, written neatly in blue chalk, were the words:

ARSENE LUPIN

"This is a job for Guerchard," said the inspector. "But I had better
get an examining magistrate to take the matter in hand first." And he
ran to the telephone.

The Duke opened the folding doors which led into the second
drawing-room. The shutters of the windows were open, and it was plain
that Arsene Lupin had plundered it also of everything that had struck
his fancy. In the gaps between the pictures on the walls was again the
signature "Arsene Lupin."

The inspector was shouting impatiently into the telephone, bidding a
servant wake her master instantly. He did not leave the telephone till
he was sure that she had done so, that her master was actually awake,
and had been informed of the crime. The Duke sat down in an easy chair
and waited for him.

When he had finished telephoning, the inspector began to search the two
rooms for traces of the burglars. He found nothing, not even a
finger-mark.

When he had gone through the two rooms he said, "The next thing to do
is to find the house-keeper. She may be sleeping still--she may not
even have heard the noise of the burglars."

"I find all this extremely interesting," said the Duke; and he followed
the inspector out of the room.

The inspector called up the two policemen, who had been freeing the
concierge and going through the rooms on the ground-floor. They did not
then examine any more of the rooms on the first floor to discover if
they also had been plundered. They went straight up to the top of the
house, the servants' quarters.

The inspector called, "Victoire! Victoire!" two or three times; but
there was no answer.

They opened the door of room after room and looked in, the inspector
taking the rooms on the right, the policemen the rooms on the left.

"Here we are," said one of the policemen. "This room's been recently
occupied." They looked in, and saw that the bed was unmade. Plainly
Victoire had slept in it.

"Where can she be?" said the Duke.

"Be?" said the inspector. "I expect she's with the burglars--an
accomplice."

"I gather that M. Gournay-Martin had the greatest confidence in her,"
said the Duke.

"He'll have less now," said the inspector drily. "It's generally the
confidential ones who let their masters down."

The inspector and his men set about a thorough search of the house.
They found the other rooms undisturbed. In half an hour they had
established the fact that