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

alarming, inasmuch as it is invisible and impalpable. A whole side of the history of France and of the royal house is explained by the Needle, even as it explains the whole story of Arsène Lupin. The same sources of energy and power supply and renew the fortunes of kings and of the adventurer.”

Beautrelet ferreted and snuffed from village to village, from the river to the sea, with his nose in the wind, his ears pricked, trying to compel the inanimate things to surrender their deep meaning. Ought this hill-slope to be questioned? Or that forest? Or the houses of this hamlet? Or was it among the insignificant phrases spoken by that peasant yonder that he might hope to gather the one little illuminating word?

One morning, he was lunching at an inn, within sight of Honfleur, the old city of the estuary. Opposite him was sitting one of those heavy, red-haired Norman horse-dealers who do the fairs of the district, whip in hand and clad in a long smock-frock. After a moment, it seemed to Beautrelet that the man was looking at him with a certain amount of attention, as though he knew him or, at least, was trying to recognize him.

“Pooh,” he thought, “there’s some mistake: I’ve never seen that merchant before, nor he me.”

As a matter of fact, the man appeared to take no further interest in him. He lit his pipe, called for coffee and brandy, smoked and drank.

When Beautrelet had finished his meal, he paid and rose to go. A group of men entered just as he was about to leave and he had to stand for a few seconds near the table at which the horse-dealer sat. He then heard the man say in a low voice:

“Good afternoon, M. Beautrelet.”

Without hesitation, Isidore sat down beside the man and said:

“Yes, that is my name⁠—but who are you? How did you know me?”

“That’s not difficult⁠—and yet I’ve only seen your portrait in the papers. But you are so badly⁠—what do you call it in French⁠—so badly made-up.”

He had a pronounced foreign accent and Beautrelet seemed to perceive, as he looked at him, that he too wore a facial disguise that entirely altered his features.

“Who are you?” he repeated. “Who are you?”

The stranger smiled:

“Don’t you recognize me?”

“No, I never saw you before.”

“Nor I you. But think. The papers print my portrait also⁠—and pretty often. Well, have you got it?”

“No.”

“Holmlock Shears.”

It was an amusing and, at the same time, a significant meeting. The boy at once saw the full bearing of it. After an exchange of compliments, he said to Shears:

“I suppose that you are here⁠—because of ‘him’?”

“Yes.”

“So⁠—so⁠—you think we have a chance⁠—in this direction.”

“I’m sure of it.”

Beautrelet’s delight at finding that Shears’s opinion agreed with his own was not unmingled with other feelings. If the Englishman attained his object, it meant that, at the very best, the two would share the victory; and who could tell that Shears would not attain it first?

“Have you any proofs? Any clues?”

“Don’t be afraid,” grinned the Englishman, who understood his uneasiness. “I am not treading on your heels. With you, it’s the document, the pamphlet: things that do not inspire me with any great confidence.”

“And with you?”

“With me, it’s something different.”

“Should I be indiscreet, if⁠—?”

“Not at all. You remember the story of the coronet, the story of the Duc de Charmerac?”7

“Yes.”

“You remember Victoire, Lupin’s old foster-mother, the one whom my good friend Ganimard allowed to escape in a sham prison-van?”

“Yes.”

“I have found Victoire’s traces. She lives on a farm, not far from National Road No. 25. National Road No. 25 is the road from the Havre to Lille. Through Victoire I shall easily get at Lupin.”

“It will take long.”

“No matter! I have dropped all my cases. This is the only one I care about. Between Lupin and me, it’s a fight⁠—a fight to the death.”

He spoke these words with a sort of ferocity that betrayed all his bitterness at the humiliations which he had undergone, all his fierce hatred of the great enemy who had tricked him so cruelly.

“Go away, now,” he whispered, “we are observed. It’s dangerous. But mark my words: on the day when Lupin and I meet face to face, it will be⁠—it will be tragic.”

Beautrelet felt quite reassured on leaving Shears: he need not fear that the Englishman would gain on him. And here was one more proof which this chance interview had brought him: the road from the Havre to Lille passes through Dieppe! It is the great seaside road of the Caux country, the coast road commanding the Channel cliffs! And it was on a farm near this road that Victoire was installed, Victoire, that is to say, Lupin, for one did not move without the other, the master without the blindly devoted servant.

“I’m burning! I’m burning!” he repeated to himself. “Whenever circumstances bring me a new element of information, it confirms my supposition. On the one hand, I have the absolute certainty of the banks of the Seine; on the other, the certainty of the National Road. The two means of communication meet at the Havre, the town of Francis I, the town of the secret. The boundaries are contracting. The Caux country is not large; and, even so, I have only the western portion of the Caux country to search.”

He set to work with renewed stubbornness:

“Anything that Lupin has found,” he kept on saying to himself, “there is no reason for my not finding.”

Certainly, Lupin had some great advantage over him, perhaps a thorough acquaintance with the country, a precise knowledge of the local legends, or less than that, a memory: invaluable advantages these, for he, Beautrelet, knew nothing, was totally ignorant of the country, which he had first visited at the time of the Ambrumésy burglary and then only rapidly, without lingering.

But what did it matter? Though he had to devote ten years of his life to this investigation, he would carry it to a successful issue. Lupin was