"The same as usual, two thousand."

"If it's Lupin?"

"Three thousand."

"Oh, if we could only get him!"

One after the other, they left the lumber-room. Lupin heard the Broker's parting words:

"This is the plan of attack. We divide into three lots. A whistle; and every one runs forward... ."

Lupin hurriedly left his hiding-place, went down the ladder, ran round the house, without going in, and climbed back over the railings:

"The Broker's right; it'll be hot work... . Ah, it's my skin they're after! A reward for Lupin! The rascals!"

He passed through the toll-gate and jumped into a taxi:

"Rue Raynouard."

He stopped the cab at two hundred yards from the Rue des Vignes and walked to the corner of the two streets. To his great surprise, Doudeville was not there.

"That's funny," said Lupin. "It's past twelve... . This business looks suspicious to me."

He waited ten minutes, twenty minutes. At half-past twelve, nobody had arrived. Further delay was dangerous. After all, if Doudeville and his men were prevented from coming, Charolais, his son and he, Lupin, himself were enough to repel the attack, without counting the assistance of the servants.

He therefore went ahead. But he caught sight of two men who tried to hide in the shadow of a corner wall.

"Hang it!" he said. "That's the vanguard of the gang, Dieudonne and Chubby. I've allowed myself to be out-distanced, like a fool."

Here he lost more time. Should he go straight up to them, disable them and then climb into the house through the pantry-window, which he knew to be unlocked? That would be the most prudent course and would enable him, moreover, to take Mrs. Kesselbach away at once and to remove her to a place of safety.

Yes, but it also meant the failure of his plan; it meant missing this glorious opportunity of trapping the whole gang, including Louis de Malreich himself, without doubt.

Suddenly a whistle sounded from somewhere on the other side of the house. Was it the rest of the gang, so soon? And was an offensive movement to be made from the garden?

But, at the preconcerted signal, the two men climbed through the window and disappeared from view.

Lupin scaled the balcony at a bound and jumped into the pantry. By the sound of their footsteps, he judged that the assailants had gone into the garden; and the sound was so distinct that he felt easy in his mind: Charolais and his son could not fail to hear the noise.

He therefore went upstairs. Mrs. Kesselbach's bedroom was on the first landing. He walked in without knocking.

A night-light was burning in the room; and he saw Dolores, on a sofa, fainting. He ran up to her, lifted her and, in a voice of command, forcing her to answer:

"Listen... . Charolais? His son ... Where are they?"

She stammered:

"Why, what do you mean? ... They're gone, of course! ..."

"What, gone?"

"You sent me word ... an hour ago ... a telephone-message... ."

He picked up a piece of blue paper lying beside her and read:

"Send the two watchers away at once ... and all my men... . Tell them to meet me at the Grand Hotel.

Have no fear."

"Thunder! And you believed it? ... But your servants?"

"Gone."

He went up to the window. Outside, three men were coming from the other end of the garden.

From the window in the next room, which looked out on the street, he saw two others, on the pavement.

And he thought of Dieudonne, of Chubby, of Louis de Malreich, above all, who must now be prowling around, invisible and formidable.

"Hang it!" he muttered. "I half believe they've done me this time!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE MAN IN BLACK

At that moment, Arsene Lupin felt the impression, the certainty, that he had been drawn into an ambush, by means which he had not the time to perceive, but of which he guessed the prodigious skill and address.

Everything had been calculated, everything ordained; the dismissal of his men, the disappearance or treachery of the servants, his own presence in Mrs. Kesselbach's house.

Clearly, the whole thing had succeeded, exactly as the enemy wished, thanks to circumstances almost miraculously fortunate; for, after all, he might have arrived before the false message had sent his friends away. But then there would have been a battle between his own gang and the Altenheim gang. And Lupin, remembering Malreich's conduct, the murder of Altenheim, the poisoning of the mad girl at Veldenz, Lupin asked himself whether the ambush was aimed at him alone or whether Malreich had not contemplated the possibility of a general scuffle, involving the killing of accomplices who had by this time become irksome to him.

It was an intuition, rather, a fleeting idea, that just passed through his mind. The hour was one for action. He must defend Dolores, the abduction of whom was, in all likelihood, the first and foremost reason of the attack.

He half-opened the casement window on the street and levelled his revolver. A shot, rousing and alarming the neighborhood, and the scoundrels would take to their heels.

"Well, no," he muttered, "no! It shall not be said that I shirked the fight. The opportunity is too good... . And, then, who says that they would run away! ... There are too many of them to care about the neighbors."

He returned to Dolores' room. There was a noise downstairs. He listened and, finding that it came from the staircase, he locked the door.

Dolores was crying and throwing herself about the sofa.

He implored her:

"Are you strong enough? We are on the first floor. I could help you down. We can lower the sheets from the window... ."

"No, no, don't leave me... . I am frightened... . I haven't the strength ... they will kill me... . Oh, protect me!"