occasional words in a low voice. Arsene cal-
culated the distance that separated him from them,
settled upon the exact movements that would be
necessary to reduce them to a state of helplessness,
one after the other, before they had time to call for
help, and was about to rush in upon them, when
Gervaise said:
"How cold the room has turned! I am going
to bed. What shall you do?"
"I should like to finish first."
"Finish 1 Why, it will take you all night!"
237


MADAME IMBERT'S SAFE
as much, on ascertaining that the fortune of the
Imberts had not the importance ascribed to it.
The millions did not number hundreds, nor even
tens. But, at any rate, the total made up a veiy
respectable sum, and consisted of excellent securi-
ties: railway debentures, municipal loans, state
funds, northern mines, and so on.
He declared himself satisfied:
"No doubt," he said, "there will be a sad loss
when the time comes for dealing. There will be
all sorts of difficulties, and I shall often have to let
things go very cheap. Never mind! With this
first capital, I undertake to live according to my
ideas . . . and to realize a few dreams that lie
near my heart."
"And the rest?"
"Burn them, my lad. These piles of papers
looked very well in the safe. They're no use to
us. As for the securities, we'll lock them up in
the cupboard, and wait calmly till the auspicious
moment arrives to dispose of them."
The next morning Arsene could see no reason
why he should not return to the Hotel Imbert.
But the papers contained an unexpected piece of
news: Ludovic and Gervaise had disappeared.
The safe was opened amid great solemnity.
The magistrates found what Arsene had left be-
hind, which was very little.
239


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
lady whom he was robbing of four millions in
forged securities! And think of the contrivings>
the efforts, the ingenious tricks to which I had to
resort in order to achieve that magnificent result!
It's the only time that I've been swindled in my
life! But, by Jove, I was had that time, and
finely and to good purpose!"


THE BLACK PEARL





VIII
THE BLACK PEARL
AVIOLENT ring at the bell woke the con-
cierge at No. 9, Avenue Hoche from her
sleep. She pulled the cord, muttering:
"I thought they were all in. It's past three!"
Her husband growled:
"Perhaps it's for the doctor."
And a voice did, in fact, ask:
"Doctor Harel . . . which floor?"
"Third floor, on the left. But the doctor won't
be disturbed at night."
"He'll have to be, this time."
The caller entered the hall, went up one floor,
two floors, and, without even stopping on Dr.
Harel's landing, continued as far as the fifth.
Here he tried two keys; one opened the lock,
the other unfastened the safety-catch.
"Capital," he muttered. "This simplifies mat-
ters considerably. But before setting to work let's
provide for our retreat. Let me see . . . have
I allowed a reasonable time for ringing at the
247


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
doctor's and being dismissed by him? Not yet.
. . . I must wait a little longer."
He let ten minutes elapse, then went down-
stairs again and tapped at the pane of the porter's
box, raging and fuming against the doctor as he
did so. The front door was opened for him, and
he slammed it behind him. But the door did not
shut, for the man had quickly applied a piece of
iron to the staple to prevent the bolt from en-
tering.
He returned without a sound, unobserved by the
concierge and her husband. In case of alarm,
his retreat was assured.
He calmly reascended the five flights. Enter-
ing the hall of the flat, by the light of a portable
electric lamp he put his hat and coat on one of
the chairs, sat down on another, and drew a pair
of thick felt slippers over his boots.
"So much for that!" he said. "And an easy
job too! I sometimes ask myself why everybody
doesn't choose the comfortable profession of a
burglar. Given a little skill and reflective power,
there's nothing more charming. It's such a rest-
ful trade, a regular family man's trade. . . . It's
even too simple. ... It ceases to be amusing. . . ."
He unfolded a minute plan of the flat.
"Let us begin by taking our bearings. Ah,
here is the square hall in which I am sitting.
248


THE BLACK PEARL
Looking out on the street, we have the drawing-
room, the boudoir, and the dining-room. No
use wasting time there: it appears that the count-
ess has a very poor taste . . . there's not a knick-
knack of the smallest value. ... So let's come to
the point at once. . . . Ah, here is a passage—the
passage that leads to the bedrooms. At a dis-
tance of three yards I ought to find the door
of the wardrobe-closet communicating with the
countess's bedroom."
He folded up his plan, put out his lantern, and
walked down the passage, counting:
"One yard . . . two yards . . . three yards. . . .
Here is the door. . . . How well it all fits in!
Bless my soul! A mere bolt, a tiny bolt, separates
me from the bedroom, and, moreover, I know
that the bolt is three feet and a half from the
floor. ... So that, with the aid of a little in-
cision which I propose to make around it, we
can easily get rid of it. ..."
He took the necessary implements from his
pocket. But an idea stopped him.
"Supposing the bolt should happen to be un-
fastened. ... I may as well try."
He turned the handle of the lock. To his
great surprise the door opened.
"Arsene Lupin, my fine fellow, fortune's on
your side to-night, there's no doubt of that! What
249


