"Why, at the office of the hotel they gave me a letter which had come for Daubrecq by express.It was the two berths which Jacob had sent him.Also, I have his deputy's pass.So we shall travel under the name of M.and Mme.Daubrecq and we shall receive all the attention due to our rank and station.You see, my dear madam, that everything's arranged."The journey, this time, seemed short to Lupin.Clarisse told him what she had done during the past few days.He himself explained the miracle of his sudden appearance in Daubrecq's bedroom at the moment when his adversary belleved him in Italy:
"A miracle, no," he said."But still a remarkable phenomenon took place in me when I left San Remo, a sort of mysterious intuition which prompted me first to try and jump out of the train - and the Masher prevented me - and next to rush to the window, let down the glass and follow the porter of the Ambassadeurs-Palace, who had given me your message, with my eyes.Well, at that very minute, the porter aforesaid was rubbing his hands with an air of such satisfaction that, for no other reason, suddenly, I understood everything: I had been diddled, taken in by Daubrecq, as you yourself were.Heaps of llttle details flashed across my mind.My adversary's scheme became clear to me from start to finish.Another minute...and the disaster would have been beyond remedy.I had, I confess, a few moments of real despair, at the thought that I should not be able to repair all the mistakes that had been made.It depended simply on the time-table of the trains, which would either allow me or would not allow me to find Daubrecq's emissary on the railway-platform at San Remo.This time, at last, chance favoured me.We had hardly alighted at the first station when a train passed, for France.When we arrived at San Remo, the man was there.
I had guessed right.He no longer wore his hotel-porter's cap and frock-coat, but a jacket and bowler.He stepped into a second-class compartment.From that moment, victory was assured.""But...how...?" asked Clarisse, who, in spite of the thoughts that obsessed her, was interested in Lupin's story.
"How did I find you? Lord, simply by not losing sight of Master Jacob, while leaving him free to move about as he pleased, knowing that he was bound to account for his actions to Daubrecq.In point of fact, this morning, after spending the night in a small hotel at Nice, he met Daubrecq on the Promenade des Anglais.They talked for some time.Ifollowed them.Daubrecq went back to the hotel, planted Jacob in one of the passages on the ground-floor, opposite the telephone-office, and went up in the lift.Ten minutes later I knew the number of his room and knew that a lady had been occupying the next room, No.130, since the day before.'I believe we've done it,' I said to the Growler and the Masher.I tapped lightly at your door.No answer.And the door was locked.""Well?" asked Clarisse.
"Well, we opened it.Do you think there's only one key in the world that will work a lock? So I walked in.Nobody in your room.But the partition-door was ajar.I slipped through it.Thenceforth, a mere hanging separated me from you, from Daubrecq and from the packet of tobacco which I saw on the chimney-slab.""Then you knew the hiding-place?"
"A look round Daubrecq's study in Paris showed me that that packet of tobacco had disappeared.Besides...""What?"
"I knew, from certain confessions wrung from Daubrecq in the Lovers'
Tower, that the word Marie held the key to the riddle.Since then Ihad certainly thought of this word, but with the preconceived notion that it was spelt M A R I E.Well, it was really the first two syllables of another word, which I guessed, so to speak, only at the moment when I was struck by the absence of the packet of tobacco.""What word do you mean?"
"Maryland, Maryland tobacco, the only tobacco that Daubrecq smokes."And Lupin began to laugh:
"Wasn't it silly? And, at the same -time, wasn't it clever of Daubrecq?
We looked everywhere, we ransacked everything.Didn't I unscrew the brass sockets of the electric lights to see if they contained a crystal stopper? But how could I have thought, how could any one, however great his perspicadty, have thought of tearing off the paper band of a packet of Maryland, a band put on, gummed, sealed, stamped and dated by the State, under the control of the Inland Revenue Office? Only think! The State the accomplice of such an act of infamy! The Inland R-r-r-revenue Awfice lending itself to such a trick! No, a thousand times no!
