Books: The Hollow Needle
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Maurice Leblanc >> The Hollow Needle
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A light flashed across Beautrelet's mind. That extent of ground,
that country of the high tablelands which run from the cliffs of the
Seine to the cliffs of the Channel almost invariably constituted the
field of operations of Arsene Lupin. For ten years, it was just this
district which he parcelled out for his purposes, as though he had
his haunt in the very centre of the region with which, the legend of
the Hollow Needle was most closely connected.
The affair of Baron Cahorn? [Footnote: The Seven of Hearts, by
Maurice Leblanc. II; Arsene Lupin in Prison]Or the banks of the
Seine, between Rouen and the Havre.
The Thibermenil case? [Footnote: The Seven of Hearts. IX: Holmlock
Shears Arrives Too Late.] At the other end of the tableland, between
Rouen and Dieppe.
The Gruchet, Montigny, Crasville burglaries? In the midst of the
Caux country.
Where was Lupin going when he was attacked and bound hand and foot,
in his compartment by Pierre Onfrey, the Auteuil murderer?
[Footnote: The Seven of Hearts. IV: The Mysterious Railway-
passenger.] To Rouen.
Where was Holmlock Shears, Lupin's prisoner, put on board ship?
[Footnote: Arsene Lupin versus Holmlock Shears, by Maurice Leblanc,
Chapter V: Kidnapped.] Near the Havre.
And what was the scene of the whole of the present tragedy?
Ambrumesy, on the road between the Havre and Dieppe.
Rouen, Dieppe, the Havre: always the Cauchois triangle.
And so, a few years earlier, possessing the pamphlet and knowing the
hiding-place in which Marie Antoinette had concealed the document,
Arsene Lupin had ended by laying his hand on the famous book of
hours. Once in possession of the document, he took the field,
"found" and settled down as in a conquered country.
Beautrelet took the field.
He set out in genuine excitement, thinking of the same journey which
Lupin had taken, of the same hopes with which he must have throbbed
when he thus went in search of the tremendous secret which was to
arm him with so great a power. Would his, Beautrelet's efforts have
the same victorious results?
He left Rouen early in the morning, on foot, with his face very much
disguised and his bag at the end of a stick on his shoulder, like an
apprentice doing his round of France. He walked straight to Duclair,
where he lunched. On leaving this town, he followed the Seine and
practically did not lose sight of it again. His instinct,
strengthened, moreover, by numerous influences, always brought him
back to the sinuous banks of the stately river. When the Chateau du
Malaquis was robbed, the objects stolen from Baron Cahorn's
collection were sent by way of the Seine. The old carvings removed
from the chapel at Ambrumesy were carried to the Seine bank. He
pictured the whole fleet of pinnaces performing a regular service
between Rouen and the Havre and draining the works of art and
treasures from a countryside to dispatch them thence to the land of
millionaires.
"I'm burning! I'm burning!" muttered the boy, gasping under the
truth, which came to him in a mighty series of shocks and took away
his breath.
The checks encountered on the first few days, did not discourage
him. He had a firm and profound belief in the correctness of the
supposition that was guiding him. It was bold, perhaps, and
extravagant; no matter: it was worthy of the adversary pursued. The
supposition was on a level with the prodigious reality that bore the
name of Lupin. With a man like that, of what good could it be to
look elsewhere than in the domain of the enormous, the exaggerated,
the superhuman?
Jumieges, the Mailleraye, Saint-Wandrille, Caudebec, Tancarville,
Quillebeuf were places filled with his memories. How often he must
have contemplated the glory of their Gothic steeples or the splendor
of their immense ruins!
But the Havre, the neighborhood of the Havre drew Isidore like a
beacon-fire.
"The kings of France carry secrets that often decide the fate of
towns!"
Cryptic words which, suddenly, for Beautrelet, shone bright with
clearness! Was this not an exact statement of the reasons that
determined Francis I. to create a town on this spot and was not the
fate of the Havre-de-Grace linked with the very secret of the
Needle?
"That's it, that's it," stammered Beautrelet, excitedly. "The old
Norman estuary, one of the essential points, one of the original
centres around which our French nationality was formed, is completed
by those two forces, one in full view, alive, known to all, the new
port commanding the ocean and opening on the world; the other dim
and obscure, unknown and all the more alarming, inasmuch as it is
invisible and impalpable. A whole side of the history of France and
of the royal house is explained by the Needle, even as it explains
the whole story of Arsene Lupin. The same sources of energy and
power supply and renew the fortunes of kings and of the adventurer."
