* These are the only two main-line stations in Paris with the word de in their name. The others have du, as the Gare du Nord or the Gare du Luxembourg, d' as the Gare d'Orleans, or no participle at all, as the Gare Saint-Lazare or the Gare Montparnasse.—Translator's Note.

It was past seven when Lupin and his companions left the Hotel Franklin. A motor-car took them across Paris at full speed, but they soon saw that Clarisse Mergy was not outside the station, nor in the waiting-rooms, nor on any of the platforms.

"Still," muttered Lupin, whose agitation grew as the obstacles increased, "still, if Daubrecq booked a berth in a sleeping-car, it can only have been in an evening train. And it is barely half-past seven!"

A train was starting, the night express. They had time to rush along the corridor. Nobody... neither Mme. Mergy nor Daubrecq...

But, as they were all three going, a porter accosted them near the refreshment-room:

"Is one of you gentlemen looking for a lady?"

"Yes, yes,... I am," said Lupin. "Quick, what is it?"

"Oh, it's you, sir! The lady told me there might be three of you or two of you.... And I didn't know..."

"But, in heaven's name, speak, man! What lady?"

"The lady who spent the whole day on the pavement, with the luggage, waiting."

"Well, out with it! Has she taken a train?"

"Yes, the train-de-luxe, at six-thirty: she made up her mind at the last moment, she told me to say. And I was also to say that the gentleman was in the same train and that they were going to Monte Carlo."

"Damn it!" muttered Lupin. "We ought to have taken the express just now! There's nothing left but the evening trains, and they crawl! We've lost over three hours."

The wait seemed interminable. They booked their seats. They telephoned to the proprietor of the Hotel Franklin to send on their letters to Monte Carlo. They dined. They read the papers. At last, at half-past nine, the train started.

And so, by a really tragic series of circumstances, at the most critical moment of the contest, Lupin was turning his back on the battlefield and going away, at haphazard, to seek, he knew not where, and beat, he knew not how, the most formidable and elusive enemy that he had ever fought.

And this was happening four days, five days at most, before the inevitable execution of Gilbert and Vaucheray.

It was a bad and painful night for Lupin. The more he studied the situation the more terrible it appeared to him. On every side he was faced with uncertainty, darkness, confusion, helplessness.

True, he knew the secret of the crystal stopper. But how was he to know that Daubrecq would not change or had not already changed his tactics? How was he to know that the list of the Twenty-seven was still inside that crystal stopper or that the crystal stopper was still inside the object where Daubrecq had first hidden it?

And there was a further serious reason for alarm in the fact that Clarisse Mergy thought that she was shadowing and watching Daubrecq at a time when, on the contrary, Daubrecq was watching her, having her shadowed and dragging her, with diabolical cleverness, toward the places selected by himself, far from all help or hope of help.

Oh, Daubrecq's game was clear as daylight! Did not Lupin know the unhappy woman's hesitations? Did he not know—and the Growler and the Masher confirmed it most positively—that Clarisse looked upon the infamous bargain planned by Daubrecq in the light of a possible, an acceptable thing? In that case, how could he, Lupin, succeed? The logic of events, so powerfully moulded by Daubrecq, led to a fatal result: the mother must sacrifice herself and, to save her son, throw her scruples, her repugnance, her very honour, to the winds!

"Oh, you scoundrel!" snarled Lupin, in a fit of rage. "If I get hold of you, I'll make you dance to a pretty tune! I wouldn't be in your shoes for a great deal, when that happens."

They reached Monte Carlo at three o'clock in the afternoon. Lupin was at once disappointed not to see Clarisse on the platform at the station.

He waited. No messenger came up to him.

He asked the porters and ticket-collectors if they had noticed, among the crowd, two travellers answering to the description of Daubrecq and Clarisse. They had not.

He had, therefore, to set to work and hunt through all the hotels and lodging-houses in the principality. Oh, the time wasted!

By the following evening, Lupin knew, beyond a doubt, that Daubrecq and Clarisse were not at Monte Carlo, nor at Monaco, nor at the Cap d'Ail, nor at La Turbie, nor at Cap Martin.

"Where can they be then?" he wondered, trembling with rage.

At last, on the Saturday, he received, at the poste restante, a telegram which had been readdressed from the Hotel Franklin and which said:

"He got out at Cannes and is going on to San Remo, Hotel Palace des Ambassadeurs.

"CLARISSE."

The telegram was dated the day before.

"Hang it!" exclaimed Lupin. "They passed through Monte Carlo. One of us ought to have remained at the station. I did think of it; but, in the midst of all that bustle..."

Lupin and his friends took the first train for Italy.

They crossed the frontier at twelve o'clock. The train entered the station at San Remo at twelve-forty.

They at once saw an hotel-porter, with "Ambassadeurs-Palace" on his braided cap, who seemed to be looking for some one among the arrivals.

Lupin went up to him:

"Are you looking for M. Nicole?"

"Yes, M. Nicole and two gentlemen."

"From a lady?"

"Yes, Mme. Mergy."

"Is she staying at your hotel?"

"No. She did not get out. She beckoned to me, described you three gentlemen and told me to say that she was going on to Genoa, to the Hotel Continental."

"Was she by herself?"

"Yes."

Lupin tipped the man, dismissed him and turned to his friends:

"This is Saturday. If the execution takes place on Monday, there's nothing to be done. But Monday is not a likely day... What I have to do is to lay hands on Daubrecq to-night and to be in Paris on Monday, with the document. It's our last chance. Let's take it."

The Growler went to the booking-office and returned with three tickets for Genoa.

The engine whistled.

Lupin had a last hesitation:

"No, really, it's too childish! What are we doing? We ought to be in Paris, not here!... Just think!..."

He was on the point of opening the door and jumping out on the permanent way. But his companions held him back. The train started. He sat down again.

And they continued their mad pursuit, travelling at random, toward the unknown...

And this happened two days before the inevitable execution of Gilbert and Vaucheray.



CHAPTER X. EXTRA-DRY?

On one of the hills that girdle Nice with the finest scenery in the world, between the Vallon de Saint-Silvestre and the Vallon de La Mantega, stands a huge hotel which overlooks the town and the wonderful Baie des Anges. A crowd flocks to it from all parts, forming a medley of every class and nation.

On the evening of the same Saturday when Lupin, the Growler and the Masher were plunging into Italy, Clarisse Mergy entered this hotel, asked for a bedroom facing south and selected No. 130, on the second floor, a room which had been vacant since that morning.

The room was separated from No. 129 by two partition-doors. As soon as she was alone, Clarisse pulled back the curtain that concealed the first door, noiselessly drew the bolt and put her ear to the second door:

"He is here," she thought. "He is dressing to go to the club... as he did yesterday."

When her neighbour had gone, she went into the passage and, availing herself of a moment when there was no one in sight, walked up to the door of No. 129. The door was locked.

She waited all the evening for her neighbour's return and did not go to bed until two o'clock. On Sunday morning, she resumed her watch.

The neighbour went out at eleven. This time he left the key in the door.

Hurriedly turning the key, Clarisse entered boldly, went to the partition-door, raised the curtain, drew the bolt and found herself in her own room.

In a few minutes, she heard two chambermaids doing the room in No. 129.

She waited until they were gone. Then, feeling sure that she would not be disturbed, she once more slipped into the other room.

Her excitement made her lean against a chair. After days and nights of stubborn pursuit, after alternate hopes and disappointments, she had at last succeeded in entering a room occupied by Daubrecq. She could look about at her ease; and, if she did not discover the crystal stopper, she could at least hide in the space between the partition-doors, behind the hanging, see Daubrecq, spy upon his movements and surprise his secret.

She looked around her. A travelling-bag at once caught her attention. She managed to open it; but her search was useless.

She ransacked the trays of a trunk and the compartments of a portmanteau. She searched the wardrobe, the writing-table, the chest of drawers, the bathroom, all the tables, all the furniture. She found nothing.

She gave a start when she saw a scrap of paper on the balcony, lying as though flung there by accident:

"Can it be a trick of Daubrecq's?" she thought, out loud. "Can that scrap of paper contain..."

"No," said a voice behind her, as she put her hand on the latch.

She turned and saw Daubrecq.

She felt neither astonishment nor alarm, nor even any embarrassment at finding herself face to face with him. She had suffered too deeply for months to trouble about what Daubrecq could think of her or say, at catching her in the act of spying.

She sat down wearily.

He grinned:

"No, you're out of it, dear friend. As the children say, you're not 'burning' at all. Oh, not a bit of it! And it's so easy! Shall I help you? It's next to you, dear friend, on that little table... And yet, by Jove, there's not much on that little table! Something to read, something to write with, something to smoke, something to eat... and that's all... Will you have one of these candied fruits?... Or perhaps you would rather wait for the more substantial meal which I have ordered?"

Clarisse made no reply. She did not even seem to listen to what he was saying, as though she expected other words, more serious words, which he could not fail to utter.

He cleared the table of all the things that lay upon it and put them on the mantel-piece. Then he rang the bell.

A head-waiter appeared. Daubrecq asked:

"Is the lunch which I ordered ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"It's for two, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"And the champagne?"

"Yes, sir."

"Extra-dry?"

"Yes, sir."

Another waiter brought a tray and laid two covers on the table: a cold lunch, some fruit and a bottle of champagne in an ice-pail.

Then the two waiters withdrew.

"Sit down, dear lady. As you see, I was thinking of you and your cover is laid."

And, without seeming to observe that Clarisse was not at all prepared to do honour to his invitation, he sat down, began to eat and continued:

"Yes, upon my word, I hoped that you would end by consenting to this little private meeting. During the past week, while you were keeping so assiduous a watch upon me, I did nothing but say to myself, 'I wonder which she prefers: sweet champagne, dry champagne, or extra-dry?' I was really puzzled. Especially after our departure from Paris. I had lost your tracks, that is to say, I feared that you had lost mine and abandoned the pursuit which was so gratifying to me. When I went for a walk, I missed your beautiful dark eyes, gleaming with hatred under your hair just touched with gray. But, this morning, I understood: the room next to mine was empty at last; and my friend Clarisse was able to take up her quarters, so to speak, by my bedside. From that moment I was reassured. I felt certain that, on coming back—instead of lunching in the restaurant as usual—I should find you arranging my things to your convenience and suiting your own taste. That was why I ordered two covers: one for your humble servant, the other for his fair friend."

She was listening to him now and in the greatest terror. So Daubrecq knew that he was spied upon! For a whole week he had seen through her and all her schemes!

In a low voice, anxious-eyed, she asked:

"You did it on purpose, did you not? You only went away to drag me with you?"

"Yes," he said.

