She remained thoughtful for a moment, then with a gesture which signified: “After all, I shall lay my hands on the girl again. My vengeance is only postponed,” she said: “By the memory of your mother?”
“By the memory of my mother, by all that is left me of honesty and honor, I will throw complete light on the matter.”
“So be it,” she said. “But you and that girl will not exchange a single word apart.”
“Not a word,” he said readily. “Besides, I’ve nothing to say to her that anyone may not hear. Set her free—that’s all I want.”
She gave the order: “Loose the girl, Leonard, and take those ropes off him.”
Leonard’s face wore an expression of strong disapproval. But he was too well-disciplined to protest. He left Clarice and cut the bonds which still crippled Ralph.
Ralph’s behavior was not of the most fitting considering the seriousness of the occasion. He stretched his legs, performed two or three exercises with his arms, and took several deep breaths.
“I like this better,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve no vocation for playing at prisoners. To deliver the good and punish the evil, that’s what really interests me. Tremble, Leonard.”
He turned to Clarice and said: “I beg you to forgive me for all that has happened. It shall never occur again, you may be sure of it. Henceforth you’re under my protection. Do you feel strong enough to get home?”
“Yes—yes,” she said. “But what about you?”
“Oh, me—I do not run any risk. Your safety was the essential thing. But I’m afraid that you won’t be able to walk far.”
“I haven’t far to walk. Yesterday my father brought me to stay with one of my friends; and he is to fetch me tomorrow.”
“Is it near here?”
“Yes.”
“Well, say no more about it. Any information you give will be used against you.”
He conducted her to the door and told Leonard to unlock the padlock and open the gate.
When Leonard had done so, Ralph said to Clarice: “Be prudent, and fear nothing, absolutely nothing, either on your own account or on mine. We shall meet again when the right hour strikes; and it will not be long striking whatever be the obstacles which separate us now.”
He shut the door after her. Clarice was saved.
Then he had the cheek to say: “What an adorable creature!”
In after days, when Arsène Lupin related this incident in his great struggle with Josephine Balsamo, he could not refrain from laughing.
“Yes,” he would say. “I laugh now as I laughed at the moment; and I remember that for the first time I executed one of those little dances which have often served me since to mark most difficult victories … and that victory was devilishly difficult.
“In truth I was overjoyed. Clarice free, everything appeared to me to be accomplished. I lit a cigarette, and as Josephine planted herself before me to recall our bargain, I had the bad manners to blow a cloud of smoke right into her face.”
“ ‘Bounder!’ she muttered.
“The epithet with which I retorted was really disgraceful. My excuse is that my tone was more roguish than coarse. And then—and then—have I any need of excuses? Have I any need to analyze the violent and contradictory feelings with which that woman inspired me? I do not pride myself on my psychology where she was concerned, or of having behaved like a gentleman to her. I loved her and at the same time detested her furiously. And after her attack on Clarice my disgust and contempt had become boundless. I no longer saw even the admirable mask of her beauty, but only that which lay beneath it; and it was a kind of carnivorous beast which suddenly appeared to me as I flung that abominable insult at her in the middle of my pirouette.”
Arsène Lupin could laugh afterwards. Nevertheless it was a dangerous moment, and there is no doubt that for two pins either Josephine or Leonard would have blown his brains out.
She muttered through her closed teeth: “Oh, how I do hate you!”
“Not more than I hate you,” he sneered.
“Bear in mind that Josephine Balsamo has not quite finished with that Clarice of yours,” she retorted in a tone of sinister threatening.
“Nor has Ralph d’Andresy finished with her,” he said quickly.
“Scoundrel!” she muttered. “You deserve—”
“A bullet through my head,” he said, laughing. “It’s out of the question.”
“Don’t you defy me too far, Ralph!”
“It’s out of the question, I tell you,” he repeated. “I am literally sacred. I am the gentleman who stands for a thousand millions. Destroy me and the thousand millions slip through your fingers, O daughter of Cagliostro! Every cell in my brain corresponds to a precious stone. A little bullet hole in it and you will call in vain on the spirit of your father! Not a sou for little Josine! I repeat, my darling, that I am taboo, as they say in Polynesia. Taboo from head to foot! Go down on your knees and kiss my hand. That’s the best thing you can possibly do.”
He opened the window which looked over the enclosure, took a deep breath, and said: “This place is perfectly suffocating. Leonard has a decidedly musty smell. Do you make a point of your executioner’s keeping his hand on that revolver in his pocket?”
She stamped her foot and exclaimed: “Enough of this fooling! You laid down your conditions; you know mine.”
“Your money or your life!”
“Speak, and speak at once!”
“What a hurry you’re in!” he said in a mocking voice. “In the first place I fixed a delay of twenty minutes, to be quite sure that Clarice should be out of reach of your claws; and it is not nearly twenty minutes since she went. Besides—”
“Besides what?”
“Besides, how can you expect me to solve in five seconds the problem that so many people have been nearly bursting themselves in their efforts to solve for years and years?”
She was immensely taken aback and cried fiercely: “What do you mean?”
“My meaning is quite simple. I want a little time
