Part 11
--But the ugly rumors going around about the fortune...
--Let them go around. I have been pursuing this matter for six months, six months that I have been informing myself, studying, casting my nets, questioning the servants, the moneylenders and the straw men, six months that I have lived in the shadow of the husband and wife. Consequently I know where I stand. Whether the fortune comes from old Brawford, as they claim, or from another source, I affirm that it exists. And since it exists, it is mine.
--Good Lord, a hundred million!
--Say ten, or even five, no matter! there are hefty bundles of securities in the safe. The devil himself couldn't keep me from getting my hands on the key one of these days.
The tramway stopped at Place de l'Étoile. The man murmured:
--So, for the moment?
--For the moment, nothing to be done. I will warn you. We have time.
Five minutes later, Arsène Lupin was climbing the sumptuous staircase of the Imbert mansion, and Ludovic was presenting him to his wife. Gervaise was a good little lady, quite round, very talkative. She gave Lupin the warmest welcome.
--I wanted us to be alone to celebrate our savior, she said.
And from the outset they treated the "our savior" like an old friend. By dessert the intimacy was complete, and confidences flowed freely. Arsène recounted his life, the life of his father, an upright magistrate, the sorrows of his childhood, the difficulties of the present. Gervaise, in turn, told of her youth, her marriage, the kindnesses of old Brawford, the hundred million she had inherited, the obstacles that delayed her taking possession, the loans she had been forced to contract at exorbitant rates, her endless quarrels with Brawford's nephews, and the oppositions! and the sequestrations! everything, in short!
--Just think, Monsieur Lupin, the securities are there, next door, in my husband's study, and if we detach a single coupon, we lose everything! They are there, in our safe, and we cannot touch them!
A slight shudder ran through Monsieur Lupin at the thought of such proximity. And he had the very clear sensation that Monsieur Lupin would never have enough elevation of soul to feel the same scruples as the good lady.
--Ah! they are there, he murmured, his throat dry.
--They are there.
Relations begun under such auspices could only form tighter bonds. Delicately questioned, Arsène Lupin confessed his misery, his distress. On the spot, the unfortunate young man was appointed private secretary to the two spouses, at a salary of a hundred and fifty francs a month. He would continue to live at his own place, but would come each day to receive his work orders and, for greater convenience, they placed at his disposal, as a workroom, one of the rooms on the second floor.
He chose. By what excellent chance was it above Ludovic's study?
* * *
Arsène soon noticed that his post as secretary bore a furious resemblance to a sinecure. In two months, he had only four insignificant letters to recopy and was called but once into his employer's study, which allowed him only once to contemplate the safe officially. Moreover, he noted that the holder of this sinecure was not deemed worthy to appear alongside Deputy Anquety, or the bâtonnier Grouvel, for he was omitted from the famous society receptions.
He did not complain, much preferring to keep his modest little place in the shade, and held himself apart, happy and free. Besides, he did not waste his time. He first paid a certain number of clandestine visits to Ludovic's study, and paid his respects to the safe, which remained none the less hermetically closed. It was an enormous block of cast iron and steel, of forbidding aspect, and against which neither files, nor gimlets, nor monseigneur pliers could prevail.
Arsène Lupin was not stubborn.
--Where force fails, cunning succeeds, he told himself. The essential thing is to have an eye and an ear in the place.
He therefore took the necessary measures, and after minute and painful soundings through the floor of his room, he introduced a lead pipe that ended at the ceiling of the study between two moldings of the cornice. Through this pipe, an acoustic tube and a viewing scope, he hoped to see and hear.
Thenceforth he lived flat on his belly on his floorboards. And indeed he often saw the Imberts in conference before the safe, thumbing through registers and handling files. When they successively turned the four knobs that operated the lock, he tried, to know the combination, to catch the number of notches that passed. He watched their gestures, he spied on their words. What did they do with the key? Did they hide it?
