CHAPTER TWELVE
"HELP!"
When Lupin afterward told me this episode of the tragic story, he said,not without a certain self-complacency:
"What astonished me then, and what astonishes me still, as one of themost amazing victories on which I am entitled to pride myself, is that Iwas able to admit Sauverand and Marie Fauville's innocence on the spot,as a problem solved once and for all. It was a first-class performance, Iswear, and surpassed the most famous deductions of the most famousinvestigators both in psychological value and in detective merit.
"After all, taking everything into account, there was not the shadow of afresh fact to enable me to alter the verdict. The charges accumulatedagainst the two prisoners were the same, and were so grave that noexamining magistrate would have hesitated for a second to commit them fortrial, nor any jury to bring them in guilty. I will not speak of MarieFauville: you had only to think of the marks of her teeth to beabsolutely certain. But Gaston Sauverand, the son of Victor Sauverand andconsequently the heir of Cosmo Mornington--Gaston Sauverand, the man withthe ebony walking-stick and the murderer of Chief Inspector Ancenis--washe not just as guilty as Marie Fauville, incriminated with her by themysterious letters, incriminated by the very revelation of the husbandwhom they had killed?
"And yet why did that sudden change take place in me?" he asked. "Why didI go against the evidence? Why did I credit an incredible fact? Why did Iadmit the inadmissible? Why? Well, no doubt, because truth has an accentthat rings in the ears in a manner all its own. On the one side, everyproof, every fact, every reality, every certainty; on the other, a story,a story told by one of the three criminals, and therefore, presumptively,absurd and untrue from start to finish. But a story told in a frankvoice, a clear, dispassionate, closely woven story, free fromcomplications or improbabilities, a story which supplied no positivesolution, but which, by its very honesty, obliged any impartial mind toreconsider the solution arrived at. I believed the story."
The explanation which Lupin gave me was not complete. I asked:
"And Florence Levasseur?"
"Florence?"
"Yes, you don't tell me what you thought. What was your opinion abouther? Everything tended to incriminate her not only in your eyes, because,logically speaking, she had taken part in all the attempts to murder you,but also in the eyes of the police. They knew that she used to paySauverand clandestine visits at his house on the BoulevardRichard-Wallace. They had found her photograph in Inspector Verot'smemorandum-book, and then--and then all the rest: your accusations, yourcertainties. Was all that modified by Sauverand's story? To your mind,was Florence innocent or guilty?"
He hesitated, seemed on the point of replying directly and frankly to myquestion, but could not bring himself to do so, and said:
"I wished to have confidence. In order to act, I must have full andentire confidence, whatever doubts might still assail me, whateverdarkness might still enshroud this or that part of the adventure. Itherefore believed. And, believing, I acted according to my belief."
Acting, to Don Luis Perenna, during those hours of forced inactivity,consisted solely in perpetually repeating to himself Gaston Sauverand'saccount of the events. He tried to reconstitute it in all its details, toremember the very least sentences, the apparently most insignificantphrases. And he examined those sentences, scrutinized those phrases oneby one, in order to extract such particle of the truth as they contained.
For the truth was there. Sauverand had said so and Perenna did not doubtit. The whole sinister affair, all that constituted the case of theMornington inheritance and the tragedy of the Boulevard Suchet, all thatcould throw light upon the plot hatched against Marie Fauville, all thatcould explain the undoing of Sauverand and Florence--all this lay inSauverand's story. Don Luis had only to understand, and the truth wouldappear like the moral which we draw from some obscure fable.
Don Luis did not once deviate from his method. If any objection suggesteditself to his mind, he at once replied:
"Very well. It may be that I am wrong and that Sauverand's story will notenlighten me on any point capable of guiding me. It may be that the truthlies outside it. But am I in a position to get at the truth in any otherway? All that I possess as an instrument of research, without attachingundue importance to certain gleams of light which the regular appearanceof the mysterious letters has shed upon the case, all that I possess isGaston Sauverand's story. Must I not make use of it?"
