The Golden Triangle: The Return of Arsène Lupin

by Maurice Leblanc

  CHAPTER XI

  ON THE BRINK

  Patrice at once made up his mind what to do. He lifted Coralie to herbed and asked her not to move or call out. Then he made sure that Ya-Bonwas not seriously wounded. Lastly, he rang violently, sounding all thebells that communicated with the posts which he had placed in differentparts of the house.

  The men came hurrying up.

  "You're a pack of nincompoops," he said. "Some one's been here. LittleMother Coralie and Ya-Bon have had a narrow escape from being killed."

  They began to protest loudly.

  "Silence!" he commanded. "You deserve a good hiding, every one of you.I'll forgive you on one condition, which is that, all this evening andall to-night, you speak of Little Mother Coralie as though she weredead."

  "But whom are we to speak to, sir?" one of them objected. "There'snobody here."

  "Yes, there is, you silly fool, since Little Mother Coralie and Ya-Bonhave been attacked. Unless it was yourselves who did it! . . . Itwasn't? Very well then. . . . And let me have no more nonsense. It's nota question of speaking to others, but of talking among yourselves . . .and of thinking, even, without speaking. There are people listening toyou, spying on you, people who hear what you say and who guess what youdon't say. So, until to-morrow, Little Mother Coralie will not leave herroom. You shall keep watch over her by turns. Those who are not watchingwill go to bed immediately after dinner. No moving about the house, doyou understand? Absolute silence and quiet."

  "And old Simeon, sir?"

  "Lock him up in his room. He's dangerous because he's mad. They may havetaken advantage of his madness to make him open the door to them. Lockhim up!"

  Patrice's plan was a simple one. As the enemy, believing Coralie to beon the point of death, had revealed to her his intention, which was tokill Patrice as well, it was necessary that he should think himself freeto act, with nobody to suspect his schemes or to be on his guard againsthim. He would enter upon the struggle and would then be caught in atrap.

  Pending this struggle, for which he longed with all his might, Patricesaw to Ya-Bon's wound, which proved to be only slight, and questionedhim and Coralie. Their answers tallied at all points. Coralie, feeling alittle tired, was lying down reading. Ya-Bon remained in the passage,outside the open door, squatting on the floor, Arab-fashion. Neither ofthem heard anything suspicious. And suddenly Ya-Bon saw a shadow betweenhimself and the light in the passage. This light, which came from anelectric lamp, was put out at just about the same time as the light inthe bed-room. Ya-Bon, already half-erect, felt a violent blow in theback of the neck and lost consciousness. Coralie tried to escape by thedoor of her boudoir, was unable to open it, began to cry out and was atonce seized and thrown down. All this had happened within the space of afew seconds.

  The only hint that Patrice succeeded in obtaining was that the man camenot from the staircase but from the servants' wing. This had a smallerstaircase of its own, communicating with the kitchen through a pantry bywhich the tradesmen entered from the Rue Raynouard. The door leading tothe street was locked. But some one might easily possess a key.

  After dinner Patrice went in to see Coralie for a moment and then, atnine o'clock, retired to his bedroom, which was situated a little lowerdown, on the same side. It had been used, in Essares Bey's lifetime, asa smoking-room.

  As the attack from which he expected such good results was not likely totake place before the middle of the night, Patrice sat down at aroll-top desk standing against the wall and took out the diary in whichhe had begun his detailed record of recent events. He wrote on for halfan hour or forty minutes and was about to close the book when he seemedto hear a vague rustle, which he would certainly not have noticed if hisnerves had not been stretched to their utmost state of tension. And heremembered the day when he and Coralie had once before been shot at.This time, however, the window was not open nor even ajar.

  He therefore went on writing without turning his head or doing anythingto suggest that his attention had been aroused; and he set down, almostunconsciously, the actual phases of his anxiety:

  "He is here. He is watching me. I wonder what he means to do. I doubt if he will smash a pane of glass and fire a bullet at me. He has tried that method before and found it uncertain and a failure. No, his plan is thought out, I expect, in a different and more intelligent fashion. He is more likely to wait for me to go to bed, when he can watch me sleeping and effect his entrance by some means which I can't guess.

