"I"ve just come from there myself!"
"Well, we weren"t there together, that"s certain. Let"s try again."
The two proceeded in the dark to the head of the staircase. With their heels they verified the last step; then Juve said in a low voice:
"I will go forward four paces. I am now in the middle of the landing; I lift the curtain, turn and go in."
The steady tick of the little Empire clock on the mantelpiece a.s.sured Juve that he was indeed in the study.
"Well, here I am," and mechanically he flung his hat on the sofa. But scarcely had he uttered these words when Fandor"s voice, very clear, but some way off answered
"I am in the study, too."
Juve now switched on the light. Fandor was not there. Rushing back to the landing he ran full tilt into his friend and the two gripped each other in amazement.
"Look here," exclaimed Fandor, "if I"m not mistaken, you turned to the right past the curtain while I went to the left; there may be two separate entrances to the study."
"Let us keep together this time," replied Juve; "I propose to get to the bottom of this mystery."
As they came out of the darkness of the pa.s.sage and plunged into the full light of the room, Juve stopped short. His hat was no longer on the sofa.
Fandor went to the mantelpiece, turned and confronted the detective.
"I stopped the clock some moments ago, and here it is going and keeping exact time! How do you account for it?"
Juve was about to reply, when suddenly with a dry click the light went out.
Fandor, at the same moment, gave a startled cry: "Juve! the door is fastened; we are shut in!"
With one bound Juve leaped for the window; but after opening the cas.e.m.e.nt he perceived that thick iron shutters, padlocked, banished all hope of escape in that quarter. Fandor was ashy pale; Juve staggered as he moved toward him.
"Walled in!" he cried. "We are walled in!"
But a new terror suddenly confronted the two men. The floor appeared to be giving way, and as the descent proceeded regularly, they realised that they were in a strange form of elevator.
The study, however, did not drop very far. With a slight shock it reached the end of the run and stopped short.
Juve cried with an air of relief, "Well, here we are, and it now remains to find out where we are."
The existence of two studies identical in every particular, one of which was housed in an elevator, explained not only the events of the evening, but also the tragedy of two days before.
"Juve! did you feel anything?"
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"I don"t know."
Both had just experienced a weird sensation, impossible to define. Upon their hands and faces slight p.r.i.c.kings irritated the skin. The air at the same time seemed heavier and more difficult to breathe. There was, besides, a soft, vague crackling. With some difficulty Juve lighted his pocket-lamp. By its faint glimmer the two men made a discovery. A fine rain of sand was falling from the ceiling.
"It"s collapsed!" cried Fandor.
"We"re done for!" replied Juve.
They pa.s.sed through some awful moments. All around the sand gathered and rose.
Juve tried to comfort his friend:
"It would need an enormous amount of sand to fill this room and bury us alive. It will cease to fall presently."
But horrible to relate, as the level of the sand rose on the floor, they observed by the flickering gleam of the lamp, that the ceiling was now being lowered little by little.
Fandor raised his arm and touched it. They were about to be crushed.
"Juve, do not let me die this way. Kill me!"
His comrade made no reply. At first paralysed by the shock he now felt an unspeakable fury rise up in him. He began beating the walls with his fists, shaking the furniture. He seized a chair and drove it against the door. The chair struck with a ring upon metal and broke.
Uttering a loud sigh, the detective drew out his revolver; he would, at least, save his friend the torments of an awful death. Suddenly a fearful crash resounded. The moving ma.s.s of sand was falling away from them into some gaping hole below, while at the same time fresh, moist air reached them and refreshed their lungs. Evidently some communication with the outside world had been established.
Juve relit his lamp and was bending over to examine what had taken place when the floor all at once gave way under his feet and he fell, dragging Fandor with him.
They found themselves up to mid-leg in water, but unhurt.
Juve"s voice rang out: "We are saved! I see now what happened! Our trap had a thin flooring, and, when down, it rested on a fragile arch. That arch gave way, and with the sand we have tumbled into the sewer of the Place Pigalle, which, if I am not mistaken, connects with the main of the Chaussee d"Autin. Come along, friend Fandor, we"ll find means to get out of this before long."
Floundering in the mud, they made their way along the drain until Juve halted and uttered a cry of triumph. On the left wall of the vault his hand encountered iron rings one above the other. It was a ladder leading to one of the manholes in the pavement. He quickly climbed up and, with a vigorous push, raised the heavy slab. In a few moments both men emerged and fell exhausted in the roadway.
When Fandor recovered his senses he was lying in a large, ill-lighted hall. The first sound he heard was Juve"s voice arguing hotly and volubly.
"Why, you"re nothing but a pack of idiots! We burglars! It"s utter rot.
I tell you I"m Juve, Inspector of Public Safety!"
XII
FOLLOWING JOSEPHINE
The captives had been recognised, and had been set at liberty. They had scarcely got a few yards from the police station, when Juve took the journalist"s arm.
"Let"s make haste!" he cried. "This foolish arrest has made us lose precious hours."
"You have a plan, Juve? What is it?"
"We must now turn our attention to Josephine; we must use her as a bait to catch the others. The girl won"t be much longer at Lariboisiere. She will be extremely anxious to leave that place and----"