The Crystal Stopper

Not far away they found a bridge that led to the foot of a path which wound, through the oaks and pines, up to a little esplanade, where stood a massive, iron-bound gate, studded with nails and flanked on either side by a large tower.

“Is this where Sebastiani the huntsman lives?” asked Lupin.

“Yes,” said the Masher, “with his wife, in a lodge standing in the midst of the ruins. I also learnt that he has three tall sons and that all the four were supposed to be away for a holiday on the day when Daubrecq was carried off.”

“Oho!” said Lupin. “The coincidence is worth remembering. It seems likely enough that the business was done by those chaps and their father.”

Toward the end of the afternoon Lupin availed himself of a breach to the right of the towers to scale the curtain. From there he was able to see the huntsman’s lodge and the few remains of the old fortress: here, a bit of wall, suggesting the mantel of a chimney; further away, a water-tank; on this side, the arches of a chapel; on the other, a heap of fallen stones.

A patrol-path edged the cliff in front; and, at one of the ends of this patrol-path, there were the remains of a formidable donjon-keep razed almost level with the ground.

Lupin returned to Clarisse Mergy in the evening. And from that time he went backward and forward between Amiens and Mortepierre, leaving the Growler and the Masher permanently on the watch.

And six days passed. Sebastiani’s habits seemed to be subject solely to the duties of his post. He used to go up to the Chateau de Montmaur, walk about in the forest, note the tracks of the game and go his rounds at night.

But, on the seventh day, learning that there was to be a meet and that a carriage had been sent to Aumale Station in the morning, Lupin took up his post in a cluster of box and laurels which surrounded the little esplanade in front of the gate.

At two o’clock he heard the pack give tongue. They approached, accompanied by hunting-cries, and then drew farther away. He heard them again, about the middle of the afternoon, not quite so distinctly; and that was all. But suddenly, amid the silence, the sound of galloping horses reached his ears; and, a few minutes later, he saw two riders climbing the river-path.

He recognized the Marquis d’Albufex and Sebastiani. On reaching the esplanade, they both alighted; and a woman—the huntsman’s wife, no doubt—opened the gate. Sebastiani fastened the horses’ bridles to rings fixed on a post at a few yards from Lupin and ran to join the marquis. The gate closed behind them.

Lupin did not hesitate; and, though it was still broad daylight, relying upon the solitude of the place, he hoisted himself to the hollow of the breach. Passing his head through cautiously, he saw the two men and Sebastiani’s wife hurrying toward the ruins of the keep.

The huntsman drew aside a hanging screen of ivy and revealed the entrance to a stairway, which he went down, as did d’Albufex, leaving his wife on guard on the terrace.

There was no question of going in after them; and Lupin returned to his hiding-place. He did not wait long before the gate opened again.

The Marquis d’Albufex seemed in a great rage. He was striking the leg of his boot with his whip and mumbling angry words which Lupin was able to distinguish when the distance became less great:

“Ah, the hound!… I’ll make him speak… I’ll come back to-night… to-night, at ten o’clock, do you hear, Sebastiani?… And we shall do what’s necessary… Oh, the brute!”

Sebastiani unfastened the horses. D’Albufex turned to the woman:

“See that your sons keep a good watch… If any one attempts to deliver him, so much the worse for him. The trapdoor is there. Can I rely upon them?”

“As thoroughly as on myself, monsieur le marquis,” declared the huntsman. “They know what monsieur le marquis has done for me and what he means to do for them. They will shrink at nothing.”

“Let us mount and get back to the hounds,” said d’Albufex.

So things were going as Lupin had supposed. During these runs, d’Albufex, taking a line of his own, would push off to Mortepierre, without anybody’s suspecting his trick. Sebastiani, who was devoted to him body and soul, for reasons connected with the past into which it was not worth while to inquire, accompanied him; and together they went to see the captive, who was closely watched by the huntsman’s wife and his three sons.

“That’s where we stand,” said Lupin to Clarisse Mergy, when he joined her at a neighbouring inn. “This evening the marquis will put Daubrecq to the question—a little brutally, but indispensably—as I intended to do myself.”

“And Daubrecq will give up his secret,” said Clarisse, already quite upset.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Then…”

“I am hesitating between two plans,” said Lupin, who seemed very calm. “Either to prevent the interview…”

“How?”

