"Never!" reiterated Heriot emphatically.
"Two thousand francs," reiterated the old man imperturbably.
"Not if you offered me two hundred thousand," retorted the other fiercely. "Go and tell that, to those who sent you. Tell them that I-Heriot-would look upon a fortune as mere dross against the delight of seeing that man Fabrice, whom I hate beyond everything in earth or h.e.l.l, mount up the steps to the guillotine. Tell them that I know that Agnes de Lucines loathes me, that I know that she loves him. I know that I cannot win her save by threatening him. But you are wrong, citizen Lepine," he continued, speaking more and more calmly as his pa.s.sions of hatred and of love seemed more and more to hold him in their grip; "you are wrong if you think that she will not strike a bargain with me in order to save the life of Fabrice, whom she loves. Agnes de Lucines will be my wife within the month, or Arnould Fabrice"s head will fall under the guillotine, and you, my interfering friend, may go to the devil, if you please."
"That would be but a tame proceeding, citizen, after my visit to you," said the old man, with unruffled sang-froid. "But let me, in my turn, a.s.sure you of this, citizen Heriot," he added, "that Mlle. de Lucines will never be your wife, that Arnould Fabrice will not end his valuable life under the guillotine-and that you will never be allowed to use against him the cowardly and stolen weapon which you possess."
Heriot laughed-a low, cynical laugh and shrugged his thin shoulders:
"And who will prevent me, I pray you?" he asked sarcastically.
The old man made no immediate reply, but he came just a step or two closer to the citizen-deputy and, suddenly drawing himself up to his full height, he looked for one brief moment down upon the mean and sordid figure of the ex-valet. To Heriot it seemed as if the whole man had become transfigured; the shabby old scarecrow looked all of a sudden like a brilliant and powerful personality; from his eyes there flashed down a look of supreme contempt and of supreme pride, and Heriot-unable to understand this metamorphosis which was more apparent to his inner consciousness than to his outward sight, felt his knees shake under him and all the blood rush back to his heart in an agony of superst.i.tious terror.
From somewhere there came to his ear the sound of two words: "I will!" in reply to his own defiant query. Surely those words uttered by a man conscious of power and of strength could never have been spoken by the dilapidated old scarecrow who earned a precarious living by writing letters for ignorant folk.
But before he could recover some semblance of presence of mind citizen Lepine had gone, and only a loud and merry laugh seemed to echo through the squalid room.
Heriot shook off the remnant of his own senseless terror; he tore open the door of the bedroom and shouted to Rondeau, who truly was thinking that the citizen-deputy had gone mad:
"After him!-after him! Quick! curse you!" he cried.
"After whom?" gasped the man.
"The man who was here just now-an aristo."
"I saw no one-but the Public Letter-Writer, old Lepine-I know him well--"
"Curse you for a fool!" shouted Heriot savagely, "the man who was here was that cursed Englishman-the one whom they call the Scarlet Pimpernel. Run after him-stop him, I say!"
"Too late, citizen," said the other placidly; "whoever was here before is certainly half-way down the street by now."
III
"No use, Ffoulkes," said Sir Percy Blakeney to his friend half-an-hour later, "the man"s pa.s.sions of hatred and desire are greater than his greed."
The two men were sitting together in one of Sir Percy Blakeney"s many lodgings-the one in the Rue des Pet.i.ts Peres-and Sir Percy had just put Sir Andrew Ffoulkes au fait with the whole sad story of Arnould Fabrice"s danger and Agnes de Lucines" despair.
"You could do nothing with the brute, then?" queried Sir Andrew.
"Nothing," replied Blakeney. "He refused all bribes, and violence would not have helped me, for what I wanted was not to knock him down, but to get hold of the letters."
"Well, after all, he might have sold you the letters and then denounced Fabrice just the same."
"No, without actual proofs he could not do that. Arnould Fabrice is not a man against whom a mere denunciation would suffice. He has the grudging respect of every faction in the National a.s.sembly. Nothing but irrefutable proof would prevail against him-and bring him to the guillotine."
"Why not get Fabrice and Mlle. de Lucines safely over to England?"
"Fabrice would not come. He is not of the stuff that emigres are made of. He is not an aristocrat; he is a republican by conviction, and a demmed honest one at that. He would scorn to run away, and Agnes de Lucines would not go without him."
"Then what can we do?"
"Filch those letters from that brute Heriot," said Blakeney calmly.
"House-breaking, you mean!" commented Sir Andrew Ffoulkes dryly.
