"Arsène Lupin.... Arsène Lupin and his lady friend."
"But what next? You surely don't imagine they're hiding up the chimney?"
Ganimard rose to his feet, put his five soot-covered fingers on the sleeve of his superior's coat and, in a hollow, angry voice, said:
"Where would you have them be, chief? They must be somewhere. They are beings of flesh and blood, like you and me; they can't vanish into thin air."
"No; but they vanish for all that."
"Where? Where? The house is surrounded! There are men on the roof!"
"What about the next house?"
"There's no communication."
"The flats on the other floors?"
"I know all the tenants. They have seen nobody. They have heard nobody."