Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 8, 2025
But, suddenly, as he was opening the gate, a shot rang out, followed by a yell of pain. He returned at a run, went round the house, leapt up the steps and rushed to the dining-room: "Blast it all, what are you doing there, you two?" Gilbert and Vaucheray, locked in a furious embrace, were rolling on the floor, uttering cries of rage. Their clothes were dripping with blood.
Vaucheray observes a stolid sullenness and is awaiting the fatal event with no little courage: "'Crikey, he says, 'I can't say I'm delighted; but I've got to go through it and I shall keep my end up. And he adds, 'Death I don't care a hang about! What worries me is the thought that they're going to cut my head off.
"One's got to know everything when one has the honour of breaking into people's houses. You numskull! I'll remember you and Vaucheray... a nice pair of gossoons!..." The sight of the furniture on the first floor pacified Lupin and he started on his inventory with the satisfied air of a collector who has looked in to treat himself to a few works of art: "By Jingo!
"And the key of the cupboard?" "Vaucheray took it...." "Did he open it?" "And did he find what he was after?" "Yes." "And you wanted to take the thing from him. What sort of thing was it? The reliquary? No, it was too small for that.... Then what was it? Answer me, will you?..." Lupin gathered from Gilbert's silence and the determined expression on his face that he would not obtain a reply.
In any case, a telegram will bring him to Paris at once." "And do you think that he has enough influence?" "To obtain the pardon of Vaucheray and Gilbert personally. No. If he had, we should have set him to work before now. But he is intelligent enough to understand the value of what we are bringing him and to act without a moment's delay."
Then he stretched himself on a couch and rang for his man: "Go to bed, Achille, and don't wake me on any pretence whatever." "Then there's nothing to be done for Gilbert and Vaucheray, governor?" said Achille. "Nothing." "Are they going through it?" "They are going through it." Twenty minutes later Lupin fell into a heavy sleep. It was ten o'clock in the evening.
Mechanically, to divert his thoughts, he turned to his correspondence and tore the wrapper from an evening paper. "The real identity of Vaucheray, one of the alleged murderers of Leonard the valet, has at last been ascertained. He is a miscreant of the worst type, a hardened criminal who has already twice been sentenced for murder, in default, under another name.
The answer was "Yes" to every count of the indictment, a verdict of guilty without extenuating circumstances. The prisoners were brought in. Standing up, but staggering and white-faced, they received their sentence of death. And, amid the great, solemn silence, in which the anxiety of the onlookers was mingled with pity, the assize-president asked: "Have you anything more to say, Vaucheray?"
"It was Vaucheray... it was Vaucheray who did it..." Pale with anger, Lupin caught hold of him: "It was Vaucheray, was it?... And you too, you blackguard, since you were there and didn't stop him! Blood! Blood! You know I won't have it... Well, it's a bad lookout for you, my fine fellows... You'll have to pay the damage! And you won't get off cheaply either... Mind the guillotine!"
"Upon my word, I couldn't tell you: we've both of us been discussing it for weeks." "The thing is, I don't trust Vaucheray: he's a low ruffian when one gets to know him... I can't make out why I don't get rid of him..." "Oh, governor!" "Yes, yes, I mean what I say: he's a dangerous fellow, to say nothing of the fact that he has some rather serious peccadilloes on his conscience."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking