She did not answer. Then, turning to the deputy chief, the Prefect said:

"Weber, please go and search the room which Mlle. Levasseur occupied."

And, in reply to the nun's protest:

"It is indispensable," he declared, "that we should know the reasons why Mlle. Levasseur preserves such an obstinate silence."

Florence herself led the way. But, as Weber was leaving the room, Don Luis exclaimed:

"Take care, Deputy Chief!"

"Take care? Why?"

"I don't know," said Don Luis, who really could not have said why Florence's behaviour was making him uneasy. "I don't know. Still, I warn you—"

Weber shrugged his shoulders and, accompanied by the superior, moved away. In the hall he took two men with him. Florence walked ahead. She went up a flight of stairs and turned down a long corridor, with rooms on either side of it, which, after turning a corner, led to a short and very narrow passage ending in a door.

This was her room. The door opened not inward, into the room, but outward, into the passage. Florence therefore drew it to her, stepping back as she did so, which obliged Weber to do likewise. She took advantage of this to rush in and close the door behind her so quickly that the deputy chief, when he tried to grasp the handle, merely struck the air.

He made an angry gesture:

"The baggage! She means to burn some papers!"

And, turning to the superior:

"Is there another exit to the room?"

"No, Monsieur."

He tried to open the door, but she had locked and bolted it. Then he stood aside to make way for one of his men, a giant, who, with one blow of his fist, smashed a panel.

Weber pushed by him, put his arm through the opening, drew the bolt, turned the key, pulled open the door and entered.

Florence was no longer in her room. A little open window opposite showed the way she had taken.

"Oh, curse my luck!" he shouted. "She's cut off!"

And, hurrying back to the staircase, he roared over the balusters:

"Watch all the doors! She's got away! Collar her!"

M. Desmalions came hurrying up. Meeting the deputy, he received his explanations and then went on to Florence's room. The open window looked out on a small inner yard, a sort of well which served to ventilate a part of the house. Some rain-pipes ran down the wall. Florence must have let herself down by them. But what coolness and what an indomitable will she must have displayed to make her escape in this manner!

The detectives had already distributed themselves on every side to bar the fugitive's road. It soon became manifest that Florence, for whom they were hunting on the ground floor and in the basement, had gone from the yard into the room underneath her own, which happened to be the mother superior's; that she had put on a nun's habit; and that, thus disguised, she had passed unnoticed through the very men who were pursuing her.

They rushed outside. But it was now dark; and every search was bound to be vain in so populous a quarter.

The Prefect of Police made no effort to conceal his displeasure. Don Luis was also greatly disappointed at this flight, which thwarted his plans, and enlarged openly upon Weber's lack of skill.

"I told you so, Deputy Chief! You should have taken your precautions. Mlle. Levasseur's attitude ought to have warned you. She evidently knows the criminal and wanted to go to him, ask him for explanations and, for all we can tell, save him, if he managed to convince her. And what will happen between them? When the villain sees that he is discovered, he will be capable of anything."

M. Desmalions again questioned the mother superior and soon learned that Florence, before taking refuge in the nursing-home, had spent forty-eight hours in some furnished apartments on the Ile Saint-Louis.

The clue was not worth much, but they could not neglect it. The Prefect of Police, who retained all his doubts with regard to Florence and attached extreme importance to the girl's capture, ordered Weber and his men to follow up this trail without delay. Don Luis accompanied the deputy chief.

Events at once showed that the Prefect of Police was right. Florence had taken refuge in the lodging-house on the Ile Saint-Louis, where she had engaged a room under an assumed name. But she had no sooner arrived than a small boy called at the house, asked for her, and went away with her.

They went up to her room and found a parcel done up in a newspaper, containing a nun's habit. The thing was obvious.

Later, in the course of the evening, Weber succeeded in discovering the small boy. He was the son of the porter of one of the houses in the neighbourhood. Where could he have taken Florence? When questioned, he definitely refused to betray the lady who had trusted him and who had cried when she kissed him. His mother entreated him. His father boxed his ears. He was inflexible.

In any case, it was not unreasonable to conclude that Florence had not left the Ile Saint-Louis or its immediate vicinity. The detectives persisted in their search all the evening. Weber established his headquarters in a tap room where every scrap of information was brought to him and where his men returned from time to time to receive his orders. He also remained in constant communication with the Prefect's office.

At half-past ten a squad of detectives, sent by the Prefect, placed themselves at the deputy chief's disposal. Mazeroux, newly arrived from Rouen and furious with Florence, joined them.

The search continued. Don Luis had gradually assumed its management; and it was he who, so to speak, inspired Weber to ring at this or that door and to question this or that person.

At eleven o'clock the hunt still remained fruitless; and Don Luis was the victim of an increasing and irritating restlessness. But, shortly after midnight, a shrill whistle drew all the men to the eastern extremity of the island, at the end of the Quai d'Anjou.

Two detectives stood waiting for them, surrounded by a small crowd of onlookers. They had just learned that, some distance farther away, on the Quai Henri IV, which does not form part of the island, a motor car had pulled up outside a house, that there was the noise of a dispute, and that the cab had subsequently driven off in the direction of Vincennes.

They hastened to the Quai Henri IV and at once found the house. There was a door on the ground floor opening straight on the pavement. The taxi had stopped for a few minutes in front of this door. Two persons, a woman and a man leading her along, had left the ground floor flat. When the door of the taxi was shut, a man's voice had shouted from the inside:

"Drive down the Boulevard Saint-Germain and along the quays. Then take the Versailles Road."

But the porter's wife was able to furnish more precise particulars. Puzzled by the tenant of the ground floor, whom she had only seen once, in the evening, who paid his rent by checks signed in the name of Charles and who but very seldom came to his apartment, she had taken advantage of the fact that her lodge was next to the flat to listen to the sound of voices. The man and the woman were arguing. At one moment the man cried, in a louder tone:

"Come with me, Florence. I insist upon it; and I will give you every proof of my innocence to-morrow morning. And, if you nevertheless refuse to become my wife, I shall leave the country. All my preparations are made."

A little later he began to laugh and, again raising his voice, said:

"Afraid of what, Florence? That I shall kill you perhaps? No, no, have no fear—"

The portress had heard nothing more. But was this not enough to justify every alarm?

Don Luis caught hold of the deputy chief:

"Come along! I knew it: the man is capable of anything. It's the tiger! He means to kill her!"

He rushed outside, dragging the deputy toward the two police motors waiting five hundred yards down. Meanwhile, Mazeroux was trying to protest:

"It would be better to search the house, to pick up some clues—"

"Oh," shouted Don Luis, increasing his pace, "the house and the clues will keep! ... But he's gaining ground, the ruffian—and he has Florence with him—and he's going to kill her! It's a trap! ... I'm sure of it—"

He was shouting in the dark, dragging the two men along with irresistible force.

They neared the motors.

"Get ready!" he ordered as soon as he was in sight. "I'll drive myself."

He tried to get into the driver's seat. But Weber objected and pushed him inside, saying:

"Don't trouble—the chauffeur knows his business. He'll drive faster than you would."

Don Luis, the deputy chief, and two detectives crowded into the cab; Mazeroux took his seat beside the chauffeur.

"Versailles Road!" roared Don Luis.

The car started; and he continued:

"We've got him! You see, it's a magnificent opportunity. He must be going pretty fast, but without forcing the pace, because he doesn't think we're after him. Oh, the villain, we'll make him sit up! Quicker, driver! But what the devil are we loaded up like this for? You and I, Deputy Chief, would have been enough. Hi, Mazeroux, get down and jump into the other car! That'll be better, won't it, Deputy? It's absurd—"

He interrupted himself; and, as he was sitting on the back seat, between the deputy chief and a detective, he rose toward the window and muttered:

"Why, look here, what's the idiot doing? That's not the road! I say, what does this mean?"

A roar of laughter was the only answer. It came from Weber, who was shaking with delight. Don Luis stifled an oath and, making a tremendous effort, tried to leap from the car. Six hands fell upon him and held him motionless. The deputy chief had him by the throat. The detectives clutched his arms. There was no room for him to struggle within the restricted space of the small car; and he felt the cold iron of a revolver on his temple.

"None of your nonsense," growled Weber, "or I'll blow out your brains, my boy! Aha! you didn't expect this! It's Weber's revenge, eh?"

And, when Perenna continued to wriggle, he went on, in a threatening tone:

"You'll have only yourself to blame, mind!... I'm going to count three: one, two—"

"But what's it all about?" bellowed Don Luis.

"Prefect's orders, received just now."

"What orders?"

"To take you to the lockup if the Florence girl escaped us again."

"Have you a warrant?"

"I have."

"And what next?"

"What next? Nothing: the Sante—the examining magistrate—"

"But, hang it all, the tiger's making tracks meanwhile! Oh, rot! Is it possible to be so dense? What mugs those fellows are! Oh, dash it!"

He was fuming with rage, and when he saw that they were driving into the prison yard, he gathered all his strength, knocked the revolver out of the deputy's hand, and stunned one of the detectives with a blow of his fist.

But ten men came crowding round the doors. Resistance was useless. He understood this, and his rage increased.

