CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LUPIN'S LUPINS
Next morning, a little before eight o'clock, Valenglay was talking in hisown flat to the Prefect of Police, and asked:
"So you think as I do, my dear Prefect? He'll come?"
"I haven't the least doubt of it, Monsieur le President. And he will comewith the same punctuality that has been shown throughout this business.He will come, for pride's sake, at the last stroke of eight."
"You think so?"
"Monsieur le President, I have been studying the man for months. Asthings now stand, with Florence Levasseur's life in the balance, if hehas not smashed the villain whom he is hunting down, if he does not bringhim back bound hand and foot, it will mean that Florence Levasseur isdead and that he, Arsene Lupin, is dead."
"Whereas Lupin is immortal," said Valenglay, laughing. "You're right.Besides, I agree with you entirely. No one would be more astonished thanI if our good friend was not here to the minute. You say you were rung upfrom Angers yesterday?"
"Yes, Monsieur le President. My men had just seen Don Luis Perenna. Hehad gone in front of them, in an aeroplane. After that, they telephonedto me again from Le Mans, where they had been searching a desertedcoach-house.
"You may be sure that the search had already been made by Lupin, and thatwe shall know the results. Listen: eight o'clock!"
At the same moment they heard the throbbing of a motor car. It stoppedoutside the house; and the bell rang almost immediately after. Orders hadbeen given beforehand. The door opened and Don Luis Perenna was shown in.
To Valenglay and the Prefect of Police his arrival was certainly notunexpected, for they had just been saying that they would have beensurprised if he had not come. Nevertheless, their attitude showed thatastonishment which we all experience in the face of events that seem topass the bounds of human possibility.
"Well?" cried the Prime Minister eagerly.
"It's done, Monsieur le President."
"Have you collared the scoundrel?"
"Yes."
"By Jove!" said Valenglay. "You're a fine fellow!" And he went on to ask,"An ogre, of course? An evil, undaunted brute?--"
"No, Monsieur le President, a cripple, a degenerate, responsible for hisactions, certainly, but a man in whom the doctors will find every form ofwasting illness: disease of the spinal cord, tuberculosis, and all therest of it."
"And is that the man whom Florence Levasseur loved?"
"Monsieur le President!" Don Luis violently protested. "Florence neverloved that wretch! She felt sorry for him, as any one would for afellow-creature doomed to an early death; and it was out of pity that sheallowed him to hope that she might marry him later, at some time in thevague future."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Yes, Monsieur le President, of that and of a good deal more besides, forI have the proofs in my hands." Without further preamble, he continued:"Monsieur le President, now that the man is caught, it will be easy forthe police to find out every detail of his life. But meanwhile I can sumup that monstrous life for you, looking only at the criminal side of it,and passing briefly over three murders which have nothing to do with thestory of the Mornington case.
"Jean Vernocq was born at Alencon and brought up at old M. Langernault'sexpense. He got to know the Dedessuslamare couple, robbed them of theirmoney and, before they had time to lodge a complaint against the unknownthief, took them to a barn in the village of Damigni, where, in theirdespair, stupefied and besotted with drugs, they hanged themselves.
"This barn stood in a property called the Old Castle, belonging to M.Langernault, Jean Vernocq's protector, who was ill at the time. After hisrecovery, as he was cleaning his gun, he received a full charge of shotin the abdomen. The gun had been loaded without the old fellow'sknowledge. By whom? By Jean Vernocq, who had also emptied his patron'scash box the night before ...
"In Paris, where he went to enjoy the little fortune which he had thusamassed, Jean Vernocq bought from some rogue of his acquaintance paperscontaining evidence of Florence Levasseur's birth and of her right to allthe inheritance of the Roussel family and Victor Sauverand, papers whichthe friend in question had purloined from the old nurse who broughtFlorence over from America. By hunting around, Jean Vernocq ended bydiscovering first a photograph of Florence and then Florence herself.
"He made himself useful to her and pretended to be devoted to her, givingup his whole life to her service. At that time he did not yet know whatprofit he could derive from the papers stolen from the girl or from hisrelations with her.
"Suddenly everything became different. An indiscreet word let fall by asolicitor's clerk told him of a will in Maitre Lepertuis's drawer whichwould be interesting to look at. He obtained a sight of it by bribing theclerk, who has since disappeared, with a thousand-franc note. The will,as it happened, was Cosmo Mornington's; and in it Cosmo Morningtonbequeathed his immense wealth to the heirs of the Roussel sisters and ofVictor Sauverand....
