Maurice Leblanc

“ Jodot was silent, stupefied and terrorstricken. Ralph looked at his watch, and calmly and carelessly, without a sign that his heart was constricted by an indescribable anguish, he went on:
“That’s where you stand. Your plan is useless. As long as Aurelie is not dead she inherits; and there’s no sale of the estate. If you murder her, and there is a sale, I am still here and I buy it. You must kill me too; and it can’t be done—invulnerable, you know. So you’re sold. There’s only one way out of it.” ”

“ Beside them Aurelie waited, sitting upright on her chair.
The curious thing was, and it struck Marescal, that she seemed to have recovered herself. Still feeble, with drawn face, she no longer wore, as at the beginning of the attack, her air of a helpless, exhausted quarry. She maintained that rigid attitude which he had observed her assume on the bench at Sainte-Marie. Her eyes, open wide, wet with tears which trickled down her pale cheeks, were fixed on something invisible to either of them. Of what was she thinking? Sometimes from the very bottom of the abyss one rises again. ”

“ Ralph looked uncommonly disappointed. “So you’ve no sense of humor, have you?” he said mournfully. “But there’s always time for a little joke.”
“Speak, will you!” snapped the Commissary.
“I beg you to explain,” said Aurelie in an imploring tone.
He smiled at her and said: “You’re afraid of the big policemen, Mademoiselle, and you don’t want any of their politeness. You’re right. We will explain.” Then in a more serious tone he went on: “I will explain, since you ask me, Marescal. To speak is as good as to act, sometimes, and nothing equals the solid reality of certain words. ”

“ She had heard, without any distress—what did it matter to her?—Marescal’s accusation and the name of Arsène Lupin the Commissary had snarled at him. Was she to believe that Ralph was no other than Arsène Lupin?
“Who are you? You whom I love more than my life?” she thought. “Who are you? You who unceasingly save me as if it were your only mission? Who are you?” ”

“ In his study Bregeac was lying on a sofa in his death agony. A revolver, fallen from his nerveless hand, lay on the floor beside him. Marescal was bending over him. The blood poured from his mouth; a last shudder shook him; he did not move again.
“I ought to have foreseen it,” murmured Ralph. “His downfall—the loss of Aurelie. Poor devil! He has paid his debts.”
He said to Marescal: “Telephone for a doctor and get this business hushed up. Hemorrhage, is what it is. Don’t let there be any question of suicide. At any cost Aurelie must not hear about it at present. She is not strong enough. ”

“ Ralph said to himself as he regained the compartment in which Marescal had left him. “I’ve a perfect horror of this little devil; nothing would please me better than to hand her over to the police and keep my oath of vengeance. But all the efforts I do make help her to get away. Why?”
He knew quite well the answer to this question. If he had been interested in the girl because she had eyes the color of jade, how should he not be protecting her now that he had held her clasped to him, half-fainting and with his lips on hers? Does one hand a girl whose lips one has kissed over to the police? ”

“ It had been revealed to him by the ardor of a first kiss; and at every one of their meetings, it had displayed itself in a fear of which he had divined the profound cause. But he was afraid even of the happiness he was feeling. The tender words of the young girl, the caress of her fresh breath intoxicated him. The dauntless will to fight was weakening in him.
She had divined this lassitude in the depths of his being, and drew him yet closer to her.
“Let us resign ourselves, Ralph,” she said. “Let us accept the inevitable. I do not fear death with you. ”

“ He does not hesitate; he hustles his companion and shows her the scandal that the business will set going—a scandal for her and a scandal for Bregeac. Helpless, in an immense confusion of mind, terrified by what she has seen and the presence of these two corpses, she does as he bids her. William dresses her in the blood-stained blouse and mask and cap of the younger Loubeaux. He dresses himself in the disguise of the elder Loubeaux, carries away their suit-cases to leave no trace behind him. They hurry down the corridor, upset the conductor, and jump from the train. ”

“ At Monte Carlo, at Sainte-Marie, it is Marescal again. I rescue you. And was I not here just now? Then what are you afraid of? All is over, and we can go quietly away before the big policemen arrive and the Horse Marines surround the house. Isn’t that so, Rudolph? You don’t put any obstacle in the way, and Mademoiselle is free? Isn’t it a fact that you’re ravished by this dénouement which satisfies your sense of justice and your genial soul? You are coming, Mademoiselle? ”

