CHAPTER 7: MADAME IMBERT'S SAFE

t was three o'clock in the morning, and there were still some half-dozen carriages in front of one of those little artist's houses which form the one and only side of the Boulevard Berthier. The door opened. A group of guests, men and women, came out into the street. Four carriages drove off to right and left, and there remained upon the pavement only two gentlemen, who parted company at the corner of the Rue de Courcelles, where one of them lived. The other decided to go home to the Porte-Maillot on foot.

He therefore crossed the Avenue de Villiers and continued his road on the side opposite the fortifications. He found it pleasant walking in this bright and frosty winter night. The sound of his footsteps echoed gayly as he went.

But after some minutes he began to have the disagreeable impression that he was being followed; and, in fact, on turning round he perceived the shadow of a man gliding between the trees. He was not of a nervous disposition; nevertheless, he hastened his steps in order to reach the Octroi des Ternes as quickly as possible. But the man behind him broke into a run; and, feeling more or less anxious, he thought it better to face him and to take his revolver from his pocket.

He did not have time to complete his purpose. The man attacked him violently, and then and there a fight commenced on the deserted boulevard -- a fight at close quarters in which he at once felt that he had the disadvantage. He shouted for help, struggled and was knocked down upon a heap of flint-stones, caught up by the throat and gagged with a handkerchief, which his adversary stuffed into his mouth. His eyes closed, his ears buzzed, and he was on the point of losing consciousness when suddenly the pressure was relieved, and the man who had been stifling him with the weight of his body rose to defend himself in his turn against an unexpected attack.

A blow on the wrist from a walking-stick, a kick on the ankle, and the man gave two groans of pain and ran away, limping and swearing as he went.

Without condescending to go in pursuit, the new-comer stooped and asked:

"Are you hurt, sir?"

The victim was not hurt, but quite dazed and unable to stand. As luck would have it, one of the officials of the Octroi, attracted by the shouts, came hastening up. A cab was hailed, and the gentleman stepped into it, accompanied by his rescuer, and was driven to his house in the Avenue de la Grande-Armée.

On arriving at his door, now quite recovered, he was lost in thanks.

"I owe you my life, sir, and you may be sure that I shall never forget it. I do not wish to alarm my wife at this time of night, but I want her to thank you herself before the day is out."

He begged the other to come to lunch, and told him his name -- Ludovic Imbert; adding:

"May I know to whom I have the honor . . . ?"

"Certainly," said the other, introducing himself: "Arsène Lupin."

======================================================

At that time -- this was five years ago -- Arsène Lupin had not yet attained the celebrity which he owed to the Cahorn case, his escape from the Santé, and a number of other resounding exploits. He was not even called Arsène Lupin. This name, for which the future held such a brilliant renown in store, was specially invented to denote M. Imbert's rescuer, who may be said to have won his spurs in this encounter. Ready for the fray, it is true, armed at all points, but without resources, without the authority which success leads, Arsène was but an apprentice in a profession of which he was, erelong, to become a past-master.

It was only natural that he should feel an emotion of delight when he woke up and remembered the invitation of the night before. The goal was within reach at last! At last he was undertaking a work worthy of his powers and of his talent! The Imbert millions: what a magnificent prey for an appetite such as his!

He made a special toilet: a threadbare frock-coat, shabby trousers, a rusty silk hat, frayed shirt-collar and cuffs, the whole very clean, but having all the appearance of poverty. Thus dressed out, he walked down the staircase of his lodgings at Montmartre. On reaching the third floor, without stopping he tapped at a closed door with the knob of his walking-stick. Leaving the house, he made for the outer boulevards. A tram-car passed. He jumped into it, and a man who had been walking behind him, the occupant of the third floor, promptly took the seat beside him.

After a moment the man said:

"Well, governor?"

"Well, it's done."

"How do you mean?"

"I'm lunching there."

"You're lunching there?"

