813

A zealous reader, collating the translation of this book with the original, would hit upon certain differences. These are due to alterations made, in most cases, by the author himself and, in all cases, with his full approval.

A. T. de M.

Chelsea, England,

August, 1910.

CHAPTER I. THE TRAGEDY AT THE PALACE HOTEL

MR. KESSELBACH stopped short on the threshold of the sitting-room, took his secretary's arm and, in an anxious voice, whispered:

“Chapman, some one has been here again.”

“Surely not, sir,” protested the secretary. “You have just opened the hall-door yourself; and the key never left your pocket while we were lunching in the restaurant.”

“Chapman, some one has been here again,” Mr. Kesselbach repeated. He pointed to a traveling-bag on the mantelpiece. “Look, I can prove it. That bag was shut. It is now open.”

Chapman protested.

“Are you quite sure that you shut it, sir? Besides, the bag contains nothing but odds and ends of no value, articles of dress....”

“It contains nothing else, because I took my pocket-book out before we went down, by way of precaution.... But for that.... No, Chapman, I tell you, some one has been here while we were at lunch.”

There was a telephone on the wall. He took down the receiver:

“Hallo!... I'm Mr. Kesselbach.... Suite 415... That's right.... Mademoiselle, would you please put me on to the Prefecture of Police... the detective department.... I know the number... one second... Ah, here it is! Number 822.48.... I'll hold the line.”

A moment later he continued:

“Are you 822.48? I should like a word with M. Lenormand, the chief of the detective-service. My name's Kesselbach.... Hullo!... Yes, the chief detective knows what it's about. He has given me leave to ring him up.... Oh, he's not there?... To whom am I speaking?... Detective-sergeant Gourel?... You were there yesterday, were you not, when I called on M. Lenormand? Well, the same thing that I told M. Lenormand yesterday has occurred again today.... Some one has entered the suite which I am occupying. And, if you come at once, you may be able to discover some clues.... In an hour or two? All right; thanks.... You have only to ask for suite 415.... Thank you again.”

* * * * *

Rudolf Kesselbach, nicknamed alternatively the King of Diamonds and the Lord of the Cape, possessed a fortune estimated at nearly twenty millions sterling. For the past week, he had occupied suite 415, on the fourth floor of the Palace Hotel, consisting of three rooms, of which the two larger, on the right, the sitting-room and the principal bedroom, faced the avenue; while the other, on the left, in which Chapman, the secretary, slept, looked out on the Rue de Judee.

Adjoining this bedroom, a suite of five rooms had been reserved for Mrs. Kesselbach, who was to leave Monte Carlo, where she was at present staying, and join her husband the moment she heard from him.

Rudolf Kesselbach walked up and down for a few minutes with a thoughtful air. He was a tall man, with a ruddy complexion, and still young; and his dreamy eyes, which showed pale blue through his gold-rimmed spectacles, gave him an expression of gentleness and shyness that contrasted curiously with the strength of the square forehead and the powerfully-developed jaws.

He went to the window: it was fastened. Besides, how could any one have entered that way? The private balcony that ran round the flat broke off on the right and was separated on the left by a stone channel from the balconies in the Rue de Judee.

He went to his bedroom: it had no communication with the neighboring rooms. He went to his secretary's bedroom: the door that led into the five rooms reserved for Mrs. Kesselbach was locked and bolted.

“I can't understand it at all, Chapman. Time after time I have noticed things here... funny things, as you must admit. Yesterday, my walking-stick was moved.... The day before that, my papers had certainly been touched.... And yet how was it possible?...”

“It is not possible, sir!” cried Chapman, whose honest, placid features displayed no anxiety. “You're imagining things, that's all.... You have no proof, nothing but impressions, to go upon.... Besides, look here: there is no way into this suite except through the entrance-lobby. Very well. You had a special key made on the day of our arrival: and your own man, Edwards, has the only duplicate. Do you trust him?”

“Of course I do!... He's been with me for ten years!... But Edwards goes to lunch at the same time that we do; and that's a mistake. He must not go down, in future, until we come back.”

Chapman gave a slight shrug of the shoulders. There was no doubt about it, the Lord of the Cape was becoming a trifle eccentric, with those incomprehensible fears of his. What risk can you run in an hotel, especially when you carry no valuables, no important sum of money on you or with you?

They heard the hall-door opening. It was Edwards. Mr. Kesselbach called him:

“Are you dressed, Edwards? Ah, that's right!... I am expecting no visitors today, Edwards... or, rather, one visitor only, M. Gourel. Meantime, remain in the lobby and keep an eye on the door. Mr. Chapman and I have some serious work to do.”

The serious work lasted for a few minutes, during which Mr. Kesselbach went through his correspondence, read three or four letters and gave instructions how they were to be answered. But, suddenly, Chapman, waiting with pen poised, saw that Mr. Kesselbach was thinking of something quite different from his correspondence. He was holding between his fingers and attentively examining a pin, a black pin bent like a fish-hook:

“Chapman,” he said, “look what I've found on the table. This bent pin obviously means something. It's a proof, a material piece of evidence. You can't pretend now that no one has been in the room. For, after all, this pin did not come here of itself.”

“Certainly not,” replied the secretary. “It came; here through me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, it's a pin which I used to fasten my tie to my collar. I took it out last night, while you were reading, and I twisted it mechanically.”

Mr. Kesselbach rose from his chair, with a great air of vexation, took a few steps and stopped.

“You're laughing at me, Chapman, I feel you are... and you're quite right.... I won't deny it, I have been rather... odd, since my last journey to the Cape. It's because... well... you don't know the new factor in my life... a tremendous plan... a huge thing... I can only see it, as yet, in the haze of the future... but it's taking shape for all that... and it will be something colossal... Ah, Chapman, you can't imagine.... Money I don't care a fig for: I have money, I have too much money.... But this, this means a great deal more; it means power, might, authority. If the reality comes up to my expectations, I shall be not only Lord of the Cape, but lord of other realms as well.... Rudolf Kesselbach, the son of the Augsburg ironmonger, will be on a par with many people who till now have looked down upon him.... He will even take precedence of them, Chapman; he will take precedence of them, mark my words... and, if ever I...”

He interrupted himself, looked at Chapman as though he regretted having said too much and, nevertheless, carried away by his excitement, concluded:

“You now understand the reasons of my anxiety, Chapman.... Here, in this brain, is an idea that is worth a great deal... and this idea is suspected perhaps... and I am being spied upon.... I'm convinced of it....”

A bell sounded.

“The telephone,” said Chapman.

“Could it,” muttered Kesselbach, “by any chance be....?” He took down the instrument. “Hullo!... Who? The Colonel? Ah, good! Yes, it's I.... Any news?... Good!..... Then I shall expect you.... You will come with one of your men? Very well.... What? No, we shan't be disturbed.... I will give the necessary orders.... It's as serious as that, is it?... I tell you, my instructions will be positive.... my secretary and my man shall keep the door; and no one shall be allowed in.... You know the way, don't you?... Then don't lose a minute.”

He hung up the receiver and said:

“Chapman, there are two gentlemen coming. Edwards will show them in....”

“But M. Gourel... the detective-sergeant.... ?”

“He will come later... in an hour.... And, even then, there's no harm in their meeting. So send Edwards down to the office at once, to tell them. I am at home to nobody... except two gentlemen, the Colonel and his friend, and M. Gourel. He must make them take down the names.”

Chapman did as he was asked. When he returned to the room, he found Mr. Kesselbach holding in his hand an envelope, or, rather, a little pocket-case, in black morocco leather, apparently empty. He seemed to hesitate, as though he did not know what to do with it. Should he put it in his pocket or lay it down elsewhere? At last he went to the mantelpiece and threw the leather envelope into his traveling-bag:

“Let us finish the mail, Chapman. We have ten minutes left. Ah, a letter from Mrs. Kesselbach! Why didn't you tell me of it, Chapman? Didn't you recognize the handwriting?”

He made no attempt to conceal the emotion which he felt in touching and contemplating that paper which his wife had held in her fingers and to which she had added a look of her eyes, an atom of her scent, a suggestion of her secret thoughts. He inhaled its perfume and, unsealing it, read the letter slowly in an undertone, in fragments that reached Chapman's ears:

“Feeling a little tired.... Shall keep my room today.... I feel so bored.... When can I come to you? I am longing for your wire....”

“You telegraphed this morning, Chapman? Then Mrs. Kesselbach will be here tomorrow, Wednesday.”

He seemed quite gay, as though the weight of his business had been suddenly relieved and he freed from all anxiety. He rubbed his hands and heaved a deep breath, like a strong man certain of success, like a lucky man who possessed happiness and who was big enough to defend himself.

“There's some one ringing, Chapman, some one ringing at the hall door. Go and see who it is.”

But Edwards entered and said: “Two gentlemen asking for you, sir. They are the ones....”

“I know. Are they there, in the lobby?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Close the hall-door and don't open it again except to M. Gourel, the detective-sergeant. You go and bring the gentlemen in, Chapman, and tell them that I would like to speak to the Colonel first, to the Colonel alone.”

Edwards and Chapman left the room, shutting the door after them. Rudolf Kesselbach went to the window and pressed his forehead against the glass.

Outside, just below his eyes, the carriages and motorcars rolled along in parallel furrows, marked by the double line of refuges. A bright spring sun made the brass-work and the varnish gleam again. The trees were putting forth their first green shoots; and the buds of the tall chestnuts were beginning to unfold their new-born leaves.

“What on earth is Chapman doing?” muttered Kesselbach. “The time he wastes in palavering!...”

He took a cigarette from the table, lit it and drew a few puffs. A faint exclamation escaped him. Close before him stood a man whom he did not know.

He started back:

“Who are you?”

The man — he was a well-dressed individual, rather smart-looking, with dark hair, a dark moustache and hard eyes — the man gave a grin:

“Who am I? Why, the Colonel!”

“No, no.... The one I call the Colonel, the one who writes to me under that... adopted... signature... is not you!”

“Yes, yes... the other was only.... But, my dear sir, all this, you know, is not of the smallest importance. The essential thing is that I... am myself. And that, I assure you, I am!”

“But your name, sir?...”

“The Colonel... until further orders.”

Mr. Kesselbach was seized with a growing fear. Who was this man? What did he want with him?

He called out:

“Chapman!”

“What a funny idea, to call out! Isn't my company enough for you?”

“Chapman!” Mr. Kesselbach cried again. “Chapman! Edwards!”

“Chapman! Edwards!” echoed the stranger, in his turn. “What are you doing? You're wanted!”

“Sir, I ask you, I order you to let me pass.”

“But, my dear sir, who's preventing you?”

He politely made way. Mr. Kesselbach walked to the door, opened it and gave a sudden jump backward. Behind the door stood another man, pistol in hand. Kesselbach stammered:

“Edwards... Chap...”

He did not finish. In a corner of the lobby he saw his secretary and his servant lying side by side on the floor, gagged and bound.

Mr. Kesselbach, notwithstanding his nervous and excitable nature, was not devoid of physical courage; and the sense of a definite danger, instead of depressing him, restored all his elasticity and vigor. Pretending dismay and stupefaction, he moved slowly back to the chimneypiece and leant against the wall. His hand felt for the electric bell. He found it and pressed the button without removing his finger.

“Well?” asked the stranger.

Mr. Kesselbach made no reply and continued to press the button.

“Well? Do you expect they will come, that the whole hotel is in commotion, because you are pressing that bell? Why, my dear sir, look behind you and you will see that the wire is cut!”

Mr. Kesselbach turned round sharply, as though he wanted to make sure; but, instead, with a quick movement, he seized the traveling-bag, thrust his hand into it, grasped a revolver, aimed it at the man and pulled trigger.

“Whew!” said the stranger. “So you load your weapons with air and silence?”

The cock clicked a second time and a third, but there was no report.

“Three shots more, Lord of the Cape! I shan't be satisfied till you've lodged six bullets in my carcass. What! You give up? That's a pity... you were making excellent practice!”

He took hold of a chair by the back, spun it round, sat down astraddle and, pointing to an arm-chair, said:

“Won't you take a seat, my dear sir, and make yourself at home? A cigarette? Not for me, thanks: I prefer a agar.”

There was a box on the table: he selected an Upmann, light in color and flawless in shape, lit it and, with a bow:

“Thank you! That's a perfect cigar. And now let's have a chat, shall we?”

Rudolf Kesselbach listened to him in amazement. Who could this strange person be?... Still, at the sight of his visitor sitting there so quiet and so chatty, he became gradually reassured and began to think that the situation might come to an end without any need to resort to violence or brute force.

He took out a pocket-book, opened it, displayed a respectable bundle of bank-notes and asked:

“How much?”

The other looked at him with an air of bewilderment, as though he found a difficulty in understanding what Kesselbach meant. Then, after a moment, he called:

“Marco!”

The man with the revolver stepped forward.

“Marco, this gentleman is good enough to offer you a few bits of paper for your young woman. Take them, Marco.”

Still aiming his revolver with his right hand, Marco put out his left, took the notes and withdrew.

“Now that this question is settled according to your wishes,” resumed the stranger, “let us come to the object of my visit. I will be brief and to the point. I want two things. In the first place, a little black morocco pocket-case, shaped like an envelope, which you generally carry on you. Secondly, a small ebony box, which was in that traveling-bag yesterday. Let us proceed in order. The morocco case?”

“Burnt.”

The stranger knit his brows. He must have had a vision of the good old days when there were peremptory methods of making the contumacious speak:

“Very well. We shall see about that. And the ebony box?”

“Burnt.”

“Ah,” he growled, “you're getting at me, my good man!” He twisted the other's arm with a pitiless hand. “Yesterday, Rudolf Kesselbach, you walked into the Credit Lyonnais, on the Boulevard des Italiens, hiding a parcel under your overcoat. You hired a safe... let us be exact: safe No. 16, in recess No. 9. After signing the book and paying your safe-rent, you went down to the basement; and, when you came up again, you no longer had your parcel with you. Is that correct?”

“Quite.”

“Then the box and the pocket-case are at the Credit Lyonnais?”

“No.”

“Give me the key of your safe.”

“No.”

“Marco!”

Marco ran up.

“Look sharp, Marco! The quadruple knot!”

Before he had even time to stand on the defensive, Rudolf Kesselbach was tied up in a network of cords that cut into his flesh at the least attempt which he made to struggle. His arms were fixed behind his back, his body fastened to the chair and his legs tied together like the legs of a mummy.

“Search him, Marco.”

Marco searched him. Two minutes after, he handed his chief a little flat, nickel-plated key, bearing the numbers 16 and 9.

“Capital. No morocco pocket-case?”

“No, governor.”

“It is in the safe. Mr. Kesselbach, will you tell me the secret cypher that opens the lock?”

“No.”

“You refuse?”

“Yes.”

“Marco!”

“Yes, governor.”

“Place the barrel of your revolver against the gentleman's temple.”

“It's there.”

“Now put your finger to the trigger.”

“Ready.”

“Well, Kesselbach, old chap, do you intend to speak?”

“No.”

“I'll give you ten seconds, and not one more. Marco!”

“Yes, governor.”

“In ten seconds, blow out the gentleman's brains.”

“Right you are, governor.”

“Kesselbach, I'm counting. One, two, three, four, five, six...”

Rudolph Kesselbach made a sign.

“You want to speak?”

“Yes.”

“You're just in time. Well, the cypher... the word for the lock?”

“Dolor.”

“Dolor... Dolor... Mrs. Kesselbach's name is Dolores, I believe? You dear boy!... Marco, go and do as I told you.... No mistake, mind! I'll repeat it: meet Jerome at the omnibus office, give him the key, tell him the word: Dolor. Then, the two of you, go to the Credit Lyonnais. Jerome is to walk in alone, sign the name-book, go down to the basement and bring away everything in the safe. Do you quite understand?”

“Yes, governor. But if the safe shouldn't open; if the word Dolor...”

“Silence, Marco. When you come out of the Credit Lyonnais, you must leave Jerome, go to your own place and telephone the result of the operation to me. Should the word Dolor by any chance fail to open the safe, we (my friend Rudolf Kesselbach and I) will have one... last... interview. Kesselbach, you're quite sure you're not mistaken?”

“Yes.”

“That means that you rely upon the futility of the search. We shall see. Be off, Marco!”

“What about you, governor?”

“I shall stay. Oh, I'm not afraid! I've never been in less danger than at this moment. Your orders about the door were positive, Kesselbach, were they not?”

“Yes.”

“Dash it all, you seemed very eager to get that said! Can you have been trying to gain time? If so, I should be caught in a trap like a fool....” He stopped to think, looked at his prisoner and concluded, “No... it's not possible... we shall not be disturbed...”

He had not finished speaking, when the door-bell rang. He pressed his hand violently on Rudolf Kesselbach's mouth:

“Oh, you old fox, you were expecting some one!”

The captive's eyes gleamed with hope. He could be heard chuckling under the hand that stifled him.

The stranger shook with rage:

“Hold your tongue, or I'll strangle you! Here, Marco, gag him! Quick!... That's it!”

The bell rang again. He shouted, as though he himself were Kesselbach and as though Edwards were still there:

“Why don't you open the door, Edwards?”

Then he went softly into the lobby and, pointing to the secretary and the manservant, whispered:

“Marco, help me shift these two into the bedroom... over there... so that they can't be seen.”

He lifted the secretary. Marco carried the servant.

“Good! Now go back to the sitting-room.”

He followed him in and at once returned to the lobby and said, in a loud tone of astonishment:

“Why, your man's not here, Mr. Kesselbach.... No, don't move... finish your letter.... I'll go myself.”

And he quietly opened the hall-door.

“Mr. Kesselbach?”

He found himself faced by a sort of jovial, bright-eyed giant, who stood swinging from one foot to the other and twisting the brim of his hat between his fingers. He answered:

“Yes, that's right. Who shall I say... ?”

“Mr. Kesselbach telephoned.... He expects me.

“Oh, it's you.... I'll tell him.... Do you mind waiting a minute?... Mr. Kesselbach will speak to you.”

He had the audacity to leave the visitor standing on the threshold of the little entrance-hall, at a place from which he could see a portion of the sitting-room through the open door, and, slowly, without so much as turning round, he entered the room, went to his confederate by Mr. Kesselbach's side and whispered:

“We're done! It's Gourel, the detective....”

The other drew his knife. He caught him by the arm:

“No nonsense! I have an idea. But, for God's sake, Marco, understand me and speak in your turn. Speak as if you were Kesselbach.... You hear, Marco! You are Kesselbach.”

He expressed himself so coolly, so forcibly and with such authority that Marco understood, without further explanation, that he himself was to play the part of Kesselbach. Marco said, so as to be heard:

“You must apologize for me, my dear fellow. Tell M. Gourel I'm awfully sorry, but I'm over head and ears in work.... I will see him tomorrow morning, at nine... yes, at nine o'clock punctually.”

“Good!” whispered the other. “Don't stir.”

He went back to the lobby, found Gourel waiting, and said:

.”Mr. Kesselbach begs you to excuse him. He is finishing an important piece of work. Could you possibly come back at nine o'clock tomorrow morning?”

There was a pause. Gourel seemed surprised, more or less bothered and undecided. The other man's hand clutched the handle of a knife at the bottom of his pocket. At the first suspicious movement, he was prepared to strike.

At last, Gourel said:

“Very well.... At nine o'clock tomorrow.... But, all the same... However, I shall be here at nine tomorrow....”

And, putting on his hat, he disappeared down the passage of the hotel.

Marco, in the sitting-room, burst out laughing:

“That was jolly clever of you, governor! Oh, how nicely you spoofed him!”

“Look alive, Marco, and follow him. If he leaves the hotel, let him be, meet Jerome at the omnibus-office, as arranged... and telephone.”

Marco went away quickly.

Then the man took a water-bottle on the chimney-piece, poured himself out a tumblerful, which he swallowed at a draught, wetted his handkerchief, dabbed his forehead, which was covered with perspiration, and then sat down beside his prisoner and, with an affectation of politeness, said:

“But I must really have the honor, Mr. Kesselbach, of introducing myself to you.”

And, taking a card from his pocket, he said: “Allow me.... Arsene Lupin, gentleman-burglar.”

* * * * *

The name of the famous adventurer seemed to make the best of impressions upon Mr. Kesselbach. Lupin did not fail to observe the fact and exclaimed:

“Aha, my dear sir, you breathe again! Arsene Lupin is a delicate, squeamish burglar. He loathes bloodshed, he has never committed a more serious crime than that of annexing other people's property... a mere peccadillo, eh? And what you're saying to yourself is that he is not going to burden his conscience with a useless murder. Quite so... But will your destruction be so useless as all that? Everything depends on the answer. And I assure you that I'm not larking at present. Come on, old chap!”

He drew up his chair beside the arm-chair, removed the prisoner's gag and, speaking very plainly:

“Mr. Kesselbach,” he said, “on the day when you arrived in Paris you entered into relations with one Barbareux, the manager of a confidential inquiry agency; and, as you were acting without the knowledge of your secretary, Chapman, it was arranged that the said Barbareux, when communicating with you by letter or telephone, should call himself 'the Colonel.' I hasten to tell you that Barbareux is a perfectly honest man. But I have the good fortune to number one of his clerks among my own particular friends. That is how I discovered the motive of your application to Barbareux and how I came to interest myself in you and to make a search or two here, with the assistance of a set of false keys... in the course of which search or two, I may as well tell you, I did not find what I was looking for.”

He lowered his voice and, with his eyes fixed on the eyes of his prisoner, watching his expression, searching his secret thoughts, he uttered these words:

“Mr. Kesselbach, your instructions to Barbareux were that he should find a man hidden somewhere in the slums of Paris who bears or used to bear the name of Pierre Leduc. The man answers to this brief description: height, five feet nine inches; hair and complexion, fair; wears a moustache. Special mark: the tip of the little finger of the left hand is missing, as the result of a cut. Also, he has an almost imperceptible scar on the right cheek. You seem to attach enormous importance to this man's discovery, as though it might lead to some great advantage to yourself. Who is the man?”

“I don't know.”

The answer was positive, absolute. Did he know or did he not know? It made little difference. The great thing was that he was determined not to speak.

“Very well,” said his adversary, “but you have fuller particulars about him than those with which you furnished Barbareux.”

“I have not.”

“You lie, Mr. Kesselbach. Twice, in Barbareux's presence, you consulted papers contained in the morocco case.”

“I did.”

“And the case?”

“Burnt.”

Lupin quivered with rage. The thought of torture and of the facilities which it used to offer was evidently passing through his mind again.

“Burnt? But the box?... Come, own up... confess that the box is at the Credit Lyonnais.”

“Yes.”

“And what's inside it?”

“The finest two hundred diamonds in my private collection.”

This statement did not seem to displease the adventurer.

“Aha, the finest two hundred diamonds! But, I say, that's a fortune!... Yes, that makes you smile.... It's a trifle to you, no doubt.... And your secret is worth more than that.... To you, yes... but to me?...”

He took a cigar, lit a match, which he allowed to go out again mechanically, and sat for some time thinking, motionless.

The minutes passed.

He began to laugh:

“I dare say you're hoping that the expedition will come to nothing and that they won't open the safe?... Very likely, old chap! But, in that case, you'll have to pay me for my trouble. I did not come here to see what sort of figure you cut in an arm-chair.... The diamonds, since diamonds there appear to be... or else the morocco case.... There's your dilemma.” He looked at his watch. “Half an hour.... Hang it all!... Fate is moving very slowly.... But there's nothing for you to grin at, Mr. Kesselbach. I shall not go back empty-handed, make no mistake about that!... At last!”

It was the telephone-bell. Lupin snatched at the receiver and, changing the sound of his voice, imitated the rough accent of his prisoner:

“Yes, Rudolf Kesselbach... you're speaking to him.... Yes, please, mademoiselle, put me on.... Is that you, Marco?... Good.... Did it go off all right?... Excellent!... No hitch?... My best compliments!... Well, what did you pick up?... The ebony box?... Nothing else?... No papers?... Tut, tut!... And what's in the box?... Are they fine diamonds?... Capital, capital!... One minute, Marco, while I think.... You see, all this.... If I were to tell you my opinion.... Wait, don't go away... hold the line....”

He turned round.

“Mr. Kesselbach, are you keen on your diamonds?”

“Yes.”

“Would you buy them back of me?”

“Possibly.”

“For how much? Five hundred thousand francs?”

“Five hundred thousand... yes.”

“Only, here's the rub: how are we to make the exchange? A cheque? No, you'd swindle me... or else I'd swindle you.... Listen. On the day after tomorrow, go to the Credit Lyonnais in the morning, draw out your five hundred bank-notes of a thousand each and go for a walk in the Bois, on the Auteuil side.... I shall have the diamonds in a bag: that's handier.... The box shows too much....”

Kesselbach gave a start:

“No, no... the box, too.... I want everything....”

“Ah,” cried Lupin, shouting with laughter, “you've fallen into the trap!... The diamonds you don't care about.... they can be replaced.... But you cling to that box as you cling to your skin.... Very well, you shall have your box... on the word of Arsene... you shall have it tomorrow morning, by parcel post!”

He went back to the telephone:

“Marco, have you the box in front of you?... Is there anything particular about it?... Ebony inlaid with ivory.... Yes, I know the sort of thing.... Japanese, from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.... No mark?... Ah, a little round label, with a blue border and a number!... Yes, a shop-mark... no importance. And is the bottom of the box thick?... Not very thick.

... Bother! No false bottom, then?... Look here, Marco: just examine the ivory inlay on the outside... or, rather, no, the lid.” He reveled with delight. “The lid! That's it, Marco! Kesselbach blinked his eyes just now.... We're burning!... Ah, Kesselbach, old chap, didn't you see me squinting at you? You silly fellow!” And, to Marco, “Well, what do you see?... A looking-glass inside the lid?... Does it slide?... Is it on hinges?... No!... Well, then, break it.... Yes, yes, I tell you to break it.... That glass serves no purpose there... it's been added since!” He lost patience. “Mind your own business, idiot!... Do as I say!...”

He must have heard the noise which Marco made at the other end of the wire in breaking the glass, for he shouted, in triumph.

“Didn't I tell you, Mr. Kesselbach, that we should find something?... Hullo! Have you done it?... Well?... A letter? Victory! All the diamonds in the Cape and old man Kesselbach's secret into the bargain!”

He took down the second receiver, carefully put the two discs to his ears and continued:

“Read it to me, Marco, read it to me slowly.... The envelope first.... Good.... Now, repeat.” He himself repeated, “'Copy of the letter contained in the black morocco case.' And next? Tear the envelope, Marco.... Have I your permission, Mr. Kesselbach? It's not very good form, but, however... Go on, Marco, Mr. Kesselbach gives you leave.... Done it?... Well, then, read it out.”

He listened and, with a chuckle:

“The deuce! That's not quite as clear as a pikestaff! Listen. I'll repeat; a plain sheet of paper folded in four, the folds apparently quite fresh.... Good.... At the top of the page, on the right, these words: 'Five feet nine, left little finger cut.' And so on.... Yes, that's the description of Master Pierre Leduc. In Kesselbach's handwriting, suppose?... Good.... And, in the middle of the page, this word in printed capitals: 'APOON.' Marco, my lad, leave the paper as it is and don't touch the box or the diamonds. I shall have done with our friend here in ten minutes and I shall be with you in twenty.... Oh, by the way, did you send back the motor for me? Capital! So long!”

He replaced the instrument, went into the lobby and into the bedroom, made sure that the secretary and the manservant had not unloosed their bonds and, on the other hand, that they were in no danger of being choked by their gags. Then he returned to his chief prisoner.

He wore a determined and relentless look:

“We've finished joking, Kesselbach. If you don't speak, it will be the worse for you. Have you made up your mind?”

“What about?”

“No nonsense, please. Tell me what you know.”

“I know nothing.”

“You lie. What does this word 'APOON' mean?”

“If I knew, I should not have written it down.”

“Very well; but whom or what does it refer to? Where did you copy it? Where did you get it from?”

Mr. Kesselbach made no reply. Lupin, now speaking in nervous, jerky tones, resumed:

“Listen, Kesselbach, I have a proposal to make to you. Rich man, big man though you may be, there is not so much difference between us. The son of the Augsburg ironmonger and Arsene Lupin, prince of burglars, can come to an understanding without shame on either side. I do my thieving indoors; you do yours on the Stock Exchange. It's all much of a muchness. So here we are, Kesselbach. Let's be partners in this business. I have need of you, because I don't know what it's about. You have need of me, because you will never be able to manage it alone. Barbareux is an ass. I am Lupin. Is it a bargain?”

No answer. Lupin persisted, in a voice shaking with intensity:

“Answer, Kesselbach, is it a bargain? If so, I'll find your Pierre Leduc for you in forty-eight hours. For he's the man you're after, eh? Isn't that the business? Come along, answer! Who is the fellow? Why are you looking for him? What do you know about him?”

He calmed himself suddenly, laid his hand on Kesselbach's shoulder and, harshly:

“One word only. Yes or no?”

“No!”

He drew a magnificent gold watch from Kesselbach's fob and placed it on the prisoner's knees. He unbuttoned Kesselbach's waistcoat, opened his shirt, uncovered his chest and, taking a steel dagger, with a gold-crusted handle, that lay on the table beside him, he put the point of it against the place where the pulsations of the heart made the bare flesh throb:

“For the last time?”

“No!”

“Mr. Kesselbach, it is eight minutes to three. If you don't answer within eight minutes from now, you are a dead man!”

* * * * *

The next morning, Sergeant Gourel walked into the Palace Hotel punctually at the appointed hour. Without stopping, scorning to take the lift, he went up the stairs. On the fourth floor he turned to the right, followed the passage and rang at the door of 415.

Hearing no sound, he rang again. After half-a-dozen fruitless attempts, he went to the floor office. He found a head-waiter there:

“Mr. Kesselbach did not sleep here last night. We have not seen him since yesterday afternoon.”

“But his servant? His secretary?”

“We have not seen them either.”

“Then they also did not sleep in the hotel?”

“I suppose not.”

“You suppose not? But you ought to be retained.”

“Why? Mr. Kesselbach is not staying in a hotel; he is at home here, in his private flat. He is not waited on by us, but by his own man; and we know nothing of what happens inside.”

“That's true.... That's true....”

Gourel seemed greatly perplexed. He had come with positive orders, a precise mission, within the limits of which his mind was able to exert itself. Outside those limits he did not quite know how to act:

“If the chief were here,” he muttered, “if the chief were here....”

He showed his card and stated his quality. Then he said, on the off-chance:

“So you have not seen them come in?”

“No.”

“But you saw them go out?”

“No, I can't say I did.”

“In that case, how do you know that they went out?”

“From a gentleman who called yesterday afternoon.”

“A gentleman with a dark mustache?”

“Yes. I met him as he was going away, about three o'clock. He said: 'The people in 415 have gone out. Mr. Kesselbach will stay at Versailles tonight, at the Reservoirs; you can send his letters on to him there.”

“But who was this gentleman? By what right did he speak?”

“I don't know.”

Gourel felt uneasy. It all struck him as rather queer.

“Have you the key?”

“No. Mr. Kesselbach had special keys made.”

“Let's go and look.”

Gourel rang again furiously. Nothing happened. He was about to go when, suddenly, he bent down and clapped his ear to the keyhole:

“Listen.... I seem to hear... Why, yes... it's quite distinct.... I hear moans.

He gave the door a tremendous blow with his fist.

“But, sir, you have not the right...”

“Oh, hang the right!”

He struck the door with renewed force, but to so little purpose that he abandoned the attempt forthwith:

“Quick, quick, a locksmith!”

One of the waiters started off at a run. Gourel, blustering and undecided, walked to and fro. The servants from the other floors collected in groups. People from the office, from the manager's department arrived. Gourel cried:

“But why shouldn't we go in though the adjoining rooms? Do they communicate with this suite?”

“Yes; but the communicating doors are always bolted on both sides.”

“Then I shall telephone to the detective-office,” said Gourel, to whose mind obviously there existed no salvation without his chief.

“And to the commissary of police,” observed some one.

“Yes, if you like,” he replied, in the tone of a gentleman who took little or no interest in that formality.

When he returned from the telephone, the locksmith had nearly finished trying the keys. The last worked the lock. Gourel walked briskly in.

He at once hastened in the direction from which the moans came and hit against the bodies of Chapman the secretary, and Edwards the manservant. One of them, Chapman, had succeeded, by dint of patience, in loosening his gag a little and was uttering short, stifled moans. The other seemed asleep.

They were released. But Gourel was anxious:

“Where's Mr. Kesselbach?”

He went into the sitting-room. Mr. Kesselbach was sitting strapped to the back of the arm-chair, near the table. His head hung on his chest.

“He has fainted,” said Gourel, going up to him. “He must have exerted himself beyond his strength.”

Swiftly he cut the cords that fastened the shoulders. The body fell forward in an inert mass. Gourel caught it in his arms and started back with a cry of horror:

“Why, he's dead! Feel.... his hands are ice-cold! And look at his eyes!”

Some one ventured the opinion:

“An apoplectic stroke, no doubt... or else heart-failure.”

“True, there's no sign of a wound... it's a natural death.”

They laid the body on the sofa and unfastened the clothes. But red stains at once appeared on the white shirt; and, when they pushed it back, they saw that, near the heart, the chest bore a little scratch through which had trickled a thin stream of blood.

And on the shirt was pinned a card. Gourel bent forward. It was Arsene Lupin's card, bloodstained like the rest.

Then Gourel drew himself up, authoritatively and sharply:

“Murdered!... Arsene Lupin!... Leave the flat.... Leave the flat, all of you!... No one must stay here or in the bedroom.... Let the two men be removed and seen to elsewhere!... Leave the flat... and don't touch a thing... The chief is on his way!...”

CHAPTER II. THE BLUE-EDGED LABEL

“ARSENE LUPIN!”

Gourel repeated these two fateful words with an absolutely petrified air. They rang within him like a knell. Arsene Lupin! The great, the formidable Arsene Lupin. The burglar-king, the mighty adventurer! Was it possible?

“No, no,” he muttered, “it's not possible, because he's dead!”

Only that was just it... was he really dead?

Arsene Lupin!

Standing beside the corpse, he remained dull and stunned, turning the card over and over with a certain dread, as though he had been challenged by a ghost. Arsene Lupin! What ought he to do? Act? Take the field with his resources? No, no... better not act.... He was bound to make mistakes if he entered the lists with an adversary of that stamp. Besides, the chief was on his way!

The chief was on his way! All Gourel's intellectual philosophy was summed up in that short sentence. An able, persevering officer, full of courage and experience and endowed with Herculean strength, he was one of those who go ahead only when obeying directions and who do good work only when ordered. And this lack of initiative had become still more marked since M. Lenormand had taken the place of M. Dudouis in the detective-service. M. Lenormand was a chief indeed! With him, one was sure of being on the right track. So sure, even, that Gourel stopped the moment that the chief's incentive was no longer behind him.

But the chief was on his way! Gourel took out his watch and calculated the exact time when he would arrive. If only the commissary of police did not get there first, if only the examining-magistrate, who was no doubt already appointed, or the divisional surgeon, did not come to make inopportune discoveries before the chief had time to fix the essential points of the case in his mind!

“Well, Gourel, what are you dreaming about?”

“The chief!”

M. Lenormand was still a young man, if you took stock only of the expression of his face and his eyes gleaming through his spectacles; but he was almost an old man when you saw his bent back, his skin dry and yellow as wax, his grizzled hair and beard, his whole decrepit, hesitating, unhealthy appearance. He had spent his life laboriously in the colonies as government commissary, in the most dangerous posts. He had there acquired a series of fevers; an indomitable energy, notwithstanding his physical weariness; the habit of living alone, of talking little and acting in silence; a certain misanthropy; and, suddenly, at the age of fifty-five, in consequence of the famous case of the three Spaniards at Biskra, a great and well-earned notoriety.

The injustice was then repaired; and he was straightway transferred to Bordeaux, was next appointed deputy in Paris, and lastly, on the death of M. Dudouis, chief of the detective-service. And in each of these posts he displayed such a curious faculty of inventiveness in his proceedings, such resourcefulness, so many new and original qualities; and above all, he achieved such correct results in the conduct of the last four or five cases with which public opinion had been stirred, that his name was quoted in the same breath with those of the most celebrated detectives.

Gourel, for his part, had no hesitation. Himself a favourite of the chief, who liked him for his frankness and his passive obedience, he set the chief above them all. The chief to him was an idol, an infallible god.

M. Lenormand seemed more tired than usual that day. He sat down wearily, parted the tails of his frock-coat—an old frock-coat, famous for its antiquated cut and its olive-green hue — untied his neckerchief — an equally famous maroon-coloured neckerchief, rested his two hands on his stick, and said:

“Speak!”

Gourel told all that he had seen, and all that he had learnt, and told it briefly, according to the habit which the chief had taught him.

But, when he produced Lupin's card, M. Lenormand gave a start:

“Lupin!”

“Yes, Lupin. The brute's bobbed up again.”

“That's all right, that's all right,” said M. Lenormand, after a moment's thought.

“That's all right, of course,” said Gourel, who loved to add a word of his own to the rare speeches of a superior whose only fault in his eyes was an undue reticence. “That's all right, for at last you will measure your strength with an adversary worthy of you.... And Lupin will meet his master.... Lupin will cease to exist.... Lupin...”

“Ferret!” said M. Lenormand, cutting him short.

It was like an order given by a sportsman to his dog. And Gourel ferreted after the manner of a good dog, a lively and intelligent animal, working under his master's eyes. M. Lenormand pointed his stick to a corner, to an easy chair, just as one points to a bush or a tuft of grass, and Gourel beat up the bush or the tuft of grass with conscientious thoroughness.

“Nothing,” said the sergeant, when he finished.

“Nothing for you!” grunted M. Lenormand.

“That's what I meant to say.... I know that, for you, chief, there are things that talk like human beings, real living witnesses. For all that, here is a murder well and duly added to our score against Master Lupin.”

“The first,” observed M. Lenormand.

“The first, yes.... But it was bound to come. You can't lead that sort of life without, sooner or later, being driven by circumstances to serious crime. Mr. Kesselbach must have defended himself....”

“No, because he was bound.”

“That's true,” owned Gourel, somewhat disconcertedly, “and it's rather curious too.... Why kill an adversary who has practically ceased to exist?... But, no matter, if I had collared him yesterday, when we were face to face at the hall-door...”

M. Lenormand had stepped out on the balcony. Then he went to Mr. Kesselbach's bedroom, on the right, and tried the fastenings of the windows and doors.

“The windows of both rooms were shut when I came in,” said Gourel.

“Shut, or just pushed to?”

“No one has touched them since. And they are shut, chief.”

A sound of voices brought them back to the sitting-room. Here they found the divisional surgeon, engaged in examining the body, and M. Formerie, the magistrate. M. Formerie exclaimed:

“Arsene Lupin! I am glad that at last a lucky chance has brought me into touch with that scoundrel again! I'll show the fellow the stuff I'm made of!... And this time it's a murder!... It's a fight between you and me now, Master Lupin!”

M. Formerie had not forgotten the strange adventure of the Princesse de Lamballe's diadem, nor the wonderful way in which Lupin had tricked him a few years before. The thing had remained famous in the annals of the law-courts. People still laughed at it; and in M. Formerie it had left a just feeling of resentment, combined with the longing for a striking revenge.

“The nature of the crime is self-evident,” he declared, with a great air of conviction, “and we shall have no difficulty in discovering the motive. So all is well.... M. Lenormand, how do you do?... I am delighted to see you....”

M. Formerie was not in the least delighted. On the contrary, M. Lenormand's presence did not please him at all, seeing that the chief detective hardly took the trouble to disguise the contempt in which he held him. However, the magistrate drew himself up and, in his most solemn tones:

“So, doctor, you consider that death took place about a dozen hours ago, perhaps more!... That, in fact, was my own idea.... We are quite agreed.... And the instrument of the crime?”

“A knife with a very thin blade, Monsieur le Juge destruction,” replied the surgeon. “Look, the blade has been wiped on the dead man's own handkerchief....”

“Just so... just so... you can see the mark.... And now let us go and question Mr. Kesselbach's secretary and man-servant. I have no doubt that their examination will throw some more light on the case.”

Chapman, who together with Edwards, had been moved to his own room, on the left of the sitting-room, had already recovered from his experiences. He described in detail the events of the previous day, Mr. Kesselbach's restlessness, the expected visit of the Colonel and, lastly, the attack of which they had been the victims.

“Aha!” cried M. Formerie. “So there's an accomplice! And you heard his name!... Marco, you say?... This is very important. When we've got the accomplice, we shall be a good deal further advanced....”

“Yes, but we've not got him,” M. Lenormand ventured to remark.

“We shall see.... One thing at a time..... And then, Mr. Chapman, this Marco went away immediately after M. Gourel had rung the bell?”

“Yes, we heard him go.”

“And after he went, did you hear nothing else?”

“Yes... from time to time, but vaguely... The door was shut.”

“And what sort of noises did you hear?”

“Bursts of voices. The man...”

“Call him by his name, Arsene Lupin.”

“Arsene Lupin must have telephoned.”

“Capital! We will examine the person of the hotel who has charge of the branch exchange communicating with the outside. And, afterward, did you hear him go out, too?”

“He came in to see if we were still bound; and, a quarter of an hour later, he went away, closing the hall-door after him.”

“Yes, as soon as his crime was committed. Good.... Good.... It all fits in.... And, after that?”

“After that, we heard nothing more.... The night passed.... I fell asleep from exhaustion.... So did Edwards.... And it was not until this morning...”

“Yes, I know.... There, it's not going badly... it all fits in....”

And, marking off the stages of his investigation, in a tone as though he were enumerating so many victories over the stranger, he muttered thoughtfully:

“The accomplice... the telephone...the time of the murder... the sounds that were heard.... Good.... Very good.... We have still to establish the motive of the crime.... In this case, as we have Lupin to deal with, the motive is obvious. M. Lenormand, have you noticed the least sign of anything being broken open?”

“No.”

“Then the robbery must have been effected upon the person of the victim himself. Has his pocket-book been found?”

“I left it in the pocket of his jacket,” said Gourel.

They all went into the sitting-room, where M. Formerie discovered that the pocket-book contained nothing but visiting-cards and papers establishing the murdered man's identity.

“That's odd. Mr. Chapman, can you tell us if Mr. Kesselbach had any money on him?”

“Yes. On the previous day — that is, on Monday, the day before yesterday — we went to the Credit Lyonnais, where Mr. Kesselbach hired a safe...”

“A safe at the Credit Lyonnais? Good.... We must look into that.”

“And, before we left, Mr. Kesselbach opened an account and drew out five or six thousand francs in bank-notes.”

“Excellent... that tells us just what we want to know.”

Chapman continued:

“There is another point, Monsieur le Juge d'lnstruction. Mr. Kesselbach, who for some days had been very uneasy in his mind — I have told you the reason: a scheme to which he attached the utmost importance — Mr. Kesselbach seemed particularly anxious about two things. There was, first, a little ebony box, which he put away safely at the Credit Lyonnais; and, next, a little black morocco note-case, in which he kept a few papers.”

“And where is that?”

“Before Lupin's arrival, he put it, in my presence, into that travelling-bag.”

M. Formerie took the bag and felt about in it. The note-case was not there. He rubbed his hands:

“Ah, everything fits in!... We know the culprit, the conditions and the motive of the crime. This case won't take long. Are we quite agreed upon everything, M. Lenormand?”

