t help ourselves. Vaucheray ruled us. I agreed to meet Daubrecq
at the theatre. During this time the thing took place. When I came
home, at twelve o'clock at night, I heard the terrible result: Leonard
murdered, my son arrested. I at once received an intuition of the
future. Daubrecq's appalling prophecy was being realized: it meant trial
and sentence. And this through my fault, through the fault of me, the
mother, who had driven my son toward the abyss from which nothing could
extricate him now."

Clarisse wrung her hands and shivered from head to foot. What suffering
can compare with that of a mother trembling for the head of her son?
Stirred with pity, Lupin said:

"We shall save him. Of that there is not the shadow of a doubt. But,
it is necessary that I should know all the details. Finish your story,
please. How did you know, on the same night, what had happened at
Enghien?"

She mastered herself and, with a face wrung with fevered anguish,
replied:

"Through two of your accomplices, or rather two accomplices of
Vaucheray, to whom they were wholly devoted and who had chosen them to
row the boats."

"The two men outside: the Growler and the Masher?"

"Yes. On your return from the villa, when you landed after being pursued
on the lake by the commissary of police, you said a few words to them,
by way of explanation, as you went to your car. Mad with fright, they
rushed to my place, where they had been before, and told me the hideous
news. Gilbert was in prison! Oh, what an awful night! What was I to do?
Look for you? Certainly; and implore your assistance. But where was I to
find you?... It was then that the two whom you call the Growler and the
Masher, driven into a corner by circumstances, decided to tell me of the
part played by Vaucheray, his ambitions, his plan, which had long been
ripening..."

"To get rid of me, I suppose?" said Lupin, with a grin.

"Yes. As Gilbert possessed your complete confidence, Vaucheray watched
him and, in this way, got to know all the places which you live at. A
few days more and, owning the crystal stopper, holding the list of the
Twenty-seven, inheriting all Daubrecq's power, he would have delivered
you to the police, without compromising a single member of your gang,
which he looked upon as thenceforth his."

"The ass!" muttered Lupin. "A muddler like that!" And he added, "So the
panels of the doors..."

"Were cut out by his instructions, in anticipation of the contest