“When?”
“Last night. Ah, Sire, why did you not leave me free when I came out of prison! Had I been free, I should have come here without losing an hour. I should have arrived before him! I should have given Isilda money before he did! I should have read Malreich, the old French servant’s diary, before he did!”
“So you think that it was through the revelations in the diary … ?”
“Why, yes, Sire! He had time to read them. And, lurking I don’t know where, kept informed of all our movements by I don’t know whom, he put me to sleep last night, in order to get rid of me.”
“But the palace was guarded.”
“Guarded by your soldiers, Sire. Does that count with a man like him? Besides, I have no doubt that Waldemar concentrated his search upon the outbuildings, thus thinning the posts in the palace.”
“But the sound of the clock! Those twelve strokes in the night!”
“It was mere child’s play, Sire, mere child’s play, to him, to prevent the clock from striking!”
“All this seems very impossible to my mind.”
“It all seems monstrous clear to mine, Sire! If it were possible to feel in every one of your soldiers’ pockets here and now, or to know how much money they will each of them spend during the next twelve months, we should be sure to find two or three who are, at this moment, in possession of a few banknotes: French banknotes, of course.”
“Oh!” protested Waldemar.
“But yes, my dear count, it is a question of price; and that makes no difference to ‘him.’ If ‘he’ wished, I am sure that you yourself …”
The Emperor, wrapped up in his own thoughts, was not listening. He walked across the room from left to right and right to left, then beckoned to one of the officers standing in the gallery:
“My car. … And tell them to get ready. … We’re starting.”
He stopped, watched Lupin for a moment and, going up to the count:
“You too, Waldemar, be off … Straight to Paris, without a break …”
Lupin pricked up his ears. He heard Waldemar reply:
“I should like to have a dozen additional guards. … With that devil of a man. …”
“Take them. And look sharp. You must get there tonight.”
Lupin stamped his foot violently on the floor:
“Well, no, Sire! No, no, no! It shan’t be, I swear it shan’t! No, no never!”
“What do you mean?”
“And the letters, Sire? The stolen letters?”
“Upon my word! …”
“So!” cried Lupin, indignantly folding his arms. “So your Imperial Majesty gives up the struggle? You look upon the defeat as irretrievable? You declare yourself beaten? Well, I do not, Sire. I have begun and I mean to finish.”
The Emperor smiled at this display of mettle:
“I do not give up, but my police will set to work.”
Lupin burst out laughing:
“Excuse me, Sire! It is so funny! Your police! Your Imperial Majesty’s police! Why, they’re worth just about as much as any other police, that is to say, nothing, nothing at all! No, Sire, I will not return to the Santé! Prison I can afford to laugh at. But time enough has been wasted as it is. I need my freedom against that man and I mean to keep it.”
The Emperor shrugged his shoulders:
“You don’t even know who the man is.”
“I shall know, Sire. And I alone can know. And he knows that I am the only one who can know. I am his only enemy. I am the only one whom he attacks. It was I whom he meant to hit, the other day, when he fired his revolver. He considered it enough to put me and me only to sleep, last night, to be free to do as he pleased. The fight lies between him and me. The outside world has nothing to say to it. No one can help me and no one can help him. There are two of us; and that is all. So far, chance has favored him. But, in the long run, it is inevitable, it is doomed that I should gain the day.”
“Why?”
“Because I am the better man.”
“Suppose he kills you?”
“He will not kill me. I shall draw his claws, I shall make him perfectly harmless. And you shall have the letters, Sire. They are yours. There is no power on earth than can prevent me from restoring them to you.”
He spoke with a violent conviction and a tone of certainty that gave to the things which he foretold the real appearance of things already accomplished.
The Emperor could not help undergoing a vague, inexplicable feeling in which there was a sort of admiration combined with a good deal of that confidence which Lupin was demanding in so masterful a manner. In reality, he was hesitating only because of his scruples against employing this man and making him, so to speak, his ally. And, anxiously, not knowing what decision to take, he walked from the gallery to the windows without saying a word.
At last, he asked:
“And who says that the letters were stolen last night?”
“The theft is dated, Sire.”
“What do you say?”
“Look at the inner side of the pediment which concealed the hiding-place. The date is written in white chalk: ‘Midnight, 24 August.’ …”
“So it is,” muttered the Emperor, nonplussed. “How was it that I did not see?” And he added, betraying his curiosity, “Just as with those two ‘N’s’ painted on the wall. … I can’t understand. This is the Minerva Room.”
“This is the room in which Napoleon, the Emperor of the French slept,” said Lupin.
“How do you know?”
“Ask Waldemar, Sire. As for myself, when I was turning over the old servants’ diary, it came upon me as a flash of light. I understood that Shears and I had been on the wrong scent. apoon, the imperfect word written by the Grand-duke Hermann on his deathbed, is a contraction not of Apollon, but of Napoleon.”
“That’s true … you are right,” said the Emperor. “The same letters occur in both words and in the same order. The grand-duke evidently meant to write ‘Napoleon.’ But
