THE CLOSE OF THE SECOND DAY
§1
Soon after seven o'clock that evening the storm which had threatened all
day burst in its full fury. A raging gale tore at the dilapidated roofs
of this squalid corner of the great city, and lashed the mud of the
streets into miniature cascades. Soon the rain fell in torrents; one
clap of thunder followed on another with appalling rapidity, and the
dull, leaden sky was rent with vivid flashes of lightning.
Chauvelin, who had paid his daily visit to the Captain in charge of the
prisoner in the Rue de la Planchette, was unable to proceed homewards.
For the moment the street appeared impassable. Wrapped in his cloak, he
decided to wait in the disused storage-room below until it became
possible for an unfortunate pedestrian to sally forth into the open.
There seems no doubt that at this time the man's very soul was on the
rack. His nerves were stretched to breaking point, not only by incessant
vigilance, the obsession of the one idea, the one aim, but also by
multifarious incidents which his overwrought imagination magnified into
attempts to rob him of his prey.
He trusted no one--not Mother Théot, not the men upstairs, not
Theresia: least of all Theresia. And his tortured brain invented and
elaborated schemes whereby he set one set of spies to watch another, one
set of sleuthhounds to run after another, in a kind of vicious and
demoniac circle of mistrust and denunciation. Nor did he trust himself
any longer: neither his instinct, nor his eyes, nor his ears. His
intimates--and he had a very few of these--said of him at that time
that, if he had his way, he would have had every tatterdemalion in the
city branded, like Rateau, lest they were bribed or tempted into
changing identities with the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Whilst waiting for a lull in the storm, he was pacing up and down the
dank and murky storage house, striving by febrile movements to calm his
nerves. Shivering, despite the closeness of the atmosphere, he kept the
folds of his mantle closely wrapped around his shoulders.
It was impossible to keep the outer doors open, because the rain beat in
wildly on that side, and the place would have been in utter darkness but
for an old grimy lantern which some prudent hand had set up on a barrel
in the centre of the vast space, and which shed a feeble circle of light
around. The latch of the wicket appeared to be broken, for the small
door, driven by the wind, flapped backwards and forwards with irritating
ceaselessness. At one time Chauvelin tried to improvise some means of
fastening it, for the noise helped to exacerbate his nerves and, leaning
out into the street in order to seize hold of the door, he saw the
figure of a man, bent nearly double in the teeth of the gale, shuffling
across the street from the direction of the Porte St. Antoine.
It was then nearly eight o'clock, and the light treacherous, but despite
the veil of torrential rain which intervened between him and that
shuffling figure, something in the gait, the stature, the stoop of the
wide, bony shoulders, appeared unpleasantly familiar. The man's head and
shoulders were wrapped in a tattered piece of sacking, which he held
close to his chest. His arms were bare, as were his shins, and on his
feet he had a pair of sabots stuffed with straw.
Midway across the street he paused, and a tearing fit of coughing seemed
to render him momentarily helpless. Chauvelin's first instinct prompted
him to run to the stairs and to call for assistance from Captain Boyer.
Indeed, he was half-way up to the first-floor when, looking down, he saw
that the man had entered the place through the wicket-door. Still
coughing and spluttering, he had divested himself of his piece of
sacking and was crouching down against the barrel in the centre of the
room and trying to warm his hands by holding them against the glass
sides of the old lantern.
From where he stood, Chauvelin could see the dim outline of the man's
profile, the chin ornamented with a three-days' growth of beard, the
lank hair plastered above the pallid forehead, the huge bones, coated
with grime, that protruded through the rags that did duty for a shirt.
The sleeves of this tattered garment hung away from the arm, displaying
a fiery, inflamed weal, shaped like the letter "M," that had recently
been burned into the flesh with a branding iron.
The sight of that mark upon the vagabond's arm caused Chauvelin to pause
a moment, then to come down the stairs again.
"Citizen Rateau!" he called.
The man jumped as if he had been struck with a whip, tried to struggle
to his feet, but collapsed on the floor, while a terrible fit of
coughing took his breath away. Chauvelin, standing beside the barrel,
looked down with a grim smile on this miserable wreckage of humanity
whom he had so judiciously put out of the way of further mischief. The
dim flicker of the lantern illumined the gaunt, bony arm, so that the
charred flesh stood out like a crimson, fiery string against à coating
of grime.
Rateau appeared terrified, scared by the sudden apparition of the man
who had inflicted the shameful punishment upon him. Chauvelin's face,
lighted from below by the lantern, did indeed appear grim and
forbidding. Some few seconds elapsed before the coalheaver had recovered
sufficiently to stand on his feet.
