THE NET
I
It was not an easy thing to obtain an audience of the great proconsul at
this hour of the night, nor was Chauvelin, the disgraced servant of the
Committee of Public Safety, a man to be considered. Carrier, with his
love of ostentation and of tyranny, found great delight in keeping his
colleagues waiting upon his pleasure, and he knew that he could trust
young Jacques Lalouet to be as insolent as any tyrant's flunkey of yore.
"I must speak with the proconsul at once," had been Chauvelin's urgent
request of Fleury, the commandant of the great man's bodyguard.
"The proconsul dines at this hour," had been Fleury's curt reply.
"'Tis a matter which concerns the welfare and the safety of the State!"
"The proconsul's health is the concern of the State too, and he dines at
this hour and must not be disturbed."
"Commandant Fleury!" urged Chauvelin, "you risk being implicated in a
disaster. Danger and disgrace threaten the proconsul and all his
adherents. I must speak with citizen Carrier at once."
Fortunately for Chauvelin there were two keys which, when all else
failed, were apt to open the doors of Carrier's stronghold: the key of
fear and that of cupidity. He tried both and succeeded. He bribed and
he threatened: he endured Fleury's brutality and Lalouet's impertinence
but he got his way. After an hour's weary waiting and ceaseless
parleyings he was once more ushered into the antechamber where he had
sat earlier in the day. The doors leading to the inner sanctuary were
open. Young Jacques Lalouet stood by them on guard. Carrier, fuming and
raging at having been disturbed, vented his spleen and ill-temper on
Chauvelin.
"If the news that you bring me is not worth my consideration," he cried
savagely, "I'll send you to moulder in Le Bouffay or to drink the waters
of the Loire."
Chauvelin silent, self-effaced, allowed the flood of the great man's
wrath to spend itself in threats. Then he said quietly:
"Citizen proconsul I have come to tell you that the English spy, who is
called the Scarlet Pimpernel, is now in Nantes. There is a reward of
twenty thousand francs for his capture and I want your help to lay him
by the heels."
Carrier suddenly paused in his ravings. He sank into a chair and a livid
hue spread over his face.
"It's not true!" he murmured hoarsely.
"I saw him--not an hour ago...."
"What proof have you?"
"I'll show them to you--but not across this threshold. Let me enter,
citizen proconsul, and close your sanctuary doors behind me rather than
before. What I have come hither to tell you, can only be said between
four walls."
"I'll make you tell me," broke in Carrier in a raucous voice, which
excitement and fear caused almost to choke in his throat. "I'll make you
... curse you for the traitor that you are.... Curse you!" he cried more
vigorously, "I'll make you speak. Will you shield a spy by your
silence, you miserable traitor? If you do I'll send you to rot in the
mud of the Loire with other traitors less accursed than yourself."
"If you only knew," was Chauvelin's calm rejoinder to the other's
ravings, "how little I care for life. I only live to be even one day
with an enemy whom I hate. That enemy is now in Nantes, but I am like a
bird of prey whose wings have been clipped. If you do not help me mine
enemy will again go free--and death in that case matters little or
nothing to me."
For a moment longer Carrier hesitated. Fear had gripped him by the
throat. Chauvelin's earnestness seemed to vouch for the truth of his
assertion, and if this were so--if those English spies were indeed in
Nantes--then his own life was in deadly danger. He--like every one of
those bloodthirsty tyrants who had misused the sacred names of
Fraternity and of Equality--had learned to dread the machinations of
those mysterious Englishmen and of their unconquerable leader. Popular
superstition had it that they were spies of the English Government and
that they were not only bent on saving traitors from well-merited
punishment but that they were hired assassins paid by Mr. Pitt to murder
every faithful servant of the Republic. The name of the Scarlet
Pimpernel, so significantly uttered by Chauvelin, had turned Carrier's
sallow cheeks to a livid hue. Sick with terror now he called Lalouet to
him. He clung to the boy with both arms as to the one being in this
world whom he trusted.
