est of the lot, d'Albufex, cut his throat in a prison. No, take
it from me, as the price of handing over that list, we could ask for
anything we pleased. And we are asking for what? Almost nothing ... less
than nothing... the pardon of a child of twenty. In other words, they
will take us for idiots. What! We have in our hands..."

He stopped. Clarisse, exhausted by so much excitement, sat fast asleep
in front of him.

They reached Paris at eight o'clock in the morning.

Lupin found two telegrams awaiting him at his flat in the Place de
Clichy.

One was from the Masher, dispatched from Avignon on the previous day
and stating that all was going well and that they hoped to keep their
appointment punctually that evening. The other was from Prasville, dated
from the Havre and addressed to Clarisse:

"Impossible return to-morrow Monday morning. Come to my office
five o'clock. Reckon on you absolutely."

"Five o'clock!" said Clarisse. "How late!"

"It's a first-rate hour," declared Lupin.

"Still, if..."

"If the execution is to take place to-morrow morning: is that what you
mean to say?... Don't be afraid to speak out, for the execution will not
take place."

"The newspapers..."

"You haven't read the newspapers and you are not to read them. Nothing
that they can say matters in the least. One thing alone matters: our
interview with Prasville. Besides..."

He took a little bottle from a cupboard and, putting his hand on
Clarisse's shoulder, said:

"Lie down here, on the sofa, and take a few drops of this mixture."

"What's it for?"

"It will make you sleep for a few hours... and forget. That's always so
much gained."

"No, no," protested Clarisse, "I don't want to. Gilbert is not asleep.
He is not forgetting."

"Drink it," said Lupin, with gentle insistence. She yielded all of a
sudden, from cowardice, from excessive suffering, and did as she was
told and lay on the sofa and closed her eyes. In a few minutes she was
asleep.

Lupin rang for his servant:

"The newspapers... quick!... Have you bought them?"

"Here they are, governor."

Lupin opened one of them and at once read the following lines:

"ARSENE LUPIN'S ACCOMPLICES"

"We know from a positive source that Arsene Lupin's
accomplices, Gilbert and Vaucheray, will be executed
to-morrow, Tuesday, morning. M. Deibler has inspected
the scaffold. Everything is ready."

He raised his head with a defiant look.

"Arsene Lupin's ac