813

He ordered and entreated by turns. Altenheim stammered, as though hypnotized and defeated by that indomitable imperiousness:

"Ri.. Rivoli.."

"Rue de Rivoli, is that it? You have locked her up in a house in that street.. eh? Which number?"

A loud din.. followed by shouts of triumph… The door was down.

"Jump on him, lads!" cried M. Weber. "Seize him.. seize both of them!"

And Sernine, on his knees:

"The number.. answer… If you love her, answer… Why keep silence now?"

"Twenty.. twenty-seven," whispered the baron.

Hands were laid on Sernine. Ten revolvers were pointed at him.

He rose and faced the policemen, who fell back with instinctive dread.

"If you stir, Lupin," cried M. Weber, with his revolver leveled at him, "I'll blow out your brains."'

"Don't shoot." said Sernine, solemnly. "It's not necessary. I surrender."

"Humbug! This is another of your tricks!"

"No," replied Sernine, "the battle is lost. You have no right to shoot. I am not defending myself."

He took out two revolvers and threw them on the floor.

"Humbug!" M. Weber repeated, implacably. "Aim straight at his heart, lads! At the least movement, fire! At the least word, fire!"

There were ten men there. He placed five more in position. He pointed their fifteen right arms at the mark. And, raging, shaking with joy and fear, he snarled:

"At his heart! At his head! And no pity! If he stirs, if he speaks.. shoot him where he stands!"

Sernine smiled, impassively, with his hands in his pockets. Death was there, waiting for him, at two inches from his chest, at two inches from his temples. Fifteen fingers were curled round the triggers.

"Ah," chuckled M. Weber, "this is nice, this is very nice!.. And I think that this time we've scored.. and it's a nasty look-out for you, Master Lupin!."

He made one of his men draw back the shutters of a large air-hole, which admitted a sudden burst of daylight, and he turned toward Altenheim. But, to his great amazement, the baron, whom he thought dead, opened his eyes, glazed, awful eyes, already filled with all the signs of the coming dissolution. He stared at M. Weber. Then he seemed to look for somebody and, catching sight of Sernine, had a convulsion of anger. He seemed to be waking from his torpor; and his suddenly reviving hatred restored a part of his strength.

He raised himself on his two wrists and tried to speak.

"You know him, eh?" asked M. Weber.

"Yes."

"It's Lupin, isn't it?"

"Yes… Lupin.."

Sernine, still smiling, listened:

"Heavens, how I'm amusing myself!" he declared.

"Have you anything more to say?" asked M. Weber, who saw the baron's lips making desperate attempts to move.

"Yes."

"About M. Lenormand, perhaps?"

"Yes."

"Have you shut him up? Where? Answer!."

With all his heaving body, with all his tense glance, Altenheim pointed to a cupboard in the corner of the room.

"There.. there." he said.

"Ah, we're burning!" chuckled Lupin.

M. Weber opened the cupboard. On one of the shelves was a parcel wrapped in black cloth. He opened it and found a hat, a little box, some clothes… He gave a start. He had recognized M. Lenormand's olive-green frock-coat.

"Oh, the villains!" he cried. "They have murdered him!"

"No," said Altenheim, shaking his head.

"Then.. ?"

"It's he.. he."

"What do you mean by 'he'?.. Did Lupin kill the chief?"

"No.."

Altenheim was clinging to existence with fierce obstinacy, eager to speak and to accuse… The secret which he wished to reveal was at the tip of his tongue and he was not able, did not know how to translate it into words.

"Come," the deputy-chief insisted. "M. Lenormand is dead, surely?"

"No."

"He's alive?"

"Yes."

"I don't understand… Look here, these clothes? This frock-coat?."

Altenheim turned his eyes toward Sernine. An idea struck M. Weber:

"Ah, I see! Lupin stole M. Lenormand's clothes and reckoned upon using them to escape with.."

"Yes.. yes.."

"Not bad," cried the deputy-chief. "It's quite a trick in his style. In this room, we should have found Lupin disguised as M. Lenormand, chained up, no doubt. It would have meant his safety; only he hadn't time. That's it, isn't it?"

"Yes.. yes."

But, by the appearance of the dying man's eyes, M. Weber felt that there was more, and that the secret was not exactly that. What was it, then? What was the strange and unintelligible puzzle which Altenheim wanted to explain before dying?

