m behind him, Sauverand's weapon fell from his hand before
he was able to fire, and the Prefect saw, as in a dream, a man, the man
who had saved his life, striding across the chief inspector's body,
propping Mazeroux against the wall, and darting ahead, followed by the
detectives. He recognized the man: it was Don Luis Perenna.

Don Luis stepped briskly into the garret where Sauverand had retreated,
but had time only to catch sight of him standing on the window ledge and
leaping into space from the third floor.

"Has he jumped from there?" cried the Prefect, hastening up. "We shall
never capture him alive!"

"Neither alive nor dead, Monsieur le Prefet. See, he's picking himself
up. There's a providence which looks after that sort. He's making for the
gate. He's hardly limping."

"But where are my men?"

"Why, they're all on the staircase, in the house, brought here by the
shots, seeing to the wounded--"

"Oh, the demon!" muttered the Prefect. "He's played a masterly game!"

Gaston Sauverand, in fact, was escaping unmolested.

"Stop him! Stop him!" roared M. Desmalions.

There were two motors standing beside the pavement, which is very wide
at this spot: the Prefect's own car, and the cab which the deputy chief
had provided for the prisoner. The two chauffeurs, sitting on their
seats, had noticed nothing of the fight. But they saw Gaston Sauverand's
leap into space; and the Prefect's chauffeur, on whose seat a certain
number of incriminating articles had been placed, taking out of the heap
the first weapon that offered, the ebony walking-stick, bravely rushed
at the fugitive.

"Stop him! Stop him!" shouted M. Desmalions.

The encounter took place at the exit from the courtyard. It did not last
long. Sauverand flung himself upon his assailant, snatched the stick from
him, and broke it across his face. Then, without dropping the handle, he
ran away, pursued by the other chauffeur and by three detectives who at
last appeared from the house. He had thirty yards' start of the
detectives, one of whom fired several shots at him without effect.

When M. Desmalions and Weber went downstairs again, they found the chief
inspector lying on the bed in Gaston Sauverand's room on the second
floor, gray in the face. He had been hit on the head and was dying. A few
minutes later he was dead.

Sergeant Mazeroux, whose wound was only slight, said, while it was being
dressed, that Sauverand had taken the chief inspector and h