“Upon not one single thing.”

There was a moment of stupefaction. The commissary of police had arrived: and, behind him, in spite of the constables keeping the door, a troop of journalists, and the hotel staff had forced their way in and were standing in the entrance-lobby.

Notorious though the old fellow was for his bluntness — a bluntness which was not without a certain discourtesy and which had already procured him an occasional reprimand in high quarters — the abruptness of this reply took every one aback. And M. Formerie in particular appeared utterly nonplussed:

“Still,” he said, “I can see nothing that isn't quite simple. Lupin is the thief....”

“Why did he commit the murder?” M. Lenormand flung at him.

“In order to commit the theft.”

“I beg your pardon; the witnesses' story proves that the theft took place before the murder. Mr. Kesselbach was first bound and gagged, then robbed. Why should Lupin, who has never resorted to murder, choose this time to kill a man whom he had rendered helpless and whom he had already robbed?”

The examining-magistrate stroked his long, fair whiskers, with the gesture customary to him when a question seemed incapable of solution. He replied in a thoughtful tone:—

“There are several answers to that....”

“What are they?”

“It depends... it depends upon a number of facts as yet unknown.... And, moreover, the objection applies only to the nature of the motives. We are agreed as to the remainder.”

“No.”

This time, again, the denial was flat, blunt, almost impolite; so much so that the magistrate was absolutely nonplussed, dared not even raise a protest, and remained abashed in the presence of this strange collaborator. At last he said:

“We all have our theories. I should like to know yours.”

“I have none.”

The chief detective rose and, leaning on his stick, took a few steps through the room. All the people around him were silent.... And it was rather curious, in a group in which, after all, his position was only that of an auxiliary, a subordinate, to see this ailing, decrepit, elderly man dominate the others by the sheer force of an authority which they had to feel, even though they did not accept it. After a long pause he said:

“I should like to inspect the rooms which adjoin this suite.”

The manager showed him the plan of the hotel. The only way out of the right-hand bedroom, which was Mr. Kesselbach's, was through the little entrance-hall of the suite. But the bedroom on the left, the room occupied by the secretary, communicated with another apartment.

“Let us inspect it,” said M. Lenormand.

M. Formerie could not help shrugging his shoulders and growling:

“But the communicating door is bolted and the window locked.”

“Let us inspect it,” repeated M. Lenormand.

He was taken into the apartment, which was the first of the five rooms reserved for Mrs. Kesselbach. Then, at his request, he was taken to the rooms leading out of it. All the communicating doors were bolted on both sides.

“Are not any of these rooms occupied?” he asked.

“No.”

“Where are the keys?”

“The keys are always kept in the office.”

“Then no one can have got in?...”

“No one, except the floor-waiter who airs and dusts the rooms.”

“Send for him, please.”

The man, whose name was Gustave Beudot, replied that he had closed the windows of five rooms on the previous day in accordance with his general instructions.

“At what time?”

“At six o'clock in the evening.”

“And you noticed nothing?”

“No, sir.”

“And, this morning... ?”

“This morning, I opened the windows at eight o'clock exactly.”

“And you found nothing?”

He hesitated. He was pressed with questions and ended by admitting:

“Well, I picked up a cigarette-case near the fireplace in 420.... I intended to take it to the office this evening.”

“Have you it on you?”

“No, it is in my room. It is a gun-metal case. It has a space for tobacco and cigarette-papers on one side and for matches on the other. There are two initials in gold: an L. and an M....”

“What's that?”

Chapman had stepped forward. He seemed greatly surprised and, questioning the servant:

“A gun-metal cigarette-case, you say?”

“Yes.”

“With three compartments — for tobacco, cigarette-papers, and matches.... Russian tobacco, wasn't it, very fine and light?”

“Yes.”

“Go and fetch it.... I should like to see it for myself... to make sure....”

At a sign from the chief detective, Gustave Beudot left the room.

M. Lenormand sat down and his keen eyes examined the carpet, the furniture and the curtains. He asked:

“This is room 420, is it not?”

“Yes.” .

The magistrate grinned:

“I should very much like to know what connection you establish between this incident and the tragedy. Five locked doors separate us from the room in which Mr. Kesselbach was murdered.”

M. Lenormand did not condescend to reply.

Time passed. Gustave did not return.

“Where does he sleep?” asked the chief detective.

“On the sixth floor,” answered the manager. “The room is on the Rue de Judee side: above this, therefore. It's curious that he's not back yet.”

“Would you have the kindness to send some one to see?”

The manager went himself, accompanied by Chapman. A few minutes after, he returned alone, running, with every mark of consternation on his face.

“Well?”

“Dead!”

“Murdered?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, by thunder, how clever these scoundrels are!” roared M. Lenormand. “Off with you, Gourel, and have the doors of the hotel locked.... Watch every outlet.... And you, Mr. Manager, please take us to Gustave Beudot's room.”

The manager led the way. But as they left the room, M. Lenormand stooped and picked up a tiny little round piece of paper, on which his eyes had already fixed themselves.

It was a label surrounded with a blue border and marked with the number 813. He put it in his pocket, on chance, and joined the others....

* * * * *

A small wound in the back, between the shoulder-blades....

“Exactly the same wound as Mr. Kesselbach's,” declared the doctor.

“Yes,” said M. Lenormand, “it was the same hand that struck the blow and the same weapon was used.”

Judging by the position of the body, the man had been surprised when on his knees before the bed, feeling under the mattress for the cigarette-case which he had hidden there. His arm was still caught between the mattress and the bed, but the cigarette-case was not to be found.

“That cigarette-case must have been devilish compromising!” timidly suggested M. Formerie, who no longer dared put forward any definite opinion.

“Well, of course!” said the chief detective.

“At any rate, we know the initials: an L. and an M. And with that, together with what Mr. Chapman appears to know, we shall easily learn....”

M. Lenormand gave a start:

“Chapman! But where is he?”

They looked in the passage among the groups of people crowded together. Chapman was not there.

“Mr. Chapman came with me,” said the manager.

“Yes, yes, I know, but he did not come back with you.”

“No, I left him with the corpse.”

“You left him!... Alone?”

“I said to him, 'Stay here... don't move...'”

“And was there no one about? Did you see no one?”

“In the passage? No.”

“But in the other attics?... Or else, look here, round that corner: was there no one hiding there?”

M. Lenormand seemed greatly excited. He walked up and down, he opened the doors of the rooms. And, suddenly, he set off at a run, with an agility of which no one would have thought him capable. He rattled down the six storeys, followed at a distance by the manager and the examining-magistrate. At the bottom, he found Gourel in front of the main door.

“Has no one gone out?”

“No, chief.”

“What about the other door, in the Rue Orvieto?”

“I have posted Dieuzy there.”

“With firm orders?”

“Yes, chief.”

The huge hall of the hotel was crowded with anxious visitors, all commenting on the more or less accurate versions that had reached them of the crime. All the servants had been summoned by telephone and were arriving, one by one. M. Lenormand questioned them without delay. None of them was able to supply the least information. But a fifth-floor chambermaid appeared. Ten minutes earlier, or thereabouts, she had passed two gentlemen who were coming down the servants' staircase between the fifth and the fourth floors.

“They came down very fast. The one in front was holding the other by the hand. I was surprised to see those two gentlemen on the servants' staircase.”

“Would you know them again?”

“Not the first one. He had his head turned the other way. He was a thin, fair man. He wore a soft black hat... and black clothes.”

“And the other?”

“Oh, the other was an Englishman, with a big, clean-shaven face and a check suit. He had no hat on.”

The description obviously referred to Chapman.

The woman added:

“He looked... he looked quite funny... as if he was mad.”

Gourel's word was not enough for M. Lenormand. One after the other, he questioned the under-porters standing at the two doors:

“Did you know Mr. Chapman?”

“Yes, sir, he always spoke to us.”

“And you have not seen him go out?”

“No, sir. He has not been out this morning.”

M. Lenormand turned to the commissary of police: “How many men have you with you, Monsieur le Commissaire?”

“Four.”

“That's not sufficient. Telephone to your secretary to send you all the men available. And please be so good as yourself to organize the closest watch at every outlet. The state of siege, Monsieur le Commissaire....”

“But I say,” protested the manager, “my customers?”

“I don't care a hang, sir, for your customers! My duty comes before everything; and my duty is at all costs to arrest....”

“So you believe...” the examining-magistrate ventured to interpolate.

“I don't believe, monsieur... I am sure that the perpetrator of both the murders is still in the hotel.”

“But then Chapman...”

“At this moment, I cannot guarantee that Chapman is still alive. In any case, it is only a question of minutes, of seconds.... Gourel, take two men and search all the rooms on the fourth floor.... Mr. Manager, send one of your clerks with them.... As for the other floors, I shall proceed as soon as we are reinforced. Come, Gourel, off with you, and keep your eyes open.... It's big game you're hunting!”

Gourel and his men hurried away. M. Lenormand himself remained in the hall, near the office. This time, he did not think of sitting down, as his custom was. He walked from the main entrance to the door in the Rue Orvieto and returned to the point from which he had started. At intervals he gave instructions:

“Mr. Manager, see that the kitchens are watched. They may try to escape that way.... Mr. Manager instruct your young lady at the telephone not to put any of the people in the hotel into communication with outside subscribers. If a call comes from the outside, she can connect the caller with the person asked for, but she must take a note of that person's name.... Mr. Manager, have a list made out of all your visitors whose name begins with an L. or an M.”

The tension caught the spectators by the throat, as they stood clustered in the middle of the hall, silent and gasping for breath, shaking with fear at the least sound, obsessed by the infernal image of the murderer. Where was he hiding? Would he show himself? Was he not one of themselves: this one, perhaps... or that one?...

And all eyes were turned on the gray-haired gentleman in spectacles, an olive-green frock-coat and a maroon-colored neckerchief, who was walking about, with his bent back, on a pair of shaky legs.

At times, one of the waiters accompanying Sergeant Gourel on his search would come running up.

“Any news?” asked M. Lenormand.

“No, sir, we've found nothing.”

The manager made two attempts to induce him to relax his orders regarding the doors. The situation was becoming intolerable. The office was filled with loudly-protesting visitors, who had business outside, or who had arranged to leave Paris.

“I don't care a hang!” said M. Lenormand again.

“But I know them all.”

“I congratulate you.”

“You are exceeding your powers.”

“I know.”

“The law will decide against you.”

“I'm convinced of that.”

“Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction himself....”

“M. Formerie had better not interfere. He can mind his own business, which is to examine the servants, as he is doing now. Besides, it has nothing to do with the examining-magistrate, it has to do with the police. It's my affair.”

Just then a squad of police burst into the hotel. The chief detective divided them into several sections which he sent up to the third floor. Then, addressing the commissary of police:

“My dear commissary, I leave the task of watching the doors to you. No weakness, I entreat you. I will take the responsibility for anything that happens.”

And, turning to the lift, he had himself conveyed to the second floor.

* * * * *

It was a difficult business and a long one, for they had to open the doors of the sixty bedrooms, to inspect all the bathrooms, all the recesses, all the cupboards, every nook and corner.

And it was also fruitless. An hour later, on the stroke of twelve, M. Lenormand had just done the second floor; the other parties had not yet finished the upper floors; and no discovery had been made.

M. Lenormand hesitated: had the murderer retreated to the attics?

He was deciding, however, to go downstairs, when he was told that Mrs. Kesselbach had just arrived with her lady-companion. Edwards, the old confidential man-servant, had accepted the task of informing her of Mr. Kesselbach's death.

M. Lenormand found her in one of the drawing rooms, overcome by the unexpected shock, dry-eyed, but with her features wrung with grief and her body trembling all over, as though convulsed with fever. She was a rather tall, dark woman; and her black and exceedingly beautiful eyes were filled with gold, with little gold spots, like spangles gleaming in the dark. Her husband had met her in Holland, where Dolores was born of an old family of Spanish origin, the Amontis. He fell in love with her at first sight; and for four years the harmony between them, built up of mutual affection and devotion, had never been interrupted.

M. Lenormand introduced himself. She looked at him without replying; and he was silent, for she did not appear, in her stupor, to understand what he said. Then, suddenly, she began to shed copious tears and asked to be taken to her husband.

In the hall, M. Lenormand found Gourel, who was looking for him and who rushed at him with a hat which he held in his hand:

“I picked this up, chief.... There's no doubt whom it belongs to, is there?”

It was a soft, black felt hat and resembled the description given. There was no lining or label inside it.

“Where did you pick it up?”

“On the second-floor landing of the servants' staircase.”

“Nothing on the other floors?”

“Nothing. We've searched everywhere. There is only the first floor left. And this hat shows that the man went down so far. We're burning, chief!”

“I think so.”

At the foot of the stairs M. Lenormand stopped:

“Go back to the commissary and give him my orders: he must post two men at the foot of each of the four staircases, revolver in hand. And they are to fire, if necessary. Understand this, Gourel: if Chapman is not saved and if the fellow escapes, it means my resignation. I've been wool-gathering for over two hours.”

He went up the stairs. On the first floor he met two policemen leaving a bedroom, accompanied by a servant of the hotel.

The passage was deserted. The hotel staff dared not venture into it. Some of the permanent visitors had locked themselves in their rooms; and the police had to knock for a long time and proclaim who they were before they could get the doors opened.

Farther on, M. Lenormand saw another group of policemen searching the maid's pantry and, at the end of a long passage, he saw some more men who were approaching the turning, that is to say, that part of the passage which contained the rooms overlooking the Rue de Judee.

And, suddenly, he heard these men shouting; and they disappeared at a run.

He hurried after them.

The policemen had stopped in the middle of the passage. At their feet, blocking their way, with its face on the carpet, lay a corpse.

M. Lenormand bent down and took the lifeless head in his hands:

“Chapman,” he muttered. “He is dead.”

He examined the body. A white knitted silk muffler was tied round the neck. He undid it. Red stains appeared; and he saw that the muffler held a thick wad of cotton-wool in position against the nape of the neck. The wad was soaked with blood.

Once again there was the same little wound, clean, frank and pitiless.

M. Formerie and the commissary were at once told and came hastening up.

“No one gone out?” asked the chief detective. “No surprise?”

“No,” said the commissary. “There are two men on guard at the foot of each staircase.”

“Perhaps he has gone up again?” said M. Formerie.

“No!... No!...”

“But some one must have met him,...”

“No.... This all happened quite a long time ago. The hands are cold.... The murder must have been committed almost immediately after the other... as soon as the two men came here by the servants' staircase.”

“But the body would have been seen! Think, fifty people must have passed this spot during the last two hours....”

“The body was not here.”

“Then where was it?”

“Why, how can I tell?” snapped the chief detective. “Do as I'm doing, look for yourself! You can't find things by talking.”

He furiously patted the knob of his stick with a twitching hand; and he stood there, with his eyes fixed on the body, silent and thoughtful. At last he spoke:

“Monsieur le Commissaire, be so good as to have the victim taken to an empty room. Let them fetch the doctor. Mr. Manager, would you mind opening the doors of all the rooms on this passage for me?”

On the left were three bedrooms and two sitting-rooms, forming an empty suite, which M. Lenormand inspected. On the right were four bedrooms. Two were occupied respectively by a M. Reverdat and an Italian, Baron Giacomini, who were both then out. In the third room they found an elderly English maiden lady still in bed; and, in the fourth, an Englishman who was placidly reading and smoking and who had not been in the least disturbed by the noises in the passage. His name was Major Parbury.

No amount of searching or questioning led to any result. The old maid had heard nothing before the exclamations of the policeman: no noise of a struggle, no cry of pain, no sound of quarreling; and Major Parbury neither.

Moreover, there was no suspicious clue found, no trace of blood, nothing to lead them to suppose that the unfortunate Chapman had been in one of those rooms.

“It's queer,” muttered the examining-magistrate, it's all very queer....” And he confessed, ingenuously, “I feel more and more at sea.... There is a whole series of circumstances that are partly beyond me. What do you make of it, M. Lenormand?”

M. Lenormand was on the point of letting off one of those pointed rejoinders in which he was wont to give vent to his chronic ill-temper, when Gourel appeared upon the scene, all out of breath.

“Chief,” he panted, “they've found this... downstairs... in the office... on a chair.

It was a parcel of moderate dimensions, wrapped up in a piece of black serge.

“Did they open it!” asked the chief.

“Yes, but when they saw what the parcel contained, they did it up again exactly as it was.... fastened very tight, as you can see....”

“Untie it.”

Gourel removed the wrapper and disclosed a black diagonal jacket and trousers, which had evidently been packed up in a hurry, as the creases in the cloth showed. In the middle was a towel, covered with blood, which had been dipped in water, in order, no doubt, to destroy the marks of the hands that had been wiped on it. Inside the napkin was a steel dagger, with a handle encrusted with gold. This also was red with blood, the blood of three men stabbed within the space of a few hours by an invisible hand, amid the crowd of three hundred people moving about in the huge hotel.

Edwards, the man-servant, at once identified the dagger as belonging to Mr. Kesselbach. He had seen it on the table on the previous day, before the assault committed by Lupin.

“Mr. Manager,” said the chief detective, “the restriction is over. Gourel, go and give orders to leave the doors free.”

“So you think that Lupin has succeeded in getting out?” asked M. Formerie.

“No. The perpetrator of the three murders which we have discovered is in one of the rooms of the hotel, or, rather, he is among the visitors in the hall or in the reception-rooms. In my opinion, he was staying in the hotel.”

“Impossible! Besides, where would he have changed his clothes? And what clothes would he have on now?”

“I don't know, but I am stating a fact.”

“And you are letting him go? Why, he'll just walk out quietly, with his hands in his pockets!”

“The one who walks away like that, without his luggage, and who does not return, will be the criminal. Mr. Manager, please come with me to the office. I should like to make a close inspection of your visitors' book.”

In the office, M. Lenormand found a few letters addressed to Mr. Kesselbach. He handed them to the examining-magistrate. There was also a parcel that had just come by the Paris parcel-post. The paper in which it was packed was partly torn; and M. Lenormand saw that it held a small ebony box, engraved with the name of Rudolf Kesselbach. Feeling curious, he opened the parcel. The box contained the fragments of a looking-glass which had evidently been fixed to the inside of the lid. It also contained the card of Arsene Lupin.

But one detail seemed to strike the chief detective. On the outside, at the bottom of the box, was a little blue-edged label, similar to the label which he had picked up in the room on the fourth floor where the cigarette-case was found, and this label bore the same number, 813.

CHAPTER III. M, LENORMAND OPENS HIS CAMPAIGN

“AUGUSTE, show M. Lenormand in.”

The messenger went out and, a few seconds later, announced the chief of the detective-service.

There were three men in the prime minister's private room on the Place Beauvau: the famous Valenglay, leader of the radical party for the past thirty years and now president of the council and minister of the interior; the attorney-general, M. Testard; and the prefect of police, Delaume.

The prefect of police and the attorney-general did not rise from the chairs which they had occupied during their long conversation with the prime minister. Valenglay, however, stood up and, pressing the chief detective's hand, said, in the most cordial tones:

“I have no doubt, my dear Lenormand, that you know the reason why I asked you to come.”

“The Kesselbach case?”

“Yes.”

* * * * *

The Kesselbach case! Not one of us but is able to recall not only the main details of this tragic affair, the tangled skein of which I have set myself to unravel, but even its very smallest incidents, so greatly did the tragedy excite us all during these recent years. Nor is there one of us but remembers the extraordinary stir which it created both in and outside France. And yet there was one thing that upset the public even more than the three murders committed in such mysterious circumstances, more than the detestable atrocity of that butchery, more than anything else; and that was the reappearance — one might almost say the resurrection — of Arsene Lupin.

Arsene Lupin! No one had heard speak of him for over four years, since his incredible, his astounding adventure of the Hollow Needle, since the day when he had slunk away into the darkness before the eyes of Holmlock Shears and Isidore Beautrelet, carrying on his back the dead body of the woman whom he loved, and followed by his old servant, Victoire.

From that day onward he had been generally believed to be dead. This was the version put about by the police, who, finding no trace of their adversary, were content purely and simply to bury him.

Some, however, believing him to be saved, described him as leading a placid, Philistine existence. According to them, he was living with his wife and children, growing his small potatoes; whereas others maintained that, bent down with the weight of sorrow and weary of the vanities of this world, he had sought the seclusion of a Trappist monastery.

And here he was once more looming large in the public view and resuming his relentless struggle against society! Arsene Lupin was Arsene Lupin again, the fanciful, intangible, disconcerting, audacious, genial Arsene Lupin! But, this time, a cry of horror arose. Arsene Lupin had taken human life! And the fierceness, the cruelty, the ruthless cynicism of the crime were so great that, then and there, the legend of the popular hero, of the chivalrous and occasionally sentimental adventurer, made way for a new conception of an inhuman, bloodthirsty, and ferocious monster. The crowd now loathed and feared its former idol with more intensity than it had once shown in admiring him for his easy grace and his diverting good-humor.

And, forthwith, the indignation of that frightened crowd turned against the police. Formerly, people had laughed. They forgave the beaten commissary of police for the comical fashion in which he allowed himself to be beaten. But the joke had lasted too long; and, in a burst of revolt and fury, they now called the authorities to account for the unspeakable crimes which these were powerless to prevent.

In the press, at public meetings, in the streets and even in the tribune of the Chamber of Deputies there was such an explosion of wrath that the government grew alarmed and strove by every possible means to allay the public excitement.

It so happened that Valenglay, the premier, took a great interest in all these police questions and had often amused himself by going closely into different cases with the chief of the detective-service, whose good qualities and independent character he valued highly. He sent for the prefect and the attorney-general to see him in his room, talked to them and then sent for M. Lenormand.

* * * * *

“Yes, my dear Lenormand, it's about the Kesselbach case. But, before we discuss it, I must call your attention to a point which more particularly affects and, I may say, annoys Monsieur le Prefet de Police. M. Delaume, will you explain to M. Lenormand...?”

“Oh, M. Lenormand knows quite well how the matter stands,” said the prefect, in a tone which showed but little good-will toward his subordinate. “We have talked it over already and I have told him what I thought of his improper conduct at the Palace Hotel. People are generally indignant.”

M. Lenormand rose, took a paper from his pocket and laid it on the table.

“What is this?” asked Valenglay.

“My resignation, Monsieur le President du Conseil.”

Valenglay gave a jump:

“What! Your resignation! For a well-meaning remark which Monsieur le Prefet thinks fit to address to you and to which, for that matter, he attaches no importance whatever — do you, Delaume? No importance whatever — and there you go, taking offence! You must confess, my dear Lenormand, that you're devilish touchy! Come, put that bit of paper back in your pocket and let's talk seriously.”

The chief detective sat down again, and Valenglay, silencing the prefect, who made no attempt to conceal his dissatisfaction, said:

“In two words, Lenormand, the thing is that Lupin's reappearance upon the scene annoys us. The brute has defied us long enough. It used to be funny, I confess, and I, for my part, was the first to laugh at it. But it's no longer a question of that. It's a question of murder now. We could stand Lupin, as long as he amused the gallery. But, when he takes to killing people, no!”

“Then what is it that you ask, Monsieur le President?”

“What we ask? Oh, it's quite simple! First, his arrest and then his head!”

“I can promise you his arrest, some day or another, but not his head.”

“What! If he's arrested, it means trial for murder, a verdict of guilty, and the scaffold.”

“No!”

“And why not?”

“Because Lupin has not committed murder.”

“Eh? Why, you're mad, Lenormand! The corpses at the Palace Hotel are so many inventions, I suppose! And the three murders were never committed!”

“Yes, but not by Lupin.”

The chief spoke these words very steadily, with impressive calmness and conviction. The attorney and the prefect protested.

“I presume, Lenormand,” said Valenglay, “that you do not put forward that theory without serious reasons?”

“It is not a theory.”

“What proof have you?”

“There are two, to begin with, two proofs of a moral nature, which I at once placed before Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction and which the newspapers have laid stress upon. First and foremost, Lupin does not kill people. Next, why should he have killed anybody, seeing that the object which he set out to achieve, the theft, was accomplished and that he had nothing to fear from an adversary who was gagged and bound?”

“Very well. But the facts?”

“Facts are worth nothing against reason and logic; and, moreover, the facts also are on my side. What would be the meaning of Lupin's presence in the room in which the cigarette-case was discovered? On the other hand, the black clothes which were found and which evidently belonged to the murderer are not in the least of a size to fit Lupin.”

“You know him, then, do you?”

“I? No. But Edwards saw him, Gourel saw him; and the man whom they saw is not the man whom the chambermaid saw, on the servants' staircase, dragging Chapman by the hand.”

“Then your idea...”

“You mean to say, the truth, M. le President. Here it is, or, at least, here is the truth as far as I know it. On Tuesday, the 16th of April, a man — Lupin — broke into Mr. Kesselbach's room at about two o'clock in the afternoon....”

M. Lenormand was interrupted by a burst of laughter. It came from the prefect of police.

“Let me tell you, M. Lenormand, that you are in rather too great a hurry to state your precise facts. It has been shown that, at three o'clock on that day, Mr. Kesselbach walked into the Credit Lyonnais and went down to the safe deposit. His signature in the register proves it.”

M. Lenormand waited respectfully until his superior had finished speaking. Then, without even troubling to reply directly to the attack, he continued:

“At about two o'clock in the afternoon, Lupin, assisted by an accomplice, a man named Marco, bound Mr. Kesselbach hand and foot, robbed him of all the loose cash which he had upon him and compelled him to reveal the cypher of his safe at the Credit Lyonnais. As soon as the secret was told, Marco left. He joined another accomplice, who, profiting by a certain resemblance to Mr. Kesselbach — a resemblance which he accentuated that day by wearing clothes similar to Mr. Kesselbach's and putting on a pair of gold spectacles — entered the Credit Lyonnais, imitated Mr. Kesselbach's signature, emptied the safe of its contents and walked off, accompanied by Marco. Marco at once telephoned to Lupin. Lupin, as soon as he was sure that Mr. Kesselbach had not deceived him and that the object of his expedition was attained, went away.”

Valenglay seemed to waver in his mind:

“Yes, yes... we'll admit that.... But what surprises me is that a man like Lupin should have risked so much for such a paltry profit: a few bank-notes and the hypothetical contents of a safe.”

“Lupin was after more than that. He wanted either the morocco envelope which was in the traveling-bag, or else the ebony box which was in the safe. He had the ebony box, because he has sent it back empty. Therefore, by this time, he knows, or is in a fair way for knowing, the famous scheme which Mr. Kesselbach was planning, and which he was discussing with his secretary a few minutes before his death.”

“What was the scheme?”

“I don't exactly know. The manager of Barbareux's agency, to whom he had opened his mind about it, has told me that Mr. Kesselbach was looking for a man who went by the name of Pierre Leduc, a man who had lost caste, it appears. Why and how the discovery of this person was connected with the success of his scheme, I am unable to say.”

“Very well,” said Valenglay. “So much for Arsene Lupin. His part is played. Mr. Kesselbach is bound hand and foot, robbed, but alive!... What happens up to the time when he is found dead?”

“Nothing, for several hours, nothing until night. But, during the night, some one made his way in.”

“How?”

“Through room 420, one of the rooms reserved by Mr. Kesselbach. The person in question evidently possessed a false key.”

“But,” exclaimed the prefect of police, “all the doors between that room and Mr. Kesselbach's flat were bolted; and there were five of them!”

“There was always the balcony.”

“The balcony!”

“Yes; the balcony runs along the whole floor, on the Rue de Judee side.”

“And what about the spaces in between?”

“An active man can step across them. Our man did. I have found marks.”

“But all the windows of the suite were shut; and it was ascertained, after the crime, that they were still shut.”

“All except one, the secretary's window, Chapman's, which was only pushed to. I tried it myself.”

This time the prime minister seemed a little shaken, so logical did M. Lenormand's version seem, so precise and supported by such sound facts. He asked, with growing interest:

“But what was the man's object in coming?”

“I don't know.”

“Ah, you don't know!”

“Any more than I know his name.”

“But why did he kill Mr. Kesselbach?”

“I don't know. This all remains a mystery. The utmost that we have the right to suppose is that he did not come with the intention of killing, but with the intention, he too, of taking the documents contained in the morocco note-case and the ebony box; and that, finding himself by accident in the presence of the enemy reduced to a state of helplessness, he killed him.”

Valenglay muttered:

“Yes, strictly speaking, that is possible.... And, according to you, did he find the documents?”

“He did not find the box, because it was not there; but he found the black morocco note-case. So that Lupin and... the other are in the same position. Each knows as much as the other about the Kesselbach scheme.”

“That means,” remarked the premier, “that they will fight.”

“Exactly. And the fight has already begun. The murderer, finding a card of Arsene Lupin's, pinned it to the corpse. All the appearances would thus be against Arsene Lupin... therefore, Arsene Lupin would be the murderer.”

“True... true,” said Valenglay. “The calculation seemed pretty accurate.”

“And the stratagem would have succeeded,” continued M. Lenormand, “if in consequence of another and a less favorable accident, the murderer had not, either in coming or going, dropped his cigarette-case in room 420, and if the floor-waiter, Gustave Beudot, had not picked it up. From that moment, knowing himself to be discovered, or on the point of being discovered...”

“How did he know it?”

“How? Why, through M. Formerie, the examining-magistrate, himself! The investigation took place with open doors. It is certain that the murderer was concealed among the people, members of the hotel staff and journalists, who were present when Gustave Beudot was giving his evidence; and when the magistrate sent Gustave Beudot to his attic to fetch the cigarette-case, the man followed and struck the blow. Second victim!”

No one protested now. The tragedy was being reconstructed before their eyes with a realism and a probable accuracy which were equally striking.

“And the third victim?” asked Valenglay.

“He himself gave the ruffian his opportunity. When Beudot did not return, Chapman, curious to see the cigarette-case for himself, went upstairs with the manager of the hotel. He was surprised by the murderer, dragged away by him, taken to one of the bedrooms and murdered in his turn.”

“But why did he allow himself to be dragged away like that and to be led by a man whom he knew to be the murderer of Mr. Kesselbach and of Gustave Beudot?”

“I don't know, any more than I know the room in which the crime was committed, or the really miraculous way in which the criminal escaped.”

“Something has been said about two blue labels.”

“Yes, one was found on the box which Lupin sent back; and the other was found by me and doubtless came from the morocco note-case stolen by the murderer.”

“Well?”

“I don't think that they mean anything. What does mean something is the number 813, which Mr. Kesselbach wrote on each of them. His handwriting has been recognized.”

“And that number 813?”

“It's a mystery.”

“Then?”

“I can only reply again that I don't know.”

“Have you no suspicions?”

“None at all. Two of my men are occupying one of the rooms in the Palace Hotel, on the floor where Chapman's body was found. I have had all the people in the hotel watched by these two men. The criminal is not one of those who have left.”

“Did no one telephone while the murders were being committed?”

“Yes, some one telephoned from the outside to Major Parbury, one of the four persons who occupied rooms on the first-floor passage.”

“And this Major Parbury?”

“I am having him watched by my men. So far, nothing has been discovered against him.”

“And in which direction do you intend to seek?”

“Oh, in a very limited direction. In my opinion, the murderer must be numbered among the friends or connections of Mr. and Mrs. Kesselbach. He followed their scent, knew their habits, the reason of Mr. Kesselbach's presence in Paris; and he at least suspected the importance of Mr. Kesselbach's plans.”

“Then he was not a professional criminal?”

“No, no, certainly not! The murder was committed with extraordinary cleverness and daring, but it was due to circumstances. I repeat, we shall have to look among the people forming the immediate circle of Mr. and Mrs. Kesselbach. And the proof is that Mr. Kesselbach's murderer killed Gustave Beudot for the sole reason that the waiter had the cigarette-case in his possession; and Chapman for the sole reason that the secretary knew of its existence. Remember Chapman's excitement: at the mere description of the cigarette-case, Chapman received a sudden insight into the tragedy. If he had seen the cigarette-case, we should have been fully informed. The man, whoever he may be, was well aware of that: and he put an end to Chapman. And we know nothing, nothing but the initials L. and M.”

He reflected for a moment and said:

“There is another proof, which forms an answer to one of your questions, Monsieur le President: Do you believe that Chapman would have accompanied that man along the passages and staircases of the hotel if he did not already know him?”

The facts were accumulating. The truth or, at least, the probable truth was gaining strength. Many of the points at issue, the most interesting, perhaps, remained obscure. But what a light had been thrown upon the subject! Short of the motives that inspired them, how clearly Lenormand's hearers now perceived the sequence of acts performed on that tragic morning!

There was a pause. Every one was thinking, seeking for arguments, for objections. At last, Valenglay exclaimed:

“My dear Lenormand, this is all quite excellent. You have convinced me.... But, taking one thing with another, we are no further than we were.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I say. The object of our meeting is not to clear up a portion of the mystery, which, one day, I am sure, you will clear up altogether, but to satisfy the public demand as fully as we possibly can. Now whether the murderer is Lupin or another; whether there are two criminals, or three, or only one: all this gives us neither the criminal's name nor his arrest. And the public continues under the disastrous impression that the law is powerless.”

“What can I do?”

“Give the public the definite satisfaction which it demands.”

“But it seems to me that this explanation ought to be enough....”

“Words! The public wants deeds! One thing alone will satisfy it: an arrest.”

“Hang it all! Hang it all! We can't arrest the first person that comes along!”

“Even that would be better than arresting nobody,” said Valenglay, with a laugh. “Come, have a good look round! Are you sure of Edwards, Kesselbach's servant?”

“Absolutely sure. Besides... No, Monsieur le President, it would be dangerous and ridiculous; and I am sure that Mr. Attorney-General himself... There are only two people whom we have the right to arrest: the murderer — I don't know who he is — and Arsene Lupin.”

“Well?”

“There is no question of arresting Arsine Lupin, or, at least, it requires time, a whole series of measures, which I have not yet had the leisure to contrive, because I looked upon Lupin as settled down... or dead.”

Valenglay stamped his foot with the impatience of a man who likes to see his wishes realized on the spot:

“And yet... and yet, my dear Lenormand, something must be done... if only for your own sake. You know as well as I do that you have powerful enemies... and that, if I were not there... In short, Lenormand, you can't be allowed to get out of it like this. What are you doing about the accomplices? There are others besides Lupin. There is Marco; and there's the rogue who impersonated Mr. Kesselbach in order to visit the cellars of the Credit Lyonnais.”

“Would you be satisfied if you got him, Monsieur le President?”

“Would I be satisfied? Heavens alive, I should think I would!”

“Well, give me seven days.”

“Seven days! Why, it's not a question of days, my dear Lenormand! It's a question of hours!”

“How many will you give me, Monsieur le President?”

Valenglay took out his watch and chuckled:

“I will give you ten minutes, my dear Lenormand!”

The chief took out his, and emphasizing each syllable, said calmly:

“That is four minutes more than I want, Monsieur le President.”

Valenglay looked at him in amazement.

“Four minutes more than you want? What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, Monsieur le President, that the ten minutes which you allow me are superfluous. I want six, and not one minute more.”

“Oh, but look here, Lenormand... if you imagine that this is the time for joking...”

The chief detective went to the window and beckoned to two men who were walking round the courtyard.

Then he returned:

“Mr. Attorney-General, would you have the kindness to sign a warrant for the arrest of Auguste Maximin Philippe Daileron, aged forty-seven? You might leave the profession open.”

He went to the door:

“Come in, Gourel. You, too, Dieuzy.” Gourel entered, accompanied by Inspector Dieuzy.

“Have you the handcuffs, Gourel?”

“Yes, chief.”

M. Lenormand went up to Valenglay:

“Monsieur le President, everything is ready. But I entreat you most urgently to forego this arrest. It upsets all my plans; it may render them abortive; and, for the sake of what, after all, is a very trifling satisfaction, it exposes us to the risk of jeopardizing the whole business.”

“M. Lenormand, let me remark that you have only eighty seconds left.”

The chief suppressed a gesture of annoyance, strode across the room and, leaning on his stick, sat down angrily, as though he had decided not to speak. Then, suddenly making up his mind:

“Monsieur le President, the first person who enters this room will be the man whose arrest you asked for... against my wish, as I insist on pointing out to you.”

“Fifteen seconds, Lenormand!”

“Gourel... Dieuzy... the first person, do you understand?... Mr. Attorney, have you signed the warrant?”

“Ten seconds, Lenormand!”

“Monsieur le President, would you be so good as to ring the bell?”

Valenglay rang.

The messenger appeared in the doorway and waited.

Valenglay turned to the chief:: “Well, Lenormand, he's waiting for your orders. Whom is he to show in?”

“No one.”

“But the rogue whose arrest you promised us? The six minutes are more than past.”

“Yes, but the rogue is here!”

“Here? I don't understand. No one has entered the room!”

“I beg your pardon.”

“Oh, I say.... Look here, Lenormand, you're making fun of us. I tell you again that no one has entered the room.”

“There were six of us in this room, Monsieur le President; there are seven now. Consequently, some one has entered the room.”

Valenglay started:

“Eh! But this is madness!... What! You mean to say...”

The two detectives had slipped between the messenger and the door. M. Lenormand walked up to the messenger, clapped his hand on his shoulder and, in a loud voice:

“In the name of the law, Auguste Maximin Philippe Daileron, chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior, I arrest you.”

Valenglay burst out laughing.

“Oh, what a joke! What a joke! That infernal Lenormand! Of all the first-rate notions! Well done, Lenormand! It's long since I enjoyed so good a laugh.”

M. Lenormand turned to the attorney-general:

“Mr. Attorney, you won't forget to fill in Master Daileron's profession on the warrant, will you? Chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior.”

“Oh, good!... Oh, capital!... Chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior!” spluttered Valenglay, holding his sides. “Oh, this wonderful Lenormand gets hold of ideas that would never occur to anybody else! The public is clamoring for an arrest.... Whoosh, he flings at its head my chief messenger... Auguste... the model servant! Well, Lenormand, my dear fellow, I knew you had a certain gift of imagination, but I never suspected that it would go so far as this! The impertinence of it!”

From the commencement of this scene, Auguste had not stirred a limb and seemed to understand nothing of what was going on around him. His face, the typical face of a good, loyal, faithful serving-man, seemed absolutely bewildered. He looked at the gentlemen turn and turn about, with a visible effort to catch the meaning of their words.

M. Lenormand said a few words to Gourel, who went out. Then, going up to Auguste and speaking with great decision, he said:

“There's no way out of it. You're caught. The best thing to do, when the game is lost, is to throw down your cards. What were you doing on Tuesday?”

“I? Nothing. I was here.”

“You lie. You were off duty. You went out for the day.”

“Oh, yes... I remember... I had a friend to see me from the country.... We went for a walk in the Bois.”

“Your friend's name was Marco. And you went for a walk in the cellars of the Credit Lyonnais.”

“I? What an idea!... Marco!... I don't know any one by that name.”

“And these? Do you know these?” cried the chief, thrusting a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles under his nose.

“No... certainly not.... I don't wear spectacles....”

“Yes, you do; you wear them when you go to the Credit Lyonnais and when you pass yourself off as Mr. Kesselbach. These come from your room, the room which you occupy, under the name of M. Jerome, at No. 50 Rue du Colisee.”

“My room? My room? I sleep here, at the office.”

“But you change your clothes over there, to play your parts in Lupin's gang.”

A blow in the chest made him stagger back. Auguste reached the window at a bound, climbed over the balcony and jumped into the courtyard.

“Dash it all!” shouted Valenglay. “The scoundrel!”

He rang the bell, ran to the window, wanted to call out. M. Lenormand, with the greatest calm, said:

“Don't excite yourself, Monsieur le President...”

“But that blackguard of an Auguste...”

“One second, please.... I foresaw this ending... in fact, I allowed for it.... It's the best confession we could have....”

Yielding in the presence of this coolness, Valenglay resumed his seat. In a moment, Gourel entered, with his hand on the collar of Master Auguste Maximin Philippe Daileron, alias Jerome, chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior.

“Bring him, Gourel!” said M. Lenormand, as who should say, “Fetch it! Bring it!” to a good retriever carrying the game in its jaws. “Did he come quietly?”

“He bit me a little, but I held tight,” replied the sergeant, showing his huge, sinewy hand.

“Very well, Gourel. And now take this chap off to the Depot in a cab. Good-bye for the present, M. Jerome.”

Valenglay was immensely amused. He rubbed his hands and laughed. The idea that his chief messenger was one of Lupin's accomplices struck him as a most delightfully ludicrous thing.

“Well done, my dear Lenormand; this is wonderful! But how on earth did you manage it?”

“Oh, in the simplest possible fashion. I knew that Mr. Kesselbach was employing the Barbareux agency and that Lupin had called on him, pretending to come from the agency. I hunted in that direction and discovered that, when the indiscretion was committed to the prejudice of Mr. Kesselbach and of Barbareux, it could only have been to the advantage of one Jerome, a friend of one of the clerks at the agency. If you had not ordered me to hustle things, I should have watched the messenger and caught Marco and then Lupin.”

“You'll catch them, Lenormand, you'll catch them, I assure you. And we shall be assisting at the most exciting spectacle in the world: the struggle between Lupin and yourself. I shall bet on you.”

* * * * *

The next morning the newspapers published the following letter:

“Open Letter to M. Lenormand, Chief of the Detective-service.

“All my congratulations, dear sir and dear friend, on your arrest of Jerome the messenger. It was a smart piece of work, well executed and worthy of you.

“All my compliments, also, on the ingenious manner in which you proved to the prime minister that I was not Mr. Kesselbach's murderer. Your demonstration was clear, logical, irrefutable and, what is more, truthful. As you know, I do not kill people. Thank you for proving it on this occasion. The esteem of my contemporaries and of yourself, dear sir and dear friend, are indispensable to my happiness.

“In return, allow me to assist you in the pursuit of the monstrous assassin and to give you a hand with the Kesselbach case, a very interesting case, believe me: so interesting and so worthy of my attention that I have determined to issue from the retirement in which I have been living for the past four years, between my books and my good dog Sherlock, to beat all my comrades to arms and to throw myself once more into the fray.

“What unexpected turns life sometimes takes! Here am I, your fellow-worker! Let me assure you, dear sir and dear friend, that I congratulate myself upon it, and that I appreciate this favor of destiny at its true value.

“Arsene Lupin.

“P.S. — One word more, of which I feel sure that you will approve. As it is not right and proper that a gentleman who has had the glorious privilege of fighting under my banner should languish on the straw of your prisons, I feel it my duty to give you fair warning that, in five weeks' time, on Friday, the 31st of May, I shall set at liberty Master Jerome, promoted by me to the rank of chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior. Don't forget the date: Friday, the 31st of May.

“A.L.”

CHAPTER IV. PRINCE SERNINE AT WORK

A GROUND-FLOOR flat, at the corner of the Boulevard Haussmann and the Rue de Courcelles. Here lived Prince Sernine: Prince Sernine, one of the most brilliant members of the Russian colony in Paris, whose name was constantly recurring in the “Arrivals and Departures” column in the newspapers.

Eleven o'clock in the morning. The prince entered his study. He was a man of thirty-eight or forty years of age, whose chestnut hair was mingled with a few silver threads on the temples. He had a fresh, healthy complexion and wore a large mustache and a pair of whiskers cut extremely short, so as to be hardly noticeable against the fresh skin of his cheeks.

He was smartly dressed in a tight-fitting frock-coat and a white drill waistcoat, which showed above the opening.

