Daubrecq, laughing, pushed him away repeatedly, but the man clung to him. He behaved aimost like one out of his mind and, at last, in a genuine fit of madness, half rose to his feet, took the deputy by the throat and flung him back in a chair. Daubrecq struggled, powerless at first, while his veins swelled in his temples. But soon, with a strength far beyond the ordinary, he regained the mastery and deprived his adversary of all power of movement. Then, holding him with one hand, with the other he gave him two great smacks in the face.
The man got up, slowly. He was livid and could hardly stand on his legs. He waited for a moment, as though to recover his self-possession. Then, with a terrifying calmness, he drew a revolver from his pocket and levelled it at Daubrecq.
Daubrecq did not flinch. He even smiled, with a defiant air and without displaying more excitement than if he had been aimed at with a toy pistol.
The man stood for perhaps fifteen or twenty seconds, facing his enemy, with outstretched arm. Then, with the same deliberate slowness, revealing a sell-control which was all the more impressive because it followed upon a fit of extreme excitement, he put up his revolver and, from another pocket, produced his note-case.
Daubrecq took took a step forward.
The man opened the pocketbook. A sheaf of banknotes appeared in sight.
Daubrecq seized and counted them. They were thousand-franc notes, and there were thirty of them.
The man looked on, without a movement of revolt, without a protest. He obviously understood the futility of words. Daubrecq was one of those who do not relent. Why should his visitor waste time in beseeching him or even in revenging himself upon him by uttering vain threats and insults? He had no hope of stricking that unassailable enemy. Even Daubrecq's death would not deliver him from Daubrecq.
He took his hat and went away.
At eleven o'clock in the morning Victoire, on returning from her shopping, handed Lupin a note from his accomplices.
He opened it and read:
"The man who came to see Daubrecq last night is Langeroux the deputy, leader of the independent left. A poor man, with a large family."
"Come," said Lupin, "Daubrecq is nothing more nor less than a blackmailer; but, by Jupiter, he has jolly effective ways of going to work!"
Events tended to confirm Lupin's supposition. Three days later he saw another visitor hand Daubrecq an important sum of money. And, two days after that, one came and left a pearl necklace behind him.
The first was called Dachaumont, a senator and excabinet-minister. The second was the Marquis d'Albufex, a Bonapartist deputy, formerly chief political agent in France of Prince Napoleon.
The scene, in each of these cases, was very similar to Langeroux the deputy's interview, a violent tragic scene, ending in Daubrecq's victory.
"And so on and so forth," thought Lupin, when he received these particulars. "I have been present at four visits. I shall know no more if there are ten, or twenty, or thirty... It is enough for me to learn the names of the visitors from my friends on sentry-go outside. Shall I go and call on them?... What for? They have no reason to confide in me... On the other hand, am I to stay on here, delayed by investigations which lead to nothing and which Victoire can continue just as well without me?"
“You can, and you will.”
“Indeed!”
“You can’t bluff me, Count Sylvius.” Holmes‘s eyes, as he gazed at him, contracted and lightened until they were like two menacing points of steel. “You are absolute plate-glass. I see to the very back of your mind.”
“Then, of course, you see where the diamond is!”
Holmes clapped his hands with amusement, and then pointed a derisive finger. “Then you do know. You have admitted it!”
“I admit nothing.”
“Now, Count, if you will be reasonable we can do business. If not, you will get hurt.”
Count Sylvius threw up his eyes to the ceiling. “And you talk about bluff!” said he.
Holmes looked at him thoughtfully like a master chess-player who meditates his crowning move. Then he threw open the table drawer and drew out a squat notebook.
“Do you know what I keep in this book?”
“No, sir, I do not!”
“You!”
“Me!”
“Yes, sir, you! You are all here — every action of your vile and dangerous life.”
“Damn you, Holmes!” cried the Count with blazing eyes. “There are limits to my patience!”
“It’s all here, Count. The real facts as to the death of old Mrs. Harold, who left you the Blymer estate, which you so rapidly gambled away.”
“You are dreaming!”
“And the complete life history of Miss Minnie Warrender.”
“Tut! You will make nothing of that!”
“Plenty more here, Count. Here is the robbery in the train de-luxe to the Riviera on February 13, 1892. Here is the forged check in the same year on the Credit Lyonnais.”
“No, you’re wrong there.”
“Then I am right on the others! Now, Count, you are a card-player. When the other fellow has all the trumps, it saves time to throw down your hand.”
“What has all this talk to do with the jewel of which you spoke?”
“Gently, Count. Restrain that eager mind! Let me get to the points in my own humdrum fashion. I have all this against you; but, above all, I have a clear case against both you and your fighting bully in the case of the Crown diamond.”
“Indeed!”
“I have the cabman who took you to Whitehall and the cabman who brought you away. I have the commissionaire who saw you near the case. I have Ikey Sanders, who refused to cut it up for you. Ikey has peached, and the game is up.”
The veins stood out on the Count’s forehead. His dark, hairy hands were clenched in a convulsion of restrained emotion. He tried to speak, but the words would not shape themselves.
“That’s the hand I play from,” said Holmes. “I put it all upon the table. But one card is missing. It’s the king of diamonds. I don’t know where the stone is.”
“You never shall know.”
“No? Now, be reasonable, Count. Consider the situation. You are going to be locked up for twenty years. So is Sam Merton. What good are you going to get out of your diamond? None in the world. But if you hand it over — well, I’ll compound a felony. We don‘t want you or Sam. We want the stone. Give that up, and so far as I am concerned you can go free so long as you behave yourself in the future. If you make another slip well, it will be the last. But this time my commission is to get the stone, not you.”