self,
Lupin, mark you ... so that the real person who was working the business
might remain unknown...."

"A confederate," suggested M. Dudouis. "A confederate, moving among the
visitors, who set the alarms going ... and who managed to hide in the
house after the party had broken up."

"You're getting warm, chief, you're getting warm! It is certain that the
tapestries, as they cannot have been stolen by any one making his way
surreptitiously into the house, were stolen by somebody who remained in
the house; and it is equally certain that, by taking the list of the
people invited and inquiring into the antecedents of each of them, one
might...."

"Well?"

"Well, chief, there's a 'but,' namely, that the three detectives had
this list in their hands when the guests arrived and that they still had
it when the guests left. Now sixty-three came in and sixty-three went
away. So you see...."

"Then do you suppose a servant?..."

"No."

"The detectives?"

"No."

"But, still ... but, still," said the chief, impatiently, "if the
robbery was committed from the inside...."

"That is beyond dispute," declared the inspector, whose excitement
seemed to be nearing fever-point. "There is no question about it. All my
investigations led to the same certainty. And my conviction gradually
became so positive that I ended, one day, by drawing up this startling
axiom: in theory and in fact, the robbery can only have been committed
with the assistance of an accomplice staying in the house. Whereas there
was no accomplice!"

"That's absurd," said Dudouis.

"Quite absurd," said Ganimard. "But, at the very moment when I uttered
that absurd sentence, the truth flashed upon me."

"Eh?"

"Oh, a very dim, very incomplete, but still sufficient truth! With that
clue to guide me, I was bound to find the way. Do you follow me, chief?"

M. Dudouis sat silent. The same phenomenon that had taken place in
Ganimard was evidently taking place in him. He muttered:

"If it's not one of the guests, nor the servants, nor the private
detectives, then there's no one left...."

"Yes, chief, there's one left...."

M. Dudouis started as though he had received a shock; and, in a voice
that betrayed his excitement:

"But, look here, that's preposterous."

"Why?"

"Come, think for yourself!"

"Go on, chief: say what's in your mind."

"Nonsense! What do you mean?"

"Go on, chief."

"It's impossible! How can Sparmiento have been Lupin's ac