Maurice Leblanc

“ No, no, the game is not lost yet. There is one trump left, a huge trump, in the shape of the letters and documents which Vorenglade, the ex-deputy, is offering to sell to Daubrecq and of which Daubrecq spoke to you yesterday at Nice. I shall buy those letters and documents of Stanislas Vorenglade at whatever price he chooses to name. Then we shall go back to the police-office and I shall say to Prasville, 'Go to the Elysee at once ... Use the list as though it were genuine, save Gilbert from death and be content to acknowledge to-morrow, when Gilbert is saved, that the list is forged. ”

“ But it was at the headquarters of police that the excitement developed into a paroxysm. Men flung themselves about on every side. Messages, telegrams, telephone calls followed one upon the other.
At last, at eleven o'clock in the morning, there was a meeting in the office of the prefect of police, and Prasville was there. The chief-detective read a report of his inquiry, the results of which amounted to this: shortly before midnight yesterday some one had rung at the house on the Boulevard Arago. ”

“ And never was anything more touching than the sight of that stripling--clad in the strait-jacket, with his arms and legs bound, guarded by thousands of men--whom the executioner already held in his inexorable hand and who, nevertheless, hoped on. ”

“ And then ... and then... no one but Arsene Lupin was capable of contriving such a master-stroke and carrying it out with that inconceivable boldness."
"But, in that case," muttered the prefect of police--and, turning to Prasville, he continued--"but, in that case, my dear Prasville, the fellow of whom you spoke to me, the fellow whom you and the chief-detective have had watched since yesterday evening, in his flat in the Place de Clichy, that fellow is not Arsene Lupin?" ”

“ The strictest measures have been taken to keep order at the execution of Gilbert and Vaucheray, lest Arsene Lupin should make an attempt to rescue his accompilces from the last penalty. At twelve o'clock to-night a cordon of troops will be drawn across all the approaches to the Sante Prison. As already stated, the execution will take place outside the prison-walls, in the square formed by the Boulevard Arago and the Rue de la Sante. ”