"And ask her in marriage?"
"Yes!"
"And if she says 'No!'"
"If she does, I'll warn her that I will go straight to the Chief Commissary and denounce her and her family as traitors, which will mean the guillotine for the lot of them. So what now?" he concluded with a ludicrous air of triumph.
"A splendid idea, Jacques," a lusty voice cried gaily, and a none-too-gentle hand gave the boy a vigorous slap on the back. "And we'll play a march at thy wedding."
It was the fiddler who had just come in with the other musicians. It seems they had accompanied the bulk of the crowd part of the way down to Choisy, and then felt woefully thirsty, and came to the "Chien sans Queue," which was so much nearer for a drink than the first cabaret down the other way. They certainly looked very weary, very grubby and very dry, which was small wonder, seeing that they had been on the go, marching with the crowd and blowing their trumpets, since before noon. Apparently, poor things, they had no money for though they professed to have mouths as dry as lime-kilns, they did not order drinks, but took their stand in a corner of the room and proceeded to tune up their instruments, which means that they made the kind of noise one usually associates in concert halls with tuning up, but when they had finished the process and started to play what might be called a tune, the sounds which their instruments emitted had no relation whatever to correct harmony. They seemed, however, to please the unsophisticated ears of the audience, or else, perhaps, the mood for song and gaiety had not yet passed away altogether; certain it is that when the ever-popular "Il était une bergère," was struck up, the chorus was taken up with the former gusto and there was much clapping of hands and banging of tin mugs on the tables. But when the woes of the shepherdess and her cat had been proclaimed in song from beginning to end once, twice and three times and the musicians, more weary and thirsty than ever, deputed their fiddler to go round and hold out his phrygian cap in a mute appeal for sous wherewith to pay for drinks, the whole crowd suddenly discovered that it was getting late and that wives and mothers were waiting for them at home. And there was a chorus something like this:
"Who would have thought it was supper-time?"
"And such a dark night, too."
"If I don't get home, my old woman will be as cross as a she-cat."
"Art thou coming my way, Henri?"
And one by one, or in groups of threes and fours they all filed out of the "Chien sans Queue." Only six sous had been thrown into the Phrygian cap. Polycarpe the landlord stood at his own front door for some time exchanging a few last words with his departing customers. His wife, the Junoesque Victoria, was clearing away the empty mugs in the taproom. The fiddler put his long arm round her capacious waist and drew her, giggling and smirking, on his knee. She smacked his face with elephantine playfulness.
"You couldn't run about with me on your shoulder," she said, "as you did with that poor little man this afternoon."
"He was just a dirty spy," the fiddler retorted, "but if you will challenge me, my Juno, I will have a try with you also."
"Take me upstairs, then, to my room," she said, with a simper. "I am dog-tired after all that dancing and Polycarpe can finish clearing away."
"What will you give me if I do?"
"Free drinks, my beauty," she replied, and pinched his cheeks with her plump fingers, "if you do not drop me on the way."
To her great amazement and no less to her delight the fiddler did heave her up, not as if she were a feather or even a bale of goods certainly, but he did hold her in his arms and carry her not only to the door, but up the narrow staircase, whence she directed him to her bedroom, where she demanded to be deposited on the bed, which gave a loud creak under her goodly weight. She laughed when she saw him give a loud puff of exhaustion.
"I weigh a hundred kilos," she said with some pride.
"I am sure you do," he was willing to admit. But at the provocative glance which the bouncing lady now threw him he took incontinently to his heels. As he was going down the stairs he heard her shouting to her husband.
"Polycarpe! He carried me all the way upstairs in his arms. There's a man for you!"
Polycarpe was standing at the foot of the stairs. His face wore an expression of comical amazement. He was small and spare, had a head as bald as an egg, and tired, purple-rimmed eyes.
"Give the musicians free drinks all round," the lady commanded.
Thus it was that presently five tired musicians were seated round one of the tables in a corner of the taproom of the cabaret "Le Chien sans Queue." With them was Citizen Polycarpe the landlord who, for the moment, was sprawling across the table, his head buried in his arms and snoring like a grampus. The fiddler bent over him, turned his head over and with delicate, if very grimy finger, lifted the lid of one of his eyes.
"As drunk as a lord," he declared; "that stuff is very potent."
He had a smallish bottle in his hand which he now slipped back into his pocket.
"And the gargantuan lady upstairs," he went on, "is sleeping the sleep of the just. So as soon as Devinne is here we can get on with business."
"He is here," one of the others said, "I am sure I heard his footsteps outside."
He rose and went to the door, called out softly into the night: "Devinne! All serene!"
A minute or two later St. John Devinne came in. He was dressed in ordinary clothes, had clean face and hands, but though normally he would not by his appearance have attracted any attention, here in this squalid tap-room in the midst of his friends all grimy and clad in nothing but rags, he looked strangely conspicuous and, as it were, out of key. A pair of lazy eyes, slightly sarcastic in expression, looked him up and down. Devinne caught the glance and something of a blush mounted to his cheeks, nor did he after that meet the eyes of his chief. He took his seat at the table, edging away as far as he could from the sprawling form of Polycarpe the landlord.
"May I know what has happened this afternoon?" he asked curtly.
"Of course you may, my dear fellow," Blakeney replied. "Here," he added, and pushed a mug and jug of wine nearer to St. John, "have a drink."
"No, thanks."
Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, that young dandy, was busy polishing a tin trumpet. He looked up from his work, glanced up at the chief who gave him a slight nod, whereupon he proceeded to give a short succinct account of the stirring events at the château.
"I thought something of the sort was in the wind," Devinne said with dry sarcasm, "or I should not have been sent up to Paris on that futile errand."
There was complete silence for a moment or two after that. Lord Tony's fist clenched until the knuckles shown smooth and white. Glynde was seen to swallow hard as if to choke words that had risen to his throat. They all looked up at their chief who had not moved a muscle, had not even frowned. Now he gave a light little laugh.
"Do have a drink, Johnny," he said; "it will do you good."
Sir Andrew blew a subdued blast in his tin trumpet and Tony, Glynde and Hastings only swore under their breath. But the tension was eased for the moment, and Blakeney presently resumed:
"The errand, lad," he rejoined simply, "was not futile. One of us had to let Galveston and Holte know that they will have to meet us at headquarters on the St. Gif-Le Perrey Road any time within the next twenty-four hours. You would have been wiser, I think, for their sakes as well as your own, to have assumed some inconspicuous disguise, but you have got through all right, I take it, so we won't say any more about that."
"Yes! I got through all right," Devinne mumbled sulkily. "I am not a fool."