"Different marks, different measurements, different finger-prints. . . . The two photographs even are quite unlike. I will therefore ask you to satisfy us as to your exact identity." "That's just what I was going to ask you. I have lived under so many distinct names that I have ended by forgetting my own. I don't know where I am." "So I must enter a refusal to answer?" "An inability." "Is this a thought-out plan? Am I to expect the same silence in reply to all my questions?" "Very nearly." "And why?" Lupin struck a solemn attitude and said: "M. le Juge d'Instruction, my life belongs to history. You have only to turn over the annals of the past fifteen years and your curiosity will be satisfied. So much for my part. As to the rest, it does not concern me: it is an affair between you and the murderers at the Palace Hotel." "Arsène Lupin, the honest man that you are will have to-day to explain the murder of Master Altenheim." "Hullo, this is new! Is the idea yours, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction?" "Exactly." "Very clever! Upon my word, M. Formerie, you're getting on!" "The position in which you were captured leaves no doubt." "None at all; only, I will venture to ask you this: what sort of wound did Altenheim die of?" "Of a wound in the throat caused by a knife." "And where is the knife?" "It has not been found." "How could it not have been found, if I had been the assassin, considering that I was captured beside the very man whom I am supposed to have killed?" "Who killed him, according to you?" "The same man that killed Mr. Kesselbach, Chapman, and Beudot. The nature of the wound is a sufficient proof." "How did he get away?" "Through a trap-door, which you will discover in the room where the tragedy took place." M. Formerie assumed an air of slyness: "And how was it that you did not follow that useful example?" "I tried to follow it. But the outlet was blocked by a door which I could not open. It was during this attempt that 'the other one' came back to the room and killed his accomplice for fear of the revelations which he would have been sure to make. At the same time, he hid in a cupboard, where it was subsequently found, the parcel of clothes which I had prepared." "What were those clothes for?" "To disguise myself. When I went to the Glycines my plan was this: to hand Altenheim over to the police, to suppress my own identity as Prince Sernine and to reappear under the features. . . ." "Of M. Lenormand, I suppose?" "Exactly." "No." "What!" M. Formerie gave a knowing smile and wagged his forefinger from left to right and right to left: "No," he repeated. "What do you mean by 'no'?" "That story about M. Lenormand. . . ." "Well?"