It was half an hour before noon, and citizen-deputy Heriot was preparing to go out to the small tavern round the corner where he habitually took his dejeuner . Citizen Rondeau, who for the consideration of ten sous a day looked up after Heriot's paltry creature-comforts, was busy tidying up the squalid apartment which the latter occupied on the top floor of a lodging-house in the Rue Cocatrice. The apartment consisted of three rooms leading out of one another; firstly there was was a dark and narrow antichambre wherein slept the aforesaid citizen-servant; then came a sitting room sparsely furnished with a few chairs, a centre table and an iron stove, and finally there was the bedroom wherein the most conspicuous object was a large oak chest clamped with wide iron hinges and a massive writing desk; the bed and a very primitive washstand were in an alcove at the farther end of the room and partially hidden by a tapestry curtain.
At exactly half-past seven that morning there came a peremptory knock at the door of the antichambre, and as Rondeau was busy in the bedroom, Heriot went himself to see who his unexpected visitor might be. On the landing outside stood an extraordinary-looking individual—more like a tall and animated scarecrow then a man—who in a tremulous voice asked if he might speak with citizen Heriot.
"That is my name," said the deputy gruffly; "what do you want?"
He would have liked to slam the door in the old scarecrow's face, but the latter, with the boldness which sometimes besets the timid, had already stepped into the antichambre and was now quietly sauntering through the next room to the one beyond. Heriot, being a representative of the people and a social democrat of hte most advanced type, was supposed to be accessible to everyone who desired speech with him. Though muttering sundry curses, he thought it best not to go against his usual practice, and after a moment's hesitation he followed his unwelcome visitor.
The latter was in the sitting-room by this time; he had drawn a chair close to the table and sat down with the air of one who has a perfect right to be where he is; as soon as Heriot entered he said placidly:
"I would desire to speak alone with the citizen-deputy."
And Heriot, after an other slight hesitation, ordered Rondeau to close the bedroom door.
"Keep your ears open in case I call," he added significantly.
"You are cautious, citizen," merely remarked the visitor with a smile.
To this Heriot vouchsafed no reply. He, too, drew a chair forward and sat opposite his visitor, then he asked abruptly:
"My name is Lepine at your service," said the old man "and by profession I write letters at the rate of five sous or so, according to the length, for those who are not able to do it for themselves."
"Your business with me?" queried Heriot curtly.
"To offer you two thousand francs for the letters which you stole from deputy Fabrice when you were his valet," replied Lepine with perfect calm.
In a moment Heriot was on his feet, jumping up as if he had been stung; his pale, short-sighted eyes narrowed until they were mere slits, and through them he darted a quick, suspicious look at the extraordinary out-at-elbows figure before him. Then he threw back his head and laughed til the tears streamed down his cheeks and his sides began to ache.
"This is a farce, I presume, citizen,' he said when he had recovered something of his composure.
"No farce, citizen," replied Lepine calmly. "The money is at your disposal whenever you care to bring the letters to my pitch at the angle of the Rue Dauphine and the Quai des Augustins, where I carry on my business."
"Whose money is it? Agnes de Lucines', or did that fool Fabrice send you?"
"No one sent me, citizen. The money is mine—a few savings I possess—I honor citizen Fabrice—I would wish to do him service by purchasing certain letters from you."
Then as Heriot, moody and sullen, remained silent and began pacing up and down the long, bare floor of hte room, Lepine added persuasively,"Well! what do you say? Two thousand francs for a packet of letters—not a bad bargain in these hard times."
"Get out of this room," was Heriot's fierce and sudden reply.'
"You refuse?"
"As you please," said Lepine, as he, too, rose form his chair. "But before I go, citizen Heriot," he added, speaking very quietly, "let me tell you one thing. Mademoiselle Agnes de Lucines would far sooner cut off her right hand then let hers touch it for even one instant. Neither she nor deputy Fabrice would ever purchase their lives at such a price."
"And who are you—you mangy old scarecrow?" retorted Heriot, who was getting beside himself with rage, "that you should assert these things? What are these people to you, or you to them, that you should interfere in their affairs?"
"Your question is beyond the point, citizen," said Lepine blandly; "I am here to propose a bargain. Had you not better agree to it?"
"Never!" reiterated Heriot emphatically.
"Two thousand francs," reiterated the old man imperturbably.
"Not if you offered me two hundred thousand," retorted the other fiercely. "Go and tell that to those who sent you. Tell them that I—Heriot—would look upon a fortune as mere dross against the delight of seeing that man Fabrice, whom I hate beyond everything in earth or hell, mount up the steps to guillotine. Tell them that I know that Agnes de Lucines loathes me, that I know that she loves him. But you are wrong, citizen Lepine," he continued, speaking more and more calmly as his passions of hatred and of love seemed more and more to hold him in their grip; "you are wrong if you think that she will not strike a bargain with me in order to save the life of Fabrice, whom she loves. Agnes de Lucines will be my wife within the month, or Arnould Fabrice's head will fall under the guillotine, and you, my interfering friend, may go to the devil, if you please."
"That would be but a tame proceeding, citizen, after my visit to you," said the old man with unruffled sangfroid. "But let me, in my turn, assure you of this, citizen Heriot," he added, "that Mlle. de Lucines will never be your wife, that Arnould Fabrice will not end his valuable life under the guillotine—and that you will never be allowed to use against him the cowardly and stolen weapon which you possess.
Heriot laughed—a low, cynical laugh—and shrugged his thin shoulders:
"And who will prevent me, I pray you?" he asked.
The old man made no immediate reply, but he came just a step or two closer to the citzien-deputy and, suddenly drawing himself up to his full height, he looked for one brief moment down upon hte mean and sordid figure of the ex-valet. To Heriot it seemed as if the whole man had become transfigured: the shabby old scarecrow looked all of a sudden like a brilliant and powerful personality; from his eyes there flashed down a look of supreme contempt of and of supreme pride, and Heriot—unable to understand this metamorphosis which was more apparent to his inner consciousness then his outward sight—felt his knees shake under him and all the blood rush back to his heart in an agony of superstitious terror.
From somewhere there came to his ear the sound of two words: "I will!" in reply to his own defiant query. Surely those words uttered by a man conscious of power and strength could never have been spoken by the dilapidated old scarecrow who earned a precarious living by writing letters for ignorant folk.
But before he could recover some semblance of presence of mind citizen Lepine had gone, and only a loud and merry laugh seemed to echo through the squalid room.
Heriot shook off the remnant of his own senseless terror; he tore open the door of the bedroom and shouted to Rondeau, who truly was thinking that the citizen-deputy had gone mad:
"After him!-after him! Quick! curse you!"
"The man who was here just now-an aristo."
"I saw no one—but the Public Letter-Writer, old Lepine—I know him well—"
"Curse you for a fool!" shouted Heriot savagely, "the man who was here was that cursed Englishman—the one whom they call the Scarlet Pimpernel. Run after him—stop him, I say!"
"Too late, citizen," said the other placidly; "whoever was here before is certainly half-way down the street by now."
