The Hollow Needle; Further adventures of Arsène Lupin by Maurice Leblanc (great novels to read .txt) 📕

terror. The man who stood before him, the man whom the brutal force of events compelled him to look upon as Arsène Lupin, was—Valméras! Valméras, the owner of the Château de l’Aiguille! Valméras, the very man to whom he had applied for assistance against Arsène Lupin! Valméras, his companion on the expedition to Crozant! Valméras, the plucky friend who had made Raymonde’s escape possible by felling one of Lupin’s accomplices, or pretending to fell him, in the dusk of the great hall! And Valméras was Lupin!

“You—you—So it’s you!” he stammered.

“Why not?” exclaimed Lupin. “Did you think that you knew me for good and all because you had seen me in the guise of a clergyman or under the features of M. Massiban? Alas, when a man selects the position in society which I occupy, he must needs make use of his little social gifts! If Lupin were not able to change himself, at will, into a minister of the Church of England or a member of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres, it would be a bad lookout for Lupin! Now Lupin, the real Lupin, is here before you, Beautrelet! Take a good look at him.”

“But then—if it’s you—then—Mademoiselle—”

“Yes, Beautrelet, as you say—”

He again drew back the hanging, beckoned and announced:

“Mme. Arsène Lupin.”

“Ah,” murmured the lad, confounded in spite of everything, “Mlle. de Saint-Véran!”

“No, no,” protested Lupin. “Mme. Arsène Lupin, or rather, if you prefer, Mme. Louis Valméras, my wedded wife, married to me in accordance with the strictest forms of law; and all thanks to you, my dear Beautrelet.”

He held out his hand to him.

“All my acknowledgements—and no ill will on your side, I trust?”

Strange to say, Beautrelet felt no ill will at all, no sense of humiliation, no bitterness. He realized so strongly the immense superiority of his adversary that he did not blush at being beaten by him. He pressed the offered hand.

“Luncheon is served, ma’am.”

A butler had placed a tray of dishes on the table.

“You must excuse us, Beautrelet: my chef is away and we can only give you a cold lunch.”

Beautrelet felt very little inclined to eat. He sat down, however, and was enormously interested in Lupin’s attitude. How much exactly did he know? Was he aware of the danger he was running? Was he ignorant of the presence of Ganimard and his men?

And Lupin continued:

“Yes, thanks to you, my dear friend. Certainly, Raymonde and I loved each other from the first. Just so, my boy—Raymonde’s abduction, her imprisonment, were mere humbug: we loved each other. But neither she nor I, when we were free to love, would allow a casual bond at the mercy of chance, to be formed between us. The position, therefore, was hopeless for Lupin. Fortunately, it ceased to be so if I resumed my identity as the Louis Valméras that I had been from a child. It was then that I conceived the idea, as you refused to relinquish your quest and had found the Château de l’Aiguille, of profiting by your obstinacy.”

“And my silliness.”

“Pooh! Any one would have been caught as you were!”

“So you were really able to succeed because I screened you and assisted you?”

“Of course! How could any one suspect Valméras of being Lupin, when Valméras was Beautrelet’s friend and after Valméras had snatched from Lupin’s clutches the girl whom Lupin loved? And how charming it was! Such delightful memories! The expedition to Crozant! The bouquets we found! My pretended love letter to Raymonde! And, later, the precautions which I, Valméras, had to take against myself, Lupin, before my marriage! And the night of your great banquet, Beautrelet, when you fainted in my arms! Oh, what memories!”

There was a pause. Beautrelet watched Raymonde. She had listened to Lupin without saying a word and looked at him with eyes in which he read love, passion and something else besides, something which the lad could not define, a sort of anxious embarrassment and a vague sadness. But Lupin turned his eyes upon her and she gave him an affectionate smile. Their hands met over the table.

“What do you say to the way I have arranged my little home, Beautrelet?” cried Lupin. “There’s a style about it, isn’t there? I don’t pretend that it’s as comfortable as it might be. And yet, some have been quite satisfied with it; and not the least of mankind, either!—Look at the list of distinguished people who have owned the Needle in their time and who thought it an honor to leave a mark of their sojourn.”

