The Hollow Needle; Further adventures of Arsene Lupin Part 13

He showed the letter to M. Filleul.

"Pooh! Stuff and nonsense!" cried the magistrate. "I hope you won't let that prevent you-"

"From telling you what I know? No, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. I have given my word and I shall keep it. In less than ten minutes, you shall know-a part of the truth."

"A part?"

"Yes, in my opinion, Lupin's hiding-place does not const.i.tute the whole of the problem. Far from it. But we shall see later on."

"M. Beautrelet, nothing that you do could astonish me now. But how were you able to discover-?"

"Oh, in a very natural way! In the letter from old man Harlington to M. Etienne de Vaudreix, or rather to Lupin-"

"The intercepted letter?"

"Yes. There is a phrase which always puzzled me. After saying that the pictures are to be forwarded as arranged, he goes on to say, 'You may add THE REST, if you are able to succeed, which I doubt.'"

"Yes, I remember."

"What was this 'rest'? A work of art, a curiosity? The chateau contains nothing of any value besides the Rubenses and the tapestries. Jewelry? There is very little and what there is of it is not worth much. In that case, what could it be?-On the other hand, was it conceivable that people so prodigiously clever as Lupin should not have succeeded in adding 'the rest,' which they themselves had evidently suggested? A difficult undertaking, very likely; exceptional, surprising, I dare say; but possible and therefore certain, since Lupin wished it."

"And yet he failed: nothing has disappeared."

"He did not fail: something has disappeared."

"Yes, the Rubenses-but-"

"The Rubenses and something besides-something which has been replaced by a similar thing, as in the case of the Rubenses; something much more uncommon, much rarer, much more valuable than the Rubenses."

"Well, what? You're killing me with this procrastination!"

While talking, the two men had crossed the ruins, turned toward the little door and were now walking beside the chapel. Beautrelet stopped:

"Do you really want to know, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction?"

"Of course, I do."

Beautrelet was carrying a walking-stick, a strong, knotted stick. Suddenly, with a back stroke of this stick, he smashed one of the little statues that adorned the front of the chapel.

"Why, you're mad!" shouted M. Filleul, beside himself, rus.h.i.+ng at the broken pieces of the statue. "You're mad! That old saint was an admirable bit of work-"

"An admirable bit of work!" echoed Isidore, giving a whirl which brought down the Virgin Mary.

M. Filleul took hold of him round the body:

"Young man, I won't allow you to commit-"

A wise man of the East came toppling to the ground, followed by a manger containing the Mother and Child... .

"If you stir another limb, I fire!"

The Comte de Gesvres had appeared upon the scene and was c.o.c.king his revolver. Beautrelet burst out laughing:

"That's right, Monsieur le Comte, blaze away!-Take a shot at them, as if you were at a fair!-Wait a bit-this chap carrying his head in his hands-"

St. John the Baptist fell, shattered to pieces.

"Oh!" shouted the count, pointing his revolver. "You young vandal!-Those masterpieces!"

"Sham, Monsieur le Comte!"

"What? What's that?" roared M. Filleul, wresting the Comte de Gesvres's weapon from him.

"Sham!" repeated Beautrelet. "Paper-pulp and plaster!"

"Oh, nonsense! It can't be true!"

"Hollow plaster, I tell you! Nothing at all!"

The count stooped and picked up a sliver of a statuette.

"Look at it, Monsieur le Comte, and see for yourself: it's plaster! Rusty, musty, mildewed plaster, made to look like old stone-but plaster for all that, plaster casts!-That's all that remains of your perfect masterpiece!-That's what they've done in just a few days!-That's what the Sieur Charpenais who copied the Rubenses, prepared a year ago." He seized M. Filleul's arm in his turn. "What do you think of it, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction? Isn't it fine? Isn't it grand? Isn't it gorgeous? The chapel has been removed! A whole Gothic chapel collected stone by stone! A whole population of statues captured and replaced by these chaps in stucco! One of the most magnificent specimens of an incomparable artistic period confiscated! The chapel, in short, stolen! Isn't it immense? Ah, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, what a genius the man is!"

"You're allowing yourself to be carried away, M. Beautrelet."

"One can't be carried away too much, monsieur, when one has to do with people like that. Everything above the average deserves our admiration. And this man soars above everything. There is in his flight a wealth of imagination, a force and power, a skill and freedom that send a thrill through me!"

"Pity he's dead," said M. Filleul, with a grin. "He'd have ended by stealing the towers of Notre-Dame."

Isidore shrugged his shoulders:

"Don't laugh, monsieur. He upsets you, dead though he may be."

"I don't say not, I don't say not, M. Beautrelet, I confess that I feel a certain excitement now that I am about to set eyes on him-unless, indeed, his friends have taken away the body."

"And always admitting," observed the Comte de Gesvres, "that it was really he who was wounded by my poor niece."

"It was he, beyond a doubt, Monsieur le Comte," declared Beautrelet; "it was he, believe me, who fell in the ruins under the shot fired by Mlle. de Saint-Veran; it was he whom she saw rise and who fell again and dragged himself toward the cloisters to rise again for the last time-this by a miracle which I will explain to you presently-to rise again for the last time and reach this stone shelter-which was to be his tomb."

And Beautrelet struck the threshold of the chapel with his stick.

"Eh? What?" cried M. Filleul, taken aback. "His tomb?-Do you think that that impenetrable hiding-place-"

"It was here-there," he repeated.

"But we searched it."

"Badly."