Arsène Lupin versus Herlock Sholmes (5 page)

“What? … It can’t be possible!” he stammered.

He could not move. He stood there, with bulging eyes, gazing stupidly at the terrible disorder, the overturned chairs, a large crystal candelabra shattered in a thousand pieces, the clock lying on the marble hearthstone, all evidence of a fearful and desperate struggle. The handle of a stiletto glittered, not far from the corpse; the blade was stained with blood. A handkerchief, marked with red spots, was lying on the edge of the bed.

Charles recoiled with horror: the body lying at his feet extended itself for a moment, then shrunk up again; two or three tremors, and that was the end.

He stooped over the body. There was a clean-cut wound on the neck from which the blood was flowing and then congealing in a black pool on the carpet. The face retained an expression of extreme terror.

“Someone has killed him!” he muttered, “someone has killed him!”

Then he shuddered at the thought that there might be another dreadful crime. Did not the baron’s secretary sleep in the adjoining room! Had not the assassin killed her also! He opened the door; the room was empty. He concluded that Antoinette had been abducted, or else she had gone away before the crime. He returned to the baron’s chamber, his glance falling on the secretary, he noticed that that article of furniture remained intact. Then, he saw upon a table, beside a bunch of keys and a pocketbook that the baron placed there every night, a handful of golden louis. Charles seized the pocketbook, opened it, and found some bank-notes. He counted them; there were thirteen notes of one hundred francs each.

Instinctively, mechanically, he put the bank-notes in his pocket, rushed down the stairs, drew the bolt, unhooked the chain, closed the door behind him, and fled to the street.

Charles was an honest man. He had scarcely left the gate, when, cooled by the night air and the rain, he came to a sudden halt. Now, he saw his action in its true light, and it filled him with horror. He hailed a passing cab, and said to the driver:

“Go to the police-office, and bring the commissary. Hurry! There has been a murder in that house.”

The cab-driver whipped his horse. Charles wished to return to the house, but found the gate locked. He had closed it himself when he came out, and it could not be opened from the outside. On the other hand, it was useless to ring, as there was no one in the house.

It was almost an hour before the arrival of the police. When they came, Charles told his story and handed the bank-notes to the commissary. A locksmith was summoned, and, after considerable difficulty, he succeeded in forcing open the garden gate and the vestibule door. The commissary of police entered the room first, but, immediately, turned to Charles and said:

“You told me that the room was in the greatest disorder.”

Charles stood at the door, amazed, bewildered; all the furniture had been restored to its accustomed place. The small table was standing between the two windows, the chairs were upright, and the clock was on the centre of the mantel. The debris of the candelabra had been removed.

“Where is … Monsieur le Baron?” stammered Charles.

“That’s so!” exclaimed the officer, “where is the victim?”

He approached the bed, and drew aside a large sheet, under which reposed the Baron d’Hautrec, formerly French Ambassador at Berlin. Over him, lay his military coat, adorned with the Cross of Honor. His features were calm. His eyes were closed.

“Someone has been here,” said Charles.

“How did they get in?”

“I don’t know, but someone has been here during my absence. There was a stiletto on the floor—there! And a handkerchief, stained with blood, on the bed. They are not here now. They have been carried away. And some one has put the room in order.”

“Who would do that?”

“The assassin.”

“But we found all the doors locked.”

“He must have remained in the house.”

“Then he must be here yet, as you were in front of the house all the time.”

Charles reflected a moment, then said, slowly:

“Yes … of course … I didn’t go away from the gate.”

“Who was the last person you saw with the baron?”

“Mademoiselle Antoinette, his secretary.”

“What has become of her?”

“I don’t know. Her bed wasn’t occupied, so she must have gone out. I am not surprised at that, as she is young and pretty.”

“But how could she leave the house?”

“By the door,” said Charles.

“But you had bolted and chained it.”

“Yes, but she must have left before that.”

“And the crime was committed after her departure?”

“Of course,” said the servant.

The house was searched from cellar to garret, but the assassin had fled. How? And when? Was it he or an accomplice who had returned to the scene of the crime and removed everything that might furnish a clue to his identity? Such were the questions the police were called upon to solve.

