The Crystal Stopper

by Maurice Leblanc

  CHAPTER II. EIGHT FROM NINE LEAVES ONE

  Notwithstanding my friendly relations with Lupin and the many flatteringproofs of his confidence which he has given me, there is one thing whichI have never been quite able to fathom, and that is the organization ofhis gang.

  The existence of the gang is an undoubted fact. Certain adventures canbe explained only by countless acts of devotion, invincible efforts ofenergy and powerful cases of complicity, representing so many forceswhich all obey one mighty will. But how is this will exerted? Throughwhat intermediaries, through what subordinates? That is what I do notknow. Lupin keeps his secret; and the secrets which Lupin chooses tokeep are, so to speak, impenetrable.

  The only supposition which I can allow myself to make is that this gang,which, in my opinion, is very limited in numbers and therefore all themore formidable, is completed and extended indefinitely by the additionof independent units, provisional associates, picked up in every classof society and in every country of the world, who are the executiveagents of an authority with which, in many cases, they are not evenacquainted. The companions, the initiates, the faithful adherents--menwho play the leading parts under the direct command of Lupin--move toand fro between these secondary agents and the master.

  Gilbert and Vaucheray evidently belonged to the main gang. And that iswhy the law showed itself so implacable in their regard. For the firsttime, it held accomplices of Lupin in its clutches--declared, undisputedaccomplices--and those accomplices had committed a murder. If the murderwas premeditated, if the accusation of deliberate homicide could besupported by substantial proofs, it meant the scaffold. Now there was,at the very least, one self-evident proof, the cry for assistance whichLeonard had sent over the telephone a few minutes before his death:

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

  The desperate appeal had been heard by two men, the operator on dutyand one of his fellow-clerks, who swore to it positively. And it wasin consequence of this appeal that the commissary of police, who was atonce informed, had proceeded to the Villa Marie-Therese, escorted by hismen and a number of soldiers off duty.

  Lupin had a very clear notion of the danger from the first. The fiercestruggle in which he had engaged against society was entering upon a newand terrible phase. His luck was turning. It was no longer a matter ofattacking others, but of defending himself and saving the heads of histwo companions.

  A little memorandum, which I have copied from one of the note-books inwhich he often jots down a summary of the situations that perplex him,will show us the workings of his brain:

  "One definite fact, to begin with, is that Gilbert and Vaucherayhumbugged me. The Enghien expedition, undertaken ostensibly with theobject of robbing the Villa Marie-Therese, had a secret purpose. Thispurpose obsessed their minds throughout the operations; and what theywere looking for, under the furniture and in the cupboards, was onething and one thing alone: the crystal stopper. Therefore, if I want tosee clear ahead, I must first of all know what this means. It is certainthat, for some hidden reason, that mysterious piece of glass possessesan incalculable value in their eyes. And not only in theirs, for, lastnight, some one was bold enough and clever enough to enter my flat andsteal the object in question from me."

  This theft of which he was the victim puzzled Lupin curiously.

  Two problems, both equally difficult of solution, presented themselvesto his mind. First, who was the mysterious visitor? Gilbert, who enjoyedhis entire confidence and acted as his private secretary, was the onlyone who knew of the retreat in the Rue Matignon. Now Gilbert was inprison. Was Lupin to suppose that Gilbert had betrayed him and put thepolice on his tracks? In that case, why were they content with takingthe crystal stopper, instead of arresting him, Lupin?

  But there was something much stranger still. Admitting that they hadbeen able to force the doors of his flat--and this he was compelled toadmit, though there was no mark to show it--how had they succeeded inentering the bedroom? He turned the key and pushed the bolt as he didevery evening, in accordance with a habit from which he never departed.And, nevertheless--the fact was undeniable--the crystal stopper haddisappeared without the lock or the bolt having been touched. And,although Lupin flattered himself that he had sharp ears, even whenasleep, not a sound had waked him!

