This second telegram was delivered to Coralie at eight o'clock; and she had left the home immediately afterwards.

CHAPTER XVI

THE FOURTH ACT

"Captain," said Don Luis, "you've scored two fine blunders. The first was your not telling me that Gregoire was a woman. The second . . ."

But Don Luis saw that the officer was too much dejected for him to care about completing his charge. He put his hand on Patrice Belval's shoulder:

"Come," he said, "don't upset yourself. The position's not as bad as you think."

"Coralie jumped out of the window to escape that man," Patrice muttered.

"Your Coralie is alive," said Don Luis, shrugging his shoulders. "In Simeon's hands, but alive."

"Why, what do you know about it? Anyway, if she's in that monster's hands, might she not as well be dead? Doesn't it mean all the horrors of death? Where's the difference?"

"It means a danger of death, but it means life if we come in time; and we shall."

"Have you a clue?"

"Do you imagine that I have sat twiddling my thumbs and that an old hand like myself hasn't had time in half an hour to unravel the mysteries which this cabin presents?"

"Then let's go," cried Patrice, already eager for the fray. "Let's have at the enemy."

"Not yet," said Don Luis, who was still hunting around him. "Listen to me. I'll tell you what I know, captain, and I'll tell it you straight out, without trying to dazzle you by a parade of reasoning and without even telling you of the tiny trifles that serve me as proofs. The bare facts, that's all. Well, then . . ."

"Yes?"

"Little Mother Coralie kept the appointment at nine o'clock. Simeon was there with his female accomplice. Between them they bound and gagged her and brought her here. Observe that, in their eyes, it was a safe spot for the job, because they knew for certain that you and I had not discovered the trap. Nevertheless, we may a.s.sume that it was a provisional base of operations, adopted for part of the night only, and that Simeon reckoned on leaving Little Mother Coralie in the hands of his accomplice and setting out in search of a definite place of confinement, a permanent prison. But luckily--and I'm rather proud of this--Ya-Bon was on the spot. Ya-Bon was watching on his bench, in the dark. He must have seen them cross the embankment and no doubt recognized Simeon's walk in the distance. We'll take it that he gave chase at once, jumped on to the deck of the barge and arrived here at the same time as the enemy, before they had time to lock themselves in.

Four people in this narrow s.p.a.ce, in pitch darkness, must have meant a frightful upheaval. I know my Ya-Bon. He's terrible at such times.

Unfortunately, it was not Simeon whom he caught by the neck with that merciless hand of his, but . . . the woman. Simeon took advantage of this. He had not let go of Little Mother Coralie. He picked her up in his arms and went up the companionway, flung her on the deck and then came back to lock the door on the two as they struggled."

"Do you think so? Do you think it was Ya-Bon and not Simeon who killed the woman?"

"I'm sure of it. If there were no other proof, there is this particular fracture of the wind-pipe, which is Ya-Bon's special mark. What I do not understand is why, when he had settled his adversary, Ya-Bon didn't break down the door with a push of his shoulder and go after Simeon. I presume that he was wounded and that he had not the strength to make the necessary effort. I presume also that the woman did not die at once and that she spoke, saying things against Simeon, who had abandoned her instead of defending her. This much is certain, that Ya-Bon broke the window-panes . . ."

"To jump into the Seine, wounded as he was, with his one arm?" said Patrice.

"Not at all. There's a ledge running along the window. He could set his feet on it and get off that way."

"Very well. But he was quite ten or twenty minutes behind Simeon?"

"That didn't matter, if the woman had time, before dying, to tell him where Simeon was taking refuge."

"How can we get to know?"

"I've been trying to find out all the time that we've been chatting . . . and I've just discovered the way."

"Here?"

"This minute; and I expected no less from Ya-Bon. The woman told him of a place in the cabin--look, that open drawer, probably--in which there was a visiting-card with an address on it. Ya-Bon took it and, in order to let me know, pinned the card to the curtain over there. I had seen it already; but it was only this moment that I noticed the pin that fixed it, a gold pin with which I myself fastened the Morocco Cross to Ya-Bon's breast."

"What is the address?"

"Amedee Vacherot, 18, Rue Guimard. The Rue Guimard is close to this, which makes me quite sure of the road they took."

The two men at once went away, leaving the woman's dead body behind. As Don Luis said, the police must make what they could of it.

As they crossed Berthou's Wharf they glanced at the recess and Don Luis remarked:

"There's a ladder missing. We must remember that detail. Simeon has been in there. He's beginning to make blunders too."

The car took them to the Rue Guimard, a small street in Pa.s.sy. No. 18 was a large house let out in flats, of fairly ancient construction. It was two o'clock in the morning when they rang.

A long time elapsed before the door opened; and, as they pa.s.sed through the carriage-entrance, the porter put his head out of his lodge:

"Who's there?" he asked.

"We want to see M. Amedee Vacherot on urgent business."

"That's myself."

"You?"

"Yes, I, the porter. But by what right . . . ?"

"Orders of the prefect of police," said Don Luis, displaying a badge.

They entered the lodge. Amedee Vacherot was a little, respectable-looking old man, with white whiskers. He might have been a beadle.

"Answer my questions plainly," Don Luis ordered, in a rough voice, "and don't try to prevaricate. We are looking for a man called Simeon Diodokis."

The porter took fright at once:

"To do him harm?" he exclaimed. "If it's to do him harm, it's no use asking me any questions. I would rather die by slow tortures than injure that kind M. Simeon."

Don Luis a.s.sumed a gentler tone:

"Do him harm? On the contrary, we are looking for him to do him a service, to save him from a great danger."

"A great danger?" cried M. Vacherot. "Oh, I'm not at all surprised! I never saw him in such a state of excitement."

"Then he's been here?"