第73章

If my servant, or rather the servant of the friend who lent me his flat in the Place de Clichy, had not shaken me out of my sleep, to tell me that he had once served as a shopman in that little house on the Boulevard Arago, that it did not hold many tenants and that there might be something to be done there, our poor Gilbert would have had his head cut off by now...and Mme.Mergy would most likely be dead.""Oh, you think so?"

"I am sure of it.And that was why I jumped at that faithful retainer's suggestion.Only, you interfered with my plans, monsieur le secretaire-general.""I did?"

"Yes.You must needs go and take the three-cornered precaution of posting twelve men at the door of my house.I had to climb five flights of back stairs and go out through the servants' corridor and the next house.Such useless fatigue!"I am very sorry, M.Nicole.Another time...""It was the same thing at eight o'clock this morning, when I was waiting for the motor which was bringing Daubrecq to me in his trunk: I had to march up and down the Place de Clichy, so as to prevent the car from stopping outside the door of my place and your men from interfering in my private affairs.Otherwise, once again, Gilbert and Clarisse Mergy would have been lost.""But," said Prasville, "those painful events, it seems to me.are only delayed for a day, two days, three days at most.To avert them for good and all we should want...""The real list, I suppose?"

"Exactly.And I daresay you haven't got it.""Yes, I have."

"The genuine list?"

"The genuine, the undoubtedly genuine list.""With the cross of Lorraine?"

"With the cross of Lorraine."

Prasville was silent.He was labouring under violent emotion, now that the duel was commencing with that adversary of whose terrifying superiority he was well aware; and he shuddered at the idea that Arsene Lupin, the formidable Arsene Lupin, was there, in front of him, calm and placid, pursuing his aims with as much coolness as though he had all the weapons in his hands and were face to face with a disarmed enemy.

Not yet daring to deliver a frontal attack, feeling almost intimidated, Prasville said:

"So Daubrecq gave it up to you?"

"Daubrecq gives nothing up.I took it."

"By main force, therefore?"

"Oh, dear, no!" said M.Nicole, laughing."Of course, I was ready to go to all lengths; and, when that worthy Daubrecq was dug out of the basket in which he had been travelling express, with an occasional dose of chloroform to keep his strength up, I had prepared things so that the fun might begin at once.Oh, no useless tortures...no vain sufferings!

No...Death, simply...You press the point of a long needle on the chest, where the heart is, and insert it gradually, softly and gently.That's all but the point would have been driven by Mme.Mergy.You understand:

a mother is pitiless, a mother whose son is about to die!...'Speak, Daubrecq, or I'll go deeper....You won't speak?...Then I'll push another quarter of an inch...and another still.' And the patient's heart stops beating, the heart that feels the needle coming...And another quarter of an inch...and one more...I swear before Heaven that the villain would have spoken!...We leant over him and waited for him to wake, trembling with impatience, so urgent was our hurry...Can't you picture the scene, monsieur le secretaire-general? The scoundrel lying on a sofa, well bound, bare-chested, making efforts to throw off the fumes of chloroform that dazed him.He breathes quicker...He gasps...He recovers consciousness...his lips move....Already, Clarisse Mergy whispers, 'It's I...it's I, Clarisse...Will you answer, you wretch?' She has put her finger on Daubrecq's chest, at the spot where the heart stirs like a little animal hidden under the skin.But she says to me, 'His eyes...his eyes...I can't see them under the spectacles...I want to see them...'And I also want to see those eyes which I do not know, I want to see their anguish and I want to read in them, before I hear a word, the secret which is about to burst from the inmost recesses of the terrified body.I want to see.I long to see.

The action which I am about to accomplish excites me beyond measure.It seems to me that, when I have seen the eyes, the veil will be rent asunder.I shall know things.It is a presentiment.It is the profound intuition of the truth that keeps me on tenterhooks.The eye-glasses are gone.But the thick opaque spectacles are there still.And I snatch them off, suddenly.And, suddenly, startled by a disconcerting vision, dazzled by the quick light that breaks in upon me and laughing, oh, but laughing fit to break my jaws, with my thumb - do you understand? with my thumb - hop, I force out the left eye!"M.Nicole was really laughing, as he said, fit to break his jaws.And he was no longer the timid little unctuous and obsequious provincial usher, but a well-set-up fellow, who, after reciting and mimicking the whole scene with impressive ardour, was now laughing with a shrill laughter the sound of which made Prasville's flesh creep:

"Hop! Jump, Marquis! Out of your kennel, Towzer! What's the use of two eyes? It's one more than you want.Hop! I say, Clarisse, look at it rolling over the carpet! Mind Daubrecq's eye! Be careful with the grate!"M.Nicole, who had risen and pretended to be hunting after something across the room, now sat down again, took from his pocket a thing shaped like a marble, rolled it in the hollow of his hand, chucked it in the air, like a ball, put it back in his fob and said, coolly:

"Daubrecq's left eye."

Prasville was utterly bewildered.What was his strange visitor driving at? What did all this story mean? Pale with excitement, he said:

"Explain yourself."