CHAPTER I

The Man In Grey

Being Episodes of the Chovan Conspiracies in

Normandy During the First Empire.

By BARONESS ORCZY

AUTHOR OF

"Lord Tony's Wife," "Leatherface"

"The Bronze Eagle," etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

_Copyright, 1918,

By George H. Doran Company_

_Printed in the United States of America_

CONTENTS

PROEM

CHAPTER

I Silver-Leg

II The Spaniard

III The Mystery of Marie Vaillant

IV The Emeralds of Mademoiselle Philippa

V The Bourbon Prince

VI The Mystery of a Woman's Heart

VII The League of Knaves

VIII The Arrow Poison

IX The Last Adventure

THE MAN IN GREY

PROEM

It has been a difficult task to piece together the fragmentary

documents which alone throw a light--dim and flickering at the

best--upon that mysterious personality known to the historians of the

Napoleonic era as the Man in Grey. So very little is known about

him. Age, appearance, domestic circumstances, everything pertaining

to him has remained a matter of conjecture--even his name! In the

reports sent by the all-powerful Minister to the Emperor he is

invariably spoken of as "The Man in Grey." Once only does Fouché

refer to him as "Fernand."

Strange and mysterious creature! Nevertheless, he played an

important part--_the_ most important, perhaps--in bringing to justice

some of those reckless criminals who, under the cloak of Royalist

convictions and religious and political aims, spent their time in

pillage, murder and arson.

Strange and mysterious creatures, too, these men so aptly named

Chouans--that is, "chats-huants"; screech-owls--since they were a

terror by night and disappeared within their burrows by day. A world

of romance lies buried within the ruins of the châteaux which gave

them shelter--Tournebut, Bouvesse, Donnai, Plélan. A world of

mystery encompasses the names of their leaders and, above all, those

of the women--ladies of high degree and humble peasants alike--often

heroic, more often misguided, who supplied the intrigue, the

persistence, the fanatical hatred which kept the fire of rebellion

smouldering and spluttering even while it could not burst into actual

flame. D'Aché, Cadoudal, Frotté, Armand le Chevallier, Marquise de

Combray, Mme. Aquet de Férolles--the romance attaching to these names

pales beside that which clings to the weird anonymity of their

henchmen--"Dare-Death," "Hare-Lip," "Fear-Nought," "Silver-Leg," and

so on. Theirs were the hands that struck whilst their leaders

planned--they were the screech-owls who for more than twenty years

terrorised the western provinces of France and, in the name of God

and their King, committed every crime that could besmirch the Cause

which they professed to uphold.

Whether they really aimed at the restoration of the Bourbon kings and

at bolstering up the fortunes of an effete and dispossessed monarchy

with money wrung from peaceable citizens, or whether they were a mere

pack of lawless brigands made up of deserters from the army and

fugitives from conscription, of felons and bankrupt aristocrats, will

for ever remain a bone of contention between the apologists of the

old régime and those of the new.

With partisanship in those strangely obscure though comparatively

recent episodes of history we have nothing to do. Facts

alone--undeniable and undenied--must be left to speak for themselves.

It was but meet that these men--amongst whom were to be found the

bearers of some of the noblest names in France--should be tracked

down and brought to justice by one whose personality has continued to

be as complete an enigma as their own.

CHAPTER I

SILVER-LEG

I

"Forward now! And at foot-pace, mind, to the edge of the

wood--or----"

The ominous click of a pistol completed the peremptory command.

Old Gontran, the driver, shook his wide shoulders beneath his heavy

caped coat and gathered the reins once more in his quivering hands;

the door of the coach was closed with a bang; the postilion scrambled

into the saddle; only the passenger who had so peremptorily been

ordered down from the box-seat beside the driver had not yet climbed

back into his place. Well! old Gontran was not in a mood to fash

about the passengers. His horses, worried by the noise, the

shouting, the click of firearms and the rough handling meted out to

them by strange hands in the darkness, were very restive. They would

have liked to start off at once at a brisk pace so as to leave these

disturbers of their peace as far behind them as possible, but Gontran

was holding them in with a firm hand and they had to

walk--walk!--along this level bit of road, with the noisy enemy still

present in their rear.

The rickety old coach gave a lurch and started on its way; the

clanking of loose chains, the grinding of the wheels in the muddy

roads, the snorting and travail of the horses as they finally settled

again into their collars, drowned the coachman's muttered

imprecations.

"A fine state of things, forsooth!" he growled to himself more

dejectedly than savagely. "What the Emperor's police are up to no

one knows. That such things can happen is past belief. Not yet six

o'clock in the afternoon, and Alençon less than five kilomètres in

front of us."

But the passenger who, on the box-seat beside him, had so patiently

and silently listened to old Gontran's florid loquacity during the

early part of the journey, was no longer there to hear these

well-justified lamentations. No doubt he had taken refuge with his

fellow-sufferers down below.

There came no sound from the interior of the coach. In the darkness,

the passengers--huddled up against one another, dumb with fright and

wearied with excitement--had not yet found vent for their outraged

feelings in whispered words or smothered oaths. The coach lumbered

on at foot-pace. In the affray the head-light had been broken; the

two lanterns that remained lit up fitfully the tall pine trees on

either side of the road and gave momentary glimpses of a mysterious,

fairy-like world beyond, through the curtain of dead branches and the

veil of tiny bare twigs.

Through the fast gathering gloom the circle of light toyed with the

haze of damp and steam which rose from the cruppers of the horses,

and issued from their snorting nostrils. From far away came the cry

of a screech-owl and the call of some night beasts on the prowl.

Instinctively, as the road widened out towards the edge of the wood,

Gontran gave a click with his tongue and the horses broke into a

leisurely trot. Immediately from behind, not forty paces to the

rear, there came the sharp detonation of a pistol shot. The horses,

still quivering from past terrors, were ready to plunge once more,

the wheelers stumbled, the leaders reared, and the team would again

have been thrown into confusion but for the presence of mind of the

driver and the coolness of the postilion.

"Oh! those accursed brigands!" muttered Gontran through his set teeth

as soon as order was restored. "That's just to remind us that they

are on the watch. Keep the leaders well in hand, Hector," he shouted

to the postilion: "don't let them trot till we are well out of the

wood."

Though he had sworn copiously and plentifully at first, when one of

those outlaws held a pistol to his head whilst the others ransacked

the coach of its contents and terrorised the passengers, he seemed

inclined to take the matter philosophically now. After all, he

himself had lost nothing; he was too wise a man was old Gontran to

carry his wages in his breeches pocket these days, when those

accursed Chouans robbed, pillaged and plundered rich and poor alike.

No! Gontran flattered himself that the rogues had got nothing out of

him: he had lost nothing--not even prestige, for it had been a case

of twenty to one at the least, and the brigands had been armed to the

teeth. Who could blame him that in such circumstances the sixty-two

hundred francs, all in small silver and paper money--which the

collector of taxes of the Falaise district was sending up to his

chief at Alençon--had passed from the boot of the coach into the

hands of that clever band of rascals?

Who could blame him? I say. Surely, not the Impérial Government up

in Paris who did not know how to protect its citizens from the

depredations of such villains, and had not even succeeded in making

the high road between Caen and Alençon safe for peaceable travellers.

Inside the coach the passengers were at last giving tongue to their

indignation. Highway robbery at six o'clock in the afternoon, and

the evening not a very dark one at that! It were monstrous,

outrageous, almost incredible, did not the empty pockets and

ransacked valises testify to the scandalous fact. M. Fouché, Duc

d'Otrante, was drawing a princely salary as Minister of Police, and

yet allowed a mail-coach to be held up and pillaged--almost by

daylight and within five kilomètres of the county town!

The last half-hour of the eventful journey flew by like magic: there

was so much to say that it became impossible to keep count of time.

Alençon was reached before everyone had had a chance of saying just

what he or she thought of the whole affair, or of consigning M. le

Duc d'Otrante and all his myrmidons to that particular chamber in

Hades which was most suitable for their crimes.

Outside the "Adam et Ève," where Gontran finally drew rein, there was

a gigantic clatter and din as the passengers tumbled out of the

coach, and by the dim light of the nearest street lantern tried to

disentangle their own belongings from the pile of ransacked valises

which the ostlers had unceremoniously tumbled out in a heap upon the

cobble stones. Everyone was talking--no one in especial seemed

inclined to listen--anecdotes of former outrages committed by the

Chouans were bandied to and fro.

Gontran, leaning against the entrance of the inn, a large mug of

steaming wine in his hand, watched with philosophic eye his former

passengers, struggling with their luggage. One or two of them were

going to spend the night at the "Adam et Ève": they had already filed

past him into the narrow passage beyond, where they were now deep in

an altercation with Gilles Blaise, the proprietor, on the subject of

the price and the situation of their rooms; others had homes or

friends in the city, and with their broken valises and bundles in

their hands could be seen making their way up the narrow main street,

still gesticulating excitedly.

"It's a shocking business, friend Gontran," quoth Gilles Blaise as

soon as he had settled with the last of his customers. His gruff

voice held a distinct note of sarcasm, for he was a powerful fellow

and feared neither footpads nor midnight robbers, nor any other

species of those _satané_ Chouans. "I wonder you did not make a

better fight for it. You had three or four male passengers

aboard----"

"What could I do?" retorted Gontran irritably. "I had my horses to

attend to, and did it, let me tell you, with the muzzle of a pistol

pressing against my temple."

"You didn't see anything of those miscreants?"

"Nothing. That is----"

"What?"

"Just when I was free once more to gather the reins in my hands and

the order 'Forward' was given by those impudent rascals, he who had

spoken the order stood for a moment below one of my lanterns."

"And you saw him?"

"As plainly as I see you--except his face, for that was hidden by the

wide brim of his hat and by a shaggy beard. But there is one thing I

should know him by, if the police ever succeeded in laying hands on

the rogue."

"What is that?"

"He had only one leg, the other was a wooden one."

Gilles Blaise gave a loud guffaw. He had never heard of a highwayman

with a wooden leg before. "The rascal cannot run far if the police

ever do get after him," was his final comment on the situation.

Thereupon Gontran suddenly bethought himself of the passenger who had

sat on the box-seat beside him until those abominable footpads had

ordered the poor man to get out of their way.

"Have you seen anything of him, Hector?" he queried of the postilion.

"Well, now you mention him," replied the young man slowly, "I don't

remember that I have."

"He was not among the lot that came out of the coach."

"He certainly was not."

"I thought when he did not get back to his seat beside me, he had

lost his nerve and gone inside."

