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

de Sarzeau-Vendôme, married to that swindler, that thief.⁠ ⁠… No, no, it would never do.⁠ ⁠…”

“What then?”

“What?⁠ ⁠…”

The nephew now rose and, stepping to a gun-rack, took down a rifle and laid it on the table, in front of the duke:

“Away in Algeria, uncle, on the verge of the desert, when we find ourselves face to face with a wild beast, we do not send for the gendarmes. We take our rifle and we shoot the wild beast. Otherwise, the beast would tear us to pieces with its claws.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that, over there, I acquired the habit of dispensing with the gendarmes. It is a rather summary way of doing justice, but it is the best way, believe me, and today, in the present case, it is the only way. Once the beast is killed, you and I will bury it in some corner, unseen and unknown.”

“And Angélique?”

“We will tell her later.”

“What will become of her?”

“She will be my wife, the wife of the real d’Emboise. I desert her tomorrow and return to Algeria. The divorce will be granted in two months’ time.”

The duke listened, pale and staring, with set jaws. He whispered:

“Are you sure that his accomplices on the yacht will not inform him of your escape?”

“Not before tomorrow.”

“So that⁠ ⁠… ?”

“So that inevitably, at nine o’clock this evening, Arsène Lupin, on his way to the Great Oak, will take the patrol-path that follows the old ramparts and skirts the ruins of the chapel. I shall be there, in the ruins.”

“I shall be there too,” said the Duc de Sarzeau-Vendôme, quietly, taking down a gun.

It was now five o’clock. The duke talked some time longer to his nephew, examined the weapons, loaded them with fresh cartridges. Then, when night came, he took d’Emboise through the dark passages to his bedroom and hid him in an adjoining closet.

Nothing further happened until dinner. The duke forced himself to keep calm during the meal. From time to time, he stole a glance at his son-in-law and was surprised at the likeness between him and the real d’Emboise. It was the same complexion, the same cast of features, the same cut of hair. Nevertheless, the look of the eye was different, keener in this case and brighter; and gradually the duke discovered minor details which had passed unperceived till then and which proved the fellow’s imposture.

The party broke up after dinner. It was eight o’clock. The duke went to his room and released his nephew. Ten minutes later, under cover of the darkness, they slipped into the ruins, gun in hand.

Meanwhile, Angélique, accompanied by her husband, had gone to the suite of rooms which she occupied on the ground-floor of a tower that flanked the left wing. Her husband stopped at the entrance to the rooms and said:

“I am going for a short stroll, Angélique. May I come to you here, when I return?”

“Yes,” she replied.

He left her and went up to the first floor, which had been assigned to him as his quarters. The moment he was alone, he locked the door, noiselessly opened a window that looked over the landscape and leant out. He saw a shadow at the foot of the tower, some hundred feet or more below him. He whistled and received a faint whistle in reply.

He then took from a cupboard a thick leather satchel, crammed with papers, wrapped it in a piece of black cloth and tied it up. Then he sat down at the table and wrote:

“Glad you got my message, for I think it unsafe to walk out of the castle with that large bundle of securities. Here they are. You will be in Paris, on your motorcycle, in time to catch the morning train to Brussels, where you will hand over the bonds to Z.; and he will negotiate them at once.

“A. L.

“P.S.⁠—As you pass by the Great Oak, tell our chaps that I’m coming. I have some instructions to give them. But everything is going well. No one here has the least suspicion.”

He fastened the letter to the parcel and lowered both through the window with a length of string:

“Good,” he said. “That’s all right. It’s a weight off my mind.”

He waited a few minutes longer, stalking up and down the room and smiling at the portraits of two gallant gentlemen hanging on the wall:

“Horace de Sarzeau-Vendôme, marshal of France.⁠ ⁠… And you, the Great Condé⁠ ⁠… I salute you, my ancestors both. Lupin de Sarzeau-Vendôme will show himself worthy of you.”

At last, when the time came, he took his hat and went down. But, when he reached the ground-floor, Angélique burst from her rooms and exclaimed, with a distraught air:

“I say⁠ ⁠… if you don’t mind⁠ ⁠… I think you had better.⁠ ⁠…”

And then, without saying more, she went in again, leaving a vision of irresponsible terror in her husband’s mind.

“She’s out of sorts,” he said to himself. “Marriage doesn’t suit her.”

He lit a cigarette and went out, without attaching importance to an incident that ought to have impressed him:

“Poor Angélique! This will all end in a divorce.⁠ ⁠…”

The night outside was dark, with a cloudy sky.

The servants were closing the shutters of the castle. There was no light in the windows, it being the duke’s habit to go to bed soon after dinner.

Lupin passed the gatekeeper’s lodge and, as he put his foot on the drawbridge, said:

“Leave the gate open. I am going for a breath of air; I shall be back soon.”

The patrol-path was on the right and ran along one of the old ramparts, which used to surround the castle with a second and much larger enclosure, until it ended at an almost demolished postern-gate. The park, which skirted a hillock and afterward followed the side of a deep valley, was bordered on the left by thick coppices.

“What a wonderful place for an ambush!” he said. “A regular cutthroat spot!”

He stopped, thinking that he heard a noise. But no, it was a rustling of the leaves. And yet a stone