"Hang it all!" said the chief-inspector. "People don't work up a whole business of this sort, without seeing something ahead of them ... solid profits." "But the profits, it seems to me, lie in the sale of the tapestries which Lupin will effect in America or elsewhere." "First of all, yes. But Colonel Sparmiento could effect that sale just as well. And even better. So there's something more." "Something more?" "Come, chief, you're forgetting that Colonel Sparmiento has been the victim of an important robbery and that, though he may be dead, at least his widow remains. So it's his widow who will get the money." "What money?" "What money? Why, the money due to her! The insurance-money, of course!" M. Dudouis was staggered. The whole business suddenly became clear to him, with its real meaning. He muttered: "That's true!... That's true!... The colonel had insured his tapestries...." "Rather! And for no trifle either." "For how much?" "Eight hundred thousand francs." "Eight hundred thousand?" "Just so. In five different companies." "And has Mme. Sparmiento had the money?" "She got a hundred and fifty thousand francs yesterday and two hundred thousand to-day, while I was away. The remaining payments are to be made in the course of this week." "But this is terrible! You ought to have...." "What, chief? To begin with, they took advantage of my absence to settle up accounts with the companies. I only heard about it on my return when I ran up against an insurance-manager whom I happen to know and took the opportunity of drawing him out." The chief-detective was silent for some time, not knowing what to say. Then he mumbled: "What a fellow, though!" Ganimard nodded his head: "Yes, chief, a blackguard, but, I can't help saying, a devil of a clever fellow. For his plan to succeed, he must have managed in such a way that, for four or five weeks, no one could express or even conceive the least suspicion of the part played by Colonel Sparmiento. All the indignation and all the inquiries had to be concentrated upon Lupin alone. In the last resort, people had to find themselves faced simply with a mournful, pitiful, penniless widow, poor Edith Swan-neck, a beautiful and legendary vision, a creature so pathetic that the gentlemen of the insurance-companies were almost glad to place something in her hands to relieve her poverty and her grief. That's what was wanted and that's what happened." The two men were close together and did not take their eyes from each other's faces. The chief asked: "Who is that woman?" "Sonia Kritchnoff." "Sonia Kritchnoff?" "Yes, the Russian girl whom I arrested last year at the time of the theft of the coronet, and whom Lupin helped to escape."[E] [E] _Arsene Lupin._ The Novel of the Play. By Edgar Jepson and Maurice Leblanc (Mills & Boon). "Are you sure?"