“No doubt. I can see it now exactly. She would sit on the window ledge, the lower limbs inside the car here and held there. Then with her hands she would draw herself up to the roof,” said the Judge.
“But what nerve! what strength of arm!”
“It was life and death. Within the car was more terrible danger. Fear will do much in such a case. We all know that. Well! what more?”
By this time the detective had stepped on to the roof of the car.
“More, more, much more! Footprints, as plain as a picture. A woman’s feet. Wait, let me follow them to the end,” said he, cautiously creeping forward to the end of the car.
A minute or two more, and he rejoined his colleagues on the ground level, and, rubbing his hands, declared joyously that it was all perfectly clear.
“Dangerous or not, difficult or not, she did it. I have traced her; have seen where she must have lain crouching ever so long, followed her all along the top of the car, to the end where she got down above the little platform exit. Beyond doubt she left the car when it stopped, and by arrangement with her confederate.”
“The Countess?”
“Who else?”
“And at a point near Paris. The English General said the halt was within twenty minutes’ run of the station.”