And, once again, as when one follows a path by another person's tracks,he began to live through the adventure which Sauverand had been through.He compared it with the picture of it which he had imagined until then.The two were in opposition; but could not the very clash of theiropposition be made to produce a spark of light?
"Here is what he said," he thought, "and there is what I believed. Whatdoes the difference mean? Here is the thing that was, and there is thething that appeared to be. Why did the criminal wish the thing that wasto appear under that particular aspect? To remove all suspicion from him?But, in that case, was it necessary that suspicion should fall preciselyon those on whom it did?"
The questions came crowding one upon the other. He sometimes answeredthem at random, mentioning names and uttering words in succession, asthough the name mentioned might be just that of the criminal, and thewords uttered those which contained the unseen reality.
Then at once he would take up the story again, as schoolboys do whenparsing and analyzing a passage, in which each expression iscarefully sifted, each period discussed, each sentence reduced to itsessential value.
* * * * *
Hours and hours passed. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, he gave astart. He took out his watch. By the light of his electric lamp he sawthat it was seventeen minutes to twelve.
"So at seventeen minutes to twelve at night," he said, "I fathomedthe mystery."
He tried to control his emotion, but it was too great; and his nerveswere so immensely staggered by the trial that he began to shed tears. Hehad caught sight of the appalling truth, all of a sudden, as when atnight one half sees a landscape under a lightning-flash.
There is nothing more unnerving than this sudden illumination when wehave been groping and struggling in the dark. Already exhausted by hisphysical efforts and by the want of food, from which he was beginning tosuffer, he felt the shock so intensely that, without caring to think amoment longer, he managed to go to sleep, or, rather, to sink into sleep,as one sinks into the healing waters of a bath.
When he woke, in the small hours, alert and well despite thediscomfort of his couch, he shuddered on thinking of the theory whichhe had accepted; and his first instinct was to doubt it. He had, so tospeak, no time.
All the proofs came rushing to his mind of their own accord and at oncetransformed the theory into one of those certainties which it would bemadness to deny. It was that and nothing else. As he had foreseen, thetruth lay recorded in Sauverand's story. And he had not been mistaken,either, in saying to Mazeroux that the manner in which the mysteriousletters appeared had put him on the track of the truth.
And the truth was terrible. He felt, at the thought of it, the same fearsthat had maddened Inspector Verot when, already tortured by the poison,he stammered:
"Oh, I don't like this, I don't like the look of this!... The whole thinghas been planned in such an infernal manner!"
Infernal was the word! And Don Luis remained stupefied at the revelationof a crime which looked as if no human brain could have conceived it.
For two hours more he devoted all his mental powers to examining thesituation from every point of view. He was not much disturbed about theresult, because, being now in possession of the terrible secret, he hadnothing more to do but make his escape and go that evening to the meetingon the Boulevard Suchet, where he would show them all how the murder wascommitted.
But when, wishing to try his chance of escaping, he went up through theunderground passage and climbed to the top of the upper ladder
--that isto say, to the level of the boudoir--he heard through the trapdoor thevoices of men in the room.
"By Jove!" he said to himself, "the thing is not so simple as I thought!In order to escape the minions of the law I must first leave my prison;and here is at least one of the exits blocked. Let's look at the other."
He went down to Florence's apartments and worked the mechanism,which consisted of a counterweight. The panel of the cupboard movedin the groove.
Driven by horror and hoping to find some provisions which enable him towithstand a siege without being reduced to famine, he was about to passthrough the alcove, behind the curtains, when he was stopped short by asound of footsteps. Some one had entered the room.
"Well, Mazeroux, have you spent the night here? Nothing new!"
Don Luis recognized the Prefect of Police by his voice; and the questionput by the Prefect told him, first, that Mazeroux had been released fromthe dark closet where he had bound him up, and, secondly, that thesergeant was in the next room. Fortunately, the sliding panel had workedwithout the least sound; and Don Luis was able to overhear theconversation between the two men.
"No, nothing new, Monsieur le Prefet," replied Mazeroux.
"That's funny. The confounded fellow must be somewhere. Or can he havegot away over the roof?"
