The Golden Triangle: The Return of Arsène Lupin

"Captain Belval is entitled to know what we have discovered. The truth belongs as much to him as to me; and I have no right to keep it from him. Pray speak, monsieur."

"I doubt if it is even necessary to speak," said the magistrate. "It will be enough, I think, to show the captain this photograph-album which I have found. Here you are, Captain Belval."

And he handed Patrice a very slender album, covered in gray canvas and fastened with an india-rubber band.

Patrice took it with a certain anxiety. But what he saw on opening it was so utterly unexpected that he gave an exclamation:

"It's incredible!"

On the first page, held in place by their four corners, were two photographs: one, on the right, representing a small boy in an Eton jacket; the other, on the left, representing a very little girl. There was an inscription under each. On the right: "Patrice, at ten." On the left: "Coralie, at three."

Moved beyond expression, Patrice turned the leaf. On the second page they appeared again, he at the age of fifteen, she at the age of eight. And he saw himself at nineteen and at twenty-three and at twenty-eight, always accompanied by Coralie, first as a little girl, then as a young girl, next as a woman.

"This is incredible!" he cried. "How is it possible? Here are portraits of myself which I had never seen, amateur photographs obviously, which trace my whole life. Here's one when I was doing my military training… Here I am on horseback.. Who can have ordered these photographs? And who can have collected them together with yours, madame?"

He fixed his eyes on Coralie, who evaded their questioning gaze and lowered her head as though the close connection between their two lives, to which those pages bore witness, had shaken her to the very depths of her being.

"Who can have brought them together?" he repeated. "Do you know? And where does the album come from?"

M. Masseron supplied the answer:

"It was the surgeon who found it. M. Essarès wore a vest under his shirt; and the album was in an inner pocket, a pocket sewn inside the vest. The surgeon felt the boards through it when he was undressing M. Essarès' body."

This time, Patrice's and Coralie's eyes met. The thought that M. Essarès had been collecting both their photographs during the past twenty years and that he wore them next to his breast and that he had lived and died with them upon him, this thought amazed them so much that they did not even try to fathom its strange significance.

"Are you sure of what you are saying, sir?" asked Patrice.

"I was there," said M. Masseron. "I was present at the discovery. Besides, I myself made another which confirms this one and completes it in a really surprising fashion. I found a pendant, cut out of a solid block of amethyst and held in a setting of filigree-work."

"What's that?" cried Captain Belval. "What's that? A pendant? An amethyst pendant?"

"Look for yourself, sir," suggested the magistrate, after once more consulting Mme. Essarès with a glance.

And he handed Captain Belval an amethyst pendant, larger than the ball formed by joining the two halves which Coralie and Patrice possessed, she on her rosary and he on his bunch of seals; and this new ball was encircled with a specimen of gold filigree-work exactly like that on the rosary and on the seal.

The setting served as a clasp.

"Am I to open it?" he asked.

Coralie nodded. He opened the pendant. The inside was divided by a movable glass disk, which separated two miniature photographs, one of Coralie as a nurse, the other of himself, wounded, in an officer's uniform.

Patrice reflected, with pale cheeks. Presently he asked:

"And where does this pendant come from? Did you find it, sir?"

"Yes, Captain Belval."

"Where?"

The magistrate seemed to hesitate. Coralie's attitude gave Patrice the impression that she was unaware of this detail. M. Masseron at last said:

"I found it in the dead man's hand."

"In the dead man's hand? In M. Essarès' hand?"

Patrice had given a start, as though under an unexpected blow, and was now leaning over the magistrate, greedily awaiting a reply which he wanted to hear for the second time before accepting it as certain.

"Yes, in his hand. I had to force back the clasped fingers in order to release it."

Belval stood up and, striking the table with his fist, exclaimed:

"Well, sir, I will tell you one thing which I was keeping back as a last argument to prove to you that my collaboration is of use; and this thing becomes of great importance after what we have just learnt. Sir, this morning some one asked to speak to me on the telephone; and I had hardly answered the call when this person, who seemed greatly excited, was the victim of a murderous assault, committed in my hearing. And, amid the sound of the scuffle and the cries of agony, I caught the following words, which the unhappy man insisted on trying to get to me as so many last instructions: 'Patrice!.. Coralie!.. The amethyst pendant… Yes, I have it on me… The pendant… Ah, it's too late!.. I should so much have liked… Patrice… Coralie..' There's what I heard, sir, and here are the two facts which we cannot escape. This morning, at nineteen minutes past seven, a man was murdered having upon him an amethyst pendant. This is the first undeniable fact. A few hours later, at twenty-three minutes past twelve, this same amethyst pendant is discovered clutched in the hand of another man. This is the second undeniable fact. Place these facts side by side and you are bound to come to the conclusion that the first murder, the one of which I caught the distant echo, was committed here, in this house, in the same library which, since yesterday evening, witnessed the end of every scene in the tragedy which we are contemplating."

This revelation, which in reality amounted to a fresh accusation against Essarès, seemed to affect the magistrate profoundly. Patrice had flung himself into the discussion with a passionate vehemence and a logical reasoning which it was impossible to disregard without evident insincerity.

Coralie had turned aside slightly and Patrice could not see her face; but he suspected her dismay in the presence of all this infamy and shame.

M. Masseron raised an objection:

"Two undeniable facts, you say, Captain Belval? As to the first point, let me remark that we have not found the body of the man who is supposed to have been murdered at nineteen minutes past seven this morning."

"It will be found in due course."

"Very well. Second point: as regards the amethyst pendant discovered in Essarès' hand, how can we tell that Essarès Bey found it in the murdered man's hand and not somewhere else? For, after all, we do not know if he was at home at that time and still less if he was in his library."

"But I do know."

"How?"

"I telephoned to him a few minutes later and he answered. More than that, to sweep away any trace of doubt, he told me that he had rung me up but that he had been cut off."

M. Masseron thought for a moment and then said:

"Did he go out this morning?"

"Ask Mme. Essarès."

Without turning round, manifestly wishing to avoid Belval's eyes, Coralie answered:

"I don't think that he went out. The suit he was wearing at the time of his death was an indoor suit."

"Did you see him after last night?"

"He came and knocked at my room three times this morning, between seven and nine o'clock. I did not open the door. At about eleven o'clock I started off alone; I heard him call old Siméon and tell him to go with me. Siméon caught me up in the street. That is all I know."

A prolonged silence ensued. Each of the three was meditating upon this strange series of adventures. In the end, M. Masseron, who had realized that a man of Captain Belval's stamp was not the sort to be easily thrust aside, spoke in the tone of one who, before coming to terms, wishes to know exactly what his adversary's last word is likely to be:

"Let us come to the point, captain. You are building up a theory which strikes me as very vague. What is it precisely? And what are you proposing to do if I decline to accept it? I have asked you two very plain questions. Do you mind answering them?"

"I will answer them, sir, as plainly as you put them."

He went up to the magistrate and said:

"Here, sir, is the field of battle and of attack – yes, of attack, if need be – which I select. A man who used to know me, who knew Mme. Essarès as a child and who was interested in both of us, a man who used to collect our portraits at different ages, who had reasons for loving us unknown to me, who sent me the key of that garden and who was making arrangements to bring us together for a purpose which he would have told us, this man was murdered at the moment when he was about to execute his plan. Now everything tells me that he was murdered by M. Essarès. I am therefore resolved to lodge an information, whatever the results of my action may be. And believe me, sir, my charge will not be hushed up. There are always means of making one's self heard.. even if I am reduced to shouting the truth from the house-tops."

M. Masseron burst out laughing:

"By Jove, captain, but you're letting yourself go!"

"I'm behaving according to my conscience; and Mme. Essarès, I feel sure, will forgive me. She knows that I am acting for her good. She knows that all will be over with her if this case is hushed up and if the authorities do not assist her. She knows that the enemies who threaten her are implacable. They will stop at nothing to attain their object and to do away with her, for she stands in their way. And the terrible thing about it is that the most clear-seeing eyes are unable to make out what that object is. We are playing the most formidable game against these enemies; and we do not even know what the stakes are. Only the police can discover those stakes."

