Arsène Lupin, Maurice LeBlanc [good books to read for beginners .txt] 📗

"Hush!" said Lupin, flushing deeply, and wincing. "Hush!"

"But, after all, you're right," she said, in a gentler voice. "One can't wipe out what one has done. If I were to give back everything I've taken—if I were to spend years in remorse and repentance, it would be no use. In your eyes I should always be Sonia Kritchnoff, the thief!" The great tears welled slowly out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks; she let them stream unheeded.

"Sonia!" cried Lupin, protesting.

But she would not hear him. She broke out with fresh vehemence, a feverish passion: "And yet, if I'd been a thief, like so many others... but you know why I stole. I'm not trying to defend myself, but, after all, I did it to keep honest; and when I loved you it was not the heart of a thief that thrilled, it was the heart of a poor girl who loved...that's all...who loved."

"You don't know what you're doing! You're torturing me! Be quiet!" cried Lupin hoarsely, beside himself.

"Never mind...I'm going...we shall never see one another any more," she sobbed. "But will you...will you shake hands just for the last time?"

"No!" cried Lupin.

"You won't?" wailed Sonia in a heartrending tone.

"I can't!" cried Lupin.

"You ought not to be like this.... Last night ... if you were going to let me go like this ... last night ... it was wrong," she wailed, and turned to go.

"Wait, Sonia! Wait!" cried Lupin hoarsely. "A moment ago you said something.... You said that the mere presence of a thief would overwhelm you with disgust. Is that true?"

"Yes, I swear it is," cried Sonia.

Guerchard appeared in the doorway.

"And if I were not the man you believe?" said Lupin sombrely.

"What?" said Sonia; and a faint bewilderment mingled with her grief. "If I were not the Duke of Charmerace?"

"Not the Duke?"

"If I were not an honest man?" said Lupin.

"You?" cried Sonia.

"If I were a thief? If I were—"

"Arsene Lupin," jeered Guerchard from the door.

Lupin turned and held out his manacled wrists for her to see.

"Arsene Lupin! ... it's ... it's true!" stammered Sonia. "But then, but then ... it must be for my sake that you've given yourself up. And it's for me you're going to prison. Oh, Heavens! How happy I am!"

She sprang to him, threw her arms round his neck, and pressed her lips to his.

"And that's what women call repenting," said Guerchard.

He shrugged his shoulders, went out on to the landing, and called to the policeman in the hall to bid the driver of the prison-van, which was waiting, bring it up to the door.

"Oh, this is incredible!" cried Lupin, in a trembling voice; and he kissed Sonia's lips and eyes and hair. "To think that you love me enough to go on loving me in spite of this—in spite of the fact that I'm Arsene Lupin. Oh, after this, I'll become an honest man! It's the least I can do. I'll retire."

"You will?" cried Sonia.

"Upon my soul, I will!" cried Lupin; and he kissed her again and again.

Guerchard came back into the room. He looked at them with a cynical grin, and said, "Time's up."

"Oh, Guerchard, after so many others, I owe you the best minute of my life!" cried Lupin.

Bonavent, still in his porter's livery, came hurrying through the anteroom: "Master," he cried, "I've found it."

"Found what?" said Guerchard.

"The secret entrance. It opens into that little side street. We haven't got the door open yet; but we soon shall."

"The last link in the chain," said Guerchard, with warm satisfaction. "Come along, Lupin."

"But he's going to take you away! We're going to be separated!" cried Sonia, in a sudden anguish of realization.

"It's all the same to me now!" cried Lupin, in the voice of a conqueror.

"Yes, but not to me!" cried Sonia, wringing her hands.

"Now you must keep calm and go. I'm not going to prison," said Lupin, in a low voice. "Wait in the hall, if you can. Stop and talk to Victoire; condole with her. If they turn you out of the house, wait close to the front door."

"Come, mademoiselle," said Guerchard. "You must go."

"Go, Sonia, go—good-bye—good-bye," said Lupin; and he kissed her.

She went quietly out of the room, her handkerchief to her eyes. Guerchard held open the door for her, and kept it open, with his hand still on the handle; he said to Lupin: "Come along."

Lupin yawned, stretched himself, and said coolly, "My dear Guerchard, what I want after the last two nights is rest—rest." He walked quickly across the room and stretched himself comfortably at full length on the couch.

"Come, get up," said Guerchard roughly. "The prison-van is waiting for you. That ought to fetch you out of your dream."

"Really, you do say the most unlucky things," said Lupin gaily.

He had resumed his flippant, light-hearted air; his voice rang as lightly and pleasantly as if he had not a care in the world.

"Do you mean that you refuse to come?" cried Guerchard in a rough, threatening tone.

"Oh, no," said Lupin quickly: and he rose.

"Then come along!" said Guerchard.

"No," said Lupin, "after all, it's too early." Once more he stretched himself out on the couch, and added languidly, "I'm lunching at the English Embassy."

"Now, you be careful!" cried Guerchard angrily. "Our parts are changed. If you're snatching at a last straw, it's waste of time. All your tricks—I know them. Understand, you rogue, I know them."

"You know them?" said Lupin with a smile, rising. "It's fatality!"

He stood before Guerchard, twisting his hands and wrists curiously. Half a dozen swift movements; and he held out his handcuffs in one hand and threw them on the floor.

"Did you know that trick, Guerchard? One of these days I shall teach you to invite me to lunch," he said slowly, in a mocking tone; and he gazed at the detective with menacing, dangerous eyes.

