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"And you, Pere Lenegre," continued the Englishman, speaking now with slow and careful deliberation, "listen very attentively to the instructions I am going to give you, for on your implicit obedience to them depends not only your own life but that of these two dear women. Go at once, now, to the Rue Ste. Anne, round the corner, the second house on your right, which is numbered thirty-seven.
Pere Lenegre went to the door; he stepped cautiously and with that stealthy foot-tread which speaks in eloquent silence of daily, hourly danger, of anguish and anxiety for lives that are dear. The door was low and narrow up on the fifth floor of one of the huge tenement houses in the Rue Jolivet in the Montmartre quarter of Paris.
The next moment he had her by the shoulders and had imprinted two sounding kisses upon her cheeks. "Now, petite maman," he said gaily, "let us liberate the old man." Pere Lenegre, from his hiding-place, had heard all that had been going on in the room for the last few moments.
Pierre is safe, remember that! As for me," he added with that wonderful insouciance which caused him to risk his life a hundred times a day with a shrug of his broad shoulders and a smile upon his lips; "as for me, I'll look after myself, never fear." He paused awhile, then added gravely: "So long as you are safe, my good Lenegre, and petite maman, and Rosette."
You have failed in zeal and initiative. That's enough. What else have you done? Have you got the man Lenegre?" "No, citizen. He is not in hiding here, and his wife and daughter will not give us any information about him." "That is their look-out," retorted Rouget with a harsh laugh. "If they give up Lenegre of their own free will the law will deal leniently with them, and even perhaps with him.
Whereupon the old man was silent, petite maman murmured a short prayer, and Rosette began to cry. The hero of a thousand gallant rescues had received his answer. "You, too, are on the black list, Pere Lenegre?" he asked quietly. The old man nodded. "How do you know?" queried the Englishman. "Through Jean Baptiste, milor." "Still that demmed concierge," muttered Sir Percy.
"But you, milor," stammered pere Lenegre, "and your friends ?" "La, man," retorted Blakeney lightly, "have I not told you before never to worry about me and my friends? We have more ways than one of giving the slip to this demmed government of yours. All you've got to think of is your wife and your daughter.
What wonder that Pere Lenegre, when he heard that his son was safe murmured a fervent: "God bless you, milor, and your friends!" and that Rosette surreptitiously raised the fine caped coat to her lips, for Pierre was her twin-brother, and she loved him very dearly.
"I have told you, citizen," retorted the sergeant sullenly, "that I believe Lenegre to be still in this house. At any rate, he had not gone out of it an hour ago that's all I know. And I wanted to search the whole of this house, as I am sure we should have found him in one of the other apartments. These people are all friends together, and will always help each other to evade justice.
But inside the small apartment everything was scrupulously neat and clean. Petite maman was such an excellent manager, and Rosette was busy all the day tidying and cleaning the poor little home, which Pere Lenegre contrived to keep up for wife and daughter by working fourteen hours a day in the government saddlery.
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