There was loud knocking at the shutters! Voices were heard shouting:
"Open! Open! Open! The police!"
Bobinette grew ashen with terror.
"It is all up!" thought the desperate girl: "They will see Vagualame is free! They will find me with him! We are caught!"
She turned frantically to Vagualame. He stood calm and collected.
"Ah!" said he with a touch of raillery, looking at the proprietress: "They have been warned that you are again breaking the work law!"
Shaking a threatening finger at the rigid Sophie, Vagualame went to the shop entrance. He looked through the large keyhole to see who was demanding admittance at this late hour.... A look, and Vagualame turned, caught Sophie by the arm, and whispered:
"Detective Juve!... Inspector Michel!... Keep cool, Sophie! They cannot know all the ins and outs of your place."
Two strides and Vagualame joined Bobinette. He dragged her to the end of the shop, reached a corner, turned it, and they were standing on boards clear of books: it was hidden from the main part of the shop and from the entrance.
"Draw your skirts between your legs!" he commanded. "Don"t utter a sound!... Don"t be afraid!"
Vagualame was right. The police had surrounded the mysterious shop.
Noiselessly, gliding past the houses like shadows, revolver in hand, dark lantern at waist, fifteen detectives in plain clothes had converged on the tall house in the blind alley.
Juve was speaking low.
"Careful, Michel! We have seen our birds enter. They are inside.... I shall follow them!... Meanwhile, do not stir from this door.... There is no other issue.... Do not allow a soul to pa.s.s--not one!"
"Never fear, Juve!"
Information dropped by Corporal Vinson, who had been taken to _The Crying Calf_ by Vagualame, more than once had caused Juve to keep a strict watch on the wine-shop for some days. He had seen first Bobinette and then Vagualame enter the place.... When Bobinette came out, almost immediately, he felt sure she had not had time for a talk with Vagualame.... When Vagualame soon followed, Juve had shadowed the old accordion player in the darkness: behind him followed his men on the trail of both.
When he saw Vagualame and Bobinette enter the library he exclaimed, in thought:
"I have them!... I know the house! I am going to arrest Fantomas and his accomplice!"
Cool as a cuc.u.mber now that the decisive, ardently-longed-for moment was at hand, Juve repeated his instructions: he did not mean to leave anything to chance.
"You understand then, Michel, not one single person is to leave these premises. Even I can only be permitted to pa.s.s when I say to you: "It is I, Juve, ... Let me pa.s.s!" You thoroughly understand?"
"Perfectly," replied Michel.
Juve turned to his four picked men:
"Gentlemen! Are you ready?"
Revolver in one hand, lantern in the other, Juve knocked loudly on the shuttered shop door.
"In the name of the law! Open! Open! Open!... The police!"
A bare three minutes had elapsed between Juve"s first summons and the opening of the library door.
Vagualame had made profitable use of the three minutes.
"Don"t utter a sound! Don"t be afraid!" Vagualame had repeated to Bobinette: "They will not take us this time!"
Hustled, dragged to the spot already described, Bobinette now felt the ground giving way beneath her. She rolled on to a steeply inclined plane. Gliding down into the void, clutching Vagualame, she heard a dull sound: it was the trap falling to.
"Quiet!" repeated Vagualame, as Bobinette rolled on to the wood flooring of a sort of cellar piled high with books. He signed to the girl to listen.
"Yes! They are searching the shop, knocking the books about, imagining we are hidden among them!... But, from what I know of Juve, in a very short time he will have ferreted out the trap door and will descend as we have done. He will never be such a fool as to think we have gone down the shop stairs."
"Oh!" groaned Bobinette: "Whatever shall we do?"
Vagualame calmly turned on his pocket electric torch, approached an immense pile of ill.u.s.trated magazines stacked in a corner. He struck three blows on it, saying in a low clear voice:
"Open! Open to brothers!"
Bobinette, frightened past speech, saw the immense pile of volumes oscillate, then noiselessly divide, disclosing a secret door.
Vagualame pulled her towards it, saying in a joking tone:
"You see how useful it is to have friends of all sorts! Your employer, Olga Damitroff, was well advised when she once told me when and where the Nihilists gather together in Paris to plot against the Czar!"
Vagualame brought her into a large room, lit by torches, where a score of young men were a.s.sembled. They rose and reverently saluted Vagualame, who approached them with outstretched hand.
When Juve entered, he soon satisfied himself that only Sophie remained in the library. He gave orders to keep strict guard over the proprietress, notwithstanding her loud protestations.
"Do not permit anyone to leave the premises," he repeated to the men stationed at the door--"except myself, of course."
He turned to others.
"Move all these volumes! There may be a hide-hole concealed behind them.... Keep guard at the top of the little staircase. It is the only way of escape ... I am going to make a tour of the cellars and expect to run my game to earth by this staircase."...
Sophie again protested.
"There is nothing in my cellars that ought not to be there! I don"t understand what the police want here!"
Juve paid no attention to these protestations. He went towards the corner at the farther end of the shop.
Juve knew all the dens in Paris; there was not a secret society he did not know of--societies, political and otherwise, holding mysterious meetings in these places: he knew of the existence of this trap-door and slide which led to the cellars below this library.
"We will go down to the Nihilists," said he.
Before the interested eyes of his subordinates, Juve set the trap in motion. A counter weight closed it over his head.
Juve rolled into the cellar but a few seconds after Vagualame and Bobinette had escaped from it!... To tell the truth, Juve did not know of the hidden entrance to the secret room. Dizzy from his rapid glide downwards, Juve raised his lantern. He was not surprised to find this retreat empty. He knew the slide led to second and lower series of cellars....