"Now are we more comfortable," Peyrot observed, pulling a chair over
against the wall and seating him, the pistol on his knee. "Monsieur was
saying?"
Monsieur crossed his legs, as if of all seats in the world he liked his
present one the best. He had brought none of the airs of the noble into
this business, realizing shrewdly that they would but hamper him, as
lace ruffles hamper a duellist. Peyrot, treeless adventurer, living by
his sharp sword and sharp wits, reverenced a count no more than a
hod-carrier. His occasional mocking deference was more insulting than
outright rudeness; but M. Étienne bore it unruffled. Possibly he
schooled himself so to bear it, but I think rather that he felt so
easily secure on the height of his gentlehood that Peyrot's impudence
merely tickled him.
"I was wondering," he answered pleasantly, "how long you have dwelt in
this town and I not known it. You are from Guienne, methinks."
"Carcassonne way," the other said indifferently. Then memory bringing a
deep twinkle to his eye, he added: "What think you, monsieur? I was left
a week-old babe on the monastery step; was reared up in holiness within
its sacred walls; chorister at ten, novice at eighteen, full-fledged
friar, fasting, praying, and singing misereres, exhorting dying saints
and living sinners, at twenty."
"A very pretty brotherhood, you for sample."
"Nay, I am none. Else I might have stayed. But one night I took
leg-bail, lived in the woods till my hair grew, and struck out for
Paris. And never regretted it, neither."
He leaned his head back, his eyes fixed contemplatively on the ceiling,
and burst into song, in voice as melodious as a lark's:
_Piety and Grace and Gloom,
For such like guests I have no room!
Piety and Gloom and Grace,
I bang my door shut in your face!
Gloom and Grace and Piety,
I set my dog on such as ye!_
Finishing his stave, he continued to beat time with his heel on the
floor and to gaze upon the ceiling. But I think we could not have
twitched a finger without his noting it. M. Étienne rose and leaned
across the table toward him.
"M. Peyrot has made his fortune in Paris? Monsieur rolls in wealth, of
course?"
Peyrot shrugged his shoulders, his eyes leaving the ceiling and making a
mocking pilgrimage of the room, resting finally on his own rusty
clothing.
"Do I look it?" he answered.
"Oh," said M. Étienne, slowly, as one who digests an entirely new idea,
"I supposed monsieur must be as rich as a Lombard, he is so cold on the
subject of turning an honest penny."
Peyrot's roving eye condescended to meet his visitor's.
"Say on," he permitted lazily.
"I offer twenty pistoles for a packet, seal unbroken, taken at dawn from
the person of M. de St. Quentin's squire."
"Now you are talking sensibly," the scamp said, as if M. Étienne had
been the shuffler. "That is a fair offer and demands a fair answer.
Moreover, such zeal as you display deserves success. I will look about a
bit this morning among my friends and see if I can get wind of your
packet. I will meet you at dinner-time at the inn of the Bonne Femme."
"Dinner-time is far hence. You forget, M. Peyrot, that you are risen
earlier than usual. I will go out and sit on the stair for five minutes
while you consult your friends."
Peyrot grinned cheerfully.
"M. de Mar doesn't seem able to get it through his head that I know
nothing whatever of this affair."
"No, I certainly don't get that through my head."
Peyrot regarded him with an air ill-used yet compassionate, such as he
might in his monkish days have employed toward one who could not be
convinced, for instance, of the efficacy of prayer.
"M. de Mar," quoth he, plaintively, in pity half for himself so
misunderstood, half for his interlocutor so wilfully blind, "I do
solemnly assure you, once and for all, that I know nothing of this
affair of yours. Till you so asserted, I had no knowledge that Monsieur,
your honoured father, had been set on, and deeply am I pained to hear
it. These be evil days when such things can happen. As for your packet,
I learn of it only through your word, having no more to do with this
deplorable business than a babe unborn."
I declare I was almost shaken, almost thought we had wronged him. But M.
Étienne gauged him otherwise.
"Your words please me," he began.
"The contemplation of virtue," the rascal droned with down-drawn lips,
in pulpit tone, "is always uplifting to the spirit."
"You have boasted," M. Étienne went on, "that your side was up and mine
down. Did you not reflect that soon my side may be up and yours down,
you would hardly be at such pains to deny that you ever bared blade
against the Duke of St. Quentin."
"I have made my declaration in the presence of two witnesses, far too
honourable to falsify, that I know nothing of the attack on the duke,"
Peyrot repeated with apparent satisfaction. "But of course it is
possible that by scouring Paris I might get on the scent of your packet.
Twenty pistoles, though. That is not much."
M. Étienne stood silent, drumming tattoos on the table, not pleased with
the turn of the matter, not seeing how to better it. Had we been sure of
our suspicions, we would have charged him, pistol or no pistol,
trusting that our quickness would prevent his shooting, or that the
powder would miss fire, or that the ball would fly wide, or that we
should be hit in no vital part; trusting, in short, that God was with us
and would in some fashion save us. But we could not be sure that the
packet was with Peyrot. What we had heard him lock in the chest might
have been these very pistols that he had afterward taken out again.
Three men had fled from M. de Mirabeau's alley; we had no means of
knowing whether this Peyrot were he who ran as we came up, he whom I had
encountered, or he who had engaged M. Étienne. And did we know, that
would not tell us which of the three had stabbed and plundered Huguet.
Peyrot might have the packet, or he might know who had it, or he might
be in honest ignorance of its existence. If he had it, it were a crying
shame to pay out honest money for what we might take by force; to buy
your own goods from a thief were a sin. But supposing he had it not? If
we could seize upon him, disarm him, bind him, threaten him, beat him,
rack him, would he--granted he knew--reveal its whereabouts? Writ large
in his face was every manner of roguery, but not one iota of cowardice.
He might very well hold us baffled, hour on hour, while the papers went
to Mayenne. Even should he tell, we had the business to begin again from
the very beginning, with some other knave mayhap worse than this.
Plainly the game was in Peyrot's hands; we could play only to his lead.
"If you will put the packet into my hands, seal unbroken, this day at
eleven, I engage to meet you with twenty pistoles," M. Étienne said.
"Twenty pistoles were a fair price for the packet. But monsieur forgets
the wear and tear on my conscience incurred for him. I must be
reimbursed for that."
"Conscience, quotha!"
"Certainly, monsieur. I am in my way as honest a man as you in yours. I
have never been false to the hand that fed me. If, therefore, I divert
to you a certain packet which of rights goes elsewhere, my sin must be
made worth my while. My conscience will sting me sorely, but with the
aid of a glass and a lass I may contrive to forget the pain.
_Mirth, my love, and Folly dear,
Baggages, you're welcome here!_
I fix the injury to my conscience at thirty pistoles, M. le Comte. Fifty
in all will bring the packet to your hand."
It had been a pleasure to M. le Comte to fling a tankard in the fellow's
face. But the steadfast determination to win the papers for Monsieur,
and, possibly, respect for Peyrot's weapon, withheld him.
"Very well, then. In the cabaret of the Bonne Femme, at eleven. You may
do as you like about appearing; I shall be there with my fifty
pistoles."
"What guaranty have I that you will deal fairly with me?"
"The word of a St. Quentin."
"Sufficient, of course."
The scamp rose with a bow.
"Well, I have not the word of a gentleman to offer you, but I give you
the opinion of Jean Peyrot, sometime Father Ambrosius, that he and the
packet will be there. This has been a delightful call, monsieur, and I
am loath to let you go. But it is time I was free to look for that
packet."