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Read Ebook: A Short History of Birds & Beasts for the Amusement and Instruction of Children by Anonymous
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Ebook has 96 lines and 2343 words, and 2 pages
"Absolutely idiotic, but we do such a lot of idiotic things in this life.... One more or less, you know!..."
I sat down to this silly work and wrote out the first letters:
I broke off in surprise:
"Words!" I exclaimed. "Two English words meaning...."
"Go on, old chap."
And I went on and the next letters formed two more words, which I separated as they appeared. And, to my great amazement, a complete English sentence lay before my eyes.
"Done?" asked Lupin, after a time.
"Never mind those and read it out, please.... Read slowly."
Thereupon I read out the following unfinished communication, which I will set down as it appeared on the paper in front of me:
I began to laugh:
Lupin rose, without breaking his contemptuous silence, and took the sheet of paper.
I remembered soon after that, at this moment, I happened to look at the clock. It was eighteen minutes past five.
He put down the sheet of paper and muttered:
"Child's play!"
The clock struck half-past five.
"What!" I cried. "Have you succeeded?... In twelve minutes?..."
He took a few steps up and down the room, lit a cigarette and said:
"You might ring up Baron Repstein, if you don't mind, and tell him I shall be with him at ten o'clock this evening."
"Baron Repstein?" I asked. "The husband of the famous baroness?"
"Yes."
"Are you serious?"
"Quite serious."
Feeling absolutely at a loss, but incapable of resisting him, I opened the telephone-directory and unhooked the receiver. But, at that moment, Lupin stopped me with a peremptory gesture and said, with his eyes on the paper, which he had taken up again:
"No, don't say anything.... It's no use letting him know.... There's something more urgent ... a queer thing that puzzles me.... Why on earth wasn't the last sentence finished? Why is the sentence...."
He snatched up his hat and stick:
He put his arm through mine, as we went down the stairs, and said:
"I know what everybody knows. Baron Repstein, the company-promoter and racing-man, whose colt Etna won the Derby and the Grand Prix this year, has been victimized by his wife. The wife, who was well known for her fair hair, her dress and her extravagance, ran away a fortnight ago, taking with her a sum of three million francs, stolen from her husband, and quite a collection of diamonds, pearls and jewellery which the Princesse de Berny had placed in her hands and which she was supposed to buy. For two weeks the police have been pursuing the baroness across France and the continent: an easy job, as she scatters gold and jewels wherever she goes. They think they have her every moment. Two days ago, our champion detective, the egregious Ganimard, arrested a visitor at a big hotel in Belgium, a woman against whom the most positive evidence seemed to be heaped up. On enquiry, the lady turned out to be a notorious chorus-girl called Nelly Darbal. As for the baroness, she has vanished. The baron, on his side, has offered a reward of two hundred thousand francs to whosoever finds his wife. The money is in the hands of a solicitor. Moreover, he has sold his racing-stud, his house on the Boulevard Haussmann and his country-seat of Roquencourt in one lump, so that he may indemnify the Princesse de Berny for her loss."
"And the proceeds of the sale," I added, "are to be paid over at once. The papers say that the princess will have her money to-morrow. Only, frankly, I fail to see the connection between this story, which you have told very well, and the puzzling sentence...."
Lupin did not condescend to reply.
We had been walking down the street in which I live and had passed some four or five houses, when he stepped off the pavement and began to examine a block of flats, not of the latest construction, which looked as if it contained a large number of tenants:
"According to my calculations," he said, "this is where the signals came from, probably from that open window."
"On the third floor?"
"Yes."
He went to the portress and asked her:
"Does one of your tenants happen to be acquainted with Baron Repstein?"
"Why, of course!" replied the woman. "We have M. Lavernoux here, such a nice gentleman; he is the baron's secretary and agent. I look after his flat."
"And can we see him?"
"See him?... The poor gentleman is very ill."
"Ill?"
"He's been ill a fortnight ... ever since the trouble with the baroness.... He came home the next day with a temperature and took to his bed."
"But he gets up, surely?"
"Ah, that I can't say!"
"How do you mean, you can't say?"
"No, his doctor won't let any one into his room. He took my key from me."
"Who did?"
"The doctor. He comes and sees to his wants, two or three times a day. He left the house only twenty minutes ago ... an old gentleman with a gre
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