“Simply by the pictures. A man living at that time, such as Charles d’Ernemont, would have written either 26 Germinal, Year II, or else 15 April, 1794, but not 15 April, Year II. I was astounded that no one had thought of that.”
“Then the figure 2 stood for two o’clock?”
“Evidently. And what must have happened was this: the farmer-general began by turning his fortune into solid gold and silver money. Then, by way of additional precaution, with this gold and silver he bought eighteen wonderful diamonds. When he was surprised by the arrival of the patrol, he fled into his garden. Which was the best place to hide the diamonds? Chance caused his eyes to light upon the sun-dial. It was two o’clock. The shadow of the arrow was then falling along the crack in the marble. He obeyed this sign of the shadow, rammed his eighteen diamonds into the dust and calmly went back and surrendered to the soldiers.”
“But the shadow of the arrow coincides with the crack in the marble every day of the year and not only on the 15th of April.”
“You forget, my dear chap, that we are dealing with a lunatic and that he remembered only this date of the 15th of April.”
“Very well; but you, once you had solved the riddle, could easily have made your way into the enclosure and taken the diamonds.”
“Quite true; and I should not have hesitated, if I had had to do with people of another description. But I really felt sorry for those poor wretches. And then you know the sort of idiot that Lupin is. The idea of appearing suddenly as a benevolent genius and amazing his kind would be enough to make him commit any sort of folly.”
“Tah!” I cried. “The folly was not so great as all that. Six magnificent diamonds! How delighted the d’Ernemont heirs must have been to fulfil their part of the contract!”
Lupin looked at me and burst into uncontrollable laughter:
“So you haven’t heard? Oh, what a joke! The delight of the d’Ernemont heirs!.... Why, my dear fellow, on the next day, that worthy Captain Jeanniot had so many mortal enemies! On the very next day, the two lean sisters and the fat gentleman organized an opposition. A contract? Not worth the paper it was written on, because, as could easily be proved, there was no such person as Captain Jeanniot. Where did that adventurer spring from? Just let him sue them and they’d soon show him what was what!”
“Louise d’Ernemont too?”
“No, Louise d’Ernemont protested against that piece of rascality. But what could she do against so many? Besides, now that she was rich, she got back her young man. I haven’t heard of her since.”
“So ...?”
“So, my dear fellow, I was caught in a trap, with not a leg to stand on, and I had to compromise and accept one modest diamond as my share, the smallest and the least handsome of the lot. That comes of doing one’s best to help people!”
And Lupin grumbled between his teeth:
“Oh, gratitude!... All humbug!... Where should we honest men be if we had not our conscience and the satisfaction of duty performed to reward us?”
THE INFERNAL TRAP
WHEN THE RACE was over, a crowd of people, streaming toward the exit from the grand stand, pushed against Nicolas Dugrival. He brought his hand smartly to the inside pocket of his jacket.
“What’s the matter?” asked his wife.
“I still feel nervous ... with that money on me! I’m afraid of some nasty accident.”
She muttered:
“And I can’t understand you. How can you think of carrying such a sum about with you? Every farthing we possess! Lord knows, it cost us trouble enough to earn!”
“Pooh!” he said. “No one would guess that it is here, in my pocket-book.”
“Yes, yes,” she grumbled. “That young man-servant whom we discharged last week knew all about it, didn’t he, Gabriel?”
“Yes, aunt,” said a youth standing beside her.
Nicolas Dugrival, his wife and his nephew Gabriel were well-known figures at the race-meetings, where the regular frequenters saw them almost every day: Dugrival, a big, fat, red-faced man, who looked as if he knew how to enjoy life; his wife, also built on heavy lines, with a coarse, vulgar face, and always dressed in a plum-coloured silk much the worse for wear; the nephew, quite young, slender, with pale features, dark eyes and fair and rather curly hair.
As a rule, the couple remained seated throughout the afternoon. It was Gabriel who betted for his uncle, watching the horses in the paddock, picking up tips to right and left among the jockeys and stable-lads, running backward and forward between the stands and the pari-mutuel.
