Arsène Lupin, super-sleuth

For the rest of the week, not knowing where to renew the struggle, Ralph read very carefully the reports in the newspapers describing the triple murder on the express. There is no point in treating at full length events which have become stale in the public mind, or the theories that were advanced, or the mistakes that were made, or the clues that were followed. This affair, which has remained such a profound mystery and which at the time excited the extravagant interest of the whole world, is of no interest to-day except by reason of the part that Arsène Lupin played in it and of the degree in which he helped to bring about the discovery of the truth which we are at last able to establish with absolute certainty. There is no point therefore in bothering about trivial details and in throwing light on facts of secondary importance.

Moreover Ralph perceived quickly enough the limits within which the results of the enquiry were confined and he made a careful note of them in order to classify the facts, to select those of importance, and to eliminate those of no importance. [97]

These notes ran:

“1. The third confederate, that is to say the brute from whom I delivered the girl with the green eyes, keeping in the shadow and no one even guessing at his existence, it came about that, in the eyes of the police, it was the unknown passenger, that is to say myself, who was the instigator of the affair. At the evident suggestion of Marescal, whom my detestable maneuvers with regard to myself must have strongly prejudiced against me, I am transformed into a diabolical and omnipotent personage, who planned the coup and dominated the whole of the drama. Apparently a victim of my confederates, bound and gagged, I direct their actions, watch over their safety, and vanish into the darkness without leaving my trace except my footprints.

2. With regard to the other confederates, it is admitted, in accordance with the doctor’s story, that they took to flight in his carriage. But whither did they fly? Early in the morning the horse brought back the carriage across country. In any case Marescal does not hesitate: he tears the mask from the youngest of the train-robbers and without pity denounces a young and pretty girl. All the same he does not give a description of her, thus reserving to himself the credit for an early and sensational arrest.

3. The two murdered men have been identified. [98]They were two brothers, Arthur and Gaston Loubeaux, in partnership in placing a brand of champagne and living at Neuilly on the banks of the Seine.

4. An important point: the revolver with which these two brothers were shot, which was found in the corridor of the express, furnishes some definite information. It was bought a fortnight before the crime by a tall and slender man whom his companion, a young woman in a veil, called William.

5. Finally there is Miss Bakersfield. No charge is brought against her. Marescal, deprived of his proofs does not dare to chance it and keeps prudently silent. An ordinary passenger, a lady well-known in society in London and on the Riviera, she is traveling to join her father at Monte Carlo; and that is all that can be said about her. Was she murdered by mistake? That is possible. But why were the two Loubeaux murdered? That and the rest of the business is shrouded in darkness.

“And since I’m not in the humor to bother my head about it any longer, I’ll stop thinking about it; let the police go pottering about at their own sweet will, and act,” said Ralph to himself.

If Ralph talked about acting in so determined a fashion, it was because he knew at last how to make a beginning. The local papers published a paragraph which ran: [99]

“Our distinguished guest, Lord Bakersfield, after having attended the funeral of his unfortunate daughter, has returned to the Riviera and will pass the end of the season, as is his custom, at the Bellevue Palace Hotel, at Monte Carlo.”

That very evening Ralph took a room at the Bellevue Palace next to the suite of three rooms occupied by the Englishman. All these rooms, like the rest of the rooms on the ground floor, looked out on to a large garden, which extended the whole length of the back of the hotel. From the long window of each of them a short flight of steps led down into the garden.

The next day he caught sight of the Englishman as he went down the steps from his room into the garden. He was a man still young, with a rather heavy face, rendered the heavier by the expression of deep sadness at the loss of his daughter.

Two days later as Ralph was thinking of sending in his card to him with the request for a private interview, he saw in the corridor a man who was knocking at the door of the room next his. It was Marescal.

The sight did not cause him any surprise. Since he himself was on the point of seeking some information from Miss Bakersfield’s father, what was more natural than that Marescal should also be trying to learn all he could from him?

Accordingly he made haste to open one of the double [100]doors between his room and the next. But he was unable to catch a word of the conversation.

Thinking it unlikely that this would be the only conversation they would have, he took the precaution of slipping into Lord Bakersfield’s room when he was out and drawing the bolt of the other door between their two rooms. He watched for the arrival of Marescal and when he went into Lord Bakersfield’s suite, he opened the second door two or three inches, only to meet with another check: Marescal and Lord Bakersfield were talking in such low voices that he could not hear a word they said.

