Left alone, the head of the Secret Service wiped his
brow and drank a great glass of iced water which he
emptied at a draught. Then he said:
“Koupriane will have his work cut out for him
this evening; I wish him good luck. As to them,
whatever happens, I wash my hands of them.”
And he rubbed his hands.
A DRAMA IN THE NIGHT
At the door of the Krestowsky Rouletabille, who was
in a hurry for a conveyance, jumped into an open carriage
where la belle Onoto was already seated. The
dancer caught him on her knees.
“To Eliaguine, fast as you can,” cried
the reporter for all explanation.
“Scan! Scan! (Quickly, quickly)”
repeated Onoto.
She was accompanied by a vague sort of person to whom
neither of them paid the least attention.
“What a supper! You waked up at last,
did you?” quizzed the actress. But Rouletabille,
standing up behind the enormous coachman, urged the
horses and directed the route of the carriage.
They bolted along through the night at a dizzy pace.
At the corner of a bridge he ordered the horses stopped,
thanked his companions and disappeared.
“What a country! What a country!
Caramba!” said the Spanish artist.
The carriage waited a few minutes, then turned back
toward the city.
Rouletabille got down the embankment and slowly, taking
infinite precautions not to reveal his presence by
making the least noise, made his way to where the
river is widest. Seen through the blackness
of the night the blacker mass of the Trebassof villa
loomed like an enormous blot, he stopped. Then
he glided like a snake through the reeds, the grass,
the ferns. He was at the back of the villa,
near the river, not far from the little path where
he had discovered the passage of the assassin, thanks
to the broken cobwebs. At that moment the moon
rose and the birch-trees, which just before had been
like great black staffs, now became white tapers which
seemed to brighten that sinister solitude.
The reporter wished to profit at once by the sudden
luminance to learn if his movements had been noticed
and if the approaches to the villa on that side were
guarded. He picked up a small pebble and threw
it some distance from him along the path. At
the unexpected noise three or four shadowy heads were
outlined suddenly in the white light of the moon,
but disappeared at once, lost again in the dark tufts
of grass.
He had gained his information.
The reporter’s acute ear caught a gliding in
his direction, a slight swish of twigs; then all at
once a shadow grew by his side and he felt the cold
of a revolver barrel on his temple. He said
“Koupriane,” and at once a hand seized
his and pressed it.
The night had become black again. He murmured:
“How is it you are here in person?”
The Prefect of Police whispered in his ear:
