“Sir,
“Forgive my departure and believe that I, on my side, quite understand the reason that brings you here. My position is not in fact regular; and you are entitled to ask me for an explanation. I will give you that explanation some day or other. You will then see that, if I serve France in a manner of my own, that manner is not a bad one and that my country will owe me some gratitude for the immense services, if I may venture to use the word, which I have done her during this war. On the day of our interview, I should like you to thank me, sir. You will then—for I know your secret ambition—be prefect of police. Perhaps I shall even be able personally to forward a nomination which I consider well-deserved. I will exert myself in that direction without delay.
“I have the honor to be, etc.”
M. Masseron remained silent for a time.
“A strange character!” he said, at last. “Had he been willing, we should have given him great things to do. That was what I was instructed to tell him.”
“You may be sure, sir,” said Patrice, “that the things which he is actually doing are greater still.” And he added, “A strange character, as you say. And stranger still, more powerful and more extraordinary than you can imagine. If each of the allied nations had had three or four men of his stamp at its disposal, the war would have been over in six months.”
“I quite agree,” said M. Masseron. “Only those men are usually solitary, intractable people, who act solely upon their own judgment and refuse to accept any authority. I’ll tell you what: they’re something like that famous adventurer who, a few years ago, compelled the Kaiser to visit him in prison and obtain his release . . . and afterwards, owing to a disappointment in love, threw himself into the sea from the cliffs at Capri.”
“Who was that?”
“Oh, you know the fellow’s name as well as I do! . . . Lupin, that’s it: Arsène Lupin.”
THE END