"Through room 420, one of the rooms reserved by Mr. Kesselbach. The person in question evidently possessed a false key." "But," exclaimed the prefect of police, "all the doors between that room and Mr. Kesselbach's flat were bolted; and there were five of them!" "There was always the balcony." "The balcony!" "Yes; the balcony runs along the whole floor, on the Rue de Judée side." "And what about the spaces in between?" "An active man can step across them. Our man did. I have found marks." "But all the windows of the suite were shut; and it was ascertained, after the crime, that they were still shut." "All except one, the secretary's window, Chapman's, which was only pushed to. I tried it myself." This time the prime minister seemed a little shaken, so logical did M. Lenormand's version seem, so precise and supported by such sound facts. He asked, with growing interest: "But what was the man's object in coming?" "I don't know." "Ah, you don't know!" "Any more than I know his name." "But why did he kill Mr. Kesselbach?" "I don't know. This all remains a mystery. The utmost that we have the right to suppose is that he did not come with the intention of killing, but with the intention, he too, of taking the documents contained in the morocco note-case and the ebony box; and that, finding himself by accident in the presence of the enemy reduced to a state of helplessness, he killed him." Valenglay muttered: "Yes, strictly speaking, that is possible. . . . And, according to you, did he find the documents?" "He did not find the box, because it was not there; but he found the black morocco note-case. So that Lupin and . . . the other are in the same position. Each knows as much as the other about the Kesselbach scheme." "That means," remarked the premier, "that they will fight." "Exactly. And the fight has already begun. The murderer, finding a card of Arsène Lupin's, pinned it to the corpse. All the appearances would thus be against Arsène Lupin . . . therefore, Arsène Lupin would be the murderer." "True . . . true," said Valenglay. "The calculation seemed pretty accurate." "And the stratagem would have succeeded," continued M. Lenormand, "if in consequence of another and a less favorable accident, the murderer had not, either in coming or going, dropped his cigarette-case in room 420, and if the floor-waiter, Gustave Beudot, had not picked it up. From that moment, knowing himself to be discovered, or on the point of being discovered . . ." "How did he know it?" "How? Why, through M. Formerie, the examining-magistrate, himself! The investigation took place with open doors. It is certain that the murderer was concealed among the people, members of the hotel staff and journalists, who were present when Gustave Beudot was giving his evidence; and when the magistrate sent Gustave Beudot to his attic to fetch the cigarette-case, the man followed and struck the blow. Second victim!"