window-shutter was barred. He must have let himself out, and, locking
the door on the outside, put the key in his pocket, and so made his way
out of the house. Here, however, was another difficulty: the Dragon
Volant shut its doors and made all fast at twelve o'clock; after that
hour no one could leave the house, except by obtaining the key and
letting himself out, and of necessity leaving the door unsecured, or
else by collusion and aid of some person in the house.

"Now it happened that, some time after the doors were secured, at
half-past twelve, a servant who had not been apprised of his order to be
left undisturbed, seeing a light shine through the key-hole, knocked at
the door to inquire whether the poet wanted anything. He was very little
obliged to his disturber, and dismissed him with a renewed charge that
he was not to be interrupted again during the night. This incident
established the fact that he was in the house after the doors had been
locked and barred. The inn-keeper himself kept the keys, and swore that
he found them hung on the wall above his head, in his bed, in their
usual place, in the morning; and that nobody could have taken them away
without awakening him. That was all we could discover. The Count de St.
Alyre, to whom this house belongs, was very active and very much
chagrined. But nothing was discovered."

"And nothing heard since of the epic poet?" I asked.

"Nothing--not the slightest clue--he never turned up again. I suppose he
is dead; if he is not, he must have got into some devilish bad scrape,
of which we have heard nothing, that compelled him to abscond with all
the secrecy and expedition in his power. All that we know for certain is
that, having occupied the room in which you sleep, he vanished, nobody
ever knew how, and never was heard of since."