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

world has any greater claim to know it than your father, or his friends, or myself. The secret belongs to the person who shall find it out, to the first passerby who shall be able to profit by it.”

She yielded. What Ralph said must be right.

“Yes, yes; no doubt you’re right. But I attached so little importance to that inscription that I can’t remember exactly what it was.⁠ ⁠… It was something to do with a stone and a queen.”

“You must recall it, Clarice; you really must,” he begged, for a sudden fresh overclouding of Josephine’s face made him again anxious.

Slowly, her brow knitted in the effort to remember, correcting herself and contradicting herself, the young girl succeeded in saying:

“Here it is⁠—I remember⁠—this is exactly the sentence that I made out⁠ ⁠… five Latin words⁠ ⁠… in this order:

Ad lapidem currebat olim regina.

She had hardly got the last syllable out when Josephine bent sharply towards her and cried furiously: “It’s a lie! That formula⁠—we’ve known it for ages! Beaumagnan can bear witness to that. We knew it, didn’t we, Beaumagnan? She’s lying, Ralph! She’s lying! The Cardinal mentions those five words in his memorandum; and he considered them of so little importance and so firmly refused to attach any meaning to them that I did not even tell you about them!⁠ ⁠… In days gone by the queen ran to the stone. But where is it, that stone? And who was the queen who ran to it? We’ve been trying to find out for the last twenty years. No, no! There’s something else!”

Once again that terrible rage filled her, that rage which did not manifest itself in a raised voice of incoherent words but in an agitation altogether interior, which one divined from certain symptoms and above all from the unusual and abnormal cruelty of her words.

Bending over the young girl she cried: “You lie!⁠ ⁠… You lie!⁠ ⁠… There is one word which sums up the meaning of those five.⁠ ⁠… What is it?⁠ ⁠… There’s a key-word.⁠ ⁠… A single key-word.⁠ ⁠… What is it?”

Terrorized, Clarice lost the power of utterance.

“Think, Clarice,” Ralph implored her. “Try to remember.⁠ ⁠… Besides those five words, did you not see something else?”

“I don’t know.⁠ ⁠… I don’t think so,” moaned the young girl.

“Try to remember.⁠ ⁠… You must remember. Your safety depends on it!” he cried.

But the very tone of his voice and his frightened tenderness for Clarice exasperated Josephine.

She gripped the young girl’s arm and cried: “Speak! If you don’t⁠—”

Clarice stuttered incoherently. Josephine blew a shrill blast on her whistle.

Almost on the instant Leonard stood on the threshold of the door.

Josephine said, in terrible, inexorable accents: “Take her away, Leonard, and question her!”

Ralph jerked in his bonds and cried furiously: “You coward! You wretch! What are you going to do? Are you really the lowest of women? Leonard, if you touch that child, I swear by God that one day or another⁠—”

“How frightened you are for her!” snarled Josephine. “How the idea of her suffering does upset you! You were certainly born to understand one another, you two.⁠ ⁠… The daughter of a murderer and a thief! Yes, a thief!” she said, turning to Clarice. “This fine lover of yours is nothing but a thief! He has always made his living by theft. As a child, he was a thief! To give you flowers, to give you that little engagement ring you wear on your finger, he stole! He’s a burglar and a swindler. Why, his very name, that pretty name of Andresy, was simply a theft. Ralph d’Andresy? I should think so! Arsène Lupin, that’s his real name. Keep him, Clarice; he will become famous. Oh, I’ve seen him at work, this lover of yours! A master! A marvel of cunning! What a pretty couple you two will make if I don’t take a hand in the game! What a child of destiny yours will be, son of Arsène Lupin, grandson of Baron Godfrey!”

This idea of their child added flames to her fury. The madness of evil was unchained.

“Get on, Leonard!” she cried.

“You savage beast!” shouted Ralph, beside himself. “What a horror! You have indeed torn off the mask! There’s no longer any need for you to act your comedy! That’s what you really are⁠—an executioner!”

But there was no holding her; she was set in her barbarous desire to hurt and torture the young girl. With her own hands she pushed Clarice, whom Leonard was dragging towards the door.

“Coward! Monster!” Ralph yelled. “A hair of her head, look you⁠—a single hair! It means death for the two of you! Loose her, you monsters!”

He strained so violently against his bonds that all the apparatus devised by Beaumagnan to hold him smashed. The worm-eaten shutter tore from its hinges and fell in pieces into the room behind him.

There was a moment of anxiety in the opposing camp.

But the ropes, though loosened, were strong and hampered him sufficiently to render him helpless. Nevertheless Leonard drew his revolver and pressed it against Clarice’s temple.

“If he makes another step, a single movement, blow her brains out!” cried Josephine.

Ralph did not stir. He did not doubt that Leonard would carry out that order and that his slightest gesture meant instant death to Clarice. Then?⁠ ⁠… Then must he resign himself to her fate? Were there no means of saving her?

Josephine gazed somberly at him; then she said: “Come: you understand the situation and you’re going to behave yourself.”

“No,” he replied, wholly master of himself. “No; but I’m considering.”

“Considering what?” she sneered.

“I promised her that she should go free and that she had nothing to fear. I mean to keep my promise.”

“You’re a little late about it, aren’t you?” she said and sneered again.

“No, Josephine: you’re going to let her go.”

She turned to Leonard and said: “What are you wasting time for? Be quick about it!”

“Stop!” said Ralph in a tone ringing with such a certainty of being obeyed that she hesitated.

“Stop and let her go,” he repeated. “You hear, Josephine? I wish you to let her go. It