The official laughed, and, with a word of thanks for the information concerning the Baron, both captor and prisoner passed back into the living-room, where the police-agents were concluding their searching investigations.
Nothing had been found of an incriminating nature, and the commissary now saw that the man arrested had spoken the truth.
While Ansell’s house was being turned upside down and Adolphe and the commissary were exchanging confidences, “The American” was having a truly hot and exciting time, as indeed he richly deserved.
Having entered the shaft, after securing the trap-door with its stout, iron bolt, he descended the rickety ladder to the cellar; thence, passing by a short tunnel, which Bonnemain had constructed with his own hands, he ascended a few rough wooden steps, and found himself in a lean-to outhouse close to a door in a high wall which led into a side street.
Creeping to the door he drew the bolt, and in a moment was free.
Turning to the left, he took to his heels, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him, intending, if possible, to get away to the country.
He was elated at his narrow escape, and how cleverly he had tricked his friend, with whom he knew the police would be busy and so allow him time to get clean away.
He was lithe and active, and a good runner. Therefore in his rubber-soled shoes he ran swiftly in the grey light of early morning, turning corner after corner, doubling and re-doubling until he came to a main thoroughfare. Then, walking slowly, he crossed it, and dived into a maze of small turnings, all of which were familiar to him.
His first idea had been to seek refuge in the house of a friend—a thief, like himself, named Toussaint—but such a course would, he reflected, be highly dangerous. The police knew Toussaint to be a friend of his, and would, perhaps, go there in search of him.