"But your continual absences?..."

"Surely my occupation demands them?"

M. Dudouis had no reply to make. He turned to his subordinate:

"You have made your inquiries with a deplorable want of thoroughness, Ganimard, and your behaviour toward madame just now was uncouth. You shall give me an explanation in my office."

The interview was over and the chief of the detective service was about to take his leave, when a really disconcerting thing happened. Mme. Real went up to the inspector and said:

"Do I understand your name to be M. Ganimard?... Did I catch the name right?"

"Yes."

"In that case, this letter must be for you. I received it this morning, addressed as you see: 'M. Justin Ganimard, care of Mme. Real.' I thought it was a joke, as I did not know you under that name, but I have no doubt the writer, whoever he is, knew of your appointment."

By a singular intuition, Justin Ganimard was very nearly seizing the letter and destroying it. He dared not do so, however, before his superior and he tore open the envelope. The letter contained the following words, which he uttered in a hardly intelligible voice:

"There was once a Blonde Lady, a Lupin and a Ganimard. Now the naughty Ganimard wanted to harm the pretty Blonde Lady and the good Lupin did not wish it. So the good Lupin, who was anxious for the Blonde Lady to become friends with the Comtesse de Crozon, made her take the name of Mme. de Real, which is the same—or nearly—as that of an honest tradeswoman whose hair is golden and her features pale. And the good Lupin said to himself, 'If ever the naughty Ganimard is on the track of the Blonde Lady, how useful it will be for me to shunt him on to the track of the honest tradeswoman!' A wise precaution, which has borne fruit. A little note sent to the naughty Ganimard's newspaper, a bottle of scent forgotten on purpose at the Hotel Beaurivage by the real Blonde Lady, Mme. Real's name and address written by the real Blonde Lady in the visitors' book at the hotel, and the trick is done. What do you say to it, Ganimard? I wanted to tell you the story in detail, knowing that, with your sense of humour, you would be the first to laugh at it. It is, indeed, a pretty story and I confess that, for my part, it has diverted me vastly.

"My best thanks to you, then, my dear friend, and kind regards to that capital M. Dudouis.

"ARSENE LUPIN."

"But he knows everything!" moaned Ganimard, who did not think of laughing. "He knows things that I have not told to a soul! How could he know that I would ask you to come, chief? How could he know that I had discovered the first scent-bottle?... How could he know?..."

He stamped about, tore his hair, a prey to the most tragic distress.

M. Dudouis took pity on him:

"Come, Ganimard, console yourself. We must try to do better next time."

And the chief detective went away, accompanied by Mme. Real.

* * * * *

Ten minutes elapsed, while Ganimard read Lupin's letter over and over again and M. and Mme. de Crozon, M. d'Hautrec and M. Gerbois sustained an animated conversation in a corner. At last, the count crossed over to the inspector and said:

"The upshot of all this, my dear sir, is that we are no further than we were."

"Pardon me. My inquiry has established the fact that the blonde lady is the undoubted heroine of these adventures and that Lupin is directing her. That is a huge step forward."

"And not the smallest use to us. If anything, it makes the mystery darker still. The blonde lady commits murder to steal the blue diamond and does not steal it. She steals it and does so to get rid of it for another's benefit."

"What can I do?"

"Nothing, but some one else might...."

"What do you mean?"

The count hesitated, but the countess said, point blank:

"There is one man, one man only, in my opinion, besides yourself, who would be capable of fighting Lupin and reducing him to cry for mercy. M. Ganimard, would you very much mind if we called in the assistance of Holmlock Shears?"

He was taken aback:

"No ... no ... only ... I don't exactly understand...."

"Well, it's like this: all this mystery is making me quite ill. I want to know where I am. M. Gerbois and M. d'Hautrec have the same wish and we have come to an agreement to apply to the famous English detective."

"You are right, madame," said the inspector, with a loyalty that did him credit; "you are right. Old Ganimard is not clever enough to fight against Arsene Lupin. The question is, will Holmlock Shears be more successful? I hope so, for I have the greatest admiration for him.... Still ... it's hardly likely...."

"It's hardly likely that he will succeed?"

"That's what I think. I consider that a duel between Holmlock Shears and Arsene Lupin can only end in one way. The Englishman will be beaten."

"In any case, can he rely on you?"

"Certainly, madame. I will assist him to the very best of my power."

"Do you know his address?"

"Yes; 219, Parker Street."

* * * * *

That evening, the Comte and Comtesse de Crozon withdrew the charge against Herr Bleichen and a collective letter was addressed to Holmlock Shears.



CHAPTER III

HOLMLOCK SHEARS OPENS HOSTILITIES

"What can I get you, gentlemen?"

"Anything you please," replied Arsene Lupin, in the voice of a man who takes no interest in his food. "Anything you please, but no meat or wine."

The waiter walked away, with a scornful air.

I exclaimed:

"Do you mean to say that you are still a vegetarian?"

"Yes, more than ever," said Lupin.

"From taste? Conviction? Habit?"

"For reasons of health."

"And do you never break your rule?"

"Oh, yes ... when I go out to dinner, so as not to appear eccentric."

We were dining near the Gare du Nord, inside a little restaurant where Arsene Lupin had invited me to join him. He is rather fond of telegraphing to me, occasionally, in the morning and arranging a meeting of this kind in some corner or other of Paris. He always arrives in the highest spirits, rejoicing in life, unaffectedly and good-humouredly, and always has some surprising anecdote to tell me, some memory, the story of some adventure that I have not heard before.

That evening, he seemed to me to let himself go even more than usual. He laughed and chatted with a singular animation and with that delicate irony which is all his own, an irony devoid of bitterness, light and spontaneous. It was a pleasure to see him like that, and I could not help expressing my satisfaction.

"Oh, yes," he cried, "I have days when everything seems delightful, when life bubbles in me like an infinite treasure which I can never exhaust. And yet goodness knows that I live without counting!"

"Too much so, perhaps."

"The treasure is infinite, I tell you! I can spend myself and squander myself, I can fling my strength and my youth to the four winds of heaven and I am only making room for greater and more youthful strength.... And then, really, my life is so beautiful!... I need only have the wish—isn't it so?—to become, from one day to the next, anything: an orator, a great manufacturer, a politician.... Well, I swear to you, the idea would never enter my head! Arsene Lupin I am, Arsene Lupin I remain. And I search history in vain for a destiny to compare with mine, fuller, more intense.... Napoleon? Yes, perhaps.... But then it is Napoleon at the end of his imperial career, during the campaign in France, when Europe was crushing him and when he was wondering whether each battle was not the last which he would fight."

Was he serious? Was he jesting? The tone of his voice had grown more eager and he continued:

"Everything's there, you see: danger! The uninterrupted impression of danger! Oh, to breathe it like the air one breathes, to feel it around one, blowing, roaring, lying in wait, approaching!... And, in the midst of the storm, to remain calm ... not to flinch!... If you do, you are lost.... There is only one sensation to equal it, that of the chauffeur driving his car. But that drive lasts for a morning, whereas mine lasts all through life!"

"How lyrical we are!" I cried. "And you would have me believe that you have no special reason for excitement!"

He smiled.

"You're a shrewd enough psychologist," he replied. "There is something more, as you say."

He poured out a tumbler of water, drank it down and asked:

"Have you seen the Temps to-day?"

"No."

"Holmlock Shears was to have crossed the Channel this afternoon; he arrived in Paris at six."

"The devil he did! And why?"

"He's taking a little trip at the expense of the Crozons, Hautrec's nephew and the Gerbois fellow. They all met at the Gare du Nord and went on to see Ganimard. The six of them are in conference at this moment."

Notwithstanding the immense curiosity with which he inspires me, I never venture to question Arsene Lupin as to the acts of his private life until he has spoken of them to me himself. It is a matter of discretion on my part, with which I never compound. Besides, at that time, his name had not yet been mentioned, at least not publicly, in connection with the blue diamond. I waited patiently, therefore. He continued:

"The Temps also prints an interview with that excellent Ganimard, according to which a certain blonde lady, said to be my friend, is supposed to have murdered Baron d'Hautrec and tried to steal his famous ring from Madame de Crozon. And it goes without saying that he accuses me of being the instigator of both these crimes."

A slight shiver passed through me. Could it be true? Was I to believe that the habit of theft, his mode of life, the sheer logic of events had driven this man to murder? I looked at him. He seemed so calm! His eyes met mine so frankly!

I examined his hands: they were modelled with infinite daintiness, were really inoffensive hands, the hands of an artist.

"Ganimard is a lunatic," I muttered.

He protested:

"Not a bit of it, not a bit of it! Ganimard is shrewd enough ... sometimes he's even quick-witted."

"Quick-witted!"

"Yes, yes. For instance, this interview is a masterstroke. First, he announces the coming of his English rival, so as to put me on my guard and make Shears's task more difficult. Secondly, he specifies the exact point to which he has carried the case, so that Shears may enjoy only the benefit of his own discoveries. That's fair fighting."

"Still you have two adversaries to deal with now; and such adversaries!"

"Oh, one of them doesn't count."

"And the other?"

"Shears? Oh, I admit that he's more of a match for me; but that's just what I love and why you see me in such good spirits. To begin with, there's the question of my vanity: they consider that I'm worth asking the famous Englishman to meet. Next, think of the pleasure which a fighter like myself must take in the prospect of a duel with Holmlock Shears. Well, I shall have to exert myself to the utmost. For I know the fellow: he won't retreat a step."

"He's a clever man."

"A very clever man. As a detective, I doubt if his equal exists, or has ever existed. Only, I have one advantage over him, which is that he's attacking, while I'm on the defensive. Mine is the easier game to play. Besides ..." He gave an imperceptible smile before completing his phrase. "Besides, I know his way of fighting, and he does not know mine. And I have a few sly thrusts in store for him which will give him something to think about...."

He tapped the table lightly with his fingers and flung out little sentences with a delighted air:

"Arsene Lupin versus Holmlock Shears! France versus England.... Revenge for Trafalgar at last!... Ah, the poor wretch ... he little thinks that I am prepared ... and a Lupin armed...."

