813 by Maurice Leblanc - Lupin's Great Scheme 10

813 by Maurice Leblanc - Lupin's Great Scheme 10 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter ten of eight thirteen eight thirteen by Maurice le
Blin Chapter ten lou Payne's Great Scheme. Contrary to his expectations,
lu Payne had no sort of annoyance to undergo in
consequence of his assault on Monsieur font Marie, the examining magistrate,
came to the Santees in prison two days later and

(00:22):
told him, with some embarrassment and with an affectation of kindness,
that he did not intend to pursue the matter further,
nor I either, retorted Lupeye, what do you mean? Well,
I mean that I shall send no communication to the
press about this particular matter, nor do anything that might
expose you to ridicule. Monsieur le ges de Struxien. The

(00:42):
scandal shall not be made public. I promise that is
what you want, is it not, mon chiefor Marie blushed,
and without replying, continued, only, henceforth your examinations will take
place here. It's quite right that the law should put
itself out for lu Payne said that, gentleman, the announcement
of this decision, which interrupted his almost daily meetings with

(01:04):
the Dudville, did not disturb Lupey. He had taken his
precautions from the first day by giving the Dudville all
the necessary instructions, and now that the preparations were nearly completed,
reckoned upon being able to turn old Steinbeg's confidences to
the best account without delay, and to obtain his liberty
by one of the most extraordinary and ingenious schemes that
had ever entered his brain. His method of correspondence was

(01:28):
a simple one, and he had devised it at once.
Every morning he was supplied with sheets of paper in
numbered packets. He made these into envelopes, and every evening
the envelopes, duly folded and gummed, were fetched away. Now Lupeye,
noticing that his packet always bore the same number, had
drawn the inference that the distribution of the numbered packets

(01:48):
was always effected in the same order among the prisoners
who had chosen that particular kind of work. Experience showed
that he was right. It only remained for the Dudville
to bribe one of the employers of the private firm
in trusted with the supply and dispatch of the envelopes.
This was easily done, and thenceforward lu Peg, sure of success,
had only to wait quietly until the sign agreed upon

(02:09):
between him and his friends appeared upon the top sheet
of the packet. On the sixth day, he gave an
exclamation of delight. At last, he said, he took a
tiny bottle from a hiding place, uncorked it, moistened the
tip of his forefinger with the liquid which it contained,
and passed its finger over the third sheet in the packet.

(02:30):
In a moment, strokes appeared, then letters, then words and sentences.
He read, all well steinweg free hiding in country, Genvieve
Elnement good health. Often goes Hotel Bristol to see Missus Kesselbach,
who is ill, meets Pierre Duc there every time answer
by same means no danger. So communications were established with

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the outside. Once more. Lupeg's efforts were crowned with success.
All that he had to do now was to execute
his plan and lead the press campaign which he had
prepared in the peaceful solitude of his prison. Three days later,
these few lines appeared in the conjournals, quite apart from
Prince Bismarck's memoirs, which, according to well informed people, contain

(03:15):
merely the official history of the events in which the
Great Chancellor was concerned. There exists a series of confidential
letters of no little interest. These letters have been recently discovered.
We hear on good authority that they will be published
almost immediately. My readers will remember the noise which these
mysterious sentences made throughout the civilized world, the comments in

(03:36):
which people indulged, the suggestions put forward, and in particular
the controversy that followed in the German press. Who had
inspired those lines? What were the letters in question? Who
had written them to the Chancellor or who had received
them from him? Was it an act of posthumous revenge?
Or was it an indiscretion committed by one of Bismarck's correspondents.

