The Crystal Stopper

“Go ahead, old boy,” thought Lupin, “cudgel your brains: you’ll never spot it! Ah, if we had asked for Gilbert’s pardon only, as Clarisse wished, you might have twigged the secret! But Vaucheray, that brute of a Vaucheray, there really could not be the least bond between Mme. Mergy and him.... Aha, by Jingo, it’s my turn now!… He’s watching me … The inward soliloquy is turning upon myself… ‘I wonder who that M. Nicole can be? Why has that little provincial usher devoted himself body and soul to Clarisse Mergy? Who is that old bore, if the truth were known? I made a mistake in not inquiring… I must look into this.... I must rip off the beggar’s mask. For, after all, it’s not natural that a man should take so much trouble about a matter in which he is not directly interested. Why should he also wish to save Gilbert and Vaucheray? Why? Why should he?…” Lupin turned his head away. “Look out!… Look out!… There’s a notion passing through that red-tape-merchant’s skull: a confused notion which he can’t put into words. Hang it all, he mustn’t suspect M. Lupin under M. Nicole! The thing’s complicated enough as it is, in all conscience!…”

But there was a welcome interruption. Prasville’s secretary came to say that the audience would take place in an hour’s time.

“Very well. Thank you,” said Prasville. “That will do.”

And, resuming the interview, with no further circumlocution, speaking like a man who means to put a thing through, he declared:

“I think that we shall be able to manage it. But, first of all, so that I may do what I have undertaken to do, I want more precise information, fuller details. Where was the paper?”

“In the crystal stopper, as we thought,” said Mme. Mergy.

“And where was the crystal stopper?”

“In an object which Daubrecq came and fetched, a few days ago, from the writing-desk in his study in the Square Lamartine, an object which I took from him yesterday.”

“What sort of object?”

“Simply a packet of tobacco, Maryland tobacco, which used to lie about on the desk.”

Prasville was petrified. He muttered, guilelessly:

“Oh, if I had only known! I’ve had my hand on that packet of Maryland a dozen times! How stupid of me!”

“What does it matter?” said Clarisse. “The great thing is that the discovery is made.”

Prasville pulled a face which implied that the discovery would have been much pleasanter if he himself had made it. Then he asked:

“So you have the list?”

“Yes.”

“Show it to me.”

And, when Clarisse hesitated, he added:

“Oh, please, don’t be afraid! The list belongs to you, and I will give it back to you. But you must understand that I cannot take the step in question without making certain.”

Clarisse consulted M. Nicole with a glance which did not escape Prasville. Then she said:

“Here it is.”

He seized the scrap of paper with a certain excitement, examined it and almost immediately said:

“Yes, yes… the secretary’s writing: I recognize it.... And the signature of the chairman of the company: the signature in red.... Besides, I have other proofs.... For instance, the torn piece which completes the left-hand top corner of this sheet…”

He opened his safe and, from a special cash-box, produced a tiny piece of paper which he put against the top left corner:

“That’s right. The torn edges fit exactly. The proof is undeniable. All that remains is to verify the make of this foreign-post-paper.”

Clarisse was radiant with delight. No one would have believed that the most terrible torture had racked her for weeks and weeks and that she was still bleeding and quivering from its effects.

While Prasville was holding the paper against a window-pane, she said to Lupin:

“I insist upon having Gilbert informed this evening. He must be so awfully unhappy!”

“Yes,” said Lupin. “Besides, you can go to his lawyer and tell him.”

She continued:

“And then I must see Gilbert to-morrow. Prasville can think what he likes.”

“Of course. But he must first gain his cause at the Elysee.”

“There can’t be any difficulty, can there?”

“No. You saw that he gave way at once.”

Prasville continued his examination with the aid of a magnifying-glass and compared the sheet with the scrap of torn paper. Next, he took from the cash-box some other sheets of letter-paper and examined one of these by holding it up to the light:

“That’s done,” he said. “My mind is made up. Forgive me, dear friend: it was a very difficult piece of work.... I passed through various stages. When all is said, I had my suspicions… and not without cause…”

“What do you mean?” asked Clarisse.

“One second.... I must give an order first.”

He called his secretary:

“Please telephone at once to the Elysee, make my apologies and say that I shall not require the audience, for reasons which I will explain later.”

