“I’ve forgotten something. There’s my car, down the street. There’s an old lady inside it, the old lady of whom I have already spoken to you, my old nurse. Will you go to her? I must just run upstairs and tell Marescal something. I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.” She turned down the street; he ran quickly upstairs. In his study Bregeac was lying on a sofa in his death agony. A revolver, fallen from his nerveless hand, lay on the floor beside him. Marescal was bending over him. The blood poured from his mouth; a last shudder shook him; he did not move again. “I ought to have foreseen it,” murmured Ralph. “His downfall—the loss of Aurelie. Poor devil! He has paid his debts.” He said to Marescal: “Telephone for a doctor and get this business hushed up. Hemorrhage, is what it is. Don’t let there be any question of suicide. At any cost Aurelie must not hear about it at present. She is not strong enough. You can say that she’s ill in the country, staying at the house of a friend.” Marescal grasped his wrist and said: “Answer me. Who are you? You’re Lupin, aren’t you?” “Splendid!” said Ralph. “Professional curiosity always comes to the top.” He faced Marescal, then turned his profile to him and then his three-quarter face, and said with a laugh: “You’ve seen it, duffer!” He ran downstairs quickly and caught Aurelie up; the old lady was helping her into the back of a comfortable limousine. But, having, in accordance with his custom of always taking precautions, cast a look up and down the street, he said to Victoire: “You haven’t seen any one prowling about the car?” “No one,” she declared. “Are you sure? A rather stout man, accompanied by a man with his arm in a sling?” he persisted. “Yes, of course I have! They were walking up and down on the pavement lower down the street.” He started off at a run and overtook, in the little passage which runs round the church of Saint Philippe du Roule, two men, one of whom carried his arm in a sling. He tapped them both on the shoulder and said cheerfully: “Well, well, well, so you know one another, you two? How goes it, Jodot? And you, William Ancivel?” They turned. Jodot, dressed like a prosperous tradesman, thick-chested and with the hairy face of a vicious dog, showed no astonishment. “Ah, it’s you, is it? The gentleman of Nice?” he said. “I said that it was you who was with the little girl just now.” “And it’s also the gentleman of Toulouse,” said Ralph to William. And he went on: “What have you been messing about here for, brave boys? You were watching Bregeac’s house. What?” “For the last two hours,” said Jodot arrogantly. “The arrival of Marescal and his detectives and the police, the departure of Aurelie, we’ve seen everything.” “Well?” said Ralph.