"Impossible, Monsieur le Prefet," said a third voice, which Don Luisrecognized as that of Weber, the deputy chief detective. "Impossible. Wemade certain yesterday, that unless he has wings--"
"Then what do you think, Weber?"
"I think, Monsieur le Prefet, that he is concealed in the house. This isan old house and probably contains some safe hiding-place--"
"Of course, of course," said M. Desmalions, whom Don Luis, peepingthrough the curtains, saw walking to and fro in front of the alcove."You're right; and we shall catch him in his burrow. Only, is it reallynecessary?"
"Monsieur le Prefet!"
"Well, you know my opinion on the subject, which is also the PrimeMinister's opinion. Unearthing Lupin would be a blunder which we shouldend by regretting. After all, he's become an honest man, you know; he'suseful to us and he does no harm--"
"No harm, Monsieur le Prefet? Do you think so?" said Weber stiffly.
M. Desmalions burst out laughing.
"Oh, of course, yesterday's trick, the telephone trick! You must admit itwas funny. The Premier had to hold his sides when I told him of it."
"Upon my word, I see nothing to laugh at!"
"No, but, all the same, the rascal is never at a loss. Funny or not, thetrick was extraordinarily daring. To cut the telephone wire before youreyes and then blockade you behind that iron curtain! By the way,Mazeroux, you must get the telephone repaired this morning, so as to keepin touch with the office. Have you begun your search in these two rooms?"
"As you ordered, Monsieur le Prefet. The deputy chief and I have beenhunting round for the last hour."
"Yes," said M. Desmalions, "that Florence Levasseur strikes me as atroublesome creature. She is certainly an accomplice. But what were herrelations with Sauverand and what was her connection with Don LuisPerenna? That's what I should like to know. Have you discovered nothingin her papers?"
"No, Monsieur le Prefet," said Mazeroux. "Nothing but bills andtradesmen's letters."
"And you, Weber?"
"I've found something very interesting, Monsieur le Prefet."
Weber spoke in a triumphant tone, and, in answer to M. Desmalions'squestion, went on:
"This is a volume of Shakespeare, Monsieur le Prefet, Volume VIII. Youwill see that, contrary to the other volumes, the inside is empty and thebinding forms a secret receptacle for hiding documents."
"Yes. What sort of documents?"
"Here they are: sheets of paper, blank sheets, all but three. One ofthem gives a list of the dates on which the mysterious letters wereto appear."
"Oho!" said M. Desmalions. "That's a crushing piece of evidenceagainst Florence Levasseur. And also it tells us where Don Luis gothis list from."
Perenna listened with surprise: he had utterly forgotten this particular;and Gaston Sauverand had made no reference to it in his narrative. Andyet it was a strange and serious detail. From whom had Florence receivedthat list of dates?
"And what's on the other two sheets?" asked M. Desmalions.
Don Luis pricked up his ears. Those two other sheets had escaped hisattention on the day of his interview with Florence in this room.
"Here is one of them," said Weber.
M. Desmalions took the paper and read:
"Bear in mind that the explosion is independent of the letters, and thatit will take place at three o'clock in the morning."
"Yes," he said, "the famous explosion which Don Luis foretold and whichis to accompany the fifth letter, as announced on the list of dates.Tush! We have plenty of time, as there have been only three letters andthe fourth is due to-night. Besides, blowing up that house on theBoulevard Suchet would be no easy job, by Jove! Is that all?"
"Monsieur le Prefet," said Weber, producing the third sheet, "would youmind looking at these lines drawn in pencil and enclosed in a largesquare containing some other smaller squares and rectangles of all sizes?Wouldn't you say that it was the plan of a house?"
"Yes, I should."
"It is the plan of the house in which we are," declared Weber solemnly."Here you see the front courtyard, the main building, the porter's lodge,and, over there, Mlle. Levasseur's lodge. From this lodge, a dotted line,in red pencil, starts zigzagging toward the main building. Thecommencement of this line is marked by a little red cross which standsfor the room in which we are, or, to be more correct, the alcove. Youwill see here something like the design of a chimney, or, rather, acupboard--a cupboard recessed behind the bed and probably hidden by thecurtains."
