The Essential Maurice Leblanc Collection. Морис Леблан
Mr. Shears, what do you think of this little drive?"
"It's delightful, my dear sir, really delightful," replied Shears.
Perhaps he had never in his life made a more tremendous effort than it cost him to utter those words without a tremor in his voice, without anything that could betray the exasperation that filled his whole being. But, the minute after, he was carried away by a sort of formidable reaction; and a torrent of rage and hatred burst its banks, overcame his will, and made him suddenly draw his revolver and point it at Mlle. Destange.
"Lupin, if you don't stop this minute, this second, I fire at mademoiselle!"
"I advise you to aim at the cheek if you want to hit the temple," said Lupin, without turning his head.
Clotilde called out:
"Don't go too fast, Maxime! The pavement is very slippery, and you know how timid I am!"
She was still smiling, with her eyes fixed on the cobbles with which the road bristled in front of the car.
"Stop him, tell him to stop!" shouted Shears beside himself with fury. "You can see for yourself that I am capable of anything!"
The muzzle of the revolver grazed her hair.
"How reckless Maxime is!" she murmured. "We are sure to skid, at this rate."
Shears replaced the revolver in his pocket and seized the handle of the door, preparing to jump out, in spite of the absurdity of the act.
"Take care, Mr. Shears," said Clotilde. "There's a motor-car behind us."
He leant out. A car was following them, an enormous car, fierce-looking, with its pointed bonnet, blood-red in colour, and the four men in furs inside it.
"Ah," he said, "I'm well guarded! We must have patience!"
He crossed his arms on his chest, with the proud submission of those who bow and wait when fate turns against them. And while they crossed the Seine and tore through Suresnes, Rueil and Chatou, motionless and resigned, without anger or bitterness, he thought only of discovering by what miracle Arsne Lupin had put himself in the driver's place. That the decent fellow whom he had picked out that morning on the boulevard could be an accomplice, posted there of set purpose, he refused to admit. And yet Arsne Lupin must have received a warning and that only after the moment when he, Shears, had threatened Clotilde, for no one suspected his plan before. Now from that moment Clotilde and he had not left each other's presence.
Suddenly, he remembered the girl's telephoning to her dressmaker. And, all at once, he understood. Even before he spoke, at the very moment when he asked for an interview as M. Destange's new secretary, she had scented danger, guessed the visitor's name and object and, coolly, naturally, as though she were really doing what she appeared to do, had summoned Lupin to her aid, under the pretense of speaking to one of her tradespeople and by means of a formula known to themselves alone.
How Arsne Lupin had come, how that motor-cab in waiting, with its throbbing engine, had aroused his suspicion, how he had bribed the driver: all this mattered little. What interested Shears almost to the point of calming his rage was the recollection of that moment in which a mere woman, a woman in love, it is true, mastering her nerves, suppressing her instinct, controlling the features of her face and the expression of her eyes, had humbugged old Holmlock Shears.
What was he to do against a man served by such allies, a man who, by the sheer ascendancy of his authority, inspired a woman with such a stock of daring and energy?
They re-crossed the Seine and climbed the slope of Saint-Germain; but, five hundred yards beyond the town, the cab slowed down. The other car came up with it and the two stopped alongside. There was no one about.
"Mr. Shears," said Lupin, "may I trouble you to change cars? Ours is really so very slow!..."
"Certainly," said Shears, all the more politely, as he had no choice.
"Will you also permit me to lend you this fur, for we shall be going pretty fast, and to offer you a couple of sandwiches?... Yes, yes, take them: there's no telling when you will get any dinner."
The four men had alighted. One of them came up and, as he had taken off the goggles which disguised him, Shears recognized the gentleman in the frock-coat whom he had seen at the Restaurant Hongrois. Lupin gave him his instructions:
"Take the cab back to the driver from whom I hired it. You will find him waiting in the first wine-shop on the right in the Rue Legendre. Pay him the second thousand francs I promised him. Oh, I was forgetting: you might give Mr. Shears your goggles!"
He spoke a few words to Mlle. Destange, then took his seat at the wheel and drove off, with Shears beside him and one of his men behind.
Lupin had not exaggerated when saying that they would go "pretty fast." They travelled at a giddy pace from the first. The horizon rushed toward them, as though attracted by a mysterious force, and disappeared at the same moment, as though swallowed up by an abyss into which other things--trees, houses, plains and forests--plunged with the tumultuous speed of a torrent rushing down to the pool below.
Shears and Lupin did not exchange a word. Above their heads, the leaves of the poplars made a great noise as of waves, punctuated by the regular spacing of the trees. And town after town vanished from sight: Mantes, Vernon, Gaillon. From hill to hill, from Bon-Secours to Canteleu, Rouen, with her suburbs, her harbour, her miles upon miles of quays, Rouen seemed no more than the high-street of a market-town. And they rushed through Duclair, through Caudebec, through the Pays de Caux, skimming over its hills and plains in their powerful flight, through Lillebonne, through Quille-beuf. And, suddenly, they were on the bank of the Seine, at the end of a small quay, alongside which lay a steam-yacht, built on sober and powerful lines, with black smoke curling up from her funnel.
The car stopped. They had covered over a hundred miles in two hours.
* * * * *
A man dressed in a blue pea-jacket came forward and touched his gold-laced cap.
"Well done, captain!" said Lupin. "Did you get my telegram?"
"Yes, sir."
"Is the _Hirondelle_ ready?"
"Quite ready, sir."
"In that case, Mr. Shears...?"
The Englishman looked around him, saw a group of people seated outside a caf, another a little nearer, hesitated for a moment and then, realizing that, before any one could interfere, he would be seized, forced on board and packed off at the bottom of the hold, he crossed the foot-plank and followed Lupin into the captain's cabin.
It was roomy, specklessly clean and shone brightly with its varnished wainscoting and gleaming brass.
Lupin closed the door and, without beating about the bush, said to Shears, almost brutally:
"Tell me exactly how much you know."
"Everything."
"Everything? I want details."
His voice had lost the tone of politeness, tinged with irony, which he adopted toward the Englishman. Instead, it rang with the imperious accent of the master who is accustomed to command and accustomed to see every one bow before his will, even though it be a Holmlock Shears.
They eyed each other now from head to foot as enemies, declared and passionate enemies.
Lupin resumed, with a touch of nervousness:
"You have crossed my path, sir, on several occasions. Each occasion has been one too many; and I am tired of wasting my time avoiding the traps you lay for me. I warn you, therefore, that my conduct toward you will depend upon your answer. How much exactly