He stopped suddenly, seized with a fit of coughing, and hid his face in his napkin, as though something had gone down the wrong way.

"What is it?" I asked. "A crumb?... Why don't you take some water?"

"No, it's not that," he gasped.

"What, then?"

"I want air."

"Shall I open the window?"

"No, I shall go out.... Quick, give me my hat and coat.... I'm off!"

"But what does it all mean?"

"You see the taller of those two men who have just come in? Well, I want you to keep on my left as we go out, to prevent his seeing me."

"The one sitting behind you?..."

"Yes.... For personal reasons, I prefer.... I'll tell you why outside...."

"But who is it?"

"Holmlock Shears."

He made a violent effort to overcome his agitation, as though he felt ashamed of it, put down his napkin, drank a glass of water and then, quite recovered, said, with a smile:

"It's funny, isn't it? I'm not easily excited but this unexpected meeting...."

"What are you afraid of, seeing that no one can recognize you under all your transformations? I myself, each time I see you, feel as if I were with a new person."

"He will recognize me," said Arsene Lupin. "He saw me only once,[1] but I felt that he saw me for life and that what he saw was not my appearance, which I can always alter, but the very being that I am.... And then ... and then ... I wasn't prepared.... What a curious meeting!... In this little restaurant!..."

"Well," said I, "shall we go?"

"No ... no...."

"What do you propose to do?"

"The best thing will be to act frankly ... to trust him."

"You can't be serious?"

"Oh, but I am.... Besides, it would be a good thing to question him, to know what he knows.... Ah, there, I feel that his eyes are fixed on my neck, on my shoulders.... He's trying to think ... to remember...."

He reflected. I noticed a mischievous smile on his lips; and then, obeying, I believe, some whim of his frivolous nature rather than the needs of the position itself, he rose abruptly, spun round on his heels and, with a bow, said, gaily:

"What a stroke of luck! Who would have thought it?... Allow me to introduce my friend."

For a second or two, the Englishman was taken aback. Then he made an instinctive movement, as though he were ready to fling himself upon Arsene Lupin. Lupin shook his head:

"That would be a mistake ... to say nothing of the bad taste of it ... and the uselessness!"

The Englishman turned his head from side to side, as though looking for assistance.

"That's no better.... And also, are you quite sure that you are entitled to lay hands upon me? Come, be a sportsman!"

The display of sportsmanlike qualities was not particularly tempting on this occasion. Nevertheless, it probably appeared to Shears to be the wisest course; for he half rose and coldly introduced his companion:

"Mr. Wilson, my friend and assistant ... M. Arsene Lupin."

Wilson's stupefaction made us all laugh. His eyes and mouth, both wide open, drew two streaks across his expansive face, with its skin gleaming and tight-stretched like an apple's, while his bristly hair stood up like so many thick-set, hardy blades of grass.

"Wilson, you don't seem able to conceal your bewilderment at one of the most natural incidents in the world," grinned Holmlock Shears, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

Wilson stammered:

"Why ... why don't you arrest him?"

"Don't you see, Wilson, that the gentleman is standing between the door and myself and at two steps from the door. Before I moved a finger, he would be outside."

"Don't let that stand in your way," said Lupin.

He walked round the table and sat down so that the Englishman was between him and the door, thus placing himself at his mercy. Wilson looked at Shears to see if he might admire this piece of pluck. Shears remained impenetrable. But, after a moment, he called.

"Waiter!"

The waiter came up.

"Four whiskeys and sodas."

Peace was signed ... until further orders. Soon after, seated all four round one table, we were quietly chatting.

* * * * *

Footnote

[1] See The Seven of Hearts, by Maurice Leblanc. Chapter IX: Holmlock Shears Arrives Too Late.

* * * * *

Holmlock Shears is a man ... of the sort one meets every day. He is about fifty years of age and looks like a decent City clerk who has spent his life keeping books at a desk. He has nothing to distinguish him from the ordinary respectable Londoner, with his clean-shaven face and his somewhat heavy appearance, nothing except his terribly keen, bright, penetrating eyes.

And then, of course, he is Holmlock Shears, that is to say, a sort of miracle of intuition, of insight, of perspicacity, of shrewdness. It is as though nature had amused herself by taking the two most extraordinary types of detective that fiction had invented, Poe's Dupin and Gaboriau's Lecoq, in order to build up one in her own fashion, more extraordinary yet and more unreal. And, upon my word, any one hearing of the adventures which have made the name of Holmlock Shears famous all over the world must feel inclined to ask if he is not a legendary person, a hero who has stepped straight from the brain of some great novel-writer, of a Conan Doyle, for instance.

He at once, when Arsene Lupin asked him how long he meant to stay, led the conversation into its right channel and replied:

"That depends upon yourself, M. Lupin."

"Oh," exclaimed the other, laughing, "if it depended on me, I should ask you to take to-night's boat back."

"To-night is rather early. But I hope in a week or ten days...."

"Are you in such a hurry?"

"I am very busy. There's the robbery at the Anglo-Chinese Bank; and Lady Eccleston has been kidnapped, as you know.... Tell me, M. Lupin, do you think a week will do?"

"Amply, if you confine yourself to the two cases connected with the blue diamond. It will just give me time to take my precautions, supposing the solution of those two mysteries to give you certain advantages over me that might endanger my safety."

"Yes," said the Englishman, "I expect to have gained those advantages in a week or ten days."

"And to have me arrested on the eleventh?"

"On the tenth, at the very latest."

Lupin reflected and, shaking his head:

"It will be difficult ... it will be difficult...."

"Difficult, yes, but possible and, therefore, certain...."

"Absolutely certain," said Wilson, as though he himself had clearly perceived the long series of operations which would lead his friend to the result announced.

Holmlock Shears smiled:

"Wilson, who knows what he is talking about, is there to confirm what I say." And he went on, "Of course, I have not all the cards in my hands, because the case is already a good many months old. I have not the factors, the clues upon which I am accustomed to base my inquiries."

"Such as mud-stains and cigarette-ashes," said Wilson, with an air of importance.

"But, in addition to the remarkable conclusions arrived at by M. Ganimard, I have at my service all the articles written on the subject, all the evidence collected and, consequently, a few ideas of my own regarding the mystery."

"A few views suggested to us either by analysis or hypothesis," added Wilson, sententiously.

"Would it be indiscreet," said Arsene Lupin, in the deferential tone which he adopted toward Shears, "would it be indiscreet to ask what general opinion you have been able to form?"

It was really most stimulating to see those two men seated together, with their elbows on the table, arguing solemnly and dispassionately, as though they were trying to solve a steep problem or to come to an agreement on some controversial point. And this was coupled with a very delicate irony, which both of them, as experts and artists, thoroughly enjoyed. As for Wilson, he was in the seventh heaven.

Shears slowly filled his pipe, lit it and said:

"I consider that this case is infinitely less complicated than it appears at first sight."

"Very much less," echoed Wilson, faithfully.

"I say the case, for, in my opinion, there is but one case. The death of Baron d'Hautrec, the story of the ring and—don't let us forget that—the mystery of number 514, series 23, are only the different aspects of what we may call the puzzle of the blonde lady. Now, in my opinion, what lies before me is simply to discover the link which connects these three phases of the same story, the particular fact which proves the uniformity of the three methods. Ganimard, who is a little superficial in his judgments, sees this uniformity in the faculty of disappearing, in the power of coming and going unseen. This intervention of miracles does not satisfy me."

"Well?"

"Well, according to me," said Shears, decidedly, "the characteristic shared by the three incidents lies in your manifest and evident, although hitherto unperceived intention to have the affair performed on a stage which you have previously selected. This points to something more than a plan on your part: a necessity rather, a sine qua non of success."

"Could you give a few particulars?"

"Easily. For instance, from the commencement of your contest with M. Gerbois, it was evident that Maitre Detinan's flat was the place selected by you, the inevitable place at which you were all to meet. No place seemed quite as safe to you, so much so that you made what one might almost call a public appointment there with the blonde lady and Mlle. Gerbois."

"The daughter of the professor," explained Wilson.

"Let us now speak of the blue diamond. Did you try to get hold of it during all the years that Baron d'Hautrec had it in his possession? No. But the baron moves into his brother's house: six months later, Antoinette Brehat appears upon the scene and the first attempt is made.... You fail to secure the diamond and the sale takes place, amid great excitement, at the Hotel Drouot. Is the sale free? Is the richest bidder sure of getting the diamond? Not at all. At the moment when Herschmann is about to become the owner, a lady has a threatening letter thrust into his hand and the diamond goes to the Comtesse de Crozon, who has been worked upon and influenced by the same lady. Does it vanish at once? No: you lack the facilities. So an interval ensues. But the countess moves to her country-house. This is what you were waiting for. The ring disappears."

"To reappear in the tooth-powder of Bleichen, the consul," objected Lupin. "How odd!"

"Come, come!" said Shears, striking the table with his fist. "Tell that to the marines. You can take in fools with that, but not an old fox like me."

"What do you mean?"

Shears took his time, as though he wished to save up his effect. Then he said:

"The blue diamond found in the tooth-powder is an imitation diamond. The real one you kept."

Arsene Lupin was silent for a moment and then, with his eyes fixed on the Englishman, said very simply:

"You're a great man, sir."

"Isn't he?" said Wilson, emphatically and gaping with admiration.

"Yes," said Lupin, "everything becomes cleared up and appears in its true sense. Not one of the examining magistrates, not one of the special reporters who have been exciting themselves about these cases has come half as near the truth. I look upon you as a marvel of insight and logic."

"Pooh!" said the Englishman, flattered at the compliment paid him by so great an expert. "It only needed a little thought."

"It needed to know how to use one's thought; and there are so few who do know. But, now that the field of surmise has been narrowed and the ground swept clear...."

"Well, now, all that I have to do is to discover why the three cases were enacted at 25, Rue Clapeyron, at 134, Avenue Henri-Martin and within the walls of the Chateau de Crozon. The whole case lies there. The rest is mere talk and child's play. Don't you agree?"