Luck had favoured them that day, for, three times, Dugrival’s neighbours saw the young man come back and hand him money.
The fifth race was just finishing. Dugrival lit a cigar. At that moment, a gentleman in a tight-fitting brown suit, with a face ending in a peaked grey beard, came up to him and asked, in a confidential whisper:
“Does this happen to belong to you, sir?”
And he displayed a gold watch and chain.
Dugrival gave a start:
“Why, yes ... it’s mine.... Look, here are my initials, N. G.: Nicolas Dugrival!”
And he at once, with a movement of terror, clapped his hand to his jacket-pocket. The note-case was still there.
“Ah,” he said, greatly relieved, “that’s a piece of luck!... But, all the same, how on earth was it done?... Do you know the scoundrel?”
“Yes, we’ve got him locked up. Pray come with me and we’ll soon look into the matter.”
“Whom have I the honour ...?”
“M. Delangle, detective-inspector. I have sent to let M. Marquenne, the magistrate, know.”
Nicolas Dugrival went out with the inspector; and the two of them started for the commissary’s office, some distance behind the grand stand. They were within fifty yards of it, when the inspector was accosted by a man who said to him, hurriedly:
“The fellow with the watch has blabbed; we are on the tracks of a whole gang. M. Marquenne wants you to wait for him at the pari-mutuel and to keep a look-out near the fourth booth.”
There was a crowd outside the betting-booths and Inspector Delangle muttered:
“It’s an absurd arrangement.... Whom am I to look out for?... That’s just like M. Marquenne!...”
He pushed aside a group of people who were crowding too close upon him:
“By Jove, one has to use one’s elbows here and keep a tight hold on one’s purse. That’s the way you got your watch pinched, M. Dugrival!”
“I can’t understand....”
“Oh, if you knew how those gentry go to work! One never guesses what they’re up to next. One of them treads on your foot, another gives you a poke in the eye with his stick and the third picks your pocket before you know where you are.... I’ve been had that way myself.” He stopped and then continued, angrily. “But, bother it, what’s the use of hanging about here! What a mob! It’s unbearable!... Ah, there’s M. Marquenne making signs to us!... One moment, please ... and be sure and wait for me here.”
He shouldered his way through the crowd. Nicolas Dugrival followed him for a moment with his eyes. Once the inspector was out of sight, he stood a little to one side, to avoid being hustled.
A few minutes passed. The sixth race was about to start, when Dugrival saw his wife and nephew looking for him. He explained to them that Inspector Delangle was arranging matters with the magistrate.
“Have you your money still?” asked his wife.
“Why, of course I have!” he replied. “The inspector and I took good care, I assure you, not to let the crowd jostle us.”
He felt his jacket, gave a stifled cry, thrust his hand into his pocket and began to stammer inarticulate syllables, while Mme. Dugrival gasped, in dismay:
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Stolen!” he moaned. “The pocket-book ... the fifty notes!...”
“It’s not true!” she screamed. “It’s not true!”
“Yes, the inspector ... a common sharper
... he’s the man....”
She uttered absolute yells:
“Thief! Thief! Stop thief!... My husband’s been robbed!... Fifty thousand francs!... We are ruined!... Thief! Thief ...”
In a moment they were surrounded by policemen and taken to the commissary’s office. Dugrival went like a lamb, absolutely bewildered. His wife continued to shriek at the top of her voice, piling up explanations, railing against the inspector:
“Have him looked for!... Have him found!... A brown suit.... A pointed beard.... Oh, the villain, to think what he’s robbed us of!... Fifty thousand francs!... Why ... why, Dugrival, what are you doing?”
With one bound, she flung herself upon her husband. Too late! He had pressed the barrel of a revolver against his temple. A shot rang out. Dugrival fell. He was dead.
The reader cannot have forgotten the commotion made by the newspapers in connection with this case, nor how they jumped at the opportunity once more to accuse the police of carelessness and blundering. Was it conceivable that a pick-pocket could play the part of an inspector like that, in broad daylight and in a public place, and rob a respectable man with impunity?
