“That’s where he’s gone to earth. Monsieur le Juge d’Instruction!” shouted Beautrelet. “That’s where you will have to look for him! It’s there and nowhere else that you will find Arsène Lupin!”
“Arsène Lupin!” yelled M. Filleul, springing to his feet.
There was a rather solemn pause, amid which the syllables of the famous name seemed to prolong their sound. Was it possible that the vanquished and yet invisible adversary, whom they had been hunting in vain for several days, could really be Arsène Lupin? Arsène Lupin, caught in a trap, arrested, meant immediate promotion, fortune, glory to any examining magistrate!
Ganimard had not moved a limb. Isidore said to him:
“You agree with me, do you not, M. Inspector?”
“Of course I do!”
“You have not doubted either, for a moment have you, that he managed this business?”
“Not for a second! The thing bears his signature. A move of Arsène Lupin’s is as different from a move made by another man as one face is from another. You have only to open your eyes.”
“Do you think so? Do you think so?” said M. Filleul.
“Think so!” cried the young man. “Look, here’s one little fact: what are the initials under which those men correspond among themselves? ‘A. L. N.,’ that is to say, the first letter of the name Arsène and the first and last letters of the name Lupin.”