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Arsène Lupin

by Maurice Leblanc · English · Gutenberg #4014 · 412,728 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Arsène Lupin

Author: Maurice Leblanc

Translator: Edgar Jepson


        
Release date: May 1, 2003 [eBook #4014]
                Most recently updated: May 19, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ARSÈNE LUPIN ***




ARSÈNE LUPIN

By EDGAR JEPSON AND MAURICE LEBLANC

Frontispiece by H. Richard Boehm


Contents

 CHAPTER I THE MILLIONAIRE’S DAUGHTER
 CHAPTER II THE COMING OF THE CHAROLAIS
 CHAPTER III LUPIN’S WAY
 CHAPTER IV THE DUKE INTERVENES
 CHAPTER V A LETTER FROM LUPIN
 CHAPTER VI AGAIN THE CHAROLAIS
 CHAPTER VII THE THEFT OF THE MOTOR-CARS
 CHAPTER VIII THE DUKE ARRIVES
 CHAPTER IX M. FORMERY OPENS THE INQUIRY
 CHAPTER X GUERCHARD ASSISTS
 CHAPTER XI THE FAMILY ARRIVES
 CHAPTER XII THE THEFT OF THE PENDANT
 CHAPTER XIII LUPIN WIRES
 CHAPTER XIV GUERCHARD PICKS UP THE TRUE SCENT
 CHAPTER XV THE EXAMINATION OF SONIA
 CHAPTER XVI VICTOIRE’S SLIP
 CHAPTER XVII SONIA’S ESCAPE
 CHAPTER XVIII THE DUKE STAYS
 CHAPTER XIX THE DUKE GOES
 CHAPTER XX LUPIN COMES HOME
 CHAPTER XXI THE CUTTING OF THE TELEPHONE WIRES
 CHAPTER XXII THE BARGAIN
 CHAPTER XXIII THE END OF THE DUEL




ARSÈNE LUPIN




CHAPTER I
THE MILLIONAIRE’S DAUGHTER


The rays of the September sun flooded the great halls of the old
château of the Dukes of Charmerace, lighting up with their mellow glow
the spoils of so many ages and many lands, jumbled together with the
execrable taste which so often afflicts those whose only standard of
value is money. The golden light warmed the panelled walls and old
furniture to a dull lustre, and gave back to the fading gilt of the
First Empire chairs and couches something of its old brightness. It
illumined the long line of pictures on the walls, pictures of dead and
gone Charmeraces, the stern or debonair faces of the men, soldiers,
statesmen, dandies, the gentle or imperious faces of beautiful women.
It flashed back from armour of brightly polished steel, and drew dull
gleams from armour of bronze. The hues of rare porcelain, of the rich
inlays of Oriental or Renaissance cabinets, mingled with the hues of
the pictures, the tapestry, the Persian rugs about the polished floor
to fill the hall with a rich glow of colour.

But of all the beautiful and precious things which the sun-rays warmed
to a clearer beauty, the face of the girl who sat writing at a table in
front of the long windows, which opened on to the centuries-old turf of
the broad terrace, was the most beautiful and the most precious.

It was a delicate, almost frail, beauty. Her skin was clear with the
transparent lustre of old porcelain, and her pale cheeks were only
tinted with the pink of the faintest roses. Her straight nose was
delicately cut, her rounded chin admirably moulded. A lover of beauty
would have been at a loss whether more to admire her clear, germander
eyes, so melting and so adorable, or the sensitive mouth, with its
rather full lips, inviting all the kisses. But assuredly he would have
been grieved by the perpetual air of sadness which rested on the
beautiful face—the wistful melancholy of the Slav, deepened by
something of personal misfortune and suffering.

Her face was framed by a mass of soft fair hair, shot with strands of
gold where the sunlight fell on it; and little curls, rebellious to the
comb, strayed over her white forehead, tiny feathers of gold.

She was addressing envelopes, and a long list of names lay on her left
hand. When she had addressed an envelope, she slipped into it a
wedding-card. On each was printed:

“M. Gournay-Martin has the honour to inform
you of the marriage of his daughter
Germaine to the Duke of Charmerace.”


She wrote steadily on, adding envelope after envelope to the pile ready
for the post, which rose in front of her. But now and again, when the
flushed and laughing girls who were playing lawn-tennis on the terrace,
raised their voices higher than usual as they called the score, and
distracted her attention from her work, her gaze strayed through the
open window and lingered on them wistfully; and as her eyes came back
to her task she sighed with so faint a wistfulness that she hardly knew
she sighed. Then a voice from the terrace cried, “Sonia! Sonia!”

“Yes. Mlle. Germaine?” answered the writing girl.

“Tea! Order tea, will you?” cried the voice, a petulant voice, rather
harsh to the ear.

“Very well, Mlle. Germaine,” said Sonia; and having finished addressing
the envelope under her pen, she laid it on the pile ready to be posted,
and, crossing the room to the old, wide fireplace, she rang the bell.

She stood by the fireplace a moment, restoring to its place a rose
which had fallen from a vase on the mantelpiece; and her attitude, as
with arms upraised she arranged the flowers, displayed the delightful
line of a slender figure. As she let fall her arms to her side, a
footman entered the room.

“Will you please bring the tea, Alfred,” she said in a charming voice
of that pure, bell-like tone which has been Nature’s most precious gift
to but a few of the greatest actresses.

“For how many, miss?” said Alfred.

“For four—unless your master has come back.”

“Oh, no; he’s not back yet, miss. He went in the car to Rennes to
lunch; and it’s a good many miles away. He won’t be back for another
hour.”

“And the Duke—he’s not back from his ride yet, is he?”

“Not yet, miss,” said Alfred, turning to go.

“One moment,” said Sonia. “Have all of you got your things packed for
the journey to Paris? You will have to start soon, you know. Are all
the maids ready?”

“Well, all the men are ready, I know, miss. But about the maids, miss,
I can’t say. They’ve been bustling about all day; but it takes them
longer than it does us.”

“Tell them to hurry up; and be as quick as you can with the tea,
please,” said Sonia.

Alfred went out of the room; Sonia went back to the writing-table. She
did not take up her pen; she took up one of the wedding-cards; and her
lips moved slowly as she read it in a pondering depression.

The petulant, imperious voice broke in upon her musing.

“Whatever are you doing, Sonia? Aren’t you getting on with those
letters?” it cried angrily; and Germaine Gournay-Martin came through
the long window into the hall.

The heiress to the Gournay-Martin millions carried her tennis racquet
in her hand; and her rosy cheeks were flushed redder than ever by the
game. She was a pretty girl in a striking, high-coloured, rather
obvious way—the very foil to Sonia’s delicate beauty. Her lips were a
little too thin, her eyes too shallow; and together they gave her a
rather hard air, in strongest contrast to the gentle, sympathetic face
of Sonia.

The two friends with whom Germaine had been playing tennis followed her
into the hall: Jeanne Gautier, tall, sallow, dark, with a somewhat
malicious air; Marie Bullier, short, round, commonplace, and
sentimental.

They came to the table at which Sonia was at work; and pointing to the
pile of envelopes, Marie said, “Are these all wedding-cards?”

“Yes; and we’ve only got to the letter V,” said Germaine, frowning at
Sonia.

“Princesse de Vernan—Duchesse de Vauvieuse—Marquess—Marchioness? You’ve
invited the whole Faubourg Saint-Germain,” said Marie, shuffling the
pile of envelopes with an envious air.

“You’ll know very few people at your wedding,” said Jeanne, with a
spiteful little giggle.

“I beg your pardon, my dear,” said Germaine boastfully. “Madame de
Relzières, my fiance’s cousin, gave an At Home the other day in my
honour. At it she introduced half Paris to me—the Paris I’m destined to
know, the Paris you’ll see in my drawing-rooms.”

“But we shall no longer be fit friends for you when you’re the Duchess
of Charmerace,” said Jeanne.

“Why?” said Germaine; and then she added quickly, “Above everything,
Sonia, don’t forget Veauléglise, 33, University Street—33, University
Street.”

“Veauléglise—33, University Street,” said Sonia, taking a fresh
envelope, and beginning to address it.

“Wait—wait! don’t close the envelope. I’m wondering whether Veauléglise
ought to have a cross, a double cross, or a triple cross,” said
Germaine, with an air of extreme importance.

“What’s that?” cried Marie and Jeanne together.

“A single cross means an invitation to the church, a double cross an
invitation to the marriage and the wedding-breakfast, and the triple
cross means an invitation to the marriage, the breakfast, and the
signing of the marriage-contract. What do you think the Duchess of
Veauléglise ought to have?”

“Don’t ask me. I haven’t the honour of knowing that great lady,” cried
Jeanne.

“Nor I,” said Marie.

“Nor I,” said Germaine. “But I have here the visiting-list of the late
Duchess of Charmerace, Jacques’ mother. The two duchesses were on
excellent terms. Besides the Duchess of Veauléglise is rather worn-out,
but greatly admired for her piety. She goes to early service three
times a week.”

“Then put three crosses,” said Jeanne.

“I shouldn’t,” said Marie quickly. “In your place, my dear, I shouldn’t
risk a slip. I should ask my fiance’s advice. He knows this world.”

“Oh, goodness—my fiance! He doesn’t care a rap about this kind of
thing. He has changed so in the last seven years. Seven years ago he
took nothing seriously. Why, he set off on an expedition to the South
Pole—just to show off. Oh, in those days he was truly a duke.”

“And to-day?” said Jeanne.

“Oh, to-day he’s a regular slow-coach. Society gets on his nerves. He’s
as sober as a judge,” said Germaine.

“He’s as gay as a lark,” said Sonia, in sudden protest.

Germaine pouted at her, and said: “Oh, he’s gay enough when he’s making
fun of people. But apart from that he’s as sober as a judge.”

“Your father must be delighted with the change,” said Jeanne.

“Naturally he’s delighted. Why, he’s lunching at Rennes to-day with the
Minister, with the sole object of getting Jacques decorated.”

“Well; the Legion of Honour is a fine thing to have,” said Marie.

“My dear! The Legion of Honour is all very well for middle-class
people, but it’s quite out of place for a duke!” cried Germaine.

Alfred came in, bearing the tea-tray, and set it on a little table near
that at which Sonia was sitting.

Germaine, who was feeling too important to sit still, was walking up
and down the room. Suddenly she stopped short, and pointing to a silver
statuette which stood on the piano, she said, “What’s this? Why is this
statuette here?”

“Why, when we came in, it was on the cabinet, in its usual place,” said
Sonia in some astonishment.

“Did you come into the hall while we were out in the garden, Alfred?”
said Germaine to the footman.

“No, miss,” said Alfred.

“But some one must have come into it,” Germaine persisted.

“I’ve not heard any one. I was in my pantry,” said Alfred.

“It’s very odd,” said Germaine.

“It is odd,” said Sonia. “Statuettes don’t move about of themselves.”

All of them stared at the statuette as if they expected it to move
again forthwith, under their very eyes. Then Alfred put it back in its
usual place on one of the cabinets, and went out of the room.

Sonia poured out the tea; and over it they babbled about the coming
marriage, the frocks they would wear at it, and the presents Germaine
had already received. That reminded her to ask Sonia if any one had yet
telephoned from her father’s house in Paris; and Sonia said that no one
had.

“That’s very annoying,” said Germaine. “It shows that nobody has sent
me a present to-day.”

Pouting, she shrugged her shoulders with an air of a spoiled child,
which sat but poorly on a well-developed young woman of twenty-three.

“It’s Sunday. The shops don’t deliver things on Sunday,” said Sonia
gently.

But Germaine still pouted like a spoiled child.

“Isn’t your beautiful Duke coming to have tea with us?” said Jeanne a
little anxiously.

“Oh, yes; I’m expecting him at half-past four. He had to go for a ride
with the two Du Buits. They’re coming to tea here, too,” said Germaine.

“Gone for a ride with the two Du Buits? But when?” cried Marie quickly.

“This afternoon.”

“He can’t be,” said Marie. “My brother went to the Du Buits’ house
after lunch, to see Andre and Georges. They went for a drive this
morning, and won’t be back till late to-night.”

“Well, but—but why did the Duke tell me so?” said Germaine, knitting
her brow with a puzzled air.

“If I were you, I should inquire into this thoroughly. Dukes—well, we
know what dukes are—it will be just as well to keep an eye on him,”
said Jeanne maliciously.

Germaine flushed quickly; and her eyes flashed. “Thank you. I have
every confidence in Jacques. I am absolutely sure of him,” she said
angrily.

“Oh, well—if you’re sure, it’s all right,” said Jeanne.

The ringing of the telephone-bell made a fortunate diversion.

Germaine rushed to it, clapped the receiver to her ear, and cried:
“Hello, is that you, Pierre? ... Oh, it’s Victoire, is it? ... Ah, some
presents have come, have they? ... Well, well, what are they? ... What!
a paper-knife—another paper-knife! ... Another Louis XVI. inkstand—oh,
bother! ... Who are they from? ... Oh, from the Countess Rudolph and
the Baron de Valery.” Her voice rose high, thrilling with pride.

Then she turned her face to her friends, with the receiver still at her
ear, and cried: “Oh, girls, a pearl necklace too! A large one! The
pearls are big ones!”

“How jolly!” said Marie.

“Who sent it?” said Germaine, turning to the telephone again. “Oh, a
friend of papa’s,” she added in a tone of disappointment. “Never mind,
after all it’s a pearl necklace. You’ll be sure and lock the doors
carefully, Victoire, won’t you? And lock up the necklace in the secret
cupboard.... Yes; thanks very much, Victoire. I shall see you
to-morrow.”

She hung up the receiver, and came away from the telephone frowning.

“It’s preposterous!” she said pettishly. “Papa’s friends and relations
give me marvellous presents, and all the swells send me paper-knives.
It’s all Jacques’ fault. He’s above all this kind of thing. The
Faubourg Saint-Germain hardly knows that we’re engaged.”

“He doesn’t go about advertising it,” said Jeanne, smiling.

“You’re joking, but all the same what you say is true,” said Germaine.
“That’s exactly what his cousin Madame de Relzières said to me the
other day at the At Home she gave in my honour—wasn’t it, Sonia?” And
she walked to the window, and, turning her back on them, stared out of
it.

“She HAS got her mouth full of that At Home,” said Jeanne to Marie in a
low voice.

There was an awkward silence. Marie broke it:

“Speaking of Madame de Relzières, do you know that she is on pins and
needles with anxiety? Her son is fighting a duel to-day,” she said.

“With whom?” said Sonia.

“No one knows. She got hold of a letter from the seconds,” said Marie.

“My mind is quite at rest about Relzières,” said Germaine. “He’s a
first-class swordsman. No one could beat him.”

Sonia did not seem to share her freedom from anxiety. Her forehead was
puckered in little lines of perplexity, as if she were puzzling out
some problem; and there was a look of something very like fear in her
gentle eyes.

“Wasn’t Relzières a great friend of your fiance at one time?” said
Jeanne.

“A great friend? I should think he was,” said Germaine. “Why, it was
through Relzières that we got to know Jacques.”

“Where was that?” said Marie.

“Here—in this very château,” said Germaine.

“Actually in his own house?” said Marie, in some surprise.

“Yes; actually here. Isn’t life funny?” said Germaine. “If, a few
months after his father’s death, Jacques had not found himself hard-up,
and obliged to dispose of this château, to raise the money for his
expedition to the South Pole; and if papa and I had not wanted an
historic château; and lastly, if papa had not suffered from rheumatism,
I should not be calling myself in a month from now the Duchess of
Charmerace.”

“Now what on earth has your father’s rheumatism got to do with your
being Duchess of Charmerace?” cried Jeanne.

“Everything,” said Germaine. “Papa was afraid that this château was
damp. To prove to papa that he had nothing to fear, Jacques, en grand
seigneur, offered him his hospitality, here, at Charmerace, for three
weeks.”

“That was truly ducal,” said Marie.

“But he is always like that,” said Sonia.

“Oh, he’s all right in that way, little as he cares about society,”
said Germaine. “Well, by a miracle my father got cured of his
rheumatism here. Jacques fell in love with me; papa made up his mind to
buy the château; and I demanded the hand of Jacques in marriage.”

“You did? But you were only sixteen then,” said Marie, with some
surprise.

“Yes; but even at sixteen a girl ought to know that a duke is a duke. I
did,” said Germaine. “Then since Jacques was setting out for the South
Pole, and papa considered me much too young to get married, I promised
Jacques to wait for his return.”

“Why, it was everything that’s romantic!” cried Marie.

“Romantic? Oh, yes,” said Germaine; and she pouted. “But between
ourselves, if I’d known that he was going to stay all that time at the
South Pole—”

“That’s true,” broke in Marie. “To go away for three years and stay
away seven—at the end of the world.”

“All Germaine’s beautiful youth,” said Jeanne, with her malicious
smile.

“Thanks!” said Germaine tartly.

“Well, you ARE twenty-three. It’s the flower of one’s age,” said
Jeanne.

“Not quite twenty-three,” said Germaine hastily. “And look at the
wretched luck I’ve had. The Duke falls ill and is treated at
Montevideo. As soon as he recovers, since he’s the most obstinate
person in the world, he resolves to go on with the expedition. He sets
out; and for an age, without a word of warning, there’s no more news of
him—no news of any kind. For six months, you know, we believed him
dead.”

“Dead? Oh, how unhappy you must have been!” said Sonia.

“Oh, don’t speak of it! For six months I daren’t put on a light frock,”
said Germaine, turning to her.

“A lot she must have cared for him,” whispered Jeanne to Marie.

“Fortunately, one fine day, the letters began again. Three months ago a
telegram informed us that he was coming back; and at last the Duke
returned,” said Germaine, with a theatrical air.

“The Duke returned,” cried Jeanne, mimicking her.

“Never mind. Fancy waiting nearly seven years for one’s fiance. That
was constancy,” said Sonia.

“Oh, you’re a sentimentalist, Mlle. Kritchnoff,” said Jeanne, in a tone
of mockery. “It was the influence of the castle.”

“What do you mean?” said Germaine.

“Oh, to own the castle of Charmerace and call oneself Mlle.
Gournay-Martin—it’s not worth doing. One MUST become a duchess,” said
Jeanne.

“Yes, yes; and for all this wonderful constancy, seven years of it,
Germaine was on the point of becoming engaged to another man,” said
Marie, smiling.

“And he a mere baron,” said Jeanne, laughing.

“What? Is that true?” said Sonia.

“Didn’t you know, Mlle. Kritchnoff? She nearly became engaged to the
Duke’s cousin, the Baron de Relzières. It was not nearly so grand.”

“Oh, it’s all very well to laugh at me; but being the cousin and heir
of the Duke, Relzières would have assumed the title, and I should have
been Duchess just the same,” said Germaine triumphantly.

“Evidently that was all that mattered,” said Jeanne. “Well, dear, I
must be off. We’ve promised to run in to see the Comtesse de Grosjean.
You know the Comtesse de Grosjean?”

She spoke with an air of careless pride, and rose to go.

“Only by name. Papa used to know her husband on the Stock Exchange when
he was still called simply M. Grosjean. For his part, papa preferred to
keep his name intact,” said Germaine, with quiet pride.

“Intact? That’s one way of looking at it. Well, then, I’ll see you in
Paris. You still intend to start to-morrow?” said Jeanne.

“Yes; to-morrow morning,” said Germaine.

Jeanne and Marie slipped on their dust-coats to the accompaniment of
chattering and kissing, and went out of the room.

As she closed the door on them, Germaine turned to Sonia, and said: “I
do hate those two girls! They’re such horrible snobs.”

“Oh, they’re good-natured enough,” said Sonia.

“Good-natured? Why, you idiot, they’re just bursting with envy of
me—bursting!” said Germaine. “Well, they’ve every reason to be,” she
added confidently, surveying herself in a Venetian mirror with a petted
child’s self-content.




CHAPTER II
THE COMING OF THE CHAROLAIS


Sonia went back to her table, and once more began putting wedding-cards
in their envelopes and addressing them. Germaine moved restlessly about
the room, fidgeting with the bric-a-brac on the cabinets, shifting the
pieces about, interrupting Sonia to ask whether she preferred this
arrangement or that, throwing herself into a chair to read a magazine,
getting up in a couple of minutes to straighten a picture on the wall,
throwing out all the while idle questions not worth answering.
Ninety-nine human beings would have been irritated to exasperation by
her fidgeting; Sonia endured it with a perfect patience. Five times
Germaine asked her whether she should wear her heliotrope or her pink
gown at a forthcoming dinner at Madame de Relzières’. Five times Sonia
said, without the slightest variation in her tone, “I think you look
better in the pink.” And all the while the pile of addressed envelopes
rose steadily.

Presently the door opened, and Alfred stood on the threshold.

“Two gentlemen have called to see you, miss,” he said.

“Ah, the two Du Buits,” cried Germaine.

“They didn’t give their names, miss.”

“A gentleman in the prime of life and a younger one?” said Germaine.

“Yes, miss.”

“I thought so. Show them in.”

“Yes, miss. And have you any orders for me to give Victoire when we get
to Paris?” said Alfred.

“No. Are you starting soon?”

“Yes, miss. We’re all going by the seven o’clock train. It’s a long way
from here to Paris; we shall only reach it at nine in the morning. That
will give us just time to get the house ready for you by the time you
get there to-morrow evening,” said Alfred.

“Is everything packed?”

“Yes, miss—everything. The cart has already taken the heavy luggage to
the station. All you’ll have to do is to see after your bags.”

“That’s all right. Show M. du Buit and his brother in,” said Germaine.

She moved to a chair near the window, and disposed herself in an
attitude of studied, and obviously studied, grace.

As she leant her head at a charming angle back against the tall back of
the chair, her eyes fell on the window, and they opened wide.

“Why, whatever’s this?” she cried, pointing to it.

“Whatever’s what?” said Sonia, without raising her eyes from the
envelope she was addressing.

“Why, the window. Look! one of the panes has been taken out. It looks
as if it had been cut.”

“So it has—just at the level of the fastening,” said Sonia. And the two
girls stared at the gap.

“Haven’t you noticed it before?” said Germaine.

“No; the broken glass must have fallen outside,” said Sonia.

The noise of the opening of the door drew their attention from the
window. Two figures were advancing towards them—a short, round, tubby
man of fifty-five, red-faced, bald, with bright grey eyes, which seemed
to be continually dancing away from meeting the eyes of any other human
being. Behind him came a slim young man, dark and grave. For all the
difference in their colouring, it was clear that they were father and
son: their eyes were set so close together. The son seemed to have
inherited, along with her black eyes, his mother’s nose, thin and
aquiline; the nose of the father started thin from the brow, but ended
in a scarlet bulb eloquent of an exhaustive acquaintance with the
vintages of the world.

