"You will take them from me now," broke in Chauvelin with a sudden assumption of command and authority which sat with weird strangeness upon his thin shrunken figure. "Go back to your post at once, ere I lodge a complaint against you for neglect of duty, with the citizen proconsul."
He turned on his heel and, without paying further heed to the man and his mutterings, he remounted the stone stairs.
"No success, I suppose?" queried Martin-Roget.
"None," replied Chauvelin curtly.
He had the packet of papers tightly clasped in his hand. He was debating in his mind whether he would speak of them to his colleague or not.
"What did Friche say?" asked the latter impatiently.
"Oh! very little. He and his mates caught sight of the strangers and followed them as far as the quays. But they were walking very fast and suddenly the Marats lost their trace in the darkness. It seemed, according to Paul Friche, as if the earth or the night had swallowed them up."
"And was that all?"
"Yes. That was all."
"I wonder," added Martin-Roget with a light laugh and a careless shrug of his wide shoulders, "I wonder if you and I, citizen Chauvelin—and Paul Friche too for that matter—have been the victims of our nerves."