(03:59):
A second note said public opinion as to certain points,
but at the same time worked it up to a
strange pitch of excitement. It ran as follows to the
editor of the Ranchennal Sante Palace Sell fourteen second division, Sir,
you inserted in your issue of Tuesday last a paragraph
based upon a few words which I let fall the

(04:20):
other evening in the course of a lecture which I
was delivering at the Sante on foreign politics. Your correspondence paragraph,
although accurate in all essential particulars, requires a slight correction.
The letters exist as stated, and it is impossible to
deny their exceptional importance, seeing that for ten years they
have been the object of an uninterrupted search on the

(04:40):
part of the government interested. But nobody knows where they
are hidden, and nobody knows a single word of what
they contain. The public, I am convinced, will bear me
no ill will if I keep it waiting for some
time before satisfying its legitimate curiosity. Apart from the fact
that I am not in possession of all the elements
necessary for the pursuit of the truth, my present occupation

(05:02):
does not allow me to devote so much time as
I could wish to this matter. All that I can
say for the moment is that the letters were entrusted
by the dying Statesman to one of his most faithful friends,
and that this friend had eventually to suffer the serious
consequences of his loyalty, constant spying domiciliary visits. Nothing was
spared him. I have given orders to two of the

(05:23):
best agents of my secret police to take up this
scent from the start. In a position to get to
the bottom of this exciting mystery. I have the honor
to be, Sir, your obedient servant Arsen Dupin. So it
was Arsen Dupe who was conducting the case. It was
he who, from his prison cell, was stage managing the
comedy or the tragedy announced in the first note, What luck.

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Everybody was delighted With an artist like Lupage. The spectacle
could not fail to be both picturesque and startling. Three
days later the Grandjonnal contained the following letter from Arsignde.
The name of the devoted friend to whom I referred
has been imparted to me. It was the Grand Duke Hermann,
the third reigning, although dispossessed, sovereign of the Grand Duchy

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of Spaibulcan Veldenz, and a confidante of Prince Bismarck, whose
entire friendship he enjoyed. A thorough search was made of
his house by Count Vaughan w At the head of
twelve men. The result of this search was purely negative,
but the Grand Duke was nevertheless proved to be in
possession of the papers. Where had he hidden them? This
was a problem which probably nobody in the world would

(06:33):
be able to solve. At the present moment, I must
ask for twenty four hours in which to solve it
as Saint du Pin, and twenty four hours later the
promised note appeared. The famous letters are hidden in the
feudal castle of Veldenz, the capital of the Grand Duchy Ofspibuten.
The castle was partly destroyed in the course of the
nineteenth century. Where exactly are they hidden? And what are

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the letters? Precisely, these are the two problems which I
am now engaged in unraveling, and I shall publish the
solution in four days time. Arsene Lupin. On the day stated,
men scrambled to obtain copies of the renjennals. To the
general disappointment, the promised information was not given. The same
silence followed on the next day and the day after

(07:20):
what had happened. It leaked out through an indiscretion at
the Prefecture of Police. The governor of the Sante, it appeared,
had been warned that Lupin was communicating with his accomplices
by means of the packets of envelopes which he made.
Nothing had been discovered, but it was thought best in
any case to forbid all work to the insufferable prisoner.
To this the insufferable prisoner replied, as I have nothing

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to do now, I may as well attend to my trial.
Please let my counsel Metrecambelle know it was true. Lupagne,
who hitherto had refused to hold any intercourse with Metrequembell,
now consented to see him and to prepare his defense.
On the next day, Metrequeene Belle, in cheery tones, asked
for lu pain to be brought to the barrister's room.

(08:04):
He was an elderly man, wearing a pair of very
powerful spectacles which made his eyes seem enormous. He put
his hat on the table, spread out his briefcase, and
at once began to put a series of questions, which
he had carefully prepared. Lu Payne replied with extreme readiness,
and even volunteered a host of particulars, which metreqaem Bell
took down as he spoke on slips pinned one to

(08:26):
the other. And so you say, continued the barrister, with
his head over his papers, that at that time, I
say that at that time lou Payne answered little by
little with a series of natural and hardly perceptible movements.
He leaned elbows on the table. He gradually lowered his arms,
slipped his hand under metrechae Bell's hat, put his finger

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into the leather band, and took out one of those
strips of paper, folded lengthwise, which the hatter inserts between
the leather and the lining when the hat is a
trifle too large. You unfolded the paper. It was a
message from Dudville, written in a cipher agreed upon beforehand.
I am engaged as indoor servant at Metre Cambell's. You
can answer by the same means without fear. It was

(09:12):
l M the murderer who gave away the envelope trick.
A good thing that you foresaw this move. Hereupon followed
a minute report of all the facts and comments caused
by Lupain's revelations. Lupayne took from his pocket a similar
strip of paper containing his instructions, quietly substituted it in
the place of the other, and drew his hand back again.

