Surely, you don’t imagine that the agent, the private secretary of the baron—who was a company-promoter, mind you, and a racing-man—did not know English better than to spell ‘necessery’ with an ‘e,’ ‘atack’ with one ‘t,’ ‘ennemy’ with two ‘n’s’ and ‘prudance’ with an ‘a’! The thing struck me at once. I put the four letters together and got ‘Etna,’ the name of the famous horse.”

“And was that one word enough?”

“Of course! It was enough to start with, to put me on the scent of the Repstein case, of which all the papers were full, and, next, to make me guess that it was the key-word of the safe, because, on the one hand, Lavernoux knew the gruesome contents of the safe and, on the other, he was denouncing the baron. And it was in the same way that I was led to suppose that Lavernoux had a friend in the street, that they both frequented the same café, that they amused themselves by working out the problems and cryptograms in the illustrated papers and that they had contrived a way of exchanging telegrams from window to window.”

“That makes it all quite simple!” I exclaimed.

“Very simple. And the incident once more shows that, in the discovery of crimes, there is something much more valuable than the examination of facts, than observations, deductions, inferences and all that stuff and nonsense. What I mean is, as I said before, intuition … intuition and intelligence … And Arsène Lupin, without boasting, is deficient in neither one nor the other! …”

II. THE WEDDING-RING

Yvonne d’Origny kissed her son and told him to be good:

“You know your grandmother d’Origny is not very fond of children. Now that she has sent for you to come and see her, you must show her what a sensible little boy you are.” And, turning to the governess, “Don’t forget, Fräulein, to bring him home immediately after dinner … Is monsieur still in the house?”

“Yes, madame, monsieur le comte is in his study.”

As soon as she was alone, Yvonne d’Origny walked to the window to catch a glimpse of her son as he left the house. He was out in the street in a moment, raised his head and blew her a kiss, as was his custom every day. Then the governess took his hand with, as Yvonne remarked to her surprise, a movement of unusual violence. Yvonne leant further out of the window and, when the boy reached the corner of the boulevard, she suddenly saw a man step out of a motor-car and go up to him. The man, in whom she recognized Bernard, her husband’s confidential servant, took the child by the arm, made both him and the governess get into the car, and ordered the chauffeur to drive off.

The whole incident did not take ten seconds.

Yvonne, in her trepidation, ran to her bedroom, seized a wrap and went to the door. The door was locked; and there was no key in the lock.

She hurried back to the boudoir. The door of the boudoir also was locked.

Then, suddenly, the image of her husband appeared before her, that gloomy face which no smile ever lit up, those pitiless eyes in which, for years, she had felt so much hatred and malice.

“It’s he … it’s he!” she said to herself. “He has taken the child … Oh, it’s horrible!”

She beat against the door with her fists, with her feet, then flew to the mantelpiece and pressed the bell fiercely.

The shrill sound rang through the house from top to bottom. The servants would be sure to come. Perhaps a crowd would gather in the street. And, impelled by a sort of despairing hope, she kept her finger on the button.

A key turned in the lock … The door was flung wide open. The count appeared on the threshold of the boudoir. And the expression of his face was so terrible that Yvonne began to tremble.

He entered the room. Five or six steps separated him from her. With a supreme effort, she tried to stir, but all movement was impossible; and, when she attempted to speak, she could only flutter her lips and emit incoherent sounds.