ing of an eye he was carried off his feet and swept on by
this sudden inrush of the law; the door clashed open, the little
slatted barrier beyond was knocked aside, and the police were pouring
into the room and running headlong into a spinning mass of wild
dancers.

The band ceased suddenly as they appeared, the dancers cried out as
if in a panic of alarm, and at Ducroix's commanding "Surrender in the
name of the Law!" a fat woman behind the bar flung up her arms and
voiced a despairing shriek.

"Soul of misfortune! for what, m'sieur--for what?" she cried. "It
is no sin to laugh and dance. We break no law, my customers and I.
What is it you want that you come in upon us like this?"

Ah, what indeed? Not anything that could be seen. A glance round the
room showed nothing and no one but these suddenly disturbed dancers,
and of Margot and the Mauravanian never a sign.

"M'sieur!" began Ducroix, turning to Narkom, whose despair was only
too evident, and who, in company with Dollops, was rushing about the
place pushing people here and there, looking behind them, looking
in all the corners, and generally deporting themselves after the
manner of a couple of hounds endeavouring to pick up a lost scent.
"M'sieur, shall it be an error, then?"

Narkom did not answer. Of a sudden, however, he remembered what had
been said of the trap and, pushing aside a group of girls standing
over it, found it in the middle of the floor.

"Here it is--this is the way she got out!" he shouted. "Bolted, by
James! bolted on the under side! Up with it, up with it--the Jezebel
got out this way." But though Ducroix and Dollops aided him, and
they pulled and tugged and tugged and pulled, they could not budge
it one inch.

"M'sieur, no--what madness! He is not a trap--? no, he is not a trap
at all!" protested old Marise. "It is but a square where the floor
broke and was mended! Mother of misfortune, it is nothing but that."

What response Narkom might have made was checked by a sudden
discovery. Huddling in a corner, feigning a drunken sleep, he
saw a man lying with his face hidden in his folded arms. It was
the pedler. He pounced on the man and jerked up his head before
the fellow could prevent it or could dream of what was about to
happen.

"Here's one of them at least!" he cried, and fell to shaking him with
all his force. "Here's one of Margot's pals, Ducroix. You shan't go
empty-handed after all."

A cry of consternation fluttered thro