style="font-size:15px;"> "And she bows to you?" I exclaimed, in spite of myself.
He caught me by the arm and, fiercely:
"Do you think that I am Lupin to her? Do you think that I am a burglar in her eyes, a rogue, a cheat?.. Why, I might be the lowest of miscreants, I might be a murderer even … and still she would bow to me!"
"Why? Because she loved you once?"
"Rot! That would be an additional reason, on the contrary, why she should now despise me."
"What then?"
"I am the man who gave her back her son!"
III
THE SIGN OF THE SHADOW
"I received your telegram and here I am," said a gentleman with a grey moustache, who entered my study, dressed in a dark-brown frock-coat and a wide-brimmed hat, with a red ribbon in his buttonhole. "What's the matter?"
Had I not been expecting Arsène Lupin, I should certainly never have recognized him in the person of this old half-pay officer:
"What's the matter?" I echoed. "Oh, nothing much: a rather curious coincidence, that's all. And, as I know that you would just as soon clear up a mystery as plan one…"
"Well?"
"You seem in a great hurry!"
"I am … unless the mystery in question is worth putting myself out for. So let us get to the point."
"Very well. Just begin by casting your eye on this little picture, which I picked up, a week or two ago, in a grimy old shop on the other side of the river. I bought it for the sake of its Empire frame, with the palm-leaf ornaments on the mouldings … for the painting is execrable."
"Execrable, as you say," said Lupin, after he had examined it, "but the subject itself is rather nice. That corner of an old courtyard, with its rotunda of Greek columns, its sun-dial and its fish-pond and that ruined well with the Renascence roof and those stone steps and stone benches: all very picturesque."
"And genuine," I added. "The picture, good or bad, has never been taken out of its Empire frame. Besides, it is dated… There, in the left-hand bottom corner: those red figures, 15. 4. 2, which obviously stand for 15 April, 1802."
"I dare say … I dare say… But you were speaking of a coincidence and, so far, I fail to see…"
I went to a corner of my study, took a telescope, fixed it on its stand and pointed it, through the open window, at the open window of a little room facing my flat, on the other side of the street. And I asked Lupin to look through it.
He stooped forward. The slanting rays of the morning sun lit up the room opposite, revealing a set of mahogany furniture, all very simple, a large bed and a child's bed hung with cretonne curtains.
"Ah!" cried Lupin, suddenly. "The same picture!"
"Exactly the same!" I said. "And the date: do you see the date, in red? 15. 4. 2."
"Yes, I see… And who lives in that room?"
"A lady … or, rather, a workwoman, for she has to work for her living … needlework, hardly enough to keep herself and her child."
"What is her name?"
"Louise d'Ernemont… From what I hear, she is the great-granddaughter of a farmer-general who was guillotined during the Terror."
"Yes, on the same day as André Chénier," said Lupin. "According to the memoirs of the time, this d'Ernemont was supposed to be a very rich man." He raised his head and said, "It's an interesting story… Why did you wait before telling me?"
"Because this is the 15th of April."
"Well?"
"Well, I discovered yesterday – I heard them talking about it in the porter's box – that the 15th of April plays an important part in the life of Louise d'Ernemont."
"Nonsense!"
"Contrary to her usual habits, this woman who works every day of her life, who keeps her two rooms tidy, who cooks the lunch which her little girl eats when she comes home from the parish school … this woman, on the 15th of April, goes out with the child at ten o'clock in the morning and does not return until nightfall. And this has happened for years and in all weathers. You must admit that there is something queer about this date which I find on an old picture, which is inscribed on another, similar picture and which controls the annual movements of the descendant of d'Ernemont the farmer-general."
"Yes, it's curious … you're quite right," said Lupin, slowly. "And don't you know where she goes to?"
"Nobody knows. She does not confide in a soul. As a matter of fact, she talks very little."
"Are you sure of your information?"
"Absolutely. And the best proof of its accuracy is that here she comes."
A door had opened at the back of the room opposite, admitting a little girl of seven or eight, who came and looked out of the window. A lady appeared behind her, tall, good-looking still and wearing a sad and gentle air. Both of them were ready and dressed, in clothes which were simple in themselves, but which pointed to a love of neatness and a certain elegance on the part of the mother.
"You see," I whispered, "they are going out."
And presently the mother took the child by the hand and they left the room together.
Lupin caught up his hat:
"Are you coming?"
My curiosity was too great for me to raise the least objection. I went downstairs with Lupin.
As we stepped into the street, we saw my neighbour enter a baker's shop. She bought two rolls and placed them in a little basket which her daughter was carrying and which seemed already to contain some other provisions. Then they went in the direction of the outer boulevards and followed them as far as the Place de l'Étoile, where they turned down the Avenue Kléber to walk toward Passy.
Lupin strolled silently along, evidently obsessed by a train of thought which I was glad to have provoked. From time to time, he uttered a sentence which showed me the thread of his reflections; and I was able to see that the riddle remained as much a mystery to him as to myself.
Louise d'Ernemont, meanwhile, had branched off to the left, along the Rue Raynouard, a quiet old street in which Franklin and Balzac once lived, one of those streets which, lined with old-fashioned houses and walled gardens, give you the impression of being in a country-town. The Seine flows at the foot of the slope which the street crowns; and a number of lanes run down to the river.
My neighbour took one of these narrow, winding, deserted lanes. The first building, on the right, was a house the front of which faced the Rue Raynouard. Next came a moss-grown wall, of a height above the ordinary, supported by buttresses and bristling with broken glass.
Half-way along the wall was a low, arched door. Louise d'Ernemont stopped in front of this door and opened it with a key which seemed to us enormous. Mother and child entered and closed the door.
"In any case," said Lupin, "she has nothing