In this way he wasted three days which Lord Bakersfield and the detective spent in long confabulations, for the most part walking up and down the garden, which excited his liveliest curiosity. At what was Marescal aiming? Was he paving the way for the revelation that Miss Bakersfield was a crook? It was practically certain that he was not even thinking of doing so. Must one then suppose that he expected to get from these interviews some unexpected piece of information?

Then the idea that the two men were planning something in the nature of a trap presented itself several times to Ralph’s mind; and this idea was presently strengthened by the sight of William and the girl with the green eyes strolling in the neighborhood of the hotel, drawn to it, like himself and Marescal, by the [101]fact that Lord Bakersfield was staying there. It was a quite admissible hypothesis, and events suddenly invested it with even greater credibility.

One morning Ralph who had hitherto been unable to hear several conversations of Lord Bakersfield over the telephone which was in the further room, succeeded in catching the end of one of them.

“It is settled, Monsieur. Come to the hotel garden at three o’clock this afternoon. The money will be ready and my secretary will hand it over to you in exchange for the four letters of which you told me.”

“Four letters?… Money?” said Ralph to himself. “This looks to me uncommonly like an attempt at blackmail. And in that case the blackmailer can be no one but the good William. Miss Bakersfield’s confederate, he must be trying to-day to turn his correspondence with her into money.”

These considerations confirmed Ralph’s belief in his hypothesis of a trap; he was sure that it explained the relations between Lord Bakersfield and Marescal. Doubtless William had threatened Lord Bakersfield with the exposure of his daughter’s nefarious activities, and the Englishman had called on the Commissary to help him. The Commissary had set a trap into which the young crook would inevitably fall. Well and good: Ralph could not but be delighted that he should. But what about the girl with the green eyes? Was she also taking part in this blackmailing scheme? How in [102]that event was he himself going to act? Was he going to rescue her again? The thought was repugnant to him, considering the baseness of their enterprise. Was he going to let Marescal capture her?

That day Lord Bakersfield kept Marescal to lunch. After the meal they went into the garden and walked round it several times, talking with considerable animation. At a quarter to three the detective came back into Lord Bakersfield’s sitting-room; Lord Bakersfield sat down on a bench in sight of the windows of his suite, not far from the gate of the garden which opened into the street.

Ralph kept watch from his window.

“If she comes, all the worse for her,” he murmured to himself. “I won’t move a finger to help her.”

Nevertheless a great weight lifted from his spirit when he saw William appear alone, advancing cautiously, looking about him anxiously, at the gate of the garden. He went straight to Lord Bakersfield, and they talked. Their conversation was brief, doubtless they settled the terms of the transaction. Then Lord Bakersfield rose, and the two of them came towards his suite. They came in silence, William ill at ease and suspicious, Lord Bakersfield thoughtful and frowning.

At the foot of the steps he said coldly: “Go in, Monsieur, I don’t want to be mixed up in this dirty business myself. My secretary knows all about it and [103]will pay you the money for the letters, if their contents are what you say they are.”

He turned on his heel and went along the path back to his bench.

William hesitated, then went up the steps. Ralph hurried to the doors between the two rooms. The door on his side was already opened, he opened the other an inch or two and listened, awaiting the explosion. It was clear that William did not know Marescal, but believed him to be Lord Bakersfield’s secretary. Ralph found that he could see the Commissary in a mirror on the opposite wall of the room.

“Here are the fifty thousand-franc notes and a cheque on a London bank for the same amount. Have you the letters?” said Marescal in sharp, staccato accents.

“No,” said William.

“What do you mean by ‘no?’ In that case there’s nothing doing. My instructions are strict. The money for the letters only,” snapped Marescal.

“I will mail them on to you.”

“You’re mad, my man; or rather you’re trying to trick us!”

William hesitated; then he made up his mind: “I’ve got the letters all right,” he said quickly. “What I mean to say is, they’re not on me.”

“Where are they?” [104]

“A friend of mine is taking care of them for me,” said William.

“Where is he?” snapped Marescal.

“In the hotel. I’ll go and find him.”

