He, therefore, took the same road, just as he had done a few hours earlier, climbed into the loft of the other coach-house and down into the garden. He found himself at the back of the villa occupied by Malreich.

Strange to say, he did not doubt, for a moment that Malreich was there.

He would meet him inevitably; the formidable battle which they were waging against each other was nearing its end. A few minutes more and, one way or another, all would be over.

He was amazed, on grasping the handle of a door, to find that the handle turned and the door opened under his pressure. The villa was not even locked.

He passed through a kitchen, a hall and up a staircase; and he walked deliberately, without seeking to deaden the sound of his footsteps.

On the landing, he stopped. The perspiration streamed from his forehead; and his temples throbbed under the rush of his blood. Nevertheless, he remained calm, master of himself and conscious of his least thoughts. He laid two revolvers on a stair:

"No weapons," he said to himself. "My hands only, just the effort of my two hands... . That's quite enough... . That will be better... ."

Opposite him were three doors. He chose the middle one, turned the handle and encountered no obstacle. He went in. There was no light in the room, but the rays of the night entered through the wide-open window and, amid the darkness, he saw the sheets and the white curtains of the bed.

And somebody was standing beside it.

He savagely cast the gleam of his lantern upon that form.

Malreich!

The pallid face of Malreich, his dim eyes, his cadaverous cheek-bones, his scraggy neck... .

And all this stood motionless, opposite him, at five steps' distance; and he could not have said whether that dull face, that death-face, expressed the least terror or even a grain of anxiety.

Lupin took a step forward ... and a second ... and a third... .

The man did not move.

Did he see? Did he understand? It was as though the man's eyes were gazing into space and that he thought himself possessed by an hallucination, rather than looking upon a real image.

One more step... .

"He will defend himself," thought Lupin, "he is bound to defend himself."

And Lupin thrust out his arms.

The man did not make a movement. He did not retreat; his eyelids did not blink.

The contact took place.

And it was Lupin, scared and bewildered, who lost his head. He knocked the man back upon his bed, stretched him at full length, rolled him in the sheets, bound him in the blankets and held him under his knee, like a prey ... whereas the man had not made the slightest movement of resistance.

"Ah!" shouted Lupin, drunk with delight and satisfied hatred. "At last I have crushed you, you odious brute! At last I am the master!"

He heard a noise outside, in the Rue Delaizement; men knocking at the gate. He ran to the window and cried:

"Is that you, Weber? Already? Well done! You are a model servant! Break down the gate, old chap, and come up here; delighted to see you!"

In a few minutes, he searched his prisoner's clothes, got hold of his pocket-book, cleared the papers out of the drawers of the desk and the davenport, flung them on the table and went through them.

He gave a shout of joy: the bundle of letters was there, the famous bundle of letters which he had promised to restore to the Emperor.

He put back the papers in their place and went to the window:

"It's all finished, Weber! You can come in! You will find Mr.

Kesselbach's murderer in his bed, all ready tied up... . Good-bye, Weber!"

And Lupin, tearing down the stairs, ran to the coach-house and went back to Dolores Kesselbach, while Weber was breaking into the villa.

Single-handed, he had arrested Altenheim's seven companions!

And he had delivered to justice the mysterious leader of the gang, the infamous monster, Louis de Malreich!

A young man sat writing at a table on a wide wooden balcony.

From time to time, he raised his head and cast a vague glance toward the horizon of hills, where the trees, stripped by the autumn, were shedding their last leaves over the red roofs of the villas and the lawns of the gardens. Then he went on writing.

Presently he took up his paper and read aloud:

Nos jours s'en vont a la derive, Comme emportes par un courant Qui les pousse vers une rive Ou l'on n'aborde qu'en mourant.[10]

[Footnote 10: Our days go by, adrift, adrift, Borne along by current swift That urges them toward the strand Where not until we die, we land.]

"Not so bad," said a voice behind him. "Mme. Amable Tastu might have written that, or Mrs. Felicia Hemans. However, we can't all be Byrons or Lamartines!"

"You! ... You! ..." stammered the young man, in dismay.

"Yes, I, poet, I myself, Arsene Lupin come to see his dear friend Pierre Leduc."

Pierre Leduc began to shake, as though shivering with fever. He asked, in a low voice:

"Has the hour come?"

"Yes, my dear Pierre Leduc: the hour has come for you to give up, or rather to interrupt the slack poet's life which you have been leading for months at the feet of Genevieve Ernemont and Mrs. Kesselbach and to perform the part which I have allotted to you in my play ... oh, a fine play, I assure you, thoroughly well-constructed, according to all the canons of art, with top notes, comic relief and gnashing of teeth galore! We have reached the fifth act; the grand finale is at hand; and you, Pierre Leduc, are the hero. There's fame for you!"

The young man rose from his seat:

"And suppose I refuse?"

"Idiot!"

"Yes, suppose I refuse? After all, what obliges me to submit to your will? What obliges me to accept a part which I do not know, but which I loathe in advance and feel ashamed of?"

"Idiot!" repeated Lupin.

And forcing Pierre Leduc back into his chair, he sat down beside him and, in the gentlest of voices:

"You quite forget, my dear young man, that you are not Pierre Leduc, but Gerard Baupre. That you bear the beautiful name of Pierre Leduc is due to the fact that you, Gerard Baupre, killed Pierre Leduc and robbed him of his individuality."