"They're all upstairs!" shouted Ganimard. "They've gone up to Lupin in his attic. Be careful now!"
All the eight ran up the third flight of stairs. To his great astonishment, Ganimard found the door of the attic open and the attic empty. And the other rooms were empty too.
"Blast them!" he cursed. "What's become of them?"
But the chief called him. M. Dudouis, who had gone down again to the second floor, noticed that one of the windows was not latched, but just pushed to:
"There," he said, to Ganimard, "that's the road they took, the road of the tapestries. I told you as much: the Rue Dufresnoy...."
"But our men would have fired on them," protested Ganimard, grinding his teeth with rage. "The street's guarded."
"They must have gone before the street was guarded."
"They were all three of them in their rooms when I rang you up, chief!"
"They must have gone while you were waiting for me in the garden."
"But why? Why? There was no reason why they should go to-day rather than to-morrow, or the next day, or next week, for that matter, when they had pocketed all the insurance-money!"