Beautrelet ferreted and snuffed from village to village, from the
river to the sea, with his nose in the wind, his ears pricked,
trying to compel the inanimate things to surrender their deep
meaning. Ought this hill-slope to be questioned? Or that forest? Or
the houses of this hamlet? Or was it among the insignificant phrases
spoken by that peasant yonder that he might hope to gather the one
little illuminating word?
One morning, he was lunching at an inn, within sight of Honfleur,
the old city of the estuary. Opposite him was sitting one of those
heavy, red-haired Norman horse-dealers who do the fairs of the
district, whip in hand and clad in a long smock-frock. After a
moment, it seemed to Beautrelet that the man was looking at him with
a certain amount of attention, as though he knew him or, at least,
was trying to recognize him.
"Pooh," he thought, "there's some mistake: I've never seen that
merchant before, nor he me."
As a matter of fact, the man appeared to take no further interest in
him. He lit his pipe, called for coffee and brandy, smoked and
drank.
When Beautrelet had finished his meal, he paid and rose to go. A
group of men entered just as he was about to leave and he had to
stand for a few seconds near the table at which the horse-dealer
sat. He then heard the man say in a low voice:
"Good-afternoon, M. Beautrelet."
Without hesitation, Isidore sat down beside the man and said:
"Yes, that is my name--but who are you? How did you know me?"
"That's not difficult--and yet I've only seen your portrait in the
papers. But you are so badly--what do you call it in French--so
badly made-up."
He had a pronounced foreign accent and Beautrelet seemed to
perceive, as he looked at him, that he too wore a facial disguise
that entirely altered his features.
"Who are you?" he repeated. "Who are you?"
The stranger smiled:
"Don't you recognize me?"
"No, I never saw you before."
"Nor I you. But think. The papers print my portrait also--and pretty
often. Well, have you got it?"
"No."
"Holmlock Shears."
It was an amusing and, at the same time, a significant meeting. The
boy at once saw the full bearing of it. After an exchange of
compliments, he said to Shears:
"I suppose that you are here--because of 'him'?"
"Yes."
"So--so--you think we have a chance--in this direction."
"I'm sure of it."
Beautrelet's delight at finding that Shears's opinion agreed with
his own was not unmingled with other feelings. If the Englishman
attained his object, it meant that, at the very best, the two would
share the victory; and who could tell that Shears would not attain
it first?
"Have you any proofs? Any clues?"
"Don't be afraid," grinned the Englishman, who understood his
uneasiness. "I am not treading on your heels. With you, it's the
document, the pamphlet: things that do not inspire me with any great
confidence."
"And with you?"
"With me, it's something different."
"Should I be indiscreet, if--?"
"Not at all. You remember the story of the coronet, the story of the
Duc de Charmerac?" [Footnote: Arsene Lupin, play in four acts, by
Maurice Leblanc and Francis de Croisset.]
"Yes."
"You remember Victoire, Lupin's old foster-mother, the one whom my
good friend Ganimard allowed to escape in a sham prison-van?"
"Yes."
"I have found Victoire's traces. She lives on a farm, not far from
National Road No. 25. National Road No. 25 is the road from the
Havre to Lille. Through Victoire I shall easily get at Lupin."
"It will take long."
"No matter! I have dropped all my cases. This is the only one I care
about. Between Lupin and me, it's a fight--a fight to the death."
He spoke these words with a sort of ferocity that betrayed all his
bitterness at the humiliations which he had undergone, all his
fierce hatred of the great enemy who had tricked him so cruelly.
"Go away, now," he whispered, "we are observed. It's dangerous. But
mark my words: on the day when Lupin and I meet face to face, it
will be--it will be tragic."
Beautrelet felt quite reassured on leaving Shears: he need not fear
that the Englishman would gain on him. And here was one more proof
which this chance interview had brought him: the road from the Havre
to Lille passes through Dieppe! It is the great seaside road of the
Caux country, the coast road commanding the Channel cliffs! And it
was on a farm near this road that Victoire was installed, Victoire,
that is to say, Lupin, for one did not move without the other, the
master without the blindly devoted servant.
"I'm burning! I'm burning!" he repeated to himself. "Whenever
circumstances bring me a new element of information, it confirms my
supposition. On the one hand, I have the absolute certainty of the
banks of the Seine; on the other, the certainty of the National
Road. The two means of communication meet at the Havre, the town of
Francis I., the town of the secret. The boundaries are contracting.
The Caux country is not large; and, even so, I have only the western
portion of the Caux country to search."