“Come on!” he said, in an undertone. “I have a hard day's work before me, I expect.”

He opened a door leading into a large room where a few people sat waiting, and said:

“Is Varnier there? Come in, Varnier.”

A man looking like a small tradesman, squat, solidly built, firmly set upon his legs, entered at the summons. The prince closed the door behind him:

“Well, Varnier, how far are you?”

“Everything's ready for this evening, governor.”

“Good. Tell me in a few words.”

“It's like this. After her husband's murder, Mrs. Kesselbach, on the strength of the prospectuses which you ordered to be sent to her, selected as her residence the establishment known as the Retreat for Gentlewomen, at Garches. She occupies the last of the four small houses, at the bottom of the garden, which the management lets to ladies who prefer to live quite apart from the other boarders, the house known as the Pavilion de l'Imperatrice.”

“What servants has she?”

“Her companion, Gertrude, with whom she arrived a few hours after the crime, and Gertrude's sister Suzanne, whom she sent for to Monte Carlo and who acts as her maid. The two sisters are devoted to her.”

“What about Edwards, the valet?”

“She did not keep him. He has gone back to his own country.”

“Does she see people?”

“No. She spends her time lying on a sofa. She seems very weak and ill. She cries a great deal. Yesterday the examining-magistrate was with her for two hours.”

“Very good. And now about the young girl.”

“Mile. Genevieve Ernemont lives across the way... in a lane running toward the open country, the third house on the right in the lane. She keeps a free school for backward children. Her grandmother, Mme. Ernemont, lives with her.”

“And, according to what you wrote to me, Genevieve Ernemont and Mrs. Kesselbach have become acquainted?”

“Yes. The girl went to ask Mrs. Kesselbach for a subscription for her school. They must have taken a liking to each other, for, during the past four days, they have been walking together in the Pare de Villeneuve, of which the garden of the Retreat is only a dependency.”

“At what time do they go out?”

“From five to six. At six o'clock exactly the young lady goes back to her school.”

“So you have arranged the thing?”

“For six o'clock today. Everything is ready.”

“Will there be no one there?”

“There is never any one in the park at that hour.”

“Very well. I shall be there. You can go.”

He sent him out through the door leading to the hall, and, returning to the waiting-room, called:

“The brothers Doudeville.”

Two young men entered, a little overdressed, keen-eyed and pleasant-looking.

“Good morning, Jean. Good morning, Jacques. Any news at the Prefecture?”

“Nothing much, governor.”

“Does M. Lenormand continue to have confidence in you?”

“Yes. Next to Gourel, we are his favorite inspectors. A proof is that he has posted us in the Palace Hotel to watch the people who were living on the first-floor passage at the time of Chapman's murder. Gourel comes every morning, and we make the same report to him that we do to you.”

“Capital. It is essential that I should be informed of all that happens and all that is said at the Prefecture of Police. As long as Lenormand looks upon you as his men, I am master of the situation. And have you discovered a trail of any kind in the hotel?”

Jean Doudeville, the elder of the two, replied:

“The Englishwoman who occupied one of the bedrooms has gone.”

“That doesn't interest me. I know all about her. But her neighbor, Major Parbury?”

They seemed embarrassed. At last, one of them replied:

“Major Parbury, this morning, ordered his luggage to be taken to the Gare du Nord, for the twelve-fifty train, and himself drove away in a motor. We were there when the train left. The major did not come.”

“And the luggage?”

“He had it fetched at the station.”

“By whom?”

“By a commissionaire,” so we were told.

“Then his tracks are lost?”

“Yes.”

“At last!” cried the prince, joyfully.

The others looked at him in surprise.

“Why, of course,” he said, “that's a clue!”

“Do you think so?”

“Evidently. The murder of Chapman can only have been committed in one of the rooms on that passage. Mr. Kesselbach's murderer took the secretary there, to an accomplice, killed him there, changed his clothes there; and, once the murderer had got away, the accomplice placed the corpse in the passage. But which accomplice? The manner of Major Parbury's disappearance goes to show that he knows something of the business. Quick, telephone the good news to M. Lenormand or Gourel. The Prefecture must be informed as soon as possible. The people there and I are marching hand in hand.”

He gave them a few more injunctions, concerning their double role as police-inspectors in the service of Prince Sernine, and dismissed them.

Two visitors remained in the waiting-room. He called one of them in:

“A thousand pardons, Doctor,” he said. “I am quite at your orders now. How is Pierre Leduc?”

“He's dead.”

“Aha!” said Sernine. “I expected it, after your note of this morning. But, all the same, the poor beggar has not been long....”

“He was wasted to a shadow. A fainting-fit; and it was all over.”

“Did he not speak?”

“No.”

“Are you sure that, from the day when the two of us picked him up under the table in that low haunt at Belleville, are you sure that nobody in your nursing-home suspected that he was the Pierre Leduc whom the police were looking for, the mysterious Pierre Leduc whom Mr. Kesselbach was trying to find at all costs?”

“Nobody. He had a room to himself. Moreover, I bandaged up his left hand so that the injury to the little finger could not be seen. As for the scar on the cheek, it is hidden by the beard.”

“And you looked after him yourself?”

“Myself. And, according to your instructions, I took the opportunity of questioning him whenever he seemed at all clear in his head. But I could never get more than an inarticulate stammering out of him.”

The prince muttered thoughtfully:

“Dead!... So Pierre Leduc is dead?... The whole Kesselbach case obviously turned on him, and now he disappears... without a revelation, without a word about himself, about his past.... Ought I to embark on this adventure, in which I am still entirely in the dark? It's dangerous.... I may come to grief....”

He reflected for a moment and exclaimed:

“Oh, who cares? I shall go on for all that. It's no reason, because Pierre Leduc is dead, that I should throw up the game. On the contrary! And the opportunity is too tempting! Pierre Leduc is dead! Long live Pierre Leduc!... Go, Doctor, go home. I shall ring you up before dinner.”

The doctor went out.

“Now, then, Philippe,” said Sernine to his last remaining visitor, a little gray-haired man, dressed like a waiter at a hotel, a very tenth-rate hotel, however.

“You will remember, governor,” Philippe began, “that last week, you made me go as boots to the Hotel des Deux-Empereurs at Versailles, to keep my eye on a young man.”

“Yes, I know.... Gerard Baupre. How do things stand with him?”

“He's at the end of his resources.”

“Still full of gloomy ideas?”

“Yes. He wants to kill himself.”

“Is he serious?”

“Quite. I found this little note in pencil among his papers.”

“Ah!” said Sernine, reading the note. “He announces his suicide... and for this evening too!”

“Yes, governor, he has bought the rope and screwed the hook to the ceiling. Thereupon, acting on your instructions, I talked to him. He told me of his distress, and I advised him to apply to you: 'Prince Sernine is rich,' I said; 'he is generous; perhaps he will help you.'”

“All this is first-rate. So he is coming?”

“He is here.”

“How do you know?”

“I followed him. He took the train to Paris, and he is walking up and down the boulevard at this minute. He will make up his mind from one moment to the other.”

Just then the servant brought in a card. The prince glanced at it and said to the man:

“Show M. Gerard Baupre in.”

Then, turning to Philippe:

“You go into the dressing-room, here; listen and don't stir.”

Left alone, the prince muttered:

“Why should I hesitate? It's fate that sends him my way....”

A few minutes later a tall young man entered. He was fair and slender, with an emaciated face and feverish eyes, and he stood on the threshold embarrassed, hesitating, in the attitude of a beggar who would like to put out his hand for alms and dares not.

The conversation was brief:

“Are you M. Gerard Baupre?”

“Yes... yes... that is my name.”

“I have not the honor...”

“It's like this, sir.... Some one told me...”

“Who?”

“A hotel servant... who said he had been in your service....”

“Please come to the point....”

“Well!...”

The young man stopped, taken aback and frightened by the haughty attitude adopted by the prince, who exclaimed:

“But, sir, there must be some...”

“Well, sir, the man told me that you were very rich... and very generous.... And I thought that you might possibly...”

He broke off short, incapable of uttering the word of prayer and humiliation.

Sernine went up to him.

“M. Gerard Baupre, did you not publish a volume of poetry called The Smile of Spring?”

“Yes, yes,” cried the young man, his face lighting up. “Have you read it?”

“Yes.... Very pretty, your poems, very pretty.... Only, do you reckon upon being able to live on what they will bring you?”

“Certainly... sooner or later....”

“Sooner or later? Later rather than sooner, I expect! And, meantime, you have come to ask me for the wherewithal to live?”

“For the wherewithal to buy food, sir.”

Sernine put his hand on the young man's shoulder and, coldly:

“Poets do not need food, monsieur. They live on rhymes and dreams. Do as they do. That is better than begging for bread.”

The young man quivered under the insult. He turned to the door without a word.

Sernine stopped him:

“One thing more, monsieur. Have you no resources of any kind?”

“None at all.”

“And you are not reckoning on anything?”

“I have one hope left: I have written to one of my relations, imploring him to send me something. I shall have his answer today. It is my last chance.”

“And, if you have no answer, you have doubtless made up your mind, this very evening, to...”

“Yes, sir.”

This was said quite plainly and simply.

Sernine burst out laughing:

“Bless my soul, what a queer young man you are! And full of artless conviction, too! Come and see me again next year, will you? We will talk about all this... it's so curious, so interesting... and, above all, so funny!... Ha, ha, ha, ha!”

And, shaking with laughter, with affected bows and gestures, he showed him the door.

“Philippe,” he said, admitting the hotel-servant, “did you hear?”

“Yes, governor.”

“Gerard Baupre is expecting a telegram this afternoon, a promise of assistance....”

“Yes, it's his last hope.”

“He must not receive that telegram. If it comes, intercept it and tear it up.”

“Very well, governor.”

“Are you alone at your hotel?”

“Yes, with the cook, who does not sleep in. The boss is away.”

“Good. So we are the masters. Till this evening, at eleven. Be off.”

Prince Sernine went to his room and rang for his servant:

“My hat, gloves, and stick. Is the car there?”

“Yes, sir.”

He dressed, went out, and sank into a large, comfortable limousine, which took him to the Bois de Boulogne, to the Marquis and Marquise de Gastyne's, where he was engaged for lunch.

At half-past two he took leave of his hosts, stopped in the Avenue Kleber, picked up two of his friends and a doctor, and at five minutes to three arrived at the Pare des Princes.

At three o'clock he fought a sword duel with the Italian Major Spinelli, cut his adversary's ear in the first bout, and, at a quarter to four, took a bank at the Rue Cambon Club, from which he retired, at twenty minutes past five, after winning forty-seven thousand francs.

And all this without hurrying, with a sort of haughty indifference, as though the feverish activity that sent his life whizzing through a whirl of tempestuous deeds and events were the ordinary rule of his most peaceful days.

“Octave,” he said to his chauffeur, “go to Garches.”

And at ten minutes to six he alighted outside the old walls of the Pare de Villeneuve.

* * * * *

Although broken up nowadays and spoilt, the Villeneuve estate still retains something of the splendor which it knew at the time when the Empress Eugenie used to stay there. With its old trees, its lake and the leafy horizon of the woods of Saint-Cloud, the landscape has a certain melancholy grace.

An important part of the estate was made over to the Pasteur Institute. A smaller portion, separated from the other by the whole extent of the space reserved for the public, forms a property contained within the walls which is still fairly large, and which comprises the House of Retreat, with four isolated garden-houses standing around it.

“That is where Mrs. Kesselbach lives,” said the prince to himself, catching sight of the roofs of the house and the four garden-houses in the distance.

He crossed the park and walked toward the lake.

Suddenly he stopped behind a clump of trees. He had seen two ladies against the parapet of the bridge that crossed the lake:

“Varnier and his men must be somewhere near. But, by Jove, they are keeping jolly well hidden! I can't see them anywhere....”

The two ladies were now strolling across the lawns, under the tall, venerable trees. The blue of the sky appeared between the branches, which swayed in the peaceful breeze, and the scent of spring and of young vegetation was wafted through the air.

On the grassy slopes that ran down to the motionless water, daisies, violets, daffodils, lilies of the valley, all the little flowers of April and May stood grouped, and, here and there, formed constellations of every color. The sun was sinking on the horizon.

And, all at once, three men started from a thicket of bushes and made for the two ladies.

They accosted them. A few words were exchanged. The ladies gave visible signs of dread. One of the men went up to the shorter of the two and tried to snatch the gold purse which she was carrying in her hand. They cried out; and the three men flung themselves upon them.

“Now or never!” said the prince.

And he rushed forward. In ten seconds he had almost reached the brink of the water. At his approach, the three men fled.

“Run away, you vagabonds,” he chuckled; “run for all you are worth! Here's the rescuer coming!”

And he set out in pursuit of them. But one of the ladies entreated him:

“Oh, sir, I beg of you... my friend is ill.”

The shorter lady had fallen on the grass in a dead faint.

He retraced his steps and, anxiously:

“She is not wounded?” he asked. “Did those scoundrels...”

“No... no... it's only the fright... the excitement.... Besides you will understand... the lady is Mrs. Kesselbach....”

“Oh!” he said.

He produced a bottle of smelling-salts, which the younger woman at once applied to her friend's nostrils. And he added:

“Lift the amethyst that serves as a stopper.... You will see a little box containing some tabloids. Give madame one of them... one, no more... they are very strong....”

He watched the young woman helping her friend. She was fair-haired, very simply dressed; and her face was gentle and grave, with a smile that lit up her features even when she was not smiling.

“That is Genevieve,” he thought. And he repeated with emotion, “Genevieve.... Genevieve...”

Meanwhile, Mrs. Kesselbach gradually recovered consciousness. She was astonished at first, seemed not to understand. Then, her memory returning, she thanked her deliverer with a movement of the head.

He made a deep bow and said:

“Allow me to introduce myself.... I am Prince Sernine....”

She said, in a faint voice:

“I do not know how to express my gratitude.”

“By not expressing it at all, madame. You must thank chance, the chance that turned my steps in this direction. May I offer you my arm?”

A few minutes later, Mrs. Kesselbach rang at the door of the House of Retreat and said to the prince:

“I will ask one more service of you, monsieur. Do not speak of this assault.”

“And yet, madame, it would be the only way of finding out...”

“Any attempt to find out would mean an inquiry; and that would involve more noise and fuss about me, examinations, fatigue; and I am worn out as it is.

The prince did not insist. Bowing to her, he asked:

“Will you allow me to call and ask how you are?”

“Oh, certainly....”

She kissed Genevieve and went indoors.

Meantime, night was beginning to fall. Sernine would not let Genevieve return alone. But they had hardly entered the path, when a figure, standing out against the shadow, hastened toward them.

“Grandmother!” cried Genevieve.

She threw herself into the arms of an old woman, who covered her with kisses:

“Oh, my darling, my darling, what has happened? How late you are!... And you are always so punctual!”

Genevieve introduced the prince:

“Prince Sernine... Mme. Ernemont, my grandmother....”

Then she related the incident, and Mme. Ernemont repeated:

“Oh, my darling, how frightened you must have been!... I shall never forget your kindness, monsieur, I assure you.... But how frightened you must have been, my poor darling!”

“Come, granny, calm yourself, as I am here....”

“Yes, but the fright may have done you harm.... One never knows the consequences.... Oh, it's horrible!...”

They went along a hedge, through which a yard planted with trees, a few shrubs, a playground and a white house were just visible. Behind the house, sheltered by a clump of elder-trees arranged to form a covered walk, was a little gate.

The old lady asked Prince Sernine to come in and led the way to a little drawing-room or parlor. Genevieve asked leave to withdraw for a moment, to go and see her pupils, whose supper-time it was. The prince and Mme. Ernemont remained alone.

The old lady had a sad and a pale face, under her white hair, which ended in two long, loose curls. She was too stout, her walk was heavy and, notwithstanding her appearance and her dress, which was that of a lady, she had something a little vulgar about her; but her eyes were immensely kind.

Prince Sernine went up to her, took her head in his two hands and kissed her on both cheeks:

“Well, old one, and how are you?”

She stood dumfounded, wild-eyed, open-mouthed. The prince kissed her again, laughing.

She spluttered:

“You! It's you! O mother of God!... O mother of God!... Is it possible!... O mother of God!...”

“My dear old Victoire!”

“Don't call me that,” she cried, shuddering. “Victoire is dead... your old servant no longer exists. I belong entirely to Genevieve.” And, lowering her voice, “O mother of God!... I saw your name in the papers: then it's true that you have taken to your wicked life again?”

“As you see.”

“And yet you swore to me that it was finished, that you were going away for good, that you wanted to become an honest man.”

“I tried. I have been trying for four years.... You can't say that I have got myself talked about during those four years!”

“Well?”

“Well, it bores me.”

She gave a sigh and asked:

“Always the same.... You haven't changed.... Oh, it's settled, you never will change.... So you are in the Kesselbach case?”

“Why, of course! But for that, would I have taken the trouble to arrange for an attack on Mrs. Kesselbach at six o'clock, so that I might have the opportunity of delivering her from the clutches of my own men at five minutes past? Looking upon me as her rescuer, she is obliged to receive me. I am now in the heart of the citadel and, while protecting the widow, can keep a lookout all round. Ah, you see, the sort of life which I lead does not permit me to lounge about and waste my time on little questions of politeness and such outside matters. I have to go straight to the point, violently, brutally, dramatically....”

She looked at him in dismay and gasped:

“I see... I see... it's all lies about the attack.... But then... Genevieve...”

“Why, I'm killing two birds with one stone! It was as easy to rescue two as one. Think of the time it would have taken, the efforts — useless efforts, perhaps— to worm myself into that child's friendship! What was I to her? What should I be now? An unknown person... a stranger. Whereas now I am the rescuer. In an hour I shall be... the friend.”

She began to tremble:

“So... so you did not rescue Genevieve.... So you are going to mix us up in your affairs....” And, suddenly, in a fit of rebellion, seizing him by the shoulders, “No, I won't have it, do you understand? You brought the child to me one day, saying, 'Here, I entrust her to you... her father and mother are dead... take her under your protection.' Well, she's under my protection now and I shall know how to defend her against you and all your manoeuvers!”

Standing straight upright, in a very determined attitude, Mme. Ernemont seemed ready for all emergencies.

Slowly and deliberately Sernine loosened the two hands, one after the other, that held him, and in his turn, took the old lady by the shoulders, forced her into an arm-chair, stooped over and, in a very calm voice, said:

“Rot!”

She began to cry and, clasping her hands together, implored him:

“I beseech you, leave us in peace. We were so happy! I thought that you had forgotten us and I blessed Heaven every time a day had passed. Why, yes... I love you just the same. But, Genevieve... you see, there's nothing that I wouldn't do for that child. She has taken your place in my heart.”

“So I perceive,” said he, laughing. “You would send me to the devil with pleasure. Come, enough of this nonsense! I have no time to waste. I must talk to Genevieve.”

“You're going to talk to her?”

“Well, is that a crime?”

“And what have you to tell her?”

“A secret... a very grave secret... and a very touching one....”

The old lady took fright:

“And one that will cause her sorrow, perhaps? Oh, I fear everything, I fear everything, where she's concerned!...”

“She is coming,” he said.

“No, not yet.”

“Yes, yes, I hear her.... Wipe your eyes and be sensible.”

“Listen,” said she, eagerly, “listen. I don't know what you are going to say, what secret you mean to reveal to this child whom you don't know. But I, who do know her, tell you this: Genevieve has a very plucky, very spirited, but very sensitive nature. Be careful how you choose your words.... You might wound feelings... the existence of which you cannot even suspect....”

“Lord bless me! And why not?”

“Because she belongs to another race than you, to a different world.... I mean, a different moral world.... There are things which you are forbidden to understand nowadays. Between you and her, the obstacle is insurmountable.... Genevieve has the most unblemished and upright conscience... and you...”

“And I?”

“And you are not an honest man!”

Genevieve entered, bright and charming:

“All my babies have gone to bed; I have ten minutes to spare.... Why, grandmother, what's the matter? You look quite upset.... Is it still that business with the...”

“No, mademoiselle,” said Sernine, “I believe I have had the good fortune to reassure your grandmother. Only, we were talking of you, of your childhood; and that is a subject, it seems, which your grandmother cannot touch upon without emotion.”

“Of my childhood?” said Genevieve, reddening. “Oh, grandmother!”

“Don't scold her, mademoiselle. The conversation turned in that direction by accident. It so happens that I have often passed through the little village where you were brought up.”

“Aspremont?”

“Yes, Aspremont, near Nice. You used to live in a new house, white all over....”

“Yes,” she said, “white all over, with a touch of blue paint round the windows.... I was only seven years old when I left Aspremont; but I remember the least things of that period. And I have not forgotten the glare of the sun on the white front of the house, nor the shade of the eucalyptus-tree at the bottom of the garden.”

“At the bottom of the garden, mademoiselle, was a field of olive-trees; and under one of those olive-trees stood a table at which your mother used to work on hot days....”

“That's true, that's true,” she said, quite excitedly. “I used to play by her side....”

“And it was there,” said he, “that I saw your mother several times.... I recognized her image the moment I set eyes on you... but it was a brighter, happier image.”

“Yes, my poor mother was not happy. My father died on the very day of my birth, and nothing was ever able to console her. She used to cry a great deal. I still possess a little handkerchief with which I used to dry her tears at that time.”

“A little handkerchief with a pink pattern.”

“What!” she exclaimed, seized with surprise. “You know...”

“I was there one day when you were comforting her.... And you comforted her so prettily that the scene remained impressed on my memory.”

She gave him a penetrating glance and murmured, almost to herself:

“Yes, yes.... I seem to... The expression of your eyes... and then the sound of your voice....”

She lowered her eyelids for a moment and reflected as if she were vainly trying to bring back a recollection that escaped her. And she continued:

“Then you knew her?”

“I had some friends living near Aspremont and used to meet her at their house. The last time I saw her, she seemed to me sadder still... paler... and, when I came back again...”

“It was all over, was it not?” said Genevieve. “Yes, she went very quickly... in a few weeks... and I was left alone with neighbors who sat up with her... and one morning they took her away.... And, on the evening of that day, some one came, while I was asleep, and lifted me up and wrapped me in blankets....”

“A man?” asked the prince.

“Yes, a man. He talked to me, quite low, very gently... his voice did me good... and, as he carried me down the road and also in the carriage, during the night, he rocked me in his arms and told me stories... in the same voice... in the same voice...”

She broke off gradually and looked at him again, more sharply than before and with a more obvious effort to seize the fleeting impression that passed over her at moments. He asked:

“And then? Where did he take you?”

“I can't recollect clearly... it is just as though I had slept for several days.... I can remember nothing before the little town of Montegut, in the Vendee, where I spent the second half of my childhood, with Father and Mother Izereau, a worthy couple who reared me and brought me up and whose love and devotion I shall never forget.”

“And did they die, too?”

“Yes,” she said, “of an epidemic of typhoid fever in the district... but I did not know that until later.... As soon as they fell ill, I was carried off as on the first occasion and under the same conditions, at night, by some one who also wrapped me up in blankets.... Only, I was bigger, I struggled, I tried to call out... and he had to close my mouth with a silk handkerchief.”

“How old were you then?”

“Fourteen... it was four years ago.”

“Then you were able to see what the man was like?”

“No, he hid his face better and he did not speak a single word to me.... Nevertheless, I have always believed him to be the same one... for I remember the same solicitude, the same attentive, careful movements....”

“And after that?”

“After that, came oblivion, sleep, as before.... This time, I was ill, it appears; I was feverish.... And I woke in a bright, cheerful room. A white-haired lady was bending over me and smiling. It was grandmother... and the room was the one in which I now sleep upstairs.”

She had resumed her happy face, her sweet, radiant expression; and she ended, with a smile:

“That was how she became my grandmother and how, after a few trials, the little Aspremont girl now knows the delights of a peaceful life and teaches grammar and arithmetic to little girls who are either naughty or lazy... but who are all fond of her.”

She spoke cheerfully, in a tone at once thoughtful and gay, and it was obvious that she possessed a reasonable, well-balanced mind. Sernine listened to her with growing surprise and without trying to conceal his agitation:

“Have you never heard speak of that man since?” he asked.

“Never.”

“And would you be glad to see him again?”

“Oh, very glad.”

“Well, then, mademoiselle...”

Genevieve gave a start:

“You know something... the truth perhaps....”

“No... no... only...”

He rose and walked up and down the room. From time to time, his eyes fell upon Genevieve; and it looked as though he were on the point of giving a more precise answer to the question which she had put to him. Would he speak?”

Mme. Ernemont awaited with anguish the revelation of the secret upon which the girl's future peace might depend.

He sat down beside Genevieve, appeared to hesitate, and said at last:

“No... no... just now... an idea occurred to me... a recollection...”

“A recollection?... And...”

“I was mistaken. Your story contained certain details that misled me.”

“Are you sure?”

He hesitated and then declared:

“Absolutely sure.”

“Oh,” said she, greatly disappointed. “I had half guessed... that that man whom I saw twice... that you knew him... that...”

She did not finish her sentence, but waited for an answer to the question which she had put to him without daring to state it completely.

He was silent. Then, insisting no further, she bent over Mme. Ernemont:

“Good night, grandmother. My children must be in bed by this time, but they could none of them go to sleep before I had kissed them.”

She held out her hand to the prince:

“Thank you once more....”

“Are you going?” he asked quickly.

“Yes, if you will excuse me; grandmother will see you out.”

He bowed low and kissed her hand. As she opened the door, she turned round and smiled. Then she disappeared. The prince listened to the sound of her footsteps diminishing in the distance and stood stock-still, his face white with emotion.

“Well,” said the old lady, “so you did not speak?”

“No....”

“That secret...”

“Later.... Today... oddly enough... I was not able to.”

“Was it so difficult? Did not she herself feel that you were the stranger who took her away twice.... A word would have been enough....”

“Later, later,” he repeated, recovering all his assurance. “You can understand... the child hardly knows me.... I must first gain the right to her affection, to her love.... When I have given her the life which she deserves, a wonderful life, such as one reads of in fairy-tales, then I will speak.”

The old lady tossed her head:

“I fear that you are making a great mistake. Genevieve does not want a wonderful life. She has simple tastes.”

“She has the tastes of all women; and wealth, luxury and power give joys which not one of them despises.”

“Yes, Genevieve does. And you would do much better....”

“We shall see. For the moment, let me go my own way. And be quite easy. I have not the least intention, as you say, of mixing her up in any of my manoeuvers. She will hardly ever see me.... Only, we had to come into contact, you know.... That's done.... Good-bye.”

He left the school and walked to where his motor-car was waiting for him. He was perfectly happy:

“She is charming... and so gentle, so grave! Her mother's eyes, eyes that soften you... Heavens, how long ago that all is! And what a delightful recollection! A little sad, but so delightful!” And he said, aloud, “Certainly I shall look after her happiness! And that at once! This very evening! That's it, this very evening she shall have a sweetheart! Is not love the essential condition of any young girl's happiness?”

He found his car on the high-road:

“Home,” he said to Octave.

* * * * *

When Sernine reached home, he rang up Neuilly and telephoned his instructions to the friend whom he called the doctor. Then he dressed, dined at the Rue Cambon Club, spent an hour at the opera and got into his car again:

“Go to Neuilly, Octave. We are going to fetch the doctor. What's the time?”

“Half-past ten.”

“Dash it! Look sharp!”

Ten minutes later, the car stopped at the end of the Boulevard Inkerman, outside a villa standing in its own grounds. The doctor came down at the sound of the hooter. The prince asked:

“Is the fellow ready?”

“Packed up, strung up, sealed up.”

“In good condition?”

“Excellent. If everything goes as you telephoned, the police will be utterly at sea.”

“That's what they're there for. Let's get him on board.”

They carried into the motor a sort of long sack shaped like a human being and apparently rather heavy. And the prince said:

“Go to Versailles, Octave, Rue de la Vilaine. Stop outside the Hotel des Deux-Empereurs.”

“Why, it's a filthy hotel,” observed the doctor. “I know it well; a regular hovel.”

“You needn't tell me! And it will be a hard piece of work, for me, at least.... But, by Jove! I wouldn't sell this moment for a fortune! Who dares pretend that life is monotonous?”

They reached the Hotel des Deux-Empereurs. A muddy alley; two steps down; and they entered a passage lit by a flickering lamp.

Sernine knocked with his fist against a little door.

A waiter appeared, Philippe, the man to whom Sernine had given orders, that morning, concerning Gerard Baupre.

“Is he here still?” asked the prince.

“Yes.”

“The rope?”

“The knot is made.”

“He has not received the telegram he was hoping for?”

“I intercepted it: here it is.”

Sernine took the blue paper and read it:

“Gad!” he said. “It was high time. This is to promise him a thousand francs for tomorrow. Come, fortune is on my side. A quarter to twelve.... In a quarter of an hour, the poor devil will take a leap into eternity. Show me the way, Philippe. You stay here, Doctor.”

The waiter took the candle. They climbed to the third floor, and, walking on tip-toe, went along a low and evil-smelling corridor, lined with garrets and ending in a wooden staircase covered with the musty remnants of a carpet.

“Can no one hear me?” asked Sernine.

“No. The two rooms are quite detached. But you must be careful not to make a mistake: he is in the room on the left.”

“Very good. Now go downstairs. At twelve o'clock, the doctor, Octave and you are to carry the fellow up here, to where we now stand, and wait till I call you.”

The wooden staircase had ten treads, which the prince climbed with definite caution. At the top was a landing with two doors. It took Sernine quite five minutes to open the one of the right without breaking the silence with the least sound of a creaking hinge.

A light gleamed through the darkness of the room. Feeling his way, so as not to knock against one of the chairs, he made for that light. It came from the next room and filtered through a glazed door covered with a tattered hanging.

The prince pulled the threadbare stuff aside. The panes were of ground glass, but scratched in parts, so that, by applying one eye, it was easy to see all that happened in the other room.

Sernine saw a man seated at a table facing him. It was the poet, Gerard Baupre. He was writing by the light of a candle.

Above his head hung a rope, which was fastened to a hook fixed in the ceiling. At the end of the rope was a slip-knot.

A faint stroke sounded from a clock in the street.

“Five minutes to twelve,” thought Sernine. “Five minutes more.”

The young man was still writing. After a moment, he put down his pen, collected the ten or twelve sheets of paper which he had covered and began to read them over.

What he read did not seem to please him, for an expression of discontent passed across his face. He tore up his manuscript and burnt the pieces in the flame of the candle.

Then, with a fevered hand, he wrote a few words on a clean sheet, signed it savagely and rose from his chair.

But, seeing the rope at ten inches above his head, he sat down again suddenly with a great shudder of alarm. I Sernine distinctly saw his pale features, his lean cheeks, against which he pressed his clenched fists. A tear trickled slowly down his face, a single, disconsolate tear. His eyes gazed into space, eyes terrifying in their unutterable sadness, eyes that already seemed to behold the dread unknown.

And it was so young a face! Cheeks still so smooth, with not a blemish, not a wrinkle! And blue eyes, blue like an eastern sky!...

Midnight... the twelve tragic strokes of midnight, to which so many a despairing man has hitched the last second of his existence!

At the twelfth stroke, he stood up again and, bravely this time, without trembling, looked at the sinister rope. He even tried to give a smile, a poor smile, the pitiful grimace of the doomed man whom death has already seized for its own.

Swiftly he climbed the chair and took the rope in one hand.

For a moment, he stood there, motionless: not that he was hesitating or lacking in courage. But this was the supreme moment, the one minute of grace which a man allows himself before the fatal deed.

He gazed at the squalid room to which his evil destiny had brought him, the hideous paper on the walls, the wretched bed.

On the table, not a book: all were sold. Not a photograph, not a letter: he had no father, no mother, no relations. What was there to make him cling to life?

With a sudden movement he put his head into the slip-knot and pulled at the rope until the noose gripped his neck.

And, kicking the chair from him with both feet, he leapt into space.

* * * * *

Ten seconds, fifteen seconds passed, twenty formidable, eternal seconds....

The body gave two or three jerks. The feet had instinctively felt for a resting-place. Then nothing moved....

A few seconds more.... The little glazed door opened.

Sernine entered.

Without the least haste he took the sheet of paper to which the young man had set his signature, and read:

“Tired of living, ill, penniless, hopeless, I am taking my own life. Let no one be accused of my death.

“GERARD BAUPRE

“30 April.”

* * * * *

He put back the paper on the table where it could be seen, picked up the chair and placed it under the young man's feet. He himself climbed up on the table and, holding the body close to him, lifted it up, loosened the slip-knot and passed the head through it.

The body sank into his arms. He let it slide along the table and, jumping to the floor, laid it on the bed.

Then, with the same coolness, he opened the door on the passage:

“Are you there, all the three of you?” he whispered.

Some one answered from the foot of the wooden staircase near him:

“We are here. Are we to hoist up our bundle?”

“Yes, come along!”

He took the candle and showed them a light.

The three men trudged up the stairs, carrying the sack in which the “fellow” was tied up.

“Put him here,” he said, pointing to the table.

With a pocket-knife, he cut the cords round the sack. A white sheet appeared, which he flung back. In the sheet was a corpse, the corpse of Pierre Leduc.

“Poor Pierre Leduc!” said Sernine. “You will never know what you lost by dying so young! I should have helped you to go far, old chap. However, we must do without your services.... Now then, Philippe, get up on the table; and you, Octave, on the chair. Lift up his head and fasten the slipknot.”

Two minutes later, Pierre Leduc's body was swinging at the end of the rope.

“Capital, that was quite simple! Now you can all of you go. You, Doctor, will call back here tomorrow morning; you will hear of the suicide of a certain Gerard Baupre: you understand, Gerard Baupre. Here is his farewell letter. You will send for the divisional surgeon and the commissary; you will arrange that neither of them notices that the deceased has a cut finger or a scar on one cheek....”

“That's easy.”

“And you will manage so as to have the report written—then and there, to your dictation.”

“That's easy.”

“Lastly, avoid having the body sent to the Morgue and make them give permission for an immediate burial.”

“That's not so easy.”

“Try. Have you examined the other one?”

He pointed to the young man lying lifeless on the bed.

“Yes,” said the doctor. “The breathing is becoming normal. But it was a big risk to run... the carotid artery might have...”

“Nothing venture, nothing have.... How soon will he recover consciousness?”

“In a few minutes.”

“Very well. Oh, by the way, don't go yet, Doctor. Wait for me downstairs. There is more for you to do.”

The prince, when he found himself alone, lit a cigarette and puffed at it quietly, sending little blue rings of smoke floating up to the ceiling.

A sigh roused him from his thoughts. He went to the bed. The young man was beginning to move; and his chest rose and fell violently, like that of a sleeper under the influence of a nightmare. He put his hands to his throat, as though he felt a pain there; and this action suddenly made him sit up, terrified, panting....

Then he saw Sernine in front of him:

“You?” he whispered, without understanding. “You?...”

He gazed at him stupidly, as though he had seen a ghost.

He again touched his throat, felt round his neck.... And suddenly he gave a hoarse cry; a mad terror dilated his eyes, made his hair stand on end, shook him from head to foot like an aspen-leaf! The prince had moved aside; and he saw the man's corpse hanging from the rope.

He flung himself back against the wall. That man, that hanged man, was himself! He was dead and he was looking at his own dead body! Was this a hideous dream that follows upon death? A hallucination that comes to those who are no more and whose distracted brain still quivers with a last flickering gleam of life?...

His arms struck at the air. For a moment, he seemed to be defending himself against the squalid vision. Then, exhausted, he fainted away for the second time.

“First-rate,” said the prince, with a grin. “A sensitive, impressionable nature.... At present, the brain is out of gear.... Come, this is a propitious moment.... But, if I don't get the business done in twenty minutes... he'll escape me.

He pushed open the door between the two garrets, came back to the bed, lifted the young man and carried him to the bed in the other room. Then he bathed his temples with cold water and made him sniff at some salts.

This time, the swoon did not last long.

Gerard timidly opened his eyes and raised them to the ceiling. The vision was gone. But the arrangement of the furniture, the position of the table and the fireplace, and certain other details all surprised him... And then came the remembrance of his act, the pain which he felt at his throat....

He said to the prince:

“I have had a dream, have I not?”

“No.”

“How do you mean, no?” And, suddenly recollecting, “Oh, that's true, I remember,... I meant to kill myself... and I even...” Bending forward anxiously, “But the rest, the vision—”

“What vision?”

“The man... the rope... was that a dream?...”

“No,” said Sernine. “That also was real.”

“What are you saying? What are you saying?... Oh, no, no!... I entreat you!... Wake me, if I am asleep... or else let me die!... But I am dead, am I not? And this is the nightmare of a corpse!... Oh, I feel my brain going!... I entreat you....”

Sernine placed his hand gently on the young man's head and, bending over him:

“Listen to me... listen to me carefully and understand what I say. You are alive. Your matter and your mind are as they were and live. But Gerard Baupre is dead. You understand me, do you not? That member of society who was known as Gerard Baupre has ceased to exist. You have done away with that one. Tomorrow, the registrar will write in his books, opposite the name you bore, the word 'Dead,' with the date of your decease.”

“It's a lie!” stammered the terrified lad. “It's a lie! Considering that I, Gerard Baupre, am here!”

“You are not Gerard Baupre,” declared Sernine. And, pointing to the open door, “Gerard Baupre is there, in the next room. Do you wish to see him?

He is hanging from the nail to which you hooked him. On the table is a letter in which you certify his death with your signature. It is all quite regular, it is all final. There is no getting away from the irrevocable, brutal fact: Gerard Baupre has ceased to exist!”

The young man listened in despair. Growing calmer, now that facts were assuming a less tragic significance, he began to understand:

“And then...” he muttered.

“And then... let us talk.”

“Yes, yes... let us talk....”

“A cigarette?” asked the prince. “Will you have one? Ah, I see that you are becoming reconciled to life! So much the better: we shall understand each other; and that quickly.”

He lit the young man's cigarette and his own and, at once, in a few words uttered in a hard voice, explained himself:

“You, the late Gerard Baupre, were weary of life, ill, penniless, hopeless.... Would you lie to be well, rich, and powerful?”

“I don't follow you.”

“It is quite simple. Accident has placed you on my path. You are young, good-looking, a poet; you are intelligent and — your act of despair shows it — you have a fine sense of conduct. These are qualities which are rarely found united in one person. I value them... and I take them for my account.”

“They are not for sale.”

“Idiot! Who talks of buying or selling? Keep your conscience. It is too precious a jewel for me to relieve you of it.”

“Then what do you ask of me?”

“Your life!” And, pointing to the bruises on the young man's throat, “Your life, which you have not known how to employ! Your life, which you have bungled, wasted, destroyed and which, I propose to build up again, in accordance with an ideal of beauty, greatness and dignity that would make you giddy, my lad, if you saw the abyss into which my secret thought plunges....” He had taken Gerard's head between his hands and he continued, eagerly: “You are free! No shackles! You have no longer the weight of your name to bear! You have got rid of that number with which society had stamped you as though branding you on the shoulder. You are free! In this world of slaves where each man bears his label you can either come and go unknown, invisible, as if you owned Gyges' ring... or else you can choose your own label, the one you like best! Do you understand the magnificent treasure which you represent to an artist... to yourself, if you like? A virgin life, a brand-new life! Your life is the wax which you have the right to fashion as you please, according to the whims of your imagination and the counsels of your reason.”

The young man made a gesture expressive of weariness:

“Ah, what would you have me do with that treasure? What have I done with it so far? Nothing!”

“Give it to me.”

“What can you do with it?”

“Everything. If you are not an artist, I am; and an enthusiastic artist, inexhaustible, indomitable, exuberant. If you have not the Promethean fire, I have! Where you failed, I shall succeed. Give me your life.”

“Words, promises!” cried the young man, whose features began to glow with animation. “Empty dreams! I know my own worthlessness! I know my cowardice, my despondency, my efforts that come to nothing, all my wretchedness. To begin life anew, I should need a will which I do not possess....”

“I possess mine.”

“Friends....”

“You shall have them.”

“Means....”

“I am providing you with means... and such means! You will only have to dip, as one would dip into a magic coffer.”

“But who are you?” cried the young man, wildly.

“To others, Prince Sernine.... To you... what does it matter? I am more than a prince, more than a king, more than an emperor....”

“Who are you?... Who are you?” stammered Baupre.

“The Master... he who will and who can... he who acts.... There are no bounds to my will, there is none to my power. I am richer than the richest man alive, for his fortune is mine.... I am more powerful than the mightiest, for their might is at my service!”

He took the other's head in his hands again and, looking deep into his eyes:

“Be rich, too... be mighty.... I offer you happiness... and the joy of living... and peace for your poet's brain... and fame and glory also.... Do you accept?”

“Yes... yes...” whispered Gerard, dazzled and overmastered. “What am I to do?”

“Nothing.”

“But...”

“Nothing, I say. The whole scaffolding of my plans rests on you, but you do not count. You have no active part to play. You are, for the moment, but a silent actor, or not even that, but just a pawn which I move along the board.”

“What shall I do?”

“Nothing. Write poetry. You shall live as you please. You shall have money. You shall enjoy life. I will not even bother my head about you. I repeat, you play no part in my venture.”

“And who shall I be?”

Sernine stretched out his arm and pointed to the next room:

“You shall take that man's place. You are that man!” Gerard shuddered with revolt and disgust:

“Oh, no, he is dead!... And then... it is a crime!... No, I want a new life, made for me, thought out for me... an unknown name....”

“That man, I tell you!” cried Sernine, irresistible in his energy and authority. “You shall be that man and none other! That man, because his destiny is magnificent, because his name is illustrious, and because he hands down to you a thrice-venerable heritage of ancestral dignity and pride.”

“It is a crime!” moaned Baupre, faltering.

“You shall be that man!” spoke Sernine, with unparalleled vehemence. “You shall be that man! If not, you become Baupre again; and over Baupre I own rights of life and death. Choose.”

He drew his revolver, cocked it and took aim at the young man:

“Choose,” he repeated.

The expression of his face was implacable. Gerard was frightened and sank down on his bed sobbing:

“I wish to live!”

“You wish it firmly, irrevocably?”

“Yes, a thousand times yes! After the terrible thing which I attempted, death appalls me.... Anything... anything rather than death!... Anything!... Pain... hunger... illness... every torture, every shame... crime itself, if need be... but not death!”

He shivered with fever and agony, as though the great enemy were still prowling round him and as though he felt himself powerless to escape from its clutches. The prince redoubled his efforts and, in a fervent voice, holding him under him like a prey:

“I will ask nothing impossible of you, nothing wrong.... If there is anything, I am responsible.... No, no crime... a little pain at most.... A little of your blood must flow. But what is that, compared with the dread of dying?”

“Pain is indifferent to me.”

“Then here and now!” shouted Sernine. “Here and now! Ten seconds of pain and that is all.... Ten seconds and the other's life is yours....”

He had seized him round the body and forced him down on a chair; and he now held the young man's left hand flat on the table, with his five fingers spread out. He swiftly took a knife from his pocket, pressed the blade against the little finger, between the first and second joints, and commanded:

“Strike! Strike your own blow. One blow of the fist and that is all!”

He had taken Gerard's right hand and was trying to bring it down upon the other like a hammer.

Gerard writhed and twisted, convulsed with horror. He understood:

“Never!” he stuttered. “Never!”

“Strike! One blow and it's done! One blow and you will be like that man: no one will recognize you.”

“Tell me his name....”

“Strike first!”

