The Hollow Needle (26 page)

They went down and down, Isidore in silence, Lupin still bubbling over with merriment:

“I should like to know what Ganimard is doing? Is he tumbling down the other staircases to bar the entrance to the tunnel against me? No, he’s not such a fool as that. He must have left four men there—and four men are sufficient—” He stopped. “Listen—they’re shouting up above. That’s it, they’ve opened the window and are calling to their fleet.—Why, look, the men are busy on board the smacks—they’re exchanging signals.—The torpedo-boat is moving.—Dear old torpedo-boat! I know you, you’re from the Havre.—Guns’ crews to the guns!—Hullo, there’s the commander!—How are you, Duguay-Trouin?”

He put his arm through a cleft and waved his handkerchief. Then he continued his way downstairs:

“The enemy’s fleet have set all sail,” he said. “We shall be boarded before we know where we are. Heavens, what fun!”

They heard the sound of voices below them. They were just then approaching the level of the sea and they emerged, almost at once, into a large cave into which two lanterns were moving about in the dark.

A woman’s figure appeared and threw itself on Lupin’s neck:

“Quick, quick, I was so nervous about you. What have you been doing?—But you’re not alone!—”

Lupin reassured her:

“It’s our friend Beautrelet.—Just think, Beautrelet had the tact—but I’ll talk about that later—there’s no time now.—Charolais are you there? That’s right!—And the boat?”

“The boat’s ready, sir,” Charolais replied.

“Fire away,” said Lupin.

In a moment, the noise of a motor crackled and Beautrelet, whose eyes were gradually becoming used to the gloom, ended by perceiving that they were on a sort of quay, at the edge of the water, and that a boat was floating before them.

“A motor boat,” said Lupin, completing Beautrelet’s observations. “This knocks you all of a heap, eh, Isidore, old chap?—You don’t understand.—Still, you have only to think.—As the water before your eyes is no other than the water of the sea, which filters into this excavation each high tide, the result is that I have a safe little private roadstead all to myself.”

“But it’s closed,” Beautrelet protested. “No one can get in or out.”

“Yes, I can,” said Lupin; “and I’m going to prove it to you.”

He began by handing Raymonde in. Then he came back to fetch Beautrelet. The lad hesitated.

“Are you afraid?” asked Lupin.

“What of?”

“Of being sunk by the torpedo-boat.”

“No.”

“Then you’re considering whether it’s not your duty to stay with Ganimard, law and order, society and morality, instead of going off with Lupin, shame, infamy and disgrace.”

“Exactly.”

“Unfortunately, my boy, you have no choice. For the moment, they must believe the two of us dead—and leave me the peace to which a prospective honest man is entitled. Later on, when I have given you your liberty, you can talk as much as you please—I shall have nothing more to fear.”

By the way in which Lupin clutched his arm, Beautrelet felt that all resistance was useless. Besides, why resist? Had he not discovered and handed over the Hollow Needle? What did he care about the rest? Had he not the right to humor the irresistible sympathy with which, in spite of everything, this man inspired him?

The feeling was so clear in him that he was half inclined to say to Lupin:

“Look here, you’re running another, a more serious danger; Holmlock Shears is on your track.”

“Come along!” said Lupin, before Isidore had made up his mind to speak.

He obeyed and let Lupin lead him to the boat, the shape of which struck him as peculiar and its appearance quite unexpected.

Once on deck, they went down a little steep staircase, or rather a ladder hooked on to a trap door, which closed above their heads. At the foot of the ladder, brightly lit by a lamp, was a very small saloon, where Raymonde was waiting for them and where the three had just room to sit down.

Lupin took the mouthpiece of a speaking tube from a hook and gave the order:

“Let her go, Charolais!”

Isidore had the unpleasant sensation which one feels when going down in a lift: the sensation of the ground vanishing beneath you, the impression of emptiness, space. This time, it was the water retreating; and space opened out, slowly.

“We’re sinking, eh?” grinned Lupin. “Don’t be afraid—we’ve only to pass from the upper cave where we were to another little cave, situated right at the bottom and half open to the sea, which can be entered at low tide. All the shellfish-catchers know it. Ah, ten seconds’ wait! We’re going through the passage and it’s very narrow, just the size of the submarine.”