"Jean Vernocq saw his chance. A hundred million francs! To get hold ofthat sum, to obtain riches, luxury, power, and the means of buying healthand strength from the world's great healers, all that he had to do wasfirst to put away the different persons who stood between the inheritanceand Florence, and then, when all the obstacles were overcome, to makeFlorence his wife.
"Jean Vernocq went to work. He had found among the papers of HippolyteFauville's old friend Langernault particulars relating to the Rousselfamily and to the discord that reigned in the Fauville household. Fivepersons, all told, were in his way: first, of course, Cosmo Mornington;next, in the order of their claims, Hippolyte Fauville, his son Edmond,his wife Marie, and his cousin Gaston Sauverand.
"With Cosmo Mornington, the thing was easy enough. Introducing himself tothe American as a doctor, Jean Vernocq put poison into one of the phialswhich Mornington used for his hypodermic injections.
"But in the case of Hippolyte Fauville, whose good will he had securedthrough his acquaintance with old Langernault, and over whose mind hesoon obtained an extraordinary influence, he had a greater difficulty tocontend with. Knowing on the one hand that the engineer hated his wifeand on the other that he was stricken with a fatal disease, he tookoccasion, after the consultation with the specialist in London, tosuggest to Fauville's terrified brain the incredible plan of suicide ofwhich you were subsequently able to trace the Machiavellian execution.
"In this way and with a single effort, anonymously, so to speak, andwithout appearing in the business, without Fauville's even suspecting theaction brought to bear upon him, Jean Vernocq procured the deaths ofFauville and his son, and got rid of Marie and Sauverand by the devilishexpedient of causing the charge of murder, of which no one could accusehim, to fall upon them. The plan succeeded.
"There was only one hitch at the present time: the intervention ofInspector Verot. Inspector Verot died. And there was only one danger inthe future: the intervention of myself, Don Luis Perenna, whose conductVernocq was bound to foresee, as I was the residuary legatee by the termsof Cosmo Mornington's will. This danger Vernocq tried to avert first bygiving me the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon to live in andFlorence Levasseur as a secretary, and next by making four attempts tohave me assassinated by Gaston Sauverand.
"He therefore held all the threads of the tragedy in his hands. Able tocome and go as he pleased in my house, enforcing himself upon Florenceand later upon Gaston Sauverand by the strength of his will and thecunning of his character, he was within sight of the goal.
"When my efforts succeeded in proving the innocence of Marie Fauville andGaston Sauverand, he did not hesitate: Marie Fauville died; GastonSauverand died.
"So everything was going well for him. The police pursued me. The policepursued Florence. No one suspected him. And the date fixed for thepayment of the inheritance was at hand.
"This was two days ago. At that time, Jean Vernocq was in the midst ofthe fray. He was ill and had obtained admission to the nursing-home inthe Avenue des Ternes. From there he c
onducted his operations, thanks tohis influence over Florence Levasseur and to the letters addressed to themother superior from Versailles. Acting under the superior's orders andignorant of the meaning of the step which she was taking, Florence wentto the meeting at the Prefect's office, and herself brought the documentsrelating to her.
"Meanwhile, Jean Vernocq left the private hospital and took refuge nearthe Ile Saint-Louis, where he awaited the result of an enterprise which,at the worst, might tell against Florence, but which did not seem able tocompromise him in any case.
"You know the rest, Monsieur le President," said Don Luis, concluding hisstatement. "Florence, staggered by the sudden revelation of the partwhich she had unconsciously taken in the matter, and especially by theterrible part played by Jean Vernocq, ran away from the nursing-homewhere the Prefect had brought her at my request. She had but one thought:to see Jean Vernocq, demand an explanation of him, and hear what he hadto say in his defence. That same evening he carried her away by motor, onthe pretence of giving her proofs of his innocence. That is all, Monsieurle President."
Valenglay had listened with growing interest to this gruesome story ofthe most malevolent genius conceivable to the mind of man. And he heardit perhaps without too great disgust, because of the light which it threwby contrast upon the bright, easy, happy, and spontaneous genius of theman who had fought for the good cause.
"And you found them?" he asked.
"At three o'clock yesterday afternoon, Monsieur le President. It wastime. I might even say that it was too late, for Jean Vernocq began bysending me to the bottom of a well, and by crushing Florence under ablock of stone."
"Oh, so you're dead, are you?"
"Yes, Monsieur le President."
