Part 12

--And the black pearl? he murmured.

The box of letter paper was in its place. He opened it quickly. It contained the case. But the case was empty.

--The devil, he said to himself, you boasted a bit too soon of your luck, my friend Arsène Lupin... The murdered countess, the black pearl gone... the situation is not brilliant! Let us flee, or you risk incurring heavy responsibilities.

He did not move, however.

--Flee? Yes, another would flee. But Arsène Lupin? Is there not better to do? Come now, let us proceed in order. After all, your conscience is clear... Suppose you are a police commissioner and must conduct an investigation... Yes, but for that, one would need a clearer brain. And mine is in a state!

He fell into an armchair, his fists clenched against his burning forehead.

* * *

The affair of the Avenue Hoche is one of those that have most keenly intrigued us of late, and I would certainly not have told it if Arsène Lupin's involvement did not illuminate it in a quite special light. Few suspect that involvement. No one, in any case, knows the exact and curious truth.

Who did not know, having met her in the Bois, Léontine Zalti, the former singer, wife and widow of Count d'Andillot, the Zalti whose dazzling luxury dazzled Paris some twenty years ago, the Zalti, Countess d'Andillot, whose diamond and pearl ornaments earned her a European reputation? It was said of her that she carried on her shoulders the strongbox of several banking houses and the gold mines of several Australian companies. The great jewelers worked for Zalti as they once worked for kings and queens.

And who does not remember the catastrophe in which all these riches were swallowed up? Banking houses and gold mines, the abyss devoured everything. Of the marvelous collection, dispersed by the auctioneer, there remained only the famous black pearl. The black pearl! that is to say, a fortune, had she wished to part with it.

She would not. She preferred to restrict herself, to live in a simple apartment with her lady companion, her cook, and a servant, rather than sell that inestimable jewel. There was a reason for this that she did not fear to avow: the black pearl was the gift of an emperor! And almost ruined, reduced to the most modest existence, she remained faithful to her companion of the fine days.

--While I live, she said, I shall not part with it.

From morning till night, she wore it at her neck. At night, she placed it in a spot known to her alone.

All these facts, recalled by the public papers, stimulated curiosity, and, a strange thing, but easy to understand for those who hold the key to the enigma, it was precisely the arrest of the presumed assassin that complicated the mystery and prolonged the emotion. The day after the next, indeed, the newspapers published the following news:

"We are informed of the arrest of Victor Danègre, the servant of the Countess d'Andillot. The charges against him are crushing. On the lustered sleeve of his livery waistcoat, which M. Dudouis, the head of the Sureté, found in his garret, between the mattress and the bedspring, bloodstains were noted. Moreover, a button covered with cloth was missing from this waistcoat. Now this button, from the beginning of the searches, had been picked up beneath the victim's own bed.

"It is probable that, after dinner, Danègre, instead of returning to his garret, slipped into the robe closet, and that, through the glass door, he saw the countess hide the black pearl.

"We must say that, thus far, no proof has come to confirm this supposition. In any case, another point remains obscure. At seven o'clock in the morning, Danègre went to the tobacco shop on the Boulevard de Courcelles: the concierge first, then the tobacconist, testified to this effect. On the other hand, the countess's cook and her lady companion, who both sleep at the end of the corridor, affirm that at eight o'clock, when they arose, the door of the antechamber and the door of the kitchen were double-locked. Having been in the countess's service for twenty years, these two persons are above all suspicion. One therefore wonders how Danègre could have left the apartment. Had he had another key made? The examination will clarify these various points."

The examination clarified absolutely nothing, on the contrary. It was learned that Victor Danègre was a dangerous recidivist, an alcoholic and a debauchee, whom a knife stroke did not frighten. But the affair itself seemed, as one studied it, to wrap itself in thicker shadows and more inexplicable contradictions.

First, a Mlle de Sinclèves, cousin and sole heiress of the victim, declared that the countess, a month before her death, had confided to her in one of her letters the way in which she hid the black pearl. The day after she received this letter, she noted its disappearance. Who had stolen it?

