daring.
However----" He stopped and put his head out of the window. "You can
send the train on now," he called to a porter, and resumed: "However, I
must ask you to accompany me to the stationmaster's office and give me
your names and addresses, and to help me afterwards in the conduct of
the legal investigation."

The two travellers looked at one another in distressed surprise.

"It is really appalling," said one of them; "you're not safe anywhere
nowadays."

"You really aren't," the other agreed. "Such a number of awful murders
and crimes are being perpetrated every day that you would think not one,
but a dozen Fantomas were at work!"

XXVII. THREE SURPRISING INCIDENTS

Nibet went off duty at five in the morning, and returned to his own home
to go to bed. As a general rule he slept like a top, after a night on
duty, but on this occasion he could not close an eye, being far too
uneasy about the consequences of his co-operation in Gurn's escape.

A few minutes before six in the evening he had taken advantage of no
warders being about to slip Gurn from cell number 127 into number 129,
whence he could make his way to the roof. At six, when he actually came
on duty, Nibet opened the peephole in the door of number 127, as he did
in all the others, and saw that Gurn had made an admirable dummy figure
in the bed: it was so good that it even deceived a head warder who made
a single rapid inspection of all the cells when Nibet was on one of his
several rounds during the night. Obviously Gurn must have got clear away
from the prison, for if he had been caught it would certainly have
become generally known.

These reflections somewhat comforted the restless man, but he knew that
the most difficult part of his task was still before him: the difficulty
of simulating astonishment and distress when he should get back to the
prison presently and be told by his fellow-warders of the prisoner's
escape, and the difficulty of answering in a natural manner to the close
interrogation to which he would be subjected by the governor and the
police, and possibly even M. Fuselier, who would be in a fine rage when
he learned that his captive had escaped him. Nibet meant to pretend
ignorance and even stupidity. He would far rather be called a fool, than
found out to be a knave and an accomplice.

About half-past eleven Nibet got up; Gurn's escape must certainly be
known at the prison by this time. The warder on duty would have gon