The Crystal Stopper [103]
Prasville understood: Lupin had taken the precaution to bring an accomplice, and the accomplice was carrying off the letters. The game was lost, to a certainty. Lupin had a firm grip on his victim. There was nothing to do but submit and accept the conqueror's conditions.
"Very well, sir," said Prasville. "We shall see each other when, the time comes. Good-bye for the present, Daubrecq: you shall hear from me." And, drawing Vorenglade aside, "As for you, Vorenglade, you are playing a dangerous game."
"Dear me!" said the ex-deputy. "And why?"
The two men moved away.
Daubrecq had not uttered a word and stood motionless, as though rooted to the ground.
The old gentleman went up to him and whispered:
"I say, Daubrecq, wake up, old chap... It's the chloroform, I expect... "
Daubrecq clenched his fists and gave a muttered growl.
"Ah, I see you know me!" said the old gentleman. "Then you will remember our interview, some months ago, when I came to see you in the Square Lamartine and asked you to intercede in Gilbert's favour. I said to you that day, 'Lay down your arms, save Gilbert and and I will leave you in peace. If not, I shall take the list of the Twenty-seven from you; and then you're done for.' Well, I have a strong suspicion that done for is what you are. That comes of not making terms with kind M. Lupin. Sooner or later, you're bound to lose your boots by it. However, let it be a lesson to you.
By the way, here's your pocketbook which I forgot to give you. Excuse me if you find it lightened of its contents. There were not only a decent number of bank-notes in it, but also the receipt from the warehouse where you stored the Enghien things which you took back from me. I thought I might as well save you the trouble of taking them out yourself. It ought to be done by now. No, don't thank me: it's not worth mentioning. Good-bye, Daubrecq. And, if you should want a louis or two, to buy yourself a new decanter-stopper, drop me a line. Good-bye, Daubrecq."
He walked away.
He had not gone fifty steps when he heard the sound of a shot.
He turned round.
Daubrecq had blown his brains out.
"De profundist" murmured Lupin, taking off his hat.
Two months later, Gilbert, whose sentence had been commuted to one of penal servitude for life, made his escape from the Ile de Re, on the day before that on which he was to have been transported to New Caledonia.
It was a strange escape. Its least details remained difficult to understand; and, like the two shots on the Boulevard Arago, it greatly enhanced Arsene Lupin's prestige.
"Taken all round," said Lupin to me, one day, after telling me the different episodes of the story, "taken all around, no enterprise has ever given me more trouble or cost me greater exertions than that confounded adventure which, if you don't mind, we will call, The Crystal Stopper; or, Never Say Die. In twelve hours, between six o'clock in the morning and six o'clock in the evening, I made up for six months of bad luck, blunders, gropings in the dark and reverses. I certainly count those twelve hours among the finest and the most glorious of my life."
"And Gilbert?" I asked. "What became of him?"
"He is farming his own land, way down in Algeria, under his real name, his only name of Antoine Mergy. He is married to an Englishwoman, and they have a son whom he insisted on calling Arsene. I often receive a bright, chatty, warm-hearted letter from him."
"And Mme. Mergy?"
"She and her little Jacques are living with them."
"Did you see her again?"
"I did not."
"Really!"
Lupin hesitated for a few moments and then said with a smile:
"My dear fellow, I will let you into a secret that will make me seem ridiculous in your eyes. But you know that I have always been as sentimental as a schoolboy and as silly as a goose. Well, on the evening when I went back to Clarisse Mergy and told her the news of the day - part of which, for that matter, she already knew - I felt two things very thoroughly. One was that I entertained