“Ah, the hound!... I’ll make him speak.... I’ll come back to-night . . . to-night, at ten o’clock, do you hear, Sébastiani?... And we shall do what’s necessary.... Oh, the brute!”
Sébastiani unfastened the horses. D’Albufex turned to the woman:
“See that your sons keep a good watch.... If any one attempts to deliver him, so much the worse for him. The trapdoor is there. Can I rely upon them?”
“As thoroughly as on myself, monsieur le marquis,” declared the huntsman. “They know what monsieur le marquis has done for me and what he means to do for them. They will shrink at nothing.”
“Let us mount and get back to the hounds,” said d’Albufex.
So things were going as Lupin had supposed. During these runs, d’Albufex, taking a line of his own, would push off to Mortepierre, without anybody’s suspecting his trick. Sébastiani, who was devoted to him body and soul, for reasons connected with the past into which it was not worth while to inquire, accompanied him; and together they went to see the captive, who was closely watched by the huntsman’s wife and his three sons.
“That’s where we stand,” said Lupin to Clarisse Mergy, when he joined her at a neighbouring inn. “This evening the marquis will put Daubrecq to the question—a little brutally, but indispensably—as I intended to do myself.”
“And Daubrecq will give up his secret,” said Clarisse, already quite upset.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Then....”