"So did I."

"Well, then?" concluded Gontran.

But the puzzle thus propounded was beyond Hector's powers of

solution. He scratched the back of his head by way of trying to

extract thence a key to the enigma.

"We must have left him behind," he suggested.

"He would have shouted after us if we had," commented Gontran.

"Unless----" he added with graphic significance.

Hector shook himself like a dog who has come out of the water. The

terror of those footpads and of those pistols clicking in the dark,

unpleasantly close to his head, was still upon him.

"You don't think----" he murmured through chattering teeth.

Gontran shrugged his shoulders.

"It won't be the first time," he said sententiously, "that those

miscreants have added murder to their other crimes."

"Lost one of your passengers, Gontran?" queried Gilles Blaise blandly.

"If those rogues have murdered him----" quoth Gontran with an oath.

"Then you'd have to make a special declaration before the chief

commissary of police, and that within an hour. Who was your

passenger, Gontran?"

"I don't know. A quiet, well-mannered fellow. Good company he was,

too, during the first part of the way."

"What was his name?"

"I can't tell. I picked him up at Argentan. The box-seat was empty.

No one wanted it, for it was raining then. He paid me his fare and

scrambled up beside me. That's all I know about him."

"What was he like? Young or old?"

"I didn't see him very well. It was already getting dark," rejoined

Gontran impatiently. "I couldn't look him under the nose, could I?"

"But _sacrebleu_! Monsieur le Commissaire de Police will want to

know something more than that. Did you at least see how he was

dressed?"

"Yes," replied Gontran, "as far as I can recollect he was dressed in

grey."

"Well, then, friend Gontran," concluded Gilles Blaise with a jovial

laugh, "you can go at once to Monsieur le Commissaire de Police, and

you can tell him that an industrious Chouan, who has a wooden leg and

a shaggy beard but whose face you did not see, has to the best of

your belief murdered an unknown passenger whose name, age and

appearance you know nothing about, but who, as far as you can

recollect, was dressed in grey---- And we'll see," he added with a

touch of grim humour, "what Monsieur le Commissaire will make out of

this valuable information."

II

The men were cowering together in a burrow constructed of dead

branches and caked mud, with a covering of heath and dried twigs.

Their heads were close to one another and the dim light of a dark

lanthorn placed upon the floor threw weird, sharp shadows across

their eager faces, making them appear grotesque and almost

ghoulish--the only bright spots in the surrounding gloom.

One man on hands and knees was crouching by the narrow entrance, his

keen eyes trying to pierce the density of the forest beyond.

The booty was all there, spread out upon the damp earth--small coins

and bundles of notes all smeared with grease and mud; there were some

trinkets, too, but of obviously little value: a pair of showy gold

ear-rings, one or two signets, a heavy watch in a chased silver case.

But these had been contemptuously swept aside--it was the money that

mattered.

The man with the wooden leg had counted it all out and was now

putting coins and notes back into a large leather wallet.

"Six thousand two hundred and forty-seven francs," he said quietly,

as he drew the thongs of the wallet closely together and tied them

securely into a knot. "One of the best hauls we've ever had. 'Tis

Madame who will be pleased."

"Our share will have to be paid out of that first," commented one of

his companions.

"Yes, yes!" quoth the other lightly. "Madame will see to it. She

always does. How many of you are there?" he added carelessly.

"Seven of us all told. They were a pack of cowards in that coach."

"Well!" concluded the man with the wooden leg, "we must leave Madame

to settle accounts. I'd best place the money in safety now."

He struggled up into a standing position--which was no easy matter

for him with his stump and in the restricted space--and was about to

hoist the heavy wallet on to his powerful shoulders, when one of his

mates seized him by the wrist.

"Hold on, Silver-Leg!" he said roughly, "we'll pay ourselves for our

trouble first. Eh, friends?" he added, turning to the others.

But before any of them could reply there came a peremptory command

from the man whom they had called "Silver-Leg."

"Silence!" he whispered hoarsely. "There's someone moving out there

among the trees."

At once the others obeyed, every other thought lulled to rest by the

sense of sudden danger. For a minute or so every sound was hushed in

the narrow confines of the lair save the stertorous breathing which

came from panting throats. Then the look-out man at the entrance

whispered under his breath:

"I heard nothing."

"Something moved, I tell you," rejoined Silver-Leg curtly. "It may

only have been a beast on the prowl."

But the brief incident had given him the opportunity which he

required; he had shaken off his companion's hold upon his wrist and

had slung the wallet over his shoulder. Now he stumped out of the

burrow.

"Friend Hare-Lip," he said before he went, in the same commanding

tone wherewith he had imposed silence awhile ago on his turbulent

mates, "tell Monseigneur that it will be 'Corinne' this time, and

you, Mole-Skin, ask Madame to send Red-Poll over on Friday night for

the key."

The others growled in assent and followed him out of their

hiding-place. One of the men had extinguished the lanthorn, and

another was hastily collecting the trinkets which had so

contemptuously been swept aside.

"Hold on, Silver-Leg!" shouted the man who had been called Hare-Lip;

"short reckonings make long friends. I'll have a couple of hundred

francs now," he continued roughly. "It may be days and weeks ere I

see Madame again, and by that time God knows where the money will be."

But Silver-Leg stumped on in the gloom, paying no heed to the

peremptory calls of his mates. It was marvellous how fast he

contrived to hobble along, winding his way in and out in the

darkness, among the trees, on the slippery carpet of pine needles and

carrying that heavy wallet--six thousand two hundred francs, most of

it in small coin--upon his back. The others, however, were swift and

determined, too. Within the next minute or two they had overtaken

him, and he could no longer evade them; they held him tightly,

surrounding him on every side and clamouring for their share of the

spoils.

"We'll settle here and now, friend Silver-Leg," said Hare-Lip, who

appeared to be the acknowledged spokesman of the malcontents. "Two

hundred francs for me out of that wallet, if you please, ere you move

another step, and two hundred for each one of us here, or----"

The man with the wooden leg had come to a halt, but somehow it seemed

that he had not done so because the others held and compelled him,

but because he himself had a desire to stand still. Now when

Hare-Lip paused, a world of menace in every line of his gaunt,

quivering body, Silver-Leg laughed with gentle irony, as a man would

laugh at the impotent vapourings of a child.

"Or what, my good Hare-Lip?" he queried slowly.

Then as the other instinctively lowered his gaze and mumbled

something between his teeth, Silver-Leg shrugged his shoulders and

said with kind indulgence, still as if he were speaking to a child:

"Madame will settle, my friend. Do not worry. It is bad to worry.

You remember Fear-Nought: he took to worrying--just as you are doing

now--wanted to be paid out of his turn, or more than his share, I

forget which. But you remember him?"

"I do," muttered Hare-Lip with a savage oath. "Fear-Nought was

tracked down by the police and dragged to Vincennes, or Force, or

Bicêtre--we never knew."

To the guillotine, my good Hare-Lip," rejoined Silver-Leg blandly,

"along with some other very brave Chouans like yourselves, who also

had given their leaders some considerable trouble."

"Betrayed by you," growled Hare-Lip menacingly.

"Punished--that's all," concluded Silver-Leg as he once more turned

to go.

"Treachery is a game at which more than one can play."

"The stakes are high. And only one man can win," remarked Silver-Leg

dryly.

"And one man must lose," shouted Hare-Lip, now beside himself with

rage, "and that one shall be you this time, my fine Silver-Leg. À

moi, my mates!" he called to his companions.

And in a moment the men fell on Silver-Leg with the vigour born of

terror and greed, and for the first moment or two of their desperate

tussle it seemed as if the man with the wooden leg must succumb to

the fury of his assailants. Darkness encompassed them all round, and

the deep silence which dwells in the heart of the woods. And in the

darkness and the silence these men fought--and fought

desperately--for the possession of a few hundred francs just filched

at the muzzle of a pistol from a few peaceable travellers.

Pistols of course could not be used; the police patrols might not be

far away, and so they fought on in silence, grim and determined, one

man against half a dozen, and that one halt, and weighted with the

spoils. But he had the strength of a giant, and with his back

against a stately fir tree he used the heavy wallet as a flail,

keeping his assailants at arm's length with the menace of

death-dealing blows.

Then, suddenly, from far away, even through the dull thuds of this

weird and grim struggle, there came the sound of men approaching--the

click of sabres, the tramp and snorting of horses, the sense of men

moving rapidly even if cautiously through the gloom. Silver-Leg was

the first to hear it.

"Hush!" he cried suddenly, and as loudly as he dared, "the police!"

Again, with that blind instinct born of terror and ever-present

danger, the others obeyed. The common peril had as swiftly

extinguished the quarrel as greed of gain had fanned it into flame.

The cavalcade was manifestly drawing nearer.

"Disperse!" commanded Silver-Leg under his breath. "Clear out of the

wood, but avoid the tracks which lead out of it, lest it is

surrounded. Remember 'Corinne' for Monseigneur, and that Red-Poll

can have the key for Madame on Friday."

Once again he had made use of his opportunity. Before the others had

recovered from their sudden fright, he had quietly stumped away, and

in less than five seconds was lost in the gloom among the trees. For

a moment or two longer an ear, attuned by terror or the constant

sense of danger, might have perceived the dull, uneven thud of his

wooden leg against the soft carpet of pine needles, but even this

soon died away in the distance, and over the kingdom of darkness

which held sway within the forest there fell once more the pall of

deathlike silence. The posse of police in search of human quarry had

come and gone, the stealthy footsteps of tracked criminals had ceased

to resound from tree to tree; all that could be heard was the

occasional call of a night-bird, or the furtive movement of tiny

creatures of the wild.

Silence hung over the forest for close upon an hour. Then from

behind a noble fir a dark figure detached itself and more stealthily,

more furtively than any tiny beast it stole along the track which

leads to the main road. The figure, wrapped in a dark mantle, glided

determinedly along despite the difficulties of the narrow track,

complicated now by absolute darkness. Hours went by ere it reached

the main road, on the very spot where some few hours ago the

mail-coach had been held up and robbed by a pack of impudent thieves.

Here the figure halted for awhile, and just then the heavy rain

clouds, which had hung over the sky the whole evening, slowly parted

and revealed the pale waning moon. A soft light gradually suffused

the sky and vanquished the impenetrable darkness.

Not a living soul was in sight save that solitary figure by the

roadside--a man, to all appearances, wearing a broad-brimmed hat

casting a deep shadow over his face; the waning moon threw a cold

light upon the grey mantle which he wore. On ahead the exquisite

tower of the church of Notre Dame appeared vague and fairylike

against the deep sapphire of the horizon far away. Then the solitary

figure started to walk briskly in the direction of the city.

