813 (7 page)

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.”

“Yes, one was found on the box which Lupin sent back; and the other was found by me and doubtless came from the morocco note-case stolen by the murderer.”

“Well?”

“I don’t think that they mean anything. What does mean something is the number 813, which Mr. Kesselbach wrote on each of them. His handwriting has been recognized.”

“And that number 813?”

“It’s a mystery.”

“Then?”

“I can only reply again that I don’t know.”

“Have you no suspicions?”

“None at all. Two of my men are occupying one of the rooms in the Palace Hotel, on the floor where Chapman’s body was found. I have had all the people in the hotel watched by these two men. The criminal is not one of those who have left.”

“Did no one telephone while the murders were being committed?”

“Yes, some one telephoned from the outside to Major Parbury, one of the four persons who occupied rooms on the first-floor passage.”

“And this Major Parbury?”

“I am having him watched by my men. So far, nothing has been discovered against him.”

“And in which direction do you intend to seek?”

“Oh, in a very limited direction. In my opinion, the murderer must be numbered among the friends or connections of Mr. and Mrs. Kesselbach. He followed their scent, knew their habits, the reason of Mr. Kesselbach’s presence in Paris; and he at least suspected the importance of Mr. Kesselbach’s plans.”

“Then he was not a professional criminal?”

“No, no, certainly not! The murder was committed with extraordinary cleverness and daring, but it was due to circumstances. I repeat, we shall have to look among the people forming the immediate circle of Mr. and Mrs. Kesselbach. And the proof is that Mr. Kesselbach’s murderer killed Gustave Beudot for the sole reason that the waiter had the cigarette-case in his possession; and Chapman for the sole reason that the secretary knew of its existence. Remember Chapman’s excitement: at the mere description of the cigarette-case, Chapman received a sudden insight into the tragedy. If he had seen the cigarette-case, we should have been fully informed. The man, whoever he may be, was well aware of that: and he put an end to Chapman. And we know nothing, nothing but the initials L and M.”

He reflected for a moment and said:

“There is another proof, which forms an answer to one of your questions, Monsieur le Président: Do you believe that Chapman would have accompanied that man along the passages and staircases of the hotel if he did not already know him?”

The facts were accumulating. The truth or, at least, the probable truth was gaining strength. Many of the points at issue, the most interesting, perhaps, remained obscure. But what a light had been thrown upon the subject! Short of the motives that inspired them, how clearly Lenormand’s hearers now perceived the sequence of acts performed on that tragic morning!

There was a pause. Every one was thinking, seeking for arguments, for objections. At last, Valenglay exclaimed:

“My dear Lenormand, this is all quite excellent. You have convinced me … But, taking one thing with another, we are no further than we were.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I say. The object of our meeting is not to clear up a portion of the mystery, which, one day, I am sure, you will clear up altogether, but to satisfy the public demand as fully as we possibly can. Now whether the murderer is Lupin or another; whether there are two criminals, or three, or only one: all this gives us neither the criminal’s name nor his arrest. And the public continues under the disastrous impression that the law is powerless.”