relief. Then only did Chauvelin turn on his heel and go his way.

IX

But that crumpled and soiled scrap of paper given to him by the woman
Leridan still lay in his clenched hand as he strode back rapidly
citywards. It seemed to scorch his palm. Even before he had glanced at
the contents he knew what they were. That atrocious English doggerel,
the signature--a five-petalled flower traced in crimson! How well he
knew them!

"We seek him here, we seek him there!"

The most humiliating moments in Chauvelin's career were associated with
that silly rhyme, and now here it was, mocking him even when he knew
that his bitter enemy lay fettered and helpless, caught in a trap, out
of which there was no escape possible; even though he knew for a
positive certainty that the mocking voice which had spoken those rhymes
on that far-off day last September would soon be stilled for ever.

No doubt one of that army of abominable English spies had placed this
warning outside the Leridans' door. No doubt they had done that with a
view to throwing dust in the eyes of the Public Prosecutor and causing a
confusion in his mind with regard to the identity of the prisoner at the
Abbaye, all to the advantage of their chief.

The thought that such a confusion might exist, that Fouquier-Tinville
might be deluded into doubting the real personality of Paul Mole,
brought an icy sweat all down Chauvelin's spine. He hurried along the
interminably long Chemin de Pantin, only paused at the Barriere du