The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar
a letter, through the mails, enclosing two bank-notes of one thousand
francs each. The envelope, which she enclosed with her reply, bore the
Paris post-mark, and was addressed in a handwriting that was obviously
disguised. Now, whence came those two thousand francs? Who had sent
them? And why had they sent them?
Henriette received a similar letter and a like sum of money twelve
months later. And a third time; and a fourth; and each year for a period
of six years, with this difference, that in the fifth and sixth years
the sum was doubled. There was another difference: the post-office
authorities having seized one of the letters under the pretext that it
was not registered, the last two letters were duly sent according to the
postal regulations, the first dated from Saint-Germain, the other from
Suresnes. The writer signed the first one, “Anquety”; and the other,
“Péchard.” The addresses that he gave were false.
At the end of six years, Henriette died, and the mystery remained
unsolved.
* * * * *
All these events are known to the public. The case was one of those
which excite public interest, and it was a strange coincidence that this
necklace, which had caused such a great commotion in France at the close
of the eighteenth century, should create a similar commotion a century
later. But what I am about to relate is known only to the parties
directly interested and a few others from whom the count exacted a
promise of secrecy. As it is probable that some day or other that
promise will be broken, I have no hesitation in rending the veil and
thus disclosing the key to the mystery, the explanation of the letter
published in the morning papers two days ago; an extraordinary letter
which increased, if possible, the mists and shadows that envelope this
inscrutable drama.
Five days ago, a number of guests were dining with the Count de
Dreux-Soubise. There were several ladies present, including his two
nieces and his cousin, and the following gentlemen: the president of
Essaville, the deputy Bochas, the chevalier Floriani, whom the count had
known in Sicily, and General Marquis de Rouzières, an old club friend.
After the repast, coffee was served by the ladies, who gave the
gentlemen permission to smoke their cigarettes, provided they would not
desert the salon. The conversation was general, and finally one of the
guests chanced to speak of celebrated crimes. And that gave the Marquis
de Rouzières, who delighted to tease the count, an opportunity to
mention the affair of the Queen’s Necklace, a subject that the count
detested.
Each one expressed his own opinion of the affair; and, of course, their
various theories were not only contradictory but impossible.
“And you, monsieur,” said the countess to the chevalier Floriani, “what
is your opinion?”
“Oh! I--I have no opinion, madame.”
All the guests protested; for the chevalier had just related in an
entertaining manner various adventures in which he had participated with
his father, a magistrate at Palermo, and which established his judgment
and taste in such manners.
“I confess,” said he, “I have sometimes succeeded in unraveling
mysteries that the cleverest detectives have renounced; yet I do not
claim to be Sherlock Holmes. Moreover, I know very little about the
affair of the Queen’s Necklace.”
Everybody now turned to the count, who was thus obliged, quite
unwillingly, to narrate all the circumstances connected with the theft.
The chevalier listened, reflected, asked a few questions, and said:
“It is very strange.... at first sight, the problem appears to be a very
simple one.”
The count shrugged his shoulders. The others drew closer to the
chevalier, who continued, in a dogmatic tone:
“As a general rule, in order to find the author of a crime or a theft,
it is necessary to determine how that crime or theft was committed, or,
at least, how it could have been committed. In the present case, nothing
is more simple, because we are face to face, not with several theories,
but with one positive fact, that is to say: the thief could only enter
by the chamber door or the window of the cabinet. Now, a person cannot
open a bolted door from the outside. Therefore, he must have entered
through the window.”
“But it was closed and fastened, and we found it fastened afterward,”
declared the count.
“In order to do that,” continued Floriani, without heeding the
interruption, “he had simply to construct a bridge, a plank or a ladder,
between the balcony of the kitchen and the ledge of the window, and as
the jewel-case---”
“But I repeat that the window was fastened,” exclaimed the count,
impatiently.
This time, Floriani was obliged to reply. He did so with the greatest
tranquility, as if the objection was the most insignificant affair in
the world.
“I will admit that it was; but is there not a transom in the upper part
of the window?”
“How do you know that?”
“In the first place, that was customary in houses of that date; and,
in the second place, without such a transom, the theft cannot be
explained.”
“Yes, there is one, but it was closed, the same as the window.
Consequently, we did not pay attention to it.”
“That was a mistake; for, if you had examined it, you would have found
that it had been opened.”
“But how?”
“I presume that, like all others, it opens by means of a wire with a
ring on the lower end.”
“Yes, but I do not see---”
“Now, through a hole in the window, a person could, by the aid of some
instrument, let us say a poker with a hook at the end, grip the ring,
pull down, and open the transom.”
The count laughed and said:
“Excellent! excellent! Your scheme is very cleverly constructed, but you
overlook one thing, monsieur, there is no hole in the window.”
“There was a hole.”
“Nonsense, we would have seen it.”
