Swiftly he cut the cords that fastened the shoulders. The body fell forward in an inert mass. Gourel caught it in his arms and started back with a cry of horror: "Why, he's dead! Feel . . . his hands are ice-cold! And look at his eyes!" Some one ventured the opinion: "An apoplectic stroke, no doubt . . . or else heart-failure." "True, there's no sign of a wound . . . it's a natural death." They laid the body on the sofa and unfastened the clothes. But red stains at once appeared on the white shirt; and, when they pushed it back, they saw that, near the heart, the chest bore a little scratch through which had trickled a thin stream of blood. And on the shirt was pinned a card. Gourel bent forward. It was Arsène Lupin's card, bloodstained like the rest. Then Gourel drew himself up, authoritatively and sharply: "Murdered! . . . Arsène Lupin! . . . Leave the flat. . . . Leave the flat, all of you! . . . No one must stay here or in the bedroom. . . . Let the two men be removed and seen to elsewhere! . . . Leave the flat . . . and don't touch a thing . . . "_The chief is on his way! . . ._" CHAPTER II THE BLUE-EDGED LABEL "Arsène Lupin!" Gourel repeated these two fateful words with an absolutely petrified air. They rang within him like a knell. Arsène Lupin! The great, the formidable Arsène Lupin. The burglar-king, the mighty adventurer! Was it possible? "No, no," he muttered, "it's not possible, _because he's dead_!" Only that was just it . . . was he really dead? Arsène Lupin! Standing beside the corpse, he remained dull and stunned, turning the card over and over with a certain dread, as though he had been challenged by a ghost. Arsène Lupin! What ought he to do? Act? Take the field with his resources? No, no . . . better not act . . . . He was bound to make mistakes if he entered the lists with an adversary of that stamp. Besides, the chief was on his way! _The chief was on his way!_ All Gourel's intellectual philosophy was summed up in that short sentence. An able, persevering officer, full of courage and experience and endowed with Herculean strength, he was one of those who go ahead only when obeying directions and who do good work only when ordered. And this lack of initiative had become still more marked since M. Lenormand had taken the place of M. Dudouis in the detective-service. M. Lenormand was a chief indeed! With him, one was sure of being on the right track. So sure, even, that Gourel stopped the moment that the chief's incentive was no longer behind him. But the chief was on his way! Gourel took out his watch and calculated the exact time when he would arrive. If only the commissary of police did not get there first, if only the examining-magistrate, who was no doubt already appointed, or the divisional surgeon, did not come to make inopportune discoveries before the chief had time to fix the essential points of the case in his mind! "Well, Gourel, what are you dreaming about?" "The chief!"