Fouquier-Tinville, half expecting citizen Chauvelin to pay him a final
visit, shuffled to the door and opened it.

A visitor, tall, well-dressed, exceedingly polite and urbane, requested
a few minutes' conversation with citizen Fouquier-Tinville.

Before the Public Prosecutor had made up his mind whether to introduce
such a late-comer into his rooms, the latter had pushed his way through
the door into the ante-chamber, and with a movement as swift as it was
unexpected, had thrown a scarf round Fouquier-Tinville's neck and wound
it round his mouth, so that the unfortunate man's call for help was
smothered in his throat.

So dexterously and so rapidly indeed had the miscreant acted, that his
victim had hardly realised the assault before he found himself securely
gagged and bound to a chair in his own ante-room, whilst that dare-devil
stood before him, perfectly at his ease, his hands buried in the
capacious pockets of his huge caped coat, and murmuring a few casual
words of apology.

"I entreat you to forgive, citizen," he was saying in an even and
pleasant voice, "this necessary violence on my part towards you. But my
errand is urgent, and I could not allow your neighbours or your
household to disturb the few minutes' conversation which I am obliged to
have with you. My friend Paul Mole," he went on, after a slight pause,
"is in grave danger of his life owing to a hallucination on the part of
our mutual friend citizen Chauvelin; and I feel confident that you
yourself are too deeply enamoured of your own neck to risk it wilfully
by sending an innocent and honest patriot to the guillotine."