I
TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND FRANCS REWARD!
"Lupin," I said, "tell me something about yourself."
"Why, what would you have me tell you? Everybody knows my life!" replied Lupin, who lay drowsing on the sofa in my study.
"Nobody knows it!" I protested. "People know from your letters in the newspapers that you were mixed up in this case, that you started that case. But the part which you played in it all, the plain facts of the story, the upshot of the mystery: these are things of which they know nothing."
"Pooh! A heap of uninteresting twaddle!"
"What! Your present of fifty thousand francs to Nicolas Dugrival's wife! Do you call that uninteresting? And what about the way in which you solved the puzzle of the three pictures?"
Lupin laughed:
"Yes, that was a queer puzzle, certainly. I can suggest a title for you if you like: what do you say to The Sign of the Shadow?"
"And your successes in society and with the fair sex?" I continued. "The dashing Arsène's love-affairs!.. And the clue to your good actions? Those chapters in your life to which you have so often alluded under the names of The Wedding-ring, Shadowed by Death, and so on!.. Why delay these confidences and confessions, my dear Lupin?.. Come, do what I ask you!.."
It was at the time when Lupin, though already famous, had not yet fought his biggest battles; the time that preceded the great adventures of The Hollow Needle and 813. He had not yet dreamt of annexing the accumulated treasures of the French Royal House1 nor of changing the map of Europe under the Kaiser's nose2: he contented himself with milder surprises and humbler profits, making his daily effort, doing evil from day to day and doing a little good as well, naturally and for the love of the thing, like a whimsical and compassionate Don Quixote.
He was silent; and I insisted:
"Lupin, I wish you would!"
To my astonishment, he replied:
"Take a sheet of paper, old fellow, and a pencil."
I obeyed with alacrity, delighted at the thought that he at last meant to dictate to me some of those pages which he knows how to clothe with such vigour and fancy, pages which I, unfortunately, am obliged to spoil with tedious explanations and boring developments.
"Are you ready?" he asked.
"Quite."
"Write down, 20, 1, 11, 5, 14, 15."
"What?"
"Write it down, I tell you."
He was now sitting up, with his eyes turned to the open window and his fingers rolling a Turkish cigarette. He continued:
"Write down, 21, 14, 14, 5…"
He stopped. Then he went on:
"3, 5, 19, 19 …"
And, after a pause:
"5, 18, 25 …"
Was he mad? I looked at him hard and, presently, I saw that his eyes were no longer listless, as they had been a little before, but keen and attentive and that they seemed to be watching, somewhere, in space, a sight that apparently captivated them.
Meanwhile, he dictated, with intervals between each number:
"18, 9, 19, 11, 19 …"
There was hardly anything to be seen through the window but a patch of blue sky on the right and the front of the building opposite, an old private house, whose shutters were closed as usual. There was nothing particular about all this, no detail that struck me as new among those which I had had before my eyes for years…
"1, 2…"
And suddenly I understood … or rather I thought I understood, for how could I admit that Lupin, a man so essentially level-headed under his mask of frivolity, could waste his time upon such childish nonsense? What he was counting was the intermittent flashes of a ray of sunlight playing on the dingy front of the opposite house, at the height of the second floor!
"15, 22 …" said Lupin.
The flash disappeared for a few seconds and then struck the house again, successively, at regular intervals, and disappeared once more.
I had instinctively counted the flashes and I said, aloud:
"5…"
"Caught the idea? I congratulate you!" he replied, sarcastically.
He went to the window and leant out, as though to discover the exact direction followed by the ray of light. Then he came and lay on the sofa again, saying:
"It's your turn now. Count away!"
The fellow seemed so positive that I did as he told me. Besides, I could not help confessing that there was something rather curious about the ordered frequency of those gleams on the front of the house opposite, those appearances and disappearances, turn and turn about, like so many flash signals.
They obviously came from a house on our side of the street, for the sun was entering my windows slantwise. It was as though some one were alternately opening and shutting a casement, or, more likely, amusing himself by making sunlight flashes with a pocket-mirror.
"It's a child having a game!" I cried, after a moment or two, feeling a little irritated by the trivial occupation that had been thrust upon me.
"Never mind, go on!"
And I counted away… And I put down rows of figures… And the sun continued to play in front of me, with mathematical precision.
"Well?" said Lupin, after a longer pause than usual.
"Why, it seems finished… There has been nothing for some minutes…"
We waited and, as no more light flashed through space, I said, jestingly:
