"No," said her nephew, who was also looking. And, resuming her seat, she said: "I feel frightened ... my arms fail me ... you finish him off...." Gabriel confessed: "I'm frightened also." "Still ... still," she stammered, "it's got to be done.... I swore it...." Making one last effort, she returned to Lupin and gasped his neck with her stiff fingers. But Lupin, who was watching her pallid face, received a very clear sensation that she would not have the courage to kill him. To her he was becoming something sacred, invulnerable. A mysterious power was protecting him against every attack, a power which had already saved him three times by inexplicable means and which would find other means to protect him against the wiles of death. She said to him, in a hoarse voice: "How you must be laughing at me!" "Not at all, upon my word. I should feel frightened myself, in your place." "Nonsense, you scum of the earth! You imagine that you will be rescued ... that your friends are waiting outside? It's out of the question, my fine fellow." "I know. It's not they defending me ... nobody's defending me...." "Well, then?..." "Well, all the same, there's something strange at the bottom of it, something fantastic and miraculous that makes your flesh creep, my fine lady." "You villain!... You'll be laughing on the other side of your mouth before long." "I doubt it." "You wait and see." She reflected once more and said to her nephew: "What would you do?" "Fasten his arm again and let's be off," he replied. A hideous suggestion! It meant condemning Lupin to the most horrible of all deaths, death by starvation. "No," said the widow. "He might still find a means of escape. I know something better than that." She took down the receiver of the telephone, waited and asked: "Number 82248, please." And, after a second or two: "Hullo!... Is that the Criminal Investigation Department?... Is Chief-inspector Ganimard there?... In twenty minutes, you say?... I'm sorry!... However!... When he comes, give him this message from Mme. Dugrival.... Yes, Mme. Nicolas Dugrival.... Ask him to come to my flat. Tell him to open the looking-glass door of my wardrobe; and, when he has done so, he will see that the wardrobe hides an outlet which makes my bedroom communicate with two other rooms. In one of these, he will find a man bound hand and foot. It is the thief, Dugrival's murderer.... You don't believe me?... Tell M. Ganimard; he'll believe me right enough.... Oh, I was almost forgetting to give you the man's name: Arsene Lupin!" And, without another word, she replaced the receiver. "There, Lupin, that's done. After all, I would just as soon have my revenge this way. How I shall hold my sides when I read the reports of the Lupin trial!... Are you coming, Gabriel?" "Yes, aunt." "Good-bye, Lupin. You and I sha'n't see each other again, I expect, for we are going abroad. But I promise to send you some sweets while you're in prison."