This carelessness did even more than the sight of the detectives to reassure the lawyer. He moved away from the table on which the bank-notes lay.
Arsène Lupin took up the two bundles one after the other, counted twenty-five notes from each of them and, handing the lawyer the fifty bank-notes thus obtained, said:
"M. Gerbois' share of your fee, my dear maître, and Arsène Lupin's. We owe you that."
"You owe me nothing," said Maître Detinan.
"What! After all the trouble we've given you!"
"You forget the pleasure it has been to me to take that trouble."
"You mean to say, my dear maître, that you refuse to accept anything from Arsène Lupin. That's the worst," he sighed, "of having a bad reputation." He held out the fifty thousand francs to the professor. "Monsieur, let me give you this in memory of our pleasant meeting: it will be my wedding-present to Mlle. Gerbois."
M. Gerbois snatched at the notes, but protested:
"My daughter is not being married."
"She can't be married if you refuse your consent. But she is dying to be married."