The complicity is established. And what conclusion do you draw?"
"This, first of all, that it was not the runaway who killed Jean Daval, because Jean Daval was his accomplice."
"And after that?"
"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, I will ask you to remember the first sentence uttered by Monsieur le Comte when he recovered from fainting. The sentence forms part of Mlle. de Gesvres' evidence and is in the official report: 'I am not wounded.—Daval?—Is he alive?- -The knife?' And I will ask you to compare it with that part of his story, also in the report, in which Monsieur le Comte describes the assault: 'The man leaped at me and felled me with a blow on the temple!' How could M. de Gesvres. who had fainted, know, on waking, that Daval had been stabbed with a knife?"
Isidore Beautrelet did not wait for an answer to his question. It seemed as though he were in a hurry to give the answer himself and to avoid all comment. He continued straightway:
"Therefore it was Jean Daval who brought the three burglars to the drawing room. While he was there with the one whom they call their chief, a noise was heard in the boudoir. Daval opened the door. Recognizing M. de Gesvres, he rushed at him, armed with the knife. M. de Gesvres succeeded in snatching the knife from him, struck him with it and himself fell, on receiving a blow from the man whom the two girls were to see a few minutes after."
Once again, M. Filleul and the inspector exchanged glances. Ganimard tossed his head in a disconcerted way. The magistrate said:
"Monsieur le Comte, am I to believe that this version is correct?"
M. de Gesvres made no answer.
"Come, Monsieur le Comte, your silence would us to suppose—I beg you to speak."
Replying in a very clear voice, M. de Gesvres said:
"The version is correct in every particular."
The magistrate gave a start.
"Then I cannot understand why you misled the police. Why conceal an act which you were lawfully entitled to commit in defense of your life?"
"For twenty years," said M. de Gesvres, "Daval worked by my side. I trusted him. If he betrayed me, as the result of some temptation or other, I was, at least, unwilling, for the sake of the past, that his treachery should become known."
"You were unwilling, I agree, but you had no right to be."
"I am not of your opinion, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. As long as no innocent person was accused of the crime, I was absolutely entitled to refrain from accusing the man who was at the same time the culprit and the victim. He is dead. I consider death a sufficient punishment."
"But now, Monsieur le Comte, now that the truth is known, you can speak."
"Yes. Here are two rough drafts of letters written by him to his accomplices. I took them from his pocket-book, a few minutes after his death."
"And the motive of his theft?"
"Go to 18, Rue de la Barre, at Dieppe, which is the address of a certain Mme. Verdier. It was for this woman, whom he got to know two years ago, and to supply her constant need of money that Daval turned thief."
So everything was cleared up. The tragedy rose out of the darkness and gradually appeared in its true light.
"Let us go on," said M. Filluel after the count had withdrawn.
"Upon my word," said Beautrelet, gaily, "I have said almost all that I had to say."
"But the runaway, the wounded man?"
"As to that, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, you know as much as I do. You have followed his tracks in the grass by the cloisters—you have—"
"Yes, yes, I know. But, since then, his friends have removed him and what I want is a clue or two as regards that inn—"
Isidore Beautrelet burst out laughing:
"The inn! The inn does not exist! It's an invention, a trick to put the police on the wrong scent, an ingenious trick, too, for it seems to have succeeded."
"But Dr. Delattre declares—"
"Ah, that's just it!" cried Beautrelet, in a tone of conviction. "It is just because Dr. Delattre declares that we mustn't believe him. Why, Dr. Delattre refused to give any but the vaguest details concerning his adventure! He refused to say anything that might compromise his patient's safety!—And suddenly he calls attention to an inn!—You may be sure that he talked about that inn because he was told to. You may be sure that the whole story which he dished up to us was dictated to him under the threat of terrible reprisals. The doctor has a wife. The doctor has a daughter. He is too fond of them to disobey people of whose formidable power he has seen proofs. And that is why he has assisted your efforts by supplying the most precise clues."
"So precise that the inn is nowhere to be found."
"So precise that you have never ceased looking for it, in the face of all probability, and that your eyes have been turned away from the only spot where the man can be, the mysterious spot which he has not left, which he has been unable to leave ever since the moment when, wounded by Mlle. de Saint-Veran, he succeeded in dragging himself to it, like a beast to its lair."
"But where, confound it all?—In what corner of Hades—?"
"In the ruins of the old abbey."
"But there are no ruins left!—A few bits of wall!—A few broken columns!"
"That's where he's gone to earth. Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction!" shouted Beautrelet. "That's where you will have to look for him! It's there and nowhere else that you will find Arsene Lupin!"
"Arsene Lupin!" yelled M. Filleul, springing to his feet.
There was a rather solemn pause, amid which the syllables of the famous name seemed to prolong their sound. Was it possible that the vanquished and yet invisible adversary, whom they had been hunting in vain for several days, could really be Arsene Lupin? Arsene Lupin, caught in a trap, arrested, meant immediate promotion, fortune, glory to any examining magistrate!
Ganimard had not moved a limb. Isidore said to him:
"You agree with me, do you not, M. Inspector?"
"Of course I do!"
"You have not doubted either, for a moment have you, that he managed this business?"
"Not for a second! The thing bears his signature. A move of Arsene Lupin's is as different from a move made by another man as one face is from another. You have only to open your eyes."
"Do you think so? Do you think so?" said M. Filleul.
"Think so!" cried the young man. "Look, here's one little fact: what are the initials under which those men correspond among themselves? 'A. L. N.,' that is to say, the first letter of the name Arsene and the first and last letters of the name Lupin."
"Ah," said Ganimard, "nothing escapes you! Upon my word, you're a fine fellow and old Ganimard lays down his arms before you!"
Beautrelet
