I will try it first."
He turned the knob, and the door opened.
"My brave Lupin, surely fortune favors you....What's to be
done now? You know the situation of the rooms; you know the place
in which the countess hides the black pearl. Therefore, in order
to secure the black pearl, you have simply to be more silent than
silence, more invisible than darkness itself."
Arsene Lupin was employed fully a half-hour in opening the second
door--a glass door that led to the countess' bedchamber. But he
accomplished it with so much skill and precaution, that even had
had the countess been awake, she would not have heard the slightest
sound. According to the plan of the rooms, that he holds, he has
merely to pass around a reclining chair and, beyond that, a small
table close to the bed. On the table, there was a box of letter-
paper, and the black pearl was concealed in that box. He stooped
and crept cautiously over the carpet, following the outlines of the
reclining-chair. When he reached the extremity of it, he stopped
in order to repress the throbbing of his heart. Although he was
not moved by any sense of fear, he found it impossible to overcome
the nervous anxiety that one usually feels in the midst of profound
silence.
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