For their part, the concierges recounted that they had opened the door to an individual, who had gone up to Dr. Harel's. The doctor was summoned. No one had rung at his. Then who was this individual? An accomplice?

This hypothesis of an accomplice was adopted by the press and by the public. Ganimard, the old chief inspector Ganimard defended it, not without reason.

--There is Lupin behind this, he said to the magistrate.

--Bah! retorted the latter, you see him everywhere, your Lupin.

--I see him everywhere, because he is everywhere.

--You would rather say that you see him each time something does not seem quite clear to you. Besides, in this matter, note this: the crime was committed at eleven twenty in the evening, as attested by the clock, and the nocturnal visit, denounced by the concierges, took place only at three in the morning.

Justice often obeys those impulses of conviction which lead one to force events to bend to the first explanation one has given of them. The deplorable antecedents of Victor Danègre, recidivist, drunkard and debauchee, influenced the magistrate, and although no new circumstance came to corroborate the two or three indices originally discovered, nothing could shake him. He closed his inquiry. A few weeks later, the trial began.

It was embarrassed and languishing. The president directed it without ardor. The public prosecutor attacked feebly. In these conditions, Danègre's lawyer had an easy game. He showed the gaps and impossibilities of the accusation. No material proof existed. Who had forged the key, the indispensable key without which Danègre, after his departure, could not have double-locked the apartment door? Who had seen this key, and what had become of it? Who had seen the assassin's knife, and what had become of it?

--And, in any case, concluded the lawyer, prove that it is my client who killed. Prove that the author of the theft and the crime is not that mysterious person who introduced himself into the house at three in the morning. The clock marked eleven o'clock, you will say? And so? can one not set the hands of a clock to the hour that suits you?

Victor Danègre was acquitted.

* * *

He left prison on a Friday at the decline of day, emaciated, depressed by six months in a cell. The inquiry, the solitude, the trial, the jury's deliberations, all that had filled him with a morbid dread. At night, awful nightmares, visions of the scaffold haunted him. He trembled with fever and terror.

Under the name of Anatole Dufour, he rented a small room on the heights of Montmartre, and he lived at the hazard of odd jobs, tinkering here and there.

A lamentable life! Three times engaged by three different employers, he was recognized and dismissed on the spot.

Often he noticed, or believed he noticed, that men followed him, men of the police, he had no doubt, who had not renounced making him fall into some trap. And in advance he felt the rough grip of the hand that would take him by the collar.

One evening as he dined at a caterer's in the quarter, someone installed himself opposite him. It was an individual of about forty, clad in a black frock coat of doubtful cleanliness. He ordered a soup, vegetables, and a liter of wine.

And when he had eaten the soup, he turned his eyes toward Danègre and looked at him long.

Danègre grew pale. Surely this individual was one of those who had followed him for weeks. What did he want? Danègre tried to rise. He could not. His legs wavered beneath him.

The man poured himself a glass of wine and filled Danègre's glass.

--We drink, comrade?

Victor stammered:

--Yes... yes... to your health, comrade.

--To your health, Victor Danègre.

The other started:

--Me!... me!... but no... I swear to you...

--What do you swear? that you are not yourself? the countess's servant?

--What servant? My name is Dufour. Ask the boss.

--Dufour, Anatole, yes, for the boss, but Danègre for justice, Victor Danègre.

--Not true! not true! you were lied to.

The newcomer drew a card from his pocket and held it out. Victor read: "Grimaudan, ex-inspector of the Sureté. Confidential information." He shuddered.

--You are of the police?

--I am no longer, but the trade pleased me, and I continue in a more... lucrative fashion. One digs up from time to time some gold affairs... like yours.

--Mine?

--Yes, yours, it is an exceptional affair, if indeed you will show a little complaisance.

--And if I do not?

--You must. You are in a situation where you can refuse me nothing.