“There’s no need to do that,” said Marescal, guessing the identity of his friend.

He rang the bell. The chambermaid answered it.

“You’ll find a young lady waiting in the corridor,” said Marescal. “Tell her that Mr. William wants her and bring her here.”

William started.

“What does this mean?” he cried. “It’s contrary to my agreement with Lord Bakersfield, the young lady who is waiting for me has nothing to do with the matter.”

He tried to go through the door. But Marescal smartly blocked the way. There came a knock; he opened the door, keeping out of sight behind it; and the girl with the green eyes entered on hesitating feet. She uttered a faint cry of terror when the door was banged behind her and the key turned sharply in the lock.

On the instant a hand gripped her shoulder.

She turned, saw the Commissary, and groaned: “Marescal!”

As the name passed her lips, William saw that the Commissary only had eyes for her, seized his chance and bolted through the window and across the garden. [105]Marescal swore; then turned on the girl, who tottering and overwhelmed, staggered to the middle of the room.

He snatched her bag from her and cried: “Nothing can save you this time, you little crook! You’ve run straight into the trap!”

He rummaged in her hand-bag and growled: “Where are those letters? Blackmail now! You’ve sunk to that, have you? Shameful!”

The girl dropped on to a chair.

Not finding the letters in her hand-bag, he stormed at her savagely: “The letters! The letters! Where are they? Have you got them on you?”

He caught the front of her dress and tore it open, abusing her furiously, and felt for the letters. He stopped short, stupefied, with his eyes starting out of his head as they stared into the face of a man with one eye closed in a protracted wink and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his lips, set in a jeering snarl.

“Could you oblige me with a light, Rudolph?” said the intruder.

“Could you oblige me with a light!” That disconcerting phrase, already heard in Paris, already read in his private note-book! What did it mean! And this familiarity! That wink?

“Who are you? T-T-The m-m-man on the express? The third confederate? Impossible!” stammered Marescal.

He was no coward; on more than one occasion he [106]had faced two or three adversaries with uncommon courage. But this was an adversary such as he had never met before, who employed unheard-of means, and with whom he found himself in a condition of permanent inferiority. Shaken and speechless, he stood on the defensive, almost, for the moment, paralyzed.

Ralph seized the advantage surprise had given him. He said imperiously to the girl: “Put the four letters on the corner of the mantelpiece.”

Like an automaton she took an envelope from her bosom and set it on the mantelpiece.

“Are the four letters in it?” he snapped.

Staring at him, she nodded.

“Right! Now slip out quickly by the corridor, and goodbye. I don’t think that we’re likely to meet again. Goodbye. Good luck!”

Without a word, she hurried across the room, unlocked the door, slipped through it, and was gone.

Ralph turned to Marescal and said in a jeering tone: “As you see, Comrade Rudolph, I am slightly acquainted with this young lady. But I am neither her confederate nor the murderer who inspires you with such salutary dread. I’m merely a noble-hearted traveler who took a dislike to your pomaded wig the moment I set eyes on it and thought it would be rather a joke to snatch your victim from you. For my part, she no longer interests me and I propose to leave her severely alone. But I also propose that you shall [107]leave her severely alone too. We’re all of us going separate ways: she to the right, you to the left, I straight on. Do you get me, Rudolph?”

Marescal’s hand darted towards his hip-pocket; Ralph quicker on the draw, had him covered before his fingers closed on the butt of his revolver; and there was so sinister an expression on his face that the Commissary kept quite still.

“Come into the next room. We’re less likely to be interrupted while we talk things over,” said Ralph quietly.

Marescal led the way; Ralph taking the letters from the mantelpiece, followed, still keeping him covered, and shut the door. Then, on the instant he caught up the cloth from the table and threw it over the Commissary’s head. Marescal did not resist. This fantastic adversary had him paralyzed. He did not dream of shouting for help, or trying to ring the bell; he was sure that counterstroke would be smashing. He therefore allowed himself to be rolled up in the bed-clothes, in a fashion that half smothered him and held him helpless.

“That’s all right,” said Ralph cheerfully when he had completed his task. “Now we know where we are. I should think that you’ll be set free about nine to-morrow morning, which will give you time to think things over properly, and give the lady, William, and [108]me time to remove ourselves, in different directions, to a place of safety.”

