"But, Monsieur le Préfet, as Don Luis said"
"That will do, I say!" repeated the Prefect harshly. "If you're afraid, you can take advantage of the order which I gave you and go off after Don Luis."
Mazeroux clicked his heels together and, old soldier that he was, saluted:
"I shall stay here, Monsieur le Préfet."
And he turned and went back to his place at a distance.
Silence followed. M. Desmalions began to walk up and down the room, with his hands behind his back. Then, addressing the chief detective and the secretary general:
"You are of my opinion, I hope?" he said.
"Why, yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Well, of course! To begin with, that supposition is based on nothing serious. And, besides, we are guarded, aren't we? Bombs don't come tumbling on one's head like that. It takes some one to throw them. Well, how are they to come? By what way?"
"Same way as the letters," the secretary general ventured to suggest.
"What's that? Then you admit?"
The secretary general did not reply and M. Desmalions did not complete his sentence. He himself, like the others, experienced that same feeling of uneasiness which gradually, as the seconds sped past, was becoming almost intolerably painful.
Three o'clock in the morning!… The words kept on recurring to his mind. Twice he looked at his watch. There was twelve minutes left. There was ten minutes. Was the house really going to be blown
