The Teeth of the Tiger Part 90

"I tell you, she has ceased to be. Haven't you seen the grotto? Florence no longer exists!"

"I refuse to believe it," said Don Luis quietly. "If that were so, everything would look different. The sky would be clouded; the birds would not be singing; and nature would wear her mourning garb. But the birds are singing, the sky is blue, everything is as it should be: the honest man is alive; and the rascal is crawling at his feet. How could Florence be dead?"

A long silence followed upon these words. The two enemies, at three paces distance, looked into each other's eyes: Don Luis still as cool as ever, the cripple a prey to the maddest anguish. The monster understood.

Obscure as the truth was, it shone forth before him with all the light of a blinding certainty: Florence also was alive! Humanly and physically speaking, the thing was not possible; but the resurrection of Don Luis was likewise an impossibility; and yet Don Luis was alive, with not a scratch on his face, with not a speck of dust on his clothes.

The monster felt himself lost. The man who held him in the hollow of his implacable hand was one of those men whose power knows no bounds. He was one of those men who escape from the jaws of death and who triumphantly s.n.a.t.c.h from death those of whom they have taken charge.

The monster retreated, dragging himself slowly backward on his knees along the little brick path.

He retreated. He pa.s.sed by the confused heap of stones that covered the place where the grotto had been, and did not turn his eyes in that direction, as if he were definitely convinced that Florence had come forth safe and sound from the appalling sepulchre.

He retreated. Don Luis, who no longer had his eyes fixed on him, was busy unwinding a coil of rope which he had picked up, and seemed to pay no further attention to him.

He retreated.

And suddenly, after a glance at his enemy, he spun round, drew himself up on his slack legs with an effort, and started running toward the well.

He was twenty paces from it. He covered one half, three quarters of the distance. Already the mouth opened before him. He put out his arms, with the movement of a man about to dive, and shot forward.

His rush was stopped. He rolled over on the ground, dragged back violently, with his arms fixed so firmly to his body that he was unable to stir.

It was Don Luis, who had never wholly lost sight of him, who had made a slip-knot to his rope and who had la.s.soed the cripple at the moment when he was going to fling himself down the abyss. The cripple struggled for a few moments. But the slip-knot bit into his flesh. He ceased moving.

Everything was over.

Then Don Luis Perenna, holding the other end of the la.s.so, came up to him and bound him hand and foot with what remained of the rope. The operation was carefully performed. Don Luis repeated it time after time, using the coils of rope which the cripple had brought to the well and gagging him with a handkerchief. And, while applying himself to his work, he explained, with affected politeness:

"You see, sir, people always come to grief through excessive self-confidence. They never imagine that their adversaries can have resources which they themselves do not possess. For instance, when you got me to fall into your trap, how could you have supposed, my dear sir, that a man like myself, a man like a.r.s.ene Lupin, hanging on the brim of a well, with his arms resting on the brim and his feet against the inner wall, would allow himself to drop down it like the first silly fool that comes along?

"Look here: you were fifteen or twenty yards away; and do you think that I had not the strength to leap out nor the courage to face the bullets of your revolver, when it was a question of saving Florence Leva.s.seur's life and my own? Why, my poor sir, the tiniest effort would have been enough, believe me!

"My reason for not making the effort was that I had something better to do, something infinitely better. I will tell you why, that is, if you care to know. Do you?

"Well, then, at the very first moment, my knees and feet, propped against the inner wall, had smashed in a thick layer of plaster which closed up an old excavation in the well; and this I at once perceived. It was a stroke of luck, wasn't it? And it changed the whole situation. My plan was settled at once. While I went on acting my little part of the gentleman about to tumble down an abyss, putting on the most scared face, the most staring eyes, the most hideous grin, I enlarged that excavation, taking care to throw the chunks of plaster in front of me in such a way that their fall made no noise. When the moment came, at the very second when my swooning features vanished before your eyes, I simply jumped into my retreat, thanks to a rather plucky little wriggle of the loins.

"I was saved, because the retreat was dug out on the side where you were moving and because, being dark itself, it cast no light. All that I now had to do was to wait.

"I listened quietly to your threatening speeches. I let the things you flung down the well go past me. And, when I thought you had gone back to Florence, I was preparing to leave my refuge, to return to the light of day, and to fall upon you from behind, when--"

Don Luis turned the cripple over, as though he were a parcel which he was tying up with string, and continued:

"Have you ever been to Tancarville, the old feudal castle in Normandy, on the banks of the Seine? Haven't you? Well, you must know that, outside the ruins of the keep, there is an old well which, like many other wells of the period, possesses the peculiarity of having two openings, one at the top, facing the sky, and the other a little lower down, hollowed out sideways in the wall and leading to one of the rooms of the keep.

"At Tancarville this second opening is nowadays closed with a grating.

Here it was walled up with a layer of small stones and plaster. And it was just the recollection of Tancarville that made me stay, all the more as there was no hurry, since you had had the kindness to inform me that Florence would not join me in the next world until four o'clock. I therefore inspected my refuge and soon realized that, as I had already felt by intuition, it was the foundation of a building which was now demolished and which had the garden laid out on its ruins.

