Books: The Hollow Needle
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Maurice Leblanc >> The Hollow Needle
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Froberval passed him the photograph. Beautrelet gave a start of
surprise. He had recognized himself in the snapshot, standing, with
his two hands in his pockets, on a lawn from which rose trees and
ruins.
Froberval added:
"It must be the last portrait of yourself which you sent him. Look,
on the back, you will see the date, 3 April, the name of the
photographer, R. de Val, and the name of the town, Lion--Lion-sur-
Mer, perhaps."
Isidore turned the photograph over and read this little note, in his
own handwriting:
"R. de Val.--3.4--Lion."
He was silent for a few minutes and resumed:
"My father hadn't shown you that snapshot yet?"
"No--and that's just what astonished me when I saw it yesterday--for
your father used so often to talk to us about you."
There was a fresh pause, greatly prolonged. Froberval muttered:
"I have business at the workshop. We might as well go in--"
He was silent. Isidore had not taken his eyes from the photograph,
was examining it from every point of view. At last, the boy asked:
"Is there such a thing as an inn called the Lion d'Or at a short
league outside the town?"
"Yes, about a league from here."
"On the Route de Valognes, is it?"
"Yes, on the Route de Valognes."
"Well, I have every reason to believe that this inn was the head-
quarters of Lupin's friends. It was from there that they entered
into communication with my father."
"What an idea! Your father spoke to nobody. He saw nobody."
"He saw nobody, but they made use of an intermediary."
"What proof have you?"
"This photograph."
"But it's your photograph!"
"It's my photograph, but it was not sent by me. I was not even aware
of its existence. It was taken, without my knowledge, in the ruins
of Ambrumesy, doubtless by the examining-magistrate's clerk, who, as
you know, was an accomplice of Arsene Lupin's."
"And then?"
"Then this photograph became the passport, the talisman, by means of
which they obtained my father's confidence."
"But who? Who was able to get into my house?"
"I don't know, but my father fell into the trap. They told him and
he believed that I was in the neighborhood, that I was asking to see
him and that I was giving him an appointment at the Golden Lion."
"But all this is nonsense! How can you assert--?"
"Very simply. They imitated my writing on the back of the photograph
and specified the meeting-place: Valognes Road, 3 kilometres 400,
Lion Inn. My father came and they seized him, that's all."
"Very well," muttered Froberval, dumbfounded, "very well. I admit
it--things happened as you say--but that does not explain how he was
able to leave during the night."
"He left in broad daylight, though he waited until dark to go to the
meeting-place."
"But, confound it, he didn't leave his room the whole of the day
before yesterday!"
"There is one way of making sure: run down to the dockyard,
Froberval, and look for one of the men who were on guard in the
afternoon, two days ago.--Only, be quick, if you wish to find me
here."
"Are you going?"
"Yes, I shall take the next train back."
"What!--Why, you don't know--your inquiry--"
"My inquiry is finished. I know pretty well all that I wanted to
know. I shall have left Cherbourg in an hour."
Froberval rose to go. He looked at Beautrelet with an air of
absolute bewilderment, hesitated a moment and then took his cap:
"Are you coming, Charlotte?"
"No," said Beautrelet, "I shall want a few more particulars. Leave
her with me. Besides, I want to talk to her. I knew her when she was
quite small."
Froberval went away. Beautrelet and the little girl remained alone
in the tavern smoking room. A few minutes passed, a waiter entered,
cleared away some cups and left the room again. The eyes of the
young man and the child met; and Beautrelet placed his hand very
gently on the little girl's hand. She looked at him for two or three
seconds, distractedly, as though about to choke. Then, suddenly
hiding her head between her folded arms, she burst into sobs.
He let her cry and, after a while, said:
"It was you, wasn't it, who did all the mischief, who acted as go-
between? It was you who took him the photograph? You admit it, don't
you? And, when you said that my father was in his room, two days
ago, you knew that it was not true, did you not, because you
yourself had helped him to leave it--?"
She made no reply. He asked:
"Why did you do it? They offered you money, I suppose--to buy
ribbons with a frock--?"
He uncrossed Charlotte's arms and lifted up her head. He saw a poor
little face all streaked with tears, the attractive, disquieting,
mobile face of one of those little girls who seem marked out for
temptation and weakness.
"Come," said Beautrelet, "it's over, we'll say no more about it. I
will not even ask you how it happened. Only you must tell me
everything that can be of use to me.--Did you catch anything--any
remark made by those men? How did they carry him off?"
