Chapter 16

"Soon," M. Étienne answered, "and easily, if you will tell me what they are like. Are they open?"

"I fear by now they may be. There are three sheets of names, and a fourth sheet, a letter--all in cipher."

"Ah, but in that case--"

Monsieur cut short his son's jubilation.

"But--Lucas."

"Of course--I forgot him. He knows your ciphers, then?"

"Dolt that I was, he knows everything."

"Then must we lay hands on the papers before they reach Mayenne, and all is saved," M. Étienne declared cheerfully. "These fellows can't read a cipher. If the packet be not open, Monsieur?"

"It was a span long, and half as wide; for all address, the letters _St. Q._ in the corner. It was tied with red cord and bore the seal of a flying falcon, and the motto, _Je reviendrai_."

"What! the king's seal? That's serious. Expect, then, Monsieur, to see the papers in an hour's time."

"Étienne, Étienne," Monsieur cried, "are you mad?"

"No madder than is proper for a St. Quentin. It's simple enough. I told you I recognized that worthy back there for one Bernet, who lodged at an inn I wot of over beyond the markets. Do we betake ourselves thither, we may easily fall in with some comrades of his bosom who have not the misfortune to be lying dead in a back lane, who will know something of your loss. Bernet's sort are no bigots; while they work for the League, they will lend a kindly ear to the chink of Kingsmen's florins."

"Ah," cried Monsieur, "then let us go." But M. Étienne laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"Not you. I. They will kill you in the Halles just as cheerfully as in the Quartier Marais. This is my affair."

He looked at Monsieur with kindling eyes, seeing his chance to prove his devotion. The duke yielded to his eagerness.

"But," M. Étienne added generously, "you may have the honour of paying the piper."

"I give you carte blanche, my son. Étienne, if you put that packet into my hand, it is more than if you brought the sceptre of France."

"Then go practise, Monsieur, at feeling more than king."

He embraced his father, and we turned off down the street.

The sun was well up by this time, and the city rousing to the labours of the day. Half was I glad of the lateness of the hour, for we ran no risk now of cutthroats; and half was I sorry, for it behooves not a man supposed to be in the Bastille to show himself too liberally to the broad eye of the streets. Every time--and it was often--that we approached a person who to my nervous imagination looked official, I shook in my shoes. The way seemed fairly to bristle with soldiers, officers, judges; for aught I knew, members of the Sixteen, Governor Belin himself. It was a great surprise to me when at length we arrived without let or hindrance before the door of a mean little drinking-place, our goal.

We went in, and M. Étienne ordered wine, much to my satisfaction. My stomach was beginning to remind me that I had given it nothing for twelve hours or so, while I had worked my legs hard.

"Does M. Bernet lodge with you?" my master asked of the landlord. We were his only patrons at the moment.

"M. Bernet? Him with the eye out?"

"The same."

"Why, no, monsieur. I don't let lodgings. The building is not mine. I but rent the ground floor for my purposes."

"But M. Bernet lodges in the house, then?"

"No, he doesn't. He lodges round the corner, in the court off the Rue Clichet."

"But he comes here often?"

"Oh, aye. Every morning for his glass. And most evenings, too."

M. Étienne laid down the drink-money, and something more.

"Sometimes he has a friend with him, eh?"

The man laughed.

"No, monsieur; he comes in here alone. Many's the time I'll standing in my door when he'll go by with some gallant, and he never chances to see me or my shop. While if he's alone it's 'Good morning, Jean. Anything in the casks to-day?' He can no more get by my door than he'll get by Death's when the time comes."

"No," agreed M. Étienne; "we all stop there, soon or late. Those friends of M. Bernet, then--there is none you could put a name to?"

"Why, no, monsieur, more's the pity. He has none lives in this quarter. M. Bernet's in low water, you understand, monsieur. If he lives here, it is because he can't help it. But he goes elsewhere for his friends."

"Then you can tell us, my man, where he lodges?"

