, no, it was going a bit too far.

However, he took down to the Prefect's car a new Perenna, merry, brisk,
and as fresh as though he had just got out of bed.

"Very flattering to my pride," said Don Luis to Mazeroux, "most
flattering, that hesitation of the Prefect's, after I had warned him over
the telephone, followed by his submission at the decisive moment. What a
hold I must have on all those jokers, to make them sit up at a sign from
little me! 'Beware, gentlemen!' I telephone to them from the bottomless
pit. 'Beware! At three o'clock, a bomb!' 'Nonsense!' say they. 'Not a bit
of it!' say I. 'How do you know?' 'Because I do.' 'But what proof have
you?' 'What proof? That I say so.' 'Oh, well, of course, if you say so!'
And, at five minutes to three, out they march. Ah, if I wasn't built up
of modesty--"

They came to the Boulevard Suchet, where the crowd was so dense that they
had to alight from the car. Mazeroux passed through the cordon of police
protecting the approaches to the house and took Don Luis to the slope
across the road.

"Wait for me here, Chief. I'll tell the Prefect of Police."

On the other side of the boulevard, under the pale morning sky in which a
few black clouds still lingered, Don Luis saw the havoc wrought by the
explosion. It was apparently not so great as he had expected. Some of the
ceilings had fallen in and their rubbish showed through the yawning
cavities of the windows; but the house remained standing. Even Fauville's
built-out annex had not suffered overmuch, and, strange to say, the
electric light, which the Prefect had left burning on his departure, had
not gone out. The garden and the road were covered with stacks of
furniture, over which a number of soldiers and police kept watch.

"Come with me, Chief," said Mazeroux, as he fetched Don Luis and led him
toward the engineer's workroom.

A part of the floor was demolished. The outer walls on the left, near the
passage, were cracked; and two workmen were fixing up beams, brought from
the nearest timber yard, to support the ceiling. But, on the whole, the
explosion had not had the results which the man who prepared it must have
anticipated.

M. Desmalions was there, together with all the men who had spent the
night in the room and several important persons from the public
prosecutor's office. Weber, the deputy chief detective, alone had gone,
refusing to meet his enemy.

Don Luis's arrival caused great excitement. The Prefec