“Never! Oh, what torture!... I beseech you... presently....”

“Now.... I insist... you must...”

“No... no... I can't do it....”

“Strike, you fool! It means fortune, fame, love....”

Gerard raised his fist with a sudden movement. “Love,” he said, “yes... for that, yes....”

“You will love and be loved,” said Sernine. “Your betrothed awaits you. I have chosen her myself. She is the purest of the pure, the fairest of the fair. But you must win her. Strike!”

The lad's arm stiffened for the fatal blow; but the instinct of self-preservation was too strong for him. His body was wrung with a superhuman effort. He suddenly released himself from Sernine's hold and fled.

He rushed like a madman to the other room. A yell of terror escaped him, at the sight of the abominable vision, and he came back and fell on his knees before Sernine, beside the table.

“Strike!” said the prince, again spreading out the lad's fingers and fixing the blade of the knife.

What followed was done mechanically. With an automatic movement, with haggard eyes and a livid face, the young man raised his fist and struck:

“Ah!” he cried, with a moan of pain.

A small piece of flesh was separated from the little finger. Blood flowed. For the third time, Gerard fainted.

Sernine looked at him for a second or two and said, gently:

“Poor little chap!... There, I'll reward you for what you've done; and a hundred times over. I always pay generously.”

He went downstairs and found the doctor waiting below:

“It's done. Go upstairs, you, and make a little cut in his right cheek, similar to Pierre Leduc's. The two scars must be exactly alike. I shall come back for you in an hour.”

“Where are you going?”

“To take the air. My heart feels anyhow.”

Outside he drew a long breath and lit another cigarette:

“A good day's work,” he muttered. “A little overcrowded, a little tiring, but fruitful, really fruitful. I am Dolores Kesselbach's friend. I am Genevieve's friend. I have manufactured a new Pierre Leduc, a very presentable one and entirely at my disposal. Lastly, I have found Genevieve a husband of the sort that you don't find by the dozen. Now my task is done. I have only to gather the fruit of my efforts. It's your turn to work, M. Lenormand. I, for my part, am ready.” And he added, thinking of the poor mutilated lad whom he had dazzled with his promises, “Only — for there is an 'only' — I have not the slightest notion who this Pierre Leduc was, whose place I have magnanimously awarded to that good young man. And that's very annoying.... For when all is said, there's nothing to prove to me that Pierre Leduc was not the son of a pork-butcher!...”

CHAPTER V. M. LENORMAND AT WORK

ON THE morning of the 31st of May, all the newspapers reminded their readers that Lupin, in a letter addressed to M. Lenormand, had announced the escape of the messenger Jerome for that date. And one of them summed up the situation, as it then stood, in very able terms:

* * * * *

“The horrible carnage at the Palace Hotel took place as far back as the 17th of April. What has been discovered since? Nothing.

“There were three clues: the cigarette-case, the initials L. and M. and the parcel of clothes left behind in the office of the hotel. What advantage has been taken of these clues? None.

“It appears that the police suspect one of the visitors who was staying on the first floor and who disappeared in a doubtful manner. Have they found him? Have they established his identity? No.

“The tragedy, therefore, remains as mysterious as at the beginning, the gloom is impenetrable.

“To complete the picture, we are told that dissension prevails between the prefect of police and his subordinate, M. Lenormand, and that the latter, finding himself less vigorously supported by the prime minister, virtually sent in his resignation several days ago. According to our information, the conduct of the Kesselbach case is now in the hands of the deputy-chief of the detective-service, M. Weber, a personal enemy of M. Lenormand's.

“In short, disorder and confusion reign; and then in the face of Lupin, who stands for method, energy and steadfastness of mind.

“What conclusion do we draw from these facts? Briefly, this: Lupin will release his accomplice today, the 31st of May, as he foretold.”

This conclusion, which was echoed in all the other newspapers, was also the conclusion at which the general public had arrived. And we must take it that the threat was not considered devoid of importance in high places, for the prefect of police and, in the absence of M. Lenormand, who was said to be unwell, the deputy-chief of the detective-service, M. Weber, had adopted the most stringent measures, both at the Palais de Justice and at the Sante Prison, where the prisoner was confined.

They did not dare, for sheer reasons of shame, to suspend on that particular day the examinations conducted daily by M. Formerie; but, from the prison to the Boulevard du Palais, a regular mobilization of police-forces guarded the streets along the line.

To the intense astonishment of one and all, the 31st of May passed and the threatened escape did not take place.

One thing did happen, an attempt to execute the plan, as was betrayed by a block of tramway-cars, omnibuses and drays along the road taken by the prison-van and the unaccountable breaking of one of the wheels of the van itself. But the attempt assumed no more definite form.

Lupin, therefore, had met with a check. The public felt almost disappointed and the police triumphed loudly.

On the next day, Saturday, an incredible rumour spread through the Palais and the newspaper-offices: Jerome the messenger had disappeared.

Was it possible? Although the special editions confirmed the news, people refused to believe it. But, at six o'clock, a note published by the Depeche du Soir made it official:

“We have received the following communication signed by Arsene Lupin. The special stamp affixed to it, in accordance with the circular which Lupin recently sent to the press, guarantees the genuineness of the document:

“'To the Editor of the Depeche du Soir.

“'Sir,

“'Pray make my apologies to the public for not keeping my word yesterday. I remembered, at the last moment, that the 31st of May fell on a Friday! Could I set my friend at liberty on a Friday? I did not think it right to assume that responsibility.

“'I must also apologize for not on this occasion explaining, with my customary frankness, how this little event was managed. My process is so ingenious and so simple that I fear lest, if I revealed it, every criminal should be inspired by it. How surprised people will be on the day when I am free to speak! “Is that all?” I shall be asked. That is all; but it had to be thought of.

“'Permit me to be, Sir,

“'Your obedient servant,

“'Arsene Lupin.'”

* * * * *

An hour later, M. Lenormand was rung up on the telephone and informed that Valenglay, the prime minister, wished to see him at the Ministry of the Interior.

“How well you're looking, my dear Lenormand! And I who thought that you were ill and dared not leave your room!”

“I am not ill, Monsieur le President.”

“So you were sulking in your tent!... But you were always a bad-tempered fellow.”

“I confess to the bad temper, Monsieur le President, but not to the sulking.”

“But you stay at home! And Lupin takes advantage of it to release his friends....”

“How could I stop him?”

“How? Why, Lupin's trick was of the plainest. In accordance with his usual method, he announced the date of the escape beforehand; everybody believed in it; an apparent attempt was planned; the escape was not made; and, on the next day, when nobody is thinking about it — whoosh! — the bird takes flight.”

“Monsieur le President,” said the chief of the detective-service, solemnly, “Lupin disposes of such means that we are not in a position to prevent what he has decided on. The escape was mathematically certain. I preferred to pass the hand... and leave the laughter for others to face.”

Valenglay chuckled:

“It's a fact that Monsieur le Prefet de Police and M. Weber cannot be enjoying themselves at the present moment.... But, when all is said, can you explain to me, M. Lenormand...”

“All that we know, Monsieur le President, is that the escape took place from the Palais de Justice. The prisoner was brought in a prison-van and taken to M. Formerie's room. He left M. Formerie's room, but he did not leave the Palais de Justice. And yet nobody knows what became of him.”

“It's most bewildering.”

“Most bewildering.”

“And has nothing else been discovered?”

“Yes. The inner corridor leading to the examining magistrates' rooms was blocked by an absolutely unprecedented crowd of prisoners, warders, counsel and doorkeepers; and it was discovered that all those people had received forged notices to appear at the same hour. On the other hand, not one of the examining-magistrates who were supposed to have summoned them sat in his room that day; and this because of forged notices from the public prosecutor's office, sending them to every part of Paris... and of the outskirts.”

“Is that all?”

“No. Two municipal guards and a prisoner were seen to cross the courtyards. A cab was waiting for them outside and all three stepped in.

“And your supposition, Lenormand, your opinion.

“My supposition, Monsieur le President, is that the two municipal guards were accomplices who, profiting by the disorder in the corridor, took the place of the three warders. And my opinion is that this escape succeeded only through such special circumstances and so strange a combination of facts that we must look upon the most unlikely cases of complicity as absolutely certain. Lupin, for that matter, has connections at the Palais that balk all our calculations. He has agents in your ministry. He has agents at the Prefecture of Police. He has agents around me. It is a formidable organization, a detective-service a thousand times more clever, more daring, more varied and more supple than that under my own orders.”

“And you stand this, Lenormand?”

“No, I do not.”

“Then why this slackness on your part since the beginning of the case? What have you done against Lupin?”

“I have prepared for the struggle.”

“Ah, capital! And, while you were preparing, he was acting.”

“So was I.”

“And do you know anything?”

“I know a great deal.”

“What? Speak!”

Leaning on his stick, M. Lenormand took a little contemplative walk across the spacious room. Then he sat down opposite Valenglay, brushed the facings of his olive-green coat with his finger-tips, settled his spectacles on his nose and said, plainly:

“M. le President, I hold three trump-cards in my hand. First, I know the name under which Arsene Lupin is hiding at this moment, the name under which he lived on the Boulevard Haussmann, receiving his assistants daily, reconstructing and directing his gang.”

“But then why, in heaven's name, don't you arrest him?”

“I did not receive these particulars until later. The prince — let us call him Prince Dash — has disappeared. He is abroad, on other business.”

“And, if he does not return...”

“The position which he occupies, the manner in which he has flung himself into the Kesselbach case, necessitate his return and under the same name.”

“Nevertheless...”

“Monsieur le President, I come to my second trump. I have at last discovered Pierre Leduc.”

“Nonsense!”

“Or rather Lupin discovered him, and before disappearing, settled him in a little villa in the neighborhood of Paris.”

“By Jove! But how did you know...”

“Oh, easily! Lupin has placed two of his accomplices with Pierre Leduc, to watch him and defend him. Now these accomplices are two of my own detectives, two brothers whom I employ in the greatest secrecy and who will hand him over to me at the first opportunity!”

“Well done you! So that...”

“So that, as Pierre Leduc, we may say, is the central point of the efforts of all those who are trying to solve the famous Kesselbach secret, I shall, sooner or later, through Pierre Leduc, catch, first, the author of the treble murder, because that miscreant substituted himself for Mr. Kesselbach in the accomplishment of an immense scheme and because Mr. Kesselbach had to find Pierre Leduc in order to be able to accomplish that scheme; and, secondly, Arsene Lupin, because Arsene Lupin is pursuing the same object.”

“Splendid! Pierre Leduc is the bait which you are throwing to the enemy.”

“And the fish is biting, Monsieur le President. I have just had word that a suspicious person was seen, a short time ago, prowling round the little villa where Pierre Leduc is living under the protection of my officers. I shall be on the spot in four hours.”

“And the third trump, Lenormand?”

“Monsieur le President, a letter arrived yesterday, addressed to Mr. Rudolf Kesselbach, which I intercepted....”

“Intercepted, eh? You're getting on!”

“Yes, I intercepted it, opened it and kept it for myself. Here it is. It is dated two months back. It bears the Capetown postmark and contains these words: 'My dear Rudolf, I shall be in Paris on the 1st of June and in just as wretched a plight as when you came to my assistance. But I have great hopes of this Pierre Leduc affair of which I told you. What a strange story it is! Have you found the man I mean? Where do we stand? I am most anxious to know.' The letter is signed, 'Steinweg.' The first of June,” continued M. Lenormand, “is today. I have ordered one of my inspectors to hunt me out this Steinweg. I have no doubt that he will succeed.”

“Nor I, no doubt at all,” cried Valenglay, rising from his chair, “and I make you every apology, my dear Lenormand, and my humble confession: I was on the point of letting you slide... for good and all! Tomorrow—I was expecting the prefect of police and M. Weber.”

“I knew that, Monsieur le President.”

“Impossible!”

“But for that, should I have put myself out? You now see my plan of campaign. On the one side, I am setting traps in which the murderer will be caught sooner or later. Pierre Leduc or Steinweg will deliver him into my hands. On the other side, I am on Arsene Lupin's heels. Two of his agents are in my pay and he believes them to be his most devoted helpers. In addition to this, he is working for me, because he is pursuing the perpetrator of the threefold crime as I am. Only, he imagines that he is dishing me, whereas it is I who am dishing him. So I shall succeed, but on one condition....”

“What is that?”

“That I am given free scope and allowed to act according to the needs of the moment, without troubling about the public, who are growing impatient, or my superiors, who are intriguing against me.”

“I agree.”

“In that case, Monsieur le President, in a few days from this I shall be the victor... or I shall be dead.”

* * * * *

At Saint-Cloud. A little villa situated on one of the highest points of the upland, in an unfrequented road.

It was eleven o'clock at night. M. Lenormand left his car at Saint-Cloud and walked cautiously along the road. A shadow appeared.

“Is that you, Gourel?”

“Yes, chief.”

“Did you tell the brothers Doudeville that I was coming?”

“Yes, your room is ready, you can go to bed and sleep... unless they try to carry off Pierre Leduc tonight, which would not surprise me, considering the behavior of the fellow whom the Doudevilles saw.”

They walked across the garden, softly entered the house and went up to the first floor. The two brothers, Jean and Jacques Doudeville, were there.

“No news of Prince Sernine?” asked Lenormand.

“No, chief.”

“What about Pierre Leduc?”

“He spends the whole day lying flat on his back in his room on the ground-floor, or else in the garden. He never comes up to see us.”

“Is he better?”

“Much better. The rest has made a great change in his appearance.”

“Is he wholly devoted to Lupin?”

“To Prince Sernine, rather, for he does not suspect that the two are one and the same man. At least, I suppose so. One never knows, with him. He does not speak at all. Oh, he's a queer fish! There's only one person who has the gift of cheering him up, of making him talk and even laugh. That's a young girl from Garches, to whom Prince Sernine introduced him. Genevieve Ernemont her name is. She has been here three times already... she was here today.” He added, jestingly, “I believe there's a little flirting going on.... It's like his highness Prince Sernine and Mrs. Kesselbach.... It seems he's making eyes at her!... That devil of a Lupin!”

M. Lenormand did not reply. But it was obvious that all these details, to which he seemed to attach no importance, were noted in the recesses of his memory, to be used whenever he might need to draw the logical inferences from them. He lit a cigar, chewed it without smoking it, lit it again and dropped it.

He asked two or three more questions and then, dressed as he was, threw himself on his bed:

“If the least thing happens, let me be awakened.... If not, I shall sleep through the night... Go to your posts, all of you.”

The others left the room.

An hour passed, two hours.

Suddenly, M. Lenormand felt some one touch him and Gourel said to him:

“Get up, chief; they have opened the gate.”

“One man or two?”

“I only saw one... the moon appeared just then... he crouched down against a hedge.”

“And the brothers Doudeville?”

“I sent them out by the back. They will cut off his retreat when the time comes.”

Gourel took M. Lenormand's hand, led him downstairs and then into a little dark room:

“Don't stir, chief; we are in Pierre Leduc's dressing-room. I am opening the door of the recess in which his bed stands.... Don't be afraid... he has taken his veronal as he does every evening... nothing can wake him. Come this way.... It's a good hiding-place, isn't it?... These are the curtains of his bed.... From here you can see the window and the whole side of the room between the window and the bed.”

The casement stood open and admitted a vague light, which became very precise at times, when the moon burst through her veil of clouds. The two men did not take their eyes from the empty window-frame, feeling certain that the event which they were awaiting would come from that side.

A slight, creaking noise...

“He is climbing the trellis,” whispered Gourel.

“Is it high?”

“Six feet or so.”

The creaking became more distinct.

“Go, Gourel,” muttered M. Lenormand, “find the Doudevilles, bring them back to the foot of the wall and bar the road to any one who tries to get down this way.”

Gourel went. At the same moment, a head appeared at the level of the window. Then a leg was flung over the balcony. M. Lenormand distinguished a slenderly-built man, below the middle height, dressed in dark colours and without a hat.

The man turned and, leaning over the balcony, looked for a few seconds into space, as though to make sure that no danger threatened him. Then he stooped down and lay at full length on the floor. He appeared motionless. But soon M. Lenormand realized that the still blacker shadow which he formed against the surrounding darkness was coming forward, nearer.

It reached the bed.

M. Lenormand had an impression that he could hear the man's breathing and, at the same time, that he could just see his eyes, keen, glittering eyes, which pierced the darkness like shafts of fire and which themselves could see through that same darkness.

Pierre Leduc gave a deep sigh and turned over.

A fresh silence....

The man had glided along the bed with imperceptible movements and his dark outline now stood out against the whiteness of the sheets that hung down to the floor.

M. Lenormand could have touched him by putting out his arm. This time, he clearly distinguished the breathing, which alternated with that of the sleeper, and he had the illusion that he also heard the sound of a heart beating.

Suddenly, a flash of light.... The man had pressed the spring of an electric lantern; and Pierre Leduc was lit full in the face, but the man remained in the shade, so that M. Lenormand was unable to see his features.

All that he saw was something that shone in the bright space; and he shuddered. It was the blade of a knife; and that thin, tapering knife, more like a stiletto than a dagger, seemed to him identical with the weapon which he had picked up by the body of Chapman, Mr. Kesselbach's secretary.

He put forth all his will-power to restrain himself from springing upon the man. He wanted first to know what the man had come to do.

The hand was raised. Was he going to strike? M. Lenormand calculated the distance in order to stop the blow.... But no, it was not a murderous gesture, but one of caution. The hand would only fall if Pierre Leduc stirred or tried to call out And the man bent over the sleeper, as though he were examining something.

“The right cheek,” thought M. Lenormand, “the scar on the right cheek.... He wants to make sure that it is really Pierre Leduc.”

The man had turned a little to one side, so that only his shoulders were visible. But his clothes, his overcoat, were so near that they brushed against the curtains behind which M. Lenormand was hiding.

“One movement on his part,” thought the chief detective, “a thrill of alarm; and I shall collar him.”

But the man, entirely absorbed in his examination, did not stir. At last, after shifting the dagger to the hand that held the lantern, he raised the sheet, at first hardly at all, then a little more, then more still, until the sleeper's left arm was uncovered and the hand laid bare. The flash of the lantern shone upon the hand. The fingers lay outspread. The little finger was cut on the second joint.

Again Pierre Leduc made a movement. The light was immediately put out; and, for an instant, the man remained beside the bed, motionless, standing straight up. Would he make up his mind to strike? M. Lenormand underwent the agony of the crime which he could so easily prevent, but which he did not want to forestall before the very last second.

A long, a very long silence. Suddenly, he saw or rather fancied that he saw an arm uplifted. Instinctively he moved, stretching his hand above the sleeper. In making this gesture, he hit against the man.

A dull cry. The fellow struck out at space, defended himself at random and fled toward the window. But M. Lenormand had leapt upon him and had his two aims around the man's shoulders.

He at once felt him yielding and, as the weaker of the two, powerless in Lenormand's hands, trying to avoid the struggle and to slip from between his arms. Lenormand, exerting all his strength, held him flat against his chest, bent him in two and stretched him on his back on the floor.

“Ah, I've got him, I've got him!” he muttered triumphantly.

And he felt a singular elation at imprisoning that terrifying criminal, that unspeakable monster, in his irresistible grip. He felt him living and quivering, enraged and desperate, their two lives mingled, their breaths blended:

“Who are you?” he asked. “Who are you? You'll have to speak....”

And he clasped the enemy's body with still greater force, for he had an impression that that body was diminishing between his arms, that it was vanishing. He gripped harder... and harder....

And suddenly he shuddered from head to foot. He had felt, he still felt a tiny prick in the throat.... In his exasperation, he gripped harder yet: the pain increased! And he observed that the man had succeeded in twisting one arm round, slipping his hand to his chest and holding the dagger on end. The arm, it was true, was incapable of motion; but the closer M. Lenormand tightened his grip, the deeper did the point of the dagger enter the proffered flesh.

He flung back his head a little to escape the point: the point followed the movement and the wound widened.

Then he moved no more, remembering the three crimes and all the alarming, atrocious and prophetic things represented by that same little steel needle which was piercing his skin and which, in its turn, was implacably penetrating....

Suddenly, he let go and gave a leap backwards. Then, at once, he tried to resume the offensive. It was too late. The man flung his legs across the window-sill and jumped.

“Look out, Gourel!” he cried, knowing that Gourel was there, ready to catch the fugitive.

He leant out. A crunching of pebbles... a shadow between two trees, the slam of the gate.... And no other sound... no interference....

Without giving a thought to Pierre Leduc, he called:

“Gourel!... Doudeville!”

No answer. The great silence of the countryside at night....

In spite of himself, he continued to think of the treble murder, the steel dagger. But no, it was impossible, the man had not had time, had not even had the need to strike, as he had found the road clear.

M. Lenormand jumped out in his turn and, switching on his lantern, recognized Gourel lying on the ground:

“Damn it!” he swore. “If they've killed him, they'll have to pay dearly for it.”

But Gourel was not dead, only stunned; and, a few minutes later, he came to himself and growled:

“Only a blow of the fist, chief... just a blow of the fist which caught me full in the chest. But what a fellow!”

“There were two of them then?”

“Yes, a little one, who went up, and another, who took me unawares while I was watching.”

“And the Doudevilles?”

“Haven't seen them.”

One of them, Jacques, was found near the gate, bleeding from a punch in the jaw; the other a little farther, gasping for breath from a blow full on the chest.

“What is it? What happened?” asked M. Lenormand.

Jacques said that his brother and he had knocked up against an individual who had crippled them before they had time to defend themselves.

“Was he alone?”

“No; when he passed near us, he had a pal with him, shorter than himself.”

“Did you recognize the man who struck you?”

“Judging by the breadth of his shoulders, I thought he might be the Englishman of the Palace Hotel, the one who left the hotel and whose traces we lost.”

“The major?”

“Yes, Major Parbury.”

After a moment's reflection, M. Lenormand said:

“There is no doubt possible. There were two of them in the Kesselbach case: the man with the dagger, who committed the murders, and his accomplice, the major!”

“That is what Prince Sernine thinks,” muttered Jacques Doudeville.

“And tonight,” continued the chief detective, “it is they again: the same two.” And he added, “So much the better. The chance of catching two criminals is a hundred times greater than the chance of catching one.”

M. Lenormand attended to his men, had them put to bed and looked to see if the assailants had dropped anything or left any traces. He found nothing and went back to bed again himself.

In the morning, as Gourel and the Doudevilles felt none the worse for their injuries, he told the two brothers to scour the neighborhood and himself set but with Gourel for Paris, in order to hurry matters on and give his orders.

* * * * *

He lunched in his office. At two o'clock, he heard good news. One of his best detectives, Dieuzy, had picked up Steinweg, Rudolf Kesselbach, correspondent, as the German was stepping out of a train from Marseilles.

“Is Dieuzy there?”

“Yes, chief,” said Gourel. “He's here with the German.”

“Have them brought in to me.”

At that moment, the telephone-bell rang. It was Jean Doudeville, speaking from the post-office at Garches. The conversation did not take long: “Is that you, Jean? Any news?”

“Yes, chief, Major Parbury....”

“Well?”

“We have found him. He has become a Spaniard and has darkened his skin. We have just seen him. He was entering the Garches free-school. He was received by that young lady... you know, the girl who knows Prince Sernine, Genevieve Ernemont.”

“Thunder!”

M. Lenormand let go the receiver, made a grab at his hat, flew into the passage, met Dieuzy and the German, shouted to them to meet him in his office at six o'clock, rushed down the stairs, followed by Gourel and two inspectors whom he picked up on the way, and dived into a taxi-cab:

“Quick as you can to Garches... ten francs for yourself!”

He stopped the car a little before the Pare de Villeneuve, at the turn of the lane that led to the school. Jean Doudeville was waiting for him and at once exclaimed:

“He slipped away, ten minutes ago, by the other end of the lane.”

“Alone?”

“No, with the girl.”

M. Lenormand took Doudeville by the collar:

“Wretch! You let him go! But you ought to have... you ought to have...”

“My brother is on his track.”

“A lot of good that will do us! He'll stick your brother. You're no match for him, either of you!”

He himself took the steering-wheel of the taxi, and resolutely drove into the lane, regardless of the cart-ruts and of the bushes on each side. They soon emerged on a parish-road, which took them to a crossway where five roads met. M. Lenormand, without hesitation chose the one on the left, the Saint-Cucufa Road. As a matter of fact, at the top of the slope that runs down to the lake, they met the other Doudeville brother, who shouted:

“They are in a carriage... half a mile away.”

The chief did not stop. He sent the car flying down the incline, rushed along the bends, drove round the lake and suddenly uttered an exclamation of triumph. Right at the top of a little hill that stood in front of them, he had seen the hood of a carriage.

Unfortunately, he had taken the wrong road and had to back the machine. When he reached the place where the roads branched, the carriage was still there, stationary. And, suddenly, while he was turning, he saw a girl spring from the carriage. A man appeared on the step. The girl stretched out her arm. Two reports rang out.

She had taken bad aim, without a doubt, for a head looked round the other side of the hood and the man, catching sight of the motor-cab, gave his horse a great lash with the whip and it started off at a gallop. The next moment, a turn of the road hid the carriage from sight.

M. Lenormand finished his tacking in a few seconds, darted straight up the incline, passed the girl without stopping and turned round boldly. He found himself on a steep, pebbly forest road, which ran down between dense woods and which could only be followed very slowly and with the greatest caution. But what did he care! Twenty yards in front of him, the carriage, a sort of two-wheeled cabriolet, was dancing over the stones, drawn, or rather held back, by a horse which knew enough only to go very carefully, feeling its way and taking no risks. There was nothing to fear; escape was impossible.

And the two conveyances went shaking and jolting down-hill. At one moment, they were so close together that M. Lenormand thought of alighting and running with his men. But he felt the danger of putting on the brake on so steep a slope; and he went on, pressing the enemy closely, like a prey which one keeps within sight, within touch....

“We've got him, chief, we've got him!” muttered the inspectors, excited by the unexpected nature of the chase.

At the bottom, the way flattened out into a road that ran towards the Seine, towards Bougival. The horse, on reaching level ground, set off at a jog-trot, without hurrying itself and keeping to the middle of the road.

A violent effort shook the taxi. It appeared, instead of rolling, to proceed by bounds, like a darting fawn, and, slipping by the roadside slope, ready to smash any obstacle, it caught up the carriage, came level with it, passed it....

An oath from M. Lenormand... shouts of fury.... The carriage was empty!

The carriage was empty. The horse was going along peacefully, with the reins on its back, no doubt returning to the stable of some inn in the neighborhood, where it had been hired for the day....

Suppressing his inward rage, the chief detective merely said:

“The major must have jumped out during the few seconds when we lost sight of the carriage, at the top of the descent.”

“We have only to beat the woods, chief, and we are sure...”

“To return empty-handed. The beggar is far away by this time. He's not one of those who are caught twice in one day. Oh, hang it all, hang it all!”

They went back to the young girl, whom they found in the company of Jacques Doudeville and apparently none the worse for her adventure. M. Lenormand introduced himself, offered to take her back home and at once questioned her about the English major, Parbury.

She expressed astonishment:

“He is neither English nor a major; and his name is not Parbury.”

“Then what is his name?”

“Juan Ribeira. He is a Spaniard sent by his government to study the working of the French schools.”

“As you please. His name and his nationality are of no importance. He is the man we are looking for. Have you known him long?”

“A fortnight or so. He had heard about a school which I have founded at Garches and he interested himself in my experiment to the extent of proposing to make me an annual grant, on the one condition that he might come from time to time to observe the progress of my pupils. I had not the right to refuse...”

“No, of course not; but you should have consulted your acquaintances. Is not Prince Sernine a friend of yours? He is a man of good counsel.”

“Oh, I have the greatest confidence in him; but he is abroad at present.”

“Did you not know his address?”

“No. And, besides, what could I have said to him? That gentleman behaved very well. It was not until today... But I don't know if...”

“I beg you, mademoiselle, speak frankly. You can have confidence in me also.”

“Well, M. Ribeira came just now. He told me that he had been sent by a French lady who was paying a short visit to Bougival, that this lady had a little girl whose education she would like to entrust to me and that she wished me to come and see her without delay. The thing seemed quite natural. And, as this is a holiday and as M. Ribeira had hired a carriage which was waiting for him at the end of the road, I made no difficulty about accepting a seat in it.”

“But what was his object, after all?”

She blushed and said:

“To carry me off, quite simply. He confessed it to me after half an hour....”

“Do you know nothing about him?”

“No.”

“Does he live in Paris?”

“I suppose so.”

“Has he ever written to you? Do you happen to have a few lines in his handwriting, anything which he left behind, that may serve us as a clue?”

“No clue at all.... Oh, wait a minute... but I don't think that has any importance....”

“Speak, speak... please....”

“Well, two days ago, the gentleman asked permission to use my typewriting machine; and he typed out — with difficulty, for he evidently had no practice — a letter of which I saw the address by accident.”

“What was the address?”

“He was writing to the Journal and he put about twenty stamps into the envelope.”

“Yes.... the agony-column, no doubt,” said M. Lenormand.

“I have today's number with me, chief,” said Gourel.

M. Lenormand unfolded the sheet and looked at the eighth page. Presently, he gave a start. He had read the following sentence, printed with the usual abbreviation:

“To any person knowing Mr. Steinweg. Advertiser wishes to know if he is in Paris and his address. Reply through this column.”

“Steinweg!” exclaimed Gourel. “But that's the very man whom Dieuzy is bringing to you!”

“Yes, yes,” said M. Lenormand, to himself, “it's the man whose letter to Mr. Kesselbach I intercepted, the man who put Kesselbach on the track of Pierre Leduc.... So they, too, want particulars about Pierre Leduc and his past?... They, too, are groping in the dark?...”

He rubbed his hands: Steinweg was at his disposal. In less than an hour, Steinweg would have spoken. In less than an hour, the murky veil which oppressed him and which made the Kesselbach case the most agonizing and the most impenetrable that he had ever had in hand: that veil would be torn asunder.

CHAPTER VI. LENORMAND SUCCUMBS

M. LENORMAND was back in his room at the Prefecture of Police at six o'clock in the evening. He at once sent for Dieuzy:

“Is your man here?”

“Yes, chief.”

“How far have you got with him?”

“Not very. He won't speak a word. I told him that, by a new regulation, foreigners were obliged to make a declaration at the Prefecture as to the object and the probable length of their stay in Paris; and I brought him here, to your secretary's office.”

“I will question him.”

But, at that moment, an office-messenger appeared:

“There's a lady asking to see you at once, chief.”

“Have you her card?”

“Here, chief.”

“Mrs. Kesselbach! Show her in.”

He walked across the room to receive the young widow at the door and begged her to take a seat. She still wore the same disconsolate look, the same appearance of illness and that air of extreme lassitude which revealed the distress of her life.

She held out a copy of the Journal and pointed to the line in the agony-column which mentioned Steinweg:

“Old Steinweg was a friend of my husband's,” she said, “and I have no doubt that he knows a good many things.”

“Dieuzy,” said M. Lenormand, “bring the person who is waiting.... Your visit, madame, will not have been useless. I will only ask you, when this person enters, not to say a word.”

The door opened. A man appeared, an old man with white whiskers meeting under his chin and a face furrowed with deep wrinkles, poorly clad and wearing the hunted look of those wretches who roam about the world in search of their daily pittance.

He stood on the threshold, blinking his eyelids, stared at M. Lenormand, seemed confused by the silence that greeted him on his entrance and turned his hat in his hands with embarrassment.

But, suddenly, he appeared stupefied, his eyes opened wide and he stammered:

“Mrs.... Mrs. Kesselbach!”

He had seen the young widow. And, recovering his serenity, smiling, losing his shyness, he went up to her and in a strong German accent:

“Oh, I am glad!... At last!... I thought I should never... I was so surprised to receive no news down there... no telegrams.... And how is our dear Rudolf Kesselbach?”

The lady staggered back, as though she had been struck in the face, and at once fell into a chair and began to sob.

“What's the matter?... Why, what's the matter?” asked Steinweg.

M. Lenormand interposed:

“I see, sir, that you know nothing about certain events that have taken place recently. Have yon been long travelling?”

“Yes, three months.... I had been up to the Rand. Then I went back to Capetown and wrote to Rudolf from there. But, on my way home by the East Coast route, I accepted some work at Port Said. Rudolf has had my letter, I suppose?”

“He is away. I will explain the reason of his absence. But, first, there is a point on which we should be glad of some information. It has to do with a person whom you knew and to whom you used to refer, in your intercourse with Mr. Kesselbach, by the name of Pierre Leduc.”

“Pierre Leduc! What! Who told you?”

The old man was utterly taken aback.

He spluttered out again:

“Who told you? Who disclosed to you...?”

“Mr. Kesselbach.”

“Never! It was a secret which I confided to him and Rudolf keeps his secrets... especially this one...”

“Nevertheless, it is absolutely necessary that you should reply to our questions. We are at this moment engaged on an inquiry about Pierre Leduc which must come to a head without delay; and you alone can enlighten us, as Mr. Kesselbach is no longer here.”

“Well, then,” cried Steinweg, apparently making up his mind, “what do you want?”

“Do you know Pierre Leduc?”

“I have never seen him, but I have long been the possessor of a secret which concerns him. Through a number of incidents which I need not relate and thanks to a series of chances, I ended by acquiring the certainty that the man in whose discovery I was interested was leading a dissolute life in Paris and that he was calling himself Pierre Leduc, which is not his real name.”

“But does he know his real name himself?”

“I presume so.”

“And you?”

“Yes, I know it.”

“Well, tell it to us.”

He hesitated; then, vehemently:

“I can't,” he said. “No, I can't.”

“But why not?”

“I have no right to. The whole secret lies there. When I revealed the secret to Rudolf, he attached so much importance to it that he gave me a large sum of money to purchase my silence and he promised me a fortune, a real fortune, on the day when he should succeed, first, in finding Pierre Leduc and, next, in turning the secret to account.” He smiled bitterly. “The large sum of money is already lost. I came to see how my fortune was getting on.”

“Mr. Kesselbach is dead,” said the chief detective.

Steinweg gave a bound:

“Dead! Is it possible? No, it's a trap. Mrs. Kesselbach, is it true?”

She bowed her head.

He seemed crushed by this unexpected revelation; and, at the same time, it must have been infinitely painful to him, for he began to cry:

“My poor Rudolf, I knew him when he was a little boy.... He used to come and play at my house at Augsburg.... I was very fond of him.” And, calling Mrs. Kesselbach to witness, “And he of me, was he not, Mrs. Kesselbach? He must have told you.... His old Daddy Steinweg, he used to call me.”

M. Lenormand went up to him and, in his clearest voice:

“Listen to me,” he said. “Mr. Kesselbach died murdered.... Come, be calm... exclamations are of no use.... He died murdered, I say, and all the circumstances of the crime prove that the culprit knew about the scheme in question. Was there anything in the nature of that scheme that would enable you to guess...?”

Steinweg stood dumfounded. He stammered:

“It was my fault.... If I had not suggested the thing to him...”

Mrs. Kesselbach went up to him, entreating him:

“Do you think... have you any idea?... Oh, Steinweg, I implore you!...”

“I have no idea.... I have not reflected,” he muttered. “I must have time to reflect....”

“Cast about in Mr. Kesselbach's surroundings,” said M. Lenormand. “Did nobody take part in your interviews at that time? Was there nobody in whom he himself could have confided?”

“No.”

“Think well.”

Both the others, Dolores and M. Lenormand, leant toward him, anxiously awaiting his answer.

“No,” he said, “I don't see....”

“Think well,” repeated the chief detective. “The murderer's Christian name and surname begin with an L. and an M.”

“An L,” he echoed. “I don't see... an L... an M....”

“Yes, the initials are in gold on the corner of a cigarette-case belonging to the murderer.”

“A cigarette-case?” asked Steinweg, making an effort of memory.

“A gun-metal case... and one of the compartments is divided into two spaces, the smaller for cigarette-papers, the other for tobacco...”

“Two spaces, two spaces,” repeated Steinweg, whose thoughts seemed stimulated by that detail. “Couldn't you show it to me?”

“Here it is, or rather this is an exact reproduction,” said M. Lenormand, giving him a cigarette-case.

“Eh! What!” said Steinweg, taking the case in his hands.

He looked at it with stupid eyes, examined it, turned it over in every direction and, suddenly, gave a cry, the cry of a man struck with a horrible idea. And he stood like, that, livid, with trembling hands and wild, staring eyes.

“Speak, come, speak!” said M. Lenormand.

“Oh,” he said, as though blinded with light, “now all is explained!...”

“Speak, speak!”

He walked across to the windows with a tottering step, then returned and, rushing up to the chief detective:

“Sir, sir... Rudolf's murderer... I'll tell you.... Well...”

He stopped short.

“Well?”

There was a moment's pause.... Was the name of the odious criminal about to echo through the great silence of the office, between those walls which had heard so many accusations, so many confessions? M. Lenormand felt as if he were on the brink of the unfathomable abyss and as if a voice were mounting, mounting up to him.... A few seconds more and he would know....

“No,” muttered Steinweg, “no, I can't....”

“What's that you say?” cried the chief detective, furiously.

“I say that I can't.”

“But you have no right to be silent. The law requires you to speak.”

“Tomorrow.... I will speak tomorrow... I must have time to reflect.... Tomorrow, I will tell you all that I know about Pierre Leduc... all that I suppose about that cigarette-case.... Tomorrow, I promise you....”

It was obvious that he possessed that sort of obstinacy against which the most energetic efforts are of no avail. M. Lenormand yielded:

“Very well. I give you until tomorrow, but I warn you that, if you do not speak tomorrow, I shall be obliged to go to the examining-magistrate.”

He rang and, taking Inspector Dieuzy aside, said:

“Go with him to his hotel... and stay there.... I'll send you two men.... And mind you keep your eyes about you. Somebody may try to get hold of him.”

The inspector went off with Steinweg; and M. Lenormand, returning to Mrs. Kesselbach, who had been violently affected by this scene, made his excuses.

“Pray accept all my regrets, madame.... I can understand how upset you must feel....” |

He questioned her as to the period at which Mr. Kesselbach renewed his relations with old Steinweg and as to the length of time for which those relations lasted. But she was so much worn-out that he did not insist.

“Am I to come back tomorrow?” she asked.

“No, it's not necessary. I will let you know all that Steinweg says. May I see you down, to your carriage? These three flights are rather steep....”

He opened the door and stood back to let her pass. At that moment shouts were heard in the passage and people came running up, inspectors on duty, office-messengers, clerks:

“Chief! Chief!”

“What's the matter?”

“Dieuzy!...”

“But he's just left here....”

“He's been found on the staircase....”

“Not dead?”...”

“No, stunned, fainting....”

“But the man... the man who was with him... old Steinweg?”

“He's disappeared....”

“Damn it!”

He rushed along the passage and down the stairs, where he found Dieuzy lying on the first-floor landing, surrounded by people who were attending to him.

He saw Gourel coming up again:

“Oh, Gourel, have you been downstairs? Did you come across anybody?”

“No, chief....”

But Dieuzy was recovering consciousness and, almost before he had opened his eyes, mumbled:

“Here, on the landing, the little door....”

“Oh, hang it, the door of Court 7!” shouted the chief detective. “Didn't I say that it was to be kept locked?... It was certain that, sooner or later...” He seized the door-handle. “Oh, of course! The door is bolted on the other side now!”

The door was partly glazed. He smashed a pane with the butt-end of his revolver, drew the bolt and said to Gourel:

“Run through this way to the exit on the Place Dauphine....”

He went back to Dieuzy:

“Come, Dieuzy, tell me about it. How did you come to let yourself be put into this state?”

“A blow in the pit of the stomach, chief....”

“A blow? From that old chap?... Why, he can hardly stand on his legs!...”

“Not the old man, chief, but another, who was walking up and down the passage while Steinweg was with you and who followed us as though he were going out, too.... When we got as far as this, he asked me for a light.... I looked for my matches... Then he caught me a punch in the stomach.... I fell down, and, as I fell, I thought I saw him open that door and drag the old man with him....”

“Would you know him again?”

“Oh yes, chief... a powerful fellow, very dark-skinned... a southerner of sorts, that's certain....”

“Ribeira,” snarled M. Lenormand. “Always Ribeira!... Ribeira, alias Parbury.... Oh, the impudence of the scoundrel! He was afraid of what old Steinweg might say... and came to fetch him away under my very nose!” And, stamping his foot with anger, “But, dash it, how did he know that Steinweg was here, the blackguard! It's only four hours since I was chasing him in the Saint-Cucufa woods... and now he's here!... How did he know?... One would think he lived inside my skin!...”

He was seized with one of those fits of dreaming in which he seemed to hear nothing and see nothing. Mrs. Kesselbach, who passed at that moment, bowed without his replying.

But a sound of footsteps in the corridor roused him from his lethargy.

“At last, is that you, Gourel?”

“I've found out how it was, chief,” said Gourel, panting for breath. “There were two of them. They went this way and out of the Place Dauphine. There was a motor-car waiting for them. There were two people inside: one was a man dressed in black, with a soft hat pulled over his eyes...”

“That's he,” muttered M. Lenormand, “that's the murderer, the accomplice of Ribeira, — Parbury. And who was the other?”

“A woman, a woman without a hat, a servant-girl, it might be.... And good-looking, I'm told, with red hair.”

“Eh, what! You say she had red hair?”

“Yes.”

M. Lenormand turned round with a bound, ran down the stairs four steps at a time, hurried across the courtyard and came out on the Quai des Orfevres:

“Stop!” he shouted.

A victoria and pair was driving off. It was Mrs. Kesselbach's carriage. The coachman heard and pulled up his horses. M. Lenormand sprang on the step:

“I beg a thousand pardons, madame, but I cannot do without your assistance. I will ask you to let me go with you.... But we must act swiftly.... Gourel, where's my taxi?”

“I've sent it away, chief.”

“Well then, get another, quick!”...

The men all ran in different directions. But ten minutes elapsed before one of them returned with a motor-cab. M. Lenormand was boiling with impatience. Mrs. Kesselbach, standing on the pavement, swayed from side to side, with her smelling-salts in her hand.

At last they were seated.

“Gourel, get up beside the driver and go straight to Garches.”

“To my house?” asked Dolores, astounded.

He did not reply. He leant out of the window, waved his pass, explained who he was to the policeman regulating the traffic in the streets. At last, when they reached the Cours-la-Rone, he sat down again and said:

“I beseech you, madame, to give me plain answers to my questions. Did you see Mile. Genevieve Ernemont just now, at about four o'clock?”

“Genevieve?... Yes.... I was dressing to go out.”

“Did she tell you of the advertisement about Steinweg in the Journal?”

“She did.”

“And it was that which made you come to see me?”

“Yes.”

“Were you alone during Mile. Ernemont's visit?”

“Upon my word, I can't say.... Why?”

“Recollect. Was one of your servants present?”

“Probably... as I was dressing....”

“What are their names?”

“Suzanne and Gertrude.”

“One of them has red hair, has she not?”

“Yes, Gertrude.”

“Have you known her long?”

“Her sister has always been with me... and so has Gertrude, for years.... She is devotion and honesty personified....”

“In short, you will answer for her?”

“Oh, absolutely!”

“Very well... very well.”

It was half-past seven and the daylight was beginning to wane when the taxi-cab reached the House of Retreat. Without troubling about his companion, the chief detective rushed into the porter's lodge:

“Mrs. Kesselbach's maid has just come in, has she not?”