"Aye, that can I," mine host answered, bustling out from behind the bar, eager in the interest of the pleasant-spoken, open-handed gallant. "Just round the corner of the Rue Clichet, in the court. The first house on the left, that is his. I would go with monsieur, only I cannot leave the shop alone, and the wife not back from market. But monsieur cannot miss it. The first house in the court. Thank you, monsieur. Au revoir, monsieur."

In the doorway of the first house on the left in the little court stood an old man with a wooden leg, sweeping heaps of refuse out of the passage.

"It appears that every one on this stair lacks something," M. Étienne murmured to me. "It is the livery of the house. Can you tell me, friend, where I may find M. Bernet?"

The concierge regarded us without cordiality, while by no means ceasing his endeavours to cover our shoes with his sweepings.

"Third story back," he said.

"Does M. Bernet lodge alone?"

"One of him's enough," the old fellow growled, whacking out his dirty broom on the door-post, powdering us with dust. M. Étienne, coughing, pursued his inquiries:

"Ah, I understood he shared his lodgings with a comrade. He has a friend, then, in the building?"

"Aye, I suppose so," the old chap grinned, "when monsieur walks in."

"But he has another friend besides me, has he not?" M. Étienne persisted. "One who, if he does not live here, comes often to see M. Bernet?"

"You seem to know all about it. Better see Bernet himself, instead of chattering here all day."

"Good advice, and I'll take it," said M. Étienne, lightly setting foot on the stair, muttering to himself as he mounted, "and come back to break your head, mon vieillard."

We went up the three flights and along the passage to the door at the back, whereon M. Étienne pounded loudly. I could not see his reason, and heartily I wished he would not. It seemed to me a creepy thing to be knocking on a man's door when we knew very well he would never open it again. We knocked as if we fully thought him within, when all the while we knew he was lying a stone on the stones under M. de Mirabeau's garden wall. Perhaps by this time he had been found; perhaps one of the marquis's liveried lackeys, or a passing idler, or a woman with a market-basket had come upon him; perhaps even now he was being borne away on a plank to be identified. And here were we, knocking, knocking, as if we innocently expected him to open to us. I had a chill dread that suddenly he would open to us. The door would swing wide and show him pale and bloody, with the broken sword in his heart. At the real creaking of a hinge I could scarce swallow a cry.

It was not Bernet's door, but the door at the front which opened, letting a stream of sunlight into the dark passage. In the doorway stood a woman, with two bare-legged babies clinging to her skirts.

"Madame," M. Étienne addressed her, with the courtesy due to a duchess, "I have been knocking at M. Bernet's door without result. Perhaps you could give me some hint as to his whereabouts?"

"Ah, I am sorry. I know nothing to tell monsieur," she cried regretfully, impressed, as the concierge had not been, by his look and manner. "But this I can say: he went out last night, and I do not believe he has been in since. He went out about nine--or it may have been later than that. Because I did not put the children to bed till after dark; they enjoy running about in the cool of the evening as much as anybody else, the little dears. And they were cross last night, the day was so hot, and I was a long time hushing them to sleep. Yes, it must have been after ten, because they were asleep, and the man stumbling on the stairs woke Pierre. And he cried for an hour. Didn't you, my angel?"

She picked one of the brats up in her arms to display him to us. M. Étienne asked:

"What man?"

"Why, the one that came for him. The one he went out with."

"And what sort of person was this?"

"Nay, how was I to see? Would I be out walking the common passage with a child to hush? I was rocking the cradle."

"But who does come here to visit M. Bernet?"

"I've never seen any one, monsieur. I've never laid eyes on M. Bernet but twice. I keep in my apartment. And besides, we have only been here a week."

"I thank you, madame," M. Étienne said, turning to the stairs.

She ran out to the rail, babies and all.

"But I could take a message for him, monsieur. I will make a point of seeing him when he comes in."

"I will not burden you, madame," M. Étienne answered from the story below. But she was loath to stop talking, and hung over the railing to call:

"Beware of your footing, monsieur. Those second-floor people are not so tidy as they might be; one stumbles over all sorts of their rubbish out in the public way."

The door in front of us opened with a startling suddenness, and a big, brawny wench bounced out to demand of us:

"What is that she says? What are you saying of us, you slut?"

