Books: The Hollow Needle
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Maurice Leblanc >> The Hollow Needle
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"He is still a young man--"
"Yes, with very expressive eyes, fair hair--"
"And a beard?"
"Yes, ending in two points, which fall over a collar fastened at the
back, like a clergyman's. In fact, he looks a little like an English
parson."
"It's he," murmured Beautrelet, "it's he, as I have seen him: it's
his exact description."
"What! Do you think--?"
"I think, I am sure that your tenant is none other than Arsene
Lupin."
The story amused Louis Valmeras. He knew all the adventures of
Arsene Lupin and the varying fortunes of his struggle with
Beautrelet. He rubbed his hands:
"Ha, the Chateau de l'Aiguille will become famous!--I'm sure I don't
mind, for, as a matter of fact, now that my mother no longer lives
in it, I have always thought that I would get rid of it at the first
opportunity. After this, I shall soon find a purchaser. Only--"
"Only what?"
"I will ask you to act with the most extreme prudence and not to
inform the police until you are quite sure. Can you picture the
situation, supposing my tenant were not Arsene Lupin?"
Beautrelet set forth his plan. He would go alone at night; he would
climb the walls; he would sleep in the park--
Louis Valmeras stopped him at once:
"You will not climb walls of that height so easily. If you do, you
will be received by two huge sheep-dogs which belonged to my mother
and which I left behind at the castle."
"Pooh! A dose of poison--"
"Much obliged. But suppose you escaped them. What then? How would
you get into the castle? The doors are massive, the windows barred.
And, even then, once you were inside, who would guide you? There are
eighty rooms."
"Yes, but that room with two windows, on the second story--"
"I know it, we call it the glycine room. But how will you find it?
There are three staircases and a labyrinth of passages. I can give
you the clue and explain the way to you, but you would get lost just
the same."
"Come with me," said Beautrelet, laughing.
"I can't. I have promised to go to my mother in the South."
Beautrelet returned to the friend with whom he was staying and began
to make his preparations. But, late in the day, as he was getting
ready to go, he received a visit from Valmeras.
"Do you still want me?"
"Rather!"
"Well, I'm coming with you. Yes, the expedition fascinates me. I
think it will be very amusing and I like being mixed up in this sort
of thing.--Besides, my help will be of use to you. Look, here's
something to start with."
He held up a big key, all covered with rust and looking very old.
"What does the key open?" asked Beautrelet.
"A little postern hidden between two buttresses and left unused
since centuries ago. I did not even think of pointing it out to my
tenant. It opens straight on the country, just at the verge of the
wood."
Beautrelet interrupted him quickly:
"They know all about that outlet. It was obviously by this way that
the man whom I followed entered the park. Come, it's fine game and
we shall win it. But, by Jupiter, we must play our cards carefully!"
Two days later, a half-famished horse dragged a gipsy caravan into
Crozant. Its driver obtained leave to stable it at the end of the
village, in an old deserted cart-shed. In addition to the driver,
who was none other than Valmeras, there were three young men, who
occupied themselves in the manufacture of wicker-work chairs:
Beautrelet and two of his Janson friends.
They stayed there for three days, waiting for a propitious, moonless
night and roaming singly round the outskirts of the park. Once
Beautrelet saw the postern. Contrived between two buttresses placed
very close together, it was almost merged, behind the screen of
brambles that concealed it, in the pattern formed by the stones of
the wall.
At last, on the fourth evening, the sky was covered with heavy black
clouds and Valmeras decided that they should go reconnoitring, at
the risk of having to return again, should circumstances prove
unfavorable.
All four crossed the little wood. Then Beautrelet crept through the
heather, scratched his hands at the bramble-hedge and, half raising
himself, slowly, with restrained movements, put the key into the
lock. He turned it gently. Would the door open without an effort?
Was there no bolt closing it on the other side? He pushed: the door
opened, without a creak or jolt. He was in the park.
"Are you there, Beautrelet?" asked Valmeras. "Wait for me. You two
chaps, watch the door and keep our line of retreat open. At the
least alarm, whistle."
He took Beautrelet's hand and they plunged into the dense shadow of
the thickets. A clearer space was revealed to them when they reached
the edge of the central lawn. At the same moment a ray of moonlight
pierced the clouds; and they saw the castle, with its pointed
turrets arranged around the tapering spire to which, no doubt, it
owed its name. There was no light in the windows; not a sound.
Valmeras grasped his companion's arm:
"Keep still!"
