He ceased; and then, after a few seconds, he added:
"Unless—"
"Unless?" asked Don Luis.
"Unless—and this is what I wanted to say—unless you offer me in exchange something so extraordinary and so tremendous that I could consent to risk the annoyance which the absurd release of Arsène Lupin would bring down upon my head."
"But, Monsieur le President, surely, if I bring you the real criminal, the murderer of—"
"I don't need your assistance for that."
"And if I give you my word of honour, Monsieur le Président, to return the moment my task is done and give myself up?"
Valenglay struck the table with his fist and, raising his voice, addressed Don Luis with a certain genial familiarity:
"Come, Arsène Lupin," he said, "play the game! If you really want to have your way, pay for it! Hang it all, remember that after all this business, and especially after the incidents of last night, you and Florence Levasseur will be to the public what you already are: the responsible actors in the tragedy; nay, more, the real and only criminals. And it is now, when Florence Levasseur has taken to her heels, that you come and ask me for your liberty! Very well, but damn it, set a price to it and don't haggle with me!"
"I am not haggling, Monsieur le Président," declared Don Luis, in a very straightforward manner and tone. "What I have to offer you is certainly much more extraordinary and tremendous than you imagine. But if it were twice as extraordinary and twice as tremendous, it would not count once Florence Levasseur's life is in danger. Nevertheless, I was entitled to try for a less expensive transaction. Of this your words remove all hope. I will therefore lay my cards upon the table, as you demand, and as I had made up my mind to do."
He sat down opposite Valenglay, in the attitude of a man treating with another on equal terms.
"I shall not be long. A single sentence, Monsieur le President, will express the bargain which I am proposing to the Prime Minister of my country."
And, looking Valenglay straight in the eyes, he said slowly, syllable by syllable:
"In exchange for twenty-four hours' liberty and no more, undertaking on my honour to return here to-morrow morning and to return here either with Florence, to give you every proof of her innocence, or without her, to constitute myself a prisoner, I offer you—"
He took his time and, in a serious voice, concluded:
"I offer you a kingdom, Monsieur le Président du Conseil."
The sentence sounded bombastic and ludicrous, sounded silly enough to provoke a shrug of the shoulders, sounded like one of those sentences which only an imbecile or a lunatic could utter. And yet Valenglay remained impassive. He knew that, in such circumstances as the present, the man before him was not the man to indulge in jesting.
And he knew it so fully that, instinctively, accustomed as he was to momentous political questions in which secrecy is of the utmost importance, he cast a glance toward the Prefect of Police, as though M. Desmalions's presence in the room hindered him.
"I positively insist," said Don Luis, "that Monsieur le Préfet de Police shall stay and hear what I have to say. He is better able than any one else to appreciate the value of it; and he will bear witness to its correctness in certain particulars."
"Speak!" said Valenglay.
His curiosity knew no bounds. He did not much care whether Don Luis's proposal could have any practical results. In his heart he did not believe in it. But what he wanted to know was the lengths to which that demon of audacity was prepared to go, and on what new prodigious adventure he based the pretensions which he was putting forward so calmly and frankly.
Don Luis smiled:
"Will you allow me?" he asked.
Rising and going to the mantelpiece, he took down from the wall a small map representing Northwest Africa. He spread it on the table, placed different objects on the four corners to hold it in position, and resumed:
"There is one matter, Monsieur le Président, which puzzled Monsieur le Préfet de Police and about which I know that he caused inquiries to be made; and that matter is how I employed my time, or, rather, how Arsène Lupin employed his time during the last three years of his service with the Foreign Legion."
"Those inquiries were made by my orders," said Valenglay.
"And they led—?"
"To nothing."
"So that you do not know what I did during my captivity?"
"Just so."
"I will tell you, Monsieur le Président. It will not take me long."
Don Luis pointed with a pencil to a spot in Morocco marked on the map.
"It was here that I was taken prisoner on the twenty-fourth of July. My capture seemed queer to Monsieur le Préfet de Police and to all who subsequently heard the details of the incident. They were astonished that I should have been foolish enough to get caught in ambush and to allow myself to be trapped by a troop of forty Berber horse. Their surprise is justified. My capture was a deliberate move on my part.
