Maurice Leblanc - Arsene Lupin Part 22 of 99

CHAPTER VI AGAIN THE CHAROLAIS

Hardly had the door closed behind the millionaire when the head of M. Charolais appeared at one of the windows opening on to the terrace. He looked round the empty hall, whistled softly, and stepped inside. Inside of ten seconds his three sons came in through the windows, and with them came Jean, the millionaire’s chauffeur.
“Take the door into the outer hall, Jean,” said M. Charolais, in a low voice. “Bernard, take that door into the drawing-room. Pierre and Louis, help me go through the drawers. The whole family is going to Paris, and if we’re not quick we shan’t get the cars.”
“That comes of this silly fondness for warning people of a coup,” growled Jean, as he hurried to the door of the outer hall. “It would have been so simple to rob the Paris house without sending that infernal letter. It was sure to knock them all silly.”
“What harm can the letter do, you fool?” said M. Charolais. “It’s Sunday. We want them knocked silly for to-morrow, to get hold of the coronet. Oh, to get hold of that coronet! It must be in Paris. I’ve been ransacking this château for hours.”
Jean opened the door of the outer hall half an inch, and glued his eyes to it. Bernard had done the same with the door opening into the drawing-room. M. Charolais, Pierre, and Louis were opening drawers, ransacking them, and shutting them with infinite quickness and noiselessly.
“Bureau! Which is the bureau? The place is stuffed with bureaux!” growled M. Charolais. “I must have those keys.”
“That plain thing with the brass handles in the middle on the left—that’s a bureau,” said Bernard softly.
“Why didn’t you say so?” growled M. Charolais.
He dashed to it, and tried it. It was locked.
“Locked, of course! Just my luck! Come and get it open, Pierre. Be smart!”
The son he had described as an engineer came quickly to the bureau, fitting together as he came the two halves of a small jemmy. He fitted it into the top of the flap. There was a crunch, and the old lock gave. He opened the flap, and he and M. Charolais pulled open drawer after drawer.
“Quick! Here’s that fat old fool!” said Jean, in a hoarse, hissing whisper.
He moved down the hall, blowing out one of the lamps as he passed it. In the seventh drawer lay a bunch of keys. M. Charolais snatched it up, glanced at it, took a bunch of keys from his own pocket, put it in the drawer, closed it, closed the flap, and rushed to the window. Jean and his sons were already out on the terrace.
M. Charolais was still a yard from the window when the door into the outer hall opened and in came M. Gournay-Martin.
He caught a glimpse of a back vanishing through the window, and bellowed: “Hi! A man! A burglar! Firmin! Firmin!”
He ran blundering down the hall, tangled his feet in the fragments of the broken chair, and came sprawling a thundering cropper, which knocked every breath of wind out of his capacious body. He lay flat on his face for a couple of minutes, his broad back wriggling convulsively—a pathetic sight!—in the painful effort to get his breath back. Then he sat up, and with perfect frankness burst into tears. He sobbed and blubbered, like a small child that has hurt itself, for three or four minutes. Then, having recovered his magnificent voice, he bellowed furiously: “Firmin! Firmin! Charmerace! Charmerace!”
Then he rose painfully to his feet, and stood staring at the open windows.
Presently he roared again: “Firmin! Firmin! Charmerace! Charmerace!”
He kept looking at the window with terrified eyes, as though he expected somebody to step in and cut his throat from ear to ear.
“Firmin! Firmin! Charmerace! Charmerace!” he bellowed again.
The Duke came quietly into the hall, dressed in a heavy motor-coat, his motor-cap on his head, and carrying a kit-bag in his hand.
“Did I hear you call?” he said.
“Call?” said the millionaire. “I shouted. The burglars are here already. I’ve just seen one of them. He was bolting through the middle window.”
The Duke raised his eyebrows.
“Nerves,” he said gently—“nerves.”
“Nerves be hanged!” said the millionaire. “I tell you I saw him as plainly as I see you.”
“Well, you can’t see me at all, seeing that you’re lighting an acre and a half of hall with a single lamp,” said the Duke, still in a tone of utter incredulity.
“It’s that fool Firmin! He ought to have lighted six. Firmin! Firmin!” bellowed the millionaire.

