The Essential Maurice Leblanc Collection. Морис Леблан
said good-morning to her father, sat down in the little drawing-room and began to write letters.
From where he was sitting, Shears could see her as she bent over the table and, from time to time, meditated with poised pen and a thoughtful face. He waited and then, taking up a volume, said to M. Destange:
"Oh, this is the book which Mlle. Destange asked me to give her when I found it."
He went into the little room, stood in front of Clotilde, in such a way that her father could not see her, and said:
"I am M. Stickmann, M. Destange's new secretary."
"Oh?" she said, without moving. "Has my father changed his secretary?"
"Yes, mademoiselle, and I should like to speak to you."
"Take a seat, monsieur; I have just finished."
She added a few words to her letter, signed it, sealed the envelope, pushed back her papers, took up the telephone, asked to be put on to her dressmaker, begged her to hurry on a travelling-cloak which she needed urgently and then, turning to Shears:
"I am at your service, monsieur. But cannot our conversation take place before my father?"
"No, mademoiselle, and I will even entreat you not to raise your voice. It would be better that M. Destange should not hear us."
"Better for whom?"
"For you, mademoiselle."
"I will not permit a conversation which my father cannot hear."
"And yet you must permit this one."
They both rose, with their eyes fixed on each other. And she said:
"Speak, monsieur."
Still standing, he began:
"You must forgive me if I am inaccurate in a few less important particulars. I will vouch for the general correctness of what I am going to say."
"No speeches, I beg. Facts."
He felt, from this abrupt interruption, that the girl was on her guard and he continued:
"Very well, I will come straight to the point. Five years ago, your father happened to meet a M. Maxime Bermond, who introduced himself as a contractor ... or an architect, I am not sure which. In any case, M. Destange took a liking to this young man and, as the state of his health no longer allowed him to attend to his business, he entrusted to M. Bermond the execution of a few orders which he had accepted to please some old customers and which appeared to him to come within the scope of his assistant's capacity."
Shears stopped. It seemed to him that the girl had grown paler. Still, she answered with the greatest calmness.
"I know nothing of the things about which you are talking, monsieur, and I am quite unable to see how they can interest me."
"They interest you in so far, mademoiselle, that M. Maxime Bermond's real name, which you know as well as I do, is Arsne Lupin."
She burst out laughing:
"Nonsense! Arsne Lupin? M. Maxime Bermond's name is Arsne Lupin?"
"As I have the honour to inform you, mademoiselle, and, since you refuse to understand me unless I speak plainly, I will add that Arsne Lupin, to accomplish his designs, has found in this house a friend, more than a friend, a blind and ... passionately devoted accomplice."
She rose and, betraying no emotion or, at least, so little emotion that Shears was impressed by her extraordinary self-control, said:
"I do not know the reason for your behaviour, monsieur, and I have no wish to know it. I will ask you, therefore, not to add another word and to leave the room."
"I had no intention, mademoiselle, of imposing my presence upon you indefinitely," said Shears, as calmly as herself. "Only I have resolved not to leave this house alone."
"And who is going with you, monsieur?"
"You!"
"I?"
"Yes, mademoiselle, we shall leave this house together, and you will accompany me without a word, without a protest."
The strange feature of this scene was the absolute coolness of the two adversaries. To judge by their attitudes and the tone of their voices, it might have been a courteous discussion between two people who differ in opinion, rather than an implacable duel between two powerful wills.
Through the great open recess, M. Destange could be seen in the round library, handling his books with leisurely movements.
Clotilde sat down again with a slight shrug of the shoulders. Holmlock Shears took out his watch:
"It is now half-past ten. We will start in five minutes."
"And, if I refuse?"
"If you refuse, I shall go to M. Destange and tell him ..."
"What?"
"The truth. I shall describe to him the false life led by Maxime Bermond and the double life of his accomplice."
"Of his accomplice?"
"Yes, of the one known as the blonde lady, the lady whose hair was once fair."
"And what proofs will you give him?"
"I shall take him to the Rue Chalgrin and show him the passage which Arsne Lupin, when managing the works, made his men construct between Nos. 40 and 42, the passage employed by the two of you on the night before last."
"Next?"
"Next, I shall take M. Destange to Matre Detinan's. We will go down the servants' staircase which you ran down, with Arsne Lupin, to escape Ganimard. And we will both look for the doubtless similar means of communication with the next house, which has its entrance on the Boulevard des Batignolles and not in the Rue Clapeyron."
"Next?"
"Next, I shall take M. Destange to the Chteau de Crozon and it will be easy for him, who knows the nature of the works executed by Arsne Lupin at the time of the restoration of the Chteau, to discover the secret passages which Arsne Lupin made his men construct. He will find that these passages enabled the blonde lady to enter Madame de Crozon's room at night and take the blue diamond from the chimney and, a fortnight later, to enter Herr Bleichen's room and hide the blue diamond at the bottom of a flask ... a rather queer thing to do, I admit: perhaps it was a woman's petty vengeance; I do not know and it makes no difference."
"Next?"
"Next," said Holmlock Shears, in a more serious voice, "I shall take M. Destange to 134, Avenue Henri-Martin, and together we will try to discover how Baron d'Hautrec...."
"Hush, hush!" stammered the girl, in sudden dismay. "You must not...! Do you dare to say it was I...? Do you accuse me...?"
"I accuse you of killing Baron d'Hautrec."
"No, no; this is monstrous!"
"You killed Baron d'Hautrec, mademoiselle. You entered his service under the name of Antoinette Brhat, with the intention of robbing him of the blue diamond, and you killed him."
Again she murmured, breaking down and reduced to entreaties:
"Hush, monsieur, I beg.... As you know so much, you must also know that I did not murder the baron."
"I did not say that you murdered him, mademoiselle. Baron d'Hautrec was subject to fits of insanity which only Soeur Auguste was able to check. She has told me this herself. He must have thrown himself upon you in her absence; and it was in the course of the ensuing