At eleven o’clock in the morning Victoire, on returning from her shopping, handed Lupin a note from his accomplices.
He opened it and read:
“The man who came to see Daubrecq last night is Langeroux the deputy, leader of the independent left. A poor man, with a large family.”
“Come,” said Lupin, “Daubrecq is nothing more nor less than a blackmailer; but, by Jupiter, he has jolly effective ways of going to work!”
Events tended to confirm Lupin’s supposition. Three days later he saw another visitor hand Daubrecq an important sum of money. And, two days after that, one came and left a pearl necklace behind him.
The first was called Dachaumont, a senator and ex-cabinet-minister. The second was the Marquis d’Albufex, a Bonapartist deputy, formerly chief political agent in France of Prince Napoleon.
The scene, in each of these cases, was very similar to Langeroux the deputy’s interview, a violent tragic scene, ending in Daubrecq’s victory.
“And so on and so forth,” thought Lupin, when he received these particulars. “I have been present at four visits. I shall know no more if there are ten, or twenty, or thirty.... It is enough for me to learn the names of the visitors from my friends on sentry-go outside. Shall I go and call on them?... What for? They have no reason to confide in me.... On the other hand, am I to stay on here, delayed by investigations which lead to nothing and which Victoire can continue just as well without me?”
He was very much perplexed. The news of the inquiry into the case of Gilbert and Vaucheray was becoming worse and worse, the days were slipping by, and not an hour passed without his asking himself, in anguish, whether all his efforts—granting that he succeeded—would not end in farcical results, absolutely foreign to the aim which he was pursuing.
For, after all, supposing that he did fathom Daubrecq’s underhand dealings, would that give him the means of rescuing Gilbert and Vaucheray?