e of kindness. Rid me of the fellow, do...
Half-a-dozen of your satellites and the two who are pacing up and down
outside my house will be enough... Oh, while you're about it, go up
to the third floor and rope in my cook as well... She's the famous
Victoire: you know, Master Lupin's old nurse... And, look here, one
more tip, to show you how I love you: send a squad of men to the Rue
Chateaubriand, at the corner of the Rue Balzac... That's where our
national hero lives, under the name of Michel Beaumont... Do you twig,
old cockalorum? And now to business. Hustle!"

When Daubrecq turned his head, Lupin was standing up, with clenched
fists. His burst of admiration had not survived the rest of the speech
and the revelations which Daubrecq had made about Victoire and the flat
in the Rue Chateaubriand. The humiliation was too great; and Lupin no
longer bothered to play the part of the small general practitioner. He
had but one idea in his head: not to give way to the tremendous fit of
rage that was urging him to rush at Daubrecq like a bull.

Daubrecq gave the sort of little cluck which, with him, did duty for a
laugh. He came waddling up, with his hands in his trouser-pockets, and
said, incisively:

"Don't you think that this is all for the best? I've cleared the ground,
relieved the situation... At least, we now know where we stand. Lupin
versus Daubrecq; and that's all about it. Besides, think of the time
saved! Dr. Vernes, the divisional surgeon, would have taken two hours to
spin his yarn! Whereas, like this, Master Lupin will be compelled to
get his little story told in thirty minutes... unless he wants to get
himself collared and his accomplices nabbed. What a shock! What a bolt
from the blue! Thirty minutes and not a minute more. In thirty minutes
from now, you'll have to clear out, scud away like a hare and beat a
disordered retreat. Ha, ha, ha, what fun! I say, Polonius, you really
are unlucky, each time you come up against Bibi Daubrecq! For it was
you who were hiding behind that curtain, wasn't it, my ill-starred
Polonius?"

Lupin did not stir a muscle. The one and only solution that would have
calmed his feelings, that is to say, for him to throttle his adversary
then and there, was so absurd that he preferred to accept Daubrecq's
gibes without attempting to retort, though each of them cut him like the
lash of a whip. It was the second time, in the same room and in similar
circumstances, that he had to bow be