"If one of them did not deceive you, how do you explain that this letter was able to reach me on the same day and by the same post as the one you sent me?"
And he handed her the letter which Arsène Lupin had written to him.
Madame d'Imblevalle was dumbfounded:
"Arsène Lupin!… How did he know?"
"Did you tell no one of your letter?"
"No one," said the baron. "The idea occurred to us the other evening, at dinner."
"Before the servants?"
"There were only our two children. And even then … no, Sophie and Henrietta were not at table, were they Suzanne?"
Madame d'Imblevalle reflected and declared:
"No, they had gone up to mademoiselle."
"Mademoiselle?" asked Shears.
"The governess, Alice Demun."
"Doesn't she have her meals with you?"
"No, she has them by herself, in her room."
Wilson had an idea:
"The letter written to my friend Holmlock Shears was posted?"
"Naturally."
"Who posted it?"
"Dominique, who has been with me as my own man for twenty years," replied the baron. "Any search in that direction would be waste of time."
"Time employed in searching is never wasted," stated Wilson, sententiously.
This closed the first inquiries and Shears asked leave to withdraw.
An hour later, at dinner, he saw Sophie and Henrietta, the d'Imblevalles' children, two pretty little girls of eight and six respectively. The conversation languished. Shears replied to the pleasant remarks of the baron and his wife in so surly a tone that they thought it better to keep silence. Coffee was served. Shears swallowed the contents of his cup and rose from his chair.
At that moment, a servant entered with a telephone message for him. Shears opened it and read:
"Accept my enthusiastic admiration. Results obtained by you in so short a time make my head reel. I feel quite giddy.
"Arsène Lupin."
He could not suppress a gesture of annoyance and, showing the telegram to the baron:
"Do you begin to believe," he said, "that your walls have eyes and ears?"
"I can't understand it," murmured M. d'Imblevalle, astounded.
"Nor I. But what I do understand is that not a movement takes place here unperceived by him. Not a word is spoken but he hears it."
That evening, Wilson went to bed with the easy conscience of a man who has done his duty and who has no other business before him than to go to sleep. So he went to sleep very quickly and was visited by beautiful dreams, in which he was hunting down Lupin all by himself and just on the point of arresting him with his own hand; and the feeling of the pursuit was so lifelike that he woke up.
Some one was touching his bed. He seized his revolver:
"Another movement, Lupin, and I shoot!"
"Steady, old chap, steady on!"
"Hullo, is that you, Shears? Do you want me?"
"I want your eyes. Get up...."
He led him to the window:
"Look over there … beyond the railings...."
"In the park?"
"Yes. Do you see anything?"
"No, nothing."
"Try again; I am sure you see something."
"Oh, so I do: a shadow … no, two!"
"I thought so: against the railings.... See, they're moving.... Let's lose no time."
Groping and holding on to the banister, they made their way down the stairs and came to a room that opened on to the garden steps. Through the glass doors, they could see the two figures still in the same place.
"It's curious," said Shears. "I seem to hear noises in the house."
"In the house? Impossible! Everbody's asleep."
"Listen, though...."
At that moment, a faint whistle sounded from the railings and they perceived an undecided light that seemed to come from the house.
"The d'Imblevalles must have switched on their light," muttered Shears. "It's their room above us."
"Then it's they we heard, no doubt," said Wilson. "Perhaps they are watching the railings."
A second whistle, still fainter than the first.
"I can't understand, I can't understand," said Shears, in a tone of vexation.
"No more can I," confessed Wilson.
Shears turned the key of the door, unbolted it and softly pushed it open.
A third whistle, this time a little deeper and in a different note. And, above their heads, the noise grew louder, more hurried.
"It sounds rather as if it were on the balcony of the boudoir," whispered Shears.
He put his head between the glass doors, but at once drew back with a stifled oath. Wilson looked out in his turn. Close to them, a ladder rose against the wall, leaning against the balustrade of the balcony.
"By Jove!" said Shears. "There's some one in the boudoir. That's what we heard. Quick, let's take away the ladder!"