He questioned him again:

"And where is M. Lenormand himself?"

"There.."

"What do you mean? Here?"

"Yes."

"But there are only ourselves here!"

"There's.. there's."

"Oh, speak!"

"There's.. Ser.. Sernine."

"Sernine!.. Eh, what?"

"Sernine.. Lenormand.."

M. Weber gave a jump. A sudden light flashed across him.

"No, no, it's not possible," he muttered. "This is madness."

He gave a side-glance at his prisoner. Sernine seemed to be greatly diverted and to be watching the scene with the air of a playgoer who is thoroughly amused and very anxious to know how the piece is going to end.

Altenheim, exhausted by his efforts, had fallen back at full length. Would he die before revealing the solution of the riddle which his strange words had propounded? M. Weber, shaken by an absurd, incredible surmise, which he did not wish to entertain and which persisted in his mind in spite of him, made a fresh, determined attempt:

"Explain the thing to us… What's at the bottom of it? What mystery?"

The other seemed not to hear and lay lifeless, with staring eyes.

M. Weber lay down beside him, with his body touching him, and, putting great stress upon his words, so that each syllable should sink down to the very depths of that brain already merged in darkness, said:

"Listen… I have understood you correctly, have I not? Lupin and M. Lenormand.."

He needed an effort to continue, so monstrous did the words appear to him. Nevertheless, the baron's dimmed eyes seemed to contemplate him with anguish. He finished the sentence, shaking with excitement, as though he were speaking blasphemy:

"That's it, isn't it? You're sure? The two are one and the same?."

The eyes did not move. A little blood trickled from one corner of the man's mouth… He gave two or three sobs… A last spasm; and all was over.

A long silence reigned in that basement room filled with people.

Almost all the policemen guarding Sernine had turned round and, stupefied, not understanding or not willing to understand, they still listened to the incredible accusation which the dying scoundrel had been unable to put into words.

M. Weber took the little box which was in the parcel and opened it. It contained a gray wig, a pair of spectacles, a maroon-colored neckerchief and, in a false bottom, a pot or two of make-up and a case containing some tiny tufts of gray hair: in short, all that was needed to complete a perfect disguise in the character of M. Lenormand.

He went up to Sernine and, looking at him for a few seconds without speaking, thoughtfully reconstructing all the phases of the adventure, he muttered:

"So it's true?"

Sernine, who had retained his smiling calmness, replied:

"The suggestion is a pretty one and a bold one. But, before I answer, tell your men to stop worrying me with those toys of theirs."

"Very well," said M. Weber, making a sign to his men. "And now answer."

"What?"

"Are you M. Lenormand?"

"Yes."

Exclamations arose. Jean Doudeville, who was there, while his brother was watching the secret outlet, Jean Doudeville, Sernine's own accomplice, looked at him in dismay. M. Weber stood undecided.

"That takes your breath away, eh?" said Sernine. "I admit that it's rather droll… Lord, how you used to make me laugh sometimes, when we were working together, you and I, the chief and the deputy-chief!.. And the funniest thing is that you thought our worthy M. Lenormand dead.. as well as poor Gourel. But no, no, old chap: there's life in the old dog yet!" He pointed to Altenheim's corpse. "There, it was that scoundrel who pitched me into the water, in a sack, with a paving-stone round my waist. Only, he forgot to take away my knife. And with a knife one rips open sacks and cuts ropes. So you see, you unfortunate Altenheim: if you had thought of that, you wouldn't be where you are!.. But enough said… Peace to your ashes!"

M. Weber listened, not knowing what to think. At last, he made a gesture of despair, as though he gave up the idea of forming a reasonable opinion.

"The handcuffs," he said, suddenly alarmed.

"If it amuses you," said Sernine.

And, picking out Doudeville in the front row of his assailants, he put out his wrists:

"There, my friend, you shall have the honour.. and don't trouble to exert yourself… I'm playing square.. as it's no use doing anything else.."

He said this in a tone that gave Doudeville to understand that the struggle was finished for the moment and that there was nothing to do but submit.

Doudeville fastened the handcuffs.

Without moving his lips or contracting a muscle of his face, Sernine whispered:

"27, Rue de Rivoli.. Geneviève.."

