The Hollow Needle; Further adventures of Arsene Lupin

"Which coat?"

"The driver's."

And the deputy prosecutor handed M. Filleul a piece of paper, folded in four, containing these few words written in pencil, in a more or less common hand:

"Woe betide the young lady, if she has killed the governor!"

The incident caused a certain stir.

"A word to the wise!" muttered the deputy. "We are now forewarned."

"Monsieur le Comte," said the examining magistrate, "I beg you not to be alarmed. Nor you either, mademoiselle. This threat is of no importance, as the police are on the spot. We shall take every precaution and I will answer for your safety. As for you, gentlemen. I rely on your discretion. You have been present at this inquiry, thanks to my excessive kindness toward the Press, and it would be making me an ill return—"

He interrupted himself, as though an idea had struck him, looked at the two young men, one after the other, and, going up to the first, asked:

"What paper do you represent, sir?"

"The Journal de Rouen."

"Have you your credentials?"

"Here."

The card was in order. There was no more to be said. M. Filleul turned to the other reporter:

"And you, sir?"

"I?"

"Yes, you: what paper do you belong to?"

"Why, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I write for a number of papers—all over the place—"

"Your credentials?"

"I haven't any."

"Oh! How is that?"

"For a newspaper to give you a card, you have to be on its regular staff."

"Well?"

"Well, I am only an occasional contributor, a free-lance. I send articles to this newspaper and that. They are published or declined according to circumstances."

"In that case, what is your name? Where are your papers?"

"My name would tell you nothing. As for papers, I have none."

"You have no paper of any kind to prove your profession!"

"I have no profession."

"But look here, sir," cried the magistrate, with a certain asperity, "you can't expect to preserve your incognito after introducing yourself here by a trick and surprising the secrets of the police!"

"I beg to remark, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, that you asked me nothing when I came in, and that therefore I had nothing to say. Besides, it never struck me that your inquiry was secret, when everybody was admitted—including even one of the criminals!"

He spoke softly, in a tone of infinite politeness. He was quite a young man, very tall, very slender and dressed without the least attempt at fashion, in a jacket and trousers both too small for him. He had a pink face like a girl's, a broad forehead topped with close-cropped hair, and a scrubby and ill-trimmed fair beard. His bright eyes gleamed with intelligence. He seemed not in the least embarrassed and wore a pleasant smile, free from any shade of banter.

M. Filleul looked at him with an aggressive air of distrust. The two gendarmes came forward. The young man exclaimed, gaily:

"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, you clearly suspect me of being an accomplice. But, if that were so, would I not have slipped away at the right moment, following the example of my fellow-criminal?"

"You might have hoped—"

"Any hope would have been absurd. A moment's reflection, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, will make you agree with me that, logically speaking—"

M. Filleul looked him straight in the eyes and said, sharply:

"No more jokes! Your name?"

"Isidore Beautrelet."

"Your occupation?"

"Sixth-form pupil at the Lycee Janson-de-Sailly."

M. Filleul opened a pair of startled eyes.

"What are you talking about? Sixth-form pupil—"

"At the Lycee Janson, Rue de la Pompe, number—"

"Oh, look here," exclaimed M. Filleul, "you're trying to take me in! This won't do, you know; a joke can go too far!"

"I must say, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, that your astonishment surprises me. What is there to prevent my being a sixth-form pupil at the Lycee Janson? My beard, perhaps? Set your mind at ease: my beard is false!"

Isidore Beautrelet pulled off the few curls that adorned his chin, and his beardless face appeared still younger and pinker, a genuine schoolboy's face. And, with a laugh like a child's, revealing his white teeth:

"Are you convinced now?" he asked. "Do you want more proofs? Here, you can read the address on these letters from my father: 'To Monsieur Isidore Beautrelet, Indoor Pupil, Lycee Janson-de-Sailly.'"

Convinced or not, M. Filleul did not look as if he liked the story. He asked, gruffly:

"What are you doing here?"

"Why—I'm—I'm improving my mind."

"There are schools for that: yours, for instance."

"You forget, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, that this is the twenty-third of April and that we are in the middle of the Easter holidays."

"Well?"

"Well, I have every right to spend my holidays as I please."

"Your father—"

"My father lives at the other end of the country, in Savoy, and he himself advised me to take a little trip on the North Coast."

"With a false beard?"

