Blakeney had more than one pied-a-terre in Paris, and never stayed
longer than two or three days in any of these. It was not difficult for
a single man, be he labourer or bourgeois, to obtain a night’s lodging,
even in these most troublous times, and in any quarter of Paris,
provided the rent--out of all proportion to the comfort and
accommodation given--was paid ungrudgingly and in advance.
Emigration and, above all, the enormous death-roll of the past eighteen
months, had emptied the apartment houses of the great city, and those
who had rooms to let were only too glad of a lodger, always providing
they were not in danger of being worried by the committees of their
section.
The laws framed by these same committees now demanded that all keepers
of lodging or apartment houses should within twenty-four hours give
notice at the bureau of their individual sections of the advent of new
lodgers, together with a description of the personal appearance of
such lodgers, and an indication of their presumed civil status and
occupation. But there was a margin of twenty-four hours, which could
on pressure be extended to forty-eight, and, therefore, any one could
obtain shelter for forty-eight hours, and have no questions asked,
provided he or she was willing to pay the exorbitant sum usually asked
under the circumstances.
Thus Blakeney had no difficulty in securing what lodgings he wanted when
he once more found himself inside Paris at somewhere about noon of that
same Monday.
The thought of Hastings and Tony speeding on towards Mantes with the
royal child safely held in Hastings’ arms had kept his spirits buoyant
and caused him for a while to forget the terrible peril in which Armand
St. Just’s thoughtless egoism had placed them both.
Blakeney was a man of abnormal physique and iron nerve, else he could
never have endured the fatigues of the past twenty-four hours, from
the moment when on the Sunday afternoon he began to play his part of
furniture-remover at the Temple, to that when at last on Monday at noon
he succeeded in persuading the sergeant at the Maillot gate that he
was an honest stonemason residing at Neuilly, who was come to Paris in
search of work.
After that matters became more simple. Terribly foot-sore, though
he would never have admitted it, hungry and weary, he turned into an
unpretentious eating-house and ordered some dinner. The place when he
entered was occupied mostly by labourers and workmen, dressed very much
as he was himself, and quite as grimy as he had become after having
driven about for hours in a laundry-cart and in a coal-cart, and having
walked twelve kilometres, some of which he had covered whilst carrying a
sleeping child in his arms.
Thus, Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., the friend and companion of the Prince
of Wales, the most fastidious fop the salons of London and Bath had
ever seen, was in no way distinguishable outwardly from the tattered,
half-starved, dirty, and out-at-elbows products of this fraternising and
equalising Republic.
He was so hungry that the ill-cooked, badly-served meal tempted him to
eat; and he ate on in silence, seemingly more interested in boiled beef
than in the conversation that went on around him. But he would not have
been the keen and daring adventurer that he was if he did not all the
while keep his ears open for any fragment of news that the desultory
talk of his fellow-diners was likely to yield to him.
Politics were, of course, discussed; the tyranny of the sections, the
slavery that this free Republic had brought on its citizens. The
names of the chief personages of the day were all mentioned in turns
Focquier-Tinville, Santerre, Danton, Robespierre. Heron and his
sleuth-hounds were spoken of with execrations quickly suppressed, but of
little Capet not one word.
Blakeney could not help but infer that Chauvelin, Heron and the
commissaries in charge were keeping the escape of the child a secret for
as long as they could.
He could hear nothing of Armand’s fate, of course. The arrest--if arrest
there had been--was not like to be bruited abroad just now. Blakeney
having last seen Armand in Chauvelin’s company, whilst he himself was
moving the Simons’ furniture, could not for a moment doubt that the
young man was imprisoned,--unless, indeed, he was being allowed a
certain measure of freedom, whilst his every step was being spied on, so
that he might act as a decoy for his chief.
At thought of that all weariness seemed to vanish from Blakeney’s
powerful frame. He set his lips firmly together, and once again the
light of irresponsible gaiety danced in his eyes.
He had been in as tight a corner as this before now; at Boulogne his
beautiful Marguerite had been used as a decoy, and twenty-four hours
later he had held her in his arms on board his yacht the Day-Dream. As
he would have put it in his own forcible language:
“Those d--d murderers have not got me yet.”
The battle mayhap would this time be against greater odds than before,
but Blakeney had no fear that they would prove overwhelming.
There was in life but one odd that was overwhelming, and that was
treachery.
But of that there could be no question.
