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Unit 9: The Traveller's Story of a Terribly Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins

almost certain destruction! Next, I looked round at the sides of the house. Down the left side ran Notes
a thick water pipe, which you have drawn—it passed close by the outer edge of the window.
The moment I saw the pipe I knew I was saved. My breath came and went freely for the first time
since I had seen the canopy of the bed moving down upon me!
To some men the means of escape, which I had discovered, might have seemed difficult and
dangerous enough—to me the prospect of slipping down the pipe into the street did not suggest
even a thought of peril. I had always been accustomed, by the practice of gymnastics, to keep up
my pupil powers as a daring and expert climber; and knew that my head, hands, and feet would
serve me faithfully in any hazards of ascent or descent. I already had one leg over the windowsill,
when I remembered the handkerchief filled with money under my pillow. I could well have
afforded to leave it behind me, but I was revengefully determined that the miscreants of the
gambling-house should miss their plunder as well as their victim. Therefore, I went back to the
bed and tied the heavy handkerchief at my back by my cravat.

Just as I had made it tight and fixed it in a comfortable place, I thought I heard a sound of
breathing outside the door. The chill feeling of horror ran through me again as I listened. No!
Dead silence still in the passage—I had only heard the night air blowing softly into the room.
The next moment I was on the windowsill—and the next, I had a firm grip on the water pipe with
my hands and knees.
I slid down into the street easily and quietly, as I thought I should, and immediately set off at the
top of my speed to a branch “Prefecture” of Police, which I knew was situated in the immediate
neighbourhood. A “Sub-prefect,” and several picked men among his subordinates, happened to
be up, maturing, I believe, some scheme for discovering the perpetrator of a mysterious murder,
which all Paris was talking of just then. When I began my story, in a breathless hurry and in very
bad French, I could see that the Sub-prefect suspected me of being a drunken Englishman who
had robbed somebody; but he soon altered his opinion as I went on, and before I had anything
like concluded, he shoved all the papers before him into a drawer, put on his hat, supplied me
with another (for I was bareheaded), ordered a file of soldiers, desired his expert followers to get
ready all sorts of tools for breaking open doors and ripping up brick flooring, and took my arm,
in the most friendly and familiar manner possible, to lead me with him out of the house. I will
venture to say that when the Sub-prefect was a little boy, and was taken for the first time to the
play, he was not half as much pleased as he was now at the job in prospect for him at the
gambling-house!

Away we went through the streets, the Sub-prefect cross-examining and congratulating me in
the same breath as we marched at the head of our formidable posse comitatus. Sentinels were
placed at the back and front of the house the moment we got to it; a tremendous battery of
knocks was directed against the door; a light appeared at a window; I was told to conceal myself
behind the police—then came more knocks and a cry of “Open in the name of the law!” At that,
terrible summons bolts and locks gave way before an invisible hand, and the moment after the
Sub-prefect was in the passage, confronting a waiter half-dressed and ghastly pale. This was the
short dialogue, which immediately took place: “We want to see the Englishman who is sleeping
in this house?”
“He went away hours ago.”
“He did no such thing. His friend went away; he remained. Show us to his bedroom!”
“I swear to you, Monsieur le Sous-prefect, he is not here! He—”

“I swear to you, Monsieur le Garcon, he is. He slept here—he didn’t find your bed comfortable—
he came to us to complain of it—here he is among my men—and here am I ready to look for a
flea or two in his bedstead. Renaudin! (calling to one of the subordinates, and pointing to the
waiter) collar that man and tie his hands behind him. Now, then, gentlemen, let us walk upstairs!”

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