"You wouldn't have me risk a life as precious as mine for nothing, I hope? I have snatched M. Ludovic Imbert from the certain death which you had prepared for him. Monsieur Ludovic Imbert has a very grateful nature. He has asked me to lunch."

A silence; and then the other ventured:

"So you're not giving it up?"

"My boy," said Arsène, "after plotting that little assault of last night, after taking the trouble, at three o'clock in the morning, along the fortifications, to give you a bank on the wrist and a kick on the shin and running the risk of inflicting personal damage of my one and only friend, it's not likely that I should give up the profits arising from a rescue so carefully planned."

"But the unfavorable reports circulating about the fortune . . ."

"Let them circulate! It is six months since I first took the matter in hand; six months since I began to collect information, to study the case, to lay my snares, to question the servants, the moneylenders, and the men of straw; six months since I started shadowing the husband and wife. I don't care whether the fortune proceeds from old Rawford, as they contend, or from another source; but I declare that it exists. And, as it exists, I mean to have it."

"Fichtre! A hundred millions!"

"Say ten, or even five -- no matter! There are fat bundles of securities in the safe. I'll be hanged if I don't, sooner or later, lay hands on the key!"

The car stopped at the Place de l'Etoille.

"So, for the present . . . ?"

"Nothing to be done. I'll let you know. There's plenty of time."

Five minutes later Arsène Lupin climbed the sumptuous staircase of the Hotel Imbert, and Ludovic introduced him to his wife. Gervaise was a nice little woman, round as a ball, and very talkative. She gave him the warmest of greetings.

"We wanted to be by ourselves to entertain our rescuer," she said.

And from the first they treated "our rescuer" as a friend of long standing. By the time that dessert was reached the intimacy was complete, and confidences were being exchanged at a great pace. Arsène told the story of his own life and the life of his father, an upright magistrate, described his sad childhood, his present difficulties. Gervaise, in her turn, talked of her youth, her marriage, old Rawford's kindnesses, the hundred millions which she had inherited, the obstacles that delayed her entering into their enjoyment, the loans which she had had to raise at exorbitant rates of interest, her endless strife with Rawford's nephews. And the injunctions! And the sequestrations! In fact, the whole story!

"Just think, Monsieur Lupin, the bonds are there, in the next room, in my husband's office, and if we cut off a single coupon we lose everything! There securities are there, in our safe, and we cannot touch them!"

A thrill passed through M. Lupin's frame at the thought of this proximity, and he felt very clearly that he would never have the problem of having the same scruples as the worthy lady.

"Ah, they are in there!" he murmured, with a parched throat. "They are in there."

Relations begun under such auspices as these were bound to lead to closer ties still. In reply to questions delicately worded, Arsène Lupin confessed his poverty, his distress. The poor fellow received his appointment, then and there, as private secretary to the pair, at a salary of one hundred and fifty francs a month. He was to go on living where he was, but to come every morning and receive his instructions for the day's work. For his greater comfort, a room on the second floor was placed at his disposal as a study.

He chose one for himself. By what stroke of luck did it happen to be immediately over Ludovic's office?

It did not take Arsène long to perceive that his secretaryship bore a furious resemblance to a sinecure. In two months he was given only four insignificant letters to copy out, and was only once called to his employer's office, which permitted him only once to catch an official glimpse of the safe. He noted, besides, that the titular of this sinecure was not even deemed worthy of figuring beside Anquety the deputy, or Grouvel the leader of the bar, for he was never invited to the famous fashionable receptions.

He did not complain, for he much preferred to keep to his modest little place in the shade. Nor did he waste time. From the first he paid a certain number of clandestine visits to Ludovic's office and presented his duty to the safe, which remained none the less hermetically sealed. The safe was a huge mass of cast-iron and steel, presenting a surly and stubborn appearance, and neither file nor crowbar could prevail against it.

Arsène Lupin was not an obstinate man.

"Where force fails, craft prevails," he said. "The great thing is to keep one's eyes and ears open."