One day, he hurried down, having seen them leave the room without closing the safe. And he entered resolutely. They had returned.
--Oh! excuse me, he said, I mistook the door.
But Gervaise rushed forward, and drawing him in:
--Do come in, Monsieur Lupin, do come in, are you not at home here? You will give us some advice. Which securities should we sell? Exterior or Rente?
--But, the opposition? objected Lupin, very surprised.
--Oh! it does not seize all the securities.
She swung open the door. On the shelves were piled portfolios belted with straps. She seized one. But her husband protested.
--No, no, Gervaise, it would be madness to sell Exterior. It is going to rise... Whereas the Rente is at its highest. What do you think, my dear friend?
The dear friend had no opinion, nevertheless he advised the sacrifice of the Rente. Then she took another bundle, and, in that bundle, at random, a paper. It was a 3% bond of 1,374 francs. Ludovic put it in his pocket. In the afternoon, accompanied by his secretary, he had this bond sold by a stockbroker and received forty-six thousand francs.
However Gervaise might have put it, Arsène Lupin did not feel at home. Quite the contrary, his situation in the Imbert mansion filled him with surprise. On various occasions, he could ascertain that the servants ignored his name. They called him monsieur. Ludovic always designated him thus: "You will notify monsieur... Has monsieur arrived?" Why this enigmatic appellation?
Besides, after the initial enthusiasm, the Imberts barely spoke to him, and, while treating him with the consideration due a benefactor, never concerned themselves with him! One would have thought him an eccentric who dislikes being importuned, and they respected his isolation, as if this isolation were a rule laid down by him, a whim on his part. Once when he was passing through the vestibule, he heard Gervaise say to two gentlemen:
--He is such a recluse!
Very well, he thought, we are a recluse. And renouncing any explanation of these people's oddities, he pursued the execution of his plan. He had acquired the certainty that he must not count on chance nor on a blunder of Gervaise, who never let the safe key out of her possession, and who, moreover, would never have taken that key without first scrambling the letters of the lock. Thus he had to act.
An event precipitated matters, the violent campaign waged against the Imberts by certain newspapers. They were accused of fraud. Arsène Lupin witnessed the vicissitudes of the drama, the agitation of the household, and he understood that by delaying further, he would lose everything.
For five days running, instead of leaving around six o'clock as was his habit, he locked himself in his room. He was supposed to have gone out. He, stretched out on the floorboards, watched Ludovic's study.
The five evenings, the favorable circumstance he awaited not having occurred, he left in the middle of the night, by the small door giving onto the courtyard. He had a key to it.
But on the sixth day he learned that the Imberts, in response to the malicious insinuations of their enemies, had proposed that the safe be opened and an inventory made of it.
--It is for tonight, Lupin thought.
And indeed, after dinner, Ludovic settled in his study. Gervaise joined him. They began leafing through the safe's registers.
An hour passed, then another hour. He heard the servants going to bed. Now there was no one left on the first floor. Midnight. The Imberts continued their work.
--Let's go, Lupin murmured.
He opened his window. It looked out on the courtyard, and the space, in the moonless and starless night, was dark. He drew from his wardrobe a knotted rope which he fastened to the balcony rail, swung over and let himself slide gently, aided by a gutter, down to the window below his own. It was that of the study, and the thick veil of the quilted curtains masked the room. Standing on the balcony, he remained a moment motionless, ear strained and eye on the watch.
Reassured by the silence, he gently pushed the two casements. If no one had taken care to secure them, they should yield to the effort, for he, during the afternoon, had turned the latch so that it no longer entered the catches.
The casements yielded. Then, with infinite precautions, he opened them further. As soon as he could slip his head through, he stopped. A bit of light filtered between the two ill-joined curtains: he caught sight of Gervaise and Ludovic seated next to the safe.