"The idiots!" he shouted, while they surrounded him and searched him at the door of the office. "The rotters! The bunglers! To go mucking up a job like that! They can lay hands on the villain if they want to, and they lock up the honest man—while the villain makes himself scarce! And he'll do more murder yet! Florence! Florence ..."

Under the lamp light, in the midst of the detectives holding him, he was magnificent in his helpless violence.

They dragged him away. With an unparalleled display of strength, he drew himself up, shook off the men who were hanging on to him like a pack of hounds worrying some animal at bay, got rid of Weber, and accosted Mazeroux in familiar tones. He was gloriously masterful, almost calm, so wholly did he appear to control his seething rage. He gave his orders in breathless little sentences, curt as words of command.

"Mazeroux, run around to the Prefect's. Ask him to ring up Valenglay: yes, the Prime Minister. I want to see him. Have him informed. Ask the Prefect to say it's I: the man who made the German Emperor play his game. My name? He knows. Or, if he forgets, the Prefect can tell him my name."

He paused for a second or two; and then, calmer still, he declared:

"Arsene Lupin! Telephone those two words to him and just say this: 'Arsene Lupin wishes to speak to the Prime Minister on very important business.' Get that through to him at once. The Prime Minister would be very angry if he heard afterward that they had neglected to communicate my request. Go, Mazeroux, and then find the villain's tracks again."

The governor of the prison had opened the jail book.

"You can enter my name, Monsieur le Directeur," said Don Luis. "Put down 'Arsene Lupin.'"

The governor smiled and said:

"I should find a difficulty in putting down any other. It's on the warrant: 'Arsene Lupin, alias Don Luis Perenna.'"

Don Luis felt a little shudder pass through him at the sound of those words. The fact that he was arrested under the name of Arsene Lupin made his position doubly dangerous.

"Ah," he said, "so they've resolved—"

"I should think so!" said Weber, in a tone of triumph. "We've resolved to take the bull by the horns and to go straight for Lupin. Plucky of us, eh? Never fear, we'll show you something better than that!"

Don Luis did not flinch. Turning to Mazeroux again, he said:

"Don't forget my instructions, Mazeroux."

But there was a fresh blow in store for him. The sergeant did not answer his remark. Don Luis watched him closely and once more gave a start. He had just perceived that Mazeroux also was surrounded by men who were holding him tight. And the poor sergeant stood silently shedding tears.

Weber's liveliness increased.

"You'll have to excuse him, Lupin. Sergeant Mazeroux accompanies you to prison, though not in the same cell."

"Ah!" said Don Luis, drawing himself up. "Is Mazeroux put into jail?"

"Prefect's orders, warrant duly executed."

"And on what charge?"

"Accomplice of Arsene Lupin."

"Mazeroux my accomplice? Get out! Mazeroux? The most honest man that ever lived!"

"The most honest man that ever lived, as you say. That didn't prevent people from going to him when they wanted to write to you or prevent him from bringing you the letters. Which proves that he knew where you were hanging out. And there's a good deal more which we'll explain to you, Lupin, in good time. You'll have plenty of fun, I assure you."

Don Luis murmured:

"My poor Mazeroux!"

Then, raising his voice, he said:

"Don't cry, old chap. It's just a matter of the remainder of the night. Yes, I'll share my cards with you and we'll turn the king and mark game in a very few hours. Don't cry. I've got a much finer berth waiting for you, a more honourable and above all a more lucrative position. I have just what you want.

"You don't imagine, surely, that I wasn't prepared for this! Why, you know me! Take it from me: I shall be at liberty to-morrow, and the government, after setting you free, will pitch you into a colonelcy or something, with a marshal's pay attached to it. So don't cry, Mazeroux."

Then, addressing Weber, he said to him in the voice of a principal giving an order, and knowing that the order will be executed without discussion:

"Monsieur, I will ask you to fulfil the confidential mission which I was entrusting to Mazeroux. First, inform the Prefect of Police that I have a communication of the very highest importance to make to the Prime Minister. Next, discover the tiger's tracks at Versailles before the night is over. I know your merit, Monsieur, and I rely entirely upon your diligence and your zeal. Meet me at twelve o'clock to-morrow."

And, still maintaining his attitude of a principal who has given his instructions, he allowed himself to be taken to his cell.

It was ten to one. For the last fifty minutes the enemy had been bowling along the highroad, carrying off Florence like a prey which it now seemed impossible to snatch from him.

The door was locked and bolted.

Don Luis reflected:

"Even presuming that Monsieur le Prefect consents to ring up Valenglay, he won't do so before the morning. So they've given the villain eight hours' start before I'm free. Eight hours! Curse it!"

He thought a little longer, then shrugged his shoulders with the air of one who, for the moment, has nothing better to do than wait, and flung himself on his mattress, murmuring:

"Hushaby, Lupin!"



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

OPEN SESAME!

In spite of his usual facility for sleep, Don Luis slept for three hours at most. He was racked with too much anxiety; and, though his plan of conduct was worked out mathematically, he could not help foreseeing all the obstacles which were likely to frustrate that plan. Of course, Weber would speak to M. Desmalions. But would M. Desmalions telephone to Valenglay?

"He is sure to telephone," Don Luis declared, stamping his foot. "It doesn't let him in for anything. And at the same time, he would be running a big risk if he refused, especially as Valenglay must have been consulted about my arrest and is obviously kept informed of all that happens."

He next asked himself what exactly Valenglay could do, once he was told. For, after all, was it not too much to expect that the head of the government, that the Prime Minister, should put himself out to obey the injunctions and assist the schemes of M. Arsene Lupin?

"He will come!" he cried, with the same persistent confidence. "Valenglay doesn't care a hang for form and ceremony and all that nonsense. He will come, even if it is only out of curiosity, to learn what the Kaiser's friend can have to say to him. Besides, he knows me! I am not one of those beggars who inconvenience people for nothing. There's always something to be gained by meeting me. He'll come!"

But another question at once presented itself to his mind. Valenglay's coming in no way implied his consent to the bargain which Perenna meant to propose to him. And even if Don Luis succeeded in convincing him, what risks remained! How many doubtful points to overcome! And then the possibilities of failure!

Would Weber pursue the fugitive's motor car with the necessary decision and boldness? Would he get on the track again? And, having got on the track, would he be certain not to lose it?

And then—and then, even supposing that all the chances were favourable, was it not too late? Taking for granted that they hunted down the wild beast, that they drove him to bay, would he not meanwhile have killed his prey? Knowing himself beaten, would a monster of that kind hesitate to add one more murder to the long list of his crimes?

And this, to Don Luis, was the crowning terror. After all the difficulties which, in his stubbornly confident imagination, he had managed to surmount, he was brought face to face with the horrible vision of Florence being sacrificed, of Florence dead!

"Oh, the torture of it!" he stammered. "I alone could have succeeded; and they shut me up!"

He hardly put himself out to inquire into the reasons for which M. Desmalions, suddenly changing his mind, had consented to his arrest, thus bringing back to life that troublesome Arsene Lupin with whom the police had not hitherto cared to hamper themselves. No, that did not interest him. Florence alone mattered. And the minutes passed; and each minute wasted brought Florence nearer to her doom.

He remembered a similar occasion when, some years before, he waited in the same way for the door of his cell to open and the German Emperor to appear. But how much greater was the solemnity of the present moment! Before, it was at the very most his liberty that was at stake. This time it was Florence's life which fate was about to offer or refuse him.

"Florence! Florence!" he kept repeating, in his despair.

He no longer had a doubt of her innocence. Nor did he doubt that the other loved her and had carried her off not so much for the hostage of a coveted fortune as for a love spoil, which a man destroys if he cannot keep it.

"Florence! Florence!"

He was suffering from an extraordinary fit of depression. His defeat seemed irretrievable. There was no question of hastening after Florence, of catching the murderer. Don Luis was in prison under his own name of Arsene Lupin; and the whole problem lay in knowing how long he would remain there, for months or for years!

It was then that he fully realized what his love for Florence meant. He perceived that it took the place in his life of his former passions, his craving for luxury, his desire for mastery, his pleasure in fighting, his ambition, his revenge. For two months he had been struggling to win her and for nothing else. The search after the truth and the punishment of the criminal were to him no more than means of saving Florence from the dangers that threatened her.

If Florence had to die, if it was too late to snatch her from the enemy, in that case he might as well remain in prison. Arsene Lupin spending the rest of his days in a convict settlement was a fitting end to the spoilt life of a man who had not even been able to win the love of the only woman he had really loved.

It was a passing mood and, being totally opposed to Don Luis's nature, finished abruptly in a state of utter confidence which no longer admitted the least particle of anxiety or doubt. The sun had risen. The cell gradually became filled with daylight. And Don Luis remembered that Valenglay reached his office on the Place Beauveau at seven o'clock in the morning.

From this moment he felt absolutely calm. Coming events presented an entirely different aspect to him, as though they had, so to speak, turned right round. The contest seemed to him easy, the facts free from complications. He understood as clearly as if the actions had been performed that his will could not but be obeyed. The deputy chief must inevitably have made a faithful report to the Prefect of Police. The Prefect of Police must inevitably that morning have transmitted Arsene Lupin's request to Valenglay.