He closed the door and returned to his desk. Clarisse and Lupin stood choking, looking at him in stupefaction, failing to understand this sudden change. Was he mad? Was it a trick on his part? A breach of faith? And was he refusing to keep his promise, now that he possessed the list?

He held it out to Clarisse:

“You can have it back.”

“Have it back?”

“And return it to Daubrecq.”

“To Daubrecq?”

“Unless you prefer to burn it.”

“What do you say?”

“I say that, if I were in your place, I would burn it.”

“Why do you say that? It’s ridiculous!”

“On the contrary, it is very sensible.”

“But why? Why?”

“Why? I will tell you. The list of the Twenty-seven, as we know for absolutely certain, was written on a sheet of letter-paper belonging to the chairman of the Canal Company, of which there are a few samples in this cash-box. Now all these samples have as a water-mark a little cross of Lorraine which is almost invisible, but which can just be seen in the thickness of the paper when you hold it up to the light. The sheet which you have brought me does not contain that little cross of Lorraine.” 4

Lupin felt a nervous trembling shake him from head to foot and he dared not turn his eyes on Clarisse, realizing what a terrible blow this was to her. He heard her stammer:

“Then are we to suppose… that Daubrecq was taken in?”

“Not a bit of it!” exclaimed Prasville. “It is you who have been taken in, my poor friend. Daubrecq has the real list, the list which he stole from the dying man’s safe.”

“But this one…”

“This one is a forgery.”

“A forgery?”

“An undoubted forgery. It was an admirable piece of cunning on Daubrecq’s part. Dazzled by the crystal stopper which he flashed before your eyes, you did nothing but look for that stopper in which he had stowed away no matter what, the first bit of paper that came to hand, while he quietly kept…”

Prasville interrupted himself. Clarisse was walking up to him with short, stiff steps, like an automaton. She said:

“Then…”

“Then what, dear friend?”

“You refuse?”

“Certainly, I am obliged to; I have no choice.”

“You refuse to take that step?”

“Look here, how can I do what you ask? It’s not possible, on the strength of a valueless document…”

“You won’t do it?… You won’t do it?… And, to-morrow morning… in a few hours… Gilbert…”

She was frightfully pale, her face sunk, like the face of one dying. Her eyes opened wider and wider and her teeth chattered…

Lupin, fearing the useless and dangerous words which she was about to utter, seized her by the shoulders and tried to drag her away. But she thrust him back with indomitable strength, took two or three more steps, staggered, as though on the point of falling, and, suddenly, in a burst of energy and despair, laid hold of Prasville and screamed:

“You shall go to the Elysee!… You shall go at once!… You must!… You must save Gilbert!”

“Please, please, my dear friend, calm yourself…”

She gave a strident laugh:

“Calm myself!… When, to-morrow morning, Gilbert… Ah, no, no, I am terrified… it’s appalling.... Oh, run, you wretch, run! Obtain his pardon!… Don’t you understand? Gilbert… Gilbert is my son! My son! My son!”

Prasville gave a cry. The blade of a knife flashed in Clarisse’s hand and she raised her arm to strike herself. But the movement was not completed. M. Nicole caught her arm in its descent and, taking the knife from Clarisse, reducing her to helplessness, he said, in a voice that rang through the room like steel:

“What you are doing is madness!… When I gave you my oath that I would save him! You must… live for him… Gilbert shall not die.... How can he die, when… I gave you my oath?…”

“Gilbert… my son…” moaned Clarisse.

He clasped her fiercely, drew her against himself and put his hand over her mouth:

“Enough! Be quiet!… I entreat you to be quiet.... Gilbert shall not die…”

With irresistible authority, he dragged her away like a subdued child that suddenly becomes obedient; but, at the moment of opening the door, he turned to Prasville:

“Wait for me here, monsieur,” he commanded, in an imperative tone. “If you care about that list of the Twenty-seven, the real list, wait for me. I shall be back in an hour, in two hours, at most; and then we will talk business.”

And abruptly, to Clarisse:

“And you, madame, a little courage yet. I command you to show courage, in Gilbert’s name.”

He went away, through the passages, down the stairs, with a jerky step, holding Clarisse under the arm, as he might have held a lay-figure, supporting her, carrying her almost. A court-yard, another court-yard, then the street.

Meanwhile, Prasville, surprised at first, bewildered by the course of events, was gradually recovering his composure and thinking. He thought of that M. Nicole, a mere supernumerary at first, who played beside Clarisse the part of one of those advisers to whom we cling in the serious crises of our lives and who suddenly, shaking off his torpor, appeared in the full light of day, resolute, masterful, mettlesome, brimming over with daring, ready to overthrow all the obstacles that fate placed on his path.

