Memoirs of Arsène Lupin, Maurice Leblanc [librera reader txt] 📗

the petals off a capucine. Ralph supposed, or rather tried to suppose, that she had not heard those cries. Perhaps even she knew nothing about what was going on. In spite of that he trembled with indignation. Whether or no she actually had a part in the terrible questioning that the unfortunate woman was undergoing, was she any the less to blame? And all the obstinate doubts in his mind, by which she had profited up to then, ought they not to vanish in the face of the implacable reality? Everything that he had felt to her prejudice, everything that he had refused to know was true, since she must have definitely set Leonard to the task with which he was busy and of which she had been unable to endure the horrible spectacle.

Carefully but quickly Ralph pulled aside the bricks and scooped away the heap of earth. When he had finished the cries had ceased, but the sound of words came to his ears hardly louder than a whisper. He had, therefore, to continue his work and clear the upper part of the passage. Then, lying with his head well down in it, he could hear distinctly. Two voices were speaking in turn⁠—the voice of Leonard and a woman’s voice, without doubt the voice of Madam Rousselin. The unfortunate woman seemed to be at the end of her strength and a prey to indescribable terror.

“Yes⁠ ⁠… yes,” she murmured, “I’m going to tell you, since I said I would. But I’m so worn out you must excuse me, good gentleman.⁠ ⁠… Besides⁠ ⁠… All these things happened such a long time ago⁠ ⁠… Twenty-two years have passed since⁠ ⁠…”

“Stop babbling and come to the point!” growled Leonard.

“Yes,” she replied. “I am coming to the point. It was at the time of the war with Prussia, twenty-two years ago.⁠ ⁠… And as the Prussians were advancing on Rouen, where we were living, two gentlemen came to my poor husband, who was a carrier⁠ ⁠… gentlemen whom we had never seen before. They wished to get out of the country, with their trunks, like a great many other people at that time, you know. My husband accepted their offer and without wasting any more time, for they were in a hurry, set out with them in his carrier’s cart. Unfortunately, owing to the fact that our other horses had been requisitioned, we had only one horse, and that one wasn’t up to much. Besides, it was snowing.⁠ ⁠… Seven miles out of Rouen he fell down and could not get up again.⁠ ⁠… The gentlemen were shivering with fear, for the Prussians might turn up at any moment. It was then that a man from Rouen, who my husband knew quite well, a confidential servant of the Cardinal de Bonnechose⁠—Monsieur Jaubert his name was⁠—drove up in a dogcart.⁠ ⁠… You can see what happened⁠ ⁠… They talked.⁠ ⁠… The two gentlemen offered him a large sum for his horse.⁠ ⁠… Jaubert refused. They begged him, and then they threatened him.⁠ ⁠… And then they threw themselves on him like madmen, and in spite of the prayers of my husband, knocked him on the head.⁠ ⁠… After that they looked into his dogcart, found in it a casket, which they took, harnessed Jaubert’s horse to the carrier’s cart, and went off leaving the poor man half dead.”

“Quite dead,” said Leonard more accurately.

“Yes: my husband learned that months later, when he was able to enter Rouen again.”

“And didn’t he inform the police about it?”

Madam Rousselin appeared to hesitate; then she said: “Yes.⁠ ⁠… No doubt he ought to have done perhaps⁠ ⁠… Only⁠—”

“Only they’d bought his silence, hadn’t they?” sneered Leonard. “They opened the casket in front of him and found jewels in it and gave your husband his share of the loot.”

“Yes⁠—yes⁠ ⁠… the rings⁠ ⁠… the seven rings,” she said. “But that wasn’t his reason for keeping silence.⁠ ⁠… The poor man was ill. He died a little while after he came back from Rouen.”

“And that casket?”

“It was left in the empty cart so that my husband brought it back with the rings. I kept silence, as he had done. It was already an old story, and I was afraid of the scandal, too.⁠ ⁠… They might have accused my husband. It was just as well to keep my mouth shut. I went away to Lillebonne with my daughter, and it was only when Bridget left me to go on the stage that she took the rings⁠ ⁠… which for my part I never wanted to touch.⁠ ⁠… That’s the whole story, Monsieur. Don’t ask me anything else.”

“What do you mean, the whole story?” said Leonard, and he sneered again.

“It’s all I know,” said the widow fearfully.

“But I’ve no interest in that precious story of yours. What we’re quarreling about is another thing.⁠ ⁠… As you very well know.”

“What do you mean?”

“The letters carved on the inside of the casket, on the lid⁠—that’s the whole point of the business.”

“Those half rubbed-out letters! I swear to you, good gentleman, I never even dreamed of trying to make them out.”

“That’s all right, and I’m quite willing to believe it,” said Leonard. “But then we come again to the original point: what has become of the casket?”

“I’ve told you. It was taken from me⁠—the evening before you came to Lillebonne with the lady, the lady who wore a thick veil.”

“It was taken from you, was it? Who by?”

“By a person of my acquaintance.”

“A person who was looking for it?” said Leonard sharply.

“No. That person saw it on the top of a cupboard in my sitting-room and fancied it as a curio,” said the widow.

“What was that person’s name⁠—for the hundredth time⁠—what was that person’s name? That’s what I want to know,” stormed Leonard.

“I can’t tell you that. It was someone who has been very kind to me, and to tell would only do harm great harm. I will not tell.”

“But, you old fool, that person would be the first to tell you to speak!”

“Perhaps⁠—perhaps. But how am I to know that? I cannot write.⁠ ⁠… We see one another