The room was empty.

"Just so," he said. "My gentleman did not like the position and has
cleared out. Here's wishing him a good journey.... And, of course, the
door is bolted?... Exactly!... That is how our sick man, tricking his
worthy medical attendant, used to get up at night in full security,
fasten his rope-ladder to the balcony and prepare his little games. He's
no fool, is friend Darcieux!"

He drew the bolts and returned to Jeanne's room. The doctor, who was
just coming out of the doorway, drew him to the little dining-room:

"She's asleep, don't let us disturb her. She has had a bad shock and
will take some time to recover."

Lupin poured himself out a glass of water and drank it down. Then he
took a chair and, calmly:

"Pooh! She'll be all right by to-morrow."

"What do you say?"

"I say that she'll be all right by to-morrow."

"Why?"

"In the first place, because it did not strike me that Mlle. Darcieux
felt any very great affection for her father."

"Never mind! Think of it: a father who tries to kill his daughter! A
father who, for months on end, repeats his monstrous attempt four, five,
six times over again!... Well, isn't that enough to blight a less
sensitive soul than Jeanne's for good and all? What a hateful memory!"

"She will forget."

"One does not forget such a thing as that."

"She will forget, doctor, and for a very simple reason...."

"Explain yourself!"

"She is not M. Darcieux's daughter!"

"Eh?"

"I repeat, she is not that villain's daughter."

"What do you mean? M. Darcieux...."

"M. Darcieux is only her step-father. She had just been born when her
father, her real father, died. Jeanne's mother then married a cousin of
her husband's, a man bearing the same name, and she died within a year
of her second wedding. She left Jeanne in M. Darcieux's charge. He first
took her abroad and then bought this country-house; and, as nobody knew
him in the neighbourhood, he represented the child as being his
daughter. She herself did not know the truth about her birth."

The doctor sat confounded. He asked:

"Are you sure of your facts?"

"I spent my day in the town-halls of the Paris municipalities. I
searched the registers, I interviewed two solicitors, I have seen all
the documents. There is no doubt possible."

"But that does not explain the crime, or rather the series of crimes."

"Yes, it does," declared Lupin. "And, from the start, from the first
hour when I meddled