utes one cap for the other. It is she who causes the
famous letter to be written in which she is personally threatened. How,
after that, is it possible to suspect her?

It is she, who at that moment when I was about to confide my first
impressions to the examining magistrate, pretends to have seen me, the
day before, in the copsewood, alarms M. Filleul on my score and reduces
me to silence: a dangerous move, no doubt, because it arouses my
attention and directs it against the person who assails me with an
accusation which I know to be false; but an efficacious move, because
the most important thing of all is to gain time and close my lips.

Lastly, it is she who, during forty days, feeds Lupin, brings him his
medicine (the chemist at Ouville will produce the prescriptions which
he made up for Mlle. de Saint-Veran), nurses him, dresses his wound,
watches over him AND CURES HIM.

Here we have the first of our two problems solved, at the same time
that the Ambrumesy mystery is set forth. Arsene Lupin found, close at
hand, in the chateau itself, the assistance which was indispensable to
him in order, first, not to be discovered and, secondly, to live.

He now lives. And we come to the second problem, corresponding with the
second Ambrumesy mystery, the study of which served me as a conducting
medium. Why does Lupin, alive, free, at the head of his gang,
omnipotent as before, why does Lupin make desperate efforts, efforts
with which I am constantly coming into collision, to force the idea of
his death upon the police and the public?

We must remember that Mlle. de Saint-Veran was a very pretty girl. The
photographs reproduced in the papers after her disappearance give but
an imperfect notion of her beauty. That follows which was bound to
follow. Lupin, seeing this lovely girl daily for five or six weeks,
longing for her presence when she is not there, subjected to her charm
and grace when she is there, inhaling the cool perfume of her breath
when she bends over him, Lupin becomes enamored of his nurse. Gratitude
turns to love, admiration to passion. She is his salvation, but she is
also the joy of his eyes, the dream of his lonely hours, his light, his
hope, his very life.

He respects her sufficiently not to take advantage of the girl's
devotion and not to make use of her to direct his confederates. There
is, in fact, a certain lack of decision apparent in the acts of the
gang. But he loves her also, his scruples weak