ing tone:

"You'll have only yourself to blame, mind!... I'm going to count three:
one, two--"

"But what's it all about?" bellowed Don Luis.

"Prefect's orders, received just now."

"What orders?"

"To take you to the lockup if the Florence girl escaped us again."

"Have you a warrant?"

"I have."

"And what next?"

"What next? Nothing: the Sante--the examining magistrate--"

"But, hang it all, the tiger's making tracks meanwhile! Oh, rot! Is it
possible to be so dense? What mugs those fellows are! Oh, dash it!"

He was fuming with rage, and when he saw that they were driving into
the prison yard, he gathered all his strength, knocked the revolver
out of the deputy's hand, and stunned one of the detectives with a
blow of his fist.

But ten men came crowding round the doors. Resistance was useless. He
understood this, and his rage increased.

"The idiots!" he shouted, while they surrounded him and searched him at
the door of the office. "The rotters! The bunglers! To go mucking up a
job like that! They can lay hands on the villain if they want to, and
they lock up the honest man--while the villain makes himself scarce! And
he'll do more murder yet! Florence! Florence ..."

Under the lamp light, in the midst of the detectives holding him, he was
magnificent in his helpless violence.

They dragged him away. With an unparalleled display of strength, he drew
himself up, shook off the men who were hanging on to him like a pack of
hounds worrying some animal at bay, got rid of Weber, and accosted
Mazeroux in familiar tones. He was gloriously masterful, almost calm, so
wholly did he appear to control his seething rage. He gave his orders in
breathless little sentences, curt as words of command.

"Mazeroux, run around to the Prefect's. Ask him to ring up Valenglay:
yes, the Prime Minister. I want to see him. Have him informed. Ask the
Prefect to say it's I: the man who made the German Emperor play his game.
My name? He knows. Or, if he forgets, the Prefect can tell him my name."

He paused for a second or two; and then, calmer still, he declared:

"Arsene Lupin! Telephone those two words to him and just say this:
'Arsene Lupin wishes to speak to the Prime Minister on very important
business.' Get that through to him at once. The Prime Minister would be
very angry if he heard afterward that they had neglected to communicate
my request. Go, Mazeroux, and then find the villain's tracks again."

The governor