In the afternoon Blakeney started off in search of lodgings for the
night. He found what would suit him in the Rue de l’Arcade, which
was equally far from the House of Justice as it was from his former
lodgings. Here he would be safe for at least twenty-four hours, after
which he might have to shift again. But for the moment the landlord
of the miserable apartment was over-willing to make no fuss and ask
no questions, for the sake of the money which this aristo in disguise
dispensed with a lavish hand.
Having taken possession of his new quarters and snatched a few hours of
sound, well-deserved rest, until the time when the shades of evening
and the darkness of the streets would make progress through the city
somewhat more safe, Blakeney sallied forth at about six o’clock having a
threefold object in view.
Primarily, of course, the threefold object was concentrated on Armand.
There was the possibility of finding out at the young man’s lodgings in
Montmartre what had become of him; then there were the usual inquiries
that could be made from the registers of the various prisons; and,
thirdly, there was the chance that Armand had succeeded in sending some
kind of message to Blakeney’s former lodgings in the Rue St. Germain
l’Auxerrois.
On the whole, Sir Percy decided to leave the prison registers alone
for the present. If Armand had been actually arrested, he would almost
certainly be confined in the Chatelet prison, where he would be closer
to hand for all the interrogatories to which, no doubt, he would be
subjected.
Blakeney set his teeth and murmured a good, sound, British oath when
he thought of those interrogatories. Armand St. Just, highly strung,
a dreamer and a bundle of nerves--how he would suffer under the mental
rack of questions and cross-questions, cleverly-laid traps to catch
information from him unawares!
His next objective, then, was Armand’s former lodging, and from
six o’clock until close upon eight Sir Percy haunted the slopes of
Montmartre, and more especially the neighbourhood of the Rue de la Croix
Blanche, where Armand had lodged these former days. At the house itself
he could not inquire as yet; obviously it would not have been safe;
tomorrow, perhaps, when he knew more, but not tonight. His keen eyes had
already spied at least two figures clothed in the rags of out-of-work
labourers like himself, who had hung with suspicious persistence in this
same neighbourhood, and who during the two hours that he had been in
observation had never strayed out of sight of the house in the Rue de la
Croix Blanche.
That these were two spies on the watch was, of course, obvious;
but whether they were on the watch for St. Just or for some other
unfortunate wretch it was at this stage impossible to conjecture.
Then, as from the Tour des Dames close by the clock solemnly struck the
hour of eight, and Blakeney prepared to wend his way back to another
part of the city, he suddenly saw Armand walking slowly up the street.
The young man did not look either to right or left; he held his head
forward on his chest, and his hands were hidden underneath his cloak.
When he passed immediately under one of the street lamps Blakeney caught
sight of his face; it was pale and drawn. Then he turned his head,
and for the space of two seconds his eyes across the narrow street
encountered those of his chief. He had the presence of mind not to make
a sign or to utter a sound; he was obviously being followed, but in
that brief moment Sir Percy had seen in the young man’s eyes a look that
reminded him of a hunted creature.
“What have those brutes been up to with him, I wonder?” he muttered
between clenched teeth.
Armand soon disappeared under the doorway of the same house where he
had been lodging all along. Even as he did so Blakeney saw the two spies
gather together like a pair of slimy lizards, and whisper excitedly
one to another. A third man, who obviously had been dogging Armand’s
footsteps, came up and joined them after a while.
Blakeney could have sworn loudly and lustily, had it been possible to
do so without attracting attention. The whole of Armand’s history in
the past twenty-four hours was perfectly clear to him. The young man had
been made free that he might prove a decoy for more important game.
His every step was being watched, and he still thought Jeanne Lange in
immediate danger of death. The look of despair in his face proclaimed
these two facts, and Blakeney’s heart ached for the mental torture which
his friend was enduring. He longed to let Armand know that the woman he
loved was in comparative safety.
Jeanne Lange first, and then Armand himself; and the odds would be very
heavy against the Scarlet Pimpernel! But that Marguerite should not have
to mourn an only brother, of that Sir Percy made oath.
He now turned his steps towards his own former lodgings by St. Germain
l’Auxerrois. It was just possible that Armand had succeeded in leaving a
message there for him. It was, of course, equally possible that when he
did so Heron’s men had watched his movements, and that spies would be
stationed there, too, on the watch.