Who was there that was capable of acting thus?

Prasville started. The question had no sooner occurred to his mind than the answer flashed on him, with absolute certainty. All the proofs rose up, each more exact, each more convincing than the last.

Hurriedly he rang. Hurriedly he sent for the chief detective-inspector on duty. And, feverishly:

“Were you in the waiting-room, chief-inspector?”

“Yes, monsieur le secretaire-general.”

“Did you see a gentleman and a lady go out?”

“Yes.”

“Would you know the man again?”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t lose a moment, chief-inspector. Take six inspectors with you. Go to the Place de Clichy. Make inquiries about a man called Nicole and watch the house. The Nicole man is on his way back there.”

“And if he comes out, monsieur le secretaire-general?”

“Arrest him. Here’s a warrant.”

He sat down to his desk and wrote a name on a form:

“Here you are, chief-inspector. I will let the chief-detective know.”

The chief-inspector seemed staggered:

“But you spoke to me of a man called Nicole, monsieur le secretaire-general.”

“Well?”

“The warrant is in the name of Arsene Lupin.”

“Arsene Lupin and the Nicole man are one and the same individual.”

CHAPTER XII. THE SCAFFOLD

“I will save him, I will save him,” Lupin repeated, without ceasing, in the taxicab in which he and Clarisse drove away. “I swear that I will save him.”

Clarisse did not listen, sat as though numbed, as though possessed by some great nightmare of death, which left her ignorant of all that was happening outside her. And Lupin set forth his plans, perhaps more to reassure himself than to convince Clarisse. “No, no, the game is not lost yet. There is one trump left, a huge trump, in the shape of the letters and documents which Vorenglade, the ex-deputy, is offering to sell to Daubrecq and of which Daubrecq spoke to you yesterday at Nice. I shall buy those letters and documents of Stanislas Vorenglade at whatever price he chooses to name. Then we shall go back to the police-office and I shall say to Prasville, ‘Go to the Elysee at once … Use the list as though it were genuine, save Gilbert from death and be content to acknowledge to-morrow, when Gilbert is saved, that the list is forged.

“‘Be off, quickly!… If you refuse, well, if you refuse, the Vorenglade letters and documents shall be reproduced to-morrow, Tuesday, morning in one of the leading newspapers.’ Vorenglade will be arrested. And M. Prasville will find himself in prison before night.”

Lupin rubbed his hands:

“He’ll do as he’s told!… He’ll do as he’s told!… I felt that at once, when I was with him. The thing appeared to me as a dead certainty. And I found Vorenglade’s address in Daubrecq’s pocket-books, so… driver, Boulevard Raspail!”

They went to the address given. Lupin sprang from the cab, ran up three flights of stairs.

The servant said that M. Vorenglade was away and would not be back until dinner-time next evening.

“And don’t you know where he is?”

“M. Vorenglade is in London, sir.”

Lupin did not utter a word on returning to the cab. Clarisse, on her side, did not even ask him any questions, so indifferent had she become to everything, so absolutely did she look upon her son’s death as an accomplished fact.

They drove to the Place de Cichy. As Lupin entered the house he passed two men who were just leaving the porter’s box. He was too much engrossed to notice them. They were Prasville’s inspectors.

“No telegram?” he asked his servant.

“No, governor,” replied Achille.

“No news of the Masher and the Growler?”

“No, governor, none.”

“That’s all right,” he said to Clarisse, in a casual tone. “It’s only seven o’clock and we mustn’t reckon on seeing them before eight or nine. Prasville will have to wait, that’s all. I will telephone to him to wait.”

He did so and was hanging up the receiver, when he heard a moan behind him. Clarisse was standing by the table, reading an evening-paper. She put her hand to her heart, staggered and fell.

“Achille, Achille!” cried Lupin, calling his man. “Help me put her on my bed… And then go to the cupboard and get me the medicine-bottle marked number four, the bottle with the sleeping-draught.”

He forced open her teeth with the point of a knife and compelled her to swallow half the bottle:

“Good,” he said. “Now the poor thing won’t wake till to-morrow… after.”