He packed his suit-case in a leisurely manner. Then he struck a match and burnt the four letters of the English girl.

Then he said: “Just a last word, Rudolph: don’t go on bothering Lord Bakersfield. On the contrary, since you have no proofs against her and never will have, play the kind gentleman and give him his daughter’s diary, which I found in the red leather wallet and will leave you. That will convince him that she was the most honest and noble of women. You will do a kind action; and that is always something gained. As for William and his confederate, tell him that you made a mistake, that it was just ordinary blackmail and had nothing to do with the murders on the express, and you let them go. And finally, just on general principles, leave this business of the murders on the express alone. It’s much too complicated for you and you’ll only get more kicks than ha’pence out of it.”

He went out of the room, locked the door of it, and went to the hotel office and paid his bill.

Then he said: “Please keep my room for me till to-morrow. I’ll pay in advance in case I’m prevented from coming back.”

He left the hotel, congratulating himself on the way the business had turned out. His part in it was at an end. Let the young woman get clear of it herself. [109]She would doubtless find a way. It no longer mattered to him.

His resolution was so definite that when he caught sight of her at the station, as he was taking the 3:50 express to Paris, he made no effort to join her but kept out of sight.

At Marseilles she changed her route and took the train to Toulouse, in company with some people, whose acquaintance she seemed to have made and who seemed to be actors. William, suddenly turning up, joined the group.

“A pleasant journey,” said Ralph to himself. “I’m delighted to have severed my relations with this charming couple. They may go and get hanged in somebody else’s society!”

However, at the last minute, he jumped out of the train and took the same train as the girl. Like her, he left it the following morning at Toulouse.

Following the murders on the express, the burglary at the Villa Faradoni and the attempted blackmail at the Bellevue Palace Hotel, two episodes, sudden, violent, furious and unexpected, like scenes in a badly constructed play which give the audience no time to understand what is happening and to connect the incidents with one another; a third episode was about to take place which Arsène Lupin was wont to describe later, as the last scene of his triptych as rescuer, an episode of the same rough and brutal character as the [110]others. This episode also came to its crisis in a few hours and can only be presented after the manner of a scene devoid of psychology and apparently of any logic.

At Toulouse Ralph made discreet enquiries of the porter at the hotel to which the girl with the green eyes accompanied her companions. He learned that these travelers were part of the touring company of Leonide Balli, a singer in light opera, who that very evening was playing the part of Veronique at the Municipal Theater.

He kept watching the hotel. At three o’clock the girl came out of it, wearing an air of considerable agitation and kept looking behind her as if she was afraid lest some one should come out immediately after her and spy upon her. Was it her confederate, William, whom she distrusted? She hurried, still looking behind her to the post office where she scribbled a telegram, which she had to begin three times, with feverish haste.

After she had left the post office Ralph entered it and managed to possess himself of one of the crumpled up forms. He read:

Hotel Miramare, Luz, Hautes-Pyrenees. Shall arrive to-morrow first train. Tell them All.

“What the devil is she going to do among the mountains at this time of year?” he murmured to himself. [111]“ ‘Tell them all’—Does that mean that her people live at Luz?”

He resumed his cautious watch on her and saw her enter the stage door of the Municipal Theater, doubtless to take part in a rehearsal of the company.

For the rest of the day he watched the exits from the theater. But she did not stir out of it. As for her confederate William, he remained invisible.

In the evening Ralph slipped into the back of a box at the theater: and the moment the girl with the green eyes appeared on the stage he could hardly repress a cry of surprise: she was taking the part of Veronique.

“Leonide Balli. So that’s her name?” he said to himself. “She sings in light opera in the provinces?”

He could not get over it. The fact was so different from everything he had imagined about the girl with the green eyes.

Provincial or Parisienne, she showed herself an uncommonly clever comedienne and a most adorable singer, simple, with no straining for effect, moving, full of tenderness and gayety, of modesty and charm. She had all the gifts and all the graces, plenty of cleverness; and a lack of experience of the stage which was a further charm. He recalled his first impression on the Boulevard Haussmann and his fancy that the young girl, whose mask was at the same time so tragic and so childlike, had a double destiny. [112]

Ralph passed three delightful hours. He could not tire of admiring the strange creature whom he had only seen, since the charming initial vision, by flashes, in crises of fear and horror. This was another woman in whom everything seemed lightness and harmony. Yet it was indeed she who had murdered and played a part in infamies and crimes. It was indeed the confederate of William!

