The Crystal Stopper

Clarisse wrung her hands and shivered from head to foot. What suffering can compare with that of a mother trembling for the head of her son? Stirred with pity, Lupin said:

“We shall save him. Of that there is not the shadow of a doubt. But, it is necessary that I should know all the details. Finish your story, please. How did you know, on the same night, what had happened at Enghien?”

She mastered herself and, with a face wrung with fevered anguish, replied:

“Through two of your accomplices, or rather two accomplices of Vaucheray, to whom they were wholly devoted and who had chosen them to row the boats.”

“The two men outside: the Growler and the Masher?”

“Yes. On your return from the villa, when you landed after being pursued on the lake by the commissary of police, you said a few words to them, by way of explanation, as you went to your car. Mad with fright, they rushed to my place, where they had been before, and told me the hideous news. Gilbert was in prison! Oh, what an awful night! What was I to do? Look for you? Certainly; and implore your assistance. But where was I to find you?… It was then that the two whom you call the Growler and the Masher, driven into a corner by circumstances, decided to tell me of the part played by Vaucheray, his ambitions, his plan, which had long been ripening…”

“To get rid of me, I suppose?” said Lupin, with a grin.

“Yes. As Gilbert possessed your complete confidence, Vaucheray watched him and, in this way, got to know all the places which you live at. A few days more and, owning the crystal stopper, holding the list of the Twenty-seven, inheriting all Daubrecq’s power, he would have delivered you to the police, without compromising a single member of your gang, which he looked upon as thenceforth his.”

“The ass!” muttered Lupin. “A muddler like that!” And he added, “So the panels of the doors…”

“Were cut out by his instructions, in anticipation of the contest on which he was embarking against you and against Daubrecq, at whose house he did the same thing. He had under his orders a sort of acrobat, an extraordinarily thin dwarf, who was able to wriggle through those apertures and who thus detected all your correspondence and all your secrets. That is what his two friends revealed to me. I at once conceived the idea of saving my elder son by making use of his brother, my little Jacques, who is himself so slight and so intelligent, so plucky, as you have seen. We set out that night. Acting on the information of my companions, I went to Gilbert’s rooms and found the keys of your flat in the Rue Matignon, where it appeared that you were to sleep. Unfortunately, I changed my mind on the way and thought much less of asking for your help than of recovering the crystal stopper, which, if it had been discovered at Enghien, must obviously be at your flat. I was right in my calculations. In a few minutes, my little Jacques, who had slipped into your bedroom, brought it to me. I went away quivering with hope. Mistress in my turn of the talisman, keeping it to myself, without telling Prasville, I had absolute power over Daubrecq. I could make him do all that I wanted; he would become the slave of my will and, instructed by me, would take every step in Gilbert’s favour and obtain that he should be given the means of escape or else that he should not be sentenced. It meant my boy’s safety.”

“Well?”

Clarisse rose from her seat, with a passionate movement of her whole being, leant over Lupin and said, in a hollow voice:

“There was nothing in that piece of crystal, nothing, do you understand? No paper, no hiding-place! The whole expedition to Enghien was futile! The murder of Leonard was useless! The arrest of my son was useless! All my efforts were useless!”

“But why? Why?”

“Why? Because what you stole from Daubrecq was not the stopper made by his instructions, but the stopper which was sent to John Howard, the Stourbridge glassworker, to serve as a model.”

If Lupin had not been in the presence of so deep a grief, he could not have refrained from one of those satirical outbursts with which the mischievous tricks of fate are wont to inspire him. As it was, he muttered between his teeth:

“How stupid! And still more stupid as Daubrecq had been given the warning.”

“No,” she said. “I went to Enghien on the same day. In all that business Daubrecq saw and sees nothing but an ordinary burglary, an annexation of his treasures. The fact that you took part in it put him off the scent.”

“Still, the disappearance of the stopper…”

“To begin with, the thing can have had but a secondary importance for him, as it is only the model.”

“How do you know?”

“There is a scratch at the bottom of the stem; and I have made inquiries in England since.”

“Very well; but why did the key of the cupboard from which it was stolen never leave the man-servant’s possession? And why, in the second place, was it found afterward in the drawer of a table in Daubrecq’s house in Paris?”

“Of course, Daubrecq takes care of it and clings to it in the way in which one clings to the model of any valuable thing. And that is why I replaced the stopper in the cupboard before its absence was noticed. And that also is why, on the second occasion, I made my little Jacques take the stopper from your overcoat-pocket and told the portress to put it back in the drawer.”

“Then he suspects nothing?”

“Nothing. He knows that the list is being looked for, but he does not know that Prasville and I are aware of the thing in which he hides it.”

Lupin had risen from his seat and was walking up and down the room, thinking. Then he stood still beside Clarisse and asked:

“When all is said, since the Enghien incident, you have not advanced a single step?”

“Not one. I have acted from day to day, led by those two men or leading them, without any definite plan.”

“Or, at least,” he said, “without any other plan than that of getting the list of the Twenty-seven from Daubrecq.”

“Yes, but how? Besides, your tactics made things more difficult for me. It did not take us long to recognize your old servant Victoire in Daubrecq’s new cook and to discover, from what the portress told us, that Victoire was putting you up in her room; and I was afraid of your schemes.”

“It was you, was it not, who wrote to me to retire from the contest?”

“Yes.”

“You also asked me not to go to the theatre on the Vaudeville night?”

“Yes, the portress caught Victoire listening to Daubrecq’s conversation with me on the telephone; and the Masher, who was watching the house, saw you go out. I suspected, therefore, that you would follow Daubrecq that evening.”

“And the woman who came here, late one afternoon…”

“Was myself. I felt disheartened and wanted to see you.”

“And you intercepted Gilbert’s letter?”

“Yes, I recognized his writing on the envelope.”

“But your little Jacques was not with you?”

“No, he was outside, in a motor-car, with the Masher, who lifted him up to me through the drawing-room window; and he slipped into your bedroom through the opening in the panel.”

“What was in the letter?”

“As ill-luck would have it, reproaches. Gilbert accused you of forsaking him, of taking over the business on your own account. In short, it confirmed me in my distrust; and I ran away.”

Lupin shrugged his shoulders with irritation:

“What a shocking waste of time! And what a fatality that we were not able to come to an understanding earlier! You and I have been playing at hide-and-seek, laying absurd traps for each other, while the days were passing, precious days beyond repair.”

“You see, you see,” she said, shivering, “you too are afraid of the future!”

“No, I am not afraid,” cried Lupin. “But I am thinking of all the useful work that we could have done by this time, if we had united our efforts. I am thinking of all the mistakes and all the acts of imprudence which we should have been saved, if we had been working together. I am thinking that your attempt to-night to search the clothes which Daubrecq was wearing was as vain as the others and that, at this moment, thanks to our foolish duel, thanks to the din which we raised in his house, Daubrecq is warned and will be more on his guard than ever.”

Clarisse Mergy shook her head:

“No, no, I don’t think that; the noise will not have roused him, for we postponed the attempt for twenty-four hours so that the portress might put a narcotic in his wine.” And she added, slowly, “And then, you see, nothing can make Daubrecq be more on his guard than he is already. His life is nothing but one mass of precautions against danger. He leaves nothing to chance… Besides, has he not all the trumps in his hand?”

Lupin went up to her and asked:

“What do you mean to convey? According to you, is there nothing to hope for on that side? Is there not a single means of attaining our end?”

“Yes,” she murmured, “there is one, one only…”

He noticed her pallor before she had time to hide her face between her hands again. And again a feverish shiver shook her frame.

He seemed to understand the reason of her dismay; and, bending toward her, touched by her grief:

“Please,” he said, “please answer me openly and frankly. It’s for Gilbert’s sake, is it not? Though the police, fortunately, have not been able to solve the riddle of his past, though the real name of Vaucheray’s accomplice has not leaked out, there is one man, at least, who knows it: isn’t that so? Daubrecq has recognized your son Antoine, through the alias of Gilbert, has he not?”

“Yes, yes…”

“And he promises to save him, doesn’t he? He offers you his freedom, his release, his escape, his life: that was what he offered you, was it not, on the night in his study, when you tried to stab him?”

“Yes… yes… that was it…”

“And he makes one condition, does he not? An abominable condition, such as would suggest itself to a wretch like that? I am right, am I not?”