  He took no great pains to probe the mystery. He knew those problems toowell to hope that this one could be solved other than in the course ofevents. But, feeling very much put out and exceedingly uneasy, he thenand there locked up his entresol flat in the Rue Matignon and swore thathe would never set foot in it again.

  And he applied himself forthwith to the question of corresponding withVaucheray or Gilbert.

  Here a fresh disappointment awaited him. It was so clearly understood,both at the Sante Prison and at the Law Courts, that all communicationbetween Lupin and the prisoners must be absolutely prevented, that amultitude of minute precautions were ordered by the prefect of policeand minutely observed by the lowest subordinates. Tried policemen,always the same men, watched Gilbert and Vaucheray, day and night, andnever let them out of their sight.

  Lupin, at this time, had not yet promoted himself to the crowning honourof his career, the post of chief of the detective-service, [*] and,consequently, was not able to take steps at the Law Courts to insure theexecution of his plans. After a fortnight of fruitless endeavours, hewas obliged to bow.

  * See 813, by Maurice Leblanc, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.

  He did so with a raging heart and a growing sense of anxiety.

  "The difficult part of a business," he often says, "is not the finish,but the start."

  Where was he to start in the present circumstances? What road was he tofollow?

  His thoughts recurred to Daubrecq the deputy, the original owner of thecrystal stopper, who probably knew its importance. On the other hand,how was Gilbert aware of the doings and mode of life of Daubrecq thedeputy? What means had he employed to keep him under observation? Whohad told him of the place where Daubrecq spent the evening of that day?These were all interesting questions to solve.

  Daubrecq had moved to his winter quarters in Paris immediately after theburglary at the Villa Marie-Therese and was now living in his own house,on the left-hand side of the little Square Lamartine that opens out atthe end of the Avenue Victor-Hugo.

  First disguising himself as an old gentleman of private means, strollingabout, cane in hand, Lupin spent his time in the neighbourhood, on thebenches of the square and the avenue. He made a discovery on the firstday. Two men, dressed as workmen, but behaving in a manner that left nodoubt as to their aims, were watching the deputy's house. When Daubrecqwent out, they set off in pursuit of him; and they were immediatelybehind him when he came home again. At night, as soon as the lights wereout, they went away.

  Lupin shadowed them in his turn. They were detective-officers.

  "Hullo, hullo!" he said to himself. "This is hardly what I expected. Sothe Daubrecq bird is under suspicion?"

  But, on the fourth day, at nightfall, the two men were joined by sixothers, who conversed with them in the darkest part of the SquareLamartine. And, among these new arrivals, Lupin was vastly astonishedto recognize, by his figure and bearing, the famous Prasville, theerstwhile barrister, sportsman and explorer, now favourite at theElysee, who, for some mysterious reason, had been pitchforked into theheadquarters of police as secretary-general, with the reversion of theprefecture.

  And, suddenly, Lupin remembered: two years ago, Prasville and Daubrecqthe deputy had had a personal encounter on the Place du Palais-Bourbon.The incident made a great stir at the time. No one knew the cause of it.Prasville had sent his seconds to Daubrecq on the same day; but Daubrecqrefused to fight.

  A little while later, Prasville was appointed secretary-general.

  "Very odd, very odd," said Lupin, who remained plunged in thought, whilecontinuing to observe Prasville's movements.

  At seven o'clock Prasville's group of men moved away a few yards, i
n thedirection of the Avenue Henri-Martin. The door of a small garden onthe right of the house opened and Daubrecq appeared. The two detectivesfollowed close behind him and, when he took the Rue-Taitbout train,jumped on after him.

  Prasville at once walked across the square and rang the bell. Thegarden-gate was between the house and the porter's lodge. The portresscame and opened it. There was a brief conversation, after whichPrasville and his companions were admitted.

  "A domiciliary visit," said Lupin. "Secret and illegal. By thestrict rules of politeness, I ought to be invited. My presence isindispensable."

  Without the least hesitation he went up to the house, the door of whichhad not been closed, and, passing in front of the portress, who wascasting her eyes outside, he asked, in the hurried tones of a person whois late for an appointment:

  "Have the gentlemen come?"

  "Yes, you will find them in the study."

  His plan was quite simple: if any one met him, he would pretend to be atradesman. But there was no need for this subterfuge. He was able, aftercrossing an empty hall, to enter a dining-room which also had no one init, but which, through the panes of a glass partition that separatedthe dining-room from the study, afforded him a view of Prasville and hisfive companions.

  Prasville opened all the drawers with the aid of false keys. Next, heexamined all the papers, while his companions took down the books fromthe shelves, shook the pages of each separately and felt inside thebindings.

  "Of course, it's a paper they're looking for," said Lupin. "Bank-notes,perhaps..."

  Prasville exclaimed:

  "What rot! We shan't find a thing!"

  Yet he obviously did not abandon all hope of discovering what he wanted,for he suddenly seized the four bottles in a liqueur-stand, took out thefour stoppers and inspected them.

  "Hullo!" thought Lupin. "Now he's going for decanter-stoppers! Then it'snot a question of a paper? Well, I give it up."

  Prasville next lifted and examined different objects; and he asked:

  "How often have you been here?"

  "Six times last winter," was the reply.

  "And you have searched the house thoroughly?"

  "Every one of the rooms, for days at a time, while he was visiting hisconstituency."

  "Still... still..." And he added, "Has he no servant at present?"

  "No, he is looking for one. He has his meals out and the portress keepsthe house as best she can. The woman is devoted to us..."

  Prasville persisted in his investigations for nearly an hour and a half,shifting and fingering all the knick-knacks, but taking care to puteverything back exactly where he found it. At nine o'clock, however, thetwo detectives who had followed Daubrecq burst into the study:

  "He's coming back!"

  "On foot?"

  "Yes."

  "Have we time?"

  "Oh, dear, yes!"

  Prasville and the men from the police-office withdrew, without unduehaste, after taking a last glance round the room to make sure that therewas nothing to betray their visit.

  The position was becoming critical for Lupin. He ran the risk ofknocking up against Daubrecq, if he went away, or of not being ableto get out, if he remained. But, on ascertaining that the dining-roomwindows afforded a direct means of exit to the square, he resolved tostay. Besides, the opportunity of obtaining a close view of Daubrecq wastoo good to refuse; and, as Daubrecq had been out to dinner, there wasnot much chance of his entering the dining-room.

  Lupin, therefore, waited, holding himself ready to hide behind a velvetcurtain that could be drawn across the glazed partition in case of need.

  He heard the sound of doors opening and shutting. Some one walked intothe study and switched on the light. He recognized Daubrecq.

  The deputy was a stout, thickset, bull-necked man, very nearly bald,with a fringe of gray whiskers round his chin and wearing a pair ofblack eye-glasses under his spectacles, for his eyes were weak andstrained. Lupin noticed the powerful features, the square chin, theprominent cheek-bones. The hands were brawny and covered with hair, thelegs bowed; and he walked with a stoop, bearing first on one hip andthen on the other, which gave him something of the gait of a gorilla.But the face was topped by an enormous, lined forehead, indented withhollows and dotted with bumps.

  There was something bestial, something savage, something repulsive aboutthe man's whole personality. Lupin remembered that, in the Chamber ofDeputies, Daubrecq was nicknamed "The Wild Man of the Woods" and thathe was so labelled not only because he stood aloof and hardly evermixed with his fellow-members, but also because of his appearance, hisbehaviour, his peculiar gait and his remarkable muscular development.

  He sat down to his desk, took a meerschaum pipe from his pocket,selected a packet of caporal among several packets of tobacco which laydrying in a bowl, tore open the wrapper, filled his pipe and lit it.Then he began to write letters.

  Presently he ceased his work and sat thinking, with his attention fixedon a spot on his desk.

  He lifted a little stamp-box and examined it. Next, he verified theposition of different articles which Prasville had touched and replaced;and he searched them with his eyes, felt them with his hands, bendingover them as though certain signs, known to himself alone, were able totell him what he wished to know.