"But why? Why?"

"Do you mean to say that you don't know?" retorted Daubrecq, laughing with a little cluck of delight.

She half-rose from her chair and, bending toward him, thought, as she thought each time, of the murder which she could commit, of the murder which she would commit. One revolver-shot and the odious brute was done for.

Slowly her hand glided to the weapon concealed in her bodice.

Daubrecq said:

"One second, dear friend... You can shoot presently; but I beg you first to read this wire which I have just received."

She hesitated, not knowing what trap he was laying for her; but he went on, as he produced a telegram:

"It's about your son."

"Gilbert?" she asked, greatly concerned.

"Yes, Gilbert... Here, read it."

She gave a yell of dismay. She had read:

"Execution on Tuesday morning."

And she at once flung herself on Daubrecq, crying:

"It's not true!... It's a lie... to madden me... Oh, I know you: you are capable of anything! Confess! It won't be on Tuesday, will it? In two days! No, no... I tell you, we have four days yet, five days, in which to save him... Confess it, confess it!"

She had no strength left, exhausted by this fit of rebellion; and her voice uttered none but inarticulate sounds.

He looked at her for a moment, then poured himself out a glass of champagne and drank it down at a gulp. He took a few steps up and down the room, came back to her and said:

"Listen to me, darling..."

The insult made her quiver with an unexpected energy. She drew herself up and, panting with indignation, said:

"I forbid you... I forbid you to speak to me like that. I will not accept such an outrage. You wretch!..."

He shrugged his shoulders and resumed:

"Pah, I see you're not quite alive to the position. That comes, of course, because you still hope for assistance in some quarter. Prasville, perhaps? The excellent Prasville, whose right hand you are... My dear friend, a forlorn hope... You must know that Prasville is mixed up in the Canal affair! Not directly: that is to say, his name is not on the list of the Twenty-seven; but it is there under the name of one of his friends, an ex-deputy called Vorenglade, Stanislas Vorenglade, his man of straw, apparently: a penniless individual whom I left alone and rightly. I knew nothing of all that until this morning, when, lo and behold, I received a letter informing me of the existence of a bundle of documents which prove the complicity of our one and only Prasville! And who is my informant? Vorenglade himself! Vorenglade, who, tired of living in poverty, wants to extort money from Prasville, at the risk of being arrested, and who will be delighted to come to terms with me. And Prasville will get the sack. Oh, what a lark! I swear to you that he will get the sack, the villain! By Jove, but he's annoyed me long enough! Prasville, old boy, you've deserved it..."

He rubbed his hands together, revelling in his coming revenge. And he continued:

"You see, my dear Clarisse... there's nothing to be done in that direction. What then? What straw will you cling to? Why, I was forgetting: M. Arsene Lupin! Mr. Growler! Mr. Masher!... Pah, you'll admit that those gentlemen have not shone and that all their feats of prowess have not prevented me from going my own little way. It was bound to be. Those fellows imagine that there's no one to equal them. When they meet an adversary like myself, one who is not to be bounced, it upsets them and they make blunder after blunder, while still believing that they are hoodwinking him like mad. Schoolboys, that's what they are! However, as you seem to have some illusions left about the aforesaid Lupin, as you are counting on that poor devil to crush me and to work a miracle in favour of your innocent Gilbert, come, let's dispel that illusion. Oh! Lupin! Lord above, she believes in Lupin! She places her last hopes in Lupin! Lupin! Just wait till I prick you, my illustrious windbag!"

He took up the receiver of the telephone which communicated with the hall of the hotel and said:

"I'm No. 129, mademoiselle. Would you kindly ask the person sitting opposite your office to come up to me?... Huh!... Yes, mademoiselle, the gentleman in a gray felt hat. He knows. Thank you, mademoiselle."

Hanging up the receiver, he turned to Clarisse:

"Don't be afraid. The man is discretion itself. Besides, it's the motto of his trade: 'Discretion and dispatch.' As a retired detective, he has done me a number of services, including that of following you while you were following me. Since our arrival in the south, he has been less busy with you; but that was because he was more busy elsewhere. Come in, Jacob."

He himself opened the door, and a short, thin man, with a red moustache, entered the room.

"Please tell this lady, Jacob, in a few brief words, what you have done since Wednesday evening, when, after letting her get into the train-de-luxe which was taking me from the Gare de Lyon to the south, you yourself remained on the platform at the station. Of course, I am not asking how you spent your time, except in so far as concerns the lady and the business with which I entrusted you."

Jacob dived into the inside-pocket of his jacket and produced a little note-book of which he turned over the pages and read them aloud in the voice of a man reading a report:

"Wednesday evening, 8.15. Gare de Lyon. Wait for two gents, Growler and Masher. They come with another whom I don't know yet, but who can only be M. Nicole. Give a porter ten francs for the loan of his cap and blouse. Accost the gents and tell them, from a lady, 'that they were gone to Monte Carlo.' Next, telephone to the porter at the Hotel Franklin. All telegrams sent to his boss and dispatched by said boss will be read by said hotel-porter and, if necessary, intercepted.

"Thursday. Monte Carlo. The three gents search the hotels.

"Friday. Flying visits to La Turbie, the Cap d'Ail, Cap Martin. M. Daubrecq rings me up. Thinks it wiser to send the gents to Italy. Make the porter of the Hotel Franklin send them a telegram appointing a meeting at San Remo.

"Saturday. San Remo. Station platform. Give the porter of the Ambassadeurs-Palace ten francs for the loan of his cap. The three gents arrive. They speak to me. Explain to them that a lady traveller, Mme. Mergy, is going on to Genoa, to the Hotel Continental. The gents hesitate. M. Nicole wants to get out. The others hold him back. The train starts. Good luck, gents! An hour later, I take the train for France and get out at Nice, to await fresh orders."

Jacob closed his note-book and concluded:

"That's all. To-day's doings will be entered this evening."

"You can enter them now, M. Jacob. '12 noon. M. Daubrecq sends me to the Wagon-Lits Co. I book two berths in the Paris sleeping-car, by the 2.48 train, and send them to M. Daubrecq by express messenger. Then I take the 12.58 train for Vintimille, the frontier-station, where I spend the day on the platform watching all the travellers who come to France. Should Messrs. Nicole, Growler and Masher take it into their heads to leave Italy and return to Paris by way of Nice, my instructions are to telegraph to the headquarters of police that Master Arsene Lupin and two of his accomplices are in train number so-and-so."

While speaking, Daubrecq led Jacob to the door. He closed it after him, turned the key, pushed the bolt and, going up to Clarisse, said:

"And now, darling, listen to me."

This time, she uttered no protest. What could she do against such an enemy, so powerful, so resourceful, who provided for everything, down to the minutest details, and who toyed with his adversaries in such an airy fashion? Even if she had hoped till then for Lupin's interference, how could she do so now, when he was wandering through Italy in pursuit of a shadow?

She understood at last why three telegrams which she had sent to the Hotel Franklin had remained unanswered. Daubrecq was there, lurking in the dark, watching, establishing a void around her, separating her from her comrades in the fight, bringing her gradually, a beaten prisoner, within the four walls of that room.

She felt her weakness. She was at the monster's mercy. She must be silent and resigned.

He repeated, with an evil delight:

"Listen to me, darling. Listen to the irrevocable words which I am about to speak. Listen to them well. It is now 12 o'clock. The last train starts at 2.48: you understand, the last train that can bring me to Paris to-morrow, Monday, in time to save your son. The evening-trains would arrive too late. The trains-de-luxe are full up. Therefore I shall have to start at 2.48. Am I to start?"

"Yes."

"Our berths are booked. Will you come with me?"

"Yes."

"You know my conditions for interfering?"

"Yes."

"Do you accept them?"

"Yes."

"You will marry me?"

"Yes."

Oh, those horrible answers! The unhappy woman gave them in a sort of awful torpor, refusing even to understand what she was promising. Let him start first, let him snatch Gilbert from the engine of death whose vision haunted her day and night... And then... and then... let what must come come...

He burst out laughing:

"Oh, you rogue, it's easily said!... You're ready to pledge yourself to anything, eh? The great thing is to save Gilbert, isn't it? Afterward, when that noodle of a Daubrecq comes with his engagement-ring, not a bit of it! Nothing doing! We'll laugh in his face!... No, no, enough of empty words. I don't want promises that won't be kept: I want facts, immediate facts."

He came and sat close beside her and stated, plainly:

"This is what I propose... what must be... what shall be... I will ask, or rather I will demand, not Gilbert's pardon, to begin with, but a reprieve, a postponement of the execution, a postponement of three or four weeks. They will invent a pretext of some sort: that's not my affair. And, when Mme. Mergy has become Mme. Daubrecq, then and not till then will I ask for his pardon, that is to say, the commutation of his sentence. And make yourself quite easy: they'll grant it."

"I accept... I accept," she stammered.

He laughed once more:

"Yes, you accept, because that will happen in a month's time... and meanwhile you reckon on finding some trick, an assistance of some kind or another... M. Arsene Lupin..."

"I swear it on the head of my son."

"The head of your son!... Why, my poor pet, you would sell yourself to the devil to save it from falling!..."

"Oh, yes," she whispered, shuddering. "I would gladly sell my soul!"

He sidled up against her and, in a low voice:

"Clarisse, it's not your soul I ask for... It's something else... For more than twenty years my life has spun around that longing. You are the only woman I have ever loved... Loathe me, hate me—I don't care—but do not spurn me... Am I to wait? To wait another month?... No, Clarisse, I have waited too many years already..."

He ventured to touch her hand. Clarisse shrank back with such disgust that he was seized with fury and cried:

"Oh, I swear to heaven, my beauty, the executioner won't stand on such ceremony when he catches hold of your son!... And you give yourself airs! Why, think, it'll happen in forty hours! Forty hours, no more, and you hesitate... and you have scruples, when your son's life is at stake! Come, come, no whimpering, no silly sentimentality... Look things in the face. By your own oath, you are my wife, you are my bride from this moment... Clarisse, Clarisse, give me your lips..."

Half-fainting, she had hardly the strength to put out her arm and push him away; and, with a cynicism in which all his abominable nature stood revealed, Daubrecq, mingling words of cruelty and words of passion, continued:

"Save your son!... Think of the last morning: the preparations for the scaffold, when they snip away his shirt and cut his hair... Clarisse, Clarisse, I will save him... Be sure of it... All my life shall be yours ... Clarisse..."

She no longer resisted. It was over. The loathsome brute's lips were about to touch hers; and it had to be, and nothing could prevent it. It was her duty to obey the decree of fate. She had long known it. She understood it; and, closing her eyes, so as not to see the foul face that was slowly raised to hers, she repeated to herself:

"My son... my poor son."

