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A patrol-path edged the cliff in front; and, at one of the ends of this patrol-path, there were the remains of a formidable donjon-keep razed almost level with the ground. Lupin returned to Clarisse Mergy in the evening. And from that time he went backward and forward between Amiens and Mortepierre, leaving the Growler and the Masher permanently on the watch. And six days passed.
Everything! ... Down to that half-word which the torture drew from Daubrecq in the tower at Mortepierre! The riddle is solved. There need be no more hesitation, no more groping in the dark. The end is in sight."
Perhaps, also, he considers it wise to lie low for a few weeks and avoid any traps on the part of the police, d'Albufex, you, myself and all his other enemies." He stopped to think and continued: "What has happened at Mortepierre since Daubrecq's escape? Has there been no talk in the neighbourhood?"
He read the opening lines: "In the old days, the donjon was known to the people of the neighbourhood as the Lovers' Tower, in memory of a fatal tragedy that marked it in the Middle Ages. The Comte de Mortepierre, having received proofs of his wife's faithlessness, imprisoned her in the torture-chamber, where she spent twenty years.
On the confines of the forest, the little river Ligier, which has dug itself a deep valley at this spot, forms a loop which is overhung by the enormous cliff of Mortepierre. "Nothing to be done on this side," said Lupin. "The cliff is steep, over two hundred feet high, and the river hugs it all round."
At Amiens, where he installed Clarisse, he was only eighteen miles from Montmaur. At eight o'clock he met the Masher not far from the old fortress, which was known in the neighbourhood by the name of Mortepierre, and he examined the locality under his guidance.
Next, in the course of the conversation, he caught certain words that revealed to him what had happened in the tragic night at Mortepierre: Daubrecq's descent; the dismay of the accomplices, when they saw that it was not the governor; then the short struggle: Clarisse flinging herself on Daubrecq and receiving a wound in the shoulder; Daubrecq leaping to the bank; the Growler firing two revolver-shots and darting off in pursuit of him; the Masher clambering up the ladder and finding the governor in a swoon: "True as I live," said the Masher, "I can't make out even now how he did not roll over.
The Masher handed him an old, soiled, torn pamphlet, entitled, on the cover, A Visit to Mortepierre, 1824, with plans and illustrations. Lupin at once looked for the plan of the donjon-keep. "That's it," he said.
"Let us mount and get back to the hounds," said d'Albufex. So things were going as Lupin had supposed. During these runs, d'Albufex, taking a line of his own, would push off to Mortepierre, without anybody's suspecting his trick.
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