"I seem to have scared you, my friend," Chauvelin remarked dryly.
"I--I did not know," Rateau stammered with a painful wheeze, "that any
one was here . . . I came for shelter. . . ."
"I am here for shelter, too," Chauvelin rejoined, "and did not see you
enter."
"Mother Théot allows me to sleep here," Rateau went on mildly. "I have
had no work for two days . . . not since . . ." And he looked down
ruefully upon his arm. "People think I am an escaped felon," he
explained with snivelling timidity. "And as I have always lived just
from hand to mouth . . ."
He paused, and cast an obsequious glance on the Terrorist, who retorted
dryly:
"Better men than you, my friend, live from hand to mouth these days.
Poverty," he continued with grim sarcasm, "exalts a man in this glorious
revolution of ours. 'Tis riches that shame him."
Rateau's branded arm went up to his lanky hair and he scratched his head
dubiously.
"Aye," he nodded, obviously uncomprehending, "perhaps! But I'd like to
taste some of that shame!"
Chauvelin shrugged his shoulders and turned on his heel. The thunder
sounded a little more distant and the rain less violent for the moment,
and he strode toward the door.
"The children run after me now," Rateau continued dolefully. "In my
quartier, the concierge turned me out of my lodging. They keep asking me
what I have done to be branded like a convict."
Chauvelin laughed.
"Tell them you've been punished for serving the English spy," he said.
"The Englishman paid me well, and I am very poor," Rateau retorted
meekly. "I could serve the State now . . . if it would pay me well."
"Indeed? How?"
"By telling you something, citizen, which you would like to know."
"What is it?"
At once the instinct of the informer, of the sleuthhound, was on the
_qui vive._ The coalheaver's words, the expression of cunning on his
ugly face, the cringing obsequiousness of his attitude, all suggested
the spirit of intrigue, of underhand dealing, of lies and denunciations,
which were as the breath of life to this master-spy. He retraced his
steps, came and sat upon a pile of rubbish beside the barrel, and when
Rateau, terrified apparently at what he had said, made a motion as if to
slink away, Chauvelin called him back peremptorily.
"What is it, citizen Rateau," he said curtly, "that you could tell me,
and that I would like to know?"
Rateau was cowering in the darkness, trying to efface his huge bulk and
to smother his rasping cough.
"You have said too much already," Chauvelin went on harshly, "to hold
your tongue. And you have nothing to fear . . . everything to gain. What
is it?"
For a moment Rateau leaned forward, struck the ground with his fist.
"Am I to be paid this time?" he asked.
"If you speak the truth--yes."
"How much?"
"That depends on what you tell me. And now, if you hold your tongue, I
shall call to the citizen Captain upstairs and send you to jail."
The coalheaver appeared to crouch yet further into himself. He looked
like a huge, shapeless mass in the gloom. His huge yellow teeth could be
heard chattering.
"Citizen Tallien will send me to the guillotine," he murmured.
"What has citizen Tallien to do with it?"
"He pays great attention to the citoyenne Cabarrus."
"And it is about her?"
Rateau nodded.
"What is it?" Chauvelin reiterated harshly.
"She is playing you false, citizen," Rateau murmured in a hoarse breath,
and crawled like a long, bulky worm a little closer to the Terrorist.
"How?"
"She is in league with the Englishman."
"How do you know?
"I saw her here . . . two days ago. . . . You remember, citizen . . .
after you . . ."
"Yes, yes!" Chauvelin cried impatiently.
"Sergeant Chazot took me to the cavalry barracks. . . . They gave me to
drink . . . and I don't remember much what happened. But when I was
myself again, I know that my arm was very sore, and when I looked down I
saw this awful mark on it. . . . I was just outside the Arsenal
then. . . . How I got there I don't know. . . . I suppose Sergeant
Chazot brought me back. . . . He says I was howling for Mother
Théot. . . . She has marvellous salves, you know, citizen."
"Yes, yes!"
"I came in here. . . . My head still felt very strange . . . and my arm
felt like living fire. Then I heard voices . . . they came from the
stairs. . . . I looked about me, and saw them standing there. . . ."
Rateau, leaning upon one arm, stretched out the other and pointed to the
stairs. Chauvelin, with a violent gesture, seized him by the wrist.
"Who?" he queried harshly. "Who was standing there?"
