upin experienced the sensation of being
seized, imprisoned and registered by that look more thoroughly and
precisely than he had ever been by a camera.

"My negative is taken now," he thought, "and it will be useless to use
a disguise with that man. He would look right through it. But, I wonder,
has he recognized me?"

They bowed to each other as if about to part. But, at that moment, they
heard a sound of horses' feet, accompanied by a clinking of steel. It
was the gendarmes. The two men were obliged to draw back against the
embankment, amongst the brushes, to avoid the horses. The gendarmes
passed by, but, as they followed each other at a considerable distance,
they were several minutes in doing so. And Lupin was thinking:

"It all depends on that question: has he recognized me? If so, he will
probably take advantage of the opportunity. It is a trying situation."

When the last horseman had passed, Sherlock Holmes stepped forth and
brushed the dust from his clothes. Then, for a moment, he and Arsene
Lupin gazed at each other; and, if a person could have seen them at that
moment, it would have been an interesting sight, and memorable as the
first meeting of two remarkable men, so strange, so powerfully equipped,
both of superior quality, and destined by fate, through their peculiar
attributes, to hurl themselves one at the other like two equal forces
that nature opposes, one against the other, in the realms of space.

Then the Englishman said: "Thank you, monsieur."

They parted. Lupin went toward the railway station, and Sherlock Holmes
continued on his way to the castle.

The local officers had given up the investigation after several hours
of fruitless efforts, and the people at the castle were awaiting the
arrival of the English detective with a lively curiosity. At first
sight, they were a little disappointed on account of his commonplace
appearance, which differed so greatly from the pictures they had formed
of him in their own minds. He did not in any way resemble the romantic
hero, the mysterious and diabolical personage that the name of Sherlock
Holmes had evoked in their imaginations. However, Mon. Devanne exclaimed
with much gusto:

"Ah! monsieur, you are here! I am delighted to see you. It is a
long-deferred pleasure. Really, I scarcely regret what has happened,
since it affords me the opportunity to meet you. But, how did you come?"

"By the train."

"But I sent my automobile to meet you at the