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
do you want next? You know the geography of
your field of operations; you know where the
countess keeps the black pearl hidden. . . . Con-
sequently, the black pearl is yours. ... All that
you have to do is to be more silent than silence
itself, more invisible than the darkness."
Arsene Lupin took quite half an hour to open
the second door—a glass door leading to the bed-
room. But he opened it with such infinite precau-
tions that, even if the countess had been awake, no
suspicious sound could have occurred to alarm her.
According to the indications marked on his plan,
he had only to follow the circuit of a sofa. This
would bring him first to an easy-chair, and then to
a little table beside the bed. On the table was a
box of stationery, and hidden quite simply inside
this box was the black pearl.
He crouched at full length on the carpet, and
followed the line of the sofa. But on reaching the
end of it he stopped to check the beating of his
heart. Although he felt no fear, he found it im-
possible to overcome that sort of nervous anguish
which a man experiences in a silence that is greater
than usual. And he was astonished at this, for,
after all, he had passed through moments more
solemn than the present without undergoing any
sort of emotion. He was threatened by no danger.
Then why was his heart beating like a mad bull?
250


THE BLACK PEARL
Was it that sleeping woman that impressed him,
that life so close to his own?
He listened, and seemed to distinguish a rhyth-
mical breathing. He felt reassured, as though by
a friendly presence.
He found his way to the chair, and then, with
little, imperceptible movements, crept towards the
table, groping in the darkness with his out-stretched
arm. His right hand touched one of the legs of
the table.
At last! He had only to rise to his feet, take
the black pearl, and go. It was as well, for his
heart was again beginning to thump in his chest
like a terrified animal, and so noisily that it seemed
impossible that the countess should not wake.
He quieted it "with a violent effort of will; but
just as he was trying to rise his left hand struck
against an object lying on the carpet, which he
at once recognized as a candlestick—an overturned
candlestick; and at the same moment another
object offered to his touch: a clock—one of those
little travelling-clocks in a leather case.
What did it all mean? What had happened?
He could not understand. The clock . . . the can-
dlestick. . . . Why were they not in their usual
places? Oh, what was happening in the frightful
darkness?
And suddenly a cry escaped him. He had
v 251


TH<E BLACK PEARL
floor lay the candlestick, the clock (the hands
pointed to twenty minutes past eleven), and, farther
off, an overturned chair; and blood on every side
—blood in pools and splashes.
"And the black pearl ?" he muttered.
The box of stationery was in its place. He
opened it hurriedly. It contained the jewel-case.
But the case was empty.
"The devil!" he said. "You boasted of your
luck a bit too soon, my friend Arsene Lupin. . . .
The countess murdered, the black pearl gone . . .
I can't congratulate you on the position! We must
be off, or you will have a heavy responsibility on
your shoulders!"
Nevertheless, he did not stir.
"Be off? Yes, another would be off. But
Arsene Lupin? Is there nothing better to be
done? Come, let us proceed by order. After all,
your conscience is easy. . . . Suppose that you
were a police commissary, and had to make an
inquiry? . . . Yes, but for that we should need a
clearer brain. And mine is in such a state!"
He fell into a chair, pressing his clinched fists
against his burning forehead.
The murder in the Avenue Hoche is one of the
most puzzling of recent years, and I should never
have been able to tell the story if the part played
253


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPI
in it by Arsene Lupin had not thrown a special
light upon it. There are few who suspect the"
nature of this part. In any case, no one know^
the exact and curious facts.
Who, from seeing her driving in the Bois, die
not know Leonide Zalti, the once famous opera-]
singer, who became the wife and widow of the
Comte d'Andillot; the Zalti, whose luxurious mode
of life dazzled Paris some twenty years ago; thel
Zalti, Comtesse d'Andillot, who owed a$ European]
reputation to the magnificence of her sets of dia-
monds and pearls? People used to say that she
carried on her shoulders the strong-rooms of many
a banking-house and the gold-mines of many an
Australian company. The great jewellers worked
for her much as they used to work for the kings]
and queens in the old days.
And who does not remember the catastrophe in I
which all these treasures were swallowed up ? |
Banking-houses and gold-mines, the whirlpool de-
voured them all. Of the unparalleled collection,
dispersed, amid great excitement, under the auc-
tioneer's hammer, the countess retained only the
famous black pearl. The black pearl—in other
words, a fortune, had she been willing to part
with it.
But she consistently refused. Rather than sell
this priceless gem she preferred to economize, to
254