M. Masseron waited for a second or two and then, laying his hand on Patrice's shoulder, said, calmly:

"And, suppose the authorities knew what the stakes were?"

Patrice looked at him in surprise:

"What? Do you mean to say you know?"

"Perhaps."

"And can you tell me?"

"Oh, well, if you force me to!"

"What are they?"

"Not much! A trifle!"

"But what sort of trifle?"

"A thousand million francs."

"A thousand millions?"

"Just that. A thousand millions, of which two-thirds, I regret to say, if not three-quarters, had already left France before the war. But the remaining two hundred and fifty or three hundred millions are worth more than a thousand millions all the same, for a very good reason."

"What reason?"

"They happen to be in gold."

CHAPTER VIII

ESSARÈS BEY'S WORK

This time Captain Belval seemed to relax to some extent. He vaguely perceived the consideration that compelled the authorities to wage the battle prudently.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"Yes, I was instructed to investigate this matter two years ago; and my enquiries proved that really remarkable exports of gold were being effected from France. But, I confess, it is only since my conversation with Mme. Essarès that I have seen where the leakage came from and who it was that set on foot, all over France, down to the least important market-towns, the formidable organization through which the indispensable metal was made to leave the country."

"Then Mme. Essarès knew?"

"No, but she suspected a great deal; and last night, before you arrived, she overheard some words spoken between Essarès and his assailants which she repeated to me, thus giving me the key to the riddle. I should have been glad to work out the complete solution without your assistance – for one thing, those were the orders of the minister of the interior; and Mme. Essarès displayed the same wish – but your impetuosity overcomes my hesitation; and, since I can't manage to get rid of you, Captain Belval, I will tell you the whole story frankly.. especially as your cooperation is not to be despised."

"I am all ears," said Patrice, who was burning to know more.

"Well, the motive force of the plot was here, in this house. Essarès Bey, president of the Franco-Oriental Bank, 6, Rue Lafayette, apparently an Egyptian, in reality a Turk, enjoyed the greatest influence in the Paris financial world. He had been naturalized an Englishman, but had kept up secret relations with the former possessors of Egypt; and he had received instructions from a foreign power, which I am not yet able to name with certainty, to bleed – there is no other word for it – to bleed France of all the gold that he could cause to flow into his coffers. According to documents which I have seen, he succeeded in exporting in this way some seven hundred million francs in two years. A last consignment was preparing when war was declared. You can understand that thenceforth such important sums could not be smuggled out of the country so easily as in times of peace. The railway-wagons are inspected on the frontiers; the outgoing vessels are searched in the harbors. In short, the gold was not sent away. Those two hundred and fifty or three hundred millions remained in France. Ten months passed; and the inevitable happened, which was that Essarès Bey, having this fabulous treasure at his disposal, clung to it, came gradually to look upon it as his own and, in the end, resolved to appropriate it. Only there were accomplices.."

"The men I saw last night?"

"Yes, half-a-dozen shady Levantines, sham naturalized French citizens, more or less well-disguised Bulgarians, secret agents of the little German courts in the Balkans. This gang ran provincial branches of Essarès' bank. It had in its pay, on Essarès' account, hundreds of minor agents, who scoured the villages, visited the fairs, were hail-fellow-well-met with the peasants, offered them bank-notes and government securities in exchange for French gold and trousered all their savings. When war broke out the gang shut up shop and gathered round Essarès Bey, who also had closed his offices in the Rue Lafayette."

"What happened then?"

"Things that we don't know. No doubt the accomplices learnt from their governments that the last despatch of gold had never taken place; and no doubt they also guessed that Essarès Bey was trying to keep for himself the three hundred millions collected by the gang. One thing is certain, that a struggle began between the former partners, a fierce, implacable struggle, the accomplices wanting their share of the plunder, while Essarès Bey was resolved to part with none of it and pretended that the millions had left the country. Yesterday the struggle attained its culminating-point. In the afternoon the accomplices tried to get hold of Mme. Essarès so that they might have a hostage to use against her husband. In the evening.. in the evening you yourself witnessed the final episode."

"But why yesterday evening rather than another?"

