I have been watching him, and had I not knocked him down he would have thrown himself head-foremost off the gallery and broken his neck." The explanation seemed natural, and all were too interested in what was passing in the hall below to pay further attention to so trivial an incident.

It was well that Harry had caught sight of the prisoner before Victor did so and was prepared for the out-break, for it was the Duc de Gisons who had thus been led in to murder.
Harry dragged Victor back against the wall behind and then tried to lift him.
"I will lend you a hand," a tall man in the dress of a mechanic, who had been standing next to him, said, and, lifting Victor's body on to his shoulder, made his way to the top of the stairs, Harry preceding him and opening a way through the crowd.

In another minute they were in the open air.
"Thank you greatly," Harry said.

"I do not know how I should have managed without your aid.

If you put him down here I will try and bring him round." "I live not far from here," the man said.