He took the necessary measurements, and, after much careful and difficult boring, inserted through the floor of his room a piece of lead pipe, which came out in the office ceiling, between two projections in the cornice. (1) Through this pipe, which served as both a speaking-tube and a spy-glass, he hoped to hear and see.

[1. Author's note: In the course of the alterations affected by the Tourist Club, which, as the reader knows, was the purchaser of the Hotel Imbert, this pipe was discovered by the workmen, who were, of course, unable to explain its purpose.]

Thenceforward he spent his days lying flat on the floor of his room. And, as a matter of fact, he often saw the Imberts in close conference before the safe, turning up books and handling bundles of papers. When they twisted in succession the four knobs that worked the lock, he tried, in order to learn the code, to catch the number of notches that were passed. He watched their movements, listened to their words. What did they do with the key? Did they hide it somewhere?

One day he ran hurriedly down-stairs, having seen them leave the room without locking the safe. He boldly entered the office. They had returned.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, I made a mistake in the door. . . ."

But Gervaise ran up to him and drew him into the room.

"Come in, Monsieur Lupin," she said, "don't you feel at home here? Come in and advise us. Which do you think we ought to sell out? Foreigners or Rentes?"

"But what about the injunction?" asked Lupin, greatly astonished.

"Oh, it does not affect all of the securities."

She flung open the door of the safe. The shelves were heaped up with portfolios fastened with straps. She took out one of them. But her husband protested:

"No, no, Gervaise, it would be madness to sell foreign stock! It is going up. . . . But the Rentes are as high as they are likely to go. What do you think, my dear fellow?"

The dear fellow had no opinion on the subject; however, he advised the sacrifice of the Rentes. Thereupon she caught hold of another file of papers, and from this file took a document at random. It was a bond in the Three-per-Cents. Ludovic put it in his pocket. In the afternoon, accompanied by his secretary, he took the bond to a broker to sell, and received forty-six thousand francs for it.

In spite of what Gervaise had said, Arsène Lupin did not feel at home. On the contrary, his position in the Hotel Imbert filled him with surprise. He realized with a shock that the servants did not even know his name. They spoke of him as "monsieur". Ludovic always referred to him as such.

"You will tell monsieur . . . Has monsieur arrived yet?"

Why this enigmatical designation?

Moreover, after the first enthusiasm, the Imberts hardly spoke to him, and, while treating him with the consideration due to a benefactor, took no further notice of him at all! They appeared to look upon him as an eccentric who did not wish to be intruded on, and the respected his isolation as though this isolation had been a rule laid down by himself, a whim of his own. Once, as he was passing through the hall, he heard Gervaise remark to two gentleman:

"He's so shy!"

"Very well," he thought, "I'm shy." (2)

[2. Transcriber's note: in another translation these two lines read:
"He's such a barbarian!"
"Very well," he thought, "I'm a barbarian."]

And he ceased to worry his head about the oddities of these people, and pursued the execution of his plan. He had acquired the certainty that it was no use relying upon chance or upon any act of thoughtlessness on the part of Gervaise, who never let the key out of her possession, and who, besides, never took away the key without first mixing up the mechanisms of the lock. He must, therefore, act for himself.

One thing hastened matters, which was the violent campaign conducted against the Imberts by a section of the press. They were accused of swindling. Arsène Lupin followed the evolutions of the drama and the consequent excitement in the household, and he understood that if he waited much longer he would lose all.

On five days in succession, instead of leaving at six o'clock, as was his habit, he locked himself into his room. He was supposed to have gone out. Stretched at full length on the floor he watched Ludovic's office.

On the sixth day, as the favorable circumstance for which he was waiting had not occurred, he went away in the middle of the night by the little door in the court-yard, of which he had a key.

But on the seventh day he learned that the Imberts, by way of replying to the malevolent insinuations of their enemies, had offered to publicly open the safe.

"It's to-night or never," thought Lupin.

