The sound ceased, and Brent’s hand went out for the revolver. He fancied that he could hear a movement along the raised path towards the street door, and he waited for the clink of one of those tins, but his booby-traps gave him no warning. There was an interval of silence, quite a long interval, and Brent’s ears were beginning to play him tricks. He was lying on his left side, his face turned towards the kitchen doorway, its barricade of iron sheets and timber a black patch in the plastered wall opposite him, when he saw a little thread of light outline the lower edge of the barricade. It was very faint, a mere greyness, diffused from some light that was burning in one of the rooms on the other side of the passage.
Brent pushed back the blankets, drew up his feet, and lifting his legs slowly over the edge of the bed, sat up. The wire netting creaked, but the sound coincided with a very distinct and crisp rustling in one of those other rooms, a rustling that suggested the brushing up of shavings in a carpenter’s shop. It was one of those sounds that struck an old familiar memory on Brent’s brain. He had taken the precaution of carrying the ladder into the kitchen, and it stood slanting against the partition wall just below the gap in the uncompleted roof. Paul felt his way to the ladder, tested its steadiness with a pressure of the hands, and mounted it slowly, Manon’s revolver in his left hand.
A sudden broadening glow of light met him as he reached the top of the wall. There was the distinct crackle of burning wood, and then Brent understood. He caught one of the rafters, pulled himself on to the wall, and lying flat along it, was able to look down into the back room on the other side of the passage.
He saw a man down there, a man who was bending forward and feeding chips and bits of wood on to the fire he had lit on the floor. He had piled his shavings against Brent’s stack of timber salved from the dismantled huts, and the flames were beginning to lick at the pile of floor boards. Brent set his teeth, and changed his pistol from his left hand to his right. The man was Louis Blanc; Paul knew him by his cap and clothes, and those angular projecting shoulders.
Brent might have saved himself much future suffering and travail if he had obeyed that first impulse and shot Bibi as he bent forward over the fire. He did not do it. It was one of those deeds that became impossible directly the instinctive impulse has been gripped and held. Brent fired straight at the fire, and the bullet sent a spurt of burning chips over the feet of the man below.
Bibi gave a leap like a cat, all four limbs spread. Paul had a momentary glimpse of his face, lips drawn back tight over the teeth, eyes furious and surprised. Then he dodged sideways out into the passage, and Paul heard the saucepan clatter against the stones as Bibi’s ankles struck the wire. There was a pause, a scuffle, an oath.
Brent used Bibi’s favourite expletive.
“Voilà!” he shouted. “I missed you on purpose. Next time I shan’t miss.”
“Go to the devil,” said the other voice from somewhere in the street.
Paul scrambled down to save his timber. Manon had brought him a little electric torch, and after dismantling the barricade across the kitchen doorway, he stepped into the passage. Bibi might still be hanging about outside the house, and since it was possible that Bibi was armed, Paul went to the street doorway, and flashed his torch along the path and across the road. Seeing no sign of Louis Blanc he made a dash for the back door, and using a bit of board scooped the mass of burning shavings away from the timber pile. The floor was of tiles, and Brent was able to beat out the scattered fire.