“Before dawn! Did he say where he was going?”
“He did not tell me, milady. Perhaps the grooms might know?”
“Go and find out immediately,” she said. She hurried into the reception hall. A swarthy-looking man rose to his feet as she entered.
“Lady Blakeney?”
“Yes, what is it that you want?”
“I have been instructed to give you this from a gentleman named Chauvelin, a Frenchman-”
“Yes, I know him, give it to me!”
He handed her a letter. She quickly broke the seal. It was a note from Chauvelin and along with it was Armand’s letter. Chauvelin’s note read: You have discharged your service Citoyenne St. Just. Your brother will be safe. I leave for Dover this morning. Adieu. Chauvelin.
She continued staring at the note, oblivious now to the man’s presence.
“I have already been paid for my service, Lady Blakeney,” he said after a moment. “I will see myself out.”
He hesitated and, when she did not respond, gave her a slight bow and left. He passed the servant she had sent out to question the grooms as he left.
“Milady, the grooms report that your husband left for Dover, along with Master Lucas and Miss Andre.”
She crumpled the letter in her hand. So they are all in it together, she thought. Ffoulkes and Dewhurst, Hastings, Lucas, Andre, all of them. The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel-and she had betrayed them. She had told Chauvelin of the meeting Ffoulkes had had with the Pimpernel in the supper room at the Foreign Office, long after most of the guests had left and those few remaining were gathered in the parlor. Chauvelin had seen Ffoulkes meet the Pimpernel and now he was on his way to apprehend him the moment he set foot in France. They were riding directly into a trap and she had set it
“Tell the grooms to have my horse saddled at once,” she said.
“Your horse, milady? Would not the coach be-”
“Yes, my horse, damn you! Be quick about it!”
With Cobra’s chronoplate, they didn’t have to waste time sailing across the English Channel or riding to Paris. They clocked from Dover, where the agent had set up a temporary safehouse, directly to Calais.
“All right, here’s how it stands right now,” said Cobra. “I’ve got one of my men stationed at Lafitte’s tobacco shop, just in case Mongoose or the boy returns there. There’s been no sign of the boy since we took his brother. What’s more, there’s been no sign of the old man, either.”
“What, the tobacconist?” said Lucas. “Jean’s uncle?”
Cobra nodded. “He may be working with Mongoose, as well. Something that you don’t know is that before he became head of field operations, Mongoose was section chief in Paris in this time period. I’m only making a wild guess, but it’s possible that Lafitte might have been one of his indigenous field men.”
Finn threw up his hands. “Jesus, this is getting nuttier all the time!”
“But it makes sense,” said Lucas. “I was wondering how Mongoose was able to dress up as an old woman and make off with Leforte and still have time to get back to the safehouse and meet us as Fitzroy some ten minutes later. I had thought that he might have taken Leforte directly to the safehouse and hidden him from sight after tranquilizing him, but that would still have been cutting it extremely close. In fact, considering everything that he’s been able to accomplish, it would make sense that he was getting help from more than just a 12-year-old boy.”
“Wait a minute,” Finn said. “If Mongoose used to be the section chief here, wouldn’t the man who came in to replace him know the-”
“Allow me to anticipate you,” Cobra said. “No, not necessarily. Remember, we’re still dealing with a practice that is technically illegal. As a result, section chiefs tend to be extremely secretive about such things. Besides, no one would like to inherit somebody else’s field personnel. They’d prefer to pick their own. The old contacts would simply dry up and new ones would be made. Except in this case, it looks like the old contacts have been reestablished. The problem is, I have no idea how many of them there might be.”
“You’re saying that Mongoose has an indefinite number of indigenous personnel dancing to his tune?” said Finn
“I don’t know,” said Cobra, “but it’s entirely possible. Probable, in fact. He likes to have an edge.”
“Terrific,” Finn said. “I’m sure glad you save these little tidbits until they become germane.”
“Delaney, you just don’t seem to understand,” said Cobra in exasperation. “I’m disclosing top-secret information to you here! You guys aren’t supposed to know any of this!”
“What worries me is not what we’re not supposed to know that you’ve already told us,” Finn said, “but what we’re not supposed to know that you haven’t told us yet.”
Lucas looked at him and frowned. “You want to run that by me again?”