She replied at once:
"By motor car. I heard them talking about it--"
"And what road did they take?"
"Ah, I don't know that!"
"Didn't they say anything before you--something that might help us?"
"No--wait, though: there was one who said, 'We shall have no time to
lose--the governor is to telephone to us at eight o'clock in the
morning--'"
"Whereto?"
"I can't say.--I've forgotten--"
"Try--try and remember. It was the name of a town, wasn't it?"
"Yes--a name--like Chateau--"
"Chateaubriant?--Chateau-Thierry?--"
"No-no--"
"Chateauroux?"
"Yes, that was it--Chateauroux--"
Beautrelet did not wait for her to complete her sentence. Already he
was on his feet and, without giving a thought to Froberval, without
even troubling about the child, who stood gazing at him in
stupefaction, he opened the door and ran to the station:
"Chateauroux, madame--a ticket for Chateauroux--"
"Over Mans and Tours?" asked the booking-clerk.
"Of course--the shortest way. Shall I be there for lunch?"
"Oh, no!"
"For dinner? Bedtime--?"
"Oh, no! For that, you would have to go over Paris. The Paris
express leaves at nine o'clock. You're too late--"
It was not too late. Beautrelet was just able to catch the train.
"Well," said Beautrelet, rubbing his hands, "I have spent only two
hours or so at Cherbourg, but they were well employed."
He did not for a moment think of accusing Charlotte of lying. Weak,
unstable, capable of the worst treacheries, those petty natures also
obey impulses of sincerity; and Beautrelet had read in her
affrighted eyes her shame for the harm which she had done and her
delight at repairing it in part. He had no doubt, therefore, that
Chateauroux was the other town to which Lupin had referred and where
his confederates were to telephone to him.
On his arrival in Paris, Beautrelet took every necessary precaution
to avoid being followed. He felt that it was a serious moment. He
was on the right road that was leading him to his father: one act of
imprudence might ruin all.
He went to the flat of one of his schoolfellows and came out, an
hour later, irrecognizable, rigged out as an Englishman of thirty,
in a brown check suit, with knickerbockers, woolen stockings and a
cap, a high-colored complexion and a red wig. He jumped on a bicycle
laden with a complete painter's outfit and rode off to the Gare
d'Austerlitz.
He slept that night at Issoudun. The next morning, he mounted his
machine at break of day. At seven o'clock, he walked into the
Chateauroux post-office and asked to be put on to Paris. As he had
to wait, he entered into conversation with the clerk and learnt
that, two days before, at the same hour, a man dressed for motoring
had also asked for Paris.
The proof was established. He waited no longer.
By the afternoon, he had ascertained, from undeniable evidence, that
a limousine car, following the Tours road, had passed through the
village of Buzancais and the town of Chateauroux and had stopped
beyond the town, on the verge of the forest. At ten o'clock, a hired
gig, driven by a man unknown, had stopped beside the car and then
gone off south, through the valley of the Bouzanne. There was then
another person seated beside the driver. As for the car, it had
turned in the opposite direction and gone north, toward Issoudun.
Beautrelet easily discovered the owner of the gig, who, however, had
no information to supply. He had hired out his horse and trap to a
man who brought them back himself next day.
Lastly, that same evening, Isidore found out that the motor car had
only passed through Issoudun, continuing its road toward Orleans,
that is to say, toward Paris.
From all this, it resulted, in the most absolute fashion, that M.
Beautrelet was somewhere in the neighborhood. If not, how was it
conceivable that people should travel nearly three hundred miles
across France in order to telephone from Chateauroux and next to
return, at an acute angle, by the Paris road?
This immense circuit had a more definite object: to move M.
Beautrelet to the place assigned to him.
"And this place is within reach of my hand," said Isidore to
himself, quivering with hope and expectation. "My father is waiting
for me to rescue him at ten or fifteen leagues from here. He is
close by. He is breathing the same air as I."
He set to work at once. Taking a war-office map, he divided it into
small squares, which he visited one after the other, entering the
farmhouses making the peasants talk, calling on the schoolmasters,
the mayors, the parish priests, chatting to the women. It seemed to
him that he must attain his end without delay and his dreams grew
until it was no longer his father alone whom he hoped to deliver,
but all those whom Lupin was holding captive: Raymonde de Saint-
Veran, Ganimard, Holmlock Shears, perhaps, and others, many others;
and, in reaching them, he would, at the same time, reach Lupin's
stronghold, his lair, the impenetrable retreat where he was piling
up the treasures of which he had robbed the wide world.
