"About what?"
"About Essarès' temperament, his habits, the extent of his attainments,
his notion of a good hiding-place. We had plunged on the expectation of
meeting with difficulties; we ought to have looked at the outside, to
have looked at the surface of things. I was assisted by two further
clues. I had noticed that the uprights of the ladder which Ya-Bon must
have taken from here had a few grains of sand on them. Lastly, I
remembered that Ya-Bon had drawn a triangle on the pavement with a piece
of chalk and that this triangle had only two sides, the third side being
formed by the foot of the wall. Why this detail? Why not a third line in
chalk? . . . To make a long story short, I lit a cigarette, sat down
upstairs, on the deck of the barge, and, looking round me, said to
myself, 'Lupin, my son, five minutes and no more.' When I say, 'Lupin,
my son,' I simply can't resist myself. By the time I had smoked a
quarter of the cigarette, I was there."
"You had found out?"
"I had found out. I can't say which of the factors at my disposal
kindled the spark. No doubt it was all of them together. It's a rather
complicated psychological operation, you know, like a chemical
experiment. The correct idea is formed suddenly by mysterious reactions
and combinations among the elements in which it existed in a potential
stage. And then I was carrying within myself an intuitive principle, a
very special incentive which obliged me, which inevitably compelled me,
to discover the hiding-place: Little Mother Coralie was there! I knew
for certain that failure on my part, prolonged weakness or hesitation
would mean her destruction. There was a woman there, within a radius of
a dozen yards or so. I had to find out and I found out. The spark was
kindled. The elements combined. And I made straight for the sand-heap. I
at once saw the marks of footsteps and, almost at the top, the signs of
a slight stamping. I started digging. You can imagine my excitement when
I first touched one of the bags. But I had no time for excitement. I
shifted a few bags. Coralie was there, unconscious, hardly protected
from the sand which was slowly stifling her, trickling through, stopping
up her eyes, suffocating her. I needn't tell you more, need I? The wharf
was deserted, as usual. I got her out. I hailed a taxi. I first took her
home. Then I turned my attention to Essarès, to Vacherot the porter;
and, when I had discovered our enemy's plans, I went and made my
arrangements with Dr. Géradec. Lastly, I had you moved to the private
hospital on the Boulevard de Montmorency and gave orders for Coralie to
be taken there too. And there you are, captain! All done in three hours.
When the doctor's car brought me back to the hospital, Essarès arrived
at the same time, to have his injuries seen to. I had him safe."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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