II
The Man in Grey was sitting, travel-stained and weary, in the dressing-room of M. le Duc d'Otrante, Minister of Police to His Impérial Majesty. He had ridden all night, only halting now and again to give his horse a rest, as he could not get a change of mount during the whole distance between Mantes—where he had obtained a fresh horse, and where he left M. Gault comfortably installed in the best hotel of the place—and Paris, where he arrived an hour after daybreak, stiff, aching in every limb, scarcely able to tumble out of the saddle.
But he would not wait even to change his clothes or get a little rest. Within a quarter of an hour of his arrival in the capital he was knocking at the monumental gateway of M. le Duc's magnificent palace. Obviously he was a privileged person as far as access to the all-powerful Minister was concerned, for no sooner had his name been mentioned to M. le Duc's confidential valet than he was ushered into the great man's presence.
The police agent had the power of concise and rapid diction. Within a very few minutes the Minister was in possession of all the facts connected with the mysterious murder of the unknown person on the highway to Mantes.
"The man's clothes were rougher and more shabby than his physical condition suggested," Fernand remarked in conclusion. "His hands were not those of a peasant; his feet were quite clean though the roads were muddy. Clearly, then, his boots had been taken off by the murderers, presumably in the hope that some valuables might have been concealed inside them. At once my mind jumped to thoughts of a written message—sent by you, Monsieur le Ministre, perhaps. At any rate, I left old Gault at Mantes and rode another sixty kilomètres to ascertain as quickly as possible what my conjectures were worth."
"Describe the man to me," said the Minister.
"Age under thirty," replied Fernand; "short, square beard, fair hair slightly curled——"
"Hector Duroy," broke in the Minister.
"Then he was your messenger?"
"Yes! He started for Evreux early yesterday morning. I wished him to meet you there."
"To tell me what, Monsieur le Ministre?"
"That the Emperor left Versailles incognito yesterday in response to the usual request from the ex-Empress. You know how he literally flies to do her behests."
"Alas!" said the Man in Grey with something of a sigh. "But I don't understand," he added inquiringly, "if the Emperor has gone to Malmaison——"
"Not to Malmaison this time," interposed M. le Duc. "The ex-Empress is at Chartres, staying at the Hôtel National, and she desired the Emperor to go to her there. This time she seems to have pleaded family imbroglios. She is always ready with a pretext whenever she desires to see him; and with him, as you know, her slightest whim is law. Enough that he set out for Chartres this morning, in the strictest incognito, accompanied only by one of his valets—Gerbier, I think. Fortunately he apprised me yesterday of his project. I begged him to let me send an escort to guard him, but—well! you know what he is. The future Empress is already on her way to France; the Emperor, naturally, guards very jealously the secret of his continued visits to Josephine. Curtly enough he forbade me to interfere. But, knowing you to be at Evreux, I sent a courier to you, telling you what had occurred and suggesting that perhaps you could send a posse across to Chartres to keep watch quietly and discreetly while the Emperor was there. He will be there to-night, of course," concluded the Minister with a weary sigh, "and no doubt he will return to-morrow. But these incognito visits of his are always a terror to me, and this time——"
"This time," concluded Fernand as the Minister paused, hardly daring to put into words all the anxiety which he felt, "the courier whom you dispatched to me was waylaid and murdered, and your message, which, I imagine, gave some details of the Emperor's movements, is in the hands of a band of Chouans."
"Chouans?" exclaimed the Minister. "What makes you think——"
"Some of the rascals whom we arrested at Caen in connection with the affair of the infernal machine, and who were being conveyed to Paris in accordance with your instructions, escaped from Evreux prison the night before last. The commissary of police and I were on our way to report the matter to you when we came across the body of the murdered man in the woods outside Mantes."
"Malediction!" ejaculated the Duc d'Otrante; and though during his arduous service he had been faced with many and varied dangers which threatened at different times the life of his Impérial master, his cheeks became almost livid now, when the vista of horrible possibilities was thus suddenly conjured up before his mind. Then he continued more calmly: "Which of the villains have escaped, did you say?"
"The Marquis de Trévargan, for one," replied the Man in Grey.
"And the Marquise?"
"No. We had not arrested her yet. She was not directly named in the affair, and we can always lay our hands on her, if occasion demands."
"Anyone else?"
"Those two villains they call Blue-Heart and White-Beak, the most daring and infamous scoundrels in the whole crowd."
"One of them was paid by Mademoiselle de Plélan to murder you," remarked the Minister drily.
To this, however, the Man in Grey made no reply; only his cheeks—always colourless—became a shade more ashen in hue. M. le Duc d'Otrante, who knew something and guessed a great deal of this single romantic episode in the life of his faithful agent, smiled somewhat maliciously.
"The last we heard of the Plélans, mother and daughter," he said, "was that Madame had joined some relatives in the south, but that the beautiful Constance had remained at Evreux. She is a niece, remember, of Monsieur de Trévargan, and France does not hold another conspirator quite so astute and so daring as either of these two. De Trévargan is a model of caution and Constance de Plélan is recklessness personified; but both will stake their all for the Cause of those degenerate Bourbons——"
"And both are at large," added the Man in Grey somewhat impatiently; "while the Emperor is travelling without escort upon the high roads."
"Do you suppose that Constance de Plélan had anything to do with the escape of the Chouan prisoners at Evreux?"
"I imagine that she was the prime mover," replied Fernand calmly; and even the Minister's sharp, probing eyes failed to detect the slightest sign of emotion in the grave face of the police agent at this significant mention of Constance de Plélan's name in connection with the recent Chouan affair. "No doubt she gave Monsieur de Trévargan and his gang all the help they required from outside, and shelter afterwards. But time is getting on, Monsieur le Ministre," he continued eagerly, "and the Emperor, you say, is on his way——"
"He left Versailles at six o'clock this morning," rejoined the Minister. "He will be at Chartres by nightfall."
"He will never reach Chartres," announced the Man in Grey, "if—as I believe—Blue-Heart and his gang waylay him on the road."
"That is just what is in my mind," assented the Minister with a shudder. "It is close on seven o'clock now, and I can have a posse of police on the way within half an hour; but whether they can reach the Emperor in time to be of service is very doubtful. According to arrangement, he will have left Versailles an hour ago. He is travelling in his private berline, harnessed with his four bays, which, as you know, fly over the ground with almost unbelievable swiftness. He will get relays on the way and proceed with undiminished speed. Our men have not the horses wherewith to cover the ground at such a rate."
"Let me have a horse out of your stables, Monsieur le Ministre," rejoined the Man in Grey. "I'll cover the ground fast enough."
"You, Fernand!" exclaimed M. le Duc. "What can you do—by yourself?"
"I don't know. I can always take short cuts and gain ground that way. I know every inch of the district. I can overtake the Emperor's berline and warn him that assassins are on his track. He has a postilion, I presume, and Gerbier is with him, you say. Well! with the coachman, we should be four of us to divert a musket-shot from the most precious life in France."
"But, my good Fernand," argued the Minister, "I cannot even tell you which road the Emperor has taken. As you know, he can either go by the main Paris—Chartres road—which, of course, is the more direct, but also the more public—or he can go by way of Houdan and——"
"Both roads converge at Maintenon, and I can intercept him there by cutting across fields and meadows, if you will give me your swiftest horse, Monsieur le Ministre. If you don't know which road the Emperor is taking," he continued with unanswerable logic, "the Chouans do not know it either. They also would have to waylay him somewhere past Maintenon."
"Unless they are in full force and patrol both roads——" suggested the Minister.
"They would hardly have had time to make such elaborate arrangements. Moreover, both roads are very open and moderately frequented. It is only after Malmaison that the single road strikes through the woods and becomes very lonely, especially at nightfall. A horse, Monsieur le Ministre!" entreated the Man in Grey, his keen, deep-set eyes glowing with ardour and enthusiasm. "A horse! Ten years of my life for the swiftest horse in your stables!"
The Minister said nothing more. He, too, was a man of energy and of action; he, too, at this hour, was filled with passionate fervour for the Cause which he was destined so soon to betray, and he knew how to appreciate the ardent spirit which irradiated the entire personality of this insignificant little Man in Grey. At once he rang the bell and gave the necessary orders. Within twenty minutes Fernand was again in the saddle. Fatigue and weariness both had fallen from him like a discarded mantle. He had no time to feel tired now. Ahead, the berline harnessed with the four swift bays was thundering down the Chartres road, and the most valuable life in France was threatened by a band of assassins, shrewd enough to have planned a desperate coup. Somewhere on the broad highway the murderers were lurking, and the Emperor—unguarded, unsuspecting—might even at this hour be falling into their hands.
On! On, Fernand! The four splendid bays from the Impérial stables have two hours' start of you! In the streets of Paris, the life of the great city is running its usual course. Men are hurrying to business, women to their marketing, soldiers or officials to their duties. One and all pause for an instant as the hoofs of a powerful grey strike showers of glowing sparks from out the stones of the pavements, and a horse and rider thunder past at breakneck speed on the way to Versailles.