The Hollow Needle, Maurice Leblanc [fiction novels to read .TXT] 📗

Needle! Was it a meaningless expression, the puzzle of a schoolboy scribbling with pen and ink on the corner of a page? Or were they two magic words which could compel the whole great adventure of Lupin the great adventurer to assume its true significance? Nobody knew.

But the public soon would know. For some days, the papers had been announcing the approaching arrival of Beautrelet. The struggle was on the point of recommencing; and, this time, it would be implacable on the part of the young man, who was burning to take his revenge. And, as it happened, my attention, just then, was drawn to his name, printed in capitals. The Grand Journal headed its front page with the following paragraph:

We have persuaded M. Isidore Beautrelet to give us the first right of printing his revelations. Tomorrow, tuesday, before the police themselves are informed, the Grand Journal will publish the whole truth of the Ambrumésy mystery.

“That’s interesting, eh? What do you think of it, my dear chap?”

I started from my chair. There was someone sitting beside me, someone I did not know. I cast my eyes round for a weapon. But, as my visitor’s attitude appeared quite inoffensive, I restrained myself and went up to him.

He was a young man with strongly-marked features, long, fair hair and a short, tawny beard, divided into two points. His dress suggested the dark clothes of an English clergyman; and his whole person, for that matter, wore an air of austerity and gravity that inspired respect.

“Who are you?” I asked. And, as he did not reply, I repeated, “Who are you? How did you get in? What are you here for?”

He looked at me and said:

“Don’t you know me?”

“No⁠—no!”

“Oh, that’s really curious! Just search your memory⁠—one of your friends⁠—a friend of a rather special kind⁠—however⁠—”

I caught him smartly by the arm:

“You lie! You lie! No, you’re not the man you say you are⁠—it’s not true.”

“Then why are you thinking of that man rather than another?” he asked, with a laugh.

Oh, that laugh! That bright and clear young laugh, whose amusing irony had so often contributed to my diversion! I shivered. Could it be?

“No, no,” I protested, with a sort of terror. “It cannot be.”

“It can’t be I, because I’m dead, eh?” he retorted. “And because you don’t believe in ghosts.” He laughed again. “Am I the sort of man who dies? Do you think I would die like that, shot in the back by a girl? Really, you misjudge me! As though I would ever consent to such a death as that!”

“So it is you!” I stammered, still incredulous and yet greatly excited. “So it is you! I can’t manage to recognize you.”

“In that case,” he said, gaily, “I am quite easy. If the only man to whom I have shown myself in my real aspect fails to know me today, then everybody who will see me henceforth as I am today is bound not to know me either, when he sees me in my real aspect⁠—if, indeed, I have a real aspect⁠—”

I recognized his voice, now that he was no longer changing its tone, and I recognized his eyes also and the expression of his face and his whole attitude and his very being, through the counterfeit appearance in which he had shrouded it:

“Arsène Lupin!” I muttered.

“Yes, Arsène Lupin!” he cried, rising from his chair. “The one and only Arsène Lupin, returned from the realms of darkness, since it appears that I expired and passed away in a crypt! Arsène Lupin, alive and kicking, in the full exercise of his will, happy and free and more than ever resolved to enjoy that happy freedom in a world where hitherto he has received nothing but favors and privileges!”

It was my turn to laugh:

“Well, it’s certainly you, and livelier this time than on the day when I had the pleasure of seeing you, last year⁠—I congratulate you.”

I was alluding to his last visit, the visit following on the famous adventure of the diadem,1 his interrupted marriage, his flight with Sonia Kirchnoff and the Russian girl’s horrible death. On that day, I had seen an Arsène Lupin whom I did not know, weak, downhearted, with eyes tired with weeping, seeking for a little sympathy and affection.

“Be quiet,” he said. “The past is far away.”

“It was a year ago,” I observed.

“It was ten years ago,” he declared. “Arsène Lupin’s years count for ten times as much as another man’s.”

I did not insist and, changing the conversation:

“How did you get in?”

“Why, how do you think? Through the door, of course. Then, as I saw nobody, I walked across the drawing room and out by the balcony, and here I am.”

“Yes, but the key of the door⁠—?”

“There are no doors for me, as you know. I wanted your flat and I came in.”

“It is at your disposal. Am I to leave you?”

“Oh, not at all! You won’t be in the way. In fact, I can promise you an interesting evening.”

“Are you expecting someone?”

“Yes. I have given him an appointment here at ten o’clock.” He took out his watch. “It is ten now. If the telegram reached him, he ought to be here soon.”

The front-door bell rang.

“What did I tell you? No, don’t trouble to get up: I’ll go.”

With whom on earth could he have made an appointment? And what sort of scene was I about to assist at: dramatic or comic? For Lupin himself to consider it worthy of interest, the situation must be somewhat exceptional.

He returned in a moment and stood back to make way for a young man, tall and thin and very pale in the face.

Without a word and with a certain solemnity about his movements that made me feel ill at ease. Lupin switched on all the electric lamps, one after the other, till the room was flooded with light. Then the two men looked at each other, exchanged profound and penetrating glances, as if, with all the effort of