Valenglay would inevitably give himself the pleasure of an interview with Arsene Lupin. Arsene Lupin would inevitably, in the course of that interview, obtain Valenglay's consent. These were not suppositions, but certainties; not problems awaiting solution, but problems already solved. Starting from A and continuing along B and C, you arrive, whether you wish it or not, at D.

Don Luis began to laugh:

"Come, come, Arsene, old chap, remember that you brought Mr. Hohenzollern all the way from his Brandenburg Marches. Valenglay does not live as far as that, by Jove! And, if necessary, you can put yourself out a little.... That's it: I'll consent to take the first step. I will go and call on M. de Beauveau. M. Valenglay, it is a pleasure to see you."

He went gayly to the door, pretending that it was open and that he had only to walk through to be received when his turn came.

He repeated this child's play three times, bowing low and long, as though holding a plumed hat in his hand, and murmuring:

"Open sesame!"

At the fourth time, the door opened, and a warder appeared.

Don Luis said, in a ceremonious tone:

"I hope I have not kept the Prime Minister waiting?"

There were four inspectors in the corridor.

"Are these gentlemen my escort?" he asked. "That's right. Announce Arsene Lupin, grandee of Spain, his most Catholic Majesty's cousin. My lords, I follow you. Turnkey, here are twenty crowns for your pains, my friend."

He stopped in the corridor.

"By Jupiter, no gloves; and I haven't shaved since yesterday!"

The inspectors had surrounded him and were pushing him a little roughly. He seized two of them by the arm. They groaned.

"That'll teach you," he said. "You've no orders to thrash me, have you? Nor even to handcuff me? That being so, young fellows, behave!"

The prison governor was standing in the hall.

"I've had a capital night, my dear governor," said Don "Your C.T.C. rooms are the very acme of comfort. I'll see that the Lockup Arms receives a star in the 'Baedeker.' Would you like me to write you a testimonial in your jail book? You wouldn't? Perhaps you hope to see me again? Sorry, my dear governor, but it's impossible. I have other things to do."

A motor car was waiting in the yard. Don Luis stepped in with the four detectives:

"Place Beauveau," he said to the driver.

"No, Rue Vineuse," said one of the detectives, correcting him.

"Oho!" said Don Luis. "His Excellency's private residence! His Excellency prefers that my visit should be kept secret. That's a good sign. By the way, dear friends, what's the time?"

His question remained unanswered. And as the detectives had drawn the blinds, he was unable to consult the clocks in the street.

* * * * *

It was not until he was at Valenglay's, in the Prime Minister's little ground-floor flat near the Trocadero, that he saw a clock on the mantelpiece:

"A quarter to seven!" he exclaimed. "Good! There's not been much time lost."

Valenglay's study opened on a flight of steps that ran down to a garden filled with aviaries. The room itself was crammed with books and pictures.

A bell rang, and the detectives went out, following the old maidservant who had shown them in. Don Luis was left alone.

He was still calm, but nevertheless felt a certain uneasiness, a longing to be up and doing, to throw himself into the fray; and his eyes kept on involuntarily returning to the face of the clock. The minute hand seemed endowed with extraordinary speed.

At last some one entered, ushering in a second person. Don Luis recognized Valenglay and the Prefect of Police.

"That's it," he thought. "I've got him."

He saw this by the sort of vague sympathy perceptible on the old Premier's lean and bony face. There was not a sign of arrogance, nothing to raise a barrier between the Minister and the suspicious individual whom he was receiving: just a manifest, playful curiosity and sympathy, It was a sympathy which Valenglay had never concealed, and of which he even boasted when, after Arsene Lupin's sham death, he spoke of the adventurer and the strange relations between them.

"You have not changed," he said, after looking at him for some time. "Complexion a little darker, a trifle grayer over the temples, that's all."

And putting on a blunt tone, he asked:

"And what is it you want?"

"An answer first of all, Monsieur le President du Conseil. Has Deputy Chief Weber, who took me to the lockup last night, traced the motor cab in which Florence Levasseur was carried off?"

"Yes, the motor stopped at Versailles. The persons inside it hired another cab which is to take them to Nantes. What else do you ask for, besides that answer?"

"My liberty, Monsieur le President."

"At once, of course?" said Valenglay, beginning to laugh.

"In thirty or thirty-five minutes at most."

"At half-past seven, eh?"

"Half-past seven at latest, Monsieur le President."

"And why your liberty?"

"To catch the murderer of Cosmo Mornington, of Inspector Verot, and of the Roussel family."

"Are you the only one that can catch him?"

"Yes."

"Still, the police are moving. The wires are at work. The murderer will not leave France. He shan't escape us."

"You can't find him."

"Yes, we can."

"In that case he will kill Florence Levasseur. She will be the scoundrel's seventh victim. And it will be your doing."

Valenglay paused for a moment and then resumed:

"According to you, contrary to all appearances, and contrary to the well-grounded suspicions of Monsieur le Prefet de Police, Florence Levasseur is innocent?"

"Oh, absolutely, Monsieur le President!"

"And you believe her to be in danger of death?"

"She is in danger of death."

"Are you in love with her?"

"I am."

Valenglay experienced a little thrill of enjoyment. Lupin in love! Lupin acting through love and confessing his love! But how exciting!

He said:

"I have followed the Mornington case from day to day and I know every detail of it. You have done wonders, Monsieur. It is evident that, but for you, the case would never have emerged from the mystery that surrounded it at the start. But I cannot help noticing that there are certain flaws in it.

"These flaws, which astonished me on your part, are more easy to understand when we know that love was the primary motive and the object of your actions. On the other hand, and in spite of what you say, Florence Levasseur's conduct, her claims as the heiress, her unexpected escape from the hospital, leave little doubt in our minds as to the part which she is playing."

Don Luis pointed to the clock:

"Monsieur le Ministre, it is getting late."

Valenglay burst out laughing.

"I never met any one like you! Don Luis Perenna, I am sorry that I am not some absolute monarch. I should make you the head of my secret police."

"A post which the German Emperor has already offered me."

"Oh, nonsense!"

"And I refused it."

Valenglay laughed heartily; but the clock struck seven. Don Luis began to grow anxious. Valenglay sat down and, coming straight to the point, said, in a serious voice:

"Don Luis Perenna, on the first day of your reappearance—that is to say, at the very moment of the murders on the Boulevard Suchet—Monsieur le Prefet de Police and I made up our minds as to your identity. Perenna was Lupin.

"I have no doubt that you understood the reason why we did not wish to bring back to life the dead man that you were, and why we granted you a sort of protection. Monsieur le Prefet de Police was entirely of my opinion. The work which you were pursuing was a salutary work of justice; and your assistance was so valuable to us that we strove to spare you any sort of annoyance. As Don Luis Perenna was fighting the good fight, we left Arsene Lupin in the background. Unfortunately—"

Valenglay paused again and declared:

"Unfortunately, Monsieur le Prefet de Police last night received a denunciation, supported by detailed proofs, accusing you of being Arsene Lupin."

"Impossible!" cried Don Luis. "That is a statement which no one is able to prove by material evidence. Arsene Lupin is dead."

"If you like," Valenglay agreed. "But that does not show that Don Luis Perenna is alive."

"Don Luis Perenna has a duly legalized existence, Monsieur le President."

"Perhaps. But it is disputed."

"By whom? There is only one man who would have the right; and to accuse me would be his own undoing. I cannot believe him to be stupid enough—"

"Stupid enough, no; but crafty enough, yes."

"You mean Caceres, the Peruvian attache?"

"Yes."

"But he is abroad!"

"More than that: he is a fugitive from justice, after embezzling the funds of his legation. But before leaving the country he signed a statement that reached us yesterday evening, declaring that he faked up a complete record for you under the name of Don Luis Perenna. Here is your correspondence with him and here are all the papers establishing the truth of his allegations. Any one will be convinced, on examining them, first, that you are not Don Luis Perenna, and, secondly, that you are Arsene Lupin."

Don Luis made an angry gesture.

"That blackguard of a Caceres is a mere tool," he snarled. "The other man's behind him, has paid him, and is controlling his actions. It's the scoundrel himself; I recognize his touch. He has once more tried to get rid of me at the decisive moment."

"I am quite willing to believe it," said the Prime Minister. "But as all these documents, according to the letter that came with them, are only photographs, and as, if you are not arrested this morning, the originals are to be handed to a leading Paris newspaper to-night, we are obliged to take note of the accusation."

"But, Monsieur le President," exclaimed Don Luis, "as Caceres is abroad and as the scoundrel who bought the papers of him was also obliged to take to flight before he was able to execute his threats, there is no fear now that the documents will be handed to the press."

"How do we know? The enemy must have taken his precautions. He may have accomplices."

"He has none."

"How do we know?"

Don Luis looked at Valenglay and said:

"What is it that you really wish to say, Monsieur le President?"

"I will tell you. Although pressure was brought to bear upon us by Caceres's threats, Monsieur le Prefet de Police, anxious to see all possible light shed on the plot played by Florence Levasseur, did not interfere with your last night's expedition. As that expedition led to nothing, he determined, at any rate, to profit by the fact that Don Luis had placed himself at our disposal and to arrest Arsene Lupin.