#CHAROLAIS #M_Charolais #Jean #Bernard #Pierre #Louis #Paris #M_Gournay-Martin #Firmin #Charmerace #ArseneLupin #MauriceLeBlanc #mystery #booktoot

Maurice Leblanc - Arsene Lupin Part 21 of 99

“Look at the time,” said Sonia; “the telephone doesn’t work as late as this. It’s Sunday.”
The millionaire stopped dead.
“It’s true. It’s appalling,” he groaned.
“But that doesn’t matter. You can always telegraph,” said Germaine.
“But you can’t. It’s impossible,” said Sonia. “You can’t get a message through. It’s Sunday; and the telegraph offices shut at twelve o’clock.”
“Oh, what a Government!” groaned the millionaire. And he sank down gently on a chair beside the telephone, and mopped the beads of anguish from his brow. They looked at him, and they looked at one another, cudgelling their brains for yet another way of communicating with the Paris police.
“Hang it all!” said the Duke. “There must be some way out of the difficulty.”
“What way?” said the millionaire.
The Duke did not answer. He put his hands in his pockets and walked impatiently up and down the hall. Germaine sat down on a chair. Sonia put her hands on the back of a couch, and leaned forward, watching him. Firmin stood by the door, whither he had retired to be out of the reach of his excited master, with a look of perplexity on his stolid face. They all watched the Duke with the air of people waiting for an oracle to deliver its message. The millionaire kept mopping the beads of anguish from his brow. The more he thought of his impending loss, the more freely he perspired. Germaine’s maid, Irma, came to the door leading into the outer hall, which Firmin, according to his usual custom, had left open, and peered in wonder at the silent group.
“I have it!” cried the Duke at last. “There is a way out.”
“What is it?” said the millionaire, rising and coming to the middle of the hall.
“What time is it?” said the Duke, pulling out his watch.
The millionaire pulled out his watch. Germaine pulled out hers. Firmin, after a struggle, produced from some pocket difficult of access an object not unlike a silver turnip. There was a brisk dispute between Germaine and the millionaire about which of their watches was right. Firmin, whose watch apparently did not agree with the watch of either of them, made his deep voice heard above theirs. The Duke came to the conclusion that it must be a few minutes past seven.
“It’s seven or a few minutes past,” he said sharply. “Well, I’m going to take a car and hurry off to Paris. I ought to get there, bar accidents, between two and three in the morning, just in time to inform the police and catch the burglars in the very midst of their burglary. I’ll just get a few things together.”
So saying, he rushed out of the hall.
“Excellent! excellent!” said the millionaire. “Your young man is a man of resource, Germaine. It seems almost a pity that he’s a duke. He’d do wonders in the building trade. But I’m going to Paris too, and you’re coming with me. I couldn’t wait idly here, to save my life. And I can’t leave you here, either. This scoundrel may be going to make a simultaneous attempt on the château—not that there’s much here that I really value. There’s that statuette that moved, and the pane cut out of the window. I can’t leave you two girls with burglars in the house. After all, there’s the sixty horse-power and the thirty horse-power car—there’ll be lots of room for all of us.”
“Oh, but it’s nonsense, papa; we shall get there before the servants,” said Germaine pettishly. “Think of arriving at an empty house in the dead of night.”
“Nonsense!” said the millionaire. “Hurry off and get ready. Your bag ought to be packed. Where are my keys? Sonia, where are my keys—the keys of the Paris house?”
“They’re in the bureau,” said Sonia.
“Well, see that I don’t go without them. Now hurry up. Firmin, go and tell Jean that we shall want both cars. I will drive one, the Duke the other. Jean must stay with you and help guard the château.”
So saying he bustled out of the hall, driving the two girls before him.

#Sonia #Germaine #Paris #Firmin #Irma #Jean #ArseneLupin #MauriceLeBlanc #mystery #booktoot

