But that crumpled and soiled scrap of paper given to him by the woman
Leridan still lay in his clenched hand as he strode back rapidly
citywards. It seemed to scorch his palm. Even before he had glanced at
the contents he knew what they were. That atrocious English doggerel,
the signature--a five-petalled flower traced in crimson! How well he
knew them!
"We seek him here, we seek him there!"
The most humiliating moments in Chauvelin's career were associated with
that silly rhyme, and now here it was, mocking him even when he knew
that his bitter enemy lay fettered and helpless, caught in a trap, out
of which there was no escape possible; even though he knew for a
positive certainty that the mocking voice which had spoken those rhymes
on that far-off day last September would soon be stilled for ever.
No doubt one of that army of abominable English spies had placed this
warning outside the Leridans' door. No doubt they had done that with a
view to throwing dust in the eyes of the Public Prosecutor and causing a
confusion in his mind with regard to the identity of the prisoner at the
Abbaye, all to the advantage of their chief.
The thought that such a confusion might exist, that Fouquier-Tinville
might be deluded into doubting the real personality of Paul Mole,
brought an icy sweat all down Chauvelin's spine. He hurried along the
interminably long Chemin de Pantin, only paused at the Barriere du
Combat in order to interview the Commissary of the Section on the matter
of sending men to watch over the Leridans' house. Then, when he felt
satisfied that this would be effectively and quickly done, an
unconquerable feeling of restlessness prompted him to hurry round to the
lodgings of the Public Prosecutor in the Rue Blanche--just to see him,
to speak with him, to make quite sure.
Oh! he must be sure that no doubts, no pusillanimity on the part of any
official would be allowed to stand in the way of the consummation of all
his most cherished dreams. Papers or no papers, testimony or no
testimony, the incarcerated Paul Mole was the Scarlet Pimpernel--of this
Chauvelin was as certain as that he was alive. His every sense had
testified to it when he stood in the narrow room of the Rue des
Cordeliers, face to face--eyes gazing into eyes--with his sworn enemy.
Unluckily, however, he found the Public Prosecutor in a surly and
obstinate mood, following on an interview which he had just had with
citizen Commissary Cuisinier on the matter of the prisoner Paul Mole.
"His papers are all in order, I tell you," he said impatiently, in
answer to Chauvelin's insistence. "It is as much as my head is worth to
demand a summary execution."
"But I tell you that, those papers of his are forged," urged Chauvelin
forcefully.
"They are not," retorted the other. "The Commissary swears to his own
signature on the identity book. The concierge at the Abbaye swears that
he knows Mole, so do all the men of the Surete who have seen him. The
Commissary has known him as an indigent, good-for-nothing lubbard who
has begged his way in the streets of Paris ever since he was released
from gaol some months ago, after he had served a term for larceny. Even
your own man Hebert admits to feeling doubtful on the point. You have
had the nightmare, citizen," concluded Fouquier-Tinville with a harsh
laugh.
"But, name of a dog!" broke in Chauvelin savagely. "You are not
proposing to let the man go?"
"What else can I do?" the other rejoined fretfully. "We shall get into
terrible trouble if we interfere with a man like Paul Mole. You know
yourself how it is these days. We should have the whole of the rabble of
Paris clamouring for our blood. If, after we have guillotined him, he is
proved to be a good patriot, it will be my turn next. No! I thank you!"
"I tell you, man," retorted Chauvelin desperately, "that the man is not
Paul Mole--that he is the English spy whom we all know as the Scarlet
Pimpernel."
"EH BIEN!" riposted Fouquier-Tinville. "Bring me more tangible proof
that our prisoner is not Paul Mole and I'll deal with him quickly
enough, never fear. But if by to-morrow morning you do not satisfy me on
the point ... I must let him go his way."
A savage oath rose to Chauvelin's lips. He felt like a man who has been
running, panting to reach a goal, who sees that goal within easy
distance of him, and is then suddenly captured, caught in invisible
meshes which hold him tightly, and against which he is powerless to
struggle. For the moment he hated Fouquier-Tinville with a deadly
hatred, would have tortured and threatened him until he wrung a consent,
an admission, out of him.
Name of a name! when that damnable English spy was actually in his
power, the man was a pusillanimous fool to allow the rich prize to slip
from his grasp! Chauvelin felt as if he were choking; his slender
fingers worked nervily around his cravat; beads of perspiration trickled
unheeded down his pallid forehead.
