"How could he have got out, or been got out by the drains? As far as I know, there is no system of pipes large enough to allow of the passage of a man through the pipes which join the main sewers; but, as a set-off to that, there is a chimney—the ancient chimney of Marie Antoinette—which communicates with the Dépôt, and the roof I am now on: it must have been by this chimney that the escape was made! Let us see whether this is so or not!"
By the light of his tiny dark lantern Fandor studied afresh the plan of the Palais, and tried to identify the various chimneys about him. He soon picked out the orifice of Marie Antoinette's chimney. After a considering glance at it, he remarked:
"That's odd! Here is the only chimney whose opening is below the ledge of the roofs! It is certain that unless one had been warned, and had examined this roof from some neighbouring building, the orifice of this chimney would not be noticed. If Jacques Dollon passed out by it, no one would notice his exit!"
Our journalist continued his examination, full of excitement. Surely he was on the right track!
"Ah! Ah! Here are stones freshly scraped and scratched!" he cried delightedly. "And this white mark is just the kind of mark which would be made by a cord scraping against the wall! And look what a size this chimney is! It's not only one Jacques Dollon who could pass out by it, but two! But three! A whole army! Ah, ha, I believe I am on the right track! Now for it!"
Fandor bent over and looked down the interior of the chimney; and, at the risk of toppling over, he managed to reach something he saw shining in the darkness of the opening; he drew himself up, radiant:
"By Jove! There are irons fixed in the walls of the chimney to climb up and down by; and, what is more, they bear traces of a recent passage—the rust has been rubbed off here and there! … Yes, it is by this way Dollon has come out! … To whom else could it be an advantage to use this as an exit from the interior of the Palais, on to the roofs?"
Fandor was keen on the scent! Here, indeed, was matter for an article which would bring him into notice—good business for a journalist!
"If Dollon had been alive," reflected Fandor, "it is evident that, once on the roofs, he had a choice of three ways to escape: he could do what I have just done, but the other way about; he could break a skylight, jump into a garret, and lie hidden under the tiles, awaiting the propitious moment when he could gain the corridors below and, mingling with the crowd, slip unobserved into the street; or, he could hide among the roofs, and stay there; or, he could search for an opening—one of those air holes which put the cellars and drains in communication with the exterior. … But I have come to the conclusion that Dollon is dead! Then his corpse could only remain up here; or, it has been put down into some place where nobody goes. The garrets of the Palais are so incessantly visited by the clerks and registrars that no corpse could remain undiscovered in any of them. Therefore, either Jacques Dollon's corpse is somewhere on the roofs of the Palais, or there is some sort of communication between the roofs and the drains—it is obvious!"
Evidently the next step was to search every hole and corner of these same roofs. Armed with revolver and lantern, Fandor started on his tour of investigation; but prudently, for he was now almost certain that there were a number of accomplices involved in this Dollon affair.
To go carefully over the enormous roof of the Palais de Justice was no light task! One has only to consider the immensity of this monumental pile, its complicated architecture, the numberless little courts enclosed within its vast confines, to understand the difficulties with which our intrepid journalist had to contend. But Jérôme Fandor was not the man to be discouraged in the face of difficulties: he was determined to brave them—conquer them! He examined, minutely, the entire roofing of the Palais; he did not leave a corner or a morsel of shadow unexplored; there was not a gutter which he had not searched from end to end. When, after two hours of strenuous exertion, he returned to his starting-point, the chimney of Marie Antoinette, he was fain to confess that if Jacques Dollon had mounted to the roof of the Palais de Justice he certainly had not remained there.
Fandor unfolded his plan once more. It fluttered in the night breeze, as he carefully numbered all the chimneys opening on to this roof; then, one by one, he identified them with the real chimneys before his eyes. He exclaimed joyfully:
"There, now! It's just what I suspected!"
He had discovered there was one chimney not down on the plan: "Whither did it lead?" At all costs he must find out—make sure. He hastened to this extra chimney. Its orifice was large enough to allow of the passage of a man; also, here again, stones had been recently loosened, and a rope had rubbed against them:
"What the deuce is this chimney?" thought Fandor. "Another mystery! This chimney is not a chimney; there is not a trace of soot on it, even old soot!"
After a moment's reflection, he added:
"Can it be for ventilation only? But a ventilation hole could only communicate with one of the apartments in the Palais itself, and how the deuce could they drop a corpse down there? It would have been in the highest degree imprudent to attempt it! No, it is not by that road they have carried off Dollon's body! But then by what way?"
He glued his ear to the chimney. After a while, Fandor could make out a vague, intermittent sound—could catch a little, far-away, plashing sound.
"Can the chimney communicate with the Seine?" he asked himself. "No, we are too far off it. Why this opening, then? … Ah, I have it! It is a drain, a sewer, it communicates with!"
To verify that, there was nothing for it but to descend this chimney, which was no chimney! So be it! … Fandor took off his coat, and uncovered the long, fine cord, rolled round and round his middle. Weighting the cord with a flint, he let it slide down the chimney, testing the straightness of the descent by the balanced oscillations of the stone, and so ascertaining the even size of the opening, as far as the line would go. This was the work of a few minutes.
Fandor did not hesitate: he was eager to embark on the descent.
"After all," he murmured, "though I may find myself face to face with a band of assassins—what of it? It is all in the night's risks!"
He fastened the end of the cord to one of the neighbouring chimneys—fastened it firmly; then, his revolver handily stuck in his belt, Fandor seized the cord, twisted it round his legs, and let himself slowly down through the narrow opening.
It was a perilous descent! Fandor did not know whether his cord was long enough, and, lost in the darkness, with only the gleam of light from his lantern to guide him, he was naturally afraid of reaching the end of his rope unawares, and of falling into the black void beneath. But what he observed in the course of his descent excited him so much that he almost forgot the danger he was running. To those at all practised in police detective work, it was clear as daylight that men had passed this way, and recently.
"Here is a dislodged stone," muttered Fandor. "And here are scrapes and scratches—fresh … and … that mark looks like blood!"
Pushing his knees and his shoulders against the wall to support himself and stay his movements, he examined the mark. There was no doubt possible: Fandor's sharp eyes and the lantern's light had picked out a little red patch, which sullied one of the projecting stones in the chimney walls:
"This," reflected our amateur detective, "only confirms Dollon's death: if the wound which caused this mark had been made by a living body, the mark would have been larger, and there would have been others, for it must come from an abrasion of the skin made during the descent. But this blood mark has resulted from a dead body knocking against the stones of the wall: it is not a mark make by flowing blood, but by blood crushed out."
He descended a few yards further:
"Here's a find!" he cried. He had just perceived some hairs sticking to the rough surface of the stones. Again, with arched shoulders and bent knees, he supported himself against the wall, examined his discovery, left half the hairs where they were, took the rest, and carefully placed them in his pocket-book: