The deputy chief was banging at the iron curtain with all his might and shouting so loud that they were bound to hear him outside through the open window.

"You're not making half enough noise, deputy!" cried Don Luis. "Let's see what we can do."

He took his revolver and fired off three bullets, one of which broke a pane. Then he quickly left his study by a small, ma.s.sive door, which he carefully closed behind him. He was now in a secret pa.s.sage which ran round both rooms and ended at another door leading to the anteroom. He opened this door wide and was thus able to hide behind it.

Attracted by the shots and the noise, the detectives were already rushing through the hall and up the staircase. When they reached the first floor and had gone through the anteroom, as the drawing-room doors were locked, the only outlet open to them was the pa.s.sage, at the end of which they could hear the deputy shouting. They all six darted down it.

When the last of them had vanished round the bend in the pa.s.sage, Don Luis softly pushed back the door that concealed him and locked it like the rest. The six detectives were as safely imprisoned as the deputy chief.

"Bottled!" muttered Don Luis. "It will take them quite five minutes to realize the situation, to bang at the locked doors, and to break down one of them. In five minutes we shall be far away."

He met two of his servants running up with scared faces, the chauffeur and the butler. He flung each of them a thousand-franc note and said to the chauffeur:

"Set the engine going, there's a sportsman, and let no one near the machine to block my way. Two thousand francs more for each of you if I get off in the motor. Don't stand staring at me like that: I mean what I say. Two thousand francs apiece: it's for you to earn it. Look sharp!"

He himself went up the second flight without undue haste, remaining master of himself. But, on the last stair, he was seized with such a feeling of elation that he shouted:

"Victory! The road is clear!"

The boudoir door was opposite. He opened it and repeated:

"Victory! But there's not a second to lose. Follow me."

He entered. A stifled oath escaped his lips.

The room was empty.

"What!" he stammered. "What does this mean? They're gone.... Florence--"

Certainly, unlikely though it seemed, he had hitherto supposed that Sauverand possessed a false key to the lock. But how could they both have escaped, in the midst of the detectives? He looked around him. And then he understood.

In the recess containing the window, the lower part of the wall, which formed a very wide box underneath the cas.e.m.e.nt, had the top of its woodwork raised and resting against the panes, exactly like the lid of a chest. And inside the open chest he saw the upper rungs of a narrow descending ladder.

In a second, Don Luis conjured up the whole story of the past: Count Malonyi's ancestress hiding in the old family mansion, escaping the search of the perquisitors, and in this way living throughout the revolutionary troubles. Everything was explained. A pa.s.sage contrived in the thickness of the wall led to some distant outlet. And this was how Florence used to come and go through the house; this was how Gaston went in and out in all security; and this also was how both of them were able to enter his room and surprise his secrets.

"Why not have told me?" he wondered. "A lingering suspicion, I suppose--"

But his eyes were attracted by a sheet of paper on the table. With a feverish hand, Gaston Sauverand had scribbled the following lines in pencil:

"We are trying to escape so as not to compromise you. If we are caught, it can't be helped. The great thing is that you should be free. All our hopes are centred in you."

Below were two words written by Florence: "Save Marie."

"Ah," he murmured, disconcerted by the turn of events and not knowing what to decide, "why, oh, why did they not obey my instructions? We are separated now--"

Downstairs the detectives were battering at the door of the pa.s.sage in which they were imprisoned. Perhaps he would still have time to reach his motor before they succeeded in breaking down the door. Nevertheless, he preferred to take the same road as Florence and Sauverand, which gave him the hope of saving them and of rescuing them in case of danger.

He therefore stepped over the side of the chest, placed his foot on the top rung and went down. Some twenty bars brought him to the middle of the first floor. Here, by the light of his electric lantern, he entered a sort of low, vaulted tunnel, dug, as he thought, in the wall, and so narrow that he could only walk along it sideways.

Thirty yards farther there was a bend, at right angles; and next, at the end of another tunnel of the same length, a trapdoor, which stood open, revealing the rungs of a second ladder. He did not doubt that the fugitives had gone this way.

It was quite light at the bottom. Here he found himself in a cupboard which was also open and which, on ordinary occasions, must have been covered by curtains that were now drawn. This cupboard faced a bed that filled almost the whole s.p.a.ce of an alcove. On pa.s.sing through the alcove and reaching a room from which it was separated only by a slender part.i.tion, to his great surprise, he recognized Florence's sitting-room.

This time, he knew where he was. The exit, which was not secret, as it led to the Place du Palais-Bourbon, but nevertheless very safe, was that which Sauverand generally used when Florence admitted him.

Don Luis therefore went through the entrance hall and down the steps and, a little way before the pantry, came upon the cellar stairs. He ran down these and soon recognized the low door that served to admit the wine-casks. The daylight filtered in through a small, grated spy-hole. He groped till he found the lock. Glad to have come to the end of his expedition, he opened the door.

"Hang it all!" he growled, leaping back and clutching at the lock, which he managed to fasten again.

Two policemen in uniform were guarding the exits two policemen who had tried to seize him as he appeared.

Where did those two men come from? Had they prevented the escape of Sauverand and Florence? But in that case Don Luis would have met the two fugitives, as he had come by exactly the same road as they.

"No," he thought, "they effected their flight before the exit was watched. But, by Jove! it's my turn to clear out; and that's not easy.

Shall I let myself be caught in my burrow like a rabbit?"

He went up the cellar stairs again, intending to hasten matters, to slip into the courtyard through the outhouses, to jump into his motor, and to clear a way for himself. But, when he was just reaching the yard, near the coach-house, he saw four detectives, four of those whom he had imprisoned, come up waving their arms and shouting. And he also became aware of a regular uproar near the main gate and the porter's lodge. A number of men were all talking together, raising their voices in violent discussion.

Perhaps he might profit by this opportunity to steal outside under cover of the disorder. At the risk of being seen, he put out his head. And what he saw astounded him.

Gaston Sauverand stood with his back to the wall of the lodge, surrounded by policemen and detectives who pushed and insulted him. The handcuffs were on his wrists.

Gaston Sauverand a prisoner! What had happened between the two fugitives and the police?

His heart wrung with anguish, he leaned out still farther. But he did not see Florence. The girl had no doubt succeeded in escaping.

Weber's appearance on the steps and the deputy chief's first words confirmed his hopes. Weber was mad with rage. His recent captivity and the humiliation of his defeat exasperated him.

"Ah!" he roared, as he saw the prisoner. "There's one of them, at any rate! Gaston Sauverand! Choice game, that!... Where did you catch him?"

"On the Place du Palais-Bourbon," said one of the inspectors. "We saw him slinking out through the cellar door."

"And his accomplice, the Leva.s.seur girl?"

"We missed her, Deputy Chief. She was the first out."

"And Don Luis? You haven't let him leave the house, I hope? I gave orders."

"He tried to get out through the cellar door five minutes after."

"Who said so?"

"One of the men in uniform posted outside the door."

"Well?"

"The beggar went back into the cellar."

Weber gave a shout of delight.