  Lastly, he grasped the knob on an electric bell-push and rang. Theportress appeared a minute later.

  He asked:

  "They've been, haven't they?"

  And, when the woman hesitated about replying, he insisted:

  "Come, come, Clemence, did you open this stampbox?"

  "No, sir."

  "Well, I fastened the lid down with a little strip of gummed paper. Thestrip has been broken."

  "But I assure you,..." the woman began.

  "Why tell lies," he said, "considering that I myself instructed you tolend yourself to those visits?"

  "The fact is..."

  "The fact is that you want to keep on good terms with both sides... Verywell!" He handed her a fifty-franc note and repeated, "Have they been?"

  "Yes."

  "The same men as in the spring?"

  "Yes, all five of them... with another one, who ordered them about."

  "A tall, dark man?"

  "Yes."

  Lupin saw Daubrecq's mouth hardening; and Daubrecq continued:

  "Is that all?"

  "There was one more, who came after they did and joined them... andthen, just now, two more, the pair who usually keep watch outside thehouse."

  "Did they remain in the study?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And they went away when I came back? A few minutes before, perhaps?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "That will do."

  The woman left the room. Daubrecq returned to his letter-writing. Then,stretching out his arm, he made some marks on a white writing-tablet, atthe end of his desk, and rested it against the desk, as though he wishedto keep it in sight. The marks were figures; and Lupin was able to readthe following subtraction-sum:

  "9 - 8 = 1"

  And Daubrecq, speaking between his teeth, thoughtfully uttered thesyllables:

  "Eight from nine leaves one... There's not a doubt about that," headded, aloud. He wrote one more letter, a very short one, and addressedthe envelope with an inscription which Lupin was able to decipher whenthe letter was placed beside the writing-tablet:

  "To Monsieur Prasville, Secretary-general of the Prefecture of Police."

  Then he rang the bell again:

  "Clemence," he said, to the portress, "did you go to school as a child?"

  "Yes, sir, of course I did."

  "And were you taught arithmetic?"

  "Why, sir..."

  "Well, you're not very good at subtraction."

  "What makes you say that?"

  "Because you don't know that nine minus eight equals one. And that, yousee, is a fact of the highest importance. Life becomes impossible if youare ignorant of that fundamental truth."

  H
e rose, as he spoke, and walked round the room, with his hands behindhis back, swaying upon his hips. He did so once more. Then, stopping atthe dining-room, he opened the door:

  "For that matter, there's another way of putting the problem. Takeeight from nine; and one remains. And the one who remains is here, eh?Correct! And monsieur supplies us with a striking proof, does he not?"

  He patted the velvet curtain in which Lupin had hurriedly wrappedhimself:

  "Upon my word, sir, you must be stifling under this! Not to say thatI might have amused myself by sticking a dagger through the curtain.Remember Hamlet's madness and Polonius' death: 'How now! A rat? Dead,for a ducat, dead!' Come along, Mr. Polonius, come out of your hole."

  It was one of those positions to which Lupin was not accustomed andwhich he loathed. To catch others in a trap and pull their leg was allvery well; but it was a very different thing to have people teasing himand roaring with laughter at his expense. Yet what could he answer back?

  "You look a little pale, Mr. Polonius... Hullo! Why, it's therespectable old gentleman who has been hanging about the square for somedays! So you belong to the police too, Mr. Polonius? There, there, pullyourself together, I sha'n't hurt you!... But you see, Clemence, howright my calculation was. You told me that nine spies had been to thehouse. I counted a troop of eight, as I came along, eight of them in thedistance, down the avenue. Take eight from nine and one remains: the onewho evidently remained behind to see what he could see. Ecce homo!"

  "Well? And then?" said Lupin, who felt a mad craving to fly at thefellow and reduce him to silence.

  "And then? Nothing at all, my good man... What more do you want? Thefarce is over. I will only ask you to take this little note to MasterPrasville, your employer. Clemence, please show Mr. Polonius out. And,if ever he calls again, fling open the doors wide to him. Pray look uponthis as your home, Mr. Polonius. Your servant, sir!..."