They exchanged only rare words and in low voices, absorbed by their work. Arsène calculated the distance separating him from them, established the exact movements he would have to make to reduce them one after the other to helplessness, before they had time to call for help, and he was about to hurl himself forward, when Gervaise said:
--How the room has cooled since a moment! I am going to bed. And you?
--I would like to finish.
--Finish! But you have the whole night ahead of you.
--But no, at most an hour.
She withdrew. Twenty minutes, thirty minutes passed. Arsène pushed the window a little more. The curtains fluttered. He pushed again. Ludovic turned around, and, seeing the curtains swollen by the wind, rose to close the window...
There was not a cry, not even an appearance of struggle. In a few precise gestures, and without doing him the least harm, Arsène stunned him, wrapped his head with the curtain, tied him up, and in such a way that Ludovic did not even distinguish the face of his assailant.
Then, rapidly, he headed toward the safe, seized two portfolios which he put under his arm, left the study, descended the stairs, crossed the courtyard, and opened the service door. A carriage stood in the street.
--Take this first, he said to the coachman, and follow me.
He returned to the study. In two trips they emptied the safe. Then Arsène went up to his room, removed the rope, erased all trace of his passage. It was finished.
A few hours later, Arsène Lupin, aided by his companion, performed the sorting of the portfolios. He experienced no disappointment, having foreseen it, upon noting that the Imberts' fortune did not have the importance attributed to it. The millions were not counted in hundreds, nor even in tens. But after all the total still formed a very respectable figure, and they were excellent values, railroad bonds, Cities of Paris, government stock, Suez, Northern mines, etc.
He declared himself satisfied.
--Certainly, he said, there will be a harsh loss when the time comes to negotiate. We will run up against oppositions, and more than once we will have to liquidate at a pittance. No matter, with this first capital outlay, I undertake to live as I see fit... and to realize a few dreams close to my heart.
--And the rest?
--You can burn it, my lad. These piles of papers looked fine in the safe. For us, they are useless. As for the securities, we are going to lock them up very quietly in the closet, and we will wait for the opportune moment.
The next day Arsène thought that no reason prevented him from returning to the Imbert mansion. But the reading of the newspapers revealed this unforeseen news: Ludovic and Gervaise had disappeared.
The opening of the safe took place in great solemnity. The magistrates found there what Arsène Lupin had left... very little.
* * *
Such are the facts, and such is the explanation that Arsène Lupin gives to certain of them by his intervention. I have the account from himself, one day when he was in a confiding mood.
That day, he was pacing back and forth in my study, and his eyes had a slight fever I did not know in them.
--All in all, I said to him, is this your finest coup?
Without answering me directly, he resumed:
--There are impenetrable secrets in this affair. Thus, even after the explanation I have given you, how many obscurities remain! Why this flight? Why did they not profit from the help I brought them involuntarily? It would have been so simple to say: "The hundred million were in the safe. They are no longer there because someone stole them"!
--They lost their heads.
--Yes, there it is, they lost their heads... On the other hand, it is true...
--It is true?...
--No, nothing.
What did this reticence signify? He had not told all, that was visible, and what he had not told, he was loath to tell. I was intrigued. It must have been grave to provoke hesitation in such a man.
I put questions to him at random.
--You never saw them again?
--No.
--And it did not happen that you felt, toward those two unfortunates, some pity?
--I! he exclaimed, starting.
His revolt astonished me. Had I hit the mark? I insisted:
--Evidently. Without you, they might perhaps have been able to face the danger... or at least leave with pockets filled.
--Remorse, that is what you are attributing to me, is it not?
--Well!
He struck my table violently.
--So, according to you, I should have remorse?
--Call it remorse or regret, in short some feeling whatsoever...
--Some feeling whatsoever for people...
--For people from whom you stole a fortune.
--What fortune?
--Well... those two or three bundles of securities...
--Those two or three bundles of securities! I stole bundles of securities from them, is that it? a part of their inheritance? there is my fault? there is my crime?
"But, good heavens, my dear fellow, have you not guessed that they were false, those securities?... do you hear?
