813

"Bring him, Gourel!" said M. Lenormand, as who should say, "Fetch it! Bring it!" to a good retriever carrying the game in its jaws. "Did he come quietly?"

"He bit me a little, but I held tight," replied the sergeant, showing his huge, sinewy hand.

"Very well, Gourel. And now take this chap off to the Dépôt in a cab. Good-bye for the present, M. Jérôme."

Valenglay was immensely amused. He rubbed his hands and laughed. The idea that his chief messenger was one of Lupin's accomplices struck him as a most delightfully ludicrous thing.

"Well done, my dear Lenormand; this is wonderful! But how on earth did you manage it?"

"Oh, in the simplest possible fashion. I knew that Mr. Kesselbach was employing the Barbareux agency and that Lupin had called on him, pretending to come from the agency. I hunted in that direction and discovered that, when the indiscretion was committed to the prejudice of Mr. Kesselbach and of Barbareux, it could only have been to the advantage of one Jérôme, a friend of one of the clerks at the agency. If you had not ordered me to hustle things, I should have watched the messenger and caught Marco and then Lupin."

"You'll catch them, Lenormand, you'll catch them, I assure you. And we shall be assisting at the most exciting spectacle in the world: the struggle between Lupin and yourself. I shall bet on you."

The next morning the newspapers published the following letter:

"Open Letter to M. Lenormand, Chief of the Detective-service

"All my congratulations, dear sir and dear friend, on your arrest of Jérôme the messenger. It was a smart piece of work, well executed and worthy of you.

"All my compliments, also, on the ingenious manner in which you proved to the prime minister that I was not Mr. Kesselbach's murderer. Your demonstration was clear, logical, irrefutable and, what is more, truthful. As you know, I do not kill people. Thank you for proving it on this occasion. The esteem of my contemporaries and of yourself, dear sir and dear friend, are indispensable to my happiness.

"In return, allow me to assist you in the pursuit of the monstrous assassin and to give you a hand with the Kesselbach case, a very interesting case, believe me: so interesting and so worthy of my attention that I have determined to issue from the retirement in which I have been living for the past four years, between my books and my good dog Sherlock, to beat all my comrades to arms and to throw myself once more into the fray.

"What unexpected turns life sometimes takes! Here am I, your fellow-worker! Let me assure you, dear sir and dear friend, that I congratulate myself upon it, and that I appreciate this favor of destiny at its true value.

"Arsène Lupin.

"P.S. – One word more, of which I feel sure that you will approve. As it is not right and proper that a gentleman who has had the glorious privilege of fighting under my banner should languish on the straw of your prisons, I feel it my duty to give you fair warning that, in five weeks' time, on Friday, the 31st of May, I shall set at liberty Master Jérôme, promoted by me to the rank of chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior. Don't forget the date: Friday, the 31st of May.

"A. L."

CHAPTER IV

PRINCE SERNINE AT WORK

A ground-floor flat, at the corner of the Boulevard Haussmann and the Rue de Courcelles. Here lived Prince Sernine: Prince Sernine, one of the most brilliant members of the Russian colony in Paris, whose name was constantly recurring in the "Arrivals and Departures" column in the newspapers.

Eleven o'clock in the morning. The prince entered his study. He was a man of thirty-eight or forty years of age, whose chestnut hair was mingled with a few silver threads on the temples. He had a fresh, healthy complexion and wore a large mustache and a pair of whiskers cut extremely short, so as to be hardly noticeable against the fresh skin of his cheeks.

He was smartly dressed in a tight-fitting frock-coat and a white drill waistcoat, which showed above the opening.

"Come on!" he said, in an undertone. "I have a hard day's work before me, I expect."

He opened a door leading into a large room where a few people sat waiting, and said:

"Is Varnier there? Come in, Varnier."

A man looking like a small tradesman, squat, solidly built, firmly set upon his legs, entered at the summons. The prince closed the door behind him:

"Well, Varnier, how far are you?"

"Everything's ready for this evening, governor."

"Good. Tell me in a few words."

"It's like this. After her husband's murder, Mrs. Kesselbach, on the strength of the prospectuses which you ordered to be sent to her, selected as her residence the establishment known as the Retreat for Gentlewomen, at Garches. She occupies the last of the four small houses, at the bottom of the garden, which the management lets to ladies who prefer to live quite apart from the other boarders, the house known as the Pavillon de l'Impératrice."