"What is it?"
"The dogs, over there--look--"
There was a growl. Valmeras gave a low whistle. Two white forms
leapt forward and, in four bounds, came and crouched at their
master's feet.
"Gently--lie down--that's it--good dogs--stay there."
And he said to Beautrelet:
"And now let us push on. I feel more comfortable."
"Are you sure of the way?"
"Yes. We are near the terrace."
"And then?"
"I remember that, on the left, at a place where the river terrace
rises to the level of the ground-floor windows, there is a shutter
which closes badly and which can be opened from the outside."
They found, when they came to it, that the shutter yielded to
pressure. Valmeras removed a pane with a diamond which he carried.
He turned the window-latch. First one and then the other stepped
over the balcony. They were now in the castle, at the end of a
passage which divided the left wing into two.
"This room," said Valmeras, "opens at the end of a passage. Then
comes an immense hall, lined with statues, and at the end of the
hall a staircase which ends near the room occupied by your father."
He took a step forward.
"Are you coming, Beautrelet?"
"Yes, yes."
"But no, you're not coming--What's the matter with you?"
He seized him by the hand. It was icy cold and he perceived that the
young man was cowering on the floor.
"What's the matter with you?" he repeated.
"Nothing--it'll pass off--"
"But what is it?"
"I'm afraid--"
"You're afraid?"
"Yes," Beautrelet confessed, frankly, "it's my nerves giving way--I
generally manage to control them--but, to-day, the silence--the
excitement--And then, since I was stabbed by that magistrate's
clerk--But it will pass off--There, it's passing now--"
He succeeded in rising to his feet and Valmeras dragged him out of
the room. They groped their way along the passage, so softly that
neither could hear a sound made by the other.
A faint glimmer, however, seemed to light the hall for which they
were making. Valmeras put his head round the corner. It was a night-
light placed at the foot of the stairs, on a little table which
showed through the frail branches of a palm tree.
"Halt!" whispered Valmeras.
Near the night-light, a man stood sentry, carrying a gun.
Had he seen them? Perhaps. At least, something must have alarmed
him, for he brought the gun to his shoulder.
Beautrelet had fallen on his knees, against a tub containing a
plant, and he remained quite still, with his heart thumping against
his chest.
Meanwhile, the silence and the absence of all movement reassured the
man. He lowered his weapon. But his head was still turned in the
direction of the tub.
Terrible minutes passed: ten minutes, fifteen. A moonbeam had glided
through a window on the staircase. And, suddenly, Beautrelet became
aware that the moonbeam was shifting imperceptibly, and that, before
fifteen, before ten more minutes had elapsed, it would be shining
full in his face.
Great drops of perspiration fell from his forehead on his trembling
hands. His anguish was such that he was on the point of getting up
and running away--But, remembering that Valmeras was there, he
sought him with his eyes and was astounded to see him, or rather to
imagine him, creeping in the dark, under cover of the statues and
plants. He was already at the foot of the stairs, within a few steps
of the man.
What was he going to do? To pass in spite of all? To go upstairs
alone and release the prisoner? But could he pass?
Beautrelet no longer saw him and he had an impression that something
was about to take place, something that seemed foreboded also by the
silence, which hung heavier, more awful than before.
And, suddenly, a shadow springing upon the man, the night-light
extinguished, the sound of a struggle--Beautrelet ran up. The two
bodies had rolled over on the flagstones. He tried to stoop and see.
But he heard a hoarse moan, a sigh; and one of the adversaries rose
to his feet and seized him by the arm:
"Quick!--Come along!"
It was Valmeras.
They went up two storys and came out at the entrance to a corridor,
covered by a hanging.
"To the right," whispered Valmeras. "The fourth room on the left."
They soon found the door of the room. As they expected, the captive
was locked in. It took them half an hour, half an hour of stifled
efforts, of muffled attempts, to force open the lock. The door
yielded at last.
Beautrelet groped his way to the bed. His father was asleep.
He woke him gently:
"It's I--Isidore--and a friend--don't be afraid--get up--not a
word."
The father dressed himself, but, as they were leaving the room, he
whispered:
"I am not alone in the castle--"
"Ah? Who else? Ganimard? Shears?"
"No--at least, I have not seen them."
"Who then?"
"A young girl."
"Mlle. de Saint-Veran, no doubt."
"I don't know--I saw her several times at a distance, in the park--
and, when I lean out of my window, I can see hers. She has made
signals to me."
