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

>With his free hand, he stroked her hair and forehead with infinite gentleness; and, under his caress, she gradually relaxed her tense nerves and became calmer and quieter.

Then he looked at her again and long, long asked himself what there could be behind that fair, white brow, what secret was ravaging that mysterious soul. She also was afraid. But of whom? Against whom was she imploring him to protect her?

Once again, he was obsessed by the image of the man in black, by that Louis de Malreich, the sinister and incomprehensible enemy, whose attacks he had to ward off without knowing whence they came or even if they were taking place.

He was in prison, watched day and night. Tush! Did Lupin not know by his own experience that there are beings for whom prison does not exist and who throw off their chains at the given moment? And Louis de Malreich was one of those.

Yes, there was some one in the SantS prison, hi the condemned man’s cell. But it might be an accomplice or some victim of Malreich… while Malreich himself prowled around Bruggen Castle, slipped in under cover of the darkness, like an invisible spectre, made his way into the chalet in the park and, at night, raised his dagger against Lupin asleep and helpless.

And it was Louis de Malreich who terrorized Dolores,who drove her mad with his threats, who held her by some dreadful secret and forced her into silence and submission.

And Lupin imagined the enemy’s plan: to throw Dolores, scared and trembling, into Pierre Leduc’s arms, to make away with him, Lupin, and to reign in his place, over there, with the grand-duke’s power and Dolores’s millions.

It was a likely supposition, a certain supposition, which fitted in with the facts and provided a solution of all the problems.

“Of all?“thought Lupin. “Yes… But then, why did he not kill me, last night, in the chalet? He had but to wish… and he did noi wish. One movement and I was dead. He did not make that movement. Why?”

Dolores opened her eyes, saw him and smiled, with a pale smile:

“Leave me,” she said:

He rose, with some hesitation. Should he go and see if the enemy was behind the curtain or hidden behind the dresses in a cupboard?

She repeated, gently:

“Go… I am so sleepy…”

He went away.

But, outside, he stopped behind some trees that formed a dark cluster in front of the castle. He saw a light in Dolores’ boudoir. Then the light passed into the bedroom. In a few minutes, all was darkness.

He waited. If the enemy was there, perhaps he would come out of the castle…

An hour elapsed… Two hours… Not a sound…

“There’s nothing to be done,” thought Lupin.

“Either he is burrowing in some corner of the castle… or else he has gone out by a door which I cannot see from here. Unless the whole thing is the most ridiculous supposition on my part…”

He lit a cigarette and walked back to the chalet.

As he approached it, he saw, at some distance from him, a shadow that appeared to be moving away.

He did not stir, for fear of giving the alarm.

The shadow crossed a path. By the light of the moon, he seemed to recognize the black figure of Malreich.

He rushed forward.

The shadow fled and vanished from sight.

“Come,” he said, “it shall be for tomorrow. And, this time…”

““Lupin went to Octave’s, his chauffeur’s, room, woke him and said:

“Take the motor and go to Paris. You will be there by six o’clock in the morning. See Jacques Doudeville and tell him two things: first, to give me news of the man under sentence of death; and secondly, as soon as the post-offices open, to send me a telegram which I will write down for you now…”

He worded the telegram on a scrap of paper and added:

“The moment you have done that, come back, but this way, along the wall of the park. Go now. No one must suspect your absence.”

Lupin went to his own room, pressed the spring of his lantern and began to make a minute inspection. “It’s as I thought,” he said presently. “Some one came here tonight, while I was watching beneath the window. And, if he came, I know what he came for… I was certainly right: things are getting warm… The first time, I was spared. This time, I may be sure of my little stab.”

For prudence’s sake, he took a blanket, chose a lonely spot in the park and spent the night under the stars.

Octave was back by ten o’clock in the morning:

“It’s all right, governor. The telegram has been sent.’”

“Good. And is Louis de Malreich still in prison?”

“Yes. Doudeville passed his cell at the Sante last night as the warder was coming out. They talked together. Malreich is just the same, it appears: silent as the grave. He is waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“The fatal hour of course. They are saying at, headquarters, that the execution will take place on the day after tomorrow.”

“That’s all right, that’s all right,” said Lupin. “And one thing is quite plain: he has not escaped.”

He ceased to understand or even to look for the explanation of the riddle, so clearly did he feel that the whole truth would soon be revealed to him. He had only to prepare his plan, for the enemy to fall into the trap.

“Or for me to fall into it myself,” he thought, laughing.

He felt very gay, very free from care; and Èo fight had ever looked more promising to him.

A footman came from the castle with the telegram which he had told Doudeville to send him and which the postman had just brought. He opened it and put it in his pocket.

A little before twelve o’clock, he met Pierre Leduc in one of the avenues and said, off-hand:

“I am looking for you… things are serious… You must answer me frankly. Since you have been at the castle, have you ever seen a man there, besides the two German servants whom I sent in?”

