Three o’clock in the morning! … The words kept on recurring to his mind. Twice he looked at his watch. There was twelve minutes left. There was ten minutes. Was the house really going to be blown up, by the mere effect of an infernal and all-powerful will?
“It’s senseless, absolutely senseless!” he cried, stamping his foot.
But, on looking at his companions, he was amazed to see how drawn their faces were; and he felt his courage sink in a strange way. He was certainly not afraid; and the others were no more afraid than he. But all of them, from the chiefs to the simple detectives, were under the influence of that Don Luis Perenna whom they had seen accomplishing such extraordinary feats, and who had shown such wonderful ability throughout this mysterious adventure.
Consciously or unconsciously, whether they wished it or no, they looked upon him as an exceptional being endowed with special faculties, a being of whom they could not think without conjuring up the image of the amazing Arsène Lupin, with his legend of daring, genius, and superhuman insight.
And Lupin was telling them to fly. Pursued and hunted as he was, he voluntarily gave himself up to warn them of their danger. And the danger was immediate. Seven minutes more, six minutes more — and the house would be blown up.
With great simplicity, Mazeroux went on his knees, made the sign of the cross, and said his prayers in a low voice. The action was so impressive that the secretary general and the chief detective made a movement as though to go toward the Prefect of Police.
M. Desmalions turned away his head and continued his walk up and down the room. But his anguish increased; and the words which he had heard over the telephone rang in his ears; and all Perenna’s authority, his ardent entreaties, his frenzied conviction — all this upset him. He had seen Perenna at work. He felt it borne in upon him that he had no right, in the present circumstances, to neglect the man’s warning.
“Let’s go,” he said.
The words were spoken in the calmest manner; and it really seemed as if those who heard them regarded them merely as the sensible conclusion of a very ordinary state of affairs. They went away without hurry or disorder, not as fugitives, but as men deliberately obeying the dictates of prudence.
They stood back at the door to let the Prefect go first.
“No,” he said, “go on; I’ll follow you.”
He was the last out, leaving the electric light full on.
In the hall he asked the chief detective to blow his whistle. When all the plain-clothesmen had assembled, he sent them out of the house together with the porter, and shut the door behind him. Then, calling the detectives who were watching the boulevard, he said:
“Let everybody stand a good distance away; push the crowd as far back as you can; and be quick about it. We shall enter the house again in half an hour.”
“And you, Monsieur le Préfet?” whispered Mazeroux, “You won’t remain here, I hope?”
“No, that I shan’t!” he said, laughing. “If I take our friend Perenna’s advice at all, I may as well take it thoroughly!”
“There is only two minutes left.”
“Our friend Perenna spoke of three o’clock, not of two minutes to three. So—”
He crossed the boulevard, accompanied by his secretary general, the chief detective, and Mazeroux, and clambered up the slope of the fortifications opposite the house.
“Perhaps we ought to stoop down,” suggested Mazeroux.
“Let’s stoop, by all means,” said the Prefect, still in a good humour. “But, honestly, if there’s no explosion, I shall send a bullet through my head. I could not go on living after making myself look so ridiculous.”
“There will be an explosion, Monsieur le Préfet,” declared Mazeroux.
“What confidence you must have in our friend Don Luis!”
“You have just the same confidence, Monsieur le Préfet.”
They were silent, irritated by the wait, and struggling with the absurd anxiety that oppressed them. They counted the seconds singly, by the beating of their hearts. It was interminable.
Three o’clock sounded from somewhere.
“You see,” grinned M. Desmalions, in an altered voice, “you see! There’s nothing, thank goodness!”
And he growled:
“It’s idiotic, perfectly idiotic! How could any one imagine such nonsense!”
Another clock struck, farther away. Then the hour also rang from the roof of a neighbouring building.
