that the theft had been
carried out under the direction of Arsene Lupin and that a package was
to leave next day for the United States. That same evening, the tapestry
was discovered in a trunk deposited in the cloak-room at the Gare
Saint-Lazare.

The scheme, therefore, had miscarried. Lupin felt the disappointment so
much that he vented his ill-humour in a communication to Colonel
Sparmiento, ending with the following words, which were clear enough for
anybody:

"It was very considerate of me to take only one. Next time, I shall
take the twelve. _Verbum sap._

"A. L."

Colonel Sparmiento had been living for some months in a house standing
at the end of a small garden at the corner of the Rue de la Faisanderie
and the Rue Dufresnoy. He was a rather thick-set, broad-shouldered man,
with black hair and a swarthy skin, always well and quietly dressed. He
was married to an extremely pretty but delicate Englishwoman, who was
much upset by the business of the tapestries. From the first she
implored her husband to sell them for what they would fetch. The Colonel
had much too forcible and dogged a nature to yield to what he had every
right to describe as a woman's fancies. He sold nothing, but he
redoubled his precautions and adopted every measure that was likely to
make an attempt at burglary impossible.

To begin with, so that he might confine his watch to the garden-front,
he walled up all the windows on the ground-floor and the first floor
overlooking the Rue Dufresnoy. Next, he enlisted the services of a firm
which made a speciality of protecting private houses against robberies.
Every window of the gallery in which the tapestries were hung was fitted
with invisible burglar alarms, the position of which was known, to none
but himself. These, at the least touch, switched on all the electric
lights and set a whole system of bells and gongs ringing.

In addition to this, the insurance companies to which he applied refused
to grant policies to any considerable amount unless he consented to let
three men, supplied by the companies and paid by himself, occupy the
ground-floor of his house every night. They selected for the purpose
three ex-detectives, tried and trustworthy men, all of whom hated Lupin
like poison. As for the servants, the colonel had known them for years
and was ready to vouch for them.

After taking these steps and organizing the defence of t