“But,” asked Beautrelet, “how is it that the fishermen who enter the lower cave don’t know that it’s open at the top and that it communicates with another from which a staircase starts and runs through the Needle? The facts are at the disposal of the first-comer.”

“Wrong, Beautrelet! The top of the little public cave is closed, at low tide, by a movable platform, painted the color of the rock, which the sea, when it rises, shifts and carries up with it and, when it goes down, fastens firmly over the little cave. That is why I am able to pass at high tide. A clever notion, what? It’s an idea of my own. True, neither Caesar nor Louis XIV, nor, in short, any of my distinguished predecessors could have had it, because they did not possess submarines. They were satisfied with the staircase, which then ran all the way down to the little bottom cave. I did away with the last treads of the staircase and invented the trick of the movable ceiling: it’s a present I’m making to France—Raymonde, my love, put out the lamp beside you—we shan’t want it now—on the contrary—”

A pale light, which seemed to be of the same color as the water, met them as they left the cave and made its way into the cabin through the two portholes and through a thick glass skylight that projected above the planking of the deck and allowed the passengers to inspect the upper layers of the sea. And, suddenly, a shadow glided over their heads.

“The attack is about to take place. The fleet is investing the Needle. But, hollow as the Needle is, I don’t see how they propose to enter it.”

He took up the speaking tube:

“Don’t leave the bottom, Charolais. Where are we going? Why, I told you: to Port-Lupin. And at full speed, do you hear? We want water to land by—there’s a lady with us.”

They skimmed over the rocky bed. The seaweed stood up on end like a heavy, dark vegetation and the deep currents made it wave gracefully, stretching and billowing like floating hair.

Another shadow, a longer one.

“That’s the torpedo-boat,” said Lupin. “We shall hear the roar of the guns presently. What will Duguay-Trouin do? Bombard the Needle? Think of what we’re missing, Beautrelet, by not being present at the meeting of Duguay-Trouin and Ganimard! The juncture of the land and naval forces! Hi, Charolais, don’t go to sleep, my man!”

They were moving very fast, for all that. The rocks had been succeeded by sand-fields and then, almost at once, they saw more rocks, which marked the eastern extremity of Etretat, the Porte d’Amont. Fish fled at their approach. One of them, bolder than the rest, fastened on to a porthole and looked at the occupants of the saloon with its great, fixed, staring eyes.

“That’s better,” cried Lupin. “We’re going now. What do you think of my cockle-shell, Beautrelet? Not so bad, is she? Do you remember the story of the Seven of Hearts,
^*
the wretched end of Lacombe, the engineer, and how, after punishing his murderers, I presented the State with his papers and his plans for the construction of a new submarine: one more gift to France? Well, among the plans, I kept those of a submersible motor boat and that is how you come to have the honor of sailing in my company.”

He called to Charolais:

“Take us up, Charolais—there’s no danger now—”

They shot up to the surface and the glass skylight emerged above the water.

They were a mile from the coast, out of sight, therefore, and Beautrelet was now able to realize more fully at what a headlong pace they were traveling. First Fecamp passed before them, then all the Norman seaside places: Saint-Pierre, the Petits—Dalles, Veulettes, Saint-Valery, Veules, Quiberville. Lupin kept on jesting and Isidore never wearied of watching and listening to him, amazed as he was at the man’s spirits, at his gaiety, his mischievous ways, his careless chaff, his delight in life.

He also noticed Raymonde. The young woman sat silent, nestling up against the man she loved. She had taken his hands between her own and kept on raising her eyes to him; and Beautrelet constantly observed that her hands were twitching and that the wistful sadness of her eyes increased. And, each time, it was like a dumb and sorrowful reply to Lupin’s sallies. One would have thought that his frivolous words, his sarcastic outlook on life, caused her physical pain.

“Hush!” she whispered. “It’s defying destiny to laugh—so many misfortunes can reach us still!”

Opposite Dieppe, they had to dive lest they should be seen by the fishing-craft. And twenty minutes later, they shot at an angle toward the coast and the boat entered a little submarine harbor formed by a regular gap between the rocks, drew up beside a jetty and rose gently to the surface.

Lupin announced:

“Port-Lupin!”

