ind; and I
heard him mutter:

"What's the good? He's got too much start of us...."

He asked if any one called after Mr. Hargrove had gone.

"Yes, an old gentleman with a grey beard and spectacles. He went up to
Mr. Hargrove's, rang the bell, and went away again."

"I am much obliged," said Lupin, touching his hat.

He walked away slowly without speaking to me, wearing a thoughtful air.
There was no doubt that the problem struck him as very difficult, and
that he saw none too clearly in the darkness through which he seemed to
be moving with such certainty.

He himself, for that matter, confessed to me:

"These are cases that require much more intuition than reflection. But
this one, I may tell you, is well worth taking pains about."

We had now reached the boulevards. Lupin entered a public reading-room
and spent a long time consulting the last fortnight's newspapers. Now
and again, he mumbled:

"Yes ... yes ... of course ... it's only a guess, but it explains
everything.... Well, a guess that answers every question is not far from
being the truth...."

It was now dark. We dined at a little restaurant and I noticed that
Lupin's face became gradually more animated. His gestures were more
decided. He recovered his spirits, his liveliness. When we left, during
the walk which he made me take along the Boulevard Haussmann, towards
Baron Repstein's house, he was the real Lupin of the great occasions,
the Lupin who had made up his mind to go in and win.

We slackened our pace just short of the Rue de Courcelles. Baron
Repstein lived on the left-hand side, between this street and the
Faubourg Saint-Honore, in a three-storied private house of which we
could see the front, decorated with columns and caryatides.

"Stop!" said Lupin, suddenly.

"What is it?"

"Another proof to confirm my supposition...."

"What proof? I see nothing."

"I do.... That's enough...."

He turned up the collar of his coat, lowered the brim of his soft hat
and said:

"By Jove, it'll be a stiff fight! Go to bed, my friend. I'll tell you
about my expedition to-morrow ... if it doesn't cost me my life."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, I know what I'm saying! I'm risking a lot. First of all, getting
arrested, which isn't much. Next, getting killed, which is worse.
But...." He gripped my shoulder. "But there's a third thing I'm risking,
which is getting hold of two millions.... And, once I possess a capital
of two millions, I'll