A pistol-shot resounded. Lupin jumped back: “Ah, you rascal, full in the heart! Have you been taking lessons? You’ve done for the Wise Man! Full in the heart! Smashed to smithereens, like a pipe at the fair!—” “Lupin, surrender!” roared Ganimard, with his eyes glittering and his revolver showing through the broken panel of the door. “Surrender, I say!” “Did the old guard surrender?” “If you stir a limb, I’ll blow your brains out!” “Nonsense! You can’t get me here!” As a matter of fact, Lupin had moved away; and, though Ganimard was able to fire straight in front of him through the breach in the door, he could not fire, still less take aim, on the side where Lupin stood. Lupin’s position was a terrible one for all that, because the outlet on which he was relying, the little door behind the triptych, opened right in front of Ganimard. To try to escape meant to expose himself to the detective’s fire; and there were five bullets left in the revolver. “By Jove,” he said, laughing, “there’s a slump in my shares this afternoon! You’ve done a nice thing. Lupin, old fellow: you wanted a last sensation and you’ve gone a bit too far. You shouldn’t have talked so much.” He flattened himself against the wall. A further portion of the panel had given way under the men’s pressure and Ganimard was less hampered in his movements. Three yards, no more, separated the two antagonists. But Lupin was protected by a glass case with a gilt-wood framework. “Why don’t you help, Beautrelet?” cried the old detective, gnashing his teeth with rage. “Why don’t you shoot him, instead of staring at him like that?” Isidore, in fact, had not budged, had remained, till that moment, an eager, but passive spectator. He would have liked to fling himself into the contest with all his strength and to bring down the prey which he held at his mercy. He was prevented by some inexplicable sentiment. But Ganimard’s appeal for assistance shook him. His hand closed on the butt of his revolver: “If I take part in it,” he thought, “Lupin is lost. And I have the right—it’s my duty.” Their eyes met. Lupin’s were calm, watchful, almost inquisitive, as though, in the awful danger that threatened him, he were interested only in the moral problem that held the young man in its clutches. Would Isidore decide to give the finishing stroke to the defeated enemy? The door cracked from top to bottom. “Help, Beautrelet, we’ve got him!” Ganimard bellowed. Isidore raised his revolver. What happened was so quick that he knew of it, so to speak, only by the result. He saw Lupin bob down and run along the wall, skimming the door right under the weapon which Ganimard was vainly brandishing; and he felt himself suddenly flung to the ground, picked up the next moment and lifted by an invincible force. Lupin held him in the air, like a living shield, behind which he hid himself. “Ten to one that I escape, Ganimard! Lupin, you see, has never quite exhausted his resources—”