Books: The Hollow Needle
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Maurice Leblanc >> The Hollow Needle
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The soft sound of the sobs rose like the sad wailing of a little
child overcome with grief. The lad's shoulders marked the heart-
rending rhythm. Tears appeared through the crossed fingers. Lupin
leaned forward and, without touching Beautrelet, said, in a voice
that had not the least tone of pleasantry, nor even of the offensive
pity of the victor:
"Don't cry, youngster. This is one of those blows which a man must
expect when he rushes headlong into the fray, as you did. The worst
disasters lie in wait for him. The destiny of fighters will have it
so. We must suffer it as bravely as we can." Then, with a sort of
gentleness, he continued, "You were right, you see: we are not
enemies. I have known it for long. From the very first, I felt for
you, for the intelligent creature that you are, an involuntary
sympathy--and admiration. And that is why I wanted to say this to
you--don't be offended, whatever you do: I should be extremely sorry
to offend you--but I must say it: well, give up struggling against
me. I am not saying this out of vanity--nor because I despise you--
but, you see, the struggle is too unequal. You do not know--nobody
knows all the resources which I have at my command. Look here, this
secret of the Hollow Needle which you are trying so vainly to
unravel: suppose, for a moment, that it is a formidable,
inexhaustible treasure--or else an invisible, prodigious, fantastic
refuge--or both perhaps. Think of the superhuman power which I must
derive from it! And you do not know, either, all the resources which
I have within myself--all that my will and my imagination enable me
to undertake and to undertake successfully. Only think that my whole
life--ever since I was born, I might almost say--has tended toward
the same aim, that I worked like a convict before becoming what I am
and to realize, in its perfection, the type which I wished to
create--which I have succeeded in creating. That being so--what can
you do? At that very moment when you think that victory lies within
your grasp, it will escape you--there will be something of which you
have not thought--a trifle--a grain of sand which I shall have put
in the right place, unknown to you. I entreat vou, give up--I should
be obliged to hurt you; and the thought distresses me." And, placing
his hand on the boy's forehead, he repeated, "Once more, youngster,
give up. I should only hurt you. Who knows if the trap into which
you will inevitably fall has not already opened under your
footsteps?"
Beautrelet uncovered his face. He was no longer crying. Had he heard
Lupin's words? One might have doubted it, judging by his inattentive
air.
For two or three minutes, he was silent. He seemed to weigh the
decision which he was about to take, to examine the reasons for and
against, to count up the favorable and unfavorable chances. At last,
he said to Lupin:
"If I change the sense of the article, if I confirm the version of
your death and if I undertake never to contradict the false version
which I shall have sanctioned, do you swear that my father will be
free?"
"I swear it. My friends have taken your father by motor car to
another provincial town. At seven o'clock to-morrow morning, if the
article in the Grand Journal is what I want it to be, I shall
telephone to them and they will restore your father to liberty."
"Very well," said Beautrelet." I submit to your conditions."
Quickly, as though he saw no object in prolonging the conversation
after accepting his defeat, he rose, took his hat, bowed to me,
bowed to Lupin and went out. Lupin watched him go, listened to the
sound of the door closing and muttered:
"Poor little beggar!"
At eight o'clock the next morning, I sent my man out to buy the
Grand Journal. It was twenty minutes before he brought me a copy,
most of the kiosks being already sold out.
I unfolded the paper with feverish hands. Beautrelet's article
appeared on the front page. I give it as it stood and as it was
quoted in the press of the whole world:
THE AMBRUMESY MYSTERY
I do not intend in these few sentences to set out in detail the
mental processes and the investigations that have enabled me to
reconstruct the tragedy--I should say the twofold tragedy--of
Ambrumesy. In my opinion, this sort of work and the judgments which
it entails, deductions, inductions, analyses and so on, are only
interesting in a minor degree and, in any case, are highly
commonplace. No, I shall content myself with setting forth the two
leading ideas which I followed; and, if I do that, it will be seen
that, in so setting them forth and in solving the two problems which
they raise, I shall have told the story just as it happened, in the
exact order of the different incidents.
It may be said that some of these incidents are not proved and that
I leave too large a field to conjecture. That is quite true. But, in
my view, my theory is founded upon a sufficiently large number of
proved facts to be able to say that even those facts which are not
proved must follow from the strict logic of events. The stream is so
often lost under the pebbly bed: it is nevertheless the same stream
that reappears at intervals and mirrors back the blue sky.
