Page:The Mystery of Madeline Le Blanc (1900).djvu/74

74 kind of excitement burned in nearly every Frenchman's breast. The five police who proceeded by separate paths to the old stone house at nine o'clock that night, were anxious, therefore, to satisfy a little of their aroused spirit by the adventure which the present expedition afforded. The night was favorable. Though somewhat misty, it was not as dark as the night before.

At half-past nine the officer in citizen's dress crept up the valley from the north, and crawling through the wild hedges, descended into the hole of the cellar window. By ten o'clock the other officers lay behind thick shrubbery on every side of the house. It was their plan that no one should be permitted to leave the house, and the entrance of no one was to be impeded. At a low whistle from the officer in the hole, the house was to be entered at every door simultaneously. The signal was to be given sufficiently long after the sound of talking had ceased in the cellar to allow the inmates to retire and fall asleep. So far as the officers lying about the house knew, this might be at any minute. Consuming with im-