(09:33):
The trick was played, and Dupain's correspondence with the Grand
Jonnals was resumed without further delay. I apologize to the
public for not keeping my promise. The postal arrangements at
the Sante Palace are woefully inadequate. However, we are near
the end. I have in hand all the documents that
established the truth upon an indisputable basis. I shall not

(09:55):
publish them for the moment. Nevertheless, I will say this.
Among the letters are some that were addressed to the
Chancellor by one who at that time declared himself his
disciple and his admirer, and who was destined several years
after to rid himself of that irksome tutor and to
govern alone. I trust that I make myself sufficiently clear.

(10:16):
And on the next day the letters were written during
the late Emperor's illness, I need hardly add more to
prove their importance. Four days of silence, and then this
final note, which caused a stir that has not yet
been forgotten. My investigation is finished. I now know everything.
By dint of reflection, I have guessed the secret of

(10:37):
the hiding place. My friends are going to Veldenz, and
in spite of every obstacle, will enter the castle by
a way which I am pointing out to them. The
newspapers will then publish photographs of the letters of which
I already know the tenor. But I prefer to reproduce
the whole text. This certain inevitable publication will take place
in a fortnight from to day, precisely on the twenty

(10:59):
second of August next. Between this and then, I will
keep silence and wait. The communications to the Granjonnal did
in fact stop for a time, but Lupagne never ceased
corresponding with his friends via the hat. As they said
among themselves, it was so simple, there was no danger.
Who could ever suspect that Metre Cambell's hat served Loupagne

(11:20):
as a letter box every two or three mornings whenever
he called. In fact, the celebrated advocate faithfully brought his
client's letters, letters from Paris, letters from the country, letters
from Germany, all reduced and condensed by Dudville into a
brief form in cipher language, and an hour later Metre
Keambelle solemnly walked away, carrying Lieupayne's orders. Now, one day,

(11:43):
the governor of the Sante received a telephone message signed
l M, informing him that Metre Cambelle was in all
probability serving Loupainne as his unwitting postman, and that it
would be advisable to keep an eye upon the worthy
man's visits. The governor told Metre Cambell who thereupon resolved
his junior with him. So once again, in spite of
all Lupain's efforts, in spite of his fertile powers of invention,

(12:07):
in spite of the marvels of ingenuity which he renewed
after each defeat, once again Lupayn found himself cut off
from communication with the outside world by the infernal genius
of his formidable adversary. And he found himself thus cut
off at the most critical moment, at the solemn minute,
when from his cell he was playing his last trump
card against the coalesced forces that were overwhelming him so terribly.

(12:31):
On the thirteenth of August, as he sat facing the
two councils, his attention was attracted by a newspaper in
which some of Matre Kambell's papers were wrapped up. He
saw heading in very large type eight thirteen. The subheadings
were a fresh murder the excitement in Germany. Has the
secret of the apun been discovered. Lupay turned pale with

(12:53):
anguish blow. He read the words two sensational telegrams reach
us at the moment of going to press. The body
of an old man has been found near Augsburg, with
his throat cut with a knife. The police have succeeded
in identifying the victim, id Steinweg, the man mentioned in
the Kesselbach case. On the other hand, a correspondent telegraphs

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that the famous English detective Holmlock Shears has been hurriedly
summoned to Kun. He will there meet the Emperor and
they will both proceed to Velden's castle. Holmlock Shears is
said to have undertaken to discover the secret of the
apun If he succeeds, it will mean the pitiful failure
of the incomprehensible campaign which Arsene Lupey has been conducting

(13:34):
for the past month. In so strange a fashion, Perhaps
public curiosity was never so much stirred as by the
duel announced to take place between Shears and Dupay. An
invisible duel in the circumstances, an anonymous duel, one might say,
in which everything would happen in the dark, in which
people would be able to judge only by the final results,
and yet an impressive duel, because of all the scandal

