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

He himself untied the cords.

D’Ormont raised the veil and uncovered her face.

There came a cry of amazement from the spectators; and Ralph, up in his observation post, from which he had a view of the prisoner in full daylight, was hard put to it not to betray his presence by a similar exclamation, when there was revealed a young woman in all the splendor of her youth and beauty.

Then a voice rose above the murmurs of astonishment. The Prince of Arcola stepped forward, and his starting eyes glaring in a twitching face, stammered:

“It’s she!⁠ ⁠… It is she.⁠ ⁠… I recognize her.⁠ ⁠… But what a frightful thing it is!”

“What is it?” snapped the Baron. “What’s frightful? Explain!”

And the Prince of Arcola uttered these incredible words:

“She is no older than she was two and twenty years ago!”

The woman was sitting, and sitting quite upright, her clenched fists resting on her knees. Her hat must have fallen off in the course of the attack on her, and her hair, half-undone, fell behind her in a thick mass, partly held up by a gold comb, while two rolls with tawny gleams in them were drawn back evenly above her brow, and were waved a little above her temples.

Her face was of a wonderful beauty, its lines of an astonishing purity; and it was animated by an expression which, even in her impassibility, even in her fear, appeared to be a smile. With her rather delicate chin, rather high cheek bones, deep-set eyes, and heavy eyelids, she recalled those women of Leonardo da Vinci, or rather of Bernardino Luini, all the charm of whom is in a smile you do not actually see, but which you divine, which at once moves and disquiets you.

She was simply dressed: a dust cloak which she let fall, a gray woollen dress which, fitting tightly, gave the lovely curves of her figure their full value.

“Well!” said Ralph, who could not take his eyes off her, softly to himself. “She appears quite inoffensive, this magnificent and infernal creature! And they’re nine or ten to one against her!”

She scrutinized with keen eyes the group of men round her, d’Etigues and his friends, and strove to see clearly those others in the shadow. Then she said:

“What is it you want? I do not recognize any of you. What have you brought me here for?”

“You’re our enemy,” declared Godfrey d’Etigues.

She shook her head gently.

“Your enemy? There must be some mistake. Are you quite sure that you’re not making a mistake? I am Madame Pellegrini.”

“You’re not Madame Pellegrini.”

“But I assure you⁠ ⁠…”

“You’re not!” the Baron exclaimed in a loud voice.

Then he added⁠—and the words were little less disconcerting than those uttered a little while before by the Prince of Arcola:

“Pellegrini was one of the aliases adopted in the eighteenth century by the man whose daughter you pretend to be.”

She did not answer for a few seconds, seeming to be taken aback by the absurdity of the statement. Then she said tartly:

“Then what is my name⁠—according to you?”

“Josephine Balsamo, Countess of Cagliostro.”

Cagliostro! The astonishing man who puzzled all Europe and so thoroughly upset the Court of France in the reign of Louis XVI! The Queen’s necklace⁠ ⁠… Cardinal de Rohan⁠ ⁠… Marie Antoinette⁠ ⁠… some of the most obscure episodes in history!

A strange man, and enigmatic, dowered with a veritable genius for intrigue. A man who exercised a genuine power of domination. A man on whom full light has not yet been thrown. Impostor? Who knows? Have we the right to deny that certain beings of more delicate sensibilities than ourselves can peer into the world of the living and the dead in a fashion which is forbidden to us? Is one to treat as charlatan or fool the man in whose mind rise the memories of past existences, who, recalling what he has seen, reaps the harvest of acquisitions in the past, of lost secrets, and forgotten knowledge, and exploits a power which we call supernatural, but which is merely putting into action, hesitating perhaps and stumbling action, forces of which we are, it may be, on the point of becoming masters?

If Ralph d’Andresy, from the bottom of his post of observation, remained sceptical, if he laughed in his heart, not perhaps without certain reservations, at the fashion in which events were shaping themselves, it seemed that those taking part in them were accepting on the instant and without question, as realities beyond all discussing, the most extravagant assertions.

Had they then proofs and an understanding of this matter peculiar to themselves? Had they found in her who, according to them, laid claim to be the daughter of Cagliostro, gifts of clairvoyance and divination which, in days gone by, the world attributed to that celebrated worker of wonders, and by reason of them treated him as magician and sorcerer?

Godfrey d’Etigues, who was the only one of them standing, bent towards the young woman and said:

“Your name really is Cagliostro, isn’t it?”

She pondered. One would have said that, taking thought how best to defend herself, she was seeking the best counterstroke; that she wished, before definitely plunging into the struggle, to know what weapons the enemy had at his command. Then she answered quietly:

“Nothing compels me to give you an answer, since you have no right whatever to question me. However, why should I deny that on my birth certificate is the name Josephine Pellegrini and that it is my whim to call myself Josephine Balsamo, Countess of Cagliostro? The two names Cagliostro and Pellegrini complete the personality of Joseph Balsamo, a personality in which I have always taken the greatest interest.”

“Then it follows that, contrary to certain declarations you used to make, you are not his direct descendant. Is that what you wish to imply?” said the Baron.

She shrugged her shoulders and said nothing. Was it prudence? Was it disdain? Or was it a protest against such an absurdity?

“I do not care to