Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes (9 page)

“The blue diamond that was found in the tooth-powder was false. You kept the genuine stone.”

Arsène Lupin remained silent for a moment; then, with his eyes fixed on the Englishman, he replied, calmly:

“You are impertinent, monsieur.”

“Impertinent, indeed!” repeated Wilson, beaming with admiration.

“Yes,” said Lupin, “and, yet, to do you credit, you have thrown a strong light on a very mysterious subject. Not a magistrate, not a special reporter, who has been engaged on this case, has come so near the truth. It is a marvellousdisplay of intuition and logic.”

“Oh! A person has simply to use his brains,” said Herlock Sholmes, nattered at the homage of the expert criminal.

“And so few have any brains to use,” replied Lupin. “And, now, that the field of conjectures has been narrowed down, and the rubbish cleared away—”

“Well, now, I have simply to discover why the three episodes were enacted at 25 rue Clapeyron, 134 avenue Henri-Martin, and within the walls of the Château de Crozon and my work will be finished. What remains will be child’s play. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes, I think you are right.”

“In that case, Monsieur Lupin, am I wrong in saying that my business will be finished in ten days?”

“In ten days you will know the whole truth,” said Lupin.

“And you will be arrested.”

“No.”

“No?”

“In order that I may be arrested there must occur such a series of improbable and unexpected misfortunes that I cannot admit the possibility of such an event.”

“We have a saying in England that ‘the unexpected always happens.’“

They looked at each other for a moment calmly and fearlessly, without any display of bravado or malice. They met as equals in a contest of wit and skill. And this meeting was the formal crossing of swords, preliminary to the duel.

“Ah!” exclaimed Lupin, “at last I shall have an adversary worthy of the name—one whose defeat will be the proudest achievement in my career.”

“Are you not afraid?” asked Wilson.

“Almost, Monsieur Wilson,” replied Lupin, rising from his chair, “and the proof is that I am about to make a hasty retreat. Then, we will say ten days, Monsieur Sholmes?”

“Yes, ten days. This is Sunday. A week from next Wednesday, at eight o’clock in the evening, it will be all over.”

“And I shall be in prison?”

“No doubt of it.”

“Ha! Not a pleasant outlook for a man who gets so much enjoyment out of life as I do. No cares, a lively interest in the affairs of the world, a justifiable contempt for the police, and the consoling sympathy of numerous friends and admirers. And now, behold, all that is about to be changed! It is the reverse side of the medal. After sunshine comes the rain. It is no longer a laughing matter. Adieu!”

“Hurry up!” said Wilson, full of solicitude for a person in whom Herlock Sholmes had inspired so much respect, “do not lose a minute.”

“Not a minute, Monsieur Wilson; but I wish to express my pleasure at having met you, and to tell you how much I envy the master in having such a valuable assistant as you seem to be.”

Then, after they had courteously saluted each other, like adversaries in a duel who entertain no feeling of malice but are obliged to fight by force of circumstances, Lupin seized me by the arm and drew me outside.

“What do you think of it, dear boy? The strange events of this evening will form an interesting chapter in the memoirs you are now preparing for me.”

He closed the door of the restaurant behind us, and, after taking a few steps, he stopped and said:

“Do you smoke?”

“No. Nor do you, it seems to me.”

“You are right, I don’t.”

He lighted a cigarette with a wax-match, which he shook several times in an effort to extinguish it. But he threw away the cigarette immediately, ran across the street, and joined two men who emerged from the shadows as if called by a signal. He conversed with them for a few minutes on the opposite sidewalk, and then returned to me.

“I beg your pardon, but I fear that cursed Sholmes is going to give me trouble. But, I assure you, he is not yet through with Arsène Lupin. He will find out what kind of fuel I use to warm my blood. And now—au revoir! The genial Wilson is right; there is not a moment to lose.”

He walked away rapidly.

Thus ended the events of that exciting evening, or, at least, that part of them in which I was a participant. Subsequently, during the course of the evening, other stirring incidents occurred which have come to my knowledge through the courtesy of other members of that unique dinner-party.