On the walls, one below the other, were carved the following names:

JULIUS CÆSAR
CHARLEMAGNE ROLLO
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
RICHARD CŒUR-DE-LEON
LOUIS XI.
FRANCIS I.
HENRY IV.
LOUIS XIV.
ARSÈNE LUPIN

“Whose name will figure after ours?” he continued. “Alas, the list is closed! From Cæsar to Lupin—and there it ends. Soon the nameless mob will come to visit the strange citadel. And to think that, but for Lupin, all this would have remained for ever unknown to men! Ah Beautrelet, what a feeling of pride was mine on the day when I first set foot on this abandoned soil. To have found the lost secret and become its master, its sole master! To inherit such an inheritance! To live in the Needle, after all those kings!—”

He was interrupted by a gesture of his wife’s. She seemed greatly agitated.

“There is a noise,” she said. “Underneath us.—You can hear it.”

“It’s the lapping of the water,” said Lupin.

“No, indeed it’s not. I know the sound of the waves. This is something different.”

“What would you have it be, darling?” said Lupin, smiling. “I invited no one to lunch except Beautrelet.” And, addressing the servant, “Charolais, did you lock the staircase doors behind the gentleman?”

“Yes, sir, and fastened the bolts.”

Lupin rose:

“Come, Raymonde, don’t shake like that. Why, you’re quite pale!”

He spoke a few words to her in an undertone, as also to the servant, drew back the curtain and sent them both out of the room.

The noise below grew more distinct. It was a series of dull blows, repeated at intervals. Beautrelet thought:

“Ganimard has lost patience and is breaking down the doors.”

Lupin resumed the thread of his conversation, speaking very calmly and as though he had really not heard:

“By Jove, the Needle was badly damaged when I succeeded in discovering it! One could see that no one had possessed the secret for more than a century, since Louis XVI. and the Revolution. The tunnel was threatening to fall in. The stairs were in a shocking state. The water was trickling in from the sea. I had to prop up and strengthen and rebuild the whole thing.”

Beautrelet could not help asking:

“When you arrived, was it empty?”

“Very nearly. The kings did not use the Needle, as I have done, as a warehouse.”

“As a place of refuge, then?”

“Yes, no doubt, in times of invasion and during the civil wars. But its real destination was to be—how shall I put it?—the strong-room or the bank of the kings of France.”

The sound of blows increased, more distinctly now. Ganimard must have broken down the first door and was attacking the second. There was a short silence and then more blows, nearer still. It was the third door. Two remained.

Through one of the windows, Beautrelet saw a number of fishing-smacks sailing round the Needle and, not far away, floating on the waters like a great black fish, the torpedo-boat.

“What a row!” exclaimed Lupin. “One can’t hear one’s self speak! Let’s go upstairs, shall we? It may interest you to look over the Needle.”

They climbed to the floor above, which was protected, like the others, by a door which Lupin locked behind him.

“My picture gallery,” he said.

The walls were covered with canvases on which Beautrelet recognized the most famous signatures. There were Raphael’s Madonna of the Agnus Dei, Andrea del Sarto’s Portrait of Lucrezia Fede, Titian’s Salome, Botticelli’s Madonna and Angels and numbers of Tintorettos, Carpaccios, Rembrandts, Velasquez.

“What fine copies!” said Beautrelet, approvingly.

Lupin looked at him with an air of stupefaction:

“What! Copies! You must be mad! The copies are in Madrid, my dear fellow, in Florence, Venice, Munich, Amsterdam.”

“Then these—”

“Are the original pictures, my lad, patiently collected in all the museums of Europe, where I have replaced them, like an honest man, with first-rate copies.”

“But some day or other—”

“Some day or other, the fraud will be discovered? Well, they will find my signature on each canvas—at the back—and they will know that it was I who have endowed my country with the original masterpieces. After all, I have only done what Napoleon did in Italy.—Oh, look, Beautrelet: here are M. de Gesvres’s four Rubenses!—”

The knocking continued within the hollow of the Needle without ceasing.

