Free The Confessions of Arsène Lupin by Maurice Leblanc Page A

subconscious will-power, came downstairs, took the exact road which his father had taken, walked across the garden and sat down either on the steps of the rotunda, which you see here, in the picture, or on the curb of the well. At twenty-seven minutes past five, he rose and went indoors again; and until his death, which occurred in 1820, he never once failed to perform this incomprehensible pilgrimage. Well, the day on which this happened was invariably the 15th of April, the anniversary of the arrest.”
    Maître Valandier was no longer smiling and himself seemed impressed by the amazing story which he was telling us.
    “And, since Charles’s death?” asked Lupin, after a moment’s reflection.
    “Since that time,” replied the lawyer, with a certain solemnity of manner, “for nearly a hundred years, the heirs of Charles and Pauline d’Ernemont have kept up the pilgrimage of the 15th of April. During the first few years they made the most thorough excavations. Every inch of the garden was searched, every clod of ground dug up. All this is now over. They take hardly any pains. All they do is, from time to time, for no particular reason, to turn over a stone or explore the well. For the most part, they are content to sit down on the steps of the rotunda, like the poor madman; and, like him, they wait. And that, you see, is the sad part of their destiny. In those hundred years, all these people who have succeeded one another, from father to son, have lost—what shall I say?—the energy of life. They have no courage left, no initiative. They wait. They wait for the 15th of April; and, when the 15th of April comes, they wait for a miracle to take place. Poverty has ended by overtaking every one of them. My predecessors and I have sold first the house, in order to build another which yields a better rent, followed by bits of the garden and further bits. But, as to that corner over there,” pointing to the picture, “they would rather die than sell it. On this they are all agreed: Louise d’Ernemont, who is the direct heiress of Pauline, as well as the beggars, the workman, the footman, the circus-rider and so on, who represent the unfortunate Charles.”
    There was a fresh pause; and Lupin asked:
    “What is your own opinion, Maître Valandier?”
    “My private opinion is that there’s nothing in it. What credit can we give to the statements of an old servant enfeebled by age? What importance can we attach to the crotchets of a madman? Besides, if the farmer-general had realized his fortune, don’t you think that that fortune would have been found? One could manage to hide a paper, a document, in a confined space like that, but not treasures.”
    “Still, the pictures? …”
    “Yes, of course. But, after all, are they a sufficient proof?”
    Lupin bent over the copy which the solicitor had taken from the cupboard and, after examining it at length, said:
    “You spoke of three pictures.”
    “Yes, the one which you see was handed to my predecessor by the heirs of Charles. Louise d’Ernemont possesses another. As for the third, no one knows what became of it.”
    Lupin looked at me and continued:
    “And do they all bear the same date?”
    “Yes, the date inscribed by Charles d’Ernemont when he had them framed, not long before his death … The same date, that is to say the 15th of April, Year II, according to the revolutionary calendar, as the arrest took place in April, 1794.”
    “Oh, yes, of course,” said Lupin. “The figure 2 means …”
    He thought for a few moments and resumed:
    “One more question, if I may. Did no one ever come forward to solve the problem?”
    Maître Valandier threw up his arms:
    “Goodness gracious me!” he cried. “Why, it was the plague of the office! One of my predecessors, Maître Turbon, was summoned to Passy no fewer than eighteen times, between 1820 and 1843, by the groups of heirs, whom fortune-tellers, clairvoyants, visionaries, impostors of all sorts had promised