"No, they had gone up to mademoiselle."

"Mademoiselle?" asked Shears.

"The governess, Alice Demun."

"Doesn't she have her meals with you?"

"No, she has them by herself, in her room."

Wilson had an idea:

"The letter written to my friend Holmlock Shears was posted?"

"Naturally."

"Who posted it?"

"Dominique, who has been with me as my own man for twenty years,"

replied the baron. "Any search in that direction would be waste of time."

"Time employed in searching is never wasted," stated Wilson, sententiously.

This closed the first inquiries and Shears asked leave to withdraw.

An hour later, at dinner, he saw Sophie and Henrietta, the d'Imblevalles' children, two pretty little girls of eight and six respectively. The conversation languished. Shears replied to the pleasant remarks of the baron and his wife in so surly a tone that they thought it better to keep silence. Coffee was served. Shears swallowed the contents of his cup and rose from his chair.

At that moment, a servant entered with a telephone message for him.

Shears opened it and read:

"Accept my enthusiastic admiration. Results obtained by you in so short a time make my head reel. I feel quite giddy.

"a.r.s.eNE LUPIN."

He could not suppress a gesture of annoyance and, showing the telegram to the baron:

"Do you begin to believe," he said, "that your walls have eyes and ears?"

"I can't understand it," murmured M. d'Imblevalle, astounded.

"Nor I. But what I do understand is that not a movement takes place here unperceived by him. Not a word is spoken but he hears it."

That evening, Wilson went to bed with the easy conscience of a man who has done his duty and who has no other business before him than to go to sleep. So he went to sleep very quickly and was visited by beautiful dreams, in which he was hunting down Lupin all by himself and just on the point of arresting him with his own hand; and the feeling of the pursuit was so lifelike that he woke up.

Some one was touching his bed. He seized his revolver:

"Another movement, Lupin, and I shoot!"

"Steady, old chap, steady on!"

"Hullo, is that you, Shears? Do you want me?"

"I want your eyes. Get up...."

He led him to the window:

"Look over there ... beyond the railings...."

"In the park?"

"Yes. Do you see anything?"

"No, nothing."

"Try again; I am sure you see something."

"Oh, so I do: a shadow ... no, two!"

"I thought so: against the railings.... See, they're moving.... Let's lose no time."

Groping and holding on to the banister, they made their way down the stairs and came to a room that opened on to the garden steps. Through the gla.s.s doors, they could see the two figures still in the same place.

"It's curious," said Shears. "I seem to hear noises in the house."

"In the house? Impossible! Everbody's asleep."

"Listen, though...."

At that moment, a faint whistle sounded from the railings and they perceived an undecided light that seemed to come from the house.

"The d'Imblevalles must have switched on their light," muttered Shears.

"It's their room above us."

"Then it's they we heard, no doubt," said Wilson. "Perhaps they are watching the railings."

A second whistle, still fainter than the first.

"I can't understand, I can't understand," said Shears, in a tone of vexation.

"No more can I," confessed Wilson.

Shears turned the key of the door, unbolted it and softly pushed it open.

A third whistle, this time a little deeper and in a different note. And, above their heads, the noise grew louder, more hurried.

"It sounds rather as if it were on the balcony of the boudoir,"

whispered Shears.