iban, for he
feared some blunder on the part of that inexperienced man. He went back
to his friend and spent the rest of the day with him. In the evening,
he took the Brittany express and got out at Velines as six o'clock in
the morning.

He did the two and a half miles, between bushy woods, on foot. He could
see the castle, perched on a height, from a distance: it was a hybrid
edifice, a mixture of the Renascence and Louis Philippe styles, but it
bore a stately air, nevertheless, with its four turrets and its
ivy-mantled draw-bridge.

Isidore felt his heart beat as he approached. Was he really nearing the
end of his race? Did the castle contain the key to the mystery?

He was not without fear. It all seemed too good to be true; and he
asked himself if he was not once more acting in obedience to some
infernal plan contrived by Lupin, if Massiban was not for instance, a
tool in the hands of his enemy. He burst out laughing:

"Tut, tut, I'm becoming absurd! One would really think that Lupin was
an infallible person who foresees everything, a sort of divine
omnipotence against whom nothing can prevail! Dash it all, Lupin makes
his mistakes; Lupin, too, is at the mercy of circumstances; Lupin has
an occasional slip! And it is just because of his slip in losing the
document that I am beginning to have the advantage of him. Everything
starts from that. And his efforts, when all is said, serve only to
repair the first blunder."

And blithely, full of confidence, Beautrelet rang the bell.

"Yes, sir?" said the servant who opened the door.

"Can I see the Baron de Velines?"

And he gave the man his card.

"Monsieur le baron is not up yet, but, if monsieur will wait--"

"Has not some one else been asking for him, a gentleman with a white
beard and a slight stoop?" asked Beautrelet, who knew Massiban's
appearance from the photographs in the newspapers.

"Yes, the gentleman came about ten minutes ago; I showed him into the
drawing room. If monsieur will come this way--"

The interview between Massiban and Beautrelet was of the most cordial
character. Isidore thanked the old man for the first-rate information
which he owed to him and Massiban expressed his admiration for
Beautrelet in the warmest terms. Then they exchanged impressions on the
document, on their prospects of discovering the book; and Massiban
repeated what he had heard at Rennes regarding M. de Velines. The baron
was a man of sixty, who had been left a