But, at that moment, a form slid from the top to the bottom, the ladder was removed and the man who carried it ran swiftly toward the railings, to the place where his accomplices were waiting. Shears and Wilson had darted out. They came up with the man as he was placing the ladder against the railings. Two shots rang out from the other side.
"Wounded?" cried Shears.
"No," replied Wilson.
He caught the man around the body and tried to throw him. But the man turned, seized him with one hand and, with the other, plunged a knife full into his chest. Wilson gave a sigh, staggered and fell.
"Damnation!" roared Shears. "If they've done for him, I'll do for them!"
He laid Wilson on the lawn and rushed at the ladder. Too late: the man had run up it and, in company with his accomplices, was fleeing through the shrubs.
"Wilson, Wilson, it's not serious, is it? Say it's only a scratch!"
The doors of the house opened suddenly. M. d'Imblevalle was the first to appear, followed by the men-servants carrying candles.
"What is it?" cried the baron. "Is Mr. Wilson hurt?"
"Nothing; only a scratch," repeated Shears, endeavouring to delude himself into the belief.
Wilson was bleeding copiously and his face was deathly pale. Twenty minutes later, the doctor declared that the point of the knife had penetrated to within a quarter of an inch of the heart.
"A quarter of an inch! That Wilson was always a lucky dog!" said Shears, summing up the situation, in an envious tone.
"Lucky … lucky...." grunted the doctor.
"Why, with his strong constitution, he'll be all right...."
"After six weeks in bed and two months' convalescence."
"No longer?"
"No, unless complications ensue."
"Why on earth should there be any complications?"
Fully reassured, Shears returned to M. d'Imblevalle in the boudoir. This time, the mysterious visitor had not shown the same discretion. He had laid hands without shame on the diamond-studded snuff-box, on the opal necklace and, generally, on anything that could find room in the pockets of a self-respecting burglar.
The window was still open, one of the panes had been neatly cut out and a summary inquiry held at daybreak showed that the ladder came from the unfinished house and that the burglars must have come that way.
"In short," said M. d'Imblevalle, with a touch of irony in his voice, "it is an exact repetition of the theft of the Jewish lamp."
"Yes, if we accept the first version favoured by the police."
"Do you still refuse to adopt it? Doesn't this second theft shake your opinion as regards the first?"
"On the contrary, it confirms it."
"It seems incredible! You have the undoubted proof that last night's burglary was committed by somebody from the outside and you still maintain that the Jewish lamp was stolen by one of our people?"
"By some one living in the house."
"Then how do you explain…?"
"I explain nothing, monsieur: I establish two facts, which resemble each other only in appearance, I weigh them separately and I am trying to find the link that connects them."
His conviction seemed so profound, his actions based upon such powerful motives, that the baron gave way:
"Very well. Let us go and inform the commissary of the police."
"On no account!" exclaimed the Englishman, eagerly. "On no account whatever! The police are people whom I apply to only when I want them."
"Still, the shots…?"
"Never mind the shots!"
"Your friend...."
"My friend is only wounded.... Make the doctor hold his tongue.... I will take all the responsibility as regards the police."
Two days elapsed, devoid of all incident, during which Shears pursued his task with a minute care and a conscientiousness that was exasperated by the memory of that daring onslaught, perpetrated under his eyes, despite his presence and without his being able to prevent its success. He searched the house and garden indefatigably, talked to the servants and paid long visits to the kitchen and stables. And, though he gathered no clue that threw any light upon the subject, he did not lose courage.
"I shall find what I am looking for," he thought, "and I shall find it here. It is not a question now, as in the case of the blonde lady, of walking at hap-hazard and of reaching, by roads unknown to me, an equally unknown goal. This time I am on the battlefield itself. The enemy is no longer the invisible, elusive Lupin, but the flesh-and-blood accomplice who moves within the four walls of this house. Give me the least little particular, and I know where I stand."