"I agree."

"In that case, M. Lupin, am I not right in saying that I shall have finished my business in ten days?"

"In ten days, yes, the whole truth will be known."

"And you will be arrested."

"No."

"No?"

"For me to be arrested there would have to be a conjunction of such unlikely circumstances, a series of such stupefying pieces of ill-luck, that I cannot admit the possibility."

"What neither circumstances nor luck may be able to effect, M. Lupin, can be brought about by one man's will and persistence."

"If the will and persistence of another man do not oppose an invincible obstacle to that plan, Mr. Shears."

"There is no such thing as an invincible obstacle, M. Lupin."

The two exchanged a penetrating glance, free from provocation on either side, but calm and fearless. It was the clash of two swords about to open the combat. It sounded clear and frank.

"Joy!" cried Lupin. "Here's a man at last! An adversary is a rara avis at any time; and this one is Holmlock Shears! We shall have some sport."

"You're not afraid?" asked Wilson.

"Very nearly, Mr. Wilson," said Lupin, rising, "and the proof is that I am going to hurry to make good my retreat ... else I might risk being caught napping. Ten days, we said, Mr. Shears?"

"Ten days. This is Sunday. It will all be over by Wednesday week."

"And I shall be under lock and key?"

"Without the slightest doubt."

"By Jove! And I was congratulating myself on my quiet life! No bothers, a good, steady little business, the police sent to the right about and a comforting sense of the general sympathy that surrounds me.... We shall have to change all this! It is the reverse of the medal.... After sunshine comes rain.... This is no time for laughing! Good-bye."

"Look sharp!" said Wilson, full of solicitude on behalf of a person whom Shears inspired with such obvious respect. "Don't lose a minute."

"Not a minute, Mr. Wilson, except to tell you how pleased I have been to meet you and how I envy the leader who has an assistant so valuable as yourself."

Courteous bows were exchanged, as between two adversaries on the fencing-ground who bear each other no hatred, but who are constrained by fate to fight to the death. And Lupin took my arm and dragged me outside:

"What do you say to that, old fellow? There's a dinner that will be worth describing in your memoirs of me!"

He closed the door of the restaurant and, stopping a little way off:

"Do you smoke?"

"No, but no more do you, surely."

"No more do I."

He lit a cigarette with a wax match which he waved several times to put it out. But he at once flung away the cigarette, ran across the road and joined two men who had emerged from the shadow, as though summoned by a signal. He talked to them for a few minutes on the opposite pavement and then returned to me:

"I beg your pardon; but I shall have my work cut out with that confounded Shears. I swear, however, that he has not done with Lupin yet.... By Jupiter, I'll show the fellow the stuff I'm made of!... Good night.... The unspeakable Wilson is right: I have not a minute to lose."

He walked rapidly away.

Thus ended that strange evening, or, at least that part of it with which I had to do. For many other incidents occurred during the hours that followed, events which the confidences of the others who were present at that dinner have fortunately enabled me to reconstruct in detail.

* * * * *

At the very moment when Lupin left me, Holmlock Shears took out his watch and rose in his turn:

"Twenty to nine. At nine o'clock, I am to meet the count and countess at the railway station."

"Let's go!" cried Wilson, tossing off two glasses of whiskey in succession.

They went out.

"Wilson, don't turn your head.... We may be followed: if so, let us act as though we don't care whether we are or not.... Tell me, Wilson, what's your opinion: why was Lupin in that restaurant?"

Wilson, without hesitation, replied:

"To get some dinner."

"Wilson, the longer we work together, the more clearly I perceive the constant progress you are making. Upon my word, you're becoming amazing."

Wilson blushed with satisfaction in the dark; and Shears resumed:

"Yes, he went to get some dinner and then, most likely, to make sure if I am really going to Crozon, as Ganimard says I am, in his interview. I shall leave, therefore, so as not to disappoint him. But, as it is a question of gaining time upon him, I shall not leave."

"Ah!" said Wilson, nonplussed.

"I want you, old chap, to go down this street. Take a cab, take two cabs, three cabs. Come back later to fetch the bags which we left in the cloak room and then drive as fast as you can to the Elysee-Palace."

"And what am I to do at the Elysee-Palace?"

"Ask for a room, go to bed, sleep the sleep of the just and await my instructions."

* * * * *

Wilson, proud of the important task allotted to him, went off. Holmlock Shears took his ticket at the railway station and entered the Amiens express, in which the Comte and Comtesse de Crozon had already taken their seats.

He merely bowed to them, lit a second pipe and smoked it placidly, standing, in the corridor.

The train started. Ten minutes later, he came and sat down beside the countess and asked:

"Have you the ring on you, madame?"

"Yes."

"Please let me look at it."

He took it and examined it:

"As I thought: it is a faked diamond."

"Faked?"

"Yes, by a new process which consists in subjecting diamond-dust to enormous heat until it melts ... whereupon it is simply reformed into a single diamond."

"Why, but my diamond is real!"

"Yes, yours; but this is not yours."

"Where is mine, then?"

"In the hands of Arsene Lupin."

"And this one?"

"This one was put in its place and slipped into Herr Bleichen's tooth-powder flask, where you found it."

"Then it's an imitation?"

"Absolutely."

Nonplussed and overwhelmed, the countess said nothing more, while her husband, refusing to believe the statement, turned the jewel over and over in his fingers. She finished by stammering out:

"But it's impossible! Why didn't they just simply take it? And how did they get it?"

"That's just what I mean to try to discover."

"At Crozon?"

"No, I shall get out at Creil and return to Paris. That's where the game between Arsene Lupin and myself must be played out. The tricks will count the same, wherever we make them; but it is better that Lupin should think that I am out of town."

"Still ..."

"What difference can it make to you, madame? The main object is your diamond, is it not?"

"Yes."

"Well, set your mind at rest. Only a little while ago, I gave an undertaking which will be much more difficult to keep. On the word of Holmlock Shears, you shall have the real diamond back."

The train slowed down. He put the imitation diamond in his pocket and opened the carriage-door. The count cried:

"Take care; that's the wrong side!"

"Lupin will lose my tracks this way, if he's having me shadowed. Good-bye."

A porter protested. The Englishman made for the station-master's office. Fifty minutes later, he jumped into a train which brought him back to Paris a little before midnight.

He ran across the station into the refreshment room, went out by the other door and sprang into a cab:

"Drive to the Rue Clapeyron."

After making sure that he was not being followed, he stopped the cab at the commencement of the street and began to make a careful examination of the house in which Maitre Detinan lived and of the two adjoining houses. He paced off certain distances and noted the measurements in his memorandum book:

"Now drive to the Avenue Henri-Martin."

He dismissed his cab at the corner of the avenue and the Rue de la Pompe, walked along the pavement to No. 134 and went through the same performance in front of the house which Baron d'Hautrec had occupied and the two houses by which it was hemmed in on either side, measuring the width of their respective frontages and calculating the depth of the little gardens in front of the houses.

The avenue was deserted and very dark under its four rows of trees, amid which an occasional gas-jet seemed to struggle vainly against the thickness of the gloom. One of these lamps threw a pale light upon a part of the house and Shears saw the notice "To Let" hanging on the railings, saw the two neglected walks that encircled the miniature lawn and the great empty windows of the uninhabited house.

"That's true," he thought. "There has been no tenant since the baron's death.... Ah, if I could just get in and make a preliminary visit!"

The idea no sooner passed through his mind than he wanted to put it into execution. But how to manage? The height of the gate made it impossible for him to climb it. He took an electric lantern from his pocket, as well as a skeleton key which he always carried. To his great surprise, he found that one of the doors of the gate was standing ajar. He, therefore, slipped into the garden, taking care not to close the gate behind him. He had not gone three steps, when he stopped. A glimmer of light had passed along one of the windows on the second floor.

And the glimmer passed along a second window and a third, while he was able to see nothing but a shadow outlined against the walls of the rooms. And the glimmer descended from the second floor to the first and, for a long time, wandered from room to room.

"Who on earth can be walking about, at one in the morning, in the house where Baron d'Hautrec was murdered?" thought Shears, feeling immensely interested.

There was only one way of finding out, which was to enter the house himself. He did not hesitate. But the man must have seen him as he crossed the belt of light cast by the gas-jet and made his way to the steps, for the glimmer suddenly went out and Shears did not see it again.

He softly tried the door at the top of the steps. It was open also. Hearing no sound, he ventured to penetrate the darkness, felt for the knob of the baluster, found it and went up one floor. The same silence, the same darkness continued to reign.

On reaching the landing, he entered one of the rooms and went to the window, which showed white in the dim light of the night outside. Through the window, he caught sight of the man, who had doubtless gone down by another staircase and out by another door and was now slipping along the shrubs, on the left, that lined the wall separating the two gardens:

"Dash it!" exclaimed Shears. "He'll escape me!"

He rushed downstairs and leapt into the garden, with a view to cutting off the man's retreat. At first, he saw no one; and it was some seconds before he distinguished, among the confused heap of shrubs, a darker form which was not quite stationary.

The Englishman paused to reflect. Why had the fellow not tried to run away when he could easily have done so? Was he staying there to spy, in his turn, upon the intruder who had disturbed him in his mysterious errand?

"In any case," thought Shears, "it is not Lupin. Lupin would be cleverer. It must be one of his gang."

Long minutes passed. Shears stood motionless, with his eyes fixed upon the adversary who was watching him. But, as the adversary was motionless too and as the Englishman was not the man to hang about doing nothing, he felt to see if the cylinder of his revolver worked, loosened his dagger in its sheath and walked straight up to the enemy, with the cool daring and the contempt of danger which make him so formidable.

