“Oh! parbleu! Brigadier Folenfant, a man surrenders only when he is in danger. Surely, you do not pretend to say that I am in any danger.”
“For the last time, Lupin, I call on you to surrender.”
“Brigadier Folenfant, you have no intention of killing me; you may wish to wound me since you are afraid I may escape. But if by chance the wound prove mortal? Just think of your remorse! It would embitter your old age.”
The shot was fired.
Lupin staggered, clutched at the keel of the boat for a moment, then let go and disappeared.
It was exactly three o’clock when the foregoing events transpired. Precisely at six o’clock, as he had foretold, Herlock Sholmes, dressed in trousers that were too short and a coat that was too small, which he had borrowed from an innkeeper at Neuilly, wearing a cap and a flannel shirt, entered the boudoir in the Rue Murillo, after having sent word to Monsieur and Madame d’Imblevalle that he desired an interview.
They found him walking up and down the room. And he looked so ludicrous in his strange costume that they could scarcely suppress their mirth. With pensive air and stooped shoulders, he walked like an automaton from the window to the door and from the door to the window, taking each time the same number of steps, and turning each time in the same manner.
He stopped, picked up a small ornament, examined it mechanically, and resumed his walk. At last, planting himself before them, he asked:
“Is Mademoiselle here?”