The Crystal Stopper

by Maurice Leblanc

  Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer

  THE CRYSTAL STOPPER

  by Maurice LeBlanc

  CHAPTER I. THE ARRESTS

  The two boats fastened to the little pier that jutted out from thegarden lay rocking in its shadow. Here and there lighted windows showedthrough the thick mist on the margins of the lake. The Enghien Casinoopposite blazed with light, though it was late in the season, the endof September. A few stars appeared through the clouds. A light breezeruffled the surface of the water.

  Arsene Lupin left the summer-house where he was smoking a cigar and,bending forward at the end of the pier:

  "Growler?" he asked. "Masher?... Are you there?"

  A man rose from each of the boats, and one of them answered:

  "Yes, governor."

  "Get ready. I hear the car coming with Gilbert and Vaucheray."

  He crossed the garden, walked round a house in process of construction,the scaffolding of which loomed overhead, and cautiously opened the dooron the Avenue de Ceinture. He was not mistaken: a bright light flashedround the bend and a large, open motor-car drew up, whence sprang twomen in great-coats, with the collars turned up, and caps.

  It was Gilbert and Vaucheray: Gilbert, a young fellow of twenty ortwenty-two, with an attractive cast of features and a supple and sinewyframe; Vaucheray, older, shorter, with grizzled hair and a pale, sicklyface.

  "Well," asked Lupin, "did you see him, the deputy?"

  "Yes, governor," said Gilbert, "we saw him take the 7.40 tram for Paris,as we knew he would."

  "Then we are free to act?"

  "Absolutely. The Villa Marie-Therese is ours to do as we please with."

  The chauffeur had kept his seat. Lupin gave him his orders:

  "Don't wait here. It might attract attention. Be back at half-pastnine exactly, in time to load the car unless the whole business fallsthrough."

  "Why should it fall through?" observed Gilbert.

  The motor drove away; and Lupin, taking the road to the lake with histwo companions, replied:

  "Why? Because I didn't prepare the plan; and, when I don't do a thingmyself, I am only half-confident."

  "Nonsense, governor! I've been working with you for three years now...I'm beginning to know the ropes!"

  "Yes, my lad, you're beginning," said Lupin, "and that's just why I'mafraid of blunders... Here, get in with me... And you, Vaucheray, takethe other boat... That's it... And now push off, boys... and make aslittle noise as you can."

  Growler and Masher, the two oarsmen, made straight for the oppositebank, a little to the left of the casino.

  They met a boat containing a couple locked in each other's arms,floating at random, and another in which a number of people were singingat the top of their voices. And that was all.

  Lupin shifted closer to his companion and said, under his breath:

  "Tell me, Gilbert, did you think of this job, or was it Vaucheray'sidea?"

  "Upon my word, I couldn't tell you: we've both of us been discussing itfor weeks."

  "The thing is, I don't trust Vaucheray: he's a low ruffian when one getsto know him... I can't make out why I don't get rid of him..."

  "Oh, governor!"

  "Yes, yes, I mean what I say: he's a dangerous fellow, to say nothingof the fact that he has some rather serious peccadilloes on hisconscience."

  He sat silent for a moment and continued:

  "So you're quite sure that you saw Daubrecq the deputy?"

  "Saw him with my own eyes, governor."

  "And you know that he has an appointment in Paris?"

  "He's going to the theatre."

  "Very well; but his servants have remained behind at the Enghienvilla...."

  "The cook has been sent away. As for the valet, Leonard, who isDaubrecq's confidential man, he'll wait for his master in Paris. Theycan't get back from town before one o'clock in the morning. But..."

  "But what?"

  "We must reckon with a possible freak of fancy on Daubrecq's part, achange of mind, an unexpected return, and so arrange to have everythingfinished and done with in an hour."

  "And when did you get these details?"

  "This morning. Vaucheray and I at once thought that it was a favourablemoment. I selected the garden of the unfinished house which we have justleft as the best place to start from; for the house is not watched atnight. I sent for two mates to row the boats; and I telephoned to you.That's the whole story."

