The Man in Grey | Page 7

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-Tropèze 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 by those damnable
Chouans, I believe?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Procureur. I picked up the coach at Argentan and sat
next to the driver until the vehicle was ordered to halt."
"Then what happened?"
"A man scrambled up on the box-seat beside me, and holding a pistol to
my head commanded me to descend."
"And you descended?"
"Yes," replied the man quietly. He paused a moment and then added by
way of an explanation: "I hurt my knee coming down; the pain caused
me to lose some measure of consciousness. When I returned to my
senses, I found myself on the roadside -- all alone -- there was no sign
either of the coach or of the footpads."
"An unfortunate beginning," said M. de Saint-Tropèze with a distinct
note of sarcasm in his voice, "for a secret agent of His Majesty's Police
sent down to track some of the most astute rascals known in the history
of crime."
"I hope to do better in the future, Monsieur le Procureur," rejoined the
Man in Grey simply.
M. de Saint-Tropèze made no further remark, and for a moment or two
there was silence in the room. The massive Louis XIV clock ticked
monotonously; M. de Saint-Tropèze seemed to be dissociating his
well-bred person from the sordid and tortuous affairs of the Police. The
Man in Grey appeared to be waiting until he was spoken to again, and
M. le préfet had a vague feeling that the silence was becoming
oppressive, as if some unspoken enmity lurked between the plebeian
and obscure police agent and the highly connected and influential
Procurator of His Majesty the Emperor. He threw himself blandly into
the breach.

"Of course, of course," he said genially. "You, Monsieur -- er --
Fernand, are lucky to have escaped with your life. Those rascals stick at
nothing nowadays. The driver of the coach fully believed that you had
been murdered. I suppose you saw nothing of the rogue?"
But this was evidently not one of the questions which the Man in Grey
had any desire to answer, and M. Vimars did not insist. He turned
obsequiously to M. le Procureur.
"The driver," he said, "spoke of one having a wooden leg. But the
worthy Gontran was very vague in all his statements. I imagine that he
and all the male passengers must have behaved like cowards or the
rascals would never have got so clean away."
"The night was very dark, Monsieur le Préfet," observed the Man in
Grey dryly, "and the Chouans were well armed."
"Quite so," here broke in M. le Procureur impatiently, "and no object
can be served now in recriminations. See to it, my good Vimars," he
continued in a tone that was still slightly sarcastic but entirely
peremptory, "that the Minister's orders are obeyed to the last letter.
Place yourself and all your personnel and the whole of the local police
at Monsieur -- er -- Fernand's disposal, and do not let me hear any more
complaints of inefficiency or want of good will on your part until those
scoundrels have been laid by the heel."

IV
M. de Saint-Tropèze paused after his peroration. With an almost
imperceptible nod of his handsome head he indicated both to his visitor
and to his subordinate that the audience was at an end. But M. le préfet,
though he knew himself to be dismissed, appeared reluctant to go.
There was something which M. le Procureur had forgotten, and the
worthy préfet was trying to gather up courage to jog his memory. He
had a mightily wholesome respect for his chief, had M. Vimars, for the
Procureur was not only a man of vast erudition and of the bluest blood,

but one who was held in high consideration by His Majesty's
government in Paris, ay, and, so 'twas said, by His Majesty himself.
So M. Vimars hummed and hawed and gave one or two discreet little
coughs, whilst M. le Procureur with obvious impatience was drumming
his well-manicured nails against the arm of his chair. At last he