leave my office with the bracelets on.
As soon as he is in my room, make all the necessary arrangements: send
for a dozen inspectors and have them posted in the waiting-room and in
your office. And take this as a definite instruction: the moment I ring,
you are all to come in, revolvers in hand, and surround the fellow. Do
you quite understand?"

"Yes, monsieur le secretaire-general."

"Above all, no hesitation. A sudden entrance, in a body, revolvers in
hand. Send M. Nicole in, please."

As soon as he was alone, Prasville covered the push of an electric bell
on his desk with some papers and placed two revolvers of respectable
dimensions behind a rampart of books.

"And now," he said to himself, "to sit tight. If he has the list, let's
collar it. If he hasn't, let's collar him. And, if possible, let's
collar both. Lupin and the list of the Twenty-seven, on the same day,
especially after the scandal of this morning, would be a scoop in a
thousand."

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in!" said Prasville.

And, rising from his seat:

"Come in, M. Nicole, come in."

M. Nicole crept timidly into the room, sat down on the extreme edge of
the chair to which Prasville pointed and said:

"I have come...to resume... our conversation of yesterday... Please
excuse the delay, monsieur."

"One second," said Prasville. "Will you allow me?"

He stepped briskly to the outer room and, seeing his secretary:

"I was forgetting, M. Lartigue. Have the staircases and passages
searched... in case of accomplices."

He returned, settled himself comfortably, as though for a long and
interesting conversation, and began:

"You were saying, M. Nicole?"

"I was saying, monsieur le secretaire-general, that I must apologize
for keeping you waiting yesterday evening. I was detained by different
matters. First of all, Mme. Mergy...."

"Yes, you had to see Mme. Mergy home."

"Just so, and to look after her. You can understand the poor thing's
despair... Her son Gilbert so near death... And such a death!... At that
time we could only hope for a miracle... an impossible miracle. I myself
was resigned to the inevitable... You know as well as I do, when fate
shows itself implacable, one ends by despairing."

"But I thought," observed Prasville, "that your intention, on leaving
me, was to drag Daubrecq's secret from him at all costs."

"Certainly. But Daubrecq was not in Paris."

"Oh?"

"No. He was on his way to Paris in a mo