We had no mind to be mixed in the quarrel. We fled for our lives down the stair.

The old carl, though his sweeping was done, leaned on his broom on the outer step.

"So you didn't find M. Bernet at home? I could have told you as much had you been civil enough to ask."

I would have kicked the old curmudgeon, but M. Étienne drew two gold pieces from his pouch.

"Perchance if I ask you civilly, you will tell me with whom M. Bernet went out last night?"

"Who says he went out with anybody?"

"I do," and M. Étienne made a motion to return the coins to their place.

"Since you know so much, it's strange you don't know a little more," the old chap growled. "Well, Lord knows if it is really his, but he goes by the name of Peyrot."

"And where does he lodge?"

"How should I know? I have trouble enough keeping track of my own lodgers, without bothering my head about other people's."

"Now rack your brains, my friend, over this fellow," M. Étienne said patiently, with a persuasive chink of his pouch. "Recollect now; you have been sent to this monsieur with a message."

"Well, Rue des Tournelles, sign of the Gilded Shears," the old carl spat out at last.

"You are sure?"

"Hang me else."

"If you are lying to me, I will come back and beat you to a jelly with your own broom."

"It's the truth, monsieur," he said, with some proper show of respect at last. "Peyrot, at the Gilded Shears, Rue des Tournelles. You may beat me to a jelly if I lie."

"It would do you good in any event," M. Étienne told him, but flinging him his pistoles, nevertheless. The old fellow swooped upon them, gathered them up, and was behind the closed door all in one movement. But as we walked away, he opened a little wicket in the upper panel, and stuck out his ugly head to yell after us:

"If M. Bernet's not at home yet, neither will his friend be. I've told you what will profit you none."

"You mistake, Sir Gargoyle," M. Étienne called over his shoulder. "Your information is entirely to my needs."

XXIII

_The Chevalier of the Tournelles._

It was a long walk to the Rue des Tournelles, which lay in our own quarter, not a dozen streets from the Hôtel St. Quentin itself. We found the Gilded Shears hung before a tailor's shop in the cellar of a tall, cramped structure, only one window wide. Its narrow door was inhospitably shut, but at our summons the concierge appeared to inform us that M. Peyrot did truly live here and, moreover, was at home, having arrived but half an hour earlier than we. He would go up and find out whether monsieur could see us.

But M. Étienne thought that formality unnecessary, and was able, at small expense, to convince the concierge of it. We went alone up the stairs and crept very quietly along the passage toward the door of M. Peyrot. But our shoes made some noise on the flags; had he been listening, he might have heard us as easily as we heard him. Peyrot had not yet gone to bed after the night's exertion; a certain clatter and gurgle convinced us that he was refreshing himself with supper, or breakfast, before reposing.

M. Étienne stood still, his hand on the door-knob, eager, hesitating. Here was the man; were the papers here? If they were, should we secure them? A single false step, a single wrong word, might foil us.

The sound of a chair pushed back came from within, and a young man's quick, firm step passed across to the far side of the room. We heard a box shut and locked. M. Étienne nipped my arm; we thought we knew what went in. Then came steps again and a loud yawn, and presently two whacks on the floor. We knew as well as if we could see that Peyrot had thrown his boots across the room. Next a clash and jangle of metal, that meant his sword-belt with its accoutrements flung on the table. M. Étienne, with the rapid murmur, "If I look at you, nab him," turned the door-handle.

But M. Peyrot had prepared against surprise by the simple expedient of locking his door. He heard us, too, for he stopped in the very middle of a prolonged yawn and held himself absolutely still. M. Étienne called out softly:

"Peyrot!"

"Who is it?"

"I want to speak with you about something important."

"Who are you, then?"

"I'll tell you when you let me in."

"I'll let you in when you tell me."

"My name's Martin. I'm a friend of Bernet. I want to speak to you quietly about a matter of importance."

"A friend of Bernet. Hmm! Well, friend of Bernet, it appears to me you speak very well through the door."

"I want to speak with you about the affair of to-night."

"What affair?"

"To-night's affair."

