Edith had reached the point at which not even the thought of vengeance relieves the sufferer's pain. She had dismissed the three detectives on the day of the funeral and engaged just one man and an old cook-housekeeper to take the place of the large staff of servants the sight of whom reminded her too cruelly of the past. Not caring what happened, she kept her room and left Ganimard free to act as he pleased.
He took up his quarters on the ground-floor and at once instituted a series of the most minute investigations. He started the inquiry afresh, questioned the people in the neighbourhood, studied the distribution of the rooms and set each of the burglar-alarms going thirty and forty times over.
At the end of the fortnight, he asked for an extension of leave. The chief of the detective-service, who was at that time M. Dudouis, came to see him and found him perched on the top of a ladder, in the gallery. That day, the chief-inspector admitted that all his searches had proved useless.
Two days later, however, M. Dudouis called again and discovered Ganimard in a very thoughtful frame of mind. A bundle of newspapers lay spread in front of him. At last, in reply to his superior's urgent questions, the chief-inspector muttered:
"I know nothing, chief, absolutely nothing; but there's a confounded notion worrying me… Only it seems so absurd… And then it doesn't explain things… On the contrary, it confuses them rather…"
"Then …?"
"Then I implore you, chief, to have a little patience … to let me go my own way. But if I telephone to you, some day or other, suddenly, you must jump into a taxi, without losing a minute. It will mean that I have discovered the secret."
Forty-eight hours passed. Then, one morning, M. Dudouis received a telegram:
"Going to Lille.
"Ganimard."
"What the dickens can he want to go to Lille for?" wondered the chief-detective.
The day passed without news, followed by another day. But M. Dudouis had every confidence in Ganimard. He knew his man, knew that the old detective was not one of those people who excite themselves for nothing. When Ganimard "got a move on him," it meant that he had sound reasons for doing so.
As a matter of fact, on the evening of that second day, M. Dudouis was called to the telephone.
"Is that you, chief?"
"Is it Ganimard speaking?"
Cautious men both, they began by making sure of each other's identity. As soon as his mind was eased on this point, Ganimard continued, hurriedly:
"Ten men, chief, at once. And please come yourself."
"Where are you?"
"In the house, on the ground-floor. But I will wait for you just inside the garden-gate."
"I'll come at once. In a taxi, of course?"
"Yes, chief. Stop the taxi fifty yards from the house. I'll let you in when you whistle."
Things took place as Ganimard had arranged. Shortly after midnight, when all the lights were out on the upper floors, he slipped into the street and went to meet M. Dudouis. There was a hurried consultation. The officers distributed themselves as Ganimard ordered. Then the chief and the chief-inspector walked back together, noiselessly crossed the garden and closeted themselves with every precaution:
"Well, what's it all about?" asked M. Dudouis. "What does all this mean? Upon my word, we look like a pair of conspirators!"
But Ganimard was not laughing. His chief had never seen him in such a state of perturbation, nor heard him speak in a voice denoting such excitement:
"Any news, Ganimard?"
"Yes, chief, and … this time …! But I can hardly believe it myself… And yet I'm not mistaken: I know the real truth… It may be as unlikely as you please, but it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."
He wiped away the drops of perspiration that trickled down his forehead and, after a further question from M. Dudouis, pulled himself together, swallowed a glass of water and began:
"Lupin has often got the better of me…"
"Look here, Ganimard," said M. Dudouis, interrupting him. "Why can't you come straight to the point? Tell me, in two words, what's happened."
"No, chief," retorted the chief-inspector, "it is essential that you should know the different stages which I have passed through. Excuse me, but I consider it indispensable." And he repeated: "I was saying, chief, that Lupin has often got the better of me and led me many a dance. But, in this contest in which I have always come out worst … so far … I have at least gained experience of his manner of play and learnt to know his tactics. Now, in the matter of the tapestries, it occurred to me almost from the start to set myself two problems. In the first place, Lupin, who never makes a move without knowing what he is after, was obviously aware that Colonel Sparmiento had come to the end of his money and that the loss of the tapestries might drive him to suicide. Nevertheless, Lupin, who hates the very thought of bloodshed, stole the tapestries."