The first riddle that confronted me, a riddle not in detail, but as
a whole, was how came it that Lupin, mortally wounded, one might
say, managed to live for five or six weeks without nursing, medicine
or food, at the bottom of a dark hole?
Let us start at the beginning. On Thursday the sixteenth of April,
at four o'clock in the morning, Arsene Lupin, surprised in the
middle of one of his most daring burglaries, runs away by the path
leading to the ruins and drops down shot. He drags himself painfully
along, falls again and picks himself up in the desperate hope of
reaching the chapel. The chapel contains a crypt, the existence of
which he has discovered by accident. If he can burrow there, he may
be saved. By dint of an effort, he approaches it, he is but a few
yards away, when a sound of footsteps approaches. Harassed and lost,
he lets himself go. The enemy arrives. It is Mlle. Raymonde de
Saint-Veran.
This is the prologue or rather the first scene of the drama.
What happened between them? This is the easier to guess inasmuch as
the sequel of the adventure gives us all the necessary clues. At the
girl's feet lies a wounded man, exhausted by suffering, who will be
captured in two minutes. THIS MAN HAS BEEN WOUNDED BY HERSELF. Will
she also give him up?
If he is Jean Daval's murderer, yes, she will let destiny take its
course. But, in quick sentences, he tells her the truth about this
awful murder committed by her uncle, M. de Gesvres. She believes
him. What will she do?
Nobody can see them. The footman Victor is watching the little door.
The other, Albert, posted at the drawing-room window, has lost sight
of both of them. Will she give up the man she has wounded?
The girl is carried away by a movement of irresistible pity, which
any woman will understand. Instructed by Lupin, with a few movements
she binds up the wound with his handkerchief, to avoid the marks
which the blood would leave. Then, with the aid of the key which he
gives her, she opens the door of the chapel. He enters, supported by
the girl. She locks the door again and walks away. Albert arrives.
If the chapel had been visited at that moment or at least during the
next few minutes, before Lupin had had time to recover his strength,
to raise the flagstone and disappear by the stairs leading to the
crypt, he would have been taken. But this visit did not take place
until six hours later and then only in the most superficial way. As
it is, Lupin is saved; and saved by whom? By the girl who very
nearly killed him.
Thenceforth, whether she wishes it or no, Mlle. de Saint-Veran is
his accomplice. Not only is she no longer able to give him up, but
she is obliged to continue her work, else the wounded man will
perish in the shelter in which she has helped to conceal him.
Therefore she continues.
For that matter, if her feminine instinct makes the task a
compulsory one, it also makes it easy. She is full of artifice, she
foresees and forestalls everything. It is she who gives the
examining magistrate a false description of Arsene Lupin (the reader
will remember the difference of opinion on this subject between the
cousins). It is she, obviously, who, thanks to certain signs which I
do not know of, suspects an accomplice of Lupin's in the driver of
the fly. She warns him. She informs him of the urgent need of an
operation. It is she, no doubt, who substitutes one cap for the
other. It is she who causes the famous letter to be written in which
she is personally threatened. How, after that, is it possible to
suspect her?
It is she, who at that moment when I was about to confide my first
impressions to the examining magistrate, pretends to have seen me,
the day before, in the copsewood, alarms M. Filleul on my score and
reduces me to silence: a dangerous move, no doubt, because it
arouses my attention and directs it against the person who assails
me with an accusation which I know to be false; but an efficacious
move, because the most important thing of all is to gain time and
close my lips.
Lastly, it is she who, during forty days, feeds Lupin, brings him
his medicine (the chemist at Ouville will produce the prescriptions
which he made up for Mile, de Saint-Veran), nurses him, dresses his
wound, watches over him AND CURES HIM.
Here we have the first of our two problems solved, at the same time
that the Ambrumesy mystery is set forth. Arsene Lupin found, close
at hand, in the chateau itself, the assistance which was
indispensable to him in order, first, not to be discovered and,
secondly, to live.
He now lives. And we come to the second problem, corresponding with
the second Ambrumesy mystery, the study of which served me as a
conducting medium. Why does Lupin, alive, free, at the head of his
gang, omnipotent as before, why does Lupin make desperate efforts,
efforts with which I am constantly coming into collision, to force
the idea of his death upon the police and the public?
