of the gait of a gorilla.
But the face was topped by an enormous, lined forehead, indented with
hollows and dotted with bumps.

There was something bestial, something savage, something repulsive about
the man's whole personality. Lupin remembered that, in the Chamber of
Deputies, Daubrecq was nicknamed "The Wild Man of the Woods" and that
he was so labelled not only because he stood aloof and hardly ever
mixed with his fellow-members, but also because of his appearance, his
behaviour, his peculiar gait and his remarkable muscular development.

He sat down to his desk, took a meerschaum pipe from his pocket,
selected a packet of caporal among several packets of tobacco which lay
drying in a bowl, tore open the wrapper, filled his pipe and lit it.
Then he began to write letters.

Presently he ceased his work and sat thinking, with his attention fixed
on a spot on his desk.

He lifted a little stamp-box and examined it. Next, he verified the
position of different articles which Prasville had touched and replaced;
and he searched them with his eyes, felt them with his hands, bending
over them as though certain signs, known to himself alone, were able to
tell him what he wished to know.

Lastly, he grasped the knob on an electric bell-push and rang. The
portress appeared a minute later.

He asked:

"They've been, haven't they?"

And, when the woman hesitated about replying, he insisted:

"Come, come, Clemence, did you open this stampbox?"

"No, sir."

"Well, I fastened the lid down with a little strip of gummed paper. The
strip has been broken."

"But I assure you,..." the woman began.

"Why tell lies," he said, "considering that I myself instructed you to
lend yourself to those visits?"

"The fact is..."

"The fact is that you want to keep on good terms with both sides... Very
well!" He handed her a fifty-franc note and repeated, "Have they been?"

"Yes."

"The same men as in the spring?"

"Yes, all five of them... with another one, who ordered them about."

"A tall, dark man?"

"Yes."

Lupin saw Daubrecq's mouth hardening; and Daubrecq continued:

"Is that all?"

"There was one more, who came after they did and joined them... and
then, just now, two more, the pair who usually keep watch outside the
house."

"Did they remain in the study?"

"Yes, sir."

"And they went away when I came back? A few minutes before, perhaps?"

"Yes, sir."

"That will do."

The woman left the room. Daubr