"I don't think so," one of them said; "I should certainly have noticed that Scotch rug; but I did not see it." "Then there was a fourth passenger in this compartment?" the official enquired. "No, we travelled alone," said one of the men, but the other dissented. "It is very odd, and I am not sure about it, but I really am wondering whether someone did not get into our compartment last night while we were asleep. I have a vague impression that someone did, but I can't be sure." "Do try to remember, sir," the official urged him; "it is of the very highest importance." But the passenger shook his shoulders doubtfully. "No, I really can't say anything definite; and, besides, I have a shocking headache." The official was silent for a minute or two. "In my opinion, gentlemen, you have been uncommonly lucky to escape murder yourselves. I do not quite understand yet how the murder was done, but I incline to think it proves almost incredible daring. However----" He stopped and put his head out of the window. "You can send the train on now," he called to a porter, and resumed: "However, I must ask you to accompany me to the stationmaster's office and give me your names and addresses, and to help me afterwards in the conduct of the legal investigation." The two travellers looked at one another in distressed surprise. "It is really appalling," said one of them; "you're not safe anywhere nowadays." "You really aren't," the other agreed. "Such a number of awful murders and crimes are being perpetrated every day that you would think not one, but a dozen Fantômas were at work!" XXVII. THREE SURPRISING INCIDENTS Nibet went off duty at five in the morning, and returned to his own home to go to bed. As a general rule he slept like a top, after a night on duty, but on this occasion he could not close an eye, being far too uneasy about the consequences of his co-operation in Gurn's escape. A few minutes before six in the evening he had taken advantage of no warders being about to slip Gurn from cell number 127 into number 129, whence he could make his way to the roof. At six, when he actually came on duty, Nibet opened the peephole in the door of number 127, as he did in all the others, and saw that Gurn had made an admirable dummy figure in the bed: it was so good that it even deceived a head warder who made a single rapid inspection of all the cells when Nibet was on one of his several rounds during the night. Obviously Gurn must have got clear away from the prison, for if he had been caught it would certainly have become generally known.