"Yes, you had to see Mme. Mergy home."

"Just so, and to look after her. You can understand the poor thing's despair... Her son Gilbert so near death... And such a death!... At that time we could only hope for a miracle... an impossible miracle. I myself was resigned to the inevitable... You know as well as I do, when fate shows itself implacable, one ends by despairing."

"But I thought," observed Prasville, "that your intention, on leaving me, was to drag Daubrecq's secret from him at all costs."

"Certainly. But Daubrecq was not in Paris."

"Oh?"

"No. He was on his way to Paris in a motor-car."

"Have you a motor-car, M. Nicole?"

"Yes, when I need it: an out-of-date concern, an old tin kettle of sorts. Well, he was on his way to Paris in a motor-car, or rather on the roof of a motor-car, inside a trunk in which I packed him. But, unfortunately, the motor was unable to reach Paris until after the execution. Thereupon... "

Prasville stared at M. Nicole with an air of stupefaction. If he had retained the least doubt of the individual's real identity, this manner of dealing with Daubrecq would have removed it. By Jingo! To pack a man in a trunk and pitch him on the top of a motorcar!... motorcar No one but Lupin would indulge in such a freak, no one but Lupin would confess it with that ingenuous coolness!

"Thereupon," echoed Prasville, "you decided what?"

"I cast about for another method."

"What method?"

"Why, surely, monsieur le secretaire-genera1, you know as well as I do!"

"How do you mean?"

"Why, weren't you at the execution?"

"I was."

"In that case, you saw both Vaucheray and the executioner bit, one mortally, the other with a slight wound. And you can't fail to see... "

"Oh," exclaimed Prasville, dumbfounded, "you confess it? It was you who fired the shots, this morning?"

"Come, monsieur le secretaire-general, think! What choice had I? The list of the Twenty-seven which you examined was a forgery. Daubrecq, who possessed the genuine one, would not arrive until a few hours after the execution. There was therefore but one way for me to save Gilbert and obtain his pardon; and that was to delay the execution by a few hours."

"Obviously."

"Well, of course. By killing that infamous brute, that hardened criminal, Vaucheray, and wounding the executioner, I spread disorder and panic; I made Gilbert's execution physically and morally impossible; and I thus gained the few hours which were indispensable for my purpose."

"Obviously," repeated Prasville.

"Well, of course," repeated Lupin, "it gives us all - the government, the president and myself - time to reflect and to see the question in a clearer light. What do you think of it, monsieur le secretaire-general?"

Prasville thought a number of things, especially that this Nicole was giving proof, to use a vulgar phrase, of the most infernal cheek, of a cheek so great that Prasville felt inclined to ask himself if he was really right in identifying Nico1e with Lupin and Lupin with Nicole.

"I think, M. Nicole, that a man has to be a jolly good shot to kill a person whom he wants to kill, at a distance of a hundred yards, and to wound another person whom he only wants to wound."

“Probably you would be more familiar with the name of my son Douglas.”

Holmes looked at her with great interest.

“Dear me! Are you the mother of Douglas Maberley? I knew him slightly. But of course all London knew him. What a magnificent creature he was! Where is he now?”

“Dead, Mr. Holmes, dead! He was attache at Rome, and he died there of pneumonia last month.”

“I am sorry. One could not connect death with such a man. I have never known anyone so vitally alive. He lived intensely — every fibre of him!”

“Too intensely, Mr. Holmes. That was the ruin of him. You remember him as he was — debonair and splendid. You did not see the moody, morose, brooding creature into which he developed. His heart was broken. In a single month I seemed to see my gallant boy turn into a worn-out cynical man.”

“A love affair — a woman?”

“Or a fiend. Well, it was not to talk of my poor lad that I asked you to come, Mr. Holmes.”

“Dr. Watson and I are at your service.”

“There have been some very strange happenings. I have been in this house more than a year now, and as I wished to lead a retired life I have seen little of my neighbours. Three days ago I had a call from a man who said that he was a house agent. He said that this house would exactly suit a client of his, and that if I would part with it money would be no object. It seemed to me very strange as there are several empty houses on the market which appear to be equally eligible, but naturally I was interested in what he said. I therefore named a price which was five hundred pounds more than I gave. He at once closed with the offer, but added that his client desired to buy the furniture as well and would I put a price upon it. Some of this furniture is from my old home, and it is, as you see, very good, so that I named a good round sum. To this also he at once agreed. I had always wanted to travel, and the bargain was so good a one that it really seemed that I should be my own mistress for the rest of my life.

“Yesterday the man arrived with the agreement all drawn out. Luckily I showed it to Mr. Sutro, my lawyer, who lives in Harrow. He said to me, ‘This is a very strange document. Are you aware that if you sign it you could not legally take anything out of the house — not even your own private possessions?’ When the man came again in the evening I pointed this out, and I said that I meant only to sell the furniture.

“ ‘No, no, everything,’ said he.

“ ‘But my clothes? My jewels?’

“ ‘Well, well, some concession might be made for your personal effects. But nothing shall go out of the house unchecked. My client is a very liberal man, but he has his fads and his own way of doing things. It is everything or nothing with him.’

“ ‘Then it must be nothing,’ said I. And there the matter was left, but the whole thing seemed to me to be so unusual that I thought —”