“Yes. I saw the special edition of the Paris-Midi in his pocket.”
“That’s it, that’s it,” said Lupin. And he asked, “Did M. Prasville give you no special instructions in case Daubrecq should return?”
“No. So, in M. Prasville’s absence, I telephoned to the police-office and I am waiting. The disappearance of Daubrecq the deputy caused a great stir, as you know, and our presence here has a reason, in the eyes of the public, as long as that disappearance continues. But, now that Daubrecq has returned, now that we have proofs that he is neither under restraint nor dead, how can we stay in the house?”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Lupin, absently. “It doesn’t matter whether the house is guarded or not. Daubrecq has been; therefore the crystal stopper is no longer here.”
He had not finished the sentence, when a question quite naturally forced itself upon his mind. If the crystal stopper was no longer there, would this not be obvious from some material sign? Had the removal of that object, doubtless contained within another object, left no trace, no void?
It was easy to ascertain. Lupin had simply to examine the writing-desk, for he knew, from Sébastiani’s chaff, that this was the spot of the hiding-place. And the hiding-place could not be a complicated one, seeing that Daubrecq had not remained in the study for more than twenty seconds, just long enough, so to speak, to walk in and walk out again.
Lupin looked. And the result was immediate. His memory had so faithfully recorded the picture of the desk, with all the articles lying on it, that the absence of one of them struck him instantaneously, as though that article and that alone were the characteristic sign which distinguished this particular writing-table from every other table in the world.
“Oh,” he thought, quivering with delight, “everything fits in! Everything!... Down to that half-word which the torture drew from Daubrecq in the tower at Mortepierre! The riddle is solved. There need be no more hesitation, no more groping in the dark. The end is in sight.”
And, without answering the inspector’s questions, he thought of the simplicity of the hiding-place and remembered Edgar Allan Poe’s wonderful story in which the stolen letter, so eagerly sought for, is, in a manner of speaking, displayed to all eyes. People do not suspect what does not appear to be hidden.
“Well, well,” said Lupin, as he went out, greatly excited by his discovery, “I seem doomed, in this confounded adventure, to knock up against disappointments to the finish. Everything that I build crumbles to pieces at once. Every victory ends in disaster.”