The Essential Maurice Leblanc Collection. Морис Леблан
hand touched his shoulder. It was Wilson's hand.
"Look," he said. "Up there ... a light...."
It was true: there was a light visible through one of the windows on the first floor.
They both raced up, each by his own staircase, and reached the door of the lighted room at the same time. A candle-end was burning in the middle of the floor. Beside it stood a basket, from which protruded the neck of a bottle, the legs of a chicken and half a loaf of bread.
Shears roared with laughter:
"Splendid! He gives us our supper. It's an enchanted palace, a regular fairy-land! Come, Wilson, throw off that dismal face. This is all very amusing."
"Are you sure it's very amusing?" moaned Wilson, dolefully.
"Sure?" cried Shears, with a gaiety that was too boisterous to be quite natural. "Of course I'm sure! I never saw anything more amusing in my life. It's first-rate farce.... What a master of chaff this Arsne Lupin is!... He tricks you, but he does it so gracefully!... I wouldn't give my seat at this banquet for all the gold in the world.... Wilson, old chap, you disappoint me. Can I have been mistaken in you? Are you really deficient in that nobility of character which makes a man bear up under misfortune? What have you to complain of? At this moment, you might be lying with my dagger in your throat ... or I with yours in mine ... for that was what you were trying for, you faithless friend!"
He succeeded, by dint of humour and sarcasm, in cheering up the wretched Wilson and forcing him to swallow a leg of the chicken and a glass of wine. But, when the candle had gone out and they had to stretch themselves on the floor to sleep, with the wall for a pillow, the painful and ridiculous side of the situation became apparent to them. And their slumbers were sad.
In the morning, Wilson woke aching in every bone and shivering with cold. A slight sound caught his ear: Holmlock Shears, on his knees, bent in two, was examining grains of dust through his lens and inspecting certain hardly perceptible chalk-marks, which formed figures which he put down in his note-book.
Escorted by Wilson, who seemed to take a particular interest in this work, he studied each room and found similar chalk-marks in two of the others. He also observed two circles on some oak panels, an arrow on a wainscoting and four figures on four steps of the staircase.
After an hour spent in this way, Wilson asked:
"The figures are correct, are they not?"
"I don't know if they're correct," replied Shears, whose good temper had been restored by these discoveries, "but, at any rate, they mean something."
"Something very obvious," said Wilson. "They represent the number of planks in the floor."
"Oh!"
"Yes. As for the two circles, they indicate that the panels sound hollow, as you can see by trying, and the arrow points to show the direction of the dinner-lift."
Holmlock Shears looked at him in admiration:
"Why, my dear chap, how do you know all this? Your perspicacity almost makes me ashamed of myself."
"Oh, it's very simple," said Wilson, bursting with delight. "I made those marks myself last night, in consequence of your instructions ... or rather Lupin's instructions, as the letter I received from you came from him."
I have little doubt that, at that moment, Wilson was in greater danger than during his struggle with Shears in the shrubbery. Shears felt a fierce longing to wring his neck. Mastering himself with an effort, he gave a grin that pretended to be a smile and said:
"Well done, well done, that's an excellent piece of work; most useful. Have your wonderful powers of analysis and observation been exercised in any other direction? I may as well make use of the results obtained."
"No; that's all I did."
"What a pity! The start was so promising! Well, as things are, there is nothing left for us to do but go."
"Go? But how?"
"The way respectable people usually go: through the gate."
"It's locked."
"We must get it opened."
"Whom by?"
"Would you mind calling those two policemen walking down the avenue?"
"But ..."
"But what?"
"It's very humiliating.... What will people say, when they learn that you, Holmlock Shears, and I, Wilson, have been locked up by Arsne Lupin?"
"It can't be helped, my dear fellow; they will laugh like anything," replied Shears, angrily, with a frowning face. "But we can't go on living here forever, can we?"
"And you don't propose to try anything?"
"Not I!"
"Still, the man who brought the basket of provisions did not cross the garden either in coming or going. There must, therefore, be another outlet. Let us look for it, instead of troubling the police."
"Ably argued. Only you forget that the whole police of Paris have been hunting for this outlet for the past six months and that I myself, while you were asleep, examined the house from top to bottom. Ah, my dear Wilson, Arsne Lupin is a sort of game we are not accustomed to hunt: he leaves nothing behind him, you see...."
* * * * *
Holmlock Shears and Wilson were let out at eleven o'clock and ... taken to the nearest police-station, where the commissary, after cross-questioning them severely, released them with the most exasperating pretences of courtesy:
"Gentlemen, I am grieved beyond measure at your mishap. You will have a poor opinion of our French hospitality. Lord, what a night you must have spent! Upon my word, Lupin might have shown you more consideration!"
They took a cab to the lyse-Palace. Wilson went to the office and asked for the key of his room.
The clerk looked through the visitors' book and replied, in great surprise:
"But you gave up your room this morning, sir!"
"What do you mean? How did I give up my room?"
"You sent us a letter by your friend."
"What friend?"
"Why, the gentleman who brought us your letter.... Here it is, with your card enclosed."
Wilson took the letter and the enclosure. It was certainly one of his visiting-cards and the letter was in his writing:
"Good Lord!" he muttered. "Here's another nasty trick." And he added, anxiously, "What about the luggage?"
"Why, your friend took it with him."
"Oh!.... So you gave it to him?"
"Certainly, on the authority of your card."
"Just so ... just so...."
They both went out and wandered down the Champs-lyses, slowly and silently. A fine autumn sun filled the avenue. The air was mild and light.
At the Rond-Point, Shears lit his pipe and resumed his walk. Wilson cried:
"I can't understand you, Shears; you take it so calmly! The man laughs at you, plays with you as a cat plays with a mouse ... and you don't utter a word!"
Shears stopped and said:
"I'm thinking of your visiting-card, Wilson."
"Well?"
"Well, here