To you, Fersen. For my son.
16 October, 1793.
MARIE ANTOINETTE.
And suddenly Beautrelet gave a cry of stupefaction. Under the queen’s signature there were—there were two words, in black ink, underlined with a flourish—two words:
ARSÈNE LUPIN.
All, in turns, took the sheet of paper and the same cry escaped from the lips of all of them:
“Marie Antoinette!—Arsène Lupin!”
A great silence followed. That double signature: those two names coupled together, discovered hidden in the book of hours; that relic in which the poor queen’s desperate appeal had slumbered for more than a century: that horrible date of the 16th of October, 1793, the day on which the Royal head fell: all of this was most dismally and disconcertingly tragic.
“Arsène Lupin!” stammered one of the voices, thus emphasizing the scare that underlay the sight of that demoniacal name at the foot of the hallowed page.
“Yes, Arsène Lupin,” repeated Beautrelet. “The Queen’s friend was unable to understand her desperate dying appeal. He lived with the keepsake in his possession which the woman whom he loved had sent him and he never guessed the reason of that keepsake. Lupin discovered everything, on the other hand—and took it.”
“Took what?”