Part 31 (1/2)

Her husband endeavored to console her. ”They may be a few moments late, my dear. Don't excite yourself. I am sure they will keep their word.”

Vernet went over to Monsieur Lefevre and explained the events of the evening in a few words. The Prefect smiled grimly. ”So Monsieur Duvall has failed again!” he remarked, in a low voice. ”Mon Dieu! If we do not soon hear from Mademoiselle Goncourt, I shall begin to feel nervous myself.”

Slowly the hands of the clock crept around. As the half hour was reached, and the telephone bell remained silent, Mrs. Stapleton uttered a groan of despair, and sank upon the couch, weeping pitifully. Mr.

Stapleton, watch in hand, paced up and down the room. ”They have been interfered with,” he stormed, ”or they would have communicated with me before now!” He turned to Monsieur Lefevre. ”You have done nothing, I hope, to again prevent me from recovering my son?”

”Nothing, Monsieur.”

Mr. Stapleton waited another five minutes. It now wanted twenty minutes to nine. The telephone bell remained persistently silent. The banker closed his watch with a snap and thrust it into his pocket. His face was pale with rage and suffering. Drops of perspiration collected on his forehead. ”The scoundrels!” he cried. ”They have broken their word, and robbed me of a hundred thousand dollars in the bargain. I will give another hundred thousand to the man who will capture them, dead or alive, and find my boy!”

There was a profound silence, broken only by the quick sobbing of Mrs.

Stapleton. Neither Lefevre nor Vernet ventured to speak.

Suddenly there arose sounds of a commotion among the servants gathered in the hall without. In their devotion to their employer they had collected there to welcome the lost boy. There were exclamations, cries of astonishment--and dismay.

The occupants of the room turned in surprise toward the door. As they did so, Richard Duvall appeared in the doorway. He staggered, and with difficulty supported himself by clutching the side of the door. His face was covered with blood, his clothes torn and disheveled.

He swayed a moment, unsteadily in the door.

”What is it--what is wrong?” cried Stapleton, starting toward him.

”The child is at 42 Rue Nicolo, Pa.s.sy,” gasped the detective, then fell heavily upon the library floor.

CHAPTER XVII

Richard Duvall, waiting with nervous impatience in the closet in Francois' room, at last heard a soft and guarded step upon the stairs.

He drew back, his muscles tense, and gazed fixedly at the door.

Although the room was dark, the glow of the street lamps from without, the faint light of the evening sky, sufficed, now that his eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, to enable him not only to recognize the chauffeur as he entered the room, but to follow his movements with little or no difficulty.

The man seemed hurried. He groped his way to the dresser at the opposite side of the room, and felt about for the searchlight which Duvall knew lay within easy reach.

Having secured it, he directed it for a brief moment upon his watch, noted the time, then, going to the door, opened it, and began to listen intently.

The detective at once surmised that he was listening for the departure of his confederate, the man with the black beard.

Presently the chauffeur drew back, closing the door with a grunt of satisfaction, and once more approached the dresser. Duvall concluded that he had gone to get the colored gla.s.ses by which he would be able to make the required signals.

In a moment he returned to the window, and Duvall saw him place the two gla.s.s cups upon the sill, and lean out expectantly.

It seemed a long time before he stirred. The detective, looking over his shoulder, found that his line of vision was interrupted so that he could not see the lights which flashed past the entrance of the Avenue Malakoff. He was forced to content himself with keeping a close watch upon the chauffeur.

Suddenly the man, by an almost instantaneous movement, clapped one of the little gla.s.s cups over the end of the tube which formed the searchlight, and directed it toward the street. Duvall could not tell whether the signal was blue, or red. He had every reason to believe, however, that it was the former.

The chauffeur held the tube upon the window sill for a few seconds only, then withdrew it, and started to cross the room toward the south window. As he did so, he swept the light into the room, and for an instant it fell upon the crack in the closet door through which Duvall was peering. He was conscious of a blinding blue radiance, close to his eyes, and the sudden flash caused him to draw back with a quick and involuntary movement. He realized that the chauffeur had not seen him, and that, in a few moments more, the signal would be given which would bring untold happiness to both Mr. Stapleton and his wife.

The momentary recoil, however, was fatal to his plans. Although he moved his head but a fraction of an inch, the suddenness of the movement was sufficient to cause a metal coat hanger, which hung, empty, from a hook, to click sharply against its neighbor.