"You will perhaps remember, Monsieur le Président, that I enlisted in the Foreign Legion after making a fruitless attempt to kill myself in consequence of some really terrible private disasters. I wanted to die, and I thought that a Moorish bullet would give me the final rest for which I longed.
"Fortune did not permit it. My destiny, it seemed, was not yet fulfilled. Then what had to be was. Little by little, unknown to myself, the thought of death vanished and I recovered my love of life. A few rather striking feats of arms had given me back all my self-confidence and all my desire for action.
"New dreams seized hold of me. I fell a victim to a new ideal. From day to day I needed more space, greater independence, wider horizons, more unforeseen and personal sensations. The Legion, great as my affection was for the plucky fellows who had welcomed me so cordially, was no longer enough to satisfy my craving for activity.
"One day, without thinking much about it, in a blind prompting of my whole being toward a great adventure which I did not clearly see, but which attracted me in a mysterious fashion, one day, finding myself surrounded by a band of the enemy, though still in a position to fight, I allowed myself to be captured.
"That is the whole story, Monsieur le Président. As a prisoner, I was free. A new life opened before me. However, the incident nearly turned out badly. My three dozen Berbers, a troop detached from an important nomad tribe that used to pillage and put to ransom the districts lying on the middle chains of the Atlas Range, first galloped back to the little cluster of tents where the wives of their chiefs were encamped under the guard of some ten men. They packed off at once; and, after a week's march which I found pretty arduous, for I was on foot, with my hands tied behind my back, following a mounted party, they stopped on a narrow upland commanded by rocky slopes and covered with skeletons mouldering among the stones and with remains of French swords and other weapons.
"Here they planted a stake in the ground and fastened me to it. I gathered from the behaviour of my captors and from a few words which I overheard that my death was decided on. They meant to cut off my ears, nose, and tongue, and then my head.
"However, they began by preparing their repast. They went to a well close by, ate and drank and took no further notice of me except to laugh at me and describe the various treats they held in store for me…. Another night passed. The torture was postponed until the morning, a time that suited them better. At break of day they crowded round me, uttering yells and shouts with which were mingled the shrill cries of the women.
"When my shadow covered a line which they had marked on the sand the night before, they ceased their din, and one of them, who was to perform the surgical operations prescribed for me, stepped forward and ordered me to put out my tongue. I did so. He took hold of it with a corner of his burnous and, with his other hand, drew his dagger from its sheath.
"I shall never forget the ferocity, coupled with ingenuous delight, of his expression, which was like that of a mischievous boy amusing himself by breaking a bird's wings and legs. Nor shall I ever forget the man's stupefaction when he saw that his dagger no longer consisted of anything but the pommel and a harmless and ridiculously small stump of the blade, just long enough to keep it in its sheath. His fury was revealed by a splutter of curses and he at once rushed at one of his friends and snatched his dagger from him.
"The same stupefaction followed: this dagger was also broken off at the hilt. The next thing was a general tumult, in which one and all brandished their knives. But all of them uttered howls of rage.
"There were forty-five men there; and their forty-five knives were smashed…. The chief flew at me as if holding me responsible for this incomprehensible phenomenon. He was a tall, lean old man, slightly hunchbacked, blind of one eye, hideous to look upon. He aimed a huge pistol point blank at my head and he struck me as so ugly that I burst out laughing in his face. He pulled the trigger. The pistol missed fire. He pulled it again. The pistol again missed fire….
"All of them at once began to dance around the stake to which I was fastened. Gesticulating wildly, hustling one another and roaring like thunder, they levelled their various firearms at me: muskets, pistols, carbines, old Spanish blunderbusses. The hammers clicked. But the muskets, pistols, carbines, and blunderbusses did not go off!
"It was a regular miracle. You should have seen their faces. I never laughed so much in my life; and this completed their bewilderment.
"Some ran to the tents for more powder. Others hurriedly reloaded their arms, only to meet with fresh failure, while I did nothing but laugh and laugh! The thing could not go on indefinitely. There were plenty of other means of doing away with me. They had their hands to strangle me with, the butt ends of their muskets to smash my head with, pebbles to stone me with. And there were over forty of them!
