813

by Maurice Leblanc

  He seemed quite unhappy about it:

  “Idiotic! Idiotic in the highest degree! I blush for shame! … And those are the people who govern us! … What an age to live in! … But, you poor devils, why didn’t you come to me? I’d have invented a beautiful little escape for you, something of a miraculous nature. I had it all ready pigeon-holed in my mind! The public would have yelled with wonder and danced with delight. Instead of which … However, it’s quite true that you were given rather short notice … but all the same …”

  The programme was exactly as Lupin had foreseen. They walked through the grounds of the House of Retreat to the Pavillon Hortense. Lupin and his two companions went down the stairs and along the underground passage. At the end of the tunnel, the deputy-chief said:

  “You are free.”

  “And there you are!” said Lupin. “Is that all? Well, my dear Weber, thank you very much and sorry to have given you so much trouble. Good-bye, Monsieur le Préfet; kind regards to the missus!”

  He climbed the stairs that led to the Villa des Glycines, raised the trap-door and sprang into the room.

  A hand fell on his shoulder.

  Opposite him stood his first visitor of the day before, the one who had accompanied the Emperor. There were four men with him, two on either side.

  “Look here,” said Lupin, “what’s the meaning of this joke? I thought I was free!”

  “Yes, yes,” growled the German, in his rough voice, “you are free … free to travel with the five of us … if that suits you.”

  Lupin looked at him, for a second, with a mad longing to hit him on the nose, just to teach him. But the five men looked devilish determined. Their leader did not betray any exaggerated fondness for him; and it seemed to him that the fellow would be only too pleased to resort to extreme measures. Besides, after all, what did he care?

  He chuckled:

  “If it suits me? Why, it’s the dream of my life!”

  A powerful covered car was waiting in the paved yard outside the villa. Two men got into the driver’s seat, two others inside, with their backs to the motor. Lupin and the stranger sat down on the front seat.

  “Vorwarts!” cried Lupin, in German. “Vorwarts nach Veldenz!”

  The stranger said:

  “Silence! Those men must know nothing. Speak French. They don’t know French. But why speak at all?”

  “Quite right,” said Lupin to himself. “Why speak at all?”

  The car travelled all the evening and all night, without any incident. Twice they stopped to take in petrol at some sleepy little town.

  The Germans took it in turns to watch their prisoner, who did not open his eyes until the early morning.

  They stopped for breakfast at an inn on a hillside, near which stood a sign-post. Lupin saw that they were at an equal distance from Metz and Luxemburg. From there, they took a road that slanted north-east, in the direction of Treves.

  Lupin said to his travelling-companion:

  “Am I right in believing that I have the honor of speaking to Count von Waldemar, the Emperor’s confidential friend, the one who searched Hermann III.’s house in Dresden?”

  The stranger remained silent.

  “You’re the sort of chap I can’t stand at any price,” muttered Lupin. “I’ll have some fun with you, one of these days. You’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re heavy; in short, I don’t like you.” And he added, aloud, “You are wrong not to answer me, Monsieur le Comte. I was speaking in your own interest: just as we were stepping in, I saw a motor come into sight, behind us, on the horizon. Did you see it?”

  “No, why?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Still …”

  “No, nothing at all … a mere remark … Besides, we are ten minutes ahead … and our car is at least a forty-horse-power.”

  “It’s a sixty,” said the German, looking at him uneasily from the corner of his eye.

  “Oh, then we’re all right!”

  They were climbing a little slope. When they reached the top, the count leant out of the window:

  “Damn it all!” he swore.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Lupin.

  The count turned to him and, in a threatening voice:

  “Take care! If anything happens, it will be so much the worse for you.”

  “Oho! It seems the other’s gaining on us! … But what are you afraid of, my dear count? It’s no doubt a traveller … perhaps even some one they are sending to help us.”

  “I don’t want any help,” growled the German.

  He leant out again. The car was only two or three hundred yards behind.

  He said to his men, pointing to Lupin.

  “Bind him. If he resists …”

  He drew his revolver.

  “Why should I resist, O gentle Teuton?” chuckled Lupin. And he added, while they were fastening his hands, “It is really curious to see how people take precautions when they need not and don’t when they ought to. What the devil do you care about that motor? Accomplices of mine? What an idea!”

  Without replying, the German gave orders to the driver:

  “To the right! … Slow down! … Let them pass … If they slow down also, stop!”

  But, to his great surprise, the motor seemed, on the contrary, to increase its speed. It passed in front of the car like a whirlwind, in a cloud of dust. Standing up at the back, leaning over the hood, which was lowered, was a man dressed in black.

  He raised his arm.

  Two shots rang out.

  The count, who was blocking the whole of the left window, fell back into the car.

  Before even attending to him, the two men leapt upon Lupin and finished securing him.

  “Jackasses! Blockheads!” shouted Lupin, shaking with rage. “Let me go, on the contrary! There now, we’re stopping! But go after him, you silly fools, catch him up! … It’s the man in black, I tell you, the murderer! … Oh, the idiots! …”

  They gagged him. Then they attended to the count. The wound did not appear to be serious and was soon dressed. But the patient, who was in a very excited state, had an attack of fever and became delirious.