We must remember that Mlle. de Saint-Veran was a very pretty girl.
The photographs reproduced in the papers after her disappearance
give but an imperfect notion of her beauty. That follows which was
bound to follow. Lupin, seeing this lovely girl daily for five or
six weeks, longing for her presence when she is not there, subjected
to her charm and grace when she is there, inhaling the cool perfume
of her breath when she bends over him, Lupin becomes enamored of his
nurse. Gratitude turns to love, admiration to passion. She is his
salvation, but she is also the joy of his eyes, the dream of his
lonely hours, his light, his hope, his very life.
He respects her sufficiently not to take advantage of the girl's
devotion and not to make use of her to direct his confederates.
There is, in fact, a certain lack of decision apparent in the acts
of the gang. But he loves her also, his scruples weaken and, as
Mlle. de Saint-Veran refuses to be touched by a love that offends
her, as she relaxes her visits when they become less necessary, as
she ceases them entirely on the day when he is cured--desperate,
maddened by grief, he takes a terrible resolve. He leaves his lair,
prepares his stroke and, on Saturday the sixth of June, assisted by
his accomplices, he carries off the girl.
This is not all. The abduction must not be known. All search, all
surmises, all hope, even, must be cut short. Mlle. de Saint-Veran
must pass for dead. There is a mock murder: proofs are supplied for
the police inquiries. There is doubt about the crime, a crime, for
that matter, not unexpected, a crime foretold by the accomplices, a
crime perpetrated to revenge the chief's death. And, through this
very fact--observe the marvelous ingenuity of the conception--
through this very fact, the belief in this death is, so to speak,
stimulated.
It is not enough to suggest a belief; it is necessary to compel a
certainty. Lupin foresees my interference. I am sure to guess the
trickery of the chapel. I am sure to discover the crypt. And, as the
crypt will be empty, the whole scaffolding will come to the ground.
THE CRYPT SHALL NOT BE EMPTY.
In the same way, the death of Mile, de Saint-Veran will not be
definite, unless the sea gives up her corpse.
THE SEA SHALL GIVE UP THE CORPSE OF MLLE. DE SAINT-VERAN.
The difficulty is tremendous. The double obstacle seems
insurmountable. Yes, to any one but Lupin, but not to Lupin.
As he had foreseen, I guess the trickery of the chapel, I discover
the crypt and I go down into the lair where Lupin has taken refuge.
His corpse is there!
Any person who had admitted the death of Lupin as possible would
have been baffled. But I had not admitted this eventuality for an
instant (first, by intuition and, secondly, by reasoning). Pretense
thereupon became useless and every scheme vain. I said to myself at
once that the block of stone disturbed by the pickaxe had been
placed there with a very curious exactness, that the least knock was
bound to make it fall and that, in falling, it must inevitably
reduce the head of the false Arsene Lupin to pulp, in such a way as
to make it utterly irrecognizable.
Another discovery: half an hour later, I hear that the body of Mlle.
de Saint-Veran has been found on the rocks at Dieppe--or rather a
body which is considered to be Mlle. de Saint-Veran's, for the
reason that the arm has a bracelet similar to one of that young
lady's bracelets. This, however, is the only mark of identity, for
the corpse is irrecognizable.
Thereupon I remember and I understand. A few days earlier, I
happened to read in a number of the Vigie de Dieppe that a young
American couple staying at Envermeu had committed suicide by taking
poison and that their bodies had disappeared on the very night of
the death. I hasten to Envermeu. The story is true, I am told,
except in so far as concerns the disappearance, because the brothers
of the victims came to claim the corpses and took them away after
the usual formalities. The name of these brothers, no doubt, was
Arsene Lupin & Co.
Consequently, the thing is proved. We know why Lupin shammed the
murder of the girl and spread the rumor of his own death. He is in
love and does not wish it known. And, to reach his ends, he shrinks
from nothing, he even undertakes that incredible theft of the two
corpses which he needs in order to impersonate himself and Mlle. de
Saint-Veran. In this way, he will be at ease. No one can disturb
him. Xo one will ever suspect the truth which he wishes to suppress.
No one? Yes--three adversaries, at the most, might conceive doubts:
Ganimard, whose arrival is hourly expected; Holmlock Shears, who is
about to cross the Channel; and I, who am on the spot. This
constitutes a threefold danger. He removes it. He kidnaps Ganimard.
