Part 46 (1/2)

He was, certainly, the only living soul in the place: listen as he might, and his sense of hearing was acute, he could not hear any sound of breathing. Yes, the time to quit his prison had come!

Fandor had with him, besides his revolver, a box of matches, and a hunter's knife consisting of several blades, and a little saw. Getting out his knife with some difficulty, he began to hack at the wickerwork.

Dry and pliant, the interlaced rods did not long resist the saw's steel teeth. It took him a bare ten minutes to make an opening, sufficiently large to push his head and shoulders through: the rest of his body followed easily. Such was his haste to be free, that he tore, not only his clothes, but his elbows and hands, on the jagged ends of the broken wickerwork: large drops of blood fell on the flooring.

”Bah! I've got off cheaply!” cried Fandor, standing up to relax his cramped muscles and stretching his aching legs and arms.

”Unless I am jolly well mistaken, I am lord of all I survey. I am alone in my glory! There's not a soul in the place! Good luck indeed!”

He turned for a last look at his broken prison house, the cage in which he had spent such exciting hours. He suddenly stiffened and drew back: a nervous trembling seized him--the nervous trembling due to sudden shock.

Between the trunk which had been dumped down in the centre of a large square room, without a sc.r.a.p of furniture in it, and the window, through whose shutters the rays of morning suns.h.i.+ne shone, Fandor had caught sight of a body lying on the floor--a man's body! Fandor leapt forward.

Was this same cunning criminal feigning sleep for some evil purpose?

Standing over that motionless figure, Fandor bent and touched one of the man's hands: it was ice-cold and rigid. The man was dead!

To see his face was imperative: it was turned towards the floor. With difficulty Fandor raised the head and shoulders, for they were unusually large and strongly built. Fandor glanced at the face and suddenly withdrew his hand: the corpse fell back on the floor with a thud!

”Thomery!” murmured Fandor. ”Why, it's Thomery!”

It was the well-known sugar refiner's body. The face was purple, the tongue protruding. Round his neck was tied a tricoloured scarf, the scarf of a police inspector! Was this the murderer's ironic touch?

Fandor sank down quite overcome. He tried to collect his thoughts.

”A disgusting joke this! If someone should take into his head to enter the room at this moment, what kind of explanation could I give? Here I am, alone with the dead body of a man I know, and in a room I don't know, in a neighbourhood whose whereabouts I know no more than the man in the moon.”

”Where am I?... In whose house?... For what purpose?... Have those beauties of last night no suspicion of the truth?... Did they leave me in this lair of theirs of set purpose, knowing I was cooped up inside the trunk?”

Just then, Fandor felt a slight moisture on the palm of his hand: it was all red: the scratches, made by the jagged edges of the wickerwork, were still bleeding.

”Better and better I declare!” murmured Fandor. ”If I don't look like a little holy Saint John! A corpse, and a man with blood on his hands seated beside the dead body of this murdered man! Nothing more is required to jail me with all the power of the law!... To go to prison under such suspicious circ.u.mstances is serious!... The police, who are floundering about in a maze of investigations, without any result so far, will be only too delighted to kill two birds with one stone--to suppress a journalist and discover a criminal!... I have got to get out of here; that is plain as a pikestaff!... Get away? Yes, but with the honour of war!... I must establish an alibi--that is absolutely necessary.... I like to think that my false police inspector and his accomplice have cut and run for some time; at any rate, that they will be in no hurry to come back to see what is happening where they have so neatly and nicely left the corpse of this Thomery.... What part did this fellow play in the drama?... Criminal or victim?”

Fandor had reached the door of the hall opening on to the main staircase. He was listening.... He had explored the flat. It was empty.

He had found water in the kitchen, had washed his face, and removed every trace of blood from his person. It was a flat suitable for a middle-cla.s.s household. There were three large rooms, decorated with a certain amount of luxury.

Fandor looked at his watch. It was seven o'clock. He stood listening.

Someone, a man, was coming downstairs: someone, a woman, was coming up.

They met on the landing just outside.

”Monsieur Mercadier, here are your letters! I was bringing them up to you!”

”It was hardly worth while, my good lady. I have to come down, you see, so you can save yourself five flights of stairs!”

”Oh, no, monsieur! I have to come up to go down my stairs.”

Monsieur Mercadier continued to descend, and the portress continued to mount.

Fandor's heart beat faster when he realised that she was approaching the door. Would she come in and find him there? Had the new tenants left a key of the flat with her? No, the portress dusted the landing quickly and continued her ascent: he heard her going up and up....