Name of a name! every man in charge of that d.a.m.nable Scarlet Pimpernel should have three pairs of eyes wherewith to watch his movements. He should have the alert brain of a Robespierre, the physical strength of a Danton, the relentlessness of a Marat. He should be a giant in sheer brute force, a tiger in caution, an elephant in weight, and a mouse in stealthiness!
Name of a name! but "twas only hate that could give such powers to any man!
Hebert, in the guard-room, owned to his doubts. His comrades, too, admitted that after twenty-four hours spent on the watch, their minds were in a whirl. The Citizen Commissary had been so sure-so was the chief concierge of the Abbaye even now; and the men of the Surete!... they themselves had seen the real Mole more than once ... and this man in the cell.... Well, would the citizen Representative have a final good look at him?
"You seem to forget Calais, citizen Hebert," Chauvelin said sharply, "and the deadly humiliation you suffered then at the hands of this man who is now your prisoner. Surely your eyes should have been, at least, as keen as mine own."
Anxious, irritable, his nerves well-nigh on the rack, he nevertheless crossed the guard-room with a firm step and entered the cell where the prisoner was still lying upon the pallia.s.se, as he had been all along, and still presenting that naked piece of shoulder through the hole in his shirt.
"He has been like this the best part of the day," Hebert said with a shrug of the shoulders. "We put his bread and water right under his nose. He ate and he drank, and I suppose he slept. But except for a good deal of swearing, he has not spoken to any of us."
He had followed his chief into the cell, and now stood beside the pallia.s.se, holding a small dark lantern in his hand. At a sign from Chauvelin he flashed the light upon the prisoner"s averted head.
Mole cursed for awhile, and muttered something about "good patriots" and about "retribution." Then, worried by the light, he turned slowly round, and with fish-like, bleary eyes looked upon his visitor.
The words of stinging irony and triumphant sarcasm, all fully prepared, froze on Chauvelin"s lips. He gazed upon the prisoner, and a weird sense of something unfathomable and mysterious came over him as he gazed. He himself could not have defined that feeling: the very next moment he was prepared to ridicule his own cowardice-yes, cowardice! because for a second or two he had felt positively afraid.
Afraid of what, forsooth? The man who crouched here in the cell was his arch-enemy, the Scarlet Pimpernel-the man whom he hated most bitterly in all the world, the man whose death he desired more than that of any other living creature. He had been apprehended by the very side of the murdered man whose confidence he had all but gained. He himself (Chauvelin) had at that fateful moment looked into the fact.i.tious Mole"s eyes, had seen the mockery in them, the lazy insouciance which was the chief attribute of Sir Percy Blakeney. He had heard a faint echo of that inane laugh which grated upon his nerves. Hebert had then laid hands upon this very same man; agents of the Surete had barred every ingress and egress to the house, had conducted their prisoner straightway to the depot and thence to the Abbaye, had since that moment guarded him on sight, by day and by night. Hebert and the other men as well as the chief warder, all swore to that!
No, no! There could be no doubt! There was no doubt! The days of magic were over! A man could not a.s.sume a personality other than his own; he could not fly out of that personality like a bird out of its cage. There on the pallia.s.se in the miserable cell were the same long limbs, the broad shoulders, the grimy face with the three days" growth of stubbly beard-the whole wretched personality of Paul Mole, in fact, which hid the exquisite one of Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart. And yet!...
A cold sweat ran down Chauvelin"s spine as he gazed, mute and immovable, into those fish-like, bleary eyes, which were not-no! they were not those of the real Scarlet Pimpernel.
The whole situation became dreamlike, almost absurd. Chauvelin was not the man for such a mock-heroic, melodramatic situation. Commonsense, reason, his own cool powers of deliberation, would soon rea.s.sert themselves. But for the moment he was dazed. He had worked too hard, no doubt; had yielded too much to excitement, to triumph, and to hate. He turned to Hebert, who was standing stolidly by, gave him a few curt orders in a clear and well-pitched voice. Then he walked out of the cell, without bestowing another look on the prisoner.
Mole had once more turned over on his pallia.s.se and, apparently, had gone to sleep. Hebert, with a strange and puzzled laugh, followed his chief out of the cell.
XI
At first Chauvelin had the wish to go back and see the Public Prosecutor-to speak with him-to tell him-what? Yes, what? That he, Chauvelin, had all of a sudden been a.s.sailed with the same doubts which already had worried Hebert and the others?-that he had told a deliberate lie when he stated that the incriminating doggerel rhyme had been found in Mole"s cell? No, no! Such an admission would not only be foolish, it would be dangerous now, whilst he himself was scarce prepared to trust to his own senses. After all, Fouquier-Tinville was in the right frame of mind for the moment. Paul Mole, whoever he was, was safely under lock and key.
The only danger lay in the direction of the house on the Chemin de Pantin. At the thought Chauvelin felt giddy and faint. But he would allow himself no rest. Indeed, he could not have rested until something approaching certainty had once more taken possession of his soul. He could not-would not-believe that he had been deceived. He was still prepared to stake his very life on the ident.i.ty of the prisoner at the Abbaye. Tricks of light, the flash of the lantern, the perfection of the disguise, had caused a momentary illusion-nothing more.
