f
the accomplice of that prisoner's flight.

Out of prison, free, Fandor could and would act!

The two apparent men of the law gently opened the cell door. De
Naarboveck cast a rapid glance up and down the corridor, on to which
half a dozen cells opened.... The corridor was empty and silent. De
Naarboveck and Fandor stepped out, gently closing the cell door.

"The opening of the prison door is our next difficulty to be
overcome," whispered de Naarboveck: "I warned the jailor that I
expected my secretary. Let us hope he will take you as such and let us
pass out unmolested."

* * * * *

The military prison of the Council of War of Paris is not like other
prisons: that is why de Naarboveck's plan had a fair chance of
success. It would certainly have failed had it been attempted at La
Sante or at La Roquette.... This building had been a private hotel of
the old style.

On the first floor, the former reception-rooms had been divided into
small offices, and the principal drawing-room had been transformed
into a court-room. On the ground floor, what were evidently the
kitchens and domestic offices in the last century now constituted the
prison proper, for in these quarters are arranged the cells where the
accused await their appearance before their judges. No one
unacquainted with these arrangements would suspect that the low door,
scarcely noticeable in the vestibule facing the staircase leading to
the first floor is the entrance to the prison.

Yet those who pass through this low door find themselves in the
corridor lined with prison cells.

At the door of the prison a warder is posted, whose role is not so
much to watch the prisoners and prevent any attempt at escape as to
open to persons needing to enter that ill-omened place. At night-time
supervision is relaxed. The warder has to keep the offices in good
order, and when he has his key in his pocket, certain that the heavy
bolts and locks cannot be forced, he comes and goes about the house.

De Naarboveck was not only well posted in these details, but was aware
that up to the day of Fandor's trial, in view of the extra coming and
going, it had been decided to give the guardian an assistant, and that
this assistant would be at his post from six o'clock onwards.

It was past six o'clock.

The chances were, that when the false advocates knocked from the
inside, the prison door would be opened to allow them egress by the
supplemen