The Essential Maurice Leblanc Collection. Морис Леблан
tapped the table lightly with his fingers and flung out little sentences with a delighted air:
"Arsne Lupin versus Holmlock Shears! France versus England.... Revenge for Trafalgar at last!... Ah, the poor wretch ... he little thinks that I am prepared ... and a Lupin armed...."
He stopped suddenly, seized with a fit of coughing, and hid his face in his napkin, as though something had gone down the wrong way.
"What is it?" I asked. "A crumb?... Why don't you take some water?"
"No, it's not that," he gasped.
"What, then?"
"I want air."
"Shall I open the window?"
"No, I shall go out.... Quick, give me my hat and coat.... I'm off!"
"But what does it all mean?"
"You see the taller of those two men who have just come in? Well, I want you to keep on my left as we go out, to prevent his seeing me."
"The one sitting behind you?..."
"Yes.... For personal reasons, I prefer.... I'll tell you why outside...."
"But who is it?"
"Holmlock Shears."
He made a violent effort to overcome his agitation, as though he felt ashamed of it, put down his napkin, drank a glass of water and then, quite recovered, said, with a smile:
"It's funny, isn't it? I'm not easily excited but this unexpected meeting...."
"What are you afraid of, seeing that no one can recognize you under all your transformations? I myself, each time I see you, feel as if I were with a new person."
"_He_ will recognize me," said Arsne Lupin. "_He_ saw me only once,[1] but I felt that he saw me for life and that what he saw was not my appearance, which I can always alter, but the very being that I am.... And then ... and then ... I wasn't prepared.... What a curious meeting!... In this little restaurant!..."
"Well," said I, "shall we go?"
"No ... no...."
"What do you propose to do?"
"The best thing will be to act frankly ... to trust him."
"You can't be serious?"
"Oh, but I am.... Besides, it would be a good thing to question him, to know what he knows.... Ah, there, I feel that his eyes are fixed on my neck, on my shoulders.... He's trying to think ... to remember...."
He reflected. I noticed a mischievous smile on his lips; and then, obeying, I believe, some whim of his frivolous nature rather than the needs of the position itself, he rose abruptly, spun round on his heels and, with a bow, said, gaily:
"What a stroke of luck! Who would have thought it?... Allow me to introduce my friend."
For a second or two, the Englishman was taken aback. Then he made an instinctive movement, as though he were ready to fling himself upon Arsne Lupin. Lupin shook his head:
"That would be a mistake ... to say nothing of the bad taste of it ... and the uselessness!"
The Englishman turned his head from side to side, as though looking for assistance.
"That's no better.... And also, are you quite sure that you are entitled to lay hands upon me? Come, be a sportsman!"
The display of sportsmanlike qualities was not particularly tempting on this occasion. Nevertheless, it probably appeared to Shears to be the wisest course; for he half rose and coldly introduced his companion:
"Mr. Wilson, my friend and assistant ... M. Arsne Lupin."
Wilson's stupefaction made us all laugh. His eyes and mouth, both wide open, drew two streaks across his expansive face, with its skin gleaming and tight-stretched like an apple's, while his bristly hair stood up like so many thick-set, hardy blades of grass.
"Wilson, you don't seem able to conceal your bewilderment at one of the most natural incidents in the world," grinned Holmlock Shears, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.
Wilson stammered:
"Why ... why don't you arrest him?"
"Don't you see, Wilson, that the gentleman is standing between the door and myself and at two steps from the door. Before I moved a finger, he would be outside."
"Don't let that stand in your way," said Lupin.
He walked round the table and sat down so that the Englishman was between him and the door, thus placing himself at his mercy. Wilson looked at Shears to see if he might admire this piece of pluck. Shears remained impenetrable. But, after a moment, he called.
"Waiter!"
The waiter came up.
"Four whiskeys and sodas."
Peace was signed ... until further orders. Soon after, seated all four round one table, we were quietly chatting.
* * * * *
Footnote
[1] See _The Seven of Hearts_, by Maurice Leblanc. Chapter IX: _Holmlock Shears Arrives Too Late_.
* * * * *
Holmlock Shears is a man ... of the sort one meets every day. He is about fifty years of age and looks like a decent City clerk who has spent his life keeping books at a desk. He has nothing to distinguish him from the ordinary respectable Londoner, with his clean-shaven face and his somewhat heavy appearance, nothing except his terribly keen, bright, penetrating eyes.
And then, of course, he is Holmlock Shears, that is to say, a sort of miracle of intuition, of insight, of perspicacity, of shrewdness. It is as though nature had amused herself by taking the two most extraordinary types of detective that fiction had invented, Poe's Dupin and Gaboriau's Lecoq, in order to build up one in her own fashion, more extraordinary yet and more unreal. And, upon my word, any one hearing of the adventures which have made the name of Holmlock Shears famous all over the world must feel inclined to ask if he is not a legendary person, a hero who has stepped straight from the brain of some great novel-writer, of a Conan Doyle, for instance.
He at once, when Arsne Lupin asked him how long he meant to stay, led the conversation into its right channel and replied:
"That depends upon yourself, M. Lupin."
"Oh," exclaimed the other, laughing, "if it depended on me, I should ask you to take to-night's boat back."
"To-night is rather early. But I hope in a week or ten days...."
"Are you in such a hurry?"
"I am very busy. There's the robbery at the Anglo-Chinese Bank; and Lady Eccleston has been kidnapped, as you know.... Tell me, M. Lupin, do you think a week will do?"
"Amply, if you confine yourself to the two cases connected with the blue diamond. It will just give me time to take my precautions, supposing the solution of those two mysteries to give you certain advantages over me that might endanger my safety."
"Yes," said the Englishman, "I expect to have gained those advantages in a week or ten days."
"And to have me arrested on the eleventh?"
"On the tenth, at the very latest."
Lupin reflected and, shaking his head:
"It will be difficult ... it will be difficult...."
"Difficult, yes, but possible and, therefore, certain...."