Then suddenly he had an inspiration--nothing less! It almost seemed as
if Satan, his friend, had whispered insinuating words into his ear. That
scrap of paper! He had thrust it awhile ago into the breast pocket of
his coat. It was still there, and the Public Prosecutor wanted a
tangible proof.... Then, why not....?
Slowly, his thoughts still in the process of gradual coordination,
Chauvelin drew that soiled scrap of paper out of his pocket.
Fouquier-Tinville, surly and ill-humoured, had his back half-turned
towards him, was moodily picking at his teeth. Chauvelin had all the
leisure which he required. He smoothed out the creases in the paper and
spread it out carefully upon the desk close to the other man's elbow.
Fouquier-Tinville looked down on it, over his shoulder.
"What is that?" he queried.
"As you see, citizen," was Chauvelin's bland reply. "A message, such as
you yourself have oft received, methinks, from our mutual enemy, the
Scarlet Pimpernel."
But already the Public Prosecutor had seized upon the paper, and of a
truth Chauvelin had no longer cause to complain of his colleague's
indifference. That doggerel rhyme, no less than the signature, had the
power to rouse Fouquier-Tinville's ire, as it had that of disturbing
Chauvelin's well-studied calm.
"What is it?" reiterated the Public Prosecutor, white now to the lips.
"I have told you, citizen," rejoined Chauvelin imperturbably. "A message
from that English spy. It is also the proof which you have demanded of
me--the tangible proof that the prisoner, Paul Mole, is none other than
the Scarlet Pimpernel."
"But," ejaculated the other hoarsely, "where did you get this?"
"It was found in the cell which Paul Mole occupied in the depot of the
Rue de Tourraine, where he was first incarcerated. I picked it up there
after he was removed ... the ink was scarcely dry upon it."
The lie came quite glibly to Chauvelin's tongue. Was not every method
good, every device allowable, which would lead to so glorious an end?
"Why did you not tell me of this before?" queried Fouquier-Tinville,
with a sudden gleam of suspicion in his deep-set eyes.
"You had not asked me for a tangible proof before," replied Chauvelin
blandly. "I myself was so firmly convinced of what I averred that I had
well-nigh forgotten the existence of this damning scrap of paper."
Damning indeed! Fouquier-Tinville had seen such scraps of paper before.
He had learnt the doggerel rhyme by heart, even though the English
tongue was quite unfamiliar to him. He loathed the English--the entire
nation--with all that deadly hatred which a divergence of political aims
will arouse in times of acute crises. He hated the English government,
Pitt and Burke and even Fox, the happy-go-lucky apologist of the young
Revolution. But, above all, he hated that League of English spies--as he
was pleased to call them--whose courage, resourcefulness, as well as
reckless daring, had more than once baffled his own hideous schemes of
murder, of pillage, and of rape.
Thank Beelzebub and his horde of evil spirits, citizen Chauvelin had
been clear-sighted enough to detect that elusive Pimpernel under the
disguise of Paul Mole.
"You have deserved well of your country," said Tinville with lusty
fervour, and gave Chauvelin a vigorous slap on the shoulder. "But for
you I should have allowed that abominable spy to slip through our
fingers."
"I have succeeded in convincing you, citizen?" Chauvelin retorted dryly.
"Absolutely!" rejoined the other. "You may now leave the matter to me.
And 'twill be friend Mole who will be surprised to-morrow," he added
with a harsh guffaw, "when he finds himself face to face with me, before
a Court of Justice."
He was all eagerness, of course. Such a triumph for him! The indictment
of the notorious Scarlet Pimpernel on a charge of espionage would be the
crowning glory of his career! Let other men look to their laurels! Those
who brought that dangerous enemy of revolution to the guillotine would
for ever be proclaimed as the saviours of France.
"A short indictment," he said, when Chauvelin, after a lengthy
discussion on various points, finally rose to take his leave, "but a
scathing one! I tell you, citizen Chauvelin, that to-morrow you will be
the first to congratulate me on an unprecedented triumph."
He had been arguing in favour of a sensational trial and no less
sensational execution. Chauvelin, with his memory harking back on many
mysterious abductions at the very foot of the guillotine, would have
liked to see his elusive enemy quietly put to death amongst a batch of
traitors, who would help to mask his personality until after the
guillotine had fallen, when the whole of Paris should ring with the
triumph of this final punishment of the hated spy.
In the end, the two friends agreed upon a compromise, and parted well
pleased with the turn of events which a kind Fate had ordered for their
own special benefit.