“Whom do you mean, the maid?”

“Why, Gertrude, one of the two sisters.”

“But Gertrude can't have been out, sir. We haven't seen her go out.”

“Still some one has just come in.”

“No, sir, we haven't opened the door to anybody since — let me see — six o'clock this evening.”

“Is there no other way out than this gate?”

“No. The walls surround the estate on every side and they are very high....”

“Mrs. Kesselbach, we will go to your house, please.”

They all three went. Mrs. Kesselbach, who had no key, rang. The door was answered by Suzanne, the other sister.

“Is Gertrude in?” asked Mrs. Kesselbach.

“Yes, ma'am, in her room.”

“Send her down, please,” said the chief detective.

After a moment, Gertrude came downstairs, looking very attractive and engaging in her white embroidered apron.

She had, in point of fact, a rather pretty face, crowned with red hair.

M. Lenormand looked at her for a long time without speaking, as though he were trying to read what lay behind those innocent eyes.

He asked her no questions. After a minute, he simply said:

“That will do, thank you. Come, Gourel.” He went out with the sergeant and, at once, as they followed the darkling paths of the garden, said: “That's the one!”

“Do you think so, chief? She looked so placid!”

“Much too placid. Another would have been astonished, would have wanted to know why I sent for her. Not this one! Nothing but the concentrated effort of a face that is determined to smile at all costs. Only, I saw a drop of perspiration trickle from her temple along her ear.”

“So that...?”

“So that everything becomes plain. Gertrude is in league with the two ruffians who are conspiring round the Kesselbach case, in order either to discover and carry out the famous scheme, or to capture the widow's millions. No doubt, the other sister is in the plot as well. At four o'clock, Gertrude, learning that I know of the advertisement in the Journal, takes advantage of her mistress's absence, hastens to Paris, finds Ribeira and the man in the soft hat and drags them off to the Palais, where Ribeira annexes Master Steinweg for his own purposes.” He reflected and concluded:

“All this proves, first, the importance which they attach to Steinweg and their fear of what he may reveal; secondly, that a regular plot is being hatched around Mrs. Kesselbach; thirdly, that I have no time to lose, for the plot is ripe.”

“Very well,” said Gourel, “but one thing remains unexplained. How was Gertrude able to leave the garden in which we now are and to enter it again, unknown to the porter and his wife?”

“Through a secret passage which the rogues must have contrived to make quite recently.”

“And which would end, no doubt,” said Gourel, “in Mrs. Kesselbach's house.”

“Yes, perhaps,” said M. Lenormand, “perhaps... But I have another idea.”

They followed the circuit of the wall. It was a bright night; and, though their two forms were hardly distinguishable, they themselves could see enough to examine the stones of the walls and to convince themselves that no breach, however skilful, had been effected.

“A ladder, very likely?” suggested Gourel.

“No, because Gertrude is able to get out in broad daylight. A communication of the kind I mean can evidently not end out of doors. The entrance must be concealed by some building already in existence.”

“There are only the four garden-houses,” objected Gourel, “and they are all inhabited.”

“I beg your pardon: the third, the Pavilion Hortense, is not inhabited.”

“Who told you so?”

“The porter. Mrs. Kesselbach hired this house, which is near her own, for fear of the noise. Who knows but that, in so doing, she acted under Gertrude's influence?”

He walked round the house in question. The shutters were closed. He lifted the latch of the door, on the off-chance; the door opened.

“Ah, Gourel, I think we've struck it! Let's go in. Light your lantern.... Oh, the hall.... the drawing-room... the dining-room... that's no use. There must be a basement, as the kitchen is not on this floor.”

“This way, chief... the kitchen-stairs are here.”

They went down into a rather large kitchen, crammed full of wicker-work garden-chairs and flower-stands. Beside it was a wash-house, which also served as a cellar, and which presented the same untidy sight of objects piled one on the top of the other.

“What is that shiny thing down there, chief?”

Gourel stooped and picked up a brass pin with a head made of an imitation pearl.

“The pearl is quite bright still,” said M. Lenormand, “which it would not be if it had been lying in this cellar long. Gertrude passed this way, Gourel.”

Gourel began to demolish a great stack of empty wine-casks, writing desks and old rickety tables.

“You are wasting your time,” said M. Lenormand. “If that is the way out, how would she have time first to move all those things and then to replace them behind her? Look, here is a shutter out of use, which has no valid reason for being fastened to the wall by that nail. Draw it back.”

Gourel did so. Behind the shutter, the wall was hollowed out. By the light of the lantern they saw an underground passage running downwards.

“I was right,” said M. Lenormand. “The communication is of recent date. You see, it's a piece of work hurriedly done, and not intended to last for any length of time.... No masonry.... Two planks placed cross-wise at intervals, with a joist to serve as a roof; and that is all. It will hold up as best it may: well enough, in any case, for the object in view, that is to say...”

“That is to say what, chief?”

“Well, first to allow of the going backwards and forwards between Gertrude and her accomplices... and then, one day, one day soon, of the kidnapping, or rather the total, miraculous, incomprehensible disappearance of Mrs. Kesselbach.”

They proceeded cautiously, so as not to knock against certain beams which did not look over-safe. It at once became evident that the tunnel was much longer than the fifty yards at most that separated the house from the boundary of the garden. It must, therefore, end at a fair distance from the walls and beyond the road that skirted the property.

“We are not going in the direction of Villeneuve and the lake are we?” asked Gourel.

“Not at all, the other way about,” declared M. Lenormand.

The tunnel descended with a gentle slope. There was a step, then another; and they veered toward the right. They at once knocked up against a door which was fitted into a rubble frame, carefully cemented. M. Lenormand pushed it and it opened.

“One second, Gourel,” he said, stopping. “Let us think.... It might perhaps be wiser to turn back.”

“Why?”

“We must reflect that Ribeira will have foreseen the danger and presume that he has taken his precautions, in case the underground passage should be discovered. Now he knows that we are on his track. He knows that we are searching the garden. He no doubt saw us enter the house. How do I know that he is not at this moment laying a trap for us?”

“There are two of us, chief....”

“And suppose there were twenty of them?”

He looked in front of him. The tunnel sloped upward again, closed by another door, which was at five or six yards' distance.

“Let us go so far,” he said. “Then we shall see.”

He passed through, followed by Gourel, whom he told to leave the first door open, and walked to the other door, resolving within himself to go no farther. But this second door was shut; and though the lock seemed to work, he could not succeed in opening it.

“The door is bolted,” he said. “Let us make no noise and go back. The more so as, outside, by remembering the position of the tunnel, we can fix the line along which to look for the other outlet.”

They therefore retraced their steps to the first door, when Gourel, who was walking ahead, gave an exclamation of surprise:

“Why, it's closed!...”

“How is that? When I told you to leave it open!”

“I did leave it open, chief, but the door must have fallen back of its own weight.”

“Impossible! We should have heard the sound.”

“Then?...”

“Then... then... I don't know...” He went up to the door. “Let's see... there's a key... does it turn?... Yes, it turns. But there seems to be a bolt on the other side.”

“Who can have fastened it?”

“They, of course! Behind our backs!... Perhaps they have another tunnel that runs above this one, alongside of it... or else they were waiting in that empty house.... In any case, we're caught in a trap....”

He grew angry with the lock, thrust his knife into the chink of the door, tried every means and then, in a moment of weariness, said:

“There's nothing to be done!”

“What, chief, nothing to be done? In that case, we're diddled!”

“I dare say!” said M. Lenormand....

They returned to the other door and came back again to the first. Both were solid, made of hard wood, strengthened with cross-beams... in short, indestructible.

“We should want a hatchet,” said the chief of the detective-service, “or at the very least, a serious implement... a knife even, with which we might try to cut away the place where the bolt is most likely to be... and we have nothing....”

He was seized with a sudden fit of rage and flung himself upon the obstacle, as though he hoped to do away with it. Then, powerless, beaten, he said to Gourel:

“Listen, we'll look into this in an hour or two.... I am tired out.... I am going to sleep.... Keep watch so long... and if they come and attack us...”

“Ah, if they come, we shall be saved, chief!” cried Gourel, who would have been relieved by a fight, however great the odds.

M. Lenormand lay down on the ground. In a minute, he was asleep.

* * * * *

When he woke up, he remained for some seconds undecided, not understanding; and he also asked himself what sort of pain it was that was tormenting him:

“Gourel!” he called. “Come! Gourel!”

Obtaining no reply, he pressed the spring of his lantern and saw Gourel lying beside him, sound asleep.

“What on earth can this pain be?” he thought. “Regular twitchings.... Oh, why, of course, I am hungry, that's all.... I'm starving! What can the time be?”

His watch marked twenty minutes past seven, but he remembered that he had not wound it up. Gourel's watch was not going either.

Gourel had awoke under the action of the same inward pangs, which made them think that the breakfast-hour must be long past and that they had already slept for a part of the day.

“My legs are quite numbed,” said Gourel, “and my feet feel as if they were on ice. What a funny sensation!” He bent down to rub them and went on: .” Why, it's not on ice that my feet were, but in water.... Look, chief... there's a regular pool near the first door....”

“Soaked through,” M. Lenormand replied. “We'll go back to the second door; you can dry yourself...”

“But what are you doing, chief?”

“Do you think I am going to allow myself to be buried alive in this vault?... Not if I know it; I haven't reached the age!... As the two doors are closed, let us try to pass through the walls.”

One by one he loosened the stones that stood out at the height of his hand, in the hope of contriving another gallery that would slope upwards to the level of the soil. But the work was long and painful, for in this part of the tunnel, as he perceived the stones were cemented.

“Chief... chief,” stammered Gourel, in a stifled voice....”

“Well?”

“You are standing with your feet in the water.”

“Nonsense!... Why, so I am!... Well, it can't be helped.... I'll dry them, in the sim....”

“But don't you see?”

“What?”

“Why, it's rising, chief, it's rising!...”

“What's rising?”

“The water!...”

M. Lenormand felt a shudder pass over his skin. He suddenly understood. It was not a casual trickling through, as he had thought, but a carefully-prepared flood, mechanically, irresistibly produced by some infernal system.

“Oh, the scoundrel!” he snarled. “If ever I lay hands on him...!”

“Yes, yes, chief, but we must first get out of this.... And, as far as I can see...”

Gourel seemed completely prostrated, incapable of having an idea, of proposing a plan.

M. Lenormand knelt down on the ground and measured the rate at which the water was rising. A quarter, or thereabouts, of the first door was covered; and the water was half-way toward the second door.

“The progress is slow, but uninterrupted,” he said, “In a few hours it will be over our heads.”

“But this is terrible, chief, it's horrible!” moaned Gourel.

“Oh, look here, don't come boring me with your lamentations, do you understand? Cry, if it amuses you, but don't let me hear you!”

“It's the hunger that weakens me, chief; my brain's going round.”

“Bite your fist!”

As Gourel said, the position was terrible; and, if M. Lenormand had had less energy, he would have abandoned the vain struggle. What was to be done? It was no use hoping that Ribeira would have the charity to let them out. It was no use either hoping that the brothers Doudeville would rescue them, for the inspectors did not know of the existence of the tunnel. So no hope remained... no hope but that of an impossible miracle....

“Come, come,” said M. Lenormand, “this is too silly. We're not going to kick the bucket here! Hang it all, there must be something!... Show me a light, Gourel.”

Flattening himself against the second door, he examined it from top to bottom, in every corner. There was an enormous bolt on that side, just as there probably was on the other. He unfastened the screws with the blade of his knife; and the bolt came off in his hand.

“And what next?” asked Gourel.

“What next?” he echoed. “Well, this bolt is made of iron, pretty long and very nearly pointed. Certainly, it's not as good as a pick-axe, but it's better than nothing and....”

Without finishing his sentence, he drove the implement into the side-wall of the tunnel, a little in front of the pillar of masonry that supported the hinges of the door. As he expected, once he had passed the first layer of cement and stones, he found soft earth:

“To work!” he cried.

“Certainly, chief, but would you explain...?”

“It's quite simple. I want to dig round this pillar a passage, three or four yards long, which will join the tunnel on the other side of the door and allow us to escape.”

“But it will take us hours; and meanwhile, the water is rising.”

“Show me a light, Gourel.”

“In twenty minutes, or half an hour at most, it will have reached our feet.”

“Show me a light, Gourel.”

M. Lenormand's idea was correct and, with some little exertion, by pulling the earth, which he first loosened with his implement, towards him and making it fall into the tunnel, he was not long in digging a hole large enough to slip into.

“It's my turn, chief!” said Gourel.

“Aha, you're returning to life, I see! Well, fire away!... You have only to follow the shape of the pillar.”

At that moment, the water was up to their ankles. Would they have time to complete the work begun?

It became more difficult as they went on, for the earth which they disturbed was in their way; and, lying flat on their stomachs in the passage, they were obliged at every instant to remove the rubbish that obstructed them.

After two hours, the work was perhaps three-quarters through, but the water now covered their legs. Another hour and it would reach the opening of the hole which they were digging. And that would mean the end!

Gourel, who was exhausted by the want of food and who was too stout to move with any freedom in that ever-narrower passage, had had to give up. He no longer stirred, trembling with anguish at feeling that icy water which was gradually swallowing him up.

As for M. Lenormand, he worked on with indefatigable ardor. It was a terrible job, this ants' work performed in the stifling darkness. His hands were bleeding. He was fainting with hunger. The insufficiency of the air hampered his breathing; and, from time to time, Gourel's sighs reminded him of the awful danger that threatened him at the bottom of his hole.

But nothing could discourage him, for now he again found opposite him those cemented stones which formed the side-wall of the gallery. It was the most difficult part, but the end was at hand.

“It's rising,” cried Gourel, in a choking voice, “it's rising!

M. Lenormand redoubled his efforts. Suddenly the stem of the bolt which he was using leapt out into space. The passage was dug. He had now only to widen it, which became much easier once he was able to shoot the materials in front of him.

Gourel, mad with terror, was howling like a dying beast. M. Lenormand paid no attention to him. Safety was at hand.

Nevertheless, he had a few seconds of anxiety when he perceived, by the sound of the materials falling, that this part of the tunnel was also under water, which was natural, as the door did not form a sufficiently tight-fitting barrier. But what did it matter! The outlet was free. One last effort... he passed through.

“Come, Gourel,” he cried, returning to fetch his companion.

He dragged him, half dead, by the wrists:

“Come along, booby, pull yourself together! We are saved.”

“Do you really think so, chief?... The water's up to our chests....”

“Never mind, as long as it's not over our mouths.... Where's your lantern?”

“It's not working.”

“No matter.” He gave an exclamation of delight. “One step... two steps!... A staircase.... At last!”

They emerged from the water, that accursed water which had almost swallowed them up; and it was a delicious sensation, a release that sent up their spirits.

“Stop!” said M. Lenormand.

His head had knocked against something. With arms outstretched, he pushed against the obstacle, which yielded at once. It was the flap of a trap-door; and, when this trap-door was opened, he found himself in a cellar into which the light of a fine night filtered through an air-hole.

He threw back the flap and climbed the last treads.

Then a veil fell over his eyes. Arms seized upon him. He felt himself as it were wrapped in a sheet, in a sort of sack, and then fastened with cords.

“Now for the other one!” said a voice.

The same operation must have been performed on Gourel; and the same voice said:

“If they call out, kill them at once. Have you your dagger?”

“Yes.”

“Come along. You two, take this one... you two, that one.... No light... and no noise either.... It would be a serious matter. They've been searching the garden next door since this morning... there are ten or fifteen of them knocking about.... Go back to the house, Gertrude, and, if the least thing happens, telephone to me in Paris.”

M. Lenormand felt that he was being lifted up and carried and, a moment after, that he was in the open air.

“Bring the cart nearer,” said a voice.

M. Lenormand heard the sound of a horse and cart.

He was laid out on some boards. Gourel was hoisted up beside him. The horse started at a trot.

The drive lasted about half an hour.

“Halt!” commanded the voice. “Lift them out. Here, driver, turn the cart so that the tail touches the parapet of the bridge.... Good.... No boats on the river? Sure? Then let's waste no time.... Oh, have you fastened some stones to them?”

“Yes, paving-stones.”

“Right away, then! Commend your soul to God, M. Lenormand, and pray for me, Parbury-Ribeira, better known by the name of Baron Altenheim. Are you ready? All right? Well, here's wishing you a pleasant journey, M. Lenormand!”

M. Lenormand was placed on the parapet. Someone gave him a push. He felt himself falling into space and he still heard the voice chuckling:

“A pleasant journey!”

* * * * *

Ten seconds later it was Sergeant Gourel's turn.

CHAPTER VII. PARBURY-RIBEIRA-ALTENHEIM

THE girls were playing in the garden, under the supervision of Mile. Charlotte, Genevieve's new assistant. Mme. Ernemont came out, distributed some cakes among them and then went back to the room which served as a drawing-room and parlor in one, sat down before a writing-desk and began to arrange her papers and account-books.

Suddenly, she felt the presence of a stranger in the room. She turned round in alarm:

“You!” she cried. “Where have you come from? How did you get in?”

“Hush!” said Prince Sernine. “Listen to me and do not let us waste a minute: Genevieve?”

“Calling on Mrs. Kesselbach.”

“When will she be here?”

“Not before an hour.”

“Then I will let the brothers Doudeville come. I have an appointment with them. How is Genevieve?”

“Very well.”

“How often has she seen Pierre Leduc since I went away, ten days ago?”

“Three times; and she is to meet him today at Mrs. Kesselbach's, to whom she introduced him, as you said she must. Only, I may as well tell you that I don't think much of this Pierre Leduc of yours. Genevieve would do better to find some good fellow in her own class of life. For instance, there's the schoolmaster.”

“You're mad! Genevieve marry a schoolmaster!”

“Oh, if you considered Genevieve's happiness first....”

“Shut up, Victoire. You're boring me with your cackle. I have no time to waste on sentiment. I'm playing a game of chess; and I move my men without troubling about what they think. When I have won the game, I will go into the question whether the knight, Pierre Leduc, and the queen, Genevieve, have a heart or not.”

She interrupted him:

“Did you hear? A whistle....”

“It's the two Doudevilles. Go and bring them in; and then leave us.”

As soon as the two brothers were in the room, he questioned them with his usual precision:

“I know what the newspapers have said about the disappearance of Lenormand and Gourel. Do you know any more?”

“No. The deputy-chief, M. Weber, has taken the case in hand. We have been searching the garden of the House of Retreat for the past week; and nobody is able to explain how they can have disappeared. The whole force is in a flutter.... No one has ever seen the like... a chief of the detective-service disappearing, without leaving a trace behind him!”

“The two maids?”

“Gertrude has gone. She is being looked for.”

“Her sister Suzanne?”

“M. Weber and M. Formerie have questioned her. There is nothing against her.”

“Is that all you have to tell me?”

“Oh, no, there are other things, all the things which we did not tell the papers.”

They then described the incidents that had marked M. Lenormand's last two days: the night visit of the two ruffians to Pierre Leduc's villa; next day, Ribeira's attempt to kidnap Genevieve and the chase through the Saint-Cucufa woods; old Steinweg's arrival, his examination at the detective-office in Mrs. Kesselbach's presence, his escape from the Palais....

“And no one knows these details except yourselves?

“Dieuzy knows about the Steinweg incident: he told us of it.”

“And they still trust you at the Prefecture of Police?”

“So much so that they employ us openly. M. Weber swears by us.”

“Come,” said the prince, “all is not lost. If M. Lenormand has committed an imprudence that has cost him his life, as I suppose he did, at any rate he performed some good work first; and we have only to continue it. The enemy has the start of us, but we will catch him up.”

“It won't be an easy job, governor.”

“Why not? It is only a matter of finding old Steinweg again, for the answer to the riddle is in his hands.”

“Yes, but where has Ribeira got old Steinweg tucked away?”

“At his own place, of course.”

“Then we should have to know where Ribeira hangs out.”

“Well, of course!”

He dismissed them and went to the House of Retreat. Motor-cars were awaiting outside the door and two men were walking up and down, as though mounting guard.

In the garden, near Mrs. Kesselbach's house, he saw Genevieve sitting on a bench with Pierre Leduc and a thick-set gentleman wearing a single eye-glass. The three were talking and none of them saw him. But several people came out of the house: M. Formerie, M. Weber, a magistrate's clerk, and two inspectors. Genevieve went indoors and the gentleman with the eye-glass went up and spoke to the examining-magistrate and the deputy-chief of the detective-service and walked away with them slowly.

Sernine came beside the bench where Pierre Leduc was sitting and whispered:

“Don't move, Pierre Leduc; it's I.”

“You!... you!...”

It was the third time that the young man saw Sernine since the awful night at Versailles; and each time it upset him.

“Tell me... who is the fellow with the eye-glass?”

Pierre Leduc turned pale and jabbered. Sernine pinched his arm:

“Answer me, confound it! Who is he?”

“Baron Altenheim.”

“Where does he come from?”

“He was a friend of Mr. Kesselbach's. He arrived from Austria, six days ago, and placed himself at Mrs. Kesselbach's disposal.”

The police authorities had, meanwhile, gone out of the garden; Baron Altenheim also.

The prince rose and, turning towards the Pavilion de l'Imperatrice, continued:

“Has the baron asked you many questions?”

“Yes, a great many. He is interested in my case. He wants to help me find my family. He appealed to my childhood memories.”

“And what did you say?”

“Nothing, because I know nothing. What memories have I? You put me in another's place and I don't even know who that other is.”

“No more do I!” chuckled the prince. “And that's just what makes your case so quaint.”

“Oh, it's all very well for you to laugh... you're always laughing!... But I'm beginning to have enough of it.... I'm mixed up in a heap of nasty matters... to say nothing of the danger which I run in pretending to be somebody that I am not.”

“What do you mean... that you are not? You're quite as much a duke as I am a prince... perhaps even more so.... Besides, if you're not a duke, hurry up and become one, hang it all! Genevieve can't marry any one but a duke! Look at her: isn't she worth selling your soul for?”

He did not even look at Leduc, not caring what he thought. They had reached the house by this time; and Genevieve appeared at the foot of the steps, comely and smiling:

“So you have returned?” she said to the prince. “Ah, that's a good thing! I am so glad.... Do you want to see Dolores?”

After a moment, she showed him into Mrs. Kesselbach's room. The prince was taken aback. Dolores was paler still and thinner than on the day when he saw her last. Lying on a sofa, wrapped up in white stuffs, she looked like one of those sick people who have ceased to struggle against death. As for her, she had ceased to struggle against life, against the fate that was overwhelming her with its blows.

Sernine gazed at her with deep pity and with an emotion which he did not strive to conceal. She thanked him for the sympathy which he showed her. She also spoke of Baron Altenheim, in friendly terms.

“Did you know him before?” he asked.

“Yes, by name, and through his intimacy with my husband.”

“I have met an Altenheim who lives in the Rue de Rivoli. Do you think it's the same?”

“Oh, no, this one lives in... As a matter of fact, I don't quite know; he gave me his address, but I can't say that I remember it....”

After a few minutes' conversation, Sernine took his leave. Genevieve was waiting for him in the hall:

“I want to speak to you,” she said eagerly, “on a serious matter.... Did you see him?”

“Whom?”

“Baron Altenheim.... But that's not his name... or, at least, he has another.... I recognized him... he does not know it.”

She dragged him out of doors and walked on in great excitement.

“Calm yourself, Genevieve....”

“He's the man who tried to carry me off.... But for that poor M. Lenormand, I should have been done for.... Come, you must know, for you know everything....”

“Then his real name is...”

“Ribeira.”

“Are you sure?”

“It was no use his changing his appearance, his accent, his manner: I knew him at once, by the horror with which he inspires me. But I said nothing... until you returned.”

“You said nothing to Mrs. Kesselbach either?”

“No. She seemed so happy at meeting a friend of her husband's. But you will speak to her about it, will you not? You will protect her.... I don't know what he is preparing against her, against myself.... Now that M. Lenormand is no longer there, he has nothing to fear, he does as he pleases. Who can unmask him?”

“I can. I will be responsible for everything. But not a word to anybody.”

They had reached the porter's lodge. The gate was opened. The prince said:

“Good-bye, Genevieve, and be quite easy in your mind. I am there.”

He shut the gate, turned round and gave a slight start. Opposite him stood the man with the eye-glass, Baron Altenheim, with his head held well up, his broad shoulders, his powerful frame.

They looked at each other for two or three seconds, in silence. The baron smiled.

Then the baron said:

“I was waiting for you, Lupin.”

For all his self-mastery, Sernine felt a thrill pass over him. He had come to unmask his adversary; and his adversary had unmasked him at the first onset. And, at the same time, the adversary was accepting the contest boldly, brazenly, as though he felt sure of victory. It was a swaggering thing to do and gave evidence of no small amount of pluck.

The two men, violently hostile one to the other, took each other's measure with their eyes.

“And what then?” asked Sernine.

“What then? Don't you think we have occasion for a meeting?”

“Why?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“What day will suit you?”

“Tomorrow. Let us lunch together at a restaurant.”

“Why not at your place?”

“You don't know my address.”

“Yes, I do.”

With a swift movement, the prince pulled out a newspaper protruding from Altenheim's pocket, a paper still in its addressed wrapper, and said:

“No. 29, Villa Dupont.”

“Well played!” said the other. “Then we'll say, tomorrow, at my place.”

“Tomorrow, at your place. At what time?”

“One o'clock.”

“I shall be there. Good-bye.”

They were about to walk away. Altenheim stopped:

“Oh, one word more, prince. Bring a weapon with you.”

“Why?”

“I keep four men-servants and you will be alone.”

“I have my fists,” said Sernine. “We shall be on even terms.”

He turned his back on him and then, calling him back:

“Oh, one word more, baron. Engage four more servants.”

“Why?”

“I have thought it over. I shall bring my whip.”

* * * * *

At one o'clock the next day, precisely, a horseman rode through the gate of the so-called Villa Dupont, a peaceful, countrified private road, the only entrance to which is in the Rue Pergolese, close to the Avenue du Bois.

It is lined with gardens and handsome private houses; and, right at the end, it is closed by a sort of little park containing a large old house, behind which runs the Paris circular railway. It was here, at No. 29, that Baron Altenheim lived.

Sernine flung the reins of his horse to a groom whom he had sent on ahead and said:

“Bring him back at half-past two.”

He rang the bell. The garden-gate opened and he walked to the front-door steps, where he was awaited by two tall men in livery who ushered him into an immense, cold, stone hall, devoid of any ornament. The door closed behind him with a heavy thud; and, great and indomitable as his courage was, he nevertheless underwent an unpleasant sensation at feeling himself alone, surrounded by enemies, in that isolated prison.

“Say Prince Sernine.”

The drawing-room was near and he was shown straight in.

“Ah, there you are, my dear prince!” said the baron, coming toward him. “Well, will you believe — Dominique, lunch in twenty minutes. Until then, don't let us be interrupted — will you believe, my dear prince, that I hardly expected to see you?”

“Oh, really? Why?”

“Well, your declaration of war, this morning, is so plain that an interview becomes superfluous.”

“My declaration of war?”

The baron unfolded a copy of the Grand Journal and pointed to a paragraph which ran as follows:

“We are authoritatively informed that M. Lenormand's disappearance has roused Arsene Lupin into taking action. After a brief enquiry and following on his proposal to clear up the Kesselbach case, Arsene Lupin has decided that he will find M. Lenormand, alive or dead, and that he will deliver the author or authors of that heinous series of crimes to justice.”

“This authoritative pronouncement comes from you, my dear prince, of course?”

“Yes, it comes from me.”

“Therefore, I was right: it means war.”

“Yes.”

Altenheim gave Sernine a chair, sat down himself and said, in a conciliatory tone:

“Well, no, I cannot allow that. It is impossible that two men like ourselves should fight and injure each other. We have only to come to an explanation, to seek the means: you and I were made to understand each other.”

“I think, on the contrary, that two men like ourselves are not made to understand each other.”

The baron suppressed a movement of impatience and continued:

“Listen to me, Lupin.... By the way, do you mind my calling you Lupin?”

“What shall I call you? Altenheim, Ribeira, or Par-bury?”

“Oho! I see that you are even better posted than I thought!... Hang it all, but you're jolly smart!... All the more reason why we should agree.”

And, bending toward him, “Listen, Lupin, and ponder my words well; I have weighed them carefully, every one. Look here.... We two are evenly matched.... Does that make you smile? You are wrong: it may be that you possess resources which I do not; but I have others of which you know nothing. Moreover, as you are aware, I have few scruples, some skill and a capacity for changing my personality which an expert like yourself ought to appreciate. In short, the two adversaries are each as good as the other. But one question remains unanswered: why are we adversaries? We are pursuing the same object, you will say? And what then? Do you know what will come of our rivalry? Each of us will paralyze the efforts and destroy the work of the other; and we shall both miss our aim! And for whose benefit? Some Lenormand or other, a third rogue!... It's really too silly.”

“It's really too silly, as you say,” Sernine admitted. “But there is a remedy.”

“What is that?”

“For you to withdraw.”

“Don't chaff. I am serious. The proposal which I am going to make is not one to be rejected without examination. Here it is, in two words: let's be partners!”

“I say!”

“Of course, each of us will continue free where his own affairs are concerned. But, for the business in question, let us combine our efforts. Does that suit you? Hand in hand and share alike.”

“What do you bring?”

“I?”

“Yes, you know what I'm worth; I've delivered my proofs. In the alliance which you are proposing, you know the figure, so to speak of my marriage-portion. What's yours?”

“Steinweg.”

“That's not much.”

“It's immense. Through Steinweg, we learn the truth about Pierre Leduc. Through Steinweg, we get to know what the famous Kesselbach plan is all about.”

Sernine burst out laughing:

“And you need me for that?”

“I don't understand.”

“Come, old chap, your offer is childish. You have Steinweg in your hands. If you wish for my collaboration, it is because you have not succeeded in making him speak. But for that fact, you would do without my services.”

“Well, what of it?”

“I refuse.”

The two men stood up to each other once more, violent and implacable.

“I refuse,” said Sernine. “Lupin requires nobody, in order to act. I am one of those who walk alone. If you were my equal, as you pretend, the idea of a partnership would never have entered your head. The man who has the stature of a leader commands. Union implies obedience. I do not obey.”

“You refuse? You refuse?” repeated Altenheim, turning pale under the insult.

“All that I can do for you, old chap, is to offer you a place in my band. You'll be a private soldier, to begin with. Under my orders, you shall see how a general wins a battle... and how he pockets the booty, by himself and for himself. Does that suit, you... Tommy?”

Altenheim was beside himself with fury. He gnashed his teeth:

“You are making a mistake, Lupin!” he mumbled, “you are making a mistake.... I don't want anybody either; and this business gives me no more difficulty than plenty of others which I have pulled off.... What I said was said in order to effect our object more quickly and without inconveniencing each other.”

“You're not inconveniencing me,” said Lupin, scornfully.

“Look here! If we don't combine, only one of us will succeed.”

“That's good enough for me.”

“And he will only succeed by passing over the other's body. Are you prepared for that sort of duel, Lupin? A duel to the death, do you understand?... The knife is a method which you despise; but suppose you received one, Lupin, right in the throat?”

“Aha! So, when all is said, that's what you propose?”

“No, I am not very fond of shedding blood.... Look at my fists: I strike... and my man falls.... I have special blows of my own.... But the other one kills... remember... the little wound in the throat.... Ah, Lupin, beware of him, beware of that one!... He is terrible, he is implacable.... Nothing stops him.”

He spoke these words in a low voice and with such excitement that Sernine shuddered at the hideous thought of the unknown murderer:

“Baron,” he sneered, “one would think you were afraid of your accomplice!”

“I am afraid for the others, for those who bar our road, for you, Lupin. Accept, or you are lost. I shall act myself, if necessary. The goal is too near... I have my hand on it.... Get out of my way, Lupin!”

He was all energy and exasperated will. He spoke forcibly and so brutally that he seemed ready to strike his enemy then and there.

Sernine shrugged his shoulders:

“Lord, how hungry I am!” he said, yawning. “What a time to lunch at!”

The door opened.

“Lunch is served, sir,” said the butler.

“Ah, that's good hearing!”

In the doorway, Altenheim caught Sernine by the arm and, disregarding the servant's presence:

“If you take my advice... accept. This is a serious moment in your life... and you will do better, I swear to you, you will do better... to accept....”

“Caviare!” cried Sernine. “Now, that's too sweet of you.... You remembered that you were entertaining a Russian prince!”

They sat down facing each other, with the baron's greyhound, a large animal with long, silver hair, between them.

“Let me introduce Sirius, my most faithful friend.”

“A fellow-countryman,” said Sernine. “I shall never forget the one which the Tsar was good enough to give me when I had the honor to save his life.”

“Ah, you had that honor... a terrorist conspiracy, no doubt?”

“Yes, a conspiracy got up by myself. You must know, this dog — its name, by the way, was Sebastopol....”

The lunch continued merrily. Altenheim had recovered his good humor and the two men vied with each other in wit and politeness. Sernine told anecdotes which the baron capped with others; and it was a succession of stories of hunting, sport and travel, in which the oldest names in Europe were constantly cropping up: Spanish grandees, English lords, Hungarian magyars, Austrian archdukes.

“Ah,” said Sernine, “what a fine profession is ours! It brings us into touch with all the best people. Here, Sinus, a bit of this truffled chicken!”

The dog did not take his eyes off him, and snapped at everything that Sernine gave it.

“A glass of Chambertin, prince?”

“With pleasure, baron.”

“I can recommend it. It comes from King Leopold's cellar.”

“A present?”

“Yes, a present I made myself.”

“It's delicious.... What a bouquet!... With this pate de foie gras, it's simply wonderful!... I must congratulate you, baron; you have a first-rate chef.”

“My chef is a woman-cook, prince. I bribed her with untold gold to leave Levraud, the socialist deputy. I say, try this hot chocolate-ice; and let me call your special attention to the little dry cakes that go with it. They're an invention of genius, those cakes.”

“The shape is charming, in any case,” said Sernine, helping himself. “If they taste as good as they look.... Here, Sirius, you're sure to like this. Locusta herself could not have done better.”

He took one of the cakes and gave it to the dog. Sirius swallowed it at a gulp, stood motionless for two or three seconds, as though dazed, then turned in a circle and fell to the floor dead.

Sernine started back from his chair, lest one of the footmen should fall upon him unawares. Then he burst out laughing:

“Look here, baron, next time you want to poison one of your friends, try to steady your voice and to keep your hands from shaking.... Otherwise, people suspect you.... But I thought you disliked murder?”

“With the knife, yes,” said Altenheim, quite unperturbed. “But I have always had a wish to poison some one. I wanted to see what it was like.”

“By Jove, old chap, you choose your subjects well! A Russian prince!”

He walked up to Altenheim and, in a confidential tone, said:

“Do you know what would have happened if you had succeeded, that is to say, if my friends had not seen me return at three o'clock at the latest? Well, at half-past three the prefect of police would have known exactly all that there was to know about the so-called Baron Altenheim; and the said baron would have been copped before the day was out and clapped into jail.”

“Pooh!” said Altenheim. “Prison one escapes from... whereas one does not come back from the kingdom where I was sending you.”

“True, but you would have to send me there first; and that's not so easy.”

“I only wanted a mouthful of one of those cakes.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Try.”

“One thing's certain, my lad: you haven't the stuff yet which great adventurers are made of; and I doubt if you'll ever have it, considering the sort of traps you lay for me. A man who thinks himself worthy of leading the life which you and I have the honor to lead must also be fit to lead it, and, for that, must be prepared for every eventuality: he must even be prepared not to die if some ragamuffin or other tries to poison him.... An undaunted soul in an unassailable body: that is the ideal which he must set before himself... and attain. Try away, old chap. As for me, I am undaunted and unassailable. Remember King Mithridates!”

He went back to his chair:

“Let's finish our lunch. But as I like proving the virtues to which I lay claim, and as, on the other hand, I don't want to hurt your cook's feelings, just pass me that plate of cakes.”

He took one of them, broke it in two and held out one half to the baron:

“Eat that!”

The other gave a movement of recoil.

“Funk!” said Sernine.

And, before the wondering eyes of the baron and his satellites, he began to eat the first and then the second half of the cake, quietly, conscientiously, as a man eats a dainty of which he would hate to miss the smallest morsel.

* * * * *

They met again.

That same evening, Prince Sernine invited Baron Altenheim to dinner at the Cabaret Vatel, with a party consisting of a poet, a musician, a financier and two pretty actresses, members of the Theatre Francais.

The next day, they lunched together in the Bois and, at night, they met at the Opera.

They saw each other every day for a week. One would have thought that they could not do without each other and that they were united by a great friendship, built up of mutual confidence, sympathy and esteem.

They had a capital time, drinking good wine, smoking excellent cigars, and laughing like two madmen.

In reality, they were watching each other fiercely. Mortal enemies, separated by a merciless hatred, each feeling sure of winning and longing for victory with an unbridled will, they waited for the propitious moment: Altenheim to do away with Sernine; and Sernine to hurl Altenheim into the pit which he was digging for him.

Each knew that the catastrophe could not be long delayed. One or other of them must meet with his doom; and it was a question of hours, or, at most, of days.

It was an exciting tragedy, and one of which a man like Sernine was bound to relish the strange and powerful zest. To know your adversary and to live by his side; to feel that death is waiting for you at the least false step, at the least act of thoughtlessness: what a joy, what a delight!

One evening, they were alone together in the garden of the Rue Cambon Club, to which Altenheim also belonged. It was the hour before dusk, in the month of June, at which men begin to dine before the members come in for the evening's card-play. They were strolling round a little lawn, along which ran a wall lined with shrubs. Beyond the shrubs was a small door. Suddenly, while Altenheim was speaking, Sernine received the impression that his voice became less steady, that it was almost trembling. He watched him out of the corner of his eye. Altenheim had his hand in the pocket of his jacket; and Sernine saw that hand, through the cloth, clutch the handle of a dagger, hesitating, wavering, resolute and weak by turns.

O exquisite moment! Was he going to strike? Which would gain the day: the timid instinct that dare not, or the conscious will, intense upon the act of killing?

His chest flung out, his arms behind his back, Sernine waited, with alternate thrills of pleasure and of pain. The baron had ceased talking; and they now walked on in silence, side by side.

“Well, why don't you strike?” cried the prince, impatiently. He had stopped and, turning to his companion: “Strike!” he said. “This is the time or never. There is no one to see you. You can slip out through that little door; the key happens to be hanging on the wall; and good-bye, baron... unseen and unknown!... But, of course, all this was arranged... you brought me here.... And you're hesitating! Why on earth don't you strike?”

He looked him straight in the eyes. The other was livid, quivering with impotent strength.

“You milksop!” Sernine sneered. “I shall never make anything of you. Shall I tell you the truth? Well, you're afraid of me. Yes, old chap, you never feel quite sure what may happen to you when you're face to face with me. You want to act, whereas it's my acts, my possible acts that govern the situation. No, it's quite clear that you're not the man yet to put out my star!”

He had not finished speaking when he felt himself seized round the throat and dragged backward. Some one hiding in the shrubbery, near the little door, had caught him by the head. He saw a hand raised, armed with a knife with a gleaming blade. The hand fell; the point of the knife caught him right in the throat.

At the same moment Altenheim sprang upon hint to finish him off; and they rolled over into the flower-borders. It was a matter of twenty or thirty seconds at most. Powerful and experienced wrestler as he was, Altenheim yielded almost immediately, uttering a cry of pain. Sernine rose and ran to the little door, which had just closed upon a dark form. It was too late. He heard the key turn in the lock. He was unable to open it.

“Ah, you scoundrel!” he said. “The day on which I catch you will be the day on which I shed my first blood! That I swear to God!...”

He went back, stooped and picked up the pieces of the knife, which had broken as it struck him.

Altenheim was beginning to move. Sernine asked:

“Well, baron, feeling better? You didn't know that blow, eh? It's what I call the direct blow in the solar plexus; that is to say, it snuffs out your vital sun like a candle. It's clean, quick, painless... and infallible. Whereas a blow with a dagger...? Pooh! A man has only to wear a little steel-wove gorget, as I do, and he can set the whole world at defiance, especially your little pal in black, seeing that he always strikes at the throat, the silly monster!... Here, look at his favorite plaything.... smashed to atoms!”

He offered him his hand:

“Come, get up, baron. You shall dine with me. And do please remember the secret of my superiority: an undaunted soul in an unassailable body.”

He went back to the club rooms, reserved a table for two, sat down on a sofa, and while waiting for dinner, soliloquized, under his breath:

“It's certainly an amusing game, but it's becoming dangerous. I must get it over... otherwise those beggars will send me to Paradise earlier than I want to go. The nuisance is that I can't do anything before I find old Steinweg, for, when all is said, old Steinweg is the only interesting factor in the whole business; and my one reason for sticking to the baron is that I keep on hoping to pick up some clue or other. What the devil have they done with him? Altenheim is in daily communication with him: that is beyond a doubt; it is equally beyond a doubt that he is doing his utmost to drag out of him what he knows about the Kesselbach scheme. But where does he see him? Where has he got him shut up? With friends? In his own house, at 29, Villa Dupont?”

He reflected for some time, then lit a cigarette, took three puffs at it and threw it away. This was evidently a signal, for two young men came and sat down beside him. He did not seem to know them, but he conversed with them by stealth. It was the brothers Doudeville, got up that day like men of fashion.

“What is it, governor?”

“Take six of our men, go to 29, Villa Dupont and make your way in.”

“The devil! How?”

“In the name of the law. Are you not detective-inspectors? A search....”

“But we haven't the right....”

“Take it.”

“And the servants? If they resist?”

“There are only four of them.”

“If they call out?”

“They won't call out.”

“If Altenheim returns?”

“He won't return before ten o'clock. I'll see to it. That gives you two hours and a half, which is more than you require to explore the house from top to bottom. If you find old Steinweg, come and tell me.”

Baron Altenheim came up. Sernine went to meet him:

“Let's have some dinner, shall we? That little incident in the garden has made me feel hungry. By the way, my dear baron, I have a few bits of advice to give you....”

They sat down to table.

After dinner, Sernine suggested a game of billiards. Altenheim accepted. When the game was over, they went to the baccarat-room. The croupier was just shouting:

“There are fifty louis in the bank. Any bids?”

“A hundred louis,” said Altenheim.

Sernine looked at his watch. Ten o'clock. The Doudevilles had not returned. The search, therefore, had been fruitless.

“Banco,” he said.

Altenheim sat down and dealt the cards:

“I give.”

“No.”

“Seven.”

“Six. I lose,” said Sernine. “Shall I double the stakes?”

“Very well,” said the baron.

He dealt out the cards.

“Eight,” said Sernine.

“Nine,” said the baron, laying his cards down.

Sernine turned on his heels, muttering:

“That costs me three hundred louis, but I don't mind; it fixes him here.”

Ten minutes later his motor set him down in front of 29, Villa Dupont; and he found the Doudevilles and their men collected in the hall:

“Have you hunted out the old boy?”

“No.”

“Dash it! But he must be somewhere or other. Where are the four servants?”

“Over there, in the pantry, tied up, with the cook as well.”

“Good. I would as soon they did not see me. Go all you others. Jean, stay outside and keep watch: Jacques, show me over the house.”

He quickly ran through the cellar, the ground floor, the first and second floors and the attic. He practically stopped nowhere, knowing that he would not discover in a few minutes what his men had not been able to discover in three hours. But he carefully noted the shape and the arrangement of the rooms, and looked for some little detail which would put him on the scent.

