For really, it had to be admitted, the complete elements of the truth were now in everybody’s possession. What did the mystery consist of? They knew the hiding-place where Arsène Lupin had taken refuge and lain a-dying; there was no doubt about it: Dr. Delattre, who continued to plead professional secrecy and refused to give evidence, nevertheless confessed to his intimate friends—who lost no time in blabbing—that he really had been taken to a crypt to attend a wounded man whom his confederates introduced to him by the name of Arsène Lupin. And, as the corpse of Étienne de Vaudreix was found in that same crypt and as the said Étienne de Vaudreix was none other than Arsène Lupin—as the official examination went to show—all this provided an additional proof, if one were needed, of the identity of Arsène Lupin and the wounded man. Therefore, with Lupin dead and Mlle. de Saint-Véran’s body recognized by the curb-bracelet on her wrist, the tragedy was finished. It was not. Nobody thought that it was, because Beautrelet had said the contrary. Nobody knew in what respect it was not finished, but, on the word of the young man, the mystery remained complete. The evidence of the senses did not prevail against the statement of a Beautrelet. There was something which people did not know, and of that something they were convinced that he was in position to supply a triumphant explanation. It is easy, therefore, to imagine the anxiety with which, at first, people awaited the bulletins issued by the two Dieppe doctors to whose care the Comte de Gesvres entrusted his patient; the distress that prevailed during the first few days, when his life was thought to be in danger; and the enthusiasm of the morning when the newspapers announced that there was no further cause for fear. The least details excited the crowd. People wept at the thought of Beautrelet nursed by his old father, who had been hurriedly summoned by telegram, and they also admired the devotion of Mlle. Suzanne de Gesvres, who spent night after night by the wounded lad’s bedside. Next came a swift and glad convalescence. At last, the public were about to know! They would know what Beautrelet had promised to reveal to M. Filleul and the decisive words which the knife of the would-be assassin had prevented him from uttering! And they would also know everything, outside the tragedy itself, that remained impenetrable or inaccessible to the efforts of the police. With Beautrelet free and cured of his wound, one could hope for some certainty regarding Harlington, Arsène Lupin’s mysterious accomplice, who was still detained at the Santé prison. One would learn what had become, after the crime, of Brédoux the clerk, that other accomplice, whose daring was really terrifying.