"What shall we do, Jacques?" he murmured hoarsely, "shall we let him
in?"
The boy roughly shook himself free from the embrace of the great
proconsul.
"If you want twenty thousand francs," he said with a dry laugh, "I
should listen quietly to what citizen Chauvelin has to say."
Terror and rapacity were ranged on one side against inordinate vanity.
The thought of twenty thousand francs made Carrier's ugly mouth water.
Money was ever scarce these days: also the fear of assassination was a
spectre which haunted him at all hours of the day and night. On the
other hand he positively worshipped the mystery wherewith he surrounded
himself. It had been his boast for some time now that no one save the
chosen few had crossed the threshold of his private chamber: and he was
miserably afraid not only of Chauvelin's possible evil intentions, but
also that this despicable ex-aristo and equally despicable failure would
boast in the future of an ascendancy over him.
He thought the matter over for fully five minutes, during which there
was dead silence in the two rooms--silence only broken by the stertorous
breathing of that wretched coward, and the measured ticking of the fine
Buhl clock behind him. Chauvelin's pale eyes were fixed upon the
darkness, through which he could vaguely discern the uncouth figure of
the proconsul, sprawling over his desk. Which way would his passions
sway him? Chauvelin as he watched and waited felt that his habitual
self-control was perhaps more severely taxed at this moment than it had
ever been before. Upon the swaying of those passions, the passions of a
man infinitely craven and infinitely base, depended all
his--Chauvelin's--hopes of getting even at last with a daring and
resourceful foe. Terror and rapacity were the counsellors which ranged
themselves on the side of his schemes, but mere vanity and caprice
fought a hard battle too.
In the end it was rapacity that gained the victory. An impatient
exclamation from young Lalouet roused Carrier from his sombre brooding
and hastened on a decision which was destined to have such momentous
consequences for the future of both these men.
"Introduce citizen Chauvelin in here, Lalouet," said the proconsul
grudgingly. "I will listen to what he has to say."
II
Chauvelin crossed the threshold of the tyrant's sanctuary, in no way
awed by the majesty of that dreaded presence or confused by the air of
mystery which hung about the room.
He did not even bestow a glance on the multitudinous objects of art and
the priceless furniture which littered the tiger's lair. His pale face
remained quite expressionless as he bowed solemnly before Carrier and
then took the chair which was indicated to him. Young Lalouet fetched a
candelabra from the ante-room and carried it into the audience chamber:
then he closed the communicating doors. The candelabra he placed on a
console-table immediately behind Carrier's desk and chair, so that the
latter's face remained in complete shadow, whilst the light fell full
upon Chauvelin.
"Well! what is it?" queried the proconsul roughly. "What is this story
of English spies inside Nantes? How did they get here? Who is
responsible for keeping such rabble out of our city? Name of a dog, but
some one has been careless of duty! and carelessness these days is
closely allied to treason."
He talked loudly and volubly--his inordinate terror causing the words to
come tumbling, almost incoherently, out of his mouth. Finally he turned
on Chauvelin with a snarl like an angry cat:
"And how comes it, citizen," he added savagely, "that you alone here in
Nantes are acquainted with the whereabouts of those dangerous spies?"
"I caught sight of them," rejoined Chauvelin calmly, "this afternoon
after I left you. I knew we should have them here, the moment citizen
Martin-Roget brought the Kernogans into the city. The woman is the wife
of one of them."
"Curse that blundering fool Martin-Roget for bringing that rabble about
our ears, and those assassins inside our gates."
"Nay! Why should you complain, citizen proconsul," rejoined Chauvelin in
his blandest manner. "Surely you are not going to let the English spies
escape this time? And if you succeed in laying them by the heels--there
where every one else has failed--you will have earned twenty thousand
francs and the thanks of the entire Committee of Public Safety."
He paused: and young Lalouet interposed with his impudent laugh:
"Go on, citizen Chauvelin," he said, "if there is twenty thousand francs
to be made out of this game, I'll warrant that the proconsul will take a
hand in it--eh, Carrier?"
