Europe," said the Duke.

Germaine went to the window and stared out of it sulkily.

The Duke walked up and down the hall, looking at the pictures of some
of his ancestors--somewhat grotesque persons--with humorous
appreciation. Between addressing the envelopes Sonia kept glancing at
him. Once he caught her eye, and smiled at her. Germaine's back was
eloquent of her displeasure. The Duke stopped at a gap in the line of
pictures in which there hung a strip of old tapestry.

"I can never understand why you have left all these ancestors of mine
staring from the walls and have taken away the quite admirable and
interesting portrait of myself," he said carelessly.

Germaine turned sharply from the window; Sonia stopped in the middle of
addressing an envelope; and both the girls stared at him in
astonishment.

"There certainly was a portrait of me where that tapestry hangs. What
have you done with it?" said the Duke.

"You're making fun of us again," said Germaine.

"Surely your Grace knows what happened," said Sonia.

"We wrote all the details to you and sent you all the papers three
years ago. Didn't you get them?" said Germaine.

"Not a detail or a newspaper. Three years ago I was in the
neighbourhood of the South Pole, and lost at that," said the Duke.

"But it was most dramatic, my dear Jacques. All Paris was talking of
it," said Germaine. "Your portrait was stolen."

"Stolen? Who stole it?" said the Duke.

Germaine crossed the hall quickly to the gap in the line of pictures.

"I'll show you," she said.

She drew aside the piece of tapestry, and in the middle of the panel
over which the portrait of the Duke had hung he saw written in chalk
the words:

ARSENE LUPIN

"What do you think of that autograph?" said Germaine.

"'Arsene Lupin?'" said the Duke in a tone of some bewilderment.

"He left his signature. It seems that he always does so," said Sonia in
an explanatory tone.

"But who is he?" said the Duke.

"Arsene Lupin? Surely you know who Arsene Lupin is?" said Germaine
impatiently.

"I haven't the slightest notion," said the Duke.

"Oh, come! No one is as South-Pole as all that!" cried Germaine. "You
don't know who Lupin is? The most whimsical, the most audacious, and
the most genial thief in France. For the last ten years he has kept the
police at bay. He has baffled Ganimard, Holmlock Shears, the great
English detective, and even Guerchard, whom everybody says is the
greatest detective w