Before the third stroke had sounded they heard a kind of cracking, and, the next moment, came the terrible blast, complete, but so brief that they had only, so to speak, a vision of an immense sheaf of flames and smoke shooting forth enormous stones and pieces of wall, something like the grand finale of a fireworks display. And it was all over. The volcano had erupted.
“Look sharp!” shouted the Prefect of Police, darting forward. “Telephone for the engines, quick, in case of fire!”
He caught Mazeroux by the arm:
“Run to my motor; you’ll see her a hundred yards down the boulevard. Tell the man to drive you to Don Luis, and, if you find him, release him and bring him here.”
“Under arrest, Monsieur le Préfet?”
“Under arrest? You’re mad!”
“But, if the deputy chief—”
“The deputy chief will keep his mouth shut. I’ll see to that. Be off!”
Mazeroux fulfilled his mission, not with greater speed than if he had been sent to arrest Don Luis, for Mazeroux was a conscientious man, but with extraordinary pleasure. The fight which he had been obliged to wage against the man whom he still called “the chief” had often distressed him to the point of tears. This time he was coming to help him, perhaps to save his life.
That afternoon the deputy chief had ceased his search of the house, by M. Desmalions’s orders, as Don Luis’s escape seemed certain, and left only three men on duty. Mazeroux found them in a room on the ground floor, where they were sitting up in turns. In reply to his questions, they declared that they had not heard a sound.
He went upstairs alone, so as to have no witnesses to his interview with the governor, passed through the drawing-room and entered the study.
Here he was overcome with anxiety, for, after turning on the light, the first glance revealed nothing to his eyes.
“Chief!” he cried, repeatedly. “Where are you, Chief?”
No answer.
“And yet,” thought Mazeroux, “as he telephoned, he can’t be far away.”
In fact, he saw from where he stood that the receiver was hanging from its cord; and, going on to the telephone box, he stumbled over bits of brick and plaster that strewed the carpet. He then switched on the light in the box as well and saw a hand and arm hanging from the ceiling above him. The ceiling was broken up all around that arm. But the shoulder had not been able to pass through; and Mazeroux could not see the captive’s head.
He sprang on to a chair and reached the hand. He felt it and was reassured by the warmth of its touch.
“Is that you, Mazeroux?” asked a voice that seemed to the sergeant to come from very far away.
“Yes, it’s I. You’re not wounded, are you? Nothing serious?”
“No, only stunned — and a bit faint — from hunger…. Listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“Open the second drawer on the left in my writing-desk…. You’ll find—”
“Yes, Chief?”
“An old stick of chocolate.”
“But—”
“Do as I tell you, Alexandre; I’m famished.”
Indeed, Don Luis recovered after a moment or two and said, in a gayer voice:
“That’s better. I can wait now. Go to the kitchen and fetch me some bread and some water.”
“I’ll be back at once, Chief.”
“Not this way. Come back by Florence Levasseur’s room and the secret passage to the ladder which leads to the trapdoor at the top.”
And he told him how to make the stone sw
ing out and how to enter the hollow in which he had expected to meet with such a tragic end.
The thing was done in ten minutes. Mazeroux cleared the opening, caught hold of Don Luis by the legs and pulled him out of his hole.
“Oh, dear, oh dear!” he moaned, in a voice full of pity. “What a position, Chief! How did you manage it all? Yes, I see: you must have dug down, where you lay, and gone on digging — for more than a yard! And it took some pluck, I expect, on an empty stomach!”
When Don Luis was seated in his bedroom and had swallowed a few bits of bread and drunk what he wanted, he told his story:
“Yes, it took the devil’s own pluck, old man. By Jingo! when a chap’s ideas are whirling in his head and he can’t use his brain, upon my word, all he asks is to die? And then there was no air, you see. I couldn’t breathe. I went on digging, however, as you saw, went on digging while I was half asleep, in a sort of nightmare. Just look: my fingers are in a jelly. But there, I was thinking of that confounded business of the explosion and I wanted to warn you at all costs, and I dug away at my tunnel. What a job! And then, oof! I felt space at last!
