t-door. He was astounded that
Daubrecq was not awakened by so violent a din:

"If I don't put a stop to this, they'll spoil everything," he said to
himself.

He stood in an angle of the house, invisible in the darkness, and
measured the distance between himself and the gate. The gate was open.
To his right, he saw the steps, on the top of which the people were
flinging themselves about; to his left, the building occupied by the
portress.

The woman had come out of her lodge and was standing near the people,
entreating them:

"Oh, do be quiet, do be quiet! He'll come!"

"Capital!" said Lupin. "The good woman is an accomplice of these as
well. By Jingo, what a pluralist!"

He rushed across to her and, taking her by the scruff of the neck,
hissed:

"Go and tell them I've got the child... They can come and fetch it at my
place, Rue Chateaubriand."

A little way off, in the avenue, stood a taxi which Lupin presumed to be
engaged by the gang. Speaking authoritatively, as though he were one of
the accomplices, he stepped into the cab and told the man to drive him
home.

"Well," he said to the child, "that wasn't much of a shake-up, was
it?... What do you say to going to bye-bye on the gentleman's bed?"

As his servant, Achille, was asleep, Lupin made the little chap
comfortable and stroked his hair for him. The child seemed numbed. His
poor face was as though petrified into a stiff expression made up, at
one and the same time, of fear and the wish not to show fear, of the
longing to scream and a pitiful effort not to scream.

"Cry, my pet, cry," said Lupin. "It'll do you good to cry."

The child did not cry, but the voice was so gentle and so kind that he
relaxed his tense muscles; and, now that his eyes were calmer and
his mouth less contorted, Lupin, who was examining him closely, found
something that he recognized, an undoubted resemblance.

This again confirmed certain facts which he suspected and which he had
for some time been linking in his mind. Indeed, unless he was mistaken,
the position was becoming very different and he would soon assume the
direction of events. After that...

A ring at the bell followed, at once, by two others, sharp ones.

"Hullo!" said Lupin to the child. "Here's mummy come to fetch you. Don't
move."

He ran and opened the door.

A woman entered, wildly:

"My son!" she screamed. "My son! Where is he?"

"In my room," said Lupin.

Without asking more, thus proving that