"Yes—yes," stammered Beautrelet. "Yes—I understand—'Cherbourg'- and then?"
"And then?—I should think the rest is quite plain: 'Removal of luggage finished. Friends left with it and will wait instructions till eight morning. All well.' Is there anything there that seems obscure? The word 'luggage'? Pooh, you wouldn't have them write 'M. Beautrelet, senior'! What then? The way in which the operation was performed? The miracle by which your father was taken out of Cherbourg Arsenal, in spite of his twenty body-guards? Pooh, it's as easy as A B C! And the fact remains that the luggage has been dispatched. What do you say to that, baby?"
With all his tense being, with all his exasperated energy, Isidore tried to preserve a good countenance. But I saw his lips quiver, his jaw shrink, his eyes vainly strive to fix upon a point. He lisped a few words, then was silent and, suddenly, gave way and, with his hands before his face, burst into loud sobs:
"Oh, father! Father!"
An unexpected result, which was certainly the collapse which Lupin's pride demanded, but also something more, something infinitely touching and infinitely artless. Lupin gave a movement of annoyance and took up his hat, as though this unaccustomed display of sentiment were too much for him. But, on reaching the door, he stopped, hesitated and then returned, slowly, step by step.
The soft sound of the sobs rose like the sad wailing of a little child overcome with grief. The lad's shoulders marked the heart- rending rhythm. Tears appeared through the crossed fingers. Lupin leaned forward and, without touching Beautrelet, said, in a voice that had not the least tone of pleasantry, nor even of the offensive pity of the victor:
"Don't cry, youngster. This is one of those blows which a man must expect when he rushes headlong into the fray, as you did. The worst disasters lie in wait for him. The destiny of fighters will have it so. We must suffer it as bravely as we can." Then, with a sort of gentleness, he continued, "You were right, you see: we are not enemies. I have known it for long. From the very first, I felt for you, for the intelligent creature that you are, an involuntary sympathy—and admiration. And that is why I wanted to say this to you—don't be offended, whatever you do: I should be extremely sorry to offend you—but I must say it: well, give up struggling against me. I am not saying this out of vanity—nor because I despise you— but, you see, the struggle is too unequal. You do not know—nobody knows all the resources which I have at my command. Look here, this secret of the Hollow Needle which you are trying so vainly to unravel: suppose, for a moment, that it is a formidable, inexhaustible treasure—or else an invisible, prodigious, fantastic refuge—or both perhaps. Think of the superhuman power which I must derive from it! And you do not know, either, all the resources which I have within myself—all that my will and my imagination enable me to undertake and to undertake successfully. Only think that my whole life—ever since I was born, I might almost say—has tended toward the same aim, that I worked like a convict before becoming what I am and to realize, in its perfection, the type which I wished to create—which I have succeeded in creating. That being so—what can you do? At that very moment when you think that victory lies within your grasp, it will escape you—there will be something of which you have not thought—a trifle—a grain of sand which I shall have put in the right place, unknown to you. I entreat vou, give up—I should be obliged to hurt you; and the thought distresses me." And, placing his hand on the boy's forehead, he repeated, "Once more, youngster, give up. I should only hurt you. Who knows if the trap into which you will inevitably fall has not already opened under your footsteps?"
Beautrelet uncovered his face. He was no longer crying. Had he heard Lupin's words? One might have doubted it, judging by his inattentive air.
For two or three minutes, he was silent. He seemed to weigh the decision which he was about to take, to examine the reasons for and against, to count up the favorable and unfavorable chances. At last, he said to Lupin:
"If I change the sense of the article, if I confirm the version of your death and if I undertake never to contradict the false version which I shall have sanctioned, do you swear that my father will be free?"
"I swear it. My friends have taken your father by motor car to another provincial town. At seven o'clock to-morrow morning, if the article in the Grand Journal is what I want it to be, I shall telephone to them and they will restore your father to liberty."
"Very well," said Beautrelet." I submit to your conditions."
Quickly, as though he saw no object in prolonging the conversation after accepting his defeat, he rose, took his hat, bowed to me, bowed to Lupin and went out. Lupin watched him go, listened to the sound of the door closing and muttered:
"Poor little beggar!"
At eight o'clock the next morning, I sent my man out to buy the Grand Journal. It was twenty minutes before he brought me a copy, most of the kiosks being already sold out.
I unfolded the paper with feverish hands. Beautrelet's article appeared on the front page. I give it as it stood and as it was quoted in the press of the whole world:
THE AMBRUMESY MYSTERY
I do not intend in these few sentences to set out in detail the mental processes and the investigations that have enabled me to reconstruct the tragedy—I should say the twofold tragedy—of Ambrumesy. In my opinion, this sort of work and the judgments which it entails, deductions, inductions, analyses and so on, are only interesting in a minor degree and, in any case, are highly commonplace. No, I shall content myself with setting forth the two leading ideas which I followed; and, if I do that, it will be seen that, in so setting them forth and in solving the two problems which they raise, I shall have told the story just as it happened, in the exact order of the different incidents.
It may be said that some of these incidents are not proved and that I leave too large a field to conjecture. That is quite true. But, in my view, my theory is founded upon a sufficiently large number of proved facts to be able to say that even those facts which are not proved must follow from the strict logic of events. The stream is so often lost under the pebbly bed: it is nevertheless the same stream that reappears at intervals and mirrors back the blue sky.
The first riddle that confronted me, a riddle not in detail, but as a whole, was how came it that Lupin, mortally wounded, one might say, managed to live for five or six weeks without nursing, medicine or food, at the bottom of a dark hole?
Let us start at the beginning. On Thursday the sixteenth of April, at four o'clock in the morning, Arsene Lupin, surprised in the middle of one of his most daring burglaries, runs away by the path leading to the ruins and drops down shot. He drags himself painfully along, falls again and picks himself up in the desperate hope of reaching the chapel. The chapel contains a crypt, the existence of which he has discovered by accident. If he can burrow there, he may be saved. By dint of an effort, he approaches it, he is but a few yards away, when a sound of footsteps approaches. Harassed and lost, he lets himself go. The enemy arrives. It is Mlle. Raymonde de Saint-Veran.
This is the prologue or rather the first scene of the drama.
What happened between them? This is the easier to guess inasmuch as the sequel of the adventure gives us all the necessary clues. At the girl's feet lies a wounded man, exhausted by suffering, who will be captured in two minutes. THIS MAN HAS BEEN WOUNDED BY HERSELF. Will she also give him up?
If he is Jean Daval's murderer, yes, she will let destiny take its course. But, in quick sentences, he tells her the truth about this awful murder committed by her uncle, M. de Gesvres. She believes him. What will she do?
Nobody can see them. The footman Victor is watching the little door. The other, Albert, posted at the drawing-room window, has lost sight of both of them. Will she give up the man she has wounded?
The girl is carried away by a movement of irresistible pity, which any woman will understand. Instructed by Lupin, with a few movements she binds up the wound with his handkerchief, to avoid the marks which the blood would leave. Then, with the aid of the key which he gives her, she opens the door of the chapel. He enters,