Twenty steps! That was as much start as the clown wanted. While talking with the constables, he had pulled the bell of the door before which they were standing, and its hollow sound apprised him that the door was open. He bowed, and entered the house.
A minute later the constables had passed on, and Lagors and Clameran in their turn rang the bell. When the concierge appeared, they asked who it was that had just gone in disguised as a clown.
They were told that no such person had entered, and that none of the lodgers had gone out disguised that night. “However,” added the concierge, “I am not very sure, for this house has a back door which opens on the Rue St. Denis.”
“We are tricked,” interrupted Lagors, “and will never know who the clown is.”
“Unless we learn it too soon for our own good,” said Clameran musingly.
While Lagors and Clameran were anxiously trying to devise some means of discovering the clown’s identity, Verduret hurried up the back street, and reached the Archangel as the clock struck three.
Prosper, who was watching from his window, saw him in the distance, and ran down to open the door for him.
“What have you learned?” he said; “what did you find out? Did you see Madeleine? Were Raoul and Clameran at the ball?”
But M. Verduret was not in the habit of discussing private affairs where he might be overheard.
“First of all, let us go into your room, and get some water to wash this cut, which burns like fire.”