"If we now let him go the documents will certainly be published; and you can see the absurd and ridiculous position in which that will place us in the eyes of the public. Well, at this very moment, you ask for the release of Arsene Lupin, a release which would be illegal, uncalled for, and inexcusable. I am obliged, therefore, to refuse it, and I do refuse it."

He ceased; and then, after a few seconds, he added:

"Unless—"

"Unless?" asked Don Luis.

"Unless—and this is what I wanted to say—unless you offer me in exchange something so extraordinary and so tremendous that I could consent to risk the annoyance which the absurd release of Arsene Lupin would bring down upon my head."

"But, Monsieur le President, surely, if I bring you the real criminal, the murderer of—"

"I don't need your assistance for that."

"And if I give you my word of honour, Monsieur le President, to return the moment my task is done and give myself up?"

Valenglay struck the table with his fist and, raising his voice, addressed Don Luis with a certain genial familiarity:

"Come, Arsene Lupin," he said, "play the game! If you really want to have your way, pay for it! Hang it all, remember that after all this business, and especially after the incidents of last night, you and Florence Levasseur will be to the public what you already are: the responsible actors in the tragedy; nay, more, the real and only criminals. And it is now, when Florence Levasseur has taken to her heels, that you come and ask me for your liberty! Very well, but damn it, set a price to it and don't haggle with me!"

"I am not haggling, Monsieur le President," declared Don Luis, in a very straightforward manner and tone. "What I have to offer you is certainly much more extraordinary and tremendous than you imagine. But if it were twice as extraordinary and twice as tremendous, it would not count once Florence Levasseur's life is in danger. Nevertheless, I was entitled to try for a less expensive transaction. Of this your words remove all hope. I will therefore lay my cards upon the table, as you demand, and as I had made up my mind to do."

He sat down opposite Valenglay, in the attitude of a man treating with another on equal terms.

"I shall not be long. A single sentence, Monsieur le President, will express the bargain which I am proposing to the Prime Minister of my country."

And, looking Valenglay straight in the eyes, he said slowly, syllable by syllable:

"In exchange for twenty-four hours' liberty and no more, undertaking on my honour to return here to-morrow morning and to return here either with Florence, to give you every proof of her innocence, or without her, to constitute myself a prisoner, I offer you—"

He took his time and, in a serious voice, concluded:

"I offer you a kingdom, Monsieur le President du Conseil."

The sentence sounded bombastic and ludicrous, sounded silly enough to provoke a shrug of the shoulders, sounded like one of those sentences which only an imbecile or a lunatic could utter. And yet Valenglay remained impassive. He knew that, in such circumstances as the present, the man before him was not the man to indulge in jesting.

And he knew it so fully that, instinctively, accustomed as he was to momentous political questions in which secrecy is of the utmost importance, he cast a glance toward the Prefect of Police, as though M. Desmalions's presence in the room hindered him.

"I positively insist," said Don Luis, "that Monsieur le Prefet de Police shall stay and hear what I have to say. He is better able than any one else to appreciate the value of it; and he will bear witness to its correctness in certain particulars."

"Speak!" said Valenglay.

His curiosity knew no bounds. He did not much care whether Don Luis's proposal could have any practical results. In his heart he did not believe in it. But what he wanted to know was the lengths to which that demon of audacity was prepared to go, and on what new prodigious adventure he based the pretensions which he was putting forward so calmly and frankly.

Don Luis smiled:

"Will you allow me?" he asked.

Rising and going to the mantelpiece, he took down from the wall a small map representing Northwest Africa. He spread it on the table, placed different objects on the four corners to hold it in position, and resumed:

"There is one matter, Monsieur le President, which puzzled Monsieur le Prefet de Police and about which I know that he caused inquiries to be made; and that matter is how I employed my time, or, rather, how Arsene Lupin employed his time during the last three years of his service with the Foreign Legion."

"Those inquiries were made by my orders," said Valenglay.

"And they led—?"

"To nothing."

"So that you do not know what I did during my captivity?"

"Just so."

"I will tell you, Monsieur le President. It will not take me long."

Don Luis pointed with a pencil to a spot in Morocco marked on the map.

"It was here that I was taken prisoner on the twenty-fourth of July. My capture seemed queer to Monsieur le Prefet de Police and to all who subsequently heard the details of the incident. They were astonished that I should have been foolish enough to get caught in ambush and to allow myself to be trapped by a troop of forty Berber horse. Their surprise is justified. My capture was a deliberate move on my part.

"You will perhaps remember, Monsieur le President, that I enlisted in the Foreign Legion after making a fruitless attempt to kill myself in consequence of some really terrible private disasters. I wanted to die, and I thought that a Moorish bullet would give me the final rest for which I longed.

"Fortune did not permit it. My destiny, it seemed, was not yet fulfilled. Then what had to be was. Little by little, unknown to myself, the thought of death vanished and I recovered my love of life. A few rather striking feats of arms had given me back all my self-confidence and all my desire for action.

"New dreams seized hold of me. I fell a victim to a new ideal. From day to day I needed more space, greater independence, wider horizons, more unforeseen and personal sensations. The Legion, great as my affection was for the plucky fellows who had welcomed me so cordially, was no longer enough to satisfy my craving for activity.

"One day, without thinking much about it, in a blind prompting of my whole being toward a great adventure which I did not clearly see, but which attracted me in a mysterious fashion, one day, finding myself surrounded by a band of the enemy, though still in a position to fight, I allowed myself to be captured.

"That is the whole story, Monsieur le President. As a prisoner, I was free. A new life opened before me. However, the incident nearly turned out badly. My three dozen Berbers, a troop detached from an important nomad tribe that used to pillage and put to ransom the districts lying on the middle chains of the Atlas Range, first galloped back to the little cluster of tents where the wives of their chiefs were encamped under the guard of some ten men. They packed off at once; and, after a week's march which I found pretty arduous, for I was on foot, with my hands tied behind my back, following a mounted party, they stopped on a narrow upland commanded by rocky slopes and covered with skeletons mouldering among the stones and with remains of French swords and other weapons.

"Here they planted a stake in the ground and fastened me to it. I gathered from the behaviour of my captors and from a few words which I overheard that my death was decided on. They meant to cut off my ears, nose, and tongue, and then my head.

"However, they began by preparing their repast. They went to a well close by, ate and drank and took no further notice of me except to laugh at me and describe the various treats they held in store for me.... Another night passed. The torture was postponed until the morning, a time that suited them better. At break of day they crowded round me, uttering yells and shouts with which were mingled the shrill cries of the women.

"When my shadow covered a line which they had marked on the sand the night before, they ceased their din, and one of them, who was to perform the surgical operations prescribed for me, stepped forward and ordered me to put out my tongue. I did so. He took hold of it with a corner of his burnous and, with his other hand, drew his dagger from its sheath.

"I shall never forget the ferocity, coupled with ingenuous delight, of his expression, which was like that of a mischievous boy amusing himself by breaking a bird's wings and legs. Nor shall I ever forget the man's stupefaction when he saw that his dagger no longer consisted of anything but the pommel and a harmless and ridiculously small stump of the blade, just long enough to keep it in its sheath. His fury was revealed by a splutter of curses and he at once rushed at one of his friends and snatched his dagger from him.

"The same stupefaction followed: this dagger was also broken off at the hilt. The next thing was a general tumult, in which one and all brandished their knives. But all of them uttered howls of rage.

"There were forty-five men there; and their forty-five knives were smashed.... The chief flew at me as if holding me responsible for this incomprehensible phenomenon. He was a tall, lean old man, slightly hunchbacked, blind of one eye, hideous to look upon. He aimed a huge pistol point blank at my head and he struck me as so ugly that I burst out laughing in his face. He pulled the trigger. The pistol missed fire. He pulled it again. The pistol again missed fire....

"All of them at once began to dance around the stake to which I was fastened. Gesticulating wildly, hustling one another and roaring like thunder, they levelled their various firearms at me: muskets, pistols, carbines, old Spanish blunderbusses. The hammers clicked. But the muskets, pistols, carbines, and blunderbusses did not go off!

"It was a regular miracle. You should have seen their faces. I never laughed so much in my life; and this completed their bewilderment.

"Some ran to the tents for more powder. Others hurriedly reloaded their arms, only to meet with fresh failure, while I did nothing but laugh and laugh! The thing could not go on indefinitely. There were plenty of other means of doing away with me. They had their hands to strangle me with, the butt ends of their muskets to smash my head with, pebbles to stone me with. And there were over forty of them!

"The old chief picked up a bulky stone and stepped toward me, his features distorted with hatred. He raised himself to his full height, lifted the huge block, with the assistance of two of his men, above my head and dropped it—in front of me, on the stake! It was a staggering sight for the poor old man. I had, in one second, unfastened my bonds and sprung backward; and I was standing at three paces from him, with my hands outstretched before me, and holding in those outstretched hands the two revolvers which had been taken from me on the day of my capture!

"What followed was the business of a few seconds. The chief now began to laugh as I had laughed, sarcastically. To his mind, in the disorder of his brain, those two revolvers with which I threatened him could have no more effect than the useless weapons which had spared my life. He took up a large pebble and raised his hand to hurl it at my face. His two assistants did the same. And all the others were prepared to follow his example.