THE BLACK PEARL
live in a simple flat, with just a companion, a cook,
and a man-servant. Nor did she hesitate to con-
fess her reason: the black pearl was the gift of
an emperor! And though almost ruined and re-
duced to the most ordinary sort of existence, she
remained faithful to the companion of her better
days.
"As long as I live," she said, "it shall never quit
my sight."
She wore it round her neck from morning till
evening. At night she placed it in a receptacle
known to herself alone.
All these facts were related in the newspapers,
and stimulated public curiosity. And, strange to
say, though easy enough to understand for those
who possess the key to the riddle, it was just the
arrest of the alleged assassin that complicated the
mystery and increased the excitement. Two days
after the murder the papers contained the follow-
ing news:
"We understand that Victor Danegre, the Comtesse
d'Andillot's servant, has been arrested. The evidence
adduced against him is overwhelming. Bloodstains have
been discovered on the lustrine sleeve of his livery waist-
coat, which was found in his room, hidden between
the mattresses of his bed, by M. Dudouis, the chief of
the detective service. Moreover, one of the stuff-covered
buttons of the waistcoat was missing; and this button
255


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
had been picked up, at an early stage of the investigation,
under the victim's bed.
"It seems probable that, after dinner, instead of going
to his own room in the attic, Danegre slipped into the
wardrobe-closet, and through the glass door saw the
countess hide the black pearl.
"We must add that there is no proof, so far, to con-
firm this supposition. In any case, one point remains
unexplained. At seven o'clock in the morning Danegre
went to the tobacconist's shop on the Boulevard de Cour-
celles. The concierge and the tobacconist have both
given evidence to this effect. On the other hand, the
countess's cook and her companion, both of whom sleep
at the end of the passage, declare that at eight o'clock,
when they got up, the front door and the kitchen door
were double-locked. The two women have been in the
countess's service for over twenty years, and are above
suspicion. The question is, How was Danegre able to
leave the flat? Did he have another key made for his
own use? The inquiry will show."
The inquiry showed absolutely nothing. On
the contrary. It appeared that Victor Danegre
was a dangerous criminal, who had already served
a term of imprisonment, a confirmed drunkard
aind a loose-liver, who was not likely to quail
before the use of the knife. But the case itself
seemed to become wrapped in a thicker shroud
of mystery and in more inexplicable contradic-
tions the more it was studied.
256


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
The police often yield to a sort of conviction
that makes them force events so as to fit in with
the first explanation offered. Victor Danegre's
antecedents were of a deplorable character—I
have already said that he had undergone sentence
before, was a drunkard and a loose-liver—and
this influenced the magistrate's judgment. Al-
though no new circumstance arose to corroborate
the first two or three clews, he refused to be
shaken. He closed the inquiry, and a few weeks
later the trial began.
It dragged wearily along. The presiding judge
took no interest in the case. The prosecution
was feebly conducted. Under these conditions,
Danegre's counsel had an easy game to play.
He pointed to the gaps and impossibilities in the
evidence. There was no material proof in ex-
istence. Who had made the key, the indispens-
able key, without which Danegre could not have
double-locked the door of the flat on leaving?
Who had seen this key, and what had become of
it? Who had seen the murderer's knife, and what
had become of that?
"In any case," said counsel, in conclusion, "it
rests with the prosecution to prove that my client
committed the murder. Let them prove that the
perpetrator of the theft and the murder is not
the mysterious individual who entered the house
258


THE BLACK PEARL
at three o'clock in the morning. The clock
stopped at eleven at night, they say. And then?
Cannot the hands of a clock be shifted to any
hour that seems convenient?"
Victor Danegre was acquitted.
He left prison one Friday by the waning light
of the afternoon, emaciated and depressed by the
six months spent in the cells. The examination,
the solitary confinement, the trial, the deliberation
of the jury—all this had filled him with a sickly
dread. His nights were haunted by hideous night-
mares and visions of the scaffold. He trembled
with fever and terror.
Under the name of Anatole Dufour he hired
a small room on the heights of Montmartre, and
lived on odd jobs—shifting for himself as best he
could.
A wretched life! Thrice engaged by three dif-
erent employers, he was each time recognized as
Victor Danegre, and dismissed on the spot.
He often saw, or thought he saw, men following
him—men, he had no doubt, * belonging to the
police, who would never rest until they had caught
him in some trap. Already he felt a rough hand
seize him by the collar.
One evening he was dining at an eating-house
in the neighborhood when seme one came and
259


THE BLACK PEARL
The new-comer took a card from his pocket and
handed it to him. Victor read:

GRIMAUDAN
Ex-Detective-Inspector
Confidential Inquiries
He shivered.
"You belong to the police!"
"Not now; but I used to like the trade, and I
still follow it ... in a more lucrative way. From
time to time one lights upon a golden job . . .
like yours.'
"Mine?0
"Yes, yours is an exceptional case—at least, if
you care to show a little willingness in the matter."
"And if I don't?"
"You'll have to. You're in a position in which
you can refuse me nothing."
Victor Danegre felt himself overcome by a dull
sense of fear. He asked:
"What is it? . . . Speak out!"
"Very well," said the other, "let's come to the
point and have done with it. In two words, I
have been sent by Mademoiselle de Sincleves."
261


