At last the dawn broke, and with it, a weird sickly light penetrated the room.  I sprang from my bed and approached the window, only to find that it overlooked a small courtyard, the latter being stoneflagged and surrounded by high walls.  I could see that, even if I were able to squeeze my way out between the bars, I should be powerless to scale the walls.  At a rough guess these were at least twelve feet high, and without a foothold of any sort or description.  This being so I was completely at the mercy of the men in the house.  Indeed, a rat caught in a trap, was never more firmly laid by the heels than I. At about half-past seven o’clock a small trap-door, which I had not noticed near the ground and the main door, was opened, and a grimy hand made its way in and placed upon the floor a cup of coffee and a roll.  Then it was closed once more and made secure.  I drank the coffee and munched the roll, and, if the truth must be confessed, poor as they were felt the better for both.

At mid-day a bowl of miserable soup was handed in; darkness, however, had fallen some considerable time before I could detect any sound in the hall outside that might be taken to mean the coming of my evening meal.  At last there was a clatter of feet, the bolts shot back, the key turned in the lock, and the door opened.  A man carrying a lantern entered, followed by two others, and as the light fell upon his face, I uttered a cry of astonishment, for he was none other than my old friend Leglosse, while behind him was the infallible Lepallard.

“Well, thank goodness we have found you at last,” cried Leglosse.  “We have had such a hunt for you as man never dreamed of.  I called at your apartments late last night, hoping to see you, on important business, but you had not returned from a dinner to which you had been invited.  I called again this morning and was informed by the concierge that they had, up to that moment, seen nothing of you.  When the good Lepallard informed me that you had left the restaurant in a cab with Monsieur Hayle, and that the latter had returned to his apartments this morning in a great hurry, only to leave them a short time after with his luggage, for the railway station, I began to grow uneasy.  You have no idea what a day I have had looking for you, but it has been well spent, since we have the pleasure of seeing you again.”

“I shall be grateful to you all my life for the service you have rendered me,” I replied.  “But how did you manage to gain admittance to this house?”

“It was quite easy; the birds had flown,” he answered.  “Has the suspicion not struck you that they were going to clear out and leave you here to starve?”

“The brutes,” I answered.  “But I’ll be even with their leader yet.  And now let us get away from here as quickly as possible.  Have you any idea where our man has gone?”

“To Naples,” Lepallard replied.  “I disguised myself as a pompous old bourgeois, and I was behind him when he asked for his ticket and distinctly heard what he said.”