Arsène Lupin, Maurice Leblanc [accelerated reader books .txt] 📗

proceed to question Mademoiselle Kritchnoff.”

“Mademoiselle Kritchnoff is quite above suspicion,” said the Duke quickly.

“Oh, yes, quite,” said Germaine.

“How long has Mademoiselle Kritchnoff been in your service, Mademoiselle?” said Guerchard.

“Let me think,” said Germaine, knitting her brow.

“Can’t you remember?” said M. Formery.

“Just about three years,” said Germaine.

“That’s exactly the time at which the thefts began,” said M. Formery.

“Yes,” said Germaine, reluctantly.

“Ask Mademoiselle Kritchnoff to come here, inspector,” said M. Formery.

“Yes, sir,” said the inspector.

“I’ll go and fetch her—I know where to find her,” said the Duke quickly, moving toward the door.

“Please, please, your Grace,” protested Guerchard. “The inspector will fetch her.”

The Duke turned sharply and looked at him: “I beg your pardon, but do you—” he said.

“Please don’t be annoyed, your Grace,” Guerchard interrupted. “But M. Formery agrees with me—it would be quite irregular.”

“Yes, yes, your Grace,” said M. Formery. “We have our method of procedure. It is best to adhere to it—much the best. It is the result of years of experience of the best way of getting the truth.”

“Just as you please,” said the Duke, shrugging his shoulders.

The inspector came into the room: “Mademoiselle Kritchnoff will be here in a moment. She was just going out.”

“She was going out?” said M. Formery. “You don’t mean to say you’re letting members of the household go out?”

“No, sir,” said the inspector. “I mean that she was just asking if she might go out.”

M. Formery beckoned the inspector to him, and said to him in a voice too low for the others to hear:

“Just slip up to her room and search her trunks.”

“There is no need to take the trouble,” said Guerchard, in the same low voice, but with sufficient emphasis.

“No, of course not. There’s no need to take the trouble,” M. Formery repeated after him.

The door opened, and Sonia came in. She was still wearing her travelling costume, and she carried her cloak on her arm. She stood looking round her with an air of some surprise; perhaps there was even a touch of fear in it. The long journey of the night before did not seem to have dimmed at all her delicate beauty. The Duke’s eyes rested on her in an inquiring, wondering, even searching gaze. She looked at him, and her own eyes fell.

“Will you come a little nearer, Mademoiselle?” said M. Formery. “There are one or two questions—”

“Will you allow me?” said Guerchard, in a tone of such deference that it left M. Formery no grounds for refusal.

M. Formery flushed and ground his teeth. “Have it your own way!” he said ungraciously.

“Mademoiselle Kritchnoff,” said Guerchard, in a tone of the most good-natured courtesy, “there is a matter on which M. Formery needs some information. The pendant which the Duke of Charmerace gave Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin yesterday has been stolen.”

“Stolen? Are you sure?” said Sonia in a tone of mingled surprise and anxiety.

“Quite sure,” said Guerchard. “We have exactly determined the conditions under which the theft was committed. But we have every reason to believe that the culprit, to avoid detection, has hidden the pendant in the travelling-bag or trunk of somebody else in order to—”

“My bag is upstairs in my bedroom, sir,” Sonia interrupted quickly. “Here is the key of it.”

In order to free her hands to take the key from her wrist-bag, she set her cloak on the back of a couch. It slipped off it, and fell to the ground at the feet of the Duke, who had not returned to his place beside Germaine. While she was groping in her bag for the key, and all eyes were on her, the Duke, who had watched her with a curious intentness ever since her entry into the room, stooped quietly down and picked up the cloak. His hand slipped into the pocket of it; his fingers touched a hard object wrapped in tissue-paper. They closed round it, drew it from the pocket, and, sheltered by the cloak, transferred it to his own. He set the cloak on the back of the sofa, and very softly moved back to his place by Germaine’s side. No one in the room observed the movement, not even Guerchard: he was watching Sonia too intently.

Sonia found the key, and held it out to Guerchard.

He shook his head and said: “There is no reason to search your bag—none whatever. Have you any other luggage?”

She shrank back a little from his piercing eyes, almost as if their gaze scared her.

“Yes, my trunk ... it’s upstairs in my bedroom too ... open.”

She spoke in a faltering voice, and her troubled eyes could not meet those of the detective.

“You were going out, I think,” said Guerchard gently.

