A few minutes later the steamer slipped her moorings and slowly steamed down the Gironde. All the officers were on the look-out for the missing man, and the ship was searched from stem to stern. At length they got information that a Gascon peasant had been seen entering one of the third-class cabins. The chef de police and Riche rushed to the cabin indicated and tried to open the door, but they found it locked and bolted. Riche stood by the door, while Monsieur Patrigent returned with a couple of loaded revolvers and an axe. Handing one of the pistols to Riche, he burst in the panels of the door with three or four furious blows of his axe. "At last we have got you, monsieur," said the police officer as he pulled out of his pockets a pair of handcuffs, and struggled to get through the broken door. The peasant uttered a wild cry of mocking laughter. "Ha, ha! I will defeat you yet," he shouted, "I shall never let you take me alive," and taking out a small phial he drank its contents to the last drop. The chef de police and one of the sailors burst in and seized the man, while Riche tore off his wig and beard. There stood Pierre with a wild look in his eyes, but before they could pinion him, he cried out, "Tell Professor Delapine the drug I swallowed was meant for him." He suddenly became short of breath, and reeled like a drunken man, and with a last shriek he burst from their grasp, and throwing up his hands, fell down on the floor of the cabin foaming at the mouth. The chef de police and Riche stooped down and raised him up, but it was too late,--he was dead. M. Patrigent had the body sewn up in a sack, and dropped it into the pilot's boat at the mouth of the river, while he and Riche followed immediately afterwards. Some hours later they returned to Bordeaux where the body was identified as that of Pierre Gaston Duval. The day following it was interred in a nameless grave in the cemetery at Bordeaux by permission of the authorities at M. Payot's special request. CHAPTER XXVII IN WHICH DELAPINE FINDS HIMSELF FAMOUS, AND THE PARTY BREAKS UP WITH THE HAPPIEST RESULTS The evening after the departure of Monsieur Patrigent and Riche for Bordeaux, Delapine and his party left for Paris. The professor had already telegraphed to his colleagues at the Sorbonne informing them of the time of his arrival, but his modesty was such that it never occurred to him that anyone would ever take the trouble to meet him. Imagine, therefore, his astonishment as the train steamed into the station to hear a tumultuous hum proceeding from a thousand throats, and to find the entire Gare de Lyon decorated with flowers and flags. "What on earth is this huge crowd here for?" he asked Villebois as he looked out of the window.