The coroner came at seven o’clock; and, at eight o’clock, Mon. Dudouis, the head of the detective service, arrived on the scene. They were followed by the Procureur of the Republic and the investigating magistrate. In addition to these officials, the house was overrun with policemen, detectives, newspaper reporters, photographers, and relatives and acquaintances of the murdered man.

A thorough search was made; they studied out the position of the corpse according to the information furnished by Charles; they questioned Sister Auguste when she arrived; but they discovered nothing new. Sister Auguste was astonished to learn of the disappearance of Antoinette Bréhat. She had engaged the young girl twelve days before, on excellent recommendations, and refused to believe that she would neglect her duty by leaving the house during the night.

“But, you see, she hasn’t returned yet,” said the magistrate, “and we are still confronted with the question: What has become of her?”

“I think she was abducted by the assassin,” said Charles.

The theory was plausible, and was borne out by certain facts. Mon. Dudouis agreed with it. He said:

“Abducted? Ma foi! That is not improbable.”

“Not only improbable,” said a voice, “but absolutely opposed to the facts. There is not a particle of evidence to support such a theory.”

The voice was harsh, the accent sharp, and no one was surprised to learn that the speaker was Ganimard. In no one else would they tolerate such a domineering tone.

“Ah! It is you, Ganimard!” exclaimed Mon. Dudouis. “I had not seen you before.”

“I have been here since two o’clock.”

“So you are interested in some things outside of lottery ticket number 514, the affair of the rue Clapeyron, the Blonde Lady and Arsène Lupin?”

“Ha-ha!” laughed the veteran detective. “I would not say that Lupin is a stranger to the present case. But let us forget the affair of the lottery ticket for a few moments, and try to unravel this new mystery.”

Ganimard is not one of those celebrated detectives whose methods will create a school, or whose name will be immortalized in the criminal annals of his country. He is devoid of those flashes of genius which characterize the work of Dupin, Lecoq and Sherlock Holmes. Yet, it must be admitted, he possesses superior qualities of observation, sagacity, perseverance and even intuition. His merit lies in his absolute independence. Nothing troubles or influences him, except, perhaps, a sort of fascination that Arsène Lupin holds over him. However that may be, there is no doubt that his position on that morning, in the house of the late Baron d’Hautrec, was one of undoubted superiority, and his collaboration in the case was appreciated and desired by the investigating magistrate.

“In the first place,” said Ganimard, “I will ask Monsieur Charles to be very particular on one point: He says that, on the occasion of his first visit to the room, various articles of furniture were overturned and strewn about the place; now, I ask him whether, on his second visit to the room, he found all those articles restored to their accustomed places—I mean, of course, correctly placed.”

“Yes, all in their proper places,” replied Charles.

“It is obvious, then, that the person who replaced them must have been familiar with the location of those articles.”

The logic of this remark was apparent to his hearers. Ganimard continued:

“One more question, Monsieur Charles. You were awakened by the ringing of your bell. Now, who, do you think, rang it?”

“Monsieur le Baron, of course.”

“When could he ring it?”

“After the struggle … when he was dying.”

“Impossible; because you found him lying, unconscious, at a point more than four metres from the bell-button.”

“Then he must have rung during the struggle.”

“Impossible,” declared Ganimard, “since the ringing, as you have said, was continuous and uninterrupted, and lasted seven or eight seconds. Do you think his antagonist would have permitted him to ring the bell in that leisurely manner?”

“Well, then, it was before the attack.”

“Also, quite impossible, since you have told us that the lapse of time between the ringing of the bell and your entrance to the room was not more than three minutes. Therefore, if the baron rang before the attack, we are forced to the conclusion that the struggle, the murder and the flight of the assassin, all occurred within the short space of three minutes. I repeat: that is impossible.”

“And yet,” said the magistrate, “someone rang. If it were not the baron, who was it?”

“The murderer.”

“For what purpose?”

“I do not know. But the fact that he did ring proves that he knew that the bell communicated with the servant’s room. Now, who would know that, except an inmate of the house?”

Ganimard was drawing the meshes of his net closer and tighter. In a few clear and logical sentences, he had unfolded and defined his theory of the crime, so that it seemed quite natural when the magistrate said:

“As I understand it, Ganimard, you suspect the girl Antoinette Bréhat?”

