Sonia and
Victoire? Pah! They'd have kept!"

"You mean to say ...?" whispered M. Dudouis, at last, understanding the
chief-inspector's agitation.

"You've guessed it, chief!"

"Is he here?"

"He's here."

"In hiding?"

"Not a bit of it. Simply in disguise. He's the man-servant."

This time, M. Dudouis did not utter a word nor make a gesture. Lupin's
audacity confounded him.

Ganimard chuckled.

"It's no longer a threefold, but a fourfold incarnation. Edith Swan-neck
might have blundered. The master's presence was necessary; and he had
the cheek to return. For three weeks, he has been beside me during my
inquiry, calmly following the progress made."

"Did you recognize him?"

"One doesn't recognize him. He has a knack of making-up his face and
altering the proportions of his body so as to prevent any one from
knowing him. Besides, I was miles from suspecting.... But, this evening,
as I was watching Sonia in the shadow of the stairs, I heard Victoire
speak to the man-servant and call him, 'Dearie.' A light flashed in upon
me. 'Dearie!' That was what she always used to call him. And I knew
where I was."

M. Dudouis seemed flustered, in his turn, by the presence of the enemy,
so often pursued and always so intangible:

"We've got him, this time," he said, between his teeth. "We've got him;
and he can't escape us."

"No, chief, he can't: neither he nor the two women."

"Where are they?"

"Sonia and Victoire are on the second floor; Lupin is on the third."

M. Dudouis suddenly became anxious:

"Why, it was through the windows of one of those floors that the
tapestries were passed when they disappeared!"

"That's so, chief."

"In that case, Lupin can get away too. The windows look out on the Rue
Dufresnoy."

"Of course they do, chief; but I have taken my precautions. The moment
you arrived, I sent four of our men to keep watch under the windows in
the Rue Dufresnoy. They have strict instructions to shoot, if any one
appears at the windows and looks like coming down. Blank cartridges for
the first shot, ball-cartridges for the next."

"Good, Ganimard! You have thought of everything. We'll wait here; and,
immediately after sunrise...."

"Wait, chief? Stand on ceremony with that rascal? Bother about rules and
regulations, legal hours and all that rot? And suppose he's not quite so
polite to us and gives us the slip meanwhile? Suppose he plays us one of
his Lupin tricks? No, no, we must have no no