Inspector Loup
would say on that head. Jean saw this color and changed the
conversation.

"Come, now, let us go and explore Monsieur de Beauchamp's articles of
vertu."

With the bicycle bull's-eye light in hand he led the way back through
the secret passage, followed closely by the young girl.

"Monsieur de Beauchamp wasn't the mighty Caesar in one thing," said
Jean, as he squeezed through the narrow opening in the wall.

"How is that?"

"He had only lean men about him,--true conspirators."

"Yes,--it was necessary."

They found the dark room where all of the munitions of war and
compound assassination were stored. Entering, they inadvertently
closed the door behind them.

"Dame!" cried Mlle. Fouchette. "The key, monsieur! the key!"

"Que diable!"

"How provoking!"

"But we have the dynamite----"

"Ah, ca!"

But somehow Mlle. Fouchette was not as badly frightened at the
situation as one might have the right to expect. She even laughed
gayly at their mutual imprisonment.

"Dynamite!" muttered Jean,--"a throne founded upon dynamite would
crumble quickly----"

"Yes, and by dynamite," said she.

"Monsieur de Beauchamp was----"

"Is a royalist leader----"

"An assassin!"

"A tool of the Duc d'Orleans."

"The Duke would never stoop to wholesale murder! Never!"

"It is the way of kings, n'est-ce pas? to shelter themselves from
responsibility behind their tools?"

"Stop! there must be guns for this ammunition. It must be----"

Before the idea had fairly germinated in his brain Jean discovered a
door that in the candle-light had easily escaped their observation. It
was at the opposite side of the room from which they had entered. It
was a narrow door and the key was in the lock.

"Another way out," suggested the girl.

"Surely, petite, since that closet entrance was never meant for a
porte-cochere."

The door opened upon a narrow and dark passage paved with worn tiles.
At the end of this passage another door barred the way. An examination
showed at once that this last had not been used for a long time. To
the left, however, a mere slit in the stone was seen to involve a
steep stair of very much worn steps. Opposite the entrance to this
stairway was a shallow niche in the wall, in which were the remains of
burned candles.

"Cat stairs," said Mlle. Fouchette.

"And the cats have used it a good deal of late, I should judge," he
observed, carefully examining the entrance in the glare of the l