THEY WERE FALSE!
I looked at him, dumbfounded.
--False, the four or five million.
--False, he cried furiously, utterly false! the bonds, the Cities of Paris, the government stock, paper, nothing but paper! Not a sou, I did not draw a sou from the whole block! And you ask me to have remorse? But it is they who should have it! They rolled me like a common gull! They plucked me like the last of their dupes, and the most stupid!
A real anger agitated him, made of resentment and wounded pride.
--But, from one end to the other, I was at a disadvantage! from the very first hour! Do you know the role I played in this affair, or rather the role they made me play? That of André Brawford! Yes, my dear, and I saw nothing but the trick of it!
"It was afterward, through the newspapers, and by connecting certain details, that I realized it. While I posed as the benefactor, the gentleman who risked his life to pull you from the claws of the apaches, they, they passed me off as one of the Brawfords!
"Is it not admirable? This eccentric who had his room on the second floor, this recluse they pointed out from afar, it was Brawford, and Brawford, it was me! And thanks to me, thanks to the confidence I inspired under the name of Brawford, the bankers lent, and the notaries urged their clients to lend! Eh, what a school for a beginner! Ah! I swear to you the lesson served me!
He stopped abruptly, seized my arm, and he said to me in an exasperated tone where one could nevertheless easily sense shades of irony and admiration, he said this ineffable phrase:
--My dear, at the present hour, Gervaise Imbert owes me fifteen hundred francs!
At this, I could not help but laugh. It was truly of a superior buffoonery. And he himself had a fit of frank gaiety.
--Yes, my dear, fifteen hundred francs! Not only did I not touch the first sou of my salary, but she even borrowed fifteen hundred francs from me! All my savings as a young man! And do you know why? I'll give you a thousand guesses... For her poor! As I tell you! for supposed unfortunates she was relieving unknown to Ludovic!
"And I fell for it! Is that funny enough, eh? Arsène Lupin done out of fifteen hundred francs, and done out of it by the good lady from whom he was stealing four million in false securities! And what combinations, efforts and ingenious ruses it took me to arrive at this fine result!
"It is the only time I have been taken in my life. But blast it, I was well taken that time, and properly, in the grand manner!...
------
THE BLACK PEARL
A violent ring of the bell woke the concierge of number 9 Avenue Hoche. She pulled the cord grumbling:
--I thought everyone was in. It is at least three o'clock!
Her husband muttered:
--It might be for the doctor.
Indeed, a voice asked:
--Doctor Harel... which floor?
--Third on the left. But the doctor does not stir at night.
--He will have to stir all the same.
The gentleman entered the vestibule, climbed one flight, two flights, and, without even stopping on Doctor Harel's landing, continued up to the fifth. There, he tried two keys. One worked the lock, the other the safety bolt.
--Marvelous, he murmured, the job is considerably simplified. But before acting, we must secure our retreat. Let us see... have I logically had time to ring at the doctor's, and to be sent away by him? Not yet... a little patience...
At the end of some ten minutes, he came back down and rapped on the lodge window grumbling against the doctor. They opened to him, and he slammed the door behind him. Now, this door did not close, the man having quickly applied a piece of iron to the strike so that the bolt could not enter it.
He thus re-entered, without noise, unknown to the concierges. In case of alarm, his retreat was assured.
Peaceably he remounted the five floors. In the anteroom, by the light of an electric lantern, he deposited his overcoat and hat on one of the chairs, sat on another, and enveloped his boots in thick felt slippers.
--Phew! there we are... And how easily! I wonder a little why everyone does not choose the comfortable trade of burglar? With a bit of skill and reflection, there is none more charming. A restful trade... a family-man's trade... Too convenient even... it becomes tedious.
He unfolded a detailed plan of the apartment.
