handwriting:

"R. de Val.--3.4--Lion."

He was silent for a few minutes and resumed:

"My father hadn't shown you that snapshot yet?"

"No--and that's just what astonished me when I saw it yesterday--for
your father used so often to talk to us about you."

There was a fresh pause, greatly prolonged. Froberval muttered:

"I have business at the workshop. We might as well go in--"

He was silent. Isidore had not taken his eyes from the photograph, was
examining it from every point of view. At last, the boy asked:

"Is there such a thing as an inn called the Lion d'Or at a short league
outside the town?"

"Yes, about a league from here."

"On the Route de Valognes, is it?"

"Yes, on the Route de Valognes."

"Well, I have every reason to believe that this inn was the
head-quarters of Lupin's friends. It was from there that they entered
into communication with my father."

"What an idea! Your father spoke to nobody. He saw nobody."

"He saw nobody, but they made use of an intermediary."

"What proof have you?"

"This photograph."

"But it's your photograph!"

"It's my photograph, but it was not sent by me. I was not even aware of
its existence. It was taken, without my knowledge, in the ruins of
Ambrumesy, doubtless by the examining-magistrate's clerk, who, as you
know, was an accomplice of Arsene Lupin's."

"And then?"

"Then this photograph became the passport, the talisman, by means of
which they obtained my father's confidence."

"But who? Who was able to get into my house?"

"I don't know, but my father fell into the trap. They told him and he
believed that I was in the neighborhood, that I was asking to see him
and that I was giving him an appointment at the Golden Lion."

"But all this is nonsense! How can you assert--?"

"Very simply. They imitated my writing on the back of the photograph
and specified the meeting-place: Valognes Road, 3 kilometres 400, Lion
Inn. My father came and they seized him, that's all."

"Very well," muttered Froberval, dumbfounded, "very well. I admit
it--things happened as you say--but that does not explain how he was
able to leave during the night."

"He left in broad daylight, though he waited until dark to go to the
meeting-place."

"But, confound it, he didn't leave his room the whole of the day before
yesterday!"

"There is one way of making sure: run down to the dockyard, Froberval,
and look for one of the men who were on guard in the afternoon, tw