collar both. Lupin and the list of the Twenty-seven, on the same day,
especially after the scandal of this morning, would be a scoop in a

thousand."
There was a knock at the door.

"Come in!" said Prasville.
And, rising from his seat:

"Come in, M. Nicole, come in.
M. Nicole crept timidly into the room, sat down on the extreme edge of

the chair to which Prasville pointed and said:
"I have come...to resume... our conversation of yesterday... Please

excuse the delay, monsieur."
"One second," said Prasville. "Will you allow me?"

He stepped briskly to the outer room and, seeing his secretary:
"I was forgetting, M. Lartigue. Have the staircases and passages

searched ... in case of accomplices."
He returned, settled himself comfortably, as though for a long and

interesting conversation, and began:
"You were saying, M. Nicole?"

"I was saying, monsieur le secreaire-general, that I must apologize for
keeping you waitingyesterday evening. I was detained by different

matters. First of all, Mme. Mergy. ... "
"Yes, you had to see Mme. Mergy home."

"Just so, and to look after her. You can understand the poor thing's
despair... Her son Gilbert so near death... And such a death!... At

that time we could only hope for a miracle... an impossible miracle. I
myself was resigned to the inevitable... You know as well as I do, when

fate shows itself implacable, one ends by despairing."
"But I thought," observed Prasville, "that your intention, on leaving me,

was to drag Daubrecq's secret from him at all costs."
"Certainly. But Daubrecq was not in Paris."

"Oh?"
"No. He was on his way to Paris in a motor-car."

"Have you a motor-car, M. Nicole?"
"Yes, when I need it: an out-of-date concern, an old tin kettle of

sorts. Well, he was on his way to Paris in a motor-car, or rather on
the roof of a motor-car, inside a trunk in which I packed him. But,

unfortunately, the motor was unable to reach Paris until after the
execution. Thereupon... "

Prasville stared at M. Nicole with an air of stupefaction. If he had
retained the least doubt of the individual's real identity, this manner

of dealing with Daubrecq would have removed it. By Jingo! To pack
a man in a trunk and pitch him on the top of a motorcar!... No one but

Lupin would indulge in such a freak, no one but Lupin would confess it
with that ingenuous coolness!

"Thereupon," echoed Prasville, "you decided what?"
"I cast about for another method."

"What method?"
"Why, surely, monsieur le secretaire-genera1, you know as well as I do!"

"How do you mean?"
"Why, weren't you at the execution?"

"I was."
"In that case, you saw both Vaucheray and the executioner bit, one

mortally, the other with a slight wound. And you can't fail to
see... "

"Oh," exclaimed Prasville, dumbfounded, "you confess it? It was you who
fired the shots, this morning?"

"Come, monsieur le secretaire-general, think! What choice had I? The
list of the Twenty-seven which you examined was a forgery. Daubrecq,

who possessed the genuine one, would not arrive until a few hours after
the execution. There was therefore but one way for me to save Gilbert

and obtain his pardon; and that was to delay the execution by a few
hours."

"Obviously."
"Well, of course. By killing that infamous brute, that hardened criminal,

Vaucheray, and wounding the executioner, I spread disorder and panic; I
made Gilbert's executionphysically and morally impossible; and I thus

gained the few hours which were indispensable for my purpose."
"Obviously," repeated Prasville.

"Well, of course," repeated Lupin, "it gives us all - the government,
the president and myself - time to reflect and to see the question in a

clearer light. What do you think of it, monsieur le secretaire-general?"
Prasville thought a number of things, especially that this Nicole was

giving proof, to use a vulgarphrase, of the most infernal cheek, of a
cheek so great that Prasville felt inclined to ask himself if he was

really right in identifying Nico1e with Lupin and Lupin with Nicole.
"I think, M. Nicole, that a man has to be a jolly good shot to kill a

person whom he wants to kill, at a distance of a hundred yards, and to
wound another person whom he only wants to wound."

"I have had some little practice," said M. Nicole, with modest air.
"And I also think that your plan can only be the fruit of a long

preparation."
"Not at all I That's where you're wrong! It was absolutely spontaneous!

If my servant, or rather the servant of the friend who lent me his flat
in the Place de Clichy, had not shaken me out of my sleep, to tell me

that he had once served as a shopman in that little house on the
Boulevard Arago, that it did not hold many tenants and that there might

be something to be done there, our poor Gilbert would have had his head
cut off by now... and Mme. Mergy would most likely be dead."

"Oh, you think so?"
"I am sure of it. And that was why I jumped at that faithful retainer's

suggestion. Only, you interfered with my plans, monsieur le
secretaire-general."

"I did?"
"Yes. You must needs go and take the three-cornered precaution of

posting twelve men at the door of my house. I had to climb five flights
of back stairs and go out through the servants' corridor and the next

house. Such useless fatigue!"
I am very sorry, M. Nicole. Another time... "

"It was the same thing at eight o'clock this morning, when I was waiting
for the motor which was bringing Daubrecq to me in his trunk: I had to

march up and down the Place de Clichy, so as to prevent the car from
stopping outside the door of my place and your men from interfering in

my private affairs. Otherwise, once again, Gilbert and Clarisse Mergy
would have been lost."

"But," said Prasville, "those painful events, it seems to me. are only
delayed for a day, two days, three days at most. To avert them for good

and all we should want... "
"The real list, I suppose?"

"Exactly. And I daresay you haven't got it."
"Yes, I have."

"The genuine list?"
"The genuine, the undoubtedlygenuine list."

"With the cross of Lorraine?"
"With the cross of Lorraine."

Prasville was silent. He was labouring under violentemotion, now that
the duel was commencing with that adversary of whose terrifying

superiority he was well aware; and he shuddered at the idea that Arsene
Lupin, the formidable Arsene Lupin, was there, in front of him, calm and

placid, pursuing his aims with as much coolness as though he had all the
weapons in his hands and were face to face with a disarmed enemy.

Not yet daring to deliver a frontal attack, feeling almost intimidated,
Prasville said:

"So Daubrecq gave it up to you?"
"Daubrecq gives nothing up. I took it."

"By main force, therefore?"
"Oh, dear, no!" said M. Nicole, laughing. "Of course, I was ready to go

to all lengths; and, when that worthy Daubrecq was dug out of the basket
in which he had been travelling express, with an occasional dose of

chloroform to keep his strength up, I had prepared things so that the
fun might begin at once. Oh, no useless tortures... no vain sufferings!

No... Death, simply... You press the point of a long needle on the chest,