"The old chief picked up a bulky stone and stepped toward me, his features distorted with hatred. He raised himself to his full height, lifted the huge block, with the assistance of two of his men, above my head and dropped it—in front of me, on the stake! It was a staggering sight for the poor old man. I had, in one second, unfastened my bonds and sprung backward; and I was standing at three paces from him, with my hands outstretched before me, and holding in those outstretched hands the two revolvers which had been taken from me on the day of my capture!
"What followed was the business of a few seconds. The chief now began to laugh as I had laughed, sarcastically. To his mind, in the disorder of his brain, those two revolvers with which I threatened him could have no more effect than the useless weapons which had spared my life. He took up a large pebble and raised his hand to hurl it at my face. His two assistants did the same. And all the others were prepared to follow his example.
"'Hands down!' I cried, 'or I fire!' The chief let fly his stone. At the same moment three shots rang out. The chief and his two men fell dead to the ground. 'Who's next?' I asked, looking round the band.
"Forty-two Moors remained. I had eleven bullets left. As none of the men budged, I slipped one of my revolvers under my arm and took from my pocket two small boxes of cartridges containing fifty more bullets. And from my belt I drew three great knives, all of them nicely tapering and pointed. Half of the troop made signs of submission and drew up in line behind me. The other half capitulated a moment after. The battle was over. It had not lasted four minutes."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ARSÈNE I EMPEROR OP MAURETANIA
Don Luis ceased. A smile of amusement played round his lips. The recollection of those four minutes seemed to divert him immensely.
Valenglay and the Prefect of Police, who were neither of them men to be unduly surprised at courage and coolness, had listened to him, nevertheless, and were now looking at him in bewildered silence. Was it possible for a human being to carry heroism to such unlikely lengths?
Meanwhile, he went up to the other side of the chimney and pointed to a larger map, representing the French roads.
"You told me, Monsieur le Président, that the scoundrel's motor car had left Versailles and was going toward Nantes?"
"Yes; and all our arrangements are made to arrest him either on the way, or else at Nantes or at Saint-Nazaire, where he may intend to take ship."
Don Luis Perenna followed with his forefinger the road across France, stopping here and there, marking successive stages. And nothing could have been more impressive than this dumb show.
The man that he was, preserving his composure amid the overthrow of all that he had most at heart, seemed by his calmness to dominate time and circumstances. It was as though the murderer were running away at one end of an unbreakable thread of which Don Luis held the other, and as though Don Luis could stop his flight at any time by a mere movement of his finger and thumb.
As he studied the map, the master seemed to command not only a sheet of cardboard, but also the highroad on which a motor car was spinning along, subject to his despotic will.
He went back to the table and continued:
"The battle was over. And there was no question of its being resumed. My forty-two worthies found themselves face to face with a conqueror, against whom revenge is always possible, by fair means or foul, but with one who had subjugated them in a supernatural manner. There was no other explanation of the inexplicable facts which they had witnessed. I was a sorcerer, a kind of marabout, a direct emissary of the Prophet."
Valenglay laughed and said:
"Their interpretation was not so very unreasonable, for, after all, you must have performed a sleight-of-hand trick which strikes me also as being little less than miraculous."
"Monsieur le Président, do you know a curious short story of Balzac's called 'A Passion in the Desert?'"
"Yes."
"Well, the key to the riddle lies in that."
"Does it? I don't quite see. You were not under the claws of a tigress.
There, was no tigress to tame in this instance."
"No, but there were women."
"Eh? How do you mean?"
"Upon my word, Monsieur le Président," said Don Luis gayly, "I should not like to shock you. But I repeat that the troop which carried me off on that week's march included women; and women are a little like Balzac's tigress, creatures whom it is not impossible to tame, to charm, to break in, until you make friends of them."
"Yes, yes," muttered the Premier, madly puzzled, "but that needs time."
"I had a week."
"And complete liberty of action."
"No, no, Monsieur le Président. The eyes are enough to start with. The eyes give rise to sympathy, interest, affection, curiosity, a wish to know you better. After that, the merest opportunity—"
"And did an opportunity offer?"
"Yes, one night. I was fastened up, or at least they thought I was. I knew that the chief's favourite was alone in her tent close by. I went there. I left her an hour afterward."
"And the tigress was tamed?"
"Yes, as thoroughly as Balzac's: tamed and blindly submissive."
"But there were several of them?"
