Chauvelin no longer made any pretence to hold Armand by the arm. By
temperament as well as by profession a spy, there was one subject at
least which he had mastered thoroughly: that was the study of human
nature. Though occasionally an exceptionally complex mental organisation
baffled him--as in the case of Sir Percy Blakeney--he prided himself,
and justly, too, on reading natures like that of Armand St. Just as he
would an open book.
The excitable disposition of the Latin races he knew out and out;
he knew exactly how far a sentimental situation would lead a young
Frenchman like Armand, who was by disposition chivalrous, and by
temperament essentially passionate. Above all things, he knew when
and how far he could trust a man to do either a sublime action or an
essentially foolish one.
Therefore he walked along contentedly now, not even looking back to see
whether St. Just was following him. He knew that he did.
His thoughts only dwelt on the young enthusiast--in his mind he
called him the young fool--in order to weigh in the balance the mighty
possibilities that would accrue from the present sequence of events.
The fixed idea ever working in the man’s scheming brain had already
transformed a vague belief into a certainty. That the Scarlet Pimpernel
was in Paris at the present moment Chauvelin had now become convinced.
How far he could turn the capture of Armand St. Just to the triumph of
his own ends remained to be seen.
But this he did know: the Scarlet Pimpernel--the man whom he had learned
to know, to dread, and even in a grudging manner to admire--was not like
to leave one of his followers in the lurch. Marguerite’s brother in the
Temple would be the surest decoy for the elusive meddler who still, and
in spite of all care and precaution, continued to baffle the army of
spies set upon his track.
Chauvelin could hear Armand’s light, elastic footsteps resounding behind
him on the flagstones. A world of intoxicating possibilities surged up
before him. Ambition, which two successive dire failures had atrophied
in his breast, once more rose up buoyant and hopeful. Once he had sworn
to lay the Scarlet Pimpernel by the heels, and that oath was not yet
wholly forgotten; it had lain dormant after the catastrophe of Boulogne,
but with the sight of Armand St. Just it had re-awakened and confronted
him again with the strength of a likely fulfilment.
The courtyard looked gloomy and deserted. The thin drizzle which still
fell from a persistently leaden sky effectually held every outline of
masonry, of column, or of gate hidden as beneath a shroud. The corridor
which skirted it all round was ill-lighted save by an occasional
oil-lamp fixed in the wall.
But Chauvelin knew his way well. Heron’s lodgings gave on the second
courtyard, the Square du Nazaret, and the way thither led past the main
square tower, in the top floor of which the uncrowned King of France
eked out his miserable existence as the plaything of a rough cobbler and
his wife.
Just beneath its frowning bastions Chauvelin turned back towards Armand.
He pointed with a careless hand up-wards to the central tower.
“We have got little Capet in there,” he said dryly. “Your chivalrous
Scarlet Pimpernel has not ventured in these precincts yet, you see.”
Armand was silent. He had no difficulty in looking unconcerned; his
thoughts were so full of Jeanne that he cared but little at this moment
for any Bourbon king or for the destinies of France.
Now the two men reached the postern gate. A couple of sentinels were
standing by, but the gate itself was open, and from within there came
the sound of bustle and of noise, of a good deal of swearing, and also
of loud laughter.
The guard-room gave on the left of the gate, and the laughter came from
there. It was brilliantly lighted, and Armand, peering in, in the wake
of Chauvelin, could see groups of soldiers sitting and standing about.
There was a table in the centre of the room, and on it a number of jugs
and pewter mugs, packets of cards, and overturned boxes of dice.
But the bustle did not come from the guard-room; it came from the
landing and the stone stairs beyond.
Chauvelin, apparently curious, had passed through the gate, and Armand
followed him. The light from the open door of the guard-room cut sharply
across the landing, making the gloom beyond appear more dense and
almost solid. From out the darkness, fitfully intersected by a lanthorn
apparently carried to and fro, moving figures loomed out ghost-like and
weirdly gigantic. Soon Armand distinguished a number of large objects
that encumbered the landing, and as he and Chauvelin left the sharp
light of the guard-room behind them, he could see that the large
objects were pieces of furniture of every shape and size; a wooden
bedstead--dismantled--leaned against the wall, a black horsehair sofa
blocked the way to the tower stairs, and there were numberless chairs
and several tables piled one on the top of the other.