  "Have you the keys?"

  "The keys of the front-door."

  "Is that the villa which I see from here, standing in its own grounds?"

  "Yes, the Villa Marie-Therese; and as the two others, with the gardenstouching it on either side, have been unoccupied since this day week,we shall be able to remove what we please at our leisure; and I swear toyou, governor, it's well worth while."

  "The job's much too simple," mumbled Lupin. "No charm about it!"

  They landed in a little creek whence rose a few stone steps, under coverof a mouldering roof. Lupin reflected that shipping the furniture wouldbe easy work. But, suddenly, he said:

  "There are people at the villa. Look... a light."

  "It's a gas-jet, governor. The light's not moving."

  The Growler stayed by the boats, with instructions to keep watch, whilethe Masher, the other rower, went to the gate on the Avenue de Ceinture,and Lupin and his two companions crept in the shadow to the foot of thesteps.

  Gilbert went up first. Groping in the dark, he inserted first the bigdoor-key and then the latch-key. Both turned easily in their locks, thedoor opened and the three men walked in.

  A gas-jet was flaring in the hall.

  "You see, governor..." said Gilbert.

  "Yes, yes," said Lupin, in a low voice, "but it seems to me that thelight which I saw shining did not come from here..."

  "Where did it come from then?"

  "I can't say... Is this the drawing-room?"

  "No," replied Gilbert, who was not afraid to speak pretty loudly, "no.By way of precaution, he keeps everything on the first floor, in hisbedroom and in the two rooms on either side of it."

  "And where is the staircase?"

  "On the right, behind the curtain."

  Lupin moved to the curtain and was drawing the hanging aside when,suddenly, at four steps on the left, a door opened and a head appeared,a pallid man's head, with terrified eyes.

  "Help! Murder!" shouted the man.

  And he rushed back into the room.

  "It's Leonard, the valet!" cried Gilbert.

  "If he makes a fuss, I'll out him," growled Vaucheray.

  "You'll jolly well do nothing of the sort, do you hear, Vaucheray?" saidLupin, peremptorily. And he darted off in pursuit of the servant. Hefirst went through a dining-room, where he saw a lamp still lit, withplates and a bottle around it, and he found Leonard at the further endof a pantry, making vain efforts to open the window:

  "Don't move, sportie! No kid! Ah, the brute!"

  He had thrown himself flat on the floor, on seeing Leonard raise his armat him. Three shots were fired in the dusk of the pantry; and then thevalet came tumbling to the ground, seized by the legs by Lupin, whosnatched his weapon from him and gripped him by the throat:

  "Get out, you dirty brute!" he growled. "He very nearly did for me...Here, Vaucheray, secure this gentleman!"

  He threw the light of his pocket-lantern on the servant's face andchuckled:

  "He's not a pretty gentleman either... You can't have a very clearconscience, Leonard; besides, to play flunkey to Daubrecq the deputy...!Have you finished, Vaucheray? I don't want to hang about here for ever!"

  "There's no danger, governor," said Gilbert.

  "Oh, really?... So you think that shots can't be heard?..."
>
  "Quite impossible."

  "No matter, we must look sharp. Vaucheray, take the lamp and let's goupstairs."

  He took Gilbert by the arm and, as he dragged him to the first floor:

  "You ass," he said, "is that the way you make inquiries? Wasn't I rightto have my doubts?"

  "Look here, governor, I couldn't know that he would change his mind andcome back to dinner."

  "One's got to know everything when one has the honour of breaking intopeople's houses. You numskull! I'll remember you and Vaucheray... a nicepair of gossoons!..."

  The sight of the furniture on the first floor pacified Lupin and hestarted on his inventory with the satisfied air of a collector who haslooked in to treat himself to a few works of art:

  "By Jingo! There's not much of it, but what there is is pucka! There'snothing the matter with this representative of the people inthe question of taste. Four Aubusson chairs... A bureau signed'Percier-Fontaine,' for a wager... Two inlays by Gouttieres... A genuineFragonard and a sham Nattier which any American millionaire will swallowfor the asking: in short, a fortune... And there are curmudgeons whopretend that there's nothing but faked stuff left. Dash it all, whydon't they do as I do? They should look about!"

  Gilbert and Vaucheray, following Lupin's orders and instructions, atonce proceeded methodically to remove the bulkier pieces. The first boatwas filled in half an hour; and it was decided that the Growler and theMasher should go on ahead and begin to load the motor-car.

  Lupin went to see them start. On returning to the house, it struck him,as he passed through the hall, that he heard a voice in the pantry. Hewent there and found Leonard lying flat on his stomach, quite alone,with his hands tied behind his back:

  "So it's you growling, my confidential flunkey? Don't get excited: it'salmost finished. Only, if you make too much noise, you'll oblige us totake severer measures... Do you like pears? We might give you one, youknow: a choke-pear!..."

  As he went upstairs, he again heard the same sound and, stopping tolisten, he caught these words, uttered in a hoarse, groaning voice,which came, beyond a doubt, from the pantry:

  "Help!... Murder!... Help!... I shall be killed!... Inform thecommissary!"

  "The fellow's clean off his chump!" muttered Lupin. "By Jove!... Todisturb the police at nine o'clock in the evening: there's a notion foryou!"

  He set to work again. It took longer than he expected, for theydiscovered in the cupboards all sorts of valuable knick-knacks which itwould have been very wrong to disdain and, on the other hand, Vaucherayand Gilbert were going about their investigations with signs of labouredconcentration that nonplussed him.

  At long last, he lost his patience:

  "That will do!" he said. "We're not going to spoil the whole job andkeep the motor waiting for the sake of the few odd bits that remain. I'mtaking the boat."

  They were now by the waterside and Lupin went down the steps. Gilbertheld him back:

  "I say, governor, we want one more look round five minutes, no longer."

  "But what for, dash it all?"

  "Well, it's like this: we were told of an old reliquary, somethingstunning..."

  "Well?"

  "We can't lay our hands on it. And I was thinking... There's a cupboardwith a big lock to it in the pantry... You see, we can't very well..."He was already on his way to the villa. Vaucheray ran back too.

  "I'll give you ten minutes, not a second longer!" cried Lupin. "In tenminutes, I'm off."

  But the ten minutes passed and he was still waiting.

  He looked at his watch:

  "A quarter-past nine," he said to himself. "This is madness."

  And he also remembered that Gilbert and Vaucheray had behaved ratherqueerly throughout the removal of the things, keeping close together andapparently watching each other. What could be happening?

  Lupin mechanically returned to the house, urged by a feeling of anxietywhich he was unable to explain; and, at the same time, he listened toa dull sound which rose in the distance, from the direction of Enghien,and which seemed to be coming nearer... People strolling about, nodoubt...

  He gave a sharp whistle and then went to the main gate, to take a glancedown the avenue. But, suddenly, as he was opening the gate, a shot rangout, followed by a yell of pain. He returned at a run, went round thehouse, leapt up the steps and rushed to the dining-room:

  "Blast it all, what are you doing there, you two?"

  Gilbert and Vaucheray, locked in a furious embrace, were rolling on thefloor, uttering cries of rage. Their clothes were dripping with blood.Lupin flew at them to separate them. But already Gilbert had got hisadversary down and was wrenching out of his hand something which Lupinhad no time to see. And Vaucheray, who was losing blood through a woundin the shoulder, fainted.

  "Who hurt him? You, Gilbert?" asked Lupin, furiously.

  "No, Leonard."

  "Leonard? Why, he was tied up!"

  "He undid his fastenings and got hold of his revolver."

  "The scoundrel! Where is he?"

  Lupin took the lamp and went into the pantry.

  The man-servant was lying on his back, with his arms outstretched, adagger stuck in his throat and a livid face. A red stream trickled fromhis mouth.

  "Ah," gasped Lupin, after examining him, "he's dead!"

  "Do you think so?... Do you think so?" stammered Gilbert, in a tremblingvoice.

  "He's dead, I tell you."

  "It was Vaucheray... it was Vaucheray who did it..."

  Pale with anger, Lupin caught hold of him:

  "It was Vaucheray, was it?... And you too, you blackguard, since youwere there and didn't stop him! Blood! Blood! You know I won't haveit... Well, it's a bad lookout for you, my fine fellows... You'll haveto pay the damage! And you won't get off cheaply either... Mind theguillotine!" And, shaking him violently, "What was it? Why did he killhim?"

  "He wanted to go through his pockets and take the key of the cupboardfrom him. When he stooped over him, he saw that the man unloosed hisarms. He got frightened... and he stabbed him..."

  "But the revolver-shot?"

  "It was Leonard... he had his revolver in his hand... he just hadstrength to take aim before he died..."

  "And the key of the cupboard?"

  "Vaucheray took it...."

  "Did he open it?"

  "And did he find what he was after?"

  "Yes."

  "And you wanted to take the thing from him. What sort of thing wasit? The reliquary? No, it was too small for that.... Then what was it?Answer me, will you?..."

  Lupin gathered from Gilbert's silence and the determined expression onhis face that he would not obtain a reply. With a threatening gesture,"I'll make you talk, my man. Sure as my name's Lupin, you shall come outwith it. But, for the moment, we must see about decamping. Here, helpme. We must get Vaucheray into the boat..."

  They had returned to the dining-room and Gilbert was bending over thewounded man, when Lupin stopped him:

  "Listen."

  They exchanged one look of alarm... Some one was speaking in the pantry... a very low, strange, very distant voice... Nevertheless, as they atonce made certain, there was no one in the room, no one except the deadman, whose dark outline lay stretched upon the floor.

  And the voice spake anew, by turns shrill, stifled, bleating,stammering, yelling, fearsome. It uttered indistinct words, brokensyllables.

  Lupin felt the top of his head covering with perspiration. What was thisincoherent voice, mysterious as a voice from beyond the grave?

  He had knelt down by the man-servant's side. The voice was silent andthen began again:

  "Give us a better light," he said to Gilbert.

  He was trembling a little, shaken with a nervous dread which he wasunable to master, for there was no doubt possible: when Gilbert hadremoved the shade from the lamp, Lupin realized that the voice issuedfrom the corpse itself, without a movement of the lifeless mass, withouta quiver of the bleeding mouth.

  "Governor, I've got the
shivers," stammered Gilbert.

  Again the same voice, the same snuffling whisper.

  Suddenly, Lupin burst out laughing, seized the corpse and pulled itaside:

  "Exactly!" he said, catching sight of an object made of polished metal."Exactly! That's it!... Well, upon my word, it took me long enough!"

  On the spot on the floor which he had uncovered lay the receiver of atelephone, the cord of which ran up to the apparatus fixed on the wall,at the usual height.

  Lupin put the receiver to his ear. The noise began again at once, butit was a mixed noise, made up of different calls, exclamations, confusedcries, the noise produced by a number of persons questioning one anotherat the same time.

  "Are you there?... He won't answer. It's awful... They must have killedhim. What is it?... Keep up your courage. There's help on the way...police... soldiers..."

  "Dash it!" said Lupin, dropping the receiver.

  The truth appeared to him in a terrifying vision. Quite at thebeginning, while the things upstairs were being moved, Leonard, whosebonds were not securely fastened, had contrived to scramble to hisfeet, to unhook the receiver, probably with his teeth, to drop it and toappeal for assistance to the Enghien telephone-exchange.

  And those were the words which Lupin had overheard, after the first boatstarted:

  "Help!... Murder!... I shall be killed!"

  And this was the reply of the exchange. The police were hurrying tothe spot. And Lupin remembered the sounds which he had heard from thegarden, four or five minutes earlier, at most:

  "The police! Take to your heels!" he shouted, darting across the diningroom.

