“But, look here, that’s preposterous.”
“Why?”
“Come, think for yourself!”
“Go on, chief: say what’s in your mind.”
“Nonsense! What do you mean?”
“Go on, chief.”
“It’s impossible! How can Sparmiento have been Lupin’s accomplice?”
Ganimard gave a little chuckle.
“Exactly, Arsène Lupin’s accomplice! … That explains everything. During the night, while the three detectives were downstairs watching, or sleeping rather, for Colonel Sparmiento had given them champagne to drink and perhaps doctored it beforehand, the said colonel took down the hangings and passed them out through the window of his bedroom. The room is on the second floor and looks out on another street, which was not watched, because the lower windows are walled up.”
M. Dudouis reflected and then shrugged his shoulders:
“It’s preposterous!” he repeated.
“Why?”
“Why? Because, if the colonel had been Arsène Lupin’s accomplice, he would not have committed suicide after achieving his success.”
“Who says that he committed suicide?”
“Why, he was found dead on the line!”
“I told you, there is no such thing as death with Lupin.”
“Still, this was genuine enough. Besides, Mme. Sparmiento identified the body.”
“I thought you would say that, chief. The argument worried me too. There was I, all of a sudden, with three people in front of me instead of one: first, Arsène Lupin, cracksman; secondly, Colonel Sparmiento, his accomplice; thirdly, a dead man. Spare us! It was too much of a good thing!”
Ganimard took a bundle of newspapers, untied it and handed one of them to Mr. Dudouis:
“You remember, chief, last time you were here, I was looking through the papers. … I wanted to see if something had not happened, at that period, that might bear upon the case and confirm my supposition. Please read this paragraph.”
M. Dudouis took the paper and read aloud:
“Our Lille correspondent informs us that a curious incident has occurred in that town. A corpse has disappeared from the local morgue, the corpse of a man unknown who threw himself under the wheels of a steam tramcar on the day before. No one is able to suggest a reason for this disappearance.”
M. Dudouis sat thinking and then asked:
“So … you believe … ?”
“I have just come from Lille,” replied Ganimard, “and my inquiries leave not a doubt in my mind. The corpse was removed on the same night on which Colonel Sparmiento gave his housewarming. It was taken straight to Ville d’Avray by motorcar; and the car remained near the railway-line until the evening.”
“Near the tunnel, therefore,” said M. Dudouis.
“Next to it, chief.”
“So that the body which was found is merely that body, dressed in Colonel Sparmiento’s clothes.”
“Precisely, chief.”
“Then Colonel Sparmiento is not dead?”
“No more dead than you or I, chief.”
“But then why all these complications? Why the theft of one tapestry, followed by its recovery, followed by the theft of the twelve? Why that housewarming? Why that disturbance? Why everything? Your story won’t hold water, Ganimard.”
“Only because you, chief, like myself, have stopped halfway; because, strange as this story already sounds, we must go still farther, very much farther, in the direction of the improbable and the astounding. And why not, after all? Remember that we are dealing with Arsène Lupin. With him, is it not always just the improbable and the astounding that we must look for? Must we not always go straight for the maddest suppositions? And, when I say the maddest, I am using the wrong word. On the contrary, the whole thing is wonderfully logical and so simple that a child could understand it. Confederates only betray you. Why employ confederates, when it is so easy and so natural to act for yourself, by yourself, with your own hands and by the means within your own reach?”
“What are you saying? … What are you saying? … What are you saying?” cried M. Dudouis, in a sort of singsong voice and a tone of bewilderment that increased with each separate exclamation.
Ganimard gave a fresh chuckle.
“Takes your breath away, chief, doesn’t it? So it did mine, on the day when you came to see me here and when the notion was beginning to grow upon me. I was flabbergasted with astonishment. And yet I’ve had experience of my customer. I know what he’s capable of. … But this, no, this was really a bit too stiff!”
“It’s impossible! It’s impossible!” said M. Dudouis, in a low voice.
“On the contrary, chief, it’s quite possible and quite logical and quite normal. It’s the threefold incarnation of one and the same individual. A schoolboy would solve the problem in a minute, by a simple process of elimination. Take away the dead man: there remains Sparmiento and Lupin. Take away Sparmiento. …”
“There remains Lupin,” muttered the chief-detective.
“Yes, chief, Lupin simply, Lupin in five letters and two syllables, Lupin taken out of his Brazilian skin, Lupin revived from the dead, Lupin translated, for the past six months, into Colonel Sparmiento, travelling in Brittany, hearing of the discovery of the twelve tapestries, buying them, planning the theft of the best of them, so as to draw attention to himself, Lupin, and divert it from himself, Sparmiento. Next, he brings about, in full view of the gaping public, a noisy contest between Lupin and Sparmiento or Sparmiento and Lupin, plots and gives the housewarming party, terrifies his guests and, when everything is ready, arranges for Lupin to steal Sparmiento’s tapestries and for Sparmiento, Lupin’s victim, to disappear from sight and die unsuspected, unsuspectable, regretted by his friends, pitied by the public and leaving behind him, to pocket the profits of the swindle. …”
Ganimard stopped, looked the chief in the eyes and, in a voice that emphasized the importance of his words, concluded:
“Leaving behind him a disconsolate widow.”
“Mme. Sparmiento! You really believe. … ?”
“Hang it all!” said the chief-inspector. “People don’t work up a whole business of this sort, without seeing something ahead of them … solid profits.”
“But the profits, it seems to me, lie in the sale of the tapestries which Lupin will effect in America or elsewhere.”
“First of all, yes. But Colonel Sparmiento could effect that sale just as well. And even better. So there’s something more.”
“Something
