lient was standing, as it were, with a pistol to my throat--with a
pistol and four hundred francs! The police might perhaps give me half
a louis for my pains, or they might possibly remember an unpleasant
little incident in connexion with the forgery of some Treasury bonds
which they have never succeeded in bringing home to me--one never
knows! M. de Marsan might throw me a franc, and think himself generous
at that!

All things considered, then, when M. Charles Saurez suddenly said,
"Well?" with marked impatience, I replied, "Agreed," and within five
minutes I had two hundred francs in my pocket, with the prospect of
two hundred more during the next four and twenty hours. I was to have
a free hand in conducting my own share of the business, and M. Charles
Saurez was to call for the document at my lodgings at Passy on the
following morning at nine o'clock.

2.

I flatter myself that I conducted the business with remarkable skill.
At precisely ten minutes to eleven I rang at the Chancellerie of the
Ministry for Foreign Affairs. I was dressed as a respectable
commissionnaire, and I carried a letter and a small parcel addressed
to M. de Marsan. "First floor," said the concierge curtly, as soon as
he had glanced at the superscription on the letter. "Door faces top of
the service stairs."

I mounted and took my stand some ten steps below the landing, keeping
the door of M. de Marsan's room well in sight. Just as the bells of
Notre Dame boomed the hour I heard what sounded like a furious
altercation somewhere in the corridor just above me. There was much
shouting, then one or two cries of "Murder!" followed by others of
"What is it?" and "What in the name of ----- is all this infernal row
about?" Doors were opened and banged, there was a general running and
rushing along that corridor, and the next minute the door in front of
me was opened also, and a young man came out, pen in hand, and
shouting just like everybody else:

"What the ------ is all this infernal row about?"

"Murder, help!" came from the distant end of the corridor, and M. de
Marsan--undoubtedly it was he--did what any other young man under the
like circumstances would have done: he ran to see what was happening
and to lend a hand in it, if need be. I saw his slim figure
disappearing down the corridor at the very moment that I slipped into
his room. One glance upon the desk sufficed: there lay the large
official-looking document, with the royal signa