"Ganimard ... the lift ... they'll break my bones."
"Good idea, capital idea!" agreed the inspector. "Besides, the stairs are so narrow ... it would be impossible...."
He got the lift up. They laid Lupin on the seat with every imaginable precaution. Ganimard sat down beside him and said to his men:
"Go down the stairs at once. Wait for me by the porter's lodge. Do you understand?"
He shut the door. But it was hardly closed when shouts arose. The lift had shot up, like a balloon with its rope cut. A sardonic laugh rang out.
"Damnation!" roared Ganimard, feeling frantically in the dark for the lever. And failing to find it, he shouted, "The fifth floor! Watch the door on the fifth floor!"
The detectives rushed upstairs, four steps at a time. But a strange thing happened: the lift seemed to shoot right through the ceiling of the top floor, disappeared before the detectives' eyes and suddenly emerged on the upper story, where the servants' bedrooms were, and stopped.
Three men were in waiting and opened the door. Two of them overpowered Ganimard, who, hampered in his movements and completely bewildered, hardly thought of defending himself. The third helped Lupin out.
"I told you, Ganimard!... Carried off by balloon ... and thanks to you!... Next time, you must show less compassion. And, above all, remember that Arsène Lupin does not allow himself to be bashed and mauled about without good reasons. Good-bye...."
The lift-door was already closed and the lift, with Ganimard inside, sent back on its journey toward the ground floor. And all this was done so expeditiously that the old detective caught up his subordinates at the door of the porter's lodge.