"There was the inducement," said M. Dudouis, "of the five or six hundred thousand francs which they are worth."
"No, chief, I tell you once more, whatever the occasion might be, Lupin would not take life, nor be the cause of another person's death, for anything in this world, for millions and millions. That's the first point. In the second place, what was the object of all that disturbance, in the evening, during the house-warming party? Obviously, don't you think, to surround the business with an atmosphere of anxiety and terror, in the shortest possible time, and also to divert suspicion from the truth, which, otherwise, might easily have been suspected?.. You seem not to understand, chief?"
"Upon my word, I do not!"
"As a matter of fact," said Ganimard, "as a matter of fact, it is not particularly plain. And I myself, when I put the problem before my mind in those same words, did not understand it very clearly… And yet I felt that I was on the right track… Yes, there was no doubt about it that Lupin wanted to divert suspicions … to divert them to himself, Lupin, mark you … so that the real person who was working the business might remain unknown…"
"A confederate," suggested M. Dudouis. "A confederate, moving among the visitors, who set the alarms going … and who managed to hide in the house after the party had broken up."
"You're getting warm, chief, you're getting warm! It is certain that the tapestries, as they cannot have been stolen by any one making his way surreptitiously into the house, were stolen by somebody who remained in the house; and it is equally certain that, by taking the list of the people invited and inquiring into the antecedents of each of them, one might…"
"Well?"
"Well, chief, there's a 'but,' namely, that the three detectives had this list in their hands when the guests arrived and that they still had it when the guests left. Now sixty-three came in and sixty-three went away. So you see…"
"Then do you suppose a servant?.."
"No."
"The detectives?"
"No."
"But, still … but, still," said the chief, impatiently, "if the robbery was committed from the inside…"
"That is beyond dispute," declared the inspector, whose excitement seemed to be nearing fever-point. "There is no question about it. All my investigations led to the same certainty. And my conviction gradually became so positive that I ended, one day, by drawing up this startling axiom: in theory and in fact, the robbery can only have been committed with the assistance of an accomplice staying in the house. Whereas there was no accomplice!"
"That's absurd," said Dudouis.
"Quite absurd," said Ganimard. "But, at the very moment when I uttered that absurd sentence, the truth flashed upon me."
"Eh?"
"Oh, a very dim, very incomplete, but still sufficient truth! With that clue to guide me, I was bound to find the way. Do you follow me, chief?"
M. Dudouis sat silent. The same phenomenon that had taken place in Ganimard was evidently taking place in him. He muttered:
"If it's not one of the guests, nor the servants, nor the private detectives, then there's no one left…"
"Yes, chief, there's one left…"
M. Dudouis started as though he had received a shock; and, in a voice that betrayed his excitement:
"But, look here, that's preposterous."
"Why?"
"Come, think for yourself!"
"Go on, chief: say what's in your mind."
"Nonsense! What do you mean?"
"Go on, chief."
"It's impossible! How can Sparmiento have been Lupin's accomplice?"
Ganimard gave a little chuckle.
"Exactly, Arsène Lupin's accomplice!.. That explains everything. During the night, while the three detectives were downstairs watching, or sleeping rather, for Colonel Sparmiento had given them champagne to drink and perhaps doctored it beforehand, the said colonel took down the hangings and passed them out through the window of his bedroom. The room is on the second floor and looks out on another street, which was not watched, because the lower windows are walled up."
M. Dudouis reflected and then shrugged his shoulders:
"It's preposterous!" he repeated.
"Why?"
"Why? Because, if the colonel had been Arsène Lupin's accomplice, he would not have committed suicide after achieving his success."
"Who says that he committed suicide?"
"Why, he was found dead on the line!"
"I told you, there is no such thing as death with Lupin."
"Still, this was genuine enough. Besides, Mme. Sparmiento identified the body."
"I thought you would say that, chief. The argument worried me too. There was I, all of a sudden, with three people in front of me instead of one: first, Arsène Lupin, cracksman; secondly, Colonel Sparmiento, his accomplice; thirdly, a dead man. Spare us! It was too much of a good thing!"
