Lupin waited, feverishly.
She rapidly wrote another word, the word “diane.”
“Another word! … Another word!” shouted Lupin.
She twisted her fingers round the pencil, broke the lead, made a big “J” with the stump and, now utterly exhausted, dropped the pencil.
“Another word! I must have another word!” said Lupin, in a tone of command, catching her by the arm.
But he saw by her eyes, which had once more become indifferent, that that fleeting gleam of intelligence could not shine out again.
“Let us go,” he said.
He was walking away, when she ran after him and stood in his path. He stopped:
“What is it?”
She held out the palm of her hand.
“What? Money? … Is she in the habit of begging?” he asked the count.
“No,” said Waldemar, “and I can’t understand.”
Isilda took two gold coins from her pocket and chinked them together, gleefully.
Lupin looked at them. They were French coins, quite new, bearing the date of that year.
“Where did you get these?” asked Lupin, excitedly.
“French money! … Who gave it you? … And when? … Was it today? Speak! … Answer! …” He shrugged his shoulders. “Fool that I am! As though she could answer! … My dear count, would you mind lending me forty marks? … Thanks … Here, Isilda, that’s for you.”
She took the two coins, jingled them with the others in the palm of her hand and then, putting out her arm, pointed to the ruins of the Renaissance palace, with a gesture that seemed to call attention more particularly to the left wing and to the top of that wing.
Was it a mechanical movement? Or must it be looked upon as a grateful acknowledgment for the two gold coins?
He glanced at the count. Waldemar was smiling again.
“What makes the brute keep on grinning like that?” said Lupin to himself. “Anyone would think that he was having a game with me.”
He went to the palace on the off-chance, attended by his escort.
The ground-floor consisted of a number of large reception-rooms, running one into the other and containing the few pieces of furniture that had escaped the fire.
On the first floor, on the north side, was a long gallery, out of which twelve handsome rooms opened all exactly alike.
There was a similar gallery on the second floor, but with twenty-four smaller rooms, also resembling one another. All these apartments were empty, dilapidated, wretched to look at.
Above, there was nothing. The attics had been burnt down.
For an hour, Lupin walked, ran, rushed about indefatigably, with his eyes on the lookout.
When it began to grow dusk, he hurried to one of his twelve rooms on the first floor, as if he were selecting it for special reasons known to himself alone. He was rather surprised to find the Emperor there, smoking and seated in an armchair which he had sent for.
Taking no notice of his presence, Lupin began an inspection of the room, according to the methods which he was accustomed to employ in such cases, dividing the room into sections, each of which he examined in turn.
After twenty minutes of this work, he said:
“I must beg you, Sire, to be good enough to move. There is a fireplace here. …”
The Emperor tossed his head:
“Is it really necessary for me to move?”
“Yes, Sire, this fireplace …”
“The fireplace is just the same as the others and the room is no different from its fellows.”
Lupin looked at the Emperor without understanding. The Emperor rose and said, with a laugh:
“I think, M. Lupin, that you have been making just a little fun of me.”
“How do you mean, Sire?”
“Oh, it’s hardly worth mentioning! You obtained your release on the condition of handing me certain papers in which I am interested and you have not the smallest notion as to where they are. I have been thoroughly—what do you call it, in French?—roulé ‘done’!”
“Do you think so, Sire?”
“Why, what a man knows he doesn’t have to hunt for! And you have been hunting for ten good hours! Doesn’t it strike you as a case for an immediate return to prison?”
Lupin seemed thunderstruck:
“Did not Your Imperial Majesty fix twelve o’clock tomorrow as the last limit?”
“Why wait?”
“Why? Well, to allow me to complete my work!”
“Your work? But it’s not even begun, M. Lupin.”
“There Your Imperial Majesty is mistaken.”
“Prove it … and I will wait until tomorrow.”
Lupin reflected and, speaking in a serious tone:
“Since Your Imperial Majesty requires proofs in order to have confidence in me, I will furnish them. The twelve rooms leading out of this gallery each bear a different name, which is inscribed in French—obviously by a French decorative artist—over the various doors. One of the inscriptions, less damaged by the fire than the others, caught my eye as I was passing along the gallery. I examined the other doors: all of them bore hardly legible traces of names caned over the pediments. Thus I found a ‘D’ and an ‘E’ the first and last letters of ‘Diane.’ I found an ‘a’ and ‘lon’ which pointed to ‘Apollon.’ These are the French equivalents of Diana and Apollo, both of them mythological deities. The other inscriptions presented similar characteristics. I discovered traces of such names as Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and so on. This part of the problem was solved: each of the twelve rooms bears the name of an Olympian god or goddess; and the letters apoon, completed by Isilda, point to the Apollo Room or Salle d’Apollon. So it is here, in the room in which we now are, that the letters are hidden. A few minutes, perhaps, will suffice in which to discover them.”
“A few minutes or a few years … or even longer!” said the Emperor, laughing.
He seemed greatly amused; and the count also displayed a coarse merriment.
Lupin asked:
“Would Your Imperial Majesty be good enough to explain?”
“M. Lupin, the exciting investigation which you have conducted today and of which you are telling us the brilliant results has already been made by me …
