"That seems to be all right," he said to himself, as he returned to his hiding-place.
In about five minutes' time the smoke began slowly to penetrate the room and make its way into the séance chamber.
"Keep calm, keep calm," he said to himself, as he heard a commotion among the guests in the adjoining room.
Peeping through the keyhole, Pierre saw the guests hurriedly rise up and rush out through the conservatory into the garden.
As soon as he had ascertained that the last person had left the room, he cautiously opened the door and crept into the séance room. He first adjusted the blinds of the conservatory window and door, so that no light could penetrate, and then turned up the lights sufficiently high to observe the professor in the cabinet. There he was, clear enough, sleeping as calmly as an infant.
Pierre cautiously looked round the room to make sure that no one was watching him, and when he had thoroughly satisfied himself on that point, he crept into the cabinet, and kneeling down beside the sleeping man, paused for a moment. A feeling of fear, almost amounting to terror, unnerved him for a few seconds, and then mentally upbraiding himself for his cowardice, he cautiously rolled back the professor's shirt sleeve and gently picked up a fold of the skin. Holding the injection syringe in his other hand, he thrust the point well home into the tissues.
The guests in the garden were suddenly startled by an exclamation from Riche.
"Look," he cried, pointing to his bedroom window out of which a wreath of dense smoke was curling.
"Follow me, there is the fire." The whole party ran round the garden into the house. Villebois flew to the telephone to hurry up the fire brigade, while the others hastened upstairs through the blinding smoke to the source of the mischief in Riche's bedroom. But the smoke was too suffocating to effect an entrance, and the guests stood on the landing half dazed with fear and excitement. They all tied handkerchiefs round their mouths, and following Riche's directions endeavoured to quench the flames.
Dr. Riche ran downstairs to obtain help, and passed Villebois, who was making his way to the bedroom through the smoke.