The necessity was immediate. In a few days, Steinweg would have recovered from his imprisonment, would receive interviews, might blab ... to say nothing of the inevitable interference of the enemy, 'the other one.' And it was essential that Steinweg's secret, Pierre Leduc's secret, should be revealed to no one but Lupin. Once published, the secret lost all its value... .

The bolts grated, the key turned noisily in the lock.

"Ah, it's you, most excellent of jailers! Has the moment come for the last toilet? The hair-cut that precedes the great final cut of all?"

"Magistrate's examination," said the man, laconically.

Lupin walked through the corridors of the prison and was received by the municipal guards, who locked him into the prison-van.

He reached the Palais de Justice twenty minutes later. One of the Doudevilles was waiting near the stairs. As they went up, he said to Lupin:

"You'll be confronted to-day."

"Everything settled?"

"Yes."

"Weber?"

"Busy elsewhere."

Lupin walked into M. Formerie's room and at once recognized old Steinweg, sitting on a chair, looking ill and wretched. A municipal guard was standing behind him.

M. Formerie scrutinized the prisoner attentively, as though he hoped to draw important conclusions from his contemplation of him, and said:

"You know who this gentleman is?"

"Why, Steinweg, of course! ..."

"Yes, thanks to the active inquiries of M. Weber and of his two officers, the brothers Doudeville, we have found Mr. Steinweg, who, according to you, knows the ins and outs of the Kesselbach case, the name of the murderer and all the rest of it."

"I congratulate you, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction. Your examination will go swimmingly."

"I think so. There is only one 'but': Mr. Steinweg refuses to reveal anything, except in your presence."

"Well, I never! How odd of him! Does Arsene Lupin inspire him with so much affection and esteem?"

"Not Arsene Lupin, but Prince Sernine, who, he says, saved his life, and M. Lenormand, with whom, he says, he began a conversation... ."

"At the time when I was chief of the detective-service," Lupin broke in.

"So you consent to admit."

"Mr. Steinweg," said the magistrate, "do you recognize M. Lenormand?"

"No, but I know that Arsene Lupin and he are one."

"So you consent to speak?"

"Yes ... but ... we are not alone."

"How do you mean? There is only my clerk here ... and the guard ..."

"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, the secret which I am about to reveal is so important that you yourself would be sorry ..."

"Guard, go outside, please," said M. Formerie. "Come back at once, if I call. Do you object to my clerk, Steinweg?"

"No, no ... it might be better ... but, however ..."

"Then speak. For that matter, nothing that you reveal will be put down in black on white. One word more, though: I ask you for the last time, is it indispensable that the prisoner should be present at this interview?"

"Quite indispensable. You will see the reason for yourself."

He drew the chair up to the magistrate's desk, Lupin remained standing, near the clerk. And the old man, speaking in a loud voice, said:

"It is now ten years since a series of circumstances, which I need not enter into, made me acquainted with an extraordinary story in which two persons are concerned."

"Their names, please."

"I will give the names presently. For the moment, let me say that one of these persons occupies an exceptional position in France, and that the other, an Italian, or rather a Spaniard ... yes, a Spaniard ..."

A bound across the room, followed by two formidable blows of the fist.

... Lupin's two arms had darted out to right and left, as though impelled by springs and his two fists, hard as cannon balls, caught the magistrate and his clerk on the jaw, just below the ear.

The magistrate and the clerk collapsed over their tables, in two lumps, without a moan.

"Well hit!" said Lupin. "That was a neat bit of work."

He went to the door and locked it softly. Then returning:

"Steinweg, have you the chloroform?"

"Are you quite sure that they have fainted?" asks the old man, trembling with fear.

"What do you think! But it will only last for three or four minutes.

... And that is not long enough."

The German produced from his pocket a bottle and two pads of cotton-wool, ready prepared.

Lupin uncorked the bottle, poured a few drops of the chloroform on the two pads and held them to the noses of the magistrate and his clerk.

"Capital! We have ten minutes of peace and quiet before us. That will do, but let's make haste, all the same; and not a word too much, old man, do you hear?" He took him by the arm. "You see what I am able to do. Here we are, alone in the very heart of the Palais de Justice, because I wished it."

"Yes," said the old man.

"So you are going to tell me your secret?"

"Yes, I told it to Kesselbach, because he was rich and could turn it to better account than anybody I knew; but, prisoner and absolutely powerless though you are, I consider you a hundred times as strong as Kesselbach with his hundred millions."

"In that case, speak; and let us take things in their proper order. The name of the murderer?"