“Notwithstanding certain points of resemblance.” The baron saw only these five bewildering words, which he regarded as the confession of a doubt which alone should have been enough to justify the intervention of the police. His fears increased. He read the letter over and over again. “I will myself see to their removal.” And that fixed date, the night of Wednesday the 27th of September!
Of a naturally suspicious and silent disposition, he dared not unburden himself to his servants, whose devotion he did not consider proof against all tests. And yet, for the first time for many years, he felt a need to speak, to take advice. Abandoned by the law of his country, he had no hope of protecting himself by his own resources, and was nearly going to Paris to beg for the assistance of some retired detective or other.
Two days elapsed. On the third day, as he sat reading his newspapers, he gave a start of delight. The Réveil de Caudebec contained the following paragraph:
“We have had the pleasure of numbering among our visitors, for nearly three weeks, Chief-Inspector Ganimard, one of the veterans of the detective service. M. Ganimard, for whom his last feat, the arrest of Arsène Lupin, has won an European reputation, is enjoying a rest from his arduous labors and spending a short holiday fishing for bleak and gudgeon in the Seine.”
Ganimard! The very man that Baron Cahorn wanted! Who could baffle Lupin’s plans better than the cunning and patient Ganimard?
The baron lost no time. It is a four-mile walk from the castle to the little town of Caudebec. He did the distance with a quick and joyous step, stimulated by the hope of safety.
After many fruitless endeavors to discover the chief-inspector’s address, he went to the office of the Réveil, which is on the quay. He found the writer of the paragraph, who, going to the window, said:
“Ganimard! Why, you’re sure to meet him, rod in hand, on the quay. That’s where I picked up with him, and read his name, by accident, on his fishing-rod. Look, there he is, the little old man in the frock-coat and a straw hat, under the trees!”
“A frock-coat and a straw hat?”
“Yes. He’s a queer specimen—close-tongued, and a trifle testy.”
Five minutes later the baron accosted the famous Ganimard, introduced himself, and made an attempt to enter into conversation. Failing in this, he broached the question frankly, and laid his case before him.
The other listened without moving a muscle or taking his eyes from the water. Then he turned his head to the baron, eyed him from head to foot with a look of profound pity, and said:
“Sir, it is not usual for criminals to warn the people whom they mean to rob. Arsène Lupin, in particular, never indulges in that sort of bounce.”
“Still…”
“Sir, if I had the smallest doubt, believe me, the pleasure of once more locking up that dear Lupin would outweigh every other consideration. Unfortunately, the youth is already in prison.”
“Suppose he escapes?…”
“People don’t escape from the Santé.”
“But Lupin…”
“Lupin no more than another.”
“Still…”
“Very well, if he does escape, so much the better; I’ll nab him again. Meanwhile you can sleep soundly and cease frightening my fish.”
The conversation was ended. The baron returned home feeling more or less reassured by Ganimard’s unconcern. He saw to his bolts, kept a watch upon his servants, and another forty-eight hours passed, during which he almost succeeded in persuading himself that, after all, his fears were groundless. There was no doubt about it: as Ganimard had said, criminals don’t warn the people whom they mean to rob.
The date was drawing near. On the morning of Tuesday the twenty-sixth nothing particular happened. But at three o’clock in the afternoon a boy rang and handed in this telegram:
“No goods Batignolles. Get everything ready for to-morrow night.
ARSÈNE.”
Once again Cahorn lost his head—so much so that he asked himself whether he would not do better to yield to Arsène Lupin’s demands.
He hurried off to Caudebec. Ganimard was seated on a camp-stool fishing on the same spot as before. The baron handed him the telegram without a word.
“Well?” said the detective.
“Well what? It’s for to-morrow!”
“What is?”
“The burglary! The theft of my collections!”
Ganimard turned to him, and, folding his arms across his chest, cried in a tone of impatience:
“Why, you don’t really mean to say that you think I’m going to trouble myself about this stupid business?”
“What fee will you take to spend Wednesday night at the castle?”
“Not a penny. Don’t bother me!”
“Name your own price. I am a rich man—a very rich man.”
The brutality of the offer took Ganimard aback. He replied, more calmly:
“I am here on leave and I have no right to…”
“No one shall know. I undertake to be silent, whatever happens.”
“Oh, nothing will happen.”
“Well, look here, is three thousand francs enough?”
The inspector took a pinch of snuff, reflected, and said:
“Very well. But it’s only fair to tell you that you are throwing your money away.”
“I don’t mind.”
“In that case… And besides, after all, one can never tell with that devil of a Lupin! He must have a whole gang at his orders…. Are you sure of your servants?”
“Well, I…”
“Then we must not rely upon them. I’ll wire to two of my own men; then we shall feel safer…. And now leave me; we must not be seen together. To-morrow evening at nine o’clock.”
On the morning of the next day, the date fixed by Arsène Lupin, Baron Cahorn took down his trophy of arms, polished up his pistols, and made a thorough inspection of the Malaquis without discovering anything suspicious.
At half-past eight in the evening he dismissed his servants for the night. They slept in a wing facing the road, but set a little way back, and right at the end of the castle. As soon as he was alone he softly opened the four doors. In a little while he heard footsteps approaching.
Ganimard introduced his assistants—two powerfully built fellows, with bull necks, and huge, strong hands—and asked for certain explanations. After ascertaining the disposition of the place he carefully closed and barricaded every issue by which the threatened rooms could be entered. He examined the walls, raised the tapestries, and finally installed his detectives in the central gallery.
“No nonsense, do you understand? You’re not here to sleep. At the least sound open the windows on the court and call me. Keep a look-out also on the water-side. Thirty feet of steep cliff doesn’t frighten blackguards of that stamp.”
He locked them in, took away the keys, and said to the baron:
“And now to our post.”
He had selected as the best place in which to spend the night a small room contrived in the thickness of the outer walls,’ between the two main doors. It had at one time been the watchman’s lodge. A spy-hole opened upon the bridge, another upon the court. In one corner was what looked like the mouth of a well.
“You told me, did you not, monsieur le baron, that this well is the only entrance to the underground passage, and that it has been stopped up since the memory of man?”
“Yes.”
“Therefore, unless there should happen to be another outlet, unknown to any but Arsène Lupin, which seems pretty unlikely, we can be easy in our minds.”
He placed three chairs in a row, settled himself comfortably at full length, lit his pipe and sighed.
“Upon my word, monsieur le baron, I must be very eager to build an additional story to the little house in which I mean to end my days to accept so elementary a job as this. I shall tell the story to our friend Lupin; he’ll split his sides with laughter.”
The baron did not laugh. With ears pricked up he ques
tioned the silence with ever-growing restlessness. From time to time he leaned over the well and plunged an anxious eye into the yawning cavity.
The clock struck eleven; midnight; one o’clock.
Suddenly he seized the arm of Ganimard, who woke with a start.
“Do you hear that?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“It’s myself, snoring!”
“No, no, listen“
“Oh yes, it’s a motor-horn.”
“Well?”
“Well, it’s as unlikely that Lupin should come by motor-car as that he should use a battering-ram to demolish your castle. So I should go to sleep if I were you, monsieur le baron… as I shall have the honor of doing once more. Good-night!”
This was the only alarm. Ganimard resumed his interrupted slumbers, and the baron heard nothing save his loud and regular snoring.
At break of day they left their cell. A great calm peace—the peace of the morning by the cool water-side—reigned over the castle. Cahorn, beaming with joy, and Ganimard, placid as ever, climbed the staircase. Not a sound. Nothing suspicious.
“What did I tell you, monsieur le baron? I really ought not to have accepted… I feel ashamed of myself…”
He took the keys and entered the galléry.
On two chairs, with bent bodies and hanging arms, sat the two detectives, fast asleep.
“What, in the name of all the…” growled the inspector.
At the same moment the baron uttered a cry:
“The pictures!… The credence-table!…”
He stammered and spluttered, with his hand outstretched towards the dismantled walls, with their bare nails and slack cords. The Watteau and the three Rubens had disappeared! The tapestries had been removed, the glass-cases emptied of their trinkets!
“And my Louis XVI sconces!… And the Regency chandelier!… And my twelfth-century Virgin!…”
He ran from place to place, maddened, in despair. Distraught with rage and grief, he quoted the purchase-prices, added up his losses, piled up figures, all promiscuously, in indistinct words and incompleted phrases. He stamped with his feet, flung himself about, and, in short, behaved like a ruined man who had nothing before him but suicide.
If anything could have consoled him it would have been the sight of Ganimard’s stupefaction. Contrary to the baron, the inspector did not move. He seemed petrified, and, with a dazed eye, examined things. The windows? They were fastened. The locks of the doors? Untouched. There was not a crack in the ceiling, not a hole in the floor. Everything was in perfect order. The whole thing must have been carried out methodically, after an inexorable and logical plan.
“Arsène Lupin!… Arsène Lupin!” he muttered, giving way….
Suddenly he leaped upon the two detectives, as though at last overcome with rage, and shook them and swore at them furiously. They did not wake up.
“The deuce!” he said. “Can they have been…?”
He leaned over and closely scrutinized them, one after the other; they were both asleep, but their sleep was not natural. He said to the baron:
“They have been put to sleep.”
“But by whom?”
“By him, of course… or by his gang, acting under his instructions. It’s a trick in his own manner. I recognize his touch.”
“In that case, I am undone; the thing is hopeless.”
“Hopeless.”
“But this is abominable!—it’s monstrous!”
“Lodge an information.”
“What’s the good?”
“Well, you may as well try… the law has its resources….”
“The law! But you can see for yourself…. Why, at this very moment, when you might be looking for a clew, discovering something, you’re not even stirring!”
“Discover something, with Arsène Lupin! But, my dear sir, Arsène Lupin never leaves anything behind him! There’s no chance with Arsène Lupin! I am beginning to wonder whether he got himself arrested by me of his own free will in America!”
“Then I must give up the hope of recovering my pictures or anything! But he has stolen the pearls of my collection. I would give a fortune to get them back. If there’s nothing to be done against him, let him name his price.”
Ganimard looked at him steadily.
“That’s a sound notion. Do you stick to it?”
“Yes, yes, yes! But why do you ask?”
“I have an idea.”
“What idea?”
“We’ll talk of it if nothing comes of the inquiry…. Only, not a word about me to a soul if you wish me to succeed.”
And he added, between his teeth:
“Besides, I have nothing to be proud of.”
The two men gradually recovered consciousness, with the stupefied look of men awakening from an hypnotic sleep. They opened astounded eyes, tried to make out what had happened. Ganimard questioned them. They remembered nothing.
“Still, you must have seen somebody.”
“No.”
“Try and think.”
“No.”
“Did you have a drink?”
They reflected, and one of them replied:
“Yes, I had some water.”
“Out of that bottle there?”
“Yes.”
“I had some too,” said the other.
Ganimard smelled the water, tasted it. It had no particular scent or flavor.
“Come,” he said, “we are wasting our time. Problems set by Arsène Lupin can’t be solved in five minutes. But, by jingo, I swear I’ll catch him! He’s won the second bout. The rubber game to me!”
That day a charge of aggravated larceny was laid by Baron Ca-horn against Arsène Lupin, a prisoner awaiting trial at the Santé.
The baron often regretted having laid his information when he saw the Malaquis made over to the gendarmes, the public prosecutor, the examining magistrate, the newspaper reporters, and all the idle, curious people who worm themselves in wherever they have no business to be.
Already the case was filling the public mind. It had taken place under such peculiar conditions, and the name of Arsène Lupin excited men’s imaginations to such a pitch, that the most fantastic stories crowded the columns of the press and found acceptance with the public.
But the original letter of Arsène Lupin which was published by the Echo de France4—and no one ever knew who had supplied the text: the letter in which Baron Cahorn was insolently warned of what threatened him—caused the greatest excitement. Fabulous explanations were offered forthwith. The old legends were revived. The newspapers reminded their readers of the existence of the famous subterranean passages. And the public prosecutor, influenced by these statements, pursued his search in this direction.
The castle was ransacked from top to bottom. Every stone was examined; the wainscotings and chimneys, the frames of the mirrors and the rafters of the ceilings were carefully inspected. By the light of torches the searchers investigated the immense cellars, in which the lords of the Malaquis had been used to pile up their provisions and munitions of war. They sounded the very bowels of the rock. All to no purpose. They discovered not the slightest trace of a tunnel. No secret passage existed.
Very well, was the answer on every side, but pictures and furniture don’t vanish like ghosts. They go out through doors and windows, and the people that take them also go in and out through doors and windows. Who are these people? How did they get in? And how did they get out?
The public prosecutor of Rouen, persuaded of his own incompetence, asked for the assistance of the Paris police. M. Du-douis, the chief of the detective service, sent the most efficient blood-hounds in his employ. He himself paid a forty-eight hours’ visit to the Malaquis, but met with no better success.
It was after his return that he sent for Chief-Inspector Gani-mard, whose services he had so often had occasion to value.
Ganimard listened in silence to the instructions of his superior, and then, tossing his head, s
aid:
“I think we shall be on a false scent while we continue to search the castle. The solution lies elsewhere.”
“With Arsène Lupin! If you think that, then you believe that he took part in the burglary.”
“I do think so. I go further: I consider it certain.”
“Come, Ganimard, this is ridiculous. Arsène Lupin is in prison.”
“Arsène Lupin is in prison, I agree. He is being watched, I grant you. But if he had his legs in irons, his hands bound, and his mouth gagged I should still be of the same opinion.”
“But why this persistency?”
“Because no one else is capable of contriving a plan on so large a scale, and of contriving it in such a way that it succeeds… as this has succeeded.”
“Words, Ganimard!”
“They are true words, for all that. Only, it’s no use looking for underground passages, for stones that turn on a pivot, and stuff and nonsense of that kind. Our friend does not employ any of those antiquated measures. He is a man of to-day, or, rather, of to-morrow.”
“And what do you conclude?”
“I conclude by asking you straight to let me spend an hour with Lupin.”
“In his cell?”
“Yes. We were on excellent terms during the crossing from America, and I venture to think that he is not without a friendly feeling for the man who arrested him. If he can tell me what I want to know, without compromising himself, he will be quite willing to spare me an unnecessary journey.”
It was just after mid-day when Ganimard was shown into Arsène Lupin’s cell. Lupin, who was lying on his bed, raised his head, and uttered an exclamation of delight.
“Well, this is a surprise! Dear old Ganimard here!”
“Himself.”
“I have hoped for many things in this retreat of my own choosing, but for none more eagerly than the pleasure of welcoming you here.”
“You are too good.”
“Not at all, not at all. I have the liveliest feelings of esteem for you.”
“I am proud to hear it.”
“I have said so a thousand times: Ganimard is our greatest detective. He’s almost—see how frank I am—almost as good as Sherlock Holmes. But, really, I’m awfully sorry to have nothing better than this stool to offer you. And not a drink of any kind! Not so much as a glass of beer! Do forgive me: I am only passing through!”
Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-thief (Penguin Classics) Page 5