A few seconds passed: ten, twenty perhaps. Daubrecq did not move. Daubrecq did not speak. And she was astounded at that great silence and that sudden quiet. Did the monster, at the last moment, feel a scruple of remorse?

She raised her eyelids.

The sight which she beheld struck her with stupefaction. Instead of the grinning features which she expected to see, she saw a motionless, unrecognizable face, contorted by an expression of unspeakable terror: and the eyes, invisible under the double impediment of the spectacles, seemed to be staring above her head, above the chair in which she lay prostrate.

Clarisse turned her face. Two revolver-barrels, pointed at Daubrecq, showed on the right, a little above the chair. She saw only that: those two huge, formidable revolvers, gripped in two clenched hands. She saw only that and also Daubrecq's face, which fear was discolouring little by little, until it turned livid. And, almost at the same time, some one slipped behind Daubrecq, sprang up fiercely, flung one of his arms round Daubrecq's neck, threw him to the ground with incredible violence and applied a pad of cotton-wool to his face. A sudden smell of chloroform filled the room.

Clarisse had recognized M. Nicole.

"Come along, Growler!" he cried. "Come along, Masher! Drop your shooters: I've got him! He's a limp rag... Tie him up."

Daubrecq, in fact, was bending in two and falling on his knees like a disjointed doll. Under the action of the chloroform, the fearsome brute sank into impotence, became harmless and grotesque.

The Growler and the Masher rolled him in one of the blankets of the bed and tied him up securely.

"That's it! That's it!" shouted Lupin, leaping to his feet.

And, in a sudden reaction of mad delight, he began to dance a wild jig in the middle of the room, a jig mingled with bits of can-can and the contortions of the cakewalk and the whirls of a dancing dervish and the acrobatic movements of a clown and the lurching steps of a drunken man. And he announced, as though they were the numbers in a music-hall performance:

"The prisoner's dance!... The captive's hornpipe!... A fantasia on the corpse of a representative of the people!... The chloroform polka!... The two-step of the conquered goggles! Olle! Olle! The blackmailer's fandango! Hoot! Hoot! The McDaubrecq's fling!... The turkey trot!... And the bunny hug!... And the grizzly bear!... The Tyrolean dance: tra-la-liety!... Allons, enfants de la partie!... Zing, boum, boum! Zing, boum, boum!..."

All his street-arab nature, all his instincts of gaiety, so long suppressed by his constant anxiety and disappointment, came out and betrayed themselves in roars of laughter, bursts of animal spirits and a picturesque need of childlike exuberance and riot.

He gave a last high kick, turned a series of cartwheels round the room and ended by standing with his hands on his hips and one foot on Daubrecq's lifeless body.

"An allegorical tableau!" he announced. "The angel of virtue destroying the hydra of vice!"

And the humour of the scene was twice as great because Lupin was appearing under the aspect of M. Nicole, in the clothes and figure of that wizened, awkward, nervous private tutor.

A sad smile flickered across Mme. Mergy's face, her first smile for many a long month. But, at once returning to the reality of things, she besought him:

"Please, please... think of Gilbert!"

He ran up to her, caught her in his arms and, obeying a spontaneous impulse, so frank that she could but laugh at it, gave her a resounding kiss on either cheek:

"There, lady, that's the kiss of a decent man! Instead of Daubrecq, it's I kissing you... Another word and I'll do it again... and I'll call you darling next... Be angry with me, if you dare. Oh, how happy I am!"

He knelt before her on one knee. And, respectfully:

"I beg your pardon, madame. The fit is over."

And, getting up again, resuming his whimsical manner, he continued, while Clarisse wondered what he was driving at:

"What's the next article, madame? Your son's pardon, perhaps? Certainly! Madame, I have the honour to grant you the pardon of your son, the commutation of his sentence to penal servitude for life and, to wind up with, his early escape. It's settled, eh, Growler? Settled, Masher, what? You'll both go with the boy to New Caledonia and arrange for everything. Oh, my dear Daubrecq, we owe you a great debt! But I'm not forgetting you, believe me! What would you like? A last pipe? Coming, coming!"

He took one of the pipes from the mantel-piece, stooped over the prisoner, shifted his pad and thrust the amber mouth-piece between his teeth:

"Draw, old chap, draw. Lord, how funny you look, with your plug over your nose and your cutty in your mouth. Come, puff away. By Jove, I forgot to fill your pipe! Where's your tobacco, your favourite Maryland? ... Oh, here we are!..."

He took from the chimney an unopened yellow packet and tore off the government band:

"His lordship's tobacco! Ladies and gentlemen, keep your eyes on me! This is a great moment. I am about to fill his lordship's pipe: by Jupiter, what an honour! Observe my movements! You see, I have nothing in my hands, nothing up my sleeves!..."

He turned back his cuffs and stuck out his elbows. Then he opened the packet and inserted his thumb and fore-finger, slowly, gingerly, like a conjurer performing a sleight-of-hand trick before a puzzled audience, and, beaming all over his face, extracted from the tobacco a glittering object which he held out before the spectators.

Clarisse uttered a cry.

It was the crystal stopper.

She rushed at Lupin and snatched it from him:

"That's it; that's the one!" she exclaimed, feverishly. "There's no scratch on the stem! And look at this line running down the middle, where the gilt finishes... That's it; it unscrews!... Oh, dear, my strength's going!..." She trembled so violently that Lupin took back the stopper and unscrewed it himself.

The inside of the knob was hollow; and in the hollow space was a piece of paper rolled into a tiny pellet.

"The foreign-post-paper," he whispered, himself greatly excited, with quivering hands.

There was a long silence. All four felt as if their hearts were ready to burst from their bodies; and they were afraid of what was coming.

"Please, please..." stammered Clarisse.

Lupin unfolded the paper.

There was a set of names written one below the other, twenty-seven of them, the twenty-seven names of the famous list: Langeroux, Dechaumont, Vorenglade, d'Albufex, Victorien Mergy and the rest.

And, at the foot, the signature of the chairman of the Two-Seas Canal Company, the signature written in letters of blood.

Lupin looked at his watch:

"A quarter to one," he said. "We have twenty minutes to spare. Let's have some lunch."

"But," said Clarisse, who was already beginning to lose her head, "don't forget..."

He simply said:

"All I know is that I'm dying of hunger."

He sat down at the table, cut himself a large slice of cold pie and said to his accomplices:

"Growler? A bite? You, Masher?"

"I could do with a mouthful, governor."

"Then hurry up, lads. And a glass of champage to wash it down with: it's the chloroform-patient's treat. Your health, Daubrecq! Sweet champagne? Dry champagne? Extra-dry?"



CHAPTER XI. THE CROSS OF LORRAINE

The moment Lupin had finished lunch, he at once and, so to speak, without transition, recovered all his mastery and authority. The time for joking was past; and he must no longer yield to his love of astonishing people with claptrap and conjuring tricks. Now that he had discovered the crystal stopper in the hiding-place which he had guessed with absolute certainty, now that he possessed the list of the Twenty-seven, it became a question of playing off the last game of the rubber without delay.

It was child's play, no doubt, and what remained to be done presented no difficulty. Nevertheless, it was essential that he should perform these final actions with promptness, decision and infallible perspicacity. The smallest blunder was irretrievable. Lupin knew this; but his strangely lucid brain had allowed for every contingency. And the movements and words which he was now about to make and utter were all fully prepared and matured:

"Growler, the commissionaire is waiting on the Boulevard Gambetta with his barrow and the trunk which we bought. Bring him here and have the trunk carried up. If the people of the hotel ask any questions, say it's for the lady in No. 130."

Then, addressing his other companion:

"Masher, go back to the station and take over the limousine. The price is arranged: ten thousand francs. Buy a chauffeur's cap and overcoat and bring the car to the hotel."

"The money, governor."

Lupin opened a pocketbook which had been removed from Daubrecq's jacket and produced a huge bundle of bank-notes. He separated ten of them:

"Here you are. Our friend appears to have been doing well at the club. Off with you, Masher!"

The two men went out through Clarisse's room. Lupin availed himself of a moment when Clarisse Mergy was not looking to stow away the pocketbook with the greatest satisfaction:

"I shall have done a fair stroke of business," he said to himself. "When all the expenses are paid, I shall still be well to the good; and it's not over yet."

Then turning to Clarisse Mergy, he asked:

"Have you a bag?"

"Yes, I bought one when I reached Nice, with some linen and a few necessaries; for I left Paris unprepared."

"Get all that ready. Then go down to the office. Say that you are expecting a trunk which a commissionaire is bringing from the station cloakroom and that you will want to unpack and pack it again in your room; and tell them that you are leaving."

When alone, Lupin examined Daubrecq carefully, felt in all his pockets and appropriated everything that seemed to present any sort of interest.

The Growler was the first to return. The trunk, a large wicker hamper covered with black moleskin, was taken into Clarisse's room. Assisted by Clarisse and the Growler, Lupin moved Daubrecq and put him in the trunk, in a sitting posture, but with his head bent so as to allow of the lid being fastened:

"I don't say that it's as comfortable as your berth in a sleeping-car, my dear deputy," Lupin observed. "But, all the same, it's better than a coffin. At least, you can breathe. Three little holes in each side. You have nothing to complain of!"

Then, unstopping a flask:

"A drop more chloroform? You seem to love it!..."

He soaked the pad once more, while, by his orders, Clarisse and the Growler propped up the deputy with linen, rugs and pillows, which they had taken the precaution to heap in the trunk.

"Capital!" said Lupin. "That trunk is fit to go round the world. Lock it and strap it."

The Masher arrived, in a chauffeur's livery:

"The car's below, governor."

"Good," he said. "Take the trunk down between you. It would be dangerous to give it to the hotel-servants."

"But if any one meets us?"

"Well, what then, Masher? Aren't you a chauffeur? You're carrying the trunk of your employer here present, the lady in No. 130, who will also go down, step into her motor... and wait for me two hundred yards farther on. Growler, you help to hoist the trunk up. Oh, first lock the partition-door!"

Lupin went to the next room, closed the other door, shot the bolt, walked out, locked the door behind him and went down in the lift.

In the office, he said:

"M. Daubrecq has suddenly been called away to Monte Carlo. He asked me to say that he would not be back until Tuesday and that you were to keep his room for him. His things are all there. Here is the key."

He walked away quietly and went after the car, where he found Clarisse lamenting:

"We shall never be in Paris to-morrow! It's madness! The least breakdown..."

"That's why you and I are going to take the train. It's safer..."

