“I have already had the honor of telling you so.”
“Imagine that you were deaf while you were waiting for the train at D. You did not hear then?”
“No, but I should have seen it.”
“Already you did not hear it. That is much. Possibly you turned your head for three seconds. Three seconds, that is to say, one second and thirty hundredths longer than is necessary to see an express train of four carriages pass before you, which, being late, made 120 to the hour. M. Longuet, the train disappeared, or, rather, seemed to disappear, because you were deaf and turned your head for a brief space of time.”
M. Longuet raised his arms to the limit toward the vaults of the catacombs.
CHAPTER XXXI
Lost in the Catacombs
WHEN M. Longuet had recovered from the emotion that M. Mifroid’s explanation of the train had caused him, he went through his pockets and handed over to M. Mifroid a revolver and a large knife that he had found in Signor Petito’s pocket.