Germaine rose, looking at them with an air of some surprise and
uncertainty: these were not her friends, the Du Buits.

The elder man, advancing with a smiling bonhomie, bowed, and said in an
adenoid voice, ingratiating of tone: “I’m M. Charolais, young ladies—M.
Charolais—retired brewer—chevalier of the Legion of Honour—landowner at
Rennes. Let me introduce my son.” The young man bowed awkwardly. “We
came from Rennes this morning, and we lunched at Kerlor’s farm.”

“Shall I order tea for them?” whispered Sonia.

“Gracious, no!” said Germaine sharply under her breath; then, louder,
she said to M. Charolais, “And what is your object in calling?”

“We asked to see your father,” said M. Charolais, smiling with broad
amiability, while his eyes danced across her face, avoiding any meeting
with hers. “The footman told us that M. Gournay-Martin was out, but
that his daughter was at home. And we were unable, quite unable, to
deny ourselves the pleasure of meeting you.” With that he sat down; and
his son followed his example.

Sonia and Germaine, taken aback, looked at one another in some
perplexity.

“What a fine château, papa!” said the young man.

“Yes, my boy; it’s a very fine château,” said M. Charolais, looking
round the hall with appreciative but greedy eyes.

There was a pause.

“It’s a very fine château, young ladies,” said M. Charolais.

“Yes; but excuse me, what is it you have called about?” said Germaine.

M. Charolais crossed his legs, leant back in his chair, thrust his
thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, and said: “Well, we’ve come
about the advertisement we saw in the RENNES ADVERTISER, that M.
Gournay-Martin wanted to get rid of a motor-car; and my son is always
saying to me, ‘I should like a motor-car which rushes the hills, papa.’
He means a sixty horse-power.”

“We’ve got a sixty horse-power; but it’s not for sale. My father is
even using it himself to-day,” said Germaine.

“Perhaps it’s the car we saw in the stable-yard,” said M. Charolais.

“No; that’s a thirty to forty horse-power. It belongs to me. But if
your son really loves rushing hills, as you say, we have a hundred
horse-power car which my father wants to get rid of. Wait; where’s the
photograph of it, Sonia? It ought to be here somewhere.”

The two girls rose, went to a table set against the wall beyond the
window, and began turning over the papers with which it was loaded in
the search for the photograph. They had barely turned their backs, when
the hand of young Charolais shot out as swiftly as the tongue of a
lizard catching a fly, closed round the silver statuette on the top of
the cabinet beside him, and flashed it into his jacket pocket.

Charolais was watching the two girls; one would have said that he had
eyes for nothing else, yet, without moving a muscle of his face, set in
its perpetual beaming smile, he hissed in an angry whisper, “Drop it,
you idiot! Put it back!”

The young man scowled askance at him.

“Curse you! Put it back!” hissed Charolais.

The young man’s arm shot out with the same quickness, and the statuette
stood in its place.

There was just the faintest sigh of relief from Charolais, as Germaine
turned and came to him with the photograph in her hand. She gave it to
him.

“Ah, here we are,” he said, putting on a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez.
“A hundred horse-power car. Well, well, this is something to talk over.
What’s the least you’ll take for it?”

“_I_ have nothing to do with this kind of thing,” cried Germaine. “You
must see my father. He will be back from Rennes soon. Then you can
settle the matter with him.”

M. Charolais rose, and said: “Very good. We will go now, and come back
presently. I’m sorry to have intruded on you, young ladies—taking up
your time like this—”

“Not at all—not at all,” murmured Germaine politely.

“Good-bye—good-bye,” said M. Charolais; and he and his son went to the
door, and bowed themselves out.

“What creatures!” said Germaine, going to the window, as the door
closed behind the two visitors. “All the same, if they do buy the
hundred horse-power, papa will be awfully pleased. It is odd about that
pane. I wonder how it happened. It’s odd too that Jacques hasn’t come
back yet. He told me that he would be here between half-past four and
five.”

“And the Du Buits have not come either,” said Sonia. “But it’s hardly
five yet.”

“Yes; that’s so. The Du Buits have not come either. What on earth are
you wasting your time for?” she added sharply, raising her voice. “Just
finish addressing those letters while you’re waiting.”

“They’re nearly finished,” said Sonia.

“Nearly isn’t quite. Get on with them, can’t you!” snapped Germaine.

Sonia went back to the writing-table; just the slightest deepening of
the faint pink roses in her cheeks marked her sense of Germaine’s
rudeness. After three years as companion to Germaine Gournay-Martin,
she was well inured to millionaire manners; they had almost lost the
power to move her.

Germaine dropped into a chair for twenty seconds; then flung out of it.

“Ten minutes to five!” she cried. “Jacques is late. It’s the first time
I’ve ever known him late.”

She went to the window, and looked across the wide stretch of
meadow-land and woodland on which the château, set on the very crown of
the ridge, looked down. The road, running with the irritating
straightness of so many of the roads of France, was visible for a full
three miles. It was empty.

“Perhaps the Duke went to the château de Relzières to see his
cousin—though I fancy that at bottom the Duke does not care very much
for the Baron de Relzières. They always look as though they detested
one another,” said Sonia, without raising her eyes from the letter she
was addressing.

“You’ve noticed that, have you?” said Germaine. “Now, as far as Jacques
is concerned—he’s—he’s so indifferent. None the less, when we were at
the Relzières on Thursday, I caught him quarrelling with Paul de
Relzières.”

“Quarrelling?” said Sonia sharply, with a sudden uneasiness in air and
eyes and voice.

“Yes; quarrelling. And they said good-bye to one another in the oddest
way.”

“But surely they shook hands?” said Sonia.

“Not a bit of it. They bowed as if each of them had swallowed a poker.”

“Why—then—then—” said Sonia, starting up with a frightened air; and her
voice stuck in her throat.

“Then what?” said Germaine, a little startled by her panic-stricken
face.

“The duel! Monsieur de Relzières’ duel!” cried Sonia.

“What? You don’t think it was with Jacques?”

“I don’t know—but this quarrel—the Duke’s manner this morning—the Du
Buits’ drive—” said Sonia.

“Of course—of course! It’s quite possible—in fact it’s certain!” cried
Germaine.

“It’s horrible!” gasped Sonia. “Consider—just consider! Suppose
something happened to him. Suppose the Duke—”

“It’s me the Duke’s fighting about!” cried Germaine proudly, with a
little skipping jump of triumphant joy.

Sonia stared through her without seeing her. Her face was a dead
white—fear had chilled the lustre from her skin; her breath panted
through her parted lips; and her dilated eyes seemed to look on some
dreadful picture.

Germaine pirouetted about the hall at the very height of triumph. To
have a Duke fighting a duel about her was far beyond the wildest dreams
of snobbishness. She chuckled again and again, and once she clapped her
hands and laughed aloud.

“He’s fighting a swordsman of the first class—an invincible
swordsman—you said so yourself,” Sonia muttered in a tone of anguish.
“And there’s nothing to be done—nothing.”

She pressed her hands to her eyes as if to shut out a hideous vision.

Germaine did not hear her; she was staring at herself in a mirror, and
bridling to her own image.

Sonia tottered to the window and stared down at the road along which
must come the tidings of weal or irremediable woe. She kept passing her
hand over her eyes as if to clear their vision.

Suddenly she started, and bent forward, rigid, all her being
concentrated in the effort to see.

Then she cried: “Mademoiselle Germaine! Look! Look!”

“What is it?” said Germaine, coming to her side.

“A horseman! Look! There!” said Sonia, waving a hand towards the road.

“Yes; and isn’t he galloping!” said Germaine.

“It’s he! It’s the Duke!” cried Sonia.

“Do you think so?” said Germaine doubtfully.

“I’m sure of it—sure!”

“Well, he gets here just in time for tea,” said Germaine in a tone of
extreme satisfaction. “He knows that I hate to be kept waiting. He said
to me, ‘I shall be back by five at the latest.’ And here he is.”

“It’s impossible,” said Sonia. “He has to go all the way round the
park. There’s no direct road; the brook is between us.”

“All the same, he’s coming in a straight line,” said Germaine.

It was true. The horseman had left the road and was galloping across
the meadows straight for the brook. In twenty seconds he reached its
treacherous bank, and as he set his horse at it, Sonia covered her
eyes.

“He’s over!” said Germaine. “My father gave three hundred guineas for
that horse.”




CHAPTER III
LUPIN’S WAY


Sonia, in a sudden revulsion of feeling, in a reaction from her fears,
slipped back and sat down at the tea-table, panting quickly, struggling
to keep back the tears of relief. She did not see the Duke gallop up
the slope, dismount, and hand over his horse to the groom who came
running to him. There was still a mist in her eyes to blur his figure
as he came through the window.

“If it’s for me, plenty of tea, very little cream, and three lumps of
sugar,” he cried in a gay, ringing voice, and pulled out his watch.
“Five to the minute—that’s all right.” And he bent down, took
Germaine’s hand, and kissed it with an air of gallant devotion.

If he had indeed just fought a duel, there were no signs of it in his
bearing. His air, his voice, were entirely careless. He was a man whose
whole thought at the moment was fixed on his tea and his punctuality.

He drew a chair near the tea-table for Germaine; sat down himself; and
Sonia handed him a cup of tea with so shaky a hand that the spoon
clinked in the saucer.

“You’ve been fighting a duel?” said Germaine.

“What! You’ve heard already?” said the Duke in some surprise.

“I’ve heard,” said Germaine. “Why did you fight it?”

“You’re not wounded, your Grace?” said Sonia anxiously.

“Not a scratch,” said the Duke, smiling at her.

“Will you be so good as to get on with those wedding-cards, Sonia,”
said Germaine sharply; and Sonia went back to the writing-table.

Turning to the Duke, Germaine said, “Did you fight on my account?”

“Would you be pleased to know that I had fought on your account?” said
the Duke; and there was a faint mocking light in his eyes, far too
faint for the self-satisfied Germaine to perceive.

“Yes. But it isn’t true. You’ve been fighting about some woman,” said
Germaine petulantly.

“If I had been fighting about a woman, it could only be you,” said the
Duke.

“Yes, that is so. Of course. It could hardly be about Sonia, or my
maid,” said Germaine. “But what was the reason of the duel?”

“Oh, the reason of it was entirely childish,” said the Duke. “I was in
a bad temper; and De Relzières said something that annoyed me.”

“Then it wasn’t about me; and if it wasn’t about me, it wasn’t really
worth while fighting,” said Germaine in a tone of acute disappointment.

The mocking light deepened a little in the Duke’s eyes.

“Yes. But if I had been killed, everybody would have said, ‘The Duke of
Charmerace has been killed in a duel about Mademoiselle
Gournay-Martin.’ That would have sounded very fine indeed,” said the
Duke; and a touch of mockery had crept into his voice.

“Now, don’t begin trying to annoy me again,” said Germaine pettishly.

“The last thing I should dream of, my dear girl,” said the Duke,
smiling.

“And De Relzières? Is he wounded?” said Germaine.

“Poor dear De Relzières: he won’t be out of bed for the next six
months,” said the Duke; and he laughed lightly and gaily.

“Good gracious!” cried Germaine.

“It will do poor dear De Relzières a world of good. He has a touch of
enteritis; and for enteritis there is nothing like rest,” said the
Duke.

Sonia was not getting on very quickly with the wedding-cards. Germaine
was sitting with her back to her; and over her shoulder Sonia could
watch the face of the Duke—an extraordinarily mobile face, changing
with every passing mood. Sometimes his eyes met hers; and hers fell
before them. But as soon as they turned away from her she was watching
him again, almost greedily, as if she could not see enough of his face
in which strength of will and purpose was mingled with a faint, ironic
scepticism, and tempered by a fine air of race.

He finished his tea; then he took a morocco case from his pocket, and
said to Germaine, “It must be quite three days since I gave you
anything.”

He opened the case, disclosed a pearl pendant, and handed it to her.

“Oh, how nice!” she cried, taking it.

She took it from the case, saying that it was a beauty. She showed it
to Sonia; then she put it on and stood before a mirror admiring the
effect. To tell the truth, the effect was not entirely desirable. The
pearls did not improve the look of her rather coarse brown skin; and
her skin added nothing to the beauty of the pearls. Sonia saw this, and
so did the Duke. He looked at Sonia’s white throat. She met his eyes
and blushed. She knew that the same thought was in both their minds;
the pearls would have looked infinitely better there.

Germaine finished admiring herself; she was incapable even of
suspecting that so expensive a pendant could not suit her perfectly.

The Duke said idly: “Goodness! Are all those invitations to the
wedding?”

“That’s only down to the letter V,” said Germaine proudly.

“And there are twenty-five letters in the alphabet! You must be
inviting the whole world. You’ll have to have the Madeleine enlarged.
It won’t hold them all. There isn’t a church in Paris that will,” said
the Duke.

“Won’t it be a splendid marriage!” said Germaine. “There’ll be
something like a crush. There are sure to be accidents.”

“If I were you, I should have careful arrangements made,” said the
Duke.

“Oh, let people look after themselves. They’ll remember it better if
they’re crushed a little,” said Germaine.

There was a flicker of contemptuous wonder in the Duke’s eyes. But he
only shrugged his shoulders, and turning to Sonia, said, “Will you be
an angel and play me a little Grieg, Mademoiselle Kritchnoff? I heard
you playing yesterday. No one plays Grieg like you.”

“Excuse me, Jacques, but Mademoiselle Kritchnoff has her work to do,”
said Germaine tartly.

“Five minutes’ interval—just a morsel of Grieg, I beg,” said the Duke,
with an irresistible smile.

“All right,” said Germaine grudgingly. “But I’ve something important to
talk to you about.”

“By Jove! So have I. I was forgetting. I’ve the last photograph I took
of you and Mademoiselle Sonia.” Germaine frowned and shrugged her
shoulders. “With your light frocks in the open air, you look like two
big flowers,” said the Duke.

“You call that important!” cried Germaine.

“It’s very important—like all trifles,” said the Duke, smiling. “Look!
isn’t it nice?” And he took a photograph from his pocket, and held it
out to her.

“Nice? It’s shocking! We’re making the most appalling faces,” said
Germaine, looking at the photograph in his hand.

“Well, perhaps you ARE making faces,” said the Duke seriously,
considering the photograph with grave earnestness. “But they’re not
appalling faces—not by any means. You shall be judge, Mademoiselle
Sonia. The faces—well, we won’t talk about the faces—but the outlines.
Look at the movement of your scarf.” And he handed the photograph to
Sonia.

“Jacques!” said Germaine impatiently.

“Oh, yes, you’ve something important to tell me. What is it?” said the
Duke, with an air of resignation; and he took the photograph from Sonia
and put it carefully back in his pocket.

“Victoire has telephoned from Paris to say that we’ve had a paper-knife
and a Louis Seize inkstand given us,” said Germaine.

“Hurrah!” cried the Duke in a sudden shout that made them both jump.

“And a pearl necklace,” said Germaine.

“Hurrah!” cried the Duke.

“You’re perfectly childish,” said Germaine pettishly. “I tell you we’ve
been given a paper-knife, and you shout ‘hurrah!’ I say we’ve been
given a pearl necklace, and you shout ‘hurrah!’ You can’t have the
slightest sense of values.”

“I beg your pardon. This pearl necklace is from one of your father’s
friends, isn’t it?” said the Duke.

“Yes; why?” said Germaine.

“But the inkstand and the paper-knife must be from the Faubourg
Saint-Germain, and well on the shabby side?” said the Duke.

“Yes; well?”

“Well then, my dear girl, what are you complaining about? They balance;
the equilibrium is restored. You can’t have everything,” said the Duke;
and he laughed mischievously.

Germaine flushed, and bit her lip; her eyes sparkled.

“You don’t care a rap about me,” she said stormily.

“But I find you adorable,” said the Duke.

“You keep annoying me,” said Germaine pettishly. “And you do it on
purpose. I think it’s in very bad taste. I shall end by taking a
dislike to you—I know I shall.”

“Wait till we’re married for that, my dear girl,” said the Duke; and he
laughed again, with a blithe, boyish cheerfulness, which deepened the
angry flush in Germaine’s cheeks.

“Can’t you be serious about anything?” she cried.

“I am the most serious man in Europe,” said the Duke.

Germaine went to the window and stared out of it sulkily.

The Duke walked up and down the hall, looking at the pictures of some
of his ancestors—somewhat grotesque persons—with humorous appreciation.
Between addressing the envelopes Sonia kept glancing at him. Once he
caught her eye, and smiled at her. Germaine’s back was eloquent of her
displeasure. The Duke stopped at a gap in the line of pictures in which
there hung a strip of old tapestry.

“I can never understand why you have left all these ancestors of mine
staring from the walls and have taken away the quite admirable and
interesting portrait of myself,” he said carelessly.

Germaine turned sharply from the window; Sonia stopped in the middle of
addressing an envelope; and both the girls stared at him in
astonishment.

“There certainly was a portrait of me where that tapestry hangs. What
have you done with it?” said the Duke.

“You’re making fun of us again,” said Germaine.

“Surely your Grace knows what happened,” said Sonia.

“We wrote all the details to you and sent you all the papers three
years ago. Didn’t you get them?” said Germaine.

“Not a detail or a newspaper. Three years ago I was in the
neighbourhood of the South Pole, and lost at that,” said the Duke.

“But it was most dramatic, my dear Jacques. All Paris was talking of
it,” said Germaine. “Your portrait was stolen.”

“Stolen? Who stole it?” said the Duke.

Germaine crossed the hall quickly to the gap in the line of pictures.

“I’ll show you,” she said.

She drew aside the piece of tapestry, and in the middle of the panel
over which the portrait of the Duke had hung he saw written in chalk
the words:

ARSÈNE LUPIN

“What do you think of that autograph?” said Germaine.

“‘Arsène Lupin?’” said the Duke in a tone of some bewilderment.

“He left his signature. It seems that he always does so,” said Sonia in
an explanatory tone.

“But who is he?” said the Duke.

“Arsène Lupin? Surely you know who Arsène Lupin is?” said Germaine
impatiently.

“I haven’t the slightest notion,” said the Duke.

“Oh, come! No one is as South-Pole as all that!” cried Germaine. “You
don’t know who Lupin is? The most whimsical, the most audacious, and
the most genial thief in France. For the last ten years he has kept the
police at bay. He has baffled Ganimard, Holmlock Shears, the great
English detective, and even Guerchard, whom everybody says is the
greatest detective we’ve had in France since Vidocq. In fact, he’s our
national robber. Do you mean to say you don’t know him?”

“Not even enough to ask him to lunch at a restaurant,” said the Duke
flippantly. “What’s he like?”

“Like? Nobody has the slightest idea. He has a thousand disguises. He
has dined two evenings running at the English Embassy.”

“But if nobody knows him, how did they learn that?” said the Duke, with
a puzzled air.

“Because the second evening, about ten o’clock, they noticed that one
of the guests had disappeared, and with him all the jewels of the
ambassadress.”

“All of them?” said the Duke.

“Yes; and Lupin left his card behind him with these words scribbled on
it:”

“‘This is not a robbery; it is a restitution. You took the Wallace
collection from us.’”

“But it was a hoax, wasn’t it?” said the Duke.

“No, your Grace; and he has done better than that. You remember the
affair of the Daray Bank—the savings bank for poor people?” said Sonia,
her gentle face glowing with a sudden enthusiastic animation.

“Let’s see,” said the Duke. “Wasn’t that the financier who doubled his
fortune at the expense of a heap of poor wretches and ruined two
thousand people?”

“Yes; that’s the man,” said Sonia. “And Lupin stripped Daray’s house
and took from him everything he had in his strong-box. He didn’t leave
him a sou of the money. And then, when he’d taken it from him, he
distributed it among all the poor wretches whom Daray had ruined.”

“But this isn’t a thief you’re talking about—it’s a philanthropist,”
said the Duke.

“A fine sort of philanthropist!” broke in Germaine in a peevish tone.
“There was a lot of philanthropy about his robbing papa, wasn’t there?”

“Well,” said the Duke, with an air of profound reflection, “if you come
to think of it, that robbery was not worthy of this national hero. My
portrait, if you except the charm and beauty of the face itself, is not
worth much.”

“If you think he was satisfied with your portrait, you’re very much
mistaken. All my father’s collections were robbed,” said Germaine.

“Your father’s collections?” said the Duke. “But they’re better guarded
than the Bank of France. Your father is as careful of them as the apple
of his eye.”

“That’s exactly it—he was too careful of them. That’s why Lupin
succeeded.”

“This is very interesting,” said the Duke; and he sat down on a couch
before the gap in the pictures, to go into the matter more at his ease.
“I suppose he had accomplices in the house itself?”

“Yes, one accomplice,” said Germaine.

“Who was that?” asked the Duke.

“Papa!” said Germaine.

“Oh, come! what on earth do you mean?” said the Duke. “You’re getting
quite incomprehensible, my dear girl.”

“Well, I’ll make it clear to you. One morning papa received a
letter—but wait. Sonia, get me the Lupin papers out of the bureau.”

Sonia rose from the writing-table, and went to a bureau, an admirable
example of the work of the great English maker, Chippendale. It stood
on the other side of the hall between an Oriental cabinet and a
sixteenth-century Italian cabinet—for all the world as if it were
standing in a crowded curiosity shop—with the natural effect that the
three pieces, by their mere incongruity, took something each from the
beauty of the other. Sonia raised the flap of the bureau, and taking
from one of the drawers a small portfolio, turned over the papers in it
and handed a letter to the Duke.

“This is the envelope,” she said. “It’s addressed to M. Gournay-Martin,
Collector, at the château de Charmerace, Ile-et-Vilaine.”

The Duke opened the envelope and took out a letter.

“It’s an odd handwriting,” he said.

“Read it—carefully,” said Germaine.

It was an uncommon handwriting. The letters of it were small, but
perfectly formed. It looked the handwriting of a man who knew exactly
what he wanted to say, and liked to say it with extreme precision. The
letter ran:

“DEAR SIR,”


“Please forgive my writing to you without our having been introduced to
one another; but I flatter myself that you know me, at any rate, by
name.”


