"What proof did you give?"
"Your name: Paul Sernine, that is to say, Arsène Lupin."
"And you found that out all by yourself, did you? . . . A thing which nobody else thought of? . . . Nonsense! It was the other one. Admit it!"
He looked out through the chink. Swarms of policemen were spreading round the villa; and the blows were now sounding on the door. He must, however, think of one of two things: either his escape, or else the execution of the plan which he had contrived. But to go away, even for a moment, meant leaving Altenheim; and who could guarantee that the baron had not another outlet at his disposal to escape by? This thought paralyzed Sernine. The baron free! The baron at liberty to go back to Geneviève and torture her and make her subservient to his odious love!
Thwarted in his designs, obliged to improvise a new plan on the very second, while subordinating everything to the danger which Geneviève was running, Sernine passed through a moment of cruel indecision. With his eyes fixed on the baron's eyes, he would have liked to tear his secret from him and to go away; and he no longer even tried to convince him, so useless did all words seem to him. And, while pursuing his own thoughts, he asked himself what the baron's thoughts could be, what his weapons, what his hope of safety?
The hall-door, though strongly bolted, though sheeted with iron, was beginning to give way.
The two men stood behind that door, motionless. The sound of voices, the sense of words reached them.
"You seem very sure of yourself," said Sernine.
"I should think so!" cried the other, suddenly tripping him to the floor and running away.
Sernine sprang up at once, dived through a little door under the staircase, through which Altenheim had disappeared, and ran down the stone steps to the basement. . . .