章节正文
"Clemence," he said, to the portress, "did you go to school as a child?"
"Yes, sir, of course I did."
"And were you taught arithmetic?"
"Why, sir... "
"Well, you're not very good at subtraction."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because you don't know that nine minus eight equals one. And that, you
see, is a fact of the highest importance. Life becomes impossible if you
are ignorant of that fundamental truth."
He rose, as he spoke, and walked round the room, with his hands behind
his back, swaying upon his hips. He did so once more. Then, stopping
at the dining-room, he opened the door:
"For that matter, there's another way of putting the problem. Take eight
from nine; and one remains. And the one who remains is here, eh?
Correct! And monsieur supplies us with a striking proof, does he not?"
He patted the velvet curtain in which Lupin had hurriedly wrapped himself:
"Upon my word, sir, you must be stifling under this! Not to say that I
might have amused myself by sticking a dagger through the curtain.
Remember Hamlet's madness and Polonius' death: 'How now! A rat? Dead,
for a ducat, dead!' Come along, Mr. Polonius, come out of your hole."
It was one of those positions to which Lupin was not accustomed and
which he loathed. To catch others in a trap and pull their leg was all
very well; but it was a very different thing to have people teasing him
and roaring with laughter at his expense. Yet what could he answer back?
"You look a little pale, Mr. Polonius... Hullo! Why, it's the respectable
old gentleman who has been hanging about the square for some days! So
you belong to the police too, Mr. Polonius? There, there, pull yourself
together, I sha'n't hurt you!... But you see, Clemence, how right my
calculation was. You told me that nine spies had been to the house. I
counted a troop of eight, as I came along, eight of them in the distance,
down the avenue. Take eight from nine and one remains: the one who
evidently remained behind to see what he could see. Ecce homo!"
"Well? And then?" said Lupin, who felt a mad craving to fly at the
fellow and reduce him to silence.
"And then? Nothing at all, my good man... What more do you want? The
farce is over. I will only ask you to take this little note to Master
Prasville, your employer. Clemence, please show Mr. Polonius out. And,
if ever he calls again, fling open the doors wide to him. Pray look
upon this as your home, Mr. Polonius. Your servant, sir!... "
Lupin hesitated. He would have liked to talk big and to come out with a
farewell phrase, a parting speech, like an actor making a showy exit
from the stage, and at least to disappear with the honours of war. But
his defeat was so pitiable that he could think of nothing better than to
bang his hat on his head and stamp his feet as he followed the portress
down the hall. It was a poor revenge.
"You rascally beggar!" he shouted, once he was outside the door, shaking
his fist at Daubrecq's windows. "Wretch, scum of the earth, deputy, you
shall pay for this!... Oh, he allows himself...! Oh, he has the cheek
to...! Well, I swear to you, my fine fellow, that, one of these days... "
He was foaming with rage, all the more as, in his innermost heart, he
recognized the strength of his new enemy and could not deny the masterly
fashion in which he had managed this business. Daubrecq's coolness,
the assurance with which he hoaxed the police-officials, the contempt
with which he lent himself to their visits at his house and, above all,
his wonderful self-possession, his easy bearing and the impertinence of
his conduct in the presence of the ninth person who was spying on him:
all this denoted a man of character, a strong man, with a well-balanced
mind, lucid, bold, sure of himself and of the cards in his hand.
But what were those cards? What game was he playing? Who held the
stakes? And how did the players stand on either side? Lupin could not
tell. Knowing nothing, he flung himself headlong into the thick of the
fray, between adversaries desperately involved, though he himself was in
total ignorance of their positions, their weapons, their resources and
their secret plans. For, when all was said, he could not admit that the
object of all those efforts was to obtain possession of a crystal
stopper!
One thing alone pleased him: Daubrecq had not penetrated his disguise.
Daubrecq believed him to be in the employ of the police. Neither
Daubrecq nor the police, therefore, suspected the intrusion of a third
thief in the business. This was his one and only trump, a trump that
gave him a liberty of action to which he attached the greatest importance.
