The Man in Grey | Page 6

ago the mail-coach had been held up and robbed by a pack of impudent thieves. Here the figure halted for awhile, and just then the heavy rain clouds, which had hung over the sky the whole evening, slowly parted and revealed the pale waning moon. A soft light gradually suffused the sky and vanquished the impenetrable darkness.
Not a living soul was in sight save that solitary figure by the roadside -- a man, to all appearances, wearing a broad-brimmed hat casting a deep shadow over his face; the waning moon threw a cold light upon the grey mantle which he wore. On ahead the exquisite tower of the church of Notre Dame appeared vague and fairylike against the deep sapphire of the horizon far away. Then the solitary figure started to walk briskly in the direction of the city.

III
M. le Procureur Imp��rial, sitting in his comfortable armchair in the well-furnished apartment which he occupied in the Rue St. Blaise at Alen?on, was surveying his visitor with a quizzical and questioning gaze.
On the desk before him lay the letter which that same visitor had presented to him the previous evening -- a letter penned by no less a hand than that of M. le Duc d'Otrante himself, Minister of Police, and recommending the bearer of this august autograph to the good will of M. de Saint-Trop��ze, Procureur Imp��rial at the tribunal of Alen?on. Nay, more! M. le Ministre in that same autograph letter gave orders, in no grudging terms, that the bearer was to be trusted implicitly, and that every facility was to be given him in the execution of his duty: said duty consisting in the tracking down and helping to bring to justice of as many as possible of those saucy Chouans who, not content with terrorising the countryside, were up in arms against the government of His Imperial Majesty.
A direct encroachment this on the rights and duties of M. le Procureur Imp��rial; no wonder he surveyed the quiet, insignificant-looking individual before him, with a not altogether benevolent air.
M. le pr��fet sitting on the opposite side of the high mantelpiece was discreetly silent until his chief chose to speak.
After a brief while the Procureur Imp��rial addressed his visitor.
"Monsieur le Duc d'Otrante," he said in that dry, supercilious tone which he was wont to affect when addressing his subordinates, "speaks very highly of you, Monsieur -- Monsieur -- By the way, the Minister, I perceive, does not mention your name. What is your name, Monsieur?"
"Fernand, Monsieur le Procureur," replied the man.
"Fernand? Fernand what?"
"Nothing, Monsieur le Procureur. Only Fernand."
The little Man in Grey spoke very quietly in a dull, colourless tone which harmonised with the neutral tone of his whole appearance. For a moment it seemed as if a peremptory or sarcastic retort hovered on M. le Procureurs lips. The man's quietude appeared like an impertinence. M. de Saint-Trop��ze belonged to the old Noblesse. He had emigrated at the time of the Revolution and spent a certain number of years in England, during which time a faithful and obscure steward administered his property and saved it from confiscation.
The blandishments of the newly-crowned Emperor had lured M. de Saint-Trop��ze back to France. Common sense and ambition had seemingly got the better of his antiquated ideals, whilst Napoleon was only too ready to surround himself with as many scions of the ancient nobility as were willing to swear allegiance to him. He welcomed Henri de Saint-Trop��ze and showered dignities upon him with a lavish hand; but the latter never forgot that the Government he now served was an upstart one, and he never departed from that air of condescension and high breeding which kept him aloof from his more plebeian subordinates and which gave him an authority and an influence in the province which they themselves could never hope to attain.
M. le pr��fet had coughed discreetly. The warning was well-timed. He knew every word of the Minister's letter by heart, and one phrase in it might, he feared, have escaped M. le Procureur's notice. It ordered that the bearer of the Ministerial credentials was to be taken entirely on trust -- no questions were to be asked of him save those to which he desired to make reply. To disregard even the vaguest hint given by the all-powerful Minister of Police was, to say the least, hazardous. Fortunately M. de Saint-Trop��ze understood the warning. He pressed his thin lips tightly together and did not pursue the subject of his visitor's name any farther.
"You propose setting to work immediately, Monsieur -- er -- Fernand?" he asked with frigid hauteur.
"With your permission, Monsieur le Procureur," replied the Man in Grey.
"In the matter of the highway robbery the other night, for instance?"
"In that and other matters, Monsieur le Procureur."
"You were on the coach which was attacked