"Well, I went on, groping my way and following the direction which, above ground, would have taken me to the grotto. My presentiments were not deceived. A gleam of daylight made its way at the top of a staircase of which I had struck the bottom step. I went up it and heard the sound of your voice."

Don Luis turned the cripple over and over and was pretty rough about it.

Then he resumed:

"I wish to impress upon you, my dear sir, that the upshot would have been exactly similar if I had attacked you directly and from the start in the open air. But, having said this, I confess that chance favoured me to some purpose. It has often failed me, in the course of our struggle, but this time I had no cause to complain.

"I felt myself in such luck that I never doubted for a second that, having found the entrance to the subterranean pa.s.sage, I should also find the way out. As a matter of fact, I had only to pull gently at the slight obstacle of a few stacked bricks which hid the opening in order to make my exit amid the remains of the castle keep.

"Guided by the sound of your voice, I slipped through the stones and thus reached the back of the grotto in which Florence lay. Amusing, wasn't it?

"You can imagine what fun it was to hear you make your little speeches: 'Answer me, yes or no, Florence. A movement of your head will decide your fate. If it's yes, I shall release you. If it's no, you die. Answer me, Florence! A sign of your head: is the answer yes or no?' And the end, above all, was delicious, when you scrambled to the top of the grotto and started roaring from up there: 'It's you who have asked to die, Florence.

You asked for it and you've got it!'

"Just think what a joke it was: at that moment there was no one in the grotto! Not a soul! With one effort, I had drawn Florence toward me and put her under shelter. And all that you were able to crush with your avalanche of rocks was one or two spiders, perhaps, and a few flies dozing on the flagstones.

"The trick was done and the farce was nearly finished. Act first: a.r.s.ene Lupin saved. Act second: Florence Leva.s.seur saved. Act third and last: the monster vanquished ... absolutely and with a vengeance!"

Don Luis stood up and contemplated his work with a satisfied eye.

"You look like a sausage, my son!" he cried, yielding at last to his sarcastic nature and his habit of treating his enemies familiarly. "A regular sausage! A bit on the thin side, perhaps: a saveloy for poor people! But there, you don't much care what you look like, I suppose?

Besides, you're rather like that at all times; and, in any case, you're just the thing for the little display of indoor gymnastics which I have in mind for you. You'll see: it's an idea of my own, a really original idea. Don't be impatient: we shan't be long."

He took one of the guns which the cripple had brought to the well and tied to the middle of the gun the end of a twelve or fifteen yards'

length of rope, fastening the other end to the cords with which the cripple was bound, just behind his back. He next took his captive round the body and held him over the well:

"Shut your eyes, if you feel at all giddy. And don't be frightened. I'll be very careful. Ready?"

He put the cripple down the yawning hole and next took hold of the rope which he had just fastened. Then, little by little, inch by inch, cautiously, so that it should not knock against the sides of the well, the bundle was let down at arm's length.

When it reached a depth of twelve yards or so, the gun stopped its further descent and there it remained, slung in the dark and in the exact centre of the narrow circ.u.mference.

Don Luis set light to a number of pieces of paper, which went whirling down, shedding their sinister gleams upon the walls. Then, unable to resist the craving for a last speech, he leaned over, as the scoundrel had done, and grinned:

"I selected the place with care, so that you shouldn't catch cold. I'm bound to look after you, you see. I promised Florence that I wouldn't kill you; and I promised the French Government to hand you over alive as soon as possible. Only, as I didn't know what to do with you until to-morrow morning, I've hung you up in the air.

"It's a pretty trick, isn't it? And you ought to appreciate it, for it's so like your own way of doing things. Just think: the gun is resting on its two ends, with hardly an inch to spare. So, if you start wriggling, or moving, or even breathing too hard, either the barrel or the b.u.t.t end'll give way; and down you go! As for me, I've nothing to do with it!

"If you die, it'll be a pretty little case of suicide. All you've got to do, old chap, is to keep quiet. And the beauty of my little contrivance is that it will give you a foretaste of the few nights that will precede your last hour, when they cut off your head. From this moment forward you are alone with your conscience, face to face with what you perhaps call your soul, without anything to disturb your silent soliloquy. It's nice and thoughtful of me, isn't it? ...

"Well, I'll leave you. And remember: not a movement, not a sigh, not a wink, not a throb of the heart! And, above all, no larks! If you start larking, you're in the soup. Meditate: that's the best thing you can do.

Meditate and wait. Good-bye, for the present!"

And Don Luis, satisfied with his homily, went off, muttering:

"That's all right. I won't go so far as Eugene Sue, who says that great criminals should have their eyes put out. But, all the same, a little corporal punishment, nicely seasoned with fear, is right and proper and good for the health and morals."

Don Luis walked away and, taking the brick path round the ruins, turned down a little road, which ran along the outer wall to a clump of fir trees, where he had brought Florence for shelter.

She was waiting for him, still aching from the horrible suffering which she had endured, but already in full possession of her pluck, mistress of herself, and apparently rid of all anxiety as to the issue of the fight between Don Luis and the cripple.

"It's finished," he said, simply. "To-morrow I will hand him over to the police."