M. Weber could not suppress a movement of satisfaction at the sight:

"Come along!" he said. "To the detective-office!"

"That's it, to the detective-office!" cried Sernine. "M. Lenormand will enter Arsène Lupin in the jail-book; and Arsène Lupin will enter Prince Sernine."

"You're too clever, Lupin."

"That's true, Weber; we shall never get on, you and I."

During the drive in the motor-car, escorted by three other cars filled with policemen, he did not utter a word.

They did not stay long at the detective office. M. Weber, remembering the escapes effected by Lupin, sent him up at once to the finger-print department and then took him to the Dépôt, whence he was sent on to the Santé Prison.

The governor had been warned by telephone and was waiting for him. The formalities of the entry of commitment and of the searching were soon got over; and, at seven o'clock in the evening, Prince Paul Sernine crossed the threshold of cell 14 in the second division:

"Not half bad, your rooms," he declared, "not bad at all!.. Electric light, central heating, every requisite.. capital! Mr. Governor, I'll take this room."

He flung himself on the bed:

"Oh, Mr. Governor, I have one little favor to ask of you!"

"What is that?"

"Tell them not to bring me my chocolate before ten o'clock in the morning… I'm awfully sleepy."

He turned his face to the wall. Five minutes later he was sound asleep.

CHAPTER IX

"SANTÉ PALACE"

There was one wild burst of laughter over the whole face of the world.

True, the capture of Arsène Lupin made a big sensation; and the public did not grudge the police the praise which they deserved for this revenge so long hoped-for and now so fully obtained. The great adventurer was caught. That extraordinary, genial, invisible hero was shivering, like any ordinary criminal, between the four walls of a prison cell, crushed in his turn by that formidable power which is called the law and which, sooner or later, by inevitable necessity shatters the obstacles opposed to it and destroys the work of its adversaries.

All this was said, printed, repeated and discussed ad nauseam. The prefect of police was created a commander, M. Weber an officer of the Legion of Honor. The skill and courage of their humblest coadjutors were extolled to the skies. Cheers were raised and pæans of victory struck up. Articles were written and speeches made.

Very well. But one thing, nevertheless, rose above the wonderful concert of praise, these noisy demonstrations of satisfaction; and that was an immense, spontaneous, inextinguishable and tumultuous roar of laughter.

Arsène Lupin had been chief of the detective-service for four years!!!

He had been chief detective for four years and, really, legally, he was chief detective still, with all the rights which the title confers, enjoying the esteem of his chiefs, the favor of the government and the admiration of the public.

For four years, the public peace and the defence of property had been entrusted to Arsène Lupin. He saw that the law was carried out. He protected the innocent and pursued the guilty.

And what services he had rendered! Never was order less disturbed, never was crime discovered with greater certainty and rapidity. The reader need but take back his mind to the Denizou case, the robbery at the Crédit Lyonnais, the attack on the Orléans express, the murder of Baron Dorf, forming a series of unforeseen and overwhelming triumphs, of magnificent feats of prowess fit to compare with the most famous victories of the most renowned detectives.6

Not so very long before, in a speech delivered at the time of the fire at the Louvre and the capture of the incendiaries, Valenglay, the prime minister, had said, speaking in defence of the somewhat arbitrary manner in which M. Lenormand had acted on that occasion:

"With his great powers of discernment, his energy, his qualities of decision and execution, his unexpected methods, his inexhaustible resources, M. Lenormand reminds us of the only man who, if he were still alive, could hope to hold his own against him: I mean Arsène Lupin. M. Lenormand is an Arsène Lupin in the service of society."

And, lo and behold, M. Lenormand was none other than Arsène Lupin!

That he was a Russian prince, who cared! Lupin was an old hand at such changes of personality as that. But chief detective! What a delicious irony! What a whimsical humor in the conduct of that extraordinary life!

M. Lenormand!.. Arsène Lupin!.

People were now able to explain to themselves the apparently miraculous feats of intelligence which had quite recently bewildered the crowd and baffled the police. They understood how his accomplice had been juggled away in the middle of the Palais de Justice itself, in broad daylight and on the appointed day. Had he himself not said:

"My process is so ingenious and so simple… How surprised people will be on the day when I am free to speak! 'Is that all?' I shall be asked. That is all; but it had to be thought of."