  "Meanwhile, it's extraordinarily exhilarating to know that his eyes are upon me. He hates me; and his hatred is coming nearer and nearer to mine, like one sword feeling its way towards another before clashing. He is watching me as a wild animal, lurking in the dark, watches its prey and selects the spot on which to fasten its fangs. But no, I am certain that it's he who is the prey, doomed beforehand to defeat and destruction. He is preparing his knife or his red-silk cord. And it's these two hands of mine that will finish the battle. They are strong and powerful and are already enjoying their victory. They will be victorious."

  Patrice shut down the desk, lit a cigarette and smoked it quietly, ashis habit was before going to bed. Then he undressed, folded his clothescarefully over the back of a chair, wound up his watch, got into bed andswitched off the light.

  "At last," he said to himself, "I shall know the truth. I shall know whothis man is. Some friend of Essares', continuing his work? But why thishatred of Coralie? Is he in love with her, as he is trying to finish meoff too? I shall know . . . I shall soon know. . . ."

  An hour passed, however, and another hour, during which nothing happenedon the side of the window. A single creaking came from somewhere besidethe desk. But this no doubt was one of those sounds of creakingfurniture which we often hear in the silence of the night.

  Patrice began to lose the buoyant hope that had sustained him so far. Heperceived that his elaborate sham regarding Coralie's death was a poorthing after all and that a man of his enemy's stamp might well refuse tobe taken in by it. Feeling rather put out, he was on the point of goingto sleep, when he heard the same creaking sound at the same spot.

  The need to do something made him jump out of bed. He turned on thelight. Everything seemed to be as he had left it. There was no trace ofa strange presence.

  "Well," said Patrice, "one thing's certain: I'm no good. The enemy musthave smelt a rat and guessed the trap I laid for him. Let's go to sleep.There will be nothing happening to-night."

  There was in fact no alarm.

  Next morning, on examining the window, he observed that a stone ledgeran above the ground-floor all along the garden front of the house, wideenough for a man to walk upon by holding on to the balconies andrain-pipes. He inspected all the rooms to which the ledge gave access.None of them was old Simeon's room.

  "He hasn't stirred out, I suppose?" he asked the two soldiers posted onguard.

  "Don't think so, sir. In any case, we haven't unlocked the door."

  Patrice went in and, paying no attention to the old fellow, who wasstill sucking at his cold pipe, he searched the room, having it at theback of his mind that the enemy might take refuge there. He foundnobody. But what he did discover, in a press in the wall, was a numberof things which he had not seen on the occasion of his investigations inM. Masseron's company. These consisted of a rope-ladder, a coil of leadpipes, apparently gas-pipes, and a small soldering-lamp.

  "This all seems devilish odd," he said to himself. "How did the thingsget in here? Did Simeon collect them without any definite object,mechanically? Or am I to assume that Simeon is merely an instrument ofthe enemy's? He used to know the enemy before he lost his reason; and hemay be under his influence at present."

  Simeon was sitting at the window, with his back to the room. Patricewent up to him and gave a start. In his hands the old man held afuneral-wreath made of black and white beads. It bore a date, "14 April,1915," and made the twe
ntieth, the one which Simeon was preparing to layon the grave of his dead friends.

  "He will lay it there," said Patrice, aloud. "His instinct as anavenging friend, which has guided his steps through life, continues inspite of his insanity. He will lay it on the grave. That's so, Simeon,isn't it: you will take it there to-morrow? For to-morrow is thefourteenth of April, the sacred anniversary. . . ."

  He leant over the incomprehensible being who held the key to all theplots and counterplots, to all the treachery and benevolence thatconstituted the inextricable drama. Simeon thought that Patrice wantedto take the wreath from him and pressed it to his chest with a startledgesture.

  "Don't be afraid," said Patrice. "You can keep it. To-morrow, Simeon,to-morrow, Coralie and I will be faithful to the appointment which yougave us. And to-morrow perhaps the memory of the horrible past willunseal your brain."

  The day seemed long to Patrice, who was eager for something that wouldprovide a glimmer in the surrounding darkness. And now this glimmerseemed about to be kindled by the arrival of this twentieth anniversaryof the fourteenth of April.

