"Auguste, show M. Lenormand in."
The messenger went out and, a few seconds later, announced the chief of the detective-service.
There were three men in the prime minister's private room on the Place Beauvau: the famous Valenglay, leader of the radical party for the past thirty years and now president of the council and minister of the interior; the attorney-general, M. Testard; and the prefect of police, Delaume.
The prefect of police and the attorney-general did not rise from the chairs which they had occupied during their long conversation with the prime minister. Valenglay, however, stood up and, pressing the chief detective's hand, said, in the most cordial tones:
"I have no doubt, my dear Lenormand, that you know the reason why I asked you to come."
"The Kesselbach case?"
"Yes."
The Kesselbach case! Not one of us but is able to recall not only the main details of this tragic affair, the tangled skein of which I have set myself to unravel, but even its very smallest incidents, so greatly did the tragedy excite us all during these recent years. Nor is there one of us but remembers the extraordinary stir which it created both in and outside France. And yet there was one thing that upset the public even more than the three murders committed in such mysterious circumstances, more than the detestable atrocity of that butchery, more than anything else; and that was the reappearance – one might almost say the resurrection – of Arsène Lupin.
Arsène Lupin! No one had heard speak of him for over four years, since his incredible, his astounding adventure of the Hollow Needle,2 since the day when he had slunk away into the darkness before the eyes of Holmlock Shears and Isidore Beautrelet, carrying on his back the dead body of the woman whom he loved, and followed by his old servant, Victoire.
From that day onward he had been generally believed to be dead. This was the version put about by the police, who, finding no trace of their adversary, were content purely and simply to bury him.
Some, however, believing him to be saved, described him as leading a placid, Philistine existence. According to them, he was living with his wife and children, growing his small potatoes; whereas others maintained that, bent down with the weight of sorrow and weary of the vanities of this world, he had sought the seclusion of a Trappist monastery.
And here he was once more looming large in the public view and resuming his relentless struggle against society! Arsène Lupin was Arsène Lupin again, the fanciful, intangible, disconcerting, audacious, genial Arsène Lupin! But, this time, a cry of horror arose. Arsène Lupin had taken human life! And the fierceness, the cruelty, the ruthless cynicism of the crime were so great that, then and there, the legend of the popular hero, of the chivalrous and occasionally sentimental adventurer, made way for a new conception of an inhuman, bloodthirsty, and ferocious monster. The crowd now loathed and feared its former idol with more intensity than it had once shown in admiring him for his easy grace and his diverting good-humor.
And, forthwith, the indignation of that frightened crowd turned against the police. Formerly, people had laughed. They forgave the beaten commissary of police for the comical fashion in which he allowed himself to be beaten. But the joke had lasted too long; and, in a burst of revolt and fury, they now called the authorities to account for the unspeakable crimes which these were powerless to prevent.
In the press, at public meetings, in the streets and even in the tribune of the Chamber of Deputies there was such an explosion of wrath that the government grew alarmed and strove by every possible means to allay the public excitement.
It so happened that Valenglay, the premier, took a great interest in all these police questions and had often amused himself by going closely into different cases with the chief of the detective-service, whose good qualities and independent character he valued highly. He sent for the prefect and the attorney-general to see him in his room, talked to them and then sent for M. Lenormand.
"Yes, my dear Lenormand, it's about the Kesselbach case. But, before we discuss it, I must call your attention to a point which more particularly affects and, I may say, annoys Monsieur le Préfet de Police. M. Delaume, will you explain to M. Lenormand.. ?
"Oh, M. Lenormand knows quite well how the matter stands," said the prefect, in a tone which showed but little good-will toward his subordinate. "We have talked it over already and I have told him what I thought of his improper conduct at the Palace Hotel. People are generally indignant."
M. Lenormand rose, took a paper from his pocket and laid it on the table.
"What is this?" asked Valenglay.
"My resignation, Monsieur le Président du Conseil."