(13:56):
that circled around the adventure, and because of the stakes
in dispute between the two irreconcilable enemies now once more
opposed to each other. And it was a question not
of small private interests, of insignificant burglaries, of trumpery individual passions,
but of a matter of really world wide importance, involving
the politics of the three great Western nations, and capable

(14:18):
of disturbing the peace of the world. People waited anxiously,
and no one knew exactly what he was waiting for. For,
after all, if the detective came out victorious in the duel,
if he found the letters, who would ever know? What
proof would any one have of his triumph? In the main,
all hopes were centered on du pant On, his well
known habit of calling the public to witness his acts.

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What was he going to do? How could he avert
the frightful danger that threatened him? Was even aware of it?
Those were the questions which men asked themselves between the
four walls of his cell. Prisoner fourteen asked himself pretty
nearly the same questions, And he, for his part, was
not stimulated by idle curiosity, but by real uneasiness, by

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constant anxiety. He felt himself irrevocably alone, with impotent hands,
an impotent will, and impotent brain. It availed him nothing
that he was able, ingenious, fearless, heroic. The struggle was
being carried on without him. His part was now finished.
He had joined all the pieces and set all the
springs of the great machine that was to produce, that was,

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in a matter of speaking, automatically, to manufacture his liberty.
And it was impossible for him to make a single
movement to improve and supervise his handiwork at the date
fixed the machine would start working. Between now and then,
a thousand adverse incidents might spring up, a thousand obstacles arise,
without his having the means to combat those incidents or

(15:45):
remove those obstacles. Lupaye spent the unhappiest hours of his life.
At that time. He doubted himself. He wondered whether his
existence would be buried for good in the horror of
a jail, had he not made a mistake in his calculations.
Was it not childish to believe that the event that
was to set him free would happen on the appointed date? Madness,

(16:06):
he cried, my argument is false. How can I expect
such a concurrence of circumstances? There will be some little
fact that will destroy all the inevitable grain of sand
Steinweg's death and the disappearance of the documents which the
old man was to make over to him, did not
trouble him greatly. The documents he could have done without
in case of need, and with the few words which

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Steinveig had told him, he was able, by dint of
guesswork and his native genius, to reconstruct what the Emperor's
letters contained, and to draw up the plan of battle
that would lead to victory. But he thought of Holmlock Shears,
who was over there now in the very center of
the battlefield, and who was seeking, and who would find
the letters, thus demolishing the edifice so patiently built up.

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And he thought of the other one, the implacable enemy,
lurking round the prison, hidden in the prison, perhaps, who
guessed his most secret plans even before they were hatched.
In the mystery of his thought. The seventeenth of August,
the eighteenth of August, the nineteenth two more days, two centuries,
rather the interminable minutes. Du Pain, usually so calm, so

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entirely master of himself, so ingenious at providing matter for
his own amusement, was feverish, exultant, and depressed by turns,
powerless against the enemy, mistrusting everything into everybody morose. The
twentieth of August, he would have wished to act, and
he could not. Whatever he did, it was impossible for

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him to hasten the hour of the catastrophe. This catastrophe
would take place or would not take place. But Dupain
would not know for certain until the last hour of
the last day was spent to the last minute. Then
and then alone he would know of the definite failure
of his scheme, the inevitable failure, he kept on repeating
to himself. Success depends upon circumstances far too subtle, and

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can be obtained only by methods far too psychological. There
is no doubt that I am deceiving myself as to
the value and the range of my weapons. And yet
hope returned to him. He weighed his chances. They suddenly
seemed to him real and formidable. The fact was going
to happen as he had foreseen it happening, and for
the very reasons which he had expected. It was inevitable, Yes, inevitable,

(18:23):
unless indeed Shears discovered the hiding place. And again he
thought of Shears, and again, an immense sense of discouragement
overwhelmed him. The last day, he woke late after a
night of bad dreams. He saw nobody that day, neither
the examining magistrate nor his council. The afternoon dragged along
slowly and dismally, and the evening came, the murky evening

(18:47):
of the cells. He was in a fever. His heart
beat in his chest like the clapper of a bell,
and the minutes passed irretrievably. At nine o'clock nothing, at
ten o'clock nothing. With all his nerves tense as the
string of a bow, he listened to the vague prison sounds,

(19:07):
tried to catch through those inexorable walls all that might
trickle in from the life outside. Oh, we would have
liked to stay the march of time and to give
destiny a little more leisure. But what was the good?
Was everything not finished? Oh? He cried, I am going mad.
If all this were only over, that would be better.
I can begin again differently. I shall try something else.