  "What about Vaucheray?" asked Gilbert.

  "Sorry, can't be helped!"

  But Vaucheray, waking from his torpor, entreated him as he passed:

  "Governor, you wouldn't leave me like this!"

  Lupin stopped, in spite of the danger, and was lifting the wounded man,with Gilbert's assistance, when a loud din arose outside:

  "Too late!" he said.

  At that moment, blows shook the hall-door at the back of the house. Heran to the front steps: a number of men had already turned the corner ofthe house at a rush. He might have managed to keep ahead of them, withGilbert, and reach the waterside. But what chance was there of embarkingand escaping under the enemy's fire?

  He locked and bolted the door.

  "We are surrounded... and done for," spluttered Gilbert.

  "Hold your tongue," said Lupin.

  "But they've seen us, governor. There, they're knocking."

  "Hold your tongue," Lupin repeated. "Not a word. Not a movement."

  He himself remained unperturbed, with an utterly calm face and thepensive attitude of one who has all the time that he needs to examine adelicate situation from every point of view. He had reached one of thoseminutes which he called the "superior moments of existence," thosewhich alone give a value and a price to life. On such occasions,however threatening the danger, he always began by counting to himself,slowly--"One... Two... Three... Four.... Five... Six"--until the beatingof his heart became normal and regular. Then and not till then, hereflected, but with what intensity, with what perspicacity, with what aprofound intuition of possibilities! All the factors of the problem werepresent in his mind. He foresaw everything. He admitted everything. Andhe took his resolution in all logic and in all certainty.

  After thirty or forty seconds, while the men outside were banging at thedoors and picking the locks, he said to his companion:

  "Follow me."

  Returning to the dining-room, he softly opened the sash and drew theVenetian blinds of a window in the side-wall. People were coming andgoing, rendering flight out of the question.

  Thereupon he began to shout with all his might, in a breathless voice:

  "This way!... Help!... I've got them!... This way!"

  He pointed his revolver and fired two shots into the tree-tops. Thenhe went back to Vaucheray, bent over him and smeared his face and handswith the wounded man's blood. Lastly, turning upon Gilbert, he took himviolently by the shoulders and threw him to the floor.

  "What do you want, governor? There's a nice thing to do!"

  "Let me do as I please," said Lupin, laying an imperative stress onevery syllable. "I'll answer for everything... I'll answer for thetwo of you... Let me do as I like with you... I'll get you both out ofprison ... But I can only do that if I'm free."

  Excited cries rose through the open window.

  "This way!" he shouted. "I've got them! Help!"

  And, quietly, in a whisper:

  "Just think for a moment... Have you anything to say to me?... Somethingthat can be of use to us?"

  Gilbert was too much taken aback to understand Lupin's plan and hestruggled furiously. Vaucheray showed more intelligence; moreover, hehad given up all hope of escape, because of his wound; and he snarled:

  "Let the governor have his way, you ass!... As long as he gets off,isn't that the great thing?"

  Suddenly, Lupin remembered the article which Gilbert had put in hispocket, after capturing it from Vaucheray. He now tried to take it inhis turn.

  "No, not that! Not if I know it!" growled Gilbert, managing to releasehimself.

  Lupin floored him once more. But two men suddenly appeared at thewindow; and Gilbert yielded and, handing the thing to Lupin, whopocketed it without looking at it, whispered:

  "Here you are, governor... I'll explain. You can be sure that..."

  He did not have time to finish... Two policemen and others after themand soldiers who entered through every door and window came to Lupin'sassistance.

  Gilbert was at once seized and firmly bound. Lupin withdrew:

  "I'm glad you've come," he said. "The beggar's given me a lot oftrouble. I wounded the other; but this one..."

  The commissary of police asked him, hurriedly:

  "Have you seen the man-servant? Have they killed him?"

  "I don't know," he answered.

  "You don't know?..."

  "Why, I came with you from Enghien, on hearing of the murder! Only,while you were going round the left of the house, I went round theright. There was a window open. I climbed up just as these two ruffianswere about to jump down. I fired at this one," pointing to Vaucheray,"and seized hold of his pal."