"I know, Monsieur le President, and that was the difficulty. I was afraid of rivalry. But all went well: the favourite was not jealous, far from it. And then, as I have told you, her submission was absolute. In short, I had five staunch, invisible friends, resolved to do anything I wanted and suspected by nobody.
"My plan was being carried out before we reached the last halting-place. My five secret agents collected all the arms during the night. They dashed the daggers to the ground and broke them. They removed the bullets from the pistols. They damped the powder. Everything was ready for ringing up the curtain."
Valenglay bowed.
"My compliments! You are a man of resource. And your scheme was not lacking in charm. For I take it that your five ladies were pretty?"
Don Luis put on a bantering expression. He closed his eyes, as if to recall his bliss, and let fall the one word:
"Hags!"
The epithet gave rise to a burst of merriment. But Don Luis, as though in a hurry to finish his story, at once went on:
"In any case, they saved my life, the hussies, and their aid never failed me. My forty-two watch-dogs, deprived of their arms and shaking with fear in those solitudes where everything is a trap and where death lies in wait for you at any minute, gathered round me as their real protector. When we joined the great tribe to which they belonged I was their actual chief. And it took me less than three months of dangers faced in common, of ambushes defeated under my advice, of raids and pillages effected by my direction, to become the chief also of the whole tribe.
"I spoke their language, I practised their religion, I wore their dress, I conformed to their customs: alas! had I not five wives? Henceforward, my dream, which had gradually taken definite shape in my mind, became possible.
"I sent one of my most faithful adherents to France, with sixty letters to hand to sixty men whose names and addresses he learned by heart. Those sixty men were sixty associates whom Arsène Lupin had disbanded before he threw himself from the Capri cliffs. All had retired from business, with a hundred thousand francs apiece in ready money and a small trade or public post to keep them occupied. I had provided one with a tobacconist's shop, another with a job as a park-keeper, others with sinecures in the government offices. In short, they were respectable citizens.
"To all of them—whether public servants, farmers, municipal councillors, grocers, sacristans, or what not—I wrote the same letter, made the same offer, and gave the same instructions in case they should accept…. Monsieur le Président, I thought that, of the sixty, ten or fifteen at most would come and join me: sixty came, Monsieur le President, sixty, and not one less! Sixty men punctually arrived at the appointed place.
"On the day fixed, at the hour named, my old armed cruiser, the Ascendam, which they had brought back, anchored in the mouth of the Wady Draa, on the Atlantic coast, between Cape Nun and Cape Juby. Two longboats plied to and fro and landed my friends and the munitions of war which they had brought with them: camp furniture, quick-firing guns, ammunition, motor-boats, stores and provisions, trading wares, glass beads, and cases of gold as well, for my sixty good men and true had insisted on turning their share of the old profits into cash and on putting into the new venture the six million francs which they had received from their governor….
"Need I say more, Monsieur le Président? Must I tell you what a chief like Arsène Lupin was able to attempt seconded by sixty fine fellows of that stamp and backed by an army of ten thousand well-armed and well-trained Moorish fanatics? He attempted it; and his success was unparalleled.
"I do not think that there has ever been an idyl like that through which we lived during those fifteen months, first on the heights of the Atlas range and then in the infernal plains of the Sahara: an idyl of heroism, of privation, of superhuman torture and superhuman joy; an idyl of hunger and thirst, of total defeat and dazzling victory….
"My sixty trusty followers threw themselves into their work with might and main. Oh, what men! You know them, Monsieur le Président du Conseil!
You've had them to deal with, Monsieur le Préfet de Police! The beggars!
Tears come to my eyes when I think of some of them.
"There were Charolais and his son, who distinguished themselves in the case of the Princesse de Lamballe's tiara. There were Marco, who owed his fame to the Kesselbach case, and Auguste, who was your chief messenger, Monsieur le Président. There were the Growler and the Masher, who achieved such glory in the hunt for the crystal stopper. There were the brothers Beuzeville, whom I used to call the two Ajaxes. There were Philippe d'Antrac, who was better born than any Bourbon, and Pierre Le Grand and Tristan Le Roux and Joseph Le Jeune."
"And there was Arsène Lupin," said Valenglay, roused to enthusiasm by this list of Homeric heroes.