"'Hands down!' I cried, 'or I fire!' The chief let fly his stone. At the same moment three shots rang out. The chief and his two men fell dead to the ground. 'Who's next?' I asked, looking round the band.

"Forty-two Moors remained. I had eleven bullets left. As none of the men budged, I slipped one of my revolvers under my arm and took from my pocket two small boxes of cartridges containing fifty more bullets. And from my belt I drew three great knives, all of them nicely tapering and pointed. Half of the troop made signs of submission and drew up in line behind me. The other half capitulated a moment after. The battle was over. It had not lasted four minutes."



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

ARSENE I EMPEROR OP MAURETANIA

Don Luis ceased. A smile of amusement played round his lips. The recollection of those four minutes seemed to divert him immensely.

Valenglay and the Prefect of Police, who were neither of them men to be unduly surprised at courage and coolness, had listened to him, nevertheless, and were now looking at him in bewildered silence. Was it possible for a human being to carry heroism to such unlikely lengths?

Meanwhile, he went up to the other side of the chimney and pointed to a larger map, representing the French roads.

"You told me, Monsieur le President, that the scoundrel's motor car had left Versailles and was going toward Nantes?"

"Yes; and all our arrangements are made to arrest him either on the way, or else at Nantes or at Saint-Nazaire, where he may intend to take ship."

Don Luis Perenna followed with his forefinger the road across France, stopping here and there, marking successive stages. And nothing could have been more impressive than this dumb show.

The man that he was, preserving his composure amid the overthrow of all that he had most at heart, seemed by his calmness to dominate time and circumstances. It was as though the murderer were running away at one end of an unbreakable thread of which Don Luis held the other, and as though Don Luis could stop his flight at any time by a mere movement of his finger and thumb.

As he studied the map, the master seemed to command not only a sheet of cardboard, but also the highroad on which a motor car was spinning along, subject to his despotic will.

He went back to the table and continued:

"The battle was over. And there was no question of its being resumed. My forty-two worthies found themselves face to face with a conqueror, against whom revenge is always possible, by fair means or foul, but with one who had subjugated them in a supernatural manner. There was no other explanation of the inexplicable facts which they had witnessed. I was a sorcerer, a kind of marabout, a direct emissary of the Prophet."

Valenglay laughed and said:

"Their interpretation was not so very unreasonable, for, after all, you must have performed a sleight-of-hand trick which strikes me also as being little less than miraculous."

"Monsieur le President, do you know a curious short story of Balzac's called 'A Passion in the Desert?'"

"Yes."

"Well, the key to the riddle lies in that."

"Does it? I don't quite see. You were not under the claws of a tigress. There, was no tigress to tame in this instance."

"No, but there were women."

"Eh? How do you mean?"

"Upon my word, Monsieur le President," said Don Luis gayly, "I should not like to shock you. But I repeat that the troop which carried me off on that week's march included women; and women are a little like Balzac's tigress, creatures whom it is not impossible to tame, to charm, to break in, until you make friends of them."

"Yes, yes," muttered the Premier, madly puzzled, "but that needs time."

"I had a week."

"And complete liberty of action."

"No, no, Monsieur le President. The eyes are enough to start with. The eyes give rise to sympathy, interest, affection, curiosity, a wish to know you better. After that, the merest opportunity—"

"And did an opportunity offer?"

"Yes, one night. I was fastened up, or at least they thought I was. I knew that the chief's favourite was alone in her tent close by. I went there. I left her an hour afterward."

"And the tigress was tamed?"

"Yes, as thoroughly as Balzac's: tamed and blindly submissive."

"But there were several of them?"

"I know, Monsieur le President, and that was the difficulty. I was afraid of rivalry. But all went well: the favourite was not jealous, far from it. And then, as I have told you, her submission was absolute. In short, I had five staunch, invisible friends, resolved to do anything I wanted and suspected by nobody.

"My plan was being carried out before we reached the last halting-place. My five secret agents collected all the arms during the night. They dashed the daggers to the ground and broke them. They removed the bullets from the pistols. They damped the powder. Everything was ready for ringing up the curtain."

Valenglay bowed.

"My compliments! You are a man of resource. And your scheme was not lacking in charm. For I take it that your five ladies were pretty?"

Don Luis put on a bantering expression. He closed his eyes, as if to recall his bliss, and let fall the one word:

"Hags!"

The epithet gave rise to a burst of merriment. But Don Luis, as though in a hurry to finish his story, at once went on:

"In any case, they saved my life, the hussies, and their aid never failed me. My forty-two watch-dogs, deprived of their arms and shaking with fear in those solitudes where everything is a trap and where death lies in wait for you at any minute, gathered round me as their real protector. When we joined the great tribe to which they belonged I was their actual chief. And it took me less than three months of dangers faced in common, of ambushes defeated under my advice, of raids and pillages effected by my direction, to become the chief also of the whole tribe.

"I spoke their language, I practised their religion, I wore their dress, I conformed to their customs: alas! had I not five wives? Henceforward, my dream, which had gradually taken definite shape in my mind, became possible.

"I sent one of my most faithful adherents to France, with sixty letters to hand to sixty men whose names and addresses he learned by heart. Those sixty men were sixty associates whom Arsene Lupin had disbanded before he threw himself from the Capri cliffs. All had retired from business, with a hundred thousand francs apiece in ready money and a small trade or public post to keep them occupied. I had provided one with a tobacconist's shop, another with a job as a park-keeper, others with sinecures in the government offices. In short, they were respectable citizens.

"To all of them—whether public servants, farmers, municipal councillors, grocers, sacristans, or what not—I wrote the same letter, made the same offer, and gave the same instructions in case they should accept.... Monsieur le President, I thought that, of the sixty, ten or fifteen at most would come and join me: sixty came, Monsieur le President, sixty, and not one less! Sixty men punctually arrived at the appointed place.

"On the day fixed, at the hour named, my old armed cruiser, the Ascendam, which they had brought back, anchored in the mouth of the Wady Draa, on the Atlantic coast, between Cape Nun and Cape Juby. Two longboats plied to and fro and landed my friends and the munitions of war which they had brought with them: camp furniture, quick-firing guns, ammunition, motor-boats, stores and provisions, trading wares, glass beads, and cases of gold as well, for my sixty good men and true had insisted on turning their share of the old profits into cash and on putting into the new venture the six million francs which they had received from their governor....

"Need I say more, Monsieur le President? Must I tell you what a chief like Arsene Lupin was able to attempt seconded by sixty fine fellows of that stamp and backed by an army of ten thousand well-armed and well-trained Moorish fanatics? He attempted it; and his success was unparalleled.

"I do not think that there has ever been an idyl like that through which we lived during those fifteen months, first on the heights of the Atlas range and then in the infernal plains of the Sahara: an idyl of heroism, of privation, of superhuman torture and superhuman joy; an idyl of hunger and thirst, of total defeat and dazzling victory....

"My sixty trusty followers threw themselves into their work with might and main. Oh, what men! You know them, Monsieur le President du Conseil! You've had them to deal with, Monsieur le Prefet de Police! The beggars! Tears come to my eyes when I think of some of them.

"There were Charolais and his son, who distinguished themselves in the case of the Princesse de Lamballe's tiara. There were Marco, who owed his fame to the Kesselbach case, and Auguste, who was your chief messenger, Monsieur le President. There were the Growler and the Masher, who achieved such glory in the hunt for the crystal stopper. There were the brothers Beuzeville, whom I used to call the two Ajaxes. There were Philippe d'Antrac, who was better born than any Bourbon, and Pierre Le Grand and Tristan Le Roux and Joseph Le Jeune."

"And there was Arsene Lupin," said Valenglay, roused to enthusiasm by this list of Homeric heroes.

"And there was Arsene Lupin," repeated Don Luis.

He nodded his head, smiled, and continued, in a very quiet voice:

"I will not speak of him, Monsieur le President. I will not speak of him, for the simple reason that you would not believe my story. What they tell about him when he was with the Foreign Legion is mere child's play beside what was to come later. Lupin was only a private soldier. In South Morocco he was a general. Not till then did Arsene Lupin really show what he could do. And, I say it without pride, not even I foresaw what that was. The Achilles of the legend performed no greater feats. Hannibal and Caesar achieved no more striking results.

"All I need tell you is that, in fifteen months, Arsene Lupin conquered a kingdom twice the size of France. From the Berbers of Morocco, from the indomitable Tuaregs, from the Arabs of the extreme south of Algeria, from the negroes who overrun Senegal, from the Moors along the Atlantic coast, under the blazing sun, in the flames of hell, he conquered half the Sahara and what we may call ancient Mauretania.

"A kingdom of deserts and swamps? Partly, but a kingdom all the same, with oases, wells, rivers, forests, and incalculable riches, a kingdom with ten million men and a hundred thousand warriors. This is the kingdom which I offer to France, Monsieur le President du Conseil."

Valenglay did not conceal his amazement. Greatly excited and even perturbed by what he had learned, looking over his extraordinary visitor, with his hands clutching at the map of Africa, he whispered:

"Explain yourself; be more precise."

Don Luis answered:

"Monsieur le President du Conseil, I will not remind you of the events of the last few years. France, resolving to pursue a splendid dream of dominion over North Africa, has had to part with a portion of the Congo. I propose to heal the painful wound by giving her thirty times as much as she has lost. And I turn the magnificent and distant dream into an immediate certainty by joining the small slice of Morocco which you have conquered to Senegal at one blow.