“I do not suspect her; I accuse her.”

“You accuse her of being an accomplice?”

“I accuse her of having killed Baron d’Hautrec.”

“Nonsense! What proof have you?”

“The handful of hair I found in the right hand of the victim.”

He produced the hair; it was of a beautiful blonde color, and glittered like threads of gold. Charles looked at it, and said:

“That is Mademoiselle Antoinette’s hair. There can be no doubt of it. And, then, there is another thing. I believe that the knife, which I saw on my first visit to the room, belonged to her. She used it to cut the leaves of books.”

A long, dreadful silence followed, as if the crime had acquired an additional horror by reason of having been committed by a woman. At last, the magistrate said:

“Let us assume, until we are better informed, that the baron was killed by Antoinette Bréhat. We have yet to learn where she concealed herself after the crime, how she managed to return after Charles left the house, and how she made her escape after the arrival of the police. Have you formed any opinion on those points Ganimard?”

“None.”

“Well, then, where do we stand?”

Ganimard was embarrassed. Finally, with a visible effort, he said:

“All I can say is that I find in this case the same method of procedure as we found in the affair of the lottery ticket number 514; the same phenomena, which might be termed the faculty of disappearing. Antoinette Bréhat has appeared and disappeared in this house as mysteriously as Arsène Lupin entered the house of Monsieur Detinan and escaped therefrom in the company of the Blonde Lady.

“Does that signify anything?”

“It does to me. I can see a probable connection between those two strange incidents. Antoinette Bréhat was hired by Sister Auguste twelve days ago, that is to say, on the day after the Blonde Lady so cleverly slipped through my fingers. In the second place, the hair of the Blonde Lady was exactly of the same brilliant golden hue as the hair found in this case.”

“So that, in your opinion, Antoinette Bréhat—”

“Is the Blonde Lady—precisely.”

“And that Lupin had a hand in both cases!”

“Yes, that is my opinion.”

This statement was greeted with an outburst of laughter. It came from Mon. Dudouis.

“Lupin! Always Lupin! Lupin is into everything; Lupin is everywhere!”

“Yes, Lupin is into everything of any consequence,” replied Ganimard, vexed at the ridicule of his superior.

“Well, so far as I see,” observed Mon. Dudouis, “you have not discovered any motive for this crime. The secretary was not broken into, nor the pocketbook carried away. Even, a pile of gold was left upon the table.”

“Yes, that is so,” exclaimed Ganimard, “but the famous diamond?”

“What diamond?”

“The blue diamond! The celebrated diamond which formed part of the royal crown of France, and which was given by the Duke d’Aumale to Leonide Lebrun, and, at the death of Leonide Lebrun, was purchased by the Baron d’Hautrec as a souvenir of the charming comedienne that he had loved so well. That is one of those things that an old Parisian, like I, does not forget.”

“It is obvious that if the blue diamond is not found, the motive for the crime is disclosed,” said the magistrate. “But where should we search for it?”

“On the baron’s finger,” replied Charles. “He always wore the blue diamond on his left hand.”

“I saw that hand, and there was only a plain gold ring on it,” said Ganimard, as he approached the corpse.

“Look in the palm of the hand,” replied the servant.

Ganimard opened the stiffened hand. The bezel was turned inward, and, in the centre of that bezel, the blue diamond shone with all its glorious splendor.

“The deuce!” muttered Ganimard, absolutely amazed, “I don’t understand it.”

“You will now apologize to Lupin for having suspected him, eh?” said Mon. Dudouis, laughing.

Ganimard paused for a moment’s reflection, and then replied, sententiously:

“It is only when I do not understand things that I suspect Arsène Lupin.”

Such were the facts established by the police on the day after the commission of that mysterious crime. Facts that were vague and incoherent in themselves, and which were not explained by any subsequent discoveries. The movements of Antoinette Bréhat remained as inexplicable as those of the Blonde Lady, and the police discovered no trace of that mysterious creature with the golden hair who had killed Baron d’Hautrec and had failed to take from his finger the famous diamond that had once shone in the royal crown of France.