It is a sanctuary and also a stupendous hiding-place. All the treasures of the kings, increasing from century to century, all the gold of France, all that they extort from the people, all that they snatch from the clergy, all the booty gathered on the battle-fields of Europe lie heaped up in the royal cave. Old Merovingian gold sous, glittering crown-pieces, doubloons, ducats, florins, guineas; and the precious stones and the diamonds; and all the jewels and all the ornaments: everything is there. Who could discover it? Who could ever learn the impenetrable secret of the Needle? Nobody. And Lupin becomes that sort of really disproportionate being whom we know, that miracle incapable of explanation so long as the truth remains in the shadow. Infinite though the resources of his genius be, they cannot suffice for the mad struggle which he maintains against society. He needs other, more material resources. He needs a sure place of retreat, he needs the certainty of impunity, the peace that allows of the execution of his plans. Without the Hollow Needle, Lupin is incomprehensible, a myth, a character in a novel, having no connection with reality. Master of the secret—and of such a secret!—he becomes simply a man like another, but gifted with the power of wielding in a superior manner the extraordinary weapon with which destiny has endowed him. So the Needle was hollow. It remained to discover how one obtained access to it. From the sea, obviously. There must be, on the side of the offing, some fissure where boats could land at certain hours of the tide. But on the side of the land? Beautrelet lay until ten o’clock at night hanging over the precipice, with his eyes riveted on the shadowy mass formed by the pyramid, thinking and pondering with all the concentrated effort of his mind. Then he went down to Étretat, selected the cheapest hotel, dined, went up to his room and unfolded the document. It was the merest child’s play to him now to establish its exact meaning. He at once saw that the three vowels of the word Étretat occurred in the first line, in their proper order and at the necessary intervals. This first line now read as follows: _e . a . a .. etretat . a .._ What words could come before Étretat? Words, no doubt, that referred to the position of the Needle with regard to the town. Now the Needle stood on the left, on the west—He ransacked his memory and, recollecting that westerly winds are called vents d’aval on the coast and that the nearest porte was known as the Porte d’Aval, he wrote down: _“En aval d’Étretat . a ..”_ The second line was that containing the word _Demoiselles_ and, at once seeing, in front of that word, the series of all the vowels that form part of the words _la chambre des_, he noted the two phrases: _“En aval d’Étretat. La Chambre des Demoiselles.”_