And with the insolent familiarity of a terrier teasing a grizzly he
tweaked the great man's ear.
Chauvelin in the meanwhile had drawn the packet of papers from his
pocket and untied the ribbon that held them together. He now spread the
papers out on the desk.
"What are these?" queried Carrier.
"A few papers," replied Chauvelin, "which one of your Marats, Paul
Friche by name, picked up in the wake of the Englishmen. I caught sight
of them in the far distance, and sent the Marats after them. For awhile
Paul Friche kept on their track, but after that they disappeared in the
darkness."
"Who were the senseless louts," growled Carrier, "who allowed a pack of
foreign assassins to escape? I'll soon make them disappear ... in the
Loire."
"You will do what you like about that, citizen Carrier," retorted
Chauvelin drily; "in the meanwhile you would do well to examine these
papers."
He sorted these out, examined them one by one, then passed them across
to Carrier. Lalouet, impudent and inquisitive, sat on the corner of the
desk, dangling his legs. With scant ceremony he snatched one paper after
another out of Carrier's hands and examined them curiously.
"Can you understand all this gibberish?" he asked airily. "Jean
Baptiste, my friend, how much English do you know?"
"Not much," replied the proconsul, "but enough to recognise that
abominable doggrel rhyme which has gone the round of the Committees of
Public Safety throughout the country."
"I know it by heart," rejoined young Lalouet. "I was in Paris once, when
citizen Robespierre received a copy of it. Name of a dog!" added the
youngster with a coarse laugh, "how he cursed!"
It is doubtful however if citizen Robespierre did on that occasion curse
quite so volubly as Carrier did now.
"If I only knew why that _satane_ Englishman throws so much calligraphy
about," he said, "I would be easier in my mind. Now this senseless rhyme
... I don't see...."
"Its importance?" broke in Chauvelin quietly. "I dare say not. On the
face of it, it appears foolish and childish: but it is intended as a
taunt and is really a poor attempt at humour. They are a queer people
these English. If you knew them as I do, you would not be surprised to
see a man scribbling off a cheap joke before embarking on an enterprise
which may cost him his head."
"And this inane rubbish is of that sort," concluded young Lalouet. And
in his thin high treble he began reciting:
"We seek him here;
We seek him there!
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?
Is he in h----ll?
That demmed elusive Pimpernel?"
"Pointless and offensive," he said as he tossed the paper back on the
table.
"A cursed aristo that Englishman of yours," growled Carrier. "Oh! when I
get him...."
He made an expressive gesture which made Lalouet laugh.
"What else have we got in the way of documents, citizen Chauvelin?" he
asked.
"There is a letter," replied the latter.
"Read it," commanded Carrier. "Or rather translate it as you read. I
don't understand the whole of the gibberish."
And Chauvelin, taking up a sheet of paper which was covered with neat,
minute writing, began to read aloud, translating the English into French
as he went along:
"'Here we are at last, my dear Tony! Didn't I tell you that we can
get in anywhere despite all precautions taken against us!'"
"The impudent devils!" broke in Carrier.
--"'Did you really think that they could keep us out of Nantes
while Lady Anthony Dewhurst is a prisoner in their hands?'"
"Who is that?"
"The Kernogan woman. As I told you just now, she is married to an
Englishman who is named Dewhurst and who is one of the members of that
thrice cursed League."
Then he continued to read:
"'And did you really suppose that they would spot half a dozen
English gentlemen in the guise of peat-gatherers, returning at dusk
and covered with grime from their work? Not like, friend Tony! Not
like! If you happen to meet mine engaging friend M. Chambertin
before I have that privilege myself, tell him I pray you, with my
regards, that I am looking forward to the pleasure of making a long
nose at him once more. Calais, Boulogne, Paris--now Nantes--the
scenes of his triumphs multiply exceedingly.'"
"What in the devil's name does all this mean?" queried Carrier with an
oath.
"You don't understand it?" rejoined Chauvelin quietly.
"No. I do not."
"Yet I translated quite clearly."
