Jacques.

Lupin carried the child to his car, where Victoire was waiting for him.

All this was done swiftly, without useless words and as though the parts
had been got by heart and the various movements settled in advance, like
so many stage entrances and exits.

At ten o'clock in the evening Lupin kept his promise and handed little
Jacques to his mother. But the doctor had to be hurriedly called in,
for the child, upset by all those happenings, showed great signs of
excitement and terror. It was more than a fortnight before he was
sufficiently recovered to bear the strain of the removal which Lupin
considered necessary. Mme. Mergy herself was only just fit to travel
when the time came. The journey took place at night, with every possible
precaution and under Lupin's escort.

He took the mother and son to a little seaside place in Brittany and
entrusted them to Victoire's care and vigilance.

"At last," he reflected, when he had seen them settled, "there is no one
between the Daubrecq bird and me. He can do nothing more to Mme. Mergy
and the kid; and she no longer runs the risk of diverting the struggle
through her intervention. By Jingo, we have made blunders enough! First,
I have had to disclose myself to Daubrecq. Secondly, I have had to
surrender my share of the Enghien movables. True, I shall get those
back, sooner or later; of that there is not the least doubt. But, all
the same, we are not getting on; and, in a week from now, Gilbert and
Vaucheray will be up for trial."

What Lupin felt most in the whole business was Daubrecq's revelation of
the whereabouts of the flat. The police had entered his place in the
Rue Chateaubriand. The identity of Lupin and Michel Beaumont had been
recognized and certain papers discovered; and Lupin, while pursuing his
aim, while, at the same time, managing various enterprises on which
he had embarked, while avoiding the searches of the police, which were
becoming more zealous and persistent than ever, had to set to work and
reorganize his affairs throughout on a fresh basis.

His rage with Daubrecq, therefore, increased in proportion to the worry
which the deputy caused him. He had but one longing, to pocket him, as
he put it, to have him at his bidding by fair means or foul, to extract
his secret from him. He dreamt of tortures fit to unloose the tongue
of the most silent of men. The boot, the rack, red-hot pincers, nailed
planks: no form of suffering, he thought, was more