He put her into a cab and gave his parting instructions to the two men:

"Thirty miles an hour, on the average, do you understand? You're to drive and rest, turn and turn about. At that rate, you ought to be in Paris between six and seven to-morrow evening. But don't force the pace. I'm keeping Daubrecq, not because I want him for my plans, but as a hostage... and then by way of precaution... I like to feel that I can lay my hands on him during the next few days. So look after the dear fellow... Give him a few drops of chloroform every three or four hours: it's his one weakness... Off with you, Masher... And you, Daubrecq, don't get excited up there. The roof'll bear you all right... If you feel at all sick, don't mind... Off you go, Masher!"

He watched the car move into the distance and then told the cabman to drive to a post-office, where he dispatched a telegram in these words:

"M. Prasville, Prefecture de Police, Paris:

"Person found. Will bring you document eleven o'clock to-morrow morning. Urgent communication.

"CLARISSE."

Clarisse and Lupin reached the station by half-past two.

"If only there's room!" said Clarisse, who was alarmed at the least thing.

"Room? Why, our berths are booked!"

"By whom?"

"By Jacob... by Daubrecq."

"How?"

"Why, at the office of the hotel they gave me a letter which had come for Daubrecq by express. It was the two berths which Jacob had sent him. Also, I have his deputy's pass. So we shall travel under the name of M. and Mme. Daubrecq and we shall receive all the attention due to our rank and station. You see, my dear madam, that everything's arranged."

The journey, this time, seemed short to Lupin. Clarisse told him what she had done during the past few days. He himself explained the miracle of his sudden appearance in Daubrecq's bedroom at the moment when his adversary believed him in Italy:

"A miracle, no," he said. "But still a remarkable phenomenon took place in me when I left San Remo, a sort of mysterious intuition which prompted me first to try and jump out of the train—and the Masher prevented me—and next to rush to the window, let down the glass and follow the porter of the Ambassadeurs-Palace, who had given me your message, with my eyes. Well, at that very minute, the porter aforesaid was rubbing his hands with an air of such satisfaction that, for no other reason, suddenly, I understood everything: I had been diddled, taken in by Daubrecq, as you yourself were. Heaps of llttle details flashed across my mind. My adversary's scheme became clear to me from start to finish. Another minute... and the disaster would have been beyond remedy. I had, I confess, a few moments of real despair, at the thought that I should not be able to repair all the mistakes that had been made. It depended simply on the time-table of the trains, which would either allow me or would not allow me to find Daubrecq's emissary on the railway-platform at San Remo. This time, at last, chance favoured me. We had hardly alighted at the first station when a train passed, for France. When we arrived at San Remo, the man was there. I had guessed right. He no longer wore his hotel-porter's cap and frock-coat, but a jacket and bowler. He stepped into a second-class compartment. From that moment, victory was assured."

"But... how...?" asked Clarisse, who, in spite of the thoughts that obsessed her, was interested in Lupin's story.

"How did I find you? Lord, simply by not losing sight of Master Jacob, while leaving him free to move about as he pleased, knowing that he was bound to account for his actions to Daubrecq. In point of fact, this morning, after spending the night in a small hotel at Nice, he met Daubrecq on the Promenade des Anglais. They talked for some time. I followed them. Daubrecq went back to the hotel, planted Jacob in one of the passages on the ground-floor, opposite the telephone-office, and went up in the lift. Ten minutes later I knew the number of his room and knew that a lady had been occupying the next room, No. 130, since the day before. 'I believe we've done it,' I said to the Growler and the Masher. I tapped lightly at your door. No answer. And the door was locked."

"Well?" asked Clarisse.

"Well, we opened it. Do you think there's only one key in the world that will work a lock? So I walked in. Nobody in your room. But the partition-door was ajar. I slipped through it. Thenceforth, a mere hanging separated me from you, from Daubrecq and from the packet of tobacco which I saw on the chimney-slab."

"Then you knew the hiding-place?"

"A look round Daubrecq's study in Paris showed me that that packet of tobacco had disappeared. Besides..."

"What?"

"I knew, from certain confessions wrung from Daubrecq in the Lovers' Tower, that the word Marie held the key to the riddle. Since then I had certainly thought of this word, but with the preconceived notion that it was spelt M A R I E. Well, it was really the first two syllables of another word, which I guessed, so to speak, only at the moment when I was struck by the absence of the packet of tobacco."

"What word do you mean?"

"Maryland, Maryland tobacco, the only tobacco that Daubrecq smokes."

And Lupin began to laugh:

"Wasn't it silly? And, at the same time, wasn't it clever of Daubrecq? We looked everywhere, we ransacked everything. Didn't I unscrew the brass sockets of the electric lights to see if they contained a crystal stopper? But how could I have thought, how could any one, however great his perspicacity, have thought of tearing off the paper band of a packet of Maryland, a band put on, gummed, sealed, stamped and dated by the State, under the control of the Inland Revenue Office? Only think! The State the accomplice of such an act of infamy! The Inland R-r-r-revenue Awfice lending itself to such a trick! No, a thousand times no! The Regie [*] is not perfect. It makes matches that won't light and cigarettes filled with hay. But there's all the difference in the world between recognizing that fact and believing the Inland Revenue to be in league with Daubrecq with the object of hiding the list of the Twenty-seven from the legitimate curiosity of the government and the enterprising efforts of Arsene Lupin! Observe that all Daubrecq had to do, in order to introduce the crystal stopper, was to bear upon the band a little, loosen it, draw it back, unfold the yellow paper, remove the tobacco and fasten it up again. Observe also that all we had to do, in Paris, was to take the packet in our hands and examine it, in order to discover the hiding-place. No matter! The packet itself, the plug of Maryland made up and passed by the State and by the Inland Revenue Office, was a sacred, intangible thing, a thing above suspicion! And nobody opened it. That was how that demon of a Daubrecq allowed that untouched packet of tobacco to lie about for months on his table, among his pipes and among other unopened packets of tobacco. And no power on earth could have given any one even the vaguest notion of looking into that harmless little cube. I would have you observe, besides..." Lupin went on pursuing his remarks relative to the packet of Maryland and the crystal stopper. His adversary's ingenuity and shrewdness interested him all the more inasmuch as Lupin had ended by getting the better of him. But to Clarisse these topics mattered much less than did her anxiety as to the acts which must be performed to save her son; and she sat wrapped in her own thoughts and hardly listened to him.

* The department of the French excise which holds the monopoly for the manufacture and sale of tobacco, cigars, cigarettes and matches—Translator's Note.

"Are you sure," she kept on repeating, "that you will succeed?"

"Absolutely sure."

"But Prasville is not in Paris."

"If he's not there, he's at the Havre. I saw it in the paper yesterday. In any case, a telegram will bring him to Paris at once."

"And do you think that he has enough influence?"

"To obtain the pardon of Vaucheray and Gilbert personally. No. If he had, we should have set him to work before now. But he is intelligent enough to understand the value of what we are bringing him and to act without a moment's delay."

"But, to be accurate, are you not deceived as to that value?"

"Was Daubrecq deceived? Was Daubrecq not in a better position than any of us to know the full power of that paper? Did he not have twenty proofs of it, each more convincing than the last? Think of all that he was able to do, for the sole reason that people knew him to possess the list. They knew it; and that was all. He did not use the list, but he had it. And, having it, he killed your husband. He built up his fortune on the ruin and the disgrace of the Twenty-seven. Only last week, one of the gamest of the lot, d'Albufex, cut his throat in a prison. No, take it from me, as the price of handing over that list, we could ask for anything we pleased. And we are asking for what? Almost nothing ... less than nothing... the pardon of a child of twenty. In other words, they will take us for idiots. What! We have in our hands..."

He stopped. Clarisse, exhausted by so much excitement, sat fast asleep in front of him.

They reached Paris at eight o'clock in the morning.

Lupin found two telegrams awaiting him at his flat in the Place de Clichy.

One was from the Masher, dispatched from Avignon on the previous day and stating that all was going well and that they hoped to keep their appointment punctually that evening. The other was from Prasville, dated from the Havre and addressed to Clarisse:

"Impossible return to-morrow Monday morning. Come to my office five o'clock. Reckon on you absolutely."

"Five o'clock!" said Clarisse. "How late!"

"It's a first-rate hour," declared Lupin.

"Still, if..."

"If the execution is to take place to-morrow morning: is that what you mean to say?... Don't be afraid to speak out, for the execution will not take place."

"The newspapers..."

"You haven't read the newspapers and you are not to read them. Nothing that they can say matters in the least. One thing alone matters: our interview with Prasville. Besides..."

He took a little bottle from a cupboard and, putting his hand on Clarisse's shoulder, said:

"Lie down here, on the sofa, and take a few drops of this mixture."

"What's it for?"

"It will make you sleep for a few hours... and forget. That's always so much gained."

"No, no," protested Clarisse, "I don't want to. Gilbert is not asleep. He is not forgetting."

"Drink it," said Lupin, with gentle insistence. She yielded all of a sudden, from cowardice, from excessive suffering, and did as she was told and lay on the sofa and closed her eyes. In a few minutes she was asleep.

Lupin rang for his servant:

"The newspapers... quick!... Have you bought them?"

"Here they are, governor."

Lupin opened one of them and at once read the following lines:

"ARSENE LUPIN'S ACCOMPLICES"

"We know from a positive source that Arsene Lupin's accomplices, Gilbert and Vaucheray, will be executed to-morrow, Tuesday, morning. M. Deibler has inspected the scaffold. Everything is ready."

He raised his head with a defiant look.

"Arsene Lupin's accomplices! The execution of Arsene Lupin's accomplices! What a fine spectacle! And what a crowd there will be to witness it! Sorry, gentlemen, but the curtain will not rise. Theatre closed by order of the authorities. And the authorities are myself!"

He struck his chest violently, with an arrogant gesture:

"The authorities are myself!"

At twelve o'clock Lupin received a telegram which the Masher had sent from Lyons:

"All well. Goods will arrive without damage."

At three o'clock Clarisse woke. Her first words were:

"Is it to be to-morrow?"

He did not answer. But she saw him look so calm and smiling that she felt herself permeated with an immense sense of peace and received the impression that everything was finished, disentangled, settled according to her companion's will.

They left the house at ten minutes past four. Prasville's secretary, who had received his chief's instructions by telephone, showed them into the office and asked them to wait. It was a quarter to five.

Prasville came running in at five o'clock exactly and, at once, cried:

"Have you the list?"

"Yes."

"Give it me."

He put out his hand. Clarisse, who had risen from her chair, did not stir.

Prasville looked at her for a moment, hesitated and sat down. He understood. In pursuing Daubrecq, Clarisse Mergy had not acted only from hatred and the desire for revenge. Another motive prompted her. The paper would not be handed over except upon conditions.

"Sit down, please," he said, thus showing that he accepted the discussion.

Clarisse resumed her seat and, when she remained silent, Prasville said:

"Speak, my friend, and speak quite frankly. I do not scruple to say that we wish to have that paper."

"If it is only a wish," remarked Clarisse, whom Lupin had coached in her part down to the least detail, "if it is only a wish, I fear that we shall not be able to come to an arrangement."

Prasville smiled:

"The wish, obviously, would lead us to make certain sacrifices."

"Every sacrifice," said Mme. Mergy, correcting him.

"Every sacrifice, provided, of course, that we keep within the bounds of acceptable requirements."

"And even if we go beyond those bounds," said Clarisse, inflexibly.

Prasville began to lose patience:

"Come, what is it all about? Explain yourself."

"Forgive me, my friend, but I wanted above all to mark the great importance which you attach to that paper and, in view of the immediate transaction which we are about to conclude, to specify—what shall I say?—the value of my share in it. That value, which has no limits, must, I repeat, be exchanged for an unlimited value."

"Agreed," said Prasville, querulously.

"I presume, therefore, that it is unnecessary for me to trace the whole story of the business or to enumerate, on the one hand, the disasters which the possession of that paper would have allowed you to avert and, on the other hand, the incalculable advantages which you will be able to derive from its possession?"

Prasville had to make an effort to contain himself and to answer in a tone that was civil, or nearly so:

"I admit everything. Is that enough?"

"I beg your pardon, but we cannot explain ourselves too plainly. And there is one point that remains to be cleared up. Are you in a position to treat, personally?"

"How do you mean?"

"I want to know not, of course, if you are empowered to settle this business here and now, but if, in dealing with me, you represent the views of those who know the business and who are qualified to settle it."

"Yes," declared Prasville, forcibly.

"So that I can have your answer within an hour after I have told you my conditions?"

"Yes."

"Will the answer be that of the government?"

"Yes."

Clarisse bent forward and, sinking her voice:

"Will the answer be that of the Elysee?"

Prasville appeared surprised. He reflected for a moment and then said:

"Yes."

"It only remains for me to ask you to give me your word of honour that, however incomprehensible my conditions may appear to you, you will not insist on my revealing the reason. They are what they are. Your answer must be yes or no."

"I give you my word of honour," said Prasville, formally.

Clarisse underwent a momentary agitation that made her turn paler still. Then, mastering herself, with her eyes fixed on Prasville's eyes, she said:

"You shall have the list of the Twenty-seven in exchange for the pardon of Gilbert and Vaucheray."

"Eh? What?"

Prasville leapt from his chair, looking absolutely dumbfounded:

"The pardon of Gilbert and Vaucheray? Of Arsene Lupin's accomplices?"

"Yes," she said.

"The murderers of the Villa Marie-Therese? The two who are due to die to-morrow?"

"Yes, those two," she said, in a loud voice. "I ask? I demand their pardon."

"But this is madness! Why? Why should you?"

"I must remind you, Prasville, that you gave me your word..."

"Yes... yes... I know... But the thing is so unexpected..."

"Why?"

"Why? For all sorts of reasons!"

"What reasons?"

"Well... well, but... think! Gilbert and Vaucheray have been sentenced to death!"

"Send them to penal servitude: that's all you have to do."

"Impossible! The case has created an enormous sensation. They are Arsene Lupin's accomplices. The whole world knows about the verdict."

"Well?"

"Well, we cannot, no, we cannot go against the decrees of justice."

"You are not asked to do that. You are asked for a commutation of punishment as an act of mercy. Mercy is a legal thing."

"The pardoning-commission has given its finding..."

"True, but there remains the president of the Republic."

"He has refused."

"He can reconsider his refusal."

"Impossible!"

"Why?"

"There's no excuse for it."

"He needs no excuse. The right of mercy is absolute. It is exercised without control, without reason, without excuse or explanation. It is a royal prerogative; the president of the Republic can wield it according to his good pleasure, or rather according to his conscience, in the best interests of the State."

"But it is too late! Everything is ready. The execution is to take place in a few hours."

"One hour is long enough to obtain your answer; you have just told us so."

"But this is confounded madness! There are insuperable obstacles to your conditions. I tell you again, it's impossible, physically impossible."

"Then the answer is no?"

"No! No! A thousand times no!"

"In that case, there is nothing left for us to do but to go."

She moved toward the door. M. Nicole followed her. Prasville bounded across the room and barred their way:

"Where are you going?"

"Well, my friend, it seems to me that our conversation is at an end. As you appear to think, as, in fact, you are certain that the president of the Republic will not consider the famous list of the Twenty-seven to be worth..."

"Stay where you are," said Prasville.

He turned the key in the door and began to pace the room, with his hands behind his back and his eyes fixed on the floor.

And Lupin, who had not breathed a word during the whole of this scene and who had prudently contented himself with playing a colourless part, said to himself:

"What a fuss! What a lot of affectation to arrive at the inevitable result! As though Prasville, who is not a genius, but not an absolute blockhead either, would be likely to lose the chance of revenging himself on his mortal enemy! There, what did I say? The idea of hurling Daubrecq into the bottomless pit appeals to him. Come, we've won the rubber."

Prasville was opening a small inner door which led to the office of his private secretary.

He gave an order aloud:

"M. Lartigue, telephone to the Elysee and say that I request the favour of an audience for a communication of the utmost importance."

He closed the door, came back to Clarisse and said:

"In any case, my intervention is limited to submitting your proposal."

"Once you submit it, it will be accepted."

A long silence followed. Clarisse's features expressed so profound a delight that Prasville was struck by it and looked at her with attentive curiosity. For what mysterious reason did Clarisse wish to save Gilbert and Vaucheray? What was the incomprehensible link that bound her to those two men? What tragedy connected those three lives and, no doubt, Daubrecq's in addition?

"Go ahead, old boy," thought Lupin, "cudgel your brains: you'll never spot it! Ah, if we had asked for Gilbert's pardon only, as Clarisse wished, you might have twigged the secret! But Vaucheray, that brute of a Vaucheray, there really could not be the least bond between Mme. Mergy and him.... Aha, by Jingo, it's my turn now!... He's watching me ... The inward soliloquy is turning upon myself... 'I wonder who that M. Nicole can be? Why has that little provincial usher devoted himself body and soul to Clarisse Mergy? Who is that old bore, if the truth were known? I made a mistake in not inquiring... I must look into this.... I must rip off the beggar's mask. For, after all, it's not natural that a man should take so much trouble about a matter in which he is not directly interested. Why should he also wish to save Gilbert and Vaucheray? Why? Why should he?..." Lupin turned his head away. "Look out!... Look out!... There's a notion passing through that red-tape-merchant's skull: a confused notion which he can't put into words. Hang it all, he mustn't suspect M. Lupin under M. Nicole! The thing's complicated enough as it is, in all conscience!..."

But there was a welcome interruption. Prasville's secretary came to say that the audience would take place in an hour's time.

"Very well. Thank you," said Prasville. "That will do."

And, resuming the interview, with no further circumlocution, speaking like a man who means to put a thing through, he declared:

"I think that we shall be able to manage it. But, first of all, so that I may do what I have undertaken to do, I want more precise information, fuller details. Where was the paper?"

"In the crystal stopper, as we thought," said Mme. Mergy.

"And where was the crystal stopper?"

"In an object which Daubrecq came and fetched, a few days ago, from the writing-desk in his study in the Square Lamartine, an object which I took from him yesterday."

"What sort of object?"

"Simply a packet of tobacco, Maryland tobacco, which used to lie about on the desk."

Prasville was petrified. He muttered, guilelessly:

"Oh, if I had only known! I've had my hand on that packet of Maryland a dozen times! How stupid of me!"

"What does it matter?" said Clarisse. "The great thing is that the discovery is made."

Prasville pulled a face which implied that the discovery would have been much pleasanter if he himself had made it. Then he asked:

"So you have the list?"

"Yes."

"Show it to me."

And, when Clarisse hesitated, he added:

"Oh, please, don't be afraid! The list belongs to you, and I will give it back to you. But you must understand that I cannot take the step in question without making certain."

Clarisse consulted M. Nicole with a glance which did not escape Prasville. Then she said:

"Here it is."

He seized the scrap of paper with a certain excitement, examined it and almost immediately said:

"Yes, yes... the secretary's writing: I recognize it.... And the signature of the chairman of the company: the signature in red.... Besides, I have other proofs.... For instance, the torn piece which completes the left-hand top corner of this sheet..."

He opened his safe and, from a special cash-box, produced a tiny piece of paper which he put against the top left corner:

"That's right. The torn edges fit exactly. The proof is undeniable. All that remains is to verify the make of this foreign-post-paper."

Clarisse was radiant with delight. No one would have believed that the most terrible torture had racked her for weeks and weeks and that she was still bleeding and quivering from its effects.

While Prasville was holding the paper against a window-pane, she said to Lupin:

"I insist upon having Gilbert informed this evening. He must be so awfully unhappy!"

"Yes," said Lupin. "Besides, you can go to his lawyer and tell him."

She continued:

"And then I must see Gilbert to-morrow. Prasville can think what he likes."

"Of course. But he must first gain his cause at the Elysee."

"There can't be any difficulty, can there?"

"No. You saw that he gave way at once."

Prasville continued his examination with the aid of a magnifying-glass and compared the sheet with the scrap of torn paper. Next, he took from the cash-box some other sheets of letter-paper and examined one of these by holding it up to the light:

"That's done," he said. "My mind is made up. Forgive me, dear friend: it was a very difficult piece of work.... I passed through various stages. When all is said, I had my suspicions... and not without cause..."

"What do you mean?" asked Clarisse.

"One second.... I must give an order first."

He called his secretary:

"Please telephone at once to the Elysee, make my apologies and say that I shall not require the audience, for reasons which I will explain later."

He closed the door and returned to his desk. Clarisse and Lupin stood choking, looking at him in stupefaction, failing to understand this sudden change. Was he mad? Was it a trick on his part? A breach of faith? And was he refusing to keep his promise, now that he possessed the list?

He held it out to Clarisse:

"You can have it back."

"Have it back?"

"And return it to Daubrecq."

"To Daubrecq?"

"Unless you prefer to burn it."

"What do you say?"

"I say that, if I were in your place, I would burn it."

"Why do you say that? It's ridiculous!"

"On the contrary, it is very sensible."

"But why? Why?"

