Ganimard had not moved a limb. Isidore said to him: “You agree with me, do you not, M. Inspector?” “Of course I do!” “You have not doubted either, for a moment have you, that he managed this business?” “Not for a second! The thing bears his signature. A move of Arsène Lupin’s is as different from a move made by another man as one face is from another. You have only to open your eyes.” “Do you think so? Do you think so?” said M. Filleul. “Think so!” cried the young man. “Look, here’s one little fact: what are the initials under which those men correspond among themselves? ‘A. L. N.,’ that is to say, the first letter of the name Arsène and the first and last letters of the name Lupin.” “Ah,” said Ganimard, “nothing escapes you! Upon my word, you’re a fine fellow and old Ganimard lays down his arms before you!” Beautrelet flushed with pleasure and pressed the hand which the chief-inspector held out to him. The three men had drawn near the balcony and their eyes now took in the extent of the ruins. M. Filleul muttered: “So he ought to be there.” “_He is there_,” said Beautrelet, in a hollow voice. “He has been there ever since the moment when he fell. Logically and practically, he could not escape without being seen by Mlle. de Saint-Véran and the two servants.” “What proof have you?” “His accomplices have furnished the proof. On the very morning, one of them disguised himself as a flyman and drove you here—” “To recover the cap, which would serve to identify him.” “Very well, but also and more particularly to examine the spot, find out and see for himself what had become of the ‘governor.’” “And did he find out?” “I presume so, as he knew the hiding-place. And I presume that he became aware of the desperate condition of his chief, because, under the impulse of his alarm, he committed the imprudence to write that threat: ‘Woe betide the young lady, if she has killed the governor!’” “But his friends were able to take him away afterward?” “When? Your men have never left the ruins. And where could they have moved him to? At most, a few hundred yards away, for one doesn’t let a dying man travel—and then you would have found him. No, I tell you, he is there. His friends would never have removed him from the safest of hiding-places. It was there that they brought the doctor, while the gendarmes were running to the fire like children.” “But how is he living? How will he keep alive? To keep alive you need food and drink.” “I can’t say. I don’t know. But he is there, I will swear it. He is there, because he can’t help being there. I am as sure of it as if I saw as if I touched him. He is there.”