Daubrecq!"

"We can't suppose that Mme. Mergy has been amusing herself by cutting
out those two words. Daubrecq has been here. Mme. Mergy thought that she
was watching him. He was watching her instead."

"How?"

"Doubtless through that hall-porter who did not tell us that Mme. Mergy
had been to the hotel, but who must have told Daubrecq. He came. He
read the letter. And, by way of getting at us, he contented himself with
cutting out the essential words."

"We can find out... we can ask..."

"What's the good? What's the use of finding out how he came, when we
know that he did come?"

He examined the letter for some time, turned it over and over, then
stood up and said:

"Come along."

"Where to?"

"Gare de Lyon."

"Are you sure?"

"I am sure of nothing with Daubrecq. But, as we have to choose,
according to the contents of the letter, between the Gare de l'Est and
the Gare de Lyon, [*] I am presuming that his business, his pleasure
and his health are more likely to take Daubrecq in the direction of
Marseilles and the Riviera than to the Gare de l'Est."

* These are the only two main-line stations in Paris with the
word de in their name. The others have du, as the Gare du
Nord or the Gare du Luxembourg, d' as the Gare d'Orleans, or
no participle at all, as the Gare Saint-Lazare or the Gare
Montparnasse.--Translator's Note.

It was past seven when Lupin and his companions left the Hotel Franklin.
A motor-car took them across Paris at full speed, but they soon saw that
Clarisse Mergy was not outside the station, nor in the waiting-rooms,
nor on any of the platforms.

"Still," muttered Lupin, whose agitation grew as the obstacles
increased, "still, if Daubrecq booked a berth in a sleeping-car, it can
only have been in an evening train. And it is barely half-past seven!"

A train was starting, the night express. They had time to rush along the
corridor. Nobody... neither Mme. Mergy nor Daubrecq...

But, as they were all three going, a porter accosted them near the
refreshment-room:

"Is one of you gentlemen looking for a lady?"

"Yes, yes,... I am," said Lupin. "Quick, what is it?"

"Oh, it's you, sir! The lady told me there might be three of you or two
of you.... And I didn't know..."

"But, in heaven's name, speak, man! What lady?"

"The lady who spent the whole day on the pavement, with the luggage,
waiting."

"Well, out with it! Has she taken a train?"

"Yes, the t