And she briefly and rapidly recited her adventures, at the end triumphantly exhibiting the bit of iron pipe with which she had opened communication.
He snatched it from her hand excitedly and held it an instant apart from his candle.
"A thousand thunders!" he gasped, at the same time handling the thing gingerly and looking for a place to lay it down.
"It is a dynamite bomb!" he said, hoarsely.
She turned as white as a sheet and staggered backward only to come in contact with one of the boxes on the floor. She recoiled from this as if she had been threatened by a snake. Mlle. Fouchette was quite feminine. A mouse now would have scared her into convulsions.
"Where did you get this, petite?" he asked. "It is death,--a horrible death!"
She pointed to the boxes, unable to speak.
"Dynamite bombs! cartridges! powder and ball!" he declared, as he casually examined the nearest. "It is a real arsenal!"
"Come, Jean! Let us go!" said the girl, seizing him. "It is dangerous! Your candle! think! Come!"
She dragged him towards the open door. "Ah! to think I beat upon the wall with that--that----"
"You are right," said he. "The candle is dangerous. I will get my bicycle-lamp and we will investigate this mystery."
"It is no longer a mystery," she replied,--"not to me. It is the hand of the Duke."
"It is very singular," he muttered. "Very curious."
"It is a fairy romance," said she, as they passed back through the narrow opening to Jean's appartement.
"There is no fairy story about that dynamite,--that, at least, is both practical and modern."
"Oh! I mean this secret passage and all that----"
"Yes; but don't you know, mon enfant, that I first thought it led to--to your----"
"I don't know," said he, shaking his head smilingly. "Monsieur de Beauchamp was a very handsome man."
"Yes, besides being an ardent servant of the Duc d'Orléans and an artist collector of pictures and bric-à-brac----"
"Especially 'bric-à-brac,'" said Jean, with sarcasm.
"That I was unjust to you, yes; pardon me! You could know very little of Beauchamp, since he was able to collect all of this bric-à-brac under your nose."
Mlle. Fouchette reddened, thinking, nervously, of what Inspector Loup would say on that head. Jean saw this color and changed the conversation.