It was half-an-hour before noon, and citizen-deputy Heriot was preparing
to go out to the small tavern round the corner where he habitually took
his dejeuner. Citizen Rondeau, who for the consideration of ten sous a
day looked after Heriot's paltry creature-comforts, was busy tidying up
the squalid apartment which the latter occupied on the top floor of a
lodging-house in the Rue Cocatrice. This apartment consisted of three
rooms leading out of one another; firstly there was a dark and narrow
antichambre wherein slept the aforesaid citizen-servant; then came a
sitting-room sparsely furnished with a few chairs, a centre table and an
iron stove, and finally there was the bedroom wherein the most
conspicuous object was a large oak chest clamped with wide iron hinges
and a massive writing-desk; the bed and a very primitive washstand were
in an alcove at the farther end of the room and partially hidden by a
tapestry curtain.
At exactly half-past seven that morning there came a peremptory knock at
the door of the antichambre, and as Rondeau was busy in the bedroom,
Heriot went himself to see who his unexpected visitor might be. On the
landing outside stood an extraordinary-looking individual--more like a
tall and animated scarecrow than a man--who in a tremulous voice asked
if he might speak with the citizen Heriot.
"That is my name," said the deputy gruffly, "what do you want?"
He would have liked to slam the door in the old scarecrow's face, but
the latter, with the boldness which sometimes besets the timid, had
already stepped into the anti-chambre and was now quietly sauntering
through to the next room into the one beyond. Heriot, being a
representative of the people and a social democrat of the most advanced
type, was supposed to be accessible to every one who desired speech with
him. Though muttering sundry curses, he thought it best not to go
against his usual practice, and after a moment's hesitation he followed
his unwelcome visitor.
The latter was in the sitting-room by this time; he had drawn a chair
close to the table and sat down with the air of one who has a perfect
right to be where he is; as soon as Heriot entered he said placidly:
"I would desire to speak alone with the citizen-deputy."
And Heriot, after another slight hesitation, ordered Rondeau to close
the bedroom door.
"Keep your ears open in case I call," he added significantly.
"You are cautious, citizen," merely remarked the visitor with a smile.
To this Heriot vouchsafed no reply. He, too, drew a chair forward and
sat opposite his visitor, then he asked abruptly: "Your name and
quality?"
"My name is Lepine at your service," said the old man, "and by
profession I write letters at the rate of five sous or so, according to
length, for those who are not able to do it for themselves."
"Your business with me?" queried Heriot curtly.
"To offer you two thousand francs for the letters which you stole from
deputy Fabrice when you were his valet," replied Lepine with perfect
calm.
In a moment Heriot was on his feet, jumping up as if he had been stung;
his pale, short-sighted eyes narrowed till they were mere slits, and
through them he darted a quick, suspicious glance at the extraordinary
out-at-elbows figure before him. Then he threw back his head and laughed
till the tears streamed down his cheeks and his sides began to ache.
"This is a farce, I presume, citizen," he said when he had recovered
something of his composure.
"No farce, citizen," replied Lepine calmly. "The money is at your
disposal whenever you care to bring the letters to my pitch at the angle
of the Rue Dauphine and the Quai des Augustins, where I carry on my
business."
"Whose money is it? Agnes de Lucines' or did that fool Fabrice send
you?"
"No one sent me, citizen. The money is mine--a few savings I possess--I
honour citizen Fabrice--I would wish to do him service by purchasing
certain letters from you."
Then as Heriot, moody and sullen, remained silent and began pacing up
and down the long, bare floor of the room, Lepine added persuasively,
"Well! what do you say? Two thousand francs for a packet of letters--not
a bad bargain these hard times."
"Get out of this room," was Heriot's fierce and sudden reply.
"You refuse?"
"Get out of this room!"
"As you please," said Lepine as he, too, rose from his chair. "But
before I go, citizen Heriot," he added, speaking very quietly, "let me
tell you one thing. Mademoiselle Agnes de Lucines would far sooner cut
off her right hand than let yours touch it even for one instant. Neither
she nor deputy Fabrice would ever purchase their lives at such a price."
"And who are you--you mangy old scarecrow?" retorted Heriot, who was
getting beside himself with rage, "that you should assert these things?
What are those people to you, or you to them, that you should interfere
in their affairs?"
"Your question is beside the point, citizen," said Lepine blandly; "I am
here to propose a bargain. Had you not better agree to it?"
"Never!" reiterated Heriot emphatically.
"Two thousand francs," reiterated the old man imperturbably.
"Not if you offered me two hundred thousand," retorted the other
fiercely. "Go and tell that, to those who sent you. Tell them that
I--Heriot--would look upon a fortune as mere dross against the delight
of seeing that man Fabrice, whom I hate beyond everything in earth or
hell, mount up the steps to the guillotine. Tell them that I know that
Agnes de Lucines loathes me, that I know that she loves him. I know that
I cannot win her save by threatening him. But you are wrong, citizen
Lepine," he continued, speaking more and more calmly as his passions of
hatred and of love seemed more and more to hold him in their grip; "you
are wrong if you think that she will not strike a bargain with me in
order to save the life of Fabrice, whom she loves. Agnes de Lucines will
be my wife within the month, or Arnould Fabrice's head will fall under
the guillotine, and you, my interfering friend, may go to the devil, if
you please."
"That would be but a tame proceeding, citizen, after my visit to you,"
said the old man, with unruffled sang-froid. "But let me, in my turn,
assure you of this, citizen Heriot," he added, "that Mlle. de Lucines
will never be your wife, that Arnould Fabrice will not end his valuable
life under the guillotine--and that you will never be allowed to use
against him the cowardly and stolen weapon which you possess."
Heriot laughed--a low, cynical laugh and shrugged his thin shoulders:
"And who will prevent me, I pray you?" he asked sarcastically.
The old man made no immediate reply, but he came just a step or two
closer to the citizen-deputy and, suddenly drawing himself up to his
full height, he looked for one brief moment down upon the mean and
sordid figure of the ex-valet. To Heriot it seemed as if the whole man
had become transfigured; the shabby old scarecrow looked all of a sudden
like a brilliant and powerful personality; from his eyes there flashed
down a look of supreme contempt and of supreme pride, and Heriot--unable
to understand this metamorphosis which was more apparent to his inner
consciousness than to his outward sight, felt his knees shake under him
and all the blood rush back to his heart in an agony of superstitious
terror.
From somewhere there came to his ear the sound of two words: "I will!"
in reply to his own defiant query. Surely those words uttered by a man
conscious of power and of strength could never have been spoken by the
dilapidated old scarecrow who earned a precarious living by writing
letters for ignorant folk.
But before he could recover some semblance of presence of mind citizen
Lepine had gone, and only a loud and merry laugh seemed to echo through
the squalid room.
Heriot shook off the remnant of his own senseless terror; he tore open
the door of the bedroom and shouted to Rondeau, who truly was thinking
that the citizen-deputy had gone mad:
"After him!--after him! Quick! curse you!" he cried.
"After whom?" gasped the man.
"The man who was here just now--an aristo."
"I saw no one--but the Public Letter-Writer, old Lepine--I know him
well---"
"Curse you for a fool!" shouted Heriot savagely, "the man who was here
was that cursed Englishman--the one whom they call the Scarlet
Pimpernel. Run after him--stop him, I say!"
"Too late, citizen," said the other placidly; "whoever was here before
is certainly half-way down the street by now."