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

waterside and Lupin went down the steps. Gilbert held him back:

“I say, governor, we want one more look round five minutes, no longer.”

“But what for, dash it all?”

“Well, it’s like this: we were told of an old reliquary, something stunning⁠ ⁠…”

“Well?”

“We can’t lay our hands on it. And I was thinking⁠ ⁠… There’s a cupboard with a big lock to it in the pantry⁠ ⁠… You see, we can’t very well⁠ ⁠…” He was already on his way to the villa. Vaucheray ran back too.

“I’ll give you ten minutes, not a second longer!” cried Lupin. “In ten minutes, I’m off.”

But the ten minutes passed and he was still waiting.

He looked at his watch:

“A quarter-past nine,” he said to himself. “This is madness.”

And he also remembered that Gilbert and Vaucheray had behaved rather queerly throughout the removal of the things, keeping close together and apparently watching each other. What could be happening?

Lupin mechanically returned to the house, urged by a feeling of anxiety which he was unable to explain; and, at the same time, he listened to a dull sound which rose in the distance, from the direction of Enghien, and which seemed to be coming nearer⁠ ⁠… People strolling about, no doubt⁠ ⁠…

He gave a sharp whistle and then went to the main gate, to take a glance down the avenue. But, suddenly, as he was opening the gate, a shot rang out, followed by a yell of pain. He returned at a run, went round the house, leapt up the steps and rushed to the dining-room:

“Blast it all, what are you doing there, you two?”

Gilbert and Vaucheray, locked in a furious embrace, were rolling on the floor, uttering cries of rage. Their clothes were dripping with blood. Lupin flew at them to separate them. But already Gilbert had got his adversary down and was wrenching out of his hand something which Lupin had no time to see. And Vaucheray, who was losing blood through a wound in the shoulder, fainted.

“Who hurt him? You, Gilbert?” asked Lupin, furiously.

“No, Léonard.”

“Léonard? Why, he was tied up!”

“He undid his fastenings and got hold of his revolver.”

“The scoundrel! Where is he?”

Lupin took the lamp and went into the pantry.

The manservant was lying on his back, with his arms outstretched, a dagger stuck in his throat and a livid face. A red stream trickled from his mouth.

“Ah,” gasped Lupin, after examining him, “he’s dead!”

“Do you think so?⁠ ⁠… Do you think so?” stammered Gilbert, in a trembling voice.

“He’s dead, I tell you.”

“It was Vaucheray⁠ ⁠… it was Vaucheray who did it⁠ ⁠…”

Pale with anger, Lupin caught hold of him:

“It was Vaucheray, was it?⁠ ⁠… And you too, you blackguard, since you were there and didn’t stop him! Blood! Blood! You know I won’t have it⁠ ⁠… Well, it’s a bad lookout for you, my fine fellows⁠ ⁠… You’ll have to pay the damage! And you won’t get off cheaply either⁠ ⁠… Mind the guillotine!” And, shaking him violently, “What was it? Why did he kill him?”

“He wanted to go through his pockets and take the key of the cupboard from him. When he stooped over him, he saw that the man unloosed his arms. He got frightened⁠ ⁠… and he stabbed him⁠ ⁠…”

“But the revolver-shot?”

“It was Léonard⁠ ⁠… he had his revolver in his hand⁠ ⁠… he just had strength to take aim before he died⁠ ⁠…”

“And the key of the cupboard?”

“Vaucheray took it.⁠ ⁠…”

“Did he open it?”

“And did he find what he was after?”

“Yes.”

“And you wanted to take the thing from him. What sort of thing was it? The reliquary? No, it was too small for that.⁠ ⁠… Then what was it? Answer me, will you?⁠ ⁠…”

Lupin gathered from Gilbert’s silence and the determined expression on his face that he would not obtain a reply. With a threatening gesture, “I’ll make you talk, my man. Sure as my name’s Lupin, you shall come out with it. But, for the moment, we must see about decamping. Here, help me. We must get Vaucheray into the boat⁠ ⁠…”

They had returned to the dining-room and Gilbert was bending over the wounded man, when Lupin stopped him:

“Listen.”

They exchanged one look of alarm⁠ ⁠… Someone was speaking in the pantry⁠ ⁠… a very low, strange, very distant voice⁠ ⁠… Nevertheless, as they at once made certain, there was no one in the room, no one except the dead man, whose dark outline lay stretched upon the floor.

And the voice spake anew, by turns shrill, stifled, bleating, stammering, yelling, fearsome. It uttered indistinct words, broken syllables.

Lupin felt the top of his head covering with perspiration. What was this incoherent voice, mysterious as a voice from beyond the grave?

He had knelt down by the manservant’s side. The voice was silent and then began again:

“Give us a better light,” he said to Gilbert.

He was trembling a little, shaken with a nervous dread which he was unable to master, for there was no doubt possible: when Gilbert had removed the shade from the lamp, Lupin realized that the voice issued from the corpse itself, without a movement of the lifeless mass, without a quiver of the bleeding mouth.

“Governor, I’ve got the shivers,” stammered Gilbert.

Again the same voice, the same snuffling whisper.

Suddenly, Lupin burst out laughing, seized the corpse and pulled it aside:

“Exactly!” he said, catching sight of an object made of polished metal. “Exactly! That’s it!⁠ ⁠… Well, upon my word, it took me long enough!”

On the spot on the floor which he had uncovered lay the receiver of a telephone, the cord of which ran up to the apparatus fixed on the wall, at the usual height.

Lupin put the receiver to his ear. The noise began again at once, but it was a mixed noise, made up of different calls, exclamations, confused cries, the noise produced by a number of persons questioning one another at the same time.

“Are you there?⁠ ⁠… He won’t answer. It’s awful⁠ ⁠… They must have killed him. What is it?⁠ ⁠… Keep up your courage. There’s help on the way⁠ ⁠… police⁠ ⁠… soldiers⁠ ⁠…”

“Dash it!” said Lupin, dropping the receiver.

The truth appeared to him in a terrifying vision. Quite at the beginning, while the things upstairs were being