Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes Page 18

  “And if he should escape during that time?” said Sholmes.

  “While I am here! He can’t escape.”

  “One to one, with Lupin, is not an even chance for you.”

  “Well, I can’t force the door. I have no right to do that, especially at night.”

  Sholmes shrugged his shoulders and said:

  “When you arrest Lupin no one will question the methods by which you made the arrest. However, let us go up and ring, and see what happens then.”

  They ascended to the second floor. There was a double door at the left of the landing. Ganimard rang the bell. No reply. He rang again. Still no reply.

  “Let us go in,” said Sholmes.

  “All right, come on,” replied Ganimard.

  Yet, they stood still, irresolute. Like people who hesitate when they ought to accomplish a decisive action they feared to move, and it seemed to them impossible that Arsène Lupin was there, so close to them, on the other side of that fragile door that could be broken down by one blow of the fist. But they knew Lupin too well to suppose that he would allow himself to be trapped in that stupid manner. No, no—a thousand times, no—Lupin was no longer there. Through the adjoining houses, over the roofs, by some conveniently prepared exit, he must have already made his escape, and, once more, it would only be Lupin’s shadow that they would seize.

  They shuddered as a slight noise, coming from the other side of the door, reached their ears. Then they had the impression, amounting almost to a certainty, that he was there, separated from them by that frail wooden door, and that he was listening to them, that he could hear them.

  What was to be done? The situation was a serious one. In spite of their vast experience as detectives, they were so nervous and excited that they thought they could hear the beating of their own hearts. Ganimard questioned Sholmes by a look. Then he struck the door a violent blow with his fist. Immediately they heard the sound of footsteps, concerning which there was no attempt at concealment.

  Ganimard shook the door. Then he and Sholmes, uniting their efforts, rushed at the door, and burst it open with their shoulders. Then they stood still, in surprise. A shot had been fired in the adjoining room. Another shot, and the sound of a falling body.

  When they entered they saw the man lying on the floor with his face toward the marble mantel. His revolver had fallen from his hand. Ganimard stooped and turned the man’s head. The face was covered with blood, which was flowing from two wounds, one in the cheek, the other in the temple.

  “You can’t recognize him for blood.”

  “No matter!” said Sholmes. “It is not Lupin.”

  “How do you know? You haven’t even looked at him.”

  “Do you think that Arsène Lupin is the kind of a man that would kill himself?” asked Sholmes, with a sneer.

  “But we thought we recognized him outside.”

  “We thought so, because the wish was father to the thought. That man has us bewitched.”

  “Then it must be one of his accomplices.”

  “The accomplices of Arsène Lupin do not kill themselves.”

  “Well, then, who is it?”

  They searched the corpse. In one pocket Herlock Sholmes found an empty pocketbook; in another Ganimard found several louis. There were no marks of identification on any part of his clothing. In a trunk and two valises they found nothing but wearing apparel. On the mantel there was a pile of newspapers. Ganimard opened them. All of them contained articles referring to the theft of the Jewish lamp.

  An hour later, when Ganimard and Sholmes left the house, they had acquired no further knowledge of the strange individual who had been driven to suicide by their untimely visit.

  Who was he? Why had he killed himself? What was his connection with the affair of the Jewish lamp? Who had followed him on his return from the river? The situation involved many complex questions—many mysteries—

  Herlock Sholmes went to bed in a very bad humor. Early next morning he received the following telephonic message:

  “Arsène Lupin has the honor to inform you of his tragic death in the person of Monsieur Bresson, and requests the honor of your presence at the funeral service and burial, which will be held at the public expense on Thursday, 25 June.”

  CHAPTER VIII.

  THE SHIPWRECK.