Nevertheless, that awful feeling of restlessness which had possessed him during the last twenty-four hours once more drove him to activity. And although commonsense and reason both pulled one way, an eerie sense of superst.i.tion whispered in his ear the ominous words, "If, after all!"
At any rate, he would see the Leridans, and once more make sure of them; and, late as was the hour, he set out for the lonely house on the Pantin Road.
Just inside the Barriere du Combat was the Poste de Section, where Commissary Burban was under orders to provide a dozen men of the Surete, who were to be on the watch round and about the house of the Leridans. Chauvelin called in on the Commissary, who a.s.sured him that the men were at their post.
Thus satisfied, he crossed the Barriere and started at a brisk walk down the long stretch of the Chemin de Pantin. The night was dark. The rolling clouds overhead hid the face of the moon and presaged the storm. On the right, the irregular heights of the b.u.t.tes Chaumont loomed out dense and dark against the heavy sky, whilst to the left, on ahead, a faintly glimmering, greyish streak of reflected light revealed the proximity of the ca.n.a.l.
Close to the spot where the main Route de Meux intersects the Chemin de Pantin, Chauvelin slackened his pace. The house of the Leridans now lay immediately on his left; from it a small, feeble ray of light, finding its way no doubt through an ill-closed shutter, pierced the surrounding gloom. Chauvelin, without hesitation, turned up a narrow track which led up to the house across a field of stubble. The next moment a peremptory challenge brought him to a halt.
"Who goes there?"
"Public Safety," replied Chauvelin. "Who are you?"
"Of the Surete," was the counter reply. "There are a dozen of us about here."
"When did you arrive?"
"Some two hours ago. We marched out directly after you left the orders at the Commissariat."
"You are prepared to remain on the watch all night?"
"Those are our orders, citizen," replied the man.
"You had best close up round the house, then. And, name of a dog!" he added, with a threatening ring in his voice. "Let there be no slackening of vigilance this night. No one to go in or out of that house, no one to approach it under any circ.u.mstances whatever. Is that understood?"
"Those were our orders from the first, citizen," said the man simply.
"And all has been well up to now?"
"We have seen no one, citizen."
The little party closed in around their chief and together they marched up to the house. Chauvelin, on tenterhooks, walked quicker than the others. He was the first to reach the door. Unable to find the bell-pull in the dark, he knocked vigorously.
The house appeared silent and wrapped in sleep. No light showed from within save that one tiny speck through the cracks of an ill-fitting shutter, in a room immediately overhead.
In response to Chauvelin"s repeated summons, there came anon the sound of someone moving in one of the upstairs rooms, and presently the light overhead disappeared, whilst a door above was heard to open and to close and shuffling footsteps to come slowly down the creaking stairs.
A moment or two later the bolts and bars of the front door were unfastened, a key grated in the rusty lock, a chain rattled in its socket, and then the door was opened slowly and cautiously.
The woman Leridan appeared in the doorway. She held a guttering tallow candle high above her head. Its flickering light illumined Chauvelin"s slender figure.
"Ah! the citizen Representative!" the woman e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, as soon as she recognised him. "We did not expect you again to-day, and at this late hour, too. I"ll tell my man-"
"Never mind your man," broke in Chauvelin impatiently, and pushed without ceremony past the woman inside the house. "The child? Is it safe?"
He could scarcely control his excitement. There was a buzzing, as of an angry sea, in his ears. The next second, until the woman spoke, seemed like a cycle of years.
"Quite safe, citizen," she said placidly. "Everything is quite safe. We were so thankful for those men of the Surete. We had been afraid before, as I told the citizen Representative, and my man and I could not rest for anxiety. It was only after they came that we dared go to bed."
A deep sigh of intense relief came from the depths of Chauvelin"s heart. He had not realised himself until this moment how desperately anxious he had been. The woman"s rea.s.suring words appeared to lift a crushing weight from his mind. He turned to the man behind him.
"You did not tell me," he said, "that some of you had been here already."
"We have not been here before," the sergeant in charge of the little platoon said in reply. "I do not know what the woman means."
"Some of your men came about three hours ago," the woman retorted; "less than an hour after the citizen Representative was here. I remember that my man and I marvelled how quickly they did come, but they said that they had been on duty at the Barriere du Combat when the citizen arrived, and that he had dispatched them off at once. They said they had run all the way. But even so, we thought it was quick work-"
The words were smothered in her throat in a cry of pain, for, with an almost brutal gesture, Chauvelin had seized her by the shoulders.
"Where are those men?" he queried hoa.r.s.ely. "Answer!"
"In there, and in there," the woman stammered, well-nigh faint with terror as she pointed to two doors, one on each side of the pa.s.sage. "Three in each room. They are asleep now, I should say, as they seem so quiet. But they were an immense comfort to us, citizen ... we were so thankful to have them in the house...."
But Chauvelin had s.n.a.t.c.hed the candle from her hand. Holding it high above his head, he strode to the door on the right of the pa.s.sage. It was ajar. He pushed it open with a vicious kick. The room beyond was in total darkness.