“By forestalling d’Albufex. At nine o’clock, the Growler, the Masher and I climb the ramparts, burst into the fortress, attack the keep, disarm the garrison… and the thing’s done: Daubrecq is ours.”

“Unless Sebastiani’s sons fling him through the trapdoor to which the marquis alluded…”

“For that reason,” said Lupin, “I intend to risk that violent measure only as a last resort and in case my other plan should not be practicable.”

“What is the other plan?”

“To witness the interview. If Daubrecq does not speak, it will give us the time to prepare to carry him off under more favourable conditions. If he speaks, if they compel him to reveal the place where the list of the Twenty-seven is hidden, I shall know the truth at the same time as d’Albufex, and I swear to God that I shall turn it to account before he does.”

“Yes, yes,” said Clarisse. “But how do you propose to be present?”

“I don’t know yet,” Lupin confessed. “It depends on certain particulars which the Masher is to bring me and on some which I shall find out for myself.”

He left the inn and did not return until an hour later as night was falling. The Masher joined him.

“Have you the little book?” asked Lupin.

“Yes, governor. It was what I saw at the Aumale newspaper-shop. I got it for ten sous.”

“Give it me.”

The Masher handed him an old, soiled, torn pamphlet, entitled, on the cover, A Visit to Mortepierre, 1824, with plans and illustrations.

Lupin at once looked for the plan of the donjon-keep.

“That’s it,” he said. “Above the ground were three stories, which have been razed, and below the ground, dug out of the rock, two stories, one of which was blocked up by the rubbish, while the other… There, that’s where our friend Daubrecq lies. The name is significant: the torture-chamber… Poor, dear friend!… Between the staircase and the torture-chamber, two doors. Between those two doors, a recess in which the three brothers obviously sit, gun in hand.”

“So it is impossible for you to get in that way without being seen.”

“Impossible… unless I come from above, by the story that has fallen in, and look for a means of entrance through the ceiling… But that is very risky…”

He continued to turn the pages of the book. Clarisse asked:

“Is there no window to the room?”

“Yes,” he said. “From below, from the river—I have just been there—you can see a little opening, which is also marked on the plan. But it is fifty yards up, sheer; and even then the rock overhangs the water. So that again is out of the question.”

He glanced through a few pages of the book. The title of one chapter struck him: The Lovers’ Towers. He read the opening lines:

“In the old days, the donjon was known to the people of theneighbourhood as the Lovers’ Tower, in memory of a fatal tragedythat marked it in the Middle Ages.  The Comte de Mortepierre,having received proofs of his wife’s faithlessness, imprisonedher in the torture-chamber, where she spent twenty years.  Onenight, her lover, the Sire de Tancarville, with reckless courage,set up a ladder in the river and then clambered up the face ofthe cliff till he came to the window of the room.  After filingthe bars, he succeeded in releasing the woman he loved andbringing her down with him by means of a rope.  They both reachedthe top of the ladder, which was watched by his friends, when ashot was fired from the patrol-path and hit the man in theshoulder.  The two lovers were hurled into space....”

There was a pause, after he had read this, a long pause during which each of them drew a mental picture of the tragic escape. So, three or four centuries earlier, a man, risking his life, had attempted that surprising feat and would have succeeded but for the vigilance of some sentry who heard the noise. A man had ventured! A man had dared! A man done it!

Lupin raised his eyes to Clarisse. She was looking at him… with such a desperate, such a beseeching look! The look of a mother who demanded the impossible and who would have sacrificed anything to save her son.

“Masher,” he said, “get a strong rope, but very slender, so that I can roll it round my waist, and very long: fifty or sixty yards. You, Growler, go and look for three or four ladders and fasten them end to end.”

“Why, what are you thinking of, governor?” cried the two accomplices. “What, you mean to… But it’s madness!”

“Madness? Why? What another has done I can do.”

“But it’s a hundred chances to one that you break your neck.”

“Well, you see, Masher, there’s one chance that I don’t.”

“But, governor…”

“That’s enough, my friends. Meet me in an hour on the river-bank.”

The preparations took long in the making. It was difficult to find the material for a fifty-foot ladder that would reach the first ledge of the cliff; and it required an endless effort and care to join the different sections.

At last, a little after nine o’clock, it was set up in the middle of the river and held in position by a boat, the bows of which were wedged between two of the rungs, while the stern was rammed into the bank.