“I got my hand through and next my arm. Where was I? Why, over the telephone, of course! I knew that at once by feeling the wall and finding the wires. Then it took me quite half an hour to get hold of the instrument. I couldn’t reach it with my arm.
“I managed at last with a piece of string and a slip-knot to fish up the receiver and hold it near my mouth, or, say, at ten inches from my mouth. And then I shouted and roared to make my voice carry; and, all the time, I was in pain. And then, at last, my string broke…. And then — and then — I hadn’t an ounce of strength left in my body. Besides, you fellows had been warned; and it was for you to get yourselves out of the mess.”
He looked at Mazeroux and asked him, as though certain of the reply:
“The explosion took place, didn’t it?”
“Yes, Chief.”
“At three o’clock exactly?”
“Yes.”
“And of course M. Desmalions had the house cleared?”
“Yes.”
“At the last minute?”
“At the last minute.”
Don Luis laughed and said:
“I knew he would wait about and not give way until the crucial moment. You must have had a bad time of it, my poor Mazeroux, for of course you agreed with me from the start.”
He kept on eating while he talked; and each mouthful seemed to bring back a little of his usual animation.
“Funny thing, hunger!” he said. “Makes you feel so light-headed. I must practise getting used to it, however.”
“At any rate, Chief, no one would believe that you have been fasting for nearly forty-eight hours.”
“Ah, that comes of having a sound constitution, with something to fall back upon! I shall be a different man in half an hour. Just give me time to shave and have a bath.”
When he had finished dressing, he sat down to the breakfast of eggs and cold meat which Mazeroux had prepared for him; and then, getting up, said:
“Now, let’s be off.”
“But there’s no hurry, Chief. Why don’t you lie down for a few hours? The
Prefect can wait.”
“You’re mad! What about Marie Fauville?”
“Marie Fauville?”
“Why, of course! Do you think I’m going to leave her in prison, or
Sauverand, either? There’s not a second to lose, old chap.”
Mazeroux thought to himself that the chief had not quite recovered his wits yet. What? Release Marie Fauville and Sauverand, one, two, three, just like that! No, no, it was going a bit too far.
However, he took down to the Prefect’s car a new Perenna, merry, brisk, and as fresh as though he had just got out of bed.
“Very flattering to my pride,” said Don Luis to Mazeroux, “most flattering, that hesitation of the Prefect’s, after I had warned him over the telephone, followed by his submission at the decisive moment. What a hold I must have on all those jokers, to make them sit up at a sign from little me! ‘Beware, gentlemen!’ I telephone to them from the bottomless pit. ‘Beware! At three o’clock, a bomb!’ ‘Nonsense!’ say they. ‘Not a bit of it!’ say I. ‘How do you know?’ ‘Because I do.’ ‘But what proof have you?’ ‘What proof? That I say so.’ ‘Oh, well, of course, if you say so!’ And, at five minutes to three, out they march. Ah, if I wasn’t built up of modesty—”
They came to the Boulevard Suchet, where the crowd was so dense that they had to alight from the car. Mazeroux passed through the cordon of police protecting the approaches to the house and took Don Luis to the slope across the road.
“Wait for me here, Chief. I’ll tell the Prefect of Police.”
On the other side of the boulevard, under the pale morning sky in which a few black clouds still lingered, Don Luis saw the havoc wrought by the explosion. It was apparently not so great as he had expected. Some of the ceilings had fallen in and their rubbish showed through the yawning cavities of the windows; but the house remained standing. Even Fauville’s built-out annex had not suffered overmuch, and, strange to say, the electric light, which the Prefect had left burning on his departure, had not gone out. The garden and the road were covered with stacks of furniture, over which a number of soldiers and police kept watch.
“Come with me, Chief,” said Mazeroux, as he fetched Don Luis and led him toward the engineer’s workroom.