And, in fact, after dinner Ludovic went to his office accompanied by Gervaise. They began to turn over the pages of the books in the safe.

An hour passed, another hour. He heard the servants going up to bed. Now there was no one left on the first floor. Midnight struck. The Imberts went on with their work.

"Come on," muttered Lupin.

He opened his window. It looked out upon the courtyard, and the space, on this moonless, starless night, was dark. He took from his cupboard a knotted rope, fastened it to the railing of the balcony, stepped over, and let himself down gently, with the help of a rain-spout, to the window beneath his own. It was the window of the office, and the thick curtains veiled the interior from his eyes. He stood for a moment motionless, listening carefully, on the balcony.

Reassured by the silence, he gave a slight push to the casement windows. If no one had checked them, they ought to yield to the slightest pressure, for, in the course of the afternoon, he had twisted the fastening in such a way as to prevent it from entering the staples.

The casements gave way. Thereupon, with infinite precautions, he opened them a little farther. As soon as he was able to pass his head through he stopped. A gleam of light filtered out between the curtains, which did not quite meet. He saw Gervaise and Ludovic sitting beside the safe.

Absorbed in their work, they exchanged but a few occasional words in a low voice. Arsène calculated the distance that separated him from them, settled upon the exact movements that would be necessary to reduce them to a state of helplessness, one after the other, before they had time to call for help, and was about to rush in upon them, when Gervaise said:

"How cold the room has turned! I am going to bed. Are you coming?"

"I should like to finish first."

"Finish! Why, it will take you all night!"

"Oh no; an hour at the most."

She went away. Twenty minutes, thirty minutes elapsed. Arsène pushed the window a little more. The curtains shook. He pushed still farther. Ludovic turned around, and, seeing the curtains swollen by the wind, rose to shut the window. . . .

There was not a cry, not even the appearance of a struggle. With a few accurate movements and without doing Ludovic the least harm, Arsène stunned him, wrapped his head in the curtain, and tied him up so that he was not even able to distinguish his assailant's features.

Then he went quickly to the safe, took two portfolios, which he put under his arm, left the office, went down the stairs, crossed the courtyard, and opened the door of the servants' entrance. A cab was waiting in the street.

"Take these first," he said to the driver, "and come with me."

They went back to the office. In two journeys they emptied the safe. Then Arsène went up to his room, hoisted in the rope, removed all traces of his passage. The thing was done.

A few hours after, Arsène Lupin, assisted by his companion, stripped the portfolios of their contents. He felt no disappointment, having foreseen as much, on ascertaining that the fortune of the Imberts was not as great as the rumors had ascribed to it. The millions did not number hundreds, or even tens. But, at any rate, the total made up a very respectable sum, and consisted of excellent securities: railway debentures, municipal loans, state funds, northern mines, and so on.

He declared himself satisfied:

"No doubt," he said, "there will be a sad loss when the time comes for dealing. There will be all sorts of difficulties, and I shall often have to let things go very cheap. Never mind! With this first capital, I undertake to live according to my ideas . . . and to realize a few dreams that lie near my heart."

"And the rest?"

"Burn them, my lad. These piles of papers looked very well in the safe. They're no use to us. As for the securities, we'll lock them up in the cupboard, and wait calmly till the auspicious moment arrives to dispose of them."

The next morning Arsène could see no reason why he should not return to the Hotel Imbert. But the papers contained an unexpected piece of news: Ludovic and Gervaise had disappeared.

The safe was opened amid great solemnity. The magistrates found what Arsène had left behind, an empty safe.

======================================================

Such are the facts and such is the explanation of some of the details, owing to the intervention of Arsène Lupin. I had the story from his own lips one day when he was in a confidential vein.

He was walking up and down my study, and his eyes wore a little feverish look which I had never seen in them before.

"On the whole, therefore," I said, "this is your master-stroke."