"It is not the language that puzzles me. The contents seem to me such
drivel. The man wants secrecy, what? He is supposed to be astute,
resourceful, above all mysterious and enigmatic. Yet he writes to his
friend--matter of no importance between them, recollections of the past,
known to them both--and threats for the future, equally futile and
senseless. I cannot reconcile it all. It puzzles me."
"And it would puzzle me," rejoined Chauvelin, while the ghost of a smile
curled his thin lips, "did I not know the man. Futile? Senseless, you
say? Well, he does futile and senseless things one moment and amazing
deeds of personal bravery and of astuteness the next. He is three parts
a braggart too. He wanted you, me--all of us to know how he and his
followers succeeded in eluding our vigilance and entered our
closely-guarded city in the guise of grimy peat-gatherers. Now I come to
think of it, it was easy enough for them to do that. Those
peat-gatherers who live inside the city boundaries return from their
work as the night falls in. Those cursed English adventurers are passing
clever at disguise--they are born mountebanks the lot of them. Money and
impudence they have in plenty. They could easily borrow or purchase some
filthy rags from the cottages on the dunes, then mix with the crowd on
its return to the city. I dare say it was cleverly done. That Scarlet
Pimpernel is just a clever adventurer and nothing more. So far his
marvellous good luck has carried him through. Now we shall see."
Carrier had listened in silence. Something of his colleague's calm had
by this time communicated itself to him too. He was no longer raving
like an infuriated bull--his terror no longer made a half-cringing,
wholly savage brute of him. He was sprawling across the desk--his arms
folded, his deep-set eyes studying closely the well-nigh inscrutable
face of Chauvelin. Young Lalouet too had lost something of his
impudence. That mysterious spell which seemed to emanate from the
elusive personality of the bold English adventurer had been cast over
these two callous, bestial natures, humbling their arrogance and making
them feel that here was no ordinary situation to be dealt with by
smashing, senseless hitting and the spilling of innocent blood. Both
felt instinctively too that this man Chauvelin, however wholly he may
have failed in the past, was nevertheless still the only man who might
grapple successfully with the elusive and adventurous foe.
"Are you assuming, citizen Chauvelin," queried Carrier after awhile,
"that this packet of papers was dropped purposely by the Englishman, so
that it might get into our hands?"
"There is always such a possibility," replied Chauvelin drily. "With
that type of man one must be prepared to meet the unexpected."
"Then go on, citizen Chauvelin. What else is there among those _satane_
papers?"
"Nothing further of importance. There is a map of Nantes, and one of the
coast and of Le Croisic. There is a cutting from _Le Moniteur_ dated
last September, and one from the _London Gazette_ dated three years ago.
The _Moniteur_ makes reference to the production of _Athalie_ at the
Theatre Moliere, and the _London Gazette_ to the sale of fat cattle at
an Agricultural Show. There is a receipted account from a London tailor
for two hundred pounds worth of clothes supplied, and one from a Lyons
mercer for an hundred francs worth of silk cravats. Then there is the
one letter which alone amidst all this rubbish appears to be of any
consequence...."
He took up the last paper; his hand was still quite steady.
"Read the letter," said Carrier.
"It is addressed in the English fashion to Lady Anthony Dewhurst,"
continued Chauvelin slowly, "the Kernogan woman, you know, citizen. It
says:
"'Keep up your courage. Your friends are inside the city and on the
watch. Try the door of your prison every evening at one hour before
midnight. Once you will find it yield. Slip out and creep
noiselessly down the stairs. At the bottom a friendly hand will be
stretched out to you. Take it with confidence--it will lead you to
safety and to freedom. Courage and secrecy.'"
Lalouet had been looking over his shoulder while he read: now he pointed
to the bottom of the letter.
"And there is the device," he said, "we have heard so much about of
late--a five-petalled flower drawn in red ink ... the Scarlet Pimpernel,
I presume."
"Aye! the Scarlet Pimpernel," murmured Chauvelin, "as you say!
