Part 62 (1/2)

”Funny thing, hunger!” he said. ”Makes you feel so light-headed. I must practise getting used to it, however.”

”At any rate, Chief, no one would believe that you have been fasting for nearly forty-eight hours.”

”Ah, that comes of having a sound const.i.tution, with something to fall back upon! I shall be a different man in half an hour. Just give me time to shave and have a bath.”

When he had finished dressing, he sat down to the breakfast of eggs and cold meat which Mazeroux had prepared for him; and then, getting up, said:

”Now, let's be off.”

”But there's no hurry, Chief. Why don't you lie down for a few hours? The Prefect can wait.”

”You're mad! What about Marie Fauville?”

”Marie Fauville?”

”Why, of course! Do you think I'm going to leave her in prison, or Sauverand, either? There's not a second to lose, old chap.”

Mazeroux thought to himself that the chief had not quite recovered his wits yet. What? Release Marie Fauville and Sauverand, one, two, three, just like that! No, no, it was going a bit too far.

However, he took down to the Prefect's car a new Perenna, merry, brisk, and as fresh as though he had just got out of bed.

”Very flattering to my pride,” said Don Luis to Mazeroux, ”most flattering, that hesitation of the Prefect's, after I had warned him over the telephone, followed by his submission at the decisive moment. What a hold I must have on all those jokers, to make them sit up at a sign from little me! 'Beware, gentlemen!' I telephone to them from the bottomless pit. 'Beware! At three o'clock, a bomb!' 'Nonsense!' say they. 'Not a bit of it!' say I. 'How do you know?' 'Because I do.' 'But what proof have you?' 'What proof? That I say so.' 'Oh, well, of course, if you say so!'

And, at five minutes to three, out they march. Ah, if I wasn't built up of modesty--”

They came to the Boulevard Suchet, where the crowd was so dense that they had to alight from the car. Mazeroux pa.s.sed through the cordon of police protecting the approaches to the house and took Don Luis to the slope across the road.

”Wait for me here, Chief. I'll tell the Prefect of Police.”

On the other side of the boulevard, under the pale morning sky in which a few black clouds still lingered, Don Luis saw the havoc wrought by the explosion. It was apparently not so great as he had expected. Some of the ceilings had fallen in and their rubbish showed through the yawning cavities of the windows; but the house remained standing. Even Fauville's built-out annex had not suffered overmuch, and, strange to say, the electric light, which the Prefect had left burning on his departure, had not gone out. The garden and the road were covered with stacks of furniture, over which a number of soldiers and police kept watch.

”Come with me, Chief,” said Mazeroux, as he fetched Don Luis and led him toward the engineer's workroom.

A part of the floor was demolished. The outer walls on the left, near the pa.s.sage, were cracked; and two workmen were fixing up beams, brought from the nearest timber yard, to support the ceiling. But, on the whole, the explosion had not had the results which the man who prepared it must have antic.i.p.ated.

M. Desmalions was there, together with all the men who had spent the night in the room and several important persons from the public prosecutor's office. Weber, the deputy chief detective, alone had gone, refusing to meet his enemy.

Don Luis's arrival caused great excitement. The Prefect at once came up to him and said:

”All our thanks, Monsieur. Your insight is above praise. You have saved our lives; and these gentlemen and I wish to tell you so most emphatically. In my case, it is the second time that I have to thank you.”

”There is a very simple way of thanking me, Monsieur le Prefet,” said Don Luis, ”and that is to allow me to carry out my task to the end.”

”Your task?”

”Yes, Monsieur le Prefet. My action of last night is only the beginning.

The conclusion is the release of Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand.”

M. Desmalions smiled.

”Oh!”