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"Sincleves?"
"The Comtesse d'Andillot's heiress."
"Well?"
"Well, Mademoiselle de Sincleves has employed
me in order to make you give up the black pearl."
"The black pearl?"
"The one you stole."
"But I haven't got it."
"Yes, you have."
"If I had, I should be the murderer."
"You are the murderer."
Danegre gave a forced laugh.
"Fortunately, my good sir, the court took an-
other view. The jury unanimously found me not
guilty. And when a man has conscience on his
side, together with the esteem of twelve good men
and true • . ."
The ex-detective-inspector seized him by the
arm.
"None of your speech-making, my lad. Listen
to me carefully, and weigh my words: they are
worth it. Three months before the crime, Dane-
gre, you stole the key of the servants' entrance
from the cook and you had a similar one made at
Outard's, the locksmith, 244, Rue Oberkampf."
"It's not true! it's not true!" growled Victor.
"No one has seen the key; there's no such key."
"Here it is!"
262


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"If that's all your evidence!"
'"I have this besides. After the crime you went
back by the way you came. But half-way across
the wardrobe-closet, seized with fright, you must
have leaned against the wall to keep your bal-
ance."
"How do you know?" stammered Victor. . . .
"No one can know."
"The police, no; it could never have entered
the heads of any of the gentlemen in the office of
the public prosecutor to light a candle and examine
the walls. But if they were to do so they would
see a red mark on the white plaster, a very slight
mark, but clear enough to show the impression of
your thumb, all wet with blood, which you put
against the wall. Now you are surely aware that,
in the Bertillon system, this forms one of the chief
methods of identification."
Victor Danegre was deathly pale. Beads of
perspiration fell from his forehead to the table.
He stared mad-eyed at this strange man who was
conjuring up his crime as though he had been its
unseen witness.
He lowered his head, beaten, powerless. For
months he had been struggling—struggling, as it
seemed to him, against the whole world. Against
this man he had the impression that there was
nothing to be done.
2164


THE BLACK PEARL
"If I give you back the pearl," he stuttered,
"how much will you give me?"
"Nothing."
"What! You're joking! You expect me to
give you a thing worth thousands and hundreds
of thousands of francs and you to give me noth-
ing?"
"Yes, your life."
The wretched man shuddered. Grimaudan
added, in an almost gentle tone:
"Come, Danegre, the pearl is of no value to you.
You cannot possibly sell it. What is the good of
keeping it?"
"There are receivers . . . and, some day or other,
at a price . . ."
"Some day or other will be too late."
"Why?"
"Why? Because the police will have laid you
by the heels again, and this time, with the proofs
with which I shall supply them—the knife, the
key, the thumb-print—you're done for, my fine
fellow."
Victor clutched his head in his two hands and
reflected. He felt himself lost, irreparably lost,
and, at the same time, a great sense of weariness
overcame him, an immense need of rest and ease.
He muttered:
"When do you want it?"
265


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"Before one o'clock to-night."
"And if you don't get it?"
"If I don't get it I shall post this letter, in which
Mademoiselle de Sincleves denounces you to the
public prosecutor."
Danegre poured himself out two glasses of wine,
swallowed them one after the other, and then,
rising:
"Pay the bill," he said, "and let's go I've
had enough of this cursed business."
Night had come. The two men went down the
Rue Lepic, and along the outer boulevards towards
the Etoile. They walked in silence, Victor very
wearily, with a bent back.
At the Pare Monceau he said:
"It's close by the house . . ."
"By Jove, you only left it, before your arrest, to
go to the tobacco-shop!"
• "We're there," said Danegre, in a hollow voice.
They went along the railings of the garden, and
crossed a street of which the corner was formed
by the tobacconist's shop. Danegre stopped a few
paces farther on. His legs reeled under him. He
dropped on a bench.
"Well?" asked his companion.
"It's there."
*' It's there? What are you talking about?"
266


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"And if it's not there?"
"If no one saw me stoop and push it in, it must
be there still."
Could it be there? The black pearl flung into
the mud of a gutter for the first passer-by to pick
up! The black pearl ... a fortune!
"How far down?"
"About three inches."
He made an opening in the moist earth. The
point of his knife struck against something. He
widened the hole with his fingers.
The black pearl was there.
"Here, take your two hundred francs. Fll send
you your ticket for America."
The next evening the Echo de France published
the following paragraph, which was copied by the
press of the whole world:
"Yesterday the famous black pearl fell into the hands
of Arsene Lupin, who recovered it from the murderer of
the Comtesse d'Andillot. Facsimiles of this valuable
jewel will shortly be exhibited in London, St. Petersburg,
Calcutta, Buenos Ayres, and New York.
"Arsene Lupin is prepared to receive offers from his
correspondents at home and abroad."
"And that is how crime is always punished
and virtue rewarded," concluded Arsene Lupin,
268


