The Teeth of the Tiger, Maurice Leblanc [ebook audio reader TXT] 📗

He turned to the left. On this side, between the extreme end of the laurels and the first fallen rocks, there was a little brick path which was more likely the top of a buried wall. The cripple followed this path, by which the enemy might have reached the shrub on which the jacket hung without leaving any traces.

The last branches of the laurels were in his way, and he pushed them aside. There was a tangled mass of bushes. To avoid this, he skirted the foot of the mound, after which he took a few more steps, going round a huge rock. And then, suddenly, he started back and almost lost his balance, while his crutch fell to the ground and his revolver slipped from his hand.

What he had seen, what he saw, was certainly the most terrifying sight that he could possibly have beheld. Opposite him, at ten paces distance, with his hands in his pockets, his feet crossed, and one shoulder resting lightly against the rocky wall, stood not a man: it was not a man, and could not be a man, for this man, as the cripple knew, was dead, had died the death from which there is no recovery. It was therefore a ghost; and this apparition from the tomb raised the cripple's terror to its highest pitch.

He shivered, seized with a fresh attack of fever and weakness. His dilated pupils stared at the extraordinary phenomenon. His whole being, filled with demoniacal superstition and dread, crumpled up under the vision to which each second lent an added horror.

Incapable of flight, incapable of defence, he dropped upon his knees. And he could not take his eyes from that dead man, whom hardly an hour before he had buried in the depths of a well, under a shroud of iron and granite.

Arsène Lupin's ghost!

A man you take aim at, you fire at, you kill. But a ghost! A thing which no longer exists and which nevertheless disposes of all the supernatural powers! What was the use of struggling against the infernal machinations of that which is no more? What was the use of picking up the fallen revolver and levelling it at the intangible spirit of Arsène Lupin?

And he saw an incomprehensible thing occur: the ghost took its hands out of its pockets. One of them held a cigarette-case; and the cripple recognized the same gun-metal case for which he had hunted in vain. There was therefore not a doubt left that the creature who had ransacked the jacket was the very same who now opened the case, picked out a cigarette and struck a match taken from a box which also belonged to the cripple!

O miracle! A real flame came from the match! O incomparable marvel! Clouds of smoke rose from the cigarette, real smoke, of which the cripple at once knew the particular smell!

He hid his head in his hands. He refused to see more. Whether ghost or optical illusion, an emanation from another world, or an image born of his remorse and proceeding from himself, it should torture his eyes no longer.

But he heard the sound of a step approaching him, growing more and more distinct as it came closer! He felt a strange presence moving near him! An arm was stretched out! A hand fell on his shoulder! That hand clutched his flesh with an irresistible grip! And he heard words spoken by a voice which, beyond mistake, was the human and living voice of Arsène Lupin!

"Why, my dear sir, what a state we're getting ourselves into! Of course, I understand that my sudden return seems an unusual and even an inconvenient proceeding, but still it does not do to be so uncontrollably impressed. Men have seen much more extraordinary things than that, such as Joshua staying the sun, and more sensational disasters, such as the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

"The wise man reduces events to their proper proportions and judges them, not by their action upon his own destiny, but by the way in which they influence the fortunes of the world. Now confess that your little mishap is purely individual and does not affect the equilibrium of the solar system. You know what Marcus Aurelius says, on page 84, of Charpentier's edition—"

The cripple had plucked up courage to raise his head; and the real state of things now became so obviously apparent that he could no longer get away from the undeniable fact: Arsène Lupin was not dead! Arsène Lupin whom he had hurled into the bowels of the earth and crushed as surely as an insect is crushed with a hammer; Arsène Lupin was not dead!

How to explain so astounding a mystery the cripple did not even stop to wonder. One thing alone mattered: Arsène Lupin was not dead. Arsène Lupin looked and spoke as a living man does. Arsène Lupin was not dead. He breathed, he smiled, he talked, he lived!

And it was so certainly life that the scoundrel saw before him that, obeying a sudden impulse of his nature and of his hatred for life, he flattened himself to his full length, reached his revolver, seized it, and fired.

He fired; but it was too late. Don Luis had caused the weapon to swerve with a kick of his boot. Another kick sent it flying out of the cripple's hand.

The villain ground his teeth with fury and at once began hurriedly to fumble in his pockets.

"Is this what you're looking for, sir?" asked Don Luis, holding up a hypodermic syringe filled with a yellow fluid. "Excuse me, but I was afraid lest you should prick yourself by mistake. That would have been a fatal prick, would it not? And I should never have forgiven myself."

The cripple was disarmed. He hesitated for a moment, surprised that the enemy did not attack him more violently, and sought to profit by the delay. His small, blinking eyes wandered around him, looking for something to throw. But an idea seemed to strike him and to restore his confidence little by little; and, in a new and really unexpected fit of delight, he indulged in one of his loudest chuckles:

"And what about Florence?" he shouted. "Don't forget Florence! For I've got you there! I can miss you with my revolver and you can steal my poison; but I have another means of hitting you, right in the heart. You can't live without Florence, can you? Florence's death means your own sentence, doesn't it? If Florence is dead, you'll put the rope round your own neck, won't you, won't you, won't you?"

