"What are you looking at?"
"Me? I was just admiring your beautiful necklace, Madame."
The woman before me, the Comtesse de la Croisiere, gave me a twinkling smile. She was proud of her necklace, and she had a right to be. For the glinting glistening thing around her neck was not cut glass and paste, it was 24-carat gold, with real diamonds in the settings. She was the famed wife of the millionaire Comte, known simply as M. Croisiere in the trading world. And the necklace about her neck was the famed Éclair de Lune, originally created at the behest of the Sultan of India.
"I have heard its beauty discussed almost as much as your own, Madame."
She smiled, but a look of worry stole over her face, and she seemed to wilt, almost slump, as she stood on the ballroom floor.
"Its beauty," she said, "has been discussed too much."
"Too much? How can that be?"
"He is here." Her voice was flat, but beneath the monotone there was an echo of anguish, of nervous fear and suspicion.
"But who, Madame?"
She shook her head, as if to clear it of some imagining, then explained.
"Monsieur, you met my husband in India, did you not? No, Istanbul. In any case, it hardly matters. You have not spent much time in this country, and you must not have heard of him."
"Of whom?" I said. This time some of my frustrated curiosity made itself known in my voice, and the Comtesse did not delay in replying:
"Arsene Lupin."
My eyes widened.
"The thief? No, Madame, I assure you, I have heard of him. But surely – surely he wouldn't dare."
"He would." The Comtesse's mouth, pinched at its edges, softened a little. Her lips loosened with an eagerness born of her relief at being able to confide in someone, and she said,
"The guests – the newspapers too now – everyone knows what he plans. But they do not know how exactly we discovered it. A week to this date, when my husband and I were out driving, a man called at the house. He would not give his name – indeed, he would not say anything of his business, not even whether it was me or my husband he wanted to see. He asked for a tour around the house, which the servants gave him. We try to be condescending in such things. Then he departed, saying that he would return in a week's time.
"When we came back, our butler told my husband of his visit, and that he wouldn't give his name. My husband thought it might have been one of his friends having a joke, and asked for the man's description and – oh, but that description was the very same as that of Arsene Lupin, the wanted criminal. My husband recognised it immediately.
"And now we have been dreading this date for a week. We couldn't call off the party; my husband didn't want to let such effrontery disturb us and our lives… But it has been a terror. All these added security measures, all these safes and locks – and there are guards posted all round the house, so that he might not escape."
"And a couple of police inspectors too?"
"How did you know? But yes, you are right. They are undercover, I believe." The Comtesse frowned at this. It had been said in public that the La Croisiere's wanted to take advantage of the necklace's insurance policy, and that the whole Arsene Lupin affair was a ruse. No doubt she had not been informed as to who the inspectors were, and was rankling at this.
She continued, "Yet I fear, notwithstanding all these measures, that he will return. Have you read the stories about him in the papers? Walls will not stop him, Monsieur. He will pluck this necklace off my neck as surely as the moon shines, and there will be nothing I can do about it. Oh, what should I do, Monsieur? What can I do?"
I did not hesitate to comfort the agitated Comtesse. "Let us not be hasty. If it is as you say, I think that Arsene Lupin will not come tonight. He would not, let us be reasonable, make his task harder by announcing his presence in advance. You should not be so pessimistic Madame. Ingenious, he may be, but supernatural, no. And he would not be so foolhardy as to plan a crime with no escape route. You said yourself that the house is surrounded; how then could the man possibly hope to get out with the necklace?"
"Yes, yes, you are right," she said, but she did not seem much affected by my words, and when her husband came up and brushed her shoulder a moment later, she nearly leapt out of her skin.
"Monsieur Renard," he said, smiling. "Are you going to regale us with one of your stories this evening?"
"Which one would you like?" I creased my forehead in thought. "I could tell you about the thief that fell in a Constantinople snake pit. I think Monsieur would find that most suitable this evening."
I forced a smile then continued on a more serious note, "But that is if I have the time. My line of work means that tonight…"
I trailed off. The lights in the room were flickering. I caught a glimpse of the Comte give his wife a worried look, then the light vanished altogether and the room was draped in darkness. There were shrieks from some of the younger ladies, loud exclamations of fear and surprise, and I distinctly heard the Comte cursing the 'too modern' electricity. The room filled with laughter, heated complaints and shouting.
'Your necklace, your necklace, Madame!' I cried out over the ruckus. 'Keep hold of it. Don't let go for an instant.'
However, the Comte's servants had already hurried to the fuse box, and in a minute, two at most, the lights burst back into life. Everyone instantly, no longer speaking, but silent, turned their eyes upon the Comtesse. The Éclair de Lune was still there.
She sighed, and it seemed she had been holding her breath. The Comte, looking somewhat pale and sick, but relieved, said, "Ah, thank God it was only an accidental blown fuse. I'd thought it was foul play."
Feeling a little regretful, I spoke up over the light-hearted murmuring that had begun to build up after his words. "It may have been foul play," I said. "I know I myself told you such a thing was impossible, Madame, but I do not think we should underestimate Arsene Lupin. He would want you to think that everything was all right if he were here. Tell me, did you feel anything touch your neck, when the lights went out?"
"No… Well, only the slightest brush."
"The instant the lights came on," I informed the La Croisiere's, "I saw a man disappear through that door. He was wearing an evening suit, he had a similar height and build to me and he was moving rather quickly for a guest supposed to be unfamiliar with this house."
The Comtesse's grey eyes filled with concern, and the guests muttered with surprise and disbelief, but it was the Comte I focused on.
"How?" he said.
"A substitute necklace. It is famous, there are photos of it everywhere. He could have had a cheap copy made."
The Comtesse looked down at her neck with repressed horror. "I told you. I told you," she said, though it was unclear whether she was talking to me, or her husband, or the room in general.
The Comte had not wasted a second – he rushed through the door I had indicated. I followed, with several of the servants, and a few of the bolder party guests. The Comte led us down a narrow corridor.
"There are not many places he could have gone," he said. "We are very fortunate he took this way."
We came to a room at the end of the corridor. I noticed that the window was open, and it was only the second storey.
"He must have jumped down," the butler said. "Monsieur, what do you think?"
But the Comte was not listening. He was bent over something he had found on the ground, something he almost cradled in his arms.
"What is it?" several of us demanded, and he straightened up and showed us. It was the necklace – as shimmering and pale as the full moon outside, the full moon that shone through the open window.
"He must have dropped it accidentally," said the Comte. "What a stroke of luck!"
"No," I said. "I don't think so." I pointed through the window. "You see that man in the field there, on the other side of the fence. He's one of your guards, isn't he, Monsieur? Madame told me – you put them in to prevent Lupin escaping with the necklace."
"Yes. And in a few minutes one of them should be returning to the house with Arsene Lupin as prisoner."
"Arsene Lupin would not let himself be caught. When he came to this window, he must have caught sight of your guard. He would have already known that you had found out about his visit to your house last week. But he may still have wanted to hazard a chance. When he arrived here, he would have seen that you had taken precautions and that he had no chance of getting out without being caught.
"So, changing his mind, he would have left the incriminating necklace behind, shimmied down that drainpipe there, and returned to the party."
"You mean to say he is among the guests as we speak?"
"I'm positive."
One of the party guests who had accompanied us spoke up, "I agree perfectly with what this young man says." This guest was tall and moustachioed, and his grip was firm as he shook hands with the rest of us. "Inspector Guerin. I think it is vital that, knowing Arsene Lupin is here, we do not let him slip through our fingers. I propose that we check each guest as they leave. My colleague, M. Baba, also of the police, and I will carry out this function if Monsieur Le Comte does not mind."
"He doesn't," said the Comte.
I volunteered my services too – like I mentioned, or almost mentioned before, my line of business is insurance and I met the good Comte whilst pursuing an investigation on a possibly fraudulent insurance claim. "My employers already wish to speak to M. Lupin on the subject of two paintings he stole which they had insured," I explained.
