“Well? What is it?”
Lupin laid a number of hundred-franc notes in a row on the table:
“One note for each definite answer to my questions.”
“Done!”
“Now then. How many of you were there with Baron Altenheim?”
“Seven, without counting myself.”
“No more?”
“No. Once only, we picked up some workmen in Italy to make the underground passage from the Villa des Glycines, at Garches.”
“Were there two underground passages?”
“Yes, one led to the Pavillon Hortense and the other branched off from the first and ran under Mrs. Kesselbach’s house.”
“What was the object?”
“To carry off Mrs. Kesselbach.”
“Were the two maids, Suzanne and Gertrude, accomplices?”
“Yes.”
“Where are they?”
“Abroad.”
“And your seven pals, those of the Altenheim gang?”
“I have left them. They are still going on.”
“Where can I find them?”
Dominique hesitated. Lupin unfolded two notes of a thousand francs each and said:
“Your scruples do you honor, Dominique. There’s nothing for it but to swallow them like a man and answer.”
Dominique replied:
“You will find them at No. 3, Route de la Revolte, Neuilly. One of them is called the Broker.”
“Capital. And now the name, the real name of Altenheim. Do you know it?”
“Yes, Ribeira.”
“Dominique, Dominique, you’re asking for trouble. Ribeira was only an assumed name. I asked you the real name.”
“Parbury.”
“That’s another assumed name.”
The headwaiter hesitated. Lupin unfolded three hundred franc notes.
“Pshaw, what do I care!” said the man. “After all, he’s dead, isn’t he? Quite dead.”
“His name,” said Lupin.
“His name? The Chevalier de Malreich.”
Lupin gave a jump in his chair:
“What? What do you say? The Chevalier—say it again—the Chevalier … ?”
“Raoul de Malreich.”
A long pause. Lupin, with his eyes fixed before him, thought of the mad girl at Veldenz, who had died by poison: Isilda bore the same name, Malreich. And it was the name borne by the small French noble who came to the court of Veldenz in the eighteenth century.
He resumed his questions:
“What country did this Malreich belong to?”
“He was of French origin, but born in Germany … I saw some papers once … that was how I came to know his name. … Oh, if he had found it out, he would have wrung my neck, I believe!”
Lupin reflected and said:
“Did he command the lot of you?”
“Yes.”
“But he had an accomplice, a partner?”
“Oh hush … hush … !”
The headwaiter’s face suddenly expressed the most intense alarm. Lupin noticed the same sort of terror and repulsion which he himself felt when he thought of the murderer.
“Who is he? Have you seen him?”
“Oh, don’t let us talk of that one … it doesn’t do to talk of him.”
“Who is he, I’m asking you.”
“He is the master … the chief. … Nobody knows him.”
“But you’ve seen him, you. Answer me. Have you seen him?”
“Sometimes, in the dark … at night. Never by daylight. His orders come on little scraps of paper … or by telephone.”
“His name?”
“I don’t know it. We never used to speak of him. It was unlucky.”
“He dresses in black, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, in black. He is short and slender … with fair hair. …”
“And he kills, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he kills … he kills where another might steal a bit of bread.”
His voice shook. He entreated:
“Let us stop this … it won’t do to talk of him. … I tell you … it’s unlucky.”
Lupin was silent, impressed, in spite of himself, by the man’s anguish. He sat long thinking and then rose and said to the headwaiter:
“Here, here’s your money; but, if you want to live in peace, you will do well not to breathe a word of our conversation to anybody.”
He left the restaurant with Doudeville and walked to the Porte Saint-Denis without speaking, absorbed in all that he had heard. At last, he seized his companion’s arm and said:
“Listen to me, Doudeville, carefully. Go to the Gare du Nord. You will get there in time to catch the Luxemburg express. Go to Veldenz, the capital of the grand-duchy of Zweibrucken-Veldenz. At the town-hall, you will easily obtain the birth-certificate of the Chevalier de Malreich and further information about the family. You will be back on the day after tomorrow: that will be Saturday.”
“Am I to let them know at the detective-office?”
“I’ll see to that. I shall telephone that you are ill. Oh, one word more: on Saturday, meet me at twelve o’clock in a little café on the Route de la Revolte, called the Restaurant Buffalo. Come dressed as a workman.”
The next day, Lupin, wearing a short smock and a cap, went down to Neuilly and began his investigations at No. 3, Route de la Revolte. A gateway opened into an outer yard; and here he found a huge block of workmen’s dwellings, a whole series of passages and workshops, with a swarming population of artisans, women and brats. In a few minutes, he had won the goodwill of the portress, with whom he chatted for an hour on the most varied topics. During this hour, he saw three men pass, one after the other, whose manner struck him:
“That’s game,” he thought, “and gamy game at that! … They follow one another by scent! … Look quite respectable, of course, but with the eye of the hunted deer which knows that the enemy is all around and that every tuft, every blade of grass may conceal an ambush.”
That afternoon and on the Saturday morning, he pursued his inquiries and made certain that Altenheim’s seven accomplices all lived on the premises. Four of them openly followed the trade of secondhand clothes-dealers. Two of the others sold newspapers; and the third described himself as a broker and was nicknamed accordingly.
They went in and out, one after the other, without appearing to know one another. But, in the evening, Lupin discovered that they met in a sort of coach-house situated right at the back of the last of the yards, a place in which the Broker kept his wares piled up: old iron, broken kitchen-ranges, rusty stovepipes … and also, no doubt, the best part of the
