"Go away, now," he whispered, "we are observed. It's dangerous. But mark my words: on the day when Lupin and I meet face to face, it will be-it will be tragic."

Beautrelet felt quite rea.s.sured on leaving Shears: he need not fear that the Englishman would gain on him. And here was one more proof which this chance interview had brought him: the road from the Havre to Lille pa.s.ses through Dieppe! It is the great seaside road of the Caux country, the coast road commanding the Channel cliffs! And it was on a farm near this road that Victoire was installed, Victoire, that is to say, Lupin, for one did not move without the other, the master without the blindly devoted servant.

"I'm burning! I'm burning!" he repeated to himself. "Whenever circ.u.mstances bring me a new element of information, it confirms my supposition. On the one hand, I have the absolute certainty of the banks of the Seine; on the other, the certainty of the National Road. The two means of communication meet at the Havre, the town of Francis I., the town of the secret. The boundaries are contracting. The Caux country is not large; and, even so, I have only the western portion of the Caux country to search."

He set to work with renewed stubbornness:

"Anything that Lupin has found," he kept on saying to himself, "there is no reason for my not finding."

Certainly, Lupin had some great advantage over him, perhaps a thorough acquaintance with the country, a precise knowledge of the local legends, or less than that, a memory: invaluable advantages these, for he, Beautrelet, knew nothing, was totally ignorant of the country, which he had first visited at the time of the Ambrumesy burglary and then only rapidly, without lingering.

But what did it matter? Though he had to devote ten years of his life to this investigation, he would carry it to a successful issue. Lupin was there. He could see him, he could feel him there. He expected to come upon him at the next turn of the road, on the skirt of the next wood, outside the next village. And, though continually disappointed, he seemed to find in each disappointment a fresh reason for persisting.

Often, he would fling himself on the slope by the roadside and plunge into wild examination of the copy of the doc.u.ment which he always carried on him, a copy, that is to say, with vowels taking the place of the figures:

e . a . a . . e . . e . a . . a . .

a ... e . e . . e . oi . e . . e .

. ou . . e . o ... e . . e . o . . e

[Ill.u.s.tration: drawing of an outline of paper with writing and drawing on it-numbers, dots, some letters, signs and symbols...]

ai . ui . . e . . eu . e Often, also, according to his habit, he would lie down flat on his stomach in the tall gra.s.s and think for hours. He had time enough. The future belonged to him.

With wonderful patience, he tramped from the Seine to the sea, and from the sea to the Seine, going gradually farther, retracing his steps and never quitting the ground until, theoretically speaking, there was not a chance left of gathering the smallest particle upon it.

He studied and explored Montivilliers and Saint-Romani and Octeville and Gonneville and Criquetot.

At night, he knocked at the peasants' doors and asked for a lodging. After dinner, they smoked together and chatted. He made them tell him the stories which they told one another on the long winter nights. And he never omitted to insinuate, slily:

"What about the Needle? The legend of the Hollow Needle? Don't you know that?"

"Upon my word, I don't-never heard of it-"

"Just think-an old wives' tale-something that has to do with a needle. An enchanted needle, perhaps.-I don't know-"

Nothing. No legend, no recollection. And the next morning he walked blithely away again.

One day, he pa.s.sed through the pretty village of Saint-Jouin, which overlooks the sea, and descending among the chaos of rocks that have slipped from cliffs, he climbed up to the tableland and went in the direction of the dry valley of Bruneval, Cap d'Antifer and the little creek of Belle-Plage. He was walking gaily and lightly, feeling a little tired, perhaps, but glad to be alive, so glad, even, that he forgot Lupin and the mystery of the Hollow Needle and Victoire and Shears, and interested himself in the sight of nature: the blue sky, the great emerald sea, all glittering in the sunshine.

Some straight slopes and remains of brick walls, in which he seemed to recognize the vestiges of a Roman camp, interested him. Then his eyes fell upon a sort of little castle, built in imitation of an ancient fort, with cracked turrets and Gothic windows. It stood on a jagged, rugged, rising promontory, almost detached from the cliff. A barred gate, flanked by iron hand-rails and bristling spikes, guarded the narrow pa.s.sage.

