Chauvelin gave him no direct reply. He was busy collecting his precious papers together and thrusting them back into the pocket of his coat. Then he said quietly:
"It is through the Kernogan woman that we can get hold of him."
"How?"
"Where she is, there will the Englishmen be. They are in Nantes for the sole purpose of getting the woman and her father out of your clutches...."
"Then it will be a fine haul inside the Rat Mort," ejaculated Carrier with a chuckle. "Eh, Jacques, you young scamp? You and I must go and see that, what? You have been complaining that life was getting monotonous. Drownages—Republican marriages! They have all palled in their turn on your jaded appetite.... But the capture of the English assassins, eh?... of that League of the Scarlet Pimpernel which has even caused citizen Robespierre much uneasiness—that will stir up your sluggish blood, you lazy young vermin!... Go on, go on, citizen Chauvelin, I am vastly interested!"
He rubbed his dry, bony hands together and cackled with glee. Chauvelin interposed quietly:
"Inside the Rat Mort, eh, citizen?" he queried.
"Why, yes. Citizen Martin-Roget means to convey the Kernogan woman to the Rat Mort, doesn't he?"
"He does."
"And you say that where the Kernogan woman is there the Englishmen will be...."