III

M. le Procureur Impérial, sitting in his comfortable armchair in the

well-furnished apartment which he occupied in the Rue St. Blaise at

Alençon, was surveying his visitor with a quizzical and questioning

gaze.

On the desk before him lay the letter which that same visitor had

presented to him the previous evening--a letter penned by no less a

hand than that of M. le Duc d'Otrante himself, Minister of Police,

and recommending the bearer of this august autograph to the good will

of M. de Saint-Tropèze, Procureur Impérial at the tribunal of

Alençon. Nay, more! M. le Ministre in that same autograph letter

gave orders, in no grudging terms, that the bearer was to be trusted

implicitly, and that every facility was to be given him in the

execution of his duty: said duty consisting in the tracking down and

helping to bring to justice of as many as possible of those saucy

Chouans who, not content with terrorising the countryside, were up in

arms against the government of His Impérial Majesty.

A direct encroachment this on the rights and duties of M. le

Procureur Impérial; no wonder he surveyed the quiet,

insignificant-looking individual before him, with a not altogether

benevolent air.

M. le préfet sitting on the opposite side of the high mantelpiece was

discreetly silent until his chief chose to speak.

After a brief while the Procureur Impérial addressed his visitor.

"Monsieur le Duc d'Otrante," he said in that dry, supercilious tone

which he was wont to affect when addressing his subordinates, "speaks

very highly of you, Monsieur--Monsieur-- By the way, the Minister, I

perceive, does not mention your name. What is your name, Monsieur?"

"Fernand, Monsieur le Procureur," replied the man.

"Fernand? Fernand what?"

"Nothing, Monsieur le Procureur. Only Fernand."

The little Man in Grey spoke very quietly in a dull, colourless tone

which harmonised with the neutral tone of his whole appearance. For

a moment it seemed as if a peremptory or sarcastic retort hovered on

M. le Procureur's lips. The man's quietude appeared like an

impertinence.

M. de Saint-Tropèze belonged to the old _Noblesse_. He had emigrated

at the time of the Revolution and spent a certain number of years in

England, during which time a faithful and obscure steward

administered his property and saved it from confiscation.

The blandishments of the newly-crowned Emperor had lured M. de

Saint-Tropèze back to France. Common sense and ambition had

seemingly got the better of his antiquated ideals, whilst Napoleon

was only too ready to surround himself with as many scions of the

ancient nobility as were willing to swear allegiance to him. He

welcomed Henri de Saint-Tropèze and showered dignities upon him with

a lavish hand; but the latter never forgot that the Government he now

served was an upstart one, and he never departed from that air of

condescension and high breeding which kept him aloof from his more

plebeian subordinates and which gave him an authority and an

influence in the province which they themselves could never hope to

attain.

M. le préfet had coughed discreetly. The warning was well-timed. He

knew every word of the Minister's letter by heart, and one phrase in

it might, he feared, have escaped M. le Procureur's notice. It

ordered that the bearer of the Ministerial credentials was to be

taken entirely on trust--no questions were to be asked of him save

those to which he desired to make reply. To disregard even the

vaguest hint given by the all-powerful Minister of Police was, to say

the least, hazardous. Fortunately M. de Saint-Tropèze understood the

warning. He pressed his thin lips tightly together and did not

pursue the subject of his visitor's name any farther.

"You propose setting to work immediately, Monsieur--er--Fernand?" he

asked with frigid hauteur.

"With your permission, Monsieur le Procureur," replied the Man in

Grey.

"In the matter of the highway robbery the other night, for instance?"

"In that and other matters, Monsieur le Procureur."

"You were on the coach which was attacked by those damnable Chouans,

I believe?"

"Yes, Monsieur le Procureur. I picked up the coach at Argentan and

sat next to the driver until the vehicle was ordered to halt."

"Then what happened?"

"A man scrambled up on the box-seat beside me, and holding a pistol

to my head commanded me to descend."

"And you descended?"

"Yes," replied the man quietly. He paused a moment and then added by

way of an explanation: "I hurt my knee coming down; the pain caused

me to lose some measure of consciousness. When I returned to my

senses, I found myself on the roadside--all alone--there was no sign

either of the coach or of the footpads."

"An unfortunate beginning," said M. de Saint-Tropèze with a distinct

note of sarcasm in his voice, "for a secret agent of His Majesty's

Police sent down to track some of the most astute rascals known in

the history of crime."

"I hope to do better in the future, Monsieur le Procureur," rejoined

the Man in Grey simply.

M. de Saint-Tropèze made no further remark, and for a moment or two

there was silence in the room. The massive Louis XIV clock ticked

monotonously; M. de Saint-Tropèze seemed to be dissociating his

well-bred person from the sordid and tortuous affairs of the Police.

The Man in Grey appeared to be waiting until he was spoken to again,

and M. le préfet had a vague feeling that the silence was becoming

oppressive, as if some unspoken enmity lurked between the plebeian

and obscure police agent and the highly connected and influential

Procurator of His Majesty the Emperor. He threw himself blandly into

the breach.

"Of course, of course," he said genially. "You,

Monsieur--er--Fernand, are lucky to have escaped with your life.

Those rascals stick at nothing nowadays. The driver of the coach

fully believed that you had been murdered. I suppose you saw nothing

of the rogue?"

But this was evidently not one of the questions which the Man in Grey

had any desire to answer, and M. Vimars did not insist. He turned

obsequiously to M. le Procureur.

"The driver," he said, "spoke of one having a wooden leg. But the

worthy Gontran was very vague in all his statements. I imagine that

he and all the male passengers must have behaved like cowards or the

rascals would never have got so clean away."

"The night was very dark, Monsieur le Préfet," observed the Man in

Grey dryly, "and the Chouans were well armed."

"Quite so," here broke in M. le Procureur impatiently, "and no object

can be served now in recriminations. See to it, my good Vimars," he

continued in a tone that was still slightly sarcastic but entirely

peremptory, "that the Minister's orders are obeyed to the last

letter. Place yourself and all your personnel and the whole of the

local police at Monsieur--er--Fernand's disposal, and do not let me

hear any more complaints of inefficiency or want of good will on your

part until those scoundrels have been laid by the "heel."

IV

M. de Saint-Tropèze paused after his peroration. With an almost

imperceptible nod of his handsome head he indicated both to his

visitor and to his subordinate that the audience was at an end. But

M. le préfet, though he knew himself to be dismissed, appeared

reluctant to go. There was something which M. le Procureur had

forgotten, and the worthy préfet was trying to gather up courage to

jog his memory. He had a mightily wholesome respect for his chief,

had M. Vimars, for the Procureur was not only a man of vast erudition

and of the bluest blood, but one who was held in high consideration

by His Majesty's government in Paris, ay, and, so 'twas said, by His

Majesty himself.

So M. Vimars hummed and hawed and gave one or two discreet little

coughs, whilst M. le Procureur with obvious impatience was drumming

his well-manicured nails against the arm of his chair. At last he

said testily:

"You have something you wish to say to me, my good Monsieur Vimars?"

"Yes, Monsieur le Procureur," hazarded the préfet in reply, "that

is--there is the matter of the burglary--and--and the murder last

night--that is----"

M. le Procureur frowned: "Those are local matters," he said loftily,

"which concern the commissary of police, my good Vimars, and are

beneath the notice of Monsieur le Ministre's secret agent."

The préfet, conscious of a reprimand, blushed to the very roots of

his scanty hair. He rose with some haste and the obvious desire to

conceal his discomfiture in a precipitate retreat, when the Man in

Grey interposed in his quiet, even monotone:

"Nothing is beneath the notice of a secret agent, Monsieur le

Procureur," he said; "and everything which is within the province of

the commissary of police concerns the representative of the Minister."

M. Vimars literally gasped at this presumption. How anyone dared

thus to run counter to M. le Procureur's orders simply passed his

comprehension. He looked with positive horror on the meagre,

insignificant personage who even now was meeting M. le Procureur's

haughty, supercilious glance without any sign of contrition or of

shame.

M. de Saint-Tropèze had raised his aristocratic eyebrows, and tried

to wither the audacious malapert with his scornful glance, but the

little Man in Grey appeared quite unconscious of the enormity of his

offence; he stood by--as was his wont--quietly and silently, his eyes

fixed inquiringly on the préfet, who was indeed hoping that the floor

would open conveniently and swallow him up ere he was called upon to

decide whether he should obey the orders of his official chief, or

pay heed to the commands of the accredited agent of M. the Minister

of Police.

But M. le Procureur decided the question himself and in the only way

possible. The Minister's letter with its peremptory commands lay

there before him--the secret agent of His Majesty's Police was to be

aided and obeyed implicitly in all matters relating to his work;

there was nothing to be done save to comply with those orders as

graciously as he could, and without further loss of dignity.

"You have heard the wishes of Monsieur le Ministre's agent, my good

Vimars," he said coldly; "so I pray you speak to him of the matter

which exercises your mind, for of a truth I am not well acquainted

with all the details."

Whereupon he fell to contemplating the exquisite polish on his

almond-shaped nails. Though the over-bearing little upstart in the

grey coat could command the obsequiousness of such men as that fool

Vimars, he must be shown at the outset that his insolence would find

no weak spot in the armour of M. de Saint-Tropèze's lofty

self-respect.

"Oh! it is very obvious," quoth the préfet, whose only desire was to

conciliate both parties, "that the matter is not one which affects

the graver question of those _satané_ Chouans. At the same time both

the affairs of last night are certainly mysterious and present some

unusual features which have greatly puzzled our exceedingly able

commissary of police. It seems that in the early hours of this

morning the library of Monseigneur the Constitutional Bishop of

Alençon was broken into by thieves. Fortunately nothing of any value

was stolen, and this part of the affair appeared simple enough, until

an hour or two later a couple of peasants, who were walking from

Lonrai towards the city, came across the body of a man lying face

upwards by the roadside. The man was quite dead--had been dead some

time apparently. The two louts hurried at once to the commissariat

of police and made their depositions. Monsieur Lefèvre, our chief

commissary, proceeded to the scene of the crime; he has now the

affair in hand."

The préfet had perforce to pause in his narrative for lack of breath.

He had been talking volubly and uninterruptedly, and indeed he had no

cause to complain of lack of attention on the part of his hearer. M.

le Ministre's secret agent sat absolutely still, his deep-set eyes

fixed intently upon the narrator. Alone M. le Procureur Impérial

maintained his attitude of calm disdain. He still appeared deeply

absorbed in the contemplation of his finger-nails.