In the midst of this litter a stout, flabby-cheeked man stood,
apparently giving directions as to its removal to persons at present
unseen.
“Hola, Papa Simon!” exclaimed Chauvelin jovially; “moving out to-day?
What?”
“Yes, thank the Lord!--if there be a Lord!” retorted the other curtly.
“Is that you, citizen Chauvelin?”
“In person, citizen. I did not know you were leaving quite so soon. Is
citizen Heron anywhere about?”
“Just left,” replied Simon. “He had a last look at Capet just before
my wife locked the brat up in the inner room. Now he’s gone back to his
lodgings.”
A man carrying a chest, empty of its drawers, on his back now came
stumbling down the tower staircase. Madame Simon followed close on his
heels, steadying the chest with one hand.
“We had better begin to load up the cart,” she called to her husband
in a high-pitched querulous voice; “the corridor is getting too much
encumbered.”
She looked suspiciously at Chauvelin and at Armand, and when she
encountered the former’s bland, unconcerned gaze she suddenly shivered
and drew her black shawl closer round her shoulders.
“Bah!” she said, “I shall be glad to get out of this God-forsaken hole.
I hate the very sight of these walls.”
“Indeed, the citizeness does not look over robust in health,” said
Chauvelin with studied politeness. “The stay in the tower did not,
mayhap, bring forth all the fruits of prosperity which she had
anticipated.”
The woman eyed him with dark suspicion lurking in her hollow eyes.
“I don’t know what you mean, citizen,” she said with a shrug of her wide
shoulders.
“Oh! I meant nothing,” rejoined Chauvelin, smiling. “I am so interested
in your removal; busy man as I am, it has amused me to watch you. Whom
have you got to help you with the furniture?”
“Dupont, the man-of-all-work, from the concierge,” said Simon curtly.
“Citizen Heron would not allow any one to come in from the outside.”
“Rightly too. Have the new commissaries come yet?
“Only citizen Cochefer. He is waiting upstairs for the others.”
“And Capet?”
“He is all safe. Citizen Heron came to see him, and then he told me to
lock the little vermin up in the inner room. Citizen Cochefer had just
arrived by that time, and he has remained in charge.”
During all this while the man with the chest on his back was waiting
for orders. Bent nearly double, he was grumbling audibly at his
uncomfortable position.
“Does the citizen want to break my back?” he muttered.
“We had best get along--quoi?”
He asked if he should begin to carry the furniture out into the street.
“Two sous have I got to pay every ten minutes to the lad who holds my
nag,” he said, muttering under his breath; “we shall be all night at
this rate.”
“Begin to load then,” commanded Simon gruffly. “Here!--begin with this
sofa.”
“You’ll have to give me a hand with that,” said the man. “Wait a bit;
I’ll just see that everything is all right in the cart. I’ll be back
directly.”
“Take something with you then as you are going down,” said Madame Simon
in her querulous voice.
The man picked up a basket of linen that stood in the angle by the door.
He hoisted it on his back and shuffled away with it across the landing
and out through the gate.
“How did Capet like parting from his papa and maman?” asked Chauvelin
with a laugh.
“H’m!” growled Simon laconically. “He will find out soon enough how well
off he was under our care.”
“Have the other commissaries come yet?”
“No. But they will be here directly. Citizen Cochefer is upstairs
mounting guard over Capet.”
“Well, good-bye, Papa Simon,” concluded Chauvelin jovially. “Citizeness,
your servant!”
He bowed with unconcealed irony to the cobbler’s wife, and nodded to
Simon, who expressed by a volley of motley oaths his exact feelings with
regard to all the agents of the Committee of General Security.
“Six months of this penal servitude have we had,” he said roughly, “and
no thanks or pension. I would as soon serve a ci-devant aristo as your
accursed Committee.”
The man Dupont had returned. Stolidly, after the fashion of his kind,
he commenced the removal of citizen Simon’s goods. He seemed a clumsy
enough creature, and Simon and his wife had to do most of the work
themselves.
Chauvelin watched the moving forms for a while, then he shrugged his
shoulders with a laugh of indifference, and turned on his heel.