A sharp sound: the man was cocking his revolver. Shears rushed into the shrubbery. The other had no time to turn: the Englishman was upon him. There was a violent and desperate struggle, amid which Shears was aware that the man was making every effort to draw his knife. But Shears, stimulated by the thought of his coming victory and by the fierce longing to lay hold at once of this accomplice of Arsene Lupin's, felt an irresistible strength welling up within himself. He threw his adversary, bore upon him with all his weight and, holding him down with his five fingers clutching at his throat like so many claws, he felt for his electric lantern with the hand that was free, pressed the button and threw the light upon his prisoner's face:

"Wilson!" he shouted, in terror.

"Holmlock Shears!" gasped a hollow, stifled voice.

* * * * *

They remained long staring at each other, without exchanging a word, dumbfounded, stupefied. The air was torn by the horn of a motor-car. A breath of wind rustled through the leaves. And Shears did not stir, his fingers still fixed in Wilson's throat, which continued to emit an ever fainter rattle.

And, suddenly, Shears, overcome with rage, let go his friend, but only to seize him by the shoulders and shake him frantically:

"What are you doing here? Answer me!... What are you here for?... Who told you to hide in the shrubbery and watch me?"

"Watch you?" groaned Wilson. "But I didn't know it was you."

"Then what? Why are you here? I told you to go to bed."

"I did go to bed."

"I told you to go to sleep."

"I did."

"You had no business to wake up."

"Your letter...."

"What letter?"

"The letter from you which a commissionaire brought me at the hotel."

"A letter from me? You're mad!"

"I assure you."

"Where is the letter?"

Wilson produced a sheet of note-paper and, by the light of his lantern, Shears read, in amazement:

"Get up at once, Wilson, and go to the Avenue Henri-Martin as fast as you can. The house is empty. Go in, inspect it, make out an exact plan and go back to bed.

"HOLMLOCK SHEARS."

"I was busy measuring the rooms," said Wilson, "when I saw a shadow in the garden. I had only one idea...."

"To catch the shadow.... The idea was excellent.... Only, look here, Wilson," said Shears, helping his friend up and leading him away, "next time you get a letter from me, make sure first that it's not a forgery."

"Then the letter was not from you?" asked Wilson, who began to have a glimmering of the truth.

"No, worse luck!"

"Who wrote it, then?"

"Arsene Lupin."

"But with what object?"

"I don't know, and that's just what bothers me. Why the deuce should he take the trouble to disturb your night's rest? If it were myself, I could understand, but you.... I can't see what interest...."

"I am anxious to get back to the hotel."

"So am I, Wilson."

They reached the gate. Wilson, who was in front, took hold of one of the bars and pulled it:

"Hullo!" he said. "Did you shut it?"

"Certainly not: I left the gate ajar."

"But ..."

Shears pulled in his turn and then frantically flung himself upon the lock. An oath escaped him:

"Damn it all! It's locked!... The gate's locked!"

He shook the gate with all his might, but, soon realizing the hopelessness of his exertions, let his arms fall to his sides in discouragement and jerked out:

"I understand the whole thing now: it's his doing! He foresaw that I should get out at Creil and he laid a pretty little trap for me, in case I should come to start my inquiry to-night. In addition, he had the kindness to send you to keep me company in my captivity. All this to make me lose a day and also, no doubt, to show me that I would do much better to mind my own business...."

"That is to say that we are his prisoners."

"You speak like a book. Holmlock Shears and Wilson are the prisoners of Arsene Lupin. The adventure is beginning splendidly.... But no, no, I refuse to believe...."

A hand touched his shoulder. It was Wilson's hand.

"Look," he said. "Up there ... a light...."

It was true: there was a light visible through one of the windows on the first floor.

They both raced up, each by his own staircase, and reached the door of the lighted room at the same time. A candle-end was burning in the middle of the floor. Beside it stood a basket, from which protruded the neck of a bottle, the legs of a chicken and half a loaf of bread.

Shears roared with laughter:

"Splendid! He gives us our supper. It's an enchanted palace, a regular fairy-land! Come, Wilson, throw off that dismal face. This is all very amusing."

"Are you sure it's very amusing?" moaned Wilson, dolefully.

"Sure?" cried Shears, with a gaiety that was too boisterous to be quite natural. "Of course I'm sure! I never saw anything more amusing in my life. It's first-rate farce.... What a master of chaff this Arsene Lupin is!... He tricks you, but he does it so gracefully!... I wouldn't give my seat at this banquet for all the gold in the world.... Wilson, old chap, you disappoint me. Can I have been mistaken in you? Are you really deficient in that nobility of character which makes a man bear up under misfortune? What have you to complain of? At this moment, you might be lying with my dagger in your throat ... or I with yours in mine ... for that was what you were trying for, you faithless friend!"

He succeeded, by dint of humour and sarcasm, in cheering up the wretched Wilson and forcing him to swallow a leg of the chicken and a glass of wine. But, when the candle had gone out and they had to stretch themselves on the floor to sleep, with the wall for a pillow, the painful and ridiculous side of the situation became apparent to them. And their slumbers were sad.

In the morning, Wilson woke aching in every bone and shivering with cold. A slight sound caught his ear: Holmlock Shears, on his knees, bent in two, was examining grains of dust through his lens and inspecting certain hardly perceptible chalk-marks, which formed figures which he put down in his note-book.

Escorted by Wilson, who seemed to take a particular interest in this work, he studied each room and found similar chalk-marks in two of the others. He also observed two circles on some oak panels, an arrow on a wainscoting and four figures on four steps of the staircase.

After an hour spent in this way, Wilson asked:

"The figures are correct, are they not?"

"I don't know if they're correct," replied Shears, whose good temper had been restored by these discoveries, "but, at any rate, they mean something."

"Something very obvious," said Wilson. "They represent the number of planks in the floor."

"Oh!"

"Yes. As for the two circles, they indicate that the panels sound hollow, as you can see by trying, and the arrow points to show the direction of the dinner-lift."

Holmlock Shears looked at him in admiration:

"Why, my dear chap, how do you know all this? Your perspicacity almost makes me ashamed of myself."

"Oh, it's very simple," said Wilson, bursting with delight. "I made those marks myself last night, in consequence of your instructions ... or rather Lupin's instructions, as the letter I received from you came from him."

I have little doubt that, at that moment, Wilson was in greater danger than during his struggle with Shears in the shrubbery. Shears felt a fierce longing to wring his neck. Mastering himself with an effort, he gave a grin that pretended to be a smile and said:

"Well done, well done, that's an excellent piece of work; most useful. Have your wonderful powers of analysis and observation been exercised in any other direction? I may as well make use of the results obtained."

"No; that's all I did."

"What a pity! The start was so promising! Well, as things are, there is nothing left for us to do but go."

"Go? But how?"

"The way respectable people usually go: through the gate."

"It's locked."

"We must get it opened."

"Whom by?"

"Would you mind calling those two policemen walking down the avenue?"

"But ..."

"But what?"

"It's very humiliating.... What will people say, when they learn that you, Holmlock Shears, and I, Wilson, have been locked up by Arsene Lupin?"

"It can't be helped, my dear fellow; they will laugh like anything," replied Shears, angrily, with a frowning face. "But we can't go on living here forever, can we?"

"And you don't propose to try anything?"

"Not I!"

"Still, the man who brought the basket of provisions did not cross the garden either in coming or going. There must, therefore, be another outlet. Let us look for it, instead of troubling the police."

"Ably argued. Only you forget that the whole police of Paris have been hunting for this outlet for the past six months and that I myself, while you were asleep, examined the house from top to bottom. Ah, my dear Wilson, Arsene Lupin is a sort of game we are not accustomed to hunt: he leaves nothing behind him, you see...."

* * * * *

Holmlock Shears and Wilson were let out at eleven o'clock and ... taken to the nearest police-station, where the commissary, after cross-questioning them severely, released them with the most exasperating pretences of courtesy:

"Gentlemen, I am grieved beyond measure at your mishap. You will have a poor opinion of our French hospitality. Lord, what a night you must have spent! Upon my word, Lupin might have shown you more consideration!"

They took a cab to the Elysee-Palace. Wilson went to the office and asked for the key of his room.

The clerk looked through the visitors' book and replied, in great surprise:

"But you gave up your room this morning, sir!"

"What do you mean? How did I give up my room?"

"You sent us a letter by your friend."

"What friend?"

"Why, the gentleman who brought us your letter.... Here it is, with your card enclosed."

Wilson took the letter and the enclosure. It was certainly one of his visiting-cards and the letter was in his writing:

"Good Lord!" he muttered. "Here's another nasty trick." And he added, anxiously, "What about the luggage?"

"Why, your friend took it with him."

"Oh!.... So you gave it to him?"

"Certainly, on the authority of your card."

"Just so ... just so...."

They both went out and wandered down the Champs-Elysees, slowly and silently. A fine autumn sun filled the avenue. The air was mild and light.

At the Rond-Point, Shears lit his pipe and resumed his walk. Wilson cried:

"I can't understand you, Shears; you take it so calmly! The man laughs at you, plays with you as a cat plays with a mouse ... and you don't utter a word!"

Shears stopped and said:

"I'm thinking of your visiting-card, Wilson."

"Well?"

"Well, here is a man, who, by way of preparing for a possible struggle with us, obtains specimens of your handwriting and mine and has one of your cards ready in his pocketbook. Have you thought of the amount of precaution, of perspicacity, of determination, of method, of organization that all this represents?"

"You mean to say ..."

"I mean to say, Wilson, that, to fight an enemy so formidably armed, so wonderfully equipped—and to beat him—takes ... a man like myself. And, even then, Wilson," he added, laughing, "one does not succeed at the first attempt, as you see!"

* * * * *

At six o'clock, the Echo de France published the following paragraph in its special edition:

"This morning, M. Thenard, the commissary of police of the 16th division, released Messrs. Holmlock Shears and Wilson, who had been confined, by order of Arsene Lupin, in the late Baron d'Hautrec's house, where they spent an excellent night.

"They were also relieved of their luggage and have laid an information against Arsene Lupin.

"Arsene Lupin has been satisfied with giving them a little lesson this time; but he earnestly begs them not to compel him to adopt more serious measures."