But that risk must, of course, be run. Blakeney’s former lodging was the
one place that Armand would know of to which he could send a message to
his chief, if he wanted to do so. Of course, the unfortunate young man
could not have known until just now that Percy would come back to Paris,
but he might guess it, or wish it, or only vaguely hope for it; he
might want to send a message, he might long to communicate with his
brother-in-law, and, perhaps, feel sure that the latter would not leave
him in the lurch.
With that thought in his mind, Sir Percy was not likely to give up the
attempt to ascertain for himself whether Armand had tried to communicate
with him or not. As for spies--well, he had dodged some of them often
enough in his time--the risks that he ran to-night were no worse than
the ones to which he had so successfully run counter in the Temple
yesterday.
Still keeping up the slouchy gait peculiar to the out-at-elbows working
man of the day, hugging the houses as he walked along the streets,
Blakeney made slow progress across the city. But at last he reached the
facade of St. Germain l’Auxerrois, and turning sharply to his right he
soon came in sight of the house which he had only quitted twenty-four
hours ago.
We all know that house--all of us who are familiar with the Paris of
those terrible days. It stands quite detached--a vast quadrangle,
facing the Quai de l’Ecole and the river, backing on the Rue St.
Germain l’Auxerrois, and shouldering the Carrefour des Trois Manes.
The porte-cochere, so-called, is but a narrow doorway, and is actually
situated in the Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois.
Blakeney made his way cautiously right round the house; he peered up and
down the quay, and his keen eyes tried to pierce the dense gloom that
hung at the corners of the Pont Neuf immediately opposite. Soon he
assured himself that for the present, at any rate, the house was not
being watched.
Armand presumably had not yet left a message for him here; but he might
do so at any time now that he knew that his chief was in Paris and on
the look-out for him.
Blakeney made up his mind to keep this house in sight. This art of
watching he had acquired to a masterly extent, and could have taught
Heron’s watch-dogs a remarkable lesson in it. At night, of course, it
was a comparatively easy task. There were a good many unlighted doorways
along the quay, whilst a street lamp was fixed on a bracket in the wall
of the very house which he kept in observation.
Finding temporary shelter under various doorways, or against the dank
walls of the houses, Blakeney set himself resolutely to a few hours’
weary waiting. A thin, drizzly rain fell with unpleasant persistence,
like a damp mist, and the thin blouse which he wore soon became wet
through and clung hard and chilly to his shoulders.
It was close on midnight when at last he thought it best to give up
his watch and to go back to his lodgings for a few hours’ sleep; but at
seven o’clock the next morning he was back again at his post.
The porte-cochere of his former lodging-house was not yet open; he
took up his stand close beside it. His woollen cap pulled well over his
forehead, the grime cleverly plastered on his hair and face, his lower
jaw thrust forward, his eyes looking lifeless and bleary, all gave him
an expression of sly villainy, whilst the short clay pipe struck at
a sharp angle in his mouth, his hands thrust into the pockets of his
ragged breeches, and his bare feet in the mud of the road, gave the
final touch to his representation of an out-of-work, ill-conditioned,
and supremely discontented loafer.
He had not very long to wait. Soon the porte-cochere of the house was
opened, and the concierge came out with his broom, making a show of
cleaning the pavement in front of the door. Five minutes later a lad,
whose clothes consisted entirely of rags, and whose feet and head were
bare, came rapidly up the street from the quay, and walked along looking
at the houses as he went, as if trying to decipher their number. The
cold grey dawn was just breaking, dreary and damp, as all the past days
had been. Blakeney watched the lad as he approached, the small, naked
feet falling noiselessly on the cobblestones of the road. When the boy
was quite close to him and to the house, Blakeney shifted his position
and took the pipe out of his mouth.
“Up early, my son!” he said gruffly.
“Yes,” said the pale-faced little creature; “I have a message to deliver
at No. 9 Rue St. Germain l’Auxerrois. It must be somewhere near here.”
“It is. You can give me the message.”
“Oh, no, citizen!” said the lad, into whose pale, circled eyes a look of
terror had quickly appeared. “It is for one of the lodgers in No. 9. I
must give it to him.”
With an instinct which he somehow felt could not err at this moment,
Blakeney knew that the message was one from Armand to himself; a written
message, too, since--instinctively when he spoke--the boy clutched at
his thin shirt, as if trying to guard something precious that had been
entrusted to him.
“I will deliver the message myself, sonny,” said Blakeney gruffly.
“I know the citizen for whom it is intended. He would not like the
concierge to see it.”