But, after a fortnight's useless searching, his enthusiasm ended by
slackening and he very soon lost confidence. Because success was
slow in appearing, from one day to the next, almost, he ceased to
believe in it; and, though he continued to pursue his plan of
investigations, he would have felt a real surprise if his efforts
had led to the smallest discovery.
More days still passed by, monotonous days of discouragement. He
read in the newspapers that the Comte de Gesvres and his daughter
had left Ambrumesy and gone to stay near Nice. He also learnt that
Harlington had been released, that gentleman's innocence having
become self-obvious, in accordance with the indications supplied by
Arsene Lupin.
Isidore changed his head-quarters, established himself for two days
at the Chatre, for two days at Argenton. The result was the same.
Just then, he was nearly throwing up the game. Evidently, the gig in
which his father had been carried off could only have furnished a
stage, which had been followed by another stage, furnished by some
other conveyance. And his father was far away.
He was thinking of leaving, when, one Monday morning, he saw, on the
envelope of an unstamped letter, sent on to him from Paris, a
handwriting that set him trembling with emotion. So great was his
excitement that, for some minutes, he dared not open the letter, for
fear of a disappointment. His hand shook. Was it possible? Was this
not a trap laid for him by his infernal enemy?
He tore open the envelope. It was indeed a letter from his father,
written by his father himself. The handwriting presented all the
peculiarities, all the oddities of the hand which he knew so well.
He read:
Will these lines ever reach you, my dear son? I dare not believe it.
During the whole night of my abduction, we traveled by motor car;
then, in the morning, by carriage. I could see nothing. My eyes were
bandaged. The castle in which I am confined should be somewhere in
the midlands, to judge by its construction and the vegetation in the
park. The room which I occupy is on the second floor: it is a room
with two windows, one of which is almost blocked by a screen of
climbing glycines. In the afternoon, I am allowed to walk about the
park, at certain hours, but I am kept under unrelaxing observation.
I am writing this letter, on the mere chance of its reaching you,
and fastening it to a stone. Perhaps, one day, I shall be able to
throw it over the wall and some peasant will pick it up.
But do not be distressed about me. I am treated with every
consideration.
Your old father, who is very fond of you and very sad to think of
the trouble he is giving you,
BEAUTRELET.
Isidore at once looked at the postmarks. They read, "Cuzion, Indre."
The Indre! The department which he had been stubbornly searching for
weeks!
He consulted a little pocket-guide which he always carried. Cuzion,
in the canton of Eguzon--he had been there too.
For prudence's sake, he discarded his personality as an Englishman,
which was becoming too well known in the district, disguised himself
as a workman and made for Cuzion. It was an unimportant village. He
would easily discover the sender of the letter.
For that matter, chance served him without delay:
"A letter posted on Wednesday last?" exclaimed the mayor, a
respectable tradesman in whom he confided and who placed himself at
his disposal. "Listen, I think I can give you a valuable clue: on
Saturday morning, Gaffer Charel, an old knife-grinder who visits all
the fairs in the department, met me at the end of the village and
asked, 'Monsieur le maire, does a letter without a stamp on it go
all the same?' 'Of course,' said I. 'And does it get there?'
'Certainly. Only there's double postage to pay on it, that's all the
difference.'
"And where does he live?"
"He lives over there, all alone--on the slope--the hovel that comes
next after the churchyard.--Shall I go with you?"
It was a hovel standing by itself, in the middle of an orchard
surrounded by tall trees. As they entered the orchard, three magpies
flew away with a great splutter and they saw that the birds were
flying out of the very hole in which the watch-dog was fastened. And
the dog neither barked nor stirred as they approached.
Beautrelet went up in great surprise. The brute was lying on its
side, with stiff paws, dead.
They ran quickly to the cottage. The door stood open. They entered.
At the back of a low, damp room, on a wretched straw mattress, flung
on the floor itself, lay a man fully dressed.
"Gaffer Charel!" cried the mayor. "Is he dead, too?"
The old man's hands were cold, his face terribly pale, but his heart
was still beating, with a faint, slow throb, and he seemed not to be
wounded in any way.
They tried to resuscitate him and, as they failed in their efforts,
Beautrelet went to fetch a doctor. The doctor succeeded no better
than they had done. The old man did not seem to be suffering. He
looked as if he were just asleep, but with an artificial slumber, as
though he had been put to sleep by hypnotism or with the aid of a
narcotic.