The spot, situated at sixteen miles from Dieppe and twelve from the Treport and protected, moreover, by the two landslips of cliff, was absolutely deserted. A fine sand carpeted the rounded slope of the tiny beach.

“Jump on shore, Beautrelet—Raymonde, give me your hand. You, Charolais, go back to the Needle, see what happens between Ganimard and Duguay-Trouin and come back and tell me at the end of the day. The thing interests me tremendously.”

Beautrelet asked himself with a certain curiosity how they were going to get out of this hemmed-in creek which was called Port-Lupin, when, at the foot of the cliff, he saw the uprights of an iron ladder.

“Isidore,” said Lupin, “if you knew your geography and your history, you would know that we are at the bottom of the gorge of Parfonval, in the parish of Biville. More than a century ago, on the night of the twenty-third of August, 1803, Georges Cadoudal and six accomplices, who had landed in France with the intention of kidnapping the first consul, Bonaparte, scrambled up to the top by the road which I will show you. Since then, this road has been demolished by landslips. But Louis Valmeras, better known by the name of Arsène Lupin, had it restored at his own expense and bought the farm of the Neuvillette, where the conspirators spent the first night and where, retired from business and withdrawing from the affairs of this world, he means to lead the life of a respectable country squire with his wife and his mother by his side. The gentleman-burglar is dead! Long live the gentleman-farmer!”

After the ladder came a sort of gully, an abrupt ravine hollowed out, apparently, by the rains, at the end of which they laid hold of a makeshift staircase furnished with a hand-rail. As Lupin explained, this hand-rail had been placed where it was in the stead of the estamperche, a long rope fastened to stakes, by which the people of the country, in the old days, used to help themselves down when going to the beach.

After a painful climb of half an hour, they emerged on the tableland, not far from one of those little cabins, dug out of the soil itself, which serve as shelters for the excisemen. And, as it happened, two minutes later, at a turn in the path, one of these custom-house officials appeared.

He drew himself up and saluted.

Lupin asked:

“Any news, Gomel?”

“No, governor.”

“You’ve met no one at all suspicious-looking?”

“No, governor—only—”

“What?”

“My wife—who does dressmaking at the Neuvillette—”

“Yes, I know—Cesarine—my mother spoke of her. Well?”

“It seems a sailor was prowling about the village this morning.”

“What sort of face had he?”

“Not a natural face—a sort of Englishman’s face.”

“Ah!” said Lupin, in a tone preoccupied. “And you have given Cesarine orders—”

“To keep her eyes open. Yes, governor.”

“Very well. Keep a lookout for Charolais’s return in two or three hours from now. If there’s anything, I shall be at the farm.”

He walked on and said to Beautrelet:

“This makes me uneasy—is it Shears? Ah, if it’s he, in his present state of exasperation, I have everything to fear!”

He hesitated a moment: “I wonder if we hadn’t better turn back. Yes, I have a nasty presentiment of evil.”

Gently undulating plains stretched before them as far as the eye could see. A little to the left, a series of handsome avenues of trees led to the farm of the Neuvillette, the buildings of which were now in view. It was the retreat which he had prepared, the haven of rest which he had promised Raymonde. Was he, for the sake of an absurd idea, to renounce happiness at the very moment when it seemed within his reach?

He took Isidore by the arm and, calling his attention to Raymonde, who was walking in front of them:

“Look at her. When she walks, her figure has a little swing at the waist which I cannot see without quivering. But everything in her gives me that thrill of emotion and love: her movements and her repose, her silence and the sound of her voice. I tell you, the mere fact that I am walking in the track of her footsteps makes me feel in the seventh heaven. Ah, Beautrelet, will she ever forget that I was once Lupin? Shall I ever be able to wipe out from her memory the past which she loathes and detests?” He mastered himself and, with obstinate assurance. “She will forget!” he declared. “She will forget, because I have made every sacrifice for her sake. I have sacrificed the inviolable sanctuary of the Hollow Needle, I have sacrificed my treasures, my power, my pride—I will sacrifice everything—I don’t want to be anything more—but just a man in love—and an honest man, because she can only love an honest man. After all, why should I not be honest? It is no more degrading than anything else!”

The quip escaped him, so to speak, unawares. His voice remained serious and free of all chaff. And he muttered, with restrained violence: