"You can tell that to the judges," the captain rejoined.
At this I felt ice sliding down my spine. To be arrested as a witness was the last thing I desired.
"I know nothing whatever about it," I cried. "He seemed to me a very fine gentleman. But you can't always tell about these nobles. The Comte de Mar, I've only known him twenty-four hours. Until he engaged me as lackey, yesterday afternoon, I had never laid eyes on him. I know not what he has been about. He engaged me yesterday to carry a message for him to the Hôtel St. Quentin. I came into Paris but night before last, and put up at the Amour de Dieu in the Rue Coupejarrets. Yesterday he employed me to run his errands, and last night brought me here with him. But I had never seen him till this time yesterday. I know nothing about him save that he seemed a very free-handed, easy master."
To a nice ear I might have seemed a little too voluble, but the captain only laughed at my patent fright.
"Oh, you need not look so whey-faced; I have no warrant for your arrest. I dare say you are as great a rogue as he, but the order says nothing about you. Don't swoon away; you are in no peril."
I was stung to be thought such a craven, but I pocketed the insult, and merely answered:
"I assure you, monsieur, I know naught of the matter." Yesterday I would have blurted out to him the whole truth; decidedly my experiences were teaching me something.
"Come now, I can't fool about here all day," he said impatiently. "Tell me where that precious master of yours is now. And be quicker about it than this old mule."
Maître Menard, then, had told them nothing—staunch old loyalist. He knew perfectly that M. le Comte had gone home, and they had throttled him, and yet he had not told. Well, he should not lose by it.
"Monsieur is about the streets somewhere. On my life, I know not where. But I know he will be back here to supper."