“There is in the drawing-room next your hall a Gainsborough of
admirable quality which affords me infinite pleasure. Your Goyas in the
same drawing-room are also to my liking, as well as your Van Dyck. In
the further drawing-room I note the Renaissance cabinets—a marvellous
pair—the Flemish tapestry, the Fragonard, the clock signed Boulle, and
various other objects of less importance. But above all I have set my
heart on that coronet which you bought at the sale of the Marquise de
Ferronaye, and which was formerly worn by the unfortunate Princesse de
Lamballe. I take the greatest interest in this coronet: in the first
place, on account of the charming and tragic memories which it calls up
in the mind of a poet passionately fond of history, and in the second
place—though it is hardly worth while talking about that kind of
thing—on account of its intrinsic value. I reckon indeed that the
stones in your coronet are, at the very lowest, worth half a million
francs.”


“I beg you, my dear sir, to have these different objects properly
packed up, and to forward them, addressed to me, carriage paid, to the
Batignolles Station. Failing this, I shall Proceed to remove them
myself on the night of Thursday, August 7th.”


“Please pardon the slight trouble to which I am putting you, and
believe me,”


“Yours very sincerely,”
“ARSÈNE LUPIN.”


“P.S.—It occurs to me that the pictures have not glass before them. It
would be as well to repair this omission before forwarding them to me,
and I am sure that you will take this extra trouble cheerfully. I am
aware, of course, that some of the best judges declare that a picture
loses some of its quality when seen through glass. But it preserves
them, and we should always be ready and willing to sacrifice a portion
of our own pleasure for the benefit of posterity. France demands it of
us.—A. L.”


The Duke laughed, and said, “Really, this is extraordinarily funny. It
must have made your father laugh.”

“Laugh?” said Germaine. “You should have seen his face. He took it
seriously enough, I can tell you.”

“Not to the point of forwarding the things to Batignolles, I hope,”
said the Duke.

“No, but to the point of being driven wild,” said Germaine. “And since
the police had always been baffled by Lupin, he had the brilliant idea
of trying what soldiers could do. The Commandant at Rennes is a great
friend of papa’s; and papa went to him, and told him about Lupin’s
letter and what he feared. The colonel laughed at him; but he offered
him a corporal and six soldiers to guard his collection, on the night
of the seventh. It was arranged that they should come from Rennes by
the last train so that the burglars should have no warning of their
coming. Well, they came, seven picked men—men who had seen service in
Tonquin. We gave them supper; and then the corporal posted them in the
hall and the two drawing-rooms where the pictures and things were. At
eleven we all went to bed, after promising the corporal that, in the
event of any fight with the burglars, we would not stir from our rooms.
I can tell you I felt awfully nervous. I couldn’t get to sleep for ages
and ages. Then, when I did, I did not wake till morning. The night had
passed absolutely quietly. Nothing out of the common had happened.
There had not been the slightest noise. I awoke Sonia and my father. We
dressed as quickly as we could, and rushed down to the drawing-room.”

She paused dramatically.

“Well?” said the Duke.

“Well, it was done.”

“What was done?” said the Duke.

“Everything,” said Germaine. “Pictures had gone, tapestries had gone,
cabinets had gone, and the clock had gone.”

“And the coronet too?” said the Duke.

“Oh, no. That was at the Bank of France. And it was doubtless to make
up for not getting it that Lupin stole your portrait. At any rate he
didn’t say that he was going to steal it in his letter.”

“But, come! this is incredible. Had he hypnotized the corporal and the
six soldiers? Or had he murdered them all?” said the Duke.

“Corporal? There wasn’t any corporal, and there weren’t any soldiers.
The corporal was Lupin, and the soldiers were part of his gang,” said
Germaine.

“I don’t understand,” said the Duke. “The colonel promised your father
a corporal and six men. Didn’t they come?”

“They came to the railway station all right,” said Germaine. “But you
know the little inn half-way between the railway station and the
château? They stopped to drink there, and at eleven o’clock next
morning one of the villagers found all seven of them, along with the
footman who was guiding them to the château, sleeping like logs in the
little wood half a mile from the inn. Of course the innkeeper could not
explain when their wine was drugged. He could only tell us that a
motorist, who had stopped at the inn to get some supper, had called the
soldiers in and insisted on standing them drinks. They had seemed a
little fuddled before they left the inn, and the motorist had insisted
on driving them to the château in his car. When the drug took effect he
simply carried them out of it one by one, and laid them in the wood to
sleep it off.”

“Lupin seems to have made a thorough job of it, anyhow,” said the Duke.

“I should think so,” said Germaine. “Guerchard was sent down from
Paris; but he could not find a single clue. It was not for want of
trying, for he hates Lupin. It’s a regular fight between them, and so
far Lupin has scored every point.”

“He must be as clever as they make ’em,” said the Duke.

“He is,” said Germaine. “And do you know, I shouldn’t be at all
surprised if he’s in the neighbourhood now.”

“What on earth do you mean?” said the Duke.

“I’m not joking,” said Germaine. “Odd things are happening. Some one
has been changing the place of things. That silver statuette now—it was
on the cabinet, and we found it moved to the piano. Yet nobody had
touched it. And look at this window. Some one has broken a pane in it
just at the height of the fastening.”

“The deuce they have!” said the Duke.




CHAPTER IV
THE DUKE INTERVENES


The Duke rose, came to the window, and looked at the broken pane. He
stepped out on to the terrace and looked at the turf; then he came back
into the room.

“This looks serious,” he said. “That pane has not been broken at all.
If it had been broken, the pieces of glass would be lying on the turf.
It has been cut out. We must warn your father to look to his
treasures.”

“I told you so,” said Germaine. “I said that Arsène Lupin was in the
neighbourhood.”

“Arsène Lupin is a very capable man,” said the Duke, smiling. “But
there’s no reason to suppose that he’s the only burglar in France or
even in Ile-et-Vilaine.”

“I’m sure that he’s in the neighbourhood. I have a feeling that he is,”
said Germaine stubbornly.

The Duke shrugged his shoulders, and said a smile: “Far be it from me
to contradict you. A woman’s intuition is always—well, it’s always a
woman’s intuition.”

He came back into the hall, and as he did so the door opened and a
shock-headed man in the dress of a gamekeeper stood on the threshold.

“There are visitors to see you, Mademoiselle Germaine,” he said, in a
very deep bass voice.

“What! Are you answering the door, Firmin?” said Germaine.

“Yes, Mademoiselle Germaine: there’s only me to do it. All the servants
have started for the station, and my wife and I are going to see after
the family to-night and to-morrow morning. Shall I show these gentlemen
in?”

“Who are they?” said Germaine.

“Two gentlemen who say they have an appointment.”

“What are their names?” said Germaine.

“They are two gentlemen. I don’t know what their names are. I’ve no
memory for names.”

“That’s an advantage to any one who answers doors,” said the Duke,
smiling at the stolid Firmin.

“Well, it can’t be the two Charolais again. It’s not time for them to
come back. I told them papa would not be back yet,” said Germaine.

“No, it can’t be them, Mademoiselle Germaine,” said Firmin, with
decision.

“Very well; show them in,” she said.

Firmin went out, leaving the door open behind him; and they heard his
hob-nailed boots clatter and squeak on the stone floor of the outer
hall.

“Charolais?” said the Duke idly. “I don’t know the name. Who are they?”

“A little while ago Alfred announced two gentlemen. I thought they were
Georges and Andre du Buit, for they promised to come to tea. I told
Alfred to show them in, and to my surprise there appeared two horrible
provincials. I never—Oh!”

She stopped short, for there, coming through the door, were the two
Charolais, father and son.

M. Charolais pressed his motor-cap to his bosom, and bowed low. “Once
more I salute you, mademoiselle,” he said.

His son bowed, and revealed behind him another young man.

“My second son. He has a chemist’s shop,” said M. Charolais, waving a
large red hand at the young man.

The young man, also blessed with the family eyes, set close together,
entered the hall and bowed to the two girls. The Duke raised his
eyebrows ever so slightly.

“I’m very sorry, gentlemen,” said Germaine, “but my father has not yet
returned.”

“Please don’t apologize. There is not the slightest need,” said M.
Charolais; and he and his two sons settled themselves down on three
chairs, with the air of people who had come to make a considerable
stay.

For a moment, Germaine, taken aback by their coolness, was speechless;
then she said hastily: “Very likely he won’t be back for another hour.
I shouldn’t like you to waste your time.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said M. Charolais, with an indulgent air; and
turning to the Duke, he added, “However, while we’re waiting, if you’re
a member of the family, sir, we might perhaps discuss the least you
will take for the motor-car.”

“I’m sorry,” said the Duke, “but I have nothing to do with it.”

Before M. Charolais could reply the door opened, and Firmin’s deep
voice said:

“Will you please come in here, sir?”

A third young man came into the hall.

“What, you here, Bernard?” said M. Charolais. “I told you to wait at
the park gates.”

“I wanted to see the car too,” said Bernard.

“My third son. He is destined for the Bar,” said M. Charolais, with a
great air of paternal pride.

“But how many are there?” said Germaine faintly.

Before M. Charolais could answer, Firmin once more appeared on the
threshold.

“The master’s just come back, miss,” he said.

“Thank goodness for that!” said Germaine; and turning to M. Charolais,
she added, “If you will come with me, gentlemen, I will take you to my
father, and you can discuss the price of the car at once.”

As she spoke she moved towards the door. M. Charolais and his sons rose
and made way for her. The father and the two eldest sons made haste to
follow her out of the room. But Bernard lingered behind, apparently to
admire the bric-a-brac on the cabinets. With infinite quickness he
grabbed two objects off the nearest, and followed his brothers. The
Duke sprang across the hall in three strides, caught him by the arm on
the very threshold, jerked him back into the hall, and shut the door.

“No you don’t, my young friend,” he said sharply.

“Don’t what?” said Bernard, trying to shake off his grip.

“You’ve taken a cigarette-case,” said the Duke.

“No, no, I haven’t—nothing of the kind!” stammered Bernard.

The Duke grasped the young man’s left wrist, plunged his hand into the
motor-cap which he was carrying, drew out of it a silver
cigarette-case, and held it before his eyes.

Bernard turned pale to the lips. His frightened eyes seemed about to
leap from their sockets.

“It—it—was a m-m-m-mistake,” he stammered.

The Duke shifted his grip to his collar, and thrust his hand into the
breast-pocket of his coat. Bernard, helpless in his grip, and utterly
taken aback by his quickness, made no resistance.

The Duke drew out a morocco case, and said: “Is this a mistake too?”

“Heavens! The pendant!” cried Sonia, who was watching the scene with
parted lips and amazed eyes.

Bernard dropped on his knees and clasped his hands.

“Forgive me!” he cried, in a choking voice. “Forgive me! Don’t tell any
one! For God’s sake, don’t tell any one!”

And the tears came streaming from his eyes.

“You young rogue!” said the Duke quietly.

“I’ll never do it again—never! Oh, have pity on me! If my father knew!
Oh, let me off!” cried Bernard.

The Duke hesitated, and looked down on him, frowning and pulling at his
moustache. Then, more quickly than one would have expected from so
careless a trifler, his mind was made up.

“All right,” he said slowly. “Just for this once ... be off with you.”
And he jerked him to his feet and almost threw him into the outer hall.

“Thanks! ... oh, thanks!” said Bernard.

The Duke shut the door and looked at Sonia, breathing quickly.

“Well? Did you ever see anything like that? That young fellow will go a
long way. The cheek of the thing! Right under our very eyes! And this
pendant, too: it would have been a pity to lose it. Upon my word, I
ought to have handed him over to the police.”

“No, no!” cried Sonia. “You did quite right to let him off—quite
right.”

The Duke set the pendant on the ledge of the bureau, and came down the
hall to Sonia.

“What’s the matter?” he said gently. “You’re quite pale.”

“It has upset me ... that unfortunate boy,” said Sonia; and her eyes
were swimming with tears.

“Do you pity the young rogue?” said the Duke.

“Yes; it’s dreadful. His eyes were so terrified, and so boyish. And, to
be caught like that ... stealing ... in the act. Oh, it’s hateful!”

“Come, come, how sensitive you are!” said the Duke, in a soothing,
almost caressing tone. His eyes, resting on her charming, troubled
face, were glowing with a warm admiration.

“Yes; it’s silly,” said Sonia; “but you noticed his eyes—the hunted
look in them? You pitied him, didn’t you? For you are kind at bottom.”

“Why at bottom?” said the Duke.

“Oh, I said at bottom because you look sarcastic, and at first sight
you’re so cold. But often that’s only the mask of those who have
suffered the most.... They are the most indulgent,” said Sonia slowly,
hesitating, picking her words.

“Yes, I suppose they are,” said the Duke thoughtfully.

“It’s because when one has suffered one understands.... Yes: one
understands,” said Sonia.

There was a pause. The Duke’s eyes still rested on her face. The
admiration in them was mingled with compassion.

“You’re very unhappy here, aren’t you?” he said gently.

“Me? Why?” said Sonia quickly.

“Your smile is so sad, and your eyes so timid,” said the Duke slowly.
“You’re just like a little child one longs to protect. Are you quite
alone in the world?”

His eyes and tones were full of pity; and a faint flush mantled Sonia’s
cheeks.

“Yes, I’m alone,” she said.

“But have you no relations—no friends?” said the Duke.

“No,” said Sonia.

“I don’t mean here in France, but in your own country.... Surely you
have some in Russia?”

“No, not a soul. You see, my father was a Revolutionist. He died in
Siberia when I was a baby. And my mother, she died too—in Paris. She
had fled from Russia. I was two years old when she died.”

“It must be hard to be alone like that,” said the Duke.

“No,” said Sonia, with a faint smile, “I don’t mind having no
relations. I grew used to that so young ... so very young. But what is
hard—but you’ll laugh at me—”

“Heaven forbid!” said the Duke gravely.

“Well, what is hard is, never to get a letter ... an envelope that one
opens ... from some one who thinks about one—”

She paused, and then added gravely: “But I tell myself that it’s
nonsense. I have a certain amount of philosophy.”

She smiled at him—an adorable child’s smile.

The Duke smiled too. “A certain amount of philosophy,” he said softly.
“You look like a philosopher!”

As they stood looking at one another with serious eyes, almost with
eyes that probed one another’s souls, the drawing-room door flung open,
and Germaine’s harsh voice broke on their ears.

“You’re getting quite impossible, Sonia!” she cried. “It’s absolutely
useless telling you anything. I told you particularly to pack my
leather writing-case in my bag with your own hand. I happen to open a
drawer, and what do I see? My leather writing-case.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sonia. “I was going—”

“Oh, there’s no need to bother about it. I’ll see after it myself,”
said Germaine. “But upon my word, you might be one of our guests,
seeing how easily you take things. You’re negligence personified.”

“Come, Germaine ... a mere oversight,” said the Duke, in a coaxing
tone.

“Now, excuse me, Jacques; but you’ve got an unfortunate habit of
interfering in household matters. You did it only the other day. I can
no longer say a word to a servant—”

“Germaine!” said the Duke, in sharp protest.

Germaine turned from him to Sonia, and pointed to a packet of envelopes
and some letters, which Bernard Charolais had knocked off the table,
and said, “Pick up those envelopes and letters, and bring everything to
my room, and be quick about it!”

She flung out of the room, and slammed the door behind her.

Sonia seemed entirely unmoved by the outburst: no flush of
mortification stained her cheeks, her lips did not quiver. She stooped
to pick up the fallen papers.

“No, no; let me, I beg you,” said the Duke, in a tone of distress. And
dropping on one knee, he began to gather together the fallen papers. He
set them on the table, and then he said: “You mustn’t mind what
Germaine says. She’s—she’s—she’s all right at heart. It’s her manner.
She’s always been happy, and had everything she wanted. She’s been
spoiled, don’t you know. Those kind of people never have any
consideration for any one else. You mustn’t let her outburst hurt you.”

“Oh, but I don’t. I don’t really,” protested Sonia.

“I’m glad of that,” said the Duke. “It isn’t really worth noticing.”

He drew the envelopes and unused cards into a packet, and handed them
to her.

“There!” he said, with a smile. “That won’t be too heavy for you.”

“Thank you,” said Sonia, taking it from him.

“Shall I carry them for you?” said the Duke.

“No, thank you, your Grace,” said Sonia.

With a quick, careless, almost irresponsible movement, he caught her
hand, bent down, and kissed it. A great wave of rosy colour flowed over
her face, flooding its whiteness to her hair and throat. She stood for
a moment turned to stone; she put her hand to her heart. Then on hasty,
faltering feet she went to the door, opened it, paused on the
threshold, turned and looked back at him, and vanished.




CHAPTER V
A LETTER FROM LUPIN


The Duke stood for a while staring thoughtfully at the door through
which Sonia had passed, a faint smile playing round his lips. He
crossed the hall to the Chippendale bureau, took a cigarette from a box
which stood on the ledge of it, beside the morocco case which held the
pendant, lighted it, and went slowly out on to the terrace. He crossed
it slowly, paused for a moment on the edge of it, and looked across the
stretch of country with musing eyes, which saw nothing of its beauty.
Then he turned to the right, went down a flight of steps to the lower
terrace, crossed the lawn, and took a narrow path which led into the
heart of a shrubbery of tall deodoras. In the middle of it he came to
one of those old stone benches, moss-covered and weather-stained, which
adorn the gardens of so many French châteaux. It faced a marble basin
from which rose the slender column of a pattering fountain. The figure
of a Cupid danced joyously on a tall pedestal to the right of the
basin. The Duke sat down on the bench, and was still, with that rare
stillness which only comes of nerves in perfect harmony, his brow
knitted in careful thought. Now and again the frown cleared from his
face, and his intent features relaxed into a faint smile, a smile of
pleasant memory. Once he rose, walked round the fountains frowning,
came back to the bench, and sat down again. The early September dusk
was upon him when at last he rose and with quick steps took his way
through the shrubbery, with the air of a man whose mind, for good or
ill, was at last made up.

When he came on to the upper terrace his eyes fell on a group which
stood at the further corner, near the entrance of the château, and he
sauntered slowly up to it.

In the middle of it stood M. Gournay-Martin, a big, round, flabby hulk
of a man. He was nearly as red in the face as M. Charolais; and he
looked a great deal redder owing to the extreme whiteness of the
whiskers which stuck out on either side of his vast expanse of cheek.
As he came up, it struck the Duke as rather odd that he should have the
Charolais eyes, set close together; any one who did not know that they
were strangers to one another might have thought it a family likeness.

The millionaire was waving his hands and roaring after the manner of a
man who has cultivated the art of brow-beating those with whom he does
business; and as the Duke neared the group, he caught the words:

“No; that’s the lowest I’ll take. Take it or leave it. You can say Yes,
or you can say Good-bye; and I don’t care a hang which.”

“It’s very dear,” said M. Charolais, in a mournful tone.

“Dear!” roared M. Gournay-Martin. “I should like to see any one else
sell a hundred horse-power car for eight hundred pounds. Why, my good
sir, you’re having me!”

“No, no,” protested M. Charolais feebly.

“I tell you you’re having me,” roared M. Gournay-Martin. “I’m letting
you have a magnificent car for which I paid thirteen hundred pounds for
eight hundred! It’s scandalous the way you’ve beaten me down!”

“No, no,” protested M. Charolais.

He seemed frightened out of his life by the vehemence of the big man.

“You wait till you’ve seen how it goes,” said M. Gournay-Martin.

“Eight hundred is very dear,” said M. Charolais.

“Come, come! You’re too sharp, that’s what you are. But don’t say any
more till you’ve tried the car.”

He turned to his chauffeur, who stood by watching the struggle with an
appreciative grin on his brown face, and said: “Now, Jean, take these
gentlemen to the garage, and run them down to the station. Show them
what the car can do. Do whatever they ask you—everything.”

He winked at Jean, turned again to M. Charolais, and said: “You know,
M. Charolais, you’re too good a man of business for me. You’re hot
stuff, that’s what you are—hot stuff. You go along and try the car.
Good-bye—good-bye.”

The four Charolais murmured good-bye in deep depression, and went off
with Jean, wearing something of the air of whipped dogs. When they had
gone round the corner the millionaire turned to the Duke and said, with
a chuckle: “He’ll buy the car all right—had him fine!”

“No business success of yours could surprise me,” said the Duke
blandly, with a faint, ironical smile.

M. Gournay-Martin’s little pig’s eyes danced and sparkled; and the
smiles flowed over the distended skin of his face like little ripples
over a stagnant pool, reluctantly. It seemed to be too tightly
stretched for smiles.

“The car’s four years old,” he said joyfully. “He’ll give me eight
hundred for it, and it’s not worth a pipe of tobacco. And eight hundred
pounds is just the price of a little Watteau I’ve had my eye on for
some time—a first-class investment.”

They strolled down the terrace, and through one of the windows into the
hall. Firmin had lighted the lamps, two of them. They made but a small
oasis of light in a desert of dim hall. The millionaire let himself
down very gingerly into an Empire chair, as if he feared, with
excellent reason, that it might collapse under his weight.

“Well, my dear Duke,” he said, “you don’t ask me the result of my
official lunch or what the minister said.”

“Is there any news?” said the Duke carelessly.

“Yes. The decree will be signed to-morrow. You can consider yourself
decorated. I hope you feel a happy man,” said the millionaire, rubbing
his fat hands together with prodigious satisfaction.

“Oh, charmed—charmed,” said the Duke, with entire indifference.

“As for me, I’m delighted—delighted,” said the millionaire. “I was
extremely keen on your being decorated. After that, and after a volume
or two of travels, and after you’ve published your grandfather’s
letters with a good introduction, you can begin to think of the
Academy.”

“The Academy!” said the Duke, startled from his usual coolness. “But
I’ve no title to become an Academician.”

“How, no title?” said the millionaire solemnly; and his little eyes
opened wide. “You’re a duke.”

“There’s no doubt about that,” said the Duke, watching him with
admiring curiosity.

“I mean to marry my daughter to a worker—a worker, my dear Duke,” said
the millionaire, slapping his big left hand with his bigger right.
“I’ve no prejudices—not I. I wish to have for son-in-law a duke who
wears the Order of the Legion of Honour, and belongs to the Academie
Française, because that is personal merit. I’m no snob.”

A gentle, irrepressible laugh broke from the Duke.

“What are you laughing at?” said the millionaire, and a sudden lowering
gloom overspread his beaming face.

“Nothing—nothing,” said the Duke quietly. “Only you’re so full of
surprises.”

“I’ve startled you, have I? I thought I should. It’s true that I’m full
of surprises. It’s my knowledge. I understand so much. I understand
business, and I love art, pictures, a good bargain, bric-a-brac, fine
tapestry. They’re first-class investments. Yes, certainly I do love the
beautiful. And I don’t want to boast, but I understand it. I have
taste, and I’ve something better than taste; I have a flair, the
dealer’s flair.”