  “THAT’S WHAT I DON’T LIKE, Wilson,” said Herlock Sholmes, after he had read Arsène Lupin’s message; “that is what exasperates me in this affair—to feel that the cunning, mocking eye of that fellow follows me everywhere. He sees everything; he knows everything; he reads my inmost thoughts; he even foresees my slightest movement. Ah! He is possessed of a marvellous intuition, far surpassing that of the most instinctive woman, yes, surpassing even that of Herlock Sholmes himself. Nothing escapes him. I resemble an actor whose every step and movement are directed by a stage-manager; who says this and does that in obedience to a superior will. That is my position. Do you understand, Wilson?”

  Certainly Wilson would have understood if his faculties had not been deadened by the profound slumber of a man whose temperature varies between one hundred and one hundred and three degrees. But whether he heard or not was a matter of no consequence to Herlock Sholmes, who continued:

  “I have to concentrate all my energy and bring all my resources into action in order to make the slightest progress. And, fortunately for me, those petty annoyances are like so many pricks from a needle and serve only to stimulate me. As soon as the heat of the wound is appeased and the shock to my vanity has subsided I say to myself: ‘Amuse yourself, my dear fellow, but remember that he who laughs last laughs best. Sooner or later you will betray yourself.’ For you know, Wilson, it was Lupin himself, who, by his first dispatch and the observation that it suggested to little Henriette, disclosed to me the secret of his correspondence with Alice Hemun. Have you forgotten that circumstance, dear boy?”

  But Wilson was asleep; and Sholmes, pacing to and fro, resumed his speech:

  “And, now, things are not in a bad shape; a little obscure, perhaps, but the light is creeping in. In the first place, I must learn all about Monsieur Bresson. Ganimard and I will visit the bank of the river, at the spot where Bresson threw away the package, and the particular rôle of that gentleman will be known to me. After that the game will be played between me and Alice Demun. Rather a light-weight opponent, hein, Wilson? And do you not think that I will soon know the phrase represented by the letters clipped from the alphabet-book, and what the isolated letters—the ‘C’ and the ‘H’—mean? That is all I want to know, Wilson.”

  Mademoiselle entered at that moment, and, observing Sholmes gesticulating, she said, in her sweetest manner:

  “Monsieur Sholmes, I must scold you if you waken my patient. It isn’t nice of you to disturb him. The doctor has ordered absolute rest.”

  He looked at her in silence, astonished, as on their first meeting, at her wonderful self-possession.

  “Why do you look at me so, Monsieur Sholmes? … You seem to be trying to read my thoughts … No? … Then what is it?”

  She questioned him with the most innocent expression on her pretty face and in her frank blue eyes. A smile played upon her lips; and she displayed so much unaffected candor that the Englishman almost lost his temper. He approached her and said, in a low voice:

  “Bresson killed himself last night.”

  She affected not to understand him; so he repeated:

  “Bresson killed himself yesterday. … ”

  She did not show the slightest emotion; she acted as if the matter did not concern or interest her in any way.

  “You have been informed,” said Sholmes, displaying his annoyance. “Otherwise, the news would have caused you to start, at least. Ah! You are stronger than I expected. But what’s the use of your trying to conceal anything from me?”

  He picked up the alphabet-book, which he had placed on a convenient table, and, opening it at the mutilated page, said:

  “Will you tell me the order i
n which the missing letters should be arranged in order to express the exact wording of the message you sent to Bresson four days before the theft of the Jewish lamp?”

  “The order? … Bresson? … the theft of the Jewish lamp?”

  She repeated the words slowly, as if trying to grasp their meaning. He continued:

  “Yes. Here are the letters employed … on this bit of paper … What did you say to Bresson?”

  “The letters employed … What did I say? … ”

  Suddenly she burst into laughter:

  “Ah! That is it! I understand! I am an accomplice in the crime! There is a Monsieur Bresson who stole the Jewish lamp and who has now committed suicide. And I am the friend of that gentleman. Oh! How absurd you are!”

  “Whom did you go to see last night on the second floor of a house in the avenue des Ternes?”

  “Who? My modiste, Mademoiselle Langeais. Do you suppose that my modiste and my friend Monsieur Bresson are the same person?”