"But why did that villain want to do away with Florence Levasseur? Herdeath destroyed his indispensable scheme of matrimony."
"It takes two to get married, Monsieur le President, and Florencerefused."
"Well--"
"Some time ago Jean Vernocq wrote a letter leaving all that he possessedto Florence Levasseur. Florence, moved by pity for him, and not realizingthe importance of what she was doing, wrote a similar letter leaving herproperty to him. This letter constitutes a genuine and indisputable willin favor of Jean Vernocq.
"As Florence was Cosmo Mornington's legal and settled heiress by the merefact of her presence at yesterday's meeting with the documents provingher descent from the Roussel family, her death caused her rights to passto her own legal and settled heir.
"Jean Vernocq would have come into the money without the possibility ofany litigation. And, as you would have been obliged to discharge himafter his arrest, for lack of evidence against him, he would have led aquiet life, with fourteen murders on his conscience--I have added themup--but with a hundred million francs in his pocket. To a monster of hisstamp, the one made up for the other."
"But do you possess all the proofs?" asked Valenglay eagerly.
"Here they are," said Perenna, producing the pocket-book which he hadtaken out of the cripple's jacket. "Here are letters and documents whichthe villain preserved, owing to a mental aberration common to all greatcriminals. Here, by good luck, is his correspondence with HippolyteFauville. Here is the original of the prospectus from which I learnedthat the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon was for sale. Here is amemorandum of Jean Vernocq's journeys to Alencon to intercept Fauville'sletters to old Langernault.
"Here is another memorandum showing that Inspector Verot overheard aconversation between Fauville and his accomplice, that he shadowedVernocq and robbed him of Florence Levasseur's photograph, and thatVernocq sent Fauville in pursuit of him. Here is a third memorandum,which is just a copy of the two found in the eighth volume of Shakespeareand which proves that Jean Vernocq, to whom that set of Shakespearebelonged, knew all about Fauville's machination. Here are hiscorrespondence with Caceres, the Peruvian attache, and the lettersdenouncing myself and Sergeant Mazeroux, which he intended to send to thepress. Here--
"But need I say more, Monsieur le President? You have the completeevidence in your hands. The magistrates will find that all theaccusations which I made yesterday, before the Prefect of Police, werestrictly true."
"And he?" cried Valenglay. "The criminal? Where is he?"
"Outside, in a motor car, in his motor car, rather."
"Have you told my men?" asked M. Desmalions anxiously.
"Yes, Monsieur le Prefet. Besides, the fellow is carefully tied up. Don'tbe alarmed. He won't escape."
"Well, you've foreseen every contingency," said Valenglay, "and thebusiness seems to me to be finished. But there's one problem that remainsunexplained, the one perhaps that interested the public most. I mean themarks of the teeth in the apple, the teeth of the tiger, as they havebeen called, which were certainly Mme. Fauville's teeth, innocent thoughshe was. Monsieur le Prefet declares that you have solved this problem."
"Yes, Monsieur le President, and Jean Vernocq's papers prove that I wasright. Besides, the problem is quite simple. The apple was marked withMme. Fauville's teeth, but Mme. Fauville never bit the apple."
"Come, come!"
"Monsieur le President, Hippolyte Fauville very nearly said as much whenhe mentioned this mystery in his posthumous confession."
"Hippolyte Fauville was a madman."
"Yes, but a lucid madman and capable of reasoning with the most appallinglogic. Some years ago, at Palermo, Mme. Fauville had a very bad fall,hitting her mouth against the marble top of a table, with the result thata number of her teeth, in both the upper and the lower jaw, wereloosened. To repair the damage and to make the gold plate intended tostrengthen the teeth, a plate which Mme. Fauville wore for severalmonths, the dentist, as usual, took an impression of her mouth.
"M. Fauville happened to have kept the mould; and he used it to print themarks of his wife's teeth in the cake of chocolate shortly before hisdeath and in the apple on the night of his death. When this was done, heput the mould with the other things which the explosion was meant to, anddid, destroy."
Don Luis's explanation was followed by a silence. The thing was so simplethat the Prime Minister was quite astonished. The whole tragedy, thewhole charge, everything that had caused Marie's despair and death andthe death of Gaston Sauverand: all this rested on an infinitely smalldetail which had occurred to none of the millions and millions of peoplewho had interested themselves so enthusiastically in the mystery of theteeth of the tiger.
