M. Lenormand said a few words to Gourel, who went out. Then, going up to Auguste and speaking with great decision, he said:
“There’s no way out of it. You’re caught. The best thing to do, when the game is lost, is to throw down your cards. What were you doing on Tuesday?”
“I? Nothing. I was here.”
“You lie. You were off duty. You went out for the day.”
“Oh, yes … I remember … I had a friend to see me from the country. … We went for a walk in the Bois.”
“Your friend’s name was Marco. And you went for a walk in the cellars of the Crédit Lyonnais.”
“I? What an idea! … Marco! … I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“And these? Do you know these?” cried the chief, thrusting a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles under his nose.
“No … certainly not. … I don’t wear spectacles. …”
“Yes, you do; you wear them when you go to the Crédit Lyonnais and when you pass yourself off as Mr. Kesselbach. These come from your room, the room which you occupy, under the name of M. Jérôme, at No. 50 Rue du Colisee.”
“My room? My room? I sleep here, at the office.”
“But you change your clothes over there, to play your parts in Lupin’s gang.”
A blow in the chest made him stagger back. Auguste reached the window at a bound, climbed over the balcony and jumped into the courtyard.
“Dash it all!” shouted Valenglay. “The scoundrel!”
He rang the bell, ran to the window, wanted to call out. M. Lenormand, with the greatest calm, said:
“Don’t excite yourself, Monsieur le Président …”
“But that blackguard of an Auguste …”
“One second, please. … I foresaw this ending … in fact, I allowed for it. … It’s the best confession we could have. …”
Yielding in the presence of this coolness, Valenglay resumed his seat. In a moment, Gourel entered, with his hand on the collar of Master Auguste Maximin Philippe Daileron, alias Jérôme, chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior.
“Bring him, Gourel!” said M. Lenormand, as who should say, “Fetch it! Bring it!” to a good retriever carrying the game in its jaws. “Did he come quietly?”
“He bit me a little, but I held tight,” replied the sergeant, showing his huge, sinewy hand.
“Very well, Gourel. And now take this chap off to the Dépôt in a cab. Goodbye for the present, M. Jérôme.”
Valenglay was immensely amused. He rubbed his hands and laughed. The idea that his chief messenger was one of Lupin’s accomplices struck him as a most delightfully ludicrous thing.
“Well done, my dear Lenormand; this is wonderful! But how on earth did you manage it?”
“Oh, in the simplest possible fashion. I knew that Mr. Kesselbach was employing the Barbareux agency and that Lupin had called on him, pretending to come from the agency. I hunted in that direction and discovered that, when the indiscretion was committed to the prejudice of Mr. Kesselbach and of Barbareux, it could only have been to the advantage of one Jérôme, a friend of one of the clerks at the agency. If you had not ordered me to hustle things, I should have watched the messenger and caught Marco and then Lupin.”
“You’ll catch them, Lenormand, you’ll catch them, I assure you. And we shall be assisting at the most exciting spectacle in the world: the struggle between Lupin and yourself. I shall bet on you.”
The next morning the newspapers published the following letter:
“Open Letter to M. Lenormand, Chief of the Detective-service.
“All my congratulations, dear sir and dear friend, on your arrest of Jérôme the messenger. It was a smart piece of work, well executed and worthy of you.
“All my compliments, also, on the ingenious manner in which you proved to the prime minister that I was not Mr. Kesselbach’s murderer. Your demonstration was clear, logical, irrefutable and, what is more, truthful. As you know, I do not kill people. Thank you for proving it on this occasion. The esteem of my contemporaries and of yourself, dear sir and dear friend, are indispensable to my happiness.
“In return, allow me to assist you in the pursuit of the monstrous assassin and to give you a hand with the Kesselbach case, a very interesting case, believe me: so interesting and so worthy of my attention that I have determined to issue from the retirement in which I have been living for the past four years, between my books and my good dog Sherlock, to beat all my comrades to arms and to throw myself once more into the fray.
“What unexpected turns life sometimes takes! Here am I, your fellow-worker! Let me assure you, dear sir and dear friend, that I congratulate myself upon it, and that I appreciate this favor of destiny at its true value.
IV
Prince Sernine at Work
A ground-floor flat, at the corner of the Boulevard Haussmann and the Rue de Courcelles. Here lived Prince Sernine: Prince Sernine, one of the most brilliant members of the Russian colony in Paris, whose name was constantly recurring in the “Arrivals and Departures” column in the newspapers.
Eleven o’clock in the morning.