"At first," resumed the préfet after his dramatic pause, "these two

crimes, the greater and the less, seemed in no way connected, and

personally I am not sure even now that they are. A certain air of

similarity and mystery, however, clings to them both, for in both

cases the crimes appear at the outset so very purposeless. In the

case of the burglary in Monseigneur's palace the thieves were

obviously scared before they could lay hands on any valuables, but

even so there were some small pieces of silver lying about which they

might have snatched up, even if they were in a vast hurry to get

away; whilst in the case of the murder, though the victim's silver

watch was stolen and his pockets ransacked, the man was obviously

poor and not worth knocking down."

"And is the identity of the victim known to the police?" here asked

the Man in Grey in his dull, colourless voice.

"Indeed it is," replied the préfet; "the man was well known

throughout the neighbourhood. He was valet to Madame la Marquise de

Plélan."

M. le Procureur looked up suddenly from his engrossing occupation.

"Ah!" he said, "I did not know that. Lefèvre did not tell me that he

had established the identity of the victim."

He sighed and once more gazed meditatively upon his finger-nails.

"Poor Maxence! I have often seen him at Plélan. There never was a

more inoffensive creature. What motive could the brute have for such

a villainous murder?"

The préfet shrugged his shoulders.

"Some private quarrel, I imagine," he said.

"A love affair?" queried the Man in Grey.

"Oh no, Monsieur. Maxence was the wrong side of fifty."

"A smart man?"

"Anything but smart--a curious, shock-headed, slouchy-looking person

with hair as red as a fox's."

Just for the space of one second the colourless eyes of the Man in

Grey lit up with a quick and intense light; it seemed for the moment

as if an exclamation difficult to suppress would escape his thin,

bloodless lips, and his whole insignificant figure appeared to be

quivering with a sudden, uncontrollable eagerness. But this

departure from his usual quietude was so momentary that M. le préfet

failed to notice it, whilst M. le Procureur remained as usual

uninterested and detached.

"Poor Maxence!" resumed M. Vimars after awhile. "He had, as far as

is known, not a single enemy in the world. He was devoted to Madame

la Marquise and enjoyed her complete confidence; he was not possessed

of any savings, nor was he of a quarrelsome disposition. He can't

have had more than a few francs about his person when he was so

foully waylaid and murdered. Indeed, it is because the crime is

ostensibly so wanton that the police at once dismissed the idea that

those abominable Chouans had anything to do with it."

"Is the road where the body was found very lonely of nights?" asked

the Man in Grey.

"It is a lonely road," replied the préfet, "and never considered very

safe, as it is a favourite haunt of the Chouans--but it is the direct

road between Alençon and Mayenne, through Lonrai and Plélan."

"Is it known what business took the confidential valet of Madame la

Marquise de Plélan on that lonely road in the middle of the night?"

"It has not been definitely established," here broke in M. le

Procureur curtly, "that the murder was committed in the middle of the

night."

"I thought----"

"The body was found in the early morning," continued M. de

Saint-Tropèze with an air of cold condescension; "the man had been

dead some hours--the leech has not pronounced how many. Maxence had

no doubt many friends or relations in Alençon: it is presumed that he

spent the afternoon in the city and was on his way back to Plélan in

the evening when he was waylaid and murdered."

"That presumption is wrong," said the Man in Grey quietly.

"Wrong?" retorted M. le Procureur frigidly. "What do you mean?"

"I was walking home from Plélan towards Alençon in the small hours of

the morning. There was no dead body lying in the road then."

"The body lay by the roadside, half in the ditch," said M. le

Procureur dryly, "you may have missed seeing it."

"Possibly," rejoined the Man in Grey equally dryly, "but unlikely."

"Were you looking out for it then?" riposted the Procureur. But no

sooner were the words out of his mouth than he realised his mistake.

The Man in Grey made no reply; he literally appeared to withdraw

himself into an invisible shell, to efface himself yet further within

a colourless atmosphere, out of which it was obviously unwise to try

to drag him. M. le Procureur pressed his thin lips together,

impatient with himself at an unnecessary loss of dignity. As usual

M. le préfet was ready to throw himself into the breach.

"I am sure," he said with his usual volubility, "that we are wasting

Monsieur le Procureur's valuable time now. I can assure you,

Monsieur--er--Fernand, that our chief commissary of police can give

you all the details of the crime--if, indeed, they interest you.

Shall we go now?--that is," he added, with that same feeling of

hesitation which overcame him every time he encountered the secret

agent's calm, inquiring look, "that is--er--unless there's anything

else you wish to ask of Monsieur le Procureur."

"I wish to know with regard to the murder, what was the cause of

death," said the Man in Grey quietly.

"A pistol shot, sir," replied M. de Saint-Tropèze coldly, "right

between the shoulder blades, delivered at short range apparently,

seeing that the man's coat was charred and blackened with powder.

The leech avers that he must have fallen instantly."

"Shot between the shoulders, and yet found lying on his back,"

murmured the Man in Grey. "And was nothing at all found upon the

body that would give a clue to the motive of the crime?"

"Nothing, my dear sir," broke in the préfet glibly, "nothing at all.

In his breeches' pocket there was a greasy and crumpled sheet of

letter-paper, which on examination was found to be covered with a row

of numerals all at random--like a child's exercise-book."

"Could I see the paper?"

"It is at the commissariat of police," explained the Procureur curtly.

"Where I can easily find it, of course," concluded the Man in Grey

with calm decision. "In the meanwhile perhaps Monsieur le préfet

will be kind enough to tell me something more about the burglary at

the Archbishop's Palace."

"There's very little to tell, my good Monsieur Fernand," said M.

Vimars, who, far more conscious than was the stranger of the

Procureur's growing impatience, would have given a month's salary for

the privilege of making himself scarce.

"With what booty did the burglars make off?"

"With nothing of any value; and what they did get they dropped in

their flight. The police found a small silver candlestick, and a

brass paper weight in the street close to the gate of Monseigneur's

Palace, also one or two books which no doubt the burglars had seized

in the hope that they were valuable editions."

"Nothing, then, has actually been stolen?"

"Nothing. I believe that Monseigneur told the chief commissary that

one or two of his books are still missing, but none of any value. So

you see, my good Monsieur--er--Fernand," concluded M. Vimars blandly,

"that the whole matter is quite beneath your consideration. It is a

case of a vulgar murder with only a private grudge by way of

motive--and an equally vulgar attempt at burglary, fortunately with

no evil results. Our local police--though none too efficient, alas!

in these strenuous days, when His Majesty's army claims the flower of

our manhood--is well able to cope with these simple matters, which,

of course, must occur in every district from time to time. You may

take it from me--and I have plenty of experience, remember--that the

matter has no concern whatever with the Chouans and with your mission

here. You can, quite conscientiously, devote the whole of your time

to the case of the highway robbery the other night, and the recovery

of the sixty-two hundred francs which were stolen from the coach, as

well as the tracking of that daring rascal with the wooden leg."

Satisfied with his peroration, M. Vimars at last felt justified in

moving towards the door.

"I don't think," he concluded with suave obsequiousness, "that we

need take up any more of Monsieur le Procureur's valuable time, and

with his gracious permission----"

To his intense relief, M. Vimars perceived that the Man in Grey was

at last prepared to take his leave.

M. de Saint-Tropèze, plainly at the end of his patience, delighted to

be rid of his tiresome visitors, at once became pleasantly

condescending. To the secret agent of His Majesty's Police he gave a

quite gracious nod, and made the worthy préfet proud and happy by

whispering in his ear:

"Do not allow that little busybody to interfere with you too much, my

dear Monsieur Vimars. I am prepared to back your skill and

experience in such matters against any young shrimp from Paris."

The nod of understanding which accompanied this affable speech sent

M. Vimars into an empyrean of delight. After which M. le Procureur

finally bowed his visitors out of the room.

The little Man in Grey walked in silence beside M. Vimars along the

narrow network of streets which lead to the Hôtel de Ville. The

préfet had a suite of apartments assigned to him in the building, and

once he was installed in his own well-furnished library, untrammelled

by the presence of his chief, and with the accredited agent of His

Majesty's Minister sitting opposite to him, he gave full rein to his

own desire for perfect amity with so important a personage.

He began by a lengthy disquisition on the merits of M. le Procureur

Impérial. Never had there been a man of such consideration and of

such high culture in the city. M. de Saint-Tropèze was respected

alike by the municipal officials, by the townspeople and by the

landed aristocracy of the neighbourhood--and he was a veritable

terror to the light-fingered gentry, as well as to the gangs of

Chouans that infested the district.

The Man in Grey listened to the fulsome panegyric with his accustomed

deep attention. He asked a few questions as to M. de Saint-Tropèze's

domestic circumstances. "Was he married?" "Was he wealthy?" "Did he

keep up a luxurious mode of life?"

To all these questions M. Vimars was only too ready to give reply.

No, Monsieur le Procureur was not married. He was presumably

wealthy, for he kept up a very elegant bachelor establishment in the

Rue St. Blaise with just a few old and confidential servants. The

sources of his income were not known, as Monsieur de Saint-Tropèze

was very proud and reserved, and would not condescend to speak of his

affairs with anyone.

Next the worthy préfet harked back, with wonted volubility, to the

double outrage of the previous night, and rehearsed at copious length

every circumstance connected with it. Strangely enough, the secret

agent, who had been sent by the Minister all the way from Paris in

order to track down that particular band of Chouans, appeared far

more interested in the murder of Mme. de Plélan's valet and the theft

of a few books out of Monseigneur the Bishop's library than he was in

the daring robbery of the mail-coach.

"You knew the unfortunate Maxence, did you not, Monsieur le Préfet?"

he asked.

"Why, yes," replied M. Vimars, "for I have often paid my respects to

Madame la Marquise de Plélan."

"What was he like?"

"You can go over to the commissariat of police and see what's left of

the poor man," rejoined the préfet, with a feeble attempt at grim

humour. "The most remarkable feature about him was his red hair--an

unusual colour among our Normandy peasantry."

Later M. Vimars put the finishing touch to his amiability by placing

his services unreservedly at the disposal of M. le Ministre's agent.

"Is there anything that I can do for you, my good Monsieur Fernand?"

he asked urbanely.

"Not for the moment, I thank you," replied Fernand. "I will send to

you if I require any assistance from the police. But in the

meanwhile," he added, "I see that you are something of a scholar. I

should be greatly obliged if you could lend me a book to while away

some of my idle hours."

