"I was right," said Lupin. "Leon Massier and Louis de Malreich are one and the same man. The situation is much simpler than it was."
"There is no doubt about that," said Doudeville, "and everything will be settled in a few days."
"That is to say, I shall have been stabbed in the throat."
"What are you saying, governor? There's an idea!"
"Pooh, who knows? I have always had a presentiment that that monster would bring me ill-luck."
Thenceforth it became a matter of watching Malreich's life in such a way that none of his movements went unobserved. This life was of the oddest, if one could believe the people of the neighborhood whom Doudeville questioned. "The bloke from the villa," as they called him, had been living there for a few months only. He saw and received nobody. He was not known to keep a servant of any kind. And the windows, though they were left wide open, even at night, always remained dark and were never lit with the glow of a lamp or candle.
Moreover, Leon Massier most often went out at the close of day and did not come in again until very late . . . at dawn, said people who had come upon him at sunrise.
"And does any one know what he does?" asked Lupin of his companion, when they next met.
"No, he leads an absolutely irregular existence. He sometimes disappears for several days together . . . or, rather, he remains indoors. When all is said, nobody knows anything."