“A glass case?”
“In the Musée Carnavalet, quite simply.”
“When will the museum be open?”
“At twenty minutes from now, as it is every morning.”
Isidore and his friend jumped out of a cab at the moment when the doors of Madame de Sévigné’s old mansion were opening.
“Hullo! M. Beautrelet!”
A dozen voices greeted his arrival. To his great surprise, he recognized the whole crowd of reporters who were following up “the mystery of the Hollow Needle.” And one of them exclaimed:
“Funny, isn’t it, that we should all have had the same idea? Take care, Arsène Lupin may be among us!”
They entered the museum together. The director was at once informed, placed himself entirely at their disposal, took them to the glass case and showed them a poor little volume, devoid of all ornament, which certainly had nothing royal about it. Nevertheless, they were overcome by a certain emotion at the sight of this object which the Queen had touched in those tragic days, which her eyes, red with tears, had looked upon—And they dared not take it and hunt through it: it was as though they feared lest they should be guilty of a sacrilege—
“Come, M. Beautrelet, it’s your business!”