The teeth of the tiger! Everybody had clung stubbornly to an apparentlyinvincible argument. As the marks on the apple and the print of Mme.Fauville's teeth were identical, and as no two persons in the world wereable, in theory or practice, to produce the same print with their teeth,Mme. Fauville must needs be guilty.
Nay, more, the argument seemed so absolute that, from the day on whichMme. Fauville's innocence became known, the problem had remainedunsolved, while no one seemed capable of conceiving the one paltry idea:that it was possible to obtain the print of a tooth in another way thanby a live bite of that same tooth!
"It's like the egg of Columbus," said Valenglay, laughing. "It had to bethought of."
"You are right, Monsieur le President. People don't think of thosethings. Here is another instance: may I remind you that during the periodwhen Arsene Lupin was known at the same time as M. Lenormand and asPrince Paul Sernine, no one noticed that the name Paul Sernine was merelyan anagram of Arsene Lupin? Well, it's just the same to-day: Luis Perennaalso is an anagram of Arsene Lupin. The two names are composed of thesame eleven letters, neither more nor less. And yet, although it was thesecond time, nobody thought of making that little comparison. The egg ofColumbus again! It had to be thought of!"
Valenglay was a little surprised at the revelation. It seemed as if thatdevil of a man had sworn to puzzle him up to the last moment and tobewilder him by the most unexpected sensational news. And how well thislast detail depicted the fellow, a queer mixture of dignity andimpudence, of mischief and simplicity, of smiling chaff and disconcerti
ngcharm, a sort of hero who, while conquering kingdoms by most incredibleadventures, amused himself by mixing up the letters on his name so as tocatch the public napping!
The interview was nearly at an end. Valenglay said to Perenna:
"Monsieur, you have done wonders in this business and ended by keepingyour word and handing over the criminal. I also will keep my word. Youare free."
"I thank you, Monsieur le President. But what about Sergeant Mazeroux?"
"He will be released this morning. Monsieur le Prefet de Police hasarranged matters so that the public do not know of the arrest of eitherof you. You are Don Luis Perenna. There is no reason why you should notremain Don Luis Perenna."
"And Florence Levasseur, Monsieur le President?"
"Let her go before the examining magistrate of her own accord. He isbound to discharge her. Once free and acquitted of any charge or evensuspicion, she will certainly be recognized as Cosmo Mornington's legalheiress and will receive the hundred millions."
"She will not keep it, Monsieur le President."
"How do you mean?"
"Florence Levasseur doesn't want the money. It has been the cause ofunspeakably awful crimes. She hates the very thought of it."
"What then?"
"Cosmo Mornington's hundred millions will be wholly devoted tomaking roads and building schools in the south of Morocco and thenorthern Congo."
"In the Mauretanian Empire which you are giving us?" said Valenglay,laughing. "By Jove, it's a fine work and I second it with all my heart.An empire and an imperial budget to keep it up with! Upon my word, DonLuis has behaved well to his country, and has handsomely paid thedebts--of Arsene Lupin!"
* * * * *
A month later Don Luis Perenna and Mazeroux embarked in the yacht whichhad brought Don Luis to France. Florence was with them. Before sailingthey heard of the death of Jean Vernocq, who had managed to poisonhimself in spite of all the precautions taken to prevent him.
On his arrival in Africa, Don Luis Perenna, Sultan of Mauretania, foundhis old associates and accredited Mazeroux to them and to his granddignitaries. He organized the government to follow on his abdication andprecede the annexation of the new empire by France, and he had severalsecret interviews on the Moorish border with General Leauty, commandingthe French troops, interviews in the course of which they thought out allthe measures to be executed in succession so as to lend to the conquestof Morocco an appearance of facility which would otherwise be difficultto explain.
The future was now assured. Soon the thin screen of rebellious tribesstanding between the French and the pacified districts would fall topieces, revealing an orderly empire, provided with a regularconstitution, with good roads, schools, and courts of law, a flourishingempire in full working order.
Then, when his task was done, Don Luis abdicated.
* * * * *
He has now been back for over two years. Every one remembers the stircaused by his marriage with Florence Levasseur. The controversy wasrenewed; and many of the newspapers clamoured for Arsene Lupin's arrest.But what could the authorities do?
Although nobody doubted who he really was, although the name of ArseneLupin and the name of Don Luis Perenna consisted of the same letters, andpeople ended by remarking the coincidence, legally speaking, Arsene Lupinwas dead and Don Luis Perenna was alive; and there was no possibility ofbringing Arsene Lupin back to life or of killing Don Luis Perenna.
