“The drunken fools!” he muttered, continuing.  “Well for them they came not this way.”

When he entered the Rue de Bethisy, he stopped, searched up and down the thoroughfare.  Far away to his right he saw wavering torches, but these receded and abruptly vanished round a corner of the Rue des Fosses St-Germain l’Auxerrois.  He was alone.  A hundred yards to his left, on the opposite side of the street, stood a gloomy but magnificent hotel, one of the few in this quarter that was surrounded by a walled court.  The hotel was dark.  So far as the man in the grey cloak could see, not a light filled any window.  There were two gates.  Toward the smaller of the two the man cautiously directed his steps.  He tried the latch.  The gate opened noiselessly, signifying frequent use.

“So far, so good!”

An indecisive moment passed, as though the man were nerving himself for an ordeal of courage and cunning.  With a gesture resigning himself to whatever might befall, he entered the court, careful to observe that the way out was no more intricate than the way in.

“Now for the ladder.  If that is missing, it’s horse and away to Spain, or feel the edge of Monsieur Caboche.  Will the lackey be true?  False or true, I must trust him.  Bernouin would sell Mazarin for twenty louis, and that is what I have paid.  Monsieur le Comte’s lackey.  It will be a clever trick.  Mazarin will pay as many as ten thousand livres for that paper.  That fat fool of a Gaston, to conspire at his age!  Bah; what a muddled ass I was, in faith!  I, to sign my name in writing to a cabal!  Only the devil knows what yonder old fool will do with the paper.  Let him become frightened, let that painted play-woman coddle him; and it’s the block for us all, all save Gaston and Conde and Beaufort.  Ah, Madame, Madame, loveliest in all France, ’twas your beautiful eyes.  For the joy of looking into them, I have soiled a fresh quill, tumbled into a pit, played the fool!  And a silver crown against a golden louis, you know nothing about politics or intrigue, nor that that old fool of a husband is making a decoy of your beauty.  But my head cleared this morning.  That paper must be mine.  First, because it is a guaranty for my head, and second, because it is likely to fatten my purse.  It will be simple to erase my name and substitute another’s.  And this cloak!  My faith, it is a stroke.  To the devil with Gaston and Conde and Beaufort; their ambitions are nothing to me, since my head is everything.”

He tiptoed across the stone flags.

“Faith, this is a delicate operation; and the paper may be hidden elsewhere into the bargain.  We venture, we lose or we win; only this is somewhat out of my line of work.  Self-preservation is not theft; let us ease our conscience with this sophism . . .  Ha! the ladder.  Those twenty louis were well spent.  This is droll, good heart.  An onlooker would swear that this is an assignation.  Eh well, Romeo was a sickly lover, and lopped about like a rose in a wind-storm.  Mercutio was the man!”