That night, Ganimard openly sent the squad of gendarmes to the farm and posted himself and Folenfant outside the walls, near the little door.

A little before midnight, a person pa.s.sed out of the wood, slipped between them, went through the door and entered the park. For three hours, they saw him wander from side to side across the ruins, stooping, climbing up the old pillars, sometimes remaining for long minutes without moving. Then he went back to the door and again pa.s.sed between the two inspectors.

Ganimard caught him by the collar, while Folenfant seized him round the body. He made no resistance of any kind and, with the greatest docility, allowed them to bind his wrists and take him to the house. But, when they attempted to question him, he replied simply that he owed them no account of his doings and that he would wait for the arrival of the examining magistrate. Thereupon, they fastened him firmly to the foot of a bed, in one of the two adjoining rooms which they occupied.

At nine o'clock on Monday morning, as soon as M. Filleul had arrived, Ganimard announced the capture which he had made. The prisoner was brought downstairs. It was Isidore Beautrelet.

"M. Isidore Beautrelet!" exclaimed M. Filleul with an air of rapture, holding out both his hands to the newcomer. "What a delightful surprise! Our excellent amateur detective here! And at our disposal too! Why, it's a windfall!-M. Chief-inspector, allow me to introduce to you M. Isidore Beautrelet, a sixth-form pupil at the Lycee Janson-de-Sailly."

Ganimard seemed a little nonplussed. Isidore made him a very low bow, as though he were greeting a colleague whom he knew how to esteem at his true value, and, turning to M. Filleul:

"It appears, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, that you have received a satisfactory account of me?"

"Perfectly satisfactory! To begin with, you were really at Veules-les-Roses at the time when Mlle. de Saint-Veran thought she saw you in the sunk road. I dare say we shall discover the ident.i.ty of your double. In the second place, you are in very deed Isidore Beautrelet, a sixth-form pupil and, what is more, an excellent pupil, industrious at your work and of exemplary behavior. As your father lives in the country, you go out once a month to his correspondent, M. Bernod, who is lavish in his praises of you."

"So that-"

"So that you are free, M. Isidore Beautrelet."

"Absolutely free?"

"Absolutely. Oh, I must make just one little condition, all the same. You can understand that I can't release a gentleman who administers sleeping-draughts, who escapes by the window and who is afterward caught in the act of trespa.s.sing upon private property. I can't release him without a compensation of some kind."

"I await your pleasure."

"Well, we will resume our interrupted conversation and you shall tell me how far you have advanced with your investigations. In two days of liberty, you must have carried them pretty far?" And, as Ganimard was preparing to go, with an affectation of contempt for that sort of practice, the magistrate cried, "Not at all, M. Inspector, your place is here-I a.s.sure you that M. Isidore Beautrelet is worth listening to. M. Isidore Beautrelet, according to my information, has made a great reputation at the Lycee Janson-de-Sailly as an observer whom nothing escapes; and his schoolfellows, I hear, look upon him as your compet.i.tor and a rival of Holmlock Shears!"

"Indeed!" said Ganimard, ironically.

"Just so. One of them wrote to me, 'If Beautrelet declares that he knows, you must believe him; and, whatever he says, you may be sure that it is the exact expression of the truth.' M. Isidore Beautrelet, now or never is the time to vindicate the confidence of your friends. I beseech you, give us the exact expression of the truth."

Isidore listened with a smile and replied:

"Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, you are very cruel. You make fun of poor schoolboys who amuse themselves as best they can. You are quite right, however, and I will give you no further reason to laugh at me."

"The fact is that you know nothing, M. Isidore Beautrelet."

"Yes, I confess in all humility that I know nothing. For I do not call it 'knowing anything' that I happen to have hit upon two or three more precise points which, I am sure, cannot have escaped you."

"For instance?"

"For instance, the object of the theft."

"Ah, of course, you know the object of the theft?"

"As you do, I have no doubt. In fact, it was the first thing I studied, because the task struck me as easier."

"Easier, really?"

"Why, of course. At the most, it's a question of reasoning."

"Nothing more than that?"

"Nothing more."

"And what is your reasoning?"

"It is just this, stripped of all extraneous comment: on the one hand, THERE HAS BEEN A THEFT, because the two young ladies are agreed and because they really saw two men running away and carrying things with them."

"There has been a theft."

"On the other hand, NOTHING HAS DISAPPEARED, because M. de Gesvres says so and he is in a better position than anybody to know."

"Nothing has disappeared."

"From those two premises I arrive at this inevitable result: granted that there has been a theft and that nothing has disappeared, it is because the object carried off has been replaced by an exactly similar object. Let me hasten to add that possibly my argument may not be confirmed by the facts. But I maintain that it is the first argument that ought to occur to us and that we are not ent.i.tled to waive it until we have made a serious examination."

"That's true-that's true," muttered the magistrate, who was obviously interested.

"Now," continued Isidore, "what was there in this room that could arouse the covetousness of the burglars? Two things. The tapestry first. It can't have been that. Old tapestry cannot be imitated: the fraud would have been palpable at once. There remain the four Rubens pictures."

"What's that you say?"

"I say that the four Rubenses on that wall are false."

"Impossible!"

"They are false a priori, inevitably and without a doubt."

"I tell you, it's impossible."

"It is very nearly a year ago, Monsieur le Juge d'Instruction, since a young man, who gave his name as Charpenais, came to the Chateau d'Ambrumesy and asked permission to copy the Rubens pictures. M. de Gesvres gave him permission. Every day for five months Charpenais worked in this room from morning till dusk. The copies which he made, canvases and frames, have taken the place of the four original pictures bequeathed to M. de Gesvres by his uncle, the Marques de Bobadilla."

"Prove it!"

"I have no proof to give. A picture is false because it is false; and I consider that it is not even necessary to examine these four."

M. Filleul and Ganimard exchanged glances of unconcealed astonishment. The inspector no longer thought of withdrawing. At last, the magistrate muttered:

"We must have M. de Gesvres's opinion."

And Ganimard agreed:

"Yes, we must have his opinion."

And they sent to beg the count to come to the drawing room.

The young sixth-form pupil had won a real victory. To compel two experts, two professionals like M. Filleul and Ganimard to take account of his surmises implied a testimony of respect of which any other would have been proud. But Beautrelet seemed not to feel those little satisfactions of self-conceit and, still smiling without the least trace of irony, he placidly waited.