He is to-day living in the village of Saint-Maclou, among those charmingvalleys which run down to the Oise. Who does not know his modest littlepink-washed house, with its green shutters and its garden filled withbright flowers? People make up parties to go there from Paris on Sundays,in the hope of catching a sight, through the elder hedges, of the man whowas Arsene Lupin, or of meeting him in the village square.
He is there, with his hair just touched with gray, his still youthfulfeatures, and a young man's bearing; and Florence is there, too, with herpretty figure and the halo of fair hair around her happy face, uncloudedby even the shadow of an unpleasant recollection.
Very often visitors come and knock at the little wooden gate. They areunfortunate people imploring the master's aid, victims of oppression,weaklings who have gone under in the struggle, reckless persons who havebeen ruined by their passions.
For all these Don Luis is full of pity. He gives them his fullattention, the help of his far-seeing advice, his experience, hisstrength, and even his time, disappearing for days and weeks to fightthe good fight once more.
And sometimes also it is an emissary from the Prefect's office or somesubordinate of the police who comes to submit a complex case to hisjudgment. Here again Don Luis applies the whole of his wonderful mind tothe business.
In addition to this, in addition to his old books on ethics andphilosophy, to which he has returned with such pleasure, he cultivateshis garden. He dotes on his flowers. He is proud of them. He takes prizesat the shows; and the success is still remembered of the treblecarnation, streaked red and yellow, which he exhibited as the "Arsenecarnation."
But he works hardest at certain large flowers that blossom in summer.During July and the first half of August they fill two thirds of his lawnand all the borders of his kitchen-garden. Beautiful, decorative plants,standing erect like flag-staffs, they proudly raise their spiky heads ofall colours: blue, violet, mauve, pink, white.
They are lupins and include every variety: Cruikshank's lupin, thetwo-coloured lupin, the scented lupin, and the last to appear, Lupin'slupin. They are all there, resplendent, in serried ranks like an army ofsoldiers, each striving to outstrip the others and to hold up thethickest and gaudiest spike to the sun. They are all there; and, at theentrance to the walk that leads to their motley beds, is a streamer withthis device, taken from an exquisite sonnet of Jose Maria de Heredia:
"And in my kitchen-garden lupins grow."
You will say that this is a confession. But why not?
In the evening, when a few privileged neighbours meet at hishouse--the justice of the peace, the notary, Major Comte d'Astrignac,who has also gone to live at Saint-Maclou--Don Luis is not afraid tospeak of Arsene Lupin.
"I used to see a great deal of him," he says. "He was not a bad man. Iwill not go so far as to compare him with the Seven Sages, or even tohold him up as an example to future generations, but still we must judgehim with a certain indulgence.
"He did a vast amount of good and a moderate amount of harm. Those whosuffered through him deserved what they got; and fate would have punishedthem sooner or later if he had not forestalled her. Between a Lupin whoselected his victims among the ruck of wicked rich men and some bigcompany promoter who deliberately ruins numbers of poor people, would youhesitate for a moment? Does not Lupin come out best?
"And, on the other hand, what a host of good actions! What countlessproofs of disinterested generosity! A burglar? I admit it. A swindler? Idon't deny it. He was all that. But he was something more than that. And,while he amused the gallery with his skill and ingenuity, he roused thegeneral enthusiasm in other ways.
"People laughed at his practical jokes, but they loved his pluck, hiscourage, his adventurous spirit, his contempt for danger, his shrewdinsight, his unfailing good humour, his reckless energy: all qualitiesthat stood out at a period when the most active virtues of our race hadreached their zenith, the period of the motor car and the aeroplane....
"One day," he said, as a joke, "I should like my epitaph to read, 'Herelies Arsene Lupin, adventurer.'" That was quite correct. He was a masterof adventure.
"And, if the spirit of adventure led him too often to put his hand inother people's pockets, it also led him to battlefields where it givesthose who are worthy opportunity to fight and win titles of distinctionwhich are not within reach of all. It was there that he gained his. It isthere that you should see him at work, spending his strength bravingdeath, and defying destiny. And it is because of this that you mustforgive him, even if he did som
etimes get the better of a commissary ofpolice or steal the watch of an examining magistrate. Let us show someindulgence to our professors of energy."
And, nodding his head, Don Luis concludes:
"Then, you see, he had another virtue which is not to be despised. It isa virtue for which we should be grateful to him in these gray days ofours: he knew how to smile!"
THE END
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