Maurice Leblanc

“ The eyes of the gods are upon you! Lift up your head! Pull in your stomach, hang it! Throw out your chest!... Everything is breaking up around you. What do you care?... It's the final disaster, I've played my last card, a kingdom in the gutter, I've lost Europe, the whole world ends in smoke.... Well... and what of it? Laugh, laugh! Be Lupin, or you're in the soup.... Come, laugh! Louder than that, louder, louder! That's right!... Lord, how funny it all is! Dolores, old girl, a cigarette! ”

“ And she struck, drunk with rage, ferociously, frenziedly.
A strange madwoman, not answerable for her murders, and yet so lucid in her blindness, so logical in her mental derangement, so intelligent in her absurdity! What skill, what perseverance, what ginning contrivances, at once abominable and admirable!
And Lupin, in a rapid view, with prodigious keenness of outlook, saw the long array of bloodthirsty adventures and guessed the mysterious paths which Dolores had pursued. ”

“ There was a glorious view of the point of Sorrento and over the whole island of Capri. The glowing blue of the sea outlined the beautiful curve of the bay; and cool perfumes mingled with the scent of the citron-trees.
"The view is finer still, Sire," said Waldemar, "from the hermit's little chapel, at the summit."
"Let us go to it."
But the hermit himself descended by a steep path. He was an old man, with a hesitating gait and a bent back. He carried the book in which travellers usually write down their impressions. ”

“ He entered the chapel and, with a special key, opened the low door of a little sacristy. On a heap of straw, lay a man, with his hands and legs bound and a gag in his mouth.
"Well, my friend, the hermit," said Lupin, "it wasn't so very long, was it? Twenty-four hours at the most.... But I have worked jolly hard on your behalf! Just think, you have saved the Emperor's life! Yes, old chap. You are the man who saved the Emperor's life. I have made your fortune, that's what I've done. They'll build a cathedral for you and put up a statue to you when you're dead and gone. ”

“ But the truth rushed upon the attack of his mind and of his consciousness; and, conquered, tortured with anguish, he muttered:
"Oh, Dolores!... Dolores!..."
He at once saw the excuse: it was madness. She was mad. The sister of Altenheim and Isilda, the daughter of the last of the Malreichs, of the demented mother, of the drunken father, was herself mad. A strange madwoman, mad with every appearance of sanity, but mad nevertheless, unbalanced, brain-sick, unnatural, truly monstrous. ”

“ It was against herself that she asked to be protected, against her wild-beast instincts, against the monster that dwelt within her and forced her to kill, always to kill.
"Always?" Lupin asked himself.
And he remembered the night, two days since, when, standing over him, with her dagger raised against the enemy who had been harassing her for months, against the indefatigable enemy who had run her to earth after each of her crimes, he remembered that, on that night, she had not killed. And yet it would have been easy: the enemy lay lifeless and powerless. ”

“ And, as the man in black, as the murderer was none other than Dolores Kesselbach, Louis de Malreich's name was really and truly Leon Massier and he was innocent!
Innocent? But the evidence found in his house, the Emperor's letters, all, all the things that accused him beyond hope of denial, all those incontrovertible proofs?
Lupin stopped for a second, with his brain on fire:
"Oh," he cried, "I shall go mad, I, too! Come, though, I must act... the sentence is to be executed... tomorrow... tomorrow at break of day." ”

“ She will understand that I am no longer the man I was, that I do not wish to be."
"Then, really, what you wish is that she should share your life, the life of Lupin?"
"The life of the man that I shall be, of the man who will work so that she may be happy, so that she may marry according to her inclination. We will settle down in some nook or other. We will struggle together, side by side. ”

“ The journey was a real race for life or death. Lupin, thinking that Octave was not driving fast enough, took the steering-wheel himself and drove at a furious, break-neck speed. On the road, through the villages, along the crowded streets of the towns they rushed at sixty miles an hour. People whom they nearly upset roared and yelled with rage: the meteor was far away, was out of sight. ”

“ The curtain rises on the death-scene... and the principal part is played by Lupin in person.... 'Bravo, Lupin!'... Feel my heart, ladies and gentlemen... seventy beats to the minute.... And a smile on my lips.... 'Bravo, Lupin! Oh, the rogue, what cheek he has.'... Well, jump, my lord.... Are you ready? It's the last adventure, old fellow. No regrets? Regrets? What for, heavens above? My life was splendid. Ah, Dolores, Dolores, if you had not come into it, abominable monster that you were!...... And you, Malreich, why did you not speak?... And you, Pierre Leduc.... Here I am!... ”