Beautrelet succeeded in climbing over, not without some difficulty. Over the pointed door, which was closed with an old rusty lock, he read the words:

FORT DE FREFOSSE

He did not attempt to enter, but, turning to the right, after going down a little slope, he embarked upon a path that ran along a ridge of land furnished with a wooden handrail. Right at the end was a cave of very small dimensions, forming a sort of watch-tower at the point of the rock in which it was hollowed out, a rock falling abruptly into the sea.

There was just room to stand up in the middle of the cave. Mult.i.tudes of inscriptions crossed one another on the walls. An almost square hole, cut in the stone, opened like a dormer window on the land side, exactly opposite Fort Frefosse, the crenellated top of which appeared at thirty or forty yards' distance.

Beautrelet threw off his knapsack and sat down. He had had a hard and tiring day. He fell asleep for a little. Then the cool wind that blew inside the cave woke him up. He sat for a few minutes without moving, absent-minded, vague-eyed. He tried to reflect, to recapture his still torpid thoughts. And, as he recovered his consciousness, he was on the point of rising, when he received the impression that his eyes, suddenly fixed, suddenly wide-open, saw-

A thrill shook him from head to foot. His hands clutched convulsively and he felt the beads of perspiration forming at the roots of his hair:

"No, no," he stammered. "It's a dream, an hallucination. Let's look: it's not possible!"

He plunged down on his knees and stooped over. Two huge letters, each perhaps a foot long, appeared cut in relief in the granite of the floor. Those two letters, clumsily, but plainly carved, with their corners rounded and their surface smoothed by the wear and tear of centuries, were a D and an F.

D and F! Oh, bewildering miracle! D and F: just two letters of the doc.u.ment! Oh, Beautrelet had no need to consult it to bring before his mind that group of letters in the fourth line, the line of the measurements and indications! He knew them well! They were inscribed for all time at the back of his pupils, encrusted for good and all in the very substance of his brain!

He rose to his feet, went down the steep road, climbed back along the old fort, hung on to the spikes of the rail again, in order to pa.s.s, and walked briskly toward a shepherd whose flock was grazing some way off on a dip in the tableland:

"That cave, over there-that cave-"

His lips trembled and he tried to find the words that would not come. The shepherd looked at him in amazement. At last, Isidore repeated:

"Yes, that cave-over there-to the right of the fort. Has it a name?"

"Yes, I should think so. All the Etretat folk like to call it the Demoiselles."

"What?-What?-What's that you say?"

"Why, of course-it's the Chambre des Demoiselles."

Isidore felt like flying at his throat, as though all the truth lived in that man and he hoped to get it from him at one swoop, to tear it from him.

The Demoiselles! One of the words, one of the only three known words of the doc.u.ment!

A whirlwind of madness shook Beautrelet where he stood. And it rose all around him, blew upon him like a tempestuous squall that came from the sea, that came from the land, that came from every direction and whipped him with great lashes of the truth.

He understood. The doc.u.ment appeared to him in its real sense. The Chambre des Demoiselles-Etretat-

"That's it," he thought, his brain filled with light, "it must be that. But why didn't I guess earlier?"

He said to the shepherd, in a low voice:

"That will do-go away-you can go-thank you."

The man, not knowing what to think, whistled to his dog and went.

Left alone, Beautrelet returned to the fort. He had almost pa.s.sed it when, suddenly, he dropped to the ground and lay cowering against a piece of wall. And, wringing his hands, he thought:

"I must be mad! If 'he' were to see me! Or his accomplices! I've been moving about for an hour-!"

He did not stir another limb.

The sun went down. Little by little, the night mingled with the day, blurring the outline of things.

Then, with little imperceptible movements, flat on his stomach, gliding, crawling, he crept along one of the points of the promontory to the extreme edge of the cliff.