wise, so, indeed, it would have
been. But then, just then, when another second would have brought the
paper into view, another moment seen it shut tight in the grip of his
itching fingers, disaster came and blotted out his hopes!

Without hint or warning, without sign or sound to lessen the shock of
it, the trap-door behind the bar flew up and backward with a crash that
sent Marise and her assistants darting away from it in shrieking alarm;
a babel of excited voices sounded, a scurry of rushing feet scuffled and
flashed along the shaking floor, and Merode and his followers tumbled
helter-skelter into the room.

Cleek, counting on the bolt which kept them from entering the passage
from the corridor of the Chateau Larouge--forcing them to take a long,
roundabout journey to "The Twisted Arm"--had not counted on their
shortening that journey by entering the passage from Fouchard's tavern,
doing, in fact, the very thing which he had declared to Margot he
himself had done. And lo! here they were, howling and crowding about
him--dirks in their hands and devils in their eyes and hearts--and the
paper not his yet!

A clamour rose as they poured in; the dancers ceased to dance; the music
ceased to play; and Margot, shutting a tight clutch on the loosened part
of her half-unfastened bodice, swung away from Cleek's side, and flew in
a panic to Merode.

"Gaston!" she cried, knowing from his wild look and the string of oaths
and curses his followers were blurting out that something had gone
amiss. "Gaston, _mon coeur_! Name of disaster! what is wrong?"

"Everything is wrong!" he flung back excitedly. "That devil--that
renegade--that fury, Cleek, the cracksman, is here. He came to the
rescue--came out of the very skies--and all but killed Serpice!"

"Cleek!" Fifty shrill voices joined Margot's in that screaming cry;
fifty more dirks flashed into view. "Cleek in France? Cleek? Where is
he? Which way did he go? Where's the narker--where--where?"

"Here, if anywhere!"

"Here?"

"Yes--unless you've been fooled, and let him get away. He knows about
the paper, and is after it, Margot; and if anyone has come up from the
sewers within the past twenty minutes--"

They knew--they grasped the situation instantly--and a roar of excited
voices yelled out: "Clodoche! Clodoche! Clodoche!" as, snarling and
howling like a pack of wolves, they bore down with a rush on the
blue-bloused figure that was creeping towards the door.

But as the