The road through the river-valley was little used, and nobody came to interrupt the work. The night was dark, the sky heavy with moveless clouds.

Lupin gave the Masher and the Growler their final instructions and said, with a laugh:

“I can’t tell you how amused I am at the thought of seeing Daubrecq’s face when they proceed to take his scalp or slice his skin into ribbons. Upon my word, it’s worth the journey.”

Clarisse also had taken a seat in the boat. He said to her:

“Until we meet again. And, above all, don’t stir. Whatever happens, not a movement, not a cry.”

“Can anything happen?” she asked.

“Why, remember the Sire de Tancarville! It was at the very moment when he was achieving his object, with his true love in his arms, that an accident betrayed him. But be easy: I shall be all right.”

She made no reply. She seized his hand and grasped it warmly between her own.

He put his foot on the ladder and made sure that it did not sway too much. Then he went up.

He soon reached the top rung.

This was where the dangerous ascent began, a difficult ascent at the start, because of the excessive steepness, and developing, mid-way, into an absolute escalade.

Fortunately, here and there were little hollows, in which his feet found a resting-place, and projecting stones, to which his hands clung. But twice those stones gave way and he slipped; and twice he firmly believed that all was lost. Finding a deeper hollow, he took a rest. He was worn out, felt quite ready to throw up the enterprise, asked himself if it was really worth while for him to expose himself to such danger:

“I say!” he thought. “Seems to me you’re showing the white feather, Lupin, old boy. Throw up the enterprise? Then Daubrecq will babble his secret, the marquis will possess himself of the list, Lupin will return empty-handed, and Gilbert…”

The long rope which he had fastened round his waist caused him needless inconvenience and fatigue. He fixed one of the ends to the strap of his trousers and let the rope uncoil all the way down the ascent, so that he could use it, on returning, as a hand-rail.

Then he once more clutched at the rough surface of the cliff and continued the climb, with bruised nails and bleeding fingers. At every moment he expected the inevitable fall. And what discouraged him most was to hear the murmur of voices rising from the boat, murmur so distinct that it seemed as though he were not increasing the distance between his companions and himself.

And he remembered the Sire de Tancarville, alone, he too, amid the darkness, who must have shivered at the noise of the stones which he loosened and sent bounding down the cliff. How the least sound reverberated through the silence! If one of Daubrecq’s guards was peering into the gloom from the Lovers’ Tower, it meant a shot… and death.

And he climbed… he climbed… He had climbed so long that he ended by imagining that the goal was passed. Beyond a doubt, he had slanted unawares to the right or left and he would finish at the patrol-path. What a stupid upshot! And what other upshot could there be to an attempt which the swift force of events had not allowed him to study and prepare?

Madly, he redoubled his efforts, raised himself by a number of yards, slipped, recovered the lost ground, clutched a bunch of roots that came loose in his hand, slipped once more and was abandoning the game in despair when, suddenly, stiffening himself and contracting his whole frame, his muscles and his will, he stopped still: a sound of voices seemed to issue from the very rock which he was grasping.

He listened. It came from the right. Turning his head, he thought that he saw a ray of light penetrating the darkness of space. By what effort of energy, by what imperceptible movements he succeeded in dragging himself to the spot he was never able exactly to realize. But suddenly he found himself on the ledge of a fairly wide opening, at least three yards deep, which dug into the wall of the cliff like a passage, while its other end, much narrower, was closed by three bars.

Lupin crawled along. His head reached the bars. And he saw…

CHAPTER VIII. THE LOVERS’ TOWER

The torture-chamber showed beneath him. It was a large, irregular room, divided into unequal portions by the four wide, massive pillars that supported its arched roof. A smell of damp and mildew came from its walls and from its flags moistened by the water that trickled from without. Its appearance at any time must have been gruesome. But, at that moment, with the tall figures of Sebastiani and his sons, with the slanting gleams of light that fell between the pillars, with the vision of the captive chained down upon the truckle-bed, it assumed a sinister and barbarous aspect.

Daubrecq was in the front part of the room, four or five yards down from the window at which Lupin lurked. In addition to the ancient chains that had been used to fasten him to his bed and to fasten the bed to an iron hook in the wall, his wrists and ankles were girt with leather thongs; and an ingenious arrangement caused his least movement to set in motion a bell hung to the nearest pillar.