"And there was Arsène Lupin," repeated Don Luis.
He nodded his head, smiled, and continued, in a very quiet voice:
"I will not speak of him, Monsieur le Président. I will not speak of him, for the simple reason that you would not believe my story. What they tell about him when he was with the Foreign Legion is mere child's play beside what was to come later. Lupin was only a private soldier. In South Morocco he was a general. Not till then did Arsène Lupin really show what he could do. And, I say it without pride, not even I foresaw what that was. The Achilles of the legend performed no greater feats. Hannibal and Caesar achieved no more striking results.
"All I need tell you is that, in fifteen months, Arsène Lupin conquered a kingdom twice the size of France. From the Berbers of Morocco, from the indomitable Tuaregs, from the Arabs of the extreme south of Algeria, from the negroes who overrun Senegal, from the Moors along the Atlantic coast, under the blazing sun, in the flames of hell, he conquered half the Sahara and what we may call ancient Mauretania.
"A kingdom of deserts and swamps? Partly, but a kingdom all the same, with oases, wells, rivers, forests, and incalculable riches, a kingdom with ten million men and a hundred thousand warriors. This is the kingdom which I offer to France, Monsieur le Président du Conseil."
Valenglay did not conceal his amazement. Greatly excited and even perturbed by what he had learned, looking over his extraordinary visitor, with his hands clutching at the map of Africa, he whispered:
"Explain yourself; be more precise."
Don Luis answered:
"Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I will not remind you of the events of the last few years. France, resolving to pursue a splendid dream of dominion over North Africa, has had to part with a portion of the Congo. I propose to heal the painful wound by giving her thirty times as much as she has lost. And I turn the magnificent and distant dream into an immediate certainty by joining the small slice of Morocco which you have conquered to Senegal at one blow.
"To-day, Greater France in Africa exists. Thanks to me, it is a solid and compact expanse. Millions of square miles of territory and a coastline stretching for several thousand miles from Tunis to the Congo, save for a few insignificant interruptions."
"It's a Utopia," Valenglay protested.
"It's a reality."
"Nonsense! It will take us twenty years' fighting to achieve."
"It will take you exactly five minutes!" cried Don Luis, with irresistible enthusiasm. "What I offer you is not the conquest of an empire, but a conquered empire, duly pacified and administered, in full working order and full of life. My gift is a present, not a future gift.
"I, too, Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I, Arsène Lupin, had cherished a splendid dream. After toiling and moiling all my life, after knowing all the ups and downs of existence, richer than Croesus, because all the wealth of the world was mine, and poorer than Job, because I had distributed all my treasures, surfeited with everything, tired of unhappiness, and more tired still of happiness, sick of pleasure, of passion, of excitement, I wanted to do something that is incredible in the present day: to reign!
"And a still more incredible phenomenon: when this thing was accomplished, when the dead Arsène Lupin had come to life again as a sultan out of the Arabian Nights, as a reigning, governing, law-giving Arsène Lupin, head of the state and head of the church, I determined, in a few years, at one stroke, to tear down the screen of rebel tribes against which you were waging a desultory and tiresome war in the north of Morocco, while I was quietly and silently building up my kingdom at the back of it.
"Then, face to face with France and as powerful as herself, like a neighbour treating on equal terms, I would have cried to her, 'It's I, Arsène Lupin! Behold the former swindler and gentleman burglar! The Sultan of Adrar, the Sultan of Iguidi, the Sultan of El Djouf, the Sultan of the Tuaregs, the Sultan of Aubata, the Sultan of Brakna and Frerzon, all these am I, the Sultan of Sultans, grandson of Mahomet, son of Allah, I, I, I, Arsène Lupin!'
"And, before taking the little grain of poison that sets one free—for a man like Arsène Lupin has no right to grow old—I should have signed the treaty of peace, the deed of gift in which I bestowed a kingdom on France, signed it, below the flourishes of my grand dignitaries, kaids, pashas, and marabouts, with my lawful signature, the signature to which I am fully entitled, which I conquered at the point of my sword and by my all-powerful will: 'Arsène I, Emperor of Mauretania!'"
Don Luis uttered all these words in a strong voice, but without emphasis, with the very simple emotion and pride of a man who has done much and who knows the value of what he has done. There were but two ways of replying to him: by a shrug of the shoulders, as one replies to a madman, or by the silence that expresses reflection and approval.
