The Hollow Needle

by Maurice Leblanc

  “Pity he’s dead,” said M. Filleul, with a grin. “He’d have ended by stealing the towers of Notre-Dame.”

  Isidore shrugged his shoulders:

  “Don’t laugh, monsieur. He upsets you, dead though he may be.”

  “I don’t say not, I don’t say not, M. Beautrelet, I confess that I feel a certain excitement now that I am about to set eyes on him—unless, indeed, his friends have taken away the body.”

  “And always admitting,” observed the Comte de Gesvres, “that it was really he who was wounded by my poor niece.”

  “It was he, beyond a doubt, Monsieur le Comte,” declared Beautrelet; “it was he, believe me, who fell in the ruins under the shot fired by Mlle. de Saint-Veran; it was he whom she saw rise and who fell again and dragged himself toward the cloisters to rise again for the last time—this by a miracle which I will explain to you presently—to rise again for the last time and reach this stone shelter—which was to be his tomb.”

  And Beautrelet struck the threshold of the chapel with his stick.

  “Eh? What?” cried M. Filleul, taken aback. “His tomb?—Do you think that that impenetrable hiding-place—”

  “It was here—there,” he repeated.

  “But we searched it.”

  “Badly.”

  “There is no hiding-place here,” protested M. de Gesvres. “I know the chapel.”

  “Yes, there is, Monsieur le Comte. Go to the mayor’s office at Varengeville, where they have collected all the papers that used to be in the old parish of Ambrumesy, and you will learn from those papers, which belong to the eighteenth century, that there is a crypt below the chapel. This crypt doubtless dates back to the Roman chapel, upon the site of which the present one was built.”

  “But how can Lupin have known this detail?” asked M. Filleul.

  “In a very simple manner: because of the works which he had to execute to take away the chapel.”

  “Come, come, M. Beautrelet, you’re exaggerating. He has not taken away the whole chapel. Look, not one of the stones of this top course has been touched.”

  “Obviously, he cast and took away only what had a financial value: the wrought stones, the sculptures, the statuettes, the whole treasure of little columns and carved arches. He did not trouble about the groundwork of the building itself. The foundations remain.”

  “Therefore, M. Beautrelet, Lupin was not able to make his way into the crypt.”

  At that moment, M. de Gesvres, who had been to call a servant, returned with the key of the chapel. He opened the door. The three men entered. After a short examination Beautrelet said:

  “The flag-stones on the ground have been respected, as one might expect. But it is easy to perceive that the high altar is nothing more than a cast. Now, generally, the staircase leading to the crypt opens in front of the high altar and passes under it.”

  “What do you conclude?”

  “I conclude that Lupin discovered the crypt when working at the altar.”

  The count sent for a pickaxe and Beautrelet attacked the altar. The plaster flew to right and left. He pushed the pieces aside as he went on.

  “By Jove!” muttered M. Filleul, “I am eager to know—”

  “So am I,” said Beautrelet, whose face was pale with anguish.

  He hurried his blows. And, suddenly, his pickaxe, which, until then, had encountered no resistance, struck against a harder material and rebounded. There was a sound of something falling in; and all that remained of the altar went tumbling into the gap after the block of stone which had been struck by the pickaxe. Beautrelet bent forward. A puff of cold air rose to his face. He lit a match and moved it from side to side over the gap:

  “The staircase begins farther forward than I expected, under the entrance-flags, almost. I can see the last steps, there, right at the bottom.”

  “Is it deep?”

  “Three or four yards. The steps are very high—and there are some missing.”

  “It is hardly likely,” said M. Filleul, “that the accomplices can have had time to remove the body from the cellar, when they were engaged in carrying off Mlle. de Saint-Veran—during the short absence of the gendarmes. Besides, why should they?—No, in my opinion, the body is here.”

  A servant brought them a ladder. Beautrelet let it down through the opening and fixed it, after groping among the fallen fragments. Holding the two uprights firmly:

  “Will you go down, M. Filleul?” he asked.

