He followed, and saw him enter the house of M. Rigal. Two women were gossiping near the door, and Andre heard one of them say,-- “That is the young fellow who is going to marry Flavia, the banker’s daughter.” Paul, therefore, was to marry the daughter of the chief of the gang. Should he tell Lecoq this? But, of course, the detective knew it. Time was passing, and Andre felt that he had but little space to gain the house that Gandelu was building in the Champs Elysees, if he wished to ask hospitality from his friend Vignol. He found all the workmen there, and not one of them recognized him when he asked for Vignol. “He is engaged up there,” said one. “Take the staircase to the left.” The chief part of the ornamental work was in front, and it was there that the little hut which Tantaine had pointed out to Toto Chupin was erected. Vignol was in it, and was utterly surprised when Andre made himself known, for he did not recognize him under his strange disguise. “It is nothing,” returned the young man cautiously, as Vignol paused for an explanation; “only a little love affair.” “Do you expect to win a girl’s heart by making such a guy of yourself?” asked his friend with a laugh. “Hush! I will explain matters later on. Can you give me shelter for a night or two?” He stopped himself, turned terribly pale, and listened intently. He fancied he had heard a woman’s scream, and his own name uttered. “Andre, it is I--your Sabine; help!” Quick as lightning Andre rushed to the window, opened it, and leaned out to discover from whence those sounds came. The young miscreant, Toto Chupin, had too fatally earned the note with which Tantaine had bribed him. The whole of the front of the window gave way with a loud crash, and Andre was hurled into space. The hut was at least sixty feet from the pavement, and the fall was the more appalling because the body of Andre struck some of the intervening scaffolding first, and thence bounced off, until the unhappy young man fell with a dull thud, bleeding and senseless in the street. Nearly three hundred persons in the Champs Elysees witnessed this hideous sight; for, at Vignol’s cry, every one had stopped, and, frozen with horror, had not missed one detail of the grim tragedy. In an instant a crowd was collected round the poor, inert mass of humanity which lay motionless in a pool of blood. But two workmen, roused by Vignol’s shrieks, were soon on the spot, and pushed their way through the crowd of persons who were gazing with a morbid curiosity on the man who had fallen from a height of sixty feet. Andre gave no sign of life. His face was dreadfully bruised, his eyes were closed, and a stream of blood poured from his mouth, as Vignol raised his friend’s head upon his knee. “He is dead!” cried the lookers on. “No one could survive such a fall.” “Let us take him to the Hospital Beaujon!” exclaimed Vignol. “We are close by there.”