IV
The clock in the tower of the edifice was even then striking five. The Marats in the hall looked up with lazy indifference at the two men who had come rushing out in such an abrupt and excited manner.
"Any stranger been through here?" queried Chauvelin peremptorily of the sergeant in command.
"No," replied the latter curtly. "How could they, without a permit?"
He shrugged his shoulders and the men resumed their game and their argument. Martin-Roget would have parleyed with them but Chauvelin had already crossed the hall and was striding past the clerk's office and the lodge of the concierge out toward the open. Martin-Roget, after a moment's hesitation, followed him.
The Place was wrapped in gloom. From the platform of the guillotine an oil-lamp hoisted on a post threw a small circle of light around. Small pieces of tallow candle, set in pewter sconces, glimmered feebly under the awnings of the booths, and there was a street-lamp affixed to the wall of the old château immediately below the parapet of the staircase, and others at the angles of the Rue de la Monnaye and the narrow Ruelle des Jacobins.
Chauvelin's keen eyes tried to pierce the surrounding darkness. He leaned over the parapet and peered into the remote angles of the building and round the booths below him.
There were a few people on the Place, some walking rapidly across from one end to the other, intent on business, others pausing in order to make purchases at the booths. Up and down the steps of the guillotine a group of street urchins were playing hide-and-seek. Round the angles of the narrow streets the vague figures of passers-by flitted to and fro, now easily discernible in the light of the street lanthorns, anon swallowed up again in the darkness beyond. Whilst immediately below the parapet two or three men of the Company Marat were lounging against the walls. Their red bonnets showed up clearly in the flickering light of the street lamps, as did their bare shins and the polished points of their sabots. But of an elegant, picturesque figure such as Chauvelin had described awhile ago there was not a sign.
Martin-Roget leaned over the parapet and called peremptorily:
"Hey there! citizens of the Company Marat!"
One of the red-capped men looked up leisurely.
"Your desire, citizen?" he queried with insolent deliberation, for they were mighty men, this bodyguard of the great proconsul, his spies and tools in the awesome work of frightfulness which he carried on so ruthlessly.
"Is that you Paul Friche?" queried Martin-Roget in response.
"At your service, citizen," came the glib reply, delivered not without mock deference.
"Then come up here. I wish to speak with you."
"I can't leave my post, nor can my mates," retorted the man who had answered to the name of Paul Friche. "Come down, citizen, an you desire to speak with us."
Martin-Roget swore lustily.
"The insolence of that rabble ..." he murmured.
"Hush! I'll go," interposed Chauvelin quickly. "Do you know that man Friche? Is he trustworthy?"
"Yes, I know him. As for being trustworthy ..." added Martin-Roget with a shrug of the shoulders. "He is a corporal in the Marats and high in favour with commandant Fleury."
Every second was of value, and Chauvelin was not the man to waste time in useless parleyings. He ran down the stairs at the foot of which one of the red-capped gentry deigned to speak with him.
"Have you seen any strangers across the Place just now?" he queried in a whisper.
"Yes," replied the man Friche. "Two!"
Then he spat upon the ground and added spitefully: "Aristos, what? In fine clothes—like yourself, citizen...."
"Which way did they go?"
"Down the Ruelle des Jacobins."
"When?"
"Two minutes ago."
"Why did you not follow them?... Aristos and...."
"I would have followed," retorted Paul Friche with studied insolence; "'twas you called me away from my duty."
"After them then!" urged Chauvelin peremptorily. "They cannot have gone far. They are English spies, and remember, citizen, that there's a reward for their apprehension."
The man grunted an eager assent. The word "reward" had fired his zeal. In a trice he had called to his mates and the three Marats soon sped across the Place and down the Ruelle des Jacobins where the surrounding gloom quickly swallowed them up.
Chauvelin watched them till they were out of sight, then he rejoined his colleague on the landing at the top of the stairs. For a second or two longer the click of the men's sabots upon the stones resounded on the adjoining streets and across the Place, and suddenly that same quaint, merry, somewhat inane laugh woke the echoes of the grim buildings around and caused many a head to turn inquiringly, marvelling who it could be that had the heart to laugh these days in the streets of Nantes.