A lamp placed on a stool lit him full in the face.

The Marquis d’Albufex was standing beside him. Lupin could see his pale features, his grizzled moustache, his long, lean form as he looked at his prisoner with an expression of content and of gratified hatred.

A few minutes passed in profound silence. Then the marquis gave an order:

“Light those three candles, Sebastiani, so that I can see him better.”

And, when the three candles were lit and he had taken a long look at Daubrecq, he stooped over him and said, almost gently:

“I can’t say what will be the end of you and me. But at any rate I shall have had some deuced happy moments in this room. You have done me so much harm, Daubrecq! The tears you have made me shed! Yes, real tears, real sobs of despair… The money you have robbed me of! A fortune!… And my terror at the thought that you might give me away! You had but to utter my name to complete my ruin and bring about my disgrace!… Oh, you villain!…”

Daubrecq did not budge. He had been deprived of his black glasses, but still kept his spectacles, which reflected the light from the candles. He had lost a good deal of flesh; and the bones stood out above his sunken cheeks.

“Come along,” said d’Albufex. “The time has come to act. It seems that there are rogues prowling about the neighbourhood. Heaven forbid that they are here on your account and try to release you; for that would mean your immediate death, as you know… Is the trapdoor still in working order, Sebastiani?”

Sebastiani came nearer, knelt on one knee and lifted and turned a ring, at the foot of the bed, which Lupin had not noticed. One of the flagstones moved on a pivot, disclosing a black hole.

“You see,” the marquis continued, “everything is provided for; and I have all that I want at hand, including dungeons: bottomless dungeons, says the legend of the castle. So there is nothing to hope for, no help of any kind. Will you speak?”

Daubrecq did not reply; and he went on:

“This is the fourth time that I am questioning you, Daubrecq. It is the fourth time that I have troubled to ask you for the document which you possess, in order that I may escape your blackmailing proceedings. It is the fourth time and the last. Will you speak?”

The same silence as before. D’Albufex made a sign to Sebastiani. The huntsman stepped forward, followed by two of his sons. One of them held a stick in his hand.

“Go ahead,” said d’Albufex, after waiting a few seconds.

Sebastiani slackened the thongs that bound Daubrecq’s wrists and inserted and fixed the stick between the thongs.

“Shall I turn, monsieur le marquis?”

A further silence. The marquis waited. Seeing that Daubrecq did not flinch, he whispered:

“Can’t you speak? Why expose yourself to physical suffering?”

No reply.

“Turn away, Sebastiani.”

Sebastiani made the stick turn a complete circle. The thongs stretched and tightened. Daubrecq gave a groan.

“You won’t speak? Still, you know that I won’t give way, that I can’t give way, that I hold you and that, if necessary, I shall torture you till you die of it. You won’t speak? You won’t?… Sebastiani, once more.”

The huntsman obeyed. Daubrecq gave a violent start of pain and fell back on his bed with a rattle in his throat.

“You fool!” cried the marquis, shaking with rage. “Why don’t you speak? What, haven’t you had enough of that list? Surely it’s somebody else’s turn! Come, speak… Where is it? One word. One word only… and we will leave you in peace… And, to-morrow, when I have the list, you shall be free. Free, do you understand? But, in Heaven’s name, speak!… Oh, the brute! Sebastiani, one more turn.”

Sebastiani made a fresh effort. The bones cracked.

“Help! Help!” cried Daubrecq, in a hoarse voice, vainly struggling to release himself. And, in a spluttering whisper, “Mercy… mercy.”

It was a dreadful sight… The faces of the three sons were horror-struck. Lupin shuddered, sick at heart, and realized that he himself could never have accomplished that abominable thing. He listened for the words that were bound to come. He must learn the truth. Daubrecq’s secret was about to be expressed in syllables, in words wrung from him by pain. And Lupin began to think of his retreat, of the car which was waiting for him, of the wild rush to Paris, of the victory at hand.

“Speak,” whispered d’Albufex. “Speak and it will be over.”

“Yes… yes…” gasped Daubrecq.

“Well…?”

“Later… to-morrow…”

“Oh, you’re mad!… What are you talking about: to-morrow?… Sebastiani, another turn!”

“No, no!” yelled Daubrecq. “Stop!”

“Speak!”