Without further delay, he opened the letter which Daubrecq had handed
him for the secretary-general of police. It contained these few lines:
"Within reach of your hand, my dear Prasville, within reach of your
hand! You touched it! A little more and the trick was done... But
you're too big a fool. And to think that they couldn't hit upon
any one better than you to make me bite the dust. Poor old France!
"Good-bye, Prasville. But, if I catch you in the act, it will be a
bad lookout for you: my maxim is to shoot at sight.
"DAUBRECQ"
"Within reach of your hand," repeated Lupin, after reading the note.
"And to think that the rogue may be writing the truth! The most
elementary hiding-places are the safest. We must look into this, all
the same. And, also, we must find out why Daubrecq is the object of
such strictsupervision and obtain a few particulars about the fellow
generally."
The information supplied to Lupin by a private inquiry-office consisted
of the following details:
"ALEXIS DAUBRECQ, deputy of the Bouches-du- Rh6ne for the past two
years; sits among the independent members. Political opinions not
very clearly defined, but electoral position exceedingly strong,
because of the enormous sums which he spends in nursing his
constituency. No private income. Nevertheless, has a house in
Paris, a villa at Enghien and another at Nice and loses heavily at
play, though no one knows where the money comes from. Has great
influence and obtains all he wants without making up to ministers
or, apparently, having either friends or connections in political
circles."
"That's a trade docket," said Lupin to himself. "What I want is a
domestic docket, a police docket, which will tell me about the gentleman's
private life and enable me to work more easily in this darkness and to
know if I'm not getting myself into a tangle by bothering about the
Daubrecq bird. And time's getting short, hang it!"
One of the residences which Lupin occupied at that period and which he
used oftener than any of the others was in the Rue Chateaubriand, near
the Arc de l'Etoile. He was known there by the name of Michel Beaumont.
He had a snug flat here and was looked after by a manservant, Achille,
who was utterly devoted to his interests and whose chief duty was to
receive and repeat the telephone-messages addressed to Lupin by his
followers.
Lupin, on returning home, learnt, with great astonishment, that a woman
had been waiting to see him for over an hour:
"What! Why, no one ever comes to see me here! Is she young?"
"No... I don't think so."
"You don't think so!"
"She's wearing a lace shawl over her head, instead of a hat, and you
can't see her face... She's more like a clerk... or a woman employed in
a shop. She's not well-dressed ..."
"Whom did she ask for?"
"M. Michel Beaumont," replied the servant.
"Queer. And why has she called?"
"All she said was that it was about the Enghien business... So I thought
that... "
"What! The Enghien business! Then she knows that I am mixed up in that
business... She knows that, by applying here... "
"I could not get anything out of her, but I thought, all the same, that
I had better let her in."
"Quite right. Where is she?"
"In the drawing-room. I've put on the lights."
Lupin walked briskly across the hall and opened the door of the
drawing-room:
"What are you talking about?" he said, to his man. "There's no one here."
"No one here?" said Achille, running up.
And the room, in fact, was empty.
"Well, on my word, this takes the cake!" cried the servant. "It wasn't
twenty minutes ago that I came and had a look, to make sure. She was
sitting over there. And there's nothing wrong with my eyesight, you know."
"Look here, look here," said Lupin, irritably. "Where were you while
the woman was waiting?"
"In the hail, governor! I never left the hail for a second! I should
have seen her go out, blow it!"
"Still, she's not here now... "
"So I see," moaned the man, quite flabbergasted.
"She must have got tired of waiting and gone away. But, dash it all, I
should like to know how she got out!"
"How she got out?" said Lupin. "It doesn't take a wizard to tell that."
"What do you mean?"
"She got out through the window. Look, it's still ajar We are on the
ground-floor... The street is almost always deserted, in the evenings.
There's no doubt about it."
He had looked around him and satisfied himself that nothing had been
taken away or moved. The room, for that matter, contained no knicknack
of any value, no important paper that might have explained the woman's
visit, followed by her sudden disappearance. And yet why that
inexplicable flight?
