ou've been trapped! For hatred of me, I expect?
And now you're going to take your revenge?"

"With a certain satisfaction, Daubrecq. Remember my little friend, the
opera-dancer, at Nice... It's your turn now to dance."

"So it means prison?"

"I should think so," said Prasville. "Besides, it doesn't matter. You're
done for, anyhow. Deprived of the list, without defence of any kind,
you're bound to fall to pieces of your own weight. And I shall be
present at the break-up. That's my revenge."

"And you believe that!" yelled Daubrecq, furiously. "You believe that
they will wring my neck like a chicken's and that I shall not know how
to defend myself and that I have no claws left and no teeth to bite
with! Well, my boy, if I do come to grief, there's always one who will
fall with me and that is Master Prasville, the partner of Stanislas
Vorenglade, who is going to hand me every proof in existence against
him, so that I may get him sent to gaol without delay. Aha, I've got you
fixed, old chap! With those letters, you'll go as I please, hang it all,
and there will be fine days yet for Daubrecq the deputy! What! You're
laughing, are you? Perhaps those letters don't exist?"

Prasville shrugged his shoulders:

"Yes, they exist. But Vorenglade no longer has them in his possession."

"Since when?"

"Since this morning. Vorenglade sold them, two hours ago, for the sum of
forty thousand francs; and I have bought them back at the same price."

Daubrecq burst into a great roar of laughter:

"Lord, how funny! Forty thousand francs! You've paid forty thousand
francs! To M. Nicole, I suppose, who sold you the list of the
Twenty-seven? Well, would you like me to tell you the real name of M.
Nicole? It's Arsene Lupin!"

"I know that."

"Very likely. But what you don't know, you silly ass, is that I have
come straight from Stanislas Vorenglade's and that Stanislas Vorenglade
left Paris four days ago! Oh, what a joke! They've sold you waste paper!
And your forty thousand francs! What an ass! What an ass!"

He walked out of the room, screaming with laughter and leaving Prasville
absolutely dumbfounded.

So Arsene Lupin possessed no proof at all; and, when he was threatening
and commanding and treating Prasville with that airy insolence, it was
all a farce, all bluff!

"No, no, it's impossible," thought the secretary-general. "I have the
sealed envelope.... It's here.... I have only to open it."

He dared not open it. He ha