The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel | Page 6

said curtly.
The ring must have all along been too small for the bony hand of the
once famous Court physician. Even now it appeared embedded in the
flabby skin and refused to slide over the knuckle.
"The water will loosen it," remarked Mole quietly.
Marat dipped his hand back into the water, and the other stood beside
him, silent and stolid, his broad shoulders bent, his face naught but a
mask, void and expressionless beneath its coating of grime.
One or two seconds went by. The air was heavy with steam and a
medley of evil-smelling fumes, which hung in the close atmosphere of
the narrow room. The sick man appeared to be drowsy, his head rolled
over to one side, his eyes closed. He had evidently forgotten all about
the ring.
A woman's voice, shrill and peremptory, broke the silence which had
become oppressive:
"Here, citizen Mole, I want you! There's not a bit of wood chopped up
for my fire, and how am I to make the coffee without firing, I should
like to know?"
"The ring, citizen," Mole urged gruffly.
Marat had been roused by the woman's sharp voice. He cursed her for a
noisy harridan; then he said fretfully:
"It will do presently--when you are ready to start. I said nine o'clock...
it is only four now. I am tired. Tell citizeness Evrard to bring me some
hot coffee in an hour's time.... You can go and fetch me the Moniteur
now, and take back these proofs to citizen Dufour. You will find him at
the 'Cordeliers,' or else at the printing works.... Come back at nine
o'clock. ... I am tired now... too tired to tell you where to find the house
which is off the Chemin de Pantin. Presently will do...."

Even while he spoke he appeared to drop into a fitful sleep. His two
hands were hidden under the sheet which covered the bath. Mole
watched him in silence for a moment or two, then he turned on his heel
and shuffled off through the ante-room into the kitchen beyond, where
presently he sat down, squatting in an angle by the stove, and started
with his usual stolidness to chop wood for the citizeness' fire.
When this task was done, and he had received a chunk of sour bread for
his, reward from Jeannette Marechal, the cook, he shuffled out of the
place and into the street, to do his employer's errands.
IV
Paul Mole had been to the offices of the Moniteur and to the printing
works of L'Ami du Peuple. He had seen the citizen Dufour at the Club
and, presumably, had spent the rest of his time wandering idly about
the streets of the quartier, for he did not return to the rue des Cordeliers
until nearly nine o'clock.
As soon as he came to the top of the street, he fell in with the crowd
which had collected outside No. 30. With his habitual slouchy gait and
the steady pressure of his powerful elbows, he pushed his way to the
door, whilst gleaning whisperings and rumours on his way.
"The citizen Marat has been assassinated."
"By a woman."
"A mere girl."
"A wench from Caen. Her name is Corday."
"The people nearly tore her to pieces awhile ago."
"She is as much as guillotined already."
The latter remark went off with a loud guffaw and many a ribald joke.
Mole, despite his great height, succeeded in getting through

unperceived. He was of no account, and he knew his way inside the
house. It was full of people: journalists, gaffers, women and men--the
usual crowd that come to gape. The citizen Marat was a great
personage. The Friend of the People. An Incorruptible, if ever there
was one. Just look at the simplicity, almost the poverty, in which he
lived! Only the aristos hated him, and the fat bourgeois who battened
on the people. Citizen Marat had sent hundreds of them to the
guillotine with a stroke of his pen or a denunciation from his fearless
tongue.
Mole did not pause to listen to these comments. He pushed his way
through the throng up the stairs, to his late employer's lodgings on the
first floor.
The anteroom was crowded, so were the other rooms; but the greatest
pressure was around the door immediately facing him, the one which
gave on the bathroom. In the kitchen on his right, where awhile ago he
had been chopping wood under a flood of abuse from Jeannette
Marechal, he caught sight of this woman, cowering by the hearth, her
filthy apron thrown over her head, and crying--yes! crying for the
loathsome creature, who had expiated some of his abominable crimes at
the hands of a poor, misguided girl, whom an infuriated mob was even
now