“In order to see it, you must look for it, and no one has looked. The
hole is there; it must be there, at the side of the window, in the
putty. In a vertical direction, of course.”
The count arose. He was greatly excited. He paced up and down the room,
two or three times, in a nervous manner; then, approaching Floriani,
said:
“Nobody has been in that room since; nothing has been changed.”
“Very well, monsieur, you can easily satisfy yourself that my
explanation is correct.”
“It does not agree with the facts established by the examining judge.
You have seen nothing, and yet you contradict all that we have seen and
all that we know.”
Floriani paid no attention to the count’s petulance. He simply smiled
and said:
“Mon Dieu, monsieur, I submit my theory; that is all. If I am mistaken,
you can easily prove it.”
“I will do so at once....I confess that your assurance---”
The count muttered a few more words; then suddenly rushed to the door
and passed out. Not a word was uttered in his absence; and this profound
silence gave the situation an air of almost tragic importance. Finally,
the count returned. He was pale and nervous. He said to his friends, in
a trembling voice:
“I beg your pardon.... the revelations of the chevalier were so
unexpected....I should never have thought....”
His wife questioned him, eagerly:
“Speak.... what is it?”
He stammered: “The hole is there, at the very spot, at the side of the
window---”
He seized the chevalier’s arm, and said to him in an imperious tone:
“Now, monsieur, proceed. I admit that you are right so far, but
now.... that is not all.... go on.... tell us the rest of it.”
Floriani disengaged his arm gently, and, after a moment, continued:
“Well, in my opinion, this is what happened. The thief, knowing that the
countess was going to wear the necklace that evening, had prepared his
gangway or bridge during your absence. He watched you through the window
and saw you hide the necklace. Afterward, he cut the glass and pulled
the ring.”
“Ah! but the distance was so great that it would be impossible for him
to reach the window-fastening through the transom.”
“Well, then, if he could not open the window by reaching through the
transom, he must have crawled through the transom.”
“Impossible; it is too small. No man could crawl through it.”
“Then it was not a man,” declared Floriani.
“What!”
“If the transom is too small to admit a man, it must have been a child.”
“A child!”
“Did you not say that your friend Henriette had a son?”
“Yes; a son named Raoul.”
“Then, in all probability, it was Raoul who committed the theft.”
“What proof have you of that?”
“What proof! Plenty of it....For instance---”
He stopped, and reflected for a moment, then continued:
“For instance, that gangway or bridge. It is improbable that the child
could have brought it in from outside the house and carried it away
again without being observed. He must have used something close at hand.
In the little room used by Henriette as a kitchen, were there not some
shelves against the wall on which she placed her pans and dishes?”
“Two shelves, to the best of my memory.”
“Are you sure that those shelves are really fastened to the wooden
brackets that support them? For, if they are not, we could be justified
in presuming that the child removed them, fastened them together, and
thus formed his bridge. Perhaps, also, since there was a stove, we might
find the bent poker that he used to open the transom.”
Without saying a word, the count left the room; and, this time, those
present did not feel the nervous anxiety they had experienced the
first time. They were confident that Floriani was right, and no one was
surprised when the count returned and declared:
“It was the child. Everything proves it.”
“You have seen the shelves and the poker?”
“Yes. The shelves have been unnailed, and the poker is there yet.”
But the countess exclaimed:
“You had better say it was his mother. Henriette is the guilty party.
She must have compelled her son---”
“No,” declared the chevalier, “the mother had nothing to do with it.”
“Nonsense! they occupied the same room. The child could not have done it
without the mother’s knowledge.”
“True, they lived in the same room, but all this happened in the
adjoining room, during the night, while the mother was asleep.”
“And the necklace?” said the count. “It would have been found amongst
the child’s things.”
“Pardon me! He had been out. That morning, on which you found him
reading, he had just come from school, and perhaps the commissary of
police, instead of wasting his time on the innocent mother, would
have been better employed in searching the child’s desk amongst his
school-books.”
“But how do you explain those two thousand francs that Henriette
received each year? Are they not evidence of her complicity?”
“If she had been an accomplice, would she have thanked you for that
money? And then, was she not closely watched? But the child, being free,
could easily go to a neighboring city, negotiate with some dealer and
sell him one diamond or two diamonds, as he might wish, upon condition
that the money should be sent from Paris, and that proceeding could be
repeated from year to year.”
An indescribable anxiety oppressed the Dreux-Soubise and their guests.
There was something in the tone and attitude of Floriani--something more
than the chevalier’s assurance which, from the beginning, had so annoyed
the count. There was a touch of irony, that seemed rather hostile than
sympathetic. But the count affected to laugh, as he said:
“All that is very ingenious and interesting, and I congratulate you upon
your vivid imagination.”
“No, not at all,” replied Floriani, with the utmost gravity, “I imagine
nothing. I simply describe the events as they must have occurred.”
“But what do you know about them?”
“What you yourself have told me. I picture to myself the life of the