In the middle of the night that followed, however, Isidore, who was
watching by his side, observed that the breathing became stronger
and that his whole being appeared to be throwing off the invisible
bonds that paralyzed it.
At daybreak, he woke up and resumed his normal functions: ate, drank
and moved about. But, the whole day long, he was unable to reply to
the young man's questions and his brain seemed as though still
numbed by an inexplicable torpor.
The next day, he asked Beautrelet:
"What are you doing here, eh?"
It was the first time that he had shown surprise at the presence of
a stranger beside him.
Gradually, in this way, he recovered all his faculties. He talked.
He made plans. But, when Beautrelet asked him about the events
immediately preceding his sleep, he seemed not to understand.
And Beautrelet felt that he really did not understand. He had lost
the recollection of all that had happened since the Friday before.
It was like a sudden gap in the ordinary flow of his life. He
described his morning and afternoon on the Friday, the purchases he
had made at the fair, the meals he had taken at the inn. Then--
nothing--nothing more. He believed himself to be waking on the
morrow of that day.
It was horrible for Beautrelet. The truth lay there, in those eyes
which had seen the walls of the park behind which his father was
waiting for him, in those hands which had picked up the letter, in
that muddled brain which had recorded the whereabouts of that scene,
the setting, the little corner of the world in which the play had
been enacted. And from those hands, from that brain he was unable to
extract the faintest echo of the truth so near at hand!
Oh, that impalpable and formidable obstacle, against which all his
efforts hurled themselves in vain, that obstacle built up of silence
and oblivion! How clearly it bore the mark of Arsene Lupin! He
alone, informed, no doubt, that M. Beautrelet had attempted to give
a signal, he alone could have struck with partial death the one man
whose evidence could injure him. It was not that Beautrelet felt
himself to be discovered or thought that Lupin, hearing of his
stealthy attack and knowing that a letter had reached him, was
defending himself against him personally. But what an amount of
foresight and real intelligence it displayed to suppress any
possible accusation on the part of that chance wayfarer! Nobody now
knew that within the walls of a park there lay a prisoner asking for
help.
Nobody? Yes, Beautrelet. Gaffer Charel was unable to speak. Very
well. But, at least, one could find out which fair the old man had
visited and which was the logical road that he had taken to return
by. And, along this road, perhaps it would at last be possible to
find--
Isidore, as it was, had been careful not to visit Gaffer Charel's
hovel except with the greatest precautions and in such a way as not
to give an alarm. He now decided not to go back to it. He made
inquiries and learnt that Friday was market-day at Fresselines, a
fair-sized town situated a few leagues off, which could be reached
either by the rather winding highroad or by a series of short cuts.
On the Friday, he chose the road and saw nothing that attracted his
attention, no high walled enclosure, no semblance of an old castle.
He lunched at an inn at Fresselines and was on the point of leaving
when he saw Gaffer Charel arrive and cross the square, wheeling his
little knife-grinding barrow before him. He at once followed him at
a good distance.
The old man made two interminable waits, during which he ground
dozens of knives. Then, at last, he went away by a quite different
road, which ran in the direction of Crozant and the market-town of
Eguzon.
Beautrelet followed him along this road. But he had not walked five
minutes before he received the impression that he was not alone in
shadowing the old fellow. A man was walking along between them,
stopping at the same time as Charel and starting off again when he
did, without, for that matter, taking any great precautions against
being seen.
"He is being watched," thought Beautrelet. "Perhaps they want to
know if he stops in front of the walls--"
His heart beat violently. The event was at hand.
The three of them, one behind the other, climbed up and down the
steep slopes of the country and arrived at Crozant, famed for the
colossal ruins of its castle. There Charel made a halt of an hour's
duration. Next he went down to the riverside and crossed the bridge.
But then a thing happened that took Beautrelet by surprise. The
other man did not cross the river. He watched the old fellow move
away and, when he had lost sight of him, turned down a path that
took him right across the fields.
Beautrelet hesitated for a few seconds as to what course to take,
and then quietly decided. He set off in pursuit of the man.
"He has made sure," he thought, "that Gaffer Charel has gone
straight ahead. That is all he wanted to know and so he is going--
where? To the castle?"
He was within touch of the goal. He felt it by a sort of agonizing
gladness that uplifted his whole being.
The man plunged into a dark wood overhanging the river and then
appeared once more in the full light, where the path met the
horizon.
