The Crystal Stopper, Maurice Leblanc [i can read books TXT] 📗

read this: ‘Empty the crystal within, so as to leave a void which it is impossible to suspect.’ Perhaps I should not have attached to this sentence all the importance which it deserved, if Daubrecq, who was out in the garden, had not come running in and begun to turn out the waste-paper-basket, with an eagerness which was very significant. He gave me a suspicious look: ‘There was a letter there,’ he said. I pretended not to understand. He did not insist, but his agitation did not escape me; and I continued my quest in this direction. A month later, I discovered, among the ashes in the drawing-room fireplace, the torn half of an English invoice. I gathered that a Stourbridge glassblower, of the name of John Howard, had supplied Daubrecq with a crystal bottle made after a model. The word ‘crystal’ struck me at once. I went to Stourbridge, got round the foreman of the glassworks and learnt that the stopper of this bottle had been hollowed out inside, in accordance with the instruction in the order, so as to leave a cavity, the existence of which would escape observation.”

Lupin nodded his head:

“The thing tallies beyond a doubt. Nevertheless, it did not seem to me, that, even under the gilt layer⁠ ⁠… And then the hiding-place would be very tiny!”

“Tiny, but large enough,” she said. “On my return from England, I went to the police-office to see Prasville, whose friendship for me had remained unchanged. I did not hesitate to tell him, first, the reasons which had driven my husband to suicide and, secondly, the object of revenge which I was pursuing. When I informed him of my discoveries, he jumped for joy; and I felt that his hatred for Daubrecq was as strong as ever. I learnt from him that the list was written on a slip of exceedingly thin foreign-post-paper, which, when rolled up into a sort of pellet, would easily fit into an exceedingly limited space. Neither he nor I had the least hesitation. We knew the hiding-place. We agreed to act independently of each other, while continuing to correspond in secret. I put him in touch with Clémence, the portress in the Square Lamartine, who was entirely devoted to me⁠ ⁠…”

“But less so to Prasville,” said Lupin, “for I can prove that she betrays him.”

“Now perhaps, but not at the start; and the police searches were numerous. It was at that time, ten months ago, that Gilbert came into my life again. A mother never loses her love for her son, whatever he may do, whatever he may have done. And then Gilbert has such a way with him⁠ ⁠… well, you know him. He cried, kissed my little Jacques, his brother and I forgave him.”

She stopped and, weary-voiced, with her eyes fixed on the floor, continued:

“Would to Heaven that I had not forgiven him! Ah, if that hour could but return, how readily I should find the horrible courage to turn him away! My poor child⁠ ⁠… it was I who ruined him!⁠ ⁠…” And, pensively, “I should have had that or any sort of courage, if he had been as I pictured him to myself and as he himself told me that he had long been: bearing the marks of vice and dissipation, coarse, deteriorated.

“But, though he was utterly changed in appearance, so much so that I could hardly recognize him, there was, from the point of view of⁠—how shall I put it?⁠—from the moral point of view, an undoubted improvement. You had helped him, lifted him; and, though his mode of life was hateful to me, nevertheless he retained a certain self-respect⁠ ⁠… a sort of underlying decency that showed itself on the surface once more⁠ ⁠… He was gay, careless, happy⁠ ⁠… And he used to talk of you with such affection!”

She picked her words, betraying her embarrassment, not daring, in Lupin’s presence, to condemn the line of life which Gilbert had selected and yet unable to speak in favour of it.

“What happened next?” asked Lupin.

“I saw him very often. He would come to me by stealth, or else I went to him and we would go for walks in the country. In this way, I was gradually induced to tell him our story, of his father’s suicide and the object which I was pursuing. He at once took fire. He too wanted to avenge his father and, by stealing the crystal stopper, to avenge himself on Daubrecq for the harm which he had done him. His first idea⁠—from which, I am bound to tell you, he never swerved⁠—was to arrange with you.”

“Well, then,” cried Lupin, “he ought to have⁠ ⁠… !”

“Yes, I know⁠ ⁠… and I was of the same opinion. Unfortunately, my poor Gilbert⁠—you know how weak he is!⁠—was under the influence of one of his comrades.”

“Vaucheray?”

“Yes, Vaucheray, a saturnine spirit, full of bitterness and envy, an ambitious, unscrupulous, gloomy, crafty man, who had acquired a great empire over my son. Gilbert made the mistake of confiding in him and asking his advice. That was the origin of all the mischief. Vaucheray convinced him and convinced me as well that it would be better if we acted by ourselves. He studied the business, took the lead and finally organized the Enghien expedition and, under your direction, the burglary at the Villa Marie-Thérèse, which Prasville and his detectives had been unable to search thoroughly, because of the active watch maintained by Léonard the valet. It was a mad scheme. We ought either to have trusted in your experience entirely, or else to have left you out altogether, taking the risk of fatal mistakes and dangerous hesitations. But we could not help ourselves. Vaucheray ruled us. I agreed to meet Daubrecq at the theatre. During this time the thing took place. When I came home, at twelve o’clock at night, I heard the terrible result: Léonard murdered, my son arrested. I at once received an intuition of the future. Daubrecq’s appalling prophecy was being realized: it meant trial and sentence. And this