"What servants has she?"

"Her companion, Gertrude, with whom she arrived a few hours after the crime, and Gertrude's sister Suzanne, whom she sent for to Monte Carlo and who acts as her maid. The two sisters are devoted to her."

"What about Edwards, the valet?"

"She did not keep him. He has gone back to his own country."

"Does she see people?"

"No. She spends her time lying on a sofa. She seems very weak and ill. She cries a great deal. Yesterday the examining-magistrate was with her for two hours."

"Very good. And now about the young girl."

"Mlle. Geneviève Ernemont lives across the way.. in a lane running toward the open country, the third house on the right in the lane. She keeps a free school for backward children. Her grandmother, Mme. Ernemont, lives with her."

"And, according to what you wrote to me, Geneviève Ernemont and Mrs. Kesselbach have become acquainted?"

"Yes. The girl went to ask Mrs. Kesselbach for a subscription for her school. They must have taken a liking to each other, for, during the past four days, they have been walking together in the Parc de Villeneuve, of which the garden of the Retreat is only a dependency."

"At what time do they go out?"

"From five to six. At six o'clock exactly the young lady goes back to her school."

"So you have arranged the thing?"

"For six o'clock to-day. Everything is ready."

"Will there be no one there?"

"There is never any one in the park at that hour."

"Very well. I shall be there. You can go."

He sent him out through the door leading to the hall, and, returning to the waiting-room, called:

"The brothers Doudeville."

Two young men entered, a little overdressed, keen-eyed and pleasant-looking.

"Good morning, Jean. Good morning, Jacques. Any news at the Prefecture?"

"Nothing much, governor."

"Does M. Lenormand continue to have confidence in you?"

"Yes. Next to Gourel, we are his favorite inspectors. A proof is that he has posted us in the Palace Hotel to watch the people who were living on the first-floor passage at the time of Chapman's murder. Gourel comes every morning, and we make the same report to him that we do to you."

"Capital. It is essential that I should be informed of all that happens and all that is said at the Prefecture of Police. As long as Lenormand looks upon you as his men, I am master of the situation. And have you discovered a trail of any kind in the hotel?"

Jean Doudeville, the elder of the two, replied:

"The Englishwoman who occupied one of the bedrooms has gone."

"That doesn't interest me. I know all about her. But her neighbor, Major Parbury?"

They seemed embarrassed. At last, one of them replied:

"Major Parbury, this morning, ordered his luggage to be taken to the Gare du Nord, for the twelve-fifty train, and himself drove away in a motor. We were there when the train left. The major did not come."

"And the luggage?"

"He had it fetched at the station."

"By whom?"

"By a commissionaire, so we were told."

"Then his tracks are lost?"

"Yes."

"At last!" cried the prince, joyfully.

The others looked at him in surprise.

"Why, of course," he said, "that's a clue!"

"Do you think so?"

"Evidently. The murder of Chapman can only have been committed in one of the rooms on that passage. Mr. Kesselbach's murderer took the secretary there, to an accomplice, killed him there, changed his clothes there; and, once the murderer had got away, the accomplice placed the corpse in the passage. But which accomplice? The manner of Major Parbury's disappearance goes to show that he knows something of the business. Quick, telephone the good news to M. Lenormand or Gourel. The Prefecture must be informed as soon as possible. The people there and I are marching hand in hand."

He gave them a few more injunctions, concerning their double rôle as police-inspectors in the service of Prince Sernine, and dismissed them.

Two visitors remained in the waiting-room. He called one of them in:

"A thousand pardons, Doctor," he said. "I am quite at your orders now. How is Pierre Leduc?"

"He's dead."

"Aha!" said Sernine. "I expected it, after your note of this morning. But, all the same, the poor beggar has not been long.."

"He was wasted to a shadow. A fainting-fit; and it was all over."

"Did he not speak?"

"No."

"Are you sure that, from the day when the two of us picked him up under the table in that low haunt at Belleville, are you sure that nobody in your nursing-home suspected that he was the Pierre Leduc whom the police were looking for, the mysterious Pierre Leduc whom Mr. Kesselbach was trying to find at all costs?"