Valenglay gave a jump:
"What! Your resignation! For a well-meaning remark which Monsieur le Préfet thinks fit to address to you and to which, for that matter, he attaches no importance whatever – do you, Delaume? No importance whatever – and there you go, taking offence! You must confess, my dear Lenormand, that you're devilish touchy! Come, put that bit of paper back in your pocket and let's talk seriously."
The chief detective sat down again, and Valenglay, silencing the prefect, who made no attempt to conceal his dissatisfaction, said:
"In two words, Lenormand, the thing is that Lupin's reappearance upon the scene annoys us. The brute has defied us long enough. It used to be funny, I confess, and I, for my part, was the first to laugh at it. But it's no longer a question of that. It's a question of murder now. We could stand Lupin, as long as he amused the gallery. But, when he takes to killing people, no!"
"Then what is it that you ask, Monsieur le Président?"
"What we ask? Oh, it's quite simple! First, his arrest and then his head!"
"I can promise you his arrest, some day or another, but not his head."
"What! If he's arrested, it means trial for murder, a verdict of guilty, and the scaffold."
"No!"
"And why not?"
"Because Lupin has not committed murder."
"Eh? Why, you're mad, Lenormand! The corpses at the Palace Hotel are so many inventions, I suppose! And the three murders were never committed!"
"Yes, but not by Lupin."
The chief spoke these words very steadily, with impressive calmness and conviction. The attorney and the prefect protested.
"I presume, Lenormand," said Valenglay, "that you do not put forward that theory without serious reasons?"
"It is not a theory."
"What proof have you?"
"There are two, to begin with, two proofs of a moral nature, which I at once placed before Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction and which the newspapers have laid stress upon. First and foremost, Lupin does not kill people. Next, why should he have killed anybody, seeing that the object which he set out to achieve, the theft, was accomplished and that he had nothing to fear from an adversary who was gagged and bound?"
"Very well. But the facts?"
"Facts are worth nothing against reason and logic; and, moreover, the facts also are on my side. What would be the meaning of Lupin's presence in the room in which the cigarette-case was discovered? On the other hand, the black clothes which were found and which evidently belonged to the murderer are not in the least of a size to fit Lupin."
"You know him, then, do you?"
"I? No. But Edwards saw him, Gourel saw him; and the man whom they saw is not the man whom the chambermaid saw, on the servants' staircase, dragging Chapman by the hand."
"Then your idea."
"You mean to say, the truth, M. le Président. Here it is, or, at least, here is the truth as far as I know it. On Tuesday, the 16th of April, a man – Lupin – broke into Mr. Kesselbach's room at about two o'clock in the afternoon.."
M. Lenormand was interrupted by a burst of laughter. It came from the prefect of police.
"Let me tell you, M. Lenormand, that you are in rather too great a hurry to state your precise facts. It has been shown that, at three o'clock on that day, Mr. Kesselbach walked into the Crédit Lyonnais and went down to the safe deposit. His signature in the register proves it."
M. Lenormand waited respectfully until his superior had finished speaking. Then, without even troubling to reply directly to the attack, he continued:
"At about two o'clock in the afternoon, Lupin, assisted by an accomplice, a man named Marco, bound Mr. Kesselbach hand and foot, robbed him of all the loose cash which he had upon him and compelled him to reveal the cypher of his safe at the Crédit Lyonnais. As soon as the secret was told, Marco left. He joined another accomplice, who, profiting by a certain resemblance to Mr. Kesselbach – a resemblance which he accentuated that day by wearing clothes similar to Mr. Kesselbach's and putting on a pair of gold spectacles – entered the Crédit Lyonnais, imitated Mr. Kesselbach's signature, emptied the safe of its contents and walked off, accompanied by Marco. Marco at once telephoned to Lupin. Lupin, as soon as he was sure that Mr. Kesselbach had not deceived him and that the object of his expedition was attained, went away."
Valenglay seemed to waver in his mind:
"Yes, yes.. we'll admit that… But what surprises me is that a man like Lupin should have risked so much for such a paltry profit: a few bank-notes and the hypothetical contents of a safe."