A dull apprehension invaded Victor Danègre. He asked:

--What is it?... speak.

--Very well, replied the other, let us finish. In two words, here it is: I am sent by Mlle de Sinclèves.

--Sinclèves?

--The heiress of the Countess d'Andillot.

--Well?

--Well, Mlle de Sinclèves charges me with claiming the black pearl from you.

--The black pearl?

--The one you stole.

--But I do not have it!

--You have it.

--If I had it, that would make me the assassin.

--You are the assassin.

Danègre forced a laugh.

--Happily, my good sir, the Assize Court was not of the same opinion. All the jurors, do you hear, recognized me innocent. And when one has one's conscience on one's side and the esteem of twelve brave men...

The ex-inspector seized his arm:

--No phrases, my little one. Listen to me attentively and weigh my words, they are worth the trouble. Danègre, three weeks before the crime, you stole from the cook the key that opens the service door, and you had a similar key made at Outard, locksmith, 244 rue Oberkampf.

--Not true, not true, growled Victor, no one saw that key... it does not exist.

--Here it is.

After a silence, Grimaudan resumed:

--You killed the countess with the aid of a clasp knife bought at the Bazar de la République, the very day you ordered your key. The blade is triangular and grooved.

--Bosh, all that, you speak at random. No one saw the knife.

--Here it is.

Victor Danègre made a gesture of recoil. The ex-inspector continued:

--There are rust stains on it. Need I explain their origin?

--And after?... you have a key and a knife... Who can affirm they belonged to me?

--The locksmith first, and then the clerk to whom you bought the knife. I have already refreshed their memories. Faced with you, they will not fail to recognize you.

He spoke dryly and harshly, with a terrifying precision. Danègre was convulsed with fear. Neither the magistrate nor the president of the assizes, nor the prosecutor had pressed him so close, had seen so clearly into things that he himself no longer discerned very distinctly.

However, he tried again to play indifference.

--If that is all your proof!

--I have this one left. You left again, after the crime, by the same path. But, in the middle of the robe closet, seized with fright, you had to lean against the wall to keep your balance.

--How do you know? stammered Victor... no one can know.

--The justice, no, it could not occur to any of those gentlemen of the prosecutor's office to light a candle and examine the walls. But if one did, one would see on the white plaster a very faint red mark, clear enough however that one would find there the imprint of the front of your thumb, of your thumb all wet with blood and which you placed against the wall. Now, you are not unaware that in anthropometry, this is one of the principal means of identification.

Victor Danègre was ashen. Drops of sweat flowed from his forehead onto the table. He regarded with mad eyes this strange man who evoked his crime as if he had been the invisible witness of it.

He lowered his head, vanquished, powerless. For months he had struggled against everyone. Against that man, he had the impression there was nothing to be done.

--If I return the pearl, he stammered, how much will you give me?

--Nothing.

--What! you mock me! I would give you a thing worth thousands and hundreds of thousands, and I would have nothing?

--Yes, your life.

The wretch shivered. Grimaudan added, in an almost gentle tone:

--Come now, Danègre, this pearl has no value for you. It is impossible for you to sell it. What good to keep it?

--There are fences... and one day or another, at any price...

--One day or another, it will be too late.

--Why?

--Why? but because justice will have laid hands on you again, and, this time, with the proofs I shall furnish it, the knife, the key, the indication of the thumb, you are done for, my good man.

Victor clasped his head in both hands and reflected. He felt lost, indeed, irremediably lost, and, at the same time, a great fatigue invaded him, an immense need of rest and surrender.

He murmured:

--When do you need it?

--This evening, before one o'clock.

--Or else?

--Or else, I post this letter in which Mlle de Sinclèves denounces you to the prosecutor of the Republic.

Danègre poured himself two glasses of wine which he drank one after the other, then, rising:

--Pay the bill, and let us go... I have had enough of this accursed affair.

Night had come. The two men went down the rue Lepic and followed the outer boulevards toward the Étoile. They walked silently, Victor, very weary and with bowed back.

