"By Jove!" he muttered. "I have only just time. The house may be surrounded.... No use trying the servants' staircase.... Fortunately, the chimney...."
He pushed the moulding smartly: it did not move. He exerted greater force: it did not move.
At the same moment, he received the impression that the outer door was opening and that steps sounded.
"Curse it all!" he swore. "I'm lost, if this confounded spring...."
His fingers clutched the moulding; he bore upon it with all his weight. Nothing moved, nothing! By some incredible bad luck, by a really bewildering piece of malice on the part of fate, the spring, which was working only a moment before, now refused to work!
He persisted madly, convulsively. The block of marble remained inert, motionless. Curse it! Was it conceivable that this stupid obstacle should bar his way? He struck the marble, struck it furious blows with his fists, hammered it, insulted it....
"Why, M. Lupin, is something not going as you wish?"
Lupin turned round, terror-stricken. Holmlock Shears stood before him.
Holmlock Shears! Lupin gazed at him, blinking his eyes, as though smarting under a cruel vision. Holmlock Shears in Paris! Holmlock Shears, whom he had packed off to England the day before, as he might a compromising parcel, stood there before him, triumphant and free! Ah, for this impossible miracle to be performed in despite of Arsène Lupin's will there must have been a revolution of the laws of nature, a victory of all that is illogical and abnormal! Holmlock Shears standing opposite him!