"Has any one telephoned?" he asked.
"No."
"Any letters?"
"Yes, one letter by the last post."
"Where is it?"
"I put it on your mantel-piece, governor, as usual."
Lupin's bedroom was next to the drawing-room, but Lupin had permanently
bolted the door between the two. He, therefore, had to go through the
hall again.
Lupin switched on the electric light and, the next moment, said:
"I don't see it... "
"Yes... I put it next to the flower-bowl."
"There's nothing here at all."
"You must be looking in the wrong place, governor."
But Achille moved the bowl, lifted the clock, bent down to the grate, in
vain: the letter was not there.
"Oh blast it, blast it!" he muttered. "She's done it... she's taken
it... And then, when she had the letter, she cleared out... Oh, the
slut!... "
Lupin said:
"You're mad! There's no way through between the two rooms."
"Then who did take it, governor?"
They were both of them silent. Lupin strove to control his anger and
collect his ideas. He asked:
"Did you look at the envelope?"
"Yes."
"Anything particular about it?"
""Yes, it looked as if it had been written in a hurry, or scribbled,
rather."
"How was the address worded?... Do you remember?" asked Lupin, in a voice
strained with anxiety.
"Yes, I remembered it, because it struck me as funny... "
"But speak, will you? Speak!"
"It said, 'Monsieur de Beaumont, Michel.'"
Lupin took his servant by the shoulders and shook him:
"It said 'de' Beaumont? Are you sure? And 'Michel' after 'Beaumont'?"
"Quite certain."
"Ah!" muttered Lupin, with a choking throat. "It was a letter from
Gilbert!"
He stood motionless, a little pale, with drawn features. There was no
doubt about it: the letter was from Gilbert. It was the form of address
which, by Lupin's orders, Gilbert had used for years in corresponding
with him. Gilbert had at last - after long waiting and by clint of
endless artifices - found a means of getting a letter posted from his
prison and had hastily written to him. And now the letter was
intercepted! What did it say? What instructions had the unhappy
"Yes, sir, of course I did."
"And were you taught arithmetic?"
"Why, sir... "
"Well, you're not very good at subtraction."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because you don't know that nine minus eight equals one. And that, you
see, is a fact of the highest importance. Life becomes impossible if you
are ignorant of that fundamental truth."
He rose, as he spoke, and walked round the room, with his hands behind
his back, swaying upon his hips. He did so once more. Then, stopping
at the dining-room, he opened the door:
"For that matter, there's another way of putting the problem. Take eight
from nine; and one remains. And the one who remains is here, eh?
Correct! And monsieur supplies us with a striking proof, does he not?"
He patted the velvet curtain in which Lupin had hurriedly wrapped himself:
"Upon my word, sir, you must be stifling under this! Not to say that I
might have amused myself by sticking a dagger through the curtain.
Remember Hamlet's madness and Polonius' death: 'How now! A rat? Dead,
for a ducat, dead!' Come along, Mr. Polonius, come out of your hole."
It was one of those positions to which Lupin was not accustomed and
which he loathed. To catch others in a trap and pull their leg was all
very well; but it was a very different thing to have people teasing him
and roaring with laughter at his expense. Yet what could he answer back?
"You look a little pale, Mr. Polonius... Hullo! Why, it's the respectable
old gentleman who has been hanging about the square for some days! So
you belong to the police too, Mr. Polonius? There, there, pull yourself
together, I sha'n't hurt you!... But you see, Clemence, how right my
calculation was. You told me that nine spies had been to the house. I
counted a troop of eight, as I came along, eight of them in the distance,
down the avenue. Take eight from nine and one remains: the one who
evidently remained behind to see what he could see. Ecce homo!"
"Well? And then?" said Lupin, who felt a mad craving to fly at the
fellow and reduce him to silence.
