s a great
actor. He actually becomes for the time being the person he pretends to
be. He thinks and feels absolutely like that person. Do you follow me?"

"Oh, yes; but he must be rather fluid, this Lupin," said the Duke; and
then he added thoughtfully, "It must be awfully risky to come so often
into actual contact with men like Ganimard and you."

"Lupin has never let any consideration of danger prevent him doing
anything that caught his fancy. He has odd fancies, too. He's a
humourist of the most varied kind--grim, ironic, farcical, as the mood
takes him. He must be awfully trying to live with," said Guerchard.

"Do you think humourists are trying to live with?" said the Duke, in a
meditative tone. "I think they brighten life a good deal; but of course
there are people who do not like them--the middle-classes."

"Yes, yes, they're all very well in their place; but to live with they
must be trying," said Guerchard quickly.

He went on to question the Duke closely and at length about the
household of M. Gournay-Martin, saying that Arsene Lupin worked with
the largest gang a burglar had ever captained, and it was any odds that
he had introduced one, if not more, of that gang into it. Moreover, in
the case of a big affair like this, Lupin himself often played two or
three parts under as many disguises.

"If he was Charolais, I don't see how he could be one of M.
Gournay-Martin's household, too," said the Duke in some perplexity.

"I don't say that he WAS Charolais," said Guerchard. "It is quite a
moot point. On the whole, I'm inclined to think that he was not. The
theft of the motor-cars was a job for a subordinate. He would hardly
bother himself with it."

The Duke told him all that he could remember about the millionaire's
servants--and, under the clever questioning of the detective, he was
surprised to find how much he did remember--all kinds of odd details
about them which he had scarcely been aware of observing.

The two of them, as they talked, afforded an interesting contrast: the
Duke, with his air of distinction and race, his ironic expression, his
mobile features, his clear enunciation and well-modulated voice, his
easy carriage of an accomplished fencer--a fencer with muscles of
steel--seemed to be a man of another kind from the slow-moving
detective, with his husky voice, his common, slurring enunciation, his
clumsily moulded features, so ill adapted to the expression of emotion
and intelligence. It