“Oh! I would not give it to the concierge,” said the boy. “I would take
it upstairs myself.”
“My son,” retorted Blakeney, “let me tell you this. You are going to
give that message up to me and I will put five whole livres into your
hand.”
Blakeney, with all his sympathy aroused for this poor pale-faced lad,
put on the airs of a ruffianly bully. He did not wish that message to
be taken indoors by the lad, for the concierge might get hold of it,
despite the boy’s protests and tears, and after that Blakeney would
perforce have to disclose himself before it would be given up to him.
During the past week the concierge had been very amenable to bribery.
Whatever suspicions he had had about his lodger he had kept to himself
for the sake of the money which he received; but it was impossible to
gauge any man’s trend of thought these days from one hour to the next.
Something--for aught Blakeney knew--might have occurred in the past
twenty-four hours to change an amiable and accommodating lodging-house
keeper into a surly or dangerous spy.
Fortunately, the concierge had once more gone within; there was no one
abroad, and if there were, no one probably would take any notice of a
burly ruffian brow-beating a child.
“Allons!” he said gruffly, “give me the letter, or that five livres goes
back into my pocket.”
“Five livres!” exclaimed the child with pathetic eagerness. “Oh,
citizen!”
The thin little hand fumbled under the rags, but it reappeared again
empty, whilst a faint blush spread over the hollow cheeks.
“The other citizen also gave me five livres,” he said humbly. “He lodges
in the house where my mother is concierge. It is in the Rue de la Croix
Blanche. He has been very kind to my mother. I would rather do as he
bade me.”
“Bless the lad,” murmured Blakeney under his breath; “his loyalty
redeems many a crime of this God-forsaken city. Now I suppose I shall
have to bully him, after all.”
He took his hand out of his breeches pocket; between two very dirty
fingers he held a piece of gold. The other hand he placed quite roughly
on the lad’s chest.
“Give me the letter,” he said harshly, “or--”
He pulled at the ragged blouse, and a scrap of soiled paper soon fell
into his hand. The lad began to cry.
“Here,” said Blakeney, thrusting the piece of gold into the thin small
palm, “take this home to your mother, and tell your lodger that a big,
rough man took the letter away from you by force. Now run, before I kick
you out of the way.”
The lad, terrified out of his poor wits, did not wait for further
commands; he took to his heels and ran, his small hand clutching the
piece of gold. Soon he had disappeared round the corner of the street.
Blakeney did not at once read the paper; he thrust it quickly into his
breeches pocket and slouched away slowly down the street, and thence
across the Place du Carrousel, in the direction of his new lodgings in
the Rue de l’Arcade.
It was only when he found himself alone in the narrow, squalid room
which he was occupying that he took the scrap of paper from his pocket
and read it slowly through. It said:
Percy, you cannot forgive me, nor can I ever forgive myself, but if you
only knew what I have suffered for the past two days you would, I think,
try and forgive. I am free and yet a prisoner; my every footstep is
dogged. What they ultimately mean to do with me I do not know. And
when I think of Jeanne I long for the power to end mine own miserable
existence. Percy! she is still in the hands of those fiends.... I saw
the prison register; her name written there has been like a burning
brand on my heart ever since. She was still in prison the day that you
left Paris; to-morrow, to-night mayhap, they will try her, condemn her,
torture her, and I dare not go to see you, for I would only be bringing
spies to your door. But will you come to me, Percy? It should be safe in
the hours of the night, and the concierge is devoted to me. To-night at
ten o’clock she will leave the porte-cochere unlatched. If you find it
so, and if on the ledge of the window immediately on your left as you
enter you find a candle alight, and beside it a scrap of paper with your
initials S. P. traced on it, then it will be quite safe for you to come
up to my room. It is on the second landing--a door on your right--that
too I will leave on the latch. But in the name of the woman you love
best in all the world come at once to me then, and bear in mind, Percy,
that the woman I love is threatened with immediate death, and that I am
powerless to save her. Indeed, believe me, I would gladly die even now
but for the thought of Jeanne, whom I should be leaving in the hands
of those fiends. For God’s sake, Percy, remember that Jeanne is all the
world to me.
“Poor old Armand,” murmured Blakeney with a kindly smile directed at the
absent friend, “he won’t trust me even now. He won’t trust his Jeanne in
my hands. Well,” he added after a while, “after all, I would not entrust
Marguerite to anybody else either.”