Ganimard took a bundle of newspapers, untied it and handed one of them to Mr. Dudouis:
"You remember, chief, last time you were here, I was looking through the papers… I wanted to see if something had not happened, at that period, that might bear upon the case and confirm my supposition. Please read this paragraph."
M. Dudouis took the paper and read aloud:
"Our Lille correspondent informs us that a curious incident has occurred in that town. A corpse has disappeared from the local morgue, the corpse of a man unknown who threw himself under the wheels of a steam tram-car on the day before. No one is able to suggest a reason for this disappearance."
M. Dudouis sat thinking and then asked:
"So … you believe …?"
"I have just come from Lille," replied Ganimard, "and my inquiries leave not a doubt in my mind. The corpse was removed on the same night on which Colonel Sparmiento gave his house-warming. It was taken straight to Ville d'Avray by motor-car; and the car remained near the railway-line until the evening."
"Near the tunnel, therefore," said M. Dudouis.
"Next to it, chief."
"So that the body which was found is merely that body, dressed in Colonel Sparmiento's clothes."
"Precisely, chief."
"Then Colonel Sparmiento is not dead?"
"No more dead than you or I, chief."
"But then why all these complications? Why the theft of one tapestry, followed by its recovery, followed by the theft of the twelve? Why that house-warming? Why that disturbance? Why everything? Your story won't hold water, Ganimard."
"Only because you, chief, like myself, have stopped halfway; because, strange as this story already sounds, we must go still farther, very much farther, in the direction of the improbable and the astounding. And why not, after all? Remember that we are dealing with Arsène Lupin. With him, is it not always just the improbable and the astounding that we must look for? Must we not always go straight for the maddest suppositions? And, when I say the maddest, I am using the wrong word. On the contrary, the whole thing is wonderfully logical and so simple that a child could understand it. Confederates only betray you. Why employ confederates, when it is so easy and so natural to act for yourself, by yourself, with your own hands and by the means within your own reach?"
"What are you saying?.. What are you saying?.. What are you saying?" cried M. Dudouis, in a sort of sing-song voice and a tone of bewilderment that increased with each separate exclamation.
Ganimard gave a fresh chuckle.
"Takes your breath away, chief, doesn't it? So it did mine, on the day when you came to see me here and when the notion was beginning to grow upon me. I was flabbergasted with astonishment. And yet I've had experience of my customer. I know what he's capable of… But this, no, this was really a bit too stiff!"
"It's impossible! It's impossible!" said M. Dudouis, in a low voice.
"On the contrary, chief, it's quite possible and quite logical and quite normal. It's the threefold incarnation of one and the same individual. A schoolboy would solve the problem in a minute, by a simple process of elimination. Take away the dead man: there remains Sparmiento and Lupin. Take away Sparmiento…"
"There remains Lupin," muttered the chief-detective.
"Yes, chief, Lupin simply, Lupin in five letters and two syllables, Lupin taken out of his Brazilian skin, Lupin revived from the dead, Lupin translated, for the past six months, into Colonel Sparmiento, travelling in Brittany, hearing of the discovery of the twelve tapestries, buying them, planning the theft of the best of them, so as to draw attention to himself, Lupin, and divert it from himself, Sparmiento. Next, he brings about, in full view of the gaping public, a noisy contest between Lupin and Sparmiento or Sparmiento and Lupin, plots and gives the house-warming party, terrifies his guests and, when everything is ready, arranges for Lupin to steal Sparmiento's tapestries and for Sparmiento, Lupin's victim, to disappear from sight and die unsuspected, unsuspectable, regretted by his friends, pitied by the public and leaving behind him, to pocket the profits of the swindle…"
Ganimard stopped, looked the chief in the eyes and, in a voice that emphasized the importance of his words, concluded:
"Leaving behind him a disconsolate widow."
"Mme. Sparmiento! You really believe…?
"Hang it all!" said the chief-inspector. "People don't work up a whole business of this sort, without seeing something ahead of them … solid profits."
"But the profits, it seems to me, lie in the sale of the tapestries which Lupin will effect in America or elsewhere."
