“Perhaps you left them in your rooms,” said another officer.
“No. I brought them with me. I had them when I sat down.”
“But no one has come near you,” said one of his companions. “But wait a moment. You danced with Mlle. Dulcé. Could she have taken them? You danced with her several times; yet, on previous nights, I have noticed that she avoided you. It must be she.”
“Yes! It must be she!” cried Lieutenant Holzen. “Arrest her!”
Half-a-dozen men moved down the room toward where Marie Dulcé stood smiling. It was at that moment that Lord Hastings gave the signal to rise.
“Up and run for the door!” he cried. “Shoot the first man who draws a gun!”
He suited the action to the word, and the two lads were right behind him.
Before Lord Hastings loomed up the figure of a German colonel. The commander of the D-17 fired point-blank and the man fell to the floor. Lord Hastings dashed on.
Now Marie took a hand in things herself. As one of the Germans would have seized her, she stepped quickly backward and reached upward on the wall. There her hand found what she knew it would find—an electric switch. Quickly she threw it and the room was plunged into utter darkness.
Eluding the grasp of the man who reached for her in the darkness, Marie stepped quickly forward. Keeping close to the wall, she made her way toward the front door. On all sides men shouted and women screamed, but the girl went on calmly.