He was fuming with rage, and when he saw that they were driving into the prison yard, he gathered all his strength, knocked the revolver out of the deputy's hand, and stunned one of the detectives with a blow of his fist.
But ten men came crowding round the doors. Resistance was useless. He understood this, and his rage increased.
"The idiots!" he shouted, while they surrounded him and searched him at the door of the office. "The rotters! The bunglers! To go mucking up a job like that! They can lay hands on the villain if they want to, and they lock up the honest man—while the villain makes himself scarce! And he'll do more murder yet! Florence! Florence …"
Under the lamp light, in the midst of the detectives holding him, he was magnificent in his helpless violence.
They dragged him away. With an unparalleled display of strength, he drew himself up, shook off the men who were hanging on to him like a pack of hounds worrying some animal at bay, got rid of Weber, and accosted Mazeroux in familiar tones. He was gloriously masterful, almost calm, so wholly did he appear to control his seething rage. He gave his orders in breathless little sentences, curt as words of command.
"Mazeroux, run around to the Prefect's. Ask him to ring up Valenglay:
yes, the Prime Minister. I want to see him. Have him informed. Ask the
Prefect to say it's I: the man who made the German Emperor play his game.
My name? He knows. Or, if he forgets, the Prefect can tell him my name."
He paused for a second or two; and then, calmer still, he declared:
"Arsène Lupin! Telephone those two words to him and just say this: 'Arsène Lupin wishes to speak to the Prime Minister on very important business.' Get that through to him at once. The Prime Minister would be very angry if he heard afterward that they had neglected to communicate my request. Go, Mazeroux, and then find the villain's tracks again."
The governor of the prison had opened the jail book.
"You can enter my name, Monsieur le Directeur," said Don Luis. "Put down
'Arsène Lupin.'"