"Do you know which is her room?"
"Yes, in this passage, the third on the right."
"The blue room," murmured Valmeras. "It has folding doors: they
won't give us so much trouble."
One of the two leaves very soon gave way. Old Beautrelet undertook
to tell the girl.
Ten minutes later, he left the room with her and said to his son:
"You were right--Mlle. de Saint-Veran--;"
They all four went down the stairs. When they reached the bottom,
Valmeras stopped and bent over the man. Then, leading them to the
terrace-room:
"He is not dead," he said. "He will live."
"Ah!" said Beautrelet, with a sigh of relief.
"No, fortunately, the blade of my knife bent: the blow is not fatal.
Besides, in any case, those rascals deserve no pity."
Outside, they were met by the dogs, which accompanied them to the
postern. Here, Beautrelet found his two friends and the little band
left the park. It was three o'clock in the morning.
This first victory was not enough to satisfy Beautrelet. As soon as
he had comfortably settled his father and Mlle. de Saint-Veran, he
asked them about the people who lived at the castle, and,
particularly, about the habits of Arsene Lupin. He thus learnt that
Lupin came only every three or four days, arriving at night in his
motor car and leaving again in the morning. At each of his visits,
he called separately upon his two prisoners, both of whom agreed in
praising his courtesy and his extreme civility. For the moment, he
was not at the castle.
Apart from him, they had seen no one except an old woman, who ruled
over the kitchen and the house, and two men, who kept watch over
them by turns and never spoke to them: subordinates, obviously, to
judge by their manners and appearance.
"Two accomplices, for all that," said Beautrelet, in conclusion, "or
rather three, with the old woman. It is a bag worth having. And, if
we lose no time--"
He jumped on his bicycle, rode to Eguzon, woke up the gendarmerie,
set them all going, made them sound the boot and saddle and returned
to Crozant at eight o'clock, accompanied by the sergeant and eight
gendarmes. Two of the men were posted beside the gipsy-van. Two
others took up their positions outside the postern-door. The last
four, commanded by their chief and accompanied by Beautrelet and
Valmeras, marched to the main entrance of the castle.
Too late. The door was wide open. A peasant told them that he had
seen a motor car drive out of the castle an hour before.
Indeed, the search led to no result. In all probability, the gang
had installed themselves there picnic fashion. A few clothes were
found, a little linen, some household implements; and that was all.
What astonished Beautrelet and Valmeras more was the disappearance
of the wounded man. They could not see the faintest trace of a
struggle, not even a drop of blood on the flagstones of the hall.
All said, there was no material evidence to prove the fleeting
presence of Lupin at the Chateau de l'Aiguille; and the authorities
would have been entitled to challenge the statements of Beautrelet
and his father, of Valmeras and Mlle. de Saint-Veran, had they not
ended by discovering, in a room next to that occupied by the young
girl, some half-dozen exquisite bouquets with Arsene Lupin's card
pinned to them, bouquets scorned by her, faded and forgotten--One of
them, in addition to the card, contained a letter which Raymonde had
not seen. That afternoon, when opened by the examining magistrate,
it was found to contain page upon page of prayers, entreaties,
promises, threats, despair, all the madness of a love that has
encountered nothing but contempt and repulsion.
And the letter ended:
I shall come on Tuesday evening, Raymonde. Reflect between now and
then. As for me, I will wait no longer. I am resolved on all.
Tuesday evening was the evening of the very day on which Beautrelet
had released Mlle. de Saint-Veran from her captivity.
The reader will remember the extraordinary explosion of surprise and
enthusiasm that resounded throughout the world at the news of that
unexpected issue: Mlle. de Saint-Veran free! The pretty girl whom
Lupin coveted, to secure whom he had contrived his most
Machiavellian schemes, snatched from his claws! Free also
Beautrelet's father, whom Lupin had chosen as a hostage in his
extravagant longing for the armistice demanded by the needs of his
passion! They were both free, the two prisoners! And the secret of
the Hollow Needle was known, published, flung to the four corners of
the world!
The crowd amused itself with a will. Ballads were sold and sung
about the defeated adventurer: Lupin's Little Love-Affairs!--
Arsene's Piteous Sobs!--The Lovesick Burglar! The Pickpocket's
Lament!--They were cried on the boulevards and hummed in the
artists' studios.