"Why? I will tell you. The list of the Twenty-seven, as we know for absolutely certain, was written on a sheet of letter-paper belonging to the chairman of the Canal Company, of which there are a few samples in this cash-box. Now all these samples have as a water-mark a little cross of Lorraine which is almost invisible, but which can just be seen in the thickness of the paper when you hold it up to the light. The sheet which you have brought me does not contain that little cross of Lorraine." [*]

* The Cross of Lorraine is a cross with two horizontal lines or bars across the upper half of the perpendicular beam. —Translator's Note.

Lupin felt a nervous trembling shake him from head to foot and he dared not turn his eyes on Clarisse, realizing what a terrible blow this was to her. He heard her stammer:

"Then are we to suppose... that Daubrecq was taken in?"

"Not a bit of it!" exclaimed Prasville. "It is you who have been taken in, my poor friend. Daubrecq has the real list, the list which he stole from the dying man's safe."

"But this one..."

"This one is a forgery."

"A forgery?"

"An undoubted forgery. It was an admirable piece of cunning on Daubrecq's part. Dazzled by the crystal stopper which he flashed before your eyes, you did nothing but look for that stopper in which he had stowed away no matter what, the first bit of paper that came to hand, while he quietly kept..."

Prasville interrupted himself. Clarisse was walking up to him with short, stiff steps, like an automaton. She said:

"Then..."

"Then what, dear friend?"

"You refuse?"

"Certainly, I am obliged to; I have no choice."

"You refuse to take that step?"

"Look here, how can I do what you ask? It's not possible, on the strength of a valueless document..."

"You won't do it?... You won't do it?... And, to-morrow morning... in a few hours... Gilbert..."

She was frightfully pale, her face sunk, like the face of one dying. Her eyes opened wider and wider and her teeth chattered...

Lupin, fearing the useless and dangerous words which she was about to utter, seized her by the shoulders and tried to drag her away. But she thrust him back with indomitable strength, took two or three more steps, staggered, as though on the point of falling, and, suddenly, in a burst of energy and despair, laid hold of Prasville and screamed:

"You shall go to the Elysee!... You shall go at once!... You must!... You must save Gilbert!"

"Please, please, my dear friend, calm yourself..."

She gave a strident laugh:

"Calm myself!... When, to-morrow morning, Gilbert... Ah, no, no, I am terrified... it's appalling.... Oh, run, you wretch, run! Obtain his pardon!... Don't you understand? Gilbert... Gilbert is my son! My son! My son!"

Prasville gave a cry. The blade of a knife flashed in Clarisse's hand and she raised her arm to strike herself. But the movement was not completed. M. Nicole caught her arm in its descent and, taking the knife from Clarisse, reducing her to helplessness, he said, in a voice that rang through the room like steel:

"What you are doing is madness!... When I gave you my oath that I would save him! You must... live for him... Gilbert shall not die.... How can he die, when... I gave you my oath?..."

"Gilbert... my son..." moaned Clarisse.

He clasped her fiercely, drew her against himself and put his hand over her mouth:

"Enough! Be quiet!... I entreat you to be quiet.... Gilbert shall not die..."

With irresistible authority, he dragged her away like a subdued child that suddenly becomes obedient; but, at the moment of opening the door, he turned to Prasville:

"Wait for me here, monsieur," he commanded, in an imperative tone. "If you care about that list of the Twenty-seven, the real list, wait for me. I shall be back in an hour, in two hours, at most; and then we will talk business."

And abruptly, to Clarisse:

"And you, madame, a little courage yet. I command you to show courage, in Gilbert's name."

He went away, through the passages, down the stairs, with a jerky step, holding Clarisse under the arm, as he might have held a lay-figure, supporting her, carrying her almost. A court-yard, another court-yard, then the street.

Meanwhile, Prasville, surprised at first, bewildered by the course of events, was gradually recovering his composure and thinking. He thought of that M. Nicole, a mere supernumerary at first, who played beside Clarisse the part of one of those advisers to whom we cling in the serious crises of our lives and who suddenly, shaking off his torpor, appeared in the full light of day, resolute, masterful, mettlesome, brimming over with daring, ready to overthrow all the obstacles that fate placed on his path.

Who was there that was capable of acting thus?

Prasville started. The question had no sooner occurred to his mind than the answer flashed on him, with absolute certainty. All the proofs rose up, each more exact, each more convincing than the last.

Hurriedly he rang. Hurriedly he sent for the chief detective-inspector on duty. And, feverishly:

"Were you in the waiting-room, chief-inspector?"

"Yes, monsieur le secretaire-general."

"Did you see a gentleman and a lady go out?"

"Yes."

"Would you know the man again?"

"Yes."

"Then don't lose a moment, chief-inspector. Take six inspectors with you. Go to the Place de Clichy. Make inquiries about a man called Nicole and watch the house. The Nicole man is on his way back there."

"And if he comes out, monsieur le secretaire-general?"

"Arrest him. Here's a warrant."

He sat down to his desk and wrote a name on a form:

"Here you are, chief-inspector. I will let the chief-detective know."

The chief-inspector seemed staggered:

"But you spoke to me of a man called Nicole, monsieur le secretaire-general."

"Well?"

"The warrant is in the name of Arsene Lupin."

"Arsene Lupin and the Nicole man are one and the same individual."



CHAPTER XII. THE SCAFFOLD

"I will save him, I will save him," Lupin repeated, without ceasing, in the taxicab in which he and Clarisse drove away. "I swear that I will save him."

Clarisse did not listen, sat as though numbed, as though possessed by some great nightmare of death, which left her ignorant of all that was happening outside her. And Lupin set forth his plans, perhaps more to reassure himself than to convince Clarisse. "No, no, the game is not lost yet. There is one trump left, a huge trump, in the shape of the letters and documents which Vorenglade, the ex-deputy, is offering to sell to Daubrecq and of which Daubrecq spoke to you yesterday at Nice. I shall buy those letters and documents of Stanislas Vorenglade at whatever price he chooses to name. Then we shall go back to the police-office and I shall say to Prasville, 'Go to the Elysee at once ... Use the list as though it were genuine, save Gilbert from death and be content to acknowledge to-morrow, when Gilbert is saved, that the list is forged.

"'Be off, quickly!... If you refuse, well, if you refuse, the Vorenglade letters and documents shall be reproduced to-morrow, Tuesday, morning in one of the leading newspapers.' Vorenglade will be arrested. And M. Prasville will find himself in prison before night."

Lupin rubbed his hands:

"He'll do as he's told!... He'll do as he's told!... I felt that at once, when I was with him. The thing appeared to me as a dead certainty. And I found Vorenglade's address in Daubrecq's pocket-books, so... driver, Boulevard Raspail!"

They went to the address given. Lupin sprang from the cab, ran up three flights of stairs.

The servant said that M. Vorenglade was away and would not be back until dinner-time next evening.

"And don't you know where he is?"

"M. Vorenglade is in London, sir."

Lupin did not utter a word on returning to the cab. Clarisse, on her side, did not even ask him any questions, so indifferent had she become to everything, so absolutely did she look upon her son's death as an accomplished fact.

They drove to the Place de Cichy. As Lupin entered the house he passed two men who were just leaving the porter's box. He was too much engrossed to notice them. They were Prasville's inspectors.

"No telegram?" he asked his servant.

"No, governor," replied Achille.

"No news of the Masher and the Growler?"

"No, governor, none."

"That's all right," he said to Clarisse, in a casual tone. "It's only seven o'clock and we mustn't reckon on seeing them before eight or nine. Prasville will have to wait, that's all. I will telephone to him to wait."

He did so and was hanging up the receiver, when he heard a moan behind him. Clarisse was standing by the table, reading an evening-paper. She put her hand to her heart, staggered and fell.

"Achille, Achille!" cried Lupin, calling his man. "Help me put her on my bed... And then go to the cupboard and get me the medicine-bottle marked number four, the bottle with the sleeping-draught."

He forced open her teeth with the point of a knife and compelled her to swallow half the bottle:

"Good," he said. "Now the poor thing won't wake till to-morrow... after."

He glanced through the paper, which was still clutched in Clarisse' hand, and read the following lines:

"The strictest measures have been taken to keep order at the execution of Gilbert and Vaucheray, lest Arsene Lupin should make an attempt to rescue his accomplices from the last penalty. At twelve o'clock to-night a cordon of troops will be drawn across all the approaches to the Sante Prison. As already stated, the execution will take place outside the prison-walls, in the square formed by the Boulevard Arago and the Rue de la Sante.

"We have succeeded in obtaining some details of the attitude of the two condemned men. Vaucheray observes a stolid sullenness and is awaiting the fatal event with no little courage:

"'Crikey,' he says, 'I can't say I'm delighted; but I've got to go through it and I shall keep my end up.' And he adds, 'Death I don't care a hang about! What worries me is the thought that they're going to cut my head off. Ah, if the governor could only hit on some trick to send me straight off to the next world before I had time to say knife! A drop of Prussic acid, governor, if you please!'

"Gilbert's calmness is even more impressive, especially when we remember how he broke down at the trial. He retains an unshaken confidence in the omnipotence of Arsene Lupin:

"'The governor shouted to me before everybody not to be afraid, that he was there, that he answered for everything. Well, I'm not afraid. I shall rely on him until the last day, until the last minute, at the very foot of the scaffold. I know the governor! There's no danger with him. He has promised and he will keep his word. If my head were off, he'd come and clap it on my shoulders and firmly! Arsene Lupin allow his chum Gilbert to die? Not he! Excuse my humour!'

"There is a certain touching frankness in all this enthusiasm which is not without a dignity of its own. We shall see if Arsene Lupin deserves the confidence so blindly placed in him."

Lupin was hardly able to finish reading the article for the tears that dimmed his eyes: tears of affection, tears of pity, tears of distress.

No, he did not deserve the confidence of his chum Gilbert. Certainly, he had performed impossibilities; but there are circumstances in which we must perform more than impossibilities, in which we must show ourselves stronger than fate; and, this time, fate had been stronger than he. Ever since the first day and throughout this lamentable adventure, events had gone contrary to his anticipations, contrary to logic itself. Clarisse and he, though pursuing an identical aim, had wasted weeks in fighting each other. Then, at the moment when they were uniting their efforts, a series of ghastly disasters had come one after the other: the kidnapping of little Jacques, Daubrecq's disappearance, his imprisonment in the Lovers' Tower, Lupin's wound, his enforced inactivity, followed by the cunning manoeuvres that dragged Clarisse—and Lupin after her—to the south, to Italy. And then, as a crowning catastrophe, when, after prodigies of will-power, after miracles of perseverance, they were entitled to think that the Golden Fleece was won, it all came to nothing. The list of the Twenty-seven had no more value than the most insignificant scrap of paper.

