They went through the house, out of the back door, and into the garden. Guerchard moved about twenty yards from the house, then he stopped and questioned the Duke at great length. He questioned him first about the Charolais, their appearance, their actions, especially about Bernard’s attempt to steal the pendant, and the theft of the motor-cars. “I have been wondering whether M. Charolais might not have been Arsène Lupin himself,” said the Duke. “It’s quite possible,” said Guerchard. “There seem to be no limits whatever to Lupin’s powers of disguising himself. My colleague, Ganimard, has come across him at least three times that he knows of, as a different person. And no single time could he be sure that it was the same man. Of course, he had a feeling that he was in contact with some one he had met before, but that was all. He had no certainty. He may have met him half a dozen times besides without knowing him. And the photographs of him—they’re all different. Ganimard declares that Lupin is so extraordinarily successful in his disguises because he is a great actor. He actually becomes for the time being the person he pretends to be. He thinks and feels absolutely like that person. Do you follow me?” “Oh, yes; but he must be rather fluid, this Lupin,” said the Duke; and then he added thoughtfully, “It must be awfully risky to come so often into actual contact with men like Ganimard and you.” “Lupin has never let any consideration of danger prevent him doing anything that caught his fancy. He has odd fancies, too. He’s a humourist of the most varied kind—grim, ironic, farcical, as the mood takes him. He must be awfully trying to live with,” said Guerchard. “Do you think humourists are trying to live with?” said the Duke, in a meditative tone. “I think they brighten life a good deal; but of course there are people who do not like them—the middle-classes.” “Yes, yes, they’re all very well in their place; but to live with they must be trying,” said Guerchard quickly. He went on to question the Duke closely and at length about the household of M. Gournay-Martin, saying that Arsène Lupin worked with the largest gang a burglar had ever captained, and it was any odds that he had introduced one, if not more, of that gang into it. Moreover, in the case of a big affair like this, Lupin himself often played two or three parts under as many disguises. “If he was Charolais, I don’t see how he could be one of M. Gournay-Martin’s household, too,” said the Duke in some perplexity. “I don’t say that he WAS Charolais,” said Guerchard. “It is quite a moot point. On the whole, I’m inclined to think that he was not. The theft of the motor-cars was a job for a subordinate. He would hardly bother himself with it.”