The Crystal Stopper [82]
smokes."
And Lupin began to laugh:
"Wasn't it silly? And, at the same -time, wasn't it clever of Daubrecq? We looked everywhere, we ransacked everything. Didn't I unscrew the brass sockets of the electric lights to see if they contained a crystal stopper? But how could I have thought, how could any one, however great his perspicadty, have thought of tearing off the paper band of a packet of Maryland, a band put on, gummed, sealed, stamped and dated by the State, under the control of the Inland Revenue Office? Only think! The State the accomplice of such an act of infamy! The Inland R-r-r-revenue Awfice lending itself to such a trick! No, a thousand times no! The Regie* is not perfect. It makes matches that won't light and cigarettes filled with hay. But there's all the difference in the world between recognizing that fact and believing the Inland Revenue to be in league with Daubrecq with the object of hiding the list of the Twenty-seven from the legitimate curiosity of the government and the enterprising efforts of Arsene Lupin! Observe that all Daubrecq had to do, in order to introduce the crystal stopper, was to bear upon the band a little, loosen it, draw it back, unfold the yellow paper, remove the tobacco and fasten it up again. Observe also that all we had to do, in Paris, was to take the packet in our hands and examine it, in order to discover the hiding-place. No matter! The packet itself, the plug of Maryland made up and passed by the State and by the Inland Revenue Office, was a sacred, intangible thing, a thing above suspicion! And nobody opened it. That was how that demon of a Daubrecq allowed that untouched packet of tobacco to lie about for months on his table, among his pipes and among other unopened packets of tobacco. And no power on earth could have given any one even the vaguest notion of looking into that harmless little cube. I would have you observe, besides... " Lupin went on pursuing his remarks relative to the packet of Maryland and the crystal stopper. His adversary's ingenuity and shrewdness interested him all the more inasmuch as Lupin had ended by getting the better of him. But to Clarisse these topics mattered much less than did her anxiety as to the acts which must be performed to save her son; and she sat wrapped in her own thoughts and hardiy listened to him. _______________________________________________________________________ *The department of the French excise which holds the monopoly for the manufacture and sale of tobacco, cigars, cigarettes and matches - Translator's Note. ________________________________________________________________________
"Are you sure," she kept on repeating, "that you will succeed?"
"Absolutely sure."
"But Prasville is not in Paris."
"If he's not there, he's at the Havre. I saw it in the paper yesterday. In any case, a telegram will bring him to Paris at once."
"And do you think that he has enough influence?"
"To obtain the pardon of Vaucheray and Gilbert personally. No. If he had, we should have set him to work before now. But he is intelligent enough to understand the value of what we are bringing him and to act without a moment's delay."
"But, to be accurate, are you not deceived as to that value?"
"Was Daubrecq deceived? Was Daubrecq not in a better position than any of us to know the full power of that paper? Did he not have twenty proofs of it, each more convincing than the last? Think of all that he was able to do, for the sole reason that people knew him to possess the list. They knew it; and that was all. He did not use the list, but he had it. And, having it, he killed your husband. He built up his fortune on the ruin and the disgrace of the Twenty-seven. Only last week, one of the gamest of the lot, d'Albufex, cut his throat in a prison. No, take it from me, as the price of handing over that llst, we could ask for anything we pleased. And we are asking for what? Almost nothing ... less than nothing... the pardon of a child of twenty. In other words, they will take us for idiots.
And Lupin began to laugh:
"Wasn't it silly? And, at the same -time, wasn't it clever of Daubrecq? We looked everywhere, we ransacked everything. Didn't I unscrew the brass sockets of the electric lights to see if they contained a crystal stopper? But how could I have thought, how could any one, however great his perspicadty, have thought of tearing off the paper band of a packet of Maryland, a band put on, gummed, sealed, stamped and dated by the State, under the control of the Inland Revenue Office? Only think! The State the accomplice of such an act of infamy! The Inland R-r-r-revenue Awfice lending itself to such a trick! No, a thousand times no! The Regie* is not perfect. It makes matches that won't light and cigarettes filled with hay. But there's all the difference in the world between recognizing that fact and believing the Inland Revenue to be in league with Daubrecq with the object of hiding the list of the Twenty-seven from the legitimate curiosity of the government and the enterprising efforts of Arsene Lupin! Observe that all Daubrecq had to do, in order to introduce the crystal stopper, was to bear upon the band a little, loosen it, draw it back, unfold the yellow paper, remove the tobacco and fasten it up again. Observe also that all we had to do, in Paris, was to take the packet in our hands and examine it, in order to discover the hiding-place. No matter! The packet itself, the plug of Maryland made up and passed by the State and by the Inland Revenue Office, was a sacred, intangible thing, a thing above suspicion! And nobody opened it. That was how that demon of a Daubrecq allowed that untouched packet of tobacco to lie about for months on his table, among his pipes and among other unopened packets of tobacco. And no power on earth could have given any one even the vaguest notion of looking into that harmless little cube. I would have you observe, besides... " Lupin went on pursuing his remarks relative to the packet of Maryland and the crystal stopper. His adversary's ingenuity and shrewdness interested him all the more inasmuch as Lupin had ended by getting the better of him. But to Clarisse these topics mattered much less than did her anxiety as to the acts which must be performed to save her son; and she sat wrapped in her own thoughts and hardiy listened to him. _______________________________________________________________________ *The department of the French excise which holds the monopoly for the manufacture and sale of tobacco, cigars, cigarettes and matches - Translator's Note. ________________________________________________________________________
"Are you sure," she kept on repeating, "that you will succeed?"
"Absolutely sure."
"But Prasville is not in Paris."
"If he's not there, he's at the Havre. I saw it in the paper yesterday. In any case, a telegram will bring him to Paris at once."
"And do you think that he has enough influence?"
"To obtain the pardon of Vaucheray and Gilbert personally. No. If he had, we should have set him to work before now. But he is intelligent enough to understand the value of what we are bringing him and to act without a moment's delay."
"But, to be accurate, are you not deceived as to that value?"
"Was Daubrecq deceived? Was Daubrecq not in a better position than any of us to know the full power of that paper? Did he not have twenty proofs of it, each more convincing than the last? Think of all that he was able to do, for the sole reason that people knew him to possess the list. They knew it; and that was all. He did not use the list, but he had it. And, having it, he killed your husband. He built up his fortune on the ruin and the disgrace of the Twenty-seven. Only last week, one of the gamest of the lot, d'Albufex, cut his throat in a prison. No, take it from me, as the price of handing over that llst, we could ask for anything we pleased. And we are asking for what? Almost nothing ... less than nothing... the pardon of a child of twenty. In other words, they will take us for idiots.