He set to work with renewed stubbornness:
"Anything that Lupin has found," he kept on saying to himself,
"there is no reason for my not finding."
Certainly, Lupin had some great advantage over him, perhaps a
thorough acquaintance with the country, a precise knowledge of the
local legends, or less than that, a memory: invaluable advantages
these, for he, Beautrelet, knew nothing, was totally ignorant of the
country, which he had first visited at the time of the Ambrumesy
burglary and then only rapidly, without lingering.
But what did it matter? Though he had to devote ten years of his
life to this investigation, he would carry it to a successful issue.
Lupin was there. He could see him, he could feel him there. He
expected to come upon him at the next turn of the road, on the skirt
of the next wood, outside the next village. And, though continually
disappointed, he seemed to find in each disappointment a fresh
reason for persisting.
Often, he would fling himself on the slope by the roadside and
plunge into wild examination of the copy of the document which he
always carried on him, a copy, that is to say, with vowels taking
the place of the figures:
e . a . a . . e . . e . a . . a . .
a . . . e . e . . e . oi . e . . e .
. ou . . e . o . . . e . . e . o . . e
[Illustration: drawing of an outline of paper with writing and
drawing on it--numbers, dots, some letters, signs and symbols...]
ai . ui . . e . . eu . e
Often, also, according to his habit, he would lie down flat on his
stomach in the tall grass and think for hours. He had time enough.
The future belonged to him.
With wonderful patience, he tramped from the Seine to the sea, and
from the sea to the Seine, going gradually farther, retracing his
steps and never quitting the ground until, theoretically speaking,
there was not a chance left of gathering the smallest particle upon
it.
He studied and explored Montivilliers and Saint-Romani and Octeville
and Gonneville and Criquetot.
At night, he knocked at the peasants' doors and asked for a lodging.
After dinner, they smoked together and chatted. He made them tell
him the stories which they told one another on the long winter
nights. And he never omitted to insinuate, slily:
"What about the Needle? The legend of the Hollow Needle? Don't you
know that?"
"Upon my word, I don't--never heard of it--"
"Just think--an old wives' tale--something that has to do with a
needle. An enchanted needle, perhaps.--I don't know--"
Nothing. No legend, no recollection. And the next morning he walked
blithely away again.
One day, he passed through the pretty village of Saint-Jouin, which
overlooks the sea, and descending among the chaos of rocks that have
slipped from cliffs, he climbed up to the tableland and went in the
direction of the dry valley of Bruneval, Cap d'Antifer and the
little creek of Belle-Plage. He was walking gaily and lightly,
feeling a little tired, perhaps, but glad to be alive, so glad,
even, that he forgot Lupin and the mystery of the Hollow Needle and
Victoire and Shears, and interested himself in the sight of nature:
the blue sky, the great emerald sea, all glittering in the sunshine.
Some straight slopes and remains of brick walls, in which he seemed
to recognize the vestiges of a Roman camp, interested him. Then his
eyes fell upon a sort of little castle, built in imitation of an
ancient fort, with cracked turrets and Gothic windows. It stood on a
jagged, rugged, rising promontory, almost detached from the cliff. A
barred gate, flanked by iron hand-rails and bristling spikes,
guarded the narrow passage.
Beautrelet succeeded in climbing over, not without some difficulty.
Over the pointed door, which was closed with an old rusty lock, he
read the words:
FORT DE FREFOSSE
He did not attempt to enter, but, turning to the right, after going
down a little slope, he embarked upon a path that ran along a ridge
of land furnished with a wooden handrail. Right at the end was a
cave of very small dimensions, forming a sort of watch-tower at the
point of the rock in which it was hollowed out, a rock falling
abruptly into the sea.
There was just room to stand up in the middle of the cave.
Multitudes of inscriptions crossed one another on the walls. An
almost square hole, cut in the stone, opened like a dormer window on
the land side, exactly opposite Fort Frefosse, the crenellated top
of which appeared at thirty or forty yards' distance.
Beautrelet threw off his knapsack and sat down. He had had a hard
and tiring day. He fell asleep for a little. Then the cool wind that
blew inside the cave woke him up. He sat for a few minutes without
moving, absent-minded, vague-eyed. He tried to reflect, to recapture
his still torpid thoughts. And, as he recovered his consciousness,
he was on the point of rising, when he received the impression that
his eyes, suddenly fixed, suddenly wide-open, saw--
A thrill shook him from head to foot. His hands clutched
convulsively and he felt the beads of perspiration forming at the
roots of his hair:
"No, no," he stammered. "It's a dream, an hallucination. Let's look:
it's not possible!"
