Clarisse turned her face. Two revolver-barrels,
pointed at Daubrecq,
showed on the right, a little above the chair. She saw only that: those
two huge,
formidable revolvers, gripped in two clenched hands. She saw
only that and also Daubrecq's face, which fear was discolouring littie
by little, until it turned livid. And, almost at the same time, some
one slipped behind Daubrecq,
sprang up
fiercely, flung one of his arms
round Daubrecq's neck, threw him to the ground with
incredible violence
and
applied a pad of cotton-wool to his face. A sudden smell of
chloroform filled the room.
Clarisse had recognized M. Nicole.
"Come along, Growler!" he cried. "Come along, Masher! Drop your
shooters: I've got him! He's a limp rag... Tie him up."
Daubrecq, in fact, was bending in two and falling on his knees like a
isjointed doll. Under the action of the chloroform, the fearsome brute
sank into impotence, became
harmless and grotesque.
The Growler and the Masher rolled him in one of the blankets of the bed
and tied him up securely.
"That's it! That's it!" shouted Lupin, leaping to his feet.
And, in a sudden
reaction of mad delight, he began to dance a wild jig
in the middle of the room, a jig mingled with bits of can-can and the
contortions of the cakewalk and the whirls of a dancing dervish and the
acrobatic movements of a clown and the lurching steps of a
drunken man.
And he announced, as though they were the numbers in a music-hall
performance:
"The prisoner's dance!... The captive's hornpipe!... A fantasia on the
corpse of a representative of the people!... The chloroform polka!...
The two-step of the conquered goggles! Olle! Olle! The blackmailer's
fandango! Hoot! Hoot! The McDaubrecq's fling!... The
turkey trot!...
And the bunny hug!... And the
grizzly bear!... The Tyrolean dance:
tra-la-liety!... Allons, enfants de la partie!... Zing, boum, boum!
Zing, boum, boum!..."
All his street-arab nature, all his instincts of
gaiety, so long
suppressed by his
constantanxiety and
disappointment, came out and
betrayed themselves in roars of
laughter, bursts of animal spirits and
a
picturesque need of childlike exuberance and riot.
He gave a last high kick, turned a
series of cartwheels round the room
and ended by
standing with his hands on his hips and one foot on
Daubrecq's
lifeless body.
"An allegorical tableau!" he announced. "The angel of
virtue destroying
the hydra of vice!"
And the
humour of the scene was twice as great because Lupin was
ppearing under the
aspect of M. Nicole, in the clothes and figure of
that wizened,
awkward,
nervous private tutor.
A sad smile Bickered across Mme. Mergy's face, her first smile for many
a long month. But, at once returning to the
reality of things, she
besought him:
"Please, please... think of Gilbert!"
He ran up to her, caught her in his arms and, obeying a spontaneous
impulse, so frank that she could but laugh at it, gave her a resounding
kiss on either cheek:
"There, lady, that's the kiss of a
decent man! Instead of Daubrecq,
it's I kissing you... Another word and I'll do it again... and I'll call
you
darling next... Be angry with me, if you dare. Oh, how happy I am!"
He knelt before her on one knee. And, respectfully:
"I beg your
pardon, madame. The fit is over."
And, getting up again, resuming his whimsical manner, he continued,
while Clarisse wondered what he was driving at:
"What's the next article, madame? Your son's
pardon, perhaps?
Certainly! Madame, I have the honour to grant you the
pardon of your
son, the commutation of his
sentence to penal
servitude for life and,
to wind up with, his early escape. It's settled, eh, Growler? Settled,
Masher, what? You'll both go with the boy to New Caledonia and arrange
for everything. Oh, my dear Daubrecq, we owe you a great debt! But I'm
not forgetting you, believe me! What would you like? A last pipe?
Coming, coming!"
He took one of the pipes from the mantel-piece, stooped over the prisoner,
shifted his pad and
thrust the amber mouth-piece between his teeth:
"Draw, old chap, draw. Lord, how funny you look, with your plug over
your nose and your cutty in your mouth. Come, puff away. By Jove, I
forgot to fill your pipe! Where's your
tobacco, your favourite Maryland?
... Oh, here we are!... "
He took from the chimney an unopened yellow
packet and tore off the
government band:
"His lordship's
tobacco! Ladies and gentlemen, keep your eyes on me!
This is a great moment. I am about to fill his lordship's pipe: by
Jupiter, what an honour! Observe my movements! You see, I have
nothing in my hands, nothing up my sleeves!... "
He turned back his cuffs and stuck out his elbows. Then he opened the
packet and inserted his thumb and fore-finger, slowly, gingerly, like
a conjurer performing a sleight-of-hand trick before a puzzled audience,
and,
beaming all over his face, extracted from the
tobacco a glittering
object which he held out before the spectators.
Clarisse uttered a cry.
It was the
crystal stopper.
She rushed at Lupin and snatched it from him:
"That's it; that's the one!" she exclaimed, feverishiy. "There's no
scratch on the stem! And look at this line
running down the middle,
where the gilt finishes... That's it; it unscrews!... Oh, dear, my
trength's going!... " She trembled so
violently that Lupin took back the
stopper and unscrewed it himself.
The inside of the knob was hollow; and in the hollow space was a piece
of paper rolled into a tiny pellet.
"The foreign-post-paper," he whispered, himself greatly excited, with
quivering hands.
