e Beautrelet, mastered for a moment by Arsene Lupin,
distressed by the abduction of his father and resigned to defeat,
Isidore Beautrelet, in the end, was unable to persuade himself to keep
silence. The truth was too beautiful and too curious, the proofs which
he was able to produce were too logical and too conclusive for him to
consent to misrepresent it. The whole world was waiting for his
revelations. He spoke.

* * * * *

On the evening of the day on which his article appeared, the newspapers
announced the kidnapping of M. Beautrelet, senior. Isidore was informed
of it by a telegram from Cherbourg, which reached him at three o'clock.

CHAPTER FIVE

ON THE TRACK

Young Beautrelet was stunned by the violence of the blow. As a matter
of fact, although, in publishing his article, he had obeyed one of
those irresistible impulses which make a man despise every
consideration of prudence, he had never really believed in the
possibility of an abduction. His precautions had been too thorough. The
friends at Cherbourg not only had instructions to guard and protect
Beautrelet the elder: they were also to watch his comings and goings,
never to let him walk out alone and not even to hand him a single
letter without first opening it. No, there was no danger. Lupin,
wishing to gain time, was trying to intimidate his adversary.

The blow, therefore, was almost unexpected; and Isidore, because he was
powerless to act, felt the pain of the shock during the whole of the
remainder of the day. One idea alone supported him: that of leaving
Paris, going down there, seeing for himself what had happened and
resuming the offensive.

He telegraphed to Cherbourg. He was at Saint-Lazare a little before
nine. A few minutes after, he was steaming out of the station in the
Normandy express.

It was not until an hour later, when he mechanically unfolded a
newspaper which he had bought on the platform, that he became aware of
the letter by which Lupin indirectly replied to his article of that
morning:

* * * * *

To the Editor of the Grand Journal.

SIR: I cannot pretend but that my modest personality, which would
certainly have passed unnoticed in more heroic times, has acquired a
certain prominence in the dull and feeble period in which we live. But
there is a limit beyond which the morbid curiosity of the crowd cannot
go without becoming indecently indiscreet. I