"To-day, Greater France in Africa exists. Thanks to me, it is a solid and compact expanse. Millions of square miles of territory and a coastline stretching for several thousand miles from Tunis to the Congo, save for a few insignificant interruptions."

"It's a Utopia," Valenglay protested.

"It's a reality."

"Nonsense! It will take us twenty years' fighting to achieve."

"It will take you exactly five minutes!" cried Don Luis, with irresistible enthusiasm. "What I offer you is not the conquest of an empire, but a conquered empire, duly pacified and administered, in full working order and full of life. My gift is a present, not a future gift.

"I, too, Monsieur le President du Conseil, I, Arsene Lupin, had cherished a splendid dream. After toiling and moiling all my life, after knowing all the ups and downs of existence, richer than Croesus, because all the wealth of the world was mine, and poorer than Job, because I had distributed all my treasures, surfeited with everything, tired of unhappiness, and more tired still of happiness, sick of pleasure, of passion, of excitement, I wanted to do something that is incredible in the present day: to reign!

"And a still more incredible phenomenon: when this thing was accomplished, when the dead Arsene Lupin had come to life again as a sultan out of the Arabian Nights, as a reigning, governing, law-giving Arsene Lupin, head of the state and head of the church, I determined, in a few years, at one stroke, to tear down the screen of rebel tribes against which you were waging a desultory and tiresome war in the north of Morocco, while I was quietly and silently building up my kingdom at the back of it.

"Then, face to face with France and as powerful as herself, like a neighbour treating on equal terms, I would have cried to her, 'It's I, Arsene Lupin! Behold the former swindler and gentleman burglar! The Sultan of Adrar, the Sultan of Iguidi, the Sultan of El Djouf, the Sultan of the Tuaregs, the Sultan of Aubata, the Sultan of Brakna and Frerzon, all these am I, the Sultan of Sultans, grandson of Mahomet, son of Allah, I, I, I, Arsene Lupin!'

"And, before taking the little grain of poison that sets one free—for a man like Arsene Lupin has no right to grow old—I should have signed the treaty of peace, the deed of gift in which I bestowed a kingdom on France, signed it, below the flourishes of my grand dignitaries, kaids, pashas, and marabouts, with my lawful signature, the signature to which I am fully entitled, which I conquered at the point of my sword and by my all-powerful will: 'Arsene I, Emperor of Mauretania!'"

Don Luis uttered all these words in a strong voice, but without emphasis, with the very simple emotion and pride of a man who has done much and who knows the value of what he has done. There were but two ways of replying to him: by a shrug of the shoulders, as one replies to a madman, or by the silence that expresses reflection and approval.

The Prime Minister and the Prefect of Police said nothing, but their looks betrayed their secret thoughts. And deep down within themselves they felt that they were in the presence of an absolutely exceptional specimen of mankind, created to perform immoderate actions and fashioned by his own hand for a superhuman destiny.

Don Luis continued:

"It was a fine curtain, was it not, Monsieur le President du Conseil? And the end was worthy of the work. I should have been happy to have had it so. Arsene Lupin dying on a throne, sceptre in hand, would have been a spectacle not devoid of glamour. Arsene Lupin dying with his title of Arsene I, Emperor of Mauretania and benefactor of France: what an apotheosis! The gods have willed it otherwise. Jealous, no doubt, they are lowering me to the level of my cousins of the old world and turning me into that absurd creature, a king in exile. Their will be done! Peace to the late Emperor of Mauretania. He has strutted and fretted his hour upon the stage.

"Arsene I is dead: long live France! Monsieur le President du Conseil, I repeat my offer. Florence Levasseur is in danger. I alone can rescue her from the monster who is carrying her away. It will take me twenty-four hours. In return for twenty-four hours' liberty I will give you the Mauretanian Empire. Do you accept, Monsieur le President du Conseil?"

"Well, certainly, I accept," said Valenglay, laughing. "What do you say, my dear Desmalions? The whole thing may not be very orthodox, but, hang it! Paris is worth a mass and the Kingdom of Mauretania is a tempting morsel. We'll risk the experiment."

Don Luis's face expressed so sincere a joy that one might have thought that he had just achieved the most brilliant victory instead of sacrificing a crown and flinging into the gutter the most fantastic dream that mortal man had ever conceived and realized.

He asked:

"What guarantees do you require, Monsieur le President?"

"None."

"I can show you treaties, documents to prove—"

"Don't trouble. We'll talk about all that to-morrow. Meanwhile, go ahead. You are free."

The essential word, the incredible word, was spoken.

Don Luis took a few steps toward the door.

"One word more, Monsieur le President," he said, stopping. "Among my former companions is one for whom I procured a post suited to his inclinations and his deserts. This man I did not send for to come to Africa, thinking that some day or other he might be of use to me through the position which he occupied. I am speaking of Mazeroux, a sergeant in the detective service."

"Sergeant Mazeroux, whom Caceres denounced, with corroborating evidence, as an accomplice of Arsene Lupin, is in prison."

"Sergeant Mazeroux is a model of professional honour, Monsieur le President. I owed his assistance only to the fact that I was helping the police. I was accepted as an auxiliary and more or less patronized by Monsieur le Prefet. Mazeroux thwarted me in anything I tried to do that was at all legal. And he would have been the first to take me by the collar if he had been so instructed. I ask for his release."

"Oho!"

"Monsieur le President, your consent will be an act of justice and I beg you to grant it. Sergeant Mazerou shall leave France. He can be charged by the government with a secret mission in the south of Morocco, with the rank of colonial inspector."

"Agreed," said Valenglay, laughing heartily. And he added, "My dear Prefect, once we depart from the strictly lawful path, there's no saying where we come to. But the end justifies the means; and the end which we have in view is to have done with this loathsome Mornington case."

"This evening everything will be settled," said Don Luis.

"I hope so. Our men are on the track."

"They are on the track, but they have to check that track at every town, at every village, by inquiries made of every peasant they meet; they have to find out if the motor has not branched off somewhere; and they are wasting time. I shall go straight for the scoundrel."

"By what miracle?"

"That must be my secret for the present, Monsieur le President."

"Very well. Is there anything you want?"

"This map of France."

"Take it."

"And a couple of revolvers."

"Monsieur le Prefet will be good enough to ask his inspectors for two revolvers and to give them to you. Is that all? Any money?"

"No, thank you, Monsieur le President. I always carry a useful fifty thousand francs in my pocket-book, in case of need."

"In that case," said the Prefect of Police, "I shall have to send some one with you to the lockup. I presume your pocket-book was among the things taken from you."

Don Luis smiled:

"Monsieur le Prefet, the things that people can take from me are never of the least importance. My pocket-book is at the lockup, as you say. But the money—"

He raised his left leg, took his boot in his hands and gave a slight twist to the heel. There was a little click, and a sort of double drawer shot out of the front of the sole. It contained two sheafs of bank notes and a number of diminutive articles, such as a gimlet, a watch spring, and some pills.

"The wherewithal to escape," he said, "to live and—to die. Good-bye, Monsieur le President."

In the hall M. Desmalions told the inspectors to let their prisoner go free. Don Luis asked:

"Monsieur le Prefet, did Deputy Chief Weber give you any particulars about the brute's car?"

"Yes, he telephoned from Versailles. It's a deep-yellow car, belonging to the Compagnie des Cometes. The driver's seat is on the left. He's wearing a gray cloth cap with a black leather peak."

"Thank you, Monsieur le Prefet."

And he left the house.

* * * * *

An inconceivable thing had happened. Don Luis was free. Half an hour's conversation had given him the power of acting and of fighting the decisive battle.

He went off at a run. At the Trocadero he jumped into a taxi.

"Go to Issy-les-Moulineaux!" he cried. "Full speed! Forty francs!"

The cab flew through Passy, crossed the Seine and reached the Issy-les-Moulineaux aviation ground in ten minutes.

None of the aeroplanes was out, for there was a stiff breeze blowing. Don Luis ran to the sheds. The owners' names were written over the doors.

"Davanne," he muttered. "That's the man I want."

The door of the shed was open. A short, stoutish man, with a long red face, was smoking a cigarette and watching some mechanics working at a monoplane. The little man was Davanne himself, the famous airman.

Don Luis took him aside and, knowing from the papers the sort of man that he was, opened the conversation so as to surprise him from the start:

"Monsieur," he said, unfolding his map of France, "I want to catch up some one who has carried off the woman I love and is making for Nantes by motor. The abduction took place at midnight. It is now about eight o'clock. Suppose that the motor, which is just a hired taxi with a driver who has no inducement to break his neck, does an average of twenty miles an hour, including stoppages—in twelve hours' time—that is to say, at twelve o'clock—our man will have covered two hundred and forty miles and reached a spot between Angers and Nantes, at this point on the map."

"Les Ponts-de-Drive," agreed Davanne, who was quietly listening.

"Very well. Suppose, on the other hand, that an aeroplane were to start from Issy-les-Moulineaux at eight o'clock in the morning and travel at the rate of sixty miles an hour, without stopping—in four hours' time—that is to say, at twelve o'clock—it would reach Les Ponts-de-Drive at the exact same moment as the motor. Am I right?"

