The Crystal Stopper by Maurice Leblanc (most important books of all time .TXT) 📖

“Next? To supply me with such food as I want.”

“And next?”

“Next? To undertake, with me and under my direction, a regular series of searches with a view...”

“To what?”

“To discovering the precious object of which I spoke to you.”

“What’s that?”

“A crystal stopper.”

“A crystal stopper... Saints above! A nice business! And, if we don’t find your confounded stopper, what then?”

Lupin took her gently by the arm and, in a serious voice:

“If we don’t find it, Gilbert, young Gilbert whom you know and love, will stand every chance of losing his head; and so will Vaucheray.”

“Vaucheray I don’t mind... a dirty rascal like him! But Gilbert...”

“Have you seen the papers this evening? Things are looking worse than ever. Vaucheray, as might be expected, accuses Gilbert of stabbing the valet; and it so happens that the knife which Vaucheray used belonged to Gilbert. That came out this morning. Whereupon Gilbert, who is intelligent in his way, but easily frightened, blithered and launched forth into stories and lies which will end in his undoing. That’s how the matter stands. Will you help me?”

Thenceforth, for several days, Lupin moulded his existence upon Daubrecq’s, beginning his investigations the moment the deputy left the house. He pursued them methodically, dividing each room into sections which he did not abandon until he had been through the tiniest nooks and corners and, so to speak, exhausted every possible device.

Victoire searched also. And nothing was forgotten. Table-legs, chair-rungs, floor-boards, mouldings, mirror- and picture-frames, clocks, plinths, curtain-borders, telephone-holders and electric fittings: everything that an ingenious imagination could have selected as a hiding-place was overhauled.

And they also watched the deputy’s least actions, his most unconscious movements, the expression of his face, the books which he read and the letters which he wrote.

It was easy enough. He seemed to live his life in the light of day. No door was ever shut. He received no visits. And his existence worked with mechanical regularity. He went to the Chamber in the afternoon, to the club in the evening.

“Still,” said Lupin, “there must be something that’s not orthodox behind all this.”

“There’s nothing of the sort,” moaned Victoire. “You’re wasting your time and we shall be bowled out.”

The presence of the detectives and their habit of walking up and down outside the windows drove her mad. She refused to admit that they were there for any other purpose than to trap her, Victoire. And, each time that she went shopping, she was quite surprised that one of those men did not lay his hand upon her shoulder.

One day she returned all upset. Her basket of provisions was shaking on her arm.

“What’s the matter, my dear Victoire?” said Lupin. “You’re looking green.”

“Green? I dare say I do. So would you look green...”

She had to sit down and it was only after making repeated efforts that she succeeded in stuttering:

“A man... a man spoke to me... at the fruiterer’s.”

“By jingo! Did he want you to run away with him?”

“No, he gave me a letter...”

“Then what are you complaining about? It was a love-letter, of course!”

“No. ‘It’s for your governor,’ said he. ‘My governor?’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘for the gentleman who’s staying in your room.’”

“What’s that?”

This time, Lupin had started:

“Give it here,” he said, snatching the letter from her. The envelope bore no address. But there was another, inside it, on which he read:

“Monsieur Arsene Lupin, c/o Victoire.”

“The devil!” he said. “This is a bit thick!” He tore open the second envelope. It contained a sheet of paper with the following words, written in large capitals:

“Everything you are doing is useless and dangerous... Give it up.”

Victoire uttered one moan and fainted. As for Lupin, he felt himself blush up to his eyes, as though he had been grossly insulted. He experienced all the humiliation which a duellist would undergo if he heard the most secret advice which he had received from his seconds repeated aloud by a mocking adversary.

However, he held his tongue. Victoire went back to her work. As for him, he remained in his room all day, thinking.

That night he did not sleep.

And he kept saying to himself:

“What is the good of thinking? I am up against one of those problems which are not solved by any amount of thought. It is certain that I am not alone in the matter and that, between Daubrecq and the police, there is, in addition to the third thief that I am, a fourth thief who is working on his own account, who knows me and who reads my game clearly. But who is this fourth thief? And am I mistaken, by any chance? And... oh, rot!... Let’s get to sleep!...”

But he could not sleep; and a good part of the night went in this way.

At four o’clock in the morning he seemed to hear a noise in the house. He jumped up quickly and, from the top of the staircase, saw Daubrecq go down the first flight and turn toward the garden.

A minute later, after opening the gate, the deputy returned with a man whose head was buried in an enormous fur collar and showed him into his study.

Lupin had taken his precautions in view of any such contingency. As the windows of the study and those of his bedroom, both of which were at the back of the house, overlooked the garden, he fastened a rope-ladder to his balcony, unrolled it softly and let himself down by it until it was level with the top of the study windows.

These windows were closed by shutters; but, as they were bowed, there remained a semi-circular space at the top; and Lupin, though he could not hear, was able to see all that went on inside.

He then realized that the person whom he had taken for a man was a woman: a woman who was still young, though her dark hair was mingled with gray; a tall woman, elegantly but quite unobtrusively dressed, whose handsome features bore the expression of weariness and melancholy which long suffering gives.

“Where the deuce have I seen her before?” Lupin asked himself. “For I certainly know that face, that look, that expression.”

She stood leaning against the table, listening impassively to Daubrecq, who was also standing and who was talking very excitedly. He had his back