  At a late hour in the afternoon M. Masseron called at the Rue Raynouard.

  "Look what I've just received," he said to Patrice. "It's rathercurious: an anonymous letter in a disguised hand. Listen:

  "'_Sir_, be warned. They're going away. Take care. To-morrow evening the 1800 bags will be on their way out of the country.

  A FRIEND OF FRANCE.'"

  "And to-morrow is the fourteenth of April," said Patrice, at onceconnecting the two trains of thought in his mind.

  "Yes. What makes you say that?"

  "Nothing. . . . Something that just occurred to me. . . ."

  He was nearly telling M. Masseron all the facts associated with thefourteenth of April and all those concerning the strange personality ofold Simeon. If he did not speak, it was for obscure reasons, perhapsbecause he wished to work out this part of the case alone, perhaps alsobecause of a sort of shyness which prevented him from admitting M.Masseron into all the secrets of the past. He said nothing about it,therefore, and asked:

  "What do you think of the letter?"

  "Upon my word, I don't know what to think. It may be a warning withsomething to back it, or it may be a trick to make us adopt one courseof conduct rather than another. I'll talk about it to Bournef."

  "Nothing fresh on his side?"

  "No; and I don't expect anything in particular. The alibi which he hassubmitted is genuine. His friends and he are so many supers. Their partsare played."

  The coincidence of dates was all that stuck in Patrice's mind. The tworoads which M. Masseron and he were following suddenly met on this dayso long since marked out by fate. The past and the present were about tounite. The catastrophe was at hand. The fourteenth of April was the dayon which the gold was to disappear for good and also the day on which anunknown voice had summoned Patrice and Coralie to the same tryst whichhis father and her mother had kept twenty years ago.

  And the next day was the fourteenth of April.

  * * * * *

  At nine o'clock in the morning Patrice asked after old Simeon.

  "Gone out, sir. You had countermanded your orders."

  Patrice entered the room and looked for the wreath. It was not there.Moreover, the three things in the cupboard, the rope-ladder, the coil oflead and the glazier's lamp, were not there either.

  "Did Simeon take anything with him?"

  "Yes, sir, a wreath."

  "Nothing else?"

  "No, sir."

  The window was open. Patrice came to the conclusion that the things hadgone by this way, thus confirming his theory that the old fellow was anunconscious confederate.

  Shortly before ten o'clock Coralie joined him in the garden. Patrice hadtold her the latest events. She looked pale and anxious.

  They went round the lawns and, without being seen, reached the clumps ofdwarf shrubs which hid the door on the lane. Patrice opened the door. Ashe started to open the other his hand hesitated. He felt sorry that hehad not told M. Masseron and that he and Coralie were performing bythemselves a pilgrimage which certain signs warned him to be dangerous.He shook off the obsession, however. He had two revolvers with him. Whathad he to fear?

  "You're coming in, aren't you, Coralie?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "I somehow thought you seemed undecided, anxious . . ."

  "It's quite true," said Coralie. "I feel a sort of hollowness."

  "Why? Are you afraid?"

  "No. Or rather yes. I'm not afraid for to-day, but in some way for thepast. I think of my poor mother, who went through this door, as I amdoing, one April morning. She was perfectly happy, she was going tomeet her love. . . . And then I feel as if I wanted to hold her back andcry, 'Don't go on. . . . Death is lying in wait for you. . . . Don't goon. . . .' And it's I who hear those words of terror, they ring in myears; it's I who hear them and I dare not go on. I'm afraid."

  "Let's go back, Coralie."

  She only took his arm:

  "No," she said, in a firm voice. "We'll walk on. I want to pray. It willdo me good."

  Boldly she stepped along the little slanting path which her mother hadfollowed and climbed the slope amid the tangled weeds and the stragglingbranches. They passed the lodge on their left and reached the leafycloisters where each had a parent lying buried. And at once, at thefirst glance, they saw that the twentieth wreath was there.

  "Simeon has come," said Patrice. "An all-powerful instinct obliged himto come. He must be somewhere near."

  While Coralie knelt down beside the tombstone, he hunted around thecloisters and went as far as the middle of the garden. There was nothingleft but to go to the lodge, and this was evidently a dread act whichthey put off performing, if not from fear, at least from the reverentawe which checks a man on entering a place of death and crime.

