813 by Maurice LeBlanc (best non fiction books of all time .TXT) 📖

into the business with a spirit, an ardor, a violence, even, that was astonishing in one usually so full of light-hearted chaff and, when all was said, so naturally disposed by temperament to display a certain professional indulgence.

No, this time he was prompted by hatred.

He hated Louis de Malreich, that bloodthirsty scoundrel, that foul brute, of whom he had always been afraid and who, even beaten, even in prison, still gave him that sensation of dread and repugnance which one feels at the sight of a reptile.

Besides, had not Malreich had the audacity to persecute Dolores?

“He has played and lost,” said Lupin. “He shall pay for it with his head.”

That was what he wanted for his terrible enemy: the scaffold, the bleak, dull morning when the blade of the guillotine slides down and kills…

It was a strange prisoner whom the examining-magistrate questioned for months on end between the four walls of his room, a strange figure, that bony man, with the skeleton face and the lifeless eyes?

He seemed quite out of himself. His thoughts were not there, but elsewhere. And he cared so little about answering!

“My name is Leon Massier.”

That was the one sentence to which he confined himself.

And Lupin retorted.

“You lie. Leon Massier, born at Perigueux, left fatherless at the age of ten, died seven years ago. You took his papers. But you forgot his death-certificate. Here it is.”

And Lupin sent a copy of the document to the public prosecutor.

“I am Leon Massier,” declared the prisoner, once again.

“You lie,” replied Lupin. “You are Louis de Malreich, the last surviving descendant of a small French noble who settled in Germany in the eighteenth century. You had a brother who called himself Parbury, Rebeira and Altenheim, by turns: you killed your brother. You had a sister, Isilda de Malreich: you killed your sister.”

“I am Leon Massier.”

“You lie. You are Malreich. Here is your birth-certificate. Here are your brother’s and your sister’s.”

And Lupin sent the three certificates.

Apart from the question of his identity, Malreich, crushed, no doubt, by the accumulation of proofs brought up against him, did not defend himself. What could he say? They had forty notes written in his own hand—a comparison of the handwritings established the fact—written in his own hand to the gang of his accomplices, forty notes which he had omitted to tear up after taking them back. And all these notes were orders relating to the Kesselbach case, the capture of M. Lenormand and Gourel, the pursuit of old Steinweg, the construction of the underground passages at Garches and so on. What possibility was there of a denial?

One rather odd thing baffled the law officers. The seven scoundrels, when confronted with their leader, all declared that they did not know him, because they had never seen him. They received his instructions either by telephone, or else in the dark, by means of those same little notes which Malreich slipped into their hands without a word.

But, for the rest, was not the existence of the communication between the villa in the Rue Delaizement and the Broker’s shed an ample proof of complicity? From that spot, Malreich saw and heard. From that spot, the leader watched his men.

Discrepancies? Apparently irreconcilable facts? Lupin explained them all away. In a celebrated article, published on the morning of the trial, he took up the case from the start, revealed what lay beneath it, unravelled its web, showed Malreich, unknown to all, living in the room of his brother, the sham Major Parbury, passing unseen along the passages of the Palace Hotel and murdering Mr. Kesselbach, murdering Beudot the floor-waiter, murdering Chapman the secretary.

The trial lingers in the memory. It was both terrifying and gloomy: terrifying because of the atmosphere of anguish that hung over the crowd of onlookers and the recollection of crime and blood that obsessed their minds: gloomy, heavy, darksome, stifling because of the tremendous silence observed by the prisoner.

Not a protest, not a movement, not a word. A face of wax that neither saw nor heard. An awful vision of impassive calmness! The people in court shuddered. Their distraught imaginations conjured up a sort of supernatural being rather than a man, a sort of genie out of the Arabian Nights, one of those Hindu gods who symbolize all that is ferocious, cruel, sanguinary and pernicious.

As for the other scoundrels, the people did not even look at them, treated them as insignificant supers overshadowed by that stupendous leader.

The most sensational evidence was that given by Mrs. Kesselbach. To the general astonishment and to Lupin’s own surprise, Dolores, who had answered none of the magistrate’s summonses and who had retired to an unknown spot, Dolores appeared, a sorrow-stricken widow, to give damning evidence against her husband’s murderer.

She gazed at him for many seconds and then said, simply:

“That is the man who entered my house in the Rue des Vignes, who carried me off and who locked me up in the Broker’s shed. I recognize him.”

“On your oath?”

“I swear it before God and man.”

