"I don't know."
"Ah, you don't know!"
"Any more than I know his name."
"But why did he kill Mr. Kesselbach?"
"I don't know. This all remains a mystery. The utmost that we have the right to suppose is that he did not come with the intention of killing, but with the intention, he too, of taking the documents contained in the morocco note-case and the ebony box; and that, finding himself by accident in the presence of the enemy reduced to a state of helplessness, he killed him."
Valenglay muttered:
"Yes, strictly speaking, that is possible. . . . And, according to you, did he find the documents?"
"He did not find the box, because it was not there; but he found the black morocco note-case. So that Lupin and . . . the other are in the same position. Each knows as much as the other about the Kesselbach scheme."
"That means," remarked the premier, "that they will fight."
"Exactly. And the fight has already begun. The murderer, finding a card of Arsène Lupin's, pinned it to the corpse. All the appearances would thus be against Arsène Lupin . . . therefore, Arsène Lupin would be the murderer."