When Beautrelet, in his turn, emerged from the wood, he was greatly
surprised no longer to see the man. He was seeking him with his eyes
when, suddenly, he gave a stifled cry and, with a backward spring,
made for the line of trees which he had just left. On his right, he
had seen a rampart of high walls, flanked, at regular distances, by
massive buttresses.
It was there! It was there! Those walls held his father captive! He
had found the secret place where Lupin confined his victim.
He dared not quit the shelter which the thick foliage of the wood
afforded him. Slowly, almost on all fours, he bore to the right and
in this way reached the top of a hillock that rose to the level of
the neighboring trees. The walls were taller still. Nevertheless, he
perceived the roof of the castle which they surrounded, an old Louis
XIII. roof, surmounted by very slender bell-turrets arranged corbel-
wise around a higher steeple which ran to a point.
Beautrelet did no more that day. He felt the need to reflect and to
prepare his plan of attack without leaving anything to chance. He
held Lupin safe; and it was for Beautrelet now to select the hour
and the manner of the combat.
He walked away.
Near the bridge, he met two country-girls carrying pails of milk. He
asked:
"What is the name of the castle over there, behind the trees?"
"That's the Chateau de l'Aiguille, sir."
He had put his question without attaching any importance to it. The
answer took away his breath:
"The Chateau de l'Aiguille?--Oh!--But in what department are we? The
Indre?"
"Certainly not. The Indre is on the other side of the river. This
side, it's the Creuse."
Isidore saw it all in a flash. The Chateau de l'Aiguille! The
department of the Creuse! L'AIGUILLE CREUSE! The Hollow Needle! The
very key to the document! Certain, decisive, absolute victory!
Without another word, he turned his back on the two girls and went
his way, tottering like a drunken man.
CHAPTER SIX
AN HISTORIC SECRET
Beautrelet's resolve was soon taken: he would act alone. To inform
the police was too dangerous. Apart from the fact that he could only
offer presumptions, he dreaded the slowness of the police, their
inevitable indiscretions, the whole preliminary inquiry, during
which Lupin, who was sure to be warned, would have time to effect a
retreat in good order.
At eight o'clock the next morning, with his bundle under his arm, he
left the inn in which he was staying near Cuzion, made for the
nearest thicket, took off his workman's clothes, became once more
the young English painter that he had been and went to call on the
notary at Eguzon, the largest place in the immediate neighborhood.
He said that he liked the country and that he was thinking of taking
up his residence there, with his relations, if he could find a
suitable house.
The notary mentioned a number of properties. Beautrelet took note of
them and let fall that some one had spoken to him of the Chateau de
l'Aiguille, on the bank of the Creuse.
"Oh, yes, but the Chateau de l'Aiguille, which has belonged to one
of my clients for the last five years, is not for sale."
"He lives in it, then?"
"He used to live in it, or rather his mother did. But she did not
care for it; found the castle rather gloomy. So they left it last
year."
"And is no one living there at present?"
"Yes, an Italian, to whom my client let it for the summer season:
Baron Anfredi."
"Oh, Baron Anfredi! A man still young, rather grave and solemn-
looking--?"
"I'm sure I can't say.--My client dealt with him direct. There was
no regular agreement, just a letter--"
"But you know the baron?"
"No, he never leaves the castle.--Sometimes, in his motor, at night,
so they say. The marketing is done by an old cook, who talks to
nobody. They are queer people--"
"Do you think your client would consent to sell his castle?"
"I don't think so. It's an historic castle, built in the purest
Louis XIII. style. My client was very fond of it; and, unless he has
changed his mind--"
"Can you give me his name and address?"
"Louis Valmeras, 34, Rue du Mont-Thabor."
Beautrelet took the train for Paris at the nearest station. On the
next day but one, after three fruitless calls, he at last found
Louis Valmeras at home. He was a man of about thirty, with a frank
and pleasing face. Beautrelet saw no need to beat about the bush,
stated who he was and described his efforts and the object of the
step which he was now taking:
"I have good reason to believe," he concluded, "that my father is
imprisoned in the Chateau de l'Aiguille, doubtless in the company of
other victims. And I have come to ask you what you know of your
tenant, Baron Anfredi."
"Not much. I met Baron Anfredi last winter at Monte Carlo. He had
heard by accident that I was the owner of the Chateau de l'Aiguille
and, as he wished to spend the summer in France, he made me an offer
for it."
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