"Because the accomplices had every reason to think that the millions were intended to disappear yesterday evening. Though they did not know the methods employed by Essarès Bey when he made his last remittances, they believed that each of the remittances, or rather each removal of the sacks, was preceded by a signal."

"Yes, a shower of sparks, was it not?"

"Exactly. In a corner of the garden are some old conservatories, above which stands the furnace that used to heat them. This grimy furnace, full of soot and rubbish, sends forth, when you light it, flakes of fire and sparks which are seen at a distance and serve as an intimation. Essarès Bey lit it last night himself. The accomplices at once took alarm and came prepared to go any lengths."

"And Essarès' plan failed."

"Yes. But so did theirs. The colonel is dead. The others were only able to get hold of a few bundles of notes which have probably been taken from them by this time. But the struggle was not finished; and its dying agony has been a most shocking tragedy. According to your statement, a man who knew you and who was seeking to get into touch with you, was killed at nineteen minutes past seven, most likely by Essarès Bey, who dreaded his intervention. And, five hours later, at twenty-three past twelve, Essarès Bey himself was murdered, presumably by one of his accomplices. There is the whole story, Captain Belval. And, now that you know as much of it as I do, don't you think that the investigation of this case should remain secret and be pursued not quite in accordance with the ordinary rules?"

After a moment's reflection Patrice said:

"Yes, I agree."

"There can be no doubt about it!" cried M. Masseron. "Not only will it serve no purpose to publish this story of gold which has disappeared and which can't be found, which would startle the public and excite their imaginations, but you will readily imagine that an operation which consisted in draining off such a quantity of gold in two years cannot have been effected without compromising a regrettable number of people. I feel certain that my own enquiries will reveal a series of weak concessions and unworthy bargains on the part of certain more or less important banks and credit-houses, transactions on which I do not wish to insist, but which it would be the gravest of blunders to publish. Therefore, silence."

"But is silence possible?"

"Why not?"

"Bless my soul, there are a good few corpses to be explained away! Colonel Fakhi's, for instance?"

"Suicide."

"Mustapha's, which you will discover or which you have already discovered in the Galliéra garden?"

"Found dead."

"Essarès Bey's?"

"An accident."

"So that all these manifestations of the same power will remain separated?"

"There is nothing to show the link that connects them."

"Perhaps the public will think otherwise."

"The public will think what we wish it to think. This is war-time."

"The press will speak."

"The press will do nothing of the kind. We have the censorship."

"But, if some fact or, rather, a fresh crime.. ?"

"Why should there be a fresh crime? The matter is finished, at least on its active and dramatic side. The chief actors are dead. The curtain falls on the murder of Essarès Bey. As for the supernumeraries, Bournef and the others, we shall have them stowed away in an internment-camp before a week is past. We therefore find ourselves in the presence of a certain number of millions, with no owner, with no one who dares to claim them, on which France is entitled to lay hands. I shall devote my activity to securing the money for the republic."

Patrice Belval shook his head:

"Mme. Essarès remains, sir. We must not forget her husband's threats."

"He is dead."

"No matter, the threats are there. Old Siméon tells you so in a striking fashion."

"He's half mad."

"Exactly, his brain retains the impression of great and imminent danger. No, the struggle is not ended. Perhaps indeed it is only beginning."

"Well, captain, are we not here? Make it your business to protect and defend Mme. Essarès by all the means in your power and by all those which I place at your disposal. Our collaboration will be uninterrupted, because my task lies here and because, if the battle – which you expect and I do not – takes place, it will be within the walls of this house and garden."

"What makes you think that?"

"Some words which Mme. Essarès overheard last night. The colonel repeated several times, 'The gold is here, Essarès.' He added, 'For years past, your car brought to this house all that there was at your bank in the Rue Lafayette. Siméon, you and the chauffeur used to let the sacks down the last grating on the left. How you used to send it away I do not know. But of what was here on the day when the war broke out, of the seventeen or eighteen hundred bags which they were expecting out yonder, none has left your place. I suspected the trick; and we kept watch night and day. The gold is here.'"

"And have you no clue?"

"Not one. Or this at most; but I attach comparatively little value to it."

