“Now, it is high time to end this farce!” I cried. “If Old Bob is removed from consideration and Professor Stangerson and Prince Galitch, there remain only ourselves—we who are locked up in this room—and if Larsan is among us, show us to him, Rouletabille!”
I repeated the words furiously, for the eyes of the boy, although they were piercing through me, seemed to be fixed upon something outside of and apart from me.
“Show him to us! Name him! You are as slow here as you were at the Court of Assizes.”
“Had I not good reason at the Court of Assizes for being as slow as I was?” he replied, without betraying any emotion.
“You want him to escape this time, too, then?”
“No! I swear to you that this time he shall not escape.”
Why did his voice continue to be so threatening when he addressed me? Could it be really—really that he suspected me of being Larsan? My eyes wandered to those of the Lady in Black. She was gazing on me in terror.
“Rouletabille!” I cried madly, feeling my voice almost smothered in my throat. “You do not—you cannot suspect——!”
At this moment, a pistol shot sounded outside, very near to the Square Tower. We all leaped to our feet, remembering the order given by the reporter to the three servants to fire upon anyone who should attempt to go out of the Square Tower. Edith uttered a cry and tried to run out of the room, but Rouletabille, who had not made so much as a gesture, calmed her with a word.
“If anyone had drawn upon him,” he said, “the three men would have fired together. That pistol shot was merely a signal—a direction for me to begin.”