--Let us begin by orienting ourselves. Here, I see the rectangle of the vestibule where I am. On the street side, the salon, the boudoir and the dining room. Useless to waste time over there, it seems the countess has deplorable taste... not a valuable knickknack!... So, straight to the point... Ah! here is the outline of a corridor, the corridor leading to the bedrooms. At three meters, I should meet the door of the wardrobe which communicates with the countess's chamber.
He refolded his plan, extinguished his lantern, and entered the corridor counting:
--One meter... Two meters... three meters... Here is the door... How everything falls into place, my God! A simple bolt, a little bolt, separates me from the bedroom, and, what is more, I know that this bolt is found at one meter forty-three from the floor... So that, thanks to a slight incision I am going to make around it, we shall be rid of it...
He took from his pocket the necessary instruments, but an idea stopped him.
--And if, by chance, this bolt were not shot. Let us try anyway... For what it costs!
He turned the knob of the lock. The door opened.
--My good Lupin, decidedly luck favors you. What do you need now? You know the topography of the places where you are to operate; you know the spot where the countess hides the black pearl... Consequently, for the black pearl to belong to you, it is simply a matter of being more silent than silence, more invisible than the night.
Arsène Lupin spent a good half-hour opening the second door, a glass door giving onto the bedroom. But he did it with such precaution, that even had the countess not been asleep, no equivocal creak could have troubled her.
According to the indications of his plan, he had only to follow the contour of a chaise-longue. That led him to an armchair, then to a small table near the bed. On the table, there was a box of letter paper, and, enclosed quite simply in this box, the black pearl.
He stretched out on the carpet and followed the contours of the chaise-longue. But at the end he stopped to repress the beating of his heart. Although no fear agitated him, it was impossible to overcome that sort of nervous anguish one feels in too great a silence. And he wondered at it, for, after all, he had lived without emotion through more solemn minutes. No danger threatened him. Then why did his heart beat like a crazed bell? Was it this sleeping woman who impressed him, this life so near his own?
He listened and thought he discerned the rhythm of a breathing. He was reassured as by a friendly presence.
He sought the armchair, then, by imperceptible small gestures, crawled toward the table, feeling the shadow with his outstretched arm. His right hand met one of the table's feet.
At last! he had only to rise, take the pearl and go. Happily! for his heart was beginning again to jump in his chest like a terrified beast, and with such noise that it seemed impossible the countess should not awaken.
He calmed it in a prodigious surge of will, but, at the moment he tried to rise, his left hand struck on the carpet an object he recognized at once as a candlestick, an overturned candlestick; and immediately, another object presented itself, a clock, one of those little traveling clocks covered with a leather sheath.
What? What was happening? He did not understand. This candlestick,... this clock... why were these objects not in their usual place? Ah! what was happening in the frightful shadow?
And suddenly, a cry escaped him. He had touched... oh! what strange, unnamable thing! But no, no, fear was troubling his brain. Twenty seconds, thirty seconds, he remained motionless, terrified, sweat on his temples. And his fingers kept the sensation of that contact.
By an implacable effort, he stretched his arm again. His hand, again, brushed the thing, the strange, unnamable thing. He palped it. He demanded that his hand palpate it and take account. It was hair, a face... and this face was cold, almost frozen.
However terrible reality may be, a man like Arsène Lupin masters it as soon as he has taken cognizance of it. Quickly, he worked the spring of his lantern. A woman lay before him, covered in blood. Dreadful wounds devastated her neck and shoulders. He leaned over and examined her. She was dead.
--Dead, dead, he repeated with stupor.
And he looked at those fixed eyes, the rictus of that mouth, that livid flesh, and that blood, all that blood which had flowed on the carpet and was now congealing, thick and black.
Having risen, he turned the electric switch, the room filled with light, and he could see all the signs of a fierce struggle. The bed was entirely unmade, the covers and sheets torn off. On the floor, the candlestick, then the clock--the hands marked eleven twenty--then, farther off, an overturned chair, and everywhere blood, pools of blood.
“Stories of the world, in your language.”