There was a long silence. All four felt as if their hearts were ready
to burst from their bodies; and they were afraid of what was coming.
"Please, please... "stammered Clarisse.
Lupin unfolded the paper.
There was a set of names written one below the other, twenty-seven of
them, the twenty-seven names of the famous list: Langeroux, Dechaumont,
Vorenglade, d'Albufex, Victorien Mergy and the rest.
And, at the foot, the
signature of the chairman of the Two-Seas Canal
Company, the,
signature written in letters of blood.
Lupin looked at his watch:
"A quarter to one," he said. "We have twenty minutes to spare. Let's
have some lunch."
"But," said Clarisse, who was already
beginning to lose her head, "don't
forget... "
He simply said:
"All I know is that I'm dying of hunger."
He sat down at the table, cut himself a large slice of cold pie and said
to his accomplices:
"Growler? A bite? You, Masher?"
"I could do with a
mouthful, governor."
"Then hurry up, lads. And a glass of champage to wash it down with:
it's the chioroform-patient's treat. Your health, Daubrecq! Sweet
champagne? Dry
champagne? Extra-dry?"
CHAPTER XI
THE CR055 OF LORRAINE
The moment Lupin had finished lunch, he at once and, so to speak, without
transition, recovered all his
mastery and authority. The time for joking
was past; and he must no longer yield to his love of
astonishing people
with claptrap and conjuring tricks. Now that he had discovered the
crystal stopper in the hiding-place which he had guessed with absolute
certainty, now that he possessed the list of the Twenty-seven, it became
a question of playing off the last game of the
rubber without delay.
It was child's play, no doubt, and what remained to be done presented no
difficulty. Nevertheless, it was
essential that he should perform these
final actions with promptness, decision and
infallible perspicacity.
The smallest
blunder was irretrievable. Lupin knew this; but his
strangely lucid brain had allowed for every contingency. And the
movements and words which he was now about to make and utter were all
fully prepared and matured:
"Growler, the commissionaire is
waiting on the Boulevard Gambetta with
his barrow and the trunk which we bought. Bring him here and have the
trunk carried up. If the people of the hotel ask any questions, say
it's for the lady in No. 130."
Then, addressing his other companion:
"Masher, go back to the station and take over the limousine. The price
is arranged: ten thousand francs. Buy a
chauffeur's cap and overcoat
and bring the car to the hotel."
"The money, governor."
Lupin opened a
pocketbook which had been removed from Daubrecq's jacket
and produced a huge
bundle of bank-notes. He separated ten of them:
"Here you are. Our friend appears to have been doing well at the club.
Off with you, Masher!"
The two men went out through Clarisse's room. Lupin availed himself of
a moment when Clarisse Mergy was not looking to stow away the
pocketbookwith the greatest satisfaction:
"I shall have done a fair stroke of business," he said to himself. "When
all the expenses are paid, I shall still be well to the good; and it's
not over yet."
Then turning to Clarisse Mergy, he asked:
"Have you a bag?"
"Yes, I bought one when I reached Nice, with some linen and a few
necessaries; for I left Paris unprepared."
"Get all that ready. Then go down to the office. Say that you are
expecting a trunk which a commissionaire is bringing from the station
cloakroom and that you will want to unpack and pack it again in your
room; and tell them that you are leaving."
When alone, Lupin examined Daubrecq carefully, felt in all his pockets
and appropriated everything that seemed to present any sort of interest.
The Growler was the first to return. The trunk, a large wicker hamper
covered with black moleskin, was taken into Clarisse's room. Assisted
by Clarisse and the Growler, Lupin moved Daubrecq and put him in the
trunk, in a sitting
posture, but with his head bent so as to allow of
the lid being fastened:
"I don't say that it's as comfortable as your berth in a sleeping-car,
my dear
deputy," Lupin observed. "But, all the same, it's better than
a
coffin. At least, you can breathe. Three little holes in each side.
You have nothing to
complain of!"
Then, unstopping a flask:
"A drop more chloroform? You seem to love it!... "
He soaked the pad once more, while, by his orders, Clarisse and the
Growler propped up the
deputy with linen, rugs and pillows, which they
had taken the
precaution to heap in the trunk.
"Capital!" said Lupin. "That trunk is fit to go round the world. Lock
it and strap it."
The Masher arrived, in a
chauffeur's livery:
"The car's below, governor."
"Good," he said. "Take the trunk down between you. It would be
dangerous to give it to the hotel-servants."
"But if any one meets us?"
"Well, what then, Masher? Aren't you a
chauffeur? You're carrying the
trunk of your
employer here present, the lady in No. 130, who will also
go down, step into her motor... and wait for me two hundred yards farther
on. Growler, you help to hoist the trunk up. Oh, first lock the
partition-door!"
Lupin went to the next room, closed the other door, shot the bolt,
walked out, locked the door behind him and went down in the lift.
In the office, he said:
"M. Daubrecq has suddenly been called away to Monte Carlo. He asked me
to say that he would not be back until Tuesday and that you were to keep
his room for him. His things are all there. Here is the key."
He walked away quietly and went after the car, where he found Clarisse
lamenting:
"We shall never be in Paris to-morrow! It's madness! The least
breakdown...
"That's why you and I are going to take the train. It's safer... "
He put her into a cab and gave his
parting instructions to the two men:
"Thirty miles an hour, on the average, do you understand? You're to