"Petty theft, shall we say?" retorted Sir Percy. "I can bribe the lout who has charge of Heriot"s rooms to introduce us into his master"s sanctum this evening when the National a.s.sembly is sitting and the citizen-deputy safely out of the way."
And the two men-one of whom was the most intimate friend of the Prince of Wales and the acknowledged darling of London society-thereupon fell to discussing plans for surrept.i.tiously entering a man"s room and committing larceny, which in normal times would entail, if discovered, a long term of imprisonment, but which, in these days, in Paris, and perpetrated against a member of the National a.s.sembly, would certainly be punished by death.
IV
Citizen Rondeau, whose business it was to look after the creature comforts of deputy Heriot, was standing in the antichambre facing the two visitors whom he had just introduced into his master"s apartments, and idly turning a couple of gold coins over and over between his grimy fingers.
"And mind, you are to see nothing and hear nothing of what goes on in the next room," said the taller of the two strangers; "and when we go there"ll be another couple of louis for you. Is that understood?"
"Yes! it"s understood," grunted Rondeau sullenly; "but I am running great risks. The citizen-deputy sometimes returns at ten o"clock, but sometimes at nine.... I never know."
"It is now seven," rejoined the other; "we"ll be gone long before nine."
"Well," said Rondeau surlily, "I go out now for my supper. I"ll return in half an hour, but at half-past eight you must clear out."
Then he added with a sneer:
"Citizens Legros and Desgas usually come back with deputy Heriot of nights, and citizens Jeanniot and Bompard come in from next door for a game of cards. You wouldn"t stand much chance if you were caught here."
"Not with you to back up so formidable a quintette of stalwarts," a.s.sented the tall visitor gaily. "But we won"t trouble about that just now. We have a couple of hours before us in which to do all that we want. So au revoir, friend Rondeau ... two more louis for your complaisance, remember, when we have accomplished our purpose."
Rondeau muttered something more, but the two strangers paid no further heed to him; they had already walked to the next room, leaving Rondeau in the antichambre.
Sir Percy Blakeney did not pause in the sitting-room where an oil lamp suspended from the ceiling threw a feeble circle of light above the centre table. He went straight through to the bedroom. Here, too, a small lamp was burning which only lit up a small portion of the room-the writing-desk and the oak chest-leaving the corners and the alcove, with its partially drawn curtains, in complete shadow.
Blakeney pointed to the oak chest and to the desk.
"You tackle the chest, Ffoulkes, and I will go for the desk," he said quietly, as soon as he had taken a rapid survey of the room. "You have your tools?"
Ffoulkes nodded, and anon in this squalid room, ill-lit, ill-ventilated, barely furnished, was presented one of the most curious spectacles of these strange and troublous times: two English gentlemen, the acknowledged dandies of London drawing-rooms, busy picking locks and filing hinges like any common house-thieves.
Neither of them spoke, and a strange hush fell over the room-a hush only broken by the click of metal against metal, and the deep breathing of the two men bending to their task. Sir Andrew Ffoulkes was working with a file on the padlocks of the oak chest, and Sir Percy Blakeney, with a bunch of skeleton keys, was opening the drawers of the writing-desk. These, when finally opened, revealed nothing of any importance; but when anon Sir Andrew was able to lift the lid of the oak chest, he disclosed an innumerable quant.i.ty of papers and doc.u.ments tied up in neat bundles, docketed and piled up in rows and tiers to the very top of the chest.
"Quick to work, Ffoulkes," said Blakeney, as in response to his friend"s call he drew a chair forward and, seating himself beside the chest, started on the task of looking through the hundreds of bundles which lay before him. "It will take us all our time to look through these."
Together now the two men set to work-methodically and quietly-piling up on the floor beside them the bundles of papers which they had already examined, and delving into the oak chest for others. No sound was heard save the crackling of crisp paper and an occasional e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n from either of them when they came upon some proof or other of Heriot"s propensity for blackmail.
"Agnes de Lucines is not the only one whom this brute is terrorising," murmured Blakeney once between his teeth; "I marvel that the man ever feels safe, alone in these lodgings, with no one but that weak-kneed Rondeau to protect him. He must have scores of enemies in this city who would gladly put a dagger in his heart or a bullet through his back."
They had been at work for close on half an hour when an exclamation of triumph, quickly smothered, escaped Sir Percy"s lips.
"By Gad, Ffoulkes!" he said, "I believe I have got what we want!"