Alone in the forest, the Man in Grey watched over the dead. He looked down meditatively on the pale, aristocratic face of the man who had lied and schemed and planned, robbed and murdered, who had risked so much and committed such villainies, for a purpose which would henceforth and for ever remain an unfathomable mystery.
Was passionate loyalty for the decadent Royalist cause at the root of all the crimes perpetrated by this man of culture and position—or was it merely vulgar greed, vulgar and insatiable worship of money, that drove him to mean and sordid crimes? To what uses did he put the money wrung from peaceable citizens? Did it go to swell the coffers of a hopeless Cause, or to contribute to M. de Saint-Tropèze's own love of luxury?
The Man in Grey pondered these things in the loneliness and silence of the night. All such questions must henceforth be left unanswered. For the sake of officialdom, of the government of the new Empire, the memory of such a man as M. de Saint-Tropèze must remain for ever untarnished.
Anon the posse of police under the command of a sergeant arrived upon the scene. They had improvised three stretchers; one of these was reverently covered with a mantle, upon which they laid the body of M. le Procureur Impérial, killed in the discharge of his duty whilst aiding to track a gang of desperate Chouans.
VIII
In the forenoon of the following day the chief commissary of police, having seen M. le Préfet on the subject of the arrangements for the public funeral of M. de Saint-Tropèze, called at the lodgings of the secret agent of His Impérial Majesty's Police.
After the usual polite formalities, Lefèvre plunged boldly into the subject of his visit.
"How did you find out?" he asked, trying to carry off the situation with his accustomed bluff. "You owe me an explanation, you know, Monsieur—er—Fernand. I am chief commissary of this district, and by your own statement you stand convicted of having killed two men. Abominable rogues though they were, the laws of France do not allow——"
"I owe you no explanation, my good Lefèvre," interrupted the Man in Grey in his quiet monotone, "as you know. If you would care to take the responsibility on yourself of indicting me for the wilful murder of those two men, you are of course at liberty to do so. But——"
The commissaire hastened to assure the secret emissary of His Majesty that what he had said had only been meant as a joke.