“But this attack?” Yvonne demanded suddenly.
“The ministers and the Court, of course,” was the quick reply. “Some one has warned them of his”—he nodded towards the parlour—“his errand. The some one can only be Onslow, the miserable traitor, and it explains François’s disappearance, too. The despatch can wait. But Onslow’s game must be watched or——”
“And checkmated,” she interrupted decisively. “Ah! I see it now—I see it all now.”
They fell to talking earnestly.
Three hours later André had returned to his room in the palace as he had left it—by his rope ladder. He had an interesting story to add to the morning chocolate of Madame de Pompadour, and he was able to give back intact a despatch which he had been unable to deliver.
And the next event was at ten o’clock, when the Duke of Pontchartrain was chatting with the morning crowd in the Œil de Bœuf. Sharp exclamations, followed by a dead silence, greeted the entry of the Captain of the Queen’s Guards, whose left arm, all could see, was bandaged and carried in a sling.
“Monsieur le Duc,” André said in a voice that rang through the room, “His Majesty commands your presence at eleven o’clock in the Council Chamber.” He paused to allow the royal message to be appreciated by the attentive company; then he added: “And, Monsieur le Duc, I beg to say for myself that if your Grace wishes to know where your servant and that of the Comte de Mont Rouge are, who attempted to murder me last night when carrying out the commission of the King of France, your Grace will find them both dead, along with two others, in the inn called ‘The Cock with the Spurs of Gold.’”
A haughty bow, and he had left the astonished Duke and the appalled audience to their bewildered reflections.