The Phantom of Rue Royale Read Online Free PDF Page A

the attic. It resisted their efforts. The evidence was incontrovertible : it had been locked from the other side.
    ‘What are we going to do?’ Semacgus asked. ‘It’s well known that you can climb walls like a cat, but don’t count on me to follow you.’
    ‘Don’t worry, I don’t think I’d be able to get down the wall except with a rope. But I have other strings to my bow.’
    He searched in his pocket and took out a small instrument equipped with several blades. He introduced one into the lock and tried to move the bolt, but it hit an obstacle. He kicked the door frame angrily, then stopped for a moment to think.
    ‘If that’s how it is, I’ll have to use the chimney – there’s no other way out. But there, too, I’d need a rope. Let’s have a look all the same.’
    They went back up onto the roof and Nicolas climbed a castiron ladder to the top of one of the monumental stone chimneys. He struck a light and, with a sheet from his notebook, made a small torch which he dropped into the void. The shaft descended vertically and then seemed to become almost horizontal.
    ‘There are clamps in the stone; I’m going down. At worst, if I can’t get through, I’ll come back up. Guillaume, you stay here.’
    ‘What else could I do? My paunch wouldn’t let me get down that thing.’
    The noise rising from the square was increasingly punctuated by cries and moans. Nicolas quickly took off his coat and shoes.
    ‘I don’t want to get snagged. Keep these. It makes me sick to feel so powerless with all that’s happening down there …’
    Before giving his coat to Semacgus, he took from the pocket – the surgeon, wondering what on earth would come out next, was greatly amused – a short candle, which he placed between his teeth. The clamps, put there to help the work of the chimney sweeps, made the descent easy enough, but Nicolas thought anxiously of what lay ahead. He was no longer a child, but a man in his thirties, and with quite a full figure. Catherine and Marion’s cooking had left its mark, as had the meals in taverns with his deputy, Bourdeau, who like him loved good, cheap food. Hereached the bottom of the shaft. There were two pipes to choose from, the opening of one hidden inside the entrance to the other. He chose to take the less steep of the two, judging that it would take him to one of the fireplaces on the upper floors of the building. Unable to hold the candle in his hand, he lit it and fixed it between one of the clamps and the wall. He would have to plunge blindly into the darkness.
    The risk of getting stuck in the narrow passage made him sick with apprehension. It suddenly occurred to him that the folds of his shirt might hinder his progress, and he took it off. From somewhere above his head, Semacgus was dispensing advice in a voice ashen with anxiety, which echoed down to him, distorted. He caught his breath and thrust his legs forward. He felt as though he were sliding into some kind of greasy material, and for a moment he lost all notion of time and space, before making a painful return to reality. Too bulky for the space, he had got stuck and could descend no further. For several minutes he stretched like a cat, lifting first one shoulder then the other. He remembered the grotesque movements of a contortionist he had seen at the last Saint-Germain fair. At last he managed to force his way through and continue his descent. He felt as if he were being sucked down into a vacuum. Almost immediately, he fell onto a pyramid of logs in a huge fireplace. The pyramid collapsed noisily under his weight, and his head hit a bronze plaque which bore the arms of France. He was surprised not to be knocked senseless. He got up carefully and checked the condition of his joints. Apart from a few grazes, he was unharmed. He looked at himself in a huge pier glass crowned with floral decorations in stucco: a stranger, black with soot, face like a scarecrow’s, britches torn and tattered. Hewalked across