d, each time
that she went shopping, she was quite surprised that one of those men
did not lay his hand upon her shoulder.

One day she returned all upset. Her basket of provisions was shaking on
her arm.

"What's the matter, my dear Victoire?" said Lupin. "You're looking
green."

"Green? I dare say I do. So would you look green..."

She had to sit down and it was only after making repeated efforts that
she succeeded in stuttering:

"A man... a man spoke to me... at the fruiterer's."

"By jingo! Did he want you to run away with him?"

"No, he gave me a letter..."

"Then what are you complaining about? It was a love-letter, of course!"

"No. 'It's for your governor,' said he. 'My governor?' I said. 'Yes,' he
said, 'for the gentleman who's staying in your room.'"

"What's that?"

This time, Lupin had started:

"Give it here," he said, snatching the letter from her. The envelope
bore no address. But there was another, inside it, on which he read:

"Monsieur Arsene Lupin,
c/o Victoire."

"The devil!" he said. "This is a bit thick!" He tore open the second
envelope. It contained a sheet of paper with the following words,
written in large capitals:

"Everything you are doing is useless and dangerous... Give it up."

Victoire uttered one moan and fainted. As for Lupin, he felt himself
blush up to his eyes, as though he had been grossly insulted. He
experienced all the humiliation which a duellist would undergo if he
heard the most secret advice which he had received from his seconds
repeated aloud by a mocking adversary.

However, he held his tongue. Victoire went back to her work. As for him,
he remained in his room all day, thinking.

That night he did not sleep.

And he kept saying to himself:

"What is the good of thinking? I am up against one of those problems
which are not solved by any amount of thought. It is certain that I am
not alone in the matter and that, between Daubrecq and the police, there
is, in addition to the third thief that I am, a fourth thief who is
working on his own account, who knows me and who reads my game clearly.
But who is this fourth thief? And am I mistaken, by any chance? And...
oh, rot!... Let's get to sleep!..."

But he could not sleep; and a good part of the night went in this way.

At four o'clock in the morning he seemed to hear a noise in the house.
He jumped up quickly and, from the top of the staircase, saw Daubrecq go
down the first flight a