uld know the reasons why
Mlle. Levasseur preserves such an obstinate silence."

Florence herself led the way. But, as Weber was leaving the room, Don
Luis exclaimed:

"Take care, Deputy Chief!"

"Take care? Why?"

"I don't know," said Don Luis, who really could not have said why
Florence's behaviour was making him uneasy. "I don't know. Still, I
warn you--"

Weber shrugged his shoulders and, accompanied by the superior, moved
away. In the hall he took two men with him. Florence walked ahead. She
went up a flight of stairs and turned down a long corridor, with rooms on
either side of it, which, after turning a corner, led to a short and very
narrow passage ending in a door.

This was her room. The door opened not inward, into the room, but
outward, into the passage. Florence therefore drew it to her, stepping
back as she did so, which obliged Weber to do likewise. She took
advantage of this to rush in and close the door behind her so quickly
that the deputy chief, when he tried to grasp the handle, merely
struck the air.

He made an angry gesture:

"The baggage! She means to burn some papers!"

And, turning to the superior:

"Is there another exit to the room?"

"No, Monsieur."

He tried to open the door, but she had locked and bolted it. Then he
stood aside to make way for one of his men, a giant, who, with one blow
of his fist, smashed a panel.

Weber pushed by him, put his arm through the opening, drew the bolt,
turned the key, pulled open the door and entered.

Florence was no longer in her room. A little open window opposite showed
the way she had taken.

"Oh, curse my luck!" he shouted. "She's cut off!"

And, hurrying back to the staircase, he roared over the balusters:

"Watch all the doors! She's got away! Collar her!"

M. Desmalions came hurrying up. Meeting the deputy, he received his
explanations and then went on to Florence's room. The open window looked
out on a small inner yard, a sort of well which served to ventilate a
part of the house. Some rain-pipes ran down the wall. Florence must have
let herself down by them. But what coolness and what an indomitable will
she must have displayed to make her escape in this manner!

The detectives had already distributed themselves on every side to bar
the fugitive's road. It soon became manifest that Florence, for whom they
were hunting on the ground floor and in the basement, had gone from the
yard into the room underneath her own, which h