M. le préfet and to one or two of his friends. He could not understand this attitude of humility and obedience on the part of his chief: but everyone agreed that it was small wonder M. le Procureur Impérial was upset, seeing that the presence of that secret police agent in Alençon was a direct snub to all the municipal and departmental authorities throughout the district, and M. de Saint-Tropèze was sure to resent it more than anyone else, for he was very proud, and acknowledged to be one of the most capable of highly-placed officials in the whole of France. 

VI 

The night that followed was unusually dark. Out in the Cache-Renard woods the patter of the rain on the tall crests of the pines and the soughing of the wind through the branches of the trees drowned every other sound. In the burrow built of dead branches, caked mud and dried heather, five men sat waiting, their ears strained to the crackling of every tiny twig, to the fall of every drop of moisture from the over-laden twigs. Among them the dark lantern threw a dim, flickering light on their sullen, glowering faces. Despite the cold and the damp outside, the atmosphere within was hot to suffocation; the men's breath came panting and laboured, and now and again they exchanged a few whispered words. 

"In any case," declared one of them, "if we feel that he is playing us false we shall have to do for him to-night, eh, mates?" 

A kind of muffled assent went round the circle, and one man murmured: 

"Do you really mistrust him, Hare-Lip?" 

"I should," replied Hare-Lip curtly, "if I thought he knew about Red-Poll." 

"You don't think that he suspects?" queried another. 

"I don't see how he can. He can't have shown his face, or rather his wooden leg inside Alençon since the mail-coach episode. The police are keen after him. But if he did hear rumours of the death of Red-Poll he will also have heard that the murder was only an ordinary case of robbery--watch and money stolen--and that a sheet of letter-paper covered with random numerals was found in the breeches' pocket of the murdered man." 

One of the men swore lustily in the dark. 

"The paper covered with numerals!" he muttered savagely under his breath. "You clumsy fool to have left that behind!" 

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