At the very moment in which Lupin left me, Herlock Sholmes rose from the table, and looked at his watch.

“Twenty minutes to nine. At nine o’clock I am to meet the Count and Countess at the railway station.”

“Then, we must be off!” exclaimed Wilson, between two drinks of whisky.

They left the restaurant.

“Wilson, don’t look behind. We may be followed, and, in that case, let us act as if we did not care. Wilson, I want your opinion: why was Lupin in that restaurant?”

“To get something to eat,” replied Wilson, quickly.

“Wilson, I must congratulate you on the accuracy of your deduction. I couldn’t have done better myself.”

Wilson blushed with pleasure, and Sholmes continued:

“To get something to eat. Very well, and, after that, probably, to assure himself whether I am going to the Château de Crozon, as announced by Ganimard in his interview. I must go in order not to disappoint him. But, in order to gain time on him, I shall not go.”

“Ah!” said Wilson, nonplused.

“You, my friend, will walk down this street, take a carriage, two, three carriages. Return later and get the valises that we left at the station, and make for the Elysée-Palace at a galop.”

“And when I reach the Elysée-Palace?”

“Engage a room, go to sleep, and await my orders.”

Quite proud of the important rôle assigned to him, Wilson set out to perform his task. Herlock Sholmes proceeded to the railway station, bought a ticket, and repaired to the Amiens’ Express in which the Count and Countess de Crozon were already installed. He bowed to them, lighted his pipe, and had a quiet smoke in the corridor. The train started. Ten minutes later he took a seat beside the Countess, and said to her:

“Have you the ring here, madame?”

“Yes.”

“Will you kindly let me see it?”

He took it, and examined it closely.

“Just as I suspected: it is a manufactured diamond.”

“A manufactured diamond?”

“Yes; a new process which consists in submitting diamond dust to a tremendous heat until it melts and is then molded into a single stone.”

“But my diamond is genuine.”

“Yes, 
your
 diamond is; but this is not yours.”

“Where is mine?”

“It is held by Arsène Lupin.”

“And this stone?”

“Was substituted for yours, and slipped into Herr Bleichen’s tooth-powder, where it was afterwards found.”

“Then you think this is false?”

“Absolutely false.”

The Countess was overwhelmed with surprise and grief, while her husband scrutinized the diamond with an incredulous air. Finally she stammered:

“Is it possible? And why did they not merely steal it and be done with it? And how did they steal it?”

“That is exactly what I am going to find out.”

“At the Château de Crozon?”

“No. I shall leave the train at Creil and return to Paris. It is there the game between me and Arsène Lupin must be played. In fact, the game has commenced already, and Lupin thinks I am on my way to the château.”

“But—”

“What does it matter to you, madame? The essential thing is your diamond, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“Well, don’t worry. I have just undertaken a much more difficult task than that. You have my promise that I will restore the true diamond to you within ten days.”

The train slackened its speed. He put the false diamond in his pocket and opened the door. The Count cried out:

“That is the wrong side of the train. You are getting out on the tracks.”

“That is my intention. If Lupin has anyone on my track, he will lose sight of me now. Adieu.”

An employee protested in vain. After the departure of the train, the Englishman sought the station-master’s office. Forty minutes later he leaped into a train that landed him in Paris shortly before midnight. He ran across the platform, entered the lunch-room, made his exit at another door, and jumped into a cab.

“Driver—rue Clapeyron.”

Having reached the conclusion that he was not followed, he stopped the carriage at the end of the street, and proceeded to make a careful examination of Monsieur Detinan’s house and the two adjoining houses. He made measurements of certain distances and entered the figures in his notebook.

“Driver—avenueHenri-Martin.”

At the corner of the avenue and the rue de la Pompe, he dismissed the carriage, walked down the street to number 134, and performed the same operations in front of the house of the late Baron d’Hautrec and the two adjoining houses, measuring the width of the respective façades and calculating the depth of the little gardens that stood in front of them.

The avenue was deserted, and was very dark under its four rows of trees, between which, at considerable intervals, a few gas-lamps struggled in vain to light the deep shadows. One of them threw a dim light over a portion of the house, and Sholmes perceived the “To-let” sign posted on the gate, the neglected walks which encircled the small lawn, and the large bare windows of the vacant house.

“I suppose,” he said to himself, “the house has been unoccupied since the death of the Baron … Ah! If I could only get in and view the scene of the murder!”

No sooner did the idea occur to him than he sought to put it in execution. But how could he manage it? He could not climb over the gate; it was too high. So he took from his pocket an electric lantern and a skeleton key which he always carried. Then, to his great surprise, he discovered that the gate was not locked; in fact, it was open about three or four inches. He entered the garden, and was careful to leave the gate as he had found it—partly open. But he had not taken many steps from the gate when he stopped. He had seen a light pass one of the windows on the second floor.

He saw the light pass a second window and a third, but he saw nothing else, except a silhouette outlined on the walls of the rooms. The light descended to the first floor, and, for a long time, wandered from room to room.

“Who the deuce is walking, at one o’clock in the morning, through the house in which the Baron d’Hautrec was killed?” Herlock Sholmes asked himself, deeply interested.

There was only one way to find out, and that was to enter the house himself. He did not hesitate, but started for the door of the house. However, at the moment when he crossed the streak of gaslight that came from the street-lamp, the man must have seen him, for the light in the house was suddenly extinguished and Herlock Sholmes did not see it again. Softly, he tried the door. It was open, also. Hearing no sound, he advanced through the hallway, encountered the foot of the stairs, and ascended to the first floor. Here there was the same silence, the same darkness.

He entered, one of the rooms and approached a window through which came a feeble light from the outside. On looking through the window he saw the man, who had no doubt descended by another stairway and escaped by another door. The man was threading his way through the shrubbery which bordered the wall that separated the two gardens.

“The deuce!” exclaimed Sholmes, “he is going to escape.”

He hastened down the stairs and leaped over the steps in his eagerness to cut off the man’s retreat. But he did not see anyone, and, owing to the darkness, it was several seconds before he was able to distinguish a bulky form moving through the shrubbery. This gave the Englishman food for reflection. Why had the man not made his escape, which he could have done so easily? Had he remained in order to watch the movements of the intruder who had disturbed him in his mysterious work?

“At all events,” concluded Sholmes, “it is not Lupin; he would be more adroit. It may be one of his men.”

For several minutes Herlock Sholmes remained motionless, with his gaze fixed on the adversary who, in his turn was watching the detective. But as that adversary had become passive, and as the Englishman was not one to consume his time in idle waiting, he examined his revolver to see if it was in good working order, remove his knife from its sheath, and walked toward the enemy with that cool effrontery and scorn of danger for which he had become famous.

He heard a clicking sound; it was his adversary preparing his revolver. Herlock Sholmes dashed boldly into the thicket, and grappled with his foe. There was a sharp, desperate struggle, in the course of which Sholmes suspected that the man was trying to draw a knife. But the Englishman, believing his antagonist to be an accomplice of Arsène Lupin and anxious to win the first trick in the game with that redoubtable foe, fought with unusual strength and determination. He hurled his adversary to the ground, held him there with the weight of his body, and, gripping him by the throat with one hand, he used his free hand to take out his electric lantern, press the button, and throw the light over the face of his prisoner.

“Wilson!” he exclaimed, in amazement.

“Herlock Sholmes!” stammered a weak, stifled voice.

For a long time they remained silent, astounded, foolish. The shriek of an automobile rent the air. A slight breeze stirred the leaves. Suddenly, Herlock Sholmes seized his friend by the shoulders and shook him violently, as he cried:

“What are you doing here? Tell me … What? … Did I tell you to hide in the bushes and spy on me?”

“Spy on you!” muttered Wilson, “why, I didn’t know it was you.”

“But what are you doing here? You ought to be in bed.”

“I was in bed.”

“You ought to be asleep.”

“I was asleep.”

“Well, what brought you here?” asked Sholmes.

“Your letter.”

“My letter? I don’t understand.”