Lord Tony's Wife: An Adventure of the Scarlet Pimpernel

One of the red-capped men looked up leisurely.

"Your desire, citizen?" he queried with insolent deliberation, for they were mighty men, this bodyguard of the great proconsul, his spies and tools in the awesome work of frightfulness which he carried on so ruthlessly.

"Is that you Paul Friche?" queried Martin-Roget in response.

"At your service, citizen," came the glib reply, delivered not without mock deference.

"Then come up here. I wish to speak with you."

"I can't leave my post, nor can my mates," retorted the man who had answered to the name of Paul Friche. "Come down, citizen, an you desire to speak with us."

Martin-Roget swore lustily.

"The insolence of that rabble …" he murmured.

"Hush! I'll go," interposed Chauvelin quickly. "Do you know that man Friche? Is he trustworthy?"

"Yes, I know him. As for being trustworthy …" added Martin-Roget with a shrug of the shoulders. "He is a corporal in the Marats and high in favour with commandant Fleury."

Every second was of value, and Chauvelin was not the man to waste time in useless parleyings. He ran down the stairs at the foot of which one of the red-capped gentry deigned to speak with him.

"Have you seen any strangers across the Place just now?" he queried in a whisper.

"Yes," replied the man Friche. "Two!"

Then he spat upon the ground and added spitefully: "Aristos, what? In fine clothes – like yourself, citizen…"

"Which way did they go?"

"Down the Ruelle des Jacobins."

"When?"

"Two minutes ago."

"Why did you not follow them?.. Aristos and…"

"I would have followed," retorted Paul Friche with studied insolence; "'twas you called me away from my duty."

"After them then!" urged Chauvelin peremptorily. "They cannot have gone far. They are English spies, and remember, citizen, that there's a reward for their apprehension."

The man grunted an eager assent. The word "reward" had fired his zeal. In a trice he had called to his mates and the three Marats soon sped across the Place and down the Ruelle des Jacobins where the surrounding gloom quickly swallowed them up.

Chauvelin watched them till they were out of sight, then he rejoined his colleague on the landing at the top of the stairs. For a second or two longer the click of the men's sabots upon the stones resounded on the adjoining streets and across the Place, and suddenly that same quaint, merry, somewhat inane laugh woke the echoes of the grim buildings around and caused many a head to turn inquiringly, marvelling who it could be that had the heart to laugh these days in the streets of Nantes.

V

Five minutes or so later the three Marats could vaguely be seen recrossing the Place and making their way back to Le Bouffay, where Martin-Roget and Chauvelin still stood on the top of the stairs excited and expectant. At sight of the men Chauvelin ran down the steps to meet them.

"Well?" he queried in an eager whisper.

"We never saw them," replied Paul Friche gruffly, "though we could hear them clearly enough, talking, laughing and walking very rapidly toward the quay. Then suddenly the earth or the river swallowed them up. We saw and heard nothing more."

Chauvelin swore and a curious hissing sound escaped his thin lips.

"Don't be too disappointed, citizen," added the man with a coarse laugh, "my mate picked this up at the corner of the Ruelle, when, I fancy, we were pressing the aristos pretty closely."

He held out a small bundle of papers tied together with a piece of red ribbon: the bundle had evidently rolled in the mud, for the papers were covered with grime. Chauvelin's thin, claw-like fingers had at once closed over them.

"You must give me back those papers, citizen," said the man, "they are my booty. I can only give them up to citizen-captain Fleury."

"I'll give them to the citizen-captain myself," retorted Chauvelin. "For the moment you had best not leave your post of duty," he added more peremptorily, seeing that the man made as he would follow him.

"I take orders from no one except …" protested the man gruffly.

"You will take them from me now," broke in Chauvelin with a sudden assumption of command and authority which sat with weird strangeness upon his thin shrunken figure. "Go back to your post at once, ere I lodge a complaint against you for neglect of duty, with the citizen proconsul."

He turned on his heel and, without paying further heed to the man and his mutterings, he remounted the stone stairs.

"No success, I suppose?" queried Martin-Roget.

"None," replied Chauvelin curtly.

He had the packet of papers tightly clasped in his hand. He was debating in his mind whether he would speak of them to his colleague or not.

"What did Friche say?" asked the latter impatiently.

"Oh! very little. He and his mates caught sight of the strangers and followed them as far as the quays. But they were walking very fast and suddenly the Marats lost their trace in the darkness. It seemed, according to Paul Friche, as if the earth or the night had swallowed them up."

"And was that all?"

"Yes. That was all."

"I wonder," added Martin-Roget with a light laugh and a careless shrug of his wide shoulders, "I wonder if you and I, citizen Chauvelin – and Paul Friche too for that matter – have been the victims of our nerves."

"I wonder," assented Chauvelin drily. And – quite quietly – he slipped the packet of papers in the pocket of his coat.

"Then we may as well adjourn. There is nothing else you wish to say to me about that enigmatic Scarlet Pimpernel of yours?"

"No – nothing."

"And you still would like to hear what the Kernogan wench will say and see how she will look when I put my final proposal before her?"

"If you will allow me."

"Then come," said Martin-Roget. "My sister's house is close by."

CHAPTER III