  The magistrate, holding a candle in his hand, ventured down the ladder. The Comte de Gesvres followed him and Beautrelet, in his turn, placed his foot on the first rung.

  Mechanically, he counted eighteen rungs, while his eyes examined the crypt, where the glimmer of the candle struggled against the heavy darkness. But, at the bottom, his nostrils were assailed by one of those foul and violent smells which linger in the memory for many a long day. And, suddenly, a trembling hand seized him by the shoulder.

  “Well, what is it?”

  “B-beautrelet,” stammered M. Filleul. “B-beau-trelet—”

  He could not get a word out for terror.

  “Come, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, compose yourself!”

  “Beautrelet—he is there—”

  “Eh?”

  “Yes—there was something under the big stone that broke off the altar—I pushed the stone—and I touched—I shall never—shall never forget.—”

  “Where is it?”

  “On this side.—Don’t you notice the smell?—And then look—see.”

  He took the candle and held it towards a motionless form stretched upon the ground.

  “Oh!” exclaimed Beautrelet, in a horror-stricken tone.

  The three men bent down quickly. The corpse lay half-naked, lean, frightful. The flesh, which had the greenish hue of soft wax, appeared in places through the torn clothes. But the most hideous thing, the thing that had drawn a cry of terror from the young man’s lips, was the head, the head which had just been crushed by the block of stone, the shapeless head, a repulsive mass in which not one feature could be distinguished.

  Beautrelet took four strides up the ladder and fled into the daylight and the open air.

  M. Filleul found him again lying flat on the around, with his hands glued to his face:

  “I congratulate you, Beautrelet,” he said. “In addition to the discovery of the hiding-place, there are two points on which I have been able to verify the correctness of your assertions. First of all, the man on whom Mlle. de Saint-Veran fired was indeed Arsène Lupin, as you said from the start. Also, he lived in Paris under the name of Etienne de Vaudreix. His linen is marked with the initials E. V. That ought to be sufficient proof, I think: don’t you?”

  Isidore did not stir.

  “Monsieur le Comte has gone to have a horse put to. They’re sending for Dr. Jouet, who will make the usual examination. In my opinion, death must have taken place a week ago, at least. The state of decomposition of the corpse—but you don’t seem to be listening—”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “What I say is based upon absolute reasons. Thus, for instance—”

  M. Filleul continued his demonstrations, without, however, obtaining any more manifest marks of attention. But M. de Gesvres’s return interrupted his monologue. The Comte brought two letters. One was to tell him that Holmlock Shears would arrive next morning.

  “Capital!” cried M. Filleul, joyfully. “Inspector Ganimard will be here too. It will be delightful.”

  “The other letter is for you, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction,” said the Comte.

  “Better and better,” said M. Filleul, after reading it. “There will certainly not be much for those two gentlemen to do. M. Beautrelet, I hear from Dieppe that the body of a young woman was found by some shrimpers, this morning, on the rocks.”

  Beautrelet gave a start:

  “What’s that? The body—”

  “Of a young woman.—T
he body is horribly mutilated, they say, and it would be impossible to establish the identity, but for a very narrow little gold curb-bracelet on the right arm which has become encrusted in the swollen skin. Now Mlle. de Saint-Veran used to wear a gold curb-bracelet on her right arm. Evidently, therefore, Monsieur le Comte, this is the body of your poor niece, which the sea must have washed to that distance. What do you think, Beautrelet?”

  “Nothing—nothing—or, rather, yes—everything is connected, as you see—and there is no link missing in my argument. All the facts, one after the other, however contradictory, however disconcerting they may appear, end by supporting the supposition which I imagined from the first.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You soon will. Remember, I promised you the whole truth.”

  “But it seems to me—”

  “A little patience, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction. So far, you have had no cause to complain of me. It is a fine day. Go for a walk, lunch at the chateau, smoke your pipe. I shall be back by four o’clock. As for my school, well, I don’t care: I shall take the night train.”

  They had reached the out-houses at the back of the chateau. Beautrelet jumped on his bicycle and rode away.

