name!"

The two women obeyed, making their escape through the back door, which
opened upon the garden; and they had scarcely done so, before a violent
knocking was heard at the front door.

The police were coming! This increased Martial's frenzy; and with one
supreme effort to free himself from his assailant, he gave him such
a violent push that his adversary fell, striking his head against the
corner of the table, after which he lay like one dead.

But the Widow Chupin, who had come downstairs on hearing the uproar, was
shrieking upon the stairs. At the door someone was crying: "Open in the
name of the law!"

Martial might have fled; but if he fled, the duchess might be captured,
for he would certainly be pursued. He saw the peril at a glance, and his
decision was made.

He shook the Widow Chupin violently by the arm, and said, in an
imperious voice:

"If you know how to hold your tongue you shall have one hundred thousand
francs."

Then, drawing a table before the door opening into the adjoining room,
he intrenched himself behind it as behind a rampart, and awaited the
approach of the enemy.

The next moment the door was forced open, and a squad of police, under
the command of Inspector Gevrol, entered the room.

"Surrender!" cried the inspector.

Martial did not move; his pistol was turned upon the intruder.

"If I can parley with them, and hold them in check only two minutes, all
may yet be saved," he thought.

He obtained the wished-for delay; then he threw his weapon to the
ground, and was about to bound through the back-door, when a policeman,
who had gone round to the rear of the house, seized him about the body,
and threw him to the floor.

From this side he expected only assistance, so he cried:

"Lost! It is the Prussians who are coming!"

In the twinkling of an eye he was bound; and two hours later he was an
inmate of the station-house at the Place d'Italie.

He had played his part so perfectly, that he had deceived even Gevrol.
The other participants in the broil were dead, and he could rely upon
the Widow Chupin. But he knew that the trap had been set for him by Jean
Lacheneur; and he read a whole volume of suspicion in the eyes of the
young officer who had cut off his retreat, and who was called Lecoq by
his companions.

CHAPTER LV

The Duc de Sairmeuse was one of those men who remain superior to all
fortuitous circumstances, good or bad. He was a man of vast experience,
and