The Hollow Needle; Further adventures of Arsène Lupin, Maurice Leblanc [feel good novels txt] 📗

l’Aiguille and, as he wished to spend the summer in France, he made me an offer for it.”

“He is still a young man—”

“Yes, with very expressive eyes, fair hair—”

“And a beard?”

“Yes, ending in two points, which fall over a collar fastened at the back, like a clergyman’s. In fact, he looks a little like an English parson.”

“It’s he,” murmured Beautrelet, “it’s he, as I have seen him: it’s his exact description.”

“What! Do you think—?”

“I think, I am sure that your tenant is none other than Arsène Lupin.”

The story amused Louis Valméras. He knew all the adventures of Arsène Lupin and the varying fortunes of his struggle with Beautrelet. He rubbed his hands:

“Ha, the Château de l’Aiguille will become famous!—I’m sure I don’t mind, for, as a matter of fact, now that my mother no longer lives in it, I have always thought that I would get rid of it at the first opportunity. After this, I shall soon find a purchaser. Only—”

“Only what?”

“I will ask you to act with the most extreme prudence and not to inform the police until you are quite sure. Can you picture the situation, supposing my tenant were not Arsène Lupin?”

Beautrelet set forth his plan. He would go alone at night; he would climb the walls; he would sleep in the park— Louis Valméras stopped him at once:

“You will not climb walls of that height so easily. If you do, you will be received by two huge sheep-dogs which belonged to my mother and which I left behind at the castle.”

“Pooh! A dose of poison—”

“Much obliged. But suppose you escaped them. What then? How would you get into the castle? The doors are massive, the windows barred. And, even then, once you were inside, who would guide you? There are eighty rooms.”

“Yes, but that room with two windows, on the second story—”

“I know it, we call it the glycine room. But how will you find it? There are three staircases and a labyrinth of passages. I can give you the clue and explain the way to you, but you would get lost just the same.”

“Come with me,” said Beautrelet, laughing.

“I can’t. I have promised to go to my mother in the South.”

Beautrelet returned to the friend with whom he was staying and began to make his preparations. But, late in the day, as he was getting ready to go, he received a visit from Valméras.

“Do you still want me?”

“Rather!”

“Well, I’m coming with you. Yes, the expedition fascinates me. I think it will be very amusing and I like being mixed up in this sort of thing.—Besides, my help will be of use to you. Look, here’s something to start with.”

He held up a big key, all covered with rust and looking very old.

“What does the key open?” asked Beautrelet.

“A little postern hidden between two buttresses and left unused since centuries ago. I did not even think of pointing it out to my tenant. It opens straight on the country, just at the verge of the wood.”

Beautrelet interrupted him quickly:

“They know all about that outlet. It was obviously by this way that the man whom I followed entered the park. Come, it’s fine game and we shall win it. But, by Jupiter, we must play our cards carefully!”

Two days later, a half-famished horse dragged a gipsy caravan into Crozant. Its driver obtained leave to stable it at the end of the village, in an old deserted cart-shed. In addition to the driver, who was none other than Valméras, there were three young men, who occupied themselves in the manufacture of wicker-work chairs: Beautrelet and two of his Janson friends.

They stayed there for three days, waiting for a propitious, moonless night and roaming singly round the outskirts of the park. Once Beautrelet saw the postern. Contrived between two buttresses placed very close together, it was almost merged, behind the screen of brambles that concealed it, in the pattern formed by the stones of the wall.

At last, on the fourth evening, the sky was covered with heavy black clouds and Valméras decided that they should go reconnoitring, at the risk of having to return again, should circumstances prove unfavorable.

All four crossed the little wood. Then Beautrelet crept through the heather, scratched his hands at the bramble-hedge and, half raising himself, slowly, with restrained movements, put the key into the lock. He turned it gently. Would the door open without an effort? Was there no bolt closing it on the other side? He pushed: the door opened, without a creak or jolt. He was in the park.

“Are you there, Beautrelet?” asked Valméras. “Wait for me. You two chaps, watch the door and keep our line of retreat open. At the least alarm, whistle.”

He took Beautrelet’s hand and they plunged into the dense shadow of the thickets. A clearer space was revealed to them when they reached the edge of the central lawn. At the same moment a ray of moonlight pierced the clouds; and they saw the castle, with its pointed turrets arranged around the tapering spire to which, no doubt, it owed its name. There was no light in the windows; not a sound.

Valméras grasped his companion’s arm:

“Keep still!”

“What is it?”

“The dogs, over there—look—”

There was a growl. Valméras gave a low whistle. Two white forms leapt forward and, in four bounds, came and crouched at their master’s feet.

“Gently—lie down—that’s it—good dogs—stay there.”

And he said to Beautrelet:

“And now let us push on. I feel more comfortable.”

“Are you sure of the way?”

“Yes. We are near the terrace.”

“And then?”

“I remember that, on the left, at a place where the river terrace rises to the level of the ground-floor windows, there is a shutter which closes badly and which can be opened from the outside.”

They found, when they came to it, that the shutter yielded to pressure. Valméras removed a pane with a diamond which he carried. He turned the window-latch. First one and then the other stepped over the balcony. They were now in the castle, at the end of a passage which divided the left wing into two.

“This room,” said Valméras, “opens at the end of a passage. Then comes an immense hall, lined with statues, and at the end of the hall a staircase which ends near the room occupied by your father.”

He took a step forward.

“Are you coming, Beautrelet?”

“Yes, yes.”

“But no, you’re not coming—What’s the matter with you?”

