he Prime Minister's little
ground-floor flat near the Trocadero, that he saw a clock on the
mantelpiece:

"A quarter to seven!" he exclaimed. "Good! There's not been much
time lost."

Valenglay's study opened on a flight of steps that ran down to a
garden filled with aviaries. The room itself was crammed with books
and pictures.

A bell rang, and the detectives went out, following the old maidservant
who had shown them in. Don Luis was left alone.

He was still calm, but nevertheless felt a certain uneasiness, a longing
to be up and doing, to throw himself into the fray; and his eyes kept on
involuntarily returning to the face of the clock. The minute hand seemed
endowed with extraordinary speed.

At last some one entered, ushering in a second person. Don Luis
recognized Valenglay and the Prefect of Police.

"That's it," he thought. "I've got him."

He saw this by the sort of vague sympathy perceptible on the old
Premier's lean and bony face. There was not a sign of arrogance, nothing
to raise a barrier between the Minister and the suspicious individual
whom he was receiving: just a manifest, playful curiosity and sympathy,
It was a sympathy which Valenglay had never concealed, and of which he
even boasted when, after Arsene Lupin's sham death, he spoke of the
adventurer and the strange relations between them.

"You have not changed," he said, after looking at him for some time.
"Complexion a little darker, a trifle grayer over the temples,
that's all."

And putting on a blunt tone, he asked:

"And what is it you want?"

"An answer first of all, Monsieur le President du Conseil. Has Deputy
Chief Weber, who took me to the lockup last night, traced the motor cab
in which Florence Levasseur was carried off?"

"Yes, the motor stopped at Versailles. The persons inside it hired
another cab which is to take them to Nantes. What else do you ask for,
besides that answer?"

"My liberty, Monsieur le President."

"At once, of course?" said Valenglay, beginning to laugh.

"In thirty or thirty-five minutes at most."

"At half-past seven, eh?"

"Half-past seven at latest, Monsieur le President."

"And why your liberty?"

"To catch the murderer of Cosmo Mornington, of Inspector Verot, and of
the Roussel family."

"Are you the only one that can catch him?"

"Yes."

"Still, the police are moving. The wires are at work. The murderer will
not leave France. He shan't escape us."

"You can't find him."

"Ye