t, not one word about me, if you wish my assistance."

He added, between his teeth:

"It is true I have nothing to boast of in this affair."

The assistants were gradually regaining consciousness with the
bewildered air of people who come out of an hypnotic sleep. They opened
their eyes and looked about them in astonishment. Ganimard questioned
them; they remembered nothing.

"But you must have seen some one?"

"No."

"Can't you remember?"

"No, no."

"Did you drink anything?"

They considered a moment, and then one of them replied:

"Yes, I drank a little water."

"Out of that carafe?"

"Yes."

"So did I," declared the other.

Ganimard smelled and tasted it. It had no particular taste and no odor.

"Come," he said, "we are wasting our time here. One can't decide an
Arsene Lupin problem in five minutes. But, morbleau! I swear I will
catch him again."

The same day, a charge of burglary was duly performed by Baron Cahorn
against Arsene Lupin, a prisoner in the Prison de la Sante.

* * * * *

The baron afterwards regretted making the charge against Lupin when he
saw his castle delivered over to the gendarmes, the procureur, the judge
d'instruction, the newspaper reporters and photographers, and a throng
of idle curiosity-seekers.

The affair soon became a topic of general discussion, and the name of
Arsene Lupin excited the public imagination to such an extent that the
newspapers filled their columns with the most fantastic stories of his
exploits which found ready credence amongst their readers.

But the letter of Arsene Lupin that was published in the `Echo de
France' (no once ever knew how the newspaper obtained it), that letter
in which Baron Cahorn was impudently warned of the coming theft, caused
considerable excitement. The most fabulous theories were advanced. Some
recalled the existence of the famous subterranean tunnels, and that was
the line of research pursued by the officers of the law, who searched
the house from top to bottom, questioned every stone, studied the
wainscoting and the chimneys, the window-frames and the girders in the
ceilings. By the light of torches, they examined the immense cellars
where the lords of Malaquis were wont to store their munitions and
provisions. They sounded the rocky foundation to its very centre. But it
was all in vain. They discovered no trace of a subterranean tunnel. No
secret passage existed.

But the eager public declared that the pictures