"Nobody. He had a room to himself. Moreover, I bandaged up his left hand so that the injury to the little finger could not be seen. As for the scar on the cheek, it is hidden by the beard."

"And you looked after him yourself?"

"Myself. And, according to your instructions, I took the opportunity of questioning him whenever he seemed at all clear in his head. But I could never get more than an inarticulate stammering out of him."

The prince muttered thoughtfully:

"Dead!.. So Pierre Leduc is dead?.. The whole Kesselbach case obviously turned on him, and now he disappears.. without a revelation, without a word about himself, about his past… Ought I to embark on this adventure, in which I am still entirely in the dark? It's dangerous… I may come to grief.."

He reflected for a moment and exclaimed:

"Oh, who cares? I shall go on for all that. It's no reason, because Pierre Leduc is dead, that I should throw up the game. On the contrary! And the opportunity is too tempting! Pierre Leduc is dead! Long live Pierre Leduc!.. Go, Doctor, go home. I shall ring you up before dinner."

The doctor went out.

"Now then, Philippe," said Sernine to his last remaining visitor, a little gray-haired man, dressed like a waiter at a hotel, a very tenth-rate hotel, however.

"You will remember, governor," Philippe began, "that last week, you made me go as boots to the Hôtel des Deux-Empereurs at Versailles, to keep my eye on a young man."

"Yes, I know… Gérard Baupré. How do things stand with him?"

"He's at the end of his resources."

"Still full of gloomy ideas?"

"Yes. He wants to kill himself."

"Is he serious?"

"Quite. I found this little note in pencil among his papers."

"Ah!" said Sernine, reading the note. "He announces his suicide.. and for this evening too!"

"Yes, governor, he has bought the rope and screwed the hook to the ceiling. Thereupon, acting on your instructions, I talked to him. He told me of his distress, and I advised him to apply to you: 'Prince Sernine is rich,' I said; 'he is generous; perhaps he will help you.'"

"All this is first-rate. So he is coming?"

"He is here."

"How do you know?"

"I followed him. He took the train to Paris, and he is walking up and down the boulevard at this minute. He will make up his mind from one moment to the other."

Just then the servant brought in a card. The prince glanced at it and said to the man:

"Show M. Gérard Baupré in."

Then, turning to Philippe:

"You go into the dressing-room, here; listen and don't stir."

Left alone, the prince muttered:

"Why should I hesitate? It's fate that sends him my way.."

A few minutes later a tall young man entered. He was fair and slender, with an emaciated face and feverish eyes, and he stood on the threshold embarrassed, hesitating, in the attitude of a beggar who would like to put out his hand for alms and dares not.

The conversation was brief:

"Are you M. Gérard Baupré?"

"Yes.. yes.. that is my name."

"I have not the honor."

"It's like this, sir… Some one told me."

"Who?"

"A hotel servant.. who said he had been in your service.."

"Please come to the point.."

"Well!."

The young man stopped, taken aback and frightened by the haughty attitude adopted by the prince, who exclaimed:

"But, sir, there must be some."

"Well, sir, the man told me that you were very rich.. and very generous… And I thought that you might possibly."

He broke off short, incapable of uttering the word of prayer and humiliation.

Sernine went up to him.

"M. Gérard Baupré, did you not publish a volume of poetry called The Smile of Spring?"

"Yes, yes," cried the young man, his face lighting up. "Have you read it?"

"Yes… Very pretty, your poems, very pretty… Only, do you reckon upon being able to live on what they will bring you?"

"Certainly.. sooner or later.."

"Sooner or later? Later rather than sooner, I expect! And, meantime, you have come to ask me for the wherewithal to live?"

"For the wherewithal to buy food, sir."

Sernine put his hand on the young man's shoulder and, coldly:

"Poets do not need food, monsieur. They live on rhymes and dreams. Do as they do. That is better than begging for bread."

The young man quivered under the insult. He turned to the door without a word.

Sernine stopped him:

"One thing more, monsieur. Have you no resources of any kind?"

"None at all."

"And you are not reckoning on anything?"

"I have one hope left: I have written to one of my relations, imploring him to send me something. I shall have his answer to-day. It is my last chance."

"And, if you have no answer, you have doubtless made up your mind, this very evening, to."

"Yes, sir."

This was said quite plainly and simply.

