“By Jove, the Needle was badly damaged when I succeeded in discovering it! One could see that no one had possessed the secret for more than a century, since Louis XVI. and the Revolution. The tunnel was threatening to fall in. The stairs were in a shocking state. The water was trickling in from the sea. I had to prop up and strengthen and rebuild the whole thing.”
Beautrelet could not help asking:
“When you arrived, was it empty?”
“Very nearly. The kings did not use the Needle, as I have done, as a warehouse.”
“As a place of refuge, then?”
“Yes, no doubt, in times of invasion and during the civil wars. But its real destination was to be—how shall I put it?—the strong-room or the bank of the kings of France.”
The sound of blows increased, more distinctly now. Ganimard must have broken down the first door and was attacking the second. There was a short silence and then more blows, nearer still. It was the third door. Two remained.
Through one of the windows, Beautrelet saw a number of fishing-smacks sailing round the Needle and, not far away, floating on the waters like a great black fish, the torpedo-boat.
“What a row!” exclaimed Lupin. “One can’t hear one’s self speak! Let’s go upstairs, shall we? It may interest you to look over the Needle.”
They climbed to the floor above, which was protected, like the others, by a door which Lupin locked behind him.