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

At last, he said to the young girl:

“You shall go tomorrow morning, mademoiselle. It will be only for one or two weeks. I will take you to your friend at Versailles, the one to whom you were writing. I entreat you to get everything ready tonight⁠ ⁠… without concealment of any kind. Let the servants know that you are going.⁠ ⁠… On the other hand, the doctor will be good enough to tell M. Darcieux and give him to understand, with every possible precaution, that this journey is essential to your safety. Besides, he can join you as soon as his strength permits.⁠ ⁠… That’s settled, is it not?”

“Yes,” she said, absolutely dominated by Lupin’s gentle and imperious voice.

“In that case,” he said, “be as quick as you can⁠ ⁠… and do not stir from your room.⁠ ⁠…”

“But,” said the girl, with a shudder, “am I to stay alone tonight?”

“Fear nothing. Should there be the least danger, the doctor and I will come back. Do not open your door unless you hear three very light taps.”

Jeanne at once rang for her maid. The doctor went to M. Darcieux, while Lupin had some supper brought to him in the little dining-room.

“That’s done,” said the doctor, returning to him in twenty minutes’ time. “M. Darcieux did not raise any great difficulty. As a matter of fact, he himself thinks it just as well that we should send Jeanne away.”

They then went downstairs together and left the house.

On reaching the lodge, Lupin called the keeper.

“You can shut the gate, my man. If M. Darcieux should want us, send for us at once.”

The clock of Maupertuis church struck ten. The sky was overcast with black clouds, through which the moon broke at moments.

The two men walked on for sixty or seventy yards.

They were nearing the village, when Lupin gripped his companion by the arm:

“Stop!”

“What on earth’s the matter?” exclaimed the doctor.

“The matter is this,” Lupin jerked out, “that, if my calculations turn out right, if I have not misjudged the business from start to finish, Mlle. Darcieux will be murdered before the night is out.”

“Eh? What’s that?” gasped the doctor, in dismay. “But then why did we go?”

“With the precise object that the miscreant, who is watching all our movements in the dark, may not postpone his crime and may perpetrate it, not at the hour chosen by himself, but at the hour which I have decided upon.”

“Then we are returning to the manor-house?”

“Yes, of course we are, but separately.”

“In that case, let us go at once.”

“Listen to me, doctor,” said Lupin, in a steady voice, “and let us waste no time in useless words. Above all, we must defeat any attempt to watch us. You will therefore go straight home and not come out again until you are quite certain that you have not been followed. You will then make for the walls of the property, keeping to the left, till you come to the little door of the kitchen-garden. Here is the key. When the church clock strikes eleven, open the door very gently and walk right up to the terrace at the back of the house. The fifth window is badly fastened. You have only to climb over the balcony. As soon as you are inside Mlle. Darcieux’s room, bolt the door and don’t budge. You quite understand, don’t budge, either of you, whatever happens. I have noticed that Mlle. Darcieux leaves her dressing-room window ajar, isn’t that so?”

“Yes, it’s a habit which I taught her.”

“That’s the way they’ll come.”

“And you?”

“That’s the way I shall come also.”

“And do you know who the villain is?”

Lupin hesitated and then replied:

“No, I don’t know.⁠ ⁠… And that is just how we shall find out. But, I implore you, keep cool. Not a word, not a movement, whatever happens!”

“I promise you.”

“I want more than that, doctor. You must give me your word of honour.”

“I give you my word of honour.”

The doctor went away. Lupin at once climbed a neighbouring mound from which he could see the windows of the first and second floor. Several of them were lighted.

He waited for some little time. The lights went out one by one. Then, taking a direction opposite to that in which the doctor had gone, he branched off to the right and skirted the wall until he came to the clump of trees near which he had hidden his motorcycle on the day before.

Eleven o’clock struck. He calculated the time which it would take the doctor to cross the kitchen-garden and make his way into the house.

“That’s one point scored!” he muttered. “Everything’s all right on that side. And now, Lupin to the rescue? The enemy won’t be long before he plays his last trump⁠ ⁠… and, by all the gods, I must be there!⁠ ⁠…”

He went through the same performance as on the first occasion, pulled down the branch and hoisted himself to the top of the wall, from which he was able to reach the bigger boughs of the tree.

Just then he pricked up his ears. He seemed to hear a rustling of dead leaves. And he actually perceived a dark form moving on the level thirty yards away:

“Hang it all!” he said to himself. “I’m done: the scoundrel has smelt a rat.”

A moonbeam pierced through the clouds. Lupin distinctly saw the man take aim. He tried to jump to the ground and turned his head. But he felt something hit him in the chest, heard the sound of a report, uttered an angry oath and came crashing down from branch to branch, like a corpse.

Meanwhile, Doctor Guéroult, following Arsène Lupin’s instructions, had climbed the ledge of the fifth window and groped his way to the first floor. On reaching Jeanne’s room, he tapped lightly, three times, at the door and, immediately on entering, pushed the bolt:

“Lie down at once,” he whispered to the girl, who had not taken off her things. “You must appear to have gone to bed. Brrrr, it’s cold in here! Is the window