The Essential Maurice Leblanc Collection. Морис ЛебланЧитать онлайн книгу.
meal: two eggs, some vegetables and a little fruit. Then he returned to the Rue Crevaux and said to the concierge:
"I am going to have a look round upstairs and then I'll give you the keys."
He finished his inspection with the room which he used as a study. There he took hold of the end of a jointed gas-bracket which was fixed beside the chimney, unscrewed the brass nozzle, fitted a little funnel-shaped instrument to it and blew up the pipe.
A faint whistle sounded in reply. Putting the pipe to his mouth, he whispered:
"Any one there, Dubreuil?"
"No."
"Can I come up?"
"Yes."
He replaced the bracket, saying, as he did so:
"Where will progress stop? Our age teems with little inventions that make life really charming and picturesque. And so amusing too ... especially when a man knows the game of life as I know it!"
He touched one of the marble mouldings of the mantel-piece and made it swing round on a pivot. The marble slab itself moved and the mirror above it slid between invisible grooves, revealing a yawning gap which contained the lower steps of a staircase built in the body of the chimney itself. It was all very clean, in carefully-polished iron and white porcelain tiles.
He climbed up to the fifth floor, which had a similar opening over the mantel-piece, and found M. Dubreuil awaiting him:
"Is everything finished here?"
"Everything."
"All cleared up?"
"Quite."
"The staff?"
"All gone, except the three men keeping watch."
"Let's go up."
They climbed by the same way to the servants' floor and emerged in a garret where they found three men, one of whom was looking out of the window.
"Any news?"
"No, governor."
"Is the street quiet?"
"Absolutely."
"I shall leave for good in ten minutes.... You will go too. In the meantime, if you notice the least suspicious movement in the street, let me know."
"I've got my finger on the alarm-bell governor."
"Dubreuil, did you remember to tell the removers not to touch the bell-wires?"
"Yes. They work perfectly."
"That's all right, then."
The two gentlemen returned to Flix Davey's flat. And Davey, after readjusting the marble moulding, exclaimed, gaily:
"Dubreuil, I should love to see the faces of those who discover all these wonderful contrivances: alarm-bells, a network of electric wires and speaking-tubes, invisible passages, sliding floor-boards, secret staircases!... regular pantomime machinery!"
"What an advertisement for Arsne Lupin!"
"We could very well have done without the advertisement. It seems a pity to leave so fine an installation. We shall have to begin all over again, Dubreuil ... and upon a new plan, of course, for it never does to repeat one's self. Confound that Shears!"
"He's not come back, I suppose?"
"How could he? There's only one boat from Southampton, which leaves at midnight. From the Havre, there's only one train, which leaves at eight in the morning and arrives at eleven three. Once he has not taken the midnight steamer--and he has not, for my orders to the captain were formal--he can't reach France till this evening, _via_ Newhaven and Dieppe."
"If he comes back!"
"Shears never throws up the game. He will come back, but it will be too late. We shall be far away."
"And Mlle. Destange?"
"I am to meet her in an hour."
"At her house?"
"No, she won't go home for a few days, until the storm has blown over ... and I am able to look after her more thoroughly.... But you must hurry, Dubreuil. It will take a long time to ship all the cases and you will be wanted on the wharf."
"You're sure we are not being watched?"
"Whom by? I was never afraid of any one but Shears."
Dubreuil went away. Flix Davey took a last walk round the flat, picked up a torn letter or two and then, seeing a piece of chalk, he took it, drew a large circle on the dark wall-paper of the dining room, and wrote, after the style of a commemorative tablet:
__.......__ _.-'' '-.. ,-' '-. ,' '. ,' '\ / ARSNE LUPIN, ` / `. / GENTLEMAN BURGLAR, \ | | | LIVED HERE | | | | FOR 5 YEARS | | .' | AT THE COMMENCEMENT | | .' \ OF / \ ,' ` THE TWENTIETH CENTURY / '. ,' '-. _,' '-._ _,-' '`--......---'
This little joke seemed to cause him a lively satisfaction. He whistled gaily as he looked at it and cried:
"Now that I have put myself right with the historians of the future generations, let's be off! Hurry up, Matre Holmlock Shears! In three minutes I shall have left my lair, and your defeat will be absolute.... Two minutes more! You're keeping me waiting, matre!... One minute more! Aren't you coming? Very well, I proclaim your downfall and my apotheosis.... With which last words I proceed to make myself scarce. Farewell, O Kingdom of Arsne Lupin! I shall not look upon you again. Farewell, ye five-and-fifty rooms of the six flats over which I reigned! Farewell, austere and humble dwelling!"
A bell cut short his lyrical effusion, a short, shrill, strident bell, twice interrupted, twice resumed and then ceasing. It was the alarm-bell.
What could it mean? Some unexpected danger? Ganimard? Surely not!...
He was on the point of making for his study and escaping. But first he turned to the window. There was no one in the street. Was the enemy already in the house, then? He listened and seemed to distinguish confused sounds. Without further hesitation he ran to his study and, as he crossed the threshold, heard the sound of a latchkey fumbling at the lock of the hall-door.
"By Jove!" he muttered. "I have only just time. The house may be surrounded.... No use trying the servants' staircase.... Fortunately, the chimney...."
He pushed the moulding smartly: it did not move. He exerted greater force: it did not move.
At the same moment, he received the impression that the outer door was opening and that steps sounded.
"Curse it all!" he swore. "I'm lost, if this confounded spring...."
His fingers clutched the moulding; he bore upon it with all his weight. Nothing moved, nothing! By some incredible bad luck, by a really bewildering piece of malice on the part of fate, the spring, which was working only a moment before, now refused to work!
He persisted madly, convulsively. The block of marble remained inert, motionless. Curse it! Was it conceivable that this stupid obstacle should bar his way? He struck the marble, struck it furious blows with his fists, hammered it, insulted it....
"Why, M. Lupin, is something not going as you wish?"
Lupin turned round, terror-stricken. Holmlock Shears stood before him.
* * * * *
Holmlock Shears! Lupin gazed at him, blinking his eyes, as though smarting under a cruel vision. Holmlock Shears in Paris! Holmlock Shears, whom he had packed off to England the day before, as he might a compromising parcel, stood there before him, triumphant and free!