Raymonde, pressed with questions and pursued by interviewers,
replied with the most extreme reserve. But there was no denying the
letter, or the bouquets of flowers, or any part of the pitiful
story! Then and there, Lupin, scoffed and jeered at, toppled from
his pedestal.
And Beautrelet became the popular idol. He had foretold everything,
thrown light on everything. The evidence which Mlle. de Saint-Veran
gave before the examining magistrate confirmed, down to the smallest
detail, the hypothesis imagined by Isidore. Reality seemed to
submit, in every point, to what he had decreed beforehand. Lupin had
found his master.--
Beautrelet insisted that his father, before returning to his
mountains in Savoy, should take a few months' rest in the sunshine,
and himself escorted him and Mlle. de Saint-Veran to the outskirts
of Nice, where the Comte de Gesvres and his daughter Suzanne were
already settled for the winter. Two days later, Valmeras brought his
mother to see his new friends and they thus composed a little colony
grouped around the Villa de Gesvres and watched over day and night
by half a dozen men engaged by the comte.
Early in October, Beautrelet, once more the sixth-form pupil,
returned to Paris to resume the interrupted course of his studies
and to prepare for his examinations. And life began again, calmer,
this time, and free from incident. What could happen, for that
matter. Was the war not over?
Lupin, on his side, must have felt this very clearly, must have felt
that there was nothing left for him but to resign himself to the
accomplished fact; for, one fine day, his two other victims,
Ganimard and Holmlock Shears, made their reappearance. Their return
to the life of this planet, however, was devoid of any sort of
glamor or fascination. An itinerant rag-man picked them up on the
Quai des Orfevres, opposite the headquarters of police. Both of them
were gagged, bound and fast asleep.
After a week of complete bewilderment, they succeeded in recovering
the control of their thought and told--or rather Ganimard told, for
Shears wrapped himself in a fierce and stubborn silence--how they
had made a voyage of circumnavigation round the coast of Africa on
board the yacht Hirondelle, a voyage combining amusement with
instruction, during which they could look upon themselves as free,
save for a few hours which they spent at the bottom of the hold,
while the crew went on shore at outlandish ports.
As for their landing on the Quai des Orfevres, they remembered
nothing about it and had probably been asleep for many days before.
This liberation of the prisoners was the final confession of defeat.
By ceasing to fight, Lupin admitted it without reserve.
One incident, moreover, made it still more glaring, which was the
engagement of Louis Valmeras and Mlle. de Saint-Veran. In the
intimacy created between them by the new conditions under which they
lived, the two young people fell in love with each other. Valmeras
loved Raymonde's melancholy charm; and she, wounded by life, greedy
for protection, yielded before the strength and energy of the man
who had contributed so gallantly to her preservation.
The wedding day was awaited with a certain amount of anxiety. Would
Lupin not try to resume the offensive? Would he accept with a good
grace the irretrievable loss of the woman he loved? Twice or three
times, suspicious-looking people were seen prowling round the villa;
and Valmeras even had to defend himself one evening against a so-
called drunken man, who fired a pistol at him and sent a bullet
through his hat. But, in the end, the ceremony was performed at the
appointed hour and day and Raymonde de Saint-Veran became Mme. Louis
Valmeras.
It was as though Fate herself had taken sides with Beautrelet and
countersigned the news of victory. This was so apparent to the crowd
that his admirers now conceived the notion of entertaining him at a
banquet to celebrate his triumph and Lupin's overthrow. It was a
great idea and aroused general enthusiasm. Three hundred tickets
were sold in less than a fortnight. Invitations were issued to the
public schools of Paris, to send two sixth-form pupils apiece. The
press sang paeans. The banquet was what it could not fail to be, an
apotheosis.
But it was a charming and simple apotheosis, because Beautrelet was
its hero. His presence was enough to bring things back to their due
proportion. He showed himself modest, as usual, a little surprised
at the excessive cheering, a little embarrassed by the extravagant
panegyrics in which he was pronounced greater than the most
illustrious detectives--a little embarrassed, but also not a little
touched.
He said as much in a few words that pleased all his hearers and with
the shyness of a child that blushes when you look at it. He spoke of
his delight, of his pride. And really, reasonable and self-
controlled as he was, this was for him a moment of never-to-be-
forgotten exultation. He smiled to his friends, to his fellow-
Jansonians, to Valmeras, who had come specially to give him a cheer,
to M. de Gesvres, to his father.
