Desrolles went home to his lodging, not too steady of foot, soon after midnight. He was prepared to encounter some slight difficulty in opening the door with his passkey, and was pleased at finding that some other night-bird, returning to his nest a little earlier, had left the door ajar. He had only to push it open and go in.
Within all was gloom, save in one corner by the portress’s den, where a glimmer of gas showed the numbered board whereon hung the keys which admitted the lodgers to their several apartments. But Desrolles knew every twist of the corkscrew staircase. Drunk as he was, he wound his way up safely enough, with only an occasional lurch and an occasional stumble. He managed to unlock the door of his room, after trying the key upside down once or twice, and making some circuitous scratchings on the panel. He managed to strike a lucifer and light his candle, leaning against the mantelpiece as he performed that feat, and giving a drunken chuckle when it was done. But his nerves must have been in a very shaky condition, for when a man, who had crept softly into the room behind him, laid a strong hand upon his shoulder, he collapsed, and made as if he would have fallen to the ground “What do you want?” he asked in French.
“You,” answered the intruder in English. “I arrest you on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of La Chicot. You know all about it. You were examined at the inquest. Anything you say now will be used as evidence against you. You had better come quietly with me.”
“I don’t understand you,” said Desrolles, still in French. “I am a Frenchman.”
“Oh, very much of that. You’ve been lodging here three weeks. You are known to be an Englishman. You took your passage today for Valparaiso. I called at the office to make inquiries an hour after you left it. No nonsense, Mr. Desrolles. All you’ve got to do is to come quietly with me.”
“You’ve got someone else outside, I suppose,” said Desrolles, with a savage glare at the door.
His expression in this moment was diabolical; a wild beast—a beast of a low type, not your kingly lion or your lordly tiger—at bay and knowing-escape impossible, might so look; the thin lips curling upward above the long sharks’ teeth; the grizzled brows contracted—the eyes emitting sparks of lurid light.
“Of course,” answered the man, coolly. “You don’t suppose I should be such a fool as to trust myself in a hole like this without help. I’ve got my mate on the landing, and we’ve both got revolvers. Ah, none of that, now,” ejaculated the detective suddenly, as Desrolles plunged his lean hand into his breast pocket. “Stow that, now. Is it a knife?”
It was a knife, and a murderous one. Desrolles had it out, and the long-pointed blade ready, before his captor could stop him. The man sprang upon him, caught him by the waist, before the knife could do mischief; and then the two closed, hand against hand, limb against limb, Desrolles wrestling with his foe as only rage and despair can wrestle.
He had been a famous bruiser in days of old. Tonight he had the unnatural strength given the overtasked sinews by a mind on the edge of madness. He fought like a madman: he fought like a tiger. There was not a muscle—not a sinew—that was not strained to its utmost in that savage conflict.
For some moments Desrolles seemed the victor. The detective had lied when he said that he had help at hand. The French policeman who had planned to meet him at that house at midnight had not yet come, and the Englishman had been too impatient to wait, believing himself and his revolver more than a match for one drunken old man.
He did not want to use his revolver. It would have been a hazardous thing even to wound his man. It was his duty to take him alive, and surrender him safe and sound to be dealt with by the law of his country.
“Come,” he said, soothingly, having hardly enough breath for so much speech, “let me put the bracelets on and take you away quietly. What’s the use of this humbug?”
Desrolles, with his teeth set, answered never a word. He had got his antagonist very near the door; once across the threshold, a last vigorous thrust from his lean arms might hurl the man backwards down the steep staircase—certain death to the intruder. Desrolles’ eyes were fixed upon the doorway, the door standing conveniently open. His bloodshot eyeballs flashed fire. It was in his mind that the thing was to be done. One more herculean effort, and his foe would be across the threshold.
Possibly the detective saw that look of triumph in the savage face, and divined his danger. However that might be, he gathered himself together, and with a sudden impetus, flinging all his weight against Desrolles, he drove his foe before him across the narrow room, hurled him with all his might against the wall, casting him loose for the moment in order to grip him tighter afterwards.
But as that tall figure fell with terrific force against the gaudy-papered wall, there was a sudden crashing sound, at which the detective recoiled with a cry of horror. The frail lath and plaster partition split asunder, the rotten wood crumbled and scattered itself in a cloud of dust, half that side of the room dropped into ruin, as if the house had been a house of cards, and, with one hoarse shriek, Desrolles rolled backwards into empty air.
They found him presently upon the pavement below, so battered and disfigured by
