At this there was a general guffaw in which I tried to join, but I felt as small as Roche the turnkey. It appeared that all those pails and bundles had been full of earth, stones, and mortar, which the men had scraped out in making the tunnel. I went into the little inner room, and there in the floor, just behind where Pierre Lebrun used to sit, surrounded with bundles of straw, blocks of wood, etc., was the other end of the subterranean passage. They had absolutely scratched through the thick wall of the prison, and then grubbed like moles through sixty yards of earth, with no other implement than the bones of horses’ legs.
I did not care for the remarks of the bystanders, and I got out of that gaol as quickly as I could, but not before Dr. Mansell had asked me another question or two.
“I hear Frances Martin has absconded,” he said. “Can you tell me anything about Eleanor? She lives with your aunts, I think.”
“She is not to be found, sir,” I answered. “She is off with Jack, no doubt.”
“Jack?”
“Mounseer Jacques Roux, the engineer.”
“Ah, the fellow who managed the tunnelling. Why do you pitch upon him?”
“I didn’t—she did, because he used to kiss her.”
“Kiss! By George, didn’t that rouse your suspicions?” cried the doctor.
“No, sir, they said it was the French way of shaking hands.”