"Thankyou, M. Renard, that is very generous of you. Now let us get out of this shadowy place and back to the ballroom."
The furore of the guests, as we announced to them that Arsene Lupin was among them, was impressive to behold. Many of them were wealthy Parisians, whom Arsene Lupin had already divested of pride and property, and others were afraid that they would become his victims, with him still in the room and a threat.
"He's wearing an evening suit," the Comtesse said, a little redundantly considering the location, "don't forget it."
"But Madame, we cannot presume even that. He may have changed outfit in the time he was absent," I said. I hadn't actually meant to suggest that Arsene Lupin might be swanning about in the guise of a lady, but that's the way she took it, and by the end of the evening, even some ladies who knew each other were exchanging suspicious looks. For, while the party did carry on: the Comte replaced the Comtesse's necklace, giving the forged one as evidence to M. Guerin, the music started up again, and dancing recommenced – while this did happen, the atmosphere of the place was so tense, and the people so nervous, that it made the party almost unpleasant.
Many of the guests left early. The Inspectors and I saw them out at the gate, examining their faces carefully with the aid of a police photo. None of them matched. Arsene Lupin was evidently still at large within the Comte's house. Yet the party wound down, and he still did not show, despite the fact that there were no guests remaining. The Comte came to see us finally, in the dim light of dawn.
Guerin, rubbing his tired eyes, said, "I fear he got away. He could still be in the house. You'll have to keep the guards posted and carry out a search. If he doesn't turn up, you'll have to keep the guards and wait, and if he still doesn't show, that means he's escaped. We'll call in the police to help, of course; we're as concerned as you are, Monsieur."
"It will be done," the Comte said.
"I hope you have the real necklace safe?"
"Yes. I locked it up personally, there is no way he can get to it, if he's still here."
"If he's still here," I said. "I'm beginning to understand why Madame dreaded him so much. He's sly as a fox."
I watched the Comte carefully, feeling a little shiver of recklessness. "Inspectors, before you go, I have one question for you. How did he manage to blow the fuse when he was still in the ballroom to steal the necklace?"
"I can answer that. All you have to do is put in a fuse with a lesser current capacity – a thinner wire – and it's bound to blow soon."
The Comte sighed. "I see. Well, I suppose I will see you later, when you've slept. It's a pity we didn't catch him, I thought we had him for sure."
"Me too," I said. "But at least you've still got the necklace, Monsieur."
I exchanged farewells with the Comte and the two inspectors, then walked to the station and caught the train to Paris. The drama at the La Croisiere's was mentioned in the paper ("Arsene Lupin: Losing his touch?" read Le Monde's headline), but otherwise the week passed quietly until the next Monday.
Blazoned across the newspapers of that day, discussed in a thousand parlours in Paris, was the news of the theft of the Éclair de Lune. How, you ask Well, Lupin was at the party. The article on the event by L'Echo de France offers some illumination.
"Posing as an agent d'assurance, M. Renard, Arsene Lupin managed to win the confidence of the Comte and Comtesse and the two attending police officers. When 'M. Renard' did not return to help with their inquiries they discovered that his address was false, and the company he had claimed to work for had no one of that name in its employ. Arsene Lupin, it seems, has come up trumps again."
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A/N: I'll just make things clear, because I have no way of telling whether I'm too ambiguous or too blazing obvious in the story.
Renard is fox in french.
Agent d'assurance is probably not correct french at all, and la croisiere is really iffy (does croisiere mean cruise?)
The inspectors didn't recognise Lupin because he is a master of disguise, naturellement, (it IS like that in the stories. At one stage his arch-enemy doesn't recognise him), because they were in shadowy rooms or outside a lot of the time, and also because they hadn't even considered the possibility that it was him. He's known to the Comte, after all.
I also did not at all capture the spirit and wit and everything that is Arsene Lupin, more's the pity. Great character.
Disclaimer: I don't need one as I'm pretty sure the copyright has expired. Yay. I hope I haven't unwittingly ripped off some plot or another, though I may have.