He seized him by the hand. It was icy cold and he perceived that the young man was cowering on the floor.

“What’s the matter with you?” he repeated.

“Nothing—it’ll pass off—”

“But what is it?”

“I’m afraid—”

“You’re afraid?”

“Yes,” Beautrelet confessed, frankly, “it’s my nerves giving way—I generally manage to control them—but, to-day, the silence—the excitement—And then, since I was stabbed by that magistrate’s clerk—But it will pass off—There, it’s passing now—”

He succeeded in rising to his feet and Valméras dragged him out of the room. They groped their way along the passage, so softly that neither could hear a sound made by the other.

A faint glimmer, however, seemed to light the hall for which they were making. Valméras put his head round the corner. It was a night-light placed at the foot of the stairs, on a little table which showed through the frail branches of a palm tree.

“Halt!” whispered Valméras.

Near the night-light, a man stood sentry, carrying a gun.

Had he seen them? Perhaps. At least, something must have alarmed him, for he brought the gun to his shoulder.

Beautrelet had fallen on his knees, against a tub containing a plant, and he remained quite still, with his heart thumping against his chest.

Meanwhile, the silence and the absence of all movement reassured the man. He lowered his weapon. But his head was still turned in the direction of the tub.

Terrible minutes passed: ten minutes, fifteen. A moonbeam had glided through a window on the staircase. And, suddenly, Beautrelet became aware that the moonbeam was shifting imperceptibly, and that, before fifteen, before ten more minutes had elapsed, it would be shining full in his face.

Great drops of perspiration fell from his forehead on his trembling hands. His anguish was such that he was on the point of getting up and running away—But, remembering that Valméras was there, he sought him with his eyes and was astounded to see him, or rather to imagine him, creeping in the dark, under cover of the statues and plants. He was already at the foot of the stairs, within a few steps of the man.

What was he going to do? To pass in spite of all? To go upstairs alone and release the prisoner? But could he pass?

Beautrelet no longer saw him and he had an impression that something was about to take place, something that seemed foreboded also by the silence, which hung heavier, more awful than before.

And, suddenly, a shadow springing upon the man, the night-light extinguished, the sound of a struggle—Beautrelet ran up. The two bodies had rolled over on the flagstones. He tried to stoop and see. But he heard a hoarse moan, a sigh; and one of the adversaries rose to his feet and seized him by the arm:

“Quick!—Come along!”

It was Valméras.

They went up two storys and came out at the entrance to a corridor, covered by a hanging.

“To the right,” whispered Valméras. “The fourth room on the left.”

They soon found the door of the room. As they expected, the captive was locked in. It took them half an hour, half an hour of stifled efforts, of muffled attempts, to force open the lock. The door yielded at last.

Beautrelet groped his way to the bed. His father was asleep.

He woke him gently:

“It’s I—Isidore—and a friend—don’t be afraid—get up—not a word.”

The father dressed himself, but, as they were leaving the room, he whispered:

“I am not alone in the castle—”

“Ah? Who else? Ganimard? Shears?”

“No—at least, I have not seen them.”

“Who then?”

“A young girl.”

“Mlle. de Saint-Véran, no doubt.”

“I don’t know—I saw her several times at a distance, in the park—and, when I lean out of my window, I can see hers. She has made signals to me.”

“Do you know which is her room?”

“Yes, in this passage, the third on the right.”

“The blue room,” murmured Valméras. “It has folding doors: they won’t give us so much trouble.”

One of the two leaves very soon gave way. Old Beautrelet undertook to tell the girl.

Ten minutes later, he left the room with her and said to his son:

“You were right—Mlle. de Saint-Véran—;”

They all four went down the stairs. When they reached the bottom, Valméras stopped and bent over the man. Then, leading them to the terrace-room:

“He is not dead,” he said. “He will live.”

“Ah!” said Beautrelet, with a sigh of relief.

“No, fortunately, the blade of my knife bent: the blow is not fatal. Besides, in any case, those rascals deserve no pity.”

Outside, they were met by the dogs, which accompanied them to the postern. Here, Beautrelet found his two friends and the little band left the park. It was three o’clock in the morning.

This first victory was not enough to satisfy Beautrelet. As soon as he had comfortably settled his father and Mlle. de Saint-Véran, he asked them about the people who lived at the castle, and, particularly, about the habits of Arsène Lupin. He thus learnt that Lupin came only every three or four days, arriving at night in his motor car and leaving again in the morning. At each of his visits, he called separately upon his two prisoners, both of whom agreed in praising his courtesy and his extreme civility. For the moment, he was not at the castle.

Apart from him, they had seen no one except an old woman, who ruled over the kitchen and the house, and two men, who kept watch over them by turns and never spoke to them: subordinates, obviously, to judge by their manners and appearance.

“Two accomplices, for all that,” said Beautrelet, in conclusion, “or rather three, with the old woman. It is a bag worth having. And, if we lose no time—”

He jumped on his bicycle, rode to Éguzon, woke up the gendarmerie, set them all going, made them sound the boot and saddle and returned to Crozant at eight o’clock, accompanied by the sergeant and eight gendarmes. Two of the men were posted beside the gipsy-van. Two others took up their positions outside the postern-door. The last four, commanded by their chief and accompanied by Beautrelet and Valméras, marched to the main entrance of the castle.

Too late. The door was wide open. A peasant told them that he had seen a motor car drive out of the castle an hour before.

Indeed, the search led to no result. In all probability, the gang had installed themselves there picnic fashion. A few clothes were found, a little linen, some household implements;