"It's a fact that Monsieur le Préfet de Police and M. Weber cannot be enjoying themselves at the present moment. . . . But, when all is said, can you explain to me, M. Lenormand . . ." "All that we know, Monsieur le Président, is that the escape took place from the Palais de Justice. The prisoner was brought in a prison-van and taken to M. Formerie's room. He left M. Formerie's room, but he did not leave the Palais de Justice. And yet nobody knows what became of him." "It's most bewildering." "Most bewildering." "And has nothing else been discovered?" "Yes. The inner corridor leading to the examining magistrates' rooms was blocked by an absolutely unprecedented crowd of prisoners, warders, counsel and doorkeepers; and it was discovered that all those people had received forged notices to appear at the same hour. On the other hand, not one of the examining-magistrates who were supposed to have summoned them sat in his room that day; and this because of forged notices from the public prosecutor's office, sending them to every part of Paris . . . and of the outskirts." "Is that all?" "No. Two municipal guards and a prisoner were seen to cross the courtyards. A cab was waiting for them outside and all three stepped in. "And your supposition, Lenormand, your opinion. . . ." "My supposition, Monsieur le Président, is that the two municipal guards were accomplices who, profiting by the disorder in the corridor, took the place of the three warders. And my opinion is that this escape succeeded only through such special circumstances and so strange a combination of facts that we must look upon the most unlikely cases of complicity as absolutely certain. Lupin, for that matter, has connections at the Palais that balk all our calculations. He has agents in your ministry. He has agents at the Prefecture of Police. He has agents around me. It is a formidable organization, a detective-service a thousand times more clever, more daring, more varied and more supple than that under my own orders." "And you stand this, Lenormand?" "No, I do not." "Then why this slackness on your part since the beginning of the case? What have you done against Lupin?" "I have prepared for the struggle." "Ah, capital! And, while you were preparing, he was acting." "So was I." "And do you know anything?" "I know a great deal." "What? Speak!" Leaning on his stick, M. Lenormand took a little contemplative walk across the spacious room. Then he sat down opposite Valenglay, brushed the facings of his olive-green coat with his finger-tips, settled his spectacles on his nose and said, plainly: "M. le Président, I hold three trump-cards in my hand. First, I know the name under which Arsène Lupin is hiding at this moment, the name under which he lived on the Boulevard Haussmann, receiving his assistants daily, reconstructing and directing his gang." "But then why, in heaven's name, don't you arrest him?"