"A book? With pleasure!" quoth M. Vimars, not a little puzzled.

"But how did you know?"

"That you were a scholar?" rejoined the other with a vague smile.

"It was a fairly simple guess, seeing your well-stocked cases of

books around me, and that a well-fingered volume protrudes even now

from your coat-pocket."

"Ah! Ah!" retorted the préfet ingenuously, "I see that truly you are

a great deal sharper, Monsieur Fernand, than you appear to be. But

in any case," he added, "I shall be charmed to be of service to you

in the matter of my small library. I flatter myself that it is both

comprehensive and select--so if there is anything you especially

desire to read----"

"I thank you, Sir," said the Man in Grey; "as a matter of fact I have

never had the opportunity of reading Madame de Staël's latest work,

_Corinne_, and if you happen to possess a copy----"

"With the greatest of pleasure, my dear sir," exclaimed the préfet.

He went at once to one of his well-filled bookcases, and after a

brief search found the volume and handed it with a smile to his

visitor.

"It seems a grave pity," he added, "that no new edition of this

remarkable work has ever been printed. But Madame de Staël is not in

favour with His Majesty, which no doubt accounts for the publisher's

lack of enterprise."

A few more words of polite farewell: after which M. Vimars took final

leave of the Minister's agent. The little Man in Grey glided out of

the stately apartment like a ghost, even his footsteps failing to

resound along the polished floor.

V

Buried in a capacious armchair, beside a cheerfully blazing fire, M.

le Procureur Impérial had allowed the copy of the _Moniteur_ which he

had been reading to drop from his shapely hands on to the floor. He

had closed his eyes and half an hour had gone by in peaceful

somnolence, even while M. Lefèvre, chief commissary of police, was

cooling his heels in the antechamber, preparatory to being received

in audience on most urgent business.

M. le Procureur Impérial never did anything in a hurry, and, on

principle, always kept a subordinate waiting until any officiousness

or impertinence which might have been lurking in the latter's mind

had been duly squelched by weariness and sore feet.

So it was only after he had indulged in a short and refreshing nap

that M. de Saint-Tropèze rang for his servant, and ordered him to

introduce M. Lefèvre, chief commissary of police. The latter, a

choleric, apoplectic, loud-voiced official, entered the audience

chamber in a distinctly chastened spirit. He had been shown the

original letter of credentials sent to M. le Procureur by the

Minister, and yesterday he had caught sight of the small grey-clad

figure as it flitted noiselessly along the narrow streets of the

city. And inwardly the brave commissary of police had then and there

perpetrated an act of high treason, for he had sworn at the

ineptitude of the grand Ministries in Paris, which sent a pack of

incompetent agents to interfere with those who were capable of

dealing with their own local affairs.

Monsieur le Procureur Impérial, who no doubt sympathised with the

worthy man's grievances, was inclined to be gracious.

"Well? And what is it now, my good Monsieur Lefèvre?" he asked as

soon as the commissary was seated.

"In one moment, Monsieur le Procureur," growled Lefèvre. "First of

all, will you tell me what I am to do about that secret agent who has

come here, I suppose, to poke his ugly nose into my affairs?"

"What you are to do about him?" rejoined M. de Saint-Tropèze with a

smile. "I have shown you the Minister's letter: he says that we must

leave all matters in the hands of his accredited agent."

"By your leave," quoth Lefèvre wrathfully, "that accredited agent

might as well be polishing the flagstones of the Paris boulevards,

for all the good that he will do down here."

"You think so?" queried M. le Procureur, and with a detached air, he

fell into his customary contemplation of his nails.

"And with your permission," continued the commissary, "I will proceed

with my own investigations of the outrages committed by those

abominable Chouans, for that bundle of conceit will never get the

hang of the affair."

"But the Minister says that we must not interfere. We must render

all the assistance that we can."

"Bah! we'll render assistance when it is needed," retorted Lefèvre

captiously. "But in the meantime I am not going to let that

wooden-legged scoundrel slip through my fingers, to please any

grey-coated marmoset who thinks he can lord it over me in my own

district."

M. de Saint-Tropèze appeared interested.

"You have a clue?" he asked.

"More than that. I know who killed Maxence."

"Ah! You have got the man? Well done, my brave Lefèvre," exclaimed

M. le Procureur, without, however, a very great show of enthusiasm.

"I haven't got him yet," parried Lefèvre. "But I have the

description of the rascal. A little patience and I can lay my hands

on him--provided that busybody does not interfere."

"Who is he, then?" queried M. de Saint-Tropèze.

"One of those damned Chouans."

"You are sure?"

"Absolutely. All day yesterday I was busy interrogating witnesses,

who I knew must have been along the road between Lonrai and the city

in the small hours of the morning--workpeople and so on, who go to

and from their work every morning of their lives. Well! after a good

deal of trouble we have been able to establish that the murder was

actually committed between the hours of five and half-past, because

although no one appears actually to have heard the pistol shot, the

people who were on the road before five saw nothing suspicious,

whilst the two louts who subsequently discovered the body actually

heard the tower clock of Notre Dame striking the half-hour at the

very time."

"Well? And----"

"No fewer than three of the witnesses state that they saw a man with

a queer-shaped lip, dressed in a ragged coat and breeches, and with

stockingless feet thrust into sabots, hanging about the road shortly

before five o'clock. They gave him a wide berth, for they took him

to be a Chouan on the prowl."

"Why should a Chouan trouble to kill a wretched man who has not a

five-franc piece to bless himself with?"

"That's what we've got to find out," rejoined the commissary of

police, "and we will find it out, too, as soon as we've got the

ruffian and the rest of the gang. I know the rogue, mind you--the

man with the queer lip. I have had my eye on him for some time. Oh!

he belongs to the gang, I'll stake mine oath on it: a youngish man

who should be in the army and is obviously a deserter--a

ne'er-do-well who never does a day's honest work and disappears o'

nights. What his name is and where he comes from I do not know. But

through him we'll get the others, including the chief of the

gang--the man with the wooden leg."

"God grant you may succeed!" ejaculated M. le Procureur

sententiously. "These perpetual outrages in one's district are a

fearful strain on one's nerves. By the way," he added, as he passed

his shapely hand over a number of miscellaneous papers which lay in a

heap upon his desk, "I don't usually take heed of anonymous letters,

but one came to me this morning which might be worth your

consideration."

He selected a tattered, greasy paper from the heap, fingering it

gingerly, and having carefully unfolded it passed it across the table

to the chief commissary of police. Lefèvre smoothed the paper out:

the writing was almost illegible, and grease and dirt had helped

further to confuse the characters, but the commissary had had some

experience of such communications, and contrived slowly to decipher

the scrawl.

"It is a denunciation, of course," he said. "The rogues appear to be

quarrelling amongst themselves. 'If,' says the writer of the

epistle, 'M. le Procureur will send his police to-night between the

hours of ten and twelve to the Cache-Renard woods and they follow the

directions given below, they will come across the money and valuables

which were taken from the mail-coach last Wednesday, and also those

who robbed the coach and murdered Mme. de Plélan's valet. Strike the

first bridle-path on the right after entering the wood by the main

road, until you come to a fallen fir tree lying across another narrow

path; dismount here and follow this track for a further three hundred

mètres, till you come to a group of five larches in the midst of a

thicket of birch and oak. Stand with your back to the larch that is

farthest from you, and face the thicket; there you will perceive

another track which runs straight into the depths of the wood, follow

it until you come to a tiny clearing, at the bottom of which the

thicket will seem so dense that you would deem it impenetrable.

Plunge into it boldly to where a nest of broken branches reveals the

presence of human footsteps, and in front of you you will see a kind

of hut composed of dead branches and caked mud and covered with a

rough thatch of heather. In that hut you will find that for which

you seek.'

"Do you think it worth while to act upon this anonymous

denunciation?" queried M. Saint-Tropèze when Lefèvre had finished

reading.

"I certainly do," replied the commissary. "In any case it can do no

harm."

"You must take plenty of men with you."

"Leave that to me, Monsieur le Procureur," rejoined Lefèvre, "and

I'll see that they are well armed, too."

"What about the secret agent?"

Lefèvre swore.

"That worm?" was his sole but very expressive comment.

"Will you see him about the matter?"

"What do you think?"

"I suppose you must."

"And if he gives me orders?"

"You must obey them, of course. Have you seen him this morning?"

"Yes. He had ordered me to come to his lodgings in the Rue de

France."

"What did he want?"

"The scrap of paper which we had found in the breeches' pocket of

Maxence."

"You gave it to him?"

"Of course," growled Lefèvre savagely. "Haven't we all got to obey

him?"

"You left him in his lodgings, then?"

"Yes."

"Doing what?"

"Reading a book."

"Reading a book?" exclaimed M. de Saint-Tropèze with a harsh laugh.

"What book?"

"I just noticed the title," replied Lefèvre, "though I'm nothing of a

scholar and books don't interest me."

"What was the title?"

"_Corinne_," said the commissary of police.

Apparently M. le Procureur Impérial had come to the end of the

questions which he desired to put to the worthy M. Lefèvre, for he

said nothing more, but remained leaning back in his chair and gazing

straight out of the window beside him. His pale, aristocratic

profile looked almost like chiselled marble against the purple damask

of the cushions. He seemed absorbed in thought, or else supremely

bored; M. Lefèvre--nothing of a psychologist, despite his

calling--could not have said which.

The ticking of the massive Louis XIV clock upon the mantelpiece and

the sizzling of damp wood on the hearth alone broke the silence which

reigned in the stately apartment. Through the closed window the

manifold sounds which emanate from a busy city came discreet and

subdued.

Instinctively M. Lefèvre's glance followed that of his chief: he,

too, fell to gazing out of the window where only a few passers-by

were seen hurrying homewards on this late dreary October afternoon.

Suddenly he perceived the narrow, shrinking figure of the little Man

in Grey gliding swiftly down the narrow street. The commissary of

police smothered the savage oath which had risen to his lips: he

turned to his chief, and even his obtuse perceptions were aroused by

what he saw. M. le Procureur Impérial was no longer leaning back

listlessly against the damask cushions: he was leaning forward, his

fine, white hands clutching the arms of his chair. He, too, had

apparently caught sight of the grey-clad figure, for his eyes, wide

open and resentful, followed it as it glided along, and on his whole

face there was such an expression of hatred and savagery that the

worthy commissary felt unaccountably awed and subdued. Next moment,

however, he thought he must have been dreaming, for M. de

Saint-Tropèze had once more turned to him with that frigid urbanity

which became his aristocratic personality so well.

