The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar
to some extent by Ganimard’s indifference. He examined the bolts,
watched the servants, and, during the next forty-eight hours, he became
almost persuaded that his fears were groundless. Certainly, as Ganimard
had said, thieves do not warn people they are about to rob.
The fateful day was close at hand. It was now the twenty-sixth of
September and nothing had happened. But at three o’clock the bell rang.
A boy brought this telegram:
“No goods at Batignolles station. Prepare everything for tomorrow night.
Arsène.”
This telegram threw the baron into such a state of excitement that he
even considered the advisability of yielding to Lupin’s demands.
However, he hastened to Caudebec. Ganimard was fishing at the same
place, seated on a campstool. Without a word, he handed him the
telegram.
“Well, what of it?” said the detective.
“What of it? But it is tomorrow.”
“What is tomorrow?”
“The robbery! The pillage of my collections!”
Ganimard laid down his fishing-rod, turned to the baron, and exclaimed,
in a tone of impatience:
“Ah! Do you think I am going to bother myself about such a silly story
as that!”
“How much do you ask to pass tomorrow night in the castle?”
“Not a sou. Now, leave me alone.”
“Name your own price. I am rich and can pay it.”
This offer disconcerted Ganimard, who replied, calmly:
“I am here on a vacation. I have no right to undertake such work.”
“No one will know. I promise to keep it secret.”
“Oh! nothing will happen.”
“Come! three thousand francs. Will that be enough?”
The detective, after a moment’s reflection, said:
“Very well. But I must warn you that you are throwing your money out of
the window.”
“I do not care.”
“In that case... but, after all, what do we know about this devil Lupin!
He may have quite a numerous band of robbers with him. Are you sure of
your servants?”
“My faith---”
“Better not count on them. I will telegraph for two of my men to help
me. And now, go! It is better for us not to be seen together. Tomorrow
evening about nine o’clock.”
* * * * *
The following day--the date fixed by Arsène Lupin--Baron Cahorn arranged
all his panoply of war, furbished his weapons, and, like a sentinel,
paced to and fro in front of the castle. He saw nothing, heard nothing.
At half-past eight o’clock in the evening, he dismissed his servants.
They occupied rooms in a wing of the building, in a retired spot, well
removed from the main portion of the castle. Shortly thereafter, the
baron heard the sound of approaching footsteps. It was Ganimard and his
two assistants--great, powerful fellows with immense hands, and necks
like bulls. After asking a few questions relating to the location of the
various entrances and rooms, Ganimard carefully closed and barricaded
all the doors and windows through which one could gain access to the
threatened rooms. He inspected the walls, raised the tapestries, and
finally installed his assistants in the central gallery which was
located between the two salons.
“No nonsense! We are not here to sleep. At the slightest sound, open the
windows of the court and call me. Pay attention also to the water-side.
Ten metres of perpendicular rock is no obstacle to those devils.”
Ganimard locked his assistants in the gallery, carried away the keys,
and said to the baron:
“And now, to our post.”
He had chosen for himself a small room located in the thick outer wall,
between the two principal doors, and which, in former years, had been
the watchman’s quarters. A peep-hole opened upon the bridge; another on
the court. In one corner, there was an opening to a tunnel.
“I believe you told me, Monsieur le Baron, that this tunnel is the only
subterranean entrance to the castle and that it has been closed up for
time immemorial?”
“Yes.”
“Then, unless there is some other entrance, known only to Arsène Lupin,
we are quite safe.”
He placed three chairs together, stretched himself upon them, lighted
his pipe and sighed:
“Really, Monsieur le Baron, I feel ashamed to accept your money for such
a sinecure as this. I will tell the story to my friend Lupin. He will
enjoy it immensely.”
The baron did not laugh. He was anxiously listening, but heard nothing
save the beating of his own heart. From time to time, he leaned over the
tunnel and cast a fearful eye into its depths. He heard the clock strike
eleven, twelve, one.
Suddenly, he seized Ganimard’s arm. The latter leaped up, awakened from
his sleep.
“Do you hear?” asked the baron, in a whisper.
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“I was snoring, I suppose.”
“No, no, listen.”
“Ah! yes, it is the horn of an automobile.”
“Well?”
“Well! it is very improbable that Lupin would use an automobile like a
battering-ram to demolish your castle. Come, Monsieur le Baron, return
to your post. I am going to sleep. Good-night.”
That was the only alarm. Ganimard resumed his interrupted slumbers, and
the baron heard nothing except the regular snoring of his companion. At
break of day, they left the room. The castle was enveloped in a profound
calm; it was a peaceful dawn on the bosom of a tranquil river. They
mounted the stairs, Cahorn radiant with joy, Ganimard calm as usual.
They heard no sound; they saw nothing to arouse suspicion.
“What did I tell you, Monsieur le Baron? Really, I should not have
accepted your offer. I am ashamed.”
He unlocked the door and entered the gallery. Upon two chairs, with
drooping heads and pendent arms, the detective’s two assistants were
asleep.
“Tonnerre de nom d’un chien!” exclaimed Ganimard. At the same moment,
the baron cried out:
“The pictures! The credence!”
He stammered, choked, with arms outstretched toward the empty places,
toward the denuded walls where naught remained but the useless nails
and cords. The Watteau, disappeared! The Rubens, carried away! The
tapestries taken down! The cabinets, despoiled of their jewels!
“And my Louis XVI candelabra! And the Regent chandelier!...And my
twelfth-century Virgin!”
He ran from one spot to another in wildest despair. He recalled the
purchase price of each article, added up the figures, counted his
losses, pell-mell, in confused words and unfinished phrases. He stamped
with rage; he groaned with grief. He acted like a ruined man whose only
hope is suicide.
If anything could have consoled him, it would have been the stupefaction
displayed by Ganimard. The famous detective did not move. He appeared
to be petrified; he examined the room in a listless manner. The
windows?.... closed. The locks on the doors?.... intact. Not a break in
the ceiling; not a hole in the floor. Everything was in perfect order.
The theft had been carried out methodically, according to a logical and
inexorable plan.
“Arsène Lupin....Arsène Lupin,” he muttered.
Suddenly, as if moved by anger, he rushed upon his two assistants and
shook them violently. They did not awaken.
“The devil!” he cried. “Can it be possible?”
He leaned over them and, in turn, examined them closely. They were
asleep; but their response was unnatural.
“They have been drugged,” he said to the baron.
“By whom?”
“By him, of course, or his men under his discretion. That work bears his
stamp.”
“In that case, I am lost--nothing can be done.”
“Nothing,” assented Ganimard.
“It is dreadful; it is monstrous.”
“Lodge a complaint.”
“What good will that do?”
“Oh; it is well to try it. The law has some resources.”
“The law! Bah! it is useless. You represent the law, and, at this
moment, when you should be looking for a clue and trying to discover
something, you do not even stir.”
“Discover something with Arsène Lupin! Why, my dear monsieur, Arsène
Lupin never leaves any clue behind him. He leaves nothing to chance.
Sometimes I think he put himself in my way and simply allowed me to
arrest him in America.”
“Then, I must renounce my pictures! He has taken the gems of my
collection. I would give a fortune to recover them. If there is no other
way, let him name his own price.”
Ganimard regarded the baron attentively, as he said:
“Now, that is sensible. Will you stick to it?”
“Yes, yes. But why?”
“An idea that I have.”
“What is it?”
“We will discuss it later--if the official examination does not succeed.
But, not one word about me, if you wish my assistance.”
He added, between his teeth:
“It is true I have nothing to boast of in this affair.”
The assistants were gradually regaining consciousness with the
bewildered air of people who come out of an hypnotic sleep. They opened
their eyes and looked about them in astonishment. Ganimard questioned
them; they remembered nothing.
“But you must have seen some one?”
“No.”
“Can’t you remember?”
“No, no.”
“Did you drink anything?”
They considered a moment, and then one of them replied:
“Yes, I drank a little water.”
“Out of that carafe?”
“Yes.”
“So did I,” declared the other.
Ganimard smelled and tasted it. It had no particular taste and no odor.
“Come,” he said, “we are wasting our time here. One can’t decide an
Arsène Lupin problem in five minutes. But, morbleau! I swear I will
catch him again.”
The same day, a charge of burglary was duly performed by Baron Cahorn
against Arsène Lupin, a prisoner in the Prison de la Santé.
* * * * *
The baron afterwards regretted making the charge against Lupin when he
saw his castle delivered over to the gendarmes, the procureur, the judge
d’instruction, the newspaper reporters and photographers, and a throng
of idle curiosity-seekers.
The affair soon became a topic of general discussion, and the name of
Arsène Lupin excited the public imagination to such an extent that the
newspapers filled their columns with the most fantastic stories of his
exploits which found ready credence amongst their readers.
But the letter of Arsène Lupin that was published in the _Echo de
France_ (no once ever knew how the newspaper obtained it), that letter
in which Baron Cahorn was impudently warned of the coming theft, caused
considerable excitement. The most fabulous theories were advanced. Some
recalled the existence of the famous subterranean tunnels, and that was
the line of research pursued by the officers of the law, who searched
the house from top to bottom, questioned every stone, studied the
wainscoting and the chimneys, the window-frames and the girders in the
ceilings. By the light of torches, they examined the immense cellars
where the lords of Malaquis were wont to store their munitions and
provisions. They sounded the rocky foundation to its very centre. But it
was all in vain. They discovered no trace of a subterranean tunnel. No
secret passage existed.
But the eager public declared that the pictures and furniture could not
vanish like so many ghosts. They are substantial, material things and
require doors and windows for their exits and their entrances, and so
do the people that remove them. Who were those people? How did they gain
access to the castle? And how did they leave it?
The police officers of Rouen, convinced of their own impotence,
solicited the assistance of the Parisian detective force. Mon. Dudouis,
chief of the Sûreté, sent the best sleuths of the iron brigade. He
himself spent forty-eight hours at the castle, but met with no success.
Then he sent for Ganimard, whose past services had proved so useful when
all else failed.
Ganimard listened, in silence, to the instructions of his superior;
then, shaking his head, he said:
“In my opinion, it is useless to ransack the castle. The solution of the
problem lies elsewhere.”
“Where, then?”
“With Arsène Lupin.”
“With Arsène Lupin! To support that theory, we must admit his
intervention.”
“I do admit it. In fact, I consider it quite certain.”