“No.”
“Captain Laroque will be over within an hour with a guard and with an order for the prisoners. A special train will carry them to Schlusselburg. Have the prison van ready to take them to the station. The administrator asks that you make all haste when the captain comes.”
Sabatoff hung up the receiver.
“Weren’t you pretty high-handed with him?” suggested Drexel.
“I had to be; that’s the manner of the administrator’s office. And you have got to be high-handed, too, for this Captain Laroque is one of the most brutal men in all the gendarmerie.”
“Do I look the part?”
Sabatoff glanced over the well-set figure in the long gray coat and top boots, with sword and pistol at the belt.
“You’ll do very well if you remember to mix in plenty of scowls and curses.”
A minute later they softly opened the front door and peered out. The little street was as empty as the night overhead, save for a driverless sleigh beside the curb. This they got into, and choosing the obscurest streets they drove swiftly to the south. Here in a mean, unlighted street, Sabatoff drew up before the vaguely seen gateway of a court.
“Here we are,” he whispered.