"Well, my good Lefèvre," he said, "I don't really think that I can

help you further in any way. I quite appreciate your mistrust of the

obtrusive stranger, and personally I cannot avoid a suspicion that he

will hamper you by interfering at a critical moment to-night during

your expedition against the Chouans. He may just be the cause of

their slipping through your fingers, which would be such a terrible

pity now that you have gathered the net so skilfully around them."

Lefèvre rose, and with firm, deliberate movements tightened the belt

around his portly waist, re-adjusted the set of his tunic, and

generally contrived to give himself an air of determination and

energy.

"I'll say nothing to the shrimp about our expedition to-night," he

said with sullen resolution. "That is, unless you, Monsieur le

Procureur, give me orders to do so."

"Oh, I?" rejoined M. de Saint-Tropèze carelessly. "I won't say

anything one way or the other. The whole matter is out of my hands

and you must act as you think best. Whatever happens," he added

slowly and emphatically, "you will get no blame from me."

Which was such an extraordinary thing for M. le Procureur to say--who

was one of the most pedantic, censorious and autocratic of men--that

the good Lefèvre spoke of it afterwards to M. le préfet and to one or

two of his friends. He could not understand this attitude of

humility and obedience on the part of his chief: but everyone agreed

that it was small wonder M. le Procureur Impérial was upset, seeing

that the presence of that secret police agent in Alençon was a direct

snub to all the municipal and departmental authorities throughout the

district, and M. de Saint-Tropèze was sure to resent it more than

anyone else, for he was very proud, and acknowledged to be one of the

most capable of highly-placed officials in the whole of France.

VI

The night that followed was unusually dark. Out in the Cache-Renard

woods the patter of the rain on the tall crests of the pines and the

soughing of the wind through the branches of the trees drowned every

other sound. In the burrow built of dead branches, caked mud and

dried heather, five men sat waiting, their ears strained to the

crackling of every tiny twig, to the fall of every drop of moisture

from the over-laden twigs. Among them the dark lantern threw a dim,

flickering light on their sullen, glowering faces. Despite the cold

and the damp outside, the atmosphere within was hot to suffocation;

the men's breath came panting and laboured, and now and again they

exchanged a few whispered words.

"In any case," declared one of them, "if we feel that he is playing

us false we shall have to do for him to-night, eh, mates?"

A kind of muffled assent went round the circle, and one man murmured:

"Do you really mistrust him, Hare-Lip?"

"I should," replied Hare-Lip curtly, "if I thought he knew about

Red-Poll."

"You don't think that he suspects?" queried another.

"I don't see how he can. He can't have shown his face, or rather his

wooden leg inside Alençon since the mail-coach episode. The police

are keen after him. But if he did hear rumours of the death of

Red-Poll he will also have heard that the murder was only an ordinary

case of robbery--watch and money stolen--and that a sheet of

letter-paper covered with random numerals was found in the breeches'

pocket of the murdered man."

One of the men swore lustily in the dark.

"The paper covered with numerals!" he muttered savagely under his

breath. "You clumsy fool to have left that behind!"

"What was the use----" began another.

But Hare-Lip laughed, and broke in quietly:

"Do ye take me for a fool, mates? I was not going to take away that

original sheet of paper and proclaim it to our chiefs that it was one

of us who killed Red-Poll. No! I took the sheet of letter-paper

with me when I went to meet Red-Poll. After he fell--I shot him

between the shoulders--I turned him over on his back and ransacked

his pockets; that was a blind. Then I found the paper with the

figures and copied them out carefully--that was another blind--in

case Silver-Leg heard of the affair and suspected us."

One or two of the others gave a growl of dissent.

"You might have been caught while you were playing that silly game,"

said one of the men, "which would not deceive a child."

"Silver-Leg is no gaby," murmured another.

"Well, he'll be here anon," concluded Hare-Lip lightly. "If you

think he means to play a dirty trick, he can go and join Red-Poll,

that's all."

"He may not come, after all."

"He must come. I had his message to meet him here to-night without

fail. The chiefs have planned another attack: on the Orleans coach

this time. Silver-Leg wants us to be of the party."

"We ought to have got hold of the last booty before now!"

"Impossible! Mole-Skin and I have not figured out all the directions

from the book and the numerals yet. It is not an easy task, I tell

you, but it shall be done soon, and we can take you straight to the

spot as soon as we have the directions before us."

"Unless Silver-Leg and Madame remove the booty in the meanwhile,"

grunted one of the party caustically.

"I sometimes wonder----" said another. But he got no further. A

peremptory "Hush!" from Hare-Lip suddenly silenced them all.

With a swift movement one of them extinguished the lanthorn, and now

they cowered in absolute darkness within their burrow like so many

wild beasts tracked to earth by the hunters. The heat was

suffocating: the men vainly tried to subdue the sound of their breath

as it came panting from their parched throats.

"The police!" Hare-Lip muttered hoarsely.

But they did not need to be told. Just like tracked beasts they knew

every sound which portended danger, and already from afar off, even

from the very edge of the wood, more than a kilomètre away, their

ears, attuned to every sound, had perceived the measured tramp of

horses upon the soft, muddy road. They cowered there, rigid and

silent. The darkness encompassed them, and they felt safe enough in

their shelter in the very heart of the woods, in this secret

hiding-place which was known to no living soul save to them. The

police on patrol duty had often passed them by: the nearest track

practicable on horseback was four hundred mètres away, the nearest

footpath made a wide detour round the thicket, wherein these skulking

miscreants had contrived to build their lair.

As a rule, it meant cowering, silent and motionless, inside the

burrow whilst perhaps one posse of police, more venturesome than

most, had dismounted at the end of the bridle-path and plunged afoot

into the narrower track, scouring the thicket on either side for

human quarry. It involved only an elementary amount of danger,

distant and intangible, not worth an accelerated heart-beat, or even

a gripping of knife or pistol wherewith to sell life and liberty at a

price.

And so, for the first five minutes, while the tramp of horses' hoofs

drew nearer, the men waited in placid silence.

"I hope Silver-Leg has found shelter," one of the men murmured under

his breath.

"He should have been here by now," whispered another.

Then they perceived the usual sound of men dismounting, the rattle of

chains, the champing of bits, peremptory words of command. Even then

they felt that they had nothing to fear: these were all sounds they

had heard before. The thicket and the darkness were their allies;

they crouched in silence, but they felt that they were safe. Their

ears and senses, however, were keenly on the alert: they heard the

crackling of dried twigs under the heavy footsteps of the men, the

muttered curses that accompanied the struggle against the density of

the thicket, the clashing of metal tools against dead branches of

intervening trees. Still they did not move. They were not

afraid--not yet! But somehow in the obscurity which held them as in

a pall their attitude had become more tense, their breathing more

laboured, and one or two strong quivering hands went out

instinctively to clutch a neighbouring one.

Then suddenly Hare-Lip drew in his breath with a hissing sound like

that of an angry snake. He suppressed an imprecation which had

forced itself to his lips. Though the almost imperceptible aperture

of the burrow he had perceived the flicker of lanthorns: and sounds

of broken twigs, of trampling feet, of moving, advancing humanity

appeared suddenly to be strangely near.

"By Satan!" he hissed almost inaudibly; "they are in the clearing!"

"They are attacking the thicket," added Mole-Skin in a hoarse whisper.

Never before had the scouring posse of police come so near to the

stronghold of these brigands. It was impossible to see how many of

them there were, but that they were both numerous and determined

could not for a moment be disputed. Voices now became more distinct.

"This way!" "No--that!" "Here, Marcel, where's your pick?" "Lend us

your knife, Jules Marie; the bramble has got into my boots."

Some of the men were joking, others swearing lustily. But there were

a great number of them, and they were now desperately near.

"They are on us!" came in a husky murmur from Hare-Lip. "They know

their way."

"We are betrayed!" was the stifled response.

"By Silver-Leg!" ejaculated Hare-Lip hoarsely, and with such an

intensity of vengeful hatred as would have made even the autocratic

wooden-legged chief of this band of brigands quake. "The accursed

informer! By all the demons in hell he shall pay for his treachery!"

Indeed, there was no longer any doubt that it was not mere chance

which was guiding the posse of police to this secret spot. They were

making their way unhesitatingly by the dim light of the dark lanterns

which their leaders carried before them. One of the men suddenly hit

upon the almost imperceptible track, which led straight to the

burrow. There was no mistaking the call which he gave to his

comrades.

"I have it now, mates!" he shouted. "Follow me!"

The sharp report of a pistol came by way of a reply from the

lurking-hole of the Chouans, and the man who had just uttered the

call to his mates fell forward on his face.

"Attention, my men!" commanded the officer in charge. "Close the

lanterns and put a charge of powder into the brigands' den."

Once more the report of a pistol rang out through the night. But the

men of the police, though obviously scared by the mysterious foe who

struck at them out of the darkness, were sufficiently disciplined not

to give ground: they fought their way into line, and the next moment

a terrific volley of gunfire rent the echoes of the wood from end to

end. In front of the men now there was a wide clearing, where the

undergrowth had been repeatedly broken and trampled upon. This they

had seen, just before the lanthorns were closed, and beyond it the

burrow with its thatch of heather and its narrow aperture which

revealed the muzzle of two or three muskets, and through the aperture

several pairs of glowing eyes and shadowy forms vaguely discernible

in the gloom.

"Up with the lights and charge!" commanded the officer.

The lanterns were opened, and three sharp reports came in immediate

answer from the lair.

One or two men of the police fell amidst the bed of brambles; but the

others, maddened by this resistance and by the fall of their

comrades, rushed forward in force.

Dividing their line in the centre, they circled round the clearing,

attacking the stronghold from two sides. The commissary of police,

leaving nothing to chance, had sent half a company to do the work.

In a few seconds the men were all over the burrow, scrambling up the

thatch, kicking aside the loose walls of dead branches, and within

two minutes they had trampled every fragment of the construction

under foot.

But of the gang of Chouans there remained only a few traces, and two

or three muskets abandoned in their hasty flight: they had succeeded

in making good their escape under cover of the darkness. The

sergeant in command of the squad of police ordered the debris of the

den to be carefully searched. Very little of importance was found

beyond a few proofs that the robbery of the mail-coach the other

night, the murder of Maxence, and the abortive burglary in

Monseigneur's Palace were the work of the same gang. One or two

watches and pocket-books were subsequently identified by the

passengers of the coach that had been held up; there was the silver

watch which had belonged to the murdered valet, and a couple of books

which bore Monseigneur the Bishop of Alençon's book-plate.