(19:30):
But I can't go on like this. I can't go on.
He held his head in his hands, pressing it with
all his might, locking himself within himself and concentrating his
whole mind upon one subject, as though he wished to provoke,
as though he wished to create the formidable, stupefying, inadmissible
event to which he had attached his independence and his fortune.

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It must happen, he muttered, It must, and it must
not because I wish it, but because it is logical,
and it shall happen. It shall happen. He beat his
skull with his fists, and delirious words rose to his lips.
The key grated in the lock. In his frenzy, he

(20:14):
had not heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor.
And now suddenly a ray of light penetrated into his cell,
and the door opened. Three men entered. Lupay had not
a moment of surprise. The unheard of miracle was being worked,
and this at once seemed to him natural and normal,
in perfect agreement with truth and justice. But a rush

(20:34):
of pride flooded his whole being. At this minute he
really received a clear sensation of his own strength and intelligence.
Shall I switch on the light, asked one of the
three men, in whom Lupey recognized the governor of the prison. No,
replied the toller of his companions, speaking in a foreign
accent the slantern. Will do shall I go? Act according

(20:56):
to your duty? Sir, said the same individual. My instructions
from the Prefect of Police are to comply entirely with
your wishes. In that case, sir, it would be preferable
that you should withdraw. Monsieur Barelli went away, leaving the
door half open, and remained outside within call. The visitor
exchanged a few words with the one who had not

(21:16):
yet spoken, and Dupayne vainly tried to distinguish his features
in the shade. He saw only two dark forms, clad
in wide motoring cloaks and wearing caps with the flaps lowered.
Are you Ar Saindoupin, asked the man, turning the light
of the lantern full on his face. He smiled, yes,
I am the person known as Ar Sagnoupin at present,

(21:37):
a prisoner in the Sante sell fourteen second division. Was
it you, continued the visitor, who published in the Granjonnal
a series of more or less fanciful notes in which
there is a question of a so called collection of letters.
Dupagne interrupted him. I beg your pardon, sir, But before
pursuing this conversation, the object of which between ourselves is

(21:58):
none too clear to me. I should be much obliged
if you would tell me to whom I had the
honor of speaking. Absolutely unnecessary, replied the stranger. Absolutely essential,
declared Liupee. Why for reasons of politeness, sir? You know
my name and I do not know yours. This implies
a disregard of good form, which I cannot suffer. The

(22:20):
stranger lost patience. The mere fact that the governor of
the prison brought us here shows that Monsieur Bearelli does
not know his manners, said Lupeye. Monsieur Borelli should have
introduced us to each other. We are equals here, sir.
It is no case of a superior and an inferior,
of a prisoner and a visitor who condescends to come
and see him. There are two men here, and one

(22:41):
of those two men has a hat on his head,
which he ought not to have. Now look here, take
the lesson as you please, sir, said Lupeye. The stranger
came closer to him and tried to speak the hat first,
said du Peye, the hat. You shall listen to me. No, yes, yes, no.

(23:02):
Matters were becoming virulent, stupidly the second stranger, the one
who had kept silent, placed his hand on his companion's
shoulder and said in German, leave him to me. Why
I was understood, lupush and go away, leaving you alone. Yes,
but the door, shut it and walk away. But this man,

(23:23):
you know who he is, A send lupey go away.
The other went out, cursing under his breath. Pull the door,
cried the second visitor, harder than that altogether. That's right.
Then he turned, took the lantern and raised it slowly.
Shall I tell you who I am? He asked? No,

(23:44):
replied liupee, and why because I know, ah you are
the visitor I was expecting. I yes, sire. End of
Chapter ten