“A little brick, Florence,” he chuckled, “a tiny little brick which chance placed there, between two blocks of stone, and has kept in position until now.  Out comes the brick, down come the blocks, and there’s your catastrophe!”

He took breath and continued: 

“After that?  After that, Florence, this:  either the smash will take place in such a way that your body will not even be in sight, if any one should dream of coming here to look for you, or else it will be partly visible, in which case I shall at once cut and destroy the cords with which you are tied.

“What will the law think then?  Simply that Florence Levasseur, a fugitive from justice, hid herself in a grotto which fell upon her and crushed her.  That’s all.  A few prayers for the rash creature’s soul, and not another word.

“As for me—­as for me, when my work is done and my sweetheart dead—­I shall pack my traps, carefully remove all the traces of my coming, smooth every inch of the trampled grass, jump into my motor car, sham death for a little while, and then put in a sensational claim for the hundred millions.”

He gave a little chuckle, took two or three puffs at his cigarette, and added, calmly: 

“I shall claim the hundred millions and I shall get them.  That’s the prettiest part of it.  I shall claim them because I’m entitled to them; and I explained to you just now before Master Lupin came interfering, how, from the moment that you were dead, I had the most undeniable legal right to them.  And I shall get them, because it is physically impossible to bring up the least sort of proof against me.”

He moved closer.

“There’s not a charge that can hurt me.  Suspicions, yes, moral presumptions, clues, anything you like, but not a scrap of material evidence.  Nobody knows me.  One person has seen me as a tall man, another as a short man.  My very name is unknown.  All my murders have been committed anonymously.  All my murders are more like suicides, or can be explained as suicides.

“I tell you the law is powerless.  With Lupin dead, and Florence Levasseur dead, there’s no one to bear witness against me.  Even if they arrested me, they would have to discharge me in the end for lack of evidence.  I shall be branded, execrated, hated, and cursed; my name will stink in people’s nostrils, as if I were the greatest of malefactors.  But I shall possess the hundred millions; and with that, pretty one, I shall possess the friendship of all decent men!

“I tell you again, with Lupin and you gone, it’s all over.  There’s nothing left, nothing but some papers and a few little things which I have been weak enough to keep until now, in this pocket-book here, and which would be enough and more than enough to cost me my head, if I did not intend to burn them in a few minutes and send the ashes to the bottom of the well.

“So you see, Florence, all my measures are taken.  You need not hope for compassion from me, nor for help from anywhere else, since no one knows where I have brought you, and Arsene Lupin is no longer alive.  Under these conditions, Florence, make your choice.  The ending is in your own hands:  either you die, absolutely and irrevocably, or you accept my love.”