Clarisse did not reply. She seemed exhausted by her protracted struggle with a man who was gaining ground daily and against whom it was impossible for her to fight. Lupin saw in her the prey conquered in advance, delivered to the victor’s whim. Clarisse Mergy, the loving wife of that Mergy whom Daubrecq had really murdered, the terrified mother of that Gilbert whom Daubrecq had led astray, Clarisse Mergy, to save her son from the scaffold, must, come what may and however ignominious the position, yield to Daubrecq’s wishes. She would be the mistress, the wife, the obedient slave of Daubrecq, of that monster with the appearance and the ways of a wild beast, that unspeakable person of whom Lupin could not think without revulsion and disgust.

Sitting down beside her, gently, with gestures of pity, he made her lift her head and, with his eyes on hers, said:

“Listen to me. I swear that I will save your son: I swear it… Your son shall not die, do you understand?… There is not a power on earth that can allow your son’s head to be touched as long as I am alive.”

“I believe you… I trust your word.”

“Do. It is the word of a man who does not know defeat. I shall succeed. Only, I entreat you to make me an irrevocable promise.”

“What is that?”

“You must not see Daubrecq again.”

“I swear it.”

“You must put from your mind any idea, any fear, however obscure, of an understanding between yourself and him… of any sort of bargain…”

“I swear it.”

She looked at him with an expression of absolute security and reliance; and he, under her gaze, felt the joy of devotion and an ardent longing to restore that woman’s happiness, or, at least, to give her the peace and oblivion that heal the worst wounds:

“Come,” he said, in a cheerful tone, rising from his chair, “all will yet be well. We have two months, three months before us. It is more than I need… on condition, of course, that I am unhampered in my movements. And, for that, you will have to withdraw from the contest, you know.”

“How do you mean?”

“Yes, you must disappear for a time; go and live in the country. Have you no pity for your little Jacques? This sort of thing would end by shattering the poor little man’s nerves… And he has certainly earned his rest, haven’t you, Hercules?”

The next day Clarisse Mergy, who was nearly breaking down under the strain of events and who herself needed repose, lest she should fall seriously ill, went, with her son, to board with a friend who had a house on the skirt of the Forest of Saint-Germain. She felt very weak, her brain was haunted by visions and her nerves were upset by troubles which the least excitement aggravated. She lived there for some days in a state of physical and mental inertia, thinking of nothing and forbidden to see the papers.

One afternoon, while Lupin, changing his tactics, was working out a scheme for kidnapping and confining Daubrecq; while the Growler and the Masher, whom he had promised to forgive if he succeeded, were watching the enemy’s movements; while the newspapers were announcing the forthcoming trial for murder of Arsene Lupin’s two accomplices, one afternoon, at four o’clock, the telephone-bell rang suddenly in the flat in the Rue Chateaubriand.

Lupin took down the receiver:

“Hullo!”

A woman’s voice, a breathless voice, said:

“M. Michel Beaumont?”

“You are speaking to him, madame. To whom have I the honour…”

“Quick, monsieur, come at once; Madame Mergy has taken poison.”

Lupin did not wait to hear details. He rushed out, sprang into his motor-car and drove to Saint-Germain.

Clarisse’s friend was waiting for him at the door of the bedroom.

“Dead?” he asked.

“No,” she replied, “she did not take sufficient. The doctor has just gone. He says she will get over it.”

“And why did she make the attempt?”

“Her son Jacques has disappeared.”

“Carried off?”

“Yes, he was playing just inside the forest. A motor-car was seen pulling up. Then there were screams. Clarisse tried to run, but her strength failed and she fell to the ground, moaning, ‘It’s he… it’s that man… all is lost!’ She looked like a madwoman.”

“Suddenly, she put a little bottle to her lips and swallowed the contents.”

“What happened next?”

“My husband and I carried her to her room. She was in great pain.”

“How did you know my address, my name?”

“From herself, while the doctor was attending to her. Then I telephoned to you.”

“Has any one else been told?”

“No, nobody. I know that Clarisse has had terrible things to bear… and that she prefers not to be talked about.”

“Can I see her?”

“She is asleep just now. And the doctor has forbidden all excitement.”

“Is the doctor anxious about her?”

“He is afraid of a fit of fever, any nervous strain, an attack of some kind which might cause her to make a fresh attempt on her life. And that would be…”

“What is needed to avoid it?”

“A week or a fortnight of absolute quiet, which is impossible as long as her little Jacques…”

Lupin interrupted her:

“You think that, if she got her son back…”

“Oh, certainly, there would be nothing more to fear!”

“You’re sure? You’re sure?… Yes, of course you are!… Well, when Madame Mergy wakes, tell her from me that I will bring her back her son this evening, before midnight. This evening, before midnight: it’s a solemn promise.”

