Legrand

“ We passed down the corridor and through the bare doorway to the deck. Here the breath of the night blew softly on our faces. Legrand moved along the bulwarks till he reached the davits from which the boat depended. Standing into the opaque blackness, he cut at the ropes above. Presently I heard a splash. I did not offer to assist, for he had the knife and the knowledge; the two women were my charge. It must have been twenty minutes that we waited there silently, deep in the security of the darkness.
"She's down," said Legrand in my ear. "It's not a long drop, but it's a job for women. ”

“ I heard Legrand's voice raised high as if in angry altercation, and I stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind me. I hurried down to the barricade and found Barraclough and Legrand struggling furiously.
"Shame!" I called, "shame! What is it?" and I pulled Legrand back. "He has only one arm, man," I said reproachfully.
"I don't care if he has none. He's betrayed us," cried Legrand, savagely angry.
I stared. "What does it mean?"
"Why, that his friends are outside, and that he wants to admit them," said Legrand with an oath.
Barraclough met my gaze unblinkingly. ”

“ Blinded, baffled, thwarted, Legrand was still the béte sauvage. He sprang first on Dominica, because she happened to be the nearer, and dealt her a blow on the side of the head which sent her rolling over and over into one of the shallow excavations around the roots of a tree. He knew that he was hitting a woman; and he knew, a second or two later, that he had been hit by a man, for Macfarland had recovered himself sufficiently to jump in and land a blow which might have interfered seriously with Legrand's criminal activities for a number of years to come, had it landed properly. ”

“ Legrand might have hailed from the south, from Daudet's country; he is exuberant as he is astute. The chief thing is that he has abundant brains and in sheer craftsmanship fears few equals. Like Whistler, his principal preoccupation is to suppress all appearance of technical procedures. ”

“ A rat darted across their feet as they lit the lamp, and he dropped the matchbox. "Ugh!"
"The beastly things!" she shivered, "Make haste!"
On the floor stood a cabinet that was not unlike a gloomy wardrobe in its outward aspect. Legrand examined it curiously.
"Too massive," he remarked. "It will cost a fortune for carriage—and where are the columns I heard of?" He stepped inside and sounded the walls. "Humph, of course I see his idea. The fake is a very old one, but it is always effective." Really, he knew nothing about it, but as he was a conjurer, she accepted him as an authority. ”

“ Louis Legrand was more of the “maker” of pictures than were his two contemporaries. His nature leaned toward the heavy and boisterous Sodoma rather than toward the Latin ideal of Tiepolo. This almost Teutonic racial penchant in him explains why the bestiality of his subject-matter is so often done in the manner of Goya, with broad black and white masses, not with the suggested line and the attractive matière of his master, Degas. ”

“ Spose I drop him down fuss, and den de limb won't break wid just de weight of one nigger."
"You infernal scoundrel!" cried Legrand, apparently much relieved, "what do you mean by telling me such nonsense as that? As sure as you drop that beetle I'll break your neck. Look here, Jupiter, do you hear me?"
"Yes, massa, needn't hollo at poor nigger dat style."
"Well! now listen!—if you will venture out on the limb as far as you think safe, and not let go the beetle, I'll make you a present of a silver dollar as soon as you get down." ”

“ Many years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. ”

“ But Legrand said nothing to the point. Though he was a little chagrined by the intelligence, it never even entered his mind to attempt to cut the inventor out. How should it? She was certainly an attractive girl, but as to marrying her—He thought Bourjac a fool. As for himself, if he married at all, it would be an artist who was drawing a big salary and who would be able to provide him with some of the good things of life. ”

“ In an instant, a treasure of incalculable value lay gleaming before us. As the rays of the lanterns fell within the pit, there flashed upwards a glow and a glare, from a confused heap of gold and of jewels, that absolutely dazzled our eyes.
I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I gazed. Amazement was, of course, predominant. Legrand appeared exhausted with excitement, and spoke very few words. Jupiter's countenance wore, for some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is possible, in the nature of things, for any negro's visage to assume. ”

“ O’Higgins, in self-defence; “ for I smoked me last on the way, and very foine seegyars they are."
“ Newmarket is the dullest place in the world, except in Meeting-weeks: is it not, Miss Farmer?” said Calipee, addressing the hostess, who looked very fresh and charming in her white and blue piqué morning gown.
“Newmarket dull! oh, Mr. Calipee, how can you say so?" replied the lively Kitty standing behind Mr. Calipee’s chair, and playfully patting his fat shoulder with her ring-bedizened hand. “ You don’t think we are dull, do you, Mr. Pokyr?" ”

“ I did not wait to hear the end of my father's story, for I had been with him myself after mass when we had passed M. Legrandin; instead, I went downstairs to the kitchen to ask for the bill of fare for our dinner, which was of fresh interest to me daily, like the news in a paper, and excited me as might the programme of a coming festivity. ”

“ Once again, no doubt, 'Destange, architect!' And what I must now do is to take advantage of my presence here to examine the contents of the cupboard ... [Pg 189] and obtain all the information I can about the other faked houses."
Shears went up to the gallery and hid behind the hangings of the rail. He stayed there till the end of the evening. A man-servant came to put out the electric lights. An hour later, the Englishman pressed the spring of his lantern and went down to the cupboard. As he knew, it contained the architect's old papers, files, plans, estimates and account-books. ”

“ The increasing violence of the blows in the alcove drove him, in spite of all, toward the upper exit; and, as he climbed the ladder, he moved his electric lantern over the stones of the wall and the wood of the trapdoor. He even tried to lift the door with his shoulder. But he again heard a sound of footsteps above his head. The men were still there. ”

“ Ah! here is a corridor; it must lead to the bed chambers. At a distance of three metres, I should come to the door of the wardrobe-closet which connects with the chamber of the countess.” He folded his plan, extinguished his lantern, and proceeded down the corridor, counting his distance, thus:
“One metre.... two metres.... three metres....Here is the door....Mon Dieu, how easy it is! Only a small, simple bolt now separates me from the chamber, and I know that the bolt is located exactly one metre, forty-three centimeters, from the floor. ”

“ And, after a few minutes' search, he was about to go out, when there came, from the left, a clash of things falling about and some hoops dropped to the ground not far from where he stood.
They came from above, from a loft likewise crammed with various objects and implements and reached by a ladder. Was he to believe that the visitor, surprised by his arrival, had taken refuge in that hiding-place and made a movement that caused the fall of the hoops?
Don Luis placed his electric lantern on a cask in such a way as to send the light right up to the loft. ”

“ Some fifty yards or more beyond the factory, on the opposite side of the street, there stood a café. Entering in a leisurely way, Lefarge seated himself at a small marble-topped table in the window, from where he had a good view of the office door and yard gate of the works. Ordering another bock, he drew a newspaper from his pocket and, leaning back in his chair, began to read. He held it carefully at such a level that he could keep an eye over it on the works entrance, while at any moment raising it by a slight and natural movement would screen him from observation from without. ”

“ The door must have been open, for the man disappeared suddenly from view and they failed to hear the usual grating of the hinges.
"He came from the drawing room," whispered Suzanne.
"No, the stairs and the hall would have brought him out more to the left—Unless—"
The same idea struck them both. They leant out. Below them, a ladder stood against the front of the house, resting on the first floor. A glimmer lit up the stone balcony. And another man, who was also carrying something, bestrode the baluster, slid down the ladder and ran away by the same road as the first. ”

“ Then he closed the trap-door, unhooked the ladder, hid it under straw, and hurried to the sleeping inn. With cat-like quietness he filled a basket with some cold meat, cheese, bread, a bottle of wine, a bottle of water, and a lantern. He was soon back at the barn, climbed up into the loft with his basket, drew up the ladder, and shut the trap-door.
“Twelve hour’s sleep and safety!” he said in a tone of satisfaction. “No one will disturb us here. At noon to-morrow I’ll get a carriage for you and take you wherever you like.” ”

“ Morestal picked a great armful of flowers, laid waste his rose-garden, sacrificed all the Gloires de Dijon of which he was so proud and returned to the drawing-room, where he himself arranged the bunches in large glass vases.
The room, a sort of hall occupying the centre of the house, with beams of timber showing and a huge chimney covered with gleaming brasses, the room was bright and cheerful and open at both fronts: to the east, on the terrace, by a long bay; to the west, by two windows, on the garden, which it overlooked from the height of a first floor. ”

“ I took hold of the curtain.
"Don't touch it, don't touch it!" he cried. "No one has the right, except myself. Who [Pg 33] knows what would happen if any one except me were to open the closed door! Stand back, Victorien. Take up your position at two paces from the wall, a little to one side. . . . And now look!"
His voice was vibrant with energy and implacable determination. His expression was that of a man facing death; and, suddenly, with a single movement, he drew the black-serge curtain.
My emotion, I am certain, was just as great as Noël Dorgeroux's and my heart beat no less violently. ”

“ Here, as Weber did not yet know the short cut through the outhouses, he had time to make sure that the trapdoor was in perfect working order, and that there was no reason why they should discover the existence of a secret cupboard at the back of the alcove, behind the curtains of the bed.
Once inside the passage, he went up the first staircase, followed the long corridor contrived in the wall, climbed the ladder leading to the boudoir, and, perceiving that this second trapdoor fitted the woodwork so closely that no one could suspect anything, he closed it over him. ”

“ Isidore counted the steps aloud. At the three hundred and fifty-eight, they emerged into a wider passage, which was barred by another iron door strengthened with slabs and nails.
“We know all about this,” said Beautrelet. “The document gives us 357 and a triangle dotted on the right. We have only to repeat the performance.”
The second door obeyed like the first. A long, a very long tunnel appeared, lit up at intervals by the gleam of a lantern swung from the vault. ”

“ At the end of the room was, of all curious things, the opening into the well of a lift. The doors of it were open, though the lift itself was on some other floor. To the left of the opening stood a book-case, its shelves loaded with books of a kind rather suited to a cultivated, thoughtful man than to an idle dandy.
Beside the window, half-hidden, and peering through the side of the curtain into the street, stood M. Charolais. ”

“ 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." ”

“ The ladder, the table on the window-sill, they lead nowhere. The only people who came up that ladder were the two men who brought it from the scaffolding. You can see their footsteps. Nobody went down it at all. It was mere waste of time to bother with those traces.”
“But the footprint under the book?” said the Duke.
“Oh, that,” said Guerchard. “One of the burglars sat on the couch there, rubbed plaster on the sole of his boot, and set his foot down on the carpet. Then he dusted the rest of the plaster off his boot and put the book on the top of the footprint.” ”

“ After a moment of genuine fright, in which he stood as though petrified, with his brain in a whirl, he recovered his coolness and threw himself upon the obstacle. But it at once appeared to him that the obstacle was unsurmountable.
It was a heavy metal panel, not made of plates or lathes fastened one to the other, but formed of a solid slab, massive, firm, and strong, and covered with the sheen of time darkened here and there with patches of rust. On either side and at the top and bottom the edges of the panel fitted in a narrow groove which covered them hermetically. ”