He took a crumpled paper from his pocket, unfolded it and continued:

"Besides the pendant, Essarès Bey held in his hand this bit of blotted paper, on which you can see a few straggling, hurriedly-written words. The only ones that are more or less legible are these: 'golden triangle.' What this golden triangle means, what it has to do with the case in hand, I can't for the present tell. The most that I am able to presume is that, like the pendant, the scrap of paper was snatched by Essarès Bey from the man who died at nineteen minutes past seven this morning and that, when he himself was killed at twenty-three minutes past twelve, he was occupied in examining it."

"And then there is the album," said Patrice, making his last point. "You see how all the details are linked together. You may safely believe that it is all one case."

"Very well," said M. Masseron. "One case in two parts. You, captain, had better follow up the second. I grant you that nothing could be stranger than this discovery of photographs of Mme. Essarès and yourself in the same album and in the same pendant. It sets a problem the solution of which will no doubt bring us very near to the truth. We shall meet again soon, Captain Belval, I hope. And, once more, make use of me and of my men."

He shook Patrice by the hand. Patrice held him back:

"I shall make use of you, sir, as you suggest. But is this not the time to take the necessary precautions?"

"They are taken, captain. We are in occupation of the house."

"Yes.. yes.. I know; but, all the same.. I have a sort of presentiment that the day will not end without… Remember old Siméon's strange words.."

M. Masseron began to laugh:

"Come, Captain Belval, we mustn't exaggerate things. If any enemies remain for us to fight, they must stand in great need, for the moment, of taking council with themselves. We'll talk about this to-morrow, shall we, captain?"

He shook hands with Patrice again, bowed to Mme. Essarès and left the room.

Belval had at first made a discreet movement to go out with him. He stopped at the door and walked back again. Mme. Essarès, who seemed not to hear him, sat motionless, bent in two, with her head turned away from him.

"Coralie," he said.

She did not reply; and he uttered her name a second time, hoping that again she might not answer, for her silence suddenly appeared to him to be the one thing in the world for him to desire. That silence no longer implied either constraint or rebellion. Coralie accepted the fact that he was there, by her side, as a helpful friend. And Patrice no longer thought of all the problems that harassed him, nor of the murders that had mounted up, one after another, around them, nor of the dangers that might still encompass them. He thought only of Coralie's yielding gentleness.

"Don't answer, Coralie, don't say a word. It is for me to speak. I must tell you what you do not know, the reasons that made you wish to keep me out of this house.. out of this house and out of your very life."

He put his hand on the back of the chair in which she was sitting; and his hand just touched Coralie's hair.

"Coralie, you imagine that it is the shame of your life here that keeps you away from me. You blush at having been that man's wife; and this makes you feel troubled and anxious, as though you yourself had been guilty. But why should you? It was not your fault. Surely you know that I can guess the misery and hatred that must have passed between you and him and the constraint that was brought to bear upon you, by some machination, in order to force your consent to the marriage! No, Coralie, there is something else; and I will tell you what it is. There is something else.."

He was bending over her still more. He saw her beautiful profile lit up by the blazing logs and, speaking with increasing fervor and adopting the familiar tu and toi which, in his mouth, retained a note of affectionate respect, he cried:

"Am I to speak, Little Mother Coralie? I needn't, need I? You have understood; and you read yourself clearly. Ah, I feel you trembling from head to foot! Yes, yes, I tell you, I knew your secret from the very first day. From the very first day you loved your great beggar of a wounded man, all scarred and maimed though he was. Hush! Don't deny it!.. Yes, I understand: you are rather shocked to hear such words as these spoken to-day. I ought perhaps to have waited. And yet why should I? I am asking you nothing. I know; and that is enough for me. I sha'n't speak of it again for a long time to come, until the inevitable hour arrives when you are forced to tell it to me yourself. Till then I shall keep silence. But our love will always be between us; and it will be exquisite, Little Mother Coralie, it will be exquisite for me to know that you love me. Coralie… There, now you're crying! And you would still deny the truth? Why, when you cry – I know you, Little Mother – it means that your dear heart is overflowing with tenderness and love! You are crying? Ah, Little Mother, I never thought you loved me to that extent!"