"And then? Nothing at all, my good man... What more do you want? The
farce is over. I will only ask you to take this little note to Master
Prasville, your employer. Clemence, please show Mr. Polonius out. And,
if ever he calls again, fling open the doors wide to him. Pray look
upon this as your home, Mr. Polonius. Your servant, sir!... "
Lupin hesitated. He would have liked to talk big and to come out with a
farewell phrase, a parting speech, like an actor making a showy exit
from the stage, and at least to disappear with the honours of war. But
his defeat was so pitiable that he could think of nothing better than to
bang his hat on his head and stamp his feet as he followed the portress
down the hall. It was a poor revenge.
"You rascally beggar!" he shouted, once he was outside the door, shaking
his fist at Daubrecq's windows. "Wretch, scum of the earth, deputy, you
shall pay for this!... Oh, he allows himself...! Oh, he has the cheek
to...! Well, I swear to you, my fine fellow, that, one of these days... "
He was foaming with rage, all the more as, in his innermost heart, he
recognized the strength of his new enemy and could not deny the masterly
fashion in which he had managed this business. Daubrecq's coolness,
the assurance with which he hoaxed the police-officials, the contempt
with which he lent himself to their visits at his house and, above all,
his wonderful self-possession, his easy bearing and the impertinence of
his conduct in the presence of the ninth person who was spying on him:
all this denoted a man of character, a strong man, with a well-balanced
mind, lucid, bold, sure of himself and of the cards in his hand.
But what were those cards? What game was he playing? Who held the
stakes? And how did the players stand on either side? Lupin could not
tell. Knowing nothing, he flung himself headlong into the thick of the
fray, between adversaries desperately involved, though he himself was in
total ignorance of their positions, their weapons, their resources and
their secret plans. For, when all was said, he could not admit that the
object of all those efforts was to obtain possession of a crystal
stopper!
One thing alone pleased him: Daubrecq had not penetrated his disguise.
Daubrecq believed him to be in the employ of the police. Neither
Daubrecq nor the police, therefore, suspected the intrusion of a third
thief in the business. This was his one and only trump, a trump that
gave him a liberty of action to which he attached the greatest importance.
Without further delay, he opened the letter which Daubrecq had handed
him for the secretary-general of police. It contained these few lines:
"Within reach of your hand, my dear Prasville, within reach of your
hand! You touched it! A little more and the trick was done... But
you're too big a fool. And to think that they couldn't hit upon
any one better than you to make me bite the dust. Poor old France!
"Good-bye, Prasville. But, if I catch you in the act, it will be a
bad lookout for you: my maxim is to shoot at sight.
"DAUBRECQ"
"Within reach of your hand," repeated Lupin, after reading the note.
"And to think that the rogue may be writing the truth! The most
elementary hiding-places are the safest. We must look into this, all
the same. And, also, we must find out why Daubrecq is the object of
such strictsupervision and obtain a few particulars about the fellow
generally."
The information supplied to Lupin by a private inquiry-office consisted
of the following details:
"ALEXIS DAUBRECQ, deputy of the Bouches-du- Rh6ne for the past two
years; sits among the independent members. Political opinions not
very clearly defined, but electoral position exceedingly strong,
because of the enormous sums which he spends in nursing his
constituency. No private income. Nevertheless, has a house in
Paris, a villa at Enghien and another at Nice and loses heavily at
play, though no one knows where the money comes from. Has great
influence and obtains all he wants without making up to ministers
or, apparently, having either friends or connections in political
circles."
"That's a trade docket," said Lupin to himself. "What I want is a
domestic docket, a police docket, which will tell me about the gentleman's
private life and enable me to work more easily in this darkness and to
know if I'm not getting myself into a tangle by bothering about the
Daubrecq bird. And time's getting short, hang it!"
One of the residences which Lupin occupied at that period and which he
used oftener than any of the others was in the Rue Chateaubriand, near
the Arc de l'Etoile. He was known there by the name of Michel Beaumont.
He had a snug flat here and was looked after by a manservant, Achille,
who was utterly devoted to his interests and whose chief duty was to
receive and repeat the telephone-messages addressed to Lupin by his
followers.