This little particular, from which he was to derive such remarkable consequences, with a skill so prodigious that the case of the Jewish Lamp may be looked upon as one in which his detective genius bursts forth most triumphantly, this little particular he was to obtain by accident.
On the third day, entering the room above the boudoir, which was used as a schoolroom for the children, he came upon Henriette, the smaller of the two. She was looking for her scissors.
"You know," she said to Shears, "I make papers too, like the one you got the other evening."
"The other evening?"
"Yes, after dinner. You got a paper with strips on it … you know, a telegram.... Well, I make them too."
She went out. To any one else, these words would have represented only the insignificant observation of a child; and Shears himself listened without paying much attention and continued his inspection. But, suddenly, he started running after the child, whose last phrase had all at once impressed him. He caught her at the top of the staircase and said:
"So you stick strips on to paper also, do you?"
Henriette, very proudly, declared:
"Yes, I cut out the words and stick them on."
"And who taught you that pretty game?"
"Mademoiselle … my governess.... I saw her do it. She takes words out of newspapers and sticks them on...."
"And what does she do with them?"
"Makes telegrams and letters which she sends off."
Holmlock Shears returned to the schoolroom, singularly puzzled by this confidence and doing his utmost to extract from it the inferences of which it allowed.
There was a bundle of newspapers on the mantel-piece. He opened them and saw, in fact, that there were groups of words or lines missing, regularly and neatly cut out. But he had only to read the words that came before or after to ascertain that the missing words had been removed with the scissors at random, evidently by Henriette. It was possible that, in the pile of papers, there was one which mademoiselle had cut herself. But how was he to make sure?
Mechanically, Shears turned the pages of the lesson-books heaped up on the table and of some others lying on the shelves of a cupboard. And suddenly a cry of joy escaped him. In a corner of the cupboard, under a pile of old exercise-books, he had found a children's album, a sort of picture alphabet, and, in one of the pages of this album, he had seen a gap.
He examined the page. It gave the names of the days of the week: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and so on. The word "Saturday" was missing. Now the Jewish Lamp was stolen on a Saturday night.
Shears felt that little clutch at his heart which always told him, in the plainest manner possible, when he had hit upon the knotty point of a mystery. That grip of truth, that feeling of certainty never deceived him.
He hastened to turn over the pages of the album, feverishly and confidently. A little further on came another surprise.
It was a page consisting of capital letters followed by a row of figures.
Nine of the letters and three of the figures had been carefully removed.
Shears wrote them down in his note-book, in the order which they would have occupied, and obtained the following result:
C D E H N O P R Z—237
"By Jove!" he muttered. "There's not much to be made out of that, at first sight."
Was it possible to rearrange these letters and, employing them all, to form one, two or three complete words?
Shears attempted to do so in vain.
One solution alone suggested itself, returned continually to the point of his pencil and, in the end, appeared to him the right one, because it agreed with the logic of the facts and also corresponded with the general circumstances.
Admitting that the page in the album contained each of the letters of the alphabet once and once only, it was probable, it was certain that he had to do with incomplete words and that these words had been completed with letters taken from other pages. Given these conditions, and allowing for the possibility of a mistake, the puzzle stood thus:
R E P O N D . Z—CH—237
The first word was clear: "Rêpondez, reply." An E was missing, because the letter E, having been once used, was no longer available.
As for the last, unfinished word, it undoubtedly formed, with the number 237, the address which the sender gave to the receiver of the letter. He was advised to fix the day for Saturday and asked to send a reply to C H 237.
Either C H 237 was the official number of a poste restante or else the two letters C H formed part of an incomplete word. Shears turned over the leaves of the album: nothing had been cut from any of the following pages. He must, therefore, until further orders, be content with the explanation hit upon.
"Isn't it fun?"
Henriette had returned.
He replied:
"Yes, great fun! Only, haven't you any other papers?… Or else some words ready cut out, for me to stick on?"
"Papers?… No.... And then mademoiselle wouldn't like it."
"Mademoiselle?"
"Yes, mademoiselle has scolded me already."
"Why?"
