is being spied upon to his very bedroom, has once more left the stopper
in a drawer, as though he attached no importance to it at all! Now what

is one to make of that?
Though Lupin did not make anything of it, nevertheless he could not

escape certain arguments, certain associations of ideas that gave him
the same vague foretaste of light which one receives on approaching the

outlet of a tunnel.
"It is inevitable, as the case stands," he thought, "that there must

soon be an encounter between myself and the others. From that moment I
shall be master of the situation."

Five days passed, during which Lupin did not glean the slightest
particular. On the sixth day Daubrecq received a visit, in the small

hours, from a gentleman, Laybach the deputy, who, like his colleagues,
dragged himself at his feet in despair and, when all was done, handed

him twenty thousand francs.
Two more days; and then, one night, posted on the landing of the second

floor, Lupin heard the creaking of a door, the front-door, as he
perceived, which led from the hall into the garden. In the darkness he

distinguished, or rather divined, the presence of two persons, who
climbed the stairs and stopped on the first floor, outside Daubrecq's

bedroom.
What were they doing there? It was not possible to enter the room,

because Daubrecq bolted his door every night. Then what were they
hoping?

Manifestly, a handiwork of some kind was being performed, as Lupin
discovered from the dull sounds of rubbing against the door. Then words,

uttered almost beneath a whisper, reached him:
"Is it all right?"

"Yes, quite, but, all the same, we'd better put it off till to-morrow,
because... "

Lupin did not hear the end of the sentence. The men were already groping
their way downstairs. The hall-door was closed, very gently, and then

the gate.
"It's curious, say what one likes," thought Lupin. "Here is a house in

which Daubrecq carefully conceals his rascalities and is on his guard,
not without good reason, against spies; and everybody walks in and out

as in a booth at a fair. Victoire lets me in, the portress admits the
emissaries of the police: that's well and good; but who is playing false

in these people's favour? Are we to suppose that they are acting alone?
But what fearlessness! And how well they know their way about!"

In the afternoon, during Daubrecq's absence, he examined the door of the
first-floor bedroom. And, at the first glance, he understood: one of the

lower panels had been skilfully cut out and was only held in place by
invisible tacks. The people, therefore, who had done this work were the

same who had acted at his two places, in the Rue Matiguon and the Rue
Chateaubriand.

He also found that the work dated back to an earlier period and that, as
in his case, the opening had been prepared beforehand, in anticipation

of favourable circumstances or of some immediate need.
The day did not seem long to Lupin. Knowledge was at hand. Not only

would he discover the manner in which his adversaries employed those
little openings, which were apparently unemployable, since they did not

allow a person to reach the upper bolts, but he would learn who the
ingenious and energetic adversaries were with whom he repeatediy and

inevitably found himself confronted.
One incident annoyed him. In the evening Daubrecq, who had complained

of feeling tired at dinner, came home at ten o'clock and, contrary to
his usual custom, pushed the bolts of the hall-door. In that case, how

would the others be able to carry out their plan and go to Daubrecq's
room? Lupin waited for an hour after Daubrecq put out his light. Then

he went down to the deputy's study, opened one of the windows ajar and
returned to the third floor and fixed his rope-ladder so that, in case

of need, he could reach the study without passing though the house.
Lastly, he resumed his post on the second-floor landing.

He did not have to wait long. An hour earlier than on the previous night
some one tried to open the hall-door. When the attempt failed, a few

minutes of absolute silence followed. And Lupin was beginning to think
that the men had abandoned the idea, when he gave a sudden start. Some

one had passed, without the least sound to interrupt the silence. He
would not have known it, so utterly were the thing's steps deadened

by the stair-carpet, if the baluster-rail, which he himself held in his
hand, had not shakenslightly. Some one was coming upstairs.

And, as the ascent continued, Lupin became aware of the uncanny feeling
that he heard nothing more than before. He knew, because of the rail,

that a thing was coming and he could count the number of steps climbed
by noting each vibration of the rail; but no other indication gave him

that dim sensation of presence which we feel in distinguishing movements
which we do not see, in perceiving sounds which we do not hear. And yet

a blacker darkness ought to have taken shape within the darkness and
something ought, at least, to modify the quality of the silence. No,

he might well have believed that there was no one there.
And Lupin, in spite of himself and against the evidence of his reason,

ended by believing it, for the rail no longer moved and he thought that
he might have been the sport of an illusion.

And this lasted a long time. He hesitated, not knowing what to do, not
knowing what to suppose. But an odd circumstance impressed him. A clock

struck two. He recognized the chime of Daubrecq's clock. And the chime
was that of a clock from which one is not separated by the obstacle of a

door.
Lupin slipped down the stairs and went to the door. It was closed, but

there was a space on the left, at the bottom, a space left by the removal
of the little panel.

He listened. Daubrecq, at that moment, turned in his bed; and his
breathing was resumed, evenly and a little stertorously. And Lupin

plainly heard the sound of rumpling garments. Beyond a doubt, the thing
was there, fumbling and feeling through the clothes which Daubrecq had

laid beside his bed.
"Now," thought Lupin, "we shall learn something. But how the deuce did

the beggar get in? Has he managed to draw the bolts and open the door?
But, if so, why did he make the mistake of shutting it again?"

Not for a second - a curious anomaly in a man like Lupin, an anomaly to
be explained only by the uncanny feeling which the whole adventure

produced in him - not for a second did he suspect the very simple truth
which was about to be revealed to him. Continuing his way down, he

crouched on one of the bottom steps of the staircase, thus placing
himself between the door of the bedroom and the hall-door, on the road

which Daubrecq's enemy must inevitably take in order to join his
accomplices.

He questioned the darkness with an unspeakableanguish. He was on the
point of unmasking that enemy of Daubrecq's, who was also his own

adversary. He would thwart his plans. And the booty captured from
Daubrecq he would capture in his turn, while Daubrecq slept and while

the accomplices lurking behind the hall-door or outside the garden-gate
vainly awaited their leader's return.

And that return took place. Lupin knew it by the renewed vibration of
the balusters. And, once more, with every sense strained and every

nerve on edge, he strove to discern the mysterious thing that was coming
toward him. He suddenly realized it when only a few yards away. He

himself, hidden in a still darker recess, could not be seen. And what
he saw - in the very vaguest manner - was approaching stair by stair,

with infinite precautions, holding on to each separate baluster.
"Whom the devil have I to do with?" said Lupin to himself, while his

heart thumped inside his chest.
The catastrophe was hastened. A carelessmovement on Lupin's part was

observed by the stranger, who stopped short. Lupin was afraid lest the
other should turn back and take to flight. He sprang at the adversary

and was stupefied at encountering nothing but space and knocking against
the stair-rail without seizing the form which he saw. But he at once