“ And Dolores, resuming her feminine attire, discarding the fair wig that altered her appearance beyond recognition, went down to the ground-floor, joined Gertrude at the moment when the maid entered the hotel and pretended herself to have just arrived, all ignorant of the tragedy that awaited her.
An incomparable actress, she played the part of the wife whose life is shattered. Every one pitied her. Every one wept for her. ”

“ And now, by a really terrifying vicissitude of fate, it was he who had killed her.
"I have taken life!" he thought, shuddering from head to foot. "These hands have killed a living being; and that creature is Dolores!... Dolores!... Dolores!..."
He never ceased repeating her name, her name of sorrow, and he never ceased staring at her, a sad, lifeless thing, harmless now, a poor hunk of flesh, with no more consciousness than a little heap of withered leaves or a little dead bird by the roadside. ”

“ Gertrude and Suzanne, frightened and subdued accomplices, both of them serving her as emissaries, disguising themselves to represent her, perhaps, as on the day when old Steinweg was carried off by Baron Altenheim, in the middle of the Palais de Justice.
And the series of murders: Gourel drowned; Altenheim, her brother, stabbed. Oh, the implacable struggle in the underground passages of the Villa des Glycines, the invisible work performed by the monster in the dark: how clear it all appeared today! ”

“ There were scraps of letters, in cipher, no doubt handed to Dolores by her accomplices, in the course of their nocturnal meetings. There were also addresses on bits of paper, addresses of milliners and dressmakers, but addresses also of low haunts, of common hotels.... And names... twenty, thirty names... queer names: Hector the Butcher, Armand of Grenelle, the Sick Man....
But a photograph caught Lupin's eye. He looked at it. And, at once, as though shot from a spring, dropping the pocket-book, he bolted out of the room, out of the chalet and rushed into the park. ”

“ Lupin, lying flat on the grass of the slope, had hailed a taxicab.
He scrambled to his feet, gave a glance at his shattered car and the people crowding round to Octave's assistance and jumped into the cab:
"Go to the Ministry of the Interior, on the Place Beauvau... Twenty francs for yourself...."
He settled himself in the taxi and continued:
"No, no, he shall not die! No, a thousand times no, I will not have that on my conscience! It is bad enough to have been tricked by a woman and to have fallen into the snare like a schoolboy.... That will do! ”

“ He interrupted himself and stamped his foot on the ground:
"You confounded Lupin! Will you never change, will you always remain hateful and cynical to the last moment of your existence? Be serious, hang it all! The time has come, now or never, to be serious!"
He climbed the path that leads to the chapel and stopped at the place where the rock had broken loose. ”

“ He no longer felt rage nor hatred nor emotion of any kind... nothing but a stupid prostration, the sensation of a man who has received a blow with a club and who does not know if he is still alive, if he is thinking, or if he is the sport of a nightmare. ”

“ Rich and happy, you would have forgotten — yes, I am sure of it — you would have forgotten who I am, or rather who I was. Unfortunately, fate has been too strong for me. I bring you neither wealth nor power. ”

“ Lupin rushed into the room, slammed the door and, interrupting the premier, said:
"No, no set phrases, you can't arrest me.... It would mean ruining yourself and compromising the Emperor.... No, it's not a question of that. Look here. Malreich is innocent.... I have discovered the real criminal.... It's Dolores Kesselbach. She is dead. Her body is down there. I have undeniable proofs. There is no doubt possible. ”

“ My name is not Lupin for nothing!... Come on!..."
He set off again at a run, entered the castle and called out:
"Pierre! Pierre!... Has any one seen M. Pierre Leduc?... Oh, there you are!... Listen...."
He took him on one side and jerked out, in imperious tones:
"Listen, Dolores is not here,... Yes, she was called away on urgent business... she left last night in my motor.... I am going too.... Don't interrupt, not a word!... A second lost means irreparable harm.... You, send away all the servants, without any explanation. Here is money. In half an hour from now, the castle must be empty. ”

“ Then it seemed to him that Dolores was farther away and that the man in black was really there, this time, in his dark clothes, in his murderer's disguise.
He now ventured to touch her, to feel in her clothes. In an inside pocket were two pocket-books. He took one of them and opened it. He found first a letter signed by Steinweg, the old German. It contained the following lines:
"Should I die before being able to reveal the terrible secret, let it be known that the murderer of my friend Kesselbach is his wife, whose real name is Dolores de Malreich, sister to Altenheim and sister to Isilda. ”

“ She must have noticed the eccentric life led by that lonely man, his nocturnal expeditions, his manner of walking in the streets and of throwing any who might follow him off the scent. And it was in consequence of these observations and in anticipation of possible eventualities that she advised Mr. Kesselbach to erase the name of Dolores from the register of births and to replace it by the name of Louis, so that the initials might correspond with those of Leon Massier.... The moment arrived at which she must act ”