When he had finished, he returned to a bedroom which Doudeville had told him was Altenheim's, and examined it attentively:

“This will do,” he said, raising a curtain that concealed a dark closet, full of clothes. “From here I can see the whole of the room.”

“But if the baron searches the house?”

“Why should he?”

“He will know that we have been here, through his servants.”

“Yes, but he will never dream that one of us is putting up here for the night. He will think that the attempt failed, that is all, so I shall stay.”

“And how will you get out?”

“Oh, that's asking me more than I can tell you! The great thing was to get in. Here I am, and here I stay. Go, Doudeville, and shut the doors as you go.”

He sat down on a little box at the back of the cupboard. Four rows of hanging clothes protected him. Except in the case of a close investigation, he was evidently quite safe.

Two hours passed. He heard the dull sound of a horse's hoofs and the tinkling of a collar-bell. A carriage stopped, the front door slammed and almost immediately he heard voices, exclamations, a regular outcry that increased, probably, as each of the prisoners was released from his gag.

“They are explaining the thing to him,” he thought. “The baron must be in a tearing rage. He now understands the reason for my conduct at the club tonight and sees that I have dished him nicely.... Dished? That depends.... After all, I haven't got Steinweg yet.... That is the first thing that he will want to know: did they get Steinweg? To find this out, he will go straight to the hiding-place. If he goes up, it means that the hiding-place is upstairs. If he goes down, then it is in the basement.”

He listened. The sound of voices continued in the rooms on the ground floor, but it did not seem as if any one were moving. Altenheim must be cross-examining his confederates. It was half an hour before Sernine heard steps mounting the staircase.

“Then it must be upstairs,” he said to himself. “But why did they wait so long?”

“Go to bed, all of you,” said Altenheim's voice.

The baron entered his room with one of his men and shut the door:

“And I am going to bed, too, Dominique. We should be no further if we sat arguing all night.”

“My opinion is,” said the other, “that he came to fetch Steinweg.”

“That is my opinion, too; and that's why I'm really enjoying myself, seeing that Steinweg isn't here.”

“But where is he, after all? What have you done with him?”

“That's my secret; and you know I keep my secrets to myself. All that I can tell you is that he is in safe keeping, and that he won't get out before he has spoken.”

“So the prince is sold?”

“Sold is the word. And he has had to fork out to attain this fine result! Oh, I've had a good time tonight I... Poor prince!”

“For all that,” said the other, “we shall have to get rid of him.”

“Make your mind easy, old man; that won't take long. Before a week's out you shall have a present of a pocket-book made out of Lupin-skin. But let me go to bed now. I'm dropping with sleep.”

There was a sound of the door closing. Then Sernine heard the baron push the bolt, empty his pockets, wind up his watch and undress. He seemed in a gay mood, whistling and singing, and even talking aloud:

“Yes, a Lupin-skin pocket-book... in less than a week... in less than four days!... Otherwise he'll eat us up, the bully!... No matter, he missed his shot tonight.... His calculation was right enough, though... Steinweg was bound to be here.... Only, there you are!...”

He got into bed and at once switched off the light.

Sernine had come forward as far as the dividing curtain, which he now lifted slightly, and he saw the vague light of the night filtering through the windows, leaving the bed in profound darkness.

He hesitated. Should he leap out upon the baron, take him by the throat and obtain from him by force and threats what he had not been able to obtain by craft? Absurd? Altenheim would never allow himself to be intimidated.

“I say, he's snoring now,” muttered Sernine. “Well, I'm off. At the worst, I shall have wasted a night.”

He did not go. He felt that it would be impossible for him to go, that he must wait, that chance might yet serve his turn.

With infinite precautions, he took four or five coats and great-coats from their hooks, laid them on the floor, made himself comfortable and, with his back to the wall, went peacefully to sleep.

The baron was not an early riser. A clock outside was striking nine when he got out of bed and rang for his servant.

He read the letters which his man brought him, splashed about in his tub, dressed without saying a word and sat down to his table to write, while Dominique was carefully hanging up the clothes of the previous day in the cupboard and Sernine asking himself, with his fists ready to strike:

“I wonder if I shall have to stave in this fellow's solar plexus?”

At ten o'clock the baron was ready:

“Leave me,” said he to the servant.

“There's just this waistcoat....”

“Leave me, I say. Come back when I ring... not before.”

He shut the door himself, like a man who does not trust others, went to a table on which a telephone was standing and took down the receiver:

“Hullo!... Put me on to Garches, please, mademoiselle.... Very well, I'll wait till you ring me up....”

He sat down to the instrument.

The telephone-bell rang.

“Hullo!” said Altenheim. “Is that Garches?... Yes, that's right.... Give me number 38, please, mademoiselle....”

A few seconds later, in a lower voice, as low and as distinct as he could make it, he began:

“Are you 38?... It's I speaking; no useless words.... Yesterday?... Yes, you missed him in the garden.... Another time, of course; but the thing's becoming urgent... He had the house searched last night.... I'll tell you about it.... Found nothing, of course.... What?... Hullo!... No, old Steinweg refuses to speak.... Threats, promises, nothing's any good.... Hullo!... Yes, of course, he sees that we can do nothing.... We know just a part of the Kesselbach scheme and of the story of Pierre Leduc... He's the only one who has the answer to the riddle.... Oh, he'll speak all right; that I'll answer for... this very night, too... If not... What?... Well, what can we do? Anything rather than let him escape! Do you want the prince to bag him from us? As for the prince, we shall have to cook his goose in three days from now.... You have an idea?... Yes, that's a good idea.... Oh, oh, excellent! I'll see to it.... When shall we meet? Will Tuesday do? Right you are. I'll come on Tuesday... at two o'clock.... Good-bye.”

He replaced the receiver and went out.

A few hours later, while the servants were at lunch, Prince Sernine strolled quietly out of the Villa Dupont, feeling rather faint in the head and weak in the knees, and, while making for the nearest restaurant, he thus summed up the situation:

“So, on Tuesday next, Altenheim and the Palace Hotel murderer have an appointment at Garches, in a house with the telephone number 38. On Tuesday, therefore, I shall hand over the two criminals to the police and set M. Lenormand at liberty. In the evening, it will be old Steinweg's turn; and I shall learn, at last, whether Pierre Leduc is the son of a pork-butcher or not and whether he will make a suitable husband for Genevieve. So be it!” .

* * * * *

At eleven o'clock on Tuesday morning Valenglay, the prime minister, sent for the prefect of police and M. Weber, the deputy-chief of the detective-service, and showed them an express letter which he had just received:

“Monsieur le President du Conseil,”

“Knowing the interest which you take in M. Lenormand, I am writing to inform you of certain facts which chance has revealed to me.

“M. Lenormand is locked up in the cellars of the Villa des Glycines at Garches, near the House of Retreat.

“The ruffians of the Palace Hotel have resolved to murder him at two o'clock today... “If the police require my assistance, they will find me at half-past one in the garden of the House of Retreat, or at the garden-house occupied by Mrs. Kesselbach, whose friend I have the honor to be.

“I am, Monsieur le President du Conseil,

“Your obedient servant,

“Prince Sernine.”

“This is an exceedingly grave matter, my dear M. Weber,” said Valenglay. “I may add that we can have every confidence in the accuracy of Prince Sernine's statements. I have often met him at dinner. He is a serious, intelligent man....”

“Will you allow me, Monsieur le rodent,” asked the deputy-chief detective, “to show you another letter which I also received this morning?”

“About the same case?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see it.”

He took the letter and read:

“Sir,

“This is to inform you that Prince Paul Sernine, who calls himself Mrs. Kesselbach's friend, is really Arsene Lupin.

“One proof will be sufficient: Paul Sernine is the anagram of Arsene Lupin. Not a letter more, not a letter less.

“L. M.”

And M. Weber added, while Valenglay stood amazed:

“This time, our friend Lupin has found an adversary who is a match for him. While he denounces the other, the other betrays him to us. And the fox is caught in the trap!”

“What do you propose to do?”

“Monsieur le President, I shall take two hundred men with me!”

CHAPTER VIII. THE OLIVE-GREEN FROCK-COAT

A QUARTER past twelve, in a restaurant near the Madeleine. The prince is at lunch. Two young men sit down at the next table. He bows to them and begins to speak to them, as to friends whom he has met by chance.

“Are you going on the expedition, eh?”

“Yes.”

“How many men altogether?”

“Six, I think. Each goes down by himself. We're to meet M. Weber at a quarter to two, near the House of Retreat.”

“Very well, I shall be there.”

“What?”

“Am I not leading the expedition? And isn't it my business to find M. Lenormand, seeing that I've announced it publicly?”

“Then you believe that M. Lenormand is not dead, governor?”

“I'm sure of it.”

“Do you know anything?”

“Yes, since yesterday I know for certain that Altenheim and his gang took M. Lenormand and Gourel to the bridge at Bougival and heaved them overboard. Gourel sank, but M. Lenormand managed to save himself. I shall furnish all the necessary proofs when the time comes.”

“But, then, if he's alive, why doesn't he show himself?”

“Because he's not free.”

“Is what you said true, then? Is he in the cellars of the Villa des Glycines?”

“I have every reason to think so.”

“But how do you know?... What clue?...”

“That's my secret. I can tell you one thing: the revelation will be — what shall I say — sensational, Have you finished?”

“Yes.”

“My car is behind the Madeleine. Join me there.”

At Garches, Sernine sent the motor away, and they walked to the path that led to Genevieve's school. There he stopped:

“Listen to me, lads. This is of the highest importance. You will ring at the House of Retreat. As inspectors, you have your right of entry, have you not? You will then go to the Pavilion Hortense, the empty one. There you will run down to the basement and you will find an old shutter, which you have only to lift to see the opening of a tunnel which I discovered lately and which forms a direct communication with the Villa des Glycines. It was by means of this that Gertrude and Baron Altenheim used to meet. And it was this way that M. Lenormand passed, only to end be falling into the hands of his enemies.”

“You think so, governor?”

“Yes, I think so. And now the point is this: you must go and make sure that the tunnel is exactly in the condition in which I left it last night; that the two doors which bar it are open; and that there is still, in a hole near the second door, a parcel wrapped in a piece of black cloth which I put there myself.”

“Are we to undo the parcel?”

“No, that's not necessary. It's a change of clothes. Go; and don't let yourselves be seen more than you can help. I will wait for you.”

Ten minutes later, they were back:

“The two doors are open,” said one of the Doudevilles.

“And the black cloth parcel?”

“In its place near the second door.”

“Capital! It is twenty-five past one. Weber will be arriving with his champions. They are to watch the villa. They will surround it as soon as Altenheim is inside. I have arranged with Weber that I shall ring the bell; the door will be opened; and I shall have my foot inside the citadel. Once there, I have my plan. Come, I've an idea that we shall see some fun.”

And Sernine, after dismissing them, walked down the path to the school, soliloquizing as he went:

“All bodes well. The battle will be fought on the ground chosen by myself. I am bound to win. I shall get rid of my two adversaries and I shall find myself alone engaged in the Kesselbach case... alone, with two whacking trump-cards: Pierre Leduc and Steinweg.... Besides the king... that is to say, Bibi. Only, there's one thing: what is Altenheim up to? Obviously, he has a plan of attack of his own. On which side does he mean to attack me? And how does it come that he has not attacked me yet? It's rather startling. Can he have denounced me to the police?”

He went along the little playground of the school The pupils were at their lessons. He knocked at the door.

“Ah, is that you?” said Mme. Ernemont, opening the door. “So you have left Genevieve in Paris?”

“For me to do that, Genevieve would have to be in Paris,” he replied.

“So she has been, seeing that you sent for her.”

“What's that?” he exclaimed, catching hold of her arm.

“Why, you know better than I!”

“I know nothing.... I know nothing.... Speak!...”

“Didn't you write to Genevieve to meet you at the Gare Saint-Lazare?”

“And did she go?”

“Why, of course.... You were to lunch together at the Hotel Ritz?”

“The letter.... Show me the letter.”

She went to fetch it and gave it to him.

“But, wretched woman, couldn't you see that it was a forgery? The handwriting is a good imitation... but it's a forgery.... Any one can see that.” He pressed his clenched hands to his temples with rage. “That's the move I was wondering about. Oh, the dirty scoundrel! He's attacking me through her... But how does he know? No, he does not know.... He's tried it on twice now... and it's because of Genevieve, because he's taken a fancy to her.... Oh, not that! Never! Listen, Victoire, are you sure that she doesn't love him?... Oh, I'm losing my head!... Wait... wait!... I must think... this isn't the moment....”

He looked at his watch:

“Twenty-five minutes to two.... I have time..... Idiot that I am! Time to do what? How do I know where she is?”

He walked up and down like a madman; and his old nurse seemed astounded at seeing him so excited, with so little control of himself:

“After all,” she said, “there is nothing to prove that she did not suspect the trap at the last moment....”

“Where could she be?”

“I don't know... perhaps at Mrs. Kesselbach's.”

“That's true... that's true.... You're right,” he cried, filled with sudden hope..

And he set out at a run for the House of Retreat.

On the way, near the gate, he met the brothers Doudeville, who were entering the porter's lodge. The lodge looked out on the road; and this enabled them to watch the approaches to the Villa des Glycines. Without stopping, he went straight to the Pavilion de l'Imperatrice, called Suzanne and told her to take him to Mrs. Kesselbach.

“Genevieve?” he asked.

“Genevieve?”

“Yes; hasn't she been here?”

“No, not for several days....”

“But she is to come, is she not?”

“Do you think so?”

“Why, I'm certain of it. Where do you think she is? Can you remember?...”

“It's no use my trying. I assure you that Genevieve and I had made no arrangement to see each other.” And, suddenly alarmed: “But you're not anxious, are you? Has anything happened to Genevieve?”

“No, nothing.”

He had already left the room. An idea had occurred to him. Suppose Altenheim were not at the Villa des Glycines? Suppose the hour of the meeting had been changed!

“I must see him,” he said to himself. “I must, at all costs.”

And he ran along with a disordered air, indifferent to everything. But, in front of the lodge, he at once recovered his composure: he had caught sight of the deputy-chief of the detective-service talking to the brothers Doudeville in the garden.

Had he commanded his usual acute discernment, he would have perceived the little start which M. Weber gave as he approached; but he saw nothing:

“M. Weber, I believe?” he asked.

“Yes.... To whom have I the honor...?”

“Prince Sernine.”

“Ah, very good! Monsieur le Prefet de Police has told me of the great service which you are doing us, monsieur.”

“That service will not be complete until I have handed the ruffians over to you.”

“That won't take long. I believe that one of those ruffians has just gone in; a powerful-looking man, with a swarthy complexion....”

“Yes, that's Baron Altenheim. Are your men here, M. Weber?”

“Yes, concealed along the road, at two hundred yards from this.”

“Well, M. Weber, it seems to me that you might collect them and bring them to this lodge. From here we will go to the villa. As Baron Altenheim knows me, I presume they will open the door to me and I will go in... with you.”

“It is an excellent plan,” said M. Weber. “I shall come back at once.”

He left the garden and walked down the road, in the opposite direction to the Villa des Glycines.

Sernine quickly took one of the brothers Doudeville by the arm:

“Run after him, Jacques... keep him engaged... long enough for me to get inside the Glycines.... And then delay the attack as long as you can.... Invent pretexts.... I shall want ten minutes.... Let the villa be surrounded... but not entered. And you, Jean, go and post yourself in the Pavilion Hortense, at the entrance to the underground passage. If the baron tries to go out that way, break his head.”

The Doudevilles moved away, as ordered. The prince slipped out and ran to a tall gate, barred with iron, which was the entrance to the Glycines.

Should he ring?...

There was no one in sight. With one bound, he leapt upon the gate, placing his foot on the lock; and, hanging on to the bars, getting a purchase with his knees and hoisting himself up with his wrists, he managed, at the risk of falling on the sharp points of the bars, to climb over the gate and jump down.

He found a paved courtyard, which he crossed briskly, and mounted the steps of a pillared peristyle, on which the windows looked out. These were all closed to the very top, with full shutters. As he stood thinking how he should make his way into the house, the door was half opened, with a noise of iron that reminded him of the door in the Villa Dupont, and Altenheim appeared:

“I say, prince, is that the way you trespass on private property? I shall be forced to call in the gendarmes, my dear fellow!”

Sernine caught him by the throat and, throwing him down on a bench:

“Genevieve?... Where is Genevieve? If you don't tell me what you've done with her, you villain....”

“Please observe,” stammered the baron, “that you are making it impossible for me to speak.”

Sernine released his hold of him:

“To the point!... And look sharp!... Answer.... Genevieve?”

“There is one thing,” replied the baron, “which is much more urgent, especially where fellows like you and me are concerned, and that is to feel one's self at home...”

And he carefully closed the front door, which he barricaded with bolts. Then, leading Sernine to the adjoining drawing-room, a room without furniture or curtains, he said:

“Now I'm your man. What can I do for you, prince?”

“Genevieve?”

“She is in perfect health.”

“Ah, so you confess... ?”

“Of course! I may even tell you that your imprudence in this respect surprised me. Why didn't you take a few precautions? It was inevitable....”

“Enough! Where is she?”

“You are not very polite.”

“Where is she?”

“Between four walls, free....”

“Free?”

“Yes, free to go from one wall to another.”

“Where? Where?”

“Come, prince, do you think I should be fool enough to tell you the secret by which I hold you? You love the little girl...”

“Hold your tongue!” shouted Sernine, beside himself. “I forbid you....”

“What next? Is there anything to be ashamed of? I love her myself and I have risked...”

He did not complete his sentence, frightened by the terrific anger of Sernine, a restrained, dumb anger that distorted the prince's features.

They looked at each other for a long time, each of them seeking for the adversary's weak point. At last, Sernine stepped forward and, speaking very distinctly, like a man who is threatening rather than proposing a compact:

“Listen to me,” he said. “You remember the offer of partnership which you made me? The Kesselbach business for the two of us... we were to act together... we were to share the profits.... I refused.... Today, I accept....”

“Too late.”

“Wait! I accept more than that: I give the whole business up.... I shall take no further part in it.... You shall have it all.... If necessary, I'll help you.”

“What is the condition?”

“Tell me where Genevieve is.”

The baron shrugged his shoulders:

“You're driveling, Lupin. I'm sorry for you... at your age....”

There was a fresh silence between the two enemies, a terrible silence. Then the baron sneered:

“All the same, it's a holy joy to see you like that, sniveling and begging. I say, it seems to me that the private soldier is giving his general a sound beating!”

“You ass!” muttered Sernine.

“Prince, I shall send you my seconds this evening... if you are still in this world.”

“You ass!” repeated Sernine, with infinite contempt.

“You would rather settle the matter here and now? As you please, prince: your last hour has struck. You can commend your soul to God. You smile! That's a mistake. I have one immense advantage over you! I kill... when it's necessary....”

“You ass!” said Sernine once more. He took out his watch. “It is two o'clock, baron. You have only a few minutes left. At five past two, ten past at the very latest, M. Weber and half-a-dozen sturdy men, without a scruple amongst them, will lay hands on you.... Don't you smile, either. The outlet on which you're reckoning is discovered; I know it: it is guarded. So you are thoroughly caught. It means the scaffold, old chap.”

Altenheim turned livid. He stammered:

“You did this?... You have had the infamy—”

“The house is surrounded. The assault is at hand. Speak... and I will save you.”

“How?”

“The men watching the outlet in the Pavilion Hortense belong to me. I have only to give you a word for them and you are saved. Speak!”

Altenheim reflected for a few seconds and seemed to hesitate; but, suddenly, resolutely, declared:

“This is all bluff. You would never have been simple enough to rush into the lion's mouth.”

“You're forgetting Genevieve. But for her, do you think I should be here? Speak!”

“No.”

“Very well. Let us wait,” said Sernine. “A cigarette?”

“Thank you.”

A few seconds passed.

“Do you hear?” asked Sernine.

“Yes... yes...” said Altenheim, rising.

Blows rang against the gate. Sernine observed:

“Not even the usual summons... no preliminaries.... Your mind is still made up?”

“More so than ever.”

“You know that, with the tools they carry, they won't take long?”

“If they were inside this room I should still refuse.”

The gate yielded. They heard it creak on its hinges.

“To allow one's self to get nabbed,” said Sernine, “is admissible. But to hold out one's own hands to the handcuffs is too silly. Come, don't be obstinate. Speak... and bolt!”

“And you?”

“I shall remain. What have. I to be afraid of?”

“Look!”

The baron pointed to a chink between the shutters. Sernine put his eye to it and jumped back with a start:

“Oh, you scoundrel, so you have denounced me, too! It's not ten men that Weber's bringing, but fifty men, a hundred, two hundred....”

The baron laughed open-heartedly:

“And, if there are so many of them, it's because they're after Lupin; that's obvious! Half-a-dozen would have been enough for me.”

“You informed the police?”

“Yes.”

“What proof did you give?”

“Your name: Paul Sernine, that is to say, Arsine Lupin!”

“And you found that out all by yourself, did you?... A thing which nobody else thought of?... Nonsense! It was the other one. Admit it!”

He looked out through the chink. Swarms of policemen were spreading round the villa; and the blows were now sounding on the door. He must, however, think of one of two things: either his escape, or else the execution of the plan which he had contrived. But to go away, even for a moment, meant leaving Altenheim; and who could guarantee that the baron had not another outler at his disposal to escape by? This thought paralyzed Sernine. The baron free! The baron at liberty to go back to Genevieve and torture her and make her subservient to his odious love!

Thwarted in his designs, obliged to improvise a new plan on the very second, while subordinating everything to the danger which Genevieve was running, Sernine passed through a moment of cruel indecision. With his eyes fixed on the baron's eyes, he would have liked to tear his secret from him and to go away; and he no longer even tried to convince him, so useless did all words seem to him. And, while pursuing his own thoughts, he asked himself what the baron's thoughts could be, what his weapons, what his hope of safety?

The hall-door, though strongly bolted, though sheeted with iron, was beginning to give way.

The two men stood behind that door, motionless. The sound of voices, the sense of words reached them.

“You seem very sure of yourself,” said Sernine.

“I should think so!” cried the other, suddenly tripping him to the floor and running away.

Sernine sprang up at once, dived through a little door under the staircase, though which Altenheim had disappeared, and ran down the stone steps to the basement.

A passage led to a large, low, almost pitch-dark room, where he found the baron on his knees, lifting the flap of a trap-door.

“Idiot!” shouted Sernine, flinging himself upon him. “You know that you will find my men at the end of this tunnel and that they have orders to kill you like a dog.... Unless... unless you have an outlet that joins on to this.... Ah, there, of course, I've guessed it!... And you imagine...”

The fight was a desperate one. Altenheim, a real colossus, endowed with exceptional muscular force, had caught his adversary round the arms and body and was pressing him against his own chest, numbing his arms and trying to smother him.

“Of course... of course,” Sernine panted, with difficulty, “of course... that's well thought out.... As long as I can't use my arms to break some part of you, you will have the advantage... Only... can you...?”

He gave a shudder. The trap-door, which had closed again and on the flap of which they were bearing down with all their weight, the trap-door seemed to move beneath them. He felt the efforts that were being made to raise it; and the baron must have felt them too, for he desperately tried to shift the ground of the contest so that the trap-door might open.

“It's 'the other one'!” thought Sernine, with the sort of unreasoning terror which that mysterious being caused him. “It's the other one.... If he gets through, I'm done for.”

By dint of imperceptible movements, Altenheim had succeeded in shifting his own position; and he tried to drag his adversary after him. But Sernine clung with his legs to the baron's legs and, at the same time, very gradually, tried to release one of his hands.

Above their heads great blows resounded, like the blows of a battering-ram....

“I have five minutes,” thought Sernine. “In one minute this fellow will have to...” Then, speaking aloud, “Look out, old chap. Stand tight!”

He brought his two knees together with incredible force. The baron yelled, with a twisted thigh. Then Sernine, taking advantage of his adversary's pain, made an effort, freed his right arm and seized him by the throat:

“That's capital!... We shall be more comfortable like this.... No, it's not worth while getting out your knife.... If you do, I'll wring your neck like a chicken's. You see, I'm polite and considerate.... I'm not pressing too hard... just enough to keep you from even wanting to kick about.”

While speaking he took from his pocket a very thin cord and, with one hand, with extreme skill, fastened his wrists. For that matter, the baron, now at his last gasp, offered not the least resistance. With a few accurate movements, Sernine tied him up firmly:

“How well you're behaving! What a good thing! I should hardly know you. Here, in case you were thinking of escaping, I have a roll of wire that will finish off my little work.... The wrists first.... Now the ankles.... That's it!... By Jove, how nice you look!”

The baron had gradually come to himself again. He spluttered:

“If you give me up, Genevieve will die.”

“Really?... And how?... Explain yourself.”

“She is locked up. No one knows where she is. If I'm put away, she will die of starvation.”

Sernine shuddered. He retorted:! “Yes, but you will speak.”

“Never!”

“Yes, you will speak. Not now; it's too late. But tonight.” He bent down over him and, whispering in his ear, said, “Listen, Altenheim, and understand what I say. You'll be caught presently. To-night, you'll sleep at the Depot. That is fatal, irrevocable. I myself can do nothing to prevent it now. And, tomorrow, they will take you to the Sante; and later, you know where.... Well, I'm giving you one more chance of safety. To-night, you understand, I shall come to your cell, at the Depot, and you shall tell me where Genevieve is. Two hours later, if you have told the truth, you shall be free. If not... it means that you don't attach much value to your head.”

The other made no reply. Sernine stood up and listened. There was a great crash overhead. The entrance-door yielded. Footsteps beat the flags of the hall and the floor of the drawing room. M. Weber and his men were searching.

“Good-bye, baron. Think it over until this evening. The prison-cell is a good counsellor.”

He pushed his prisoner aside, so as to uncover the trap-door, and lifted it. As he expected, there was no longer any one below on the steps of the staircase.

He went down, taking care to leave the trap-door open behind him, as though he meant to come back.

There were twenty steps, at the bottom of which began the passage through which M. Lenormand and Gourel had come in the opposite direction. He entered it and gave an exclamation. He thought he felt somebody's presence there.

He lit his pocket-lantern. The passage was empty.

Then he cocked his revolver and said aloud: “All right,... I'm going to fire.”

No reply. Not a sound.

“It's an illusion, no doubt,” he thought. “That creature is becoming an obsession.... Come, if I want to pull off my stroke and win the game, I must hurry.... The hole in which I hid the parcel of clothes is not far off. I shall take the parcel... and the trick is done.... And what a trick I One of Lupin's best!...”

He came to a door that stood open and at once stopped. To the right was an excavation, the one which M. Lenormand had made to escape from the rising water. He stooped and threw his light into the opening:

“Oh!” he said, with a start. “No, it's not possible... Doudeville must have pushed, the parcel farther along.”

But, search and pry into the darkness as he might, the parcel was gone; and he had no doubt but that it was once more the mysterious being who had taken it.

“What a pity! The thing was so neatly arranged! The adventure would have resumed its natural course, and I should have achieved my aim with greater certainty.... As it is, I must push along as fast as I can.... Doudeville is at the Pavilion Hortense.... My retreat is insured.... No more nonsense.... I must hurry and set things straight again, if I can.... And we'll attend to 'him' afterward.... Oh, he'd better keep clear of my claws, that one!”

But an exclamation of stupor escaped his lips; he had come to the other door; and this door, the last before the garden-house, was shut. He flung himself upon it What was the good? What could he do?

“This time,” he muttered, “I'm badly done!”

And, seized with a sort of lassitude, he sat down. He had a sense of his weakness in the face of the mysterious being. Altenheim hardly counted. But the other, that person of darkness and silence, the other loomed up before him, upset all his plans and exhausted him with his cunning and infernal attacks.

He was beaten.

Weber would find him there, like an animal run to earth, at the bottom of his cave.

“Ah, no!” he cried, springing up with a bound. “No! If there were only myself, well and good!... But there is Genevieve, Genevieve, who must be saved tonight.... After all, the game is not yet lost.... If the other one vanished just now, it proves that there is a second outlet somewhere near.... Come, come, Weber and his merry men haven't got me yet....”

He had already begun to explore the tunnel and, lantern in hand, was examining the bricks of which the horrible walls were formed, when a yell reached his ears, a dreadful yell that made his flesh creep with anguish.

It came from the direction of the trap-door. And he suddenly remembered that he had left the trap-door open, at the time when he intended to return to the Villa des Glycines.

He hurried back and passed through the first door. His lantern went out on the road; and he felt something, or rather somebody, brush past his knees, somebody crawl along the wall. And, at that same moment, he had a feeling that this being was disappearing, vanishing, he knew not which way.

Just then his foot knocked against a step.

“This is the outlet,” he thought, “the second outlet through which 'he' passes.”

Overhead, the cry sounded again, less loud, followed by moans, by a hoarse gurgling....

He ran up the stairs, came out in the basement room, and rushed to the baron.

Altenheim lay dying, with the blood streaming from his throat! His bonds were cut, but the wire that fastened his wrists and ankles was intact. His accomplice, being unable to release him, had cut his throat.

Sernine gazed upon the sight with horror. An icy perspiration covered his whole body. He thought of Genevieve, imprisoned, helpless, abandoned to the most awful of deaths, because the baron alone knew where she was hidden.

He distinctly heard the policemen open the little back door in the hall. He distinctly heard them come down the kitchen stairs.

There was nothing between him and them save one door, that of the basement room in which he was. He bolted the door at the very moment when the aggressors were laying hold of the handle.

The trap-door was open beside him; it meant possible safety, because there remained the second outlet.

“No,” he said to himself, “Genevieve first. Afterward, if I have time, I will think of myself.”

He knelt down and put his hand on the baron's breast. The heart was still beating.

He stooped lower still:

“You can hear me, can't you?”

The eyelids flickered feebly.

The dying man was just breathing. Was there anything to be obtained from this faint semblance of life?

The policemen were attacking the door, the last rampart.

Sernine whispered.

“I will save you.... I have infallible remedies.... One word only... Genevieve?...”

It was as though this word of hope revived the man's strength. Altenheim tried to utter articulate sounds.

“Answer,” said Sernine, persisting. “Answer, and I will save you.... Answer... It means your life today... your liberty tomorrow.... Answer!...”

The door shook under the blows that rained upon it.

The baron gasped out unintelligible syllables. Leaning over him, affrighted, straining all his energy, all his will to the utmost, Sernine panted with anguish. He no longer gave a thought to the policemen, his inevitable capture, prison.... But Genevieve.... Genevieve dying of hunger, whom one word from that villain could set free!

“Answer!... You must!...”

He ordered and entreated by turns. Altenheim stammered, as though hypnotized and defeated by that indomitable imperiousness:

“Ri... Rivoli....”

“Rue de Rivoli, is that it? You have locked her up in a house in that street... eh? Which number?”

A loud din... followed by shouts of triumph... The door was down.

“Jump on him, lads!” cried M. Weber. “Seize him... seize both of them!”

And Sernine, on his knees:

“The number... answer.... If you love her, answer.... Why keep silence now?”

“Twenty... twenty-seven,” whispered the baron.

Hands were laid on Sernine. Ten revolvers were pointed at him.

He rose and faced the policemen, who fell back with instinctive dread.

“If you stir, Lupin,” cried M. Weber, with his revolver leveled at him, “I'll blow out your brains.”

“Don't shoot,” said Sernine, solemnly. “It's not necessary. I surrender.”

“Humbug! This is another of your tricks!”

“No,” replied Sernine, “the battle is lost. You have no right to shoot. I am not defending myself.”

He took out two revolvers and threw them on the floor.

“Humbug!” M. Weber repeated, implacably. “Aim straight at his heart, lads! At the least movement, fire! At the least word, fire!”

There were ten men there. He placed five more in position. He pointed their fifteen right arms at the mark. And, raging, shaking with joy and fear, he snarled:

“At his heart! At his head! And no pity! If he stirs, if he speaks... shoot him where he stands!”

Sernine smiled, impassively, with his hands in his pockets. Death was there, waiting for him, at two inches from his chest, at two inches from his temples. Fifteen fingers were curled round the triggers.

“Ah,” chuckled M. Weber, “this is nice, this is very nice!... And I think that this time we've scored... and it's a nasty look-out for you, Master Lupin!...”

He made one of his men draw back the shutters of a large air-hole, which admitted a sudden burst of daylight, and he turned toward Altenheim. But, to his great amazement, the baron, whom he thought dead, opened his eyes, glazed, awful eyes, already filled with all the signs of the coming dissolution. He stared at M. Weber. Then he seemed to look for somebody and, catching sight of Sernine, had a convulsion of anger. He seemed to be waking from his torpor; and his suddenly reviving hatred restored a part of his strength.

He raised himself on his two wrists and tried to speak.

“You know him, eh?” asked M. Weber.

“Yes.”

“It's Lupin, isn't it?”

“Yes.... Lupin....”

Sernine, still smiling, listened:

“Heavens, how I'm amusing myself!” he declared.

“Have you anything more to say?” asked M. Weber, who saw the baron's lips making desperate attempts to move.

“Yes.”

“About M. Lenormand, perhaps?”

“Yes.”

“Have you shut him up? Where? Answer!...”

With all his heaving body, with all his tense glance, Altenheim pointed to a cupboard in the corner of the room.

“There... there...” he said.

“Ah, we're burning!” chuckled Lupin.

M. Weber opened the cupboard. On one of the shelves was a parcel wrapped in black cloth. He open it and found a hat, a little box, some clothes.... He gave a start. He had recognized M. Lenormand's olive-green frock-coat.

“Oh, the villains!” he cried. “They have murdered him!”

“No,” said Altenheim, shaking his head.

“Then...?”

“It's he... he....”

“What do you mean by 'he'?... Did Lupin kill the chief?”

“No....”

Altenheim was clinging to existence with fierce obstinacy, eager to speak and to accuse.... The secret which he wished to reveal was at the tip of his tongue and he was not able, did not know how to translate it into words.

“Come,” the deputy-chief insisted, “M. Lenormand is dead, surely?”

“No.”

“He's alive?”

“Yes.”

“I don't understand.... Look here, these clothes? This frock-coat?...”

Altenheim turned his eyes toward Sernine. An idea struck M. Weber:

“Ah, I see! Lupin stole M. Lenormand's clothes and reckoned upon using them to escape with....”

“Yes... yes.”

“Not bad,” cried the deputy-chief. “It's quite a trick in his style. In this room, we should have found Lupin disguised as M. Lenormand, chained up, no doubt. It would have meant his safety; only he hadn't time. That's it, isn't it?”

“Yes... yes...”

But, by the appearance of the dying man's eyes, M. Weber felt that there was more, and that the secret was not exactly that. What was it, then? What was the strange and unintelligible puzzle which Altenheim wanted to explain before dying?

He questioned him again:

“And where is M. Lenormand himself?”

“There....”

“What do you mean? Here?”

“Yes.”

“But there are only ourselves here!”

“There's... there's...”

“Oh, speak!”

“There's... Ser... Sernine.”

“Sernine!... Eh, what?”

“Sernine... Lenormand....”

M. Weber gave a jump. A sudden light flashed across him.

“No, no, it's not possible,” he muttered. “This is madness.”

He gave a side-glance at his prisoner. Sernine seemed to be greatly diverted and to be watching the scene with the air of a playgoer who is thoroughly amused and very anxious to know how the piece is going to end.

Altenheim, exhausted by his efforts, had fallen back at full length. Would he die before revealing the solution of the riddle which his strange words had propounded? M. Weber, shaken by an absurd, incredible surmise, which he did not wish to entertain and which persisted in his mind in spite of him, made a fresh, determined attempt:

“Explain the thing to us.... What's at the bottom of it? What mystery?”

The other seemed not to hear and lay lifeless, with staring eyes.

M. Weber lay down beside him, with his body touching him, and, putting great stress upon his words, so that each syllable should sink down to the very depths of that brain already merged in darkness, said:

“Listen.... I have understood you correctly, have I not? Lupin and M. Lenormand....”

He needed an effort to continue, so monstrous did the words appear to him. Nevertheless, the baron's dimmed eyes seemed to contemplate him with anguish. He finished the sentence, shaking with excitement, as though he were speaking blasphemy:

“That's it, isn't it? You're sure? The two are one and the same?...”

The eyes did not move. A little blood trickled from one corner of the man's mouth.... He gave two or three sobs.... A last spasm; and all was over.

* * * * *

A long silence reigned in that basement room filled with people.

Almost all the policemen guarding Sernine had turned round and, stupefied, not understanding or not willing to understand, they still listened to the incredible accusation which the dying scoundrel had been unable to put into words.

M. Weber took the little box which was in the parcel and opened it. It contained a gray wig, a pair of spectacles, a maroon-colored neckerchief and, in a false bottom, a pot or two of make-up and a case containing some tiny tufts of gray hair: in short, all that was needed to complete a perfect disguise in the character of M. Lenormand.

He went up to Sernine and, looking at him for a few seconds without speaking, thoughtfully reconstructing all the phases of the adventure, he muttered:

“So it's true?”

Sernine, who had retained his smiling calmness, replied:

“The suggestion is a pretty one and a bold one. But, before I answer, tell your men to stop worrying me with those toys of theirs.”

“Very well,” said M. Weber, making a sign to his men. “And now answer.”

“What?”

“Are you M. Lenormand?”

“Yes.”

Exclamations arose. Jean Doudeville, who was there, while his brother was watching the secret outlet, Jean Doudeville, Sernine's own accomplice, looked at him in dismay. M. Weber stood undecided.

“That takes your breath away, eh?” said Sernine. “I admit that it's rather droll.... Lord, how you used to make me laugh sometimes, when we were working together, you and I, the chief and the deputy-chief!... And the funniest thing is that you thought our worthy M. Lenormand dead... as well as poor Gourel. But no, no, old chap: there's life in the old dog yet!” He pointed to Altenheim's corpse. “There, it was that scoundrel who pitched me into the water, in a sack, with a paving-stone round my waist Only, he forgot to take away my knife. And with a knife one rips open sacks and cuts ropes. So you see, you unfortunate Altenheim: if you had thought of that, you wouldn't be where you are!... But enough said.... Peace to your ashes!”

M. Weber listened, not knowing what to think. At last, he made a gesture of despair, as though he gave up the idea of forming a reasonable opinion.

“The handcuffs,” he said, suddenly alarmed.

“If it amuses you,” said Sernine.

And, picking out Doudeville in the front row of his assailants, he put out his wrists:

“There, my friend, you shall have the honour... and don't trouble to exert yourself.... I'm playing square.... as it's no use doing anything else...

He said this in a tone that gave Doudeville to understand that the struggle was finished for the moment and that there was nothing to do but submit.

Doudeville fastened the handcuffs.

Without moving his lips or contracting a muscle of his face, Sernine whispered:

“27, Rue de Rivoli... Genevieve....”

M. Weber could not suppress a movement of satisfaction at the sight:

“Come along!” he said. “To the detective-office!”

“That's it, to the detective-office!” cried Sernine. “M. Lenormand will enter Arsene Lupin in the jail-book; and Arsene Lupin will enter Prince Sernine.”

“You're too clever, Lupin.”

“That's true, Weber; we shall never get on, you and I.”

During the drive in the motor-car, escorted by three other cars filled with policemen, he did not utter a word.

They did not stay long at the detective office. M. Weber, remembering the escapes effected by Lupin, sent him up at once to the finger-print department and then took him to the Depot, whence he was sent on to the Sante Prison.

The governor had been warned by telephone and was waiting for him. The formalities of the entry of commitment and of the searching were soon got over; and, at seven o'clock in the evening, Prince Paul Sernine crossed the threshold of cell 14 in the second division:

“Not half bad, your rooms,” he declared, “not bad at all I... Electric light, central heating, every requisite... capital! Mr. Governor, I'll take this room.”

He flung himself on the bed:

“Oh, Mr. Governor, I have one little favor to ask of you!”

“What is that?”

“Tell them not to bring me my chocolate before ten o'clock in the morning.... I'm awfully sleepy.”

He turned his face to the wall. Five minutes later he was sound asleep.

CHAPTER IX. “SANTE PALACE”

THERE was one wild burst of laughter over the whole face of the world.

True, the capture of Arsene Lupin made a big sensation; and the public did not grudge the police the praise which they deserved for this revenge so long hoped-for and now so fully obtained. The great adventurer was caught. That extraordinary, genial, invisible hero was shivering, like any ordinary criminal, between the four walls of a prison cell, crushed in his turn by that formidable power which is called the law and which, sooner or later, by inevitable necessity shatters the obstacles opposed to it and destroys the work of its adversaries.

All this was said, printed, repeated and discussed ad nauseam. The prefect of police was created a commander, M. Weber an officer of the Legion of Honor. The skill and courage of their humblest coadjutors were extolled to the skies. Cheers were raised and paeans of victory struck up. Articles were written and speeches made.

Very well. But one thing, nevertheless, rose above the wonderful concert of praise, these noisy demonstrations of satisfaction; and that was an immense, spontaneous, inextinguishable and tumultuous roar of laughter.

Arsene Lupin had been chief of the detective-service for four years!!!

He had been chief detective for four years and, really, legally, he was chief detective still, with all the rights which the title confers, enjoying the esteem of his chiefs, the favor of the government and the admiration of the public.

For four years, the public peace and the defence of property had been entrusted to Arsene Lupin. He saw that the law was carried out. He protected the innocent and pursued the guilty.

And what services he had rendered! Never was order less disturbed, never was crime discovered with greater certainty and rapidity. The reader need but take back his mind to tie Denizou case, the robbery at the Credit Lyonnais, the attack on the Orleans express, the murder of Baron Dorf, forming a series of unforeseen and overwhelming triumphs, of magnificent feats of prowess fit to compare with the most famous victories of the most renowned detectives.

Not so very long before, in a speech delivered at the time of the fire at the Louvre and the capture of the incendiaries, Valenglay, the prime minister, had said, speaking in defence of the somewhat arbitrary manner in which M. Lenormand had acted on that occasion:

“With his great powers of discernment, his energy, his qualities of decision and execution, his unexpected methods, his inexhaustible resources, M. Lenormand reminds us of the only man who, if he were still alive, could hope to hold his own against him: I mean Arsene Lupin. M. Lenormand is an Arsene Lupin in the service of society.”

And, lo and behold, M. Lenormand was none other than Arsene Lupin!

That he was a Russian prince, who cared! Lupin was an old hand at such changes of personality as that. But chief detective! What a delicious irony! What a whimsical humor in the conduct of that extraordinary life!

M. Lenormand!... Arsene Lupin!...

People were now able to explain to themselves the apparently miraculous feats of intelligence which had quite recently bewildered the crowd and baffled the police. They understood how his accomplice had been juggled away in the middle of the Palais de Justice itself, in broad daylight and on the appointed day. Had he himself not said:

“My process is so ingenious and so simple.... How surprised people will be on the day when I am free to speak! 'Is that all?' I shall be asked. That is all; but it had to be thought of.”

It was, indeed, childishly simple: all you had to do was to be chief of the detective-service.

Well, Lupin was chief of the detective-service; and every police-officer obeying his orders had made himself the involuntary and unconscious accomplice of Arsene Lupin.

What a comedy! What admirable bluff! It was the monumental and consoling farce of these drab times of ours. Lupin in prison, Lupin irretrievably conquered was, in spite of himself, the great conqueror. From his cell he shone over Paris. He was more than ever the idol, more than ever the master.