With these words, Lupin hurried out of the house and, stepping into his car, shouted to the driver:

“Go to Paris, Square Lamartine, Daubrecq the deputy’s!”

CHAPTER VI. THE DEATH-SENTENCE

Lupin’s motor-car was not only an office, a writing-room furnished with books, stationery, pens and ink, but also a regular actor’s dressing-room, containing a complete make-up box, a trunk filled with every variety of wearing-apparel, another crammed with “properties”—umbrellas, walking-sticks, scarves, eye-glasses and so on—in short, a complete set of paraphernalia which enabled him to alter his appearance from top to toe in the course of a drive.

The man who rang at Daubrecq the deputy’s gate, at six o-clock that evening, was a stout, elderly gentleman, in a black frock-coat, a bowler hat, spectacles and whiskers.

The portress took him to the front-door of the house and rang the bell. Victoire appeared.

Lupin asked:

“Can M. Daubrecq see Dr. Vernes?”

“M. Daubrecq is in his bedroom; and it is rather late…”

“Give him my card, please.”

He wrote the words, “From Mme. Mergy,” in the margin and added:

“There, he is sure to see me.”

“But…” Victoire began.

“Oh, drop your buts, old dear, do as I say, and don’t make such a fuss about it!”

She was utterly taken aback and stammered:

“You!… is it you?”

“No, it’s Louis XIV!” And, pushing her into a corner of the hall, “Listen… The moment I’m done with him, go up to your room, put your things together anyhow and clear out.”

“What!”

“Do as I tell you. You’ll find my car waiting down the avenue. Come, stir your stumps! Announce me. I’ll wait in the study.”

“But it’s dark in there.”

“Turn on the light.”

She switched on the electric light and left Lupin alone.

“It’s here,” he reflected, as he took a seat, “it’s here that the crystal stopper lives… Unless Daubrecq always keeps it by him… But no, when people have a good hiding-place, they make use of it. And this is a capital one; for none of us… so far…”

Concentrating all his attention, he examined the objects in the room; and he remembered the note which Daubrecq wrote to Prasville:

“Within reach of your hand, my dear Prasville!…  You touched it!  A little more and the trick was done…”

Nothing seemed to have moved since that day. The same things were lying about on the desk: books, account-books, a bottle of ink, a stamp-box, pipes, tobacco, things that had been searched and probed over and over again.

“The bounder!” thought Lupin. “He’s organized his business jolly cleverly. It’s all dove-tailed like a well-made play.”

In his heart of hearts, though he knew exactly what he had come to do and how he meant to act, Lupin was thoroughly aware of the danger and uncertainty attending his visit to so powerful an adversary. It was quite within the bounds of possibility that Daubrecq, armed as he was, would remain master of the field and that the conversation would take an absolutely different turn from that which Lupin anticipated.

And this prospect angered him somewhat.

He drew himself up, as he heard a sound of footsteps approaching.

Daubrecq entered.

He entered without a word, made a sign to Lupin, who had risen from his chair, to resume his seat and himself sat down at the writing-desk. Glancing at the card which he held in his hand:

“Dr. Vernes?”

“Yes, monsieur le depute, Dr. Vernes, of Saint-Germain.”

“And I see that you come from Mme. Mergy. A patient of yours?”

“A recent patient. I did not know her until I was called in to see her, the other day, in particularly tragic circumstances.”

“Is she ill?”

“Mme. Mergy has taken poison.”

“What!”

Daubrecq gave a start and he continued, without concealing his distress:

“What’s that you say? Poison! Is she dead?”

“No, the dose was not large enough. If no complications ensue, I consider that Mme. Mergy’s life is saved.”

Daubrecq said nothing and sat silent, with his head turned to Lupin.

“Is he looking at me? Are his eyes open or shut?” Lupin asked himself.

It worried Lupin terribly not to see his adversary’s eyes, those eyes hidden by the double obstacle of spectacles and black glasses: weak, bloodshot eyes, Mme. Mergy had told him. How could he follow the secret train of the man’s thought without seeing the expression of his face? It was almost like fighting an enemy who wielded an invisible sword.

Presently, Daubrecq spoke:

“So Mme. Mergy’s life is saved… And she has sent you to me… I don’t quite understand… I hardly know the lady.”

“Now for the ticklish moment,” thought Lupin. “Have at him!”

