The Essential Maurice Leblanc Collection. Морис Леблан
they had a difficulty in suppressing their inclination to laugh. With a pensive air and a bent back, he walked, like an automaton, from the window to the door and the door to the window, taking each time the same number of steps and turning each time in the same direction.
He stopped, took up a knick-knack, examined it mechanically and then resumed his walk.
At last, planting himself in front of them, he asked:
"Is mademoiselle here?"
"Yes, in the garden, with the children."
"Monsieur le baron, as this will be our final conversation, I should like Mlle. Demun to be present at it."
"So you decidedly...?"
"Have a little patience, monsieur. The truth will emerge plainly from the facts which I propose to lay before you with the greatest possible precision."
"Very well. Suzanne, do you mind...?"
Mme. d'Imblevalle rose and returned almost at once, accompanied by Alice Demun. Mademoiselle, looking a little paler than usual, remained standing, leaning against a table and without even asking to know why she had been sent for.
Shears appeared not to see her and, turning abruptly toward M. d'Imblevalle, made his statement in a tone that admitted of no reply:
"After an inquiry extending over several days, and although certain events for a moment altered my view, I will repeat what I said from the first, that the Jewish lamp was stolen by some one living in this house."
"The name?"
"I know it."
"Your evidence?"
"The evidence which I have is enough to confound the culprit."
"It is not enough that the culprit should be confounded. He must restore...."
"The Jewish lamp? It is in my possession!"
"The opal necklace? The snuff-box?..."
"The opal necklace, the snuff-box, in short everything that was stolen on the second occasion is in my possession."
Shears loved this dry, claptrap way of announcing his triumphs.
As a matter of fact, the baron and his wife seemed stupefied and looked at him with a silent curiosity which was, in itself, the highest praise.
He next summed up in detail all that he had done during those three days. He told how he had discovered the picture-book, wrote down on a sheet of paper the sentence formed by the letters which had been cut out, then described Bresson's expedition to the bank of the Seine and his suicide and, lastly, the struggle in which he, Shears, had just been engaged with Lupin, the wreck of the boat and Lupin's disappearance.
When he had finished, the baron said, in a low voice:
"Nothing remains but that you should reveal the name of the thief. Whom do you accuse?"
"I accuse the person who cut out the letters from this alphabet and communicated, by means of those letters, with Arsne Lupin."
"How do you know that this person's correspondent was Arsne Lupin?"
"From Lupin himself."
He held out a scrap of moist and crumpled paper. It was the page which Lupin had torn from his note-book in the boat, and on which he had written the sentence.
"And observe," said Shears, in a gratified voice, "that there was nothing to compel him to give me this paper and thus make himself known. It was a mere schoolboy prank on his part, which gave me the information I wanted."
"What information?" asked the baron. "I don't see...."
Shears copied out the letters and figures in pencil:
C D E H N O P R Z E O--237
"Well?" said M. d'Imblevalle. "That's the formula which you have just shown us yourself."
"No. If you had turned this formula over and over, as I have done, you would have seen at once that it contains two more letters than the first, an E and an O."
"As a matter of fact, I did not notice...."
"Place these two letters beside the C and H which remained over from the word _Rpondez_, and you will see that the only possible word is 'CHO.'"
"Which means...?"
"Which means the _cho de France_, Lupin's newspaper, his own organ, the one for which he reserves his official communications. 'Send reply to the _cho de France_, agony column, No. 237.' That was the key for which I had hunted so long and with which Lupin was kind enough to supply me. I have just come from the office of the _cho de France_."
"And what have you found?"
"I have found the whole detailed story of the relations between Arsne Lupin and ... his accomplice."
And Shears spread out seven newspapers, opened at the fourth page, and picked out the following lines:
1. ARS. LUP. Lady impl. protect. 540. 2. 540. Awaiting explanations. A. L. 3. A. L. Under dominion of enemy. Lost. 4. 540. Write address. Will make enq. 5. A. L. Murillo. 6. 540. Park 3 p. m. Violets. 7. 237. Agreed Sat. Shall be park. Sun. morn.
"And you call that a detailed story!" exclaimed M. d'Imblevalle.
"Why, of course; and, if you will pay attention, you will think the same. First of all, a lady, signing herself 540, implores the protection of Arsne Lupin. To this Lupin replies with a request for explanations. The lady answers that she is under the dominion of an enemy, Bresson, no doubt, and that she is lost unless some one comes to her assistance. Lupin, who is suspicious and dares not yet have an interview with the stranger, asks for the address and suggests an inquiry. The lady hesitates for four days--see the dates--and, at last, under the pressure of events and the influence of Bresson's threats, gives the name of her street, the Rue Murillo. The next day, Arsne Lupin advertises that he will be in the Parc Monceau at three o'clock and asks the stranger to wear a bunch of violets as a token. Here follows an interruption of eight days in the correspondence. Arsne Lupin and the lady no longer need write through the medium of the paper: they see each other or correspond direct. The plot is contrived: to satisfy Bresson's requirements, the lady will take the Jewish lamp. It remains to fix the day. The lady, who, from motives of prudence, corresponds by means of words cut out and stuck together, decides upon Saturday, and adds, 'Send reply _cho_ 237.' Lupin replies that it is agreed and that, moreover, he will be in the park on Sunday morning. On Sunday morning, the theft took place."
"Yes, everything fits in," said the baron, approvingly, "and the story is complete."
Shears continued:
"So the theft took place. The lady goes out on Sunday morning, tells Lupin what she has done and carries the Jewish lamp to Bresson. Things then happen as Lupin foresaw. The police, misled by an open window, four holes in the ground and two scratches on a balcony, at once accept the burglary suggestion. The lady is easy in her mind."
"Very well," said the baron. "I accept this explanation as perfectly logical. But the second theft...."
"The second theft was provoked by the first. After the newspapers had told how the Jewish lamp had disappeared, some one thought of returning to the attack and seizing hold of everything that had not been carried away. And, this time, it was not a pretended theft, but a real theft, with a genuine burglary, ladders, and so on."
"Lupin, of course...?"
"No, Lupin does not act so stupidly. Lupin does not fire at people without very good reason."
"Then who was it?"
"Bresson,