The Blonde Lady Part 25

"Why should I?" asked Shears, coldly.

"No ... you're quite right ... you're quite right.... I'm going on as well as can be expected. You might do one thing for me, Holmlock: give me a drink."

"A drink?"

"Yes, I'm parched with thirst; and this fever of mine...."

"Why, of course! Wait a minute."

He fumbled about among some bottles, came upon a packet of tobacco, filled and lit his pipe and, suddenly, as though he had not even heard his friend's request, walked away, while old chap cast longing glances at the water-bottle beyond his reach.

"Is M. Destange at home?"

The butler eyed the person to whom he had opened the door of the house--the magnificent house at the corner of the Place Malesherbes and the Rue Montchanin--and, at the sight of the little gray-haired, ill-shaven man, whose long and far from immaculate frock-coat matched the oddity of a figure to which nature had been anything but kind, replied, with due scorn:

"M. Destange may be at home or he may be out. It depends. Has monsieur a card?"

Monsieur had no card, but he carried a letter of introduction and the butler had to take it to M. Destange, whereupon M. Destange ordered the newcomer to be shown in.

He was ushered into a large circular room, which occupied one of the wings of the house and which was lined with books all round the walls.

"Are you M. Stickmann?" asked the architect.

"Yes, sir."

"My secretary writes that he is ill and sends you to continue the general catalogue of my books, which he began under my direction, and of the German books in particular. Have you any experience of this sort of work?"

"Yes, sir, a long experience," replied Stickmann, in a strong Teutonic accent.

In these conditions, the matter was soon settled; and M. Destange set to work with his new secretary without further delay.

Holmlock Shears had carried the citadel.

In order to escape Lupin's observation and to obtain an entrance into the house which Lucien Destange occupied with his daughter Clotilde, the ill.u.s.trious detective had been obliged to take a leap in the dark, to resort to untold stratagems, to win the favour and confidence of a host of people under endless different names, in short, to lead forty-eight hours of the most complex life.

The particulars which he had gathered were these: M. Destange, who was in failing health and anxious for rest, had retired from business and was living among the architectural books which it had been his hobby to collect. He had no interest left in life beyond the handling and examining of those old dusty volumes.

As for his daughter Clotilde, she was looked upon as eccentric. She spent her days, like her father, in the house, but in another part of it, and never went out.

"This is all," thought Shears, as he wrote down the t.i.tles of the books in his catalogue, to M. Destange's dictation, "this is all more or less indefinite; but it is a good step forward. I am bound to discover the solution of one at least of these exciting problems: is M. Destange an accomplice of a.r.s.ene Lupin's? Does he see him now? Are there any papers relating to the building of the three houses? Will these papers supply me with the address of other properties, similarly faked, which Lupin may have reserved for his own use and that of his gang?"

M. Destange an accomplice of a.r.s.ene Lupin's! This venerable man, an officer of the Legion of Honour, working hand in hand with a burglar!

The presumption was hardly tenable. Besides, supposing that they were accomplices, how did M. Destange come to provide for a.r.s.ene Lupin's various escapes thirty years before they occurred, at a time when a.r.s.ene was in his cradle?

No matter, the Englishman stuck to his guns. With his prodigious intuition, with that instinct which is all his own, he felt a mystery surrounding him. This was perceptible by small signs, which he could not have described with precision, but which impressed him from the moment when he first set foot in the house.

On the morning of the second day, he had as yet discovered nothing of interest. He first saw Clotilde Destange at two o'clock, when she came to fetch a book from the library. She was a woman of thirty, dark, with slow and silent movements; and her features bore the look of indifference of those who live much within themselves. She exchanged a few words with M. Destange and left the room without so much as glancing at Shears.

The afternoon dragged on monotonously. At five o'clock, M. Destange stated that he was going out. Shears remained alone in the circular gallery that ran round the library, half-way between floor and ceiling.

It was growing dark and he was preparing to leave, in his turn, when he heard a creaking sound and, at the same time, felt that there was some one in the room. Minute followed slowly upon minute. And, suddenly, he started: a shadow had emerged from the semidarkness, quite close to him, on the balcony. Was it credible? How long had this unseen person been keeping him company? And where did he come from?

And the man went down the steps and turned in the direction of a large oak cupboard. Crouching on his knees behind the tapestry that covered the rail of the gallery, Shears watched and saw the man rummage among the papers with which the cupboard was crammed. What was he looking for?

And, suddenly, the door opened and Mlle. Destange entered quickly, saying to some one behind her:

"So you have quite changed your mind about going out, father?... In that case, I'll turn on the light.... Wait a minute ... don't move."

The man closed the doors of the cupboard and hid himself in the embrasure of a broad window, drawing the curtains in front of him. How was it that Mlle. Destange did not see him! How was it that she did not hear him? She calmly switched on the electric light and stood back for her father to pa.s.s.

They sat down side by side. Mlle. Destange opened a book which she had brought with her and began to read.

"Has your secretary gone?" she said, presently.

"Yes ... so it seems...."

"Are you still satisfied with him?" she continued, as if in ignorance of the real secretary's illness and of the arrival of Stickmann in his stead.

"Quite ... quite...."

M. Destange's head dropped on his chest. He fell asleep.

A moment elapsed. The girl went on reading. But one of the window curtains was moved aside and the man slipped along the wall, toward the door, an action which made him pa.s.s behind M. Destange, but right in front of Clotilde and in such a way that Shears was able to see him plainly. It was a.r.s.ene Lupin!

The Englishman quivered with delight. His calculations were correct, he had penetrated to the very heart of the mystery and Lupin was where he had expected to find him.

Clotilde, however, did not stir, although it was impossible that a single movement of that man had escaped her. And Lupin was close to the door and had his arm stretched toward the handle, when his clothes grazed a table and something fell to the ground. M. Destange woke with a start. In a moment, a.r.s.ene Lupin was standing before him, smiling, hat in hand.

"Maxime Bermond!" cried M. Destange, in delight. "My dear Maxime!...

What stroke of good luck brings you here to-day?"

"The wish to see you and Mlle. Destange."

"When did you come back?"

"Yesterday."

"Are you staying to dinner?"

"Thank you, no, I am dining out with some friends."

"Come to-morrow, then. Clotilde, make him come to-morrow. My dear Maxime!... I was thinking of you only the other day."

"Really?"

"Yes, I was arranging my old papers, in that cupboard, and I came across our last account."