Lord Tony’s Wife Baroness Orczy (story read aloud .TXT) 📖

it was his nature whenever he was forced to yield to do so grudgingly.

“Very well!” he said at last. “I’ll order Fleury to be on the watch and to interfere if there is any street-brawling outside or near the Rat Mort. Will that suit you?”

“Perfectly. I shall be on the watch too⁠—somewhere close by.⁠ ⁠… I’ll warn commandant Fleury if I suspect that the English are making ready for a coup outside the tavern. Personally I think it unlikely⁠—because the duc de Kernogan will be inside the Rat Mort all the time, and he too will be the object of the Englishmen’s attacks on his behalf. Citizen Martin-Roget too has about a score or so of his friends posted outside his sister’s house: they are lads from his village who hate the Kernogans as much as he does himself. Still! I shall feel easier in my mind now that I am certain of commandant Fleury’s cooperation.”

“Then it seems to me that we have arranged everything satisfactorily, what?”

“Everything, except the exact moment when Commandant Fleury shall advance with his men to the door of the tavern and demand admittance in the name of the Republic.”

“Yes, he will have to make quite sure that the whole of our quarry is inside the net, eh?⁠ ⁠… before he draws the strings⁠ ⁠… or all our pretty plans fall to nought.”

“As you say,” rejoined Chauvelin, “we must make sure. Supposing therefore that we get the wench safely into the tavern, that we have her there with her father, what we shall want will be someone in observation⁠—someone who can help us to draw our birds into the snare just when we are ready for them. Now there is a man whom I have in my mind: he hath name Paul Friche and is one of your Marats⁠—a surly, ill-conditioned giant⁠ ⁠… he was on guard outside Le Bouffay this afternoon.⁠ ⁠… I spoke to him⁠ ⁠… he would suit our purpose admirably.”

“What do you want him to do?”

“Only to make himself look as like a Nantese cutthroat as he can.⁠ ⁠…”

“He looks like one already,” broke in Jacques Lalouët with a laugh.

“So much the better. He’ll excite no suspicion in that case in the minds of the frequenters of the Rat Mort. Then I’ll instruct him to start a brawl⁠—a fracas⁠—soon after the arrival of the Kernogan wench. The row will inevitably draw the English adventurers hot-haste to the spot, either in the hope of getting the Kernogans away during the melee or with a view to protecting them. As soon as they have appeared upon the scene, the half company of the Marats will descend on the house and arrest everyone inside it.”

“It all sounds remarkably simple,” rejoined Carrier, and with a leer of satisfaction he turned to Jacques Lalouët.

“What think you of it, citizen?” he asked.

“That it sounds so remarkably simple,” replied young Lalouët, “that personally I should be half afraid⁠ ⁠…”

“Of what?” queried Chauvelin blandly.

“If you fail, citizen Chauvelin.⁠ ⁠…”

“Impossible!”

“If the Englishmen do not appear?”

“Even so the citizen proconsul will have lost nothing. He will merely have failed to gain the twenty thousand francs. But the Kernogans will still be in his power and citizen Martin-Roget’s ten thousand francs are in any case assured.”

“Friend Jean-Baptiste,” concluded Lalouët with his habitual insolent familiarity, “you had better do what citizen Chauvelin wants. Ten thousand francs are good⁠ ⁠… and thirty better still. Our privy purse has been empty far too long, and I for one would like the handling of a few brisk notes.”

“It will only be twenty-eight, citizen Lalouët,” interposed Chauvelin blandly, “for commandant Fleury will want one thousand francs and his men another thousand to stimulate their zeal. Still! I imagine that these hard times twenty-eight thousand francs are worth fighting for.”

“You seem to be fighting and planning and scheming for nothing, citizen Chauvelin,” retorted young Lalouët with a sneer. “What are you going to gain, I should like to know, by the capture of that daredevil Englishman?”

“Oh!” replied Chauvelin suavely, “I shall gain the citizen proconsul’s regard, I hope⁠—and yours too, citizen Lalouët. I want nothing more except the success of my plan.”

Young Lalouët jumped down to his feet. He shrugged his shoulders and through his fine eyes shot a glance of mockery and scorn on the thin, shrunken figure of the Terrorist.

“How you do hate that Englishman, citizen Chauvelin,” he said with a light laugh.

IV

Carrier having fully realised that he in any case stood to make a vast sum of money out of the capture of the band of English spies, gave his support generously to Chauvelin’s scheme. Fleury, summoned into his presence, was ordered to place himself and half a company of Marats at the disposal of citizen Chauvelin. He demurred and growled like a bear with a sore head at being placed under the orders of a civilian, but it was not easy to run counter to the proconsul’s will. A good deal of swearing, one or two overt threats and the citizen commandant was reduced to submission. The promise of a thousand francs, when the reward for the capture of the English spies was paid out by a grateful Government, overcame his last objections.

“I think you should rid yourself of that obstinate oaf,” was young Lalouët’s cynical comment, when Fleury had finally left the audience chamber; “he is too argumentative for my taste.”

Chauvelin smiled quietly to himself. He cared little what became of every one of these Nantese louts once his great object had been attained.

“I need not trouble you further, citizen Carrier,” he said as he finally rose to take his leave. “I shall have my hands full until I myself lay that meddlesome Englishman bound and gagged at your feet.”

The phrase delighted Carrier’s insensate vanity. He was overgracious to Chauvelin now.

“You shall do that at the Rat Mort, citizen Chauvelin,” he said with marked affability, “and I myself will commend you for your zeal to the Committee of Public Safety.”

“Always supposing,” interposed Jacques Lalouët with his cynical laugh, “that citizen