Braggadocio on his part or accident, his letters are certainly in our
hands now and will prove--must prove, the tool whereby we can be even
with him once and for all."
"And you, citizen Chauvelin," interposed Carrier with a sneer, "are
mighty lucky to have me to help you this time. I am not going to be
fooled, as Candeille and you were fooled last September, as you were
fooled in Calais and Heron in Paris. I shall be seeing this time to the
capture of those English adventurers."
"And that capture should not be difficult," added Lalouet with a
complacent laugh. "Your famous adventurer's luck hath deserted him this
time: an all-powerful proconsul is pitted against him and the loss of
his papers hath destroyed the anonymity on which he reckons."
Chauvelin paid no heed to the fatuous remarks.
How little did this flippant young braggart and this coarse-grained
bully understand the subtle workings of that same adventurer's brain! He
himself--one of the most astute men of the day--found it difficult. Even
now--the losing of those letters in the open streets of Nantes--it was
part of a plan. Chauvelin could have staked his head on that--a part of
a plan for the liberation of Lady Anthony Dewhurst--but what plan?--what
plan?
He took up the letter which his colleague had thrown down: he fingered
it, handled it, letting the paper crackle through his fingers, as if he
expected it to yield up the secret which it contained. The time had
come--of that he felt no doubt--when he could at last be even with his
enemy. He had endured more bitter humiliation at the hands of this
elusive Pimpernel than he would have thought himself capable of bearing
a couple of years ago. But the time had come at last--if only he kept
his every faculty on the alert, if Fate helped him and his own nerves
stood the strain. Above all if this blundering, self-satisfied Carrier
could be reckoned on!...
There lay the one great source of trouble! He--Chauvelin--had no power:
he was disgraced--a failure--a nonentity to be sneered at. He might
protest, entreat, wring his hands, weep tears of blood and not one man
would stir a finger to help him: this brute who sprawled here across his
desk would not lend him half a dozen men to enable him to lay by the
heels the most powerful enemy the Government of the Terror had ever
known. Chauvelin inwardly ground his teeth with rage at his own
impotence, at his own dependence on this clumsy lout, who was at this
moment possessed of powers which he himself would give half his life to
obtain.
But on the other hand he did possess a power which no one could take
from him--the power to use others for the furtherance of his own
aims--to efface himself while others danced as puppets to his piping.
Carrier had the power: he had spies, Marats, prison-guards at his
disposal. He was greedy for the reward, and cupidity and fear would make
of him a willing instrument. All that Chauvelin need do was to use that
instrument for his own ends. One would be the head to direct, the
other--a mere insentient tool.
From this moment onwards every minute, every second and every fraction
of a second would be full of portent, full of possibilities. Sir Percy
Blakeney was in Nantes with at least three or four members of his
League: he was at this very moment taxing every fibre of his
resourceful brain in order to devise a means whereby he could rescue
his friend's wife from the fate which was awaiting her: to gain this end
he would dare everything, risk everything--risk and dare a great deal
more than he had ever dared and risked before.
Chauvelin was finding a grim pleasure in reviewing the situation, in
envisaging the danger of failure which he knew lay in wait for him,
unless he too was able to call to his aid all the astuteness, all the
daring, all the resource of his own fertile brain. He studied his
colleague's face keenly--that sullen, savage expression in it, the
arrogance, the blundering vanity. It was terrible to have to humour and
fawn to a creature of that stamp when all one's hopes, all one's future,
one's ideals and the welfare of one's country were at stake.
But this additional difficulty only served to whet the man's appetite
for action. He drew in a long breath of delight, like a captive who
first after many days and months of weary anguish scents freedom and
ozone. He straightened out his shoulders. A gleam of triumph and of hope
shot out of his keen pale eyes. He studied Carrier and he studied
Lalouet and he felt that he could master them both--quietly,
diplomatically, with subtle skill that would not alarm the proconsul's
rampant self-esteem: and whilst this coarse-fibred brute gloated in
anticipatory pleasure over the handling of a few thousand francs, and
whilst Martin-Roget dreamed of a clumsy revenge against one woman and
one man who had wronged him four years ago, he--Chauvelin--would pursue
his work of striking at the enemy of the Revolution--of bringing to his
knees the man who spent life and fortune in combating its ideals and in
frustrating its aims. The destruction of such a foe was worthy a
patriot's ambition.
