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Updated: June 11, 2025
Suddenly the atmosphere of the room seemed to have become charged with an oppression a vague menace. Guerchard seemed to have become wide awake again. Germaine and the Duke looked at one another uneasily. "Have you been long in the service of Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin?" said M. Formery. "Six months, sir," said Irma. "Very good, thank you. You can go," said M. Formery.
"Yes, sir," said the inspector. "These two rooms seem to be the only ones touched, though of course we can't tell till M. Gournay-Martin arrives. Jewels may have been stolen from the bedrooms." "I fear that M. Gournay-Martin won't be of much help for some days," said the Duke. "When I left him he was nearly distracted; and he won't be any better after a night journey to Paris from Charmerace.
"If Lupin's really made up his mind to collar that coronet, and if you're so sure that, in spite of all these safeguards, he's going to make the attempt, it seems to me that you're taking a considerable risk. He asked you to have it ready for him in your bedroom. He didn't say which bedroom." "Good Lord! I never thought of that!" said M. Gournay-Martin, with an air of sudden and very lively alarm.
"What if she did enter the service of Mademoiselle Gournay-Martin just before the thefts began? Besides, after this lapse of time, if she had committed the thefts, you'd find it a job to bring them home to her. It's not a job worth your doing, anyhow it's a job for an ordinary detective, Guerchard." "There's always the pendant," said Guerchard. "I am convinced that that pendant is in the house."
They looked in, and saw that the bed was unmade. Plainly Victoire had slept in it. "Where can she be?" said the Duke. "Be?" said the inspector. "I expect she's with the burglars an accomplice." "I gather that M. Gournay-Martin had the greatest confidence in her," said the Duke. "He'll have less now," said the inspector drily. "It's generally the confidential ones who let their masters down."
The inspector reported the arrival of the Duke at the police-station with Arsene Lupin's letter to M. Gournay-Martin; the discovery that the keys had been changed and would not open the door of the house; the opening of it by the locksmith; the discovery of the concierge and his wife gagged and bound. "Probably accomplices," said M. Formery.
M. Charolais snatched it up, glanced at it, took a bunch of keys from his own pocket, put it in the drawer, closed it, closed the flap, and rushed to the window. Jean and his sons were already out on the terrace. M. Charolais was still a yard from the window when the door into the outer hall opened and in came M. Gournay-Martin.
He drew the curtains, and tried the handle of the door of the safe. It did not turn; the safe was locked. "As far as I can see, they haven't touched this," said M. Formery. "Thank goodness for that," said the Duke. "I believe, or at least my fiancee does, that M. Gournay-Martin keeps the most precious thing in his collection in that safe the coronet."
"But still, a child like that you're frightening her out of her life." Guerchard shrugged his shoulders, and went quietly out of the room. The Duke sat down in an easy chair, frowning and thoughtful. Suddenly there struck on his ears the sound of a loud roaring and heavy bumping on the stairs, the door flew open, and M. Gournay-Martin stood on the threshold waving a telegram in his hand.
He paused, and then he said, carelessly as a mere matter of routine: "I should like to know, M. Gournay-Martin, if there has ever been any other robbery committed at your house?" "Three years ago this scoundrel Lupin " the millionaire began violently. "Yes, yes; I know all about that earlier burglary. But have you been robbed since?" said M. Formery, interrupting him.
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