be most amusing," said Lupin, chuckling. "What earthly
connection can there be between those different people?"

There hove in sight successively two elderly ladies, lean and rather
poverty-stricken in appearance, very much alike, evidently sisters; a
footman in livery; an infantry corporal; a fat gentleman in a soiled and
patched jacket-suit; and, lastly, a workman's family, father, mother,
and four children, all six of them pale and sickly, looking like people
who never eat their fill. And each of the newcomers carried a basket or
string-bag filled with provisions.

"It's a picnic!" I cried.

"It grows more and more surprising," said Lupin, "and I sha'n't be
satisfied till I know what is happening behind that wall."

To climb it was out of the question. We also saw that it finished, at
the lower as well as at the upper end, at a house none of whose windows
overlooked the enclosure which the wall contained.

During the next hour, no one else came along. We vainly cast about for
a stratagem; and Lupin, whose fertile brain had exhausted every possible
expedient, was about to go in search of a ladder, when, suddenly, the
little door opened and one of the workman's children came out.

The boy ran up the lane to the Rue Raynouard. A few minutes later he
returned, carrying two bottles of water, which he set down on the
pavement to take the big key from his pocket.

By that time Lupin had left me and was strolling slowly along the wall.
When the child, after entering the enclosure, pushed back the door Lupin
sprang forward and stuck the point of his knife into the staple of the
lock. The bolt failed to catch; and it became an easy matter to push the
door ajar.

"That's done the trick!" said Lupin.

He cautiously put his hand through the doorway and then, to my great
surprise, entered boldly. But, on following his example, I saw that, ten
yards behind the wall, a clump of laurels formed a sort of curtain which
allowed us to come up unobserved.

Lupin took his stand right in the middle of the clump. I joined him and,
like him, pushed aside the branches of one of the shrubs. And the sight
which presented itself to my eyes was so unexpected that I was unable to
suppress an exclamation, while Lupin, on his side, muttered, between
his teeth:

"By Jupiter! This is a funny job!"

We saw before us, within the confined space that lay between the two
windowless houses, the identical scene represented in the old picture
wh