Revenge! | Page 9

large windows on each side. As he
came round to the front, his heart almost ceased to beat when a voice
from the café door said--
"What do you want? What are you doing here at this hour?"
The policeman had become so much a part of the pavement in Dupré's
mind that he had actually forgotten the officer was there night and day.
Dupré allowed himself the luxury of one silent gasp, then his heart took
up its work again.
"I was looking for you," he said quietly. By straining his eyes he
noticed at the same moment that the cord dangled about a foot above
the policeman's head, as he stood in the dark doorway.
[Illustration: THE CORD DANGLED ABOUT A FOOT ABOVE THE
POLICEMAN'S HEAD]
"I was looking for you. I suppose you don't know of any--any chemist's
shop open so late as this? I have a raging toothache and can't sleep, and
I want to get something for it."
"Oh, the chemist's at the corner is open all night. Ring the bell at the
right hand."
"I hate to disturb them for such a trifle."
"That's what they're there for," said the officer philosophically.
"Would you mind standing at the other door till I get back? I'll be as
quick as I can. I don't wish to leave it open unprotected, and I don't
want to close it, for the concierge knows I'm in and he is afraid to open

it when any one rings late. You know me, of course; I'm in No. 16."
"Yes, I recognise you now, though I didn't at first. I will stand by the
door until you return."
Dupré went to the corner shop and bought a bottle of toothache drops
from the sleepy youth behind the counter. He roused him up however,
and made him explain how the remedy was to be applied. He thanked
the policeman, closed the door, and went up to his room. A second later
the cord was cut at the window and quietly pulled in.
Dupré sat down and breathed hard for a few moments. "You fool!" he
said to himself; "a mistake or two like that and you are doomed. That's
what comes of thinking too much on one branch of your subject.
Another two feet and the string would have been down on his nose. I
am certain he did not see it; I could hardly see it myself, looking for it.
The guarding of the side door was an inspiration. But I must think well
over every phase of the subject before acting again. This is a lesson."
As he went on with his preparations it astonished him to find how
many various things had to be thought of in connexion with an
apparently simple scheme, the neglect of anyone of which would
endanger the whole enterprise. His plan was a most uncomplicated one.
All he had to do was to tie a canister of dynamite at the end of a string
of suitable length, and at night, before the cafe doors were closed, fling
it from his window so that the package would sweep in by the open
door, strike against the ceiling of the café, and explode. First he thought
of holding the end of the cord in his hand at the open window, but
reflection showed him that if, in the natural excitement of the moment,
he drew back or leant too far forward the package might strike the front
of the house above the door, or perhaps hit the pavement. He therefore
drove a stout nail in the window-sill and attached the end of the cord to
that. Again, he had to render his canister of explosive so sensitive to
any shock that he realised if he tied the cord around it and flung it out
into the night the can might go off when the string was jerked tight and
the explosion take place in mid-air above the street. So he arranged a
spiral spring between can and cord to take up harmlessly the shock
caused by the momentum of the package when the string became

suddenly taut. He saw that the weak part of his project was the fact that
everything would depend on his own nerve and accuracy of aim at the
critical moment, and that a slight miscalculation to the right or to the
left would cause the bomb, when falling down and in, to miss the door
altogether. He would have but one chance, and there was no
opportunity of practising. However, Dupré, who was a philosophical
man, said to himself that if people allowed small technical difficulties
to trouble them too much, nothing really worth doing would be
accomplished in this world. He felt sure he was going to make some
little mistake