And what was the scene of the whole of the present tragedy? Ambrumesy, on the road between the Havre and Dieppe.

Rouen, Dieppe, the Havre: always the Cauchois triangle.

And so, a few years earlier, possessing the pamphlet and knowing the hiding-place in which Marie Antoinette had concealed the doc.u.ment, a.r.s.ene Lupin had ended by laying his hand on the famous book of hours. Once in possession of the doc.u.ment, he took the field, "found" and settled down as in a conquered country.

Beautrelet took the field.

He set out in genuine excitement, thinking of the same journey which Lupin had taken, of the same hopes with which he must have throbbed when he thus went in search of the tremendous secret which was to arm him with so great a power. Would his, Beautrelet's efforts have the same victorious results?

He left Rouen early in the morning, on foot, with his face very much disguised and his bag at the end of a stick on his shoulder, like an apprentice doing his round of France. He walked straight to Duclair, where he lunched. On leaving this town, he followed the Seine and practically did not lose sight of it again. His instinct, strengthened, moreover, by numerous influences, always brought him back to the sinuous banks of the stately river. When the Chateau du Malaquis was robbed, the objects stolen from Baron Cahorn's collection were sent by way of the Seine. The old carvings removed from the chapel at Ambrumesy were carried to the Seine bank. He pictured the whole fleet of pinnaces performing a regular service between Rouen and the Havre and draining the works of art and treasures from a countryside to dispatch them thence to the land of millionaires.

"I'm burning! I'm burning!" muttered the boy, gasping under the truth, which came to him in a mighty series of shocks and took away his breath.

The checks encountered on the first few days, did not discourage him. He had a firm and profound belief in the correctness of the supposition that was guiding him. It was bold, perhaps, and extravagant; no matter: it was worthy of the adversary pursued. The supposition was on a level with the prodigious reality that bore the name of Lupin. With a man like that, of what good could it be to look elsewhere than in the domain of the enormous, the exaggerated, the superhuman?

Jumieges, the Mailleraye, Saint-Wandrille, Caudebec, Tancarville, Quillebeuf were places filled with his memories. How often he must have contemplated the glory of their Gothic steeples or the splendor of their immense ruins!

But the Havre, the neighborhood of the Havre drew Isidore like a beacon-fire.

"The kings of France carry secrets that often decide the fate of towns!"

Cryptic words which, suddenly, for Beautrelet, shone bright with clearness! Was this not an exact statement of the reasons that determined Francis I. to create a town on this spot and was not the fate of the Havre-de-Grace linked with the very secret of the Needle?

"That's it, that's it," stammered Beautrelet, excitedly. "The old Norman estuary, one of the essential points, one of the original centres around which our French nationality was formed, is completed by those two forces, one in full view, alive, known to all, the new port commanding the ocean and opening on the world; the other dim and obscure, unknown and all the more alarming, inasmuch as it is invisible and impalpable. A whole side of the history of France and of the royal house is explained by the Needle, even as it explains the whole story of a.r.s.ene Lupin. The same sources of energy and power supply and renew the fortunes of kings and of the adventurer."

Beautrelet ferreted and snuffed from village to village, from the river to the sea, with his nose in the wind, his ears p.r.i.c.ked, trying to compel the inanimate things to surrender their deep meaning. Ought this hill-slope to be questioned? Or that forest? Or the houses of this hamlet? Or was it among the insignificant phrases spoken by that peasant yonder that he might hope to gather the one little illuminating word?

One morning, he was lunching at an inn, within sight of Honfleur, the old city of the estuary. Opposite him was sitting one of those heavy, red-haired Norman horse-dealers who do the fairs of the district, whip in hand and clad in a long smock-frock. After a moment, it seemed to Beautrelet that the man was looking at him with a certain amount of attention, as though he knew him or, at least, was trying to recognize him.

"Pooh," he thought, "there's some mistake: I've never seen that merchant before, nor he me."

As a matter of fact, the man appeared to take no further interest in him. He lit his pipe, called for coffee and brandy, smoked and drank.

When Beautrelet had finished his meal, he paid and rose to go. A group of men entered just as he was about to leave and he had to stand for a few seconds near the table at which the horse-dealer sat. He then heard the man say in a low voice:

"Good-afternoon, M. Beautrelet."

Without hesitation, Isidore sat down beside the man and said:

"Yes, that is my name-but who are you? How did you know me?"

"That's not difficult-and yet I've only seen your portrait in the papers. But you are so badly-what do you call it in French-so badly made-up."

He had a p.r.o.nounced foreign accent and Beautrelet seemed to perceive, as he looked at him, that he too wore a facial disguise that entirely altered his features.

"Who are you?" he repeated. "Who are you?"

The stranger smiled:

"Don't you recognize me?"

"No, I never saw you before."

"Nor I you. But think. The papers print my portrait also-and pretty often. Well, have you got it?"

"No."

"Holmlock Shears."

It was an amusing and, at the same time, a significant meeting. The boy at once saw the full bearing of it. After an exchange of compliments, he said to Shears:

"I suppose that you are here-because of 'him'?"

"Yes."

"So-so-you think we have a chance-in this direction."

"I'm sure of it."

Beautrelet's delight at finding that Shears's opinion agreed with his own was not unmingled with other feelings. If the Englishman attained his object, it meant that, at the very best, the two would share the victory; and who could tell that Shears would not attain it first?

"Have you any proofs? Any clues?"

"Don't be afraid," grinned the Englishman, who understood his uneasiness. "I am not treading on your heels. With you, it's the doc.u.ment, the pamphlet: things that do not inspire me with any great confidence."

"And with you?"

"With me, it's something different."

"Should I be indiscreet, if-?"

"Not at all. You remember the story of the coronet, the story of the Duc de Charmerac?"[7]

[7] a.r.s.ene Lupin, play in four acts, by Maurice Leblanc and Francis de Croisset.

"Yes."

"You remember Victoire, Lupin's old foster-mother, the one whom my good friend Ganimard allowed to escape in a sham prison-van?"

"Yes."

"I have found Victoire's traces. She lives on a farm, not far from National Road No. 25. National Road No. 25 is the road from the Havre to Lille. Through Victoire I shall easily get at Lupin."

"It will take long."

"No matter! I have dropped all my cases. This is the only one I care about. Between Lupin and me, it's a fight-a fight to the death."

He spoke these words with a sort of ferocity that betrayed all his bitterness at the humiliations which he had undergone, all his fierce hatred of the great enemy who had tricked him so cruelly.