said:

"Don't do that, my dear sir, don't do it."

"And why not?"

"It is not to your interest, believe me."

"Really!"

"No. Or, if you absolutely insist on doing it, have the kindness first
to consult the twenty-seven names on the list of which you have just
robbed me and reflect, for a moment, on the name of the third person on
it."

"Oh? And what is the name of that third person?"

"It is the name of a friend of yours."

"What friend?"

"Stanislas Vorenglade, the ex-deputy."

"And then?" said Prasville, who seemed to be losing some of his
self-confidence.

"Then? Ask yourself if an inquiry, however summary, would not end by
discovering, behind that Stanislas Vorenglade, the name of one who
shared certain little profits with him."

"And whose name is?"

"Louis Prasville."

M. Nicole banged the table with his fist.

"Enough of this humbug, monsieur! For twenty minutes, you and I have
been beating about the bush. That will do. Let us understand each other.
And, to begin with, drop your pistols. You can't imagine that I am
frightened of those playthings! Stand up, sir, stand up, as I am doing,
and finish the business: I am in a hurry."

He put his hand on Prasville's shoulder and, speaking with great
deliberation, said:

"If, within an hour from now, you are not back from the Elysee, bringing
with you a line to say that the decree of pardon has been signed; if,
within one hour and ten minutes, I, Arsene Lupin, do not walk out of
this building safe and sound and absolutely free, this evening
four Paris newspapers will receive four letters selected from the
correspondence exchanged between Stanislas Vorenglade and yourself, the
correspondence which Stanislas Vorenglade sold me this morning. Here's
your hat, here's your overcoat, here's your stick. Be off. I will wait
for you."

Then happened this extraordinary and yet easily understood thing, that
Prasville did not raise the slightest protest nor make the least show
of fight. He received the sudden, far-reaching, utter conviction of
what the personality known as Arsene Lupin meant, in all its breadth and
fulness. He did not so much as think of carping, of pretending--as
he had until then believed--that the letters had been destroyed by
Vorenglade the deputy or, at any rate, that Vorenglade would not dare
to hand them over, because, in so doing, Vorenglade was also working
his own destruction. No, Prasville did not speak a word. He felt
himself c