"Pooh!" said Holmlock Shears, crumpling up the paper. "Schoolboy tricks! That's the only fault I have to find with Lupin ... he's too childish, too fond of playing to the gallery.... He's a street arab at heart!"

"So you continue to take it calmly, Shears?"

"Quite calmly," replied Shears, in a voice shaking with rage. "What's the use of being angry? I am so certain of having the last word!"



CHAPTER IV

A GLIMMER IN THE DARKNESS

However impervious to outside influences a man's character may be—and Shears is one of those men upon whom ill-luck takes hardly any hold—there are yet circumstances in which the most undaunted feel the need to collect their forces before again facing the chances of a battle.

"I shall take a holiday to-day," said Shears.

"And I?"

"You, Wilson, must go and buy clothes and shirts and things to replenish our wardrobe. During that time, I shall rest."

"Yes, rest, Shears. I shall watch."

Wilson uttered those three words with all the importance of a sentry placed on outpost duty and therefore exposed to the worst dangers. He threw out his chest and stiffened his muscles. With a sharp eye, he glanced round the little hotel bedroom where they had taken up their quarters.

"That's right, Wilson: watch. I shall employ the interval in preparing a plan of campaign better suited to the adversary whom we have to deal with. You see, Wilson, we were wrong about Lupin. We must start again from the beginning."

"Even earlier, if we can. But have we time?"

"Nine days, old chap: five days more than we want."

* * * * *

The Englishman spent the whole afternoon smoking and dozing. He did not begin operations until the following morning:

"I'm ready now, Wilson. We can go ahead."

"Let's go ahead," cried Wilson, full of martial ardour. "My legs are twitching to start."

Shears had three long interviews: first, with Maitre Detinan, whose flat he inspected through and through; next, with Suzanne Gerbois, to whom he telegraphed to come and whom he questioned about the blonde lady; lastly with Soeur Auguste, who had returned to the Visitation Convent after the murder of Baron d'Hautrec.

At each visit, Wilson waited outside and, after each visit, asked:

"Satisfied?"

"Quite."

"I was sure of it. We're on the right track now. Let's go ahead."

They did a great deal of going. They called at the two mansions on either side of the house in the Avenue Henri-Martin. From there they went on to the Rue Clapeyron and, while he was examining the front of No. 25, Shears continued:

"It is quite obvious that there are secret passages between all these houses.... But what I cannot make out...."

For the first time and in his inmost heart, Wilson doubted the omnipotence of his talented chief. Why was he talking so much and doing so little?

"Why?" cried Shears, replying to Wilson's unspoken thoughts. "Because, with that confounded Lupin, one has nothing to go upon; one works at random. Instead of deriving the truth from exact facts, one has to get at it by intuition and verify it afterward to see if it fits in."

"But the secret passages...?"

"What then? Even if I knew them, if I knew the one which admitted Lupin to his lawyer's study or the one taken by the blonde lady after the murder of Baron d'Hautrec, how much further should I be? Would that give me a weapon to go for him with?"

"Let's go for him, in any case," said Wilson.

He had not finished speaking, when he jumped back with a cry. Something had fallen at their feet: a bag half-filled with sand, which might have hurt them seriously.

Shears looked up: some men were working in a cradle hooked on to the balcony of the fifth floor.

"Upon my word," he said, "we've had a lucky escape! The clumsy beggars! Another yard and we should have caught that bag on our heads. One would really think...."

He stopped, darted into the house, rushed up the staircase, rang the bell on the fifth landing, burst into the flat, to the great alarm of the footman who opened the door, and went out on the balcony. There was no one there.

"Where are the workmen who were here a moment ago?" he asked the footman.

"They have just gone."

"Which way?"

"Why, down the servants' staircase."

Shears leant over. He saw two men leaving the house, leading their bicycles. They mounted and rode away.

"Have they been working on this cradle long?"

"No, only since this morning. They were new men."

Shears joined Wilson down below.

They went home in a depressed mood; and this second day ended in silent gloom.

* * * * *

They followed a similar programme on the following day. They sat down on a bench in the Avenue Henri-Martin. Wilson, who was thoroughly bored by this interminable wait opposite the three houses, felt driven to desperation:

"What do you expect, Shears? To see Lupin come out?"

"No."

"Or the blonde lady?"

"No."

"What, then?"

"I expect some little thing to happen, some little tiny thing which I can use as a starting-point."

"And, if nothing happens?"

"In that case, something will happen inside myself: a spark that will set us going."

The only incident that broke the monotony of the morning was a rather disagreeable one. A gentleman was coming down the riding-path that separates the two roadways of the avenue, when his horse swerved, struck the bench on which they were sitting and backed against Shears's shoulder.

"Tut, tut!" snarled Shears. "A shade more and I should have had my shoulder smashed."

The rider was struggling with his horse. The Englishman drew his revolver and took aim. But Wilson seized his arm smartly:

"You're mad, Holmlock! Why ... look here ... you'll kill that gentleman!"

"Let go, Wilson ... do let go!"

A wrestle ensued, during which the horseman got his mount under control and galloped away.

"Now you can fire!" exclaimed Wilson, triumphantly, when the man was at some distance.

"But, you confounded fool, don't you understand that that was a confederate of Arsene Lupin's?"

Shears was trembling with rage. Wilson stammered, piteously:

"What do you mean? That gentleman...?"

"Was a confederate of Lupin's, like the workmen who flung that bag at our heads."

"It's not credible!"

"Credible or not, there was a means handy of obtaining a proof."

"By killing that gentleman?"

"By simply bringing down his horse. But for you, I should have got one of Lupin's pals. Do you see now what a fool you've been?"

The afternoon was passed in a very sullen fashion. Shears and Wilson did not exchange a word. At five o'clock, as they were pacing up and down the Rue Clapeyron, taking care, however, to keep away from the houses, three young workingmen came along the pavement singing, arm-in-arm, knocked up against them and tried to continue their road without separating. Shears, who was in a bad temper, pushed them back. There was a short scuffle. Shears put up his fists, struck one of the men in the chest and gave another a blow in the face, whereupon the men desisted and walked away with the third.

"Ah," cried Shears, "I feel all the better for that!... My nerves were a bit strained.... Good business!..."

But he saw Wilson leaning against the wall:

"Hullo, old chap," he said, "what's up? You look quite pale."

Old chap pointed to his arm, which was hanging lifeless by his side, and stammered:

"I don't know ... my arm's hurting me...."

"Your arm?... Badly?"

"Yes ... rather ... it's my right arm...."

He tried to lift it, but could not. Shears felt it, gently at first and then more roughly, "to see exactly," he said, "how much it hurts." It hurt exactly so much that Wilson, on being led to a neighbouring chemist's shop, experienced an immediate need to fall into a dead faint.

The chemist and his assistant did what they could. They discovered that the arm was broken and that it was a case for a surgeon, an operation and a hospital. Meanwhile, the patient was undressed and began to relieve his sufferings by roaring with pain.

"That's all right, that's all right," said Shears, who was holding Wilson's arm. "Just a little patience, old chap ... in five or six weeks, you won't know that you've been hurt.... But I'll make them pay for it, the scoundrels!... You understand.... I mean him especially ... for it's that wretched Lupin who's responsible for this.... Oh, I swear to you that if ever...."

He interrupted himself suddenly, dropped the arm, which gave Wilson such a shock of pain that the poor wretch fainted once more, and, striking his forehead, shouted:

"Wilson, I have an idea.... Could it possibly...?"

He stood motionless, with his eyes fixed before him, and muttered in short sentences:

"Yes, that's it.... It's all clear now ... the explanation staring us in the face.... Why, of course, I knew it only needed a little thought!... Ah, my dear Wilson, this will rejoice your heart!"

And, leaving old chap where he was, he rushed into the street and ran to No. 25.

One of the stones above the door, on the right, bore the inscription: "Destange, architect, 1875."

The same inscription appeared on No. 23. So far, this was quite natural. But what would he find down there, in the Avenue Henri-Martin?

He hailed a passing cab:

"Drive to 134, Avenue Henri-Martin. Go as fast as you can."

Standing up in the cab, he urged on the horse, promising the driver tip after tip:

"Faster!... Faster still!"

He was in an agony as he turned the corner of the Rue de la Pompe. Had he caught a glimpse of the truth?

On one of the stones of the house, he read the words: "Destange, architect, 1874." And he found the same inscription—"Destange, architect, 1874"—on each of the adjoining blocks of flats.

* * * * *

The reaction after this excitement was so great that he sank back into the cab for a few minutes, all trembling with delight. At last a tiny glimmer flickered in the darkness! Amid the thousand intersecting paths in the great, gloomy forest, he had found the first sign of a trail followed by the enemy!

He entered a telephone-office and asked to be put on to the Chateau de Crozon. The countess herself answered.

"Hullo!... Is that you, madame?"

"Is that Mr. Shears? How are things going?"

"Very well. But tell me, quickly.... Hullo! Are you there?..."

"Yes...."

"When was the Chateau de Crozon built?"

"It was burnt down thirty years ago and rebuilt."

"By whom? And in what year?"

"There's an inscription over the front door: 'Lucien Destange, architect, 1877.'"

"Thank you, madame. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

He went away, muttering:

"Destange.... Lucien Destange.... I seem to know the name...."

He found a public library, consulted a modern biographical dictionary and copied out the reference to "Lucien Destange, born 1840, Grand-Prix de Rome, officer of the Legion of Honour, author of several valuable works on architecture," etc.

He next went to the chemist's and, from there, to the hospital to which Wilson had been moved. Old chap was lying on his bed of pain, with his arm in splints, shivering with fever and slightly delirious.

"Victory! Victory!" cried Shears. "I have one end of the clue."

"What clue?"

"The clue that will lead me to success. I am now treading firm soil, where I shall find marks and indications...."

"Cigarette-ashes?" asked Wilson, whom the interest of the situation was reviving.

"And plenty of other things! Just think, Wilson, I have discovered the mysterious link that connects the three adventures of the blonde lady. Why were the three houses in which the three adventures took place selected by Arsene Lupin?"