The Prime Minister and the Prefect of Police said nothing, but their looks betrayed their secret thoughts. And deep down within themselves they felt that they were in the presence of an absolutely exceptional specimen of mankind, created to perform immoderate actions and fashioned by his own hand for a superhuman destiny.
Don Luis continued:
"It was a fine curtain, was it not, Monsieur le Président du Conseil? And the end was worthy of the work. I should have been happy to have had it so. Arsène Lupin dying on a throne, sceptre in hand, would have been a spectacle not devoid of glamour. Arsène Lupin dying with his title of Arsène I, Emperor of Mauretania and benefactor of France: what an apotheosis! The gods have willed it otherwise. Jealous, no doubt, they are lowering me to the level of my cousins of the old world and turning me into that absurd creature, a king in exile. Their will be done! Peace to the late Emperor of Mauretania. He has strutted and fretted his hour upon the stage.
"Arsène I is dead: long live France! Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I repeat my offer. Florence Levasseur is in danger. I alone can rescue her from the monster who is carrying her away. It will take me twenty-four hours. In return for twenty-four hours' liberty I will give you the Mauretanian Empire. Do you accept, Monsieur le Président du Conseil?"
"Well, certainly, I accept," said Valenglay, laughing. "What do you say, my dear Desmalions? The whole thing may not be very orthodox, but, hang it! Paris is worth a mass and the Kingdom of Mauretania is a tempting morsel. We'll risk the experiment."
Don Luis's face expressed so sincere a joy that one might have thought that he had just achieved the most brilliant victory instead of sacrificing a crown and flinging into the gutter the most fantastic dream that mortal man had ever conceived and realized.
He asked:
"What guarantees do you require, Monsieur le Président?"
"None."
"I can show you treaties, documents to prove—"
"Don't trouble. We'll talk about all that to-morrow. Meanwhile, go ahead. You are free."
The essential word, the incredible word, was spoken.
Don Luis took a few steps toward the door.
"One word more, Monsieur le Président," he said, stopping. "Among my former companions is one for whom I procured a post suited to his inclinations and his deserts. This man I did not send for to come to Africa, thinking that some day or other he might be of use to me through the position which he occupied. I am speaking of Mazeroux, a sergeant in the detective service."
"Sergeant Mazeroux, whom Caceres denounced, with corroborating evidence, as an accomplice of Arsène Lupin, is in prison."
"Sergeant Mazeroux is a model of professional honour, Monsieur le Président. I owed his assistance only to the fact that I was helping the police. I was accepted as an auxiliary and more or less patronized by Monsieur le Préfet. Mazeroux thwarted me in anything I tried to do that was at all illegal. And he would have been the first to take me by the collar if he had been so instructed. I ask for his release."
"Oho!"
"Monsieur le Président, your consent will be an act of justice and I beg you to grant it. Sergeant Mazerou shall leave France. He can be charged by the government with a secret mission in the south of Morocco, with the rank of colonial inspector."
"Agreed," said Valenglay, laughing heartily. And he added, "My dear Préfect, once we depart from the strictly lawful path, there's no saying where we come to. But the end justifies the means; and the end which we have in view is to have done with this loathsome Mornington case."
"This evening everything will be settled," said Don Luis.
"I hope so. Our men are on the track."
"They are on the track, but they have to check that track at every town, at every village, by inquiries made of every peasant they meet; they have to find out if the motor has not branched off somewhere; and they are wasting time. I shall go straight for the scoundrel."
"By what miracle?"
"That must be my secret for the present, Monsieur le Président."
"Very well. Is there anything you want?"
"This map of France."
"Take it."
"And a couple of revolvers."
"Monsieur le Préfet will be good enough to ask his inspectors for two revolvers and to give them to you. Is that all? Any money?"
"No, thank you, Monsieur le Président. I always carry a useful fifty thousand francs in my pocket-book, in case of need."
"In that case," said the Prefect of Police, "I shall have to send some one with you to the lockup. I presume your pocket-book was among the things taken from you."
Don Luis smiled:
"Monsieur le Préfet, the things that people can take from me are never of the least importance. My pocket-book is at the lockup, as you say. But the money—"