Maurice Leblanc - Arsene Lupin Part 20 of 99

“It is the same handwriting. Am I likely to make a mistake about it?” spluttered the millionaire. And he tore open the envelope with an air of frenzy.
He ran his eyes over it, and they grew larger and larger—they grew almost of an average size.
“Listen,” he said “listen:”
“DEAR SIR,”
“My collection of pictures, which I had the pleasure of starting three years ago with some of your own, only contains, as far as Old Masters go, one Velasquez, one Rembrandt, and three paltry Rubens. You have a great many more. Since it is a shame such masterpieces should be in your hands, I propose to appropriate them; and I shall set about a respectful acquisition of them in your Paris house to-morrow morning.”
“Yours very sincerely,” “ARSÈNE LUPIN.”
“He’s humbugging,” said the Duke.
“Wait! wait!” gasped the millionaire. “There’s a postscript. Listen:”
“P.S.—You must understand that since you have been keeping the coronet of the Princesse de Lamballe during these three years, I shall avail myself of the same occasion to compel you to restore that piece of jewellery to me.—A. L.”
“The thief! The scoundrel! I’m choking!” gasped the millionaire, clutching at his collar.
To judge from the blackness of his face, and the way he staggered and dropped on to a couch, which was fortunately stronger than the chair, he was speaking the truth.
“Firmin! Firmin!” shouted the Duke. “A glass of water! Quick! Your master’s ill.”
He rushed to the side of the millionaire, who gasped: “Telephone! Telephone to the Prefecture of Police! Be quick!”
The Duke loosened his collar with deft fingers; tore a Van Loo fan from its case hanging on the wall, and fanned him furiously. Firmin came clumping into the room with a glass of water in his hand.
The drawing-room door opened, and Germaine and Sonia, alarmed by the Duke’s shout, hurried in.
“Quick! Your smelling-salts!” said the Duke.
Sonia ran across the hall, opened one of the drawers in the Oriental cabinet, and ran to the millionaire with a large bottle of smelling-salts in her hand. The Duke took it from her, and applied it to the millionaire’s nose. The millionaire sneezed thrice with terrific violence. The Duke snatched the glass from Firmin and dashed the water into his host’s purple face. The millionaire gasped and spluttered.
Germaine stood staring helplessly at her gasping sire.
“Whatever’s the matter?” she said.
“It’s this letter,” said the Duke. “A letter from Lupin.”
“I told you so—I said that Lupin was in the neighbourhood,” cried Germaine triumphantly.
“Firmin—where’s Firmin?” said the millionaire, dragging himself upright. He seemed to have recovered a great deal of his voice. “Oh, there you are!”
He jumped up, caught the gamekeeper by the shoulder, and shook him furiously.
“This letter. Where did it come from? Who brought it?” he roared.
“It was in the letter-box—the letter-box of the lodge at the bottom of the park. My wife found it there,” said Firmin, and he twisted out of the millionaire’s grasp.
“Just as it was three years ago,” roared the millionaire, with an air of desperation. “It’s exactly the same coup. Oh, what a catastrophe! What a catastrophe!”
He made as if to tear out his hair; then, remembering its scantiness, refrained.
“Now, come, it’s no use losing your head,” said the Duke, with quiet firmness. “If this letter isn’t a hoax—”
“Hoax?” bellowed the millionaire. “Was it a hoax three years ago?”
“Very good,” said the Duke. “But if this robbery with which you’re threatened is genuine, it’s just childish.”
“How?” said the millionaire.
“Look at the date of the letter—Sunday, September the third. This letter was written to-day.”
“Yes. Well, what of it?” said the millionaire.
“Look at the letter: ‘I shall set about a respectful acquisition of them in your Paris house to-morrow morning’—to-morrow morning.”
“Yes, yes; ‘to-morrow morning’—what of it?” said the millionaire.
“One of two things,” said the Duke. “Either it’s a hoax, and we needn’t bother about it; or the threat is genuine, and we have the time to stop the robbery.”
“Of course we have. Whatever was I thinking of?” said the millionaire. And his anguish cleared from his face.
“For once in a way our dear Lupin’s fondness for warning people will have given him a painful jar,” said the Duke.
“Come on! let me get at the telephone,” cried the millionaire.
“But the telephone’s no good,” said Sonia quickly.
“No good! Why?” roared the millionaire, dashing heavily across the room to it.

#Velasquez #Rembrandt #Paris #ARSÈNELUPIN #PrincessedeLamballe #Firmin #Telephone! #PrefectureofPolice #Germaine #Sonia #Oriental #Lupin #ArseneLupin #MauriceLeBlanc #mystery #booktoot

