“You poor devil!” he said. “You were doomed to end like that, with a hempen tie around your neck. Alas, you were not made for greatness: I ought to have foreseen that and not hooked my fortune to a rhymester!”
He felt in the young man’s clothes and found nothing. But, remembering Dolores’ second pocketbook, he took it from the pocket where he had left it.
He gave a start of surprise. The pocketbook contained a bundle of letters whose appearance was familiar to him; and he at once recognized the different writings.
“The Emperor’s letters!” he muttered, slowly. “The old chancellor’s letters! The whole bundle which I myself found at Leon Massier’s and which I handed to Count von Waldemar! … How did it happen? … Did she take them in her turn from that blockhead of a Waldemar?” And, suddenly, slapping his forehead, “Why, no, the blockhead is myself. These are the real letters! She kept them to blackmail the Emperor when the time came. And the others, the ones which I handed over, are copies, forged by herself, of course, or by an accomplice, and placed where she knew that I should find them. … And I played her game for her, like a mug! By Jove, when women begin to interfere … !”
There was only a piece of pasteboard left in the pocketbook, a photograph. He looked at it. It was his own.
“Two photographs … Massier and I … the two she loved best, no doubt … For she loved me. … A strange love, built up of admiration for the adventurer that I am, for the man who, by himself, put away the seven scoundrels whom she had paid to break my head! A strange love! I felt it throbbing in her the other day, when I told her my great dream of omnipotence. Then, really, she had the idea of sacrificing Pierre Leduc and subjecting her dream to mine. If the incident of the mirror had not taken place, she would have been subdued. But she was afraid. I had my hand upon the truth. My death was necessary for her salvation and she decided upon it.” He repeated several times, pensively, “And yet she loved me. … Yes, she loved me, as others have loved me … others to whom I have brought ill-luck also. … Alas, all those who love me die! … And this one died too, strangled by my hand. … What is the use of living? … What is the use of living?” he asked again, in a low voice. “Is it not better to join them, all those women who have loved me … and who have died of their love … Sonia, Raymonde, Clotilde, Destange, Miss Clarke? …”
He laid the two corpses beside each other, covered them with the same sheet, sat down at a table and wrote:
“I have triumphed over everything and I am beaten. I have reached the goal and I have fallen. Fate is too strong for me. … And she whom I loved is no more. I shall die also.”
And he signed his name:
“Arsène Lupin.”
He sealed the letter and slipped it into a bottle which he flung through the window, on the soft ground of a flower-border.
Next, he made a great pile on the floor with old newspapers, straw and shavings, which he went to fetch in the kitchen. On the top of it he emptied a gallon of petrol. Then he lit a candle and threw it among the shavings.
A flame at once arose and other flames leapt forth, quick, glowing, crackling.
“Let’s clear out,” said Lupin. “The chalet is built of wood, it will all flare up like a match. And, by the time they come from the village, break down the gates and run to this end of the park, it will be too late. They will find ashes, the remains of two charred corpses and, close at hand, my farewell letter in a bottle. … Goodbye, Lupin! Bury me simply, good people, without superfluous state … a poor man’s funeral … No flowers, no wreaths. … Just a humble cross and a plain epitaph; ‘Here lies Arsène Lupin, adventurer.’ ”
He made for the park wall, climbed over it, and turning round, saw the flames soaring up to the sky. …
He wandered back toward Paris on foot, bowed down by destiny, with despair in his heart. And the peasants were amazed at the sight of this traveller who paid with banknotes for his fifteen-penny meals.
Three footpads attacked him one evening in the forest. He defended himself with his stick and left them lying for dead. …
He spent a week at an inn. He did not know where to go. … What was he to do? What was there for him to cling to? He was tired of life. He did not want to live. …
“Is that you?”
Mme. Ernemont stood in her little sitting-room in the villa at Garches, trembling, scared and livid, staring at the apparition that faced her.
Lupin! … It was Lupin.
“You!” she said. “You! … But the papers said …”
He smiled sadly:
“Yes, I am dead.”
“Well, then … well, then …” she said, naively.
“You mean that, if I am dead, I have no business here. Believe me, I have serious reasons, Victoire.”
“How you have changed!” she said, in a voice full of pity.
“A few little disappointments. … However, that’s over. … Tell me, is Geneviève in?”
She flew at him, in a sudden rage:
“You leave her alone, do you hear? Geneviève? You want to see Geneviève, to take her back? Ah, this time I shall not let her out of my sight! She came back tired, white as a sheet, nervous; and the color has hardly yet returned to her cheeks. You shall leave her alone, I swear you shall.”
He pressed his hand hard on the old woman’s shoulder:
“I will—do you understand?—I will speak to her.”
“No.”
“I mean to speak to her.”
“No.”
He pushed her about. She drew herself up and, crossing her arms:
“You shall pass over my dead body first, do you hear? The child’s happiness lies in this house and nowhere else. … With all your ideas of money and rank, you would only make her