He kidnaps Holmlock Shears. He has me stabbed by Bredoux.
One point alone remains obscure. Why was Lupin so fiercely bent upon
snatching the document about the Hollow Needle from me? He surely
did not imagine that, by taking it away, he could wipe out from my
memory the text of the five lines of which it consists! Then why?
Did he fear that the character of the paper itself, or some other
clue, could give me a hint?
Be that as it may, this is the truth of the Ambrumesy mystery. I
repeat that conjecture plays a certain part in the explanation which
I offer, even as it played a great part in my personal
investigation. But, if one waited for proofs and facts to fight
Lupin, one would run a great risk either of waiting forever or else
of discovering proofs and facts carefully prepared by Lupin, which
would lead in a direction immediately opposite to the object in
view. I feel confident that the facts, when they are known, will
confirm my surmise in every respect.
So Isidore Beautrelet, mastered for a moment by Arsene Lupin,
distressed by the abduction of his father and resigned to defeat,
Isidore Beautrelet, in the end, was unable to persuade himself to
keep silence. The truth was too beautiful and too curious, the
proofs which he was able to produce were too logical and too
conclusive for him to consent to misrepresent it. The whole world
was waiting for his revelations. He spoke.
On the evening of the day on which his article appeared, the
newspapers announced the kidnapping of M. Beautrelet, senior.
Isidore was informed of it by a telegram from Cherbourg, which
reached him at three o'clock.
CHAPTER FIVE
ON THE TRACK
Young Beautrelet was stunned by the violence of the blow. As a
matter of fact, although, in publishing his article, he had obeyed
one of those irresistible impulses which make a man despise every
consideration of prudence, he had never really believed in the
possibility of an abduction. His precautions had been too thorough.
The friends at Cherbourg not only had instructions to guard and
protect Beautrelet the elder: they were also to watch his comings
and goings, never to let him walk out alone and not even to hand him
a single letter without first opening it. No, there was no danger.
Lupin, wishing to gain time, was trying to intimidate his adversary.
The blow, therefore, was almost unexpected; and Isidore, because he
was powerless to act, felt the pain of the shock during the whole of
the remainder of the day. One idea alone supported him: that of
leaving Paris, going down there, seeing for himself what had
happened and resuming the offensive.
He telegraphed to Cherbourg. He was at Saint-Lazare a little before
nine. A few minutes after, he was steaming out of the station in the
Normandy express.
It was not until an hour later, when he mechanically unfolded a
newspaper which he had bought on the platform, that he became aware
of the letter by which Lupin indirectly replied to his article of
that morning:
To the Editor of the Grand Journal.
SIR: I cannot pretend but that my modest personality, which would
certainly have passed unnoticed in more heroic times, has acquired a
certain prominence in the dull and feeble period in which we live.
But there is a limit beyond which the morbid curiosity of the crowd
cannot go without becoming indecently indiscreet. If the walls that
surround our private lives be not respected, what is to safeguard
the rights of the citizen?
Will those who differ plead the higher interest of truth? An empty
pretext in so far as I am concerned, because the truth is known and
I raise no difficulty about making an official confession of the
truth in writing. Yes, Mlle. de Saint-Veran is alive. Yes, I love
her. Yes, I have the mortification not to be loved by her. Yes, the
results of the boy Beautrelet's inquiry are wonderful in their
precision and accuracy. Yes, we agree on every point. There is no
riddle left. There is no mystery. Well, then, what?
Injured to the very depths of my soul, bleeding still from cruel
wounds, I ask that my more intimate feelings and secret hopes may no
longer be delivered to the malevolence of the public. I ask for
peace, the peace which I need to conquer the affection of Mlle. de
Saint-Veran and to wipe out from her memory the thousand little
injuries which she has had to suffer at the hands of her uncle and
cousin--this has not been told--because of her position as a poor
relation. Mlle. de Saint-Veran will forget this hateful past. All
that she can desire, were it the fairest jewel in the world, were it
the most unattainable treasure, I shall lay at her feet. She will be
happy. She will love me.
But, if I am to succeed, once more, I require peace. That is why I
lay down my arms and hold out the olive-branch to my enemies--while
warning them, with every magnanimity on my part, that a refusal on
theirs might bring down upon them the gravest consequences.
One word more on the subject of Mr. Harlington. This name conceals
the identity of an excellent fellow, who is secretary to Cooley, the
American millionaire, and instructed by him to lay hands upon every
object of ancient art in Europe which it is possible to discover.