THE BLACK PEARL
after he had revealed to me the unknown side of
the story.
"I see; that is how, under the name of Grimau-
dan, an ex-detective-inspector, you were selected
by fate to deprive the criminal of the fruits of
his crime!"
"Exactly. And I confess that it is one of the
adventures of which I am most proud. The
forty minutes which I spent in the countess's flat,
after verifying her death, I number among the
most astonishing and the most momentous in
my life. Caught in an apparently inextricable
situation, in forty minutes I had reconstructed
the crime, and, thanks to a few signs, acquired
the certainty that the murderer could be none
other than one of the countess's servants. Lastly,
I saw that, if I was to have the pearl, the man
must be arrested, and so I left the waistcoat-
button. But that there must not be any irrefutable
proofs of his guilt, I picked up the knife which
he had left on the carpet, took away the key
which he had left in the lock, double-locked the
door and removed the finger-marks on the plaster
of the wardrobe-closet. In my opinion, this was
one of those flashes . ."
"Of genius," I put in.
"Of gepius, if you like, which would not have lit
up the brain of the first-comer. I hit, in one sec-
269


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
ond, upon the two terms of the problem—an arrest
and an acquittal—and made use of the formidable
apparatus of the law to unsettle my man, to stupe-
fy him, and, in short, to reduce him to such a con-
dition of mind that, once free, he must inevitably,
fatally fall into the rather clumsy trap which I had
laid for him."
"Rather clumsy? I should say very! For he
ran no danger."
"No, none at all, for a man can't be tried twice
for the same offence."
"Poor devil! . .
"Poor devil! . . . Victor Danegre? You forget
that he's a murderer! ... It would have been a
most immoral thing to leave the black pearl in
his possession. Why, he's alive! Just think,
Danegre's alive!"
"And the black pearl is yours."
He took it from one of the secret compartments
of his pocket-book, examined it with loving fin-
gers and earnest eyes, and sighed.
"What Russian prince, what vain and idiot
Rajah, will end by becoming the owner of this
treasure? What American millionaire is des-
tined to possess this morsel of beauty and luxury
which once adorned the white shoulders of
Leonide Zalti, Comtesse d'Andillot? Who can
tell? . . ."
270





THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
officers whose regiments were taking part in the
manoeuvres in the neighborhood, and who had
accepted the invitation of Georges Devanne, the
banker, and his mother. One of them exclaimed:
"But, I say, wasn't Arsene Lupin seen on the
coast after his famous performance in the train
between Paris and Le Havre?"
"Just so, three months ago; and the week after
that I made the acquaintance, at the Casino, of
our friend Velmont here, who has since honored
me with a few visits: an agreeable preliminary
to a more serious call which I presume he means
to pay me one of these days ... or, rather, one of
these nights!"
The company laughed once more, and moved
into the old guard-room—a huge, lofty hall which
occupies the whole of the lower portion of the
Tour Guillaume, and in which Georges Devanne
has arranged all the incomparable treasures ac-
cumulated through the centuries by the lords of
Thibermesnil. It is filled and adorned with old
chests and credence-tables, fire-dogs and cande-
labra. Splendid tapestries hang on the stone-
walls. The deep embrasures of the four windows
are furnished with seats and end in pointed case-
ments with leaded panes. Between the door and
the window on the left stands a monumental
Renaissance book-case, on the pediment of which
274


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"Arsene Lupin and his gang are not very far
away. Without counting Baron Cahorn's mis-
hap, to whom are we to ascribe the daring burg-
laries at Montigny and Gruchet and Crasville if
not to our national thief? To - day it's my
turn."
"And have you had a warning, like Baron Ca-
horn?"
"The same trick does not succeed twice."
"Then? . . ."
"Look here."
He rose, and, pointing to a little empty space
between two tall folios on one of the shelves of the
bookcase, said:
"There was a book here—a sixteenth-century
book, entitled The Chronicles of Thibermesnil—
which was the histoiy of the castle since the time
of its construction by Duke Rollo, on the site of
a feudal fortress. It contained three engraved
plates. One of them presented a general view of
the domain as a whole; the second a plan of the
building; and the third—I call your special atten-
tion to this—the sketch of an underground passage,
one of whose outlets opens outside the first line of
the ramparts, while the other ends here—vyes, in
this very hall where we are sitting. Now this book
disappeared last month."
"By Jove!" said Velmont, "that's a bad sign.
276


HOLMLOCK SHEARS ARRIVES LATE
Only it's not enough to justify the intervention of
Holmlock Shears/'
"Certainly it would not have been enough if
another fact had not come to give its full signifi-
cance to that which I have just told you. There
was a second copy of the chronicle in the Biblio-
theque Nationale, and the two copies differed in
certain details concerning the underground pass-
age, such as the addition of a sectional drawing,
and a scale and a number of notes, not printed,
but written in ink and more or less obliterated. I
knew of these particulars, and I knew that the
definite sketch could not be reconstructed except
by carefully collating the two plans. Well, on the
day after that on which my copy disappeared the
one in the Bibliotheque Nationale was applied for
by a reader who carried it off without leaving any
clew as to the manner in which the theft had been
effected."
These words were greeted with many exclama-
tions.
"This time the affair grows serious/'
"Yes; and this time," said Devanne, "the police
were roused, and there was a double inquiry
which, however, led to no result."
"Like all those aimed at Arsene Lupin."
"Exactly. It then occurred to me to write and
ask for the help of Holmlock Shears, who replied
277


