ther all his efforts--granting that he succeeded--would
not end in farcical results, absolutely foreign to the aim which he was
pursuing.

For, after all, supposing that he did fathom Daubrecq's underhand
dealings, would that give him the means of rescuing Gilbert and
Vaucheray?

That day an incident occurred which put an end to his indecision. After
lunch Victoire heard snatches of a conversation which Daubrecq held with
some one on the telephone. Lupin gathered, from what Victoire reported,
that the deputy had an appointment with a lady for half-past eight and
that he was going to take her to a theatre:

"I shall get a pit-tier box, like the one we had six weeks ago,"
Daubrecq had said. And he added, with a laugh, "I hope that I shall not
have the burglars in during that time."

There was not a doubt in Lupin's mind. Daubrecq was about to spend his
evening in the same manner in which he had spent the evening six weeks
ago, while they were breaking into his villa at Enghien. To know the
person whom he was to meet and perhaps thus to discover how Gilbert and
Vaucheray had learnt that Daubrecq would be away from eight o'clock in
the evening until one o'clock in the morning: these were matters of the
utmost importance.

Lupin left the house in the afternoon, with Victoire's assistance. He
knew through her that Daubrecq was coming home for dinner earlier than
usual.

He went to his flat in the Rue Chateaubriand, telephoned for three of
his friends, dressed and made himself up in his favourite character of a
Russian prince, with fair hair and moustache and short-cut whiskers.

The accomplices arrived in a motor-car.

At that moment, Achille, his man, brought him a telegram, addressed to
M. Michel Beaumont, Rue Chateaubriand, which ran:

"Do not come to theatre this evening. Danger of your
intervention spoiling everything."

There was a flower-vase on the chimney-piece beside him. Lupin took it
and smashed it to pieces.

"That's it, that's it," he snarled. "They are playing with me as I
usually play with others. Same behaviour. Same tricks. Only there's this
difference..."

What difference? He hardly knew. The truth was that he too was baffled
and disconcerted to the inmost recesses of his being and that he was
continuing to act only from obstinacy, from a sense of duty, so to
speak, and without putting his ordinary good humour and high spirits
into the work.

"Come along," he said to his accomplices.