When he had finished speaking; and while he still held his glass in
his hand, a sound of voices came from the other end of the room and
some one was gesticulating and waving a newspaper. Silence was
restored and the importunate person sat down again: but a thrill of
curiosity ran round the table, the newspaper was passed from hand to
hand and, each, time that one of the guests cast his eyes upon the
page at which it was opened, exclamations followed:
"Read it! Read it!" they cried from the opposite side.
The people were leaving their seats at the principal table. M.
Beautrelet went and took the paper and handed it to his son.
"Read it out! Read it out!" they cried, louder.
And others said:
"Listen! He's going to read it! Listen!"
Beautrelet stood facing his audience, looked in the evening paper
which his father had given him for the article that was causing all
this uproar and, suddenly, his eyes encountering a heading
underlined in blue pencil, he raised his hand to call for silence
and began in a loud voice to read a letter addressed to the editor
by M. Massiban, of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres.
His voice broke and fell, little by little, as he read those
stupefying revelations, which reduced all his efforts to nothing,
upset his notions concerning the Hollow Needle and proved the vanity
of his struggle with Arsene Lupin:
On the 17th of March, 1679, there appeared a little book with the
following title: The Mystery of the Hollow Needle. The Whole Truth
now first exhibited. One hundred copies printed by myself for the
instruction of the Court.
At nine o'clock on the morning of that day, the author, a very young
man, well-dressed, whose name has remained unknown, began to leave
his book on the principal persons at court. At ten o'clock, when he
had fulfilled four of these errands, he was arrested by a captain in
the guards, who took him to the king's closet and forthwith set off
in search of the four copies distributed.
When the hundred copies were got together, counted, carefully looked
through and verified, the king himself threw them into the fire and
burnt them, all but one, which he kept for his own purposes.
Then he ordered the captain of the guards to take the author of the
book to M. de Saint-Mars, who confined his prisoner first at
Pignerol and then in the fortress of the Ile Sainte-Marguerite. This
man was obviously no other than the famous Man with the Iron Mask.
The truth would never have been known, or at least a part of the
truth, if the captain in the guards had not been present at the
interview and if, when the king's back was turned, he had not been
tempted to withdraw another of the copies from the chimney, before
the fire got to it.
Six months later, the captain was found dead on the highroad between
Gaillon and Mantes. His murderers had stripped him of all his
apparel, forgetting, however, in his right boot a jewel which was
discovered there afterward, a diamond of the first water and of
considerable value.
Among his papers was found a sheet in his handwriting, in which he
did not speak of the book snatched from the flames, but gave a
summary of the earlier chapters. It referred to a secret which was
known to the Kings of England, which was lost by them when the crown
passed from the poor fool, Henry VI., to the Duke of York, which was
revealed to Charles VII., King of France, by Joan of Arc and which,
becoming a State secret, was handed down from sovereign to sovereign
by means of a letter, sealed anew on each occasion, which was found
in the deceased monarch's death-bed with this superscription: "For
the King of France."
This secret concerned the existence and described the whereabouts of
a tremendous treasure, belonging to the kings, which increased in
dimensions from century to century.
One hundred and fourteen years later, Louis XVI., then a prisoner in
the Temple, took aside one of the officers whose duty it was to
guard the royal family, and asked:
"Monsieur, had you not an ancestor who served as a captain under my
predecessor, the Great King?"
"Yes, sire."
"Well, could you be relied upon--could you be relied upon--"
He hesitated. The officer completed the sentence:
"Not to betray your Majesty! Oh, sire!--"
"Then listen to me."
He took from his pocket a little book of which he tore out one of
the last pages. But, altering his mind:
"No, I had better copy it--"
He seized a large sheet of paper and tore it in such a way as to
leave only a small rectangular space, on which he copied five lines
of dots, letters and figures from the printed page. Then, after
burning the latter, he folded the manuscript sheet in four, sealed
it with red wax, and gave it to the officer.
"Monsieur, after my death, you must hand this to the Queen and say
to her, 'From the King, madame--for Your Majesty and for your son.'
If she does not understand--
"If she does not understand, sire--
"You must add, 'It concerns the secret, the secret of the Needle.'
The Queen will understand."
When he had finished speaking, he flung the book into the embers
glowing on the hearth.
He ascended the scaffold on the 21st of January.
It took the officer several months, in consequence of the removal of
the Queen to the Conciergerie, before he could fulfil the mission
with which he was entrusted. At last, by dint of cunning intrigues,
he succeeded, one day, in finding himself in the presence of Marie
Antoinette.
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