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
of memoirs, and he fondly loves everything that
has to do with Thibermesnil. But the explana-
tion to which he refers only serves to confuse
matters/'
"But tell us what it is"
"Do you really care to hear?"
"Immensely/'
"Well, you must know that, as the result of his
reading, he has discovered that two kings of France
held the key to the riddle/'
"Two kings of France?"
« Henry IV. and Louis XVI."
"Two famous men. And how did the rector
find out?"
"Oh, it's very simple," continued Devanne.
"Two days before the battle of Arques, King
Henry IV. came to sup and sleep in the castle, and
on this occasion Duke Edgar confided the family
secret to him. This secret Henry IV. revealed
later to Sully, his minister, who tells the story in
his Royales (Economies d'Etat, without adding any
comment besides this incomprehensible phrase:
6 La hache tournoie dans Vair qui f remit, maisYaile
s'ouvre et Von va jusqu a Dieu.'"
A silence followed, and Velmont sneered:
"It's not as clear as daylight, is it?"
"That's what I say. The rector maintains that
Sully set down the key to the puzzle by means of
280


HOLMLOCK SHEARS ARRIVES LATE
those words, without betraying the secret to the
scribes to whom he dictated his memoirs."
"It's an ingenious supposition."
"True. But what is the axe that turns? What
bird is it whose wing opens?'
"And who goes to God?"
"Goodness knows!"
"And what about our good King Louis XVI.?"
asked Velmont.
"Louis XVI. stayed at Thibermesnil in 1784,
and the famous Iron Cupboard discovered at the
Louvre on the information of Gamain, the lock-
smith, contained a paper with these words written
in the king's hand: 6Thibermesnil, 2-6-12/"
Horace Velmont laughed aloud.
"Victory! The darkness is dispelled. Twice
six are twelve!"
"Laugh as you please, sir," said the rector.
"Those two quotations contain the solution for
all that, and one of these days some one will
come along who knows how to interpret them."
"Holmlock Shears, first of all," said Devanne,
"unless Arsene Lupin forestalls him. What do
you think, Velmont?"
Velmont rose, laid his hand on Devanne's
shoulder, and declared:
"I think that the data supplied by your book
and the copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale lacked
281


HOLMLOCK SHEARS ARRIVES H
1

bust by Houdon, and some statuettes. At times
Arsene Lupin would stop before a magnificent oak
chest or a splendid picture and sigh:
"That's too heavy . . . Too big . . . What a
pity!"
And he would continue his expert survey.
In forty minutes the hall was "cleared/' to use
Arsene's expression. And all this was accom-
plished in an admirably orderly manner, without
the least noise, as though all the objects which
the men were handling had been wrapped in thick
wadding.
To the last man who was leaving, carrying a
clock signed by Boule, he said:
"You need not come back. You understand,
don't you, that as soon as the motor-van is load-
ed you're to make for the barn at Roquefort?"
"What about yourself, governor?"
"Leave me the motor-cycle."
When the man had gone he pushed the mov-
able section of the bookcase back into its place,
and, after clearing away the traces of the removal
and the footmarks, he raised a curtain and en-
tered a gallery which served as a communication
between the tower and the castle. Half-way
down the gallery stood a glass case, and it was
because of this case that Arsene Lupin had con-
tinued his investigations.
285



EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
It contained marvels: an unique collection of
watches, snuff - boxes, rings, chatelaines, minia-
tures of the most exquisite workmanship. He
forced the lock with a jimmy, and it was an un-
speakable pleasure to him to finger those gems of
gold and silver, those precious and dainty little
works of art.
Hanging round his neck was a large canvas
bag specially contrived to hold these windfalls.
He filled it. He also filled the pockets of his
jacket, waistcoat, and trousers. And he was
stuffing under his left arm a heap of those pearl
reticules beloved of our ancestors and so eagerly
sought after by our present fashion . . . when a
slight sound fell upon his ear.
He listened; he was not mistaken; the noise
became clearer.
And suddenly he remembered. At the end of
the gallery an inner staircase led to a room which
had been hitherto unoccupied, but which had been
allotted that evening to the young girl whom De-
vanne had gone to meet at Dieppe with his friends
the d'Androls.
With a quick movement he pressed the spring
of his lantern and extinguished it. He had just
time to hide in the recess of a window when the
door at the top of the staircase opened and the
gallery was lit by a faint gleam.
286