His glance followed the direction in which the coalheaver was pointing,
then instinctively wandered back and fastened on that fiery letter "M"
which had been seared into the vagabond's flesh.
"The Englishman and citoyenne Cabarrus," Rateau replied feebly, for he
had winced with pain under the excited grip of the Terrorist.
"You are certain?"
"I heard them talking----"
"What did they say?"
"I do not know. . . . But I saw the Englishman kiss the citoyenne's hand
before they parted."
"And what happened after that?"
"The citoyenne went to Mother Théot's apartment and the Englishman came
down the stairs. I had just time to hide behind that pile of rubbish. He
did not see me."
Chauvelin uttered a savage curse of disappointment.
"Is that all?" he exclaimed.
"The State will pay me?" Rateau murmured vaguely.
"Not a sou!" Chauvelin retorted roughly. "And if citizen Tallien hears
this pretty tale . . ."
"I can swear to it!"
"Bah! Citoyenne Cabarrus will swear that you lied. 'Twill be her word
against that of a mudlark!"
"Nay!" Rateau retorted. "'Twill be more than that."
"What then?"
"Will you swear to protect me, citizen, if citizen Tallien--"
"Yes, yes! I'll protect you. . . . And the guillotine has no time to
trouble about such muck-worms as you!"
"Well, then, citizen," Rateau went on in a hoarse murmur, "if you will
go to the citoyenne's lodgings in the Rue Villedot, I can show you where
the Englishman hides the clothes wherewith he disguises himself . . .
and the letters which he writes to the citoyenne when . . ."
He paused, obviously terrified at the awesome expression of the other
man's face. Chauvelin had allowed the coalheaver's wrist to drop out of
his grasp. He was sitting quite still, silent and grim, his thin,
claw-like hands closely clasped together and held between his knees. The
flickering light of the lantern distorted his narrow face, lengthened
the shadows beneath the nose and chin, threw a high light just below the
brows, so that the pale eyes appeared to gleam with an unnatural flame.
Rateau hardly dared to move. He lay like a huge bundle of rags in the
inky blackness beyond the circle of light protected by the lantern; his
breath came and went with a dragging, hissing sound, now and then broken
by a painful cough.
For a moment or two there was silence in the great disused store-room--a
silence broken only by the thunder, dull and distant now, and the
ceaseless, monotonous patter of the rain. Then Chauvelin murmured
between his teeth:
"If I thought that she . . ." But he did not complete the sentence,
jumped to his feet and approached the big mass of rags and humanity that
cowered in the gloom. "Get up, citizen Rateau!" he commanded.
The asthmatic giant struggled to his knees. His wooden shoes had slipped
off his feet. He groped for them, and with trembling hands contrived to
put them on again.
"Get up!" Chauvelin reiterated, with a snarl like an angry tiger.
He took a small tablet and a leaden point from his pocket, and stooping
toward the light he scribbled a few words, and then handed the tablet to
Rateau.
"Take this over to the Commissary of the Section in the Place du
Carrousel. Half a dozen men and a captain will be detailed to go with
you to the lodgings of the citoyenne Cabarrus in the Rue Villedot. You
will find me there. Go!"
Rateau's hand trembled visibly as he took the tablets. He was obviously
terrified at what he had done. But Chauvelin paid no further heed to
him. He had given him his orders, knowing well that they would be
obeyed. The man had gone too far to draw back. It never entered
Chauvelin's head that the coalheaver might have lied. He had no cause
for spite against the citoyenne Cabarrus, and the fair Spaniard stood on
too high a pinnacle of influence for false denunciations to touch her.
The Terrorist waited until Rateau had quietly slunk out by the wicket
door; then he turned on heel and quickly went up the stairs.
§2
In the vestibule on the top floor he called to Capitaine Boyer.
"Citizen Captain," he said at the top of his voice. "You remember that
to-morrow eve is the end of the third day?"
"Pardi!" the Captain retorted gruffly. "Is anything changed?"
"No."
"Then, unless by the eve of the fourth day that cursed Englishman is not
in our hands, my orders are the same."
"Your orders are," Chauvelin rejoined loudly, and pointed with grim
intention at the door behind which he felt Marguerite Blakeney to be
listening for every sound, "unless the English spy is in our hands on
the evening of the fourth day to shoot your prisoner."
"It shall be done, citizen!" Captain Boyer gave reply.
Then he grinned maliciously, because from behind the closed door there
had come a sound like a quickly smothered cry.
After which, Chauvelin nodded to the Captain and once more descended the
stairs. A few seconds later he went out of the house into the stormy
night.