“Then? Ask yourself if an inquiry, however summary, would not end by discovering, behind that Stanislas Vorenglade, the name of one who shared certain little profits with him.”
“And whose name is?”
“Louis Prasville.”
M. Nicole banged the table with his fist.
“Enough of this humbug, monsieur! For twenty minutes, you and I have been beating about the bush. That will do. Let us understand each other. And, to begin with, drop your pistols. You can’t imagine that I am frightened of those playthings! Stand up, sir, stand up, as I am doing, and finish the business: I am in a hurry.”
He put his hand on Prasville’s shoulder and, speaking with great deliberation, said:
“If, within an hour from now, you are not back from the Élysée, bringing with you a line to say that the decree of pardon has been signed; if, within one hour and ten minutes, I, Arsène Lupin, do not walk out of this building safe and sound and absolutely free, this evening four Paris newspapers will receive four letters selected from the correspondence exchanged between Stanislas Vorenglade and yourself, the correspondence which Stanislas Vorenglade sold me this morning. Here’s your hat, here’s your overcoat, here’s your stick. Be off. I will wait for you.”
Then happened this extraordinary and yet easily understood thing, that Prasville did not raise the slightest protest nor make the least show of fight. He received the sudden, far-reaching, utter conviction of what the personality known as Arsène Lupin meant, in all its breadth and fulness. He did not so much as think of carping, of pretending—as he had until then believed—that the letters had been destroyed by Vorenglade the deputy or, at any rate, that Vorenglade would not dare to hand them over, because, in so doing, Vorenglade was also working his own destruction. No, Prasville did not speak a word. He felt himself caught in a vise of which no human strength could force the jaws asunder. There was nothing to do but yield. He yielded.
“Here, in an hour,” repeated M. Nicole.
“In an hour,” said Prasville, tamely. Nevertheless, in order to know exactly where he stood, he added, “The letters, of course, will be restored to me against Gilbert’s pardon?”