A part of the floor was demolished. The outer walls on the left, near the passage, were cracked; and two workmen were fixing up beams, brought from the nearest timber yard, to support the ceiling. But, on the whole, the explosion had not had the results which the man who prepared it must have anticipated.
M. Desmalions was there, together with all the men who had spent the night in the room and several important persons from the public prosecutor’s office. Weber, the deputy chief detective, alone had gone, refusing to meet his enemy.
Don Luis’s arrival caused great excitement. The Prefect at once came up to him and said:
“All our thanks, Monsieur. Your insight is above praise. You have saved our lives; and these gentlemen and I wish to tell you so most emphatically. In my case, it is the second time that I have to thank you.”
“There is a very simple way of thanking me, Monsieur le Préfet,” said Don
Luis, “and that is to allow me to carry out my task to the end.”
“Your task?”
“Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. My action of last night is only the beginning.
The conclusion is the release of Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand.”
M. Desmalions smiled.
“Oh!”
“Am I asking too much, Monsieur le Préfet?”
“One can always ask, but the request should be reasonable. And the innocence of those people does not depend on me.”
“No; but it depends on you, Monsieur le Préfet, to let them know if I prove their innocence to you.”
“Yes, I agree, if you prove it beyond dispute.”
“Just so.”
Don Luis’s calm assurance impressed M. Desmalions in spite of everything and even more than on the former occasions; and he suggested:
“The results of the hasty inspection which we have made will perhaps help you. For instance, we are certain that the bomb was placed by the entrance to the passage and probably under the boards of the floor.”
“Please do not trouble, Monsieur le Préfet. These are only secondary details. The great thing now is that you should know the whole truth, and that not only through words.”
The Prefect had come closer. The magistrate and detectives were standing round Don Luis, watching his lips and movements with feverish impatience. Was it possible that that truth, as yet so remote and vague, in spite of all the importance which they attached to the arrests already effected, was known at last?
It was a solemn moment. Every one was on tenterhooks. The manner in which Don Luis had foretold
the explosion lent the value of an accomplished fact to his predictions; and the men whom he had saved from the terrible catastrophe were almost ready to accept as certainties the most improbable statements which a man of his stamp might make.
“Monsieur le Préfet,” he said, “you waited in vain last night for the fourth letter to make its appearance. We shall now be able, by an unexpected miracle of chance, to be present at the delivery of the letter. You will then know that it was the same hand that committed all the crimes — and you will know whose hand that was.”
And, turning to Mazeroux:
“Sergeant, will you please make the room as dark as you can? The shutters are gone; but you might draw the curtains across the windows and close the doors. Monsieur le Préfet, is it by accident that the electric light is on?”
“Yes, by accident. We will have it turned out.”
“One moment. Have any of you gentlemen a pocket lantern about you? Or, no, it doesn’t matter. This will do.”
There was a candle in a sconce. He took it and lit it.
Then he switched off the electric light.
There was a half darkness, amid which the flame of the candle flickered in the draught from the windows. Don Luis protected the flame with his hand and moved to the table.
“I do not think that we shall be kept waiting long,” he said. “As I foresee it, there will be only a few seconds before the facts speak for themselves and better than I could do.”
Those few seconds, during which no one broke the silence, were unforgettable. M. Desmalions has since declared, in an interview in which he ridicules himself very cleverly, that his brain, over-stimulated by the fatigues of the night and by the whole scene before him, imagined the most unlikely events, such as an invasion of the house by armed assailants, or the apparition of ghosts and spirits.
He had the curiosity, however, he said, to watch Don Luis. Sitting on the edge of the table, with his head thrown a little back and his eyes roaming over the ceiling, Don Luis was eating a piece of bread and nibbling at a cake of chocolate. He seemed very hungry, but quite at his ease.
The others maintained that tense attitude which we put on at moments of great physical effort. Their faces were distorted with a sort of grimace. They were haunted by the memory of the explosion as well as obsessed by what was going to happen. The flame of the candle cast shadows on the wall.
Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17) Page 268