"The game's up!" said Lupin. "It's an absolute defeat. What if I do revenge myself on Daubrecq, ruin him and destroy him? He is the real victor, once Gilbert is going to die."

He wept anew, not with spite or rage, but with despair. Gilbert was going to die! The lad whom he called his chum, the best of his pals would be gone for ever, in a few hours. He could not save him. He was at the end of his tether. He did not even look round for a last expedient. What was the use?

And his persuasion of his own helplessness was so deep, so definite that he felt no shock of any kind on receiving a telegram from the Masher that said:

"Motor accident. Essential part broken. Long repair. Arrive to-morrow morning."

It was a last proof to show that fate had uttered its decree. He no longer thought of rebelling against the decision.

He looked at Clarisse. She was peacefully sleeping; and this total oblivion, this absence of all consciousness, seemed to him so enviable that, suddenly yielding to a fit of cowardice, he seized the bottle, still half-filled with the sleeping-draught, and drank it down.

Then he stretched himself on a couch and rang for his man:

"Go to bed, Achille, and don't wake me on any pretence whatever."

"Then there's nothing to be done for Gilbert and Vaucheray, governor?" said Achille.

"Nothing."

"Are they going through it?"

"They are going through it."

Twenty minutes later Lupin fell into a heavy sleep. It was ten o'clock in the evening.

The night was full of incident and noise around the prison. At one o'clock in the morning the Rue de la Sante, the Boulevard Arago and all the streets abutting on the gaol were guarded by police, who allowed no one to pass without a regular cross-examination.

For that matter, it was raining in torrents; and it seemed as though the lovers of this sort of show would not be very numerous. The public-houses were all closed by special order. At four o'clock three companies of infantry came and took up their positions along the pavements, while a battalion occupied the Boulevard Arago in case of a surprise. Municipal guards cantered up and down between the lines; a whole staff of police-magistrates, officers and functionaries, brought together for the occasion, moved about among the troops.

The guillotine was set up in silence, in the middle of the square formed by the boulevard and the street; and the sinister sound of hammering was heard.

But, at five o'clock, the crowd gathered, notwithstanding the rain, and people began to sing. They shouted for the footlights, called for the curtain to rise, were exasperated to see that, at the distance at which the barriers had been fixed, they could hardly distinguish the uprights of the guillotine.

Several carriages drove up, bringing official persons dressed in black. There were cheers and hoots, whereupon a troop of mounted municipal guards scattered the groups and cleared the space to a distance of three hundred yards from the square. Two fresh companies of soldiers lined up.

And suddenly there was a great silence. A vague white light fell from the dark sky. The rain ceased abruptly.

Inside the prison, at the end of the passage containing the condemned cells, the men in black were conversing in low voices. Prasville was talking to the public prosecutor, who expressed his fears:

"No, no," declared Prasville, "I assure you, it will pass without an incident of any kind."

"Do your reports mention nothing at all suspicious, monsieur le secretaire-general?"

"Nothing. And they can't mention anything, for the simple reason that we have Lupin."

"Do you mean that?"

"Yes, we know his hiding-place. The house where he lives, on the Place de Clichy, and where he went at seven o'clock last night, is surrounded. Moreover, I know the scheme which he had contrived to save his two accomplices. The scheme miscarried at the last moment. We have nothing to fear, therefore. The law will take its course."

Meanwhile, the hour had struck.

They took Vaucheray first; and the governor of the prison ordered the door of his cell to be opened. Vaucheray leapt out of bed and cast eyes dilated with terror upon the men who entered.

"Vaucheray, we have come to tell you..."

"Stow that, stow that," he muttered. "No words. I know all about it. Get on with the business."

One would have thought that he was in a hurry for it to be over as fast as possible, so readily did he submit to the usual preparations. But he would not allow any of them to speak to him:

"No words," he repeated. "What? Confess to the priest? Not worth while. I have shed blood. The law sheds my blood. It's the good old rule. We're quits."

Nevertheless, he stopped short for a moment:

"I say, is my mate going through it too?"

And, when he heard that Gilbert would go to the scaffold at the same time as himself, he had two or three seconds of hesitation, glanced at the bystanders, seemed about to speak, was silent and, at last, muttered:

"It's better so.... They'll pull us through together... we'll clink glasses together."

Gilbert was not asleep either, when the men entered his cell.

Sitting on his bed, he listened to the terrible words, tried to stand up, began to tremble frightfully, from head to foot, like a skeleton when shaken, and then fell back, sobbing:

"Oh, my poor mummy, poor mummy!" he stammered.

They tried to question him about that mother, of whom he had never spoken; but his tears were interrupted by a sudden fit of rebellion and he cried:

"I have done no murder... I won't die. I have done no murder..."

"Gilbert," they said, "show yourself a man."

"Yes, yes... but I have done no murder... Why should I die?"

His teeth chattered so loudly that words which he uttered became unintelligible. He let the men do their work, made his confession, heard mass and then, growing calmer and almost docile, with the voice of a little child resigning itself, murmured:

"Tell my mother that I beg her forgiveness."

"Your mother?"

"Yes... Put what I say in the papers... She will understand... And then..."

"What, Gilbert?"

"Well, I want the governor to know that I have not lost confidence."

He gazed at the bystanders, one after the other, as though he entertained the mad hope that "the governor" was one of them, disguised beyond recognition and ready to carry him off in his arms:

"Yes," he said, gently and with a sort of religious piety, "yes, I still have confidence, even at this moment... Be sure and let him know, won't you?... I am positive that he will not let me die. I am certain of it..."

They guessed, from the fixed look in his eyes, that he saw Lupin, that he felt Lupin's shadow prowling around and seeking an inlet through which to get to him. And never was anything more touching than the sight of that stripling—clad in the strait-jacket, with his arms and legs bound, guarded by thousands of men—whom the executioner already held in his inexorable hand and who, nevertheless, hoped on.

Anguish wrung the hearts of all the beholders. Their eyes were dimmed with tears:

"Poor little chap!" stammered some one.

Prasville, touched like the rest and thinking of Clarisse, repeated, in a whisper:

"Poor little chap!"

But the hour struck, the preparations were finished. They set out.

The two processions met in the passage. Vaurheray, on seeing Gilbert, snapped out:

"I say, kiddie, the governor's chucked us!"

And he added a sentence which nobody, save Prasville, was able to understand:

"Expect he prefers to pocket the proceeds of the crystal stopper."

They went down the staircases. They crossed the prison-yards. An endless, horrible distance.

And, suddenly, in the frame of the great doorway, the wan light of day, the rain, the street, the outlines of houses, while far-off sounds came through the awful silence.

They walked along the wall, to the corner of the boulevard.

A few steps farther Vaucheray started back: he had seen!

Gilbert crept along, with lowered head, supported by an executioner's assistant and by the chaplain, who made him kiss the crucifix as he went.

There stood the guillotine.

"No, no," shouted Gilbert, "I won't... I won't... Help! Help!"

A last appeal, lost in space.

The executioner gave a signal. Vaucheray was laid hold of, lifted, dragged along, almost at a run.

And then came this staggering thing: a shot, a shot fired from the other side, from one of the houses opposite.

The assistants stopped short.

The burden which they were dragging had collapsed in their arms.

"What is it? What's happened?" asked everybody.

"He's wounded..."

Blood spurted from Vaucheray's forehead and covered his face.

He spluttered:

"That's done it... one in a thousand! Thank you, governor, thank you."

"Finish him off! Carry him there!" said a voice, amid the general confusion.

"But he's dead!"

"Get on with it... finish him off!"

Tumult was at its height, in the little group of magistrates, officials and policemen. Every one was giving orders:

"Execute him!... The law must take its course!... We have no right to delay! It would be cowardice!... Execute him!"

"But the man's dead!"

"That makes no difference!... The law must be obeyed!... Execute him!"

The chaplain protested, while two warders and Prasville kept their eyes on Gilbert. In the meantime, the assistants had taken up the corpse again and were carrying it to the guillotine.

"Hurry up!" cried the executioner, scared and hoarse-voiced. "Hurry up! ... And the other one to follow... Waste no time..."

He had not finished speaking, when a second report rang out. He spun round on his heels and fell, groaning:

"It's nothing... a wound in the shoulder... Go on... The next one's turn!"

But his assistants were running away, yelling with terror. The space around the guillotine was cleared. And the prefect of police, rallying his men, drove everybody back to the prison, helter-skelter, like a disordered rabble: the magistrates, the officials, the condemned man, the chaplain, all who had passed through the archway two or three minutes before.

In the meanwhile, a squad of policemen, detectives and soldiers were rushing upon the house, a little old-fashioned, three-storied house, with a ground-floor occupied by two shops which happened to be empty. Immediately after the first shot, they had seen, vaguely, at one of the windows on the second floor, a man holding a rifle in his hand and surrounded with a cloud of smoke.

Revolver-shots were fired at him, but missed him. He, standing calmly on a table, took aim a second time, fired from the shoulder; and the crack of the second report was heard. Then he withdrew into the room.

Down below, as nobody answered the peal at the bell, the assailants demolished the door, which gave way almost immediately. They made for the staircase, but their onrush was at once stopped, on the first floor, by an accumulation of beds, chairs and other furniture, forming a regular barricade and so close-entangled that it took the aggressors four or five minutes to clear themselves a passage.

Those four or five minutes lost were enough to render all pursuit hopeless. When they reached the second floor they heard a voice shouting from above:

"This way, friends! Eighteen stairs more. A thousand apologies for giving you so much trouble!"

They ran up those eighteen stairs and nimbly at that! But, at the top, above the third story, was the garret, which was reached by a ladder and a trapdoor. And the fugitive had taken away the ladder and bolted the trapdoor.

The reader will not have forgotten the sensation created by this amazing action, the editions of the papers issued in quick succession, the newsboys tearing and shouting through the streets, the whole metropolis on edge with indignation and, we may say, with anxious curiosity.

But it was at the headquarters of police that the excitement developed into a paroxysm. Men flung themselves about on every side. Messages, telegrams, telephone calls followed one upon the other.

At last, at eleven o'clock in the morning, there was a meeting in the office of the prefect of police, and Prasville was there. The chief-detective read a report of his inquiry, the results of which amounted to this: shortly before midnight yesterday some one had rung at the house on the Boulevard Arago. The portress, who slept in a small room on the ground-floor, behind one of the shops pulled the rope. A man came and tapped at her door. He said that he had come from the police on an urgent matter concerning to-morrow's execution. The portress opened the door and was at once attacked, gagged and bound.

