“Answer,” said Sernine, persisting. “Answer, and I will save you. … Answer. … It means your life today … your liberty tomorrow. … Answer! …”
The door shook under the blows that rained upon it.
The baron gasped out unintelligible syllables. Leaning over him, affrighted, straining all his energy, all his will to the utmost, Sernine panted with anguish. He no longer gave a thought to the policemen, his inevitable capture, prison. … But Geneviève. … Geneviève dying of hunger, whom one word from that villain could set free! …
“Answer! … You must! …”
He ordered and entreated by turns. Altenheim stammered, as though hypnotized and defeated by that indomitable imperiousness:
“Ri … Rivoli. …”
“Rue de Rivoli, is that it? You have locked her up in a house in that street … eh? Which number?”
A loud din … followed by shouts of triumph. … The door was down.
“Jump on him, lads!” cried M. Weber. “Seize him … seize both of them!”
And Sernine, on his knees:
“The number … answer. … If you love her, answer. … Why keep silence now?”
“Twenty … twenty-seven,” whispered the baron.
Hands were laid on Sernine. Ten revolvers were pointed at him.
He rose and faced the policemen, who fell back with instinctive dread.
“If you stir, Lupin,” cried M. Weber, with his revolver leveled at him, “I’ll blow out your brains.”
“Don’t shoot.” said Sernine, solemnly. “It’s not necessary. I surrender.”
“Humbug! This is another of your tricks!”
“No,” replied Sernine, “the battle is lost. You have no right to shoot. I am not defending myself.”
He took out two revolvers and threw them on the floor.
“Humbug!” M. Weber repeated, implacably. “Aim straight at his heart, lads! At the least movement, fire! At the least word, fire!”
There were ten men there. He placed five more in position. He pointed their fifteen right arms at the mark. And, raging, shaking with joy and fear, he snarled:
“At his heart! At his head! And no pity! If he stirs, if he speaks … shoot him where he stands!”
Sernine smiled, impassively, with his hands in his pockets. Death was there, waiting for him, at two inches from his chest, at two inches from his temples. Fifteen fingers were curled round the triggers.
“Ah,” chuckled M. Weber, “this is nice, this is very nice! … And I think that this time we’ve scored … and it’s a nasty lookout for you, Master Lupin! …”
He made one of his men draw back the shutters of a large air-hole, which admitted a sudden burst of daylight, and he turned toward Altenheim. But, to his great amazement, the baron, whom he thought dead, opened his eyes, glazed, awful eyes, already filled with all the signs of the coming dissolution. He stared at M. Weber. Then he seemed to look for somebody and, catching sight of Sernine, had a convulsion of anger. He seemed to be waking from his torpor; and his suddenly reviving hatred restored a part of his strength.
He raised himself on his two wrists and tried to speak.
“You know him, eh?” asked M. Weber.
“Yes.”
“It’s Lupin, isn’t it?”
“Yes. … Lupin. …”
Sernine, still smiling, listened:
“Heavens, how I’m amusing myself!” he declared.
“Have you anything more to say?” asked M. Weber, who saw the baron’s lips making desperate attempts to move.
“Yes.”
“About M. Lenormand, perhaps?”
“Yes.”
“Have you shut him up? Where? Answer! …”
With all his heaving body, with all his tense glance, Altenheim pointed to a cupboard in the corner of the room.
“There … there …” he said.
“Ah, we’re burning!” chuckled Lupin.
M. Weber opened the cupboard. On one of the shelves was a parcel wrapped in black cloth. He opened it and found a hat, a little box, some clothes. … He gave a start. He had recognized M. Lenormand’s olive-green frock-coat.
“Oh, the villains!” he cried. “They have murdered him!”
“No,” said Altenheim, shaking his head.
“Then … ?”
“It’s he … he …”
“What do you mean by ‘he’? … Did Lupin kill the chief?”
“No. …”
Altenheim was clinging to existence with fierce obstinacy, eager to speak and to accuse. … The secret which he wished to reveal was at the tip of his tongue and he was not able, did not know how to translate it into words.
“Come,” the deputy-chief insisted. “M. Lenormand is dead, surely?”
“No.”
“He’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand. … Look here, these clothes? This frock-coat? …”
Altenheim turned his eyes toward Sernine. An idea struck M. Weber:
“Ah, I see! Lupin stole M. Lenormand’s clothes and reckoned upon using them to escape with. …”
“Yes … yes. …”
“Not bad,” cried the deputy-chief. “It’s quite a trick in his style. In this room, we should have found Lupin disguised as M. Lenormand, chained up, no doubt. It would have meant his safety; only he hadn’t time. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“Yes … yes …”
But, by the appearance of the dying man’s eyes, M. Weber felt that there was more, and that the secret was not exactly that. What was it, then? What was the strange and unintelligible puzzle which Altenheim wanted to explain before dying?
He questioned him again:
“And where is M. Lenormand himself?”
“There. …”
“What do you mean? Here?”
“Yes.”
“But there are only ourselves here!”
“There’s … there’s …”
“Oh, speak!”
“There’s … Ser … Sernine.”
“Sernine! … Eh, what?”
“Sernine … Lenormand. …”
M. Weber gave a jump. A sudden light flashed across him.
“No, no, it’s not possible,” he muttered. “This is madness.”
He gave a side-glance at his prisoner. Sernine seemed to be greatly diverted and to be watching the scene with the air of a playgoer who is thoroughly amused and very anxious to know how the piece is going to end.
Altenheim, exhausted by his efforts, had fallen back at full length. Would he die before revealing the solution of the riddle which his strange words had propounded? M. Weber, shaken by an absurd, incredible surmise, which he did not wish to entertain and which persisted in his mind in spite of him, made a fresh, determined attempt:
“Explain the thing to us. … What’s at the bottom of it? What mystery?”
The other seemed not to hear and lay lifeless, with staring eyes.
M. Weber lay down beside him, with his body touching him, and, putting great stress upon his words, so that each syllable should sink down to the very depths of that brain already merged in darkness, said:
“Listen. … I have understood you correctly, have I not? Lupin and M. Lenormand. …”
He needed an effort to
