"Oh! excuse me," said, "I made a mistake in the door."
"Come in, Monsieur Lupin, come in," cried Madame Imbert, "are you
not at home here? We want your advice. What bonds should we sell?
The foreign securities or the government annuities?"
"But the injunction?" said Lupin, with surprise.
"Oh! it doesn't cover all the bonds."
She opened the door of the safe and withdrew a package of bonds.
But her husband protested.
"No, no, Gervaise, it would be foolish to sell the foreign bonds.
They are going up, whilst the annuities are as high as they ever
will be. What do you think, my dear friend?"
The dear friend had no opinion; yet he advised the sacrifice of the
annuities. Then she withdrew another package and, from it, she
took a paper at random. It proved to be a three-per-cent annuity
worth two thousand francs. Ludovic placed the package of bonds in
his pocket. That afternoon, accompanied by his secretary, he sold
the annuities to a stock-broker and realized forty-six thousand
francs.
Whatever Madame Imbert might have said about it, Arsene Lupin did
not feel at home in the Imbert house. On the contrary, his
position there was a peculiar one.
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