Ten minutes later a lady and gentleman who lived on the first floor and who had just come home were also reduced to helplessness by the same individual and locked up, each in one of the two empty shops. The third-floor tenant underwent a similar fate, but in his own flat and his own bedroom, which the man was able to enter without being heard. The second floor was unoccupied, and the man took up his quarters there. He was now master of the house.

"And there we are!" said the prefect of police, beginning to laugh, with a certain bitterness. "There we are! It's as simple as shelling peas. Only, what surprises me is that he was able to get away so easily."

"I will ask you to observe, monsieur le prefet, that, being absolute master of the house from one o'clock in the morning, he had until five o'clock to prepare his flight."

"And that flight took place...?"

"Over the roofs. At that spot the houses in the next street, the Rue de la Glaciere, are quite near and there is only one break in the roofs, about three yards wide, with a drop of one yard in height."

"Well?"

"Well, our man had taken away the ladder leading to the garret and used it as a foot-bridge. After crossing to the next block of buildings, all he had to do was to look through the windows until he found an empty attic, enter one of the houses in the Rue de la Glaciere and walk out quietly with his hands in his pockets. In this way his flight, duly prepared beforehand, was effected very simply and without the least obstacle."

"But you had taken the necessary measures."

"Those which you ordered, monsieur le prefet. My men spent three hours last evening visiting all the houses, so as to make sure that there was no stranger hiding there. At the moment when they were leaving the last house I had the street barred. Our man must have slipped through during that few minutes' interval."

"Capital! Capital! And there is no doubt in your minds, of course: it's Arsene Lupin?"

"Not a doubt. In the first place, it was all a question of his accomplices. And then... and then... no one but Arsene Lupin was capable of contriving such a master-stroke and carrying it out with that inconceivable boldness."

"But, in that case," muttered the prefect of police—and, turning to Prasville, he continued—"but, in that case, my dear Prasville, the fellow of whom you spoke to me, the fellow whom you and the chief-detective have had watched since yesterday evening, in his flat in the Place de Clichy, that fellow is not Arsene Lupin?"

"Yes, he is, monsieur le prefet. There is no doubt about that either."

"Then why wasn't he arrested when he went out last night?"

"He did not go out."

"I say, this is getting complicated!"

"It's quite simple, monsieur le prefet. Like all the houses in which traces of Arsene Lupin are to be found, the house in the Place de Cichy has two outlets."

"And you didn't know it?"

"I didn't know it. I only discovered it this morning, on inspecting the flat."

"Was there no one in the flat?"

"No. The servant, a man called Achille, went away this morning, taking with him a lady who was staying with Lupin."

"What was the lady's name?"

"I don't know," replied Prasville, after an imperceptible hesitation.

"But you know the name under which Arsene Lupin passed?"

"Yes. M. Nicole, a private tutor, master of arts and so on. Here is his card."

As Prasville finished speaking, an office-messenger came to tell the prefect of police that he was wanted immediately at the Elysee. The prime minister was there already.

"I'm coming," he said. And he added, between his teeth, "It's to decide upon Gilbert's fate."

Prasville ventured:

"Do you think they will pardon him, monsieur le prefet?"

"Never! After last night's affair, it would make a most deplorable impression. Gilbert must pay his debt to-morrow morning."

The messenger had, at the same time, handed Prasville a visiting-card. Prasville now looked at it, gave a start and muttered:

"Well, I'm hanged! What a nerve!"

"What's the matter?" asked the prefect of police.

"Nothing, nothing, monsieur le prefet," declared Prasville, who did not wish to share with another the honour of seeing this business through. "Nothing... an unexpected visit... I hope soon to have the pleasure of telling you the result."

And he walked away, mumbling, with an air of amazement:

"Well, upon my word! What a nerve the beggar has! What a nerve!"

The visiting-card which he held in his hand bore these words:

M. Nicole,

Master of Arts, Private Tutor.



CHAPTER XIII. THE LAST BATTLE

When Prasville returned to his office he saw M. Nicole sitting on a bench in the waiting-room, with his bent back, his ailing air, his gingham umbrella, his rusty hat and his single glove:

"It's he all right," said Prasville, who had feared for a moment that Lupin might have sent another M. Nicole to see him. "And the fact that he has come in person proves that he does not suspect that I have seen through him." And, for the third time, he said, "All the same, what a nerve!"

He shut the door of his office and called his secretary:

"M. Lartigue, I am having a rather dangerous person shown in here. The chances are that he will have to leave my office with the bracelets on. As soon as he is in my room, make all the necessary arrangements: send for a dozen inspectors and have them posted in the waiting-room and in your office. And take this as a definite instruction: the moment I ring, you are all to come in, revolvers in hand, and surround the fellow. Do you quite understand?"

"Yes, monsieur le secretaire-general."

"Above all, no hesitation. A sudden entrance, in a body, revolvers in hand. Send M. Nicole in, please."

As soon as he was alone, Prasville covered the push of an electric bell on his desk with some papers and placed two revolvers of respectable dimensions behind a rampart of books.

"And now," he said to himself, "to sit tight. If he has the list, let's collar it. If he hasn't, let's collar him. And, if possible, let's collar both. Lupin and the list of the Twenty-seven, on the same day, especially after the scandal of this morning, would be a scoop in a thousand."

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in!" said Prasville.

And, rising from his seat:

"Come in, M. Nicole, come in."

M. Nicole crept timidly into the room, sat down on the extreme edge of the chair to which Prasville pointed and said:

"I have come...to resume... our conversation of yesterday... Please excuse the delay, monsieur."

"One second," said Prasville. "Will you allow me?"

He stepped briskly to the outer room and, seeing his secretary:

"I was forgetting, M. Lartigue. Have the staircases and passages searched... in case of accomplices."

He returned, settled himself comfortably, as though for a long and interesting conversation, and began:

"You were saying, M. Nicole?"

"I was saying, monsieur le secretaire-general, that I must apologize for keeping you waiting yesterday evening. I was detained by different matters. First of all, Mme. Mergy...."

"Yes, you had to see Mme. Mergy home."

"Just so, and to look after her. You can understand the poor thing's despair... Her son Gilbert so near death... And such a death!... At that time we could only hope for a miracle... an impossible miracle. I myself was resigned to the inevitable... You know as well as I do, when fate shows itself implacable, one ends by despairing."

"But I thought," observed Prasville, "that your intention, on leaving me, was to drag Daubrecq's secret from him at all costs."

"Certainly. But Daubrecq was not in Paris."

"Oh?"

"No. He was on his way to Paris in a motor-car."

"Have you a motor-car, M. Nicole?"

"Yes, when I need it: an out-of-date concern, an old tin kettle of sorts. Well, he was on his way to Paris in a motor-car, or rather on the roof of a motor-car, inside a trunk in which I packed him. But, unfortunately, the motor was unable to reach Paris until after the execution. Thereupon..."

Prasville stared at M. Nicole with an air of stupefaction. If he had retained the least doubt of the individual's real identity, this manner of dealing with Daubrecq would have removed it. By Jingo! To pack a man in a trunk and pitch him on the top of a motorcar!... No one but Lupin would indulge in such a freak, no one but Lupin would confess it with that ingenuous coolness!

"Thereupon," echoed Prasville, "you decided what?"

"I cast about for another method."

"What method?"

"Why, surely, monsieur le secretaire-general, you know as well as I do!"

"How do you mean?"

"Why, weren't you at the execution?"

"I was."

"In that case, you saw both Vaucheray and the executioner hit, one mortally, the other with a slight wound. And you can't fail to see..."

"Oh," exclaimed Prasville, dumbfounded, "you confess it? It was you who fired the shots, this morning?"

"Come, monsieur le secretaire-general, think! What choice had I? The list of the Twenty-seven which you examined was a forgery. Daubrecq, who possessed the genuine one, would not arrive until a few hours after the execution. There was therefore but one way for me to save Gilbert and obtain his pardon; and that was to delay the execution by a few hours."

"Obviously."

"Well, of course. By killing that infamous brute, that hardened criminal, Vaucheray, and wounding the executioner, I spread disorder and panic; I made Gilbert's execution physically and morally impossible; and I thus gained the few hours which were indispensable for my purpose."

"Obviously," repeated Prasville.

"Well, of course," repeated Lupin, "it gives us all—the government, the president and myself—time to reflect and to see the question in a clearer light. What do you think of it, monsieur le secretaire-general?"

Prasville thought a number of things, especially that this Nicole was giving proof, to use a vulgar phrase, of the most infernal cheek, of a cheek so great that Prasville felt inclined to ask himself if he was really right in identifying Nicole with Lupin and Lupin with Nicole.

"I think, M. Nicole, that a man has to be a jolly good shot to kill a person whom he wants to kill, at a distance of a hundred yards, and to wound another person whom he only wants to wound."

"I have had some little practice," said M. Nicole, with modest air.

"And I also think that your plan can only be the fruit of a long preparation."

"Not at all! That's where you're wrong! It was absolutely spontaneous! If my servant, or rather the servant of the friend who lent me his flat in the Place de Clichy, had not shaken me out of my sleep, to tell me that he had once served as a shopman in that little house on the Boulevard Arago, that it did not hold many tenants and that there might be something to be done there, our poor Gilbert would have had his head cut off by now... and Mme. Mergy would most likely be dead."

"Oh, you think so?"

"I am sure of it. And that was why I jumped at that faithful retainer's suggestion. Only, you interfered with my plans, monsieur le secretaire-general."

"I did?"

"Yes. You must needs go and take the three-cornered precaution of posting twelve men at the door of my house. I had to climb five flights of back stairs and go out through the servants' corridor and the next house. Such useless fatigue!"

"I am very sorry, M. Nicole. Another time..."

"It was the same thing at eight o'clock this morning, when I was waiting for the motor which was bringing Daubrecq to me in his trunk: I had to march up and down the Place de Clichy, so as to prevent the car from stopping outside the door of my place and your men from interfering in my private affairs. Otherwise, once again, Gilbert and Clarisse Mergy would have been lost."

"But," said Prasville, "those painful events, it seems to me, are only delayed for a day, two days, three days at most. To avert them for good and all we should want..."

"The real list, I suppose?"

"Exactly. And I daresay you haven't got it."

"Yes, I have."

"The genuine list?"

"The genuine, the undoubtedly genuine list."

"With the cross of Lorraine?"

"With the cross of Lorraine."

Prasville was silent. He was labouring under violent emotion, now that the duel was commencing with that adversary of whose terrifying superiority he was well aware; and he shuddered at the idea that Arsene Lupin, the formidable Arsene Lupin, was there, in front of him, calm and placid, pursuing his aims with as much coolness as though he had all the weapons in his hands and were face to face with a disarmed enemy.