"Come, come, we've had enough of this!" cried Guerchard, in mingled astonishment, anger, and alarm. "Bonavent! Boursin! Dieusy! Here! Help! Help!" he shouted.

"Now listen, Guerchard, and understand that I'm not humbugging," said Lupin quickly, in clear, compelling tones. "If Sonia, just now, had had one word, one gesture of contempt for me, I'd have given way—yielded ... half-yielded, at any rate; for, rather than fall into your triumphant clutches, I'd have blown my brains out. I've now to choose between happiness, life with Sonia, or prison. Well, I've chosen. I will live happy with her, or else, my dear Guerchard, I'll die with you. Now let your men come—I'm ready for them."

Guerchard ran to the door and shouted again.

"I think the fat's in the fire now," said Lupin, laughing.

He sprang to the table, opened the cardboard box, whipped off the top layer of cotton-wool, and took out a shining bomb.

He sprang to the wall, pressed the button, the bookshelf glided slowly to one side, the lift rose to the level of the floor and its doors flew open just as the detectives rushed in.

"Collar him!" yelled Guerchard.

"Stand back—hands up!" cried Lupin, in a terrible voice, raising his right hand high above his head. "You know what this is ... a bomb.... Come and collar me now, you swine! ... Hands up, you ... Guerchard!"

"You silly funks!" roared Guerchard. "Do you think he'd dare?"

"Come and see!" cried Lupin.

"I will!" cried Guerchard. And he took a step forward.

As one man his detectives threw themselves upon him. Three of them gripped his arms, a fourth gripped him round the waist; and they all shouted at him together, not to be a madman! ... To look at Lupin's eyes! ... That Lupin was off his head!

"What miserable swine you are!" cried Lupin scornfully. He sprang forward, caught up the kit-bag in his left hand, and tossed it behind him into the lift. "You dirty crew!" he cried again. "Oh, why isn't there a photographer here? And now, Guerchard, you thief, give me back my pocket-book."

"Never!" screamed Guerchard, struggling with his men, purple with fury.

"Oh, Lord, master! Do be careful! Don't rile him!" cried Bonavent in an agony.

"What? Do you want me to smash up the whole lot?" roared Lupin, in a furious, terrible voice. "Do I look as if I were bluffing, you fools?"

"Let him have his way, master!" cried Dieusy.

"Yes, yes!" cried Bonavent.

"Let him have his way!" cried another.

"Give him his pocket-book!" cried a third.

"Never!" howled Guerchard.

"It's in his pocket—his breast-pocket! Be smart!" roared Lupin.

"Come, come, it's got to be given to him," cried Bonavent. "Hold the master tight!" And he thrust his hand into the breast of Guerchard's coat, and tore out the pocket-book.

"Throw it on the table!" cried Lupin.

Bonavent threw it on to the table; and it slid along it right to Lupin. He caught it in his left hand, and slipped it into his pocket. "Good!" he said. And then he yelled ferociously, "Look out for the bomb!" and made a feint of throwing it.

The whole group fell back with an odd, unanimous, sighing groan.

Lupin sprang into the lift, and the doors closed over the opening. There was a great sigh of relief from the frightened detectives, and then the chunking of machinery as the lift sank.

Their grip on Guerchard loosened. He shook himself free, and shouted, "After him! You've got to make up for this! Down into the cellars, some of you! Others go to the secret entrance! Others to the servants' entrance! Get into the street! Be smart! Dieusy, take the lift with me!"

The others ran out of the room and down the stairs, but with no great heartiness, since their minds were still quite full of the bomb, and Lupin still had it with him. Guerchard and Dieusy dashed at the doors of the opening of the lift-well, pulling and wrenching at them. Suddenly there was a click; and they heard the grunting of the machinery. There was a little bump and a jerk, the doors flew open of themselves; and there was the lift, empty, ready for them. They jumped into it; Guerchard's quick eye caught the button, and he pressed it. The doors banged to, and, to his horror, the lift shot upwards about eight feet, and stuck between the floors.

As the lift stuck, a second compartment, exactly like the one Guerchard and Dieusy were in, came up to the level of the floor of the smoking-room; the doors opened, and there was Lupin. But again how changed! The clothes of the Duke of Charmerace littered the floor; the kit-bag was open; and he was wearing the very clothes of Chief-Inspector Guerchard, his seedy top-hat, his cloak. He wore also Guerchard's sparse, lank, black hair, his little, bristling, black moustache. His figure, hidden by the cloak, seemed to have shrunk to the size of Guerchard's.

He sat before a mirror in the wall of the lift, a make-up box on the seat beside him. He darkened his eyebrows, and put a line or two about his eyes. That done he looked at himself earnestly for two or three minutes; and, as he looked, a truly marvellous transformation took place: the features of Arsene Lupin, of the Duke of Charmerace, decomposed, actually decomposed, into the features of Jean Guerchard. He looked at himself and laughed, the gentle, husky laugh of Guerchard.

He rose, transferred the pocket-book to the coat he was wearing, picked up the bomb, came out into the smoking-room, and listened. A muffled roaring thumping came from the well of the lift. It almost sounded as if, in their exasperation, Guerchard and Dieusy were engaged in a struggle to the death. Smiling pleasantly, he stole to the window and looked out. His eyes brightened at the sight of the motor-car, Guerchard's car, waiting just before the front door and in charge of a policeman. He stole to the head of the stairs, and looked down into the hall. Victoire was sitting huddled together on a chair; Sonia stood beside her, talking to her in a low voice; and, keeping guard on Victoire, stood a brown-faced, active, nervous policeman, all alertness, briskness, keenness.

"Hi! officer!