with some one he had met before, but that was all. He had no
certainty. He may have met him half a dozen times besides without
knowing him. And the photographs of him--they're all different.
Ganimard declares that Lupin is so extraordinarily successful in his
disguises because he is a great actor. He actually becomes for the
time being the person he pretends to be. He thinks and feels
absolutely like that person. Do you follow me?"

"Oh, yes; but he must be rather fluid, this Lupin," said the Duke;
and then he added thoughtfully, "It must be awfully risky to come so
often into actual contact with men like Ganimard and you."

"Lupin has never let any consideration of danger prevent him doing
anything that caught his fancy. He has odd fancies, too. He's a
humourist of the most varied kind--grim, ironic, farcical, as the
mood takes him. He must be awfully trying to live with," said
Guerchard.

"Do you think humourists are trying to live with?" said the Duke, in
a meditative tone. "I think they brighten life a good deal; but of
course there are people who do not like them--the middle-classes."

"Yes, yes, they're all very well in their place; but to live with
they must be trying," said Guerchard quickly.

He went on to question the Duke closely and at length about the
household of M. Gournay-Martin, saying that Arsene Lupin worked with
the largest gang a burglar had ever captained, and it was any odds
that he had introduced one, if not more, of that gang into it.
Moreover, in the case of a big affair like this, Lupin himself often