The Count of Monte Cristo

The Gendarme Trap

Andrea is woken at 7 a.m. by warm sunlight playing on his face, and immediately remembers he has overslept. When he looks out the window, he sees a gendarme crossing the courtyard, then a second gendarme guarding the only staircase leading to his floor, and a third gendarme on horseback blocking the inn’s main street entrance, with a crowd of curious onlookers gathered around the officer. Realizing the authorities are there for him, Andrea panics briefly before spotting a pen, ink, and paper on the fireplace mantel.

Chimney Escape

Andrea writes a brief note explaining he has no money to pay his bill but is not dishonest, leaving a valuable pin worth ten times the cost of his stay as collateral, and stating he left at daybreak out of shame. He leaves the note and pin on the table, leaves his door ajar to feign a hasty, careless departure, then climbs into the inn’s chimney, replacing the decorative chimney board (depicting Achilles and Deidamia) and erasing all traces of his passage from the ash before ascending the hollow flue to escape.

The Police Discovery

The commissary of police and gendarme brigadier arrive at Andrea’s room in response to a nationwide telegraph alert for Caderousse’s murderer, as Compiègne is a well-staffed fortified town that acted on the alert immediately, and the Bell and Bottle is the town’s best-known inn. A sentinel from the nearby Hôtel de Ville had reported a young man arriving on horseback with a small boy at 4 a.m., matching Andrea’s description, so the officers came directly to his room. They find the door ajar, and the note and pin on the table confirm Andrea has fled. The experienced brigadier searches the room thoroughly before stopping at the chimney: though Andrea erased his footprints from the ash, the chimney is a clear potential exit, and the officers begin investigating the flue to pursue him.