"To-night? I go to a supper-party at St. Germain. What have you to say about that?"

"Last night, then," M. Étienne amended, with rising temper. "If you want me to shout it out on your stairs, the St. Quentin affair."

"Now, what may you mean by that?" called the voice from within. If Peyrot was startled by the name, he carried it off well.

"You know what I mean. Shall I take the house into our confidence?"

"The house knows as much of your meaning as I. See here, friend of Bernet, if you are that gentleman's mate, perhaps you have a password about you."

"Aye," said M. Étienne, readily. "This is it: twenty pistoles."

No answer came immediately; I could guess Peyrot puzzled. Presently he called to us:

"By the bones of St. Anne, I don't believe a word you've been saying. But I'll have you in and see what you look like."

We heard him getting into his boots again and buckling on his baldric. Then we listened to the turning of a key; a lid was raised and banged down again, and the lock refastened. It was the box once more. M. Étienne and I looked at each other.

At length Peyrot opened the door and surveyed us.

"What, two friends of Bernet, ventre bleu!" But he allowed us to enter.

He drew back before us with a flourishing bow, his hand resting lightly on his belt, in which was stuck a brace of pistols. Any idea of doing violence on the person of M. Peyrot we dismissed for the present.

Our eyes travelled from his pistols over the rest of him. He was small, lean, and wiry, with dark, sharp face and deep-set twinkling eyes. One moment's glance gave us to know that Peyrot was no fool.

My lord closed the door after him and went straight to the point.

"M. Peyrot, you were engaged last night in an attack on the Duke of St. Quentin. You did not succeed in slaying him, but you did kill his man, and you took from him a packet. I come to buy it."

He looked at us a little dazed, not understanding, I deem, how we knew this. Certes, it had been too dark in the lane for his face to be seen, and he had doubtless made sure that he was not followed home. He said directly:

"You are the Comte de Mar."

"Even so, M. Peyrot. I did not care to have the whole stair know it, but to you I have no hesitation in confiding that I am M. de Mar."

M. Peyrot swept a bow till his head almost touched the floor.

"My poor apartment is honoured."

As he louted low, I made a spring forward; I thought to pin him before he could rise. But he was up with the lightness of a bird from the bough and standing three yards away from me, where I crouched on the spring like a foiled cat. He grinned at me in open enjoyment.

"Monsieur desired?" he asked sympathetically.

"No, it is I who desire," said M. Étienne, clearing himself a place to sit on the corner of the table. "I desire that packet, monsieur. You know this little expedition of yours to-night was something of a failure. When you report to the general-duke, he will not be in the best of humours. He does not like failures, the general; he will not incline to reward you dear. While I am in the very best humour in the world."

He smiled to prove it. Nor do I think his complaisance altogether feigned. The temper of our host amused him.

As for friend Peyrot, he still looked dazed. I thought it was because he had not yet made up his mind what line to take; but had I viewed him with neutral eyes I might easily have deemed his bewilderment genuine.

"Perhaps we should get on better if I could understand what monsieur is driving at?" he suggested. "Monsieur's remarks about his noble father and the general-duke are interesting, but humble Jean Peyrot, who does not move in court circles, is at a loss to translate them. In other words, I have no notion what you are talking about."

"Oh, come," M. Étienne cried, "no shuffling, Peyrot. We know as well as you where you were before dawn."

"Before dawn? Marry, I was sleeping the sleep of the virtuous."

M. Étienne slipped across the room as quickly as Peyrot's self might have done, lifted up a heavy curtain hanging before an alcove, and disclosed the bed folded smooth, the pillow undisturbed. He turned with a triumphant grin on the owner, who showed all his teeth pleasantly in answer, no whit abashed.

"For all you are a count, monsieur, you have the worst manners ever came inside these walls."

M. le Comte, with no attempt at mending them, went on a tour about the room, examining with sniffing interest all its furniture, even to the dishes and tankards on the table. Peyrot, leaning against the wall by the window, regarded him steadily, with impassive face. At length M. Étienne walked over to the chest by the chimneypiece and deliberately put his hand on the key.

