"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. Good-bye 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.
"Arsène Lupin.
"P.S.—One word more, of which I feel sure that you will approve. As it is not right and proper that a gentleman who has had the glorious privilege of fighting under my banner should languish on the straw of your prisons, I feel it my duty to give you fair warning that, in five weeks' time, on Friday, the 31st of May, I shall set at liberty Master Jérôme, promoted by me to the rank of chief messenger at the Ministry of the Interior. Don't forget the date: Friday, the 31st of May.
"A. L."
CHAPTER 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. The prince entered his study. He was a man of thirty-eight or forty years of age, whose chestnut hair was mingled with a few silver threads on the temples. He had a fresh, healthy complexion and wore a large mustache and a pair of whiskers cut extremely short, so as to be hardly noticeable against the fresh skin of his cheeks.
He was smartly dressed in a tight-fitting frock-coat and a white drill waistcoat, which showed above the opening.
"Come on!" he said, in an undertone. "I have a hard day's work before me, I expect."
He opened a door leading into a large room where a few people sat waiting, and said:
"Is Varnier there? Come in, Varnier."
A man looking like a small tradesman, squat, solidly built, firmly set upon his legs, entered at the summons. The prince closed the door behind him:
"Well, Varnier, how far are you?"
"Everything's ready for this evening, governor."
"Good. Tell me in a few words."
"It's like this. After her husband's murder, Mrs. Kesselbach, on the strength of the prospectuses which you ordered to be sent to her, selected as her residence the establishment known as the Retreat for Gentlewomen, at Garches. She occupies the last of the four small houses, at the bottom of the garden, which the management lets to ladies who prefer to live quite apart from the other boarders, the house known as the Pavillon de l'Impératrice."
"What servants has she?"
"Her companion, Gertrude, with whom she arrived a few hours after the crime, and Gertrude's sister Suzanne, whom she sent for to Monte Carlo and who acts as her maid. The two sisters are devoted to her."
"What about Edwards, the valet?"
"She did not keep him. He has gone back to his own country."
"Does she see people?"
"No. She spends her time lying on a sofa. She seems very weak and ill. She cries a great deal. Yesterday the examining-magistrate was with her for two hours."
"Very good. And now about the young girl."
"Mlle. Geneviève Ernemont lives across the way . . . in a lane running toward the open country, the third house on the right in the lane. She keeps a free school for backward children. Her grandmother, Mme. Ernemont, lives with her."
"And, according to what you wrote to me, Geneviève Ernemont and Mrs. Kesselbach have become acquainted?"
"Yes. The girl went to ask Mrs. Kesselbach for a subscription for her school. They must have taken a liking to each other, for, during the past four days, they have been walking together in the Parc de Villeneuve, of which the garden of the Retreat is only a dependency."
"At what time do they go out?"
"From five to six. At six o'clock exactly the young lady goes back to her school."
"So you have arranged the thing?"
"For six o'clock to-day. Everything is ready."
"Will there be no one there?"
"There is never any one in the park at that hour."
"Very well. I shall be there. You can go."
He sent him out through the door leading to the hall, and, returning to the waiting-room, called:
"The brothers Doudeville."
Two young men entered, a little overdressed, keen-eyed and pleasant-looking.
"Good morning, Jean. Good morning, Jacques. Any news at the Prefecture?"
"Nothing much, governor."
"Does