It was, indeed, childishly simple: all you had to do was to be chief of the detective-service.

Well, Lupin was chief of the detective-service; and every police-officer obeying his orders had made himself the involuntary and unconscious accomplice of Arsène Lupin.

What a comedy! What admirable bluff! It was the monumental and consoling farce of these drab times of ours. Lupin in prison, Lupin irretrievably conquered was, in spite of himself, the great conqueror. From his cell he shone over Paris. He was more than ever the idol, more than ever the master.

When Arsène Lupin awoke next morning, in his room at the "Santé Palace," as he at once nicknamed it, he had a very clear vision of the enormous sensation which would be produced by his arrest under the double name of Sernine and Lenormand and the double title of prince and chief of the detective-service.

He rubbed his hands and gave vent to his thoughts:

"A man can have no better companion in his loneliness than the approval of his contemporaries. O fame! The sun of all living men!."

Seen by daylight, his cell pleased him even better than at night. The window, placed high up in the wall, afforded a glimpse of the branches of a tree, through which peeped the blue of the sky above. The walls were white. There was only one table and one chair, both fastened to the floor. But everything was quite nice and clean.

"Come," he said, "a little rest-cure here will be rather charming… But let us see to our toilet… Have I all I want?.. No… In that case, ring twice for the chambermaid."

He pressed the button of an apparatus beside the door, which released a signaling-disc in the corridor.

After a moment, bolts and bars were drawn outside, a key turned in the lock and a warder appeared.

"Hot water, please," said Lupin.

The other looked at him with an air of mingled amazement and rage.

"Oh," said Lupin, "and a bath-towel! By Jove, there's no bath-towel!"

The man growled:

"You're getting at me, aren't you? You'd better be careful!"

He was going away, when Lupin caught him roughly by the arm:

"Here! A hundred francs if you'll post a letter for me."

He took out a hundred-franc note, which he had concealed during the search, and offered it to him.

"Where's the letter?" said the warder, taking the money.

"Just give me a moment to write it."

He sat down at the table, scribbled a few words in pencil on a sheet of paper, put it in an envelope and addressed the letter:

"To Monsieur S. B. 42,"Poste Restante,"Paris."

The warder took the letter and walked away.

"That letter," said Lupin to himself, "will reach destination as safely as if I delivered it myself. I shall have the reply in an hour at latest: just the time I want to take a good look into my position."

He sat down on his chair and, in an undertone, summed up the situation as follows:

"When all is said and done, I have two adversaries to fight at the present moment. There is, first, society, which holds me and which I can afford to laugh at. Secondly, there is a person unknown, who does not hold me, but whom I am not inclined to laugh at in the very least. It is he who told the police that I was Sernine. It was he who guessed that I was M. Lenormand. It was he who locked the door of the underground passage and it was he who had me clapped into prison."

Arsène Lupin reflected for a second and then continued:

"So, at long last, the struggle lies between him and me. And, to keep up that struggle, that is to say, to discover and get to the bottom of the Kesselbach case, here am I, a prisoner, while he is free, unknown, and inaccessible, and holds the two trump-cards which I considered mine: Pierre Leduc and old Steinweg… In short, he is near the goal, after finally pushing me back."

A fresh contemplative pause, followed by a fresh soliloquy:

"The position is far from brilliant. On the one side, everything; on the other, nothing. Opposite me, a man of my own strength, or stronger, because he has not the same scruples that hamper me. And I am without weapons to attack him with."

He repeated the last sentence several times, in a mechanical voice, and then stopped and, taking his forehead between his hands, sat for a long time wrapped in thought.

"Come in, Mr. Governor," he said, seeing the door open.

"Were you expecting me?"

"Why, I wrote to you, Mr. Governor, asking you to come! I felt certain that the warder would give you my letter. I was so certain of it that I put your initials, S. B., and your age, forty-two, on the envelope!"

The governor's name, in point of fact, was Stanislas Borély, and he was forty-two years of age. He was a pleasant-looking man, with a very gentle character, who treated the prisoners with all the indulgence possible.

He said to Lupin:

"Your opinion of my subordinate's integrity was quite correct. Here is your money. It shall be handed to you at your release… You will now go through the searching-room again."

Lupin went with M. Borély to the little room reserved for this purpose, undressed and, while his clothes were inspected with justifiable suspicion, himself underwent a most fastidious examination.

