“Ah,” said Patrice, rising from his stooping posture, “will this also be repeated? What about the ladder, the rope-ladder, which I found in old Siméon’s cupboard?”
Coralie kept her eyes fixed on the skylight, for the footsteps were moving around it. Then they stopped. Patrice and Coralie had not a doubt that the moment had come and that they also were about to see their enemy. And Patrice said huskily, in a choking voice:
“Who will it be? There are three men who could have played this sinister part as it was played before. Two are dead, Essarès and my father. And Siméon, the third, is mad. Is it he, in his madness, who has set the machine working again? But how are we to imagine that he could have done it with such precision? No, no, it is the other one, the one who directs him and who till now has remained in the background.”
He felt Coralie’s fingers clutching his arm.
“Hush,” she said, “here he is!”
“No, no.”
“Yes, I’m sure of it.”
Her imagination had foretold what was preparing; and in fact, as once before, the skylight was raised higher. A hand lifted it. And suddenly they saw a head slipping under the open framework.
It was the head of old Siméon.
“The madman!” Patrice whispered, in dismay. “The madman!”