too--a woman
named Victoire," he said. "Let's hope we don't find them with their
throats cut."

"That isn't Lupin's way," said the inspector. "They won't have come to
much harm."

"It's not very likely that they'll be in a position to open doors,"
said the Duke drily.

"Hadn't we better have it broken open and be done with it?"

The inspector hesitated.

"People don't like their doors broken open," he said. "And M.
Gournay-Martin--"

"Oh, I'll take the responsibility of that," said the Duke.

"Oh, if you say so, your Grace," said the inspector, with a brisk
relief. "Henri, go to Ragoneau, the locksmith in the Rue Theobald.
Bring him here as quickly as ever you can get him."

"Tell him it's a couple of louis if he's here inside of ten minutes,"
said the Duke.

The policeman hurried off. The inspector bent down and searched the
steps carefully. He searched the roadway. The Duke lighted a cigarette
and watched him. The house of the millionaire stood next but one to the
corner of a street which ran at right angles to the one in which it
stood, and the corner house was empty. The inspector searched the road,
then he went round the corner. The other policeman went along the road,
searching in the opposite direction. The Duke leant against the door
and smoked on patiently. He showed none of the weariness of a man who
has spent the night in a long and anxious drive in a rickety motor-car.
His eyes were bright and clear; he looked as fresh as if he had come
from his bed after a long night's rest. If he had not found the South
Pole, he had at any rate brought back fine powers of endurance from his
expedition in search of it.

The inspector came back, wearing a disappointed air.

"Have you found anything?" said the Duke.

"Nothing," said the inspector.

He came up the steps and hammered again on the door. No one answered
his knock. There was a clatter of footsteps, and Henri and the
locksmith, a burly, bearded man, his bag of tools slung over his
shoulder, came hurrying up. He was not long getting to work, but it was
not an easy job. The lock was strong. At the end of five minutes he
said that he might spend an hour struggling with the lock itself;
should he cut away a piece of the door round it?

"Cut away," said the Duke.

The locksmith changed his tools, and in less than three minutes he had
cut away a square piece from the door, a square in which the lock was
fixed, and taken it bodily away.

The door o