“Someone’s there!” hissed Cranajour, who was all on the alert, as he had been in his attic, watching the shadow and its vagaries on the roofs of the Palais de Justice.

Nibet nodded.

The light from a dark lantern gleamed on the damp, slimy walls of the subterranean passageway.

“Come inside,” murmured Nibet, in an almost inaudible voice; and, with infinite precaution, he eased shut the massive portal between the cellar and the sewerway.

In safe hiding the two men could watch the approaching intruder: they had extinguished their lantern, and were peering through the badly joined wood of the solid door. Friend or foe? An individual moved into view. The reflected light of his lantern lit up the vaulting of the sewer-way, and showed up his face. The man was young, fair, wore a small moustache.,

Hardly had he passed the cellar door when Nibet gripped Cranajour’s arm and growled – intense rage was expressed in his grip and tone – “It’s him! Again! The journalist of the Dollon affair, of the Dépôt business, that Jérôme Fandor! Ah... This time we’ll see!...” Nibet’s hand plunged into his trouser pocket.

Cranajour was eagerly watching the warder’s every movement: he heard the sharp snap of a switchblade – a long sharp glittering knife – a deadly weapon!

Caution aside, Nibet had opened the door, and dragging Cranajour in his wake had rushed into the sewer-way, hard on the heels of the journalist, who was slowly going in the direction of the Seine. Nibet ground his teeth. “I’ve had enough of that bastard! Always on our track! Too good a chance to miss! I’m going to make a hole in his hide for him!”

In the twilight of early dawn, which penetrated the sewer near the outlet, Cranajour shuddered.

With stealthy step the two men drew near the journalist. Fandor walked on unsuspectingly at a slow regular pace, his head lowered. The two assassins came up to within a yard of him. Noiselessly, savagely determined, Nibet lifted his arm for a murderous thrust. At this precise moment Fandor stopped at the verge of the exit, by which the sewer discharged its bilious burden steeply into the Seine. Yet a moment: Nibet’s knife was poised for the rapid and terrible stroke; it was about to bury itself in the neck of the journalist up to the hilt, when Cranajour lifted his foot, as if inspired by an idea on the spur of the moment, and gave the journalist a violent kick in the lower part of the back, sending him flying into space!

They heard his body fall heavily into the Seine... So violent and sudden had been Cranajour’s movement that Nibet stood dumb-founded, arm in the air, staring at the imbecile:

“Fool!” he yelled.

Cranajour smiled his most idiotic smile, nodded, but did not utter one word…