His evil star brought him into touch with my friend Etienne de
Vaudreix, ALIAS Arsene Lupin, ALIAS myself. He learnt, in this way,
that a certain M. de Gesvres was willing to part with four pictures
by Rubens, ostensibly on the condition that they were replaced by
copies and that the bargain to which he was consenting remained
unknown. My friend Vaudreix also undertook to persuade M. de Gesvres
to sell his chapel. The negotiations were conducted with entire good
faith on the side of my friend Vaudreix and with charming
ingenuousness on the side of Mr. Harlington, until the day when the
Rubenses and the carvings from the chapel were in a safe place and
Mr. Harlington in prison. There remains nothing, therefore, to be
done but to release the unfortunate American, because he was content
to play the modest part of a dupe; to brand the millionaire Cooley,
because, for fear of possible unpleasantness, he did not protest
against his secretary's arrest; and to congratulate my friend
Etienne de Vaudreix, because he is revenging the outraged morality
of the public by keeping the hundred thousand francs which he was
paid on account by that singularly unattractive person, Cooley.
Pray, pardon the length of this letter and permit me to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
ARSENE LUPIN.
Isidore weighed the words of this communication as minutely,
perhaps, as he had studied the document concerning the Hollow
Needle. He went on the principle, the correctness of which was
easily proved, that Lupin had never taken the trouble to send one of
his amusing letters to the press without absolute necessity, without
some motive which events were sure, sooner or later, to bring to
light.
What was the motive for this particular letter? For what hidden
reason was Lupin confessing his love and the failure of that love?
Was it there that Beautrelet had to seek, or in the explanations
regarding Mr. Harlington, or further still, between the lines,
behind all those words whose apparent meaning had perhaps no other
object than to suggest some wicked, perfidious, misleading little
idea?
For hours, the young man, confined to his compartment, remained
pensive and anxious. The letter filled him with mistrust, as though
it had been written for his benefit and were destined to lead him,
personally, into error. For the first time and because he found
himself confronted not with a direct attack, but with an ambiguous,
indefinable method of fighting, he underwent a distinct sensation of
fear. And, when he thought of his good old, easy-going father,
kidnapped through his fault, he asked himself, with a pang, whether
he was not mad to continue so unequal a contest. Was the result not
certain? Had Lupin not won the game in advance?
It was but a short moment of weakness. When he alighted from his
compartment, at six o'clock in the morning, refreshed by a few
hours' sleep, he had recovered all his confidence.
On the platform, Froberval, the dockyard clerk who had given
hospitality to M. Beautrelet, senior, was waiting for him,
accompanied by his daughter Charlotte, an imp of twelve or thirteen.
"Well?" cried Isidore.
The worthy man beginning to moan and groan, he interrupted him,
dragged him to a neighboring tavern, ordered coffee and began to put
plain questions, without permitting the other the slightest
digression:
"My father has not been carried off, has he? It was impossible."
"Impossible. Still, he has disappeared."
"Since when?"
"We don't know."
"What!"
"No. Yesterday morning, at six o'clock, as I had not seen him come
down as usual, I opened his door. He was gone."
"But was he there on the day before, two days ago?"
"Yes. On the day before yesterday, he did not leave his room. He was
a little tired; and Charlotte took his lunch up to him at twelve and
his dinner at seven in the evening."
"So it was between seven o'clock in the evening, on the day before
yesterday, and six o'clock on yesterday morning that he
disappeared?"
"Yes, during the night before last. Only--"
"Only what?"
"Well, it's like this: you can't leave the arsenal at night."
"Do you mean that he has not left it?"
"That's impossible! My friends and I have searched the whole naval
harbor."
"Then he has left it!"
"Impossible, every outlet is guarded!"
Beautrelet reflected and then said:
"What next?"
"Next, I hurried to the commandant's and informed the officer in
charge."
"Did he come to your house?"
"Yes; and a gentleman from the public prosecutor's also. They
searched all through the morning; and, when I saw that they were
making no progress and that there was no hope left, I telegraphed to
you."
"Was the bed disarranged in his room?"
"No."
"Nor the room disturbed in any way?"
"No. I found his pipe in its usual place, with his tobacco and the
book which he was reading. There was even this little photograph of
yourself in the middle of the book, marking the page."
"Let me see it."
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