The Golden Triangle Part 38

"Well, of course! Habit, you know, experience! Plenty of problems, unintelligible to others, seem to me the simplest and clearest that can be. Therefore . . ."

Don Luis hesitated whether to go on:

"No," he said, "it's better that I shouldn't speak. The mystery will be dispelled gradually. Let us wait. For the moment . . ."

He again stopped, this time to listen:

"There, he must have seen you. And now that he knows what he wants to, he's going away."

Patrice grew excited:

"He's going away! You really ought to have collared him. Shall we ever find him again, the scoundrel? Shall we ever be able to take our revenge?"

Don Luis smiled:

"There you go, calling him a scoundrel, the man who watched over you for twenty years, who brought you and Little Mother Coralie together, who was your benefactor!"

"Oh, I don't know! All this is so bewildering! I can't help hating him.

. . . The idea of his getting away maddens me. . . . I should like to torture him and yet . . ."

He yielded to a feeling of despair and took his head between his two hands. Don Luis comforted him:

"Have no fear," he said. "He was never nearer his downfall than at the present moment. I hold him in my hand as I hold this leaf."

"But how?"

"The man who's driving him belongs to me."

"What's that? What do you mean?"

"I mean that I put one of my men on the driver's seat of a taxi, with instructions to hang about at the bottom of the lane, and that Simeon did not fail to take the taxi in question."

"That is to say, you suppose so," Patrice corrected him, feeling more and more astounded.

"I recognized the sound of the engine at the bottom of the garden when I told you."

"And are you sure of your man?"

"Certain."

"What's the use? Simeon can drive far out of Paris, stab the man in the back . . . and then when shall we get to know?"

"Do you imagine that people can get out of Paris and go running about the high-roads without a special permit? No, if Simeon leaves Paris he will have to drive to some railway station or other and we shall know of it twenty minutes after. And then we'll be off."

"How?"

"By motor."

"Then you have a pa.s.s?"

"Yes, valid for the whole of France."

"You don't mean it!"

"I do; and a genuine pa.s.s at that! Made out in the name of Don Luis Perenna, signed by the minister of the interior and countersigned . . ."

"By whom?"

"By the President of the Republic."

Patrice felt his bewilderment change all at once into violent excitement. Hitherto, in the terrible adventure in which he was engaged, he had undergone the enemy's implacable will and had known little besides defeat and the horrors of ever-threatening death. But now a more powerful will suddenly arose in his favor. And everything was abruptly altered. Fate seemed to be changing its course, like a ship which an unexpected fair wind brings back into harbor.

"Upon my word, captain," said Don Luis, "I thought you were going to cry like Little Mother Coralie. Your nerves are overstrung. And I daresay you're hungry. We must find you something to eat. Come along."

He led him slowly towards the lodge and, speaking in a rather serious voice:

"I must ask you," he said, "to be absolutely discreet in this whole matter. With the exception of a few old friends and of Ya-Bon, whom I met in Africa, where he saved my life, no one in France knows me by my real name. I call myself Don Luis Perenna. In Morocco, where I was soldiering, I had occasion to do a service to the very gracious sovereign of a neighboring neutral nation, who, though obliged to conceal his true feelings, is ardently on our side. He sent for me; and, in return, I asked him to give me my credentials and to obtain a pa.s.s for me. Officially, therefore, I am on a secret mission, which expires in two days. In two days I shall go back . . . to whence I came, to a place where, during the war, I am serving France in my fashion: not a bad one, believe me, as people will see one day."

They came to the settee on which Coralie lay sleeping. Don Luis laid his hand on Patrice's arm:

"One word more, captain. I swore to myself and I gave my word of honor to him who trusted me that, while I was on this mission, my time should be devoted exclusively to defending the interests of my country to the best of my power. I must warn you, therefore, that, notwithstanding all my sympathy for you, I shall not be able to prolong my stay for a single minute after I have discovered the eighteen hundred bags of gold. They were the one and only reason why I came in answer to Ya-Bon's appeal.

When the bags of gold are in our possession, that is to say, to-morrow evening at latest, I shall go away. However, the two quests are joined.

The clearing up of the one will mean the end of the other. And now enough of words. Introduce me to Little Mother Coralie and let's get to work! Make no mystery with her, captain," he added, laughing. "Tell her my real name. I have nothing to fear: a.r.s.ene Lupin has every woman on his side."

Forty minutes later Coralie was back in her room, well cared for and well watched. Patrice had taken a substantial meal, while Don Luis walked up and down the terrace smoking cigarettes.

"Finished, captain? Then we'll make a start."

He looked at his watch:

"Half-past five. We have more than an hour of daylight left. That'll be enough."

"Enough? You surely don't pretend that you will achieve your aim in an hour?"

"My definite aim, no, but the aim which I am setting myself at the moment, yes . . . and even earlier. An hour? What for? To do what? Why, you'll be a good deal wiser in a few minutes!"

Don Luis asked to be taken to the cellar under the library; where Essares Bey used to keep the bags of gold until the time had come to send them off.

"Was it through this ventilator that the bags were let down?"

"Yes."

"Is there no other outlet?"

"None except the staircase leading to the library and the other ventilator."