the arm has a bracelet similar to one of that young lady's bracelets.
This, however, is the only mark of identity, for the corpse is
irrecognizable.

Thereupon I remember and I understand. A few days earlier, I happened
to read in a number of the Vigie de Dieppe that a young American couple
staying at Envermeu had committed suicide by taking poison and that
their bodies had disappeared on the very night of the death. I hasten
to Envermeu. The story is true, I am told, except in so far as concerns
the disappearance, because the brothers of the victims came to claim
the corpses and took them away after the usual formalities. The name of
these brothers, no doubt, was Arsene Lupin & Co.

Consequently, the thing is proved. We know why Lupin shammed the murder
of the girl and spread the rumor of his own death. He is in love and
does not wish it known. And, to reach his ends, he shrinks from
nothing, he even undertakes that incredible theft of the two corpses
which he needs in order to impersonate himself and Mlle. de
Saint-Veran. In this way, he will be at ease. No one can disturb him.
No one will ever suspect the truth which he wishes to suppress.

No one? Yes--three adversaries, at the most, might conceive doubts:
Ganimard, whose arrival is hourly expected; Holmlock Shears, who is
about to cross the Channel; and I, who am on the spot. This constitutes
a threefold danger. He removes it. He kidnaps Ganimard. He kidnaps
Holmlock Shears. He has me stabbed by Bredoux.

One point alone remains obscure. Why was Lupin so fiercely bent upon
snatching the document about the Hollow Needle from me? He surely did
not imagine that, by taking it away, he could wipe out from my memory
the text of the five lines of which it consists! Then why? Did he fear
that the character of the paper itself, or some other clue, could give
me a hint?

Be that as it may, this is the truth of the Ambrumesy mystery. I repeat
that conjecture plays a certain part in the explanation which I offer,
even as it played a great part in my personal investigation. But, if
one waited for proofs and facts to fight Lupin, one would run a great
risk either of waiting forever or else of discovering proofs and facts
carefully prepared by Lupin, which would lead in a direction
immediately opposite to the object in view. I feel confident that the
facts, when they are known, will confirm my surmise in every respect.

* * * * *

So Isidor