"Because I told you things … and she says you must never tell things about people you are fond of."
"You were quite right to tell me."
Henriette seemed delighted with his approval, so much so that, from a tiny canvas bag pinned on to her frock, she took a few strips of stuff, three buttons, two lumps of sugar and, lastly, a square piece of paper which she held out to Shears:
"There, I'll give it you all the same." It was the number of a cab, No. 8279.
"Where did you get this from?"
"It fell out of her purse."
"When?"
"On Sunday, at mass, when she was taking out some coppers for the collection."
"Capital! And now I will tell you how not to get scolded. Don't tell mademoiselle that you have seen me."
Shears went off in search of M. d'Imblevalle and asked him straight out about mademoiselle.
The baron gave a start:
"Alice Demun!… Would you think?… Oh, impossible!"
"How long has she been in your service?"
"Only twelve months, but I know no quieter person nor any in whom I place more confidence."
"How is it that I have not yet seen her?"
"She was away for two days."
"And at present?"
"Immediately on her return, she took up her position by your friend's bedside. She is a first-rate nurse … gentle … attentive. Mr. Wilson seems delighted with her."
"Oh!" said Shears, who had quite omitted to inquire after old chap's progress.
He thought for a moment and asked:
"And did she go out on Sunday morning?"
"The day after the robbery?"
"Yes."
The baron called his wife and put the question to her. She replied:
"Mademoiselle took the children to the eleven o'clock mass, as usual."
"But before that?"
"Before? No.... Or rather.... But I was so upset by the theft!… Still, I remember that, on the evening before, she asked leave to go out on Sunday morning … to see a cousin who was passing through Paris, I think. But surely you don't suspect her?"
"Certainly not. But I should like to see her."
He went up to Wilson's room. A woman dressed like a hospital nurse, in a long gray linen gown, was stooping over the sick man and giving him a draught. When she turned round, Shears recognized the girl who had spoken to him outside the Gare du Nord.
Not the slightest explanation passed between them. Alice Demun smiled gently, with her grave and charming eyes, without a trace of embarrassment. The Englishman wanted to speak, tried to utter a syllable or two and was silent. Then she resumed her task, moved about peacefully before Shears's astonished eyes, shifted bottles, rolled and unrolled linen bandages and again gave him her bright smile.
Shears turned on his heels, went downstairs, saw M. d'Imblevalle's motor in the courtyard, got into it and told the chauffeur to drive him to the yard at Levallois of which the address was marked on the cab-ticket given him by the child. Duprêt, the driver who had taken out No. 8279 on Sunday morning, was not there and Shears sent back the motor-car and waited until he came to change horses.
Duprêt the driver said yes, he had taken up a lady near the Parc Monceau, a young lady in black, with a big veil on her: she seemed very excited.
"Was she carrying a parcel?"
"Yes, a longish parcel."
"And where did you drive her to?"
"Avenue des Ternes, at the corner of the Place Saint-Ferdinand. She stayed for ten minutes or so; and then we went back to the Parc Monceau."
"Would you know the house again, in the Avenue des Ternes?"
"Rather! Shall I take you there?"
"Presently. Go first to 36, Quai des Orfèvres."
At the police headquarters he had the good fortune to come upon Chief-Inspector Ganimard:
"Are you disengaged, M. Ganimard?"
"If it's about Lupin, no."
"It is about Lupin."
"Then I shan't stir."
"What! You give up…!"
"I give up the impossible. I am tired of this unequal contest of which we are certain to have the worst. It's cowardly, it's ridiculous, it's anything you please.... I don't care! Lupin is stronger than we are. Consequently, there's nothing to do but give in."
"I'm not giving in!"
"He'll make you give in like the rest of us."
"Well, it's a sight that can't fail to please you."
"That's true enough," said Ganimard, innocently. "And, as you seem to want another beating, come along!"
Ganimard and Shears stepped into the cab. They told the driver to stop a little way before he came to the house and on the other side of the avenue, in front of a small café. They sat down outside it, among tubs of laurels and spindle-trees. The light was beginning to wane.
