“Of course, people will guess something, but they won’t know. Besides, we can but try.”
“All right. What’s your plan?”
“Here it is, in two words. To begin with, you are not Isidore Beautrelet and there’s no question of Arsène Lupin either. You are and you remain a small boy of Étretat, who, while strolling about the place, caught some fellows coming out of an underground passage. This makes you suspect the existence of a flight of steps which cuts through the cliff from top to bottom.”
“Yes, there are several of those flights of steps along the coast. For instance, to the right of Étretat, opposite Bénouville, they showed me the Devil’s Staircase, which every bather knows. And I say nothing of the three or four tunnels used by the fishermen.”
“So you will guide me and one-half of my men. I shall enter alone, or accompanied, that remains to be seen. This much is certain, that the attack must be delivered that way. If Lupin is not in the Needle, we shall fix up a trap in which he will be caught sooner or later. If he is there—”
“If he is there, he will escape from the Needle by the other side, the side overlooking the sea.”
“In that case, he will at once be arrested by the other half of my men.”
“Yes, but if, as I presume, you choose a moment when the sea is at low ebb, leaving the base of the Needle uncovered, the chase will be public, because it will take place before all the men and women fishing for mussels, shrimps and shell-fish who swarm on the rocks round about.”
“That is why I just mean to select the time when the sea is full.”
“In that case, he will make off in a boat.”