Maurice Leblanc - Arsene Lupin Part 19 of 99

“The car’s four years old,” he said joyfully. “He’ll give me eight hundred for it, and it’s not worth a pipe of tobacco. And eight hundred pounds is just the price of a little Watteau I’ve had my eye on for some time—a first-class investment.”
They strolled down the terrace, and through one of the windows into the hall. Firmin had lighted the lamps, two of them. They made but a small oasis of light in a desert of dim hall. The millionaire let himself down very gingerly into an Empire chair, as if he feared, with excellent reason, that it might collapse under his weight.
“Well, my dear Duke,” he said, “you don’t ask me the result of my official lunch or what the minister said.”
“Is there any news?” said the Duke carelessly.
“Yes. The decree will be signed to-morrow. You can consider yourself decorated. I hope you feel a happy man,” said the millionaire, rubbing his fat hands together with prodigious satisfaction.
“Oh, charmed—charmed,” said the Duke, with entire indifference.
“As for me, I’m delighted—delighted,” said the millionaire. “I was extremely keen on your being decorated. After that, and after a volume or two of travels, and after you’ve published your grandfather’s letters with a good introduction, you can begin to think of the Academy.”
“The Academy!” said the Duke, startled from his usual coolness. “But I’ve no title to become an Academician.”
“How, no title?” said the millionaire solemnly; and his little eyes opened wide. “You’re a duke.”
“There’s no doubt about that,” said the Duke, watching him with admiring curiosity.
“I mean to marry my daughter to a worker—a worker, my dear Duke,” said the millionaire, slapping his big left hand with his bigger right. “I’ve no prejudices—not I. I wish to have for son-in-law a duke who wears the Order of the Legion of Honour, and belongs to the Academie Française, because that is personal merit. I’m no snob.”
A gentle, irrepressible laugh broke from the Duke.
“What are you laughing at?” said the millionaire, and a sudden lowering gloom overspread his beaming face.
“Nothing—nothing,” said the Duke quietly. “Only you’re so full of surprises.”
“I’ve startled you, have I? I thought I should. It’s true that I’m full of surprises. It’s my knowledge. I understand so much. I understand business, and I love art, pictures, a good bargain, bric-a-brac, fine tapestry. They’re first-class investments. Yes, certainly I do love the beautiful. And I don’t want to boast, but I understand it. I have taste, and I’ve something better than taste; I have a flair, the dealer’s flair.”
“Yes, your collections, especially your collection in Paris, prove it,” said the Duke, stifling a yawn.
“And yet you haven’t seen the finest thing I have—the coronet of the Princesse de Lamballe. It’s worth half a million francs.”
“So I’ve heard,” said the Duke, a little wearily. “I don’t wonder that Arsène Lupin envied you it.”
The Empire chair creaked as the millionaire jumped.
“Don’t speak of the swine!” he roared. “Don’t mention his name before me.”
“Germaine showed me his letter,” said the Duke. “It is amusing.”
“His letter! The blackguard! I just missed a fit of apoplexy from it,” roared the millionaire. “I was in this very hall where we are now, chatting quietly, when all at once in comes Firmin, and hands me a letter.”
He was interrupted by the opening of the door. Firmin came clumping down the room, and said in his deep voice, “A letter for you, sir.”
“Thank you,” said the millionaire, taking the letter, and, as he fitted his eye-glass into his eye, he went on, “Yes, Firmin brought me a letter of which the handwriting,”—he raised the envelope he was holding to his eyes, and bellowed, “Good heavens!”
“What’s the matter?” said the Duke, jumping in his chair at the sudden, startling burst of sound.
“The handwriting!—the handwriting!—it’s THE SAME HANDWRITING!” gasped the millionaire. And he let himself fall heavily backwards against the back of his chair.
There was a crash. The Duke had a vision of huge arms and legs waving in the air as the chair-back gave. There was another crash. The chair collapsed. The huge bulk banged to the floor.
The laughter of the Duke rang out uncontrollably. He caught one of the waving arms, and jerked the flabby giant to his feet with an ease which seemed to show that his muscles were of steel.
“Come,” he said, laughing still. “This is nonsense! What do you mean by the same handwriting? It can’t be.”

