Part 79 (2/2)
”I don't need your a.s.sistance for that.”
”And if I give you my word of honour, Monsieur le President, to return the moment my task is done and give myself up?”
Valenglay struck the table with his fist and, raising his voice, addressed Don Luis with a certain genial familiarity:
”Come, a.r.s.ene Lupin,” he said, ”play the game! If you really want to have your way, pay for it! Hang it all, remember that after all this business, and especially after the incidents of last night, you and Florence Leva.s.seur will be to the public what you already are: the responsible actors in the tragedy; nay, more, the real and only criminals. And it is now, when Florence Leva.s.seur has taken to her heels, that you come and ask me for your liberty! Very well, but d.a.m.n it, set a price to it and don't haggle with me!”
”I am not haggling, Monsieur le President,” declared Don Luis, in a very straightforward manner and tone. ”What I have to offer you is certainly much more extraordinary and tremendous than you imagine. But if it were twice as extraordinary and twice as tremendous, it would not count once Florence Leva.s.seur's life is in danger. Nevertheless, I was ent.i.tled to try for a less expensive transaction. Of this your words remove all hope.
I will therefore lay my cards upon the table, as you demand, and as I had made up my mind to do.”
He sat down opposite Valenglay, in the att.i.tude of a man treating with another on equal terms.
”I shall not be long. A single sentence, Monsieur le President, will express the bargain which I am proposing to the Prime Minister of my country.”
And, looking Valenglay straight in the eyes, he said slowly, syllable by syllable:
”In exchange for twenty-four hours' liberty and no more, undertaking on my honour to return here to-morrow morning and to return here either with Florence, to give you every proof of her innocence, or without her, to const.i.tute myself a prisoner, I offer you--”
He took his time and, in a serious voice, concluded:
”I offer you a kingdom, Monsieur le President du Conseil.”
The sentence sounded bombastic and ludicrous, sounded silly enough to provoke a shrug of the shoulders, sounded like one of those sentences which only an imbecile or a lunatic could utter. And yet Valenglay remained impa.s.sive. He knew that, in such circ.u.mstances as the present, the man before him was not the man to indulge in jesting.
And he knew it so fully that, instinctively, accustomed as he was to momentous political questions in which secrecy is of the utmost importance, he cast a glance toward the Prefect of Police, as though M.
Desmalions's presence in the room hindered him.
”I positively insist,” said Don Luis, ”that Monsieur le Prefet de Police shall stay and hear what I have to say. He is better able than any one else to appreciate the value of it; and he will bear witness to its correctness in certain particulars.”
”Speak!” said Valenglay.
His curiosity knew no bounds. He did not much care whether Don Luis's proposal could have any practical results. In his heart he did not believe in it. But what he wanted to know was the lengths to which that demon of audacity was prepared to go, and on what new prodigious adventure he based the pretensions which he was putting forward so calmly and frankly.
Don Luis smiled:
”Will you allow me?” he asked.
Rising and going to the mantelpiece, he took down from the wall a small map representing Northwest Africa. He spread it on the table, placed different objects on the four corners to hold it in position, and resumed:
”There is one matter, Monsieur le President, which puzzled Monsieur le Prefet de Police and about which I know that he caused inquiries to be made; and that matter is how I employed my time, or, rather, how a.r.s.ene Lupin employed his time during the last three years of his service with the Foreign Legion.”
”Those inquiries were made by my orders,” said Valenglay.
”And they led--?”
”To nothing.”
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