Without giving a direct answer, he continued:

"There are impenetrable secrets in this business. Even after the explanation which I have given you a number of mysteries remain unsolved. For instance, why that flight? Why did they not take advantage of the assistance which I had involuntarily rendered them? It would have been so simple to say, 'The millions were there in the safe. They are not there now because they have been stolen."

"They lost their nerve."

"Yes, that's it, they lost their nerve. . . . And yet, it is true . . ."

"What is true?"

"Oh, never mind."

What did this reticence mean? He had not told me all, that was obvious; and what he had not told me he disliked telling. I was puzzled. The thing must be serious to provoke hesitation in a man of his stamp.

I put a few questions to him at hap-hazard.

"Did you never see them again?"

"No."

"And did it never occur to you to feel any pity for those poor wretches?"

"I?" he cried, with a start.

His excitement astonished me. Had I hit the mark? I said:

"Of course. But for you, they might have stayed and faced the music . . . or at least gone off with their pockets filled."

"So you expect me to feel remorse -- is that it?"

"Well, in a sense."

He struck the table with his clenched fist.

"So, according to you, I ought to feel remorse!"

"You can call it remorse, or regret, a feeling of some kind . . ."

"A feeling of some kind for that couple . . ."

"For a couple whom you robbed of a fortune."

"What fortune?"

"Well . . . those two or three bundles of securities . . ."

"Those two or three bundles of securities! I robbed them of bundles of securities, did I? Part of their legacy, their fortune? Is that what I did? Is that my crime? But, bless my soul, my dear chap, haven't you guessed that those securities were so many forgeries? . . . Do you hear? They were forgeries!"

I looked at him, dumbfounded.

"What! those four or five millions were forgeries! . . ."

"Forgeries!" he shouted, in his rage, "forgeries! every scrap: the debentures, the municipal loans, the state funds; not worth the paper they were printed on! Not a sou, not a single sou did I get out of the whole lot! And you ask me to feel remorse! But it's they who ought to feel remorse! They cheated me like a common jay! They plucked me like the meanest of their pigeons and the stupidest!"

He shook with a perfectly genuine anger, made up of personal resentment and wounded pride.

"Don't you see that they had the better of me from first to last, from start to finish? Do you know what part I played in the business, or rather what part they made me play? I was Andrew Rawford! Yes, my dear fellow, and I was completely taken in! I only learned it after reading the newspapers and comparing certain details. While I was posing as the benefactor, as the gentleman who had risked his life to save Imbert from the hooligans, he was passing me off as one of the Rawfords! Isn't it admirable? That eccentric who had his room on the second floor, that shy [barbaric] man whom they pointed to at a distance was Rawford. And Rawford was myself! And, thanks to me, thanks to the confidence which I inspired under the name of Rawford, the banks granted loans and the solicitors persuaded their clients to lend their money! Ah, I learned a useful lesson there, I assure you!"

He stopped suddenly, caught me by the arm, and, in a tone of exasperation in which, nevertheless, it was easy to perceive a certain shade of mingled admiration and irony, he added this ineffable phrase:

"My dear chap, at this moment, Gervaise Imbert owes me fifteen hundred francs!"

This time I could not help laughing. It was really a splendid joke, and Arsène himself joined in my laughter.

"Yes, my dear fellow, fifteen hundred francs! Not only did I not receive a sou of my salary, but she borrowed fifteen hundred francs of me! The whole savings of my youth! And do you know what for? I'll give you a thousand guesses. . . . For her charities! I mean what I say! For poor people whom she pretended to be relieving, unknown to Ludovic! And I fell into the trap! A good joke, isn't it? Arsène Lupin done out of fifteen hundred francs, and done by the good lady whom he was robbing of four millions in forged securities! And think of the contrivings, the efforts, the ingenious tricks to which I had to resort in order to achieve that magnificent result! It's the only time that I've been swindled in my life! But, by Jove, I was had that time, and finely and in good taste!"

Chapter 8: The Black Pearl

Return to Main Menu

Return to The Exploits of Arsène Lupin