He was then taken back to his cell and M. Borély said:

"I feel easier. That's done."

"And very well done, Mr. Governor. Your men perform this sort of duty with a delicacy for which I should like to thank them by giving them a small token of my satisfaction."

He handed a hundred-franc note to M. Borély, who jumped as though he had been shot:

"Oh!.. But.. where does that come from?"

"No need to rack your brains, Mr. Governor. A man like myself, leading the life that I do, is always prepared for any eventuality: and no mishap, however painful – not even imprisonment – can take him unawares."

Seizing the middle finger of his left hand between the thumb and forefinger of the right, he pulled it off smartly and presented it calmly to M. Borély:

"Don't start like that, Mr. Governor. This is not my finger, but just a tube, made of gold-beater's skin and cleverly colored, which fits exactly over my middle finger and gives the illusion of a real finger." And he added, with a laugh, "In such a way, of course, as to conceal a third hundred-franc note… What is a poor man to do? He must carry the best purse he can.. and must needs make use of it on occasions.."

He stopped at the sight of M. Borély's startled face:

"Please don't think, Mr. Governor, that I wish to dazzle you with my little parlor-tricks. I only wanted to show you that you have to do with a.. client of a rather.. special nature and to tell you that you must not be surprised if I venture, now and again, to break the ordinary rules and regulations of your establishment."

The governor had recovered himself. He said plainly:

"I prefer to think that you will conform to the rules and not compel me to resort to harsh measures.."

"Which you would regret to have to enforce: isn't that it, Mr. Governor? That's just what I should like to spare you, by proving to you in advance that they would not prevent me from doing as I please: from corresponding with my friends, from defending the grave interests confided to me outside these walls, from writing to the newspapers that accept my inspiration, from pursuing the fulfilment of my plans and, lastly, from preparing my escape."

"Your escape!"

Lupin began to laugh heartily:

"But think, Mr. Governor, my only excuse for being in prison is.. to leave it!"

The argument did not appear to satisfy M. Borély. He made an effort to laugh in his turn:

"Forewarned is forearmed," he said.

"That's what I wanted," Lupin replied. "Take all your precautions, Mr. Governor, neglect nothing, so that later they may have nothing to reproach you with. On the other hand, I shall arrange things in such a way that, whatever annoyance you may have to bear in consequence of my escape, your career, at least, shall not suffer. That is all I had to say to you, Mr. Governor. You can go."

And, while M. Borély walked away, greatly perturbed by his singular charge and very anxious about the events in preparation, the prisoner threw himself on his bed, muttering:

"What cheek, Lupin, old fellow, what cheek! Really, any one would think that you had some idea as to how you were going to get out of this!"

The Santé prison is built on the star plan. In the centre of the main portion is a round hall, upon which all the corridors converge, so that no prisoner is able to leave his cell without being at once perceived by the overseers posted in the glass box which occupies the middle of that central hall.

The thing that most surprises the visitor who goes over the prison is that, at every moment, he will meet prisoners without a guard of any kind, who seem to move about as though they were absolutely free. In reality, in order to go from one point to another – for instance, from their cell to the van waiting in the yard to take them to the Palais de Justice for the magistrate's examination – they pass along straight lines each of which ends in a door that is opened to them by a warder. The sole duty of the warder is to open and shut this door and to watch the two straight lines which it commands. And thus the prisoners, while apparently at liberty to come and go as they please, are sent from door to door, from eye to eye, like so many parcels passed from hand to hand.

Outside, municipal guards receive the object and pack it into one of the compartments of the "salad-basket."7

This is the ordinary routine.

In Lupin's case it was disregarded entirely. The police were afraid of that walk along the corridors. They were afraid of the prison-van. They were afraid of everything.

M. Weber came in person, accompanied by twelve constables – the best he had, picked men, armed to the teeth – fetched the formidable prisoner at the door of his cell and took him in a cab, the driver of which was one of his own men, with mounted municipal guards trotting on each side, in front and behind.

"Bravo!" cried Lupin. "I am quite touched by the compliment paid me. A guard of honor. By Jove, Weber, you have the proper hierarchical instinct! You don't forget what is due to your immediate chief." And, tapping him on the shoulder: "Weber, I intend to send in my resignation. I shall name you as my successor."