But of the man with the wooden leg and his rascally henchmen, or of

the sixty-two hundred francs stolen from the coach there was not a

sign.

The chief commissary of police swore lustily when his men returned to

the bridle-path where he had been waiting for them, and the sergeant

reported to him that the rogues had made good their escape. But even

his wrath--violent and wordy as it was--was as nothing to the white

heat of anger wherewith M. le Procureur Impérial received the news of

the dire failure of the midnight raid in the Cache-Renard woods.

Indeed, he appeared so extraordinarily upset at the time that his

subsequent illness was directly attributable to this cause. The

leech vowed that his august patient was suffering from a severe shock

to his nerves. Be that as it may, M. de Saint-Tropèze, who was

usually in such vigorous health, was confined to his room for some

days after the raid. It was a fortnight and more ere he again took

his walks abroad, as had been his wont in the past, and his friends,

when they saw him, could not help but remark that something of M. le

Procureur's elasticity and proud bearing had gone. He who used to be

so upright now walked with a decided stoop; his face looked at times

the colour of ashes; and now and again, when he was out in the

streets, he would throw a look around him almost as if he were afraid.

On the other hand, the secret agent of His Impérial Majesty's Police

had received the news of the escape of the Chouans with his habitual

quietude and equanimity.

He did not make any comment on the commissary's report of the affair,

nor did he offer the slightest remonstrance to M. le Procureur

Impérial for having permitted the expedition without direct

instructions from the official representative of the Minister.

Nothing was seen of the little Man in Grey for the next two or three

weeks: he appeared absorbed in the books which M. le préfet so

graciously lent him, and he did not trouble either the latter, or M.

le Procureur, or the commissary of police with many visits.

The matter of the highway robbery, as well as that of the murdered

valet Maxence, appeared to be already relegated to the growing list

of the mysterious crimes perpetrated by those atrocious Chouans, with

which the police of His Impérial Majesty were unable to cope. The

appearance of the enigmatic person in grey had had no deterrent

effect on the rascals, nor was it likely to have any, if he proved as

inept as the local officials had been in dealing with such flagrant

and outrageous felony.

VII

And once again the silence of the forest was broken in the night by

the sound of human creatures on the prowl. Through the undergrowth

which lies thickest at the Lonrai end of the woods, to the left of

the intersecting main road, the measured tread of a footfall could be

faintly perceived--it was a strange and halting footfall, as of a man

walking with a stump.

Behind the secular willow, which stands in the centre of the small

clearing beside the stagnant pool in the very heart of this dense

portion of the forest, a lonely watcher crouched, waiting. He had

lain there and waited night after night, and for hours at a stretch

the surrounding gloom held him in its close embrace: his ears and

senses were strained to hear that uneven footfall, whenever its faint

thud broke the absolute silence. To no other sound, no other sight,

did he pay any attention, or no doubt he would have noticed that in

the thicket behind him another watcher cowered. The stalker was

stalked in his turn: the watcher was watched. Someone else was

waiting in this dense corner for the man with the wooden leg--a small

figure rapped in a dark mantle, a silent, furtive creature, more

motionless, more noiseless than any beast in its lair.

At last, to-night, that faint, uneven thud of a wooden stump against

the soft carpet of the woods reached the straining ears of the two

watchers. Anon the feeble flicker of a dark lanthorn was vaguely

discernible in the undergrowth.

The man who was crouching behind the willow drew in his breath with a

faint, hissing sound; his hand grasped more convulsively the pistol

which it held. He was lying flat upon his stomach, like a creeping

reptile watching for its prey; his eyes were fixed upon the tiny

flickering light as it slowly drew near towards the stagnant pool.

In the thicket behind him the other watcher also lay in wait: his

hand, too, closed upon a pistol with a firm and determined grip; the

dark mantle slid noiselessly down from his shoulders. But he did not

move, and not a twig that helped to give him cover, quivered at his

touch.

The next moment a man dressed in a rough blouse and coarse breeches

and with a woollen cap pulled over his shaggy hair came out into the

clearing. He walked deliberately up to the willow tree. In addition

to the small dark lantern which he held in one hand, he carried a

spade upon his shoulder. Presently he threw down the spade and then

proceeded so to arrange the lantern that its light fell full upon one

particular spot, where the dry moss appeared to have been recently

disturbed. The man crouching behind the willow watched his every

movement; the other behind the thicket hardly dared to breathe.

Then the newcomer did a very curious thing. Sitting down upon the

soft, sodden earth, he stretched his wooden stump out before him: it

was fastened with straps to the leg which was bent at the knee, the

shin and foot beyond appearing like a thick and shapeless mass,

swathed with bandages. The supposed maimed man, however, now set to

work to undo the straps which bound the wooden stump to his leg, then

he removed the stump, straightened out his knee, unwound the few

mètres of bandages which concealed the shape of his shin and foot,

and finally stood up on both legs, as straight and hale as nature had

originally made him. The watcher behind the willow had viewed all

his movements with tense attention. Now he could scarcely repress a

gasp of mingled astonishment and rage, or the vengeful curse which

had risen to his lips.

The newcomer took up his spade and, selecting the spot where the moss

and the earth bore traces of having been disturbed, he bent to his

task and started to dig. The man behind the tree raised his pistol

and fired: the other staggered backwards with a groan--partly of

terror and partly of pain--and his left hand went up to his right

shoulder with a quick, convulsive gesture. But already the assassin,

casting his still smoking pistol aside, had fallen upon his victim;

there was a struggle, brief and grim, a smothered call for help, a

savage exclamation of rage and satisfied vengeance, and the wounded

man fell at last with a final cry of horror, as his enemy's grip

fastened around his throat.

For a second or two the murderer stood quite still contemplating his

work. With a couple of vigorous kicks with his boot he turned the

body callously over. Then he picked up the lanthorn and allowed the

light to play on the dead man's face; he gave one cursory glance at

the straight, marble-like features, and at the full, shaggy beard and

hair which disfigured the face, and another contemptuous one at the

wooden stump which still lay on the ground close by.

"So dies an informer!" he ejaculated with a harsh laugh.

He searched for his pistol and having found it he tucked it into his

belt; then putting his fingers to his lips he gave a cry like that of

a screech-owl. The cry was answered by a similar one some little

distance away; a minute or two later another man appeared through the

undergrowth.

"Have you done for him?" queried this stranger in a husky whisper.

"He is dead," replied the other curtly. "Come nearer, Mole-Skin," he

added, "you will see something that will amaze you."

Mole-Skin did as his mate ordered; he, too, stood aghast when

Hare-Lip pointed to the wooden stump and to the dead man's legs.

"It was not a bad idea!" said Hare-Lip after a while. "It put the

police on a wrong scent all the time: while they searched for a man

with one leg, he just walked about on two. Silver-Leg was no fool.

But," he added savagely, "he was a traitor, and now he'll neither

bully nor betray us again."

"What about the money?"

"We'd best get that now. Didn't I tell you that Silver-Leg would

come here sooner or later? We lost nothing by lying in wait for him."

Without another word Mole-Skin picked up the spade, and in his turn

began to dig at the spot where Silver-Leg had toiled when the bullet

of his betrayed comrade laid him low. There was only the one spade

and Hare-Lip kept watch while his comrade dug. The light from the

dark lantern revealed the two miscreants at their work.

While Hare-Lip had thus taken the law into his own hands against the

informer, the watcher in the thicket had not stirred. But now he,

also, began to crawl slowly and cautiously out of his hiding-place.

No snake, or lizard, or crawling, furtive beast could have been more

noiseless than he was; the moss beneath him dulled the sound of every

movement, till he, too, had reached the willow tree.

The two Chouans were less than thirty paces away from him. Intent

upon their work they had been oblivious of every other sound. Now

when the tracker of his human quarry raised his arm to fire, Hare-Lip

suddenly turned and at once gave a warning call to his mate. But the

call broke upon his lips, there came a sharp report, immediately

followed by another--the two brigands, illumined by the lanthorn, had

been an easy target, and the hand which wielded the pistol was steady

and unerring.

And now stillness more absolute than before reigned in the heart of

the forest. Summary justice had been meted out to a base informer by

the vengeful arm of the comrades whom he had betrayed, and to the two

determined criminals by an equally relentless and retributive hand.

The man who had so inexorably accomplished this last act of

unfaltering justice waited for a moment or two until the last

lingering echo of the double pistol shot had ceased to resound

through the woods. Then he put two fingers to his lips and gave a

shrill prolonged whistle; after which he came out from behind the

willow. He was small and insignificant-looking, with a pale face and

colourless eyes. He was dressed in grey and a grey cap was pulled

low down over his forehead. He went up to where the two miscreants

whom he had shot were lying, and with a practised eye and hand

assured himself that they were indeed dead. He turned the light of

the dark lantern first on the man with the queer-shaped lip and then

on the latter's companion. The two Chouans had at any rate paid for

some of their crimes with their lives; it remained for the Almighty

Judge to pardon or to punish as they deserved. The third man lay,

stark and rigid, where a kick from the other man had roughly cast him

aside. His eyes, wide open and inscrutable, had still around them a

strange look of authority and pride; the features appeared calm and

marble-like; the mouth under the obviously false beard was tightly

closed, as if it strove even in death to suppress every sound which

might betray the secret that had been so jealously guarded throughout

life. Near by lay the wooden stump which had thrown such a cloud of

dust into the eyes of good M. Lefèvre and his local police.

With slow deliberation the Man in Grey picked up the wooden stump,

and so replaced it against the dead man's leg that in the feeble

light and dense black shadows it looked as real as it had done in

life--a support for an amputated limb. A moment or two later, the

flickering light of a lantern showed through the thicket, and soon

the lusty voice of the commissary of police broke in on the watcher's

loneliness.

"We heard three distinct shots," explained M. Lefèvre, as soon as he

reached the clearing and caught sight of the secret agent.

"Three acts of justice," replied the Man in Grey quietly, as he

pointed to the bodies of the three Chouans.

"The man with the wooden leg!" exclaimed the commissary in tones

wherein astonishment and unmistakable elation struggled with a

momentary feeling of horror. "You have got him?"

"Yes," answered the Man in Grey simply. "Where are your men?"

"I left them at the junction of the bridle-path, as you ordered me to

do," growled the commissary sullenly, for he still felt sore and

aggrieved at the peremptory commands which had been given to him by

the secret agent earlier on that day.

"Then go back and send half a dozen of them here with improvised

stretchers to remove the bodies."