He plunged down on his knees and stooped over. Two huge letters,
each perhaps a foot long, appeared cut in relief in the granite of
the floor. Those two letters, clumsily, but plainly carved, with
their corners rounded and their surface smoothed by the wear and
tear of centuries, were a D and an F.
D and F! Oh, bewildering miracle! D and F: just two letters of the
document! Oh, Beautrelel had no need to consult it to bring before
his mind that group of letters in the fourth line, the line of the
measurements and indications! He knew them well! They were inscribed
for all time at the back of his pupils, encrusted for good and all
in the very substance of his brain!
He rose to his feet, went down the steep road, climbed back along
the old fort, hung on to the spikes of the rail again, in order to
pass, and walked briskly toward a shepherd whose flock was grazing
some way off on a dip in the tableland:
"That cave, over there--that cave--"
His lips trembled and he tried to find the words that would not
come. The shepherd looked at him in amazement. At last, Isidore
repeated:
"Yes, that cave--over there--to the right of the fort. Has it a
name?"
"Yes, I should think so. All the Etretat folk like to call it the
Demoiselles."
"What?--What?--What's that you say?"
"Why, of course--it's the Chambre des Demoiselles."
Isidore felt like flying at his throat, as though all the truth
lived in that man and he hoped to get it from him at one swoop, to
tear it from him.
The Demoiselles! One of the words, one of the only three known words
of the document!
A whirlwind of madness shook Beautrelet where he stood. And it rose
all around him, blew upon him like a tempestuous squall that came
from the sea, that came from the land, that came from every
direction and whipped him with great lashes of the truth.
He understood. The document appeared to him in its real sense. The
Chambre des Demoiselles--Etretat--
"That's it," he thought, his brain filled with light, "it must be
that. But why didn't I guess earlier?"
He said to the shepherd, in a low voice:
"That will do--go away--you can go--thank you."
The man, not knowing what to think, whistled to his dog and went.
Left alone, Beautrelet returned to the fort. He had almost passed it
when, suddenly, he dropped to the ground and lay cowering against a
piece of wall. And, wringing his hands, he thought:
"I must be mad! If 'he' were to see me! Or his accomplices! I've
been moving about for an hour--!"
He did not stir another limb.
The sun went down. Little by little, the night mingled with the day,
blurring the outline of things.
Then, with little imperceptible movements, flat on his stomach,
gliding, crawling, he crept along one of the points of the
promontory to the extreme edge of the cliff.
He reached it. Stretching out his hands, he pushed aside some tufts
of grass and his head appeared over the precipice.
Opposite him, almost level with the cliff, in the open sea rose an
enormous rock, over eighty yards high, a colossal obelisk, standing
straight on its granite base, which showed at the surface of the
water, and tapering toward the summit, like the giant tooth of a
monster of the deep. White with the dirty gray white of the cliff,
the awful monolith was streaked with horizontal lines marked by
flint and displaying the slow work of the centuries, which had
heaped alternate layers of lime and pebble-stone one atop of the
other.
Here and there, a fissure, a break; and, wherever these occurred, a
scrap of earth, with grass and leaves.
And all this was mighty and solid and formidable, with the look of
an indestructible thing against which the furious assault of the
waves and storms could not prevail. And it was definite and
permanent and grand, despite the grandeur of the cliffy rampart that
commanded it, despite the immensity of the space in which it stood.
Beautrelet's nails dug into the soil like the claws of an animal
ready to leap upon its prey. His eyes penetrated the wrinkled
texture of the rock, penetrated its skin, so it seemed to him, its
very flesh. He touched it, felt it, took cognizance and possession
of it, absorbed and assimilated it.
The horizon turned crimson with all the flames of the vanished sun;
and long, red clouds, set motionless in the sky, formed glorious
landscapes, fantastic lagoons, fiery plains, forests of gold, lakes
of blood, a whole glowing and peaceful phantasmagoria.
The blue of the sky grew darker. Venus shone with a marvelous
brightness; then other stars lit up, timid as yet.
And Beautrelet suddenly closed his eyes and convulsively pressed his
folded arms to his forehead. Over there--oh, he felt as though he
would die for joy, so great was the cruel emotion that wrung his
heart!--over there, almost at the top of the Needle of Etretat, a
little below the extreme point round which the sea-mews fluttered, a
thread of smoke came filtering through a crevice, as though from an
invisible chimney, a thread of smoke rose in slow spirals in the
calm air of the twilight.
