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Updated: May 8, 2025
I dispatched Michelot to the Palais Royal, where without permitting his motive to transpire he was to ascertain for me whether M. de Montresor was in Paris, whether he still dwelt at the Hotel des Cloches, and at what hour he could be found there.
Daily I sent Michelot to the Hotel de Luynes to make the same inquiry, and to return daily with the same dispiriting reply that there was no news of Madame la Duchesse. In this fashion some three weeks wore themselves out, during which period I lay in my concealment, a prey to weariness unutterable.
And thus it came to pass that shortly after eight o'clock, albeit a prisoner, I rode into the courtyard of the Lys de France, and, alighting, I stepped across the threshold of the inn, and strode up to a table at which I had espied Michelot.
Bidding Abdon and Michelot lead the horses, and still speaking in my assumed voice, I desired Mademoiselle and the Chevalier who had not yet sufficiently recovered from his bewilderment to have found his tongue to follow me. I led the way up the gentle slope to the spot where our first victims were pinioned.
He obeyed me, and a quarter of an hour after we had quitted the hostelry he was rowing me across the stream, whilst, wrapped in my cloak, I sat in the stern, thinking of Yvonne. "Monsieur," said Michelot, "observe how swift is the stream. If I were to let the boat drift we should be at Tours to-morrow, and from there it would be easy to defy pursuit. We have enough money to reach Spain.
Spain took a sort of pride in his strange talent; he was very proud of a hiding-place he had made in the lodging of a friend, the tailor Michelot, in the Rue de Bussy, which Michelot himself did not suspect. The tailor was obliged to be absent often, and four of the conspirators had successively lodged there.
Auban and I had together trodden but a little while ago, and past the chateau until I came to the shrubbery where Michelot faithful to the orders I had given him awaited my return.
Behind them walked two others, musket on shoulder. I pointed them out to Michelot with a soft cry of joy. We were in time! Following with my eyes the course they appeared to be pursuing I saw by the bank a boat, in which two men were waiting. Again I pointed, this time to the boat. "Over the hedge, Michelot!" I cried. "We must ride in a straight line for the water and so intercept them.
Another idea I had, but it was desperate and yet, so persistently did my thoughts revert to it that in the end I determined to accept it. I drank a cup of Armagnac, cheered myself with an oath or two, and again I called Michelot. When he came, I asked him if he were acquainted with M. de Canaples, to which he replied that he was, having seen the gentleman in my company.
A moment later he was gone, and as I joined Michelot, I chuckled softly to myself. For two hours and more I sat in the shrubbery, conversing in whispers with Michelot, and watching the lights in the chateau die out one by one, until St. Auban's window, which opened on to the terrace balcony, was the only one that was not wrapt in darkness.
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