He laid the two corpses beside each other, covered them with the same sheet, sat down at a table and wrote:
"I have triumphed over everything and I am beaten. I have reached the goal and I have fallen. Fate is too strong for me. . . . And she whom I loved is no more. I shall die also."
And he signed his name:
"Arsène Lupin."
He sealed the letter and slipped it into a bottle which he flung through the window, on the soft ground of a flower-border.
Next, he made a great pile on the floor with old newspapers, straw and shavings, which he went to fetch in the kitchen. On the top of it he emptied a gallon of petrol. Then he lit a candle and threw it among the shavings.
A flame at once arose and other flames leapt forth, quick, glowing, crackling.
"Let's clear out," said Lupin. "The chale