Two days later, Louis de Malreich, alias Leon Massier was sentenced to death. And his overpowering personality may be said to have absorbed that of his accomplices to such an extent that they received the benefit of extenuating circumstances.

“Louis de Malreich have you nothing to say?” asked the presiding judge.

Ho made no reply.

One question alone remained undecided in Lupin’s eyes: why had Malreich committed all those crimes? What did he want? What was his object?

Lupin was soon to understand; and the day was not far off when, gasping with horror, struck, mortally smitten with despair, he would know the awful truth.

For the moment, although the thought of it constantly hovered over his mind, he ceased to occupy himself with the Malreich case. Resolved to get a new skin, as he put it; reassured, on the other hand, as to the fate of Mrs. Kesselbach and GeneviŽve, over whose peaceful existence he watched from afar; and, lastly, kept informed by Jean Doudeville, whom he had sent to Veldenz, of all the negotiations that were being pursued between the court of Berlin and the regent of Zweibrucken-Veldenz, he employed all his time in winding up the past and preparing for the future.

The thought of the different life which he wished to lead under the eyes of Mrs. Kesselbach filled him with new ambitions and unexpected sentiments, in which the image of Dolores played a part, without his being able to tell exactly how or why.

In a few weeks, he got rid of all the proofs that could have compromised him sooner or later, all the traces that could have led to his ruin. He gave each of his old companions a sum of money sufficient to keep them from want for the rest of their lives and said good-bye to them, saying that he was going to South America.

One morning, after a night of careful thought and a deep study of the situation, he cried:

“It’s done. There’s nothing to fear now. The old Lupin is dead. Make way for the young one.”

His man brought him a telegram from Germany. It contained the news for which he had been waiting. The Council of Regency, greatly influenced by the Court of Berlin, had referred the question to the electors; and the electors, greatly influenced by the Council of Regency, had declared their unshaken attachment to the old dynasty of the Veldenz. Count von Waldemar was deputed, together with three delegates selected from the nobility, the army and the law, to go to Bruggen Castle, carefully to establish the identity of the Grand-duke Hermann IV. and to make all the arrangements with His Royal Highness for his triumphal entry into the principality of his fathers, which was to take place in the course of the following month.

“This time, I’ve pulled it off,” said Lupin to himself. “Mr. Kesselbach’s great scheme is being realized. All that remains for me to do is to make Waldemar swallow Pierre Leduc; and that is child’s play. The banns between GeneviŽve and Pierre shall be published tomorrow. And it shall be the grand-duke’s affianced bride that will be presented to Waldemar.”

Full of glee, he started in his motor for Bruggen Castle.

He sang in the car, he whistled, he chatted to his chauffeur:

“Octave, do you know whom you have the honor of driving? The master of the world!… Yes, old man, that staggers you, eh? Just so, but it’s the truth. I am the master of the world.”

He rubbed his hands and went on soliloquizing:

“All the same, it was a long job. It’s a year since the fight began. True, it was the most formidable fight I ever stood to win or lose… By Jupiter, what a war of giants!” And he repeated, “But this time, I’ve pulled it off! The enemies are in the water. There are no obstacles left between the goal and me. The site is free: let us build upon it! I have the materials at hand, I have the workmen: let us build, Lupin! And let the palace be worthy of you!”

He stopped the car at a few hundred yards from the castle, so that his arrival might create as little fuss as possible, and said to Octave:

“Wait here for twenty minutes, until four o’clock, and then drive in. Take my bags to the little chalet at the end of the park. That’s where I shall sleep.”

At the first turn of the road, the castle appeared in sight, standing at the end of a dark avenue of lime trees. From the distance, he saw GeneviŽve passing on the terrace.

His heart was softly stirred:

“GeneviŽve, GeneviŽve,” he said, fondly. “GeneviŽve… the vow which I made to the dying mother is being fulfilled as well… GeneviŽve a grand-duchess!… And I, in the shade, watching over her happiness… and pursuing the great schemes of ArsŽne Lupin!”

He burst out laughing, sprang behind a cluster of trees that stood to the left of the avenue and slipped along the thick shrubberies. In this way, he reached the castle without the possibility of his being seen from the windows of the drawing-room or the principal bedrooms.

He wanted to see Dolores before she saw him and pronounced her name several times, as he had pronounced GeneviŽve’s, but with an emotion that surprised himself:

“Dolores… Dolores…”

He stole along the passages and reached the dining-room. From this room, through a glass panel, he could see half the drawing-room.

He drew nearer.

Dolores was lying on a couch; and Pierre Leduc, on his knees before her, was gazing at her with eyes of ecstasy…