“No.”

“Think carefully. I’m not referring to a casual visitor. I mean a man who hides himself, a man whose presence you might have discovered or, less.than that, whose presence you might have suspected from some clue or even by some intuition?”

“No… Have you… ?”

“Yes. Some one is hiding here… some one is prowling about… Where? And who is it? And what is his object? I don’t know… but I shall know. I already have*a suspicion. Do you, on your side, keep your eyes open and watch. And, above all, not a word to Mrs. Kesselbach… It is no use alarming her…”

He went away.

Pierre Leduc, taken aback and upset, went back to the castle. On his way, he saw a piece of blue paper on the edge of the lawn. He picked it up. It was a telegram, not crumpled, like a’piece of paper that had been thrown away, but carefully folded: obviously lost.

It was addressed to “Beauny,” the name by which Lupin was known at Bruggen. And it contained these words:

“We know the whole truth. Revelations impossible by letter. Will take train tonight. Meet me eight o’clock tomorrow morning Bruggen station.”

“Excellent!” said Lupin, who was watching Pierre Leduc’s movements from a neighboring coppice. “Excellent! In two minutes from now, the young idiot will have shown Dolores the telegram and told her all my fears. They will talk about it all day. And ‘ the other one’ will hear, ‘the other one’ will know, because he knows everything, because he lives in Dolores’ own shadow and because Dolores is like a fascinated prey in his hands… And, tonight…”

He walked away humming to himself:

“Tonight… tonight… we shall dance… Such a waltz, my boys! The waltz of blood, to the tune of the little nickel-plated dagger!… We shall have some fun, at last!…”

He reached the chalet, called to Octave, went to his room, flung himself on his bed, and said to the chauffeur:

“Sit down in that chair, Octave, and keep awake. Your master is going to take forty winks. Watch over him, you faithful servant.”

He had a good sleep.

“Like Napoleon on the morning of Austerlitz,” he said, when he woke up.

It was dinner-time. He made a hearty meal and then, while he smoked a cigarette, inspected his weapons and renewed the charges of his two revolvers:

“Keep your powder dry and your sword sharpened, as my chum the Kaiser says. Octave!”

Octave appeared.

“Go and have your dinner at the castle, with the servants. Tell them you are going to Paris tonight, in the motor.”

“With you, governor?”

“No, alone. And, as soon as dinner is over, make a start, ostensibly.”

“But I am not to go to Paris…”

“No, remain outside the park, half a mile down the road, until I come. You will have a long wait.”

He smoked another cigarette, went for a stroll, passed in front of the castle, saw a light in Dolores’ rooms and then returned to the chalet.

There he took up a book. It was The Lives of Illustrious Men.

“There is one missing: the most illustrious of all. But the future will put that right; and I shall have my Plutarch some day or other.”

He read the life of Caesar and jotted down a few reflections in the margin.

At half-past eleven, he went to his bedroom.

Through the open window, he gazed into the immense, cool night, all astir with indistinct sounds. Memories rose to his lips, memories of fond phrases which he had read or uttered; and he repeatedly whispered Dolores’s name, with the fervor of a stripling who hardly dares confide to the silence the name of his beloved.

He left the window half open, pushed aside a table that blocked the way, and put his revolvers under his pillow. Then, peacefully, without evincing the least excitement, he got into bed, fully dressed as he was, and blew out the candle.

And Ms fear began.

It was immediate. No sooner did he feel the darkness around him than his fear began!

“Damn it all! “he cried.

He jumped out of bed, took his weapons and threw them into the passage:

“My hands, my hands alone! Nothing comes up to the grip of my hands!”

He went to bed again. Darkness and silence, once more. And, once more, his fear…

The village clock struck twelve…

Lupin thought of the foul monster who, outside, at a hundred yards, at fifty yards from where he lay, was trying the sharp point of his dagger:

“Let him come, let him come?” whispered Lupin, shuddering. “Then!the ghosts will vanish, j..”

One o’clock, in the village…

And minutes passed, endless minutes, minutes of fever and anguish… Beads of perspiration stood at the roots of his hair and trickled down his forehead; and he felt as though his whole frame were bathed in a sweat of blood. ‘…

Two o’clock…

And now, somewhere, quite close, a hardly perceptible sound stirred, a sound of leaves moving… but different from the sound of leaves moving in the night breeze…

As Lupin had foreseen, he was at once pervaded by an immense calm. All his adventurous being quivered with delight. The struggle was at hand, at last!

Another sound grated under the window, more plainly this time, but still so faint that it needed Lupin’s trained ear to distinguish it.

Minutes, terrifying minutes… The darkness was impenetrable. No light of star or moon relieved it.

And, suddenly, without hearing anything, he knew that the man was in the room.

And the man walked toward the bed. He walked as a ghost walks, without displacing the