X
Thus satisfied, Chauvelin returned to the Abbaye. Hebert was safe and
trustworthy, but Hebert, too, had been assailed with the same doubts
which had well-nigh wrecked Chauvelin's triumph, and with such doubts in
his mind he might slacken his vigilance.
Name of a name! every man in charge of that damnable Scarlet Pimpernel
should have three pairs of eyes wherewith to watch his movements. He
should have the alert brain of a Robespierre, the physical strength of a
Danton, the relentlessness of a Marat. He should be a giant in sheer
brute force, a tiger in caution, an elephant in weight, and a mouse in
stealthiness!
Name of a name! but 'twas only hate that could give such powers to any
man!
Hebert, in the guard-room, owned to his doubts. His comrades, too,
admitted that after twenty-four hours spent on the watch, their minds
were in a whirl. The Citizen Commissary had been so sure--so was the
chief concierge of the Abbaye even now; and the men of the Surete!...
they themselves had seen the real Mole more than once ... and this man
in the cell.... Well, would the citizen Representative have a final good
look at him?
"You seem to forget Calais, citizen Hebert," Chauvelin said sharply,
"and the deadly humiliation you suffered then at the hands of this man
who is now your prisoner. Surely your eyes should have been, at least,
as keen as mine own."
Anxious, irritable, his nerves well-nigh on the rack, he nevertheless
crossed the guard-room with a firm step and entered the cell where the
prisoner was still lying upon the palliasse, as he had been all along,
and still presenting that naked piece of shoulder through the hole in
his shirt.
"He has been like this the best part of the day," Hebert said with a
shrug of the shoulders. "We put his bread and water right under his
nose. He ate and he drank, and I suppose he slept. But except for a good
deal of swearing, he has not spoken to any of us."
He had followed his chief into the cell, and now stood beside the
palliasse, holding a small dark lantern in his hand. At a sign from
Chauvelin he flashed the light upon the prisoner's averted head.
Mole cursed for awhile, and muttered something about "good patriots" and
about "retribution." Then, worried by the light, he turned slowly round,
and with fish-like, bleary eyes looked upon his visitor.
The words of stinging irony and triumphant sarcasm, all fully prepared,
froze on Chauvelin's lips. He gazed upon the prisoner, and a weird sense
of something unfathomable and mysterious came over him as he gazed. He
himself could not have defined that feeling: the very next moment he was
prepared to ridicule his own cowardice--yes, cowardice! because for a
second or two he had felt positively afraid.
Afraid of what, forsooth? The man who crouched here in the cell was his
arch-enemy, the Scarlet Pimpernel--the man whom he hated most bitterly
in all the world, the man whose death he desired more than that of any
other living creature. He had been apprehended by the very side of the
murdered man whose confidence he had all but gained. He himself
(Chauvelin) had at that fateful moment looked into the factitious Mole's
eyes, had seen the mockery in them, the lazy insouciance which was the
chief attribute of Sir Percy Blakeney. He had heard a faint echo of that
inane laugh which grated upon his nerves. Hebert had then laid hands
upon this very same man; agents of the Surete had barred every ingress
and egress to the house, had conducted their prisoner straightway to the
depot and thence to the Abbaye, had since that moment guarded him on
sight, by day and by night. Hebert and the other men as well as the
chief warder, all swore to that!
No, no! There could be no doubt! There was no doubt! The days of magic
were over! A man could not assume a personality other than his own; he
could not fly out of that personality like a bird out of its cage. There
on the palliasse in the miserable cell were the same long limbs, the
broad shoulders, the grimy face with the three days' growth of stubbly
beard--the whole wretched personality of Paul Mole, in fact, which hid
the exquisite one of Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart. And yet!...
A cold sweat ran down Chauvelin's spine as he gazed, mute and immovable,
into those fish-like, bleary eyes, which were not--no! they were not
those of the real Scarlet Pimpernel.
The whole situation became dreamlike, almost absurd. Chauvelin was not
the man for such a mock-heroic, melodramatic situation. Commonsense,
reason, his own cool powers of deliberation, would soon reassert
themselves. But for the moment he was dazed. He had worked too hard, no
doubt; had yielded too much to excitement, to triumph, and to hate. He
turned to Hebert, who was standing stolidly by, gave him a few curt
orders in a clear and well-pitched voice. Then he walked out of the
cell, without bestowing another look on the prisoner.
Mole had once more turned over on his palliasse and, apparently, had
gone to sleep. Hebert, with a strange and puzzled laugh, followed his
chief out of the cell.