Memoirs of Arsène Lupin

Ralph d’Andresy extinguished the lamp, and thrust his bicycle behind a bank. At that moment the clock of Benouville struck three.

In the deep shadow of the night he followed the lane which led to the estate of La Haie d’Etigues and so came to the wall which ran round it. He waited a little⁠—the sound of horses pawing the ground, of wheels which rang on the pavement of the courtyard, the sound of harness bells. Then the two leaves of the big door were thrown open and a carriage passed out. It passed so quickly that Ralph barely caught the sound of men’s voices and perceived the barrel of gun before the vehicle reached the high road and took the way to Etretat.

“Come,” said he. “Shooting gulls is an attractive sport and the rock where they shoot them is a long way off. At last I’m going to know the meaning of this improvised shooting-party and of all these odd comings and goings.”

He took his way along the boundary wall to the left, turned a corner and then another, and stopped forty yards along the wall. In his hand he held two keys. The first of them opened a small, low door. He went through it up a staircase hollowed out of the wall, half fallen to ruin, which, running along its left wing, had formed one of the old defences of the château. The second key opened for him a secret door in the first floor of the château itself.

He lit a small bull’s-eye lantern and without taking any special precautions, since he knew that the staff of servants lived in the other wing and that

“Victory! They’ve got her!”

The brougham stopped at the door. D’Ormont, who was driving it, jumped smartly down. Rufus d’Estiers stepped out of it. With the help of the Baron they drew from the interior a woman whose wrists and ankles were bound. A gauze scarf covered her face. They carried her to the church bench which stood in the middle of the chamber.

“Not the least difficulty,” said d’Ormont in a tone of triumph. “She came straight out of the train and stepped into the brougham. At the crossroads we tied her up before she had time to let out more than two squeals.”

“Remove that scarf,” said the Baron; and as D’Ormont stooped to do so, he added: “After all, we may as well restore her freedom of movement. We have her safe.”

He himself untied the cords.

D’Ormont raised the veil and uncovered her face.

There came a cry of amazement from the spectators; and Ralph, up in his observation post, from which he had a view of the prisoner in full daylight, was hard put to it not to betray his presence by a similar exclamation, when there was revealed a young woman in all the splendor of her youth and beauty.

Then a voice rose above the murmurs of astonishment. The Prince of Arcola stepped forward, and his starting eyes glaring in a twitching face, stammered:

“It’s she!⁠ ⁠… It is she.⁠ ⁠… I recognize her.⁠ ⁠… But what a frightful thing it is!”

“What is it?” snapped the Baron. “What’s frightful? Explain!”

And the Prince of Arcola uttered these incredible words:

“She is no older than she was two and twenty years ago!”

Above the left wall of the kitchen garden rose the village church and the graveyard ran right into the interior of the garden in the shape of a small enclosed space, which formerly served as a burial ground of the lords of Gueures. Tall yew trees hung over its wall. As he ran round this enclosure a small door in the wall was half opened, an arm was stretched out to bar his way, a little hand seized him by the arm; and the astonished Ralph was drawn into a dark arch way by a woman who shut the door in the face of his pursuers, and turned the key in the lock.

He divined rather than saw Josephine Balsamo.

“Come on!” she said, plunging into the middle of the yews.

Another door was opened in the opposite wall of the little close; it let them into the village churchyard.

By the apse of the church stood an old-fashioned barouche of the kind one hardly ever sees nowadays anywhere except in the country. Harnessed to it were two thin, badly groomed horses. On the box sat a gray-bearded coachman whose bent back stuck out under his blue blouse.

Ralph and the Countess jumped into the carriage. No one had seen them. She said to the coachman:

“Take the road to Luneray and Doudeville. Be quick!”

The church was at the end of the village; and by taking the road to Luneray, they avoided passing any of the cottages. A long stretch of road rose in a steepish hill to the plateau. The two lean steeds developed the speed of first-class trotters and went up the hill at an astonishing pace.

“Steady on!” she said sharply. “You’ve let the cat out of the bag! You’re disappointed. You ran after a beautiful dream and it all vanished, now that the woman appears to you exactly as she is. Answer frankly since we are honestly trying to get things clear. You’re disappointed, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” he said dryly.

They were silent. She gazed deep into his eyes and murmured:

“I’m a thief, am I not? That’s what you mean, isn’t it? A thief?”

“Yes.”

She smiled and said: “And what about you?”

And as he started back she caught him firmly by the arm, tried to shake him, and cried imperiously:

“Yes, what about you, my young friend? What are you? The time has come for you to lay your cards on the table also. Who are you?”

“My name is Ralph d’Andresy.”

“Rubbish! Your name is Arsène Lupin. Your father Theophrastus Lupin, who combined the occupation of professor of boxing and gymnastics with the more lucrative profession of crook, was convicted and imprisoned in the United States, and died there. Your mother resumed her maiden name and lived as a poor relation at the house of a distant cousin, the Duke of Dreux-Soubise, One day the Duchess discovered that jewels of the greatest historical value, nothing less, in fact, than the famous necklace of Queen Marie Antoinette, had disappeared. In spite of the most exhaustive attempts to discover it no one ever knew who was the author of this theft, executed with a diabolical daring and cleverness. But I, I do know. It was you. You were six years old.”

“Does Monsieur Beaumagnan live here?”

The shutter of the peephole in the door had been drawn back; and the face of an old servant was pressed against the bars across it.

“He lives here. But he is not seeing anyone,” that servant said grumpily.

“Go and tell him that a gentleman has come from Mademoiselle Bridget Rousselin,” said Ralph imperiously.

The rooms of Beaumagnan were on the ground floor of a two-storied house. There was no janitor, no bell. There was an iron knocker to knock at the massive door, which was pierced by this peephole like a prison cell.

The servant went. Ralph waited more than five minutes. That a man should call, when they expected the young actress in person, was puzzling the three confederates.

The servant came back and said, still grumpily: “My master would be obliged if you would send in your card, sir.”

Ralph gave him his card.

There was another wait, then the noise of bolts being drawn back and the unhooking of a chain, and Ralph was led across a hall with a polished floor, like a convent parlor, the walls of which looked uncommonly damp.

They passed two or three doors and came to a room with double doors. The outer of these was padded with leather so that no sound could come through it. The old servant opened it, ushered Ralph into the room and shut the two doors, leaving him face to face with his three enemies.