* * * * *

When Arsene Lupin awoke next morning, in his room at the “Sante Palace,” as he at once nicknamed it, he had a very dear vision of the enormous sensation which would be produced by his arrest under the double name of Sernine and Lenormand and the double title of prince and chief of the detective-service.

He rubbed his hands and gave vent to his thoughts:

“A man can have no better companion in his loneliness than the approval of his contemporaries. O fame! The sun of all living men!...”

Seen by daylight, his cell pleased him even better than at night. The window, placed high up in the wall, afforded a glimpse of the branches of a tree, through which peeped the blue of the sky above. The walls were white. There was only one table and one chair, both fastened to the floor. But everything was quite nice and clean.

“Come,” he said, “a little rest-cure here will be rather charming..... But let us see to our toilet... Have I all I want?... No.... In that case, ring twice for the chambermaid.”

He pressed the button of an apparatus beside the door, which released a signaling-disc in the corridor.

After a moment, bolts and bars were drawn outside, a key turned in the lock and a warder appeared.

“Hot water, please,” said Lupin.

The other looked at him with an air of mingled amazement and rage.

“Oh,” said Lupin, “and a bath-towel! By Jove, there's no bath-towel!”

The man growled:

“You're getting at me, aren't you? You'd better be careful!”

He was going away, when Lupin caught him roughly by the arm:

“Here! A hundred francs if you'll post a letter for me.”

He took out a hundred-franc note, which he had concealed during the search, and offered it to him.

“Where's the letter?” said the warder, taking the money.

“Just give me a moment to write it.”

He sat down at the table, scribbled a few words in pencil on a sheet of paper, put it in an envelope and addressed the letter:

“To Monsieur S. B. 42,

“Post Resante,

“Paris.”

The warder took the letter and walked away.

“That letter,” said Lupin to himself, “will reach destination as safely as if I delivered it myself. I shall have the reply in an hour at latest: just the time I want to take a good look into my position.”

He sat down on his chair and, in an undertone, summed up the situation as follows:

“When all is said and done, I have two adversaries to fight at the present moment. There is, first, society, which holds me and which I can afford to laugh at. Secondly, there is a person unknown, who does not hold me, but whom I am not inclined to laugh at in the very least. It is he who told the police that I was Sernine. It was he who guessed that I was M. Lenormand. It was he who locked the door of the underground passage and it was he who had me clapped into prison.”

Arsene Lupin reflected for a second and then continued:

“So, at long last, the struggle lies between him and me. And, to keep up that struggle, that is to say, to discover and get to the bottom of the Kesselbach case, here am I, a prisoner, while he is free, unknown, and inaccessible, and holds the two trump-cards which I considered mine: Pierre Leduc and old Steinweg.... In short, he is near the goal, after finally pushing me back.”

A fresh contemplative pause, followed by a fresh soliloquy:

“The position is far from brilliant. On the one side, everything; on the other, nothing. Opposite me, a man of my own strength, or stronger, because he has not the same scruples that hamper me. And I am without weapons to attack him with.”

He repeated the last sentence several times, in a mechanical voice, and then stopped and, taking his forehead between his hands, sat for a long time wrapped in thought.

“Come in, Mr. Governor,” he said, seeing the door open.

“Were you expecting me?”

“Why, I wrote to you, Mr. Governor, asking you to come! I felt certain that the warder would give you my letter. I was so certain of it that I put your initials, S. B., and your age, forty-two, on the envelope!”

The governor's name, in point of fact, was Stanislas Borfly, and he was forty-two years of age. He was a pleasant-looking man, with a very gentle character, who treated the prisoners with all the indulgence possible.

He said to Lupin:

“Your opinion of my subordinate's integrity was quite correct. Here is your money. It shall be handed to you at your release.... You will now go through the searching-room again.”

Lupin went with M. Borfly to the little room reserved for this purpose, undressed and, while his clothes were inspected with justifiable suspicion, himself underwent a most fastidious examination.

He was then taken back to his cell and M. Borfly said:

“I feel easier. That's done.”

“And very well done, Mr. Governor. Your men perform this sort of duty with a delicacy for which I should like to thank them by giving them a small token of my satisfaction.”

He handed a hundred-franc note to M. Borfly, who jumped as though he had been shot:

“Oh!... But... where does that come from?”

“No need to rack your brains, Mr. Governor. A man like myself, leading the life that I do, is always prepared for any eventuality; and no mishap, however painful — not even imprisonment — can take him unawares.”

Seizing the middle finger of his left hand between the thumb and forefinger of the right, he pulled it off smartly and presented it calmly to M. Borfly:

“Don't start like that, Mr. Governor. This is not my finger, but just a tube, made of gold-beater's skin and cleverly colored, which fits exactly over my middle finger and gives the illusion of a real finger.” And he added, with a laugh, “In such a way, of course, as to conceal a third hundred-franc note.... What is a poor man to do? He must carry the best purse he can... and must needs make use of it on occasions....”

He stopped at the sight of M. Borfly's startled face:

“Please don't think, Mr. Governor, that I wish to dazzle you with my little parlor-tricks. I only wanted to show you that you have to do with a... client of a rather... special nature and to tell you that you must not be surprised if I venture, now and again, to break the ordinary rules and regulations of your establishment.”

The governor had recovered himself. He said plainly:

“I prefer to think that you will conform to the rules and not compel me to resort to harsh measures....”

“Which you would regret to have to enforce: isn't that it, Mr. Governor? That's just what I should like to spare you, by proving to you in advance that they would not prevent me from doing as I please: from corresponding with my friends, from defending the grave interests confided to me outside these walls, from writing to the newspapers that accept my inspiration, from pursuing the fulfillment of my plans and, lastly, from preparing my escape.”

“Your escape!”

Lupin began to laugh heartily:

“But think, Mr. Governor, my only excuse for being in prison is... to leave it!”

The argument did not appear to satisfy M. Borfly. He made an effort to laugh in his turn:

“Forewarned is forearmed,” he said.

“That's what I wanted,” Lupin replied. “Take all your precautions, Mr. Governor, neglect nothing, so that later they may have nothing to reproach you with. On the other hand, I shall arrange things in such a way that, whatever annoyance you may have to bear in consequence of my escape, your career, at least, shall not suffer. That is all I had to say to you, Mr. Governor. You can go.”

And, while M. Borfly walked away, greatly perturbed by his singular charge and very anxious about the events in preparation, the prisoner threw himself on his bed, muttering:

“What cheek, Lupin, old fellow, what cheek! Really, any one would think that you had some idea as to how you were going to get out of this!”

* * * * *

The Sante prison is built on the star plan. In the centre of the main portion is a round hall, upon which all the corridors converge, so that no prisoner is able to leave his cell without being at once perceived by the overseers posted in the glass box which occupies the middle of that central hall.

The thing that most surprises the visitor who goes over the prison is that, at every moment, he will meet prisoners without a guard of any kind, who seem to move about as though they were absolutely free. In reality, in order to go from one point to another — for instance, from their cell to the van waiting in the yard to take them to the Palais de Justice for the magistrate's examination — they pass along straight lines each of which ends in a door that is opened to them by a warder. The sole duty of the warder is to open and shut this door and to watch the two straight lines which it commands. And thus the prisoners, while apparently at liberty to come and go as they please, are sent from door to door, from eye to eye, like so many parcels passed from hand to hand.

Outside, municipal guards receive the object and pack it into one of the compartments of the “salad-basket.”

This is the ordinary routine.

In Lupin's case it was disregarded entirely. The police were afraid of that walk along the corridors. They were afraid of the prison-van. They were afraid of everything.

M. Weber came in person, accompanied by twelve constables — the best he had, picked men, armed to the teeth — fetched the formidable prisoner at the door of his cell and took him in a cab, the driver of which was one of his own men, with mounted municipal guards trotting on each side, in front and behind.

“Bravo!” cried Lupin. “I am quite touched by the compliment paid me. A guard of honor. By Jove, Weber, you have the proper hierarchical instinct! You don't forget what is due to your immediate chief.” And, tapping him on the shoulder: “Weber, I intend to send in my resignation. I shall name you as my successor.”

“It's almost done,” said Weber.

“That's good news! I was a little anxious about my escape. Now I am easy in my mind. From the moment when Weber is chief of the detective-service...!”

M. Weber did not reply to the gibe. At heart, he had a queer, complex feeling in the presence of his adversary, a feeling made up of the fear with which Lupin inspired him, the deference which he entertained for Prince Sernine and the respectful admiration which he had always shown to M. Lenormand. All this was mingled with spite, envy and satisfied hatred.

They arrived at the Palais de Justice. At the foot of the “mouse-trap,” a number of detectives were waiting, among whom M. Weber rejoiced to see his best two lieutenants, the brothers Doudeville.

“Has M. Formerie come?” he asked.

“Yes, chief, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction is in his room.”

M. Weber went up the stairs, followed by Lupin, who had the Doudevilles on either side of him.

“Genevieve?” whispered the prisoner.

“Saved....”

“Where is she?”

“With her grandmother.”

“Mrs. Kesselbach?”

“In Paris, at the Bristol.”

“Suzanne?”

“Disappeared.”

“Steinweg?”

“Released.”

“What has he told you?”

“Nothing. Won't make any revelations except to you.”

“Why?”

“We told him he owed his release to you.”

“Newspapers good this morning?”

“Excellent.”

“Good. If you want to write to me, here are my instructions.”

They had reached the inner corridor on the first floor and Lupin slipped a pellet of paper into the hand of one of the brothers.

M. Formerie uttered a delicious phrase when Lupin entered his room accompanied by the deputy-chief:

“Ah, there you are! I knew we should lay hands on you some day or other!”

“So did I, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction,” said Lupin, “and I am glad that you have been marked out by fate to do justice to the honest man that I am.”

“He's getting at me,” thought M. Formerie. And, in the same ironical and serious tone as Lupin, he retorted, “The honest man that you are, sir, will be asked what he has to say about three hundred and forty-four separate cases of larceny, burglary, swindling and forgery, blackmail, receiving and so on. Three hundred and forty-four!”

“What! Is that all?” cried Lupin. “I really feel quite ashamed.”

“Don't distress yourself! I shall discover more. But let us proceed in order. Arsene Lupin, in spite of all our inquiries, we have no definite information as to your real name.”

“How odd! No more have I!”

“We are not even in a position to declare that you are the same Arsene Lupin who was confined in the Sante a few years back, and from there made his first escape.”

“'His first escape' is good, and does you credit.”

“It so happens, in fact,” continued M. Formerie, “that the Arsene Lupin card in the measuring department gives a description of Arsene Lupin which differs at all points from your real description.”

“How more and more odd!”

“Different marks, different measurements, different finger-prints.... The two photographs even are quite unlike. I will therefore ask you to satisfy us as to your exact identity.”

“That's just what I was going to ask you. I have lived under so many distinct names that I have ended by forgetting my own. I don't know where I am.”

“So I must enter a refusal to answer?”

“An inability.”

“Is this a thought-out plan? Am I to expect the same silence in reply to all my questions?”

“Very nearly.”

“And why?”

Lupin struck a solemn attitude and said:

“M. le Juge d'Instruction, my life belongs to history. You have only to turn over the annals of the past fifteen years and your curiosity will be satisfied. So much for my part. As to the rest, it does not concern me: it is an affair between you and the murderers at the Palace Hotel.”

“Arsene Lupin, the honest man that you are will have today to explain the murder of Master Altenheim.”

“Hullo, this is new! Is the idea yours, Monsieur le Juge destruction?”

“Exactly.”

“Very clever! Upon my word, M. Formerie, you're getting on!”

“The position in which you were captured leaves no doubt.”

“None at all; only, I will venture to ask you this: what sort of wound did Altenheim die of?”

“Of a wound in the throat caused by a knife.”

“And where is the knife?”

“It has not been found.”

“How could it not have been found, if I had been the assassin, considering that I was captured beside the very man whom I am supposed to have killed?”

“Who killed him, according to you?”

“The same man that killed Mr. Kesselbach, Chapman, and Beudot. The nature of the wound is a sufficient proof.”

“How did he get away?”

“Through a trap-door, which you will discover in the room where the tragedy took place.”

M. Formerie assumed an air of slyness:

“And how was it that you did not follow that useful example?”

“I tried to follow it. But the outlet was blocked by a door which I could not open. It was during this attempt that 'the other one' came back to the room and killed his accomplice for fear of the revelations which he would have been sure to make. At the same time, he hid in a cupboard, where it was subsequently found, the parcel of clothes which I had prepared.”

“What were those clothes for?”

“To disguise myself. When I went to the Glycines my plan was this: to hand Altenheim over to the police, to suppress my own identity as Prince Sernine and to reappear under the features...”

“Of M. Lenormand, I suppose?”

“Exactly.”

“No.”

“What!”

M. Formerie gave a knowing smile and wagged his forefinger from left to right and right to left:

“No,” he repeated.

“What do you mean by 'no'?”

“That story about M. Lenormand....”

“Well?”

“Will do for the public, my friend. But you won't make M. Formerie swallow that Lupin and Lenormand were one and the same man.” He burst out laughing. “Lupin, chief of the detective-service! No, anything you like, but not that!... There are limits.... I am an easy-going fellow.... I'll believe anything... but still.... Come, between ourselves, what was the reason of this fresh hoax?... I confess I can't see...”

Lupin looked at him in astonishment. In spite of all that he knew of M. Formerie, he could not conceive such a degree of infatuation and blindness. There was at that moment only one person in the world who refused to believe in Prince Sernine's double personality; and that was M. Formerie!...

Lupin turned to the deputy-chief, who stood listening open-mouthed:

“My dear Weber, I fear your promotion is not so certain as I thought. For, you see, if M. Lenormand is not myself, then he exists... and, if he exists, I have no doubt that M. Formerie, with all his acumen, will end by discovering him... in which case...”

“We shall discover him all right, M. Lupin,” cried the examining-magistrate. “I'll undertake that, and I tell you that, when you and he are confronted, we shall see some fun.” He chuckled and drummed with his fingers on the table. “How amusing! Oh, one's never bored when you're there, that I'll say for you! So you're M. Lenormand, and it's you who arrested your accomplice Marco!”

“Just so! Wasn't it my duty to please the prime minister and save the cabinet? The fact is historical.”

M. Formerie held his sides:

“Oh, I shall die of laughing, I know I shall! Lord, what a joke! That answer will travel round the world. So, according to your theory, it was with you that I made the first enquiries at the Palace Hotel after the murder of Mr. Kesselbach?....”

“Surely it was with me that you investigated the case of the stolen coronet when I was Duc de Chamerace,” retorted Lupin, in a sarcastic voice.

M. Formerie gave a start All his merriment was dispelled by that odious recollection. Turning suddenly grave, he asked:

“So you persist in that absurd theory?”

“I must, because it is the truth. It would be easy for you to take a steamer to Cochin-China and to find at Saigon the proofs of the death of the real M. Lenormand, the worthy man whom I replaced and whose death-certificate I can show you.”

“Humbug!”

“Upon my word, Monsieur le Juge d'lnstruction, I don't care one way or the other. If it annoys you that I should be M. Lenormand, don't let's talk about it. We won't talk about myself; we won't talk about anything at all, if you prefer. Besides, of what use can it be to you? The Kesselbach case is such a tangled affair that I myself don't know where I stand. There's only one man who might help you. I have not succeeded in discovering him. And I don't think that you...”

“What's the man's name?”

“He's an old man, a German called Steinweg.... But, of course, you've heard about him, Weber, and the way in which he was carried off in the middle of the Palais de Justice?”

M. Formerie threw an inquiring glance at the deputy-chief. M. Weber said:

“I undertake to bring that person to you, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction.”

“So that's done,” said M. Formerie, rising from his chair. “As you see, Lupin, this was merely a formal examination to bring the two duelists together. Now that we have crossed swords, all that we need is the necessary witness of our fencing-match, your counsel.”

“Tut! Is it indispensable?”

“Indispensable.”

“Employ counsel in view of such an unlikely trial?”

“You must.”

“In that case, I'll choose Mattre Quimbel.”

“The president of the corporation of the bar. You are wise, you will be well defended.”

The first sitting was over. M. Weber led the prisoner away.

As he went down the stairs of the “mouse-trap,” between the two Doudevilles, Lupin said, in short, imperative sentences:

“Watch Steinweg.... Don't let him speak to anybody.... Be there tomorrow.... I'll give you some letters... one for you... important.”

Downstairs, he walked up to the municipal guards surrounding the taxi-cab:

“Home, boys,” he exclaimed, “and quick about it! I have an appointment with myself for two o'clock precisely.”

There were no incidents during the drive. On returning to his cell, Lupin wrote a long letter, full of detailed instructions, to the brothers Doudeville and, two other letters. One was for Genevieve:

“Genevieve, you now know who I am and you will understand why I concealed from you the name of him who twice carried you away in his arms when you were a little girl.

“Genevieve, I was your mother's friend, a distant friend, of whose double life she knew nothing, but upon whom she thought that she could rely. And that is why, before dying, she wrote me a few lines asking me to watch over you.

“Unworthy as I am of your esteem, Genevieve, I shall continue faithful to that trust. Do not drive me from your heart entirely.—

“Arsene Lupin.”

The other letter was addressed to Dolores Kesselbach:

“Prince Sernine was led to seek Mrs. Kesselbach's acquaintance by motives of self-interest alone. But a great longing to devote himself to her was the cause of his continuing it.

“Now that Prince Sernine has become merely Arsene Lupin, he begs Mrs. Kesselbach not to deprive him of the right of protecting her, at a distance and as a man protects one whom he will never see again.”

There were some envelopes on the table. He took up one and took up a second; then, when he took up the third, he noticed a sheet of white paper, the presence of which surprised him and which had words stuck upon it, evidently cut out of a newspaper. He read:

“You have failed in your fight with the baron. Give up interesting yourself in the case, and I will not oppose your escape.

“L. M.”

Once more, Lupin had that sense of repulsion and terror with which this nameless and fabulous being always inspired him, a sense of disgust which one feels at touching a venomous animal, a reptile:

“He again,” he said. “Even here!”

That also scared him, the sudden vision which he at times received of this hostile power, a power as great as his own and disposing of formidable means, the extent of which he himself was unable to realize.

He at once suspected his warder. But how had it been possible to corrupt that hard-featured, stern-eyed man?

“Well, so much the better, after all!” he cried. “I have never had to do except with dullards.... In order to fight myself, I had to chuck myself into the command of the detective-service.... This time, I have some one to deal with!... Here's a man who puts me in his pocket... by sleight of hand, one might say.... If I succeed, from my prison cell, in avoiding his blows and smashing him, in seeing old Steinweg and dragging his confession from him, in setting the Kesselbach case on its legs and turning the whole of it into cash, in defending Mrs. Kesselbach and winning fortune and happiness for Genevieve... well, then Lupin will be Lupin still!...”

Eleven days passed. On the twelfth day. Lupin woke very early and exclaimed:

“Let me see, if my calculations are correct and if the gods are on my side, there will be some news today. I have had four interviews with Formerie. The fellow must be worked up to the right point now. And the Doudevilles, on their side, must have been busy.... We shall have some fun!”

He flung out his fists to right and left, brought them back to his chest, then flung them out again and brought them back again.

This movement, which executed thirty times in succession, was followed by a bending of his body backwards and forwards. Next came an alternate lifting of the legs and then an alternate swinging of the arms.

The whole performance occupied a quarter of an hour, the quarter of an hour which he devoted every morning to Swedish exercises to keep his muscles in condition.

Then he sat down to his table, took up some sheets of white paper, which were arranged in numbered packets, and, folding one of them, made it into an envelope, a work which he continued to do with a series of successive sheets. It was the task which he had accepted and which he forced himself to do daily, the prisoners having the right to choose the labor which they preferred: sticking envelopes, making paper fans, metal purses, and so on....

And, in this way, while occupying his hands with an automatic exercise and keeping his muscles supple with mechanical bendings, Lupin was able to have his thoughts constantly fixed on his affairs....

And his affairs were complicated enough, in all conscience!

There was one, for instance, which surpassed all the others in importance, and for which he had to employ all the resources of his genius. How was he to have a long, quiet conversation with old Steinweg? The necessity was immediate. In a few days, Steinweg would have recovered from his imprisonment, would receive interviews, might blab... to say nothing of the inevitable interference of the enemy, 'the other one.' And it was essential that Steinweg's secret, Pierre Leduc's secret, should be revealed to no one but Lupin. Once published, the secret lost all its value....

The bolts grated, the key turned noisily in the lock.

“Ah, it's you, most excellent of jailers! Has the moment come for the last toilet? The hair-cut that precedes the great final cut of all?”

“Magistrate's examination,” said the man, laconically.

Lupin walked through the corridors of the prison and was received by the municipal guards, who locked him into the prison-van.

He reached the Palais de Justice twenty minutes later. One of the Doudevilles was waiting near the stairs. As they went up, he said to Lupin:

“You'll be confronted today.”

“Everything settled?”

“Yes.”

“Weber?”

“Busy elsewhere.”

Lupin walked into M. Formerie's room and at once recognized old Steinweg, sitting on a chair, looking ill and wretched. A municipal guard was standing behind him.

M. Formerie scrutinized the prisoner attentively, as though he hoped to draw important conclusions from his contemplation of him, and said:

“You know who this gentleman is?”

“Why, Steinweg, of course!...”

“Yes, thanks to the active inquiries of M. Weber and of his two officers, the brothers Doudeville, we have found Mr. Steinweg, who, according to you, knows the ins and outs of the Kesselbach case, the name of the murderer and all the rest of it.”

“I congratulate you, Monsieur le Juge destruction. Your examination will go swimmingly.”

“I think so. There is only one 'but': Mr. Steinweg refuses to reveal anything, except in your presence.”

“Well, I never! How odd of him! Does Arsene Lupin inspire him with so much affection and esteem?”

“Not Arsene Lupin, but Prince Sernine, who, he says, saved his life, and M. Lenormand, with whom, he says, he began a conversation....”

“At the time when I was chief of the detective-service,” Lupin broke in. “So you consent to admit.”

“Mr. Steinweg,” said the magistrate, “do you recognize M. Lenormand?”

“No, but I know that Arsene Lupin and he are one.”

“So you consent to speak?”

“Yes... but... we are not alone.”

“How do you mean? There is only my clerk here... and the guard....”

“Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, the secret which I am about to reveal is so important that you yourself would be sorry...”

“Guard, go outside, please,” said M. Formerie. “Come back at once, if I call. Do you object to my clerk, Steinweg?”

“No, no... it might be better... but, however...”

“Then speak. For that matter, nothing that you reveal will be put down in black on white. One word more, though: I ask you for the last time, is it indispensable that the prisoner should be present at this interview?”

“Quite indispensable. You will see the reason for yourself.”

He drew the chair up to the magistrate's desk, Lupin remained standing, near the clerk. And the old man, speaking in a loud voice, said:

“It is now ten years since a series of circumstances, which I need not enter into, made me acquainted with an extraordinary story in which two persons are concerned.”

“Their names, please.”

“I will give the names presently. For the moment, let me say that one of these persons occupies an exceptional position in France, and that the other, an Italian, or rather a Spaniard... yes, a Spaniard...”

A bound across the room, followed by two formidable blows of the fist.... Lupin's two arms had darted out to right and left, as though impelled by springs and his two fists, hard as cannon balls, caught the magistrate and his clerk on the jaw, just below the ear.

The magistrate and the clerk collapsed over their tables, in two lumps, without a moan.

“Well hit!” said Lupin. “That was a neat bit of work.” He went to the door and locked it softly. Then, returning:

“Steinweg, have you the chloroform?”

“Are you quite sure that they have fainted?” asks the old man, trembling with fear.

“What do you think! But it will only last for three or four minutes.... And that is not long enough.”

The German produced from his pocket a bottle and two pads of cotton-wool, ready prepared.

Lupin uncorked the bottle, poured a few drops of the chloroform on the two pads and held them to the noses of the magistrate and his clerk.

“Capital! We have ten minutes of peace and quiet before us. That will do, but let's make haste, all the same; and not a word too much, old man, do you hear?” He took him by the arm. “You see what I am able to do. Here we are, alone in the very heart of the Palais de Justice, because I wished it.”

“Yes,” said the old man.

“So you are going to tell me your secret?”

“Yes, I told it to Kesselbach, because he was rich and could turn it to better account than anybody I knew; but, prisoner and absolutely powerless though you are, I consider you a hundred times as strong as Kesselbach with his hundred millions.”

“In that case, speak; and let us take things in their proper order. The name of the murderer?”

“That's impossible.”

“How do you mean, impossible? I thought you knew it and were going to tell me everything!”

“Everything, but not that.”

“But...”

“Later on.”

“You're mad! Why?”

“I have no proofs. Later, when you are free, we will hunt together. Besides, what's the good? And then, really, I can't tell you.”

“You're afraid of him?”

“Yes.”

“Very well,” said Lupin. “After all, that's not the most urgent matter. As to the rest, you've made up your mind to speak?”

“Without reserve.”

“Well, then, answer. Who is Pierre Leduc?”

“Hermann IV., Grand Duke of Zweibrucken-Veldenz, Prince of Berncastel, Count of Fistingen, Lord of Wiesbaden and other places.”

Lupin felt a thrill of joy at learning that his protege was definitely not the son of a pork-butcher!

“The devil!” he muttered. “So we have a handle to our name!... As far as I remember, the Grand-duchy of Zweibrucken-Veldenz is in Prussia?”

“Yes, on the Moselle. The house of Veldenz is a branch of the Palatine house of Zweibrucken. The grand-duchy was occupied by the French after the peace of Limeville and formed part of the department of Mont-Tonnerre. In 1814, it was restored in favor of Hermann I., the great grandfather of Pierre Leduc. His son, Hermann II., spent a riotous youth, ruined himself, squandered the finances of his country and made himself impossible to his subjects, who ended by partly burning the old castle at Veldenz and driving their sovereign out of his dominions. The grand-duchy was then administered and governed by three regents, in the name of Hermann II., who, by a curious anomaly, did not abdicate, but retained his title as reigning grand-duke. He lived, rather short of cash, in Berlin; later, he fought in the French war, by the side of Bismarck, of whom he was a friend. He was killed by a shell at the siege of Paris and, in dying, entrusted Bismarck with the charge of his son Hermann, that is, Hermann III.”

“The father, therefore, of our Leduc,” said Lupin.

“Yes. The chancellor took a liking to Hermann III., and used often to employ him as a secret envoy to persons of distinction abroad. At the fall of his patron Hermann III., left Berlin, travelled about and returned and settled in Dresden. When Bismarck died, Hermann III., was there. He himself died two years later. These are public facts, known to everybody in Germany; and that is the story of the three Hermanns, Grand-dukes of Zweibrucken-Veldenz in the nineteenth century.”

“But the fourth, Hermann IV., the one in whom we are interested?”

“We will speak of him presently. Let us now pass on to unknown facts.”

“Facts known to you alone,” said Lupin.

“To me alone and to a few others.”

“How do you mean, a few others? Hasn't the secret been kept?”

“Yes, yes, the secret has been well kept by all who know it. Have no fear; it is very much to their interest, I assure you, not to divulge it.”

“Then how do you know it?”

“Through an old servant and private secretary of the Grand-duke Hermann, the last of the name. This servant, who died in my arms in South Africa, began by confiding to me that his master was secretly married and had left a son behind him. Then he told me the great secret.”

“The one which you afterwards revealed to Kesselbach.”

“Yes.”

“One second... Will you excuse me?...”

Lupin bent over M. Formerie, satisfied himself that ail was well and the heart beating normally, and said:

“Go on.”

Steinweg resumed:

“On the evening of the day on which Bismarck died, the Grand-duke Hermann III. and his faithful manservant — my South African friend — took a train which brought them to Munich in time to catch the express for Vienna. From Vienna, they went to Constantinople, then to Cairo, then to Naples, then to Tunis, then to Spain, then to Paris, then to London, to St. Petersburg, to Warsaw... and in none of these towns did they stop. They took a cab, had their two bags put on the top, rushed through the streets, hurried to another station or to the landing-stage, and once more took the train or the steamer.”

“In short, they were being followed and were trying to put their pursuers off the scent,” Arsene Lupin concluded.

“One evening, they left the city of Treves, dressed in workmen's caps and linen jackets, each with a bundle slung over his shoulder at the end of a stick. They covered on foot the twenty-two miles to Veldenz, where the old Castle of Zweibrucken stands, or rather the ruins of the old castle.”

“No descriptions, please.”

“All day long, they remained hidden in a neighboring forest. At night, they went up to the old walls. Hermann ordered his servant to wait for him and himself scaled the wall at a breach known as the Wolf's Gap. He returned in an hour's time. In the following week, after more peregrinations, he went back home to Dresden. The expedition was over.”

“And what was the object of the expedition?”

“The grand-duke never breathed a word about it to his servant. But certain particulars and the coincidence of facts that ensued enabled the man to build up the truth, at least, in part.”

“Quick, Steinweg, time is running short now; and I am eager to know.”

“A fortnight after the expedition, Count von Waldemar, an officer in the Emperor's body-guard and one of his personal friends, called on the grand-duke, accompanied by six men. He was there all day, locked up with the grand-duke in his study. There were repeated sounds of altercations, of violent disputes. One phrase even was overheard by the servant, who was passing through the garden, under the windows: 'Those papers were handed to you; His imperial Majesty is sure of it. If you refuse to give them to me of your own free will...' The rest of the sentence, the meaning of the threat and, for that matter, the whole scene can be easily guessed by what followed; Hermann's house was ransacked from top to bottom.”

“But that is against the law.”

“It would have been against the law if the grand-duke had objected; but he himself accompanied the count in his search.”

“And what were they looking for? The chancellor's memoirs?”

“Something better than that. They were looking for a parcel of secret documents which were known to exist, owing to indiscretions that had been committed, and which were known for certain to have been entrusted to the Grand-duke Hermann's keeping.”

Lupin muttered, excitedly:

“Secret documents... and very important ones, no doubt?”

“Of the highest importance. The publication of those papers would lead to results which it would be impossible to foresee, not only from the point of view of home politics, but also from that of Germany's relations with the foreign powers.”

“Oh!” said Lupin, throbbing with emotion. “Oh, can it be possible? What proof have you?”

“What proof? The evidence of the grand-duke's wife, the confidences which she made to the servant after her husband's death.”

“Yes... yes...” stammered Lupin. “We have the evidence of the grand-duke himself.”

“Better still,” said Steinweg.

“What?”

“A document, a document written in his own hand, signed by him and containing...”

“Containing what?”

“A list of the secret papers confided to his charge.”

“Tell me, in two words.....”

“In two words? That can't be done. The document is a very long one, scattered all over with annotations and remarks which are sometimes impossible to understand. Let me mention just two titles which obviously refer to two bundles of secret papers: Original letters of the Crown Prince to Bismarck is one. The dates show that these letters were written during the three months of the reign of Frederick III. To picture what the letters may contain, you have only to think of the Emperor Frederick's illness, his quarrels with his son...”

“Yes, yes, I know.... And the other title?”

“Photographs of the letters of Frederick III., and the Empress Victoria to the Queen of England.”

“Do you mean to say that that's there?” asked Lupin, in a choking voice.

“Listen to the grand-duke's notes: Text of the treaty with Great Britain and France. And these rather obscure words: 'Alsace-Lorraine.... Colonies.... Limitation of naval armaments....'”

“It says that?” blurted Lupin. “And you call that obscure?... Why, the words are dazzling with light!... Oh, can it be possible?... And what next, what next?”

As he spoke there was a noise at the door. Some one was knocking.

“You can't come in,” said Lupin. “I am busy..... Go on, Steinweg.”

“But...” said the old man, in a great state of alarm.

The door was shaken violently and Lupin recognized Weber's voice. He shouted:

“A little patience, Weber. I shall have done in five minutes.”

He gripped the old man's arm and, in a tone of command:

“Be easy and go on with you story. So, according to you, the expedition of the grand duke and his servant to Veldenz Castle had no other object than to hide those papers?”

“There can be no question about that.”

“Very well. But the grand-duke may have taken them away since.”

“No, he did not leave Dresden until his death.”

“But the grand-duke's enemies, the men who had everything to gain by recovering them and destroying them: can't they have tried to find out where the papers were?”

“They have tried.”

“How do you know?”

“You can understand that I did not remain inactive and that my first care, after receiving those revelations, was to go to Veldenz and make inquiries for myself in the neighboring villages. Well, I learnt that, on two separate occasions, the castle was invaded by a dozen men, who came from Berlin furnished with credentials to the regents.”

“Well?”

“Well, they found nothing, for, since that time, the castle has been found closed to the public.”

“But what prevents anybody from getting in?”

“A garrison of fifty soldiers, who keep watch day and night.”

“Soldiers of the grand-duchy?”

No, soldiers drafted from the Emperor's own bodyguard.”

The din in the passage increased:

“Open the door!” a voice cried. “I order you to open the door!”

“I can't, Weber, old chap; the lock has stuck. If you take my advice, you had better cut the door all round the lock.”

“Open the door!”

“And what about the fate of Europe, which we are discussing?”

He turned to the old man:

“So you were not able to enter the castle?”

“No,”

“But you are persuaded that the papers in question are hidden there?”

“Look here, haven't I given you proofs enough? Aren't you convinced?”

“Yes, yes,” muttered Lupin, “that's where they are hidden... there's no doubt about it... that's where they are hidden....”

He seemed to see the castle. He seemed to conjure up the mysterious hiding-place. And the vision of an inexhaustible treasure, the dream of chests filled with riches and precious stones could not have excited him more than the idea of those few scraps of paper watched over by the Kaiser's guards. What a wonderful conquest to embark upon! And how worthy of his powers! And what a proof of perspicacity and intuition he had once more given by throwing himself at a venture upon that unknown track!

Outside, the men were “working” at the lock.

Lupin asked of old Steinweg:

“What did the grand-duke die of?”

“An attack of pleurisy, which carried him off in a few days. He hardly recovered consciousness before the end; and the horrible thing appears to have been that he was seen to make violent efforts, between his fits of delirium, to collect his thoughts and utter connected words. From time to time, he called his wife, looked at her in a desperate way and vainly moved his lips.”

“In a word, he spoke?” said Lupin, cutting him short, for the “working” at the lock was beginning to make him anxious.

“No, he did not speak. But, in a comparatively lucid moment, he summoned up the energy to make some marks on a piece of paper which his wife gave him.”

“Well, those marks...?”

“They were illegible, for the most part.”

“For the most part? But the others?” asked Lupin, greedily. “The others?”

“There were, first, three perfectly distinct figures: an 8, a 1, and a 3....”

“Yes, 813, I know... and next?”

“And next, there were some letters... several letters, of which all that can be made out for certain are a group of three followed, immediately after, by a group of two letters.”

“'APOON,' is that it?”

“Oh, so you know!...”

The lock was yielding; almost all the screws had been taken out. Lupin, suddenly alarmed at the thought of being interrupted, asked:

“So that this incomplete word 'APOON' and the number 813 are the formulas which the grand-duke bequeathed to his wife and son to enable them to find the secret papers?”

“Yes.”

“What became of the grand-duke's wife?”

“She died soon after her husband, of grief, one might say.”

“And was the child looked after by the family?”

“What family? The grand-duke had no brothers or sisters. Moreover, he was only morganatically and secretly married. No, the child was taken away by Hermann's old man-servant, who brought him up under the name of Pierre Leduc. He was a bad type of boy, self-willed, capricious and troublesome. One day, he went off and was never seen again.”

“Did he know the secret of his birth?”

“Yes; and he was shown the sheet of paper on which Hermann III. had written the letters and figures.”

“And after that this revelation was made to no one but yourself?”

“That's all.”

“And you confided only in Mr. Kesselbach?”

“Yes. But, out of prudence, while showing him the sheet of letters and figures and the list of which I spoke to you, I kept both those documents in my own possession. Events have proved that I was right.”

Lupin was now clinging to the door with both hands:

“Weber,” he roared, “you're very indiscreet! I shall report, you!.... Steinweg, have you those documents?”

“Yes.”

“Are they in a safe place?”

“Absolutely.”

“In Paris?”

“No.”

“So much the better. Don't forget that your life is in danger and that you have people after you.”

“I know. The least fake step and I am done for.”

“Exactly. So take your precautions, throw the enemy off the scent, go and fetch your papers and await my instructions. The thing is cut and dried. In a month, at latest, we will go to Veldenz Castle together.”

“Suppose I'm in prison?”

“I will take you out.”

“Can you?”

“The very day after I come out myself. No, I'm wrong: the same evening... an hour or to.”

“You have the means?”

“Since the last ten minutes, an infallible means. You have nothing more to say to me?”

“No.”

“Then I'll open the door.”

He pulled back the door, and bowing to M. Weber:

“My poor old Weber, I don't know what excuse to make...”

He did not finish his sentence. The sudden inrush of the deputy-chief and three policeman left him no time.

M. Weber was white with rage and indignation. The sight of the two men lying outstretched quite unsettled him.

“Dead!” he exclaimed.

“Not a bit of it, not a bit of it,” chuckled Lupin. “only asleep! Formerie was tired out... so I allowed him a few moments' rest.”

“Enough of this humbug!” shouted M. Weber. And, turning to the policemen, “Take him back to the Sante. And keep your eyes open, damn it! As for this visitor...”

Lupin learnt nothing more as to Weber's intentions with regard to old Steinweg. A crowd of municipal guards and police constables hustled him down to the prison-van.

On the stairs Doudeville whispered:

“Weber had a line to warn him. It told him to mind the confrontation and to be on his guard with Steinweg. The note was signed 'L. M.'”

But Lupin hardly bothered his head about all this. What did he care for the murderer's hatred or old Steinweg's fate? He possessed Rudolf Kesselbach's secret!

CHAPTER X. LUPIN'S GREAT SCHEME

CONTRARY to his expectations, Lupin had no sort of annoyance to undergo in consequence of his assault on M. Formerie.

The examining-magistrate came to the Sante in person, two days later, and told him, with some embarrassment and with an affectation of kindness, that he did not intend to pursue the matter further.

“Nor I, either,” retorted Lupin.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I mean that I shall send no communication to the press about this particular matter nor do anything that might expose you to ridicule, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. The scandal shall not be made public, I promise. That is what you want, is it not?”

M. Formerie blushed and, without replying, continued:

“Only, henceforth, your examinations will take place here.”

“It's quite right that the law should put itself out for Lupin!” said that gentleman.

The announcement of this decision, which interrupted his almost daily meetings with the Doudevilles, did not disturb Lupin. He had taken his precautions from the first day, by giving the Doudevilles all the necessary instructions and, now that the preparations were nearly completed, reckoned upon being able to turn old Steinweg's confidences to the best account without delay and to obtain his liberty by one of the most extraordinary and ingenious schemes that had ever entered his brain.

His method of correspondence was a simple one; and he had devised it at once. Every morning he was supplied with sheets of paper in numbered packets. He made these into envelopes; and, every evening, the envelopes, duly folded and gummed, were fetched away. Now Lupin, noticing that his packet always bore the same number, had drawn the inference that the distribution of the numbered packets was always affected in the same order among the prisoners who had chosen that particular kind of work. Experience showed that he was right.

It only remained for the Doudevilles to bribe one of the employees of the private firm entrusted with the supply and dispatch of the envelopes. This was easily done; and, thenceforward, Lupin, sure of success, had only to wait quietly until the sign agreed upon between him and his friends appeared upon the top sheet of the packet.

On the sixth day, he gave an exclamation of delight:

“At last!” he said.

He took a tiny bottle from a hiding-place, uncorked it, moistened the tip of his forefinger with the liquid which it contained and passed his finger over the third sheet in the packet.

In a moment, strokes appeared, then letters., then words and sentences.

He read:

“All well. Steinweg free. Hiding in country. Genevieve Ernemont good health. Often goes Hotel Bristol to see Mrs. Kesselbach, who is ill. Meets Pierre Leduc there every time. Answer by same means. No danger.”

So communications were established with the outside. Once more, Lupin's efforts were crowned with success. All that he had to do now was to execute his plan and lead the press campaign which he had prepared in the peaceful solitude of his prison.

Three days later, these few lines appeared in the Grand Journal:

“Quite apart from Prince Bismarck's Memoirs, which, according to well-informed people, contain merely the official history of the events in which the great chancellor was concerned, there exists a series of confidential letters of no little interest.

“These letters have been recently discovered. We hear, on good authority, that they will be published almost immediately.”

My readers will remember the noise which these mysterious sentences made throughout the civilized world, the comments in which people indulged, the suggestions put forward and, in particular, the controversy that followed in the German press. Who had inspired those lines? What were the letters in question? Who had written them to the chancellor or who had received them from him? Was it an act of posthumous revenge? Or was it an indiscretion committed by one of Bismarck's correspondents?

A second note settled public opinion as to certain points, but, at the same time, worked it up to a strange pitch of excitement. It ran as follows:

“To the Editor of the Grand Journal,

“Sante Palace,

Cell 14, Second Division.”

“Sir,

“You inserted in your issue of Tuesday last a paragraph based upon a few words which I let fall, the other evening, in the course of a lecture, which I was delivering at the Sante on foreign politics. Your correspondent's paragraph, although accurate in all essential particulars, requires a slight correction. The letters exist, as stated, and it is impossible to deny their exceptional importance, seeing that, for ten years, they have been the object of an uninterrupted search on the part of the government interested. But nobody knows where they are hidden and nobody knows a single word of what they contain.

“The public, I am convinced, will bear me no ill-will if I keep it waiting for some time before satisfying its legitimate curiosity. Apart from the fact that I am not in possession of all the elements necessary for the pursuit of the truth, my present occupation does not allow me to devote so much time as I could wish to this matter.

“All that I can say for the moment is that the letters were entrusted by the dying statesman to one of his most faithful friends and that this friend had eventually to suffer the serious consequences of his loyalty. Constant spying, domiciliary visits, nothing was spared him.

“I have given orders to two of the best agents of my secret police to take up this scent from the start in a position to get to the bottom of this exciting mystery.

“I have the honor to be Sir,

“Your obedient servant,

“Arsene Lupin.”

So it was Arsene Lupin who was conducting the case! It was he who, from his prison cell, was stage-managing the comedy or the tragedy announced in the first note. What luck! Everybody was delighted. With an artist like Lupin, the spectacle could not fail to be both picturesque and startling.

Three days later the Grand Journal contained the following letter from Arsene Lupin:

“The name of the devoted friend to whom I referred has been imparted to me. It was the Grand-Duke Hermann III., reigning (although dispossessed) sovereign of the Grand-duchy of Zweibrucken-Veldenz and a confidant of Prince Bismarck, whose entire friendship he enjoyed.

“A thorough search was made of his house by Count von W——, at the head of twelve men. The result of this search was purely negative, but the grand-duke was nevertheless proved to be in possession of the papers.

“Where had he hidden them? This was a problem which probably nobody in the world would be able to solve at the present moment.

“I must ask for twenty-four hours in which to solve it.

“Arsene Lupin.”

And, twenty-four hours later, the promised note appeared:

“The famous letters are hidden in the feudal castle of Veldenz, the capital of the Grand-duchy of Zweibrucken. The castle was partly destroyed in the course of the nineteenth century.

“Where exactly are they hidden? And what are the letters precisely? These are the two problems which I am now engaged in unravelling; and I shall publish the solution in four days' time.