  Despite all he knew, Sholmes was now in doubt. A person can feign terror, joy, anxiety, in fact all emotions; but a person cannot feign absolute indifference or light, careless laughter. Yet he continued to question her:

  “Why did you accost me the other evening at the Northern Railway station? And why did you entreat me to leave Paris immediately without investigating this theft?”

  “Ah! You are too inquisitive, Monsieur Sholmes,” she replied, still laughing in the most natural manner. “To punish you I will tell you nothing, and, besides, you must watch the patient while I go to the pharmacy on an urgent message. Au revoir.”

  She left the room.

  “I am beaten … by a girl,” muttered Sholmes. “Not only did I get nothing out of her but I exposed my hand and put her on her guard.”

  And he recalled the affair of the blue diamond and his first interview with Clotilde Destange. Had not the Blonde Lady met his question with the same unruffled serenity, and was he not once more face to face with one of those creatures who, under the protection and influence of Arsène Lupin, maintain the utmost coolness in the face of a terrible danger?

  “Sholmes … Sholmes … ”

  It was Wilson who called him. Sholmes approached the bed, and, leaning over, said:

  “What’s the matter, Wilson? Does your wound pain you?”

  Wilson’s lips moved, but he could not speak. At last, with a great effort, he stammered:

  “No … Sholmes … it is not she … that is impossible—”

  “Come, Wilson, what do you know about it? I tell you that it is she! It is only when I meet one of Lupin’s creatures, prepared and instructed by him, that I lose my head and make a fool of myself … I bet you that within an hour Lupin will know all about our interview. Within an hour? What am I saying? … Why, he may know already. The visit to the pharmacy … urgent message. All nonsense! … She has gone to telephone to Lupin.”

  Sholmes left the house hurriedly, went down the avenue de Messine, and was just in time to see Mademoiselle enter a pharmacy. Ten minutes later she emerged from the shop carrying some small packages and a bottle wrapped in white paper. But she had not proceeded far, when she was accosted by a man who, with hat in hand and an obsequious air, appeared to be asking for charity. She stopped, gave him something, and proceeded on her way.

  “She spoke to him,” said the Englishman to himself.

  If not a certainty, it was at least an intuition, and quite sufficient to cause him to change his tactics. Leaving the girl to pursue her own course, he followed the suspected mendicant, who walked slowly to the avenue des Ternes and lingered for a long time around the house in which Bresson had lived, sometimes raising his eyes to the windows of the second floor and watching the people who entered the house.

  At the end of an hour he climbed to the top of a tramcar going in the direction of Neuilly. Sholmes followed and took a seat behind the man, and beside a gentleman who was concealed behind the pages of a newspaper. At the fortifications the gentleman lowered the paper, and Sholmes recognized Ganimard, who thereupon whispered, as he pointed to the man in front:

  “It is the man who followed Bresson last night. He has been watching the house for an hour.”

  “Anything new in regard to Bresson?” asked Sholmes.

  “Yes, a letter came to his address this morning.”

  “This morning? Then it was posted yesterday before the sender could know of Bresson’s death.”

  “Exactly. It is now in the possession of the examining magistrate. But I read it. It says: He will not accept any compromise. He wants everything—the first thing as well as those of the second affair. Otherwise he will proceed.”

  “There is no signature,” added Ganimard. “It seems to me those few lines won’t help us much.”

  “I don’t agree with you, Monsieur Ganimard. To me those few lines are very interesting.”

  “Why so? I can’t see it.”

  “For reasons that are personal to me,” replied Sholmes, with the indifference that he frequently displayed toward his colleague.

  The tramcar stopped at the rue de Château, which was the terminus. The man descended and walked away quietly. Sholmes followed at so short a distance that Ganimard protested, saying:

  “If he should turn around he will suspect us.”

  “He will not turn around.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He is an accomplice of Arsène Lupin, and the fact that he walks in that manner, with his hands in his pockets, proves, in the first place, that he knows he is being followed and, in the second place, that he is not afraid.”

  “But I think we are keeping too close to him.”

  “Not too close to prevent his slipping through our fingers. He is too sure of himself.”

  “Ah! Look there! In front of that café there are two of the bicycle police. If I summon them to our assistance, how can the man slip through our fingers?”

  “Well, our friend doesn’t seem to be worried about it. In fact, he is asking for their assistance himself.”

  “Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Ganimard, “he has a nerve.”

  The man approached the two policemen just as they were mounting their bicycles. After a few words with them he leaped on a third bicycle, which was leaning against the wall of the café, and rode away at a fast pace, accompanied by the two policemen.

  “Hein! One, two, three and away!” growled Sholmes. “And through, whose agency, Monsieur Ganimard? Two of your colleagues … Ah! But Arsène Lupin has a wonderful organization! Bicycle policemen in his service! … I told you our man was too calm, too sure of himself.”

  “Well, then,” said Ganimard, quite vexed, “what are we to do now? It is easy enough to laugh! Anyone can do that.”

  “Come, come, don’t lose your temper! We will get our revenge. But, in the meantime, we need reinforcements.”

  “Folenfant is waiting for me at the end of the avenue de Neuilly.”

  “Well, go and get him and join me later. I will follow our fugitive.”

  Sholmes followed the bicycle tracks, which were plainly visible in the dust of the road as two of the machines were furnished with striated tires. Very soon he ascertained that the tracks were leading him to the edge of the Seine, and that the three men had turned in the direction taken by Bresson on the preceding evening. Thus he arrived at the gateway where he and Ganimard had concealed themselves, and, a little farther on, he discovered a mingling of the bicycle tracks which showed that the men had halted at that spot. Directly opposite there was a little point of land which projected into the river and, at the extremity thereof, an old boat was moored.

  It was there that Bresson had thrown away the package, or, rather, had dropped it. Sholmes descended the bank and saw that the declivity was not steep and the water quite shallow, so it would be quite easy to recover the package, provided the three men had not forestalled him.

  “No, that can’t be,” he thought, “they have not had time. A quarter of an hour at the most. And y
et, why did they come this way?”

  A fisherman was seated on the old boat. Sholmes asked him:

  “Did you see three men on bicycles a few minutes ago?”

  The fisherman made a negative gesture. But Sholmes insisted:

  “Three men who stopped on the road just on top of the bank?”

  The fisherman rested his pole under his arm, took a memorandum book from his pocket, wrote on one of the pages, tore it out, and handed it to Sholmes. The Englishman gave a start of surprise. In the middle of the paper which he held in his hand he saw the series of letters cut from the alphabet-book:

  CDEHNOPRZEO—237.

  The man resumed his fishing, sheltered from the sun by a large straw hat, with his coat and vest lying beside him. He was intently watching the cork attached to his line as it floated on the surface of the water.

  There was a moment of silence—solemn and terrible.

  “Is it he?” conjectured Sholmes, with an anxiety that was almost pitiful. Then the truth burst upon him:

  “It is he! It is he! No one else could remain there so calmly, without the slightest display of anxiety, without the least fear of what might happen. And who else would know the story of those mysterious letters? Alice had warned him by means of her messenger.”

  Suddenly the Englishman felt that his hand—that his own hand had involuntarily seized the handle of his revolver, and that his eyes were fixed on the man’s back, a little below the neck. One movement, and the drama would be finished; the life of the strange adventurer would come to a miserable end.

  The fisherman did not stir.

  Sholmes nervously toyed with his revolver, and experienced a wild desire to fire it and end everything; but the horror of such an act was repugnant to his nature. Death would be certain and would end all.

  “Ah!” he thought, “let him get up and defend himself. If he doesn’t, so much the worse for him. One second more … and I fire. … ”

  But a sound of footsteps behind him caused him to turn his head. It was Ganimard coming with some assistants.

  Then, quickly changing his plans, Sholmes leaped into the boat, which was broken from its moorings by his sudden action; he pounced upon the man and seized him around the body. They rolled to the bottom of the boat together.