He glanced through the paper, which was still clutched in Clarisse’ hand, and read the following lines:

“The strictest measures have been taken to keep order at theexecution of Gilbert and Vaucheray, lest Arsene Lupin should makean attempt to rescue his accomplices from the last penalty. Attwelve o’clock to-night a cordon of troops will be drawn acrossall the approaches to the Sante Prison.  As already stated, theexecution will take place outside the prison-walls, in the squareformed by the Boulevard Arago and the Rue de la Sante.

“We have succeeded in obtaining some details of the attitude ofthe two condemned men.  Vaucheray observes a stolid sullenness andis awaiting the fatal event with no little courage:“

‘Crikey,’ he says, ‘I can’t say I’m delighted; but I’ve got togo through it and I shall keep my end up.’  And he adds, ‘DeathI don’t care a hang about!  What worries me is the thought thatthey’re going to cut my head off.  Ah, if the governor could onlyhit on some trick to send me straight off to the next world beforeI had time to say knife! A drop of Prussic acid, governor, if youplease!’

“Gilbert’s calmness is even more impressive, especially when weremember how he broke down at the trial.  He retains an unshakenconfidence in the omnipotence of Arsene Lupin:“

‘The governor shouted to me before everybody not to be afraid,that he was there, that he answered for everything.  Well, I’m notafraid.  I shall rely on him until the last day, until the lastminute, at the very foot of the scaffold.  I know the governor!

There’s no danger with him.  He has promised and he will keep hisword.  If my head were off, he’d come and clap it on my shouldersand firmly!  Arsene Lupin allow his chum Gilbert to die?  Not he!Excuse my humour!’

“There is a certain touching frankness in all this enthusiasmwhich is not without a dignity of its own.  We shall see if ArseneLupin deserves the confidence so blindly placed in him.”

Lupin was hardly able to finish reading the article for the tears that dimmed his eyes: tears of affection, tears of pity, tears of distress.

No, he did not deserve the confidence of his chum Gilbert. Certainly, he had performed impossibilities; but there are circumstances in which we must perform more than impossibilities, in which we must show ourselves stronger than fate; and, this time, fate had been stronger than he. Ever since the first day and throughout this lamentable adventure, events had gone contrary to his anticipations, contrary to logic itself. Clarisse and he, though pursuing an identical aim, had wasted weeks in fighting each other. Then, at the moment when they were uniting their efforts, a series of ghastly disasters had come one after the other: the kidnapping of little Jacques, Daubrecq’s disappearance, his imprisonment in the Lovers’ Tower, Lupin’s wound, his enforced inactivity, followed by the cunning manoeuvres that dragged Clarisse—and Lupin after her—to the south, to Italy. And then, as a crowning catastrophe, when, after prodigies of will-power, after miracles of perseverance, they were entitled to think that the Golden Fleece was won, it all came to nothing. The list of the Twenty-seven had no more value than the most insignificant scrap of paper.

“The game’s up!” said Lupin. “It’s an absolute defeat. What if I do revenge myself on Daubrecq, ruin him and destroy him? He is the real victor, once Gilbert is going to die.”

He wept anew, not with spite or rage, but with despair. Gilbert was going to die! The lad whom he called his chum, the best of his pals would be gone for ever, in a few hours. He could not save him. He was at the end of his tether. He did not even look round for a last expedient. What was the use?

And his persuasion of his own helplessness was so deep, so definite that he felt no shock of any kind on receiving a telegram from the Masher that said:

“Motor accident.  Essential part broken.  Long repair.  Arrive to-morrow morning.”

It was a last proof to show that fate had uttered its decree. He no longer thought of rebelling against the decision.

He looked at Clarisse. She was peacefully sleeping; and this total oblivion, this absence of all consciousness, seemed to him so enviable that, suddenly yielding to a fit of cowardice, he seized the bottle, still half-filled with the sleeping-draught, and drank it down.

Then he stretched himself on a couch and rang for his man:

“Go to bed, Achille, and don’t wake me on any pretence whatever.”

“Then there’s nothing to be done for Gilbert and Vaucheray, governor?” said Achille.

“Nothing.”

“Are they going through it?”

“They are going through it.”

Twenty minutes later Lupin fell into a heavy sleep. It was ten o’clock in the evening.

The night was full of incident and noise around the prison. At one o’clock in the morning the Rue de la Sante, the Boulevard Arago and all the streets abutting on the gaol were guarded by police, who allowed no one to pass without a regular cross-examination.

