Juve went the round of the cellar, carefully inspecting the walls and sounding them with the butt of his revolver. He went round the cistern. Its surface was black and still. A broken bottle, floating head downward, remained half immersed, absolutely motionless.
Fandor laid his hand on the detective's arm.
"Did you hear; some one breathed!"
Beyond doubt some one had breathed!
"Idiots that we are! He is in there," cried Juve, pointing to the pipe of the great stove.
The detective caught sight in a corner of a number of bundles of straw.
"That is what we want, Fandor! We are going to make a bonfire."
When the opening of the furnace was fitted, Juve set a light to it and the flames rose, crackling, while up the pipe of the heater rose a pungent smoke, thick and black.
"And now to the openings of the stove! Sergeant! Michel! This way!"
Through the apertures in the ground-floor rooms the great stove was beginning to smoke.