"First of all, yes. But Colonel Sparmiento could effect that sale just as well. And even better. So there's something more."
"Something more?"
"Come, chief, you're forgetting that Colonel Sparmiento has been the victim of an important robbery and that, though he may be dead, at least his widow remains. So it's his widow who will get the money."
"What money?"
"What money? Why, the money due to her! The insurance-money, of course!"
M. Dudouis was staggered. The whole business suddenly became clear to him, with its real meaning. He muttered:
"That's true!.. That's true!.. The colonel had insured his tapestries…"
"Rather! And for no trifle either."
"For how much?"
"Eight hundred thousand francs."
"Eight hundred thousand?"
"Just so. In five different companies."
"And has Mme. Sparmiento had the money?"
"She got a hundred and fifty thousand francs yesterday and two hundred thousand to-day, while I was away. The remaining payments are to be made in the course of this week."
"But this is terrible! You ought to have…"
"What, chief? To begin with, they took advantage of my absence to settle up accounts with the companies. I only heard about it on my return when I ran up against an insurance-manager whom I happen to know and took the opportunity of drawing him out."
The chief-detective was silent for some time, not knowing what to say. Then he mumbled:
"What a fellow, though!"
Ganimard nodded his head:
"Yes, chief, a blackguard, but, I can't help saying, a devil of a clever fellow. For his plan to succeed, he must have managed in such a way that, for four or five weeks, no one could express or even conceive the least suspicion of the part played by Colonel Sparmiento. All the indignation and all the inquiries had to be concentrated upon Lupin alone. In the last resort, people had to find themselves faced simply with a mournful, pitiful, penniless widow, poor Edith Swan-neck, a beautiful and legendary vision, a creature so pathetic that the gentlemen of the insurance-companies were almost glad to place something in her hands to relieve her poverty and her grief. That's what was wanted and that's what happened."
The two men were close together and did not take their eyes from each other's faces.
The chief asked:
"Who is that woman?"
"Sonia Kritchnoff."
"Sonia Kritchnoff?"
"Yes, the Russian girl whom I arrested last year at the time of the theft of the coronet, and whom Lupin helped to escape."5
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. I was put off the scent, like everybody else, by Lupin's machinations, and had paid no particular attention to her. But, when I knew the part which she was playing, I remembered. She is certainly Sonia, metamorphosed into an Englishwoman; Sonia, the most innocent-looking and the trickiest of actresses; Sonia, who would not hesitate to face death for love of Lupin."
"A good capture, Ganimard," said M. Dudouis, approvingly.
"I've something better still for you, chief!"
"Really? What?"
"Lupin's old foster-mother."
"Victoire?"6
"She has been here since Mme. Sparmiento began playing the widow; she's the cook."
"Oho!" said M. Dudouis. "My congratulations, Ganimard!"
"I've something for you, chief, that's even better than that!"
M. Dudouis gave a start. The inspector's hand clutched his and was shaking with excitement.
"What do you mean, Ganimard?"
"Do you think, chief, that I would have brought you here, at this late hour, if I had had nothing more attractive to offer you than Sonia and Victoire? Pah! They'd have kept!"
"You mean to say …?" whispered M. Dudouis, at last, understanding the chief-inspector's agitation.
"You've guessed it, chief!"
"Is he here?"
"He's here."
"In hiding?"
"Not a bit of it. Simply in disguise. He's the man-servant."
This time, M. Dudouis did not utter a word nor make a gesture. Lupin's audacity confounded him.
Ganimard chuckled.
"It's no longer a threefold, but a fourfold incarnation. Edith Swan-neck might have blundered. The master's presence was necessary; and he had the cheek to return. For three weeks, he has been beside me during my inquiry, calmly following the progress made."
"Did you recognize him?"
"One doesn't recognize him. He has a knack of making-up his face and altering the proportions of his body so as to prevent any one from knowing him. Besides, I was miles from suspecting… But, this evening, as I was watching Sonia in the shadow of the stairs, I heard Victoire speak to the man-servant and call him, 'Dearie.' A light flashed in upon me. 'Dearie!' That was what she always used to call him. And I knew where I was."