“Arsene Lupin.”

On the day stated, men scrambled to obtain copies of the Grand Journal. To the general disappointment, the promised information was not given. The same silence followed on the next day and the day after.

What had happened?

It leaked out through an indiscretion at the Prefecture of Police. The governor of the Sante, it appeared, had been warned that Lupin was communicating with his accomplices by means of the packets of envelopes which he made. Nothing had been discovered; but it was thought best, in any case, to forbid all work to the insufferable prisoner.

To this the insufferable prisoner replied:

“As I have nothing to do now, I may as well attend to my trial. Please let my counsel, Maitre Quimbel, know.”

It was true. Lupin, who, hitherto, had refused to hold any intercourse with Maitre Quimbel, now consented to see him and to prepare his defence.

On the next day Maitre Quimbel, in cheery tones, asked for Lupin to be brought to the barristers' room. He was an elderly man, wearing a pair of very powerful spectacles, which made his eyes seem enormous. He put his hat on the table, spread out his brief-case and at once began to put a series of questions which he had carefully prepared.

Lupin replied with extreme readiness and even volunteered a host of particulars, which Maitre Quimbel took down, as he spoke, on slips pinned one to the other.

“And so you say,” continued the barrister, with his head over his papers, “that, at that time...”

“I say that, at that time...” Lupin answered.

Little by little, with a series of natural and hardly perceptible movements, he leant elbows on the table. He gradually lowered his arms, slipped his hand under Maitre Quimbel's hat put his finger into the leather band and took out one of those strips of paper, folded lengthwise, which the hatter inserts between the leather and the lining when the hat is a trifle too large.

He unfolded the paper. It was a message from Doudeville, written in a cipher agreed upon beforehand:

“I am engaged as indoor servant at Maitre Quimbel's. You can answer by the same means without fear.

“It was L. M., the murderer, who gave away the envelope trick. A good thing that you foresaw this move!”

Hereupon followed a minute report of all the facts and comments caused by Lupin's revelations. Lupin took from his pocket a similar strip of paper containing his instructions, quietly substituted it in the place of the other and drew his hand back again. The trick was played.

And Lupin's correspondence with the Grand Journal was resumed without further delay.

“I apologize to the public for not keeping my promise. The postal arrangements at the Sante Palace are woefully inadequate.

“However, we are near the end. I have in hand all the documents that establish the truth upon an indisputable basis. I shall not publish them for the moment. Nevertheless, I will say this: among the letters are some that were addressed to the chancellor by one who, at that time, declared himself his disciple and his admirer and who was destined, several years after, to rid himself of that irksome tutor and to govern alone.

“I trust that I make myself sufficiently clear.”

And, on the next day:

“The letters were written during the late Emperor's illness. I need hardly add more to prove their importance.”

Four days of silence, and then this final note, which caused a stir that has not yet been forgotten:

“My investigation is finished. I now know everything.

“By dint of reflection, I have guessed the secret of the hiding-place.

“My friends are going to Veldenz and, in spite of every obstacle, will enter the castle by a way which I am pointing out to them.

“The newspapers will then publish photographs of the letters, of which I already know the tenor; but I prefer to reproduce the whole text.

“This certain, inevitable publication will take place in a fortnight from today precisely, on the 22nd of August next.

“Between this and then I will keep silence... and wait.”

The communications to the Grand Journal did, in fact, stop for a time, but Lupin never ceased corresponding with his friends, “via the hat,” as they said among themselves. It was so simple! There was no danger. Who could ever suspect that Maitre Quimbel's hat served Lupin as a letter-box?

Every two or three mornings, whenever he called, in fact, the celebrated advocate faithfully brought his client's letters: letters from Paris, letters from the country, letters from Germany; all reduced and condensed by Doudeville into a brief form and cipher language. And, an hour later, Maitre Quimbel solemnly walked away, carrying Lupin's orders.

Now, one day, the governor of the Sante received a telephone message, signed, “L. M.,” informing him that Maitre Quimbel was, in all probability, serving Lupin as his unwitting postman and that it would be advisable to keep an eye upon the worthy man's visits. The governor told Maitre Quimbel, who thereupon resolved to bring his junior with him.

So, once again, in spite of all Lupin's efforts, in spite of his fertile powers of invention, in spite of the marvels of ingenuity which he renewed after each defeat, once again Lupin found himself cut off from communication? with the outside world by the infernal genius of his-formidable adversary. And he found himself thus cut off at the most critical moment, at the solemn minute when, from his cell, he was playing his last trump-card against the coalesced forces that were overwhelming him so terribly.

On the 13th of August, as he sat facing the two counsels, his attention was attracted by a newspaper in which some of Maitre Quimbel's papers were wrapped up.

He saw a heading in very large type

“813”

The sub-headings were:

“A FRESH MURDER

“THE EXCITEMENT IN GERMANY

“HAS THE SECRET OF THE 'APOON' BEEN DISCOVERED?”

Lupin turned pale with anguish. Below he read the words:

“Two sensational telegrams reach us at the moment of going to press.

“The body of an old man has been found near Augsburg, with his throat cut with a knife. The police have succeeded in identifying the victim: it is Steinweg, the man mentioned in the Kesselbach case.

“On the other hand, a correspondent telegraphs that the famous English detective, Holmlock Shears, has been hurriedly summoned to Cologne'. He will there meet the Emperor; and they will both proceed to Vendenz Castle.

“Holmlock Shears is said to have undertaken to discover the secret of the 'APOON.'

“If he succeeds, it will mean the pitiful failure of the incomprehensible campaign which Arsene Lupin has been conducting for the past month in so strange a fashion.”

* * * * *

Perhaps public curiosity was never so much stirred as by the duel announced to take place between Shears and Lupin, an invisible duel in the circumstances, an anonymous duel, one might say, in which everything would happen in the dark, in which people would be able to judge only by the final results, and yet an impressive duel, because of all the scandal that circled around the adventure and because of the stakes in dispute between the two irreconcilable enemies, now once more opposed to each other.

And it was a question not of small private interests, of insignificant burglaries, of trumpery individual passions, but of a matter of really world-wide importance, involving the politics of the three great western nations and capable of disturbing the peace of the world.

People waited anxiously; and no one knew exactly what he was waiting for. For, after all, if the detective came out victorious in the duel, if he found the letters, who would ever know? What proof would any one have of his triumph?

In the main, all hopes were centred on Lupin, on his well-known habit of calling the public to witness his acts. What was he going to do? How could he avert the frightful danger that threatened him? Was he even aware of it?

Those were the questions which men asked themselves.

Between the four walls of his cell, prisoner 14 asked himself pretty nearly the same questions; and he for his part, was not stimulated by idle curiosity, but by real uneasiness, by constant anxiety. He felt himself irrevocably alone, with impotent hands, an impotent will, an impotent brain. It availed him nothing that he was able, ingenious, fearless, heroic. The struggle was being carried on without him. His part was now finished. He had joined all the pieces and set all the springs of the great machine that was to produce, that was, in a manner of speaking, automatically to manufacture his liberty; and it was impossible for him to make a single movement to improve and supervise his handiwork.

At the date fixed, the machine would start working. Between now and then, a thousand adverse incidents might spring up, a thousand obstacles arise, without his having the means to combat those incidents or remove those obstacles.

Lupin spent the unhappiest hours of his life at that time. He doubted himself. He wondered whether his existence would be buried for good in the horror of a jail-Had he not made a mistake in his calculations? Was is not childish to believe that the event that was to set him free would happen on the appointed date?

“Madness!” he cried. “My argument is false.... How can I expect such a concurrence of circumstances? There will be some little fact that will destroy all... the inevitable grain of sand....”

Steinweg's death and the disappearance of the documents which the old man was to make over to him did not trouble him greatly. The documents he could have done without in case of need; and, with the few words which Steinweg had told him, he was able, by dint of guess-work and his native genius, to reconstruct what the Emperor's letters contained and to draw up the plan of battle that would lead to victory. But he thought of Holmlock Shears, who was over there now, in the very centre of the battlefield, and who was seeking and who would find the letters, thus demolishing the edifice so patiently built up.

And he thought of “the other one,” the implacable enemy, lurking round the prison, hidden in the prison, perhaps, who guessed his most secret plans even before they were hatched in the mystery of his thought.

The 17th of August!... The 18th of August!... The 19th!... Two more days.... Two centuries rather! Oh, the interminable minutes!...

Lupin, usually so calm, so entirely master of himself, so ingenious at providing matter for his own amusement, was feverish, exultant and depressed by turns, powerless against the enemy, mistrusting everything and everybody, morose.

The 20th of August!...

He would have wished to act and he could not Whatever he did, it was impossible for him to hasten the hour of the catastrophe. This catastrophe would take place or would not take place; but Lupin would not know for certain until the last hour of the last day was spent to the last minute. Then—and then alone — he would know of the definite failure of his scheme.

“The inevitable failure,” he kept on repeating to himself. “Success depends upon circumstances far too subtle and can be obtained only by methods far too psychological.... There is no doubt that I am deceiving myself as to the value and the range of my weapons.... And yet...”

Hope returned to him. He weighed his chances. They suddenly seemed to him real and formidable. The fact was going to happen as he had foreseen it happening and for the very reasons which he had expected. It was inevitable....

Yes, inevitable. Unless, indeed, Shears discovered the hiding-place....

And again he thought of Shears; and again an immense sense of discouragement overwhelmed him.

The last day....

He woke late, after a night of bad dreams.

He saw nobody that day, neither the examining magistrate nor his counsel.

The afternoon dragged along slowly and dismally, and the evening came, the murky evening of the cells.... He was in a fever. His heart beat in his chest like the clapper of a bell.

And the minutes passed, irretrievably....

At nine o'clock, nothing. At ten o'clock, nothing.

With all his nerves tense as the string of a bow, he listened to the vague prison sounds, tried to catch through those inexorable walls all that might trickle in from the life outside.

Oh, how he would have liked to stay the march of time and to give destiny a little more leisure!

But what was the good? Was everything not finished?...

“Oh,” he cried, “I am going mad! If all this were only over... that would be better. I can begin again, differently.... I shall try something else... but I can't go on like this, I can't go on.

He held his head in his hands, pressing it with all his might, locking himself within himself and concentrating his whole mind upon one subject, as though he wished to provoke, as though he wished to create the formidable, stupefying, inadmissible event to which he had attached his independence and his fortune:

“It must happen,” he muttered, “it must; and it must, not because I wish it, but because it is logical. And it shall happen... it shall happen....”

He beat his skull with his fists; and delirious words rose to his lips....

The key grated in the lock. In his frenzy, he had not heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor; and now, suddenly, a ray of light penetrated into his cell and the door opened.

Three men entered.

Lupin had not a moment of surprise.

The unheard-of miracle was being worked; and this at once seemed to him natural and normal, in perfect agreement with truth and justice.

But a rush of pride flooded his whole being. At this minute he really received a clear sensation of his own strength and intelligence....

“Shall I switch on the light?” asked one of the three men, in whom Lupin recognized the governor of the prison.

“No,” replied the taller of his companions, speaking in a foreign accent. “This lantern will do.”

“Shall I go?”

“Act according to your duty, sir,” said the same individual.

“My instructions from the prefect of police are to comply entirely with your wishes.”

“In that case, sir, it would be preferable that you should withdraw.”

M. Borfly went away, leaving the door half open, and remained outside, within call.

The visitor exchanged a few words with the one who had not yet spoken; and Lupin vainly tried to distinguish his features in the shade. He saw only two dark forms, clad in wide motoring-cloaks and wearing caps with the flaps lowered.

“Are you Arsene Lupin?” asked the man, turning the light of the lantern full on his face.

He smiled:

“Yes, I am the person known as Arsene Lupin at present a prisoner in the Sante, cell 14, second division.”

“Was it you,” continued the visitor, “who published in the Grand Journal a series of more or less fanciful notes, in which there is a question of a so-called collection of letters...?”

Lupin interrupted him.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but, before pursuing this conversation, the object of which, between ourselves, is none too clear to me, I should be much obliged if you would tell me to whom I have the honour of speaking.”

“Absolutely unnecessary,” replied the stranger.

“Absolutely essential,” declared Lupin.

“Why?”

“For reasons of politeness, sir. You know my name and I do not know yours; this implies a disregard of good form which I cannot suffer.”

The stranger lost patience:

“The mere fact that the governor of the prison brought us here shows...”

“That M. Borfly does not know his manners,” said Lupin. “M. Borfly should have introduced us to each other. We are equals here, sir: it is no case of a superior and an inferior, of a prisoner and a visitor who condescends to come and see him. There are two men here; and one of those two men has a hat on his head, which he ought not to have.”

“Now look here...”

“Take the lesson as you please, sir,” said Lupin.

The stranger came closer to him and tried to speak.

“The hat first,” said Lupin, “the hat...”

“You shall listen to me!”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Matters were becoming virulent, stupidly. The second stranger, the one who had kept silent, placed his hand on his companion's shoulder and said, in German:

“Leave him to me.”

“Why, it was understood....”

“Hush... and go away!”

“Leaving you alone?”

“Yes.”

“But the door?”

“Shut it and walk away.”

“But this man... you know who he is.... Arsene Lupin....”

“Go away!”

The other went out, cursing under his breath.

“Pull the door!” cried the second visitor. “Harder than that.... Altogether!.... That's right....”

Then he turned, took the lantern and raised it slowly:

“Shall I tell you who I am?” he asked.

“No,” replied Lupin.

“And why?”

“Because I know.”

“Ah!”

“You are the visitor I was expecting.”

“I?”

“Yes, Sire.”

CHAPTER XI. CHARLEMAGNE

“SILENCE!” said the stranger, sharply, “Don't use that word.”

“Then what shall I call Your...”

“Call me nothing.”

They were both silent; and this moment of respite was not one of those which go before the struggle of two adversaries ready for the fray. The stranger strode to and fro with the air of a master accustomed to command and to be obeyed. Lupin stood motionless. He had abandoned his usual provocative attitude and his sarcastic smile. He waited, gravely and deferentially. But, down in the depths of his being, he revelled, eagerly, madly, in the marvellous situation in which he found himself placed: here, in his cell, he, a prisoner; he, the adventurer; he, the swindler, the burglar; he, Arsene Lupin... face to face with that demi-god of the modern world, that formidable entity, the heir of Caesar and of Charlemagne.

He was intoxicated for a moment with the sense of his own power. The tears came to his eyes when he thought of his triumph....

The stranger stood still.

And at once, with the very first sentence, they came to the immediate point:

“Tomorrow is the 22nd of August. The letters are to be published tomorrow, are they not?”

“To-night, in two hours from now, my friends are to hand in to the Grand Journal, not the letters themselves, but an exact list of the letters, with the Grand-duke Hermann's annotations.”

“That list shall not be handed in.”

“It shall not be.”

“You will give it to me.”

“It shall be placed in the hands of Your... in your hands.”

“Likewise, all the letters?”

“Likewise, all the letters.”

“Without any of them being photographed?”

“Without any of them being photographed.”

The stranger spoke in a very calm voice, containing not the least accent of entreaty nor the least inflection of authority. He neither ordered nor requested; he stated the inevitable actions of Arsene Lupin. Things would happen as he said. And they would happen, whatever Arsene Lupin's demands should be, at whatever price he might value the performance of those actions. The conditions were accepted beforehand.

“By Jove,” said Lupin to himself, “that's jolly clever of him! If he leaves it to my generosity, I am a ruined man!”

The very way in which the conversation opened, the frankness of the words employed, the charm of voice and manner all pleased him infinitely.

He pulled himself together, lest he should relent and abandon all the advantages which he had conquered so fiercely... And the stranger continued: “Have you read the letters?”

“No.”

“But some one you know has read them?”

“No.”

“In that case...”

“I have the grand-duke's list and his notes. Moreover, I know the hiding-place where he put all his papers.”

“Why did you not take them before this?”

“I did not know the secret of the hiding-place until I came here. My friends are on the way there now.”

“The castle is guarded. It is occupied by two hundred of my most trusty men.”

“Ten thousand would not be sufficient.”

After a minute's reflection, the visitor asked:

“How do you know the secret?”

“I guessed it.”

“But you had other elements of information which the papers did not publish?”

“No, none at all.”

“And yet I had the castle searched for four days.”

“Holmlock Shears looked in the wrong place.”

“Ah!” said the stranger to himself. “It's an odd thing, an odd thing!...” And, to Lupin, “You are sure that your supposition is correct?”

“It is not a supposition: it is a certainty.”

“So much the better,” muttered the visitor. “There will be no rest until those papers cease to exist.”

And, placing himself in front of Arsene Lupin: “How much?”

“What?” said Lupin, taken aback.

“How much for the papers? How much do you ask to reveal the secret?”

He waited for Lupin to name a figure. He suggested one himself:

“Fifty thousand?... A hundred thousand?”

And, when Lupin did not reply, he said, with a little hesitation:

“More? Two hundred thousand? Very well! I agree.”

Lupin smiled and, in a low voice, said:

“It is a handsome figure. But is it not likely that some sovereign, let us say, the King of England, would give as much as a million? In all sincerity?”

“I believe so.”

“And that those letters are priceless to the Emperor, that they are worth two million quite as easily as two hundred thousand francs... three million as easily as two?”

“I think so.”

“And, if necessary, the Emperor would give that three million francs?”

“Yes.”

“Then it will not be difficult to come to an arrangement?”

“On that basis?” cried the stranger, not without some alarm.

Lupin smiled again:

“On that basis, no.... I am not looking for money. I want something else, something that is worth more to me than any number of millions.”

“What is that?”

“My liberty.”

“What! Your liberty.... But I can do nothing.... That concerns your country... the law.... I have no power.”

Lupin went up to him and, lowering his voice still more:

“You have every power, Sire.... My liberty is not such an exceptional event that they are likely to refuse you.”

“Then I should have to ask for it?”

“Yes.”

“Of whom?”

“Of Valenglay, the prime minister.”

“But M. Valenglay himself can do no more than I.”

“He can open the doors of this prison for me.”

“It would cause a public outcry.”

“When I say, open... half-open would be enough... We should counterfeit an escape.... The public so thoroughly expects it that it would not so much as ask for an explanation.”

“Very well... but M. Valenglay will never consent....”

“He will consent.”

“Why?”

“Because you will express the wish.”

“My wishes are not commands... to him!”

“No... but an opportunity of making himself agreeable to the Emperor by fulfilling them. And Valenglay is too shrewd a politician....”

“Nonsense! Do you imagine that the French government will commit so illegal an act for the sole pleasure of making itself agreeable to me?”

“That pleasure will not be the sole one.”

“What will be the other?”

“The pleasure of serving France by accepting the proposal which will accompany the request for my release.”

“I am to make a proposal? I?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“What proposal?”

“I do not know, but it seems to me that there is always a favorable ground on which to come to an understanding... there are possibilities of agreement...

The stranger looked at him, without grasping his meaning. Lupin leant forward and, as though seeking his words, as though putting an imaginary case, said:

“Let me suppose that two great countries are divided by some insignificant question... that they have different points of view on a matter of secondary importance.... a colonial matter, for instance, in which their self-esteem is at stake rather than their interest.... Is it inconceivable that the ruler of one of those countries might come of his own accord to treat this matter in a new spirit of conciliation... and give the necessary instructions... so that...”

“So that I might leave Morocco to France?” said the stranger, with a burst of laughter.

The idea which Lupin was suggesting struck him as the most comical thing that he had ever heard; and he laughed heartily. The disparity was so great between the object aimed at and the means proposed!

“Of course, of course!” he resumed, with a vain attempt to recover his seriousness. “Of course, it's a very original idea: the whole of modern politics upset so that Arsene Lupin may be free!... The plans of the Empire destroyed so that Arsene Lupin may continue his exploits!... Why not ask me for Alsace and Lorraine at once?”

“I did think of it, Sire,” replied Lupin, calmly. The stranger's merriment increased:

“Splendid! And you let me off?”

“This time, yes.”

Lupin had crossed his arms. He, too, was amusing himself by exaggerating the part which he was playing; and he continued, with affected seriousness:

“A series of circumstances might one day arise which would put in my hands the power of demanding and obtaining that restitution. When that day comes, I shall certainly not fail to do so. For the moment, the weapons at my disposal oblige me to be more modest. Peace in Morocco will satisfy me.”

“Just that?”

“Just that.”

“Morocco against your liberty!”

“Nothing more... or, rather — for we must not lose sight entirely of the main object of this conversation — or, rather, a little good will on the part of one of the countries in question... and, in exchange, the surrender of the letters which are in my power.”

“Those letters, those letters!” muttered the stranger irritably. “After all, perhaps they are not so valuable....”

“There are some in your own hand, Sire; and you considered them valuable enough to come to this cell....”

“Well, what does it matter?”

“But there are others of which you do not know the authorship and about which I can give you a few particulars.”

“Oh, indeed!” said the stranger, rather anxiously.

Lupin hesitated.

“Speak, speak plainly,” said the stranger. “Say what you have in your mind.”

In the profound silence of the cell, Lupin declared, with a certain solemnity:

“Twenty years ago a draft treaty was prepared between Germany, Great Britain, and France.”

“That's not true! It's impossible! Who could have done such a thing?”

“The Emperor's father and the Queen of England, his grandmother, both acting under the influence of the Empress Frederick.”

“Impossible! I repeat, it is impossible!”

“The correspondence is in the hiding-place at Veldenz Castle; and I alone know the secret of the hiding-place.”

The stranger walked up and down with an agitated step. Then he stopped short:

“Is the text of the treaty included in that correspondence?”

“Yes, Sire. It is in your father's own hand.”

“And what does it say?”

“By that treaty, France and Great Britain granted and promised Germany an immense colonial empire, the empire which she does not at present possess and which has become a necessity to her, in these times, to ensure her greatness.”

“And what did England demand as a set-off against that empire?”

“The limitation of the German fleet.”

“And France?”

“Alsace and Lorraine.”

The Emperor leant against the table in silent thought. Lupin continued:

“Everything was ready. The cabinets of Paris and London had been sounded and had consented. The thing was practically done. The great treaty of alliance was on the point of being concluded. It would have laid the foundations of a definite and universal peace. The death of your father destroyed that sublime dream. But I ask Your Imperial Majesty, what will your people think, what will the world think, when it knows that Frederick III., one of the heroes of 1870, a German, a pure and loyal German, respected by all, generally admired for his nobility of character, agreed to the restitution of Alsace-Lorraine and therefore considered that restitution just?”

He was silent for an instant leaving the problem to fix itself in its precise terms before the Emperor's conscience, before his conscience as a man, a son and a sovereign. Then he concluded:

“Your Imperial Majesty yourself must know whether you wish or do not wish history to record the existence of that treaty. As for me, Sire, you can see that my humble personality counts for very little in the discussion.”

A long pause followed upon Lupin's words. He waited, with his soul torn with anguish. His whole destiny was at stake, in this minute which he had conceived and, in a manner, produced with such effort and such stubbornness, an historic minute, born of his brain, in which “his humble personality,” for all that he might say, weighed heavily upon the fate of empires and the peace of the world.

Opposite him, in the shadow, Caesar stood meditating.

What answer would he make? What solution would he give to the problem?

He walked across the cell for a few moments, which to Lupin seemed interminable. Then he stopped and asked:

“Are there any other conditions?”

“Yes, Sire, but they are insignificant.”

“Name them.”

“I have found the son of the Grand-duke of Zweibrucken-Veldenz. The grand-duchy must be restored to him.”

“Anything else?”

“He loves a young girl, who loves him in her turn. She is the fairest and the most virtuous of her sex. He must marry her.”

“Anything else?”

“That is all.”

“There is nothing more?”

“Nothing. Your majesty need only have this letter delivered to the editor of the Grand Journal, who will then destroy, unread, the article which he may now receive at any moment.”

Lupin held out the letter, with a heavy heart and a trembling hand. If the Emperor took it, that would be a sign of his acceptance.

The Emperor hesitated and then, with an abrupt movement, took the letter, put on his hat, wrapped his cloak round him and walked out without a word.

Lupin remained for a few seconds, staggering, as though dazed....

Then, suddenly, he fell into his chair, shouting with joy and pride.

“Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I am sorry to say good-bye to you today.”

“Why, M. Lupin, are you thinking of leaving us?”

“With the greatest reluctance, I assure you, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. Our relations have been so very pleasant and cordial! But all good things must come to an end. My cure at the Sante Palace is finished. Other duties call me. I have resolved to make my escape tonight.”

“Then I wish you good luck, M. Lupin.”

“A thousand thanks, M. le Juge d'Instruction.”

Arsene Lupin waited patiently for the hour of his escape, not without asking himself how it would be contrived and by what means France and Germany, uniting for the joint performance of this deserving work, would succeed in effecting it without creating too great a scandal.

Late in the afternoon, the warder told him to go to the entrance-yard. He hurried out and was met by the governor, who handed him over to M. Weber. M. Weber made him step into a motor-car in which somebody was already seated.

Lupin had a violent fit of laughter:

“What, you, my poor old Weber! Have they let you in for this tiresome job? Are you to be responsible for my escape? Upon my word, you are an unlucky beggar! Oh, my poor old chap, what hard lines! First made famous through my arrest, you are now to become immortal through my escape!”

He looked at the other man:

“Well, well, Monsieur le Prefet de Police, so you are in the business too! That's a nasty thing for you, what? If you take my advice, you'll stay in the background and leave the honor and glory to Weber! It's his by right!... And he can stand a lot, the rascal!”

The car travelled at a fast pace, along the Seine and through Boulogne, At Saint-Cloud, they crossed the river.

“Splendid!” cried Lupin. “We're going to Garches! You want me there, in order to reenact the death of Altenheim. We shall go down into the under-ground passage, I shall disappear and people will say that I got through another outlet, known to myself alone! Lord, how idiotic!”

He seemed quite unhappy about it:

“Idiotic! Idiotic in the highest degree! I blush for shame!... And those are the people who govern us!... What an age to live in!... But, you poor devils, why didn't you come to me? I'd have invented a beautiful little escape for you, something of a miraculous nature. I had it all ready pigeon-holed in my mind! The public would have yelled with wonder and danced with delight. Instead of which... However, it's quite true that you were given rather short notice... but all the same...”

The programme was exactly as Lupin had foreseen. They walked through the grounds of the House of Retreat to the Pavilion Hortense. Lupin and his two companions went down the stairs and along the underground passage. At the end of the tunnel, the deputy-chief said:

“You are free.”

“And there you are!” said Lupin. “Is that all? Well, my dear Weber, thank you very much and sorry to have given you so much trouble. Good-bye, Monsieur le Prefet; kind regards to the missus!”

He climbed the stairs that led to the Villa des Glycines, raised the trap-door and sprang into the room.

A hand fell on his shoulder.

Opposite him stood his first visitor of the day before, the one who had accompanied the Emperor. There were four men with him, two on either side.

“Look here,” said Lupin, “what's the meaning of this joke? I thought I was free!”

“Yes, yes,” growled the German, in his rough voice, “you are free... free to travel with the five of us... if that suits you.”

Lupin looked at him, for a second, with a mad longing to hit him on the nose, just to teach him. But the five men looked devilish determined. Their leader did not betray any exaggerated fondness for him; and it seemed to him that the fellow would be only too pleased to resort to extreme measures. Besides, after all, what did he care?”

He chuckled:

“If it suits me? Why, it's the dream of my life!”

A powerful covered car was waiting in the paved yard outside the villa. Two men got into the driver's seat, two others inside, with their backs to the motor. Lupin and the stranger sat down on the front seat.

“Vorworts!” cried Lupin, in German. “Vorworts nach Veldenz!”

The stranger said:

“Silence! Those men must know nothing. Speak French. They don't know French. But why speak at all?”

“Quite right,” said Lupin to himself. “Why speak at all?”

* * * * *

The car travelled all the evening and all night, without any incident. Twice they stopped to take in petrol at some sleepy little town.

The Germans took it in turns to watch their prisoner, who did not open his eyes until the early morning. They stopped for breakfast at an inn on a hillside, near which stood a sign-post. Lupin saw that they were at an equal distance from Metz and Luxemburg.

From there, they took a road that slanted north-east, in the direction of Treves.

Lupin said to his travelling-companion:

“Am I right in believing that I have the honor of speaking to Count von Waldemar, the Emperor's confidential friend, the one who searched Hermann III.'s house in Dresden?”

The stranger remained silent.

“You're the sort of chap I can't stand at any price,” muttered Lupin. “I'll have some fun with you, one of these days. You're ugly, you're fat, you're heavy; in short, I don't like you.” And he added, aloud, “You are wrong not to answer me, Monsieur le Comte. I was speaking in your own interest: just as we were stepping in, I saw a motor come into sight, behind us, on the horizon. Did you see it?”

“No, why?”

“Nothing.”

“Still....”

“No nothing at all... a mere remark.... Besides, we are ten minutes ahead... and our car is at least a forty-horse-power.”

“It's a sixty,” said the German, looking at him uneasily from the corner of his eye. “Oh, then we're all right!”

“They were climbing a little slope. When they reached the top, the count leant out of the window:

“Damn it all!” he swore. “What's the matter?” asked Lupin.

The count turned to him and, in a threatening voice:

“Take care! If anything happens, it will be so much the worse for you.”

“Oho! It seems the other's gaining on us!... But what are you afraid of, my dear count? It's no doubt a traveller... perhaps even some one they are sending to help us.”

“I don't want any help,” growled the German.

He leant out again. The car was only two or three hundred yards behind.

He said to his men, pointing to Lupin.

“Bind him. If he resists...- .”

He drew his revolver.

“Why should I resist, O gentle Teuton?' chuckled Lupin. And he added, while they were fastening his hands, “It is really curious to see how people take precautions when they need not and don't when they ought to. What the devil do you care about that motor? Accomplices of mine? What an idea!”

Without replying, the German gave orders to the driver:

“To the right!... Slow down!... Let them pass.... If they slow down also, stop!”

But, to his great surprise, the motor seemed, on the contrary, to increase its speed. It passed in front of the car like a whirlwind, in a cloud of dust. Standing up at the back, leaning over the hood, which was lowered, was a man dressed in black.

He raised his arm.

Two shots rang out.

The count, who was blocking the whole of the left window, fell back into the car.

Before even attending to him, the two men leapt upon Lupin and finished securing him.

“Jackasses! Blockheads!” shouted Lupin, shaking with rage. “Let me go, on the contrary! There now, we're stopping! But go after him, you silly foots, catch him up!... It's the man in black, I tell you, the murderer!... Oh, the idiots!...”

They gagged him. Then they attended to the count. The wound did not appear to be serious and was soon dressed. But the patient, who was in a very excited state, had an attack of fever and became delirious.

It was eight o'clock in the morning. They were in the open country, far from any village. The men had no information as to the exact object of the journey. Where were they to go? Whom were they to send to?

They drew up the motor beside a wood and waited. The whole day went by in this way. It was evening before a squad of cavalry arrived, dispatched from Treves in search of the motor-car.

Two hours later, Lupin stepped out of the car, and still escorted by his two Germans, by the light of a lantern climbed the steps of a staircase that led to a small room with iron-barred windows.

Here he spent the night.

* * * * *

The next morning, an officer led him, through a courtyard filled with soldiers, to the centre of a long row of buildings that ran round the foot of a mound covered with monumental ruins.

He was shown into a large, hastily-furnished room. His visitor of two days back was sitting at a writing-table, reading newspapers and reports, which he marked with great strokes of red pencil:

“Leave us,” he said to the officer.

And, going up to Lupin:

“The papers.”

The tone was no longer the same. It was now the harsh and imperious tone of the master who is at home and addressing an inferior... and such an inferior! A rogue, an adventurer of the worst type, before whom he had been obliged to humiliate himself!

“The papers,” he repeated.

Lupin was not put out of countenance. He said, quite calmly:

“They are in Veldenz Castle.”

“We are in the out-buildings of the castle. Those are the ruins of Veldenz, over there.”

“The papers are in the ruins.”

“Let us go to them. Show me the way.”

Lupin did not budge.

“Well?”

“Well, Sire, it is not as simple as you think. It takes some time to bring into play the elements which are needed to open that hiding-place.”

“How long do you want?”

“Twenty-four hours.”

An angry movement, quickly suppressed:

“Oh, there was no question of that between us!”

“Nothing was specified, neither that nor the little trip which Your Imperial Majesty made me take in the charge of half a dozen of your body-guard. I am to hand over the papers, that is all.”

“And I am not to give you your liberty until you do hand over those papers.”

“It is a question of confidence, Sire. I should have considered myself quite as much bound to produce the papers if I had been free on leaving prison; and Your Imperial Majesty may be sure that I should not have walked off with them. The only difference is that they would now be in your possession. For we have lost a day, Sire. And a day, in this business... is a day too much.... Only, there it is, you should have had confidence.”

The Emperor gazed with a certain amazement at that outcast, that vagabond, who seemed vexed that any one should doubt his word.

He did not reply, but rang the bell:

“The officer on duty,” he commanded... Count von Waldemar appeared, looking very white.

“Ah, it's you, Waldemar? So you're all right again?”

“At your service, Sire.”

“Take five men with you... the same men, as you're sure of them. Don't leave this... gentleman until tomorrow morning.” He looked at his watch. “Until tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. No, I will give him till twelve. You will go wherever he thinks fit to go, you will do whatever he tells you to do. In short, you are at his disposal. At twelve o'clock, I will join you. If, at the last stroke of twelve, he has not handed me the bundle of letters, you will put him back in your car and, without losing a second, take him straight to the Sante Prison.”

“If he tries to escape....”

“Take your own course.”

He went out.

Lupin helped himself to a cigar from the table and threw himself into an easy chair:

“Good! I just love that way of going to work. It is frank and explicit.”

The count had brought in his men. He said to Lupin:

“March!”

Lupin lit his cigar and did not move. “Bind his hands,” said the count.

And, when the order was executed, he repeated:

“Now then, march!”

“No.”

“What do you mean by no?”

“I'm wondering.”

“What about?”

“Where on earth that hiding-place can be!”

The count gave a start and Lupin chuckled:

“For the best part of the story is that I have not the remotest idea where that famous hiding-place is nor how to set about discovering it. What do you say to that, my dear Waldemar, eh? Funny, isn't it?... Not the very remotest ideal...”

CHAPTER XII. THE EMPEROR'S LETTERS

THE ruins of Veldenz are well known to all who visit the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle. They comprise the remains of the old feudal castle, built in 1377 by the Archbishop of Fistingen, an enormous dungeon-keep, gutted by Turenne's troops, and the walls, left standing in their entirety, of a large Renascence palace, in which the grand-dukes of Zweibrucken lived for three centuries.

It was this palace that was sacked by Hermann II.'s rebellious subjects. The empty windows display two hundred yawning cavities on the four frontages. All the wainscoting, the hangings and most of the furniture were burnt. You walk on the scorched girders of the floors; and the sky can be seen at intervals through the ruined ceilings.

Lupin, accompanied by his escort, went over the whole building in two hours' time:

“I am very pleased with you, my dear count. I don't think I ever came across a guide so well posted in his subject, nor — which is rare — so silent. And now, if you don't mind, we will go to lunch.”

As a matter of fact, Lupin knew no more than at the first moment and his perplexity did nothing but increase. To obtain his release from prison and to strike the imagination of his visitor, he had bluffed, pretending to know everything; and he was still seeking for the best place at which to begin to seek.

“Things look bad,” he said to himself, from time to time. “Things are looking about as bad as they can look.”

His brain, moreover, was not as clear as usual. He was obsessed by an idea, the idea of “the other one,” the murderer, the assassin, whom he knew to be still clinging to his footsteps.

How did that mysterious personality come to be on his tracks? How had he heard of Lupin's leaving prison and of his rush to Luxemburg and Germany? Was it a miraculous intuition? Or was it the outcome of definite information? But, if so, at what price, by means of what promises or threats was he able to obtain it?

All these questions haunted Lupin's mind.

At about four o'clock, however, after a fresh walk through the ruins, in the course of which he had examined the stones, measured the thickness of the walls, investigated the shape and appearance of things, all to no purpose, he asked the count:

“Is there no one left who was in the service of the last grand-duke who lived in the castle?”

“All the servants of that time went different ways. Only one of them continued to live in the district.”

“Well?”

“He died two years ago.”

“Any children?”

“He had a son, who married and who was dismissed, with his wife, for disgraceful conduct. They left their youngest child behind, a little girl, Isilda.”

“Where does she live?”

“She lives here, at the end of these buildings. The old grandfather used to act as a guide to visitors, in the days when the castle was still open to the public. Little Isilda has lived in the ruins ever since. She was allowed to remain out of pity. She is a poor innocent, who is hardly able to talk and does not know what she says.”

“Was she always like that?”

“It seems not. Her reason went gradually, when she was about ten years old.”

“In consequence of a sorrow, of a fright?”

“No, for no direct cause, I am told. The father was a drunkard and the mother committed suicide in a fit of madness.”

Lupin reflected and said:

“I should like to see her.”

The count gave a rather curious smile: “You can see her, by all means.”

She happened to be in one of the rooms which had been set apart for her. Lupin was surprised to find an attractive little creature, too thin, too pale, but almost pretty, with her fair hair and her delicate face. Her sea-green eyes had the vague, dreamy look of the eyes of blind people.

He put a few questions to which Isilda gave no answer and others to which she replied with incoherent sentences, as though she understood neither the meaning of the words addressed to her nor those which she herself uttered.

He persisted, taking her very gently by the hand and asking her in an affectionate tone about the time when she still had her reason, about her grandfather, about the memories which might be called up by her life as a child playing freely among the majestic ruins of the castle.

She stood silent, with staring eyes; impassive, any emotion which she might have felt was not enough to rouse her slumbering intelligence.

Lupin asked for a pencil and paper and wrote down the number 813.

The count smiled again.

“Look here, what are you laughing at?” cried Lupin, irritably.

“Nothing... nothing.... I'm very much interested, that's all....”

Isilda looked at the sheet of paper, when he showed it to her, and turned away her head, with a vacant air.

“No bite!” said the count, satirically.

Lupin wrote the letters “APOON.”

Isilda paid no more attention than before.

He did not give up the experiment, but kept on writing the same letters, each time watching the girl's face.

She did not stir, but kept her eyes fixed on the paper with an indifference which nothing seemed to disturb. Then, all at once, she seized the pencil, snatched the last sheet out of Lupin's hands and, as though acting under a sudden inspiration, wrote two “L's” in the middle of a space left open by Lupin.

He felt a thrill.

A word had been formed: “APOLLON.”

Meanwhile, Isilda clung to both pencil and paper and, with clutching fingers and a strained face, was struggling to make her hand submit to the hesitating orders of her poor little brain.

Lupin waited, feverishly.

She rapidly wrote another word, the word “DIANE.”

“Another word!... Another word!” shouted Lupin.

She twisted her fingers round the pencil, broke the lead, made a big “J” with the stump and, now utterly exhausted, dropped the pencil.

“Another word! I must have another word!” said Lupin, in a tone of command, catching her by the arm.

But he saw by her eyes, which had once more become indifferent, that that fleeting gleam of intelligence could not shine out again.

“Let us go,” he said.

He was walking away, when she ran after him and stood in his path. He stopped:

“What it is?”

She held out the palm of her hand.

“What? Money?.... Is she in the habit of begging?” he asked the count.

“No,” said Waldemar, “and I can't understand.” Isilda took two gold coins from her pocket and chinked them together, gleefully.

Lupin looked at them. They were French coins, quite new, bearing the date of that year.

“Where did you get these?” asked Lupin, excitedly. “French money!... Who gave it you?... And when?... Was it today? Speak!... Answer!...” He shrugged his shoulders. “Fool that I am! As though she could answer!... My dear count, would you mind lending me forty marks?... Thanks... Here, Isilda, that's for you.”

She took the two coins, jingled them with the others in the palm of her hand and then, putting out her arm, pointed to the ruins of the Renascence palace, with a gesture that seemed to call attention more particularly to the left wing and to the top of that wing.

Was it a mechanical movement? Or must it be looked upon as a grateful acknowledgment for the two gold coins?

He glanced at the count. Waldemar was smiling again.

“What makes the brute keep on grinning like that?” said Lupin to himself. “Any one would think that he was having a game with me.”

He went to the palace on the off-chance, attended by his escort.

The ground-floor consisted of a number of large reception-rooms, running one into the other and containing the few pieces of furniture that had escaped the fire.

On the first floor, on the north side, was a long gallery, out of which twelve handsome rooms opened all exactly alike.

There was a similar gallery on the second floor, but with twenty-four smaller rooms, also resembling one another. All these apartments were empty, dilapidated, wretched to look at.

Above, there was nothing. The attics had been burnt down.

For an hour, Lupin walked, ran, rushed about indefatigably, with his eyes on the look-out.

When it began to grow dusk, he hurried to one of his twelve rooms on the first floor, as if he were selecting it for special reasons known to himself alone. He was rather surprised to find the Emperor there, smoking and seated in an arm-chair which he had sent for.

Taking no notice of his presence, Lupin began an inspection of the room, according to the methods which he was accustomed to employ in such cases, dividing the room into sections, each of which he examined in turn.

After twenty minutes of this work, he said:

“I must beg you, Sire, to be good enough to move.

There is a fireplace here....” The Emperor tossed his head: “Is it really necessary for me to move?”

“Yes, Sire, this fireplace...”

“The fireplace is just the same as the others and the room is no different from its fellows.” Lupin looked at the Emperor without understanding.

The Emperor rose and said, with a laugh:

“I think, M. Lupin, that you have been making just a little fun of me.”

“How do you mean, Sire?”

“Oh, it's hardly worth mentioning! You obtained your release on the condition of handing me certain papers in which I am interested and you have not the smallest notion as to where they are. I have been thoroughly — what do you call it, in French? — roule — 'done'!”

“Do you think so, Sire?”

“Why, what a man knows he doesn't have to hunt for! And you have been hunting for ten good hours! Doesn't it strike you as a case for an immediate return to prison?”

Lupin seemed thunderstruck: “Did not Your Imperial Majesty fix twelve o'clock tomorrow as the last limit?”

“Why wait?”

“Why? Well, to allow me to complete my work!”

“Your work? But it's not even begun, M. Lupin.”

“There Your Imperial Majesty is mistaken.”

“Prove it... and I will wait until tomorrow.”

Lupin reflected and, speaking in a serious tone: “Since Your Imperial Majesty requires proofs in order to have confidence in me, I will furnish them. The twelve rooms leading out of this gallery each bear a different name, which is inscribed in French — obviously by a French decorative artist — over the various doors. One of the inscriptions, less damaged by the fire than the others, caught my eye as I was passing along the gallery. I examined the other doors: all of them bore hardly legible traces of names carved over the pediments. Thus I found a 'D' and an 'E' the first and last letters of 'Diane.' I found an 'A' and 'LON' which pointed to 'Apollon.' These are the French equivalents of Diana and Apollo, both of them mythological deities. The other inscriptions presented similar characteristics. I discovered traces of such names as Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and so on. This part of the problem was solved: each of the twelve rooms bears the name of an Olympian god or goddess; and the letters APOON, completed by Isilda, point to the Apollo Room or Salle d'Apollon. So it is here, in the room in which we now are, that the letters are hidden. A few minutes, perhaps, will suffice in which to discover them.”

“A few minutes or a few years... or even longer!” said the Emperor, laughing.

He seemed greatly amused; and the count also displayed a coarse merriment.

Lupin asked:

“Would Your Imperial Majesty be good enough to explain