  It was Coralie once again who gave the signal for action:

  "Come," she said.

  Patrice did not know how they would make their way into the lodge, forall its doors and windows had appeared to them to be shut. But, as theyapproached, they saw that the back-door opening on the yard was wideopen, and they at once thought that Simeon was waiting for them inside.

  It was exactly ten o'clock when they crossed the threshold of the lodge.A little hall led to a kitchen on one side and a bedroom on the other.The principal room must be that opposite. The door stood ajar.

  "That's where it must have happened . . . long ago," said Coralie, in afrightened whisper.

  "Yes," said Patrice, "we shall find Simeon there. But, if your couragefails you, Coralie, we had better give it up."

  An unquestioning force of will supported her. Nothing now would haveinduced her to stop. She walked on.

  Though large, the room gave an impression of coziness, owing to the wayin which it was furnished. The sofas, armchairs, carpet and hangings alltended to add to its comfort; and its appearance might well haveremained unchanged since the tragic death of the two who used to occupyit. This appearance was rather that of a studio, because of a skylightwhich filled the middle of the high ceiling, where the belvedere was.The light came from here. There were two other windows, but these werehidden by curtains.

  "Simeon is not here," said Patrice.

  Coralie did not reply. She was examining the things around her with anemotion which was reflected in every feature. There were books, all ofthem going back to the last century. Some of them were signed "Coralie"in pencil on their blue or yellow wrappers. There were pieces ofunfinished needlework, an embroidery-frame, a piece of tapestry with aneedle hanging to it by a thread of wool. And there were also bookssigned "Patrice" and a box of cigars and a blotting-pad and an inkstandand penholders. And there were two small framed photographs, those oftwo children, Patrice and Coralie. And thus the life of long ago wenton, not only the life of two lovers who loved each other with a violentand fleeting passion, but of two beings who dwell together i
n the calmassurance of a long existence spent in common.

  "Oh, my darling, darling mother!" Coralie whispered.

  Her emotion increased with each new memory. She leant trembling onPatrice's shoulder.

  "Let's go," he said.

  "Yes, dear, yes, we had better. We will come back again. . . . We willcome back to them. . . . We will revive the life of love that was cutshort by their death. Let us go for to-day; I have no strength left."

  But they had taken only a few steps when they stopped dismayed.

  The door was closed.

  Their eyes met, filled with uneasiness.

  "We didn't close it, did we?" he asked.

  "No," she said, "we didn't close it."

  He went to open it and perceived that it had neither handle nor lock.

  It was a single door, of massive wood that looked hard and substantial.It might well have been made of one piece, taken from the very heart ofan oak. There was no paint or varnish on it. Here and there werescratches, as if some one had been rapping at it with a tool. And then. . . and then, on the right, were these few words in pencil:

  _Patrice and Coralie, 14 April, 1895_ _God will avenge us_

  Below this was a cross and, below the cross, another date, but in adifferent and more recent handwriting:

  _14 April, 1915_

  "This is terrible, this is terrible," said Patrice. "To-day's date! Whocan have written that? It has only just been written. Oh, it's terrible!. . . Come, come, after all, we can't . . ."

  He rushed to one of the windows, tore back the curtain that veiled itand pulled upon the casement. A cry escaped him. The window was walledup, walled up with building-stones that filled the space between theglass and the shutters.

  He ran to the other window and found the same obstacle.

  There were two doors, leading probably to the bedroom on the right andto a room next to the kitchen on the left. He opened them quickly. Bothdoors were walled up.

  He ran in every direction, during the first moment of terror, and thenhurled himself against the first of the three doors and tried to breakit down. It did not move. It might have been an immovable block.

  Then, once again, they looked at each other with eyes of fear; and thesame terrible thought came over them both. The thing that had happenedbefore was being repeated! The tragedy was being played a second time.After the mother and the father, it was the turn of the daughter and theson. Like the lovers of yesteryear, those of to-day were prisoners. Theenemy held them in his powerful grip; and they would doubtless soon knowhow their parents had died by seeing how they themselves would die.. . . 14 April, 1895. . . . 14 April, 1915. . . .