第70章

Down below, as nobody answered the peal at the bell, the assailants demolished the door, which gave way almost immediately.They made for the staircase, but their onrush was at once stopped, on the first floor, by an accumulation of beds, chairs and other furniture, forming a regular barricade and so close-entangled that it took the aggressors four or five minutes to clear themselves a passage.

Those four or five minutes lost were enough to render all pursuit hopeless.When they reached the second floor they heard a voice shouting from above:

"This way, friends! Eighteen stairs more.A thousand apologies for giving you so much trouble!"They ran up those eighteen stairs and nimbly at that! But, at the top, above the third story, was the garret, which was reached by a ladder and a trapdoor.And the fugitive had taken away the ladder and bolted the trapdoor.

The reader will not have forgotten the sensation created by this amazing action, the editions of the papers issued in quick succession, the newsboys tearing and shouting through the streets, the whole metropolis on edge with indignation and, we may say, with anxious curiosity.

But it was at the headquarters of police that the excitement developed into a paroxysm.Men flung themselves about on every side.Messages, telegrams, telephone calls followed one upon the other.

At last, at eleven o'clock in the morning, there was a meeting in the office of the prefect of police, and Prasville was there.The chief-detective read a report of his inquiry, the results of which amounted to this: shortly before midnight yesterday some one had rung at the house on the Boulevard Arago.The portress, who slept in a small room on the ground-floor, behind one of the shops pulled the rope.

A man came and tapped at her door.He said that he had come from the police on an urgent matter concerning to-morrow's execution.The portress opened the door and was at once attacked, gagged and bound.

Ten minutes later a lady and gentleman who lived on the first floor and who had just come home were also reduced to helplessness by the same individual and locked up, each in one of the two empty shops.The third-floor tenant underwent a similar fate, but in his own flat and his own bedroom, which the man was able to enter without being heard.The second floor was unoccupied, and the man took up his quarters there.He was now master of the house.

"And there we are!" said the prefect of police, beginning to laugh, with a certain bitterness."There we are! It's as simple as shelling peas.

Only, what surprises me is that he was able to get away so easily.""I will ask you to observe, monsieur le prefet, that, being absolute master of the house from one o'clock in the morning, he had until five o'clock to prepare his flight.""And that flight took place...?"

"Over the roofs.At that spot the houses in the next street, the Rue de la Glaciere, are quite near and there is only one break in the roofs, about three yards wide, with a drop of one yard in height.""Well?"