Sernine burst out laughing:

"Bless my soul, what a queer young man you are! And full of artless conviction, too! Come and see me again next year, will you? We will talk about all this.. it's so curious, so interesting.. and, above all, so funny!.. Ha, ha, ha, ha!"

And, shaking with laughter, with affected bows and gestures, he showed him the door.

"Philippe," he said, admitting the hotel-servant, "did you hear?"

"Yes, governor."

"Gérard Baupré is expecting a telegram this afternoon, a promise of assistance.."

"Yes, it's his last hope."

"He must not receive that telegram. If it comes, intercept it and tear it up."

"Very well, governor."

"Are you alone at your hotel?"

"Yes, with the cook, who does not sleep in. The boss is away."

"Good. So we are the masters. Till this evening, at eleven. Be off."

Prince Sernine went to his room and rang for his servant:

"My hat, gloves, and stick. Is the car there?"

"Yes, sir."

He dressed, went out, and sank into a large, comfortable limousine, which took him to the Bois de Boulogne, to the Marquis and Marquise de Gastyne's, where he was engaged for lunch.

At half-past two he took leave of his hosts, stopped in the Avenue Kléber, picked up two of his friends and a doctor, and at five minutes to three arrived at the Parc des Princes.

At three o'clock he fought a sword duel with the Italian Major Spinelli, cut his adversary's ear in the first bout, and, at a quarter to four, took a bank at the Rue Cambon Club, from which he retired, at twenty minutes past five, after winning forty-seven thousand francs.

And all this without hurrying, with a sort of haughty indifference, as though the feverish activity that sent his life whizzing through a whirl of tempestuous deeds and events were the ordinary rule of his most peaceful days.

"Octave," he said to his chauffeur, "go to Garches."

And at ten minutes to six he alighted outside the old walls of the Parc de Villeneuve.

Although broken up nowadays and spoilt, the Villeneuve estate still retains something of the splendor which it knew at the time when the Empress Eugénie used to stay there. With its old trees, its lake and the leafy horizon of the woods of Saint-Cloud, the landscape has a certain melancholy grace.

An important part of the estate was made over to the Pasteur Institute. A smaller portion, separated from the other by the whole extent of the space reserved for the public, forms a property contained within the walls which is still fairly large, and which comprises the House of Retreat, with four isolated garden-houses standing around it.

"That is where Mrs. Kesselbach lives," said the prince to himself, catching sight of the roofs of the house and the four garden-houses in the distance.

He crossed the park and walked toward the lake.

Suddenly he stopped behind a clump of trees. He had seen two ladies against the parapet of the bridge that crossed the lake:

"Varnier and his men must be somewhere near. But, by Jove, they are keeping jolly well hidden! I can't see them anywhere.."

The two ladies were now strolling across the lawns, under the tall, venerable trees. The blue of the sky appeared between the branches, which swayed in the peaceful breeze, and the scent of spring and of young vegetation was wafted through the air.

On the grassy slopes that ran down to the motionless water, daisies, violets, daffodils, lilies of the valley, all the little flowers of April and May stood grouped, and, here and there, formed constellations of every color. The sun was sinking on the horizon.

And, all at once, three men started from a thicket of bushes and made for the two ladies.

They accosted them. A few words were exchanged. The ladies gave visible signs of dread. One of the men went up to the shorter of the two and tried to snatch the gold purse which she was carrying in her hand. They cried out; and the three men flung themselves upon them.

"Now or never!" said the prince.

And he rushed forward. In ten seconds he had almost reached the brink of the water. At his approach, the three men fled.

"Run away, you vagabonds," he chuckled; "run for all you are worth! Here's the rescuer coming!"

And he set out in pursuit of them. But one of the ladies entreated him:

"Oh, sir, I beg of you.. my friend is ill."

The shorter lady had fallen on the grass in a dead faint.

He retraced his steps and, anxiously:

"She is not wounded?" he asked. "Did those scoundrels."

"No.. no.. it's only the fright.. the excitement… Besides you will understand.. the lady is Mrs. Kesselbach.."

"Oh!" he said.

He produced a bottle of smelling-salts, which the younger woman at once applied to her friend's nostrils. And he added:

"Lift the amethyst that serves as a stopper… You will see a little box containing some tabloids. Give madame one of them.. one, no more.. they are very strong.."