  Lupin hesitated. He would have liked to talk big and to come out witha farewell phrase, a parting speech, like an actor making a showy exitfrom the stage, and at least to disappear with the honours of war. Buthis defeat was so pitiable that he could think of nothing better than tobang his hat on his head and stamp his feet as he followed the portressdown the hall. It was a poor revenge.

  "You rascally beggar!" he shouted, once he was outside the door, shakinghis fist at Daubrecq's windows. "Wretch, scum of the earth, deputy, youshall pay for this!... Oh, he allows himself...! Oh, he has the cheekto...! Well, I swear to you, my fine fellow, that, one of these days..."

  He was foaming with rage, all the more as, in his innermost heart, herecognized the strength of his new enemy and could not deny the masterlyfashion in which he had managed this business. Daubrecq's coolness, theassurance with which he hoaxed the police-officials, the contempt withwhich he lent himself to their visits at his house and, above all, hiswonderful self-possession, his easy bearing and the impertinence of hisconduct in the presence of the ninth person who was spying on him: allthis denoted a man of character, a strong man, with a well-balancedmind, lucid, bold, sure of himself and of the cards in his hand.

  But what were those cards? What game was he playing? Who held thestakes? And how did the players stand on either side? Lupin could nottell. Knowing nothing, he flung himself headlong into the thick of thefray, between adversaries desperately involved, though he himself was intotal ignorance of their positions, their weapons, their resources andtheir secret plans. For, when all was said, he could not admit thatthe object of all those efforts was to obtain possession of a crystalstopper!

  One thing alone pleased him: Daubrecq had not penetrated his disguise.Daubrecq believed him to be in the employ of the police. NeitherDaubrecq nor the police, therefore, suspected the intrusion of a thirdthief in the business. This was his one and only trump, a trumpthat gave him a liberty of action to which he attached the greatestimportance.

  Without further delay, he opened the letter which Daubrecq had handedhim for the secretary-general of police. It contained these few lines:

  "Within reach of your hand, my dear Prasville, within reach of your hand! You touched it! A little more and the trick was done... But you're too big a fool. And to think that they couldn't hit upon any one better than you to make me bite the dust. Poor old France!

  "Good-bye, Prasville. But, if I catch you in the act, it will be a bad lookout for you: my maxim is to shoot at sight.

  "DAUBRECQ"

  "Within reach of your hand," repeated Lupin, after reading the note."And to think that the rogue may be writing the truth! The mostelementary hiding-places are the safest. We must look into this, allthe same. And, also, we must find out why Daubrecq is the object ofsuch strict supervision and obtain a few particulars about the fellowgenerally."

  The information supplied to Lupin by a private inquiry-office consistedof the following details:

  "ALEXIS DAUBRECQ, deputy of the Bouches-du-Rhone for the past two years; sits among the independent members. Political opinions not very clearly defined, but electoral position exceedingly strong, because of the enormous sums which he spends in nursing his constituency. No private income. Nevertheless, has a house in Paris, a villa at Enghien and another at Nice and loses heavily at play, though no one knows where the money comes from. Has great influence and obtains all he wants without making up to ministers or, apparently, having either friends or connections in political circles."

  "That's a trade docket," said Lupin to himself. "What I want isa domestic docket, a police docket, which will tell me about thegentleman's private life and enable me to work more easily in thisdarkness and to know if I'm not getting myself into a tangle bybothering about the Daubrecq bird. And time's getting short, hang it!"

  One of the residences which Lupin occupied at that period and which heused oftener than any of the others was in the Rue Chateaubriand, nearthe Arc de l'Etoile. He was known there by the name of Michel Beaumont.He had a snug flat here and was looked after by a manservant, Achille,who was utterly devoted to his interests and whose chief duty was toreceive and repeat the telephone-messages addressed to Lupin by hisfollowers.

  Lupin, on returning home, learnt, with great astonishment, that a womanhad been waiting to see him for over an hour:

  "What! Why, no one ever comes to see me here! Is she young?"

  "No... I don't think so."

  "You don't think so!"

  "She's wearing a lace shawl over her head, instead of a hat, and youcan't see her face... She's more like a clerk... or a woman employed ina shop. She's not well-dressed..."

  "Whom did she ask for?"

  "M. Michel Beaumont," replied the servant.

  "Queer. And why has she called?"

  "All she said was that it was about the Enghien business... So I thoughtthat..."

  "What! The Enghien business! Then she knows that I am mixed up in thatbusiness... She knows that, by applying here..."

  "I could not get anything out of her, but I thought, all the same, thatI had better let her in."

  "Quite right. Where is she?"

  "In the drawing-room. I've put on the lights."

  Lupin walked briskly across the hall and opened the door of thedrawing-room:

  "What are you talking about?" he said, to his man. "There's no onehere."

  "No one here?" said Achille, running up.

  And the room, in fact, was empty.

  "Well, on my word, this takes the cake!" cried the servant. "It wasn'ttwenty minutes ago that I came and had a look, to make sure. She wassitting over there. And there's nothing wrong with my eyesight, youknow."

  "Look here, look here," said Lupin, irritably. "Where were you while thewoman was waiting?"

  "In the hall, governor! I never left the hall for a second! I shouldhave seen her go out, blow it!"

  "Still, she's not here now..."

  "So I see," moaned the man, quite flabbergasted.

  "She must have got tired of waiting and gone away. But, dash it all, Ishould like to know ho
w she got out!"

  "How she got out?" said Lupin. "It doesn't take a wizard to tell that."

  "What do you mean?"

  "She got out through the window. Look, it's still ajar. We are on theground-floor... The street is almost always deserted, in the evenings.There's no doubt about it."

  He had looked around him and satisfied himself that nothing had beentaken away or moved. The room, for that matter, contained no knick-knackof any value, no important paper that might have explained thewoman's visit, followed by her sudden disappearance. And yet why thatinexplicable flight?

  "Has any one telephoned?" he asked.

  "No."

  "Any letters?"

  "Yes, one letter by the last post."

  "Where is it?"

  "I put it on your mantel-piece, governor, as usual."

  Lupin's bedroom was next to the drawing-room, but Lupin had permanentlybolted the door between the two. He, therefore, had to go through thehall again.

  Lupin switched on the electric light and, the next moment, said:

  "I don't see it..."

  "Yes... I put it next to the flower-bowl."

  "There's nothing here at all."

  "You must be looking in the wrong place, governor."

  But Achille moved the bowl, lifted the clock, bent down to the grate, invain: the letter was not there.

  "Oh blast it, blast it!" he muttered. "She's done it... she's takenit... And then, when she had the letter, she cleared out... Oh, theslut!..."

  Lupin said:

  "You're mad! There's no way through between the two rooms."

  "Then who did take it, governor?"

  They were both of them silent. Lupin strove to control his anger andcollect his ideas. He asked:

  "Did you look at the envelope?"

  "Yes."

  "Anything particular about it?"

  "Yes, it looked as if it had been written in a hurry, or scribbled,rather."

  "How was the address worded?... Do you remember?" asked Lupin, in avoice strained with anxiety.

  "Yes, I remembered it, because it struck me as funny..."

  "But speak, will you? Speak!"

  "It said, 'Monsieur de Beaumont, Michel.'"

  Lupin took his servant by the shoulders and shook him:

  "It said 'de' Beaumont? Are you sure? And 'Michel' after 'Beaumont'?"

  "Quite certain."

  "Ah!" muttered Lupin, with a choking throat. "It was a letter fromGilbert!"

  He stood motionless, a little pale, with drawn features. There was nodoubt about it: the letter was from Gilbert. It was the form of addresswhich, by Lupin's orders, Gilbert had used for years in correspondingwith him. Gilbert had at last--after long waiting and by dint of endlessartifices--found a means of getting a letter posted from his prison andhad hastily written to him. And now the letter was intercepted! What didit say? What instructions had the unhappy prisoner given? What help washe praying for? What stratagem did he suggest?