CHAPTER NINE
OPEN, SESAME!
The Etretat Needle was hollow!
Was it a natural phenomenon, an excavation produced by internal
cataclysms or by the imperceptible action of the rushing sea and the
soaking rain? Or was it a superhuman work executed by human beings,
Gauls, Celts, prehistoric men?
These, no doubt, were insoluble questions; and what did it matter?
The essence of the thing was contained in this fact: The Needle was
hollow. At forty or fifty yards from that imposing arch which is
called the Porte d'Aval and which shoots out from the top of the
cliff, like the colossal branch of a tree, to take root in the
submerged rocks, stands an immense limestone cone; and this cone is
no more than the shell of a pointed cap poised upon the empty
waters!
A prodigious revelation! After Lupin, here was Beautrelet
discovering the key to the great riddle that had loomed over more
than twenty centuries! A key of supreme importance to whoever
possessed it in the days of old, in those distant times when hordes
of barbarians rode through and overran the old world! A magic key
that opens the cyclopean cavern to whole tribes fleeing before the
enemy! A mysterious key that guards the door of the most inviolable
shelter! An enchanted key that gives power and ensures
preponderance!
Because he knows this key, Caesar is able to subdue Gaul. Because
they know it, the Normans force their sway upon the country and,
from there, later, backed by that support, conquer the neighboring
island, conquer Sicily, conquer the East, conquer the new world!
Masters of the secret, the Kings of England lord it over France,
humble her, dismember her, have themselves crowned at Paris. They
lose the secret; and the rout begins.
Masters of the secret, the Kings of France push back and overstep
the narrow limits of their dominion, gradually founding a great
nation and radiating with glory and power. They forget it or know
not how to use it; and death, exile, ruin follow.
An invisible kingdom, in mid-water and at ten fathoms from land! An
unknown fortress, taller than the towers of Notre Dame and built
upon a granite foundation larger than a public square! What strength
and what security! From Paris to the sea, by the Seine. There, the
Havre, the new town, the necessary town. And, sixteen miles thence,
the Hollow Needle, the impregnable sanctuary!
It is a sanctuary and also a stupendous hiding-place. All the
treasures of the kings, increasing from century to century, all the
gold of France, all that they extort from the people, all that they
snatch from the clergy, all the booty gathered on the battle-fields
of Europe lie heaped up in the royal cave. Old Merovingian gold
sous, glittering crown-pieces, doubloons, ducats, florins, guineas;
and the precious stones and the diamonds; and all the jewels and all
the ornaments: everything is there. Who could discover it? Who could
ever learn the impenetrable secret of the Needle? Nobody.
And Lupin becomes that sort of really disproportionate being whom we
know, that miracle incapable of explanation so long as the truth
remains in the shadow. Infinite though the resources of his genius
be, they cannot suffice for the mad struggle which he maintains
against society. He needs other, more material resources. He needs a
sure place of retreat, he needs the certainty of impunity, the peace
that allows of the execution of his plans.
Without the Hollow Needle, Lupin is incomprehensible, a myth, a
character in a novel, having no connection with reality.
Master of the secret--and of such a secret!--he becomes simply a man
like another, but gifted with the power of wielding in a superior
manner the extraordinary weapon with which destiny has endowed him.
So the Needle was hollow.
It remained to discover how one obtained access to it.
From the sea, obviously. There must be, on the side of the offing,
some fissure where boats could land at certain hours of the tide.
But on the side of the land?
Beautrelet lay until ten o'clock at night hanging over the
precipice, with his eyes riveted on the shadowy mass formed by the
pyramid, thinking and pondering with all the concentrated effort of
his mind.
Then he went down to Etretat, selected the cheapest hotel, dined,
went up to his room and unfolded the document.
It was the merest child's play to him now to establish its exact
meaning. He at once saw that the three vowels of the word Etretat
occurred in the first line, in their proper order and at the
necessary intervals. This first line now read as follows:
e . a . a .. etretat . a ..
What words could come before Etretat? Words, no doubt, that referred
to the position of the Needle with regard to the town. Now the
Needle stood on the left, on the west--He ransacked his memory and,
recollecting that westerly winds are called vents d'aval on the
coast and that the nearest porte was known as the Porte d'Aval, he
wrote down:
"En aval d'Etretat . a .."
The second line was that containing the word Demoiselles and, at
once seeing, in front of that word, the series of all the vowels
that form part of the words la chambre des, he noted the two
phrases:
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