“I can’t stand this!” said Lupin. “Let’s go higher.”

A fresh staircase. A fresh door.

“The tapestry-room,” Lupin announced.

The tapestries were not hung on the walls, but rolled, tied up with cord, ticketed; and, in addition, there were parcels of old fabrics which Lupin unfolded: wonderful brocades, admirable velvets, soft, faded silks, church vestments woven with silver and gold—

They went higher still and Beautrelet saw the room containing the clocks and other time-pieces, the book-room—oh, the splendid bindings, the precious, undiscoverable volumes, the unique copies stolen from the great public libraries—the lace-room, the knicknack-room.

And each time the circumference of the room grew smaller.

And each time, now, the sound of knocking was more distant. Ganimard was losing ground.

“This is the last room,” said Lupin. “The treasury.”

This one was quite different. It was round also, but very high and conical in shape. It occupied the top of the edifice and its floor must have been fifteen or twenty yards below the extreme point of the Needle.

On the cliff side there was no window. But on the side of the sea, whence there were no indiscreet eyes to fear, two glazed openings admitted plenty of light.

The ground was covered with a parqueted flooring of rare wood, forming concentric patterns. Against the walls stood glass cases and a few pictures.

“The pearls of my collection,” said Lupin. “All that you have seen so far is for sale. Things come and things go. That’s business. But here, in this sanctuary, everything is sacred. There is nothing here but choice, essential pieces, the best of the best, priceless things. Look at these jewels, Beautrelet: Chaldean amulets, Egyptian necklaces, Celtic bracelets, Arab chains. Look at these statuettes, Beautrelet, at this Greek Venus, this Corinthian Apollo. Look at these Tanagras, Beautrelet: all the real Tanagras are here. Outside this glass case, there is not a single genuine Tanagra statuette in the whole wide world. What a delicious thing to be able to say!—Beautrelet, do you remember Thomas and his gang of church-pillagers in the South—agents of mine, by the way? Well, here is the Ambazac reliquary, the real one, Beautrelet! Do you remember the Louvre scandal, the tiara which was admitted to be false, invented and manufactured by a modern artist? Here is the tiara of Saitapharnes, the real one, Beautrelet! Look, Beautrelet, look with all your eyes: here is the marvel of marvels, the supreme masterpiece, the work of no mortal brain; here is Leonardo’s Gioconda, the real one! Kneel, Beautrelet, kneel; all womankind stands before you in this picture.”

There was a long silence between them. Below, the sound of blows drew nearer. Two or three doors, no more, separated them from Ganimard. In the offing, they saw the black back of the torpedo-boat and the fishing-smacks cruising to and fro.

The boy asked:

“And the treasure?”

“Ah, my little man, that’s what interests you most! None of those masterpieces of human art can compete with the contemplation of the treasure as a matter of curiosity, eh?—And the whole crowd will be like you!—Come, you shall be satisfied.”

He stamped his foot, and, in so doing, made one of the discs composing the floor-pattern turn right over. Then, lifting it as though it were the lid of a box, he uncovered a sort of large round bowl, dug in the thickness of the rock. It was empty.

A little farther, he went through the same performance. Another large bowl appeared. It was also empty.

He did this three times over again. The three other bowls were empty.

“Eh,” grinned Lupin. “What a disappointment! Under Louis XI., under Henry IV., under Richelieu, the five bowls were full. But think of Louis XIV., the folly of Versailles, the wars, the great disasters of the reign! And think of Louis XV., the spendthrift king, with his Pompadour and his Du Barry! How they must have drawn on the treasure in those days! With what thieving claws they must have scratched at the stone. You see, there’s nothing left.”

He stopped.

“Yes, Beautrelet, there is something—the sixth hiding-place! This one was intangible. Not one of them dared touch it. It was the very last resource, the nest-egg, the something put by for a rainy day. Look, Beautrelet!”

He stooped and lifted up the lid. An iron box filled the bowl. Lupin