And, in a genial, good-natured and rather shy tone, he said:

“No, monsieur le depute, there are cases in which a doctor’s duty becomes very complex… very puzzling… And you may think that, in taking this step… However, to cut a long story short, while I was attending Mme. Mergy, she made a second attempt to poison herself… Yes; the bottle, unfortunately, had been left within her reach. I snatched it from her. We had a struggle. And, railing in her fever, she said to me, in broken words, ‘He’s the man… He’s the man… Daubrecq the deputy… Make him give me back my son. Tell him to… or else I would rather die… Yes, now, to-night… I would rather die.’ That’s what she said, monsieur le depute… So I thought that I ought to let you know. It is quite certain that, in the lady’s highly nervous state of mind… Of course, I don’t know the exact meaning of her words… I asked no questions of anybody… obeyed a spontaneous impulse and came straight to you.”

Daubrecq reflected for a little while and said:

“It amounts to this, doctor, that you have come to ask me if I know the whereabouts of this child whom I presume to have disappeared. Is that it?”

“Yes.”

“And, if I did happen to know, you would take him back to his mother?”

There was a longer pause. Lupin asked himself:

“Can he by chance have swallowed the story? Is the threat of that death enough? Oh, nonsense it’s out of the question!… And yet… and yet… he seems to be hesitating.”

“Will you excuse me?” asked Daubrecq, drawing the telephone, on his writing-desk, toward him. “I have an urgent message.”

“Certainly, monsieur le depute.”

Daubrecq called out:

“Hullo!… 822.19, please, 822.19.”

Having repeated the number, he sat without moving.

Lupin smiled:

“The headquarters of police, isn’t it? The secretary-general’s office…”

“Yes, doctor… How do you know?”

“Oh, as a divisional surgeon, I sometimes have to ring them up.”

And, within himself, Lupin asked:

“What the devil does all this mean? The secretary-general is Prasville… Then, what?…”

Daubrecq put both receivers to his ears and said:

“Are you 822.19? I want to speak to M. Prasville, the secretary-general … Do you say he’s not there?… Yes, yes, he is: he’s always in his office at this time… Tell him it’s M. Daubrecq… M. Daubrecq the deputy… a most important communication.”

“Perhaps I’m in the way?” Lupin suggested.

“Not at all, doctor, not at all,” said Daubrecq. “Besides, what I have to say has a certain bearing on your errand.” And, into the telephone, “Hullo! M. Prasville?… Ah, it’s you, Prasville, old cock!… Why, you seem quite staggered! Yes, you’re right, it’s an age since you and I met. But, after all, we’ve never been far away in thought… And I’ve had plenty of visits from you and your henchmen… In my absence, it’s true. Hullo!… What?… Oh, you’re in a hurry? I beg your pardon!… So am I, for that matter… Well, to come to the point, there’s a little service I want to do you… Wait, can’t you, you brute?… You won’t regret it… It concerns your renown… Hullo!… Are you listening?… Well, take half-a-dozen men with you… plain-clothes detectives, by preference: you’ll find them at the night-office… Jump into a taxi, two taxis, and come along here as fast as you can… I’ve got a rare quarry for you, old chap. One of the upper ten… a lord, a marquis Napoleon himself… in a word, Arsene Lupin!”

Lupin sprang to his feet. He was prepared for everything but this. Yet something within him stronger than astonishment, an impulse of his whole nature, made him say, with a laugh:

“Oh, well done, well done!”

Daubrecq bowed his head, by way of thanks, and muttered:

“I haven’t quite finished… A little patience, if you don’t mind.” And he continued, “Hullo! Prasville!… No, no, old chap, I’m not humbugging… You’ll find Lupin here, with me, in my study… Lupin, who’s worrying me like the rest of you… Oh, one more or less makes no difference to me! But, all the same, this one’s a bit too pushing. And I am appealing to your sense of kindness. Rid me of the fellow, do… Half-a-dozen of your satellites and the two who are pacing up and down outside my house will be enough… Oh, while you’re about it, go up to the third floor and rope in my cook as well… She’s the famous Victoire: you know, Master Lupin’s old nurse… And, look here, one more tip, to show you how I love you: send a squad of men to the Rue Chateaubriand, at the corner of the Rue Balzac… That’s where our national hero lives, under the name of Michel Beaumont… Do you twig, old cockalorum? And now to business. Hustle!”