Of these two so different images which was he to consider the true one? He watched her in the hope to learn, and watched in vain, for a third woman overlay the other two and united them in an intense and moving life, the life of Veronique. Only a few gestures a little too nervous, a few phrases badly delivered, displayed to the eyes of the man who knew the truth, the woman under the heroine, and revealed a state of mind which insensibly weakened her rendering of the part.

“Something fresh must have happened,” Ralph thought. “Sometime between noon and three o’clock there has been some serious incident, which drove her suddenly to the post office, the consequences of which sometimes spoil her artistic efforts. She is thinking about it; it makes her anxious. And if I were to make a guess, I should say that this incident is connected with William, with William who has suddenly disappeared.”

When the girl appeared at the fall of the curtain [113]she received an ovation; and a curious crowd thronged the approach to the stage door. Before the door itself was standing a closed landau, drawn by a pair of horses. Since the only train by which it was possible to arrive at Pierrefitte-Nestales, the station nearest to Luz, in the morning, left Toulouse at 12:50, there was no doubt that the girl was going straight to the station, having already sent her luggage there. Ralph had already left his suit case in the cloak-room.

At a quarter past twelve she entered the carriage which drove slowly off. William had not appeared; and it looked as if she was taking this journey without his knowing anything about it.

Little more than twenty seconds later Ralph, who was going to the station on foot, was struck by a sudden idea, started to run, caught the landau halfway down the old boulevard and clung on to the back of it as best he could.

Presently what he had foreseen happened. At the turning of the road to the station, the driver turned suddenly to the right, lashed the horses savagely with his whip, and drove the carriage along dark and deserted side-streets which brought it out at the Jardin des Plantes. At the pace at which it was going it was impossible for the girl to get out of the carriage.

The horses had not far to gallop. They galloped into the deserted square and came to a sudden stop at the corner of it. The driver jumped down from his [114]seat, opened the door of the carriage and stepped into it.

Ralph heard the girl scream, but did not hurry himself. Certain that her assailant was no other than William he wished to learn what it was all about and get the meaning of events in the middle of their quarreling. But, almost on the instant, the attack seemed to him to assume such a dangerous complexion that he interfered at once.

“Speak, will you!” the girl’s confederate cried. “So you thought that you were going to decamp and leave me in the lurch? Well it’s true that I meant to let you down, but it’s just because you know it that I’m not going to leave you now. Come, speak—tell me—if you don’t——”

Ralph was frightened. He remembered the groans of Miss Bakersfield. A sharp turn of the wrist and the victim died. He opened the door, caught the confederate by the leg, flung him to the ground, and dragged him roughly to one side. The ruffian tried to put up a fight. With a sharp twist Ralph broke his arm.

“Six weeks’ rest,” he said. “And if you start annoying the lady again I’ll break your spine for you.”

He went back to the carriage. The girl was already nearly out of sight in the darkness.

“Run, little one,” he said. “I know where you’re going and you shan’t escape me, I’ve had enough of [115]playing the St. Bernard without even getting a lump of sugar for my pains. When Lupin sets out on a path, he goes to the end of it and never fails to reach his goal. You are his goal to-day, you and your green eyes and warm lips!”

He left William with his carriage and hurried to the station. The train came in. He got into a compartment without being seen by the girl. Two compartments, full of passengers, separated them. An hour afterwards he stole down the corridor to take a look at her. She was asleep with her head wrapped in a shawl.

At Lourdes the train left the main line; an hour later it arrived at Pierrefitte-Nestales, the terminal.

Ralph hung back; scarcely had the girl reached the platform than a band of young girls, all dressed alike in chestnut frocks and cloaks bordered with a broad blue ribbon, rushed at her, followed by a nun wearing an immense white cap.

“Aurelie! Aurelie! You’ve come at last!” they cried.

The girl with the green eyes passed from the arms of one to the arms of another. Last of all the nun hugged her affectionately and said joyfully: “How pleased I am to see you again, Aurelie dear! And you’re going to stay a good month with us, aren’t you?” [116]