"The gentleman has just gone up to the mezzanine floor."
Ganimard flew upstairs. The mezzanine floor consisted of private rooms and had a separate exit to the boulevard!
"It's no use now," groaned Ganimard. "He's far away by this time!"
He was not so very far away, two hundred yards at most, in the omnibus running between the Bastille and the Madeleine, which lumbered peacefully along behind its three horses, crossing the Place de l'Opéra and going down the Boulevard des Capucines. Two tall fellows in bowler hats stood talking on the conductor's platform. On the top, near the steps, a little old man sat dozing: it was Holmlock Shears.
And, with his head swaying from side to side, rocked by the movement of the omnibus, the Englishman soliloquized:
"Ah, if dear old Wilson could see me now, how proud he would be of his chief!... Pooh, it was easy to foresee, from the moment when the whistle sounded that the game was up and that there was nothing serious to be done, except to keep a watch around the restaurant! But that devil of a man adds a zest to life, and no mistake!"
On reaching the end of the journey, Shears leant over, saw Arsène Lupin pass out in front of his guards and heard him mutter:
"At the Étoile."
"The Étoile, just so: an assignation. I shall be there. I'll let him go ahead in that motor-cab, while I follow his two pals in a four-wheeler."