"Yes, why?"

"Because those three houses, Wilson, were built by the same architect. It was easy to guess that, you say? Certainly it was.... And that's why nobody thought of it."

"Nobody except yourself."

"Just so! And I now understand how the same architect, by contriving similar plans, enabled three actions to be performed which appeared to be miraculous, though they were really quite easy and simple."

"What luck!"

"It was high time, old chap, for I was beginning to lose patience.... This is the fourth day."

"Out of ten."

"Oh, but from now onward...!"

He could no longer keep his seat, exulting in his gladness beyond his wont:

"Oh, when I think that, just now, in the street, those ruffians might have broken my arm as well as yours! What do you say to that, Wilson?"

Wilson simply shuddered at the horrid thought.

And Shears continued:

"Let this be a lesson to us! You see, Wilson, our great mistake has been to fight Lupin in the open and to expose ourselves, in the most obliging way, to his attacks. The thing is not as bad as it might be, because he only got at you...."

"And I came off with a broken arm," moaned Wilson.

"Whereas it might have been both of us. But no more swaggering. Watched, in broad daylight, I am beaten. Working freely, in the shade, I have the advantage, whatever the enemy's strength may be."

"Ganimard might be able to help you."

"Never! On the day when I can say, 'Arsene Lupin is there; that is his hiding-place; this is how you must set to work to catch him,' I shall hunt up Ganimard at one of the two addresses he gave me, his flat in the Rue Pergolese, or the Taverne Suisse, on the Place du Chatelet. But till then I shall act alone."

He went up to the bed, put his hand on Wilson's shoulder—the bad shoulder, of course—and said, in a very affectionate voice:

"Take care of yourself, old chap. Your task, henceforth, will consist in keeping two or three of Lupin's men busy. They will waste their time waiting for me to come and inquire after you. It's a confidential task."

"Thank you ever so much," replied Wilson, gratefully. "I shall do my best to perform it conscientiously. So you are not coming back?"

"Why should I?" asked Shears, coldly.

"No ... you're quite right ... you're quite right.... I'm going on as well as can be expected. You might do one thing for me, Holmlock: give me a drink."

"A drink?"

"Yes, I'm parched with thirst; and this fever of mine...."

"Why, of course! Wait a minute."

He fumbled about among some bottles, came upon a packet of tobacco, filled and lit his pipe and, suddenly, as though he had not even heard his friend's request, walked away, while old chap cast longing glances at the water-bottle beyond his reach.

* * * * *

"Is M. Destange at home?"

The butler eyed the person to whom he had opened the door of the house—the magnificent house at the corner of the Place Malesherbes and the Rue Montchanin—and, at the sight of the little gray-haired, ill-shaven man, whose long and far from immaculate frock-coat matched the oddity of a figure to which nature had been anything but kind, replied, with due scorn:

"M. Destange may be at home or he may be out. It depends. Has monsieur a card?"

Monsieur had no card, but he carried a letter of introduction and the butler had to take it to M. Destange, whereupon M. Destange ordered the newcomer to be shown in.

He was ushered into a large circular room, which occupied one of the wings of the house and which was lined with books all round the walls.

"Are you M. Stickmann?" asked the architect.

"Yes, sir."

"My secretary writes that he is ill and sends you to continue the general catalogue of my books, which he began under my direction, and of the German books in particular. Have you any experience of this sort of work?"

"Yes, sir, a long experience," replied Stickmann, in a strong Teutonic accent.

In these conditions, the matter was soon settled; and M. Destange set to work with his new secretary without further delay.

Holmlock Shears had carried the citadel.

In order to escape Lupin's observation and to obtain an entrance into the house which Lucien Destange occupied with his daughter Clotilde, the illustrious detective had been obliged to take a leap in the dark, to resort to untold stratagems, to win the favour and confidence of a host of people under endless different names, in short, to lead forty-eight hours of the most complex life.

The particulars which he had gathered were these: M. Destange, who was in failing health and anxious for rest, had retired from business and was living among the architectural books which it had been his hobby to collect. He had no interest left in life beyond the handling and examining of those old dusty volumes.

As for his daughter Clotilde, she was looked upon as eccentric. She spent her days, like her father, in the house, but in another part of it, and never went out.

"This is all," thought Shears, as he wrote down the titles of the books in his catalogue, to M. Destange's dictation, "this is all more or less indefinite; but it is a good step forward. I am bound to discover the solution of one at least of these exciting problems: is M. Destange an accomplice of Arsene Lupin's? Does he see him now? Are there any papers relating to the building of the three houses? Will these papers supply me with the address of other properties, similarly faked, which Lupin may have reserved for his own use and that of his gang?"

M. Destange an accomplice of Arsene Lupin's! This venerable man, an officer of the Legion of Honour, working hand in hand with a burglar! The presumption was hardly tenable. Besides, supposing that they were accomplices, how did M. Destange come to provide for Arsene Lupin's various escapes thirty years before they occurred, at a time when Arsene was in his cradle?

No matter, the Englishman stuck to his guns. With his prodigious intuition, with that instinct which is all his own, he felt a mystery surrounding him. This was perceptible by small signs, which he could not have described with precision, but which impressed him from the moment when he first set foot in the house.

On the morning of the second day, he had as yet discovered nothing of interest. He first saw Clotilde Destange at two o'clock, when she came to fetch a book from the library. She was a woman of thirty, dark, with slow and silent movements; and her features bore the look of indifference of those who live much within themselves. She exchanged a few words with M. Destange and left the room without so much as glancing at Shears.

The afternoon dragged on monotonously. At five o'clock, M. Destange stated that he was going out. Shears remained alone in the circular gallery that ran round the library, half-way between floor and ceiling. It was growing dark and he was preparing to leave, in his turn, when he heard a creaking sound and, at the same time, felt that there was some one in the room. Minute followed slowly upon minute. And, suddenly, he started: a shadow had emerged from the semidarkness, quite close to him, on the balcony. Was it credible? How long had this unseen person been keeping him company? And where did he come from?

And the man went down the steps and turned in the direction of a large oak cupboard. Crouching on his knees behind the tapestry that covered the rail of the gallery, Shears watched and saw the man rummage among the papers with which the cupboard was crammed. What was he looking for?

And, suddenly, the door opened and Mlle. Destange entered quickly, saying to some one behind her:

"So you have quite changed your mind about going out, father?... In that case, I'll turn on the light.... Wait a minute ... don't move."

* * * * *

The man closed the doors of the cupboard and hid himself in the embrasure of a broad window, drawing the curtains in front of him. How was it that Mlle. Destange did not see him! How was it that she did not hear him? She calmly switched on the electric light and stood back for her father to pass.

They sat down side by side. Mlle. Destange opened a book which she had brought with her and began to read.

"Has your secretary gone?" she said, presently.

"Yes ... so it seems...."

"Are you still satisfied with him?" she continued, as if in ignorance of the real secretary's illness and of the arrival of Stickmann in his stead.

"Quite ... quite...."

M. Destange's head dropped on his chest. He fell asleep.

A moment elapsed. The girl went on reading. But one of the window curtains was moved aside and the man slipped along the wall, toward the door, an action which made him pass behind M. Destange, but right in front of Clotilde and in such a way that Shears was able to see him plainly. It was Arsene Lupin!

The Englishman quivered with delight. His calculations were correct, he had penetrated to the very heart of the mystery and Lupin was where he had expected to find him.

Clotilde, however, did not stir, although it was impossible that a single movement of that man had escaped her. And Lupin was close to the door and had his arm stretched toward the handle, when his clothes grazed a table and something fell to the ground. M. Destange woke with a start. In a moment, Arsene Lupin was standing before him, smiling, hat in hand.

"Maxime Bermond!" cried M. Destange, in delight. "My dear Maxime!... What stroke of good luck brings you here to-day?"

"The wish to see you and Mlle. Destange."

"When did you come back?"

"Yesterday."

"Are you staying to dinner?"

"Thank you, no, I am dining out with some friends."

"Come to-morrow, then. Clotilde, make him come to-morrow. My dear Maxime!... I was thinking of you only the other day."

"Really?"

"Yes, I was arranging my old papers, in that cupboard, and I came across our last account."

"Which one?"

"The Avenue Henri-Martin account."

"Do you mean to say you keep all that waste paper? What for?"

The three moved into a little drawing-room which was connected with the round library by a wide recess.

"Is it Lupin?" thought Shears, seized with a sudden doubt.

All the evidence pointed to him, but it was another man as well; a man who resembled Arsene Lupin in certain respects and who, nevertheless, preserved his distinct individuality, his own features, look and complexion.

Dressed for the evening, with a white tie and a soft-fronted shirt following the lines of his body, he talked gaily, telling stories which made M. Destange laugh aloud and which brought a smile to Clotilde's lips. And each of these smiles seemed a reward which Arsene Lupin coveted and which he rejoiced at having won. His spirits and gaiety increased and, imperceptibly, at the sound of his clear and happy voice, Clotilde's face brightened up and lost the look of coldness that tended to spoil it.

"They are in love," thought Shears. "But what on earth can Clotilde Destange and Maxime Bermond have in common? Does she know that Maxime is Arsene Lupin?"

He listened anxiously until seven o'clock, making the most of every word spoken. Then, with infinite precautions, he came down and crossed the side of the room where there was no danger of his being seen from the drawing-room.

* * * * *

Once outside, after assuring himself that there was no motor-car or cab waiting, he limped away along the Boulevard Malesherbes. Then he turned down a side street, put on the overcoat which he carried over his arm, changed the shape of his hat, drew himself up and, thus transformed, returned to the square, where he waited, with his eyes fixed on the door of the Hotel Destange.

Arsene Lupin came out almost at once and walked, down the Rue de Constantinople and the Rue de Londres, toward the centre of the town. Shears followed him at a hundred yards' distance.

