The Essential Maurice Leblanc Collection. Морис ЛебланЧитать онлайн книгу.
Destange did not see him! How was it that she did not hear him? She calmly switched on the electric light and stood back for her father to pass.
They sat down side by side. Mlle. Destange opened a book which she had brought with her and began to read.
"Has your secretary gone?" she said, presently.
"Yes ... so it seems...."
"Are you still satisfied with him?" she continued, as if in ignorance of the real secretary's illness and of the arrival of Stickmann in his stead.
"Quite ... quite...."
M. Destange's head dropped on his chest. He fell asleep.
A moment elapsed. The girl went on reading. But one of the window curtains was moved aside and the man slipped along the wall, toward the door, an action which made him pass behind M. Destange, but right in front of Clotilde and in such a way that Shears was able to see him plainly. It was Arsne Lupin!
The Englishman quivered with delight. His calculations were correct, he had penetrated to the very heart of the mystery and Lupin was where he had expected to find him.
Clotilde, however, did not stir, although it was impossible that a single movement of that man had escaped her. And Lupin was close to the door and had his arm stretched toward the handle, when his clothes grazed a table and something fell to the ground. M. Destange woke with a start. In a moment, Arsne Lupin was standing before him, smiling, hat in hand.
"Maxime Bermond!" cried M. Destange, in delight. "My dear Maxime!... What stroke of good luck brings you here to-day?"
"The wish to see you and Mlle. Destange."
"When did you come back?"
"Yesterday."
"Are you staying to dinner?"
"Thank you, no, I am dining out with some friends."
"Come to-morrow, then. Clotilde, make him come to-morrow. My dear Maxime!... I was thinking of you only the other day."
"Really?"
"Yes, I was arranging my old papers, in that cupboard, and I came across our last account."
"Which one?"
"The Avenue Henri-Martin account."
"Do you mean to say you keep all that waste paper? What for?"
The three moved into a little drawing-room which was connected with the round library by a wide recess.
"Is it Lupin?" thought Shears, seized with a sudden doubt.
All the evidence pointed to him, but it was another man as well; a man who resembled Arsne Lupin in certain respects and who, nevertheless, preserved his distinct individuality, his own features, look and complexion.
Dressed for the evening, with a white tie and a soft-fronted shirt following the lines of his body, he talked gaily, telling stories which made M. Destange laugh aloud and which brought a smile to Clotilde's lips. And each of these smiles seemed a reward which Arsne Lupin coveted and which he rejoiced at having won. His spirits and gaiety increased and, imperceptibly, at the sound of his clear and happy voice, Clotilde's face brightened up and lost the look of coldness that tended to spoil it.
"They are in love," thought Shears. "But what on earth can Clotilde Destange and Maxime Bermond have in common? Does she know that Maxime is Arsne Lupin?"
He listened anxiously until seven o'clock, making the most of every word spoken. Then, with infinite precautions, he came down and crossed the side of the room where there was no danger of his being seen from the drawing-room.
* * * * *
Once outside, after assuring himself that there was no motor-car or cab waiting, he limped away along the Boulevard Malesherbes. Then he turned down a side street, put on the overcoat which he carried over his arm, changed the shape of his hat, drew himself up and, thus transformed, returned to the square, where he waited, with his eyes fixed on the door of the Htel Destange.
Arsne Lupin came out almost at once and walked, down the Rue de Constantinople and the Rue de Londres, toward the centre of the town. Shears followed him at a hundred yards' distance.
It was a delicious moment for the Englishman. He sniffed the air greedily, like a good hound scenting a fresh trail. It really seemed infinitely sweet to him to be following his adversary. It was no longer he that was watched, but Arsne Lupin, the invisible Arsne Lupin. He kept him, so to speak, fastened at the end of his eyes, as though with unbreakable bonds. And he revelled in contemplating, among the other pedestrians, this prey which belonged to him.
But a curious incident soon struck him: in the centre of the space that separated Arsne Lupin and himself, other people were going in the same direction, notably two tall fellows in bowler hats on the left pavement, while two others, in caps, were following on the right pavement, smoking cigarettes as they went.
This might be only a coincidence. But Shears was more surprised when the four men stopped as Lupin entered a tobacconist's shop; and still more when they started again as he came out, but separately, each keeping to his own side of the Chausse d'Antin.
"Confound it!" thought Shears. "He's being shadowed!"
The idea that others were on Arsne Lupin's track, that others might rob him not of the glory--he cared little for that--but of the huge pleasure, the intense delight of conquering unaided the most formidable enemy that he had ever encountered: this idea exasperated him. And yet there was no possibility of a mistake: the men wore that look of detachment, that too-natural look which distinguishes persons who, while regulating their gait by another's, endeavour to remain unobserved.
"Does Ganimard know more than he pretends?" muttered Shears. "Is he making game of me?"
He felt inclined to accost one of the four men, with a view to acting in concert with him. But as they approached the boulevard, the crowd became denser: he was afraid of losing Lupin and quickened his pace. He turned into the boulevard just as Lupin had his foot on the step of the Restaurant Hongrois, at the corner of the Rue du Helder. The door was open and Shears, sitting on a bench on the boulevard, on the opposite side of the road, saw him take his seat at a table laid with the greatest luxury and decorated with flowers, where he was warmly welcomed by three men in evening clothes and two beautifully-dressed ladies who had been waiting for him.
Shears looked for the four rough fellows and saw them scattered among the groups of people who were listening to the Bohemian band of the neighbouring caf. Strange to say, they appeared to be not nearly so much interested in Arsne Lupin as in the people surrounding them.
Suddenly, one of them took a cigarette from his case and addressed a gentleman in a frock-coat and tall hat. The gentleman offered a light from his cigar and Shears received the impression that they were talking at greater length than the mere lighting of a cigarette demanded. At last the gentleman went up the steps and glanced into the restaurant. Seeing Lupin, he walked up to him, exchanged a few words with him and selected a table close at hand; and Shears realized that he was none other than the horseman of the Avenue Henri-Martin.
Now he understood. Not only was Arsne not being shadowed, but these men were members of his gang! These men were watching over his safety! They were his bodyguard, his satellites, his vigilant escort. Wherever the master ran any danger, there his accomplices were, ready to warn him, ready to defend him. The four men were accomplices! The gentleman in the frock-coat was an accomplice!
A thrill passed through the Englishman's frame. Would he ever succeed in laying hands on that inaccessible person? The power represented by an association of this kind, ruled by such a chief, seemed boundless.
He tore a leaf from his note-book, wrote a few lines in pencil, put the note in an envelope