at
proved stronger than their professional pride, suddenly enlightened the
public as to the part played by Isidore Beautrelet in recent events. He
alone had done everything. To him alone the merit of the victory was
due.

The excitement was intense. Isidore Beautrelet awoke to find himself a
hero; and the crowd, suddenly infatuated, insisted upon the fullest
information regarding its new favorite. The reporters were there to
supply it. They rushed to the assault of the Lycee Janson-de-Sailly,
waited for the day-boarders to come out after schoolhours and picked up
all that related, however remotely, to Beautrelet. It was in this way
that they learned the reputation which he enjoyed among his
schoolfellows, who called him the rival of Holmlock Shears. Thanks to
his powers of logical reasoning, with no further data than those which
he was able to gather from the papers, he had, time after time,
proclaimed the solution of very complicated cases long before they were
cleared up by the police.

It had become a game at the Lycee Janson to put difficult questions and
intricate problems to Beautrelet; and it was astonishing to see with
what unhesitating and analytical power and by means of what ingenious
deductions he made his way through the thickest darkness. Ten days
before the arrest of Jorisse, the grocer, he showed what could be done
with the famous umbrella. In the same way, he declared from the
beginning, in the matter of the Saint-Cloud mystery, that the concierge
was the only possible murderer.

But most curious of all was the pamphlet which was found circulating
among the boys at the school, a typewritten pamphlet signed by
Beautrelet and manifolded to the number of ten copies. It was entitled,
ARSENE LUPIN AND HIS METHOD, SHOWING IN HOW FAR THE LATTER IS BASED
UPON TRADITION AND IN HOW FAR ORIGINAL. FOLLOWED BY A COMPARISON
BETWEEN ENGLISH HUMOR AND FRENCH IRONY.

It contained a profound study of each of the exploits of Arsene Lupin,
throwing the illustrious burglar's operations into extraordinary
relief, showing the very mechanism of his way of setting to work, his
special tactics, his letters to the press, his threats, the
announcement of his thefts, in short, the whole bag of tricks which he
employed to bamboozle his selected victim and throw him into such a
state of mind that the victim almost offered himself to the plot
contrived against him and that everything took place, as it were, with
his own consent.