It was a delicious moment for the Englishman. He sniffed the air greedily, like a good hound scenting a fresh trail. It really seemed infinitely sweet to him to be following his adversary. It was no longer he that was watched, but Arsene Lupin, the invisible Arsene Lupin. He kept him, so to speak, fastened at the end of his eyes, as though with unbreakable bonds. And he revelled in contemplating, among the other pedestrians, this prey which belonged to him.

But a curious incident soon struck him: in the centre of the space that separated Arsene Lupin and himself, other people were going in the same direction, notably two tall fellows in bowler hats on the left pavement, while two others, in caps, were following on the right pavement, smoking cigarettes as they went.

This might be only a coincidence. But Shears was more surprised when the four men stopped as Lupin entered a tobacconist's shop; and still more when they started again as he came out, but separately, each keeping to his own side of the Chaussee d'Antin.

"Confound it!" thought Shears. "He's being shadowed!"

The idea that others were on Arsene Lupin's track, that others might rob him not of the glory—he cared little for that—but of the huge pleasure, the intense delight of conquering unaided the most formidable enemy that he had ever encountered: this idea exasperated him. And yet there was no possibility of a mistake: the men wore that look of detachment, that too-natural look which distinguishes persons who, while regulating their gait by another's, endeavour to remain unobserved.

"Does Ganimard know more than he pretends?" muttered Shears. "Is he making game of me?"

He felt inclined to accost one of the four men, with a view to acting in concert with him. But as they approached the boulevard, the crowd became denser: he was afraid of losing Lupin and quickened his pace. He turned into the boulevard just as Lupin had his foot on the step of the Restaurant Hongrois, at the corner of the Rue du Helder. The door was open and Shears, sitting on a bench on the boulevard, on the opposite side of the road, saw him take his seat at a table laid with the greatest luxury and decorated with flowers, where he was warmly welcomed by three men in evening clothes and two beautifully-dressed ladies who had been waiting for him.

Shears looked for the four rough fellows and saw them scattered among the groups of people who were listening to the Bohemian band of the neighbouring cafe. Strange to say, they appeared to be not nearly so much interested in Arsene Lupin as in the people surrounding them.

Suddenly, one of them took a cigarette from his case and addressed a gentleman in a frock-coat and tall hat. The gentleman offered a light from his cigar and Shears received the impression that they were talking at greater length than the mere lighting of a cigarette demanded. At last the gentleman went up the steps and glanced into the restaurant. Seeing Lupin, he walked up to him, exchanged a few words with him and selected a table close at hand; and Shears realized that he was none other than the horseman of the Avenue Henri-Martin.

Now he understood. Not only was Arsene not being shadowed, but these men were members of his gang! These men were watching over his safety! They were his bodyguard, his satellites, his vigilant escort. Wherever the master ran any danger, there his accomplices were, ready to warn him, ready to defend him. The four men were accomplices! The gentleman in the frock-coat was an accomplice!

A thrill passed through the Englishman's frame. Would he ever succeed in laying hands on that inaccessible person? The power represented by an association of this kind, ruled by such a chief, seemed boundless.

He tore a leaf from his note-book, wrote a few lines in pencil, put the note in an envelope and gave it to a boy of fifteen who had lain down on the bench beside him:

"Here, my lad, take a cab and give this letter to the young lady behind the bar at the Taverne Suisse on the Place du Chatelet. Be as quick as you can."

He handed him a five-franc piece. The boy went off.

* * * * *

Half an hour elapsed. The crowd had increased and Shears but occasionally caught sight of Lupin's followers. Then some one grazed against him and a voice said in his ear:

"Well, Mr. Shears, what can I do for you?"

"Is that you, M. Ganimard?"

"Yes; I got your note. What is it?"

"He's there."

"What's that you say?"

"Over there ... inside the restaurant.... Move a little to the right.... Do you see him?"

"No."

"He is filling the glass of the lady on his left."

"But that's not Lupin."

"Yes, it is."

"I assure you.... And yet.... Well, it may be.... Oh, the rascal, how like himself he is!" muttered Ganimard, innocently. "And who are the others? Accomplices?"

"No, the lady beside him is Lady Cliveden. The other is the Duchess of Cleath; and, opposite her, is the Spanish Ambassador in London."

Ganimard took a step toward the road. But Shears held him back:

"Don't be so reckless: you are alone."

"So is he."

"No, there are men on the boulevard mounting guard.... Not to mention that gentleman inside the restaurant...."

"But I have only to take him by the collar and shout his name to have the whole restaurant on my side, all the waiters...."

"I would rather have a few detectives."

"That would set Lupin's friends off.... No, Mr. Shears, we have no choice, you see."

He was right and Shears felt it. It was better to make the attempt and take advantage of the exceptional circumstances. He contented himself with saying to Ganimard:

"Do your best not to be recognized before you can help it."

He himself slipped behind a newspaper-kiosk, without losing sight of Arsene Lupin who was leaning over Lady Cliveden, smiling.

The inspector crossed the street, looking straight before him, with his hands in his pockets. But, the moment he reached the opposite pavement, he veered briskly round and sprang up the steps.

A shrill whistle sounded.... Ganimard knocked up against the head-waiter, who suddenly blocked the entrance and pushed him back with indignation, as he might push back any intruder whose doubtful attire would have disgraced the luxury of the establishment. Ganimard staggered. At the same moment, the gentleman in the frock-coat came out. He took the part of the inspector and began a violent discussion with the head-waiter. Both of them had hold of Ganimard, one pushing him forward, the other back, until, in spite of all his efforts and angry protests, the unhappy man was hustled to the bottom of the steps.

A crowd gathered at once. Two policemen, attracted by the excitement, tried to make their way through; but they encountered an incomprehensible resistance and were unable to get clear of the shoulders that pushed against them, the backs that barred their progress.

And, suddenly, as though by enchantment, the way was opened!... The head-waiter, realizing his mistake, made the most abject apologies; the gentleman in the frock-coat withdrew his assistance; the crowd parted, the policemen passed in; and Ganimard rushed toward the table with the six guests.... There were only five left! He looked round: there was no way out except the door.

"Where is the person who was sitting here?" he shouted to the five bewildered guests. "Yes, there were six of you.... Where is the sixth?"

"M. Destro?"

"No, no: Arsene Lupin!"

A waiter stepped up:

"The gentleman has just gone up to the mezzanine floor."

Ganimard flew upstairs. The mezzanine floor consisted of private rooms and had a separate exit to the boulevard!

"It's no use now," groaned Ganimard. "He's far away by this time!"

* * * * *

He was not so very far away, two hundred yards at most, in the omnibus running between the Bastille and the Madeleine, which lumbered peacefully along behind its three horses, crossing the Place de l'Opera and going down the Boulevard des Capucines. Two tall fellows in bowler hats stood talking on the conductor's platform. On the top, near the steps, a little old man sat dozing: it was Holmlock Shears.

And, with his head swaying from side to side, rocked by the movement of the omnibus, the Englishman soliloquized:

"Ah, if dear old Wilson could see me now, how proud he would be of his chief!... Pooh, it was easy to foresee, from the moment when the whistle sounded that the game was up and that there was nothing serious to be done, except to keep a watch around the restaurant! But that devil of a man adds a zest to life, and no mistake!"

On reaching the end of the journey, Shears leant over, saw Arsene Lupin pass out in front of his guards and heard him mutter:

"At the Etoile."

"The Etoile, just so: an assignation. I shall be there. I'll let him go ahead in that motor-cab, while I follow his two pals in a four-wheeler."

The two pals went off on foot, made for the Etoile and rang at the door of No 40, Rue Chalgrin, a house with a narrow frontage. Shears found a hiding place in the shadow of a recess formed by the angle of that unfrequented little street.

One of the two windows on the ground floor opened and a man in a bowler hat closed the shutters. The window space above the shutters was lit up.

In ten minutes' time, a gentleman came and rang at the same door; and, immediately afterward, another person. And, at last, a motor-cab drew up and Shears saw two people get out: Arsene Lupin and a lady wrapped in a cloak and a thick veil.

"The blonde lady, I presume," thought Shears, as the cab drove away.

He waited for a moment, went up to the house, climbed on to the window-ledge and, by standing on tip-toe, succeeded in peering into the room through that part of the window which the shutters failed to cover.

Arsene Lupin was leaning against the chimney and talking in an animated fashion. The others stood round and listened attentively. Shears recognized the gentleman in the frock-coat and thought he recognized the head-waiter of the restaurant. As for the blonde lady, she was sitting in a chair, with her back turned toward him.

"They are holding a council," he thought. "This evening's occurrences have alarmed them and they feel a need to discuss things.... Oh, if I could only catch them all at one swoop!"

One of the accomplices moved and Shears leapt down and fell back into the shadow. The gentleman in the frock-coat and the head-waiter left the house. Then the first floor was lit up and some one closed the window-shutters. It was now dark above and below.

"He and she have remained on the ground floor," said Holmlock to himself. "The two accomplices live on the first story."

He waited during a part of the night without stirring from his place, fearing lest Arsene Lupin should go away during his absence. At four o'clock in the morning, seeing two policemen at the end of the street, he went up to them, explained the position and left them to watch the house.

Then he went to Ganimard's flat in the Rue Pergolese and told the servant to wake him.

"I've got him again."

"Arsene Lupin?"

"Yes."

"If you haven't got him any better than you did just now, I may as well go back to bed. However, let's go and see the commissary."

They went to the Rue Mesnil and, from there, to the house of the commissary, M. Decointre. Next, accompanied by half a dozen men, they returned to the Rue Chalgrin.

"Any news?" asked Shears of the two policemen watching the house.

"No, sir; none."

The daylight was beginning to show in the sky when the commissary, after disposing his men, rang and entered the lodge of the concierge. Terrified by this intrusion, the woman, all trembling, said that there was no tenant on the ground floor.

"What do you mean; no tenant?" cried Ganimard.

"No, it's the people on the first floor, two gentlemen called Leroux.... They have furnished the apartment below for some relations from the country...."

"A lady and gentleman?"

"Yes."

"Did they come with them last night?"

"They may have.... I was asleep.... I don't think so, though, for here's the key—they didn't ask for it."