On the other hand some of Carrier's bullying arrogance had gone. He was
terrified to the very depths of his cowardly heart, and for once he was
turning away from his favourite Jacques Lalouet and inclined to lean on
Chauvelin for advice. Robespierre had been known to tremble at sight of
that small scarlet device, how much more had he--Carrier--cause to be
afraid. He knew his own limitations and he was terrified of the
assassin's dagger. As Marat had perished, so he too might end his days,
and the English spies were credited with murderous intentions and
superhuman power. In his innermost self Carrier knew that despite
countless failures Chauvelin was mentally his superior, and though he
never would own to this and at this moment did not attempt to shed his
over-bearing manner, he was watching the other keenly and anxiously,
ready to follow the guidance of an intellect stronger than his own.
III
At last Carrier elected to speak.
"And now, citizen Chauvelin," he said, "we know how we stand. We know
that the English assassins are in Nantes. The question is how are we
going to lay them by the heels."
Chauvelin gave him no direct reply. He was busy collecting his precious
papers together and thrusting them back into the pocket of his coat.
Then he said quietly:
"It is through the Kernogan woman that we can get hold of him."
"How?"
"Where she is, there will the Englishmen be. They are in Nantes for the
sole purpose of getting the woman and her father out of your
clutches...."
"Then it will be a fine haul inside the Rat Mort," ejaculated Carrier
with a chuckle. "Eh, Jacques, you young scamp? You and I must go and see
that, what? You have been complaining that life was getting monotonous.
Drownages--Republican marriages! They have all palled in their turn on
your jaded appetite.... But the capture of the English assassins, eh?...
of that League of the Scarlet Pimpernel which has even caused citizen
Robespierre much uneasiness--that will stir up your sluggish blood, you
lazy young vermin!... Go on, go on, citizen Chauvelin, I am vastly
interested!"
He rubbed his dry, bony hands together and cackled with glee. Chauvelin
interposed quietly:
"Inside the Rat Mort, eh, citizen?" he queried.
"Why, yes. Citizen Martin-Roget means to convey the Kernogan woman to
the Rat Mort, doesn't he?"
"He does."
"And you say that where the Kernogan woman is there the Englishmen will
be...."
"The inference is obvious."
"Which means ten thousand francs from that fool Martin-Roget for having
the wench and her father arrested inside the Rat Mort! and twenty
thousand for the capture of the English spies.... Have you forgotten,
citizen Chauvelin," he added with a raucous cry of triumph, "that
commandant Fleury has my orders to make a raid on the Rat Mort this
night with half a company of my Marats, and to arrest every one whom
they find inside?"
"The Kernogan wench is not at the Rat Mort yet," quoth Chauvelin drily,
"and you have refused to lend a hand in having her conveyed thither."
"I can't do it, my little Chauvelin," rejoined Carrier, somewhat sobered
by this reminder. "I can't do it ... you understand ... my Marats
taking an aristo to a house of ill-fame where presently I have her
arrested ... it won't do ... it won't do ... you don't know how I am
spied upon just now.... It really would not do.... I can't be mixed up
in that part of the affair. The wench must go to the Rat Mort of her own
free will, or the whole plan falls to the ground.... That fool
Martin-Roget must think of a way ... it's his affair, after all. He must
see to it.... Or you can think of a way," he added, assuming the coaxing
ways of a tiger-cat; "you are so clever, my little Chauvelin."
"Yes," replied Chauvelin quietly, "I can think of a way. The Kernogan
wench shall leave the house of citizeness Adet and walk into the tavern
of the Rat Mort of her own free will. Your reputation, citizen Carrier,"
he added without the slightest apparent trace of a sneer, "your
reputation shall be safeguarded in this matter. But supposing that in
the interval of going from the one house to the other the English
adventurer succeeds in kidnapping her...."
"Pah! is that likely?" quoth Carrier with a shrug of the shoulders.
"Exceedingly likely, citizen; and you would not doubt it if you knew
this Scarlet Pimpernel as I do. I have seen him at his nefarious work. I
know what he can do. There is nothing that he would not venture ...
there are few ventures in which he does not succeed. He is as strong as
an ox, as agile as a cat. He can see in the dark and he can always
vanish in a crowd. Here, there and everywhere, you never know where he
will appear. He is a past master in the art of disguise and he is a born
mountebank. Believe me, citizen, we shall want all the resources of our
joint intellects to frustrate the machinations of such a foe."
Carrier mused for a moment in silence.
"H'm!" he said after awhile, and with a sardonic laugh. "You may be
right, citizen Chauvelin. You have had experience with the rascal ...
you ought to know him. We won't leave anything to chance--don't be
afraid of that. My Marats will be keen on the capture. We'll promise
commandant Fleury a thousand francs for himself and another thousand to
be distributed among his men if we lay hands on the English assassins
to-night. We'll leave nothing to chance," he reiterated with an oath.
"In which case, citizen Carrier, you must on your side agree to two
things," rejoined Chauvelin firmly.
"What are they?"
"You must order Commandant Fleury to place himself and half a company of
his Marats at my disposal."
"What else?"
"You must allow them to lend a hand if there is an attempt to kidnap the
Kernogan wench while she is being conveyed to the Rat Mort...."
Carrier hesitated for a second or two, but only for form's sake: it was
his nature whenever he was forced to yield to do so grudgingly.
"Very well!" he said at last. "I'll order Fleury to be on the watch and
to interfere if there is any street-brawling outside or near the Rat
Mort. Will that suit you?"
"Perfectly. I shall be on the watch too--somewhere close by.... I'll
warn commandant Fleury if I suspect that the English are making ready
for a coup outside the tavern. Personally I think it unlikely--because
the duc de Kernogan will be inside the Rat Mort all the time, and he too
will be the object of the Englishmen's attacks on his behalf. Citizen
Martin-Roget too has about a score or so of his friends posted outside
his sister's house: they are lads from his village who hate the
Kernogans as much as he does himself. Still! I shall feel easier in my
mind now that I am certain of commandant Fleury's co-operation."
"Then it seems to me that we have arranged everything satisfactorily,
what?"
"Everything, except the exact moment when Commandant Fleury shall
advance with his men to the door of the tavern and demand admittance in
the name of the Republic."
"Yes, he will have to make quite sure that the whole of our quarry is
inside the net, eh?... before he draws the strings ... or all our pretty
plans fall to nought."
"As you say," rejoined Chauvelin, "we must make sure. Supposing
therefore that we get the wench safely into the tavern, that we have her
there with her father, what we shall want will be some one in
observation--some one who can help us to draw our birds into the snare
just when we are ready for them. Now there is a man whom I have in my
mind: he hath name Paul Friche and is one of your Marats--a surly,
ill-conditioned giant ... he was on guard outside Le Bouffay this
afternoon.... I spoke to him ... he would suit our purpose admirably."
"What do you want him to do?"
"Only to make himself look as like a Nantese cut-throat as he can...."
"He looks like one already," broke in Jacques Lalouet with a laugh.
"So much the better. He'll excite no suspicion in that case in the minds
of the frequenters of the Rat Mort. Then I'll instruct him to start a
brawl--a fracas--soon after the arrival of the Kernogan wench. The row
will inevitably draw the English adventurers hot-haste to the spot,
either in the hope of getting the Kernogans away during the _melee_ or
with a view to protecting them. As soon as they have appeared upon the
scene, the half company of the Marats will descend on the house and
arrest every one inside it."
"It all sounds remarkably simple," rejoined Carrier, and with a leer of
satisfaction he turned to Jacques Lalouet.
