“And he is dead?”

“He was drowned last month when bathing near Margate. I saw his death in the paper.”

“And what did he do with this five-clawed club, which is the most singular and ingenious part of all your story?”

“I cannot tell, Mr. Holmes. There is a chalk-pit by the camp, with a deep green pool at the base of it. Perhaps in the depths of that pool —”

“Well, well, it is of little consequence now. The case is closed.”

“Yes,” said the woman, “the case is closed.”

We had risen to go, but there was something in the woman’s voice which arrested Holmes’s attention. He turned swiftly upon her.

“Your life is not your own,” he said. “Keep your hands off it.”

“What use is it to anyone?”

“How can you tell? The example of patient suffering is in itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world.”

The woman’s answer was a terrible one. She raised her veil and stepped forward into the light.

“I wonder if you would bear it,” she said.

It was horrible. No words can describe the framework of a face when the face itself is gone. Two living and beautiful brown eyes looking sadly out from that grisly ruin did but make the view more awful. Holmes held up his hand in a gesture of pity and protest, and together we left left the room.

Two days later, when I called upon my friend, he pointed with some pride to a small blue bottle upon his mantelpiece. I picked it up. There was a red poison label. A pleasant almondy odour rose when I opened it.

“Prussic acid?” said 1.

“Exactly. It came by post. ‘I send you my temptation. I will follow your advice.’ That was the message. I think, Watson, we can guess the name of the brave woman who sent it.”

Sherlock Holmes had been bending for a long time over a low-power microscope. Now he straightened himself up and looked round at me in triumph.

“It is glue, Watson,” said he. “Unquestionably it is glue. Have a look at these scattered objects in the field!”

I stooped to the eyepiece and focussed for my vision.

“Those hairs are threads from a tweed coat. The irregular gray masses are dust. There are epithelial scales on the left. Those brown blobs in the centre are undoubtedly glue.”

“Well,” I said, laughing, “I am prepared to take your word for it. Does anything depend upon it?”

“It is a very fine demonstration,” he answered. “In the St. Pancras case you may remember that a cap was found beside the dead policeman. The accused man denies that it is his. But he is a picture-frame maker who habitually handles glue.”

“Is it one of your cases?”

“No; my friend, Merivale, of the Yard, asked me to look into the case. Since I ran down that coiner by the zinc and copper filings in the seam of his cuff they have begun to realize the importance of the microscope.” He looked impatiently at his watch. “I had a new client calling, but he is overdue. By the way, Watson, you know something of racing?”

"Shall I tell you what is happening, monsieur le secretaire-general? Well, you too are having your head turned by all this business Now that you possess the list, your state of mind has suddenly sunk to that of a Daubrecq or a d'Albufex. There is no longer even a question, in your thoughts, of taking it to your superiors, so that this ferment of disgrace and discord may be ended. No, no; a sodden temptation has seized upon you and intoxicated you; and, losing your head, you say to yourself, 'It is here, in my pocket. With its aid, I am omnipotent. It means wealth, absolute, unbounded power. Why not benefit by it? Why not let Gi1hert and Clarisse Mergy die? Why not lock up that idiot of a Lupin? Why not seize this unparalleled piece of fortune by the forelock?"'

He bent toward Prasville and, very softly, in a friendly and confidential tone, said:

"Don't do that, my dear sir, don't do it."

"And why not?"

"It is not to your interest, believe me."

"Really!"

"No. Or, if you absolutely insist on doing it, have the kindness first to consult the twenty-seven names on the list of which you have just robbed me and reflect, for a moment, on the name of the third person on it."

"Oh? And what is the name of that third person?"

"It is the name of a friend of yours."

"What friend?

"Stanislas Vorenglade, the ex-deputy."

"And then?" said Prasville, who seemed to be losing some of his self-confidence.

"Then? Ask yourself if an inquiry, however summary, would not end by discovering, behind that Stanislas Vorenglade, the name of one who shared certain little profits with him."

"And whose name is?"

"Louis Prasville."

M. Nicole banged the table with his fist.

"Enough of this humbug, monsieur! For twenty minutes, you and I have been beating about the bush. That will do. Let us understand each other. And, to begin with, drop your pistols. You can't imagine that I am frightened of those playthings! Stand up, sir, stand up, as I am doing, and finish the business: I am in a hurry."

He put his hand on Prasville's shoulder and, speaking with great deliberation, said:

"If, within an hour from now, you are not back from the Elysee, bringing with you a line to say that the decree of pardon has been signed; if, within one hour and ten minutes, I, Arsene Lupin, do not walk out of this building safe and sound and absolutely free, this evening four Paris newspapers will receive four letters selected from the correspondence exchanged between Stanislas Vorenglade and yourself, the correspondence which Stanislas Vorenglade sold me this morning. Here's your hat, here's your overcoat, here's your stick. Be off. I will wait for you."

Then happened this extraordinary and yet easily understood thing, that Prasville did not raise the slightest protest nor make the least show of fight. He received the sudden, far-reaching, utter conviction of what the personality known as Arsene Lupin meant, in all its breadth and fulness. He did not so much as think of carping, of pretending - as he had until then believed - that the letters had been destroyed by Vorenglade the deputy or, at any rate, that Vorenglade would not dare to hand them over, because, in so doing, Vorenglade was also working his own destruction. No, Prasville did not speak a word He felt himsell caught in a vise of which no human strength could force the jaws asunder. There was nothing to do but yield. He yielded.