HOLMLOCK SHEARS ARRIVES 4-ATE
He had a feeling—for, half-hidden behind a
curtain, he could not see—that a figure was cau-
tiously descending the top stairs. He hoped that
it would come no farther. It continued, how-
ever, and took several steps into the gallery. But
it gave a cry. It must have caught sight of the
broken case, three-quarters emptied of its con-
tents.
By the scent he recognized the presence of a
woman. Her dress almost touched the curtain
that concealed him, and he seemed to hear her
heart beating, while she must needs herself per-
ceive the presence of another person behind her
in the dark, within reach of her hand. He said
to himself:
"She's frightened . . . she'll go back . . . she is
bound to go back."
She did not go back. The candle shaking in
her hand became steadier. She turned round,
hesitated for a moment, appeared to be listening
to the alarming silence, and then, with a sudden
movement, pulled back the curtain.
Their eyes met.
Arsene murmured, in confusion:
"You . . . you . . . Miss Underdown!"
It was Nellie Underdown, the passenger on the
Provence, the girl who had mingled her dreams
with his during that never-to-be-forgotten crossing,
287


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
who had witnessed his arrest, and who, rather than
betray him, had generously flung into the sea the
kodak in which he had hidden the stolen jewels
and bank-notes! . . . It was Nellie Underdown, the
dear, sweet girl whose image had so often saddened
or gladdened his long hours spent in prison!
So extraordinary was their chance meeting in
this castle and at that hour of the night that they
did not stir, did not utter a word, dumfounded
and, as it were, hypnotized by the fantastic appari-
tion which each of them presented to the other's
eyes.
Nellie, shattered with emotion, staggered to a
seat.
He remained standing in front of her. And
gradually, as the interminable seconds passed, he
became aware of the impression which he must be
making at that moment, with his arms loaded with
curiosities, his pockets stuffed, his bag filled to
bursting. A great sense of confusion mastered
him, and he blushed to find himself there in the
mean plight of a robber caught in the act. To
her henceforth, come what might, he was the
thief, the man who puts his hand into other men's
pockets, the man who picks locks and enters doors
by stealth.
One of the watches rolled upon the carpet, fol-
lowed by another. And more things came slip-
288


HOLMLOCK SHEARS ARRIVES LATE
ping from under his arms, which were unable to
retain them. Then, quickly making up his mind,
he dropped a part of his booty into a chair, emptied
his pockets, and took off his bag.
He now felt easier in Nellie's presence, and took
a step towards her, with the intention of speaking
to her. But she made a movement of recoil and
rose quickly, as though seized with fright, and ran
to the guard-room. The curtain fell behind her.
He followed her. She stood there, trembling and
speechless, and her eyes gazed in terror upon the
great devastated hall.
Without a moment's hesitation, he said:
"At three o'clock to-morrow everything shall be
restored to its place, . . . The things shall be
brought back."
She did not reply; and he repeated:
"At three o'clock to-morrow, I give you my
solemn pledge. . . . No power on earth shall pre-
vent me from keeping my promise. ... At three
o'clock to-morrow."
A long silence weighed upon them both. He
dared not break it, and the girl's emotion made
him suffer in every nerve. Softly, without a word,
he moved away.
And he thought to himself:
"She must go! . . . She must feel that she is
free to go! . . . She must not be afraid of me! . . ,"
289


HOLMLOCK SHEARS ARRIVES LATE
The sergeant replied to the questions put to him
by producing the order which the adjutant on
duty had given him, and which the adjutant him-
self had received that morning in the orderly
room. The order stated that No. 2 company of
the fourth battalion was to see that the goods and
chattels deposited at the Halleux cross-roads, in
the Forest of Arques, were delivered at three
o'clock to M. Georges Devanne, the owner of
Thibermesnil Castle. It bore the signature of
Colonel Beauvel.
"I found everything ready for us at the cross-
roads," added the sergeant, "laid out on the grass,
under the charge of . . . any one passing. That
struck me as queer, but . . . well, sir, the order
was plain enough!"
One of the officers examined the signature: it
was a perfect copy, but forged.
The band had stopped. The wagons were
emptied, and the furniture carried in-doors.
In the midst of this excitement Nellie Un-
derdown was left standing alone at one end of
the terrace. She was grave and anxious, full of
vague thoughts, which she did not seek to formu-
late. Suddenly she saw Velmont coming up to
her. She wished to avoid him, but the corner of
the balustrade that borders the terrace hemmed
her in on two sides, and a row of great tubs of
295


