We
stole quietly into the gallery.
"'Where is he?' Larsan asked.
"'In Mademoiselle Stangerson's room.
"'And--Mademoiselle Stangerson?'
"'She is not in there.'
"'Let's go in.'
"'Don't go there! On the least alarm the man will escape. He has
four ways by which to do it--the door, the window, the boudoir, or
the room in which the women are sleeping.'
"'I'll draw him from below.'
"'And if you fail?--If you only succeed in wounding him--he'll
escape again, without reckoning that he is certainly armed. No,
let me direct the expedition, and I'll answer for everything.'
"'As you like,' he replied, with fairly good grace.
"Then, after satisfying myself that all the windows of the two
galleries were thoroughly secure, I placed Frederic Larsan at the
end of the 'off-turning' gallery, before the window which I had
found open and had reclosed.
"'Under no consideration,' I said to him, 'must you stir from this
post till I call you. The chances are even that the man, when he
is pursued, will return to this window and try to save himself that
way; for it is by that way he came in and made a way ready for his
flight.
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