#eighthundredpounds #Watteau #Firmin #Empire #Academy #I_ #AcademieFrançaise #Paris #PrincessedeLamballe #halfamillionfrancs #Duke #ArsèneLupin #Germaine #ArseneLupin #MauriceLeBlanc #mystery #booktoot

Maurice Leblanc - Arsene Lupin Part 15 of 99

CHAPTER IV THE DUKE INTERVENES

The Duke rose, came to the window, and looked at the broken pane. He stepped out on to the terrace and looked at the turf; then he came back into the room.
“This looks serious,” he said. “That pane has not been broken at all. If it had been broken, the pieces of glass would be lying on the turf. It has been cut out. We must warn your father to look to his treasures.”
“I told you so,” said Germaine. “I said that Arsène Lupin was in the neighbourhood.”
“Arsène Lupin is a very capable man,” said the Duke, smiling. “But there’s no reason to suppose that he’s the only burglar in France or even in Ile-et-Vilaine.”
“I’m sure that he’s in the neighbourhood. I have a feeling that he is,” said Germaine stubbornly.
The Duke shrugged his shoulders, and said a smile: “Far be it from me to contradict you. A woman’s intuition is always—well, it’s always a woman’s intuition.”
He came back into the hall, and as he did so the door opened and a shock-headed man in the dress of a gamekeeper stood on the threshold.
“There are visitors to see you, Mademoiselle Germaine,” he said, in a very deep bass voice.
“What! Are you answering the door, Firmin?” said Germaine.
“Yes, Mademoiselle Germaine: there’s only me to do it. All the servants have started for the station, and my wife and I are going to see after the family to-night and to-morrow morning. Shall I show these gentlemen in?”
“Who are they?” said Germaine.
“Two gentlemen who say they have an appointment.”
“What are their names?” said Germaine.
“They are two gentlemen. I don’t know what their names are. I’ve no memory for names.”
“That’s an advantage to any one who answers doors,” said the Duke, smiling at the stolid Firmin.
“Well, it can’t be the two Charolais again. It’s not time for them to come back. I told them papa would not be back yet,” said Germaine.
“No, it can’t be them, Mademoiselle Germaine,” said Firmin, with decision.
“Very well; show them in,” she said.
Firmin went out, leaving the door open behind him; and they heard his hob-nailed boots clatter and squeak on the stone floor of the outer hall.
“Charolais?” said the Duke idly. “I don’t know the name. Who are they?”
“A little while ago Alfred announced two gentlemen. I thought they were Georges and Andre du Buit, for they promised to come to tea. I told Alfred to show them in, and to my surprise there appeared two horrible provincials. I never—Oh!”
She stopped short, for there, coming through the door, were the two Charolais, father and son.
M. Charolais pressed his motor-cap to his bosom, and bowed low. “Once more I salute you, mademoiselle,” he said.
His son bowed, and revealed behind him another young man.
“My second son. He has a chemist’s shop,” said M. Charolais, waving a large red hand at the young man.
The young man, also blessed with the family eyes, set close together, entered the hall and bowed to the two girls. The Duke raised his eyebrows ever so slightly.
“I’m very sorry, gentlemen,” said Germaine, “but my father has not yet returned.”
“Please don’t apologize. There is not the slightest need,” said M. Charolais; and he and his two sons settled themselves down on three chairs, with the air of people who had come to make a considerable stay.
For a moment, Germaine, taken aback by their coolness, was speechless; then she said hastily: “Very likely he won’t be back for another hour. I shouldn’t like you to waste your time.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said M. Charolais, with an indulgent air; and turning to the Duke, he added, “However, while we’re waiting, if you’re a member of the family, sir, we might perhaps discuss the least you will take for the motor-car.”
“I’m sorry,” said the Duke, “but I have nothing to do with it.”
Before M. Charolais could reply the door opened, and Firmin’s deep voice said:
“Will you please come in here, sir?”
A third young man came into the hall.
“What, you here, Bernard?” said M. Charolais. “I told you to wait at the park gates.”
“I wanted to see the car too,” said Bernard.
“My third son. He is destined for the Bar,” said M. Charolais, with a great air of paternal pride.
“But how many are there?” said Germaine faintly.
Before M. Charolais could answer, Firmin once more appeared on the threshold.
“The master’s just come back, miss,” he said.
“Thank goodness for that!” said Germaine; and turning to M. Charolais, she added, “If you will come with me, gentlemen, I will take you to my father, and you can discuss the price of the car at once.”

#CHAPTERIV #Germaine #ArsèneLupin #France #MademoiselleGermaine #Firmin #Charolais #Alfred #Georges #AndreduBuit #M_Charolais #Bernard #ArseneLupin #MauriceLeBlanc #mystery #booktoot

#Météo du vendredi 11 octobre 2024 à #Niort : brouillard et nuages bas le matin, ciel plus variable ensuite. Min. : 8°. Max. : 19°. Bonne fête aux #Firmin.