“Orders from whom?” asked Beautrelet, jestingly. “The prefect of police?”
“Higher than that.”
“The prime minister?”
“Higher.”
“Whew!”
Ganimard lowered his voice:
“Beautrelet, I was at the Élysée last night. They look upon this matter as a state secret of the utmost gravity. There are serious reasons for concealing the existence of this citadel—reasons of military strategy, in particular. It might become a revictualling centre, a magazine for new explosives, for lately-invented projectiles, for anything of that sort: the secret arsenal of France, in fact.”
“But how can they hope to keep a secret like this? In the old days, one man alone held it: the king. To-day, already, there are a good few of us who know it, without counting Lupin’s gang.”
“Still, if we gained only ten years’, only five years’ silence! Those five years may be—the saving of us.”
“But, in order to capture this citadel, this future arsenal, it will have to be attacked, Lupin must be dislodged. And all this cannot be done without noise.”