M. Dudouis seemed flustered, in his turn, by the presence of the enemy, so often pursued and always so intangible:
"We've got him, this time," he said, between his teeth. "We've got him; and he can't escape us."
"No, chief, he can't: neither he nor the two women."
"Where are they?"
"Sonia and Victoire are on the second floor; Lupin is on the third."
M. Dudouis suddenly became anxious:
"Why, it was through the windows of one of those floors that the tapestries were passed when they disappeared!"
"That's so, chief."
"In that case, Lupin can get away too. The windows look out on the Rue Dufresnoy."
"Of course they do, chief; but I have taken my precautions. The moment you arrived, I sent four of our men to keep watch under the windows in the Rue Dufresnoy. They have strict instructions to shoot, if any one appears at the windows and looks like coming down. Blank cartridges for the first shot, ball-cartridges for the next."
"Good, Ganimard! You have thought of everything. We'll wait here; and, immediately after sunrise…"
"Wait, chief? Stand on ceremony with that rascal? Bother about rules and regulations, legal hours and all that rot? And suppose he's not quite so polite to us and gives us the slip meanwhile? Suppose he plays us one of his Lupin tricks? No, no, we must have no nonsense! We've got him: let's collar him; and that without delay!"
And Ganimard, all a-quiver with indignant impatience, went out, walked across the garden and presently returned with half-a-dozen men:
"It's all right, chief. I've told them, in the Rue Dufresnoy, to get their revolvers out and aim at the windows. Come along."
These alarums and excursions had not been effected without a certain amount of noise, which was bound to be heard by the inhabitants of the house. M. Dudouis felt that his hand was forced. He made up his mind to act:
"Come on, then," he said.
The thing did not take long. The eight of them, Browning pistols in hand, went up the stairs without overmuch precaution, eager to surprise Lupin before he had time to organize his defences.
"Open the door!" roared Ganimard, rushing at the door of Mme. Sparmiento's bedroom.
A policeman smashed it in with his shoulder.
There was no one in the room; and no one in Victoire's bedroom either.
"They're all upstairs!" shouted Ganimard. "They've gone up to Lupin in his attic. Be careful now!"
All the eight ran up the third flight of stairs. To his great astonishment, Ganimard found the door of the attic open and the attic empty. And the other rooms were empty too.
"Blast them!" he cursed. "What's become of them?"
But the chief called him. M. Dudouis, who had gone down again to the second floor, noticed that one of the windows was not latched, but just pushed to:
"There," he said, to Ganimard, "that's the road they took, the road of the tapestries. I told you as much: the Rue Dufresnoy…"
"But our men would have fired on them," protested Ganimard, grinding his teeth with rage. "The street's guarded."
"They must have gone before the street was guarded."
"They were all three of them in their rooms when I rang you up, chief!"
"They must have gone while you were waiting for me in the garden."
"But why? Why? There was no reason why they should go to-day rather than to-morrow, or the next day, or next week, for that matter, when they had pocketed all the insurance-money!"
Yes, there was a reason; and Ganimard knew it when he saw, on the table, a letter addressed to himself and opened it and read it. The letter was worded in the style of the testimonials which we hand to people in our service who have given satisfaction:
"I, the undersigned, Arsène Lupin, gentleman-burglar, ex-colonel, ex-man-of-all-work, ex-corpse, hereby certify that the person of the name of Ganimard gave proof of the most remarkable qualities during his stay in this house. He was exemplary in his behaviour, thoroughly devoted and attentive; and, unaided by the least clue, he foiled a part of my plans and saved the insurance-companies four hundred and fifty thousand francs. I congratulate him; and I am quite willing to overlook his blunder in not anticipating that the downstairs telephone communicates with the telephone in Sonia Kritchnoff's bedroom and that, when telephoning to Mr. Chief-detective, he was at the same time telephoning to me to clear out as fast as I could. It was a pardonable slip, which must not be allowed to dim the glamour of his services nor to detract from the merits of his victory.
"Having said this, I beg him to accept the homage of my admiration and of my sincere friendship.
"Arsène Lupin"