"But, in that case, Weber," said M. Desmalions, "this dotted line mustrepresent a passage leading from this lodge to the main building. Look,there is also a little red cross at the other end of the line."
"Yes, Monsieur le Prefet, there is another cross. We shall discoverlater for certain what position it marks. But, meanwhile, and acting ona mere guess, I have posted some men in a small room on the second floorwhere the last secret meeting between Don Luis, Florence Levasseur, andGaston Sauverand was held yesterday. And, meanwhile, at any rate, wehold one end of the line and, through that very fact, we know Don LuisPerenna's retreat."
There was a pause, after which the deputy chief resumed in a more andmore solemn voice:
"Monsieur le Prefet, yesterday I suffered a cruel outrage at the hands ofthat man. It was witnessed by our subordinates. The servants must beaware of it. The public will know of it before long. This man has broughtabout the escape of Florence Levasseur. He tried to bring about theescape of Gaston Sauverand. He is a ruffian of the most dangerous type.Monsieur le Prefet, I am sure that you will not refuse me leave to dighim out of his hole. Otherwise--otherwise, Monsieur le Prefet, I shallfeel obliged to hand in my resignation."
"With good reasons to back it up!" said the Prefect, laughing. "There'sno doubt about it; you can't stomach the trick of the iron curtain. Well,go ahead! It's Don Luis's own lookout; he's brought it on himself.Mazeroux, ring me up at the office as soon as the telephone is put right.And both of you meet me at the Fauvilles' house this evening. Don'tforget it's the night for the fourth letter."
"There won't be any fourth letter, Monsieur le Prefet," said Weber.
"Why not?"
"Because between this and then Don Luis will be under lock and key."
"Oh, so you accuse Don Luis also of--"
Don Luis did not wait to hear more. He softly retreated to the cupboard,took hold of the panel and pushed it back without a sound.
So his hiding-place was known!
"By Jingo," he growled, "this is a bit awkward! I'm in a nice plight!"
He had run halfway along the underground passage, with the intention ofreaching the other exit. But he stopped.
"It's not worth while, as the exit's
watched. Well, let's see; am I tolet myself be collared? Wait a bit, let's see--"
Already there came from the alcove below a noise of blows striking on thepanel, the hollow sound of which had probably attracted the deputychief's attention. And, as Weber was not compelled to take the sameprecautions as Don Luis, and seemed to be breaking down the panel withoutdelaying to look for the mechanism, the danger was close at hand.
"Oh, hang it all!" muttered Don Luis. "This is too silly. What shall Ido? Have a dash at them? Ah, if I had all my strength!"
But he was exhausted by want of food. His legs shook beneath him and hisbrain seemed to lack its usual clearness.
The increasing violence of the blows in the alcove drove him, in spite ofall, toward the upper exit; and, as he climbed the ladder, he moved hiselectric lantern over the stones of the wall and the wood of thetrapdoor. He even tried to lift the door with his shoulder. But he againheard a sound of footsteps above his head. The men were still there.
Then, consumed with fury and helpless, he awaited the deputy's coming.
A crash came from below; its echo spread through the tunnel, followed bya tumult of voices.
"That's it," he said to himself. "The handcuffs, the lockup, the cell!Good Lord, what luck--and what nonsense! And Marie Fauville, who's sureto do away with herself. And Florence--Florence--"
Before extinguishing his lantern, he cast its light around him for thelast time.
At a couple of yards' distance from the ladder, about three quarters ofthe way up and set a little way back, there was a big stone missing fromthe inner wall, leaving a space just large enough to crouch in.
Although the recess did not form much of a hiding-place, it was justpossible that they might omit to inspect it. Besides, Don Luis had nochoice. At all events, after putting out the light, he leaned toward theedge of the hole, reached it, and managed to scramble in by bendinghimself in two.
Weber, Mazeroux, and their men were coming along. Don Luis proppedhimself against the back of his hiding-hole to avoid as far as possiblethe glare of the lanterns, of which he was beginning to see the gleams.And an amazing thing happened: the stone against which he was pushingtoppled over slowly, as though moving on a pivot, and he fell backwardinto a second cavity situated behind it.
