his place beside the
fire. Heron had not even moved whilst he had made this futile attempt at
escape. Five minutes later Chauvelin re-entered the room.

CHAPTER XX. THE CERTIFICATE OF SAFETY

"You can leave de Batz and his gang alone, citizen Heron," said
Chauvelin, as soon as he had closed the door behind him; "he had nothing
to do with the escape of the Dauphin."

Heron growled out a few words of incredulity. But Chauvelin shrugged his
shoulders and looked with unutterable contempt on his colleague. Armand,
who was watching him closely, saw that in his hand he held a small piece
of paper, which he had crushed into a shapeless mass.

"Do not waste your time, citizen," he said, "in raging against an
empty wind-bag. Arrest de Batz if you like, or leave him alone an you
please--we have nothing to fear from that braggart."

With nervous, slightly shaking fingers he set to work to smooth out the
scrap of paper which he held. His hot hands had soiled it and pounded it
until it was a mere rag and the writing on it illegible. But, such as
it was, he threw it down with a blasphemous oath on the desk in front of
Heron's eyes.

"It is that accursed Englishman who has been at work again," he said
more calmly; "I guessed it the moment I heard your story. Set your whole
army of sleuth-hounds on his track, citizen; you'll need them all."

Heron picked up the scrap of torn paper and tried to decipher the
writing on it by the light from the lamp. He seemed almost dazed now
with the awful catastrophe that had befallen him, and the fear that his
own wretched life would have to pay the penalty for the disappearance of
the child.

As for Armand--even in the midst of his own troubles, and of his own
anxiety for Jeanne, he felt a proud exultation in his heart. The Scarlet
Pimpernel had succeeded; Percy had not failed in his self-imposed
undertaking. Chauvelin, whose piercing eyes were fixed on him at that
moment, smiled with contemptuous irony.

"As you will find your hands overfull for the next few hours, citizen
Heron," he said, speaking to his colleague and nodding in the direction
of Armand, "I'll not trouble you with the voluntary confession this
young citizen desired to make to you. All I need tell you is that he
is an adherent of the Scarlet Pimpernel--I believe one of his most
faithful, most trusted officers."

Heron roused himself from the maze of gloomy thoughts that were again
paralysing his tongue. He turned blea