He watched the young woman helping her friend. She was fair-haired, very simply dressed; and her face was gentle and grave, with a smile that lit up her features even when she was not smiling.

"That is Geneviève," he thought. And he repeated with emotion, "Geneviève.. Geneviève.."

Meanwhile, Mrs. Kesselbach gradually recovered consciousness. She was astonished at first, seemed not to understand. Then, her memory returning, she thanked her deliverer with a movement of the head.

He made a deep bow and said:

"Allow me to introduce myself… I am Prince Sernine.."

She said, in a faint voice:

"I do not know how to express my gratitude."

"By not expressing it at all, madame. You must thank chance, the chance that turned my steps in this direction. May I offer you my arm?"

A few minutes later, Mrs. Kesselbach rang at the door of the House of Retreat and said to the prince:

"I will ask one more service of you, monsieur. Do not speak of this assault."

"And yet, madame, it would be the only way of finding out."

"Any attempt to find out would mean an inquiry; and that would involve more noise and fuss about me, examinations, fatigue; and I am worn out as it is."

The prince did not insist. Bowing to her, he asked:

"Will you allow me to call and ask how you are?"

"Oh, certainly.."

She kissed Geneviève and went indoors.

Meantime, night was beginning to fall. Sernine would not let Geneviève return alone. But they had hardly entered the path, when a figure, standing out against the shadow, hastened toward them.

"Grandmother!" cried Geneviève.

She threw herself into the arms of an old woman, who covered her with kisses:

"Oh, my darling, my darling, what has happened? How late you are!.. And you are always so punctual!"

Geneviève introduced the prince:

"Prince Sernine.. Mme. Ernemont, my grandmother.."

Then she related the incident, and Mme. Ernemont repeated:

"Oh, my darling, how frightened you must have been!.. I shall never forget your kindness, monsieur, I assure you… But how frightened you must have been, my poor darling!"

"Come, granny, calm yourself, as I am here.."

"Yes, but the fright may have done you harm… One never knows the consequences… Oh, it's horrible!."

They went along a hedge, through which a yard planted with trees, a few shrubs, a playground and a white house were just visible. Behind the house, sheltered by a clump of elder-trees arranged to form a covered walk, was a little gate.

The old lady asked Prince Sernine to come in and led the way to a little drawing-room or parlor. Geneviève asked leave to withdraw for a moment, to go and see her pupils, whose supper-time it was. The prince and Mme. Ernemont remained alone.

The old lady had a sad and a pale face, under her white hair, which ended in two long, loose curls. She was too stout, her walk was heavy and, notwithstanding her appearance and her dress, which was that of a lady, she had something a little vulgar about her; but her eyes were immensely kind.

Prince Sernine went up to her, took her head in his two hands and kissed her on both cheeks:

"Well, old one, and how are you?"

She stood dumfounded, wild-eyed, open-mouthed. The prince kissed her again, laughing.

She spluttered:

"You! It's you! O mother of God!.. O mother of God!.. Is it possible!.. O mother of God!."

"My dear old Victoire!"

"Don't call me that," she cried, shuddering. "Victoire is dead.. your old servant no longer exists.3 I belong entirely to Geneviève." And, lowering her voice, "O mother of God!.. I saw your name in the papers: then it's true that you have taken to your wicked life again?"

"As you see."

"And yet you swore to me that it was finished, that you were going away for good, that you wanted to become an honest man."

"I tried. I have been trying for four years… You can't say that I have got myself talked about during those four years!"

"Well?"

"Well, it bores me."

She gave a sigh and asked:

"Always the same… You haven't changed… Oh, it's settled, you never will change… So you are in the Kesselbach case?"

"Why, of course! But for that, would I have taken the trouble to arrange for an attack on Mrs. Kesselbach at six o'clock, so that I might have the opportunity of delivering her from the clutches of my own men at five minutes past? Looking upon me as her rescuer, she is obliged to receive me. I am now in the heart of the citadel and, while protecting the widow, can keep a lookout all round. Ah, you see, the sort of life which I lead does not permit me to lounge about and waste my time on little questions of politeness and such outside matters. I have to go straight to the point, violently, brutally, dramatically.."

She looked at him in dismay and gasped:

"I see.. I see.. it's all lies about the attack… But then.. Geneviève."