“I cannot believe it,” repeated the baron.
“Ask her.”
It was, really, the very thing he would not have done, blinded by the confidence the girl had inspired in him. But he could no longer refrain from doing it. He approached her and, looking into her eyes, said:
“Was it you, mademoiselle? Was it you who took the jewel? Was it you who corresponded with Arsène Lupin and committed the theft?”
“It was I, monsieur,” she replied.
She did not drop her head. Her face displayed no sign of shame or fear.
“Is it possible?” murmured Mon. d’Imblevalle. “I would never have believed it.... You are the last person in the world that I would have suspected. How did you do it?”
“I did it exactly as Monsieur Sholmes has told it. On Saturday night I came to the boudoir, took the lamp, and, in the morning I carried it ... to that man.”
“No,” said the baron; “what you pretend to have done is impossible.”
“Impossible—why?”