The Confessions of Arsène Lupin, Maurice Leblanc [top 10 novels of all time txt] 📗

“Of course, the truth was bound to be discovered sooner or later,” said the fat gentleman, in a tone of conviction.

The infantry corporal, dazzled by the captain’s rank, did not entertain a doubt in his mind.

The lady with the little dog wanted to know if Captain Jeanniot was young.

But Louise d’Ernemont said:

“And suppose he does not come?”

“We shall still have the five thousand francs to divide,” said the beggar-man.

For all that, Louise d’Ernemont’s words had damped their enthusiasm. Their faces began to look sullen and I felt an atmosphere as of anguish weighing upon us.

At half-past one, the two lean sisters felt faint and sat down. Then the fat gentleman in the soiled suit suddenly rounded on the notary:

“It’s you, Maître Valandier, who are to blame.⁠ ⁠… You ought to have brought the captain here by main force.⁠ ⁠… He’s a humbug, that’s quite clear.”

He gave me a savage look, and the footman, in his turn, flung muttered curses at me.

I confess that their reproaches seemed to me well-founded and that Lupin’s absence annoyed me greatly:

“He won’t come now,” I whispered to the lawyer.

And I was thinking of beating a retreat, when the eldest of the brats appeared at the door, yelling:

“There’s someone coming!⁠ ⁠… A motorcycle!⁠ ⁠…”

A motor was throbbing on the other side of the wall. A man on a motor-bicycle came tearing down the lane at the risk of breaking his neck. Suddenly, he put on his brakes, outside the door, and sprang from his machine.

Under the layer of dust which covered him from head to foot, we could see that his navy-blue reefer-suit, his carefully creased trousers, his black felt hat and patent-leather boots were not the clothes in which a man usually goes cycling.

“But that’s not Captain Jeanniot!” shouted the notary, who failed to recognize him.

“Yes, it is,” said Lupin, shaking hands with us. “I’m Captain Jeanniot right enough⁠ ⁠… only I’ve shaved off my moustache.⁠ ⁠… Besides, Maître Valandier, here’s your receipt.”

He caught one of the workman’s children by the arm and said:

“Run to the cab-rank and fetch a taxi to the corner of the Rue Raynouard. Look sharp! I have an urgent appointment to keep at two o’clock, or a quarter-past at the latest.”

There was a murmur of protest. Captain Jeanniot took out his watch:

“Well! It’s only twelve minutes to two! I have a good quarter of an hour before me. But, by Jingo, how tired I feel! And how hungry into the bargain!”

The corporal thrust his ammunition-bread into Lupin’s hand; and he munched away at it as he sat down and said:

“You must forgive me. I was in the Marseilles express, which left the rails between Dijon and Laroche. There were twelve people killed and any number injured, whom I had to help. Then I found this motorcycle in the luggage-van.⁠ ⁠… Maître Valandier, you must be good enough to restore it to the owner. You will find the label fastened to the handlebar. Ah, you’re back, my boy! Is the taxi there? At the corner of the Rue Raynouard? Capital!”

He looked at his watch again:

“Hullo! No time to lose!”

I stared at him with eager curiosity. But how great must the excitement of the d’Ernemont heirs have been! True, they had not the same faith in Captain Jeanniot that I had in Lupin. Nevertheless, their faces were pale and drawn. Captain Jeanniot turned slowly to the left and walked up to the sundial. The pedestal represented the figure of a man with a powerful torso, who bore on his shoulders a marble slab the surface of which had been so much worn by time that we could hardly distinguish the engraved lines that marked the hours. Above the slab, a Cupid, with outspread wings, held an arrow that served as a gnomon.

The captain stood leaning forward for a minute, with attentive eyes.

Then he said:

“Somebody lend me a knife, please.”

A clock in the neighbourhood struck two. At that exact moment, the shadow of the arrow was thrown upon the sunlit dial along the line of a crack in the marble which divided the slab very nearly in half.

The captain took the knife handed to him. And with the point, very gently, he began to scratch the mixture of earth and moss that filled the narrow cleft.

Almost immediately, at a couple of inches from the edge, he stopped, as though his knife had encountered an obstacle, inserted his thumb and forefinger and withdrew a small object which he rubbed between the palms of his hands and gave to the lawyer:

“Here, Maître Valandier. Something to go on with.”

It was an enormous diamond, the size of a hazelnut and beautifully cut.

The captain resumed his work. The next moment, a fresh stop. A second diamond, magnificent and brilliant as the first, appeared in sight.

And then came a third and a fourth.

In a minute’s time, following the crack from one edge to the other and certainly without digging deeper than half an inch, the captain had taken out eighteen diamonds of the same size.

During this minute, there was not a cry, not a movement around the sundial. The heirs seemed paralyzed with a sort of stupor. Then the fat gentleman muttered:

“Geminy!”

And the corporal moaned:

“Oh, captain!⁠ ⁠… Oh, captain!⁠ ⁠…”

The two sisters fell in a dead faint. The lady with the little dog dropped on her knees and prayed, while the footman, staggering like a drunken man, held his head in his two hands, and Louise d’Ernemont wept.

When calm was restored and all became eager to thank Captain Jeanniot, they saw that he was gone.

Some years passed before I had an opportunity of talking to Lupin about this business. He was in a confidential vein and answered:

“The business of the eighteen diamonds? By Jove, when I think that three or four generations of my fellow-men had been hunting for the solution! And the eighteen diamonds were there all the time, under a little mud and dust!”

“But how did you guess?⁠ ⁠…”

“I did not guess. I reflected. I doubt if I need even