The Crystal Stopper Part 50

Hurriedly he rang. Hurriedly he sent for the chief detective-inspector on duty. And, feverishly:

"Were you in the waiting-room, chief-inspector?"

"Yes, monsieur le secretaire-general."

"Did you see a gentleman and a lady go out?"

"Yes."

"Would you know the man again?"

"Yes."

"Then don't lose a moment, chief-inspector. Take six inspectors with you. Go to the Place de Clichy. Make inquiries about a man called Nicole and watch the house. The Nicole man is on his way back there."

"And if he comes out, monsieur le secretaire-general?"

"Arrest him. Here's a warrant."

He sat down to his desk and wrote a name on a form:

"Here you are, chief-inspector. I will let the chief-detective know."

The chief-inspector seemed staggered:

"But you spoke to me of a man called Nicole, monsieur le secretaire-general."

"Well?"

"The warrant is in the name of a.r.s.ene Lupin."

"a.r.s.ene Lupin and the Nicole man are one and the same individual."

CHAPTER XII. THE SCAFFOLD

"I will save him, I will save him," Lupin repeated, without ceasing, in the taxicab in which he and Clarisse drove away. "I swear that I will save him."

Clarisse did not listen, sat as though numbed, as though possessed by some great nightmare of death, which left her ignorant of all that was happening outside her. And Lupin set forth his plans, perhaps more to rea.s.sure himself than to convince Clarisse. "No, no, the game is not lost yet. There is one trump left, a huge trump, in the shape of the letters and doc.u.ments which Vorenglade, the ex-deputy, is offering to sell to Daubrecq and of which Daubrecq spoke to you yesterday at Nice.

I shall buy those letters and doc.u.ments of Stanislas Vorenglade at whatever price he chooses to name. Then we shall go back to the police-office and I shall say to Prasville, 'Go to the Elysee at once ... Use the list as though it were genuine, save Gilbert from death and be content to acknowledge to-morrow, when Gilbert is saved, that the list is forged.

"'Be off, quickly!... If you refuse, well, if you refuse, the Vorenglade letters and doc.u.ments shall be reproduced to-morrow, Tuesday, morning in one of the leading newspapers.' Vorenglade will be arrested. And M.

Prasville will find himself in prison before night."

Lupin rubbed his hands:

"He'll do as he's told!... He'll do as he's told!... I felt that at once, when I was with him. The thing appeared to me as a dead certainty.

And I found Vorenglade's address in Daubrecq's pocket-books, so...

driver, Boulevard Raspail!"

They went to the address given. Lupin sprang from the cab, ran up three flights of stairs.

The servant said that M. Vorenglade was away and would not be back until dinner-time next evening.

"And don't you know where he is?"

"M. Vorenglade is in London, sir."

Lupin did not utter a word on returning to the cab. Clarisse, on her side, did not even ask him any questions, so indifferent had she become to everything, so absolutely did she look upon her son's death as an accomplished fact.

They drove to the Place de Cichy. As Lupin entered the house he pa.s.sed two men who were just leaving the porter's box. He was too much engrossed to notice them. They were Prasville's inspectors.

"No telegram?" he asked his servant.

"No, governor," replied Achille.

"No news of the Masher and the Growler?"

"No, governor, none."

"That's all right," he said to Clarisse, in a casual tone. "It's only seven o'clock and we mustn't reckon on seeing them before eight or nine.

Prasville will have to wait, that's all. I will telephone to him to wait."

He did so and was hanging up the receiver, when he heard a moan behind him. Clarisse was standing by the table, reading an evening-paper. She put her hand to her heart, staggered and fell.

"Achille, Achille!" cried Lupin, calling his man. "Help me put her on my bed... And then go to the cupboard and get me the medicine-bottle marked number four, the bottle with the sleeping-draught."

He forced open her teeth with the point of a knife and compelled her to swallow half the bottle:

"Good," he said. "Now the poor thing won't wake till to-morrow...

after."

He glanced through the paper, which was still clutched in Clarisse'

hand, and read the following lines:

"The strictest measures have been taken to keep order at the execution of Gilbert and Vaucheray, lest a.r.s.ene Lupin should make an attempt to rescue his accomplices from the last penalty. At twelve o'clock to-night a cordon of troops will be drawn across all the approaches to the Sante Prison. As already stated, the execution will take place outside the prison-walls, in the square formed by the Boulevard Arago and the Rue de la Sante.

"We have succeeded in obtaining some details of the att.i.tude of the two condemned men. Vaucheray observes a stolid sullenness and is awaiting the fatal event with no little courage:

"'Crikey,' he says, 'I can't say I'm delighted; but I've got to go through it and I shall keep my end up.' And he adds, 'Death I don't care a hang about! What worries me is the thought that they're going to cut my head off. Ah, if the governor could only hit on some trick to send me straight off to the next world before I had time to say knife! A drop of Prussic acid, governor, if you please!'

"Gilbert's calmness is even more impressive, especially when we remember how he broke down at the trial. He retains an unshaken confidence in the omnipotence of a.r.s.ene Lupin:

"'The governor shouted to me before everybody not to be afraid, that he was there, that he answered for everything. Well, I'm not afraid. I shall rely on him until the last day, until the last minute, at the very foot of the scaffold. I know the governor!

There's no danger with him. He has promised and he will keep his word. If my head were off, he'd come and clap it on my shoulders and firmly! a.r.s.ene Lupin allow his chum Gilbert to die? Not he!

Excuse my humour!'