That day an incident occurred which put an end to his indecision. After lunch Victoire heard snatches of a conversation which Daubrecq held with some one on the telephone. Lupin gathered, from what Victoire reported, that the deputy had an appointment with a lady for half-past eight and that he was going to take her to a theatre:
“I shall get a pit-tier box, like the one we had six weeks ago,” Daubrecq had said. And he added, with a laugh, “I hope that I shall not have the burglars in during that time.”
There was not a doubt in Lupin’s mind. Daubrecq was about to spend his evening in the same manner in which he had spent the evening six weeks ago, while they were breaking into his villa at Enghien. To know the person whom he was to meet and perhaps thus to discover how Gilbert and Vaucheray had learnt that Daubrecq would be away from eight o’clock in the evening until one o’clock in the morning: these were matters of the utmost importance.
Lupin left the house in the afternoon, with Victoire’s assistance. He knew through her that Daubrecq was coming home for dinner earlier than usual.
He went to his flat in the Rue Chateaubriand, telephoned for three of his friends, dressed and made himself up in his favourite character of a Russian prince, with fair hair and moustache and short-cut whiskers.
The accomplices arrived in a motor-car.
At that moment, Achille, his man, brought him a telegram, addressed to M. Michel Beaumont, Rue Chateaubriand, which ran:
“Do not come to theatre this evening. Danger of your intervention spoiling everything.”
There was a flower-vase on the chimney-piece beside him. Lupin took it and smashed it to pieces.
“That’s it, that’s it,” he snarled. “They are playing with me as I usually play with others. Same behaviour. Same tricks. Only there’s this difference....”