"Oh, no! That's my own idea. At school, we talk a great deal about mysterious adventures; we read detective stories, in which people disguise themselves; we imagine any amount of terrible and intricate cases. So I thought I would amuse myself; and I put on this false beard. Besides, I enjoyed the advantage of being taken seriously and I pretended to be a Paris reporter. That is how, last night, after an uneventful period of more than a week, I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of my Rouen colleague; and, this morning, when he heard of the Ambrumesy murder, he very kindly suggested that I should come with him and that we should share the cost of a fly."

Isidore Beautrelet said all this with a frank and artless simplicity of which it was impossible not to feel the charm. M. Filleul himself, though maintaining a distrustful reserve, took a certain pleasure in listening to him. He asked him, in a less peevish tone:

"And are you satisfied with your expedition?"

"Delighted! All the more as I had never been present at a case of the sort and I find that this one is not lacking in interest."

"Nor in that mysterious intricacy which you prize so highly—"

"And which is so stimulating, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction! I know nothing more exciting than to see all the facts coming up out of the shadow, clustering together, so to speak, and gradually forming the probable truth."

"The probable truth! You go pretty fast, young man! Do you suggest that you have your little solution of the riddle ready?"

"Oh, no!" replied Beautrelet, with a laugh.

"Only—it seems to me that there are certain points on which it is not impossible to form an opinion; and others, even, are so precise as to warrant—a conclusion."

"Oh, but this is becoming very curious and I shall get to know something at last! For I confess, to my great confusion, that I know nothing."

"That is because you have not had time to reflect, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. The great thing is to reflect. Facts very seldom fail to carry their own explanation!"

"And, according to you, the facts which we have just ascertained carry their own explanation?"

"Don't you think so yourself? In any case, I have ascertained none besides those which are set down in the official report."

"Good! So that, if I were to ask you which were the objects stolen from this room—"

"I should answer that I know."

"Bravo! My gentleman knows more about it than the owner himself. M. de Gesvres has everything accounted for: M. Isidore Beautrelet has not. He misses a bookcase in three sections and a life-size statue which nobody ever noticed. And, if I asked you the name of the murderer?"

"I should again answer that I know it."

All present gave a start. The deputy and the journalist drew nearer. M. de Gesvres and the two girls, impressed by Beautrelet's tranquil assurance, listened attentively.

"You know the murderer's name?"

"Yes."

"And the place where he is concealed, perhaps?"

"Yes."

M. Filleul rubbed his hands.

"What a piece of luck! This capture will do honor to my career. And can you make me these startling revelations now?"

"Yes, now—or rather, if you do not mind, in an hour or two, when I shall have assisted at your inquiry to the end."

"No, no, young man, here and now, please." At that moment Raymonde de Saint-Veran, who had not taken her eyes from Isidore Beautrelet since the beginning of this scene, came up to M. Filleul:

"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction—"

"Yes, mademoiselle?"

She hesitated for two or three seconds, with her eyes fixed on Beautrelet, and then, addressing M. Filleul:

"I should like you to ask monsieur the reason why he was walking yesterday in the sunk road which leads up to the little door."

It was an unexpected and dramatic stroke. Isidore Beautrelet appeared nonplussed:

"I, mademoiselle? I? You saw me yesterday?"

Raymonde remained thoughtful, with her eyes upon Beautrelet, as though she were trying to settle her own conviction, and then said, in a steady voice:

"At four o'clock in the afternoon, as I was crossing the wood, I met in the sunk road a young man of monsieur's height, dressed like him and wearing a beard cut in the same way—and I received a very clear impression that he was trying to hide."

"And it was I?"

"I could not say that as an absolute certainty, for my recollection is a little vague. Still—still, I think so—if not, it would be an unusual resemblance—"

M. Filleul was perplexed. Already taken in by one of the confederates, was he now going to let himself be tricked by this self-styled schoolboy? Certainly, the young man's manner spoke in his favor; but one can never tell!

"What have you to say, sir?"

"That mademoiselle is mistaken, as I can easily show you with one word. Yesterday, at the time stated, I was at Veules."

"You will have to prove it, you will have to. In any case, the position is not what it was. Sergeant, one of your men will keep monsieur company."

Isidore Beautrelet's face denoted a keen vexation.

"Will it be for long?"

"Long enough to collect the necessary information."

"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I beseech you to collect it with all possible speed and discretion."

"Why?"

"My father is an old man. We are very much attached to each other—and I would not have him suffer on my account."