With this key, the commissary opened the door on the other side of the passage. The ground floor flat contained only two rooms: they were empty.

"Impossible!" said Shears. "I saw them both here."

The commissary grinned:

"I dare say; but they are not here now."

"Let us go to the first floor. They must be there."

"The first floor is occupied by two gentlemen called Leroux."

"We will question the two gentleman called Leroux."

They all went upstairs and the commissary rang. At the second ring, a man, who was none other than one of the bodyguards, appeared in his shirt-sleeves and, with a furious air:

"Well, what is it? What's all this noise about; what do you come waking people up for?"

But he stopped in confusion:

"Lord bless my soul!... Am I dreaming? Why, it's M. Decointre!... And you too, M. Ganimard? What can I do for you?"

There was a roar of laughter. Ganimard was splitting with a fit of merriment which doubled him up and seemed to threaten an apoplectic fit:

"It's you, Leroux!" he spluttered out. "Oh, that's the best thing I ever heard: Leroux, Arsene Lupin's accomplice!... It'll be the death of me, I know it will!... And where's your brother, Leroux? Is he visible?"

"Are you there, Edmond? It's M. Ganimard come to pay us a visit."

Another man came forward, at the sight of whom Ganimard's hilarity increased still further:

"Well, I never! Dear, dear me! Ah, my friends, you're in a nice pickle.... Who would have suspected it? It's a good thing that old Ganimard keeps his eyes open and still better that he has friends to help him ... friends who have come all the way from England!"

And, turning to Shears, he said:

"Mr. Shears, let me introduce Victor Leroux, detective-inspector, one of the best in the iron brigade.... And Edmond Leroux, head-clerk in the Finger-print Department...."



CHAPTER V

KIDNAPPED

Holmlock Shears restrained his feelings. What was the use of protesting, of accusing those two men? Short of proofs, which he did not possess and which he would not waste time in looking for, no one would take his word.

With nerves on edge and fists tight-clenched, he had but one thought, that of not betraying his rage and disappointment before the triumphant Ganimard. He bowed politely to those two mainstays of society, the brothers Leroux, and went downstairs.

In the hall he turned toward a small, low door, which marked the entrance to the cellar, and picked up a small red stone: it was a garnet.

Outside, he looked up and read, close to the number of the house, the inscription: "Lucien Destange, architect, 1877." He saw the same inscription on No. 42.

"Always that double outlet," he thought. "Nos. 40 and 42 communicate. Why did I not think of it before? I ought to have stayed with the policemen all night."

And, addressing them, he said, pointing to the door of the next house:

"Did two people go out by that door while I was away?"

"Yes, sir; a lady and gentleman."

He took the arm of the chief-inspector and led him along:

"M. Ganimard, you have enjoyed too hearty a laugh to be very angry with me for disturbing you like this ..."

"Oh, I'm not angry with you at all."

"That's right. But the best jokes can't go on forever and I think we must put an end to this one."

"I am with you."

"This is our seventh day. It is absolutely necessary that I should be in London in three days hence."

"I say! I say!"

"I shall be there, though, and I beg you to hold yourself in readiness on Tuesday night."

"For an expedition of the same kind?" asked Ganimard, chaffingly.

"Yes, of the same kind."

"And how will this one end?"

"In Lupin's capture."

"You think so."

"I swear it, on my honour."

Shears took his leave and went to seek a short rest in the nearest hotel, after which, refreshed and full of confidence, he returned to the Rue Chalgrin, slipped two louis into the hand of the concierge, made sure that the brothers Leroux were out, learned that the house belonged to a certain M. Harmingeat and, carrying a candle, found his way down to the cellar through the little door near which he had picked up the garnet.

At the foot of the stairs, he picked up another of exactly the same shape.

"I was right," he thought. "This forms the communication.... Let's see if my skeleton-key opens the door of the cellar that belongs to the ground-floor tenant.... Yes, capital.... Now let's examine these wine-bins.... Aha, here are places where the dust has been removed ... and footprints on the floor!..."

A slight sound made him prick up his ears. He quickly closed the door, blew out his candle and hid behind a stack of empty wine-cases. After a few seconds, he noticed that one of the iron bins was turning slowly on a pivot, carrying with it the whole of the piece of wall to which it was fastened. The light of a lantern was thrown into the cellar. An arm appeared. A man entered.

He was bent in two, like a man looking for something. He fumbled in the dust with his finger-tips, and, several times, he straightened himself and threw something into a cardboard box which he carried in his left hand. Next, he removed the marks of his footsteps, as well as those left by Lupin and the blonde lady, and went back to the wine-bin.

He gave a hoarse cry and fell. Shears had leapt upon him. It was the matter of a moment and, in the simplest way possible, the man found himself stretched on the floor, with his ankles fastened together and his wrists bound.

The Englishman stooped over him:

"How much will you take to speak?... To tell what you know?"

The man replied with so sarcastic a smile that Shears understood the futility of his question. He contented himself with exploring his captive's pockets, but his investigations produced nothing more than a bunch of keys, a pocket-handkerchief and the little cardboard box used by the fellow and containing a dozen garnets similar to those which Shears had picked up. A poor booty!

Besides, what was he to do with the man? Wait until his friends came to his assistance and hand them all over to the police? What was the good? What advantage could he derive from it against Lupin?

He was hesitating, when a glance at the box made him come to a decision. It bore the address of Leonard, jeweler, Rue de la Paix.

He resolved simply to leave the man where he was. He pushed back the bin, shut the cellar-door and left the house. He went to a post-office and telegraphed to M. Destange that he could not come until the next day. Then he went on to the jeweler and handed him the garnets:

"Madame sent me with these stones. They came off a piece of jewelry which she bought here."

Shears had hit the nail on the head. The jeweler replied:

"That's right.... The lady telephoned to me. She will call here herself presently."

* * * * *

It was five o'clock before Shears, standing on the pavement, saw a lady arrive, wrapped in a thick veil, whose appearance struck him as suspicious. Through the shop-window he saw her place on the counter an old-fashioned brooch set with garnets.

She went away almost at once, did a few errands on foot, walked up toward Clichy and turned down streets which the Englishman did not know. At nightfall, he followed her, unperceived by the concierge, into a five-storeyed house built on either side of the doorway and therefore containing numberless flats. She stopped at a door on the second floor and went in.

Two minutes later, the Englishman put his luck to the test and, one after the other, carefully tried the keys on the bunch of which he had obtained possession. The fourth key fitted the lock.

Through the darkness that filled them, he saw rooms which were absolutely empty, like those of an unoccupied flat, with all the doors standing open. But the light of a lamp filtered through from the end of a passage; and, approaching on tip-toe, through the glass door that separated the drawing-room from an adjoining bedroom he saw the veiled lady take off her dress and hat, lay them on the one chair which the room contained and slip on a velvet tea-gown.

And he also saw her walk up to the chimney-piece and push an electric bell. And one-half of the panel to the right of the chimney moved from its position and slipped along the wall into the thickness of the next panel. As soon as the gap was wide enough, the lady passed through ... and disappeared, taking the lamp with her.

The system was a simple one. Shears employed it. He found himself walking in the dark, groping his way; but suddenly his face came upon something soft. By the light of a match, he saw that he was in a little closet filled with dresses and clothes hanging from metal bars. He thrust his way through and stopped before the embrasure of a door closed by a tapestry hanging or, at least, by the back of a hanging. And, his match being now burnt out, he saw light piercing through the loose and worn woof of the old stuff.

Then he looked.

The blonde lady was there, before his eyes, within reach of his hand.

She put out the lamp and turned on the electric switch. For the first time, Shears saw her face in the full light. He gave a start. The woman whom he had ended by overtaking after so many shifts and turns was none other than Clotilde Destange.

* * * * *

Clotilde Destange, the murderess of Baron d'Hautrec and the purloiner of the blue diamond! Clotilde Destange the mysterious friend of Arsene Lupin! The blonde lady, in short!

"Why, of course," he thought, "I'm the biggest blockhead that ever lived! Just because Lupin's friend is fair and Clotilde dark, I never thought of connecting the two women! As though the blonde lady could afford to continue fair after the murder of the baron and the theft of the diamond!"

Shears saw part of the room, an elegant lady's boudoir, adorned with light hangings and valuable knick-knacks. A mahogany settee stood on a slightly-raised platform. Clotilde had sat down on it and remained motionless, with her head between her hands. And soon he noticed that she was crying. Great tears flowed down her pale cheeks, trickled by her mouth, fell drop by drop on the velvet of her bodice. And more tears followed indefinitely, as though springing from an inexhaustible source. And no sadder sight was ever seen than that dull and resigned despair, which expressed itself in the slow flowing of the tears.

But a door opened behind her. Arsene Lupin entered.

They looked at each other for a long time, without exchanging a word. Then he knelt down beside her, pressed his head to her breast, put his arms round her; and there was infinite tenderness and great pity in the gesture with which he embraced the girl. They did not move. A soft silence united them, and her tears flowed less abundantly.

"I so much wanted to make you happy!" he whispered.

"I am happy."

"No, for you're crying. And your tears break my heart, Clotilde."

Yielding, in spite of herself, to the sound of his coaxing voice, she listened, greedy of hope and happiness. A smile softened her face, but, oh, so sad a smile! He entreated her:

"Don't be sad, Clotilde; you have no reason, you have no right to be sad."

She showed him her white, delicate, lissom hands, and said, gravely:

"As long as these hands are mine, Maxime, I shall be sad."

"But why?"

"They have taken life."

Maxime cried:

"Hush, you must not think of that! The past is dead; the past does not count."

And he kissed her long white hands and she looked at him with a brighter smile, as though each kiss had wiped out a little of that hideous memory:

"You must love me, Maxime, you must, because no woman will ever love you as I do. To please you, I have acted, I am still acting not only according to your orders, but according to your unspoken wishes. I do things against which all my instincts and all my conscience revolt; but I am unable to resist.... All that I do I do mechanically, because it is of use to you and you wish it ... and I am ready to begin again to-morrow ... and always."