“I heard enough,” wrote Mr. Hobson, “to satisfy me that the devil is unchained and means mischief.  I never thought to see R. G. again.  We must watch him now closely, and know all his movements.  If he goes to Paris, as I heard him threaten, he will give himself into our hands.  I shall follow, in spite of the risks I run.  One word of warning to the Prefecture will put the police on his track.  Arrest, removal to Mazas, Cayenne, or by the guillotine—­what matter which?—­will be his inevitable fate.  The French law is implacable.  His dossier (criminal biography) is in the hands of the authorities, and will be easily produced.  There must be numbers of people still living in Paris who could identify him at once, in spite of his beard and bronzed face.  I can, if need be, although I would rather not make myself too prominent just now.  Be tranquil; he will not be able to injure us.  It is his own doom that he is preparing.”

CHAPTER IX.

IN PARIS.

Years had passed since Hyde—­he was Rupert Gascoigne then—­had last been in Paris.  The memory of that last sojourn and the horrors of it still clung to him—­his arrest, unjust trial, escape.  His bold leap into the swift Seine, his rescue by a passing river steamer, on which, thanks to a plausible tale, in which he explained away the slight flesh-wound he had received from the gendarme’s pistol, he found employment as a stoker, and so got to Rouen, thence to Havre and the sea.

Willingly he would never have returned to the place where he had so nearly fallen a victim.  But he was impelled by a stern sense of duty; he came now as an avenging spirit to unmask and punish those who had plotted against him and his friend—­unscrupulous miscreants who were a curse to the world.

He took up his quarters in a large new hotel upon the Boulevards.

Paris had changed greatly in these years.  The Second Empire, with its swarm of hastily-enriched adventurers, had already done much to beautify and improve the city.  Life was more than ever gay in this the chief home of pleasure-seekers.  Luxury of the showiest kind everywhere in the ascendant; smart equipages and gaily-dressed crowds, the shop-fronts glittering with artistic treasures, everyone outwardly happy, and leading a careless, joyous existence.

Englishmen, officers especially, were just now welcome guests in Paris.  Mr. Hyde, of the Royal Picts, as he entered himself upon the hotel register, with his soldierly air, his Crimean beard, and his arm in a sling, attracted general attention.  He was treated with extraordinary politeness everywhere by the most polite people in the world.  When he asked a question a dozen answers were ready for him—­a dozen officious friends were prepared to escort him anywhere.

But Rupert Hyde wanted no one to teach him his way about Paris.  Within an hour of his arrival, after he had hastily changed the garments he had worn on the night journey, had sallied forth, and, entering the long Rue Lafayette, made straight to the headquarters of the 21st arrondissement.  Urgent business of a public nature had brought him to Paris, but this was a private matter which he desired to dispose of before he attended to anything else.