The Prefect stared at that terrifying barrel levelled at his face and gave himself up for lost.  But, at that exact second, a shot was discharged from behind him, Sauverand’s weapon fell from his hand before he was able to fire, and the Prefect saw, as in a dream, a man, the man who had saved his life, striding across the chief inspector’s body, propping Mazeroux against the wall, and darting ahead, followed by the detectives.  He recognized the man:  it was Don Luis Perenna.

Don Luis stepped briskly into the garret where Sauverand had retreated, but had time only to catch sight of him standing on the window ledge and leaping into space from the third floor.

“Has he jumped from there?” cried the Prefect, hastening up.  “We shall never capture him alive!”

“Neither alive nor dead, Monsieur le Prefet.  See, he’s picking himself up.  There’s a providence which looks after that sort.  He’s making for the gate.  He’s hardly limping.”

“But where are my men?”

“Why, they’re all on the staircase, in the house, brought here by the shots, seeing to the wounded—­”

“Oh, the demon!” muttered the Prefect.  “He’s played a masterly game!”

Gaston Sauverand, in fact, was escaping unmolested.

“Stop him!  Stop him!” roared M. Desmalions.

There were two motors standing beside the pavement, which is very wide at this spot:  the Prefect’s own car, and the cab which the deputy chief had provided for the prisoner.  The two chauffeurs, sitting on their seats, had noticed nothing of the fight.  But they saw Gaston Sauverand’s leap into space; and the Prefect’s chauffeur, on whose seat a certain number of incriminating articles had been placed, taking out of the heap the first weapon that offered, the ebony walking-stick, bravely rushed at the fugitive.

“Stop him!  Stop him!” shouted M. Desmalions.

The encounter took place at the exit from the courtyard.  It did not last long.  Sauverand flung himself upon his assailant, snatched the stick from him, and broke it across his face.  Then, without dropping the handle, he ran away, pursued by the other chauffeur and by three detectives who at last appeared from the house.  He had thirty yards’ start of the detectives, one of whom fired several shots at him without effect.

When M. Desmalions and Weber went downstairs again, they found the chief inspector lying on the bed in Gaston Sauverand’s room on the second floor, gray in the face.  He had been hit on the head and was dying.  A few minutes later he was dead.

Sergeant Mazeroux, whose wound was only slight, said, while it was being dressed, that Sauverand had taken the chief inspector and himself up to the garret, and that, outside the door, he had dipped his hand quickly into an old satchel hanging on the wall among some servants’ wornout aprons and jackets.  He drew out a revolver and fired point-blank at the chief inspector, who dropped like a log.  When seized by Mazeroux, the murderer released himself and fired three bullets, the third of which hit the sergeant in the shoulder.