"Quite."
"I was sure of it. We're on the right track now. Let's go ahead."
They did a great deal of going. They called at the two mansions on either side of the house in the Avenue Henri-Martin. From there they went on to the Rue Clapeyron and, while he was examining the front of No. 25, Shears continued:
"It is quite obvious that there are secret passages between all these houses.... But what I cannot make out...."
For the first time and in his inmost heart, Wilson doubted the omnipotence of his talented chief. Why was he talking so much and doing so little?
"Why?" cried Shears, replying to Wilson's unspoken thoughts. "Because, with that confounded Lupin, one has nothing to go upon; one works at random. Instead of deriving the truth from exact facts, one has to get at it by intuition and verify it afterward to see if it fits in."
"But the secret passages...?"
"What then? Even if I knew them, if I knew the one which admitted Lupin to his lawyer's study or the one taken by the blonde lady after the murder of Baron d'Hautrec, how much further should I be? Would that give me a weapon to go for him with?"
"Let's go for him, in any case," said Wilson.
He had not finished speaking, when he jumped back with a cry. Something had fallen at their feet: a bag half-filled with sand, which might have hurt them seriously.