"Lupin was after more than that. He wanted either the morocco envelope which was in the traveling-bag, or else the ebony box which was in the safe. He had the ebony box, because he has sent it back empty. Therefore, by this time, he knows, or is in a fair way for knowing, the famous scheme which Mr. Kesselbach was planning, and which he was discussing with his secretary a few minutes before his death."
"What was the scheme?"
"I don't exactly know. The manager of Barbareux's agency, to whom he had opened his mind about it, has told me that Mr. Kesselbach was looking for a man who went by the name of Pierre Leduc, a man who had lost caste, it appears. Why and how the discovery of this person was connected with the success of his scheme, I am unable to say."
"Very well," said Valenglay. "So much for Arsène Lupin. His part is played. Mr. Kesselbach is bound hand and foot, robbed, but alive!.. What happens up to the time when he is found dead?"
"Nothing, for several hours, nothing until night. But, during the night, some one made his way in."
"How?"
"Through room 420, one of the rooms reserved by Mr. Kesselbach. The person in question evidently possessed a false key."
"But," exclaimed the prefect of police, "all the doors between that room and Mr. Kesselbach's flat were bolted; and there were five of them!"
"There was always the balcony."
"The balcony!"
"Yes; the balcony runs along the whole floor, on the Rue de Judée side."
"And what about the spaces in between?"
"An active man can step across them. Our man did. I have found marks."
"But all the windows of the suite were shut; and it was ascertained, after the crime, that they were still shut."
"All except one, the secretary's window, Chapman's, which was only pushed to. I tried it myself."
This time the prime minister seemed a little shaken, so logical did M. Lenormand's version seem, so precise and supported by such sound facts. He asked, with growing interest:
"But what was the man's object in coming?"
"I don't know."
"Ah, you don't know!"
"Any more than I know his name."
"But why did he kill Mr. Kesselbach?"
"I don't know. This all remains a mystery. The utmost that we have the right to suppose is that he did not come with the intention of killing, but with the intention, he too, of taking the documents contained in the morocco note-case and the ebony box; and that, finding himself by accident in the presence of the enemy reduced to a state of helplessness, he killed him."
Valenglay muttered:
"Yes, strictly speaking, that is possible… And, according to you, did he find the documents?"
"He did not find the box, because it was not there; but he found the black morocco note-case. So that Lupin and.. the other are in the same position. Each knows as much as the other about the Kesselbach scheme."
"That means," remarked the premier, "that they will fight."
"Exactly. And the fight has already begun. The murderer, finding a card of Arsène Lupin's, pinned it to the corpse. All the appearances would thus be against Arsène Lupin.. therefore, Arsène Lupin would be the murderer."
"True.. true," said Valenglay. "The calculation seemed pretty accurate."
"And the stratagem would have succeeded," continued M. Lenormand, "if in consequence of another and a less favorable accident, the murderer had not, either in coming or going, dropped his cigarette-case in room 420, and if the floor-waiter, Gustave Beudot, had not picked it up. From that moment, knowing himself to be discovered, or on the point of being discovered."
"How did he know it?"
"How? Why, through M. Formerie, the examining-magistrate, himself! The investigation took place with open doors. It is certain that the murderer was concealed among the people, members of the hotel staff and journalists, who were present when Gustave Beudot was giving his evidence; and when the magistrate sent Gustave Beudot to his attic to fetch the cigarette-case, the man followed and struck the blow. Second victim!"
No one protested now. The tragedy was being reconstructed before their eyes with a realism and a probable accuracy which were equally striking.
"And the third victim?" asked Valenglay.
"He himself gave the ruffian his opportunity. When Beudot did not return, Chapman, curious to see the cigarette-case for himself, went upstairs with the manager of the hotel. He was surprised by the murderer, dragged away by him, taken to one of the bedrooms and murdered in his turn."
"But why did he allow himself to be dragged away like that and to be led by a man whom he knew to be the murderer of Mr. Kesselbach and of Gustave Beudot?"
"I don't know, any more than I know the room in which the crime was committed, or the really miraculous way in which the criminal escaped."
"Something has been said about two blue labels."
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