to any interference on the part of his allies. Otherwise they
would not have contented themselves with these extraordinary
manifestations, but would have rescued him for good and all.

No, he must abandon all hope. Ganimard was coming. Ganimard would find
him there. It was inevitable. There was no getting away from the fact.

And the prospect of what was coming irritated him singularly. He already
heard his old enemy's gibes ringing in his ears. He foresaw the roars of
laughter with which the incredible news would be greeted on the morrow.
To be arrested in action, so to speak, on the battlefield, by an
imposing detachment of adversaries, was one thing: but to be arrested,
or rather picked up, scraped up, gathered up, in such condition, was
really too silly. And Lupin, who had so often scoffed at others, felt
all the ridicule that was falling to his share in this ending of the
Dugrival business, all the bathos of allowing himself to be caught in
the widow's infernal trap and finally of being "served up" to the police
like a dish of game, roasted to a turn and nicely seasoned.

"Blow the widow!" he growled. "I had rather she had cut my throat and
done with it."

He pricked up his ears. Some one was moving in the next room. Ganimard!
No. Great as his eagerness would be, he could not be there yet. Besides,
Ganimard would not have acted like that, would not have opened the door
as gently as that other person was doing. What other person? Lupin
remembered the three miraculous interventions to which he owed his life.
Was it possible that there was really somebody who had protected him
against the widow, and that that somebody was now attempting to rescue
him? But, if so, who?

Unseen by Lupin, the stranger stooped behind the bed. Lupin heard the
sound of the pliers attacking the wire strands and releasing him little
by little. First his chest was freed, then his arms, then his legs.

And a voice said to him:

"You must get up and dress."

Feeling very weak, he half-raised himself in bed at the moment when the
stranger rose from her stooping posture.

"Who are you?" he whispered. "Who are you?"

And a great surprise over came him.

By his side stood a woman, a woman dressed in black, with a lace shawl
over her head, covering part of her face. And the woman, as far as he
could judge, was young and of a graceful and slender stature.

"Who are you?" he repeated.

"You must come now," said the woman. "There's no tim