"What think you of it, citizen?" he asked.
"That it sounds so remarkably simple," replied young Lalouet, "that
personally I should be half afraid...."
"Of what?" queried Chauvelin blandly.
"If you fail, citizen Chauvelin...."
"Impossible!"
"If the Englishmen do not appear?"
"Even so the citizen proconsul will have lost nothing. He will merely
have failed to gain the twenty thousand francs. But the Kernogans will
still be in his power and citizen Martin-Roget's ten thousand francs are
in any case assured."
"Friend Jean-Baptiste," concluded Lalouet with his habitual insolent
familiarity, "you had better do what citizen Chauvelin wants. Ten
thousand francs are good ... and thirty better still. Our privy purse
has been empty far too long, and I for one would like the handling of a
few brisk notes."
"It will only be twenty-eight, citizen Lalouet," interposed Chauvelin
blandly, "for commandant Fleury will want one thousand francs and his
men another thousand to stimulate their zeal. Still! I imagine that
these hard times twenty-eight thousand francs are worth fighting for."
"You seem to be fighting and planning and scheming for nothing, citizen
Chauvelin," retorted young Lalouet with a sneer. "What are you going to
gain, I should like to know, by the capture of that dare-devil
Englishman?"
"Oh!" replied Chauvelin suavely, "I shall gain the citizen proconsul's
regard, I hope--and yours too, citizen Lalouet. I want nothing more
except the success of my plan."
Young Lalouet jumped down to his feet. He shrugged his shoulders and
through his fine eyes shot a glance of mockery and scorn on the thin,
shrunken figure of the Terrorist.
"How you do hate that Englishman, citizen Chauvelin," he said with a
light laugh.
IV
Carrier having fully realised that he in any case stood to make a vast
sum of money out of the capture of the band of English spies, gave his
support generously to Chauvelin's scheme. Fleury, summoned into his
presence, was ordered to place himself and half a company of Marats at
the disposal of citizen Chauvelin. He demurred and growled like a bear
with a sore head at being placed under the orders of a civilian, but it
was not easy to run counter to the proconsul's will. A good deal of
swearing, one or two overt threats and the citizen commandant was
reduced to submission. The promise of a thousand francs, when the reward
for the capture of the English spies was paid out by a grateful
Government, overcame his last objections.
"I think you should rid yourself of that obstinate oaf," was young
Lalouet's cynical comment, when Fleury had finally left the audience
chamber; "he is too argumentative for my taste."
Chauvelin smiled quietly to himself. He cared little what became of
every one of these Nantese louts once his great object had been
attained.
"I need not trouble you further, citizen Carrier," he said as he finally
rose to take his leave. "I shall have my hands full until I myself lay
that meddlesome Englishman bound and gagged at your feet."
The phrase delighted Carrier's insensate vanity. He was overgracious to
Chauvelin now.
"You shall do that at the Rat Mort, citizen Chauvelin," he said with
marked affability, "and I myself will commend you for your zeal to the
Committee of Public Safety."
"Always supposing," interposed Jacques Lalouet with his cynical laugh,
"that citizen Chauvelin does not let the whole rabble slip through his
fingers."
"If I do," concluded Chauvelin drily, "you may drag the Loire for my
body to-morrow."
"Oh!" laughed Carrier, "we won't trouble to do that. _Au revoir_,
citizen Chauvelin," he added with one of his grandiloquent gestures of
dismissal, "I wish you luck at the Rat Mort to-night."
Jacques Lalouet ushered Chauvelin out. When he was finally left standing
alone at the head of the stairs and young Lalouet's footsteps had ceased
to resound across the floors of the rooms beyond, he remained quite
still for awhile, his eyes fixed into vacancy, his face set and
expressionless; and through his lips there came a long-drawn-out sigh of
intense satisfaction.
"And now, my fine Scarlet Pimpernel," he murmured softly, "once more _a
nous deux_."
Then he ran swiftly down the stairs and a moment later was once more
speeding toward Le Bouffay.