“Yes, your collections, especially your collection in Paris, prove it,”
said the Duke, stifling a yawn.

“And yet you haven’t seen the finest thing I have—the coronet of the
Princesse de Lamballe. It’s worth half a million francs.”

“So I’ve heard,” said the Duke, a little wearily. “I don’t wonder that
Arsène Lupin envied you it.”

The Empire chair creaked as the millionaire jumped.

“Don’t speak of the swine!” he roared. “Don’t mention his name before
me.”

“Germaine showed me his letter,” said the Duke. “It is amusing.”

“His letter! The blackguard! I just missed a fit of apoplexy from it,”
roared the millionaire. “I was in this very hall where we are now,
chatting quietly, when all at once in comes Firmin, and hands me a
letter.”

He was interrupted by the opening of the door. Firmin came clumping
down the room, and said in his deep voice, “A letter for you, sir.”

“Thank you,” said the millionaire, taking the letter, and, as he fitted
his eye-glass into his eye, he went on, “Yes, Firmin brought me a
letter of which the handwriting,”—he raised the envelope he was holding
to his eyes, and bellowed, “Good heavens!”

“What’s the matter?” said the Duke, jumping in his chair at the sudden,
startling burst of sound.

“The handwriting!—the handwriting!—it’s THE SAME HANDWRITING!” gasped
the millionaire. And he let himself fall heavily backwards against the
back of his chair.

There was a crash. The Duke had a vision of huge arms and legs waving
in the air as the chair-back gave. There was another crash. The chair
collapsed. The huge bulk banged to the floor.

The laughter of the Duke rang out uncontrollably. He caught one of the
waving arms, and jerked the flabby giant to his feet with an ease which
seemed to show that his muscles were of steel.

“Come,” he said, laughing still. “This is nonsense! What do you mean by
the same handwriting? It can’t be.”

“It is the same handwriting. Am I likely to make a mistake about it?”
spluttered the millionaire. And he tore open the envelope with an air
of frenzy.

He ran his eyes over it, and they grew larger and larger—they grew
almost of an average size.

“Listen,” he said “listen:”

“DEAR SIR,”


“My collection of pictures, which I had the pleasure of starting three
years ago with some of your own, only contains, as far as Old Masters
go, one Velasquez, one Rembrandt, and three paltry Rubens. You have a
great many more. Since it is a shame such masterpieces should be in
your hands, I propose to appropriate them; and I shall set about a
respectful acquisition of them in your Paris house to-morrow morning.”


“Yours very sincerely,”
“ARSÈNE LUPIN.”


“He’s humbugging,” said the Duke.

“Wait! wait!” gasped the millionaire. “There’s a postscript. Listen:”

“P.S.—You must understand that since you have been keeping the coronet
of the Princesse de Lamballe during these three years, I shall avail
myself of the same occasion to compel you to restore that piece of
jewellery to me.—A. L.”


“The thief! The scoundrel! I’m choking!” gasped the millionaire,
clutching at his collar.

To judge from the blackness of his face, and the way he staggered and
dropped on to a couch, which was fortunately stronger than the chair,
he was speaking the truth.

“Firmin! Firmin!” shouted the Duke. “A glass of water! Quick! Your
master’s ill.”

He rushed to the side of the millionaire, who gasped: “Telephone!
Telephone to the Prefecture of Police! Be quick!”

The Duke loosened his collar with deft fingers; tore a Van Loo fan from
its case hanging on the wall, and fanned him furiously. Firmin came
clumping into the room with a glass of water in his hand.

The drawing-room door opened, and Germaine and Sonia, alarmed by the
Duke’s shout, hurried in.

“Quick! Your smelling-salts!” said the Duke.

Sonia ran across the hall, opened one of the drawers in the Oriental
cabinet, and ran to the millionaire with a large bottle of
smelling-salts in her hand. The Duke took it from her, and applied it
to the millionaire’s nose. The millionaire sneezed thrice with terrific
violence. The Duke snatched the glass from Firmin and dashed the water
into his host’s purple face. The millionaire gasped and spluttered.

Germaine stood staring helplessly at her gasping sire.

“Whatever’s the matter?” she said.

“It’s this letter,” said the Duke. “A letter from Lupin.”

“I told you so—I said that Lupin was in the neighbourhood,” cried
Germaine triumphantly.

“Firmin—where’s Firmin?” said the millionaire, dragging himself
upright. He seemed to have recovered a great deal of his voice. “Oh,
there you are!”

He jumped up, caught the gamekeeper by the shoulder, and shook him
furiously.

“This letter. Where did it come from? Who brought it?” he roared.

“It was in the letter-box—the letter-box of the lodge at the bottom of
the park. My wife found it there,” said Firmin, and he twisted out of
the millionaire’s grasp.

“Just as it was three years ago,” roared the millionaire, with an air
of desperation. “It’s exactly the same coup. Oh, what a catastrophe!
What a catastrophe!”

He made as if to tear out his hair; then, remembering its scantiness,
refrained.

“Now, come, it’s no use losing your head,” said the Duke, with quiet
firmness. “If this letter isn’t a hoax—”

“Hoax?” bellowed the millionaire. “Was it a hoax three years ago?”

“Very good,” said the Duke. “But if this robbery with which you’re
threatened is genuine, it’s just childish.”

“How?” said the millionaire.

“Look at the date of the letter—Sunday, September the third. This
letter was written to-day.”

“Yes. Well, what of it?” said the millionaire.

“Look at the letter: ‘I shall set about a respectful acquisition of
them in your Paris house to-morrow morning’—to-morrow morning.”

“Yes, yes; ‘to-morrow morning’—what of it?” said the millionaire.

“One of two things,” said the Duke. “Either it’s a hoax, and we needn’t
bother about it; or the threat is genuine, and we have the time to stop
the robbery.”

“Of course we have. Whatever was I thinking of?” said the millionaire.
And his anguish cleared from his face.

“For once in a way our dear Lupin’s fondness for warning people will
have given him a painful jar,” said the Duke.

“Come on! let me get at the telephone,” cried the millionaire.

“But the telephone’s no good,” said Sonia quickly.

“No good! Why?” roared the millionaire, dashing heavily across the room
to it.

“Look at the time,” said Sonia; “the telephone doesn’t work as late as
this. It’s Sunday.”

The millionaire stopped dead.

“It’s true. It’s appalling,” he groaned.

“But that doesn’t matter. You can always telegraph,” said Germaine.

“But you can’t. It’s impossible,” said Sonia. “You can’t get a message
through. It’s Sunday; and the telegraph offices shut at twelve
o’clock.”

“Oh, what a Government!” groaned the millionaire. And he sank down
gently on a chair beside the telephone, and mopped the beads of anguish
from his brow. They looked at him, and they looked at one another,
cudgelling their brains for yet another way of communicating with the
Paris police.

“Hang it all!” said the Duke. “There must be some way out of the
difficulty.”

“What way?” said the millionaire.

The Duke did not answer. He put his hands in his pockets and walked
impatiently up and down the hall. Germaine sat down on a chair. Sonia
put her hands on the back of a couch, and leaned forward, watching him.
Firmin stood by the door, whither he had retired to be out of the reach
of his excited master, with a look of perplexity on his stolid face.
They all watched the Duke with the air of people waiting for an oracle
to deliver its message. The millionaire kept mopping the beads of
anguish from his brow. The more he thought of his impending loss, the
more freely he perspired. Germaine’s maid, Irma, came to the door
leading into the outer hall, which Firmin, according to his usual
custom, had left open, and peered in wonder at the silent group.

“I have it!” cried the Duke at last. “There is a way out.”

“What is it?” said the millionaire, rising and coming to the middle of
the hall.

“What time is it?” said the Duke, pulling out his watch.

The millionaire pulled out his watch. Germaine pulled out hers. Firmin,
after a struggle, produced from some pocket difficult of access an
object not unlike a silver turnip. There was a brisk dispute between
Germaine and the millionaire about which of their watches was right.
Firmin, whose watch apparently did not agree with the watch of either
of them, made his deep voice heard above theirs. The Duke came to the
conclusion that it must be a few minutes past seven.

“It’s seven or a few minutes past,” he said sharply. “Well, I’m going
to take a car and hurry off to Paris. I ought to get there, bar
accidents, between two and three in the morning, just in time to inform
the police and catch the burglars in the very midst of their burglary.
I’ll just get a few things together.”

So saying, he rushed out of the hall.

“Excellent! excellent!” said the millionaire. “Your young man is a man
of resource, Germaine. It seems almost a pity that he’s a duke. He’d do
wonders in the building trade. But I’m going to Paris too, and you’re
coming with me. I couldn’t wait idly here, to save my life. And I can’t
leave you here, either. This scoundrel may be going to make a
simultaneous attempt on the château—not that there’s much here that I
really value. There’s that statuette that moved, and the pane cut out
of the window. I can’t leave you two girls with burglars in the house.
After all, there’s the sixty horse-power and the thirty horse-power
car—there’ll be lots of room for all of us.”

“Oh, but it’s nonsense, papa; we shall get there before the servants,”
said Germaine pettishly. “Think of arriving at an empty house in the
dead of night.”

“Nonsense!” said the millionaire. “Hurry off and get ready. Your bag
ought to be packed. Where are my keys? Sonia, where are my keys—the
keys of the Paris house?”

“They’re in the bureau,” said Sonia.

“Well, see that I don’t go without them. Now hurry up. Firmin, go and
tell Jean that we shall want both cars. I will drive one, the Duke the
other. Jean must stay with you and help guard the château.”

So saying he bustled out of the hall, driving the two girls before him.




CHAPTER VI
AGAIN THE CHAROLAIS


Hardly had the door closed behind the millionaire when the head of M.
Charolais appeared at one of the windows opening on to the terrace. He
looked round the empty hall, whistled softly, and stepped inside.
Inside of ten seconds his three sons came in through the windows, and
with them came Jean, the millionaire’s chauffeur.

“Take the door into the outer hall, Jean,” said M. Charolais, in a low
voice. “Bernard, take that door into the drawing-room. Pierre and
Louis, help me go through the drawers. The whole family is going to
Paris, and if we’re not quick we shan’t get the cars.”

“That comes of this silly fondness for warning people of a coup,”
growled Jean, as he hurried to the door of the outer hall. “It would
have been so simple to rob the Paris house without sending that
infernal letter. It was sure to knock them all silly.”

“What harm can the letter do, you fool?” said M. Charolais. “It’s
Sunday. We want them knocked silly for to-morrow, to get hold of the
coronet. Oh, to get hold of that coronet! It must be in Paris. I’ve
been ransacking this château for hours.”

Jean opened the door of the outer hall half an inch, and glued his eyes
to it. Bernard had done the same with the door opening into the
drawing-room. M. Charolais, Pierre, and Louis were opening drawers,
ransacking them, and shutting them with infinite quickness and
noiselessly.

“Bureau! Which is the bureau? The place is stuffed with bureaux!”
growled M. Charolais. “I must have those keys.”

“That plain thing with the brass handles in the middle on the
left—that’s a bureau,” said Bernard softly.

“Why didn’t you say so?” growled M. Charolais.

He dashed to it, and tried it. It was locked.

“Locked, of course! Just my luck! Come and get it open, Pierre. Be
smart!”

The son he had described as an engineer came quickly to the bureau,
fitting together as he came the two halves of a small jemmy. He fitted
it into the top of the flap. There was a crunch, and the old lock gave.
He opened the flap, and he and M. Charolais pulled open drawer after
drawer.

“Quick! Here’s that fat old fool!” said Jean, in a hoarse, hissing
whisper.

He moved down the hall, blowing out one of the lamps as he passed it.
In the seventh drawer lay a bunch of keys. M. Charolais snatched it up,
glanced at it, took a bunch of keys from his own pocket, put it in the
drawer, closed it, closed the flap, and rushed to the window. Jean and
his sons were already out on the terrace.

M. Charolais was still a yard from the window when the door into the
outer hall opened and in came M. Gournay-Martin.

He caught a glimpse of a back vanishing through the window, and
bellowed: “Hi! A man! A burglar! Firmin! Firmin!”

He ran blundering down the hall, tangled his feet in the fragments of
the broken chair, and came sprawling a thundering cropper, which
knocked every breath of wind out of his capacious body. He lay flat on
his face for a couple of minutes, his broad back wriggling
convulsively—a pathetic sight!—in the painful effort to get his breath
back. Then he sat up, and with perfect frankness burst into tears. He
sobbed and blubbered, like a small child that has hurt itself, for
three or four minutes. Then, having recovered his magnificent voice, he
bellowed furiously: “Firmin! Firmin! Charmerace! Charmerace!”

Then he rose painfully to his feet, and stood staring at the open
windows.

Presently he roared again: “Firmin! Firmin! Charmerace! Charmerace!”

He kept looking at the window with terrified eyes, as though he
expected somebody to step in and cut his throat from ear to ear.

“Firmin! Firmin! Charmerace! Charmerace!” he bellowed again.

The Duke came quietly into the hall, dressed in a heavy motor-coat, his
motor-cap on his head, and carrying a kit-bag in his hand.

“Did I hear you call?” he said.

“Call?” said the millionaire. “I shouted. The burglars are here
already. I’ve just seen one of them. He was bolting through the middle
window.”

The Duke raised his eyebrows.

“Nerves,” he said gently—“nerves.”

“Nerves be hanged!” said the millionaire. “I tell you I saw him as
plainly as I see you.”

“Well, you can’t see me at all, seeing that you’re lighting an acre and
a half of hall with a single lamp,” said the Duke, still in a tone of
utter incredulity.

“It’s that fool Firmin! He ought to have lighted six. Firmin! Firmin!”
bellowed the millionaire.

They listened for the sonorous clumping of the promoted gamekeeper’s
boots, but they did not hear it. Evidently Firmin was still giving his
master’s instructions about the cars to Jean.

“Well, we may as well shut the windows, anyhow,” said the Duke,
proceeding to do so. “If you think Firmin would be any good, you might
post him in this hall with a gun to-night. There could be no harm in
putting a charge of small shot into the legs of these ruffians. He has
only to get one of them, and the others will go for their lives. Yet I
don’t like leaving you and Germaine in this big house with only Firmin
to look after you.”

“I shouldn’t like it myself, and I’m not going to chance it,” growled
the millionaire. “We’re going to motor to Paris along with you, and
leave Jean to help Firmin fight these burglars. Firmin’s all right—he’s
an old soldier. He fought in ’70. Not that I’ve much belief in soldiers
against this cursed Lupin, after the way he dealt with that corporal
and his men three years ago.”

“I’m glad you’re coming to Paris,” said the Duke. “It’ll be a weight
off my mind. I’d better drive the limousine, and you take the
landaulet.”

“That won’t do,” said the millionaire. “Germaine won’t go in the
limousine. You know she has taken a dislike to it.”

“Nevertheless, I’d better bucket on to Paris, and let you follow slowly
with Germaine. The sooner I get to Paris the better for your
collection. I’ll take Mademoiselle Kritchnoff with me, and, if you
like, Irma, though the lighter I travel the sooner I shall get there.”

“No, I’ll take Irma and Germaine,” said the millionaire. “Germaine
would prefer to have Irma with her, in case you had an accident. She
wouldn’t like to get to Paris and have to find a fresh maid.”

The drawing-room door opened, and in came Germaine, followed by Sonia
and Irma. They wore motor-cloaks and hoods and veils. Sonia and Irma
were carrying hand-bags.

“I think it’s extremely tiresome your dragging us off to Paris like
this in the middle of the night,” said Germaine pettishly.

“Do you?” said the millionaire. “Well, then, you’ll be interested to
hear that I’ve just seen a burglar here in this very room. I frightened
him, and he bolted through the window on to the terrace.”

“He was greenish-pink, slightly tinged with yellow,” said the Duke
softly.

“Greenish-pink? Oh, do stop your jesting, Jacques! Is this a time for
idiocy?” cried Germaine, in a tone of acute exasperation.

“It was the dim light which made your father see him in those colours.
In a bright light, I think he would have been an Alsatian blue,” said
the Duke suavely.

“You’ll have to break yourself of this silly habit of trifling, my dear
Duke, if ever you expect to be a member of the Academie Française,”
said the millionaire with some acrimony. “I tell you I did see a
burglar.”

“Yes, yes. I admitted it frankly. It was his colour I was talking
about,” said the Duke, with an ironical smile.

“Oh, stop your idiotic jokes! We’re all sick to death of them!” said
Germaine, with something of the fine fury which so often distinguished
her father.

“There are times for all things,” said the millionaire solemnly. “And I
must say that, with the fate of my collection and of the coronet
trembling in the balance, this does not seem to me a season for idle
jests.”

“I stand reproved,” said the Duke; and he smiled at Sonia.

“My keys, Sonia—the keys of the Paris house,” said the millionaire.

Sonia took her own keys from her pocket and went to the bureau. She
slipped a key into the lock and tried to turn it. It would not turn;
and she bent down to look at it.

“Why—why, some one’s been tampering with the lock! It’s broken!” she
cried.

“I told you I’d seen a burglar!” cried the millionaire triumphantly.
“He was after the keys.”

Sonia drew back the flap of the bureau and hastily pulled open the
drawer in which the keys had been.

“They’re here!” she cried, taking them out of the drawer and holding
them up.

“Then I was just in time,” said the millionaire. “I startled him in the
very act of stealing the keys.”

“I withdraw! I withdraw!” said the Duke. “You did see a burglar,
evidently. But still I believe he was greenish-pink. They often are.
However, you’d better give me those keys, Mademoiselle Sonia, since I’m
to get to Paris first. I should look rather silly if, when I got there,
I had to break into the house to catch the burglars.”

Sonia handed the keys to the Duke. He contrived to take her little
hand, keys and all, into his own, as he received them, and squeezed it.
The light was too dim for the others to see the flush which flamed in
her face. She went back and stood beside the bureau.

“Now, papa, are you going to motor to Paris in a thin coat and linen
waistcoat? If we’re going, we’d better go. You always do keep us
waiting half an hour whenever we start to go anywhere,” said Germaine
firmly.

The millionaire bustled out of the room. With a gesture of impatience
Germaine dropped into a chair. Irma stood waiting by the drawing-room
door. Sonia sat down by the bureau.

There came a sharp patter of rain against the windows.

“Rain! It only wanted that! It’s going to be perfectly beastly!” cried
Germaine.

“Oh, well, you must make the best of it. At any rate you’re well
wrapped up, and the night is warm enough, though it is raining,” said
the Duke. “Still, I could have wished that Lupin confined his
operations to fine weather.” He paused, and added cheerfully, “But,
after all, it will lay the dust.”

They sat for three or four minutes in a dull silence, listening to the
pattering of the rain against the panes. The Duke took his
cigarette-case from his pocket and lighted a cigarette.

Suddenly he lost his bored air; his face lighted up; and he said
joyfully: “Of course, why didn’t I think of it? Why should we start
from a pit of gloom like this? Let us have the proper illumination
which our enterprise deserves.”

With that he set about lighting all the lamps in the hall. There were
lamps on stands, lamps on brackets, lamps on tables, and lamps which
hung from the roof—old-fashioned lamps with new reservoirs, new lamps
of what is called chaste design, brass lamps, silver lamps, and lamps
in porcelain. The Duke lighted them one after another, patiently,
missing none, with a cold perseverance. The operation was punctuated by
exclamations from Germaine. They were all to the effect that she could
not understand how he could be such a fool. The Duke paid no attention
whatever to her. His face illumined with boyish glee, he lighted lamp
after lamp.

Sonia watched him with a smiling admiration of the childlike enthusiasm
with which he performed the task. Even the stolid face of the ox-eyed
Irma relaxed into grins, which she smoothed quickly out with a
respectful hand.

The Duke had just lighted the twenty-second lamp when in bustled the
millionaire.

“What’s this? What’s this?” he cried, stopping short, blinking.

“Just some more of Jacques’ foolery!” cried Germaine in tones of the
last exasperation.

“But, my dear Duke!—my dear Duke! The oil!—the oil!” cried the
millionaire, in a tone of bitter distress. “Do you think it’s my object
in life to swell the Rockefeller millions? We never have more than six
lamps burning unless we are holding a reception.”

“I think it looks so cheerful,” said the Duke, looking round on his
handiwork with a beaming smile of satisfaction. “But where are the
cars? Jean seems a deuce of a time bringing them round. Does he expect
us to go to the garage through this rain? We’d better hurry him up.
Come on; you’ve got a good carrying voice.”

He caught the millionaire by the arm, hurried him through the outer
hall, opened the big door of the château, and said: “Now shout!”

The millionaire looked at him, shrugged his shoulders, and said: “You
don’t beat about the bush when you want anything.”

“Why should I?” said the Duke simply. “Shout, my good chap—shout!”

The millionaire raised his voice in a terrific bellow of “Jean! Jean!
Firmin! Firmin!”

There was no answer.




CHAPTER VII
THE THEFT OF THE MOTOR-CARS


The night was very black; the rain pattered in their faces.

Again the millionaire bellowed: “Jean! Firmin! Firmin! Jean!”

No answer came out of the darkness, though his bellow echoed and
re-echoed among the out-buildings and stables away on the left.

He turned and looked at the Duke and said uneasily, “What on earth can
they be doing?”

“I can’t conceive,” said the Duke. “I suppose we must go and hunt them
out.”

“What! in this darkness, with these burglars about?” said the
millionaire, starting back.

“If we don’t, nobody else will,” said the Duke. “And all the time that
rascal Lupin is stealing nearer and nearer your pictures. So buck up,
and come along!”

He seized the reluctant millionaire by the arm and drew him down the
steps. They took their way to the stables. A dim light shone from the
open door of the motor-house. The Duke went into it first, and stopped
short.

“Well, I’ll be hanged!” he cried.

Instead of three cars the motor-house held but one—the hundred
horse-power Mercrac. It was a racing car, with only two seats. On them
sat two figures, Jean and Firmin.

“What are you sitting there for? You idle dogs!” bellowed the
millionaire.

Neither of the men answered, nor did they stir. The light from the lamp
gleamed on their fixed eyes, which stared at their infuriated master.

“What on earth is this?” said the Duke; and seizing the lamp which
stood beside the car, he raised it so that its light fell on the two
figures. Then it was clear what had happened: they were trussed like
two fowls, and gagged.

The Duke pulled a penknife from his pocket, opened the blade, stepped
into the car and set Firmin free. Firmin coughed and spat and swore.
The Duke cut the bonds of Jean.

“Well,” said the Duke, in a tone of cutting irony, “what new game is
this? What have you been playing at?”

“It was those Charolais—those cursed Charolais!” growled Firmin.

“They came on us unawares from behind,” said Jean.