"Yes. If Florence were to die, I could not survive her!"

"She is dead!" cried the scoundrel, with a renewed burst of merriment, hopping about on his knees. "She's dead, quite, quite dead! What am I saying? She's more than dead! A dead person retains the appearance of a live one for a time; but this is much better: there's no corpse here, Lupin; just a mess of flesh and bone!

"The whole scaffolding of rocks has come down on top of her! You can picture it, eh? What a sight! Come, quick, it's your turn to kick the bucket. Would you like a length of rope? Ha, ha, ha! It's enough to make one die with laughing. Didn't I say that you'd meet at the gates of hell? Quick, your sweetheart's waiting for you. Do you hesitate? Where's your old French politeness? You can't keep a lady waiting, you know. Hurry up, Lupin! Florence is dead!"

He said this with real enjoyment, as though the mere word of death appeared to him delicious.

Don Luis had not moved a muscle. He simply nodded his head and said:

"What a pity!"

The cripple seemed petrified. All his joyous contortions, all his triumphal pantomime, stopped short. He blurted out:

"Eh? What did you say?"

"I say," declared Don Luis, preserving his calm and courteous demeanour and refraining from echoing the cripple's familiarity, "I say, my dear sir, that you have done very wrong. I never met a finer nature nor one more worthy of esteem than that of Mlle. Levasseur. The incomparable beauty of her face and figure, her youth, her charm, all these deserved a better treatment. It would indeed be a matter for regret if such a masterpiece of womankind had ceased to be."

The cripple remained astounded. Don Luis's serene manner dismayed him. He said, in a blank voice:

"I tell you, she has ceased to be. Haven't you seen the grotto? Florence no longer exists!"

"I refuse to believe it," said Don Luis quietly. "If that were so, everything would look different. The sky would be clouded; the birds would not be singing; and nature would wear her mourning garb. But the birds are singing, the sky is blue, everything is as it should be: the honest man is alive; and the rascal is crawling at his feet. How could Florence be dead?"

A long silence followed upon these words. The two enemies, at three paces distance, looked into each other's eyes: Don Luis still as cool as ever, the cripple a prey to the maddest anguish. The monster understood. Obscure as the truth was, it shone forth before him with all the light of a blinding certainty: Florence also was alive! Humanly and physically speaking, the thing was not possible; but the resurrection of Don Luis was likewise an impossibility; and yet Don Luis was alive, with not a scratch on his face, with not a speck of dust on his clothes.

The monster felt himself lost. The man who held him in the hollow of his implacable hand was one of those men whose power knows no bounds. He was one of those men who escape from the jaws of death and who triumphantly snatch from death those of whom they have taken charge.

The monster retreated, dragging himself slowly backward on his knees along the little brick path.

He retreated. He passed by the confused heap of stones that covered the place where the grotto had been, and did not turn his eyes in that direction, as if he were definitely convinced that Florence had come forth safe and sound from the appalling sepulchre.

He retreated. Don Luis, who no longer had his eyes fixed on him, was busy unwinding a coil of rope which he had picked up, and seemed to pay no further attention to him.

He retreated.

And suddenly, after a glance at his enemy, he spun round, drew himself up on his slack legs with an effort, and started running toward the well.

He was twenty paces from it. He covered one half, three quarters of the distance. Already the mouth opened before him. He put out his arms, with the movement of a man about to dive, and shot forward.

His rush was stopped. He rolled over on the ground, dragged back violently, with his arms fixed so firmly to his body that he was unable to stir.

It was Don Luis, who had never wholly lost sight of him, who had made a slip-knot to his rope and who had lassoed the cripple at the moment when he was going to fling himself down the abyss. The cripple struggled for a few moments. But the slip-knot bit into his flesh. He ceased moving. Everything was over.

Then Don Luis Perenna, holding the other end of the lasso, came up to him and bound him hand and foot with what remained of the rope. The operation was carefully performed. Don Luis repeated it time after time, using the coils of rope which the cripple had brought to the well and gagging him with a handkerchief. And, while applying himself to his work, he explained, with affected politeness:

"You see, sir, people always come to grief through excessive self-confidence. They never imagine that their adversaries can have resources which they themselves do not possess. For instance, when you got me to fall into your trap, how could you have supposed, my dear sir, that a man like myself, a man like Arsène Lupin, hanging on the brim of a well, with his arms resting on the brim and his feet against the inner wall, would allow himself to drop down it like the first silly fool that comes along?

"Look here: you were fifteen or twenty yards away; and do you think that I had not the strength to leap out nor the courage to face the bullets of your revolver, when it was a question of saving Florence Levasseur's life and my own? Why, my poor sir, the tiniest effort would have been enough, believe me!

"My reason