Maurice Leblanc - The Crystal Stopper

“There’s no danger, governor,” said Gilbert.

“Oh, really?... So you think that shots can’t be heard?...”

“Quite impossible.”

“No matter, we must look sharp. Vaucheray, take the lamp and let’s go upstairs.”

He took Gilbert by the arm and, as he dragged him to the first floor:

“You ass,” he said, “is that the way you make inquiries? Wasn’t I right to have my doubts?”

“Look here, governor, I couldn’t know that he would change his mind and come back to dinner.”

“One’s got to know everything when one has the honour of breaking into people’s houses. You numskull! I’ll remember you and Vaucheray... a nice pair of gossoons!...”

The sight of the furniture on the first floor pacified Lupin and he started on his inventory with the satisfied air of a collector who has looked in to treat himself to a few works of art:

“By Jingo! There’s not much of it, but what there is is pucka! There’s nothing the matter with this representative of the people in the question of taste. Four Aubusson chairs... A bureau signed ‘Percier-Fontaine,’ for a wager... Two inlays by Gouttieres... A genuine Fragonard and a sham Nattier which any American millionaire will swallow for the asking: in short, a fortune... And there are curmudgeons who pretend that there’s nothing but faked stuff left. Dash it all, why don’t they do as I do? They should look about!”

Gilbert and Vaucheray, following Lupin’s orders and instructions, at once proceeded methodically to remove the bulkier pieces. The first boat was filled in half an hour; and it was decided that the Growler and the Masher should go on ahead and begin to load the motor-car.

Lupin went to see them start. On returning to the house, it struck him, as he passed through the hall, that he heard a voice in the pantry. He went there and found Leonard lying flat on his stomach, quite alone, with his hands tied behind his back:

“So it’s you growling, my confidential flunkey? Don’t get excited: it’s almost finished. Only, if you make too much noise, you’ll oblige us to take severer measures... Do you like pears? We might give you one, you know: a choke-pear!...”

As he went upstairs, he again heard the same sound and, stopping to listen, he caught these words, uttered in a hoarse, groaning voice, which came, beyond a doubt, from the pantry:

“Help!... Murder!... Help!... I shall be killed!... Inform the commissary!”

“The fellow’s clean off his chump!” muttered Lupin. “By Jove!... To disturb the police at nine o’clock in the evening: there’s a notion for you!”

He set to work again. It took longer than he expected, for they discovered in the cupboards all sorts of valuable knick-knacks which it would have been very wrong to disdain and, on the other hand, Vaucheray and Gilbert were going about their investigations with signs of laboured concentration that nonplussed him.

At long last, he lost his patience:

“That will do!” he said. “We’re not going to spoil the whole job and keep the motor waiting for the sake of the few odd bits that remain. I’m taking the boat.”

They were now by the waterside and Lupin went down the steps. Gilbert held him back:

“I say, governor, we want one more look round five minutes, no longer.”

“But what for, dash it all?”

“Well, it’s like this: we were told of an old reliquary, something stunning...”

“Well?”

“We can’t lay our hands on it. And I was thinking... There’s a cupboard with a big lock to it in the pantry... You see, we can’t very well...” He was already on his way to the villa. Vaucheray ran back too.

“I’ll give you ten minutes, not a second longer!” cried Lupin. “In ten minutes, I’m off.”

But the ten minutes passed and he was still waiting.

He looked at his watch:

“A quarter-past nine,” he said to himself. “This is madness.”

And he also remembered that Gilbert and Vaucheray had behaved rather queerly throughout the removal of the things, keeping close together and apparently watching each other. What could be happening?

Lupin mechanically returned to the house, urged by a feeling of anxiety which he was unable to explain; and, at the same time, he listened to a dull sound which rose in the distance, from the direction of Enghien, and which seemed to be coming nearer... People strolling about, no doubt...

He gave a sharp whistle and then went to the main gate, to take a glance down the avenue. But, suddenly, as he was opening the gate, a shot rang out, followed by a yell of pain. He returned at a run, went round the house, leapt up the steps and rushed to the dining-room:

“Blast it all, what are you doing there, you two?”

Gilbert and Vaucheray, locked in a furious embrace, were rolling on the floor, uttering cries of rage. Their clothes were dripping with blood. Lupin flew at them to separate them. But already Gilbert had got his adversary down and was wrenching out of his hand something which Lupin had no time to see. And Vaucheray, who was losing blood through a wound in the shoulder, fainted.

“Who hurt him? You, Gilbert?” asked Lupin, furiously.

“No, Leonard.”

“Leonard? Why, he was tied up!”

“He undid his fastenings and got hold of his revolver.”

“The scoundrel! Where is he?”

Lupin took the lamp and went into the pantry.

The man-servant was lying on his back, with his arms outstretched, a dagger stuck in his throat and a livid face. A red stream trickled from his mouth.

“Ah,” gasped Lupin, after examining him, “he’s dead!”

“Do you think so?... Do you think so?” stammered Gilbert, in a trembling voice.

“He’s dead, I tell you.”

“It was Vaucheray... it was Vaucheray who did it...”

Pale with anger, Lupin caught hold of him:

“It was Vaucheray, was it?... And you too, you blackguard, since you were there and didn’t stop him! Blood! Blood! You know I won’t have it... Well, it’s a bad lookout for you, my fine fellows... You’ll have to pay the damage! And you won’t get off cheaply either... Mind the guillotine!” And, shaking him violently, “What was it? Why did he kill him?”

“He wanted to go through his pockets and take the key of the cupboard from him. When he stooped over him, he saw that the man unloosed his arms. He got frightened... and he stabbed him...”

“But the revolver-shot?”

“It was Leonard... he had his revolver in his hand... he just had strength to take aim before he died...”

“And the key of the cupboard?”

“Vaucheray took it....”

“Did he open it?”

“And did he find what he was after?”

“Yes.”

“And you wanted to take the thing from him. What sort of thing was it? The reliquary? No, it was too small for that.... Then what was it? Answer me, will you?...”

Lupin gathered from Gilbert’s silence and the determined expression on his face that he would not obtain a reply. With a threatening gesture, “I’ll make you talk, my man. Sure as my name’s Lupin, you shall come out with it. But, for the moment, we must see about decamping. Here, help me. We must get Vaucheray into the boat...”

They had returned to the dining-room and Gilbert was bending over the wounded man, when Lupin stopped him:

“Listen.”

They exchanged one look of alarm... Some one was speaking in the pantry ... a very low, strange, very distant voice... Nevertheless, as they at once made certain, there was no one in the room, no one except the dead man, whose dark outline lay stretched upon the floor.

And the voice spake anew, by turns shrill, stifled, bleating, stammering, yelling, fearsome. It uttered indistinct words, broken syllables.