“Well, it is all fixed.”
“How?”
“I am going there to breakfast.”
“You breakfast—there!”
“Certainly. Why not? I rescued Mon. Ludovic Imbert from certain death at your hands. Mon. Imbert is not devoid of gratitude. He invited me to breakfast.”
There was a brief silence. Then the other said:
“But you are not going to throw up the scheme?”
“My dear boy,” said Lupin, “When I arranged that little case of assault and battery, when I took the trouble at three o’clock in the morning, to rap you with my cane and tap you with my boot at the risk of injuring my only friend, it was not my intention to forego the advantages to be gained from a rescue so well arranged and executed. Oh! no, not at all.”
“But the strange rumors we hear about their fortune?”
“Never mind about that. For six months, I have worked on this affair, investigated it, studied it, questioned the servants, the money-lenders and men of straw; for six months, I have shadowed the husband and wife. Consequently, I know what I am talking about. Whether the fortune came to them from old Brawford, as they pretend, or from some other source, I do not care. I know that it is a reality; that it exists. And some day it will be mine.”