rned away. No sooner was he out of sight than Juve tore
up the stairs to complete the arrest of Vagualame and Bobinette!

Inspector Michel had not stirred from his appointed place by the door
leading to the street.

He had been on guard about half an hour when Juve, livid, frantic,
rushed towards him.

"You have let them go out, Michel!" he shouted: "They are not here!"

"No one has gone out at this door, Chief! I give you my word on it!...
But, may I ask how you managed to slip back again without my having
noticed you! Deuced clever, I call it!... No one, I say, has left
these premises either before or after you!"

"What's that you say?" Juve stared at Michel as if he had taken leave
of his senses.

"What I say, Chief, is--the only individuals whom I have allowed to
pass out are you and your woman prisoner."

"I and my woman prisoner?" Juve could have howled with rage. He caught
the calm, collected Michel by the coat collar, and dragged him outside
the shop. Juve looked so desperate, so at his wit's end, that Michel
wondered.

"Come now, Chief!" he remonstrated; "I am not dreaming, am I?... Ten
minutes ago you came to me here, and you said:

"'Don't move, Michel! Let me pass. I am Juve! I take a prisoner to the
station and will return.'"

Juve had grown deadly calm.

"I was disguised, Michel, was I not?"

"Yes. You had put on your Vagualame disguise."

Juve bit his lip till the blood came. That arch-bandit had done him
again! Juve could not but admire his coolness and resource. He had
known how to take in Michel, because Michel had arrested Juve when
disguised as Vagualame at de Naarboveck's house.... Michel would
naturally think his chief had again assumed the Vagualame disguise for
a purpose! Oh, it was the devil's own cleverness!

Juve glared at Michel.

"It was the real Vagualame, I tell you!" shouted Juve.... "It was not
I disguised as Vagualame!... It was Vagualame in person, I tell
you!... It is Vagualame himself whom you have allowed to escape!"

There was a pause--terrible, heart-sickening.

Michel drew himself up.

"What then, Chief?"

Juve's anger gave place to compassion.

"It is really not your fault, my poor Michel. How could you imagine
the infernal trick this bandit was playing on you?... I bear you no
grudge for it, Michel!"

But Michel was inconsolable. He had committed an irreparable blunder!

Juve slipped his arm through that of his miserable subordinate. The
pair made