The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel eBook

Baroness Emma Orczy

The next moment he was gone.  Chauvelin, standing at the window of the wayside house, saw Sir Percy Blakeney once more mount the box of the chaise.  This time he had Sir Andrew Ffoulkes beside him.  The Clamette family were huddled together—­happy and free—­inside the vehicle.  After which there was the usual clatter of horses’ hoofs, the creaking of wheels, the rattle of chains.  Chauvelin saw and heard nothing of that.  All that he saw at the last was Sir Percy’s slender hand, waving him a last adieu.

After which he was left alone with his thoughts.  The packet of papers was in his hand.  He fingered it, felt its crispness, clutched it with a fierce gesture, which was followed by a long-drawn-out sigh of intense bitterness.

No one would ever know what it had cost him to obtain these papers.  No one would ever know how much he had sacrificed of pride, revenge and hate in order to save a few shreds of his own party’s honour.



What had happened was this: 

Tournefort, one of the ablest of the many sleuth-hounds employed by the Committee of Public Safety, was out during that awful storm on the night of the twenty-fifth.  The rain came down as if it had been poured out of buckets, and Tournefort took shelter under the portico of a tall, dilapidated-looking house somewhere at the back of St. Lazare.  The night was, of course, pitch dark, and the howling of the wind and beating of the rain effectually drowned every other sound.

Tournefort, chilled to the marrow, had at first cowered in the angle of the door, as far away from the draught as he could.  But presently he spied the glimmer of a tiny light some little way up on his left, and taking this to come from the concierge’s lodge, he went cautiously along the passage intending to ask for better shelter against the fury of the elements than the rickety front door afforded.

Tournefort, you must remember, was always on the best terms with every concierge in Paris.  They were, as it were, his subordinates; without their help he never could have carried on his unavowable profession quite so successfully.  And they, in their turn, found it to their advantage to earn the good-will of that army of spies, which the Revolutionary Government kept in its service, for the tracking down of all those unfortunates who had not given complete adhesion to their tyrannical and murderous policy.

Therefore, in this instance, Tournefort felt no hesitation in claiming the hospitality of the concierge of the squalid house wherein he found himself.  He went boldly up to the lodge.  His hand was already on the latch, when certain sounds which proceeded from the interior of the lodge caused him to pause and to bend his ear in order to listen.  It was Tournefort’s metier to listen.  What had arrested his attention was the sound of a man’s voice, saying in a tone of deep respect: 

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