The stage-manager’s voice echoed through the cellars. But Mauclair did not reply.
I have said that a door opened on a little staircase that led to the second cellar. The commissary pushed it, but it resisted.
“I say,” he said to the stage-manager, “I can’t open this door: is it always so difficult?”
The stage-manager forced it open with his shoulder. He saw that, at the same time, he was pushing a human body and he could not keep back an exclamation, for he recognized the body at once:
“Mauclair! Poor devil! He is dead!”
But Mr. Commissary Mifroid, whom nothing surprised, was stooping over that big body.
“No,” he said, “he is dead-drunk, which is not quite the same thing.”
“It’s the first time, if so,” said the stage-manager.
“Then someone has given him a narcotic. That is quite possible.”
Mifroid went down a few steps and said:
“Look!”
By the light of a little red lantern, at the foot of the stairs, they saw two other bodies. The stage-manager recognized Mauclair’s assistants. Mifroid went down and listened to their breathing.
“They are sound asleep,” he said. “Very curious business! Some person unknown must have interfered with the gasman and his staff … and that person unknown was obviously working on behalf of the kidnapper. …