  How could he have been suspected? He was covered with blood. He hadhanded over the valet's murderers. Half a score of people had witnessedthe end of the heroic combat which he had delivered. Besides, the uproarwas too great for any one to take the trouble to argue or to waste timein entertaining doubts. In the height of the first confusion, the peopleof the neighbourhood invaded the villa. One and all lost their heads.They ran to every side, upstairs, downstairs, to the very cellar. Theyasked one another questions, yelled and shouted; and no one dreamt ofchecking Lupin's statements, which sounded so plausible.

  However, the discovery of the body in the pantry restored the commissaryto a sense of his responsibility. He issued orders, had the housecleared and placed policemen at the gate to prevent any one from passingin or out. Then, without further delay, he examined the spot and beganhis inquiry. Vaucheray gave his name; Gilbert refused to give his, onthe plea that he would only speak in the presence of a lawyer. But,when he was accused of the murder, he informed against Vaucheray,who defended himself by denouncing the other; and the two of themvociferated at the same time, with the evident wish to monopolize thecommissary's attention. When the commissary turned to Lupin, to requesthis evidence, he perceived that the stranger was no longer there.

  Without the least suspicion, he said to one of the policemen:

  "Go and tell that gentleman that I should like to ask him a fewquestions."

  They looked about for the gentleman. Some one had seen him standing onthe steps, lighting a cigarette. The next news was that he had givencigarettes to a group of soldiers and strolled toward the lake, sayingthat they were to call him if he was wanted.

  They called him. No one replied.

  But a soldi
er came running up. The gentleman had just got into a boatand was rowing away for all he was worth. The commissary looked atGilbert and realized that he had been tricked:

  "Stop him!" he shouted. "Fire on him! He's an accomplice!..."

  He himself rushed out, followed by two policemen, while the othersremained with the prisoners. On reaching the bank, he saw the gentleman,a hundred yards away, taking off his hat to him in the dusk.

  One of the policemen discharged his revolver, without thinking.

  The wind carried the sound of words across the water. The gentleman wassinging as he rowed:

  "Go, little bark, Float in the dark..."

  But the commissary saw a skiff fastened to the landing-stage of theadjoining property. He scrambled over the hedge separating the twogardens and, after ordering the soldiers to watch the banks of the lakeand to seize the fugitive if he tried to put ashore, the commissary andtwo of his men pulled off in pursuit of Lupin.

  It was not a difficult matter, for they were able to follow hismovements by the intermittent light of the moon and to see that he wastrying to cross the lakes while bearing toward the right--that is tosay, toward the village of Saint-Gratien. Moreover, the commissarysoon perceived that, with the aid of his men and thanks perhaps to thecomparative lightness of his craft, he was rapidly gaining on the other.In ten minutes he had decreased the interval between them by one half.

  "That's it!" he cried. "We shan't even need the soldiers to keep himfrom landing. I very much want to make the fellow's acquaintance. He's acool hand and no mistake!"

  The funny thing was that the distance was now diminishing at an abnormalrate, as though the fugitive had lost heart at realizing the futilityof the struggle. The policemen redoubled their efforts. The boat shotacross the water with the swiftness of a swallow. Another hundred yardsat most and they would reach the man.

  "Halt!" cried the commissary.

  The enemy, whose huddled shape they could make out in the boat, nolonger moved. The sculls drifted with the stream. And this absence ofall motion had something alarming about it. A ruffian of that stampmight easily lie in wait for his aggressors, sell his life dearly andeven shoot them dead before they had a chance of attacking him.

  "Surrender!" shouted the commissary.

  The sky, at that moment, was dark. The three men lay flat at the bottomof their skiff, for they thought they perceived a threatening gesture.

  The boat, carried by its own impetus, was approaching the other.

  The commissary growled:

  "We won't let ourselves be sniped. Let's fire at him. Are you ready?"And he roared, once more, "Surrender... if not...!"

  No reply.

  The enemy did not budge.

  "Surrender!... Hands up!... You refuse?... So much the worse for you...I'm counting... One... Two..."

  The policemen did not wait for the word of command. They fired and, atonce, bending over their oars, gave the boat so powerful an impulse thatit reached the goal in a few strokes.

  The commissary watched, revolver in hand, ready for the least movement.He raised his arm:

  "If you stir, I'll blow out your brains!"

  But the enemy did not stir for a moment; and, when the boat was bumpedand the two men, letting go their oars, prepared for the formidableassault, the commissary understood the reason of this passive attitude:there was no one in the boat. The enemy had escaped by swimming, leavingin the hands of the victor a certain number of the stolen articles,which, heaped up and surmounted by a jacket and a bowler hat, might betaken, at a pinch, in the semi-darkness, vaguely to represent the figureof a man.

  They struck matches and examined the enemy's cast clothes. There were noinitials in the hat. The jacket contained neither papers nor pocketbook.Nevertheless, they made a discovery which was destined to give the caseno little celebrity and which had a terrible influence on the fate ofGilbert and Vaucheray: in one of the pockets was a visiting-card whichthe fugitive had left behind... the card of Arsene Lupin.

  At almost the same moment, while the police, towing the captured skiffbehind them, continued their empty search and while the soldiersstood drawn up on the bank, straining their eyes to try and follow thefortunes of the naval combat, the aforesaid Arsene Lupin was quietlylanding at the very spot which he had left two hours earlier.

  He was there met by his two other accomplices, the Growler and theMasher, flung them a few sentences by way of explanation, jumpedinto the motor-car, among Daubrecq the deputy's armchairs and othervaluables, wrapped himself in his furs and drove, by deserted roads,to his repository at Neuilly, where he left the chauffeur. Ataxicab brought him back to Paris and put him down by the church ofSaint-Philippe-du-Roule, not far from which, in the Rue Matignon, hehad a flat, on the entresol-floor, of which none of his gang, exceptingGilbert, knew, a flat with a private entrance. He was glad to takeoff his clothes and rub himself down; for, in spite of his strongconstitution, he felt chilled to the bone. On retiring to bed, heemptied the contents of his pockets, as usual, on the mantelpiece. Itwas not till then that he noticed, near his pocketbook and his keys, theobject which Gilbert had put into his hand at the last moment.

  And he was very much surprised. It was a decanter-stopper, a littlecrystal stopper, like those used for the bottles in a liqueur-stand.And this crystal stopper had nothing particular about it. The most thatLupin observed was that the knob, with its many facets, was gilded rightdown to the indent. But, to tell the truth, this detail did not seem tohim of a nature to attract special notice.

  "And it was this bit of glass to which Gilbert and Vaucheray attachedsuch stubborn importance!" he said to himself. "It was for this thatthey killed the valet, fought each other, wasted their time, riskedprison... trial... the scaffold!..."

  Too tired to linger further upon this matter, exciting though itappeared to him, he replaced the stopper on the chimney-piece and gotinto bed.

  He had bad dreams. Gilbert and Vaucheray were kneeling on the flags oftheir cells, wildly stretching out their hands to him and yelling withfright:

  "Help!... Help!" they cried.

  But, notwithstanding all his efforts, he was unable to move. He himselfwas fastened by invisible bonds. And, trembling, obsessed by a monstrousvision, he watched the dismal preparations, the cutting of the condemnedmen's hair and shirt-collars, the squalid tragedy.

  "By Jove!" he said, when he woke after a series of nightmares."There's a lot of bad omens! Fortunately, we don't err on the side ofsuperstition. Otherwise...!" And he added, "For that matter, we have atalisman which, to judge by Gilbert and Vaucheray's behaviour, should beenough, with Lupin's help, to frustrate bad luck and secure the triumphof the good cause. Let's have a look at that crystal stopper!"

  He sprang out of bed to take the thing and examine it more closely. Anexclamation escaped him. The crystal stopper had disappeared...