“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. Etienne 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. Etienne 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. Etienne 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. Etienne.  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.