"Perfectly."

"In that case, if we agree, all is well. Does your machine carry a passenger?"

"Sometimes she does."

"We'll start at once. What are your terms?"

"It depends. Who are you?"

"Arsene Lupin."

"The devil you are!" exclaimed Davanne, a little taken aback.

"I am Arsene Lupin. You must know the best part of what has happened from reading about it in the papers. Well, Florence Levasseur was kidnapped last night. I want to save her. What's your price?"

"Nothing."

"That's too much!"

"Perhaps, but the adventure amuses me. It will be an advertisement."

"Very well. But your silence is necessary until to-morrow. I'll buy it. Here's twenty thousand francs."

Ten minutes later Don Luis was dressed in an airman's suit, cap, and goggles; and an aeroplane rose to a height of two thousand five hundred feet to avoid the air currents, flew above the Seine, and darted due west across France.

Versailles, Maintenon, Chartres....

Don Luis had never been up in an aeroplane. France had achieved the conquest of the air while he was fighting with the Legion and in the plains of the Sahara. Nevertheless, sensitive though he was to new impressions—and what more exciting impression could he have than this?—he did not experience the heavenly delight of the man who for the first time soars above the earth. What monopolized his thoughts, strained his nerves, and excited his whole being to an exquisite degree was the as yet impossible but inevitable sight of the motor which they were pursuing.

Amid the tremendous swarm of things beneath them, amid the unexpected din of the wings and the engine, in the immensity of the sky, in the infinity of the horizon, his eyes sought nothing but that, and his ears admitted no other sound than the hum of the invisible car. His were the mighty and brutal sensations of the hunter chasing his game. He was the bird of prey whom the distraught quarry has no chance of escaping.

Nogent-le-Rotrou, La Ferte-Bernard, Le Mans....

The two companions did not exchange a single word. Before him Perenna saw Davanne's broad back and powerful neck and shoulders. But, by bending his head a little, he saw the boundless space beneath him; and nothing interested him but the white ribbon of road that ran from town to town and from village to village, at times quite straight, as though a hand had stretched it, and at others lazily winding, broken by a river or a church.

On this ribbon, at some place always closer and closer, were Florence and her abductor!

He never doubted it! The yellow taxi was continuing its patient and plucky little effort. Mile after mile, through plains and villages, fields and forests, it was making Angers, with Les Ponts-de-Drive after, and, right at the end of the ribbon, the unattainable goal: Nantes, Saint-Nazaire, the steamer ready to start, and victory for the scoundrel....

He laughed at the idea. As if there could be a question of any victory but his, the victory of the falcon over its prey, the victory of the flying bird over the game that runs afoot! Not for a second did he entertain the thought that the enemy might have slunk away by taking another road.

There are some certainties that are equivalent to facts. And this one was so great that it seemed to him that his adversaries were obliged to comply with it. The car was travelling along the road to Nantes. It would cover an average of twenty miles an hour. And as he himself was travelling at the rate of sixty miles, the encounter would take place at the spot named, Les Ponts-de-Drive, and at the hour named, twelve o'clock.

A cluster of houses, a huge castle, towers, steeples: Angers....

Don Luis asked Davanne the time. It was ten minutes to twelve.

Already Angers was a vanished vision. Once more the open country, broken up with many-coloured fields. Through it all, a road.

And, on that road, a yellow motor.

The yellow motor! The brute's motor! The motor with Florence Levasseur!

Don Luis's joy contained no surprise. He knew so well that this was bound to happen!

Davanne turned round and cried:

"That's the one, isn't it?"

"Yes, go straight for them."

The airship dipped through space and caught up the car almost at once. Then Davanne slowed his engine and kept at six hundred feet above the car and a little way behind.

From here they made out all the details. The driver was seated on the left. He wore a gray cap with a black peak. It was one of the deep-yellow taxis of the Compagnie des Cometes. It was the taxi which they were pursuing. And Florence was inside with her abductor.

"At last," thought Don Luis, "I have them!"

They flew for some time, keeping the same distance.

Davanne waited for a signal which Don Luis was in no hurry to give. He was revelling in the sensation of his power, with a force made up of mingled pride, hatred, and cruelty. He was indeed the eagle hovering overhead with its talons itching to rend live flesh. Escaped from the cage in which he had been imprisoned, released from the bonds that fastened him, he had come all the way at full flight and was ready to swoop upon the helpless prey.

He lifted himself in his seat and gave Davanne his instructions:

"Be careful," he said, "not to brush too close by them. They might put a bullet into us."

Another minute passed.

Suddenly they saw that, half a mile ahead, the road divided into three, thus forming a very wide open space which was still further extended by two triangular patches of grass where the three roads met.

"Now?" asked Davanne, turning to Don Luis.

The surrounding country was deserted.

"Off you go!" cried Don Luis.

The aeroplane seemed to shoot down suddenly, as though driven by an irresistible force, which sent it flying like an arrow toward the mark. It passed at three hundred feet above the car, and then, all at once, checking its career, choosing the spot at which it meant to hit the target, calmly, silently, like a night-bird, steering clear of the trees and sign-posts, it alighted softly on the grass of the crossroads.

Don Luis sprang out and ran toward the motor, which was coming along at a rapid pace. He stood in the middle of the road, levelled his two revolvers, and shouted:

"Stop, or I fire!"

The terrified driver put on both brakes. The car pulled up.

Don Luis rushed to one of the doors.

"Thunder!" he roared, discharging one of his revolvers for no reason and smashing a window-pane.

There was no one in the car.



CHAPTER NINETEEN

"THE SNARE IS LAID. BEWARE, LUPIN!"

The power that had impelled Don Luis to battle and victory was so intense that it suffered, so to speak, no cheek. Disappointment, rage, humiliation, torture, were all swallowed up in an immediate desire for action and information, together with a longing to continue the chase. The rest was but an incident of no importance, which would soon be very simply explained.

The petrified taxi-driver was gazing wildly at the peasants coming from the distant farms, attracted by the sound of the aeroplane. Don Luis took him by the throat and put the barrel of his revolver to the man's temple:

"Tell me what you know—or you're a dead man."

And when the unhappy wretch began to stammer out entreaties:

"It's no use moaning, no use hoping for assistance.... Those people won't get here in time. So there's only one way of saving yourself: speak! Last night a gentleman came to Versailles from Paris in a taxi, left it and took yours: is that it?"

"Yes."

"The gentleman had a lady with him?"

"Yes."

"And he engaged you to take him to Nantes?"

"Yes."

"But he changed his mind on the way and told you to put him down?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Before we got to Mans, in a little road on the right, with a sort of coach-house, looking like a shed, a hundred yards down it. They both got out there."

"And you went on?"

"He paid me to."

"How much?"

"Five hundred francs. And there was another fare waiting at Nantes that I was to pick up and bring back to Paris for a thousand francs more."

"Do you believe in that other fare?"

"No. I think he wanted to put people off the scent by sending them after me to Nantes while he branched off. Still, I had my money."

"And, when you left them, weren't you curious to see what happened?"

"No."

"Take care! A movement of my finger and I blow out your brains. Speak!"

"Well, yes, then. I went back on foot, behind a bank covered with trees. The man had opened the coach-house and was starting a small limousine car. The lady did not want to get in. They argued pretty fiercely. He threatened and begged by turns. But I could not hear what they said. She seemed very tired. He gave her a glass of water, which he drew from a tap in the wall. Then she consented. He closed the door on her and took his seat at the wheel."

"A glass of water!" cried Don Luis. "Are you sure he put nothing else into the glass?"

The driver seemed surprised at the question and then answered:

"Yes, I think he did. He took something from his pocket."

"Without the lady's knowledge?"

"Yes, she didn't see."

Don Luis mastered his horror. After all it was impossible that the villain had poisoned Florence in that way, at that place, without anything to warrant so great a hurry. No, it was more likely that he had employed a narcotic, a drug of some sort which would dull Florence's brain and make her incapable of noticing by what new roads and through what towns he was taking her.

"And then," he repeated, "she decided to step in?"

"Yes; and he shut the door and got into the driver's seat. I went away then."

"Before knowing which direction they took?"

"Yes."

"Did you suspect on the way that they thought that they were being followed?"

"Certainly. He did nothing but put his head out of the window."

"Did the lady cry out at all?"

"No."

"Would you know him again if you saw him?"

"No, I'm sure I shouldn't. At Versailles it was dark. And this morning I was too far away. Besides, it's curious, but the first time he struck me as very tall, and this morning, on the contrary, he looked quite a short man, as though bent in two. I can't understand it at all."

Don Luis reflected. It seemed to him that he had asked all the necessary questions. Moreover, a gig drawn by a quick-trotting horse was approaching the crossroads. There were two others behind it. And the groups of peasants were now quite near. He must finish the business.

He said to the chauffeur:

"I can see by your face that you intend to talk about me. Don't do that, my man: it would be foolish of you. Here's a thousand-franc note for you. Only, if you blab, I'll make you repent it. That's all I have to say to you."

He turned to Davanne, whose machine was beginning to block the traffic, and asked:

"Can we start?"

"Whenever you like. Where are we going?"