Nicolas Dugrival’s widow kept the controversy alive, thanks to her jeremiads and to the interviews which she granted on every hand. A reporter had secured a snapshot of her in front of her husband’s body, holding up her hand and swearing to revenge his death. Her nephew Gabriel was standing beside her, with hatred pictured in his face. He, too, it appeared, in a few words uttered in a whisper, but in a tone of fierce determination, had taken an oath to pursue and catch the murderer.
The accounts described the humble apartment which they occupied at the Batignolles; and, as they had been robbed of all their means, a sporting-paper opened a subscription on their behalf.
As for the mysterious Delangle, he remained undiscovered. Two men were arrested, but had to be released forthwith. The police took up a number of clues, which were at once abandoned; more than one name was mentioned; and, lastly, they accused Arsène Lupin, an action which provoked the famous burglar’s celebrated cable, dispatched from New York six days after the incident:
“Protest indignantly against calumny invented by baffled police. Send my condolences to unhappy victims. Instructing my bankers to remit them fifty thousand francs.
“Lupin.”
True enough, on the day after the publication of the cable, a stranger rang at Mme. Dugrival’s door and handed her an envelope. The envelope contained fifty thousand-franc notes.
This theatrical stroke was not at all calculated to allay the universal comment. But an event soon occurred which provided any amount of additional excitement. Two days later, the people living in the same house as Mme. Dugrival and her nephew were awakened, at four o’clock in the morning, by horrible cries and shrill calls for help. They rushed to the flat. The porter succeeded in opening the door. By the light of a lantern carried by one of the neighbours, he found Gabriel stretched at full-length in his bedroom, with his wrists and ankles bound and a gag forced into his mouth, while, in the next room, Mme. Dugrival lay with her life’s blood ebbing away through a great gash in her breast.
She whispered:
“The money.... I’ve been robbed.... All the notes gone....”
And she fainted away.
What had happened? Gabriel said — and, as soon as she was able to speak, Mme. Dugrival completed her nephew’s story — that he was startled from his sleep by finding himself attacked by two men, one of whom gagged him, while the other fastened him down. He was unable to see the men in the dark, but he heard the noise of the struggle between them and his aunt. It was a terrible struggle, Mme. Dugrival declared. The ruffians, who obviously knew their way about, guided by some intuition, made straight for the little cupboard containing the money and, in spite of her resistance and outcries, laid hands upon the bundle of bank-notes. As they left, one of them, whom she had bitten in the arm, stabbed her with a knife, whereupon the men had both fled.
“Which way?” she was asked.
“Through the door of my bedroom and afterward, I suppose, through the hall-door.”
“Impossible! The porter would have noticed them.”
For the whole mystery lay in this: how had the ruffians entered the house and how did they manage to leave it? There was no outlet open to them. Was it one of the tenants? A careful inquiry proved the absurdity of such a supposition.
What then?
Chief-inspector Ganimard, who was placed in special charge of the case, confessed that he had never known anything more bewildering:
“It’s very like Lupin,” he said, “and yet it’s not Lupin.... No, there’s more in it than meets the eye, something very doubtful and suspicious.... Besides, if it were Lupin, why should he take back the fifty thousand francs which he sent? There’s another question that puzzles me: what is the connection between the second robbery and the first, the one on the race-course? The whole thing is incomprehensible and I have a sort of feeling — which is very rare with me — that it is no use hunting. For my part, I give it up.”
The examining-magistrate threw himself into the case with heart and soul. The reporters united their efforts with those of the police. A famous English sleuth-hound crossed the Channel. A wealthy American, whose head had been turned by detective-stories, offered a big reward to whosoever should supply the first information leading to the discovery of the truth. Six weeks later, no one was any the wiser. The public adopted Ganimard’s view; and the examining-magistrate himself grew tired of struggling in a darkness which only became denser as time went on.
