nearer still. It was the third door.
Two remained.

Through one of the windows, Beautrelet saw a number of fishing-smacks
sailing round the Needle and, not far away, floating on the waters like
a great black fish, the torpedo-boat.

"What a row!" exclaimed Lupin. "One can't hear one's self speak! Let's
go upstairs, shall we? It may interest you to look over the Needle."

They climbed to the floor above, which was protected, like the others,
by a door which Lupin locked behind him.

"My picture gallery," he said.

The walls were covered with canvases on which Beautrelet recognized the
most famous signatures. There were Raphael's Madonna of the Agnus Dei,
Andrea del Sarto's Portrait of Lucrezia Fede, Titian's Salome,
Botticelli's Madonna and Angels and numbers of Tintorettos, Carpaccios,
Rembrandts, Velasquez.

"What fine copies!" said Beautrelet, approvingly.

Lupin looked at him with an air of stupefaction:

"What! Copies! You must be mad! The copies are in Madrid, my dear
fellow, in Florence, Venice, Munich, Amsterdam."

"Then these--"

"Are the original pictures, my lad, patiently collected in all the
museums of Europe, where I have replaced them, like an honest man, with
first-rate copies."

"But some day or other--"

"Some day or other, the fraud will be discovered? Well, they will find
my signature on each canvas--at the back--and they will know that it
was I who have endowed my country with the original masterpieces. After
all, I have only done what Napoleon did in Italy.--Oh, look,
Beautrelet: here are M. de Gesvres's four Rubenses!--"

The knocking continued within the hollow of the Needle without ceasing.

"I can't stand this!" said Lupin. "Let's go higher."

A fresh staircase. A fresh door.

"The tapestry-room," Lupin announced.

The tapestries were not hung on the walls, but rolled, tied up with
cord, ticketed; and, in addition, there were parcels of old fabrics
which Lupin unfolded: wonderful brocades, admirable velvets, soft,
faded silks, church vestments woven with silver and gold--

They went higher still and Beautrelet saw the room containing the
clocks and other time-pieces, the book-room--oh, the splendid bindings,
the precious, undiscoverable volumes, the unique copies stolen from the
great public libraries--the lace-room, the knicknack-room.

And each time the circumference of the room grew smaller.

And each time, now, the sound of knocking was more distant. Ganimard
was l