HOLMLOCK SHEARS ARRIVES LATE
"By Lupin?"
"By a quarter-master sergeant, in two military
wagons!"
Holmlock Shears violently thrust his cap down
upon his head and adjusted his bag; but Devanne,
in a fever of excitement, exclaimed:
"What are you doing?"
"I am going."
"Why should you?"
"Your things are here. Arsene Lupin is gone.
There is nothing left for me to do."
"Why, my dear sir, I simply can't get on with-
out you. What happened last night may be re-
peated to-morrow, seeing that we know nothing
of the most important part: how Arsene Lupin
effected his entrance, how he left, and why, a few
hours later, he proceeded to restore what he had
stolen."
"Oh, I see; you don't know ..."
The idea of a secret to be discovered mollified
Holmlock Shears.
"Very well, let's look into it. But at once,
please, and, as far as possible, alone."
The phrase clearly referred to the bystanders.
Devanne took the hint, and showed the English-
man into the guard-room. Shears put a number
of questions to him touching the previous evening,
the guests who were present, and the inmates and
303


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
"My chauffeur is not back yet. . . . They are to
let me know. . . . So, I see, you consider that the
underground passage ends at the chapel. What
indication . . .?"
Holmlock Shears interrupted him:
"May I ask you to get me a ladder and a lan-
tern?"
"Oh, do you want a ladder and a lantern?"
"I suppose so, or I wouldn't ask you for them."
Devanne, a little taken aback by this cold logic,
rang the bell. The ladder and the lantern were
brought.
Orders succeeded one another with the strictness
and precision of military commands:
"Put the ladder against the bookcase, to the
left of the word Thibermesnil . .
Devanne did as he was asked, and the English-
man continued:
"More to the left ... to the right. . . . Stop! . . .
Go up. . . . Good. . . . The letters are all in
relief, are they not?"
"Yes."
"Catch hold of the letter H, and tell me wheth-
er it turns in either direction?"
Devanne grasped the letter H, and exclaimed:
"Yes, it turns! A quarter of a circle to the
right! How did you discover that? . .
Shears, without replying, continued:
306


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
Duke Rollo's tombstone, carved with the twelve
letters in relief, "thibermesnil." And they found
themselves in the little ruined chapel of which
Holmlock Shears had spoken.
"'And you go to God' . . . that is to say, to the
chapel," said Shears, quoting the end of the sen-
tence.
"Is it possible," cried Devanne, amazed at the
other's perspicacity and keenness—"is it possible
that this simple clew told you all that you wanted
to know?"
"Tush!" said the Englishman. "It was even
superfluous. In the copy belonging to the Bib-
liotheque Nationale the drawing of the tunnel
ends on the left, as you know, in a circle, and on
the right, as you do not know, in a little cross,
which is so faintly marked that it can only be
seen through a magnifying-glass. This cross ob-
viously points to the chapel."
Poor Devanne could not believe his ears.
"It's wonderful, marvellous, and just as simple
as A B C! How is it that the mystery was never
seen through?"
"Because nobody ever united the three or four
necessary elements; that is to say, the two books
and the quotations . . . nobody, except Arsene
Lupin and myself."
"But I also," said Devanne, "and the Abb£
310


HOLMLOCK SHEARS ARRIVES LATE
Gelis ... we both of us knew as much about it as
you, and yet . . ."
Shears smiled.
"Monsieur Devanne, it is not given to all the
world to succeed in solving riddles."
"But I have been hunting for ten years. And
you, in ten minutes . . ."
"Pooh! It's a matter of habit."
They walked out of the chapel, and the English-
man exclaimed:
"Hullo, a motor-car waiting!"
"Why, it's mine!"
"Yours? But I thought the chauffeur hadn't
returned?"
"No more he had ... I can't make out . . ."
They went up to the car, and Devanne said to
the chauffeur:
"Victor, who told you to come here?"
"Monsieur Velmont, sir," replied the man.
"Monsieur Velmont? Did you meet him?"
"Yes, sir, near the station, and he told me to
go to the chapel."
"To go to the chapel! What for?"
"To wait for you, sir . . . and your friend."
Devanne and Holmlock Shears exchanged
glances. Devanne said:
"He saw that the riddle would be child's play
to you. He has paid you a delicate compliment."
3ii


THE EXPLOITS OF ARSENE LUPIN
A smile of satisfaction passed over the detec-
tive's thin lips. The compliment pleased him.
He jerked his head and said:
"He's a man, that! I took his measure the
moment I saw him."
"So you've seen him?"
"We crossed on my way here."
"And you knew that he was Horace Velmont—
I mean to say, Arsene Lupin?"
"No, but it did not take me long to guess as
much . . . from a certain irony in his talk."
"And you let him escape?"
"I did . . . although I had only to put out my
hand . . . five gendarmes rode past us."
"But, bless my soul, you'll never get an oppor-
tunity like that again . . ."
"Just so, Monsieur Devanne," said the Eng-
lishman, proudly. "When Holmlock Shears has
to do with an adversary like Arsene Lupin, he does
not take opportunities ... he creates them . . ."
But time was pressing, and as Lupin had been
so obliging as to send the motor, Devanne and
Shears settled themselves in their seats. Victor
started the engine, and they drove off. Fields,
clumps of trees sped past. The gentle undula-
tions of the Caux country levelled out before them.
Suddenly Devanne's eyes were attracted to a little
parcel in one of the carriage pockets,
312





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