Instantly Peyrot's voice rang out, "Stop!" M. Étienne, turning, looked into his pistol-barrel.

My lord stood exactly as he was, bent over the chest, his fingers on the key, looking over his shoulder at the bravo with raised, protesting eyebrows and laughing mouth. But though he laughed, he stood still.

"If you make a movement I do not like, M. de Mar, I will shoot you as I would a rat. Your side is down and mine is up; I have no fear to kill you. It will be painful to me, but if necessary I shall do it."

M. Étienne sat down on the chest and smiled more amiably than ever.

"Why--have I never known you before, Peyrot?"

"One moment, monsieur." The nose of the pistol pointed around to me. "Go over there to the door, you."

I retreated, covered by the shining muzzle, to a spot that pleased him.

"Now are we more comfortable," Peyrot observed, pulling a chair over against the wall and seating him, the pistol on his knee. "Monsieur was saying?"

Monsieur crossed his legs, as if of all seats in the world he liked his present one the best. He had brought none of the airs of the noble into this business, realizing shrewdly that they would but hamper him, as lace ruffles hamper a duellist. Peyrot, treeless adventurer, living by his sharp sword and sharp wits, reverenced a count no more than a hod-carrier. His occasional mocking deference was more insulting than outright rudeness; but M. Étienne bore it unruffled. Possibly he schooled himself so to bear it, but I think rather that he felt so easily secure on the height of his gentlehood that Peyrot's impudence merely tickled him.

"I was wondering," he answered pleasantly, "how long you have dwelt in this town and I not known it. You are from Guienne, methinks."

"Carcassonne way," the other said indifferently. Then memory bringing a deep twinkle to his eye, he added: "What think you, monsieur? I was left a week-old babe on the monastery step; was reared up in holiness within its sacred walls; chorister at ten, novice at eighteen, full-fledged friar, fasting, praying, and singing misereres, exhorting dying saints and living sinners, at twenty."

"A very pretty brotherhood, you for sample."

"Nay, I am none. Else I might have stayed. But one night I took leg-bail, lived in the woods till my hair grew, and struck out for Paris. And never regretted it, neither."

He leaned his head back, his eyes fixed contemplatively on the ceiling, and burst into song, in voice as melodious as a lark's:

_Piety and Grace and Gloom, For such like guests I have no room! Piety and Gloom and Grace, I bang my door shut in your face! Gloom and Grace and Piety, I set my dog on such as ye!_

Finishing his stave, he continued to beat time with his heel on the floor and to gaze upon the ceiling. But I think we could not have twitched a finger without his noting it. M. Étienne rose and leaned across the table toward him.

"M. Peyrot has made his fortune in Paris? Monsieur rolls in wealth, of course?"

Peyrot shrugged his shoulders, his eyes leaving the ceiling and making a mocking pilgrimage of the room, resting finally on his own rusty clothing.

"Do I look it?" he answered.

"Oh," said M. Étienne, slowly, as one who digests an entirely new idea, "I supposed monsieur must be as rich as a Lombard, he is so cold on the subject of turning an honest penny."

Peyrot's roving eye condescended to meet his visitor's.

"Say on," he permitted lazily.

"I offer twenty pistoles for a packet, seal unbroken, taken at dawn from the person of M. de St. Quentin's squire."

"Now you are talking sensibly," the scamp said, as if M. Étienne had been the shuffler. "That is a fair offer and demands a fair answer. Moreover, such zeal as you display deserves success. I will look about a bit this morning among my friends and see if I can get wind of your packet. I will meet you at dinner-time at the inn of the Bonne Femme."

"Dinner-time is far hence. You forget, M. Peyrot, that you are risen earlier than usual. I will go out and sit on the stair for five minutes while you consult your friends."

Peyrot grinned cheerfully.

"M. de Mar doesn't seem able to get it through his head that I know nothing whatever of this affair."

"No, I certainly don't get that through my head."

Peyrot regarded him with an air ill-used yet compassionate, such as he might in his monkish days have employed toward one who could not be convinced, for instance, of the efficacy of prayer.

"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. Étienne 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."