"Waiter!" said Shears. "Pen and ink!"
He wrote a note and, calling the waiter again, said:
"Take this to the concierge of the house opposite. It's the man in the cap smoking his pipe in the gateway."
The concierge hurried across and, after Ganimard had announced himself as a chief-inspector, Shears asked if a young lady in black had called at the house on Sunday morning.
"In black? Yes, about nine o'clock: it's the one who goes up to the second floor."
"Do you see much of her?"
"No, but she's been oftener lately: almost every day during the past fortnight."
"And since Sunday?"
"Only once … without counting to-day."
"What! Has she been to-day?"
"She's there now."
"She's there now?"
"Yes, she came about ten minutes ago. Her cab is waiting on the Place Saint-Ferdinand, as usual. I passed her in the gateway."
"And who is the tenant of the second floor?"
"There are two: a dressmaker, Mademoiselle Langeais, and a gentleman who hired a couple of furnished rooms, a month ago, under the name of Bresson."
"What makes you say 'under the name'?"
"I have an idea that it's an assumed name. My wife does his rooms: well, he hasn't two articles of clothing marked with the same initials."
"How does he live?"
"Oh, he's almost always out. Sometimes, he does not come home for three days together."
"Did he come in on Saturday night?"
"On Saturday night?… Wait, while I think.... Yes, he came in on Saturday night and hasn't stirred out since."
"And what sort of a man is he?"
"Faith, I couldn't say. He changes so! He's tall, he's short, he's fat, he's thin … dark and fair. I don't always recognize him."
Ganimard and Shears exchanged glances.
"It's he," muttered Ganimard. "It must be he."
For a moment, the old detective experienced a real agitation, which betrayed itself by a deep breath and a clenching of the fists.
Shears too, although more master of himself, felt something clutching at his heart.
"Look out!" said the concierge. "Here comes the young lady."
As he spoke, mademoiselle appeared in the gateway and crossed the square.
"And here is M. Bresson."
"M. Bresson? Which is he?"
"The gentleman with a parcel under his arm."
"But he's taking no notice of the girl. She is going to her cab alone."
"Oh, well, I've never seen them together."
The two detectives rose hurriedly. By the light of the street-lamps, they recognized Lupin's figure, as he walked away in the opposite direction to the square.
"Which will you follow?" asked Ganimard.
"'Him,' of course. He's big game."
"Then I'll shadow the young lady," suggested Ganimard.
"No, no," said the Englishman quickly, not wishing to reveal any part of the case to Ganimard. "I know where to find the young lady when I want her.... Don't leave me."
At a distance and availing themselves of the occasional shelter of the passers-by and the kiosks, Ganimard and Shears set off in pursuit of Lupin. It was an easy enough pursuit, for he did not turn round and walked quickly, with a slight lameness in the right leg, so slight that it needed the eye of a trained observer to perceive it.
"He's pretending to limp!" said Ganimard. And he continued, "Ah, if we could only pick up two or three policemen and pounce upon the fellow! As it is, here's a chance of our losing him."
But no policeman appeared in sight before the Porte des Ternes; and, once the fortifications were passed, they could not reckon on the least assistance.
"Let us separate," said Shears. "The place is deserted."
They were on the Boulevard Victor-Hugo. They each took a different pavement and followed the line of the trees.
They walked like this for twenty minutes, until the moment when Lupin turned to the left and along the Seine. Here they saw him go down to the edge of the river. He remained there for a few seconds, during which they were unable to distinguish his movements. Then he climbed up the bank again and returned by the way he had come. They pressed back against the pillars of a gate. Lupin passed in front of them. He no longer carried a parcel.
And, as he moved away, another figure appeared from behind the corner of a house and slipped in between the trees.
Shears said, in a low voice:
"That one seems to be following him too."
"Yes, I believe I saw him before, as we came."
The pursuit was resumed, but was now complicated by the presence of this figure. Lupin followed the same road, passed through the Porte des Ternes again, and entered the house on the Place Saint-Ferdinand.