He quickly drew his legs after him and the stone swung back as slowly asbefore, not, however, without sending down a quantity of small stones,crumbling from the wall and half covering his legs.
"Well, well!" he chuckled. "Can Providence be siding with virtue andrighteousness?"
He heard Mazeroux's voice saying:
"Nobody! And here's the end of the passage. Unless he ran away as wecame--look, through the trapdoor at the top of this ladder."
Weber replied:
"Considering the slope by which we've come, it's certain that thetrapdoor is on a level with the second floor. Well, the other littlecross ought to mark the boudoir on the second floor, next to Don Luis'sbedroom. That's what I supposed, and why I posted three of our men there.If he's tried to get out on that side, he's caught."
"We've only got to knock," said Mazeroux. "Our men will find the trapdoorand let us out. If not, we will break it down."
More blows echoed down the passage. Fifteen or twenty minutes after, thetrapdoor gave way, and other voices now mingled with Weber's andMazeroux's.
During this time, Don Luis examined his domain and perceived howextremely small it was. The most that he could do was to sit in it. Itwas a gallery, or, rather, a sort of gut, a yard and a half long andending in an orifice, narrower still, heaped up with bricks. The walls,besides, were formed of bricks, some of which were lacking; and thebuilding-stones which these should have kept in place crumbled at theleast touch. The ground was strewn with them.
"By Jove!" thought Lupin, "I must not wriggle about too much, or I shallrisk being buried alive! A pleasant prospect!"
Not only this, but the fear of making a noise kept him motionless. As amatter of fact, he was close to two rooms occupied by the detectives,first the boudoir and then the study, for the boudoir, as he knew, wasover that part of his study which included the telephone box.
The thought of this suggested another. On reflection, remembering that heused sometimes to wonder how Count Malonyi's ancestress had managed tokeep alive behind the curtain on the days when she had to hide there, herealized that there must have been a communication between the secretpassage and what was now the telephone box, a communication too narrow toadmit a person's body, but serving as a ventilating shaft.
As a precaution, in case the secret passage was discovered, a stoneconcealed the upper aperture of this shaft. Count Malonyi must haveclosed up the lower end when he restored the wainscoting of the study.
So there he was, imprisoned in the thickness of the walls, with no verydefinite intention beyond that of escaping from the clutches of thepolice. More hours passed.
Gradually, tortured with hunger and thirst, he fell into a heavy sleep,disturbed by painful nightmares which he would have given much to be ableto throw off. But he slept too deeply to recover consciousness untileight o'clock in the evening.
When he woke up, feeling very tired, he saw his position in anunexpectedly hideous light and, at the same time, so accurately that,yielding to a sudden change of opinion marked by no little fear, heresolved to leave his hiding-place and give himself up. Anything wasbetter than the torture which he was enduring and the dangers to whichlonger waiting exposed him.
But, on turning round to reach the entrance to his hole, he perceivedfirst that the stone did not swing over when merely pushed, and, next,after several attempts, that he could not manage to find the mechanismwhich no doubt worked the stone. He persisted. His exertions were all invain. The stone did not budge. Only, at each exertion, a few bits ofstone came crumbling from the upper part of the wall and still furthernarrowed the space in which he was able to move.
It cost him a considerable effort to master his excitement and tosay, jokingly:
"That's capital! I shall be reduced now to calling for help. I, ArseneLupin! Yes, to call in the help of those gentlemen of the police.Otherwise, the odds on my being buried alive will increase every minute.They're ten to one as it is!"
He clenched his fists.
"Hang it! I'll get out of this scrape by myself! Call for help? Not ifI know it!"
He summoned up all his energies to think, but his jaded brain gave himnone but confused and disconnected ideas. He was haunted by Florence'simage and by Marie Fauville's as well.
"It's to-night that I'm to save them," he said to himself. "And Icertainly will save them, as they are not guilty and as I know the realcriminal. But how shall I set about it to succeed?"
He thought of the Prefect of Police, of the meeting that was to takeplace at Fauville's house on the Boulevard Suchet. The meeting had begun.The police were watching the house. And this reminded him of the sheet ofpaper found by Weber in the eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays, and ofthe sentence written on it, which the Prefect had read out:
"Bear in mind that the explosion is independent of the letters, and thatit will take place at three o'clock in the morning."
"Yes," thought Don Luis, accepting M. Desmalions's reasoning, "yes, inten days' time. As there have been only three letters, the fourth willappear to-night; and the explosion will not take place until the fifthletter appears--that is in ten days from now."
He repeated:
"In ten days--with the fifth letter--in ten days--"
And suddenly he gave a start of fright. A horrible vision had flashedacross his mind, a vision only too real. The explosion was to occur thatvery night! And all at once, knowing that he knew the truth, all atonce, in a revival of his usual clear-sightedness, he accepted thetheory as certain.
No doubt only three letters had appeared out of the mysterious darkness,but four letters ought to have appeared, because one of them had appearednot on the date fixed, but ten days later; and this for a reason whichDon Luis knew. Besides, it was
not a question of all this. It was not aquestion of seeking the truth amid this confusion of dates and letters,amid this intricate tangle in which no one could lay claim to anycertainty,
No; one thing alone stood out above the situation: the sentence, "Bear inmind that the explosion is independent of the letters." And, as theexplosion was put down for the night of the twenty-fifth of May, it wouldoccur that very night, at three o'clock in the morning!
"Help! Help!" he cried.
This time he did not hesitate. So far, he had had the courage to remainhuddled in his prison and to wait for the miracle that might come to hisassistance; but he preferred to face every danger and undergo everypenalty rather than abandon the Prefect of Police, Weber, Mazeroux, andtheir companions to the death that threatened them.
"Help! Help!"
Fauville's house would be blown up in three or four hours. That he knewwith the greatest certainty. Just as punctually as the mysterious lettershad reached their destination in spite of all the obstacles in the way,so the explosion would occur at the hour named. The infernal artificer ofthe accursed work had wished it so. At three o'clock in the morning therewould be nothing left of the Fauvilles' house.
"Help! Help!"
He recovered enough strength to raise desperate shouts and to make hisvoice carry beyond the stones and beyond the wainscoting.
Then, when there seemed to be no answer to his call, he stoppedand listened for a long time. There was not a sound. The silencewas absolute.
Thereupon a terrible anguish covered him with a cold sweat. Supposing thedetectives had ceased to watch the upper floors and confined themselvesto spending the night in the rooms on the ground floor?
He madly took a brick and struck it repeatedly against the stone thatclosed the entrance, hoping that the noise would spread through thehouse. But an avalanche of small stones, loosened by the blows, at oncefell upon him, knocking him down again and fixing him where he lay.
"Help! Help!"
More silence--a great, ruthless silence.
"Help! Help!"
He felt that his shouts did not penetrate the walls that stifled him.Besides, his voice was growing fainter and fainter, producing a hoarsegroan that died away in his strained throat.
He ceased his cries and again listened, with all his anxious attention,to the great silence that surrounded as with layers of lead the stonecoffin in which he lay imprisoned. Still nothing, not a sound. No onewould come, no one could come to his assistance.
He continued to be haunted by Florence's name and image. And he thoughtalso of Marie Fauville, whom he had promised to save. But Marie would dieof starvation. And, like her, like Gaston Sauverand and so many others,he in his turn was the victim of this monstrous horror.
An incident occurred to increase his dismay. All of a sudden his electriclantern, which he had left alight to dispel the terrors of the darkness,went out. It was eleven o'clock at night.
He was overcome with a fit of giddiness. He could hardly breathe in theclose and vitiated air. His brain suffered, as it were, a physical andexceedingly painful ailment, from the repetition of images that seemed toencrust themselves there; and it was always Florence's beautiful featuresor Marie's livid face. And, in his distraught brain, while Marie laydying, he heard the explosion at the Fauvilles' house and saw the Prefectof Police and Mazeroux lying hideously mutilated, dead.
A numbness crept over him. He fell into a sort of swoon, in which hecontinued to stammer confused syllables:
"Florence--Marie--Marie--"