"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.