“ I am sure, Marescal, that you also are pleased to see, in the midst of these rogues and imbeciles, an honest man who at once takes up the right attitude, without knowing anything, and simply because Mademoiselle has beautiful green eyes, comes forward as the champion of persecuted innocence. Here at last is a firm will, a penetrating insight, a helping hand, a generous heart—Baron de Limézy! ”

“ When one is thirty years old, it is woman who appears to us to hold in her hands the key of our destiny. Since the green eyes had vanished he would guide his wavering steps by the light of the blue.
Then, almost immediately, having pretended to set out in the opposite direction and returned on his steps, he perceived that the pomaded lady-killer had betaken himself once more to the chase, and, rebuffed in one quarter had turned, like himself, to the other. And all three of them resumed their stroll without the English girl perceiving the maneuvers of her followers. ”

“ I hunt for it in vain till the day on which it occurs to me to return to Paris and to learn whether your investigations, Bregeac, have not been more fortunate than mine and whether you have discovered your step-daughter’s hiding-place. That was how I was able to reach the convent of Sainte-Marie several hours before you did and to make my way to a certain terrace on which Mademoiselle was listening to a tale of love. Only the lover has changed: instead of William Ancivel it is Baron de Limézy, that is to say, their confederate. ”

“ Aurelie turned faint. She understood now the meaning of her distress. The voices of the past, that mysterious past which she had done everything not to forget, echoed within and around her. They came echoing back from the cliffs in which granite was mingled with the lava of ancient volcanoes. They sprang from rock to rock, from statue to gargoyle, moved over the hard surface of the water, mounted to the blue strip of Heaven, fell again like spray to the bottom of the gulf, and went in rolling echoes towards the other end of the passage where shone the light of day. ”

“ Never had Ralph felt so strongly how deeply he ought to distrust any kind of precipitousness in any adventure of this kind. Deductions, intuitions, analyses, explorations were just so many snares you must be careful not to fall into.
All day therefore he remained under the tarpaulin of the truck while the freight train rolled southwards through sunny landscapes. He dreamed pleasantly, [77] eating the apples to appease his hunger, without wasting his time on building fragile hypotheses about the pretty girl, about her crimes and her dark soul. ”

“ The scent of a woman who keeps her cigarette-case in her vanity bag along with her handkerchief and powder-puff and scent-spray. There’s no mistaking the smell,” he said.
“Well?” said Marescal in a tone of triumph.
“Well, I don’t understand anything about it. There are two men here whom we found murdered, and two men who attacked them and murdered them and bolted,” said Ralph in a tone of bewilderment.
“Why not a man and a woman?”
“What? A woman? One of these robbers a woman?” cried Ralph in well-feigned amazement. ”

“ CHAPTER IV THE VILLA B. IS BURGLED
“If there is one principle to which I always cling,” said Arsène Lupin to me, when, many years later, he told me the story of the girl with the green eyes, “it is never to attempt the solution of a problem before the proper hour for doing so has arrived. To get to the bottom of certain enigmas, you must wait till luck, or your own cleverness, has brought you a sufficient number of the actual facts. You must only advance along the road to the truth, with the greatest care, step by step, following the course of events.” ”

“ Ralph laughed and said: “You’ll make yourself ill, Rudolph. I’m a good fellow, and I like you—you’re so sympathetic. I’m not asking a cent for your comico-amorous literature. I value it too highly. There’s months and months’ amusement in it. But I demand——”
“What?”
“That you throw down your weapons, Marescal. Absolute peace for Aurelie and Bregeac, and even for Jodot and the Ancivels. I’m going to deal with them myself. Since the whole of this case from the police point of view is in your hands, and there is no actual proof, no real evidence, let it drop. It will be pigeon-holed.” ”

“ The Police? Bregeac? Jodot? With what object?
Ralph did not search them himself. That which some one else had sought, was either not to be found there, or was to found there no longer. He settled down to spend the night in an easy chair. He found a book lying on the table and began to read it by the light of his electric torch. It sent him to sleep.
The truth is only revealed to those who compel it to emerge from the darkness; and it often happens that, when one believes it to be a long way off, chance comes and sets it in the very place one has prepared for it. ”

“ For example, the way you traced me to Clermont-Ferrand was a real exploit, for I don’t yet understand how you did it. You have my word, then; and the word of Lupin is as good as gold. Is it settled?”
Jodot consulted with William in a low voice and replied: “Yes: we agree. What is it you want?”
“Me? I don’t want anything, old chap,” said Ralph carelessly. “I’m a man who is seeking for peace and pays the necessary price for it. We become partners: that’s the real truth. If you wish to invest anything in the partnership after to-day, it’s just as you like. ”

