The Confessions of Arsène Lupin Read Online Free

in which you kept your securities locked up?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, one evening, a fortnight ago, while you were at your club, Baroness Repstein, who, unknown to yourself, had converted all those securities into cash, left this house with a travelling-bag, containing your money and all the Princesse de Berny’s jewels?”
    “Yes.”
    “And, since then, she has not been seen?”
    “No.”
    “Well, there is an excellent reason why she has not been seen.”
    “What reason?”
    “This, that Baroness Repstein has been murdered …”
    “Murdered! … The baroness! … But you’re mad!”
    “Murdered … and probably that same evening.”
    “I tell you again, you are mad! How can the baroness have been murdered, when the police are following her tracks, so to speak, step by step?”
    “They are following the tracks of another woman.”
    “What woman?”
    “The murderer’s accomplice.”
    “And who is the murderer?”
    “The same man who, for the last fortnight, knowing that Lavernoux, through the situation which he occupied in this house, had discovered the truth, kept him imprisoned, forced him to silence, threatened him, terrorized him; the same man who, finding Lavernoux in the act of communicating with a friend, made away with him in cold blood by stabbing him to the heart.”
    “The doctor, therefore?”
    “Yes.”
    “But who is this doctor? Who is this malevolent genius, this infernal being who appears and disappears, who slays in the dark and whom nobody suspects?”
    “Can’t you guess?”
    “No.”
    “And do you want to know?”
    “Do I want to know? … Why, speak, man, speak! … You know where he is hiding?”
    “Yes.”
    “In this house?”
    “Yes.”
    “And it is he whom the police are after?”
    “Yes.”
    “And I know him?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who is it?”
    “You!”
    “I! …”
    Lupin had not been more than ten minutes with the baron; and the duel was commencing. The accusation was hurled, definitely, violently, implacably.
    Lupin repeated:
    “You yourself, got up in a false beard and a pair of spectacles, bent in two, like an old man. In short, you, Baron Repstein; and it is you for a very good reason, of which nobody has thought, which is that, if it was not you who contrived the whole plot, the case becomes inexplicable. Whereas, taking you as the criminal, you as murdering the baroness in order to get rid of her and run through those millions with another woman, you as murdering Lavernoux, your agent, in order to suppress an unimpeachable witness, oh, then the whole case is explained! Well, is it pretty clear? And are not you yourself convinced?”
    The baron, who, throughout this conversation, had stood bending over his visitor, waiting for each of his words with feverish avidity, now drew himself up and looked at Lupin as though he undoubtedly had to do with a madman. When Lupin had finished speaking, the baron stepped back two or three paces, seemed on the point of uttering words which he ended by not saying, and then, without taking his eyes from his strange visitor, went to the fireplace and rang the bell.
    Lupin did not make a movement. He waited smiling.
    The butler entered. His master said:
    “You can go to bed, Antoine. I will let this gentleman out.”
    “Shall I put out the lights, sir?”
    “Leave a light in the hall.”
    Antoine left the room and the baron, after taking a revolver from his desk, at once came back to Lupin, put the weapon in his pocket and said, very calmly:
    “You must excuse this little precaution, sir. I am obliged to take it in case you should be mad, though that does not seem likely. No, you are not mad. But you have come here with an object which I fail to grasp; and you have sprung upon me an accusation of so astounding a character that I am curious to know the reason. I have experienced so much disappointment and undergone so much suffering that an outrage of this kind leaves me indifferent. Continue, please.”
    His voice shook with