For that matter, it was raining in torrents; and it seemed as though the lovers of this sort of show would not be very numerous. The public-houses were all closed by special order. At four o’clock three companies of infantry came and took up their positions along the pavements, while a battalion occupied the Boulevard Arago in case of a surprise. Municipal guards cantered up and down between the lines; a whole staff of police-magistrates, officers and functionaries, brought together for the occasion, moved about among the troops.

The guillotine was set up in silence, in the middle of the square formed by the boulevard and the street; and the sinister sound of hammering was heard.

But, at five o’clock, the crowd gathered, notwithstanding the rain, and people began to sing. They shouted for the footlights, called for the curtain to rise, were exasperated to see that, at the distance at which the barriers had been fixed, they could hardly distinguish the uprights of the guillotine.

Several carriages drove up, bringing official persons dressed in black. There were cheers and hoots, whereupon a troop of mounted municipal guards scattered the groups and cleared the space to a distance of three hundred yards from the square. Two fresh companies of soldiers lined up.

And suddenly there was a great silence. A vague white light fell from the dark sky. The rain ceased abruptly.

Inside the prison, at the end of the passage containing the condemned cells, the men in black were conversing in low voices. Prasville was talking to the public prosecutor, who expressed his fears:

“No, no,” declared Prasville, “I assure you, it will pass without an incident of any kind.”

“Do your reports mention nothing at all suspicious, monsieur le secretaire-general?”

“Nothing. And they can’t mention anything, for the simple reason that we have Lupin.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes, we know his hiding-place. The house where he lives, on the Place de Clichy, and where he went at seven o’clock last night, is surrounded. Moreover, I know the scheme which he had contrived to save his two accomplices. The scheme miscarried at the last moment. We have nothing to fear, therefore. The law will take its course.”

Meanwhile, the hour had struck.

They took Vaucheray first; and the governor of the prison ordered the door of his cell to be opened. Vaucheray leapt out of bed and cast eyes dilated with terror upon the men who entered.

“Vaucheray, we have come to tell you…”

“Stow that, stow that,” he muttered. “No words. I know all about it. Get on with the business.”

One would have thought that he was in a hurry for it to be over as fast as possible, so readily did he submit to the usual preparations. But he would not allow any of them to speak to him:

“No words,” he repeated. “What? Confess to the priest? Not worth while. I have shed blood. The law sheds my blood. It’s the good old rule. We’re quits.”

Nevertheless, he stopped short for a moment:

“I say, is my mate going through it too?”

And, when he heard that Gilbert would go to the scaffold at the same time as himself, he had two or three seconds of hesitation, glanced at the bystanders, seemed about to speak, was silent and, at last, muttered:

“It’s better so.... They’ll pull us through together… we’ll clink glasses together.”

Gilbert was not asleep either, when the men entered his cell.

Sitting on his bed, he listened to the terrible words, tried to stand up, began to tremble frightfully, from head to foot, like a skeleton when shaken, and then fell back, sobbing:

“Oh, my poor mummy, poor mummy!” he stammered.

They tried to question him about that mother, of whom he had never spoken; but his tears were interrupted by a sudden fit of rebellion and he cried:

“I have done no murder… I won’t die. I have done no murder…”

“Gilbert,” they said, “show yourself a man.”

“Yes, yes… but I have done no murder… Why should I die?”

His teeth chattered so loudly that words which he uttered became unintelligible. He let the men do their work, made his confession, heard mass and then, growing calmer and almost docile, with the voice of a little child resigning itself, murmured:

“Tell my mother that I beg her forgiveness.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes… Put what I say in the papers… She will understand… And then…”

“What, Gilbert?”

“Well, I want the governor to know that I have not lost confidence.”

He gazed at the bystanders, one after the other, as though he entertained the mad hope that “the governor” was one of them, disguised beyond recognition and ready to carry him off in his arms:

“Yes,” he said, gently and with a sort of religious piety, “yes, I still have confidence, even at this moment… Be sure and let him know, won’t you?… I am positive that he will not let me die. I am certain of it…”

They guessed, from the fixed look in his eyes, that he saw Lupin, that he felt Lupin’s shadow prowling around and seeking an inlet through which to get to him. And never was anything more touching than the sight of that stripling—clad in the strait-jacket, with his arms and legs bound, guarded by thousands of men—whom the executioner already held in his inexorable hand and who, nevertheless, hoped on.