“Well, then… the paper… I have hidden the paper…”

But his pain was too great. He raised his head with a last effort, uttered incoherent words, succeeded in twice saying, “Marie… Marie…” and fell back, exhausted and lifeless.

“Let go at once!” said d’Albufex to Sebastiani. “Hang it all, can we have overdone it?”

But a rapid examination showed him that Daubrecq had only fainted. Thereupon, he himself, worn out with the excitement, dropped on the foot of the bed and, wiping the beads of perspiration from his forehead, stammered:

“Oh, what a dirty business!”

“Perhaps that’s enough for to-day,” said the huntsman, whose rough face betrayed a certain emotion. “We might try again to-morrow or the next day…”

The marquis was silent. One of the sons handed him a flask of brandy. He poured out half a glass and drank it down at a draught:

“To-morrow?” he said. “No. Here and now. One little effort more. At the stage which he has reached, it won’t be difficult.” And, taking the huntsman aside, “Did you hear what he said? What did he mean by that word, ‘Marie’? He repeated it twice.”

“Yes, twice,” said the huntsman. “Perhaps he entrusted the document to a person called Marie.”

“Not he!” protested d’Albufex. “He never entrusts anything to anybody. It means something different.”

“But what, monsieur le marquis?”

“We’ll soon find out, I’ll answer for it.”

At that moment, Daubrecq drew a long breath and stirred on his couch.

D’Albufex, who had now recovered all his composure and who did not take his eyes off the enemy, went up to him and said:

“You see, Daubrecq, it’s madness to resist… Once you’re beaten, there’s nothing for it but to submit to your conqueror, instead of allowing yourself to be tortured like an idiot… Come, be sensible.”

He turned to Sebastiani:

“Tighten the rope… let him feel it a little that will wake him up… He’s shamming death…” Sebastiani took hold of the stick again and turned until the cord touched the swollen flesh. Daubrecq gave a start.

“That’ll do, Sebastiani,” said the marquis. “Our friend seems favourably disposed and understands the need for coming to terms. That’s so, Daubrecq, is it not? You prefer to have done with it? And you’re quite right!”

The two men were leaning over the sufferer, Sebastiani with his hand on the stick, d’Albufex holding the lamp so as to throw the light on Daubrecq’s face: “His lips are moving… he’s going to speak. Loosen the rope a little, Sebastiani: I don’t want our friend to be hurt… No, tighten it: I believe our friend is hesitating… One turn more… stop! … That’s done it! Oh, my dear Daubrecq, if you can’t speak plainer than that, it’s no use! What? What did you say?”

Arsene Lupin muttered an oath. Daubrecq was speaking and he, Lupin, could not hear a word of what he said! In vain, he pricked up his ears, suppressed the beating of his heart and the throbbing of his temples: not a sound reached him.

“Confound it!” he thought. “I never expected this. What am I to do?”

He was within an ace of covering Daubrecq with his revolver and putting a bullet into him which would cut short any explanation. But he reflected that he himself would then be none the wiser and that it was better to trust to events in the hope of making the most of them.

Meanwhile the confession continued beneath him, indistinctly, interrupted by silences and mingled with moans. D’Albufex clung to his prey:

“Go on!… Finish, can’t you?…”

And he punctuated the sentences with exclamations of approval:

“Good!… Capital!… Oh, how funny!… And no one suspected?… Not even Prasville?… What an ass!… Loosen a bit, Sebastiani: don’t you see that our friend is out of breath?… Keep calm, Daubrecq… don’t tire yourself… And so, my dear fellow, you were saying…”

That was the last. There was a long whispering to which d’Albufex listened without further interruption and of which Arsene Lupin could not catch the least syllable. Then the marquis drew himself up and exclaimed, joyfully:

“That’s it!… Thank you, Daubrecq. And, believe me, I shall never forget what you have just done. If ever you’re in need, you have only to knock at my door and there will always be a crust of bread for you in the kitchen and a glass of water from the filter. Sebastiani, look after monsieur le depute as if he were one of your sons. And, first of all, release him from his bonds. It’s a heartless thing to truss one’s fellow-man like that, like a chicken on the spit!”

“Shall we give him something to drink?” suggested the huntsman.

“Yes, that’s it, give him a drink.”

Sebastiani and his sons undid the leather straps, rubbed the bruised wrists, dressed them with an ointment and bandaged them. Then Daubrecq swallowed a few drops of brandy.