Paying no attention to the movements of the people coming from every side, Don Luis unfolded his map of France and spread it out before him. He experienced a few seconds of anxiety at seeing the complicated tangle of roads and picturing the infinite number of places to which the villain might carry Florence. But he pulled himself together. He did not allow himself to hesitate. He refused even to reflect.

He was determined to find out, and to find out everything, at once, without clues, without useless consideration, simply by the marvellous intuition which invariably guided him at any crisis in his life.

And his self-respect also required that he should give Davanne his answer without delay, and that the disappearance of those whom he was pursuing should not seem to embarrass him. With his eyes glued to the map, he placed one finger on Paris and another on Le Mans and, even before he had asked himself why the scoundrel had chosen that Paris-Le Mans-Angers route, he knew the answer to the question.

The name of a town had struck him and made the truth appear like a flash of lightning: Alencon! Then and there, by the light of his memory, he penetrated the mystery.

He repeated:

"Where are we going? Back again, bearing to the left."

"Any particular place?"

"Alencon."

"All right," said Davanne. "Lend a hand, some of you. I can make an easy start from that field just there."

Don Luis and a few others helped him, and the preparations were soon made. Davanne tested his engine. Everything was in perfect order.

At that moment a powerful racing car, with a siren yelling like a vicious animal, came tearing along the Angers Road and promptly stopped. Three men got out and rushed up to the driver of the yellow taxicab. Don Luis recognized them. They were Weber, the deputy chief, and the men who had taken him to the lockup the night before, sent by the Prefect of Police to follow up the scoundrel's tracks.

They had a brief interchange of words with the cab-driver, which seemed to put them out; and they kept on gesticulating and plying him with fresh questions while looking at their watches and consulting their road maps.

Don Luis went up to them. He was unrecognizable, with his head wrapped in his aviation cap and his face concealed by his goggles. Changing his voice:

"The birds have flown, Mr. Deputy Chief," he said.

Weber looked at him in utter amazement,

Don Luis grinned.

"Yes, flown. Our friend from the Ile Saint Louis is an artful dodger, you know. My lord's in his third motor. After the yellow car of which you heard at Versailles last night, he took another at Le Mans—destination unknown."

The deputy chief opened his eyes in amazement. Who was this person who was mentioning facts that had been telephoned to police headquarters only at two o'clock that morning? He gasped:

"But who are you, Monsieur?"

"What? Don't you know me? What's the good of making appointments with people? You strain every nerve to be punctual, and then they ask you who you are! Come, Weber, confess that you're doing it to annoy me. Must you gaze on my features in broad daylight? Here goes!"

He raised his mask.

"Arsene Lupin!" spluttered the detective.

"At your service, young fellow: on foot, in the saddle, and in mid air. That's where I'm going now. Good-bye."

And so great was Weber's astonishment at seeing Arsene Lupin, whom he had taken to the lockup twelve hours before, standing in front of him, free, at two hundred and forty miles from Paris, that Don Luis, as he went back to Davanne, thought:

"What a crusher! I've knocked him out in one round. There's no hurry. The referee will count ten at least three times before Weber can say 'Mother!'"

* * * * *

Davanne was ready. Don Luis climbed into the monoplane. The peasants pushed at the wheels. The machine started.

"North-northeast," Don Luis ordered. "Ninety miles an hour. Ten thousand francs."

"We've the wind against us," said Davanne.

"Five thousand francs extra for the wind," shouted Don Luis.

He admitted no obstacle in his haste to reach Damigni. He now understood the whole thing and, harking back to the very beginning, he was surprised that his mind had never perceived the connection between the two skeletons hanging in the barn and the series of crimes resulting from the Mornington inheritance. Stranger still, how was it that the almost certain murder of Langernault, Hippolyte Fauville's old friend, had not afforded him all the clues which it contained? The crux of the sinister plot lay in that.

Who could have intercepted, on Fauville's behalf, the letters of accusation which Fauville was supposed to write to his old friend Langernault, except some one in the village or some one who had lived in the village?

And now everything was clear. It was the nameless scoundrel who had started his career of crime by killing old Langernault and then the Dedessuslamare couple. The method was the same as later on: it was not direct murder, but anonymous murder, murder by suggestion. Like Mornington the American, like Fauville the engineer, like Marie, like Gaston Sauverand, old Langernault had been craftily done away with and the Dedessuslamare couple driven to commit suicide in the barn.

It was from there that the tiger had come to Paris, where later he was to find Fauville and Cosmo Mornington and plot the tragic affair of the inheritance.

And it was there that he was now returning!

There was no doubt about that. To begin with, the fact that he had administered a narcotic to Florence constituted an indisputable proof. Was he not obliged to put Florence to sleep in order to prevent her from recognizing the landscape at Alencon and Damigni, or the Old Castle, which she had explored with Gaston Sauverand?

On the other hand, the Le Mans-Angers-Nantes route, which had been taken to put the police on a false track, meant only an extra hour or two, at most, for any one motoring to Alencon. Lastly, that coach-house near a big town, that limousine waiting, ready charged with petrol, showed that the villain, when he intended to visit his retreat, took the precaution of stopping at Le Mans, in order to go from there, in his limousine, to Langernault's deserted estate.

He would therefore reach his lair at ten o'clock that morning. And he would arrive there with Florence Levasseur dead asleep!

The question forced itself upon him, the terrible persistent question—what did he mean to do with Florence Levasseur?

"Faster! Faster!" cried Don Luis.

Now that he knew the scoundrel's haunt, the man's scheme became hideously evident to him. Feeling himself hunted down, lost, an object of hatred and terror to Florence, whose eyes were now opened to the true state of things, what plan could he have in mind except his invariable plan of murder?

"Faster!" cried Don Luis. "We're making no headway. Go faster, can't you?"

Florence murdered! Perhaps the crime was not yet accomplished. No, it could not be! Killing takes time. It is preceded by words, by the offer of a bargain, by threats, by entreaties, by a wholly unspeakable scene. But the thing was being prepared, Florence was going to die!

Florence was going to die by the hand of the brute who loved her. For he loved her: Don Luis had an intuition of that monstrous love; and he was bound to believe that such a love could only end in torture and bloodshed.

Sable ... Sille-le-Guillaume....

The earth sped beneath them. The trees and houses glided by like shadows.

And then Alencon.

It was hardly more than a quarter to two when they landed in a meadow between the town and Damigni. Don Luis made inquiries. A number of motor cars had passed along the road to Damigni, including a small limousine driven by a gentleman who had turned down a crossroad. And this crossroad led to the woods at the back of Langernault's estate, the Old Castle.

Don Luis's conviction was so firm that, after taking leave of Davanne, he helped him to start on his homeward flight. He had no further need of him. He needed nobody. The final duel was at hand.

He ran along, guided by the tracks of the tires in the dust, and followed the crossroad. To his great surprise this road went nowhere near the wall behind the barn from which he had jumped a few weeks before. After clearing the woods, Don Luis came out into a large untilled space where the road turned back toward the estate and ended at an old two-winged gate protected with iron sheets and bars.

The limousine had gone in that way.

"And I must get in this way, too," thought Don Luis. "I must get in at all costs and immediately, without wasting time in looking for an opening or a handy tree."

Now the wall was thirteen feet high at this spot. Don Luis got in. How he managed it, by what superhuman effort, he himself could not have said after he had done it.

Somehow or other, by hanging on to invisible projections, by digging a knife which he had borrowed from Davanne into the interstices between the stones, he managed it.

And when he was on the other side he discovered the tracks of the tires running to the left, toward a part of the grounds which he did not know, more undulating than the other and broken up with little hills and ruined buildings covered with thick curtains of ivy.

Deserted though the rest of the park was, this portion seemed much more uncivilized, in spite of the ragged remains of box and laurel hedges that stood here and there amidst the nettles and brambles, and the luxuriant swarm of tall wild-flowers, valerian, mullein, hemlock, foxglove, and angelica.

Suddenly, on turning the corner of an old hedge of clipped yews, Don Luis saw the limousine, which had been left, or, rather, hidden there in a hollow. The door was open. The disorder of the inside of the car, the rug hanging over the footboard, a broken window, a cushion on the floor, all bore witness to a struggle. The scoundrel had no doubt taken advantage of the fact that Florence was asleep to tie her up; and on arriving, when he tried to take her out of the car, Florence must have clutched at everything that offered.

Don Luis at once verified the correctness of his theory. As he went along the very narrow, grass-grown path that led up the slope, he saw that the grass was uniformly pressed down.

"Oh, the villain!" he thought. "The villain! He doesn't carry his victim, he drags her!"

If he had listened only to his instinct, he would have rushed to Florence's rescue. But his profound sense of what to do and what to avoid saved him from committing any such imprudence. At the first alarm, at the least sound, the tiger would have throttled his prey. To escape this hideous catastrophe, Don Luis must take him by surprise and then and there deprive him of his power of action. He controlled himself, therefore, and slowly and cautiously mounted the incline.

The path ran upward between heaps of stones and fallen buildings, and among clumps of shrubs overtopped by beeches and oaks. The place was evidently the site of the old feudal castle which had given the estate its name; and it was here, near the top, that the scoundrel had selected one of his retreats.