on?"

"This, that Baroness Repstein has been murdered...."

"Murdered!... The baroness!... But you're mad!"

"Murdered ... and probably that same evening."

"I tell you again, you are mad! How can the baroness have been murdered,
when the police are following her tracks, so to speak, step by step?"

"They are following the tracks of another woman."

"What woman?"

"The murderer's accomplice."

"And who is the murderer?"

"The same man who, for the last fortnight, knowing that Lavernoux,
through the situation which he occupied in this house, had discovered
the truth, kept him imprisoned, forced him to silence, threatened him,
terrorized him; the same man who, finding Lavernoux in the act of
communicating with a friend, made away with him in cold blood by
stabbing him to the heart."

"The doctor, therefore?"

"Yes."

"But who is this doctor? Who is this malevolent genius, this infernal
being who appears and disappears, who slays in the dark and whom nobody
suspects?"

"Can't you guess?"

"No."

"And do you want to know?"

"Do I want to know?... Why, speak, man, speak!... You know where he is
hiding?"

"Yes."

"In this house?"

"Yes."

"And it is he whom the police are after?"

"Yes."

"And I know him?"

"Yes."

"Who is it?"

"You!"

"I!..."

Lupin had not been more than ten minutes with the baron; and the duel
was commencing. The accusation was hurled, definitely, violently,
implacably.

Lupin repeated:

"You yourself, got up in a false beard and a pair of spectacles, bent in
two, like an old man. In short, you, Baron Repstein; and it is you for
a very good reason, of which nobody has thought, which is that, if it
was not you who contrived the whole plot, the case becomes inexplicable.
Whereas, taking you as the criminal, you as murdering the baroness in
order to get rid of her and run through those millions with another
woman, you as murdering Lavernoux, your agent, in order to suppress an
unimpeachable witness, oh, then the whole case is explained! Well, is it
pretty clear? And are not you yourself convinced?"

The baron, who, throughout this conversation, had stood bending over his
visitor, waiting for each of his words with feverish avidity, now drew
himself up and looked at Lupin as though he undoubtedly had to do with a
madman. When Lupin had finished speaking, the baron stepped back two or
three paces, seemed on the point of uttering words which he ended by not
saying,