On the day stated, men scrambled to obtain copies of the _Grand Journal_. To the general disappointment, the promised information was not given. The same silence followed on the next day and the day after.

What had happened?

It leaked out through an indiscretion at the Prefecture of Police. The governor of the Sante, it appeared, had been warned that Lupin was communicating with his accomplices by means of the packets of envelopes which he made. Nothing had been discovered; but it was thought best, in any case, to forbid all work to the insufferable prisoner.

To this the insufferable prisoner replied:

"As I have nothing to do now, I may as well attend to my trial. Please let my counsel, Maitre Quimbel, know."

It was true. Lupin, who, hitherto, had refused to hold any intercourse with Maitre Quimbel, now consented to see him and to prepare his defence.

On the next day Maitre Quimbel, in cheery tones, asked for Lupin to be brought to the barristers' room. He was an elderly man, wearing a pair of very powerful spectacles, which made his eyes seem enormous. He put his hat on the table, spread out his brief-case and at once began to put a series of questions which he had carefully prepared.

Lupin replied with extreme readiness and even volunteered a host of particulars, which Maitre Quimbel took down, as he spoke, on slips pinned one to the other.

"And so you say," continued the barrister, with his head over his papers, "that, at that time ..."

"I say that, at that time ..." Lupin answered.

Little by little, with a series of natural and hardly perceptible movements, he leant elbows on the table. He gradually lowered his arms, slipped his hand under Maitre Quimbel's hat, put his finger into the leather band and took out one of those strips of paper, folded lengthwise, which the hatter inserts between the leather and the lining when the hat is a trifle too large.

He unfolded the paper. It was a message from Doudeville, written in a cipher agreed upon beforehand:

"I am engaged as indoor servant at Maitre Quimbel's.

You can answer by the same means without fear.

"It was L. M., the murderer, who gave away the envelope trick. A good thing that you foresaw this move!"

Hereupon followed a minute report of all the facts and comments caused by Lupin's revelations.

Lupin took from his pocket a similar strip of paper containing his instructions, quietly substituted it in the place of the other and drew his hand back again. The trick was played.

And Lupin's correspondence with the _Grand Journal_ was resumed without further delay.

"I apologize to the public for not keeping my promise.

The postal arrangements at the Sante Palace are woefully inadequate.

"However, we are near the end. I have in hand all the documents that establish the truth upon an indisputable basis. I shall not publish them for the moment. Nevertheless, I will say this: among the letters are some that were addressed to the chancellor by one who, at that time, declared himself his disciple and his admirer and who was destined, several years after, to rid himself of that irksome tutor and to govern alone.

"I trust that I make myself sufficiently clear."

And, on the next day:

"The letters were written during the late Emperor's illness. I need hardly add more to prove their importance."

Four days of silence, and then this final note, which caused a stir that has not yet been forgotten:

"My investigation is finished. I now know everything.

"By dint of reflection, I have guessed the secret of the hiding-place.

"My friends are going to Veldenz and, in spite of every obstacle, will enter the castle by a way which I am pointing out to them.

"The newspapers will then publish photographs of the letters, of which I already know the tenor; but I prefer to reproduce the whole text.

"This certain, inevitable publication will take place in a fortnight from to-day precisely, on the 22nd of August next.

"Between this and then I will keep silence ... and wait."

The communications to the _Grand Journal_ did, in fact, stop for a time, but Lupin never ceased corresponding with his friends, "_via_ the hat,"

as they said among themselves. It was so simple! There was no danger.

Who could ever suspect that Maitre Quimbel's hat served Lupin as a letter-box?

Every two or three mornings, whenever he called, in fact, the celebrated advocate faithfully brought his client's letters: letters from Paris, letters from the country, letters from Germany; all reduced and condensed by Doudeville into a brief form and cipher language. And, an hour later, Maitre Quimbel solemnly walked away, carrying Lupin's orders.

Now, one day, the governor of the Sante received a telephone message, signed, "L. M.," informing him that Maitre Quimbel was, in all probability, serving Lupin as his unwitting postman and that it would be advisable to keep an eye upon the worthy man's visits. The governor told Maitre Quimbel, who thereupon resolved to bring his junior with him.

So, once again, in spite of all Lupin's efforts, in spite of his fertile powers of invention, in spite of the marvels of ingenuity which he renewed after each defeat, once again Lupin found himself cut off from communication with the outside world by the infernal genius of his formidable adversary. And he found himself thus cut off at the most critical moment, at the solemn minute when, from his cell, he was playing his last trump-card against the coalesced forces that were overwhelming him so terribly.

On the 13th of August, as he sat facing the two counsels, his attention was attracted by a newspaper in which some of Maitre Quimbel's papers were wrapped up.

He saw a heading in very large type

"813"

The sub-headings were:

"A FRESH MURDER

"THE EXCITEMENT IN GERMANY

"HAS THE SECRET OF THE 'APOON' BEEN DISCOVERED?"

Lupin turned pale with anguish. Below he read the words:

"Two sensational telegrams reach us at the moment of going to press.

"The body of an old man has been found near Augsburg, with his throat cut with a knife. The police have succeeded in identifying the victim: it is Steinweg, the man mentioned in the Kesselbach case.

"On the other hand, a correspondent telegraphs that the famous English detective, Holmlock Shears, has been hurriedly summoned to Cologne. He will there meet the Emperor; and they will both proceed to Veldenz Castle.

"Holmlock Shears is said to have undertaken to discover the secret of the 'APOON.'

"If he succeeds, it will mean the pitiful failure of the incomprehensible campaign which Arsene Lupin has been conducting for the past month in so strange a fashion."