The concierge was closing the door for the night when Ganimard came up:
"You saw him, I suppose?"
"Yes, I was turning off the gas on the stairs. He has bolted his door."
"Is there no one with him?"
"No one: he doesn't keep a servant … he never has his meals here."
"Is there no back staircase?"
"No."
Ganimard said to Shears:
"The best thing will be for me to place myself outside Lupin's door, while you go to the Rue Demours and fetch the commissary of police. I'll give you a line for him."
Shears objected:
"Suppose he escapes meanwhile?"
"But I shall be here!…"
"Single-handed, it would be an unequal contest between you and him."
"Still, I can't break into his rooms. I'm not entitled to, especially at night."
Shears shrugged his shoulders:
"Once you've arrested Lupin, no one will haul you over the coals for the particular manner in which you effected the arrest. Besides, we may as well ring the bell, what! Then we'll see what happens."
They went up the stairs. There was a double door on the left of the landing. Ganimard rang the bell.
Not a sound. He rang again. No one stirred.
"Let's go in," muttered Shears.
"Yes, come along."
Nevertheless, they remained motionless, irresolute. Like people who hesitate before taking a decisive step, they were afraid to act; and it suddenly seemed to them impossible that Arsène Lupin should be there, so near to them, behind that frail partition, which they could smash with a blow of their fists. They both of them knew him too well, demon that he was, to admit that he would allow himself to be nabbed so stupidly. No, no, a thousand times no; he was not there. He must have escaped, by the adjoining houses, by the roofs, by some suitably prepared outlet; and, once again, the shadow of Arsène Lupin was all that they could hope to lay hands upon.
They shuddered. An imperceptible sound, coming from the other side of the door, had, as it were, grazed the silence. And they received the impression, the certainty that he was there after all, separated from them by that thin wooden partition, and that he was listening to them, that he heard them.
What were they to do? It was a tragic situation. For all their coolness as old stagers of the police, they were overcome by so great an excitement that they imagined they could hear the beating of their own hearts.
Ganimard consulted Shears with a silent glance and then struck the door violently with his fist.
A sound of footsteps was now heard, a sound which there was no longer any attempt to conceal.
Ganimard shook the door. Shears gave an irresistible thrust with his shoulder and burst it open; and they both rushed in.
Then they stopped short. A shot resounded in the next room. And another, followed by the thud of a falling body.
When they entered, they saw the man lying with his face against the marble of the mantel-piece. He gave a convulsive movement. His revolver slipped from his hand.
Ganimard stooped and turned the dead man's head, it was covered with blood, which trickled from two large wounds in the cheek and temple.
"There's no recognizing him," he whispered.
"One thing is certain," said Shears. "It's not 'he.'"
"How do you know? You haven't even examined him."
The Englishman sneered:
"Do you think Arsène Lupin is the man to kill himself?"
"Still, we believed we knew him outside."
"We believed, because we wanted to believe. The fellow besets our minds."
"Then it's one of his accomplices."
"Arsène Lupin's accomplices do not kill themselves."
"Then who is it?"
They searched the body. In one pocket, Holmlock Shears found an empty note-case; in another, Ganimard found a few louis. There were no marks on his linen or on his clothes.
The trunks—a big box and two bags—contained nothing but personal effects. There was a bundle of newspapers on the mantel-piece. Ganimard opened them. They all spoke of the theft of the Jewish lamp.
An hour later, when Ganimard and Shears left the house, they knew no more about the strange individual whom their intervention had driven to suicide.
Who was he? Why had he taken his life? What link connected him with the disappearance of the Jewish lamp? Who was it that dogged his steps during his walk? These were all complicated questions … so many mysteries.
Holmlock Shears went to bed in a very bad temper. When he woke, he received an express letter couched in these words:
"Arsène Lupin begs to inform you of his tragic decease in the person of one Bresson and requests the honour of your company at his funeral, which will take place, at the public expense, on Thursday, the 25th of June."