"That's exactly it--he was too careful of them. That's why Lupin
succeeded."

"This is very interesting," said the Duke; and he sat down on a
couch before the gap in the pictures, to go into the matter more at
his ease. "I suppose he had accomplices in the house itself?"

"Yes, one accomplice," said Germaine.

"Who was that?" asked the Duke.

"Papa!" said Germaine.

"Oh, come! what on earth do you mean?" said the Duke. "You're
getting quite incomprehensible, my dear girl."

"Well, I'll make it clear to you. One morning papa received a
letter--but wait. Sonia, get me the Lupin papers out of the bureau."

Sonia rose from the writing-table, and went to a bureau, an
admirable example of the work of the great English maker,
Chippendale. It stood on the other side of the hall between an
Oriental cabinet and a sixteenth-century Italian cabinet--for all
the world as if it were standing in a crowded curiosity shop--with
the natural effect that the three pieces, by their mere incongruity,
took something each from the beauty of the other. Sonia raised the
flap of the bureau, and taking from one of the drawers a small
portfolio, turned over the papers in it and handed a letter to the
Duke.