For the nonce, Hebert concluded with a complacent chuckle, the Englishman was still crouching dejectedly in a corner of his new cell, with little of him visible save that naked shoulder through his torn shirt, which, in the process of transference from one prison to another, had become a shade more grimy than before.

Chauvelin nodded, well satisfied.  He commended Hebert for his zeal, rejoiced with him over the inevitable triumph.  It would be well to avenge that awful humiliation at Calais last September.  Nevertheless, he felt anxious and nervy; he could not comprehend the apathy assumed by the factitious Mole.  That the apathy was assumed Chauvelin was keen enough to guess.  What it portended he could not conjecture.  But that the Englishman would make a desperate attempt at escape was, of course, a foregone conclusion.  It rested with Hebert and a guard that could neither be bribed nor fooled into treachery, to see that such an attempt remained abortive.

What, however, had puzzled citizen Chauvelin all along was the motive which had induced Sir Percy Blakeney to play the role of menial to Jean Paul Marat.  Behind it there lay, undoubtedly, one of those subtle intrigues for which that insolent Scarlet Pimpernel was famous; and with it was associated an attempt at theft upon the murdered body of the demagogue...an attempt which had failed, seeing that the supposititious Paul Mole had been searched and nothing suspicious been found upon his person.

Nevertheless, thoughts of that attempted theft disturbed Chauvelin’s equanimity.  The old legend of the crumpled roseleaf was applicable in his case.  Something of his intense satisfaction would pale if this final enterprise of the audacious adventurer were to be brought to a triumphant close in the end.

VII

That same forenoon, on his return from the Abbaye and the depot, Chauvelin found that a visitor was waiting for him.  A woman, who gave her name as Jeannette Marechal, desired to speak with the citizen Representative.  Chauvelin knew the woman as his colleague Marat’s maid-of-all-work, and he gave orders that she should be admitted at once.

Jeannette Marechal, tearful and not a little frightened, assured the citizen Representative that her errand was urgent.  Her late employer had so few friends; she did not know to whom to turn until she bethought herself of citizen Chauvelin.  It took him some little time to disentangle the tangible facts out of the woman’s voluble narrative.  At first the words:  “Child...  Chemin de Pantin...  Leridan,” were only a medley of sounds which conveyed no meaning to his ear.  But when occasion demanded, citizen Chauvelin was capable of infinite patience.  Gradually he understood what the woman was driving at.

“The child, citizen!” she reiterated excitedly.  “What’s to be done about him?  I know that citizen Marat would have wished—­”