And life continued as usual with Dugrival’s widow. Nursed by her nephew, she soon recovered from her wound. In the mornings, Gabriel settled her in an easy-chair at the dining-room window, did the rooms and then went out marketing. He cooked their lunch without even accepting the proffered assistance of the porter’s wife.
Worried by the police investigations and especially by the requests for interviews, the aunt and nephew refused to see anybody. Not even the portress, whose chatter disturbed and wearied Mme. Dugrival, was admitted. She fell back upon Gabriel, whom she accosted each time that he passed her room:
“Take care, M. Gabriel, you’re both of you being spied upon. There are men watching you. Why, only last night, my husband caught a fellow staring up at your windows.”
“Nonsense!” said Gabriel. “It’s all right. That’s the police, protecting us.”
One afternoon, at about four o’clock, there was a violent altercation between two costermongers at the bottom of the street. The porter’s wife at once left her room to listen to the invectives which the adversaries were hurling at each other’s heads. Her back was no sooner turned than a man, young, of medium height and dressed in a grey suit of irreproachable cut, slipped into the house and ran up the staircase.
When he came to the third floor, he rang the bell. Receiving no answer, he rang again. At the third summons, the door opened.
“Mme. Dugrival?” he asked, taking off his hat.
“Mme. Dugrival is still an invalid and unable to see any one,” said Gabriel, who stood in the hall.
“It’s most important that I should speak to her.”
“I am her nephew and perhaps I could take her a message....”
“Very well,” said the man. “Please tell Mme. Dugrival that an accident has supplied me with valuable information concerning the robbery from which she has suffered and that I should like to go over the flat and ascertain certain particulars for myself. I am accustomed to this sort of inquiry; and my call is sure to be of use to her.”
Gabriel examined the visitor for a moment, reflected and said:
“In that case, I suppose my aunt will consent ... Pray come in.”
He opened the door of the dining-room and stepped back to allow the other to pass. The stranger walked to the threshold, but, at the moment when he was crossing it, Gabriel raised his arm and, with a swift movement, struck him with a dagger over the righ
t shoulder.
A burst of laughter rang through the room:
“Got him!” cried Mme. Dugrival, darting up from her chair. “Well done, Gabriel! But, I say, you haven’t killed the scoundrel, have you?”
“I don’t think so, aunt. It’s a small blade and I didn’t strike him too hard.”
The man was staggering, with his hands stretched in front of him and his face deathly pale.
“You fool!” sneered the widow. “So you’ve fallen into the trap ... and a good job too! We’ve been looking out for you a long time. Come, my fine fellow, down with you! You don’t care about it, do you? But you can’t help yourself, you see. That’s right: one knee on the ground, before the missus ... now the other knee.... How well we’ve been brought up!... Crash, there we go on the floor! Lord, if my poor Dugrival could only see him like that!... And now, Gabriel, to work!”
She went to her bedroom and opened one of the doors of a hanging wardrobe filled with dresses. Pulling these aside, she pushed open another door which formed the back of the wardrobe and led to a room in the next house:
“Help me carry him, Gabriel. And you’ll nurse him as well as you can, won’t you? For the present, he’s worth his weight in gold to us, the artist!...”
The hours succeeded one another. Days passed.
One morning, the wounded man regained a moment’s consciousness. He raised his eyelids and looked around him.
He was lying in a room larger than that in which he had been stabbed, a room sparsely furnished, with thick curtains hanging before the windows from top to bottom. There was light enough, however, to enable him to see young Gabriel Dugrival seated on a chair beside him and watching him.
“Ah, it’s you, youngster!” he murmured. “I congratulate you, my lad. You have a sure and pretty touch with the dagger.”
And he fell asleep again.
That day and the following days, he woke up several times and, each time, he saw the stripling’s pale face, his thin lips and his dark eyes, with the hard look in them:
“You frighten me,” he said. “If you have sworn to do for me, don’t stand on ceremony. But cheer up, for goodness’ sake. The thought of death has always struck me as the most humorous thing in the world. Whereas, with you, old chap, it simply becomes lugubrious. I prefer to go to sleep. Good-night!”
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 149