At the Parc Monceau, he said:

--It is toward the house...

--Of course! you did not leave it, before your arrest, except to go to the tobacco shop.

--We are there, said Danègre, in a muffled voice.

They skirted the garden railing and crossed a street whose corner was formed by the tobacco shop. Danègre stopped a few steps further. His legs wavered. He fell onto a bench.

--Well? asked his companion.

--It is there.

--It is there! what are you singing to me?

--Yes there, before us.

--Before us! I say, Danègre, it would not be...

--I tell you it is there.

--Where?

--Between two paving stones.

--Which ones?

--Search.

--Which ones? repeated Grimaudan.

Victor did not answer.

--Ah! perfect, you want to make me stoop, my good man.

--No... but... I am dying of misery.

--And so, you hesitate? Come, I shall be a good prince. How much do you need?

--Enough to take my steerage ticket for America.

--Agreed.

--And a hundred-franc note for initial expenses.

--You shall have two. Speak.

--Count the paving stones, to the right of the gutter. It is between the twelfth and the thirteenth.

--In the gutter?

--Yes, at the foot of the sidewalk.

Grimaudan looked around him. Tramways passed, people passed. But bah! who could suspect?...

He opened his pocketknife and planted it between the twelfth and thirteenth stone.

--And if it is not there?

--If no one saw me stoop and drive it in, it is still there.

Could it be that it was there! The black pearl thrown into the mud of a gutter, at the disposal of the first comer! The black pearl... a fortune!

--At what depth?

--Ten centimeters, about.

He dug the wet sand. The point of his knife struck something. With his fingers he widened the hole.

He caught sight of the black pearl.

--Here, there are your two hundred francs. I shall send you your ticket for America.

The next day, the _Écho de France_ published this item, which was reproduced by the newspapers of the whole world:

_Since yesterday, the famous black pearl has been in the hands of Arsène Lupin, who recovered it from the murderer of the Countess d'Andillot. Before long, facsimiles of this precious jewel will be exhibited in London, St. Petersburg, Calcutta, Buenos Aires and New York._

_Arsène Lupin awaits the proposals that his correspondents may be good enough to make him._

* * *

--And that is how crime is always punished and virtue rewarded, concluded Arsène Lupin, when he had revealed to me the underside of the affair.

--And that is how, under the name of Grimaudan, ex-inspector of the Sureté, you were chosen by destiny to wrest from the criminal the benefit of his misdeed.

--Exactly. And I confess it is one of the adventures of which I am most proud. The forty minutes I spent in the countess's apartment, after noting her death, are among the most astonishing and profound of my life. In forty minutes, entangled in the most inextricable situation, I reconstructed the crime, I acquired certainty, by means of a few indices, that the culprit could only be a servant of the countess. Finally, I understood that, to have the pearl, it was necessary that this servant be arrested--and I left the waistcoat button--but that one must not raise against him irrefutable proofs of his guilt--and I picked up the knife forgotten on the carpet, carried off the key forgotten on the lock, double-locked the door, and erased the finger marks on the plaster of the robe closet. To my mind, that was one of those flashes...

--Of genius, I interrupted.

--Of genius, if you will, and which would not have illuminated the brain of just anyone. To guess in a second the two terms of the problem--an arrest and an acquittal--to make use of the formidable apparatus of justice to unbalance my man, to stupefy him, in short, to put him in a state of mind such that, once free, he must inevitably, fatally, fall into the rather coarse trap I laid for him!...

--Rather? say very, for he ran no danger.

--Oh! not the least, since any acquittal is a definitive thing.

--Poor devil...

--Poor devil... Victor Danègre! you do not reflect that he is an assassin? It would have been the height of immorality for the black pearl to remain his. He lives, think, Danègre lives!

--And the black pearl is yours.