  Lupin looked round the room, which, contrary to the drawing-room,contained important papers. But none of the locks had been forced; andhe was compelled to admit that the woman had no other object than to gethold of Gilbert's letter.

  Constraining himself to keep his temper, he asked:

  "Did the letter come while the woman was here?"

  "At the same time. The porter rang at the same moment."

  "Could she see the envelope?"

  "Yes."

  The conclusion was evident. It remained to discover how the visitor hadbeen able to effect her theft. By slipping from one window to the other,outside the flat? Impossible: Lupin found the window of his room shut.By opening the communicating door? Impossible: Lupin found it locked andbarred with its two inner bolts.

  Nevertheless, a person cannot pass through a wall by a mere operation ofwill. To go in or out of a room requires a passage; and, as the act wasaccomplished in the space of a few minutes, it was necessary, in thecircumstances, that the passage should be previously in existence, thatit should already have been contrived in the wall and, of course, knownto the woman. This hypothesis simplified the search by concentratingit upon the door; for the wall was quite bare, without a cupboard,chimney-piece or hangings of any kind, and unable to conceal the leastoutlet.

  Lupin went back to the drawing-room and prepared to make a study of thedoor. But he at once gave a start. He perceived, at the first glance,that the left lower panel of the six small panels contained within thecross-bars of the door no longer occupied its normal position and thatthe light did not fall straight upon it. On leaning forward, he saw twolittle tin tacks sticking out on either side and holding the panel inplace, similar to a wooden board behind a picture-frame. He had only toshift these. The panel at once came out.

  Achille gave a cry of amazement. But Lupin objected:

  "Well? And what then? We are no better off than before. Here is an emptyoblong, eight or nine inches wide by sixteen inches high. You're notgoing to pretend that a woman can slip through an opening which wouldnot admit the thinnest child of ten years old!"

  "No, but she can have put her arm through and drawn the bolts."

  "The bottom bolt, yes," said Lupin. "But the top bolt, no: the distanceis far too great. Try for yourself and see."

  Achille tried and had to give up the attempt.

  Lupin did not reply. He stood thinking for a long time. Then, suddenly,he said:

  "Give me my hat... my coat..."

  He hurried off, urged by an imperative idea. And, the moment he reachedthe street, he sprang into a taxi:

  "Rue Matignon, quick!..."

  As soon as they came to the house where he had been robbed of thecrystal stopper, he jumped out of the cab, opened his private entrance,went upstairs, ran to the drawing-room, turned on the light and crouchedat the foot of the door leading to his bedroom.

  He had guessed right. One of the little panels was loosened in the samemanner.

  And, just as in his other flat in the Rue Chateaubriand, the opening waslarge enough to admit a man's arm and shoulder, but not to allow him todraw the upper bolt.

  "Hang!" he shouted, unable any longer to master the rage that had beenseething within him for the last two hours. "Blast! Shall I never havefinished with this confounded business?"

  In fact, an incredible ill-luck seemed to dog his footsteps, compellinghim to grope about at random, without permitting him to use the elementsof success which his own persistency or the very force of things placedwithin his grasp. Gilbert gave him the crystal stopper. Gilbert sent hima letter. And both had disappeared at that very moment.

  And it was not, as he had until then believed, a series of fortuitousand independent circumstances. No, it was manifestly the effect of anadverse will pursuing a definite object with prodigious ability andincredible boldness, attacking him, Lupin, in the recesses of his safestretreats and baffling him with blows so severe and so unexpected that hedid not even know against whom he had to defend himself. Never, in thecourse of his adventures, had he encountered such obstacles as now.

  And, little by little, deep down within himself, there grew a hauntingdread of the future. A date loomed before his eyes, the terrible datewhich he unconsciously assigned to the law to perform its work ofvengeance, the date upon which, in the light of a wan April morning, twomen would mount the scaffold, two men who had stood by him, two comradeswhom he had been unable to save from paying the awful penalty...