“The job’s much too simple,” mumbled Lupin. “No charm about it!”
They landed in a little creek whence rose a few stone steps, under cover of a mouldering roof. Lupin reflected that shipping the furniture would be easy work. But, suddenly, he said:
“There are people at the villa. Look … a light.”
“It’s a gas-jet, governor. The light’s not moving.”
The Growler stayed by the boats, with instructions to keep watch, while the Masher, the other rower, went to the gate on the Avenue de Ceinture, and Lupin and his two companions crept in the shadow to the foot of the steps.
Gilbert went up first. Groping in the dark, he inserted first the big door-key and then the latchkey. Both turned easily in their locks, the door opened and the three men walked in.
A gas-jet was flaring in the hall.
“You see, governor …” said Gilbert.
“Yes, yes,” said Lupin, in a low voice, “but it seems to me that the light which I saw shining did not come from here …”
“Where did it come from then?”
“I can’t say … Is this the drawing-room?”
“No,” replied Gilbert, who was not afraid to speak pretty loudly, “no. By way of precaution, he keeps everything on the first floor, in his bedroom and in the two rooms on either side of it.”
“And where is the staircase?”
“On the right, behind the curtain.”
Lupin moved to the curtain and was drawing the hanging aside when, suddenly, at four steps on the left, a door opened and a head appeared, a pallid man’s head, with terrified eyes.
“Help! Murder!” shouted the man.
And he rushed back into the room.
“It’s Léonard, the valet!” cried Gilbert.
“If he makes a fuss, I’ll out him,” growled Vaucheray.
“You’ll jolly well do nothing of the sort, do you hear, Vaucheray?” said Lupin, peremptorily. And he darted off in pursuit of the servant. He first went through a dining-room, where he saw a lamp still lit, with plates and a bottle around it, and he found Léonard at the further end of a pantry, making vain efforts to open the window:
“Don’t move, sportie! No kid! Ah, the brute!”
He had thrown himself flat on the floor, on seeing Léonard raise his arm at him. Three shots were fired in the dusk of the pantry; and then the valet came tumbling to the ground, seized by the legs by Lupin, who snatched his weapon from him and gripped him by the throat:
“Get out, you dirty brute!” he growled. “He very nearly did for me … Here, Vaucheray, secure this gentleman!”
He threw the light of his pocket-lantern on the servant’s face and chuckled:
“He’s not a pretty gentleman either … You can’t have a very clear conscience, Léonard; besides, to play flunkey to Daubrecq the deputy … ! Have you finished, Vaucheray? I don’t want to hang about here forever!”
“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 Gouttières … 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 motorcar.
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 Léonard 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 knickknacks 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