“They tied us up, and gagged us—the swine!” said Firmin.

“And then—they went off in the two cars,” said Jean.

“Went off in the two cars?” cried the millionaire, in blank
stupefaction.

The Duke burst into a shout of laughter.

“Well, your dear friend Lupin doesn’t do things by halves,” he cried.
“This is the funniest thing I ever heard of.”

“Funny!” howled the millionaire. “Funny! Where does the fun come in?
What about my pictures and the coronet?”

The Duke laughed his laugh out; then changed on the instant to a man of
action.

“Well, this means a change in our plans,” he said. “I must get to Paris
in this car here.”

“It’s such a rotten old thing,” said the millionaire. “You’ll never do
it.”

“Never mind,” said the Duke. “I’ve got to do it somehow. I daresay it’s
better than you think. And after all, it’s only a matter of two hundred
miles.” He paused, and then said in an anxious tone: “All the same I
don’t like leaving you and Germaine in the château. These rogues have
probably only taken the cars out of reach just to prevent your getting
to Paris. They’ll leave them in some field and come back.”

“You’re not going to leave us behind. I wouldn’t spend the night in the
château for a million francs. There’s always the train,” said the
millionaire.

“The train! Twelve hours in the train—with all those changes! You don’t
mean that you will actually go to Paris by train?” said the Duke.

“I do,” said the millionaire. “Come along—I must go and tell Germaine;
there’s no time to waste,” and he hurried off to the château.

“Get the lamps lighted, Jean, and make sure that the tank’s full. As
for the engine, I must humour it and trust to luck. I’ll get her to
Paris somehow,” said the Duke.

He went back to the château, and Firmin followed him.

When the Duke came into the great hall he found Germaine and her father
indulging in recriminations. She was declaring that nothing would
induce her to make the journey by train; her father was declaring that
she should. He bore down her opposition by the mere force of his
magnificent voice.

When at last there came a silence, Sonia said quietly: “But is there a
train? I know there’s a train at midnight; but is there one before?”

“A time-table—where’s a time-table?” said the millionaire.

“Now, where did I see a time-table?” said the Duke. “Oh, I know;
there’s one in the drawer of that Oriental cabinet.” Crossing to the
cabinet, he opened the drawer, took out the time-table, and handed it
to M. Gournay-Martin.

The millionaire took it and turned over the leaves quickly, ran his eye
down a page, and said, “Yes, thank goodness, there is a train. There’s
one at a quarter to nine.”

“And what good is it to us? How are we to get to the station?” said
Germaine.

They looked at one another blankly. Firmin, who had followed the Duke
into the hall, came to the rescue.

“There’s the luggage-cart,” he said.

“The luggage-cart!” cried Germaine contemptuously.

“The very thing!” said the millionaire. “I’ll drive it myself. Off you
go, Firmin; harness a horse to it.”

Firmin went clumping out of the hall.

It was perhaps as well that he went, for the Duke asked what time it
was; and since the watches of Germaine and her father differed still,
there ensued an altercation in which, had Firmin been there, he would
doubtless have taken part.

The Duke cut it short by saying: “Well, I don’t think I’ll wait to see
you start for the station. It won’t take you more than half an hour.
The cart is light. You needn’t start yet. I’d better get off as soon as
the car is ready. It isn’t as though I could trust it.”

“One moment,” said Germaine. “Is there a dining-car on the train? I’m
not going to be starved as well as have my night’s rest cut to pieces.”

“Of course there isn’t a dining-car,” snapped her father. “We must eat
something now, and take something with us.”

“Sonia, Irma, quick! Be off to the larder and see what you can find.
Tell Mother Firmin to make an omelette. Be quick!”

Sonia went towards the door of the hall, followed by Irma.

“Good-night, and bon voyage, Mademoiselle Sonia,” said the Duke.

“Good-night, and bon voyage, your Grace,” said Sonia.

The Duke opened the door of the hall for her; and as she went out, she
said anxiously, in a low voice: “Oh, do—do be careful. I hate to think
of your hurrying to Paris on a night like this. Please be careful.”

“I will be careful,” said the Duke.

The honk of the motor-horn told him that Jean had brought the car to
the door of the château. He came down the room, kissed Germaine’s
hands, shook hands with the millionaire, and bade them good-night. Then
he went out to the car. They heard it start; the rattle of it grew
fainter and fainter down the long avenue and died away.

M. Gournay-Martin arose, and began putting out lamps. As he did so, he
kept casting fearful glances at the window, as if he feared lest, now
that the Duke had gone, the burglars should dash in upon him.

There came a knock at the door, and Jean appeared on the threshold.

“His Grace told me that I was to come into the house, and help Firmin
look after it,” he said.

The millionaire gave him instructions about the guarding of the house.
Firmin, since he was an old soldier, was to occupy the post of honour,
and guard the hall, armed with his gun. Jean was to guard the two
drawing-rooms, as being less likely points of attack. He also was to
have a gun; and the millionaire went with him to the gun-room and gave
him one and a dozen cartridges. When they came back to the hall, Sonia
called them into the dining-room; and there, to the accompaniment of an
unsubdued grumbling from Germaine at having to eat cold food at eight
at night, they made a hasty but excellent meal, since the chef had left
an elaborate cold supper ready to be served.

They had nearly finished it when Jean came in, his gun on his arm, to
say that Firmin had harnessed the horse to the luggage-cart, and it was
awaiting them at the door of the château.

“Send him in to me, and stand by the horse till we come out,” said the
millionaire.

Firmin came clumping in.

The millionaire gazed at him solemnly, and said: “Firmin, I am relying
on you. I am leaving you in a position of honour and danger—a position
which an old soldier of France loves.”

Firmin did his best to look like an old soldier of France. He pulled
himself up out of the slouch which long years of loafing through woods
with a gun on his arm had given him. He lacked also the old soldier of
France’s fiery gaze. His eyes were lack-lustre.

“I look for anything, Firmin—burglary, violence, an armed assault,”
said the millionaire.

“Don’t be afraid, sir. I saw the war of ’70,” said Firmin boldly,
rising to the occasion.

“Good!” said the millionaire. “I confide the château to you. I trust
you with my treasures.”

He rose, and saying “Come along, we must be getting to the station,” he
led the way to the door of the château.

The luggage-cart stood rather high, and they had to bring a chair out
of the hall to enable the girls to climb into it. Germaine did not
forget to give her real opinion of the advantages of a seat formed by a
plank resting on the sides of the cart. The millionaire climbed heavily
up in front, and took the reins.

“Never again will I trust only to motor-cars. The first thing I’ll do
after I’ve made sure that my collections are safe will be to buy
carriages—something roomy,” he said gloomily, as he realized the
discomfort of his seat.

He turned to Jean and Firmin, who stood on the steps of the château
watching the departure of their master, and said: “Sons of France, be
brave—be brave!”

The cart bumped off into the damp, dark night.

Jean and Firmin watched it disappear into the darkness. Then they came
into the château and shut the door.

Firmin looked at Jean, and said gloomily: “I don’t like this. These
burglars stick at nothing. They’d as soon cut your throat as look at
you.”

“It can’t be helped,” said Jean. “Besides, you’ve got the post of
honour. You guard the hall. I’m to look after the drawing-rooms.
They’re not likely to break in through the drawing-rooms. And I shall
lock the door between them and the hall.”

“No, no; you won’t lock that door!” cried Firmin.

“But I certainly will,” said Jean. “You’d better come and get a gun.”

They went to the gun-room, Firmin still protesting against the locking
of the door between the drawing-rooms and the hall. He chose his gun;
and they went into the kitchen. Jean took two bottles of wine, a
rich-looking pie, a sweet, and carried them to the drawing-room. He
came back into the hall, gathered together an armful of papers and
magazines, and went back to the drawing-room. Firmin kept trotting
after him, like a little dog with a somewhat heavy footfall.

On the threshold of the drawing-room Jean paused and said: “The
important thing with burglars is to fire first, old cock. Good-night.
Pleasant dreams.”

He shut the door and turned the key. Firmin stared at the decorated
panels blankly. The beauty of the scheme of decoration did not, at the
moment, move him to admiration.

He looked fearfully round the empty hall and at the windows, black
against the night. Under the patter of the rain he heard
footsteps—distinctly. He went hastily clumping down the hall, and along
the passage to the kitchen.

His wife was setting his supper on the table.

“My God!” he said. “I haven’t been so frightened since ’70.” And he
mopped his glistening forehead with a dish-cloth. It was not a clean
dish-cloth; but he did not care.

“Frightened? What of?” said his wife.

“Burglars! Cut-throats!” said Firmin.

He told her of the fears of M. Gournay-Martin, and of his own
appointment to the honourable and dangerous post of guard of the
château.

“God save us!” said his wife. “You lock the door of that beastly hall,
and come into the kitchen. Burglars won’t bother about the kitchen.”

“But the master’s treasures!” protested Firmin. “He confided them to
me. He said so distinctly.”

“Let the master look after his treasures himself,” said Madame Firmin,
with decision. “You’ve only one throat; and I’m not going to have it
cut. You sit down and eat your supper. Go and lock that door first,
though.”

Firmin locked the door of the hall; then he locked the door of the
kitchen; then he sat down, and began to eat his supper. His appetite
was hearty, but none the less he derived little pleasure from the meal.
He kept stopping with the food poised on his fork, midway between the
plate and his mouth, for several seconds at a time, while he listened
with straining ears for the sound of burglars breaking in the windows
of the hall. He was much too far from those windows to hear anything
that happened to them, but that did not prevent him from straining his
ears. Madame Firmin ate her supper with an air of perfect ease. She
felt sure that burglars would not bother with the kitchen.

Firmin’s anxiety made him terribly thirsty. Tumbler after tumbler of
wine flowed down the throat for which he feared. When he had finished
his supper he went on satisfying his thirst. Madame Firmin lighted his
pipe for him, and went and washed up the supper-dishes in the scullery.
Then she came back, and sat down on the other side of the hearth,
facing him. About the middle of his third bottle of wine, Firmin’s
cold, relentless courage was suddenly restored to him. He began to talk
firmly about his duty to his master, his resolve to die, if need were,
in defence of his interests, of his utter contempt for
burglars—probably Parisians. But he did not go into the hall. Doubtless
the pleasant warmth of the kitchen fire held him in his chair.

He had described to his wife, with some ferocity, the cruel manner in
which he would annihilate the first three burglars who entered the
hall, and was proceeding to describe his method of dealing with the
fourth, when there came a loud knocking on the front door of the
château.

Stricken silent, turned to stone, Firmin sat with his mouth open, in
the midst of an unfinished word. Madame Firmin scuttled to the kitchen
door she had left unlocked on her return from the scullery, and locked
it. She turned, and they stared at one another.

The heavy knocker fell again and again and again. Between the knocking
there was a sound like the roaring of lions. Husband and wife stared at
one another with white faces. Firmin picked up his gun with trembling
hands, and the movement seemed to set his teeth chattering. They
chattered like castanets.

The knocking still went on, and so did the roaring.

It had gone on at least for five minutes, when a slow gleam of
comprehension lightened Madame Firmin’s face.

“I believe it’s the master’s voice,” she said.

“The master’s voice!” said Firmin, in a hoarse, terrified whisper.

“Yes,” said Madame Firmin. And she unlocked the thick door and opened
it a few inches.

The barrier removed, the well-known bellow of the millionaire came
distinctly to their ears. Firmin’s courage rushed upon him in full
flood. He clumped across the room, brushed his wife aside, and trotted
to the door of the château. He unlocked it, drew the bolts, and threw
it open. On the steps stood the millionaire, Germaine, and Sonia. Irma
stood at the horse’s head.

“What the devil have you been doing?” bellowed the millionaire. “What
do you keep me standing in the rain for? Why didn’t you let me in?”

“B-b-b-burglars—I thought you were b-b-b-burglars,” stammered Firmin.

“Burglars!” howled the millionaire. “Do I sound like a burglar?”

At the moment he did not; he sounded more like a bull of Bashan. He
bustled past Firmin to the door of the hall.

“Here! What’s this locked for?” he bellowed.

“I—I—locked it in case burglars should get in while I was opening the
front door,” stammered Firmin.

The millionaire turned the key, opened the door, and went into the
hall. Germaine followed him. She threw off her dripping coat, and said
with some heat: “I can’t conceive why you didn’t make sure that there
was a train at a quarter to nine. I will not go to Paris to-night.
Nothing shall induce me to take that midnight train!”

“Nonsense!” said the millionaire. “Nonsense—you’ll have to go! Where’s
that infernal time-table?” He rushed to the table on to which he had
thrown the time-table after looking up the train, snatched it up, and
looked at the cover. “Why, hang it!” he cried. “It’s for June—June,
1903!”

“Oh!” cried Germaine, almost in a scream. “It’s incredible! It’s one of
Jacques’ jokes!”




CHAPTER VIII
THE DUKE ARRIVES


The morning was gloomy, and the police-station with its bare,
white-washed walls—their white expanse was only broken by notice-boards
to which were pinned portraits of criminals with details of their
appearance, their crime, and the reward offered for their
apprehension—with its shabby furniture, and its dingy fireplace,
presented a dismal and sordid appearance entirely in keeping with the
September grey. The inspector sat at his desk, yawning after a night
which had passed without an arrest. He was waiting to be relieved. The
policeman at the door and the two policemen sitting on a bench by the
wall yawned in sympathy.

The silence of the street was broken by the rattle of an uncommonly
noisy motor-car. It stopped before the door of the police-station, and
the eyes of the inspector and his men turned, idly expectant, to the
door of the office.

It opened, and a young man in motor-coat and cap stood on the
threshold.

He looked round the office with alert eyes, which took in everything,
and said, in a brisk, incisive voice: “I am the Duke of Charmerace. I
am here on behalf of M. Gournay-Martin. Last evening he received a
letter from Arsène Lupin saying he was going to break into his Paris
house this very morning.”

At the name of Arsène Lupin the inspector sprang from his chair, the
policemen from their bench. On the instant they were wide awake,
attentive, full of zeal.

“The letter, your Grace!” said the inspector briskly.

The Duke pulled off his glove, drew the letter from the breast-pocket
of his under-coat, and handed it to the inspector.

The inspector glanced through it, and said. “Yes, I know the
handwriting well.” Then he read it carefully, and added, “Yes, yes:
it’s his usual letter.”

“There’s no time to be lost,” said the Duke quickly. “I ought to have
been here hours ago—hours. I had a break-down. I’m afraid I’m too late
as it is.”

“Come along, your Grace—come along, you,” said the inspector briskly.

The four of them hurried out of the office and down the steps of the
police-station. In the roadway stood a long grey racing-car, caked with
muds—grey mud, brown mud, red mud—from end to end. It looked as if it
had brought samples of the soil of France from many districts.

“Come along; I’ll take you in the car. Your men can trot along beside
us,” said the Duke to the inspector.

He slipped into the car, the inspector jumped in and took the seat
beside him, and they started. They went slowly, to allow the two
policemen to keep up with them. Indeed, the car could not have made any
great pace, for the tyre of the off hind-wheel was punctured and
deflated.

In three minutes they came to the Gournay-Martin house, a wide-fronted
mass of undistinguished masonry, in an undistinguished row of exactly
the same pattern. There were no signs that any one was living in it.
Blinds were drawn, shutters were up over all the windows, upper and
lower. No smoke came from any of its chimneys, though indeed it was
full early for that.

Pulling a bunch of keys from his pocket, the Duke ran up the steps. The
inspector followed him. The Duke looked at the bunch, picked out the
latch-key, and fitted it into the lock. It did not open it. He drew it
out and tried another key and another. The door remained locked.

“Let me, your Grace,” said the inspector. “I’m more used to it. I shall
be quicker.”

The Duke handed the keys to him, and, one after another, the inspector
fitted them into the lock. It was useless. None of them opened the
door.

“They’ve given me the wrong keys,” said the Duke, with some vexation.
“Or no—stay—I see what’s happened. The keys have been changed.”

“Changed?” said the inspector. “When? Where?”

“Last night at Charmerace,” said the Duke. “M. Gournay-Martin declared
that he saw a burglar slip out of one of the windows of the hall of the
château, and we found the lock of the bureau in which the keys were
kept broken.”

The inspector seized the knocker, and hammered on the door.

“Try that door there,” he cried to his men, pointing to a side-door on
the right, the tradesmen’s entrance, giving access to the back of the
house. It was locked. There came no sound of movement in the house in
answer to the inspector’s knocking.

“Where’s the concierge?” he said.

The Duke shrugged his shoulders. “There’s a housekeeper, too—a woman
named Victoire,” he said. “Let’s hope we don’t find them with their
throats cut.”

“That isn’t Lupin’s way,” said the inspector. “They won’t have come to
much harm.”

“It’s not very likely that they’ll be in a position to open doors,”
said the Duke drily.

“Hadn’t we better have it broken open and be done with it?”

The inspector hesitated.

“People don’t like their doors broken open,” he said. “And M.
Gournay-Martin—”

“Oh, I’ll take the responsibility of that,” said the Duke.

“Oh, if you say so, your Grace,” said the inspector, with a brisk
relief. “Henri, go to Ragoneau, the locksmith in the Rue Theobald.
Bring him here as quickly as ever you can get him.”

“Tell him it’s a couple of louis if he’s here inside of ten minutes,”
said the Duke.

The policeman hurried off. The inspector bent down and searched the
steps carefully. He searched the roadway. The Duke lighted a cigarette
and watched him. The house of the millionaire stood next but one to the
corner of a street which ran at right angles to the one in which it
stood, and the corner house was empty. The inspector searched the road,
then he went round the corner. The other policeman went along the road,
searching in the opposite direction. The Duke leant against the door
and smoked on patiently. He showed none of the weariness of a man who
has spent the night in a long and anxious drive in a rickety motor-car.
His eyes were bright and clear; he looked as fresh as if he had come
from his bed after a long night’s rest. If he had not found the South
Pole, he had at any rate brought back fine powers of endurance from his
expedition in search of it.

The inspector came back, wearing a disappointed air.

“Have you found anything?” said the Duke.

“Nothing,” said the inspector.

He came up the steps and hammered again on the door. No one answered
his knock. There was a clatter of footsteps, and Henri and the
locksmith, a burly, bearded man, his bag of tools slung over his
shoulder, came hurrying up. He was not long getting to work, but it was
not an easy job. The lock was strong. At the end of five minutes he
said that he might spend an hour struggling with the lock itself;
should he cut away a piece of the door round it?

“Cut away,” said the Duke.

The locksmith changed his tools, and in less than three minutes he had
cut away a square piece from the door, a square in which the lock was
fixed, and taken it bodily away.

The door opened. The inspector drew his revolver, and entered the
house. The Duke followed him. The policemen drew their revolvers, and
followed the Duke. The big hall was but dimly lighted. One of the
policemen quickly threw back the shutters of the windows and let in the
light. The hall was empty, the furniture in perfect order; there were
no signs of burglary there.

“The concierge?” said the inspector, and his men hurried through the
little door on the right which opened into the concierge’s rooms. In
half a minute one of them came out and said: “Gagged and bound, and his
wife too.”

“But the rooms which were to be plundered are upstairs,” said the
Duke—“the big drawing-rooms on the first floor. Come on; we may be just
in time. The scoundrels may not yet have got away.”

He ran quickly up the stairs, followed by the inspector, and hurried
along the corridor to the door of the big drawing-room. He threw it
open, and stopped dead on the threshold. He had arrived too late.

The room was in disorder. Chairs were overturned, there were empty
spaces on the wall where the finest pictures of the millionaire had
been hung. The window facing the door was wide open. The shutters were
broken; one of them was hanging crookedly from only its bottom hinge.
The top of a ladder rose above the window-sill, and beside it,
astraddle the sill, was an Empire card-table, half inside the room,
half out. On the hearth-rug, before a large tapestry fire-screen, which
masked the wide fireplace, built in imitation of the big, wide
fireplaces of our ancestors, and rose to the level of the
chimney-piece—a magnificent chimney-piece in carved oak-were some
chairs tied together ready to be removed.

The Duke and the inspector ran to the window, and looked down into the
garden. It was empty. At the further end of it, on the other side of
its wall, rose the scaffolding of a house a-building. The burglars had
found every convenience to their hand—a strong ladder, an egress
through the door in the garden wall, and then through the gap formed by
the house in process of erection, which had rendered them independent
of the narrow passage between the walls of the gardens, which debouched
into a side-street on the right.

The Duke turned from the window, glanced at the wall opposite, then, as
if something had caught his eye, went quickly to it.

“Look here,” he said, and he pointed to the middle of one of the empty
spaces in which a picture had hung.

There, written neatly in blue chalk, were the words:

ARSÈNE LUPIN

“This is a job for Guerchard,” said the inspector. “But I had better
get an examining magistrate to take the matter in hand first.” And he
ran to the telephone.

The Duke opened the folding doors which led into the second
drawing-room. The shutters of the windows were open, and it was plain
that Arsène Lupin had plundered it also of everything that had struck
his fancy. In the gaps between the pictures on the walls was again the
signature “Arsène Lupin.”

The inspector was shouting impatiently into the telephone, bidding a
servant wake her master instantly. He did not leave the telephone till
he was sure that she had done so, that her master was actually awake,
and had been informed of the crime. The Duke sat down in an easy chair
and waited for him.

When he had finished telephoning, the inspector began to search the two
rooms for traces of the burglars. He found nothing, not even a
finger-mark.

When he had gone through the two rooms he said, “The next thing to do
is to find the house-keeper. She may be sleeping still—she may not even
have heard the noise of the burglars.”

“I find all this extremely interesting,” said the Duke; and he followed
the inspector out of the room.

The inspector called up the two policemen, who had been freeing the
concierge and going through the rooms on the ground-floor. They did not
then examine any more of the rooms on the first floor to discover if
they also had been plundered. They went straight up to the top of the
house, the servants’ quarters.

The inspector called, “Victoire! Victoire!” two or three times; but
there was no answer.

They opened the door of room after room and looked in, the inspector
taking the rooms on the right, the policemen the rooms on the left.

“Here we are,” said one of the policemen. “This room’s been recently
occupied.” They looked in, and saw that the bed was unmade. Plainly
Victoire had slept in it.

“Where can she be?” said the Duke.

“Be?” said the inspector. “I expect she’s with the burglars—an
accomplice.”

“I gather that M. Gournay-Martin had the greatest confidence in her,”
said the Duke.

“He’ll have less now,” said the inspector drily. “It’s generally the
confidential ones who let their masters down.”

The inspector and his men set about a thorough search of the house.
They found the other rooms undisturbed. In half an hour they had
established the fact that the burglars had confined their attention to
the two drawing-rooms. They found no traces of them; and they did not
find Victoire. The concierge could throw no light on her disappearance.
He and his wife had been taken by surprise in their sleep and in the
dark.

They had been gagged and bound, they declared, without so much as
having set eyes on their assailants. The Duke and the inspector came
back to the plundered drawing-room.

The inspector looked at his watch and went to the telephone.

“I must let the Prefecture know,” he said.

“Be sure you ask them to send Guerchard,” said the Duke.

“Guerchard?” said the inspector doubtfully.

“M. Formery, the examining magistrate, does not get on very well with
Guerchard.”

“What sort of a man is M. Formery? Is he capable?” said the Duke.

“Oh, yes—yes. He’s very capable,” said the inspector quickly. “But he
doesn’t have very good luck.”

“M. Gournay-Martin particularly asked me to send for Guerchard if I
arrived too late, and found the burglary already committed,” said the
Duke. “It seems that there is war to the knife between Guerchard and
this Arsène Lupin. In that case Guerchard will leave no stone unturned
to catch the rascal and recover the stolen treasures. M. Gournay-Martin
felt that Guerchard was the man for this piece of work very strongly
indeed.”

“Very good, your Grace,” said the inspector. And he rang up the
Prefecture of Police.

The Duke heard him report the crime and ask that Guerchard should be
sent. The official in charge at the moment seemed to make some demur.

The Duke sprang to his feet, and said in an anxious tone, “Perhaps I’d
better speak to him myself.”

He took his place at the telephone and said, “I am the Duke of
Charmerace. M. Gournay-Martin begged me to secure the services of M.
Guerchard. He laid the greatest stress on my securing them, if on
reaching Paris I found that the crime had already been committed.”

The official at the other end of the line hesitated. He did not refuse
on the instant as he had refused the inspector. It may be that he
reflected that M. Gournay-Martin was a millionaire and a man of
influence; that the Duke of Charmerace was a Duke; that he, at any
rate, had nothing whatever to gain by running counter to their wishes.
He said that Chief-Inspector Guerchard was not at the Prefecture, that
he was off duty; that he would send down two detectives, who were on
duty, at once, and summon Chief-Inspector Guerchard with all speed. The
Duke thanked him and rang off.

“That’s all right,” he said cheerfully, turning to the inspector. “What
time will M. Formery be here?”

“Well, I don’t expect him for another hour,” said the inspector. “He
won’t come till he’s had his breakfast. He always makes a good
breakfast before setting out to start an inquiry, lest he shouldn’t
find time to make one after he’s begun it.”

“Breakfast—breakfast—that’s a great idea,” said the Duke. “Now you come
to remind me, I’m absolutely famished. I got some supper on my way late
last night; but I’ve had nothing since. I suppose nothing interesting
will happen till M. Formery comes; and I may as well get some food. But
I don’t want to leave the house. I think I’ll see what the concierge
can do for me.”

So saying, he went downstairs and interviewed the concierge. The
concierge seemed to be still doubtful whether he was standing on his
head or his heels, but he undertook to supply the needs of the Duke.
The Duke gave him a louis, and he hurried off to get food from a
restaurant.

The Duke went upstairs to the bathroom and refreshed himself with a
cold bath. By the time he had bathed and dressed the concierge had a
meal ready for him in the dining-room. He ate it with the heartiest
appetite. Then he sent out for a barber and was shaved.

He then repaired to the pillaged drawing-room, disposed himself in the
most restful attitude on a sofa, and lighted an excellent cigar. In the
middle of it the inspector came to him. He was not wearing a very
cheerful air; and he told the Duke that he had found no clue to the
perpetrators of the crime, though M. Dieusy and M. Bonavent, the
detectives from the Prefecture of Police, had joined him in the search.

The Duke was condoling with him on this failure when they heard a
knocking at the front door, and then voices on the stairs.

“Ah! Here is M. Formery!” said the inspector cheerfully. “Now we can
get on.”




CHAPTER IX
M. FORMERY OPENS THE INQUIRY


The examining magistrate came into the room. He was a plump and pink
little man, with very bright eyes. His bristly hair stood up straight
all over his head, giving it the appearance of a broad, dapple-grey
clothes-brush. He appeared to be of the opinion that Nature had given
the world the toothbrush as a model of what a moustache should be; and
his own was clipped to that pattern.

“The Duke of Charmerace, M. Formery,” said the inspector.

The little man bowed and said, “Charmed, charmed to make your
acquaintance, your Grace—though the occasion—the occasion is somewhat
painful. The treasures of M. Gournay-Martin are known to all the world.
France will deplore his losses.” He paused, and added hastily, “But we
shall recover them—we shall recover them.”

The Duke rose, bowed, and protested his pleasure at making the
acquaintance of M. Formery.

“Is this the scene of the robbery, inspector?” said M. Formery; and he
rubbed his hands together with a very cheerful air.

“Yes, sir,” said the inspector. “These two rooms seem to be the only
ones touched, though of course we can’t tell till M. Gournay-Martin
arrives. Jewels may have been stolen from the bedrooms.”

“I fear that M. Gournay-Martin won’t be of much help for some days,”
said the Duke. “When I left him he was nearly distracted; and he won’t
be any better after a night journey to Paris from Charmerace. But
probably these are the only two rooms touched, for in them M.
Gournay-Martin had gathered together the gems of his collection. Over
the doors hung some pieces of Flemish tapestry—marvels—the composition
admirable—the colouring delightful.”

“It is easy to see that your Grace was very fond of them,” said M.
Formery.

“I should think so,” said the Duke. “I looked on them as already
belonging to me, for my father-in-law was going to give them to me as a
wedding present.”

“A great loss—a great loss. But we will recover them, sooner or later,
you can rest assured of it. I hope you have touched nothing in this
room. If anything has been moved it may put me off the scent
altogether. Let me have the details, inspector.”

The inspector reported the arrival of the Duke at the police-station
with Arsène Lupin’s letter to M. Gournay-Martin; the discovery that the
keys had been changed and would not open the door of the house; the
opening of it by the locksmith; the discovery of the concierge and his
wife gagged and bound.

“Probably accomplices,” said M. Formery.

“Does Lupin always work with accomplices?” said the Duke. “Pardon my
ignorance—but I’ve been out of France for so long—before he attained to
this height of notoriety.”

“Lupin—why Lupin?” said M. Formery sharply.

“Why, there is the letter from Lupin which my future father-in-law
received last night; its arrival was followed by the theft of his two
swiftest motor-cars; and then, these signatures on the wall here,” said
the Duke in some surprise at the question.

“Lupin! Lupin! Everybody has Lupin on the brain!” said M. Formery
impatiently. “I’m sick of hearing his name. This letter and these
signatures are just as likely to be forgeries as not.”

“I wonder if Guerchard will take that view,” said the Duke.

“Guerchard? Surely we’re not going to be cluttered up with Guerchard.
He has Lupin on the brain worse than any one else.”

“But M. Gournay-Martin particularly asked me to send for Guerchard if I
arrived too late to prevent the burglary. He would never forgive me if
I had neglected his request: so I telephoned for him—to the Prefecture
of Police,” said the Duke.

“Oh, well, if you’ve already telephoned for him. But it was
unnecessary—absolutely unnecessary,” said M. Formery sharply.

“I didn’t know,” said the Duke politely.

“Oh, there was no harm in it—it doesn’t matter,” said M. Formery in a
discontented tone with a discontented air.

He walked slowly round the room, paused by the windows, looked at the
ladder, and scanned the garden:

“Arsène Lupin,” he said scornfully. “Arsène Lupin doesn’t leave traces
all over the place. There’s nothing but traces. Are we going to have
that silly Lupin joke all over again?”

“I think, sir, that this time joke is the word, for this is a burglary
pure and simple,” said the inspector.

“Yes, it’s plain as daylight,” said M. Formery “The burglars came in by
this window, and they went out by it.”

He crossed the room to a tall safe which stood before the unused door.
The safe was covered with velvet, and velvet curtains hung before its
door. He drew the curtains, and tried the handle of the door of the
safe. It did not turn; the safe was locked.

“As far as I can see, they haven’t touched this,” said M. Formery.

“Thank goodness for that,” said the Duke. “I believe, or at least my
fiancée does, that M. Gournay-Martin keeps the most precious thing in
his collection in that safe—the coronet.”

“What! the famous coronet of the Princesse de Lamballe?” said M.
Formery.

“Yes,” said the Duke.

“But according to your report, inspector, the letter signed ‘Lupin’
announced that he was going to steal the coronet also.”

“It did—in so many words,” said the Duke.

“Well, here is a further proof that we’re not dealing with Lupin. That
rascal would certainly have put his threat into execution, M. Formery,”
said the inspector.

“Who’s in charge of the house?” said M. Formery.

“The concierge, his wife, and a housekeeper—a woman named Victoire,”
said the inspector.

“I’ll see to the concierge and his wife presently. I’ve sent one of
your men round for their dossier. When I get it I’ll question them. You
found them gagged and bound in their bedroom?”

“Yes, M. Formery; and always this imitation of Lupin—a yellow gag, blue
cords, and the motto, ‘I take, therefore I am,’ on a scrap of
cardboard—his usual bag of tricks.”

“Then once again they’re going to touch us up in the papers. It’s any
odds on it,” said M. Formery gloomily. “Where’s the housekeeper? I
should like to see her.”

“The fact is, we don’t know where she is,” said the inspector.

“You don’t know where she is?” said M. Formery.

“We can’t find her anywhere,” said the inspector.

“That’s excellent, excellent. We’ve found the accomplice,” said M.
Formery with lively delight; and he rubbed his hands together. “At
least, we haven’t found her, but we know her.”

“I don’t think that’s the case,” said the Duke. “At least, my future
father-in-law and my fiancée had both of them the greatest confidence
in her. Yesterday she telephoned to us at the château de Charmerace.
All the jewels were left in her charge, and the wedding presents as
they were sent in.”

“And these jewels and wedding presents—have they been stolen too?” said
M. Formery.

“They don’t seem to have been touched,” said the Duke, “though of
course we can’t tell till M. Gournay-Martin arrives. As far as I can
see, the burglars have only touched these two drawing-rooms.”

“That’s very annoying,” said M. Formery.

“I don’t find it so,” said the Duke, smiling.

“I was looking at it from the professional point of view,” said M.
Formery. He turned to the inspector and added, “You can’t have searched
thoroughly. This housekeeper must be somewhere about—if she’s really
trustworthy. Have you looked in every room in the house?”

“In every room—under every bed—in every corner and every cupboard,”
said the inspector.

“Bother!” said M. Formery. “Are there no scraps of torn clothes, no
blood-stains, no traces of murder, nothing of interest?”

“Nothing!” said the inspector.

“But this is very regrettable,” said M. Formery. “Where did she sleep?
Was her bed unmade?”

“Her room is at the top of the house,” said the inspector. “The bed had
been slept in, but she does not appear to have taken away any of her
clothes.”

“Extraordinary! This is beginning to look a very complicated business,”
said M. Formery gravely.

“Perhaps Guerchard will be able to throw a little more light on it,”
said the Duke.

M. Formery frowned and said, “Yes, yes. Guerchard is a good assistant
in a business like this. A little visionary, a little
fanciful—wrong-headed, in fact; but, after all, he IS Guerchard. Only,
since Lupin is his bugbear, he’s bound to find some means of muddling
us up with that wretched animal. You’re going to see Lupin mixed up
with all this to a dead certainty, your Grace.”

The Duke looked at the signatures on the wall. “It seems to me that he
is pretty well mixed up with it already,” he said quietly.

“Believe me, your Grace, in a criminal affair it is, above all things,
necessary to distrust appearances. I am growing more and more confident
that some ordinary burglars have committed this crime and are trying to
put us off the scent by diverting our attention to Lupin.”

The Duke stooped down carelessly and picked up a book which had fallen
from a table.

“Excuse me, but please—please—do not touch anything,” said M. Formery
quickly.

“Why, this is odd,” said the Duke, staring at the floor.

“What is odd?” said M. Formery.

“Well, this book looks as if it had been knocked off the table by one
of the burglars. And look here; here’s a footprint under it—a footprint
on the carpet,” said the Duke.

M. Formery and the inspector came quickly to the spot. There, where the
book had fallen, plainly imprinted on the carpet, was a white
footprint. M. Formery and the inspector stared at it.

“It looks like plaster. How did plaster get here?” said M. Formery,
frowning at it.

“Well, suppose the robbers came from the garden,” said the Duke.

“Of course they came from the garden, your Grace. Where else should
they come from?” said M. Formery, with a touch of impatience in his
tone.

“Well, at the end of the garden they’re building a house,” said the
Duke.

“Of course, of course,” said M. Formery, taking him up quickly. “The
burglars came here with their boots covered with plaster. They’ve swept
away all the other marks of their feet from the carpet; but whoever did
the sweeping was too slack to lift up that book and sweep under it.
This footprint, however, is not of great importance, though it is
corroborative of all the other evidence we have that they came and went
by the garden. There’s the ladder, and that table half out of the
window. Still, this footprint may turn out useful, after all. You had
better take the measurements of it, inspector. Here’s a foot-rule for
you. I make a point of carrying this foot-rule about with me, your
Grace. You would be surprised to learn how often it has come in
useful.”

He took a little ivory foot-rule from his waist-coat pocket, and gave
it to the inspector, who fell on his knees and measured the footprint
with the greatest care.

“I must take a careful look at that house they’re building. I shall
find a good many traces there, to a dead certainty,” said M. Formery.

The inspector entered the measurements of the footprint in his
note-book. There came the sound of a knocking at the front door.

“I shall find footprints of exactly the same dimensions as this one at
the foot of some heap of plaster beside that house,” said M. Formery;
with an air of profound conviction, pointing through the window to the
house building beyond the garden.

A policeman opened the door of the drawing-room and saluted.

“If you please, sir, the servants have arrived from Charmerace,” he
said.

“Let them wait in the kitchen and the servants’ offices,” said M.
Formery. He stood silent, buried in profound meditation, for a couple
of minutes. Then he turned to the Duke and said, “What was that you
said about a theft of motor-cars at Charmerace?”

“When he received the letter from Arsène Lupin, M. Gournay-Martin
decided to start for Paris at once,” said the Duke. “But when we sent
for the cars we found that they had just been stolen. M.
Gournay-Martin’s chauffeur and another servant were in the garage
gagged and bound. Only an old car, a hundred horse-power Mercrac, was
left. I drove it to Paris, leaving M. Gournay-Martin and his family to
come on by train.”

“Very important—very important indeed,” said M. Formery. He thought for
a moment, and then added. “Were the motor-cars the only things stolen?
Were there no other thefts?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, there was another theft, or rather an
attempt at theft,” said the Duke with some hesitation. “The rogues who
stole the motor-cars presented themselves at the château under the name
of Charolais—a father and three sons—on the pretext of buying the
hundred-horse-power Mercrac. M. Gournay-Martin had advertised it for
sale in the Rennes Advertiser. They were waiting in the big hall of the
château, which the family uses as the chief living-room, for the return
of M. Gournay-Martin. He came; and as they left the hall one of them
attempted to steal a pendant set with pearls which I had given to
Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin half an hour before. I caught him in the
act and saved the pendant.”

“Good! good! Wait—we have one of the gang—wait till I question him,”
said M. Formery, rubbing his hands; and his eyes sparkled with joy.

“Well, no; I’m afraid we haven’t,” said the Duke in an apologetic tone.

“What! We haven’t? Has he escaped from the police? Oh, those country
police!” cried M. Formery.

“No; I didn’t charge him with the theft,” said the Duke.

“You didn’t charge him with the theft?” cried M. Formery, astounded.

“No; he was very young and he begged so hard. I had the pendant. I let
him go,” said the Duke.

“Oh, your Grace, your Grace! Your duty to society!” cried M. Formery.

“Yes, it does seem to have been rather weak,” said the Duke; “but there
you are. It’s no good crying over spilt milk.”

M. Formery folded his arms and walked, frowning, backwards and forwards
across the room.

He stopped, raised his hand with a gesture commanding attention, and
said, “I have no hesitation in saying that there is a connection—an
intimate connection—between the thefts at Charmerace and this
burglary!”

The Duke and the inspector gazed at him with respectful eyes—at least,
the eyes of the inspector were respectful; the Duke’s eyes twinkled.

“I am gathering up the threads,” said M. Formery. “Inspector, bring up
the concierge and his wife. I will question them on the scene of the
crime. Their dossier should be here. If it is, bring it up with them;
if not, no matter; bring them up without it.”

The inspector left the drawing-room. M. Formery plunged at once into
frowning meditation.

“I find all this extremely interesting,” said the Duke.

“Charmed! Charmed!” said M. Formery, waving his hand with an
absent-minded air.

The inspector entered the drawing-room followed by the concierge and
his wife. He handed a paper to M. Formery. The concierge, a bearded man
of about sixty, and his wife, a somewhat bearded woman of about
fifty-five, stared at M. Formery with fascinated, terrified eyes. He
sat down in a chair, crossed his legs, read the paper through, and then
scrutinized them keenly.

“Well, have you recovered from your adventure?” he said.

“Oh, yes, sir,” said the concierge. “They hustled us a bit, but they
did not really hurt us.”

“Nothing to speak of, that is,” said his wife. “But all the same, it’s
a disgraceful thing that an honest woman can’t sleep in peace in her
bed of a night without being disturbed by rascals like that. And if the
police did their duty things like this wouldn’t happen. And I don’t
care who hears me say it.”

“You say that you were taken by surprise in your sleep?” said M.
Formery. “You say you saw nothing, and heard nothing?”

“There was no time to see anything or hear anything. They trussed us up
like greased lightning,” said the concierge.

“But the gag was the worst,” said the wife. “To lie there and not be
able to tell the rascals what I thought about them!”

“Didn’t you hear the noise of footsteps in the garden?” said M.
Formery.

“One can’t hear anything that happens in the garden from our bedroom,”
said the concierge.

“Even the night when Mlle. Germaine’s great Dane barked from twelve
o’clock till seven in the morning, all the household was kept awake
except us; but bless you, sir, we slept like tops,” said his wife
proudly.

“If they sleep like that it seems rather a waste of time to have gagged
them,” whispered the Duke to the inspector.

The inspector grinned, and whispered scornfully, “Oh, them common
folks; they do sleep like that, your Grace.”

“Didn’t you hear any noise at the front door?” said M. Formery.

“No, we heard no noise at the door,” said the concierge.

“Then you heard no noise at all the whole night?” said M. Formery.

“Oh, yes, sir, we heard noise enough after we’d been gagged,” said the
concierge.

“Now, this is important,” said M. Formery. “What kind of a noise was
it?”

“Well, it was a bumping kind of noise,” said the concierge. “And there
was a noise of footsteps, walking about the room.”

“What room? Where did these noises come from?” said M. Formery.

“From the room over our heads—the big drawing-room,” said the
concierge.

“Didn’t you hear any noise of a struggle, as if somebody was being
dragged about—no screaming or crying?” said M. Formery.

The concierge and his wife looked at one another with inquiring eyes.

“No, I didn’t,” said the concierge.

“Neither did I,” said his wife.

M. Formery paused. Then he said, “How long have you been in the service
of M. Gournay-Martin?”

“A little more than a year,” said the concierge.

M. Formery looked at the paper in his hand, frowned, and said severely,
“I see you’ve been convicted twice, my man.”

“Yes, sir, but—”

“My husband’s an honest man, sir—perfectly honest,” broke in his wife.
“You’ve only to ask M. Gournay-Martin; he’ll—”

“Be so good as to keep quiet, my good woman,” said M. Formery; and,
turning to her husband, he went on: “At your first conviction you were
sentenced to a day’s imprisonment with costs; at your second conviction
you got three days’ imprisonment.”

“I’m not going to deny it, sir,” said the concierge; “but it was an
honourable imprisonment.”

“Honourable?” said M. Formery.

“The first time, I was a gentleman’s servant, and I got a day’s
imprisonment for crying, ‘Hurrah for the General Strike!’—on the first
of May.”

“You were a valet? In whose service?” said M. Formery.

“In the service of M. Genlis, the Socialist leader.”

“And your second conviction?” said M. Formery.

“It was for having cried in the porch of Ste. Clotilde, ‘Down with the
cows!’—meaning the police, sir,” said the concierge.

“And were you in the service of M. Genlis then?” said M. Formery.

“No, sir; I was in the service of M. Bussy-Rabutin, the Royalist
deputy.”

“You don’t seem to have very well-defined political convictions,” said
M. Formery.

“Oh, yes, sir, I have,” the concierge protested. “I’m always devoted to
my masters; and I have the same opinions that they have—always.”

“Very good; you can go,” said M. Formery.

The concierge and his wife left the room, looking as if they did not
quite know whether to feel relieved or not.

“Those two fools are telling the exact truth, unless I’m very much
mistaken,” said M. Formery.

“They look honest enough people,” said the Duke.

“Well, now to examine the rest of the house,” said M. Formery.

“I’ll come with you, if I may,” said the Duke.

“By all means, by all means,” said M. Formery.

“I find it all so interesting,” said the Duke.




CHAPTER X
GUERCHARD ASSISTS


Leaving a policeman on guard at the door of the drawing-room M.
Formery, the Duke, and the inspector set out on their tour of
inspection. It was a long business, for M. Formery examined every room
with the most scrupulous care—with more care, indeed, than he had
displayed in his examination of the drawing-rooms. In particular he
lingered long in the bedroom of Victoire, discussing the possibilities
of her having been murdered and carried away by the burglars along with
their booty. He seemed, if anything, disappointed at finding no
blood-stains, but to find real consolation in the thought that she
might have been strangled. He found the inspector in entire agreement
with every theory he enunciated, and he grew more and more disposed to
regard him as a zealous and trustworthy officer. Also he was not at all
displeased at enjoying this opportunity of impressing the Duke with his
powers of analysis and synthesis. He was unaware that, as a rule, the
Duke’s eyes did not usually twinkle as they twinkled during this solemn
and deliberate progress through the house of M. Gournay-Martin. M.
Formery had so exactly the air of a sleuthhound; and he was even
noisier.

Having made this thorough examination of the house, M. Formery went out
into the garden and set about examining that. There were footprints on
the turf about the foot of the ladder, for the grass was close-clipped,
and the rain had penetrated and softened the soil; but there were
hardly as many footprints as might have been expected, seeing that the
burglars must have made many journeys in the course of robbing the
drawing-rooms of so many objects of art, some of them of considerable
weight. The footprints led to a path of hard gravel; and M. Formery led
the way down it, out of the door in the wall at the bottom of the
garden, and into the space round the house which was being built.

As M. Formery had divined, there was a heap, or, to be exact, there
were several heaps of plaster about the bottom of the scaffolding.
Unfortunately, there were also hundreds of footprints. M. Formery
looked at them with longing eyes; but he did not suggest that the
inspector should hunt about for a set of footprints of the size of the
one he had so carefully measured on the drawing-room carpet.

While they were examining the ground round the half-built house a man
came briskly down the stairs from the second floor of the house of M.
Gournay-Martin. He was an ordinary-looking man, almost insignificant,
of between forty and fifty, and of rather more than middle height. He
had an ordinary, rather shapeless mouth, an ordinary nose, an ordinary
chin, an ordinary forehead, rather low, and ordinary ears. He was
wearing an ordinary top-hat, by no means new. His clothes were the
ordinary clothes of a fairly well-to-do citizen; and his boots had been
chosen less to set off any slenderness his feet might possess than for
their comfortable roominess. Only his eyes relieved his face from
insignificance. They were extraordinarily alert eyes, producing in
those on whom they rested the somewhat uncomfortable impression that
the depths of their souls were being penetrated. He was the famous
Chief-Inspector Guerchard, head of the Detective Department of the
Prefecture of Police, and sworn foe of Arsène Lupin.

The policeman at the door of the drawing-room saluted him briskly. He
was a fine, upstanding, red-faced young fellow, adorned by a rich black
moustache of extraordinary fierceness.

“Shall I go and inform M. Formery that you have come, M. Guerchard?” he
said.

“No, no; there’s no need to take the trouble,” said Guerchard in a
gentle, rather husky voice. “Don’t bother any one about me—I’m of no
importance.”

“Oh, come, M. Guerchard,” protested the policeman.

“Of no importance,” said M. Guerchard decisively. “For the present, M.
Formery is everything. I’m only an assistant.”

He stepped into the drawing-room and stood looking about it, curiously
still. It was almost as if the whole of his being was concentrated in
the act of seeing—as if all the other functions of his mind and body
were in suspension.

“M. Formery and the inspector have just been up to examine the
housekeeper’s room. It’s right at the top of the house—on the second
floor. You take the servants’ staircase. Then it’s right at the end of
the passage on the left. Would you like me to take you up to it, sir?”
said the policeman eagerly. His heart was in his work.

“Thank you, I know where it is—I’ve just come from it,” said Guerchard
gently.

A grin of admiration widened the already wide mouth of the policeman,
and showed a row of very white, able-looking teeth.

“Ah, M. Guerchard!” he said, “you’re cleverer than all the examining
magistrates in Paris put together!”

“You ought not to say that, my good fellow. I can’t prevent you
thinking it, of course; but you ought not to say it,” said Guerchard
with husky gentleness; and the faintest smile played round the corners
of his mouth.

He walked slowly to the window, and the policeman walked with him.

“Have you noticed this, sir?” said the policeman, taking hold of the
top of the ladder with a powerful hand. “It’s probable that the
burglars came in and went away by this ladder.”

“Thank you,” said Guerchard.

“They have even left this card-table on the window-sill,” said the
policeman; and he patted the card-table with his other powerful hand.

“Thank you, thank you,” said Guerchard.

“They don’t think it’s Lupin’s work at all,” said the policeman. “They
think that Lupin’s letter announcing the burglary and these signatures
on the walls are only a ruse.”

“Is that so?” said Guerchard.

“Is there any way I can help you, sir?” said policeman.

“Yes,” said Guerchard. “Take up your post outside that door and admit
no one but M. Formery, the inspector, Bonavent, or Dieusy, without
consulting me.” And he pointed to the drawing-room door.

“Shan’t I admit the Duke of Charmerace? He’s taking a great interest in
this affair,” said the policeman.

“The Duke of Charmerace? Oh, yes—admit the Duke of Charmerace,” said
Guerchard.

The policeman went to his post of responsibility, a proud man.

Hardly had the door closed behind him when Guerchard was all
activity—activity and eyes. He examined the ladder, the gaps on the
wall from which the pictures had been taken, the signatures of Arsène
Lupin. The very next thing he did was to pick up the book which the
Duke had set on the top of the footprint again, to preserve it; and he
measured, pacing it, the distance between the footprint and the window.

The result of this measuring did not appear to cause him any
satisfaction, for he frowned, measured the distance again, and then
stared out of the window with a perplexed air, thinking hard. It was
curious that, when he concentrated himself on a process of reasoning,
his eyes seemed to lose something of their sharp brightness and grew a
little dim.

At last he seemed to come to some conclusion. He turned away from the
window, drew a small magnifying-glass from his pocket, dropped on his
hands and knees, and began to examine the surface of the carpet with
the most minute care.

He examined a space of it nearly six feet square, stopped, and gazed
round the room. His eyes rested on the fireplace, which he could see
under the bottom of the big tapestried fire-screen which was raised on
legs about a foot high, fitted with big casters. His eyes filled with
interest; without rising, he crawled quickly across the room, peeped
round the edge of the screen and rose, smiling.

He went on to the further drawing-room and made the same careful
examination of it, again examining a part of the surface of the carpet
with his magnifying-glass. He came back to the window to which the
ladder had been raised and examined very carefully the broken shutter.
He whistled softly to himself, lighted a cigarette, and leant against
the side of the window. He looked out of it, with dull eyes which saw
nothing, the while his mind worked upon the facts he had discovered.

He had stood there plunged in reflection for perhaps ten minutes, when
there came a sound of voices and footsteps on the stairs. He awoke from
his absorption, seemed to prick his ears, then slipped a leg over the
window-ledge, and disappeared from sight down the ladder.

The door opened, and in came M. Formery, the Duke, and the inspector.
M. Formery looked round the room with eyes which seemed to expect to
meet a familiar sight, then walked to the other drawing-room and looked
round that. He turned to the policeman, who had stepped inside the
drawing-room, and said sharply, “M. Guerchard is not here.”

“I left him here,” said the policeman. “He must have disappeared. He’s
a wonder.”

“Of course,” said M. Formery. “He has gone down the ladder to examine
that house they’re building. He’s just following in our tracks and
doing all over again the work we’ve already done. He might have saved
himself the trouble. We could have told him all he wants to know. But
there! He very likely would not be satisfied till he had seen
everything for himself.”

“He may see something which we have missed,” said the Duke.

M. Formery frowned, and said sharply “That’s hardly likely. I don’t
think that your Grace realizes to what a perfection constant practice
brings one’s power of observation. The inspector and I will cheerfully
eat anything we’ve missed—won’t we, inspector?” And he laughed heartily
at his joke.

“It might always prove a large mouthful,” said the Duke with an
ironical smile.

M. Formery assumed his air of profound reflection, and walked a few
steps up and down the room, frowning:

“The more I think about it,” he said, “the clearer it grows that we
have disposed of the Lupin theory. This is the work of far less expert
rogues than Lupin. What do you think, inspector?”

“Yes; I think you have disposed of that theory, sir,” said the
inspector with ready acquiescence.

“All the same, I’d wager anything that we haven’t disposed of it to the
satisfaction of Guerchard,” said M. Formery.

“Then he must be very hard to satisfy,” said the Duke.

“Oh, in any other matter he’s open to reason,” said M. Formery; “but
Lupin is his fixed idea; it’s an obsession—almost a mania.”

“But yet he never catches him,” said the Duke.

“No; and he never will. His very obsession by Lupin hampers him. It
cramps his mind and hinders its working,” said M. Formery.

He resumed his meditative pacing, stopped again, and said:

“But considering everything, especially the absence of any traces of
violence, combined with her entire disappearance, I have come to
another conclusion. Victoire is the key to the mystery. She is the
accomplice. She never slept in her bed. She unmade it to put us off the
scent. That, at any rate, is something gained, to have found the
accomplice. We shall have this good news, at least, to tell M,
Gournay-Martin on his arrival.”

“Do you really think that she’s the accomplice?” said the Duke.

“I’m dead sure of it,” said M. Formery. “We will go up to her room and
make another thorough examination of it.”

Guerchard’s head popped up above the window-sill:

“My dear M. Formery,” he said, “I beg that you will not take the
trouble.”

M. Formery’s mouth opened: “What! You, Guerchard?” he stammered.

“Myself,” said Guerchard; and he came to the top of the ladder and
slipped lightly over the window-sill into the room.

He shook hands with M. Formery and nodded to the inspector. Then he
looked at the Duke with an air of inquiry.

“Let me introduce you,” said M. Formery. “Chief-Inspector Guerchard,
head of the Detective Department—the Duke of Charmerace.”

The Duke shook hands with Guerchard, saying, “I’m delighted to make
your acquaintance, M. Guerchard. I’ve been expecting your coming with
the greatest interest. Indeed it was I who begged the officials at the
Prefecture of Police to put this case in your hands. I insisted on it.”

“What were you doing on that ladder?” said M. Formery, giving Guerchard
no time to reply to the Duke.

“I was listening,” said Guerchard simply—“listening. I like to hear
people talk when I’m engaged on a case. It’s a distraction—and it
helps. I really must congratulate you, my dear M. Formery, on the
admirable manner in which you have conducted this inquiry.”

M. Formery bowed, and regarded him with a touch of suspicion.

“There are one or two minor points on which we do not agree, but on the
whole your method has been admirable,” said Guerchard.

“Well, about Victoire,” said M. Formery. “You’re quite sure that an
examination, a more thorough examination, of her room, is unnecessary?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Guerchard. “I have just looked at it myself.”

The door opened, and in came Bonavent, one of the detectives who had
come earlier from the Prefecture. In his hand he carried a scrap of
cloth.

He saluted Guerchard, and said to M. Formery, “I have just found this
scrap of cloth on the edge of the well at the bottom of the garden. The
concierge’s wife tells me that it has been torn from Victoire’s dress.”

“I feared it,” said M. Formery, taking the scrap of cloth from him. “I
feared foul play. We must go to the well at once, send some one down
it, or have it dragged.”

He was moving hastily to the door, when Guerchard said, in his husky,
gentle voice, “I don’t think there is any need to look for Victoire in
the well.”

“But this scrap of cloth,” said M. Formery, holding it out to him.

“Yes, yes, that scrap of cloth,” said Guerchard. And, turning to the
Duke, he added, “Do you know if there’s a dog or cat in the house, your
Grace? I suppose that, as the fiance of Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin,
you are familiar with the house?”

“What on earth—” said M. Formery.

“Excuse me,” interrupted Guerchard. “But this is important—very
important.”

“Yes, there is a cat,” said the Duke. “I’ve seen a cat at the door of
the concierge’s rooms.”

“It must have been that cat which took this scrap of cloth to the edge
of the well,” said Guerchard gravely.

“This is ridiculous—preposterous!” cried M. Formery, beginning to
flush. “Here we’re dealing with a most serious crime—a murder—the
murder of Victoire—and you talk about cats!”

“Victoire has not been murdered,” said Guerchard; and his husky voice
was gentler than ever, only just audible.

“But we don’t know that—we know nothing of the kind,” said M. Formery.

“I do,” said Guerchard.

“You?” said M. Formery.

“Yes,” said Guerchard.

“Then how do you explain her disappearance?”

“If she had disappeared I shouldn’t explain it,” said Guerchard.

“But since she has disappeared?” cried M. Formery, in a tone of
exasperation.

“She hasn’t,” said Guerchard.

“You know nothing about it!” cried M. Formery, losing his temper.

“Yes, I do,” said Guerchard, with the same gentleness.

“Come, do you mean to say that you know where she is?” cried M.
Formery.

“Certainly,” said Guerchard.

“Do you mean to tell us straight out that you’ve seen her?” cried M.
Formery.

“Oh, yes; I’ve seen her,” said Guerchard.

“You’ve seen her—when?” cried M. Formery.

Guerchard paused to consider. Then he said gently:

“It must have been between four and five minutes ago.”

“But hang it all, you haven’t been out of this room!” cried M. Formery.

“No, I haven’t,” said Guerchard.

“And you’ve seen her?” cried M. Formery.

“Yes,” said Guerchard, raising his voice a little.

“Well, why the devil don’t you tell us where she is? Tell us!” cried M.
Formery, purple with exasperation.

“But you won’t let me get a word out of my mouth,” protested Guerchard
with aggravating gentleness.

“Well, speak!” cried M. Formery; and he sank gasping on to a chair.

“Ah, well, she’s here,” said Guerchard.

“Here! How did she GET here?” said M. Formery.

“On a mattress,” said Guerchard.

M. Formery sat upright, almost beside himself, glaring furiously at
Guerchard:

“What do you stand there pulling all our legs for?” he almost howled.

“Look here,” said Guerchard.

He walked across the room to the fireplace, pushed the chairs which
stood bound together on the hearth-rug to one side of the fireplace,
and ran the heavy fire-screen on its casters to the other side of it,
revealing to their gaze the wide, old-fashioned fireplace itself. The
iron brazier which held the coals had been moved into the corner, and a
mattress lay on the floor of the fireplace. On the mattress lay the
figure of a big, middle-aged woman, half-dressed. There was a yellow
gag in her mouth; and her hands and feet were bound together with blue
cords.

“She is sleeping soundly,” said Guerchard. He stooped and picked up a
handkerchief, and smelt it. “There’s the handkerchief they chloroformed
her with. It still smells of chloroform.”

They stared at him and the sleeping woman.

“Lend a hand, inspector,” he said. “And you too, Bonavent. She looks a
good weight.”

The three of them raised the mattress, and carried it and the sleeping
woman to a broad couch, and laid them on it. They staggered under their
burden, for truly Victoire was a good weight.

M. Formery rose, with recovered breath, but with his face an even
richer purple. His eyes were rolling in his head, as if they were not
under proper control.

He turned on the inspector and cried savagely, “You never examined the
fireplace, inspector!”

“No, sir,” said the downcast inspector.

“It was unpardonable—absolutely unpardonable!” cried M. Formery. “How
is one to work with subordinates like this?”

“It was an oversight,” said Guerchard.

M. Formery turned to him and said, “You must admit that it was
materially impossible for me to see her.”

“It was possible if you went down on all fours,” said Guerchard.

“On all fours?” said M. Formery.

“Yes; on all fours you could see her heels sticking out beyond the
mattress,” said Guerchard simply.

M. Formery shrugged his shoulders: “That screen looked as if it had
stood there since the beginning of the summer,” he said.

“The first thing, when you’re dealing with Lupin, is to distrust
appearances,” said Guerchard.

“Lupin!” cried M. Formery hotly. Then he bit his lip and was silent.

He walked to the side of the couch and looked down on the sleeping
Victoire, frowning: “This upsets everything,” he said. “With these new
conditions, I’ve got to begin all over again, to find a new explanation
of the affair. For the moment—for the moment, I’m thrown completely off
the track. And you, Guerchard?”

“Oh, well,” said Guerchard, “I have an idea or two about the matter
still.”

“Do you really mean to say that it hasn’t thrown you off the track
too?” said M. Formery, with a touch of incredulity in his tone.

“Well, no—not exactly,” said Guerchard. “I wasn’t on that track, you
see.”

“No, of course not—of course not. You were on the track of Lupin,” said
M. Formery; and his contemptuous smile was tinged with malice.

The Duke looked from one to the other of them with curious, searching
eyes: “I find all this so interesting,” he said.

“We do not take much notice of these checks; they do not depress us for
a moment,” said M. Formery, with some return of his old grandiloquence.
“We pause hardly for an instant; then we begin to reconstruct—to
reconstruct.”

“It’s perfectly splendid of you,” said the Duke, and his limpid eyes
rested on M. Formery’s self-satisfied face in a really affectionate
gaze; they might almost be said to caress it.

Guerchard looked out of the window at a man who was carrying a hod-full
of bricks up one of the ladders set against the scaffolding of the
building house. Something in this honest workman’s simple task seemed
to amuse him, for he smiled.

Only the inspector, thinking of the unexamined fireplace, looked really
depressed.

“We shan’t get anything out of this woman till she wakes,” said M.
Formery, “When she does, I shall question her closely and fully. In the
meantime, she may as well be carried up to her bedroom to sleep off the
effects of the chloroform.”

Guerchard turned quickly: “Not her own bedroom, I think,” he said
gently.

“Certainly not—of course, not her own bedroom,” said M. Formery
quickly.

“And I think an officer at the door of whatever bedroom she does sleep
in,” said Guerchard.

“Undoubtedly—most necessary,” said M. Formery gravely. “See to it,
inspector. You can take her away.”

The inspector called in a couple of policemen, and with their aid he
and Bonavent raised the sleeping woman, a man at each corner of the
mattress, and bore her from the room.

“And now to reconstruct,” said M. Formery; and he folded his arms and
plunged into profound reflection.

The Duke and Guerchard watched him in silence.




CHAPTER XI
THE FAMILY ARRIVES


In carrying out Victoire, the inspector had left the door of the
drawing-room open. After he had watched M. Formery reflect for two
minutes, Guerchard faded—to use an expressive Americanism—through it.
The Duke felt in the breast-pocket of his coat, murmured softly, “My
cigarettes,” and followed him.

He caught up Guerchard on the stairs and said, “I will come with you,
if I may, M. Guerchard. I find all these investigations extraordinarily
interesting. I have been observing M. Formery’s methods—I should like
to watch yours, for a change.”

“By all means,” said Guerchard. “And there are several things I want to
hear about from your Grace. Of course it might be an advantage to
discuss them together with M. Formery, but—” and he hesitated.

“It would be a pity to disturb M. Formery in the middle of the process
of reconstruction,” said the Duke; and a faint, ironical smile played
round the corners of his sensitive lips.

Guerchard looked at him quickly: “Perhaps it would,” he said.

They went through the house, out of the back door, and into the garden.
Guerchard moved about twenty yards from the house, then he stopped and
questioned the Duke at great length. He questioned him first about the
Charolais, their appearance, their actions, especially about Bernard’s
attempt to steal the pendant, and the theft of the motor-cars.

“I have been wondering whether M. Charolais might not have been Arsène
Lupin himself,” said the Duke.

“It’s quite possible,” said Guerchard. “There seem to be no limits
whatever to Lupin’s powers of disguising himself. My colleague,
Ganimard, has come across him at least three times that he knows of, as
a different person. And no single time could he be sure that it was the
same man. Of course, he had a feeling that he was in contact with some
one he had met before, but that was all. He had no certainty. He may
have met him half a dozen times besides without knowing him. And the
photographs of him—they’re all different. Ganimard declares that Lupin
is so extraordinarily successful in his disguises because he is a great
actor. He actually becomes for the time being the person he pretends to
be. He thinks and feels absolutely like that person. Do you follow me?”

“Oh, yes; but he must be rather fluid, this Lupin,” said the Duke; and
then he added thoughtfully, “It must be awfully risky to come so often
into actual contact with men like Ganimard and you.”

“Lupin has never let any consideration of danger prevent him doing
anything that caught his fancy. He has odd fancies, too. He’s a
humourist of the most varied kind—grim, ironic, farcical, as the mood
takes him. He must be awfully trying to live with,” said Guerchard.

“Do you think humourists are trying to live with?” said the Duke, in a
meditative tone. “I think they brighten life a good deal; but of course
there are people who do not like them—the middle-classes.”

“Yes, yes, they’re all very well in their place; but to live with they
must be trying,” said Guerchard quickly.

He went on to question the Duke closely and at length about the
household of M. Gournay-Martin, saying that Arsène Lupin worked with
the largest gang a burglar had ever captained, and it was any odds that
he had introduced one, if not more, of that gang into it. Moreover, in
the case of a big affair like this, Lupin himself often played two or
three parts under as many disguises.

“If he was Charolais, I don’t see how he could be one of M.
Gournay-Martin’s household, too,” said the Duke in some perplexity.

“I don’t say that he WAS Charolais,” said Guerchard. “It is quite a
moot point. On the whole, I’m inclined to think that he was not. The
theft of the motor-cars was a job for a subordinate. He would hardly
bother himself with it.”

The Duke told him all that he could remember about the millionaire’s
servants—and, under the clever questioning of the detective, he was
surprised to find how much he did remember—all kinds of odd details
about them which he had scarcely been aware of observing.

The two of them, as they talked, afforded an interesting contrast: the
Duke, with his air of distinction and race, his ironic expression, his
mobile features, his clear enunciation and well-modulated voice, his
easy carriage of an accomplished fencer—a fencer with muscles of
steel—seemed to be a man of another kind from the slow-moving
detective, with his husky voice, his common, slurring enunciation, his
clumsily moulded features, so ill adapted to the expression of emotion
and intelligence. It was a contrast almost between the hawk and the
mole, the warrior and the workman. Only in their eyes were they alike;
both of them had the keen, alert eyes of observers. Perhaps the most
curious thing of all was that, in spite of the fact that he had for so
much of his life been an idler, trifling away his time in the pursuit
of pleasure, except when he had made his expedition to the South Pole,
the Duke gave one the impression of being a cleverer man, of a far
finer brain, than the detective who had spent so much of his life
sharpening his wits on the more intricate problems of crime.

When Guerchard came to the end of his questions, the Duke said: “You
have given me a very strong feeling that it is going to be a deuce of a
job to catch Lupin. I don’t wonder that, so far, you have none of you
laid hands on him.”

“But we have!” cried Guerchard quickly. “Twice Ganimard has caught him.
Once he had him in prison, and actually brought him to trial. Lupin
became another man, and was let go from the very dock.”

“Really? It sounds absolutely amazing,” said the Duke.

“And then, in the affair of the Blue Diamond, Ganimard caught him
again. He has his weakness, Lupin—it’s women. It’s a very common
weakness in these masters of crime. Ganimard and Holmlock Shears, in
that affair, got the better of him by using his love for a woman—‘the
fair-haired lady,’ she was called—to nab him.”

“A shabby trick,” said the Duke.

“Shabby?” said Guerchard in a tone of utter wonder. “How can anything
be shabby in the case of a rogue like this?”

“Perhaps not—perhaps not—still—” said the Duke, and stopped.

The expression of wonder faded from Guerchard’s face, and he went on,
“Well, Holmlock Shears recovered the Blue Diamond, and Ganimard nabbed
Lupin. He held him for ten minutes, then Lupin escaped.”

“What became of the fair-haired lady?” said the Duke.

“I don’t know. I have heard that she is dead,” said Guerchard. “Now I
come to think of it, I heard quite definitely that she died.”

“It must be awful for a woman to love a man like Lupin—the constant,
wearing anxiety,” said the Duke thoughtfully.

“I dare say. Yet he can have his pick of sweethearts. I’ve been offered
thousands of francs by women—women of your Grace’s world and wealthy
Viennese—to make them acquainted with Lupin,” said Guerchard.

“You don’t surprise me,” said the Duke with his ironic smile. “Women
never do stop to think—where one of their heroes is concerned. And did
you do it?”

“How could I? If I only could! If I could find Lupin entangled with a
woman like Ganimard did—well—” said Guerchard between his teeth.

“He’d never get out of YOUR clutches,” said the Duke with conviction.

“I think not—I think not,” said Guerchard grimly. “But come, I may as
well get on.”

He walked across the turf to the foot of the ladder and looked at the
footprints round it. He made but a cursory examination of them, and
took his way down the garden-path, out of the door in the wall into the
space about the house that was building. He was not long examining it,
and he went right through it out into the street on which the house
would face when it was finished. He looked up and down it, and began to
retrace his footsteps.

“I’ve seen all I want to see out here. We may as well go back to the
house,” he said to the Duke.

“I hope you’ve seen what you expected to see,” said the Duke.

“Exactly what I expected to see—exactly,” said Guerchard.

“That’s as it should be,” said the Duke.

They went back to the house and found M. Formery in the drawing-room,
still engaged in the process of reconstruction.

“The thing to do now is to hunt the neighbourhood for witnesses of the
departure of the burglars with their booty. Loaded as they were with
such bulky objects, they must have had a big conveyance. Somebody must
have noticed it. They must have wondered why it was standing in front
of a half-built house. Somebody may have actually seen the burglars
loading it, though it was so early in the morning. Bonavent had better
inquire at every house in the street on which that half-built house
faces. Did you happen to notice the name of it?” said M. Formery.

“It’s Sureau Street,” said Guerchard. “But Dieusy has been hunting the
neighbourhood for some one who saw the burglars loading their
conveyance, or saw it waiting to be loaded, for the last hour.”

“Good,” said M. Formery. “We are getting on.”

M. Formery was silent. Guerchard and the Duke sat down and lighted
cigarettes.

“You found plenty of traces,” said M. Formery, waving his hand towards
the window.

“Yes; I’ve found plenty of traces,” said Guerchard.

“Of Lupin?” said M. Formery, with a faint sneer.

“No; not of Lupin,” said Guerchard.

A smile of warm satisfaction illumined M. Formery’s face:

“What did I tell you?” he said. “I’m glad that you’ve changed your mind
about that.”

“I have hardly changed my mind,” said Guerchard, in his husky, gentle
voice.

There came a loud knocking on the front door, the sound of excited
voices on the stairs. The door opened, and in burst M. Gournay-Martin.
He took one glance round the devastated room, raised his clenched hands
towards the ceiling, and bellowed, “The scoundrels! the dirty
scoundrels!” And his voice stuck in his throat. He tottered across the
room to a couch, dropped heavily to it, gazed round the scene of
desolation, and burst into tears.

Germaine and Sonia came into the room. The Duke stepped forward to
greet them.

“Do stop crying, papa. You’re as hoarse as a crow as it is,” said
Germaine impatiently. Then, turning on the Duke with a frown, she said:
“I think that joke of yours about the train was simply disgraceful,
Jacques. A joke’s a joke, but to send us out to the station on a night
like last night, through all that heavy rain, when you knew all the
time that there was no quarter-to-nine train—it was simply
disgraceful.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the Duke quietly.
“Wasn’t there a quarter-to-nine train?”

“Of course there wasn’t,” said Germaine. “The time-table was years old.
I think it was the most senseless attempt at a joke I ever heard of.”

“It doesn’t seem to me to be a joke at all,” said the Duke quietly. “At
any rate, it isn’t the kind of a joke I make—it would be detestable. I
never thought to look at the date of the time-table. I keep a box of
cigarettes in that drawer, and I have noticed the time-table there. Of
course, it may have been lying there for years. It was stupid of me not
to look at the date.”

“I said it was a mistake. I was sure that his Grace would not do
anything so unkind as that,” said Sonia.

The Duke smiled at her.

“Well, all I can say is, it was very stupid of you not to look at the
date,” said Germaine.

M. Gournay-Martin rose to his feet and wailed, in the most heartrending
fashion: “My pictures! My wonderful pictures! Such investments! And my
cabinets! My Renaissance cabinets! They can’t be replaced! They were
unique! They were worth a hundred and fifty thousand francs.”

M. Formery stepped forward with an air and said, “I am distressed, M.
Gournay-Martin—truly distressed by your loss. I am M. Formery,
examining magistrate.”

“It is a tragedy, M. Formery—a tragedy!” groaned the millionaire.

“Do not let it upset you too much. We shall find your masterpieces—we
shall find them. Only give us time,” said M. Formery in a tone of warm
encouragement.

The face of the millionaire brightened a little.

“And, after all, you have the consolation, that the burglars did not
get hold of the gem of your collection. They have not stolen the
coronet of the Princesse de Lamballe,” said M. Formery.

“No,” said the Duke. “They have not touched this safe. It is unopened.”

“What has that got to do with it?” growled the millionaire quickly.
“That safe is empty.”

“Empty ... but your coronet?” cried the Duke.

“Good heavens! Then they HAVE stolen it,” cried the millionaire
hoarsely, in a panic-stricken voice.

“But they can’t have—this safe hasn’t been touched,” said the Duke.

“But the coronet never was in that safe. It was—have they entered my
bedroom?” said the millionaire.

“No,” said M. Formery.

“They don’t seem to have gone through any of the rooms except these
two,” said the Duke.

“Ah, then my mind is at rest about that. The safe in my bedroom has
only two keys. Here is one.” He took a key from his waistcoat pocket
and held it out to them. “And the other is in this safe.”

The face of M. Formery was lighted up with a splendid satisfaction. He
might have rescued the coronet with his own hands. He cried
triumphantly, “There, you see!”

“See? See?” cried the millionaire in a sudden bellow. “I see that they
have robbed me—plundered me. Oh, my pictures! My wonderful pictures!
Such investments!”




CHAPTER XII
THE THEFT OF THE PENDANT


They stood round the millionaire observing his anguish, with eyes in
which shone various degrees of sympathy. As if no longer able to bear
the sight of such woe, Sonia slipped out of the room.

The millionaire lamented his loss and abused the thieves by turns, but
always at the top of his magnificent voice.

Suddenly a fresh idea struck him. He clapped his hand to his brow and
cried: “That eight hundred pounds! Charolais will never buy the Mercrac
now! He was not a bona fide purchaser!”

The Duke’s lips parted slightly and his eyes opened a trifle wider than
their wont. He turned sharply on his heel, and almost sprang into the
other drawing-room. There he laughed at his ease.

M. Formery kept saying to the millionaire: “Be calm, M. Gournay-Martin.
Be calm! We shall recover your masterpieces. I pledge you my word. All
we need is time. Have patience. Be calm!”

His soothing remonstrances at last had their effect. The millionaire
grew calm:

“Guerchard?” he said. “Where is Guerchard?”

M. Formery presented Guerchard to him.

“Are you on their track? Have you a clue?” said the millionaire.

“I think,” said M. Formery in an impressive tone, “that we may now
proceed with the inquiry in the ordinary way.”

He was a little piqued by the millionaire’s so readily turning from him
to the detective. He went to a writing-table, set some sheets of paper
before him, and prepared to make notes on the answers to his questions.
The Duke came back into the drawing-room; the inspector was summoned.
M. Gournay-Martin sat down on a couch with his hands on his knees and
gazed gloomily at M. Formery. Germaine, who was sitting on a couch near
the door, waiting with an air of resignation for her father to cease
his lamentations, rose and moved to a chair nearer the writing-table.
Guerchard kept moving restlessly about the room, but noiselessly. At
last he came to a standstill, leaning against the wall behind M.
Formery.

M. Formery went over all the matters about which he had already
questioned the Duke. He questioned the millionaire and his daughter
about the Charolais, the theft of the motor-cars, and the attempted
theft of the pendant. He questioned them at less length about the
composition of their household—the servants and their characters. He
elicited no new fact.

He paused, and then he said, carelessly as a mere matter of routine: “I
should like to know, M. Gournay-Martin, if there has ever been any
other robbery committed at your house?”

“Three years ago this scoundrel Lupin—” the millionaire began
violently.

“Yes, yes; I know all about that earlier burglary. But have you been
robbed since?” said M. Formery, interrupting him.

“No, I haven’t been robbed since that burglary; but my daughter has,”
said the millionaire.

“Your daughter?” said M. Formery.

“Yes; I have been robbed two or three times during the last three
years,” said Germaine.

“Dear me! But you ought to have told us about this before. This is
extremely interesting, and most important,” said M. Formery, rubbing
his hands, “I suppose you suspect Victoire?”

“No, I don’t,” said Germaine quickly. “It couldn’t have been Victoire.
The last two thefts were committed at the château when Victoire was in
Paris in charge of this house.”

M. Formery seemed taken aback, and he hesitated, consulting his notes.
Then he said: “Good—good. That confirms my hypothesis.”

“What hypothesis?” said M. Gournay-Martin quickly.

“Never mind—never mind,” said M. Formery solemnly. And, turning to
Germaine, he went on: “You say, Mademoiselle, that these thefts began
about three years ago?”

“Yes, I think they began about three years ago in August.”

“Let me see. It was in the month of August, three years ago, that your
father, after receiving a threatening letter like the one he received
last night, was the victim of a burglary?” said M. Formery.

“Yes, it was—the scoundrels!” cried the millionaire fiercely.

“Well, it would be interesting to know which of your servants entered
your service three years ago,” said M. Formery.

“Victoire has only been with us a year at the outside,” said Germaine.

“Only a year?” said M. Formery quickly, with an air of some vexation.
He paused and added, “Exactly—exactly. And what was the nature of the
last theft of which you were the victim?”

“It was a pearl brooch—not unlike the pendant which his Grace gave me
yesterday,” said Germaine.

“Would you mind showing me that pendant? I should like to see it,” said
M. Formery.

“Certainly—show it to him, Jacques. You have it, haven’t you?” said
Germaine, turning to the Duke.

“Me? No. How should I have it?” said the Duke in some surprise.
“Haven’t you got it?”

“I’ve only got the case—the empty case,” said Germaine, with a startled
air.

“The empty case?” said the Duke, with growing surprise.

“Yes,” said Germaine. “It was after we came back from our useless
journey to the station. I remembered suddenly that I had started
without the pendant. I went to the bureau and picked up the case; and
it was empty.”

“One moment—one moment,” said M. Formery. “Didn’t you catch this young
Bernard Charolais with this case in his hands, your Grace?”

“Yes,” said the Duke. “I caught him with it in his pocket.”

“Then you may depend upon it that the young rascal had slipped the
pendant out of its case and you only recovered the empty case from
him,” said M. Formery triumphantly.

“No,” said the Duke. “That is not so. Nor could the thief have been the
burglar who broke open the bureau to get at the keys. For long after
both of them were out of the house I took a cigarette from the box
which stood on the bureau beside the case which held the pendant. And
it occurred to me that the young rascal might have played that very
trick on me. I opened the case and the pendant was there.”

“It has been stolen!” cried the millionaire; “of course it has been
stolen.”

“Oh, no, no,” said the Duke. “It hasn’t been stolen. Irma, or perhaps
Mademoiselle Kritchnoff, has brought it to Paris for Germaine.”

“Sonia certainly hasn’t brought it. It was she who suggested to me that
you had seen it lying on the bureau, and slipped it into your pocket,”
said Germaine quickly.

“Then it must be Irma,” said the Duke.

“We had better send for her and make sure,” said M. Formery.
“Inspector, go and fetch her.”

The inspector went out of the room and the Duke questioned Germaine and
her father about the journey, whether it had been very uncomfortable,
and if they were very tired by it. He learned that they had been so
fortunate as to find sleeping compartments on the train, so that they
had suffered as little as might be from their night of travel.

M. Formery looked through his notes; Guerchard seemed to be going to
sleep where he stood against the wall.

The inspector came back with Irma. She wore the frightened,
half-defensive, half-defiant air which people of her class wear when
confronted by the authorities. Her big, cow’s eyes rolled uneasily.

“Oh, Irma—” Germaine began.

M. Formery cut her short, somewhat brusquely. “Excuse me, excuse me. I
am conducting this inquiry,” he said. And then, turning to Irma, he
added, “Now, don’t be frightened, Mademoiselle Irma; I want to ask you
a question or two. Have you brought up to Paris the pendant which the
Duke of Charmerace gave your mistress yesterday?”

“Me, sir? No, sir. I haven’t brought the pendant,” said Irma.

“You’re quite sure?” said M. Formery.

“Yes, sir; I haven’t seen the pendant. Didn’t Mademoiselle Germaine
leave it on the bureau?” said Irma.

“How do you know that?” said M. Formery.

“I heard Mademoiselle Germaine say that it had been on the bureau. I
thought that perhaps Mademoiselle Kritchnoff had put it in her bag.”

“Why should Mademoiselle Kritchnoff put it in her bag?” said the Duke
quickly.

“To bring it up to Paris for Mademoiselle Germaine,” said Irma.

“But what made you think that?” said Guerchard, suddenly intervening.

“Oh, I thought Mademoiselle Kritchnoff might have put it in her bag
because I saw her standing by the bureau,” said Irma.

“Ah, and the pendant was on the bureau?” said M. Formery.

“Yes, sir,” said Irma.

There was a silence. Suddenly the atmosphere of the room seemed to have
become charged with an oppression—a vague menace. Guerchard seemed to
have become wide awake again. Germaine and the Duke looked at one
another uneasily.

“Have you been long in the service of Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin?”
said M. Formery.

“Six months, sir,” said Irma.

“Very good, thank you. You can go,” said M. Formery. “I may want you
again presently.”

Irma went quickly out of the room with an air of relief.

M. Formery scribbled a few words on the paper before him and then said:
“Well, I will proceed to question Mademoiselle Kritchnoff.”

“Mademoiselle Kritchnoff is quite above suspicion,” said the Duke
quickly.

“Oh, yes, quite,” said Germaine.

“How long has Mademoiselle Kritchnoff been in your service,
Mademoiselle?” said Guerchard.

“Let me think,” said Germaine, knitting her brow.

“Can’t you remember?” said M. Formery.

“Just about three years,” said Germaine.

“That’s exactly the time at which the thefts began,” said M. Formery.

“Yes,” said Germaine, reluctantly.

“Ask Mademoiselle Kritchnoff to come here, inspector,” said M. Formery.

“Yes, sir,” said the inspector.

“I’ll go and fetch her—I know where to find her,” said the Duke
quickly, moving toward the door.

“Please, please, your Grace,” protested Guerchard. “The inspector will
fetch her.”

The Duke turned sharply and looked at him: “I beg your pardon, but do
you—” he said.

“Please don’t be annoyed, your Grace,” Guerchard interrupted. “But M.
Formery agrees with me—it would be quite irregular.”

“Yes, yes, your Grace,” said M. Formery. “We have our method of
procedure. It is best to adhere to it—much the best. It is the result
of years of experience of the best way of getting the truth.”

“Just as you please,” said the Duke, shrugging his shoulders.

The inspector came into the room: “Mademoiselle Kritchnoff will be here
in a moment. She was just going out.”

“She was going out?” said M. Formery. “You don’t mean to say you’re
letting members of the household go out?”

“No, sir,” said the inspector. “I mean that she was just asking if she
might go out.”

M. Formery beckoned the inspector to him, and said to him in a voice
too low for the others to hear:

“Just slip up to her room and search her trunks.”

“There is no need to take the trouble,” said Guerchard, in the same low
voice, but with sufficient emphasis.

“No, of course not. There’s no need to take the trouble,” M. Formery
repeated after him.

The door opened, and Sonia came in. She was still wearing her
travelling costume, and she carried her cloak on her arm. She stood
looking round her with an air of some surprise; perhaps there was even
a touch of fear in it. The long journey of the night before did not
seem to have dimmed at all her delicate beauty. The Duke’s eyes rested
on her in an inquiring, wondering, even searching gaze. She looked at
him, and her own eyes fell.

“Will you come a little nearer, Mademoiselle?” said M. Formery. “There
are one or two questions—”

“Will you allow me?” said Guerchard, in a tone of such deference that
it left M. Formery no grounds for refusal.

M. Formery flushed and ground his teeth. “Have it your own way!” he
said ungraciously.

“Mademoiselle Kritchnoff,” said Guerchard, in a tone of the most
good-natured courtesy, “there is a matter on which M. Formery needs
some information. The pendant which the Duke of Charmerace gave
Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin yesterday has been stolen.”

“Stolen? Are you sure?” said Sonia in a tone of mingled surprise and
anxiety.

“Quite sure,” said Guerchard. “We have exactly determined the
conditions under which the theft was committed. But we have every
reason to believe that the culprit, to avoid detection, has hidden the
pendant in the travelling-bag or trunk of somebody else in order to—”

“My bag is upstairs in my bedroom, sir,” Sonia interrupted quickly.
“Here is the key of it.”

In order to free her hands to take the key from her wrist-bag, she set
her cloak on the back of a couch. It slipped off it, and fell to the
ground at the feet of the Duke, who had not returned to his place
beside Germaine. While she was groping in her bag for the key, and all
eyes were on her, the Duke, who had watched her with a curious
intentness ever since her entry into the room, stooped quietly down and
picked up the cloak. His hand slipped into the pocket of it; his
fingers touched a hard object wrapped in tissue-paper. They closed
round it, drew it from the pocket, and, sheltered by the cloak,
transferred it to his own. He set the cloak on the back of the sofa,
and very softly moved back to his place by Germaine’s side. No one in
the room observed the movement, not even Guerchard: he was watching
Sonia too intently.

Sonia found the key, and held it out to Guerchard.

He shook his head and said: “There is no reason to search your bag—none
whatever. Have you any other luggage?”

She shrank back a little from his piercing eyes, almost as if their
gaze scared her.

“Yes, my trunk ... it’s upstairs in my bedroom too ... open.”

She spoke in a faltering voice, and her troubled eyes could not meet
those of the detective.

“You were going out, I think,” said Guerchard gently.

“I was asking leave to go out. There is some shopping that must be
done,” said Sonia.

“You do not see any reason why Mademoiselle Kritchnoff should not go
out, M. Formery, do you?” said Guerchard.

“Oh, no, none whatever; of course she can go out,” said M. Formery.

Sonia turned round to go.

“One moment,” said Guerchard, coming forward. “You’ve only got that
wrist-bag with you?”

“Yes,” said Sonia. “I have my money and my handkerchief in it.” And she
held it out to him.

Guerchard’s keen eyes darted into it; and he muttered, “No point in
looking in that. I don’t suppose any one would have had the audacity—”
and he stopped.

Sonia made a couple of steps toward the door, turned, hesitated, came
back to the couch, and picked up her cloak.

There was a sudden gleam in Guerchard’s eyes—a gleam of understanding,
expectation, and triumph. He stepped forward, and holding out his
hands, said: “Allow me.”

“No, thank you,” said Sonia. “I’m not going to put it on.”

“No ... but it’s possible ... some one may have ... have you felt in
the pockets of it? That one, now? It seems as if that one—”

He pointed to the pocket which had held the packet.

Sonia started back with an air of utter dismay; her eyes glanced wildly
round the room as if seeking an avenue of escape; her fingers closed
convulsively on the pocket.

“But this is abominable!” she cried. “You look as if—”

“I beg you, mademoiselle,” interrupted Guerchard. “We are sometimes
obliged—”

“Really, Mademoiselle Sonia,” broke in the Duke, in a singularly clear
and piercing tone, “I cannot see why you should object to this mere
formality.”

“Oh, but—but—” gasped Sonia, raising her terror-stricken eyes to his.

The Duke seemed to hold them with his own; and he said in the same
clear, piercing voice, “There isn’t the slightest reason for you to be
frightened.”

Sonia let go of the cloak, and Guerchard, his face all alight with
triumph, plunged his hand into the pocket. He drew it out empty, and
stared at it, while his face fell to an utter, amazed blankness.

“Nothing? nothing?” he muttered under his breath. And he stared at his
empty hand as if he could not believe his eyes.

By a violent effort he forced an apologetic smile on his face, and said
to Sonia: “A thousand apologies, mademoiselle.”

He handed the cloak to her. Sonia took it and turned to go. She took a
step towards the door, and tottered.

The Duke sprang forward and caught her as she was falling.

“Do you feel faint?” he said in an anxious voice.

“Thank you, you just saved me in time,” muttered Sonia.

“I’m really very sorry,” said Guerchard.

“Thank you, it was nothing. I’m all right now,” said Sonia, releasing
herself from the Duke’s supporting arm.

She drew herself up, and walked quietly out of the room.

Guerchard went back to M. Formery at the writing-table.

“You made a clumsy mistake there, Guerchard,” said M. Formery, with a
touch of gratified malice in his tone.

Guerchard took no notice of it: “I want you to give orders that nobody
leaves the house without my permission,” he said, in a low voice.

“No one except Mademoiselle Kritchnoff, I suppose,” said M. Formery,
smiling.

“She less than any one,” said Guerchard quickly.

“I don’t understand what you’re driving at a bit,” said M. Formery.
“Unless you suppose that Mademoiselle Kritchnoff is Lupin in disguise.”

Guerchard laughed softly: “You will have your joke, M. Formery,” he
said.

“Well, well, I’ll give the order,” said M. Formery, somewhat mollified
by the tribute to his humour.

He called the inspector to him and whispered a word in his ear. Then he
rose and said: “I think, gentlemen, we ought to go and examine the
bedrooms, and, above all, make sure that the safe in M.
Gournay-Martin’s bedroom has not been tampered with.”

“I was wondering how much longer we were going to waste time here
talking about that stupid pendant,” grumbled the millionaire; and he
rose and led the way.

“There may also be some jewel-cases in the bedrooms,” said M. Formery.
“There are all the wedding presents. They were in charge of Victoire.”
said Germaine quickly. “It would be dreadful if they had been stolen.
Some of them are from the first families in France.”

“They would replace them ... those paper-knives,” said the Duke,
smiling.

Germaine and her father led the way. M. Formery, Guerchard, and the
inspector followed them. At the door the Duke paused, stopped, closed
it on them softly. He came back to the window, put his hand in his
pocket, and drew out the packet wrapped in tissue-paper.

He unfolded the paper with slow, reluctant fingers, and revealed the
pendant.




CHAPTER XIII
LUPIN WIRES


The Duke stared at the pendant, his eyes full of wonder and pity.

“Poor little girl!” he said softly under his breath.

He put the pendant carefully away in his waistcoat-pocket and stood
staring thoughtfully out of the window

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