"Then it was you, who----" murmured Lefèvre, not knowing, indeed,

what to say or do in the face of this puzzling and grim emergency.

"What else would you have had me do?" rejoined the Man in Grey, as,

with a steady hand, he removed the false hair and beard which

disguised the pale, aristocratic face of M. de Saint-Tropèze.

"Monsieur le Procureur Impérial!" ejaculated Lefèvre hoarsely.

"I--I--don't understand--you--you--have killed him--he--oh, my God!"

"The Chouans whom he betrayed killed him, my good Lefèvre," replied

the Man in Grey quietly. "He was their chief and kept the secret of

his anonymity even from them. When he was amongst them and led them

to their many nefarious deeds he was not content to hide his face

behind a tangle of false and shaggy hair, or to appear in rough

clothes and with grimy hands. No! His artistry in crime went a step

farther than that; he strapped a wooden leg to his own whole one and

while you scoured the countryside in search of a Chouan with a wooden

leg, the latter had resumed his personality as the haughty and

well-connected M. de Saint-Tropèze, Procureur at the tribunal of

Alençon to His Majesty the Emperor. Here is the stump," added the

Man in Grey, as with the point of his boot he kicked the wooden stump

aside, "and there," he concluded, pointing to the two dead Chouans,

"are the men who wreaked their vengeance upon their chief."

"But how----" interjected Lefèvre, who was too bewildered to speak or

even to think coherently, "how did you find out--how----"

"Later I may tell you," broke in the Man in Grey shortly, "now we

must see to the removal of the bodies. But remember," he added

peremptorily and with solemn earnestness, "that everything you have

seen and heard to-night must remain for ever a secret within your

breast. For the honour of our administration, for the honour of our

newly-founded Empire, the dual personality and countless crimes of

such a highly placed official as M. de Saint-Tropèze must never be

known to the public. I saved the hangman's work when I killed these

two men--there is no one living now, save you and I, who can tell the

tale of M. de Saint-Tropèze's double entity. Remember that to the

public who knew him, to his servants, to your men who will carry his

body in all respect and reverence, he has died here by my side in the

execution of his duty--disguised in rough clothes in order to help me

track these infernal Chouans to their lair. I shall never speak of

what I know, and as for you----"

The Man in Grey paused and, even through the gloom, the commissary

felt the strength and menace of those colourless eyes fixed

steadfastly upon him.

"Your oath, Monsieur le Commissaire de Police," concluded the secret

agent in firm, commanding tones.

Awed and subdued--not to say terrified--the chief commissary gave the

required oath of absolute secrecy.

"Now go and fetch your men, my good Lefèvre," enjoined the Man in

Grey quietly.

Mechanically the commissary turned to go. He felt as if he were in a

dream from which he would presently awake. The man whom he had

respected and feared, the Procurator of His Majesty the Emperor,

whose authority the whole countryside acknowledged, was identical

with that nefarious Chouan with the wooden leg whom the entire

province loathed and feared.

Indeed, the curious enigma of that dual personality was enough to

addle even a clearer intellect than that of the worthy commissary of

police. Guided by the light of the lanthorn he carried he made his

way back through the thicket whence he had come.

Alone in the forest, the Man in Grey watched over the dead. He

looked down meditatively on the pale, aristocratic face of the man

who had lied and schemed and planned, robbed and murdered, who had

risked so much and committed such villainies, for a purpose which

would henceforth and for ever remain an unfathomable mystery.

Was passionate loyalty for the decadent Royalist cause at the root of

all the crimes perpetrated by this man of culture and position--or

was it merely vulgar greed, vulgar and insatiable worship of money,

that drove him to mean and sordid crimes? To what uses did he put

the money wrung from peaceable citizens? Did it go to swell the

coffers of a hopeless Cause, or to contribute to M. de

Saint-Tropèze's own love of luxury?

The Man in Grey pondered these things in the loneliness and silence

of the night. All such questions must henceforth be left unanswered.

For the sake of officialdom, of the government of the new Empire, the

memory of such a man as M. de Saint-Tropèze must remain for ever

untarnished.

Anon the posse of police under the command of a sergeant arrived upon

the scene. They had improvised three stretchers; one of these was

reverently covered with a mantle, upon which they laid the body of M.

le Procureur Impérial, killed in the discharge of his duty whilst

aiding to track a gang of desperate Chouans.

VIII

In the forenoon of the following day the chief commissary of police,

having seen M. le Préfet on the subject of the arrangements for the

public funeral of M. de Saint-Tropèze, called at the lodgings of the

secret agent of His Impérial Majesty's Police.

After the usual polite formalities, Lefèvre plunged boldly into the

subject of his visit.

"How did you find out?" he asked, trying to carry off the situation

with his accustomed bluff. "You owe me an explanation, you know,

Monsieur--er--Fernand. I am chief commissary of this district, and

by your own statement you stand convicted of having killed two men.

Abominable rogues though they were, the laws of France do not

allow----"

"I owe you no explanation, my good Lefèvre," interrupted the Man in

Grey in his quiet monotone, "as you know. If you would care to take

the responsibility on yourself of indicting me for the wilful murder

of those two men, you are of course at liberty to do so. But----"

The commissaire hastened to assure the secret emissary of His Majesty

that what he had said had only been meant as a joke.

"Only as a spur," he added affably, "to induce you to tell me how you

found out the secret of M. de Saint-Tropèze."

"Quite simply," replied the Man in Grey, "by following step by step

the series of crimes which culminated in your abortive expedition

against the Chouans. On the evening of the attack on the coach on

the 10th of October last, I lay hidden and forgotten by the roadside.

The coach had driven away; the footpads were making off with their

booty. I followed them. I crawled behind them on my hands and

knees, till they came to their burrow--the place where you made that

foolish and ill-considered attack on them the other night. I heard

them quarrelling over their loot; I heard enough to guess that sooner

or later a revolt would break out amongst them and that the man whom

they called Hare-Lip meant to possess himself of a large share of the

spoils. I also heard the man with the wooden leg say something about

a book named 'Corinne' which was to be mentioned to 'Monseigneur,'

and a key which would be sent to 'Madame' by the intermediary of

Red-Poll.

"Within two days of this I learned that a man who had red hair and

was valet to Madame la Marquise de Plélan had been murdered, and that

a sheet of note-paper covered with random numerals was found upon his

person; at the same time a burglary had been committed in the house

of Monseigneur the Bishop of Alençon and all that had been stolen

were some books. At once I recognised the hand of Hare-Lip and his

gang. They had obviously stolen the book from Monseigneur's library

and then murdered Red-Poll, in order to possess themselves of the

cipher, which I felt sure would prove to be the indication of the

secret hiding-place of the stolen booty. It was easy enough to work

out the problem of the book and the key. The numerals on the sheet

of note-paper referred to pages, lines and words in the book--a

clumsy enough cipher at best. It gave me--just as I expected--clear

indications of the very place, beside the willow tree and the pool.

Also--just as I anticipated--Silver-Leg, the autocratic chief, had in

the meanwhile put his threat into execution and punished his

rebellious followers by betraying them to the police."

"Great God!" exclaimed Lefèvre, recollecting the anonymous letter

which M. le Procureur had handed to him.

"I dare say you recollect this phase of the episode," continued the

Man in Grey. "Your expedition against the Chouans nearly upset all

my plans. It had the effect of allowing three of them to escape.

However, let that pass for the moment. I could not help but guess,

when I heard of the attack, that Hare-Lip and his mates would wish to

be revenged on the informer. Their burrow was now known to the

police, but there was still the hiding-place of the booty, to which

sooner or later I knew that Silver-Leg must return.

"You remember the orders I gave you a full month ago; to be prepared

to go on any day and at an instant's notice with a dozen of your men

to a certain point on the main road at the Lonrai end of the wood

which I had indicated to you, whenever I sent you a peremptory

message to do so, and there to wait in silence and on the alert until

a shrill whistle from me brought you to my side. Well! in this

matter you did your duty well, and the Minister shall hear of it.

"As for me, I was content to bide my time. With the faithful

henchman whom you placed at my disposal I lay in wait for Monsieur de

Saint-Tropèze in the Rue St. Blaise during all those weary days and

nights when he was supposed to be too ill to venture out of his

house. At last he could refrain no longer; greed or perhaps sheer

curiosity, or that wild adventurous spirit which made him what he

was, drove him to lend a deaf ear to the dictates of prudence and to

don once again the shaggy beard, the rough clothes and wooden stump

of his lawless and shady life.

"I had so placed your man that from where he was he could not see

Monsieur le Procureur, whenever the latter came out of his house, nor

did he know whom or what it was that I was watching; but as soon as I

saw Monsieur de Saint-Tropèze emerging stealthily from his side gate,

I dispatched your man to you with the peremptory message to go at

once to the appointed place, and then I started in the wake of my

quarry.

"You, my good Lefèvre, have no conception what it means to

track--unseen and unheard--one of those reckless Chouans who are more

alert than any wild beast. But I tracked my man; he came out of his

house when the night was at its darkest and first made his way to

that small derelict den which no doubt you know and which stands just

off the main road, on the fringe of the Cache-Renard wood. This he

entered and came out about a quarter of an hour later, dressed in his

Chouan rig-out. I must own that for a few seconds he almost deceived

me, so marvellous was his disguise; the way he contrived that wooden

leg was positively amazing.

"After that he plunged into the woods. But I no longer followed him;

I knew whither he was going and was afraid lest, in the depths and

silence of the forest, he would hear my footfall and manage to give

me the slip. Whilst he worked his way laboriously with his wooden

stump through the thicket and the undergrowth, I struck boldly along

the main road, and plunged into the wood at the point which had been

revealed to me by the cipher. I had explored the place many a time

during the past month, and had no difficulty in finding the stagnant

pool and the willow tree. Hare-Lip and his mate were as usual on the

watch. No sooner had Silver-Leg appeared on the scene than the

others meted out to him the full measure of their vengeful justice.

But I could not allow them to be taken alive. I did not know how

much they knew or guessed of their leader's secret, or how much they

might reveal at their first interrogation. The gallows had already

claimed them for its own; for me they were a facile prey. I shot

them both deliberately and will answer to His Majesty's Minister of

Police alone for my actions."

The Man in Grey paused. As he completed his narrative Lefèvre stared

at him, dumbfounded at the courage, the determination, the dogged

perseverance which alone could have brought this amazing undertaking

to its grim and gruesome issue.

"After this, my good Lefèvre," remarked the secret agent more

lightly, "we shall have to find out something about 'Madame' and

quite a good deal about 'Monseigneur.'"