“I was asking leave to go out. There is some shopping that must be done,” said Sonia.

“You do not see any reason why Mademoiselle Kritchnoff should not go out, M. Formery, do you?” said Guerchard.

“Oh, no, none whatever; of course she can go out,” said M. Formery.

Sonia turned round to go.

“One moment,” said Guerchard, coming forward. “You’ve only got that wrist-bag with you?”

“Yes,” said Sonia. “I have my money and my handkerchief in it.” And she held it out to him.

Guerchard’s keen eyes darted into it; and he muttered, “No point in looking in that. I don’t suppose any one would have had the audacity—” and he stopped.

Sonia made a couple of steps toward the door, turned, hesitated, came back to the couch, and picked up her cloak.

There was a sudden gleam in Guerchard’s eyes—a gleam of understanding, expectation, and triumph. He stepped forward, and holding out his hands, said: “Allow me.”

“No, thank you,” said Sonia. “I’m not going to put it on.”

“No ... but it’s possible ... some one may have ... have you felt in the pockets of it? That one, now? It seems as if that one—”

He pointed to the pocket which had held the packet.

Sonia started back with an air of utter dismay; her eyes glanced wildly round the room as if seeking an avenue of escape; her fingers closed convulsively on the pocket.

“But this is abominable!” she cried. “You look as if—”

“I beg you, mademoiselle,” interrupted Guerchard. “We are sometimes obliged—”

“Really, Mademoiselle Sonia,” broke in the Duke, in a singularly clear and piercing tone, “I cannot see why you should object to this mere formality.”

“Oh, but—but—” gasped Sonia, raising her terror-stricken eyes to his.

The Duke seemed to hold them with his own; and he said in the same clear, piercing voice, “There isn’t the slightest reason for you to be frightened.”

Sonia let go of the cloak, and Guerchard, his face all alight with triumph, plunged his hand into the pocket. He drew it out empty, and stared at it, while his face fell to an utter, amazed blankness.

“Nothing? nothing?” he muttered under his breath. And he stared at his empty hand as if he could not believe his eyes.

By a violent effort he forced an apologetic smile on his face, and said to Sonia: “A thousand apologies, mademoiselle.”

He handed the cloak to her. Sonia took it and turned to go. She took a step towards the door, and tottered.

The Duke sprang forward and caught her as she was falling.

“Do you feel faint?” he said in an anxious voice.

“Thank you, you just saved me in time,” muttered Sonia.

“I’m really very sorry,” said Guerchard.

“Thank you, it was nothing. I’m all right now,” said Sonia, releasing herself from the Duke’s supporting arm.

She drew herself up, and walked quietly out of the room.

Guerchard went back to M. Formery at the writing-table.

“You made a clumsy mistake there, Guerchard,” said M. Formery, with a touch of gratified malice in his tone.

Guerchard took no notice of it: “I want you to give orders that nobody leaves the house without my permission,” he said, in a low voice.

“No one except Mademoiselle Kritchnoff, I suppose,” said M. Formery, smiling.

“She less than any one,” said Guerchard quickly.

“I don’t understand what you’re driving at a bit,” said M. Formery. “Unless you suppose that Mademoiselle Kritchnoff is Lupin in disguise.”

Guerchard laughed softly: “You will have your joke, M. Formery,” he said.

“Well, well, I’ll give the order,” said M. Formery, somewhat mollified by the tribute to his humour.

He called the inspector to him and whispered a word in his ear. Then he rose and said: “I think, gentlemen, we ought to go and examine the bedrooms, and, above all, make sure that the safe in M. Gournay-Martin’s bedroom has not been tampered with.”

“I was wondering how much longer we were going to waste time here talking about that stupid pendant,” grumbled the millionaire; and he rose and led the way.

“There may also be some jewel-cases in the bedrooms,” said M. Formery. “There are all the wedding presents. They were in charge of Victoire.” said Germaine quickly. “It would be dreadful if they had been stolen. Some of them are from the first families in France.”

“They would replace them ... those paper-knives,” said the Duke, smiling.

Germaine and her father led the way. M. Formery, Guerchard, and the inspector followed them. At the door the Duke paused, stopped, closed it on them softly. He came back to the window, put his hand in his pocket, and drew out the packet wrapped in tissue-paper.

He unfolded the paper with slow, reluctant fingers, and revealed the pendant.