  At Dieppe, he stopped at the office of the local paper, the Vigie, and examined the file for the last fortnight. Then he went on to the market-town of Envermeu, six or seven miles farther. At Envermeu, he talked to the mayor, the rector and the local policeman. The church-clock struck three. His inquiry was finished.

  He returned singing for joy. He pressed upon the two pedals turn by turn, with an equal and powerful rhythm; his chest opened wide to take in the keen air that blew from the sea. And, from time to time, he forgot himself to the extent of uttering shouts of triumph to the sky, when he thought of the aim which he was pursuing and of the success that was crowning his efforts.

  Ambrumesy appeared in sight. He coasted at full speed down the slope leading to the chateau. The top rows of venerable trees that line the road seemed to run to meet him and to vanish behind him forthwith. And, all at once, he uttered a cry. In a sudden vision, he had seen a rope stretched from one tree to another, across the road.

  His machine gave a jolt and stopped short. Beautrelet was flung three yards forward, with immense violence, and it seemed to him that only chance, a miraculous chance, caused him to escape a heap of pebbles on which, logically, he ought to have broken his head.

  He lay for a few seconds stunned. Then, all covered with bruises, with the skin flayed from his knees, he examined the spot. On the right lay a small wood, by which his aggressor had no doubt fled. Beautrelet untied the rope. To the tree on the left around which it was fastened a small piece of paper was fixed with string. Beautrelet unfolded it and read:

  “The third and last warning.”

  He went on to the chateau, put a few questions to the servants and joined the examining magistrate in a room on the ground floor, at the end of the right wing, where M. Filleul used to sit in the course of his operations. M. Filleul was writing, with his clerk seated opposite to him. At a sign from him, the clerk left the room; and the magistrate exclaimed:

  “Why, what have you been doing to yourself, M. Beautrelet? Your hands are covered with blood.”

  “It’s nothing, it’s nothing,” said the young man. “Just a fall occasioned by this rope, which was stretched in front of my bicycle. I will only ask you to observe that the rope comes from the chateau. Not longer than twenty minutes ago, it was being used to dry linen on, outside the laundry.”

  “You don’t mean to say so!”

  “Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, I am being watched here, by some one in the very heart of the place, who can see me, who can hear me and who, minute by minute, observes my actions and knows my intentions.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I am sure of it. It is for you to discover him and you will have no difficulty in that. As for myself, I want to have finished and to give you the promised explanations. I have made faster progress than our adversaries expected and I am convinced that they mean to take vigorous measures on their side. The circle is closing around me. The danger is approaching. I feel it.”

  “Nonsense, Beautrelet—”

  “You wait and see! For the moment, let us lose no time. And, first, a question on a point which I want to have done with at once. Have you spoken to anybody of that document which Sergeant Quevillon picked up and handed you in my presence?”

  “No, indeed; not to a soul. But do you attach any value—?”

  “The greatest value. It’s an idea of mine, an idea, I confess, which does not rest upon a proof of any kind—for, up to the present, I have not succeeded in deciphering the document. And therefore I am mentioning it—so that we need not come back to it.”

  Beautrelet pressed his hand on M. Filleul’s and whispered:

  “Don’t speak—there’s some one listening—outside—”

  The gravel creaked. Beautrelet ran to the window and leaned out:

  “There’s no one there—but the border has been trodden down—we can easily identify the footprints—”

  He closed the window and sat down again:

  “You see, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, the enemy has even ceased to take the most ordinary precautions—he has not time left—he too feels that the hour is urgent. Let us be quick, therefore, and speak, since they do not wish us to speak.”

  He laid the document on the table and held it in position, unfolded:

  “One observation, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction, to begin with. The paper consists almost entirely of dots and figures. And in the first three lines and the fifth—the only ones with which we have to do at present, for the fourth seems to present an entirely different character—not one of those figures is higher than the figure 5. There is, therefore, a great chance that each of these figures represents one of the five vowels, taken in alphabetical order. Let us put down the result.”

  He wrote on a separate piece of paper:

  E . A . A . . E . . E . A . . A . . A . . . E . E . . E OI . E . . E . . OU . . E . O . . . E . . E . O . . E AI . UI . . E . . EU . E

  Then he continued:

  “As you see, this does not give us much to go upon. The key is, at the same time, very easy, because the inventor has contented himself with replacing the vowels by figures and the consonants by dots, and very difficult, if not impossible, because he has taken no further trouble to complicate the problem.”

  “It is certainly pretty obscure.”

  “Let us try to throw some light upon it. The second line is divided into two parts; and the second part appears in such a way that it probably forms one word. If we now seek to replace the intermediary dots by consonants, we arrive at the conclusion, after searching and casting about, that the only consonants which are logically able to support the vowels are also logically able to produce only one word, the word DEMOISELLES.”

  “That would refer to Mlle. de Gesvres and Mlle. de Saint-Veran.”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “And do you see nothing more?”

  “Yes. I also note an hiatus in the middle of the last line; and, if I apply a similar operation to the beginning of the line, I at once see that the only consonant able to take the place of the dot between the diphthongs FAI and UI is the letter G and that, when I have thus formed the first five letters of the word, AIGUI, it is natural and inevitable that, with the two next dots and the final E, I should arrive at the word AIGUILLE.”

  “Yes, the word AIGUILLE forces itself upon us.”

  “Finally, for the last word, I have three vowels and three consonants. I cast about again, I try all the letters, one after the other, and, starting with the principle that the two first letters are necessary consonants, I find that three words apply: F*EUVE, PREUVE and CREUSE. I eliminate the words F*EUVE and PREUVE, as possessing no possible relation to a needle, and I keep the word CREUSE.”

  “Making
‘hollow needle’! By jove! I admit that your solution is correct, because it needs must be; but how does it help us?”

  “Not at all,” said Beautrelet, in a thoughtful tone. “Not at all, for the moment.—Later on, we shall see.—I have an idea that a number of things are included in the puzzling conjunction of those two words, AIGUILLE CREUSE. What is troubling me at present is rather the material on which the document is written, the paper employed.—Do they still manufacture this sort of rather coarse-grained parchment? And then this ivory color.—And those folds—the wear of those folds—and, lastly, look, those marks of red sealing-wax, on the back—”

  At that moment Beautrelet, was interrupted by Bredoux, the magistrate’s clerk, who opened the door and announced the unexpected arrival of the chief public prosecutor. M. Filleul rose:

  “Anything new? Is Monsieur le Procureur General downstairs?”

  “No, Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction. Monsieur le Procureur General has not left his carriage. He is only passing through Ambrumesy and begs you to be good enough to go down to him at the gate. He only has a word to say to you.”

  “That’s curious,” muttered M. Filleul. “However—we shall see. Excuse me, Beautrelet, I shan’t be long.”

  He went away. His footsteps sounded outside. Then the clerk closed the door, turned the key and put it in his pocket.

  “Hullo!” exclaimed Beautrelet, greatly surprised. “What are you locking us in for?”

  “We shall be able to talk so much better,” retorted Bredoux.

  Beautrelet rushed toward another door, which led to the next room. He had understood: the accomplice was Bredoux, the clerk of the examining magistrate himself. Bredoux grinned:

  “Don’t hurt your fingers, my young friend. I have the key of that door, too.”

  “There’s the window!” cried Beautrelet.

  “Too late,” said Bredoux, planting himself in front of the casement, revolver in hand.

  Every chance of retreat was cut off. There was nothing more for Isidore to do, nothing except to defend himself against the enemy who was revealing himself with such brutal daring. He crossed his arms.

  “Good,” mumbled the clerk. “And now let us waste no time.” He took out his watch. “Our worthy M. Filleul will walk down to the gate. At the gate, he will find nobody, of course: no more public prosecutor than my eye. Then he will come back. That gives us about four minutes. It will take me one minute to escape by this window, clear through the little door by the ruins and jump on the motor cycle waiting for me. That leaves three minutes, which is just enough.”