Lupin, on returning home, learnt, with great astonishment, that a woman
had been waiting to see him for over an hour:
"What! Why, no one ever comes to see me here! Is she young?"
"No... I don't think so."
"You don't think so!"
"She's wearing a lace shawl over her head, instead of a hat, and you
can't see her face... She's more like a clerk... or a woman employed in
a shop. She's not well-dressed ..."
"Whom did she ask for?"
"M. Michel Beaumont," replied the servant.
"Queer. And why has she called?"
"All she said was that it was about the Enghien business... So I thought
that... "
"What! The Enghien business! Then she knows that I am mixed up in that
business... She knows that, by applying here... "
"I could not get anything out of her, but I thought, all the same, that
I had better let her in."
"Quite right. Where is she?"
"In the drawing-room. I've put on the lights."
Lupin walked briskly across the hall and opened the door of the
drawing-room:
"What are you talking about?" he said, to his man. "There's no one here."
"No one here?" said Achille, running up.
And the room, in fact, was empty.
"Well, on my word, this takes the cake!" cried the servant. "It wasn't
twenty minutes ago that I came and had a look, to make sure. She was
sitting over there. And there's nothing wrong with my eyesight, you know."
"Look here, look here," said Lupin, irritably. "Where were you while
the woman was waiting?"
"In the hail, governor! I never left the hail for a second! I should
have seen her go out, blow it!"
"Still, she's not here now... "
"So I see," moaned the man, quite flabbergasted.
"She must have got tired of waiting and gone away. But, dash it all, I
should like to know how she got out!"
"How she got out?" said Lupin. "It doesn't take a wizard to tell that."
"What do you mean?"
"She got out through the window. Look, it's still ajar We are on the
ground-floor... The street is almost always deserted, in the evenings.
There's no doubt about it."
He had looked around him and satisfied himself that nothing had been
taken away or moved. The room, for that matter, contained no knicknack
of any value, no important paper that might have explained the woman's
visit, followed by her sudden disappearance. And yet why that
inexplicable flight?
"Has any one telephoned?" he asked.
"No."
"Any letters?"
"Yes, one letter by the last post."
"Where is it?"
"I put it on your mantel-piece, governor, as usual."
Lupin's bedroom was next to the drawing-room, but Lupin had permanently
bolted the door between the two. He, therefore, had to go through the
hall again.
Lupin switched on the electric light and, the next moment, said:
"I don't see it... "
"Yes... I put it next to the flower-bowl."
"There's nothing here at all."
"You must be looking in the wrong place, governor."
But Achille moved the bowl, lifted the clock, bent down to the grate, in
vain: the letter was not there.
"Oh blast it, blast it!" he muttered. "She's done it... she's taken
it... And then, when she had the letter, she cleared out... Oh, the
slut!... "
Lupin said:
"You're mad! There's no way through between the two rooms."
"Then who did take it, governor?"
They were both of them silent. Lupin strove to control his anger and
collect his ideas. He asked:
"Did you look at the envelope?"
"Yes."
"Anything particular about it?"
""Yes, it looked as if it had been written in a hurry, or scribbled,
rather."
"How was the address worded?... Do you remember?" asked Lupin, in a voice
strained with anxiety.
"Yes, I remembered it, because it struck me as funny... "
"But speak, will you? Speak!"
"It said, 'Monsieur de Beaumont, Michel.'"
Lupin took his servant by the shoulders and shook him:
"It said 'de' Beaumont? Are you sure? And 'Michel' after 'Beaumont'?"
"Quite certain."
"Ah!" muttered Lupin, with a choking throat. "It was a letter from
Gilbert!"
He stood motionless, a little pale, with drawn features. There was no
doubt about it: the letter was from Gilbert. It was the form of address
which, by Lupin's orders, Gilbert had used for years in corresponding
with him. Gilbert had at last - after long waiting and by clint of
endless artifices - found a means of getting a letter posted from his
prison and had hastily written to him. And now the letter was
intercepted! What did it say? What instructions had the unhappy
- ignorant [´ignərənt]
a.无知的，愚昧的 (初中英语单词) - fundamental [,fʌndə´mentl] a.基本的 n.原理 (初中英语单词)
- monsieur [mə´sjə:] n.先生 (初中英语单词)
- striking [´straikiŋ] a.显著的，明显的 (初中英语单词)
- velvet [´velvit] n.&a.天鹅绒(般的) (初中英语单词)
- laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- employer [im´plɔiə] n.雇佣者，雇主 (初中英语单词)
- phrase [freiz] n.短语；词组；措词 (初中英语单词)
- character [´kæriktə] n.特性；性质；人物；字 (初中英语单词)
- knowing [´nəuiŋ] a.会意的，心照不宣的 (初中英语单词)
- ignorance [´ignərəns] n.无知，愚昧 (初中英语单词)
- obtain [əb´tein] v.获得；买到；得到承认 (初中英语单词)
- therefore [´ðeəfɔ:] ad.&conj.因此；所以 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- writing [´raitiŋ] n.书写；写作；书法 (初中英语单词)
- enormous [i´nɔ:məs] a.巨大地，很，极 (初中英语单词)
- income [´inkʌm] n.收入，所得 (初中英语单词)
- nevertheless [,nevəðə´les] conj.&ad.然而；不过 (初中英语单词)
- enable [i´neibəl] vt.使能够；赋予权力 (初中英语单词)
- learnt [lə:nt] learn 的过去式(分词) (初中英语单词)
- astonishment [ə´stɔniʃmənt] n.吃惊；惊异 (初中英语单词)
- waiting [´weitiŋ] n.等候；伺候 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- governor [´gʌvənə] n.总督；州长 (初中英语单词)
- throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
- hastily [´heistili] ad.急速地；草率地 (初中英语单词)
- unhappy [ʌn´hæpi] a.不幸的；不快乐的 (初中英语单词)
- madness [´mædnis] n.疯狂；狂热 (高中英语单词)
- hanging [´hæŋiŋ] n.绞刑 a.悬挂着的 (高中英语单词)
- deputy [´depjuti] n.代理人；代表 (高中英语单词)
- assurance [ə´ʃuərəns] n.保证；自信；信任 (高中英语单词)
- bearing [´beəriŋ] n.举止；忍耐；关系 (高中英语单词)
- headlong [´hedlɔŋ] ad.&a.轻率地(的) (高中英语单词)
- desperately [´despəritli] ad.绝望地；拼命地 (高中英语单词)
- repeated [ri´pi:tid] a.反复的；重复的 (高中英语单词)
- strict [strikt] a.严厉的；精确的 (高中英语单词)
- supervision [,su:pə´viʒən, ,sju:-] n.管理；监督 (高中英语单词)
- exceedingly [ik´si:diŋli] ad.非常地，极度地 (高中英语单词)
- apparently [ə´pærəntli] ad.显然，表面上地 (高中英语单词)
- tangle [´tæŋgəl] n.&vt.(使)缠结；纠纷 (高中英语单词)
- strove [strəuv] strive的过去式 (高中英语单词)
- motionless [´məuʃənləs] a.静止的；固定的 (高中英语单词)
- hurriedly [´hʌridli] ad.仓促地，忙乱地 (英语四级单词)
- dagger [´dægə] n.短剑，匕首 (英语四级单词)
- parting [´pɑ:tiŋ] a.&n.分离(的) (英语四级单词)
- lookout [´lukaut] n.警戒；景色；前途 (英语四级单词)
- devoted [di´vəutid] a.献身...的，忠实的 (英语四级单词)
- briskly [´briskli] ad.轻快地；活泼地 (英语四级单词)
- wizard [´wizəd] n.术士；男巫 (英语四级单词)
- craving [´kreiviŋ] n.渴望，热望 (英语六级单词)
- intrusion [in´tru:ʒən] n.侵入；打扰；强加 (英语六级单词)
- disappearance [,disə´piərəns] n.消失；失踪 (英语六级单词)
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