“ The girl with the green eyes! The most charming and ravishing girl he had ever set eyes on rising among the black shadows of a crime! The most radiant image appearing from behind the ignoble mask of a thief and murderer! The girl with the eyes of jade, towards whom his man’s instinct had fairly thrust him the very minute he saw her, whom he now found in a blood-stained blouse with panic-stricken face, robbing and murdering along with two horrible assassins! ”

“ Goodness, all I have to do in your case was what I did in the case of Bregeac and Jodot and his colleagues, make discreet inquiries about your private life, which enquiries brought me to a mysterious ground-floor flat, very prettily furnished where you entertain charming ladies. Dim lights, incense, flowers, sweet wines, divans as deep as tombs—Marescal’s Folly. ”

“ One sees clearly enough when one definitely looks; but for two days I had been living in a kind of madness that had been aggravated by Jodot’s attack. I followed William therefore without even asking him the object of the journey. I was alone, ashamed of my cowardice, and harassed by the presence of this man who was becoming more and more a stranger to me. What part did I play at Monte Carlo? It is not very clear to me. William had intrusted some letters to me, which I was to hand over to him in the corridor of the hotel that he might himself hand them over to a gentleman. ”

“ The finding of one’s self alone in a small closed [21] compartment with a pretty unknown lady, of passing the night together and sleeping in the same compartment, had always appeared to him a rather diverting anomaly. But he saw no use in wasting time in reading magazines or in meditating or exchanging furtive glances. He moved to the middle of the seat. The English girl could not doubt that her traveling companion was about to speak to her, and, wholly unmoved, she neither seemed to avoid it nor to lend herself to it. The burden therefore of establishing relations fell upon Ralph alone. ”

“ Death and only death could produce that impression of limbs already stiff and cold that nothing would ever warm again.
He muttered through chattering teeth: “The man of the express!”
“The man of the express, the very man,” echoed the voice at his ear-hole.
“The man of the terrace!” moaned Marescal.
“Quite right—the man of the express, the man of the terrace—and also the man of Monte Carlo and the man [156] of Boulevard Haussmann and the murderer of the two brothers Loubeaux and the accomplice of Aurelie, and the navigator of the boat and the driver of the cart. ”

“ One would have thought that the Commissary would have sprung at Ralph’s throat; but he kept control of himself. And Ralph went on in the tone of mockery which gave Aurelie a feeling of complete security and lashed Marescal like a whip: “You’re looking devilishly uncomfortable, Rudolph. Why are you itching so? Are you annoyed because I’m here and not in a cell, and you’re asking yourself how I was able at one and the same time to go to prison as Limézy and lunch with you as Sauvinoux? What an infant it is! ”

“ There is no way of escaping me, as at Beaucourt station, no means of driving me away, as in Paris. You will have to submit to the law of the stronger.”
Straight upright, with stiff arms, her fists clenched [144] on the stone bench, Aurelie gazed at him with an expression of wild anguish. Without a groan, she waited.
“How delightful it is to see you here, charming creature! When one loves in the rather excessive fashion in which I love you, it is not disagreeable to find one’s self confronted by revolt and terror. It makes one all the more eager to seize one’s prey. ”

“ But did he hate her?
He dwelt on the word and said to himself savagely: “I do hate her. Whatever she may say, she is a murderess. [59] It is her fault and that of her accomplices that the English girl is dead. I do hate her. Miss Bakersfield shall be avenged!”
However, he let none of these thoughts find utterance. On the contrary, he was aware that he was uttering the gentlest of words.
“Misfortune falls on people when they’re not even dreaming of it, doesn’t it? One is happy—full of life—then the crime occurs. ”

“ Just a last word, Rudolph: don’t go on bothering Lord Bakersfield. On the contrary, since you have no proofs against her and never will have, play the kind gentleman and give him his daughter’s diary, which I found in the red leather wallet and will leave you. That will convince him that she was the most honest and noble of women. You will do a kind action; and that is always something gained. As for William and his confederate, tell him that you made a mistake, that it was just ordinary blackmail and had nothing to do with the murders on the express, and you let them go. ”

“ Ralph made ready to intervene, when there came an unexpected happening: the laundress entered the house by a side door; and the moment she disappeared, William came out of the front door, carrying a newspaper parcel of the shape of a violin case. He and the laundress did not meet.
The girl, hidden among the trees did not at once see this, and during the stealthy approach of her confederate, who was walking noiselessly on the turf, she wore the mask of terror she had worn at Beaucourt, after the murder of Miss Bakersfield and the two men. Ralph filled with detestation of her. ”