The more or less pathetic note in his voice made a bad impression on M. Filleul. It suggested a scene in a melodrama. Nevertheless, he promised:

"This evening—or to-morrow at latest, I shall know what to think."

The afternoon was wearing on. The examining magistrate returned to the ruins of the cloisters, after giving orders that no unauthorized persons were to be admitted, and patiently, methodically, dividing the ground into lots which were successively explored, himself directed the search. But at the end of the day he was no farther than at the start; and he declared, before an army of reporters who, during that time, had invaded the chateau:

"Gentlemen, everything leads us to suppose that the wounded man is here, within our reach; everything, that is, except the reality, the fact. Therefore, in our humble opinion, he must have escaped and we shall find him outside."

By way of precaution, however, he arranged, with the sergeant of gendarmes, for a complete watch to be kept over the park and, after making a fresh examination of the two drawing rooms, visiting the whole of the chateau and surrounding himself with all the necessary information, he took the road back to Dieppe, accompanied by the deputy prosecutor.

Night fell. As the boudoir was to remain locked, Jean Daval's body had been moved to another room. Two women from the neighborhood sat up with it, assisted by Suzanne and Raymonde. Downstairs, young Isidore Beautrelet slept on the bench in the old oratory, under the watchful eye of the village policeman, who had been attached to his person. Outside, the gendarmes, the farmer and a dozen peasants had taken up their position among the ruins and along the walls.

All was still until eleven o'clock; but, at ten minutes past eleven, a shot echoed from the other side of the house.

"Attention!" roared the sergeant. "Two men remain here: you, Fossier—and you, Lecanu—The others at the double!"

They all rushed forward and ran round the house on the left. A figure was seen to make away in the dark. Then, suddenly, a second shot drew them farther on, almost to the borders of the farm. And, all at once, as they arrived, in a band, at the hedge which lines the orchard, a flame burst out, to the right of the farmhouse, and other names also rose in a thick column. It was a barn burning, stuffed to the ridge with straw.

"The scoundrels!" shouted the sergeant. "They've set fire to it. Have at them, lads! They can't be far away!"

But the wind was turning the flames toward the main building; and it became necessary, before all things, to ward off the danger. They all exerted themselves with the greater ardor inasmuch as M. de Gesvres, hurrying to the scene of the disaster, encouraged them with the promise of a reward. By the time that they had mastered the flames, it was two o'clock in the morning. All pursuit would have been vain.

"We'll look into it by daylight," said the sergeant. "They are sure to have left traces: we shall find them."

"And I shall not be sorry," added M. de Gesvres, "to learn the reason of this attack. To set fire to trusses of straw strikes me as a very useless proceeding."

"Come with me, Monsieur le Comte: I may be able to tell you the reason."

Together they reached the ruins of the cloisters. The sergeant called out:

"Lecanu!—Fossier!"

The other gendarmes were already hunting for their comrades whom they had left standing sentry. They ended by finding them at a few paces from the little door. The two men were lying full length on the ground, bound and gagged, with bandages over their eyes.

"Monsieur le Comte," muttered the sergeant, while his men were being released; "Monsieur le Comte, we have been tricked like children."

"How so?"

"The shots—the attack on the barn—the fire—all so much humbug to get us down there—a diversion. During that time they were tying up our two men and the business was done."

"What business?"

"Carrying off the wounded man, of course!"

"You don't mean to say you think—?"

"Think? Why, it's as plain as a pikestaff! The idea came to me ten minutes ago—but I'm a fool not to have thought of it earlier. We should have nabbed them all." Quevillon stamped his foot on the ground, with a sudden attack of rage. "But where, confound it, where did they go through? Which way did they carry him off? For, dash it all, we beat the ground all day; and a man can't hide in a tuft of grass, especially when he's wounded! It's witchcraft, that's what it is!—"

Nor was this the last surprise awaiting Sergeant Quevillon. At dawn, when they entered the oratory which had been used as a cell for young Isidore Beautrelet, they realized that young Isidore Beautrelet had vanished.

On a chair slept the village policeman, bent in two. By his side stood a water-bottle and two tumblers. At the bottom of one of those tumblers a few grains of white powder.

On examination, it was proved, first, that young Isidore Beautrelet had administered a sleeping draught to the village policeman; secondly, that he could only have escaped by a window situated at a height of seven or eight feet in the wall; and lastly—a charming detail, this—that he could only have reached this window by using the back of his warder as a footstool.