It was the land lady, Mrs. Judson, who opened the door to the girl – she could not be much over twenty. She was not surprised to see the auburn furred creature, a simple, somewhat crumpled, grey hat shading most of her face. Mr. Basil was always getting all kinds of strange visitors.

“Is this the ‘ome of mister Basil?” she asked. “You see, this gentleman gave me this ‘ere package, and said I was to take it to ‘im.”

Mrs. Judson outstretched her arms and replied “It is indeed. I’ll take the package, deary. I’ll make sure it gets to him.”

A look of fear flashed across the woman’s face, and she stammered, refusing to release the plainly wrapped package. “No, you see, ‘e told me to give it to ‘im me self, and-”

Sighing, Mrs. Judson stepped away from the door. “Just a moment, please. I’ll see if he’d like to speak with you.”

Mr. Basil was, at the moment, carefully looking over some papers while his associate, Dr. Dawson, read an article in the paper about the just recently arrived ambassador from France.

“Mr. Basil, there’s a young lady at the door for you,” announced Mrs. Judson, entering the room. “She