He took it from one of the secret pockets of his wallet, examined it, caressed it with his fingers and his moved eyes, and he sighed:

--What boyar, what imbecile and vain rajah will possess this treasure? For what American millionaire is destined the little piece of beauty and luxury that adorned the white shoulders of Léontine Zalti, Countess d'Andillot?...

------

HERLOCK SHOLMÈS ARRIVES TOO LATE

It is strange how much you resemble Arsène Lupin, Velmont!

--You know him?

--Oh! like everyone, by his photographs, none of which resembles the others, but each of which leaves the impression of an identical face... which is very much yours.

Horace Velmont seemed rather vexed.

--Is it not so, my dear Devanne! And you are not the first to remark it to me, believe me.

--To such a point, insisted Devanne, that if you had not been recommended to me by my cousin d'Estevan, and if you were not the known painter whose fine seascapes I admire, I wonder if I would not have warned the police of your presence at Dieppe.

The sally was greeted with general laughter. There were there, in the great dining room of the château de Thibermesnil, besides Velmont: the Abbé Gélis, curate of the village, and a dozen officers, whose regiments were maneuvering in the surroundings, and who had answered the invitation of the banker Georges Devanne and his mother. One of them cried:

--But has not Arsène Lupin precisely been reported on the coast, after his famous coup of the express from Paris to Le Havre?

--Precisely, that was three months ago, and the following week I made the acquaintance at the casino of our excellent Velmont who, since then, has kindly honored me with a few visits--agreeable preamble to a more serious house call he will pay me one of these days... or rather one of these nights!

They laughed again and passed into the old guards' hall, a vast room, very high, which occupies the whole lower part of the Guillaume tower, and where Georges Devanne has gathered the incomparable riches accumulated across the centuries by the lords of Thibermesnil. Buffets and sideboards, firedogs and girandoles decorate it. Magnificent tapestries hang on the stone walls. The embrasures of the four windows are deep, furnished with benches, and end in ogival bays with lead-framed stained glass. Between the door and the left window rises a monumental Renaissance-style bookcase, on whose pediment one reads, in letters of gold, "Thibermesnil" and below, the proud device of the family: "Fais ce que veulx."

And as cigars were lit, Devanne resumed:

--Only, make haste, Velmont, it is the last night left to you.

--And why? said the painter who, decidedly, took the thing as a joke.

Devanne was about to reply when his mother made him a sign. But the excitement of the dinner, the desire to interest his guests, prevailed.

--Bah! he murmured, I may speak now. An indiscretion is no longer to be feared.

One sat around him with lively curiosity, and he declared, with the satisfied air of someone announcing big news:

--Tomorrow, at four in the afternoon, Herlock Sholmès, the great English policeman for whom there is no mystery, Herlock Sholmès, the most extraordinary decipherer of enigmas ever seen, the prodigious personage who seems forged entire by the imagination of a novelist, Herlock Sholmès will be my guest.

They exclaimed. Herlock Sholmès at Thibermesnil. Was it serious then? Was Arsène Lupin really in the region?

--Arsène Lupin and his band are not far. Not to mention the affair of Baron Cahorn, to whom attribute the burglaries of Montigny, of Gruchet, of Crasville, if not to our national thief? Today, it is my turn.

--And you are forewarned, as Baron Cahorn was?

--The same trick does not succeed twice.

--Then?

--Then?... then here it is.

He rose, and pointing with his finger, on one of the shelves of the bookcase, to a small empty space between two enormous folios:

--There was a book there, a book of the sixteenth century entitled the _Chronicle of Thibermesnil_, and which was the history of the château since its construction by Duke Rollon on the site of a feudal fortress. It contained three engraved plates. One represented a bird's-eye view of the domain in its entirety, the second the plan of the buildings, and the third--I call your attention to this--the tracing of a underground passage one of whose exits opens outside the first line of ramparts, and whose other ends here, yes, in the very room where we are. Now, this book has disappeared since last month.

--The devil, said Velmont, that is a bad sign. Only that is not enough to motivate the intervention of Herlock Sholmès.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”