Memoirs of Arsène Lupin, Maurice Leblanc [librera reader txt] 📗

confinement in a madhouse, and she is not worrying at all about the prospect of that.”

An hour passed; the shades of evening began to darken the chamber. Twice the young woman looked at her watch. Then she tried to enter into conversation with de Bennetot, and of a sudden her face assumed an expression of incredible fascination and her voice inflections that moved one like a caress.

De Bennetot grunted boorishly and did not answer.

Another half-hour passed; she looked round and then gazed at the open door. It was quite clear that she had made up her mind that flight was possible, that she was drawing herself together to spring for the door. For his part, Ralph was trying to find some method of helping her in the effort. If he had had a revolver he would have made no bones about dropping de Bennetot. He thought for a moment of jumping down into the chamber; but the opening of his post of observation was too narrow. Besides some instinct seemed to awake de Bennetot to the danger and he pulled out his revolver, growling:

“A movement, a single movement, and I shoot. By God, I will!”

He was a man to keep that oath. She did not stir.

Ralph, in a growing, torturing anxiety for her, gazed at her untiringly.

Towards seven o’clock Godfrey d’Etigues returned, carrying a traveling rug over his arm.

He lit a lamp and said to Oscar de Bennetot: “Get everything ready. Go and fetch the stretcher. It’s in the coach-house. Then you can go and get some dinner.”

When he was alone with the young woman the Baron appeared to hesitate. Ralph saw that his face was haggard, his eyes wild, and that he was on the point of speech or action. But the words or the acts must have been of a kind from which one shrinks, for he was for sometime restless and fidgeting. Then his opening was brutal.

“Pray to God, Madam,” he said suddenly.

She replied in a puzzled tone: “Pray to God? Why are you telling me to do that?”

Then he said in a very low voice: “Do as you like.⁠ ⁠… Only I must warn you⁠—”

“Warn me of what?” she asked gazing at him in a sudden anxiety.

“There are moments,” he murmured, “when one ought to pray to God as if one was about to die that very night.”

She was stricken with a sudden panic. The facts of the situation suddenly flashed on her. Her arms seemed to stiffen and she clasped her hands in a kind of feverish convulsion.

“Die?⁠ ⁠… Die?⁠ ⁠… But there is no question of that, is there?⁠ ⁠… Beaumagnan never spoke of death.⁠ ⁠… He spoke of a madhouse.”

He did not answer.

The unfortunate woman murmured:

“Heavens! He has deceived me. The madhouse was a lie.⁠ ⁠… It’s something else.⁠ ⁠… You’re going to throw me into the sea. At night.⁠ ⁠… It’s horrible! But it isn’t possible.⁠ ⁠… Me die⁠—me?⁠ ⁠… Help!⁠ ⁠… Help!”

Godfrey d’Etigues caught up the traveling rug and with a furious brutality he covered the young woman’s head with it and pressed his hand over her mouth to smother her cries. As he was doing so, de Bennetot returned carrying the stretcher on his shoulder. The two of them stretched her out on it and tied her down securely and in such a way, that through an opening between the slats, there hung down the iron ring to which a heavy boulder was to be fastened.

IV The Sinking Boat

The darkness was thickening. Godfrey d’Etigues lit a lamp. Oscar de Bennetot went to the château to get some dinner. He must have made a hasty meal, for he was back in about a quarter of an hour. The two cousins settled down to the death vigil. Even in that dim light Ralph could see that their faces were sinister. He could see the nervous twitchings which the thought of the crime so near at hand provoked.

“You ought to have brought a bottle of rum,” growled Oscar de Bennetot. “There are occasions on which one had better not perceive too clearly what one is doing.”

“This is not one of them,” said the Baron coldly. “On the contrary, we shall need to have all our wits about us.”

“It’s a nice business,” growled de Bennetot.

“Then you ought to have argued it out with Beaumagnan and refused him your help,” said the Baron impatiently.

“It was impossible,” murmured de Bennetot.

“Then obey,” said the Baron sternly.

The time passed slowly. No sound came from the château or from the sleeping countryside.

Once de Bennetot rose, went to their prisoner, and bending down, listened. Then he turned to the Baron and said:

“She is not even groaning. She certainly is a woman of character.”

He went back to his chair and added in a low voice in which there was a note of fear: “Do you believe all these things they say about her?”

“What things?”

“About her age?⁠ ⁠… And all those stories of bygone days?”

“They’re rubbish!” said the Baron scornfully. “Beaumagnan believes in them at any rate.”

“Who knows what Beaumagnan believes, or what he doesn’t?” said the Baron impatiently.

“Nevertheless you must admit, Godfrey, that it’s an infernally odd business⁠ ⁠… and that everything goes to show that she was not born yesterday.”

“Yes: that is so,” murmured Godfrey d’Etigues.

“For my part, when I read that paper Beaumagnan drew up, I spoke to her as if she really had been living all those years ago.”

“Then you do believe it?”

“More or less. But stop talking about it. I’ve already had a good deal more than I bargained for in getting mixed up in this affair. If I had only known what it meant before I started on it, I swear to you⁠—” he raised his voice⁠—“I would have refused to have anything to do with it, and made no bones about it. Only⁠—”

He broke off short. The subject was in the highest degree distasteful to him and he did not wish to say a word more about this infinitely painful business.

But de Bennetot went on: “Yes, and I swear to you that