The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar
“Bah! I must make the attempt,” I said to myself. “It may be a difficult
game, but an amusing one, and the stake is well worth the trouble.”
And when the commissary asked us to repeat the story of the robbery, I
exclaimed:
“Monsieur, really, Arsène Lupin is getting the start of us. My
automobile is waiting in the courtyard. If you will be so kind as to use
it, we can try....”
The commissary smiled, and replied:
“The idea is a good one; so good, indeed, that it is already being
carried out. Two of my men have set out on bicycles. They have been gone
for some time.”
“Where did they go?”
“To the entrance of the tunnel. There, they will gather evidence, secure
witnesses, and follow on the track of Arsène Lupin.”
I could not refrain from shrugging my shoulders, as I replied:
“Your men will not secure any evidence or any witnesses.”
“Really!”
“Arsène Lupin will not allow anyone to see him emerge from the tunnel.
He will take the first road---”
“To Rouen, where we will arrest him.”
“He will not go to Rouen.”
“Then he will remain in the vicinity, where his capture will be even
more certain.”
“He will not remain in the vicinity.”
“Oh! oh! And where will he hide?”
I looked at my watch, and said:
“At the present moment, Arsène Lupin is prowling around the station at
Darnétal. At ten fifty, that is, in twenty-two minutes from now, he will
take the train that goes from Rouen to Amiens.”
“Do you think so? How do you know it?”
“Oh! it is quite simple. While we were in the car, Arsène Lupin
consulted my railway guide. Why did he do it? Was there, not far from
the spot where he disappeared, another line of railway, a station
upon that line, and a train stopping at that station? On consulting my
railway guide, I found such to be the case.”
“Really, monsieur,” said the commissary, “that is a marvelous deduction.
I congratulate you on your skill.”
I was now convinced that I had made a mistake in displaying so much
cleverness. The commissary regarded me with astonishment, and I thought
a slight suspicion entered his official mind....Oh! scarcely that, for
the photographs distributed broadcast by the police department were too
imperfect; they presented an Arsène Lupin so different from the one he
had before him, that he could not possibly recognize me by it. But, all
the same, he was troubled, confused and ill-at-ease.
“Mon Dieu! nothing stimulates the comprehension so much as the loss of a
pocketbook and the desire to recover it. And it seems to me that if you
will give me two of your men, we may be able....”
“Oh! I beg of you, monsieur le commissaire,” cried Madame Renaud,
“listen to Mon. Berlat.”
The intervention of my excellent friend was decisive. Pronounced by her,
the wife of an influential official, the name of Berlat became really
my own, and gave me an identity that no mere suspicion could affect. The
commissary arose, and said:
“Believe me, Monsieur Berlat, I shall be delighted to see you succeed. I
am as much interested as you are in the arrest of Arsène Lupin.”
He accompanied me to the automobile, and introduced two of his men,
Honoré Massol and Gaston Delivet, who were assigned to assist me. My
chauffer cranked up the car and I took my place at the wheel. A few
seconds later, we left the station. I was saved.
Ah! I must confess that in rolling over the boulevards that surrounded
the old Norman city, in my swift thirty-five horse-power Moreau-Lepton,
I experienced a deep feeling of pride, and the motor responded,
sympathetically to my desires. At right and left, the trees flew past
us with startling rapidity, and I, free, out of danger, had simply to
arrange my little personal affairs with the two honest representatives
of the Rouen police who were sitting behind me. Arsène Lupin was going
in search of Arsène Lupin!
Modest guardians of social order--Gaston Delivet and Honoré Massol--how
valuable was your assistance! What would I have done without you?
Without you, many times, at the cross-roads, I might have taken the
wrong route! Without you, Arsène Lupin would have made a mistake, and
the other would have escaped!
But the end was not yet. Far from it. I had yet to capture the thief and
recover the stolen papers. Under no circumstances must my two acolytes
be permitted to see those papers, much less to seize them. That was a
point that might give me some difficulty.
We arrived at Darnétal three minutes after the departure of the train.
True, I had the consolation of learning that a man wearing a gray
overcoat with a black velvet collar had taken the train at the station.
He had bought a second-class ticket for Amiens. Certainly, my début as
detective was a promising one.
Delivet said to me:
“The train is express, and the next stop is Montérolier-Buchy in
nineteen minutes. If we do not reach there before Arsène Lupin, he can
proceed to Amiens, or change for the train going to Clères, and, from
that point, reach Dieppe or Paris.”
“How far to Montérolier?”
“Twenty-three kilometres.”
“Twenty-three kilometres in nineteen minutes....We will be there ahead
of him.”
We were off again! Never had my faithful Moreau-Repton responded to
my impatience with such ardor and regularity. It participated in my
anxiety. It indorsed my determination. It comprehended my animosity
against that rascally Arsène Lupin. The knave! The traitor!
“Turn to the right,” cried Delivet, “then to the left.”
We fairly flew, scarcely touching the ground. The mile-stones looked
like little timid beasts that vanished at our approach. Suddenly, at a
turn of the road, we saw a vortex of smoke. It was the Northern Express.
For a kilometre, it was a struggle, side by side, but an unequal
struggle in which the issue was certain. We won the race by twenty
lengths.
In three seconds we were on the platform standing before the
second-class carriages. The doors were opened, and some passengers
alighted, but not my thief. We made a search through the compartments.
No sign of Arsène Lupin.
“Sapristi!” I cried, “he must have recognized me in the automobile as we
were racing, side by side, and he leaped from the train.”
“Ah! there he is now! crossing the track.”
I started in pursuit of the man, followed by my two acolytes, or rather
followed by one of them, for the other, Massol, proved himself to be a
runner of exceptional speed and endurance. In a few moments, he had made
an appreciable gain upon the fugitive. The man noticed it, leaped over
a hedge, scampered across a meadow, and entered a thick grove. When we
reached this grove, Massol was waiting for us. He went no farther, for
fear of losing us.
“Quite right, my dear friend,” I said. “After such a run, our victim
must be out of wind. We will catch him now.”
I examined the surroundings with the idea of proceeding alone in the
arrest of the fugitive, in order to recover my papers, concerning which
the authorities would doubtless ask many disagreeable questions. Then I
returned to my companions, and said:
“It is all quite easy. You, Massol, take your place at the left; you,
Delivet, at the right. From there, you can observe the entire posterior
line of the bush, and he cannot escape without you seeing him, except by
that ravine, and I shall watch it. If he does not come out voluntarily,
I will enter and drive him out toward one or the other of you. You have
simply to wait. Ah! I forgot: in case I need you, a pistol shot.”
Massol and Delivet walked away to their respective posts. As soon as
they had disappeared, I entered the grove with the greatest precaution
so as to be neither seen nor heard. I encountered dense thickets,
through which narrow paths had been cut, but the overhanging boughs
compelled me to adopt a stooping posture. One of these paths led to a
clearing in which I found footsteps upon the wet grass. I followed them;
they led me to the foot of a mound which was surmounted by a deserted,
dilapidated hovel.
“He must be there,” I said to myself. “It is a well-chosen retreat.”
I crept cautiously to the side of the building. A slight noise informed
me that he was there; and, then, through an opening, I saw him. His back
was turned toward me. In two bounds, I was upon him. He tried to fire
a revolver that he held in his hand. But he had no time. I threw him to
the ground, in such a manner that his arms were beneath him, twisted and
helpless, whilst I held him down with my knee on his breast.
“Listen, my boy,” I whispered in his ear. “I am Arsène Lupin. You are
to deliver over to me, immediately and gracefully, my pocketbook and the
lady’s jewels, and, in return therefore, I will save you from the police
and enroll you amongst my friends. One word: yes or no?”
“Yes,” he murmured.
“Very good. Your escape, this morning, was well planned. I congratulate
you.”
I arose. He fumbled in his pocket, drew out a large knife and tried to
strike me with it.
“Imbecile!” I exclaimed.
With one hand, I parried the attack; with the other, I gave him a sharp
blow on the carotid artery. He fell--stunned!
In my pocketbook, I recovered my papers and bank-notes. Out of
curiosity, I took his. Upon an envelope, addressed to him, I read his
name: Pierre Onfrey. It startled me. Pierre Onfrey, the assassin of the
rue Lafontaine at Auteuil! Pierre Onfrey, he who had cut the throats of
Madame Delbois and her two daughters. I leaned over him. Yes, those were
the features which, in the compartment, had evoked in me the memory of a
face I could not then recall.
But time was passing. I placed in an envelope two bank-notes of one
hundred francs each, with a card bearing these words: “Arsène Lupin
to his worthy colleagues Honoré Massol and Gaston Delivet, as a slight
token of his gratitude.” I placed it in a prominent spot in the room,
where they would be sure to find it. Beside it, I placed Madame Renaud’s
handbag. Why could I not return it to the lady who had befriended me?
I must confess that I had taken from it everything that possessed any
interest or value, leaving there only a shell comb, a stick of rouge
Dorin for the lips, and an empty purse. But, you know, business
is business. And then, really, her husband is engaged in such a
dishonorable vocation!
The man was becoming conscious. What was I to do? I was unable to save
him or condemn him. So I took his revolver and fired a shot in the air.
“My two acolytes will come and attend to his case,” I said to myself, as
I hastened away by the road through the ravine. Twenty minutes later, I
was seated in my automobile.
At four o’clock, I telegraphed to my friends at Rouen that an unexpected
event would prevent me from making my promised visit. Between ourselves,
considering what my friends must now know, my visit is postponed
indefinitely. A cruel disillusion for them!
At six o’clock I was in Paris. The evening newspapers informed me that
Pierre Onfrey had been captured at last.
Next day,--let us not despise the advantages of judicious
advertising,--the _Echo de France_ published this sensational item:
“Yesterday, near Buchy, after numerous exciting incidents, Arsène Lupin
effected the arrest of Pierre Onfrey. The assassin of the rue Lafontaine
had robbed Madame Renaud, wife of the director in the penitentiary
service, in a railway carriage on the Paris-Havre line. Arsène Lupin
restored to Madame Renaud the hand-bag that contained her jewels, and
gave a generous recompense to the two detectives who had assisted him in
making that dramatic arrest.”
V. The Queen’s Necklace
Two or three times each year, on occasions of unusual importance,
such as the balls at the Austrian Embassy or the soirées of Lady
Billingstone, the Countess de Dreux-Soubise wore upon her white
shoulders “The Queen’s Necklace.”