"What does it matter!”
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“Listen.  Someone is coming up the stairs,” whispered Matrena, with her keen ear, and she slipped from the restraint of her husband.

Breathless, they all hurried to the door opening on the landing, but with steps as light “as though they walked on eggs.”  All four of them were leaning over there close by the door, hardly daring to breathe.  They heard two men on the stairs.  Were they Koupriane and Rouletabille, or were they the others?  They had revolvers in their hands and drew back a little when the footsteps sounded near the door.  Behind them Trebassof was quietly seated in his chair.  The door was opened and Koupriane and Rouletabille perceived these death-like figures, motionless and mute.  No one dared to speak or make a movement until the door had been closed.  But then: 

“Well?  Well?  Save us!  Where are they?  Ah, my dear little domovoi-doukh, save the general, for the love of the Virgin!”

“Tsst! tsst!  Silence.”

Rouletabille, very pale, but calm, spoke: 

“The plan is simple.  They are between the two staircases, watching the one and the other.  I will go and find them and make them mount the one while you descend by the other.”

“Caracho!  That is simple enough.  Why didn’t we think of it sooner?  Because everybody lost his head except the dear little domovoi-doukh!”

But here something happened Rouletabille had not counted on.  The general rose and said, “You have forgotten one thing, my young friend; that is that General Trebassof will not descend by the servants’ stairway.”

His friends looked at him in stupefaction, and asked if he had gone mad.

“What is this you say, Feodor?” implored Matrena.

“I say,” insisted the general, “that I have had enough of this comedy, and that since Monsieur Koupriane has not been able to arrest these men, and since, on their side, they don’t seem to decide to do their duty, I shall go myself and put them out of my house.”

He started a few steps, but had not his cane and suddenly he tottered.  Matrena Petrovna jumped to him and lifted him in her arms as though he were a feather.

“Not by the servants’ stairway, not by the servants’ stairway,” growled the obstinate general.

“You will go,” Matrena replied to him, “by the way I take you.”

And she carried him back into the apartment while she said quickly to Rouletabille: 

“Go, little domovoi!  And God protect us!”

Rouletabille disappeared at once through the door to the main staircase, and the group attended by Koupriane, passed through the dressing-room and the general’s chamber, Matrena Petrovna in the lead with her precious burden.  Ivan Petrovitch had his hand already on the famous bolt which locked the door to the servants’ staircase when they all turned at the sound of a quick step behind them.  Rouletabille had returned.