  It was eight o’clock in the morning. They were in the open country, far from any village. The men had no information as to the exact object of the journey. Where were they to go? Whom were they to send to?

  They drew up the motor beside a wood and waited. The whole day went by in this way. It was evening before a squad of cavalry arrived, dispatched from Treves in search of the motor-car.

  Two hours later, Lupin stepped out of the car, and still escorted by his two Germans, by the light of a lantern climbed the steps of a staircase that led to a small room with iron-barred windows.

  Here he spent the night.

  The next morning, an officer led him, through a courtyard filled with soldiers, to the centre of a long row of buildings that ran round the foot of a mound covered with monumental ruins.

  He was shown into a large, hastily-furnished room. His visitor of two days back was sitting at a writing-table, reading newspapers and reports, which he marked with great strokes of red pencil:

  “Leave us,” he said to the officer.

  And, going up to Lupin:

  “The papers.”

  The tone was no longer the same. It was now the harsh and imperious tone of the master who is at home and addressing an inferior … and such an inferior! A rogue, an adventurer of the worst type, before whom he had been obliged to humiliate himself!

  “The papers,” he repeated.

  Lupin was not put out of countenance. He said, quite calmly:

  “They are in Veldenz Castle.”

  “We are in the out-buildings of the castle. Those are the ruins of Veldenz, over there.”

  “The papers are in the ruins.”

  “Let us go to them. Show me the way.”

  Lupin did not budge.

  “Well?”

  “
Well, Sire, it is not as simple as you think. It takes some time to bring into play the elements which are needed to open that hiding-place.”

  “How long do you want?”

  “Twenty-four hours.”

  An angry movement, quickly suppressed:

  “Oh, there was no question of that between us!”

  “Nothing was specified, neither that nor the little trip which Your Imperial Majesty made me take in the charge of half a dozen of your body-guard. I am to hand over the papers, that is all.”

  “And I am not to give you your liberty until you do hand over those papers.”

  “It is a question of confidence, Sire. I should have considered myself quite as much bound to produce the papers if I had been free on leaving prison; and Your Imperial Majesty may be sure that I should not have walked off with them. The only difference is that they would now be in your possession. For we have lost a day, Sire. And a day, in this business … is a day too much … Only, there it is, you should have had confidence.”

  The Emperor gazed with a certain amazement at that outcast, that vagabond, who seemed vexed that any one should doubt his word.

  He did not reply, but rang the bell:

  “The officer on duty,” he commanded.

  Count von Waldemar appeared, looking very white.

  “Ah, it’s you, Waldemar? So you’re all right again?”

  “At your service, Sire.”

  “Take five men with you … the same men, as you’re sure of them. Don’t leave this … gentleman until to-morrow morning.” He looked at his watch. “Until to-morrow morning at ten o’clock. No, I will give him till twelve. You will go wherever he thinks fit to go, you will do whatever he tells you to do. In short, you are at his disposal. At twelve o’clock, I will join you. If, at the last stroke of twelve, he has not handed me the bundle of letters, you will put him back in your car and, without losing a second, take him straight to the Santé Prison.”

  “If he tries to escape …”

  “Take your own course.”

  He went out.

  Lupin helped himself to a cigar from the table and threw himself into an easy chair:

  “Good! I just love that way of going to work. It is frank and explicit.”

  The count had brought in his men. He said to Lupin:

  “March!”

  Lupin lit his cigar and did not move.

  “Bind his hands,” said the count.

  And, when the order was executed, he repeated:

  “Now then, march!”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean by no?”

  “I’m wondering.”

  “What about?”

  “Where on earth that hiding-place can be!”

  The count gave a start and Lupin chuckled:

  “For the best part of the story is that I have not the remotest idea where that famous hiding-place is nor how to set about discovering it. What do you say to that, my dear Waldemar, eh? Funny, isn’t it? … Not the very remotest idea! …”

  CHAPTER XII

  THE EMPEROR’S LETTERS

  THE RUINS OF VELDENZ are well known to all who visit the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle. They comprise the remains of the old feudal castle, built in 1377 by the Archbishop of Fistingen, an enormous dungeon-keep, gutted by Turenne’s troops, and the walls, left standing in their entirety, of a large Renascence palace, in which the grand-dukes of Zweibrucken lived for three centuries.

  It was this palace that was sacked by Hermann II.’s rebellious subjects. The empty windows display two hundred yawning cavities on the four frontages. All the wainscoting, the hangings and most of the furniture were burnt. You walk on the scorched girders of the floors; and the sky can be seen at intervals through the ruined ceilings.

  Lupin, accompanied by his escort, went over the whole building in two hours’ time:

  “I am very pleased with you, my dear count. I don’t think I ever came across a guide so well posted in his subject, nor—which is rare—so silent. And now, if you don’t mind, we will go to lunch.”

  As a matter of fact, Lupin knew no more than at the first moment and his perplexity did nothing but increase. To obtain his release from prison and to strike the imagination of his visitor, he had bluffed, pretending to know everything; and he was still seeking for the best place at which to begin to seek.

  “Things look bad,” he said to himself, from time to time. “Things are looking about as bad as they can look.”

  His brain, moreover, was not as clear as usual. He was obsessed by an idea, the idea of “the other one,” the murderer, the assassin, whom he knew to be still clinging to his footsteps.

  How did that mysterious personality come to be on his tracks? How had he heard of Lupin’s leaving prison and of his rush to Luxemburg and Germany? Was it a miraculous intuition? Or was it the outcome of definite information? But, if so, at what price, by means of what promises or threats was he able to obtain it?

  All these questions haunted Lupin’s mind.

  At about four o’clock, however, after a fresh walk through the ruins, in the course of which he had examined the stones, measured the thickness of the walls, investigated the shape and appearance of things, all to no purpose, he asked the count:

  “Is there no one left who was in the service of the last grand-duke who lived in the castle?”

  “All the servants of that time went different ways. Only one of them continued to live in the district.”

  “Well?”

  “He died two years ago.”

  “Any children?”

  “He had a son, who married and who was dismissed, with his wife, for disgraceful conduct. They left their youngest child behind, a little girl, Isilda.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “She lives here, at the end of these buildings. The old grandfather used to act as a guide to visitors, in the days when the castle was still open to the public. Little Isilda has lived in the ruins ever since. She was allowed to remain out of pity. She is a poor innocent, who is hardly able to talk and does not know what she says.”

  “Was she always like that?”

  “It seems not. Her reason went gradually, when she was about ten years old.”

  “In consequence of a sorrow, of a fright?”

  “No, for no direct cause, I am told. The father was a drunkard and the mother committed suicide in a fit of madness.”

  Lupin reflected and said:

  “I should like to see her.”

  The count gave a rather curious smile:

  “You can see her, by all means.”

  She happened to be in one of the rooms which had been set apart for her. Lupin was surprised to find an attractive little creature, too thin, too pale, but almost pretty, with her fair hair and her delicate face. Her sea-green eyes had the vague, dreamy look of the eyes of blind people.

  He put a few questions to which Isilda gave no answer and others to which she replied with incoherent sentences, as though she understood neither the meaning of the words addressed to her nor those which she herself uttered.

  He persisted, taking her very gently by the hand and asking her in an affectionate tone about the time when she still had her reason, about her grandfather, about the memories which might be called up by her life as a child playing freely among the majestic ruins of the castle.

  She stood silent, with staring eyes; impassive, any emotion which she might have felt was not enough to rouse her slumbering intelligence.

  Lupin asked for a pencil and paper and wrote down the number 813.

  The count smiled again.

  “Look here, what are you laughing at?” cried Lupin, irritably.

  “Nothing … nothing … I’m very much interested, that’s all …”

  Isilda looked at the sheet of paper, when he showed it to her, and turned away her head, with a vacant air.

  “No bite!” said the count, satirically.
/>   Lupin wrote the letters “APOON.”

  Isilda paid no more attention than before.

  He did not give up the experiment, but kept on writing the same letters, each time watching the girl’s face.

  She did not stir, but kept her eyes fixed on the paper with an indifference which nothing seemed to disturb. Then, all at once, she seized the pencil, snatched the last sheet out of Lupin’s hands and, as though acting under a sudden inspiration, wrote two “L’s” in the middle of a space left open by Lupin.

  He felt a thrill.

  A word had been formed: “APOLLON.”

  Meanwhile, Isilda clung to both pencil and paper and, with clutching fingers and a strained face, was struggling to make her hand submit to the hesitating orders of her poor little brain.

  Lupin waited, feverishly.

  She rapidly wrote another word, the word “DIANE.”

  “Another word! … Another word!” shouted Lupin.

  She twisted her fingers round the pencil, broke the lead, made a big “J” with the stump and, now utterly exhausted, dropped the pencil.

  “Another word! I must have another word!” said Lupin, in a tone of command, catching her by the arm.

  But he saw by her eyes, which had once more become indifferent, that that fleeting gleam of intelligence could not shine out again.

  “Let us go,” he said.

  He was walking away, when she ran after him and stood in his path. He stopped:

  “What is it?”

  She held out the palm of her hand.

  “What? Money? … Is she in the habit of begging?” he asked the count.

  “No,” said Waldemar, “and I can’t understand.”

  Isilda took two gold coins from her pocket and chinked them together, gleefully.

  Lupin looked at them. They were French coins, quite new, bearing the date of that year.

  “Where did you get these?” asked Lupin, excitedly.

  “French money! … Who gave it you? … And when? … Was it to-day? Speak! … Answer! …” He shrugged his shoulders. “Fool that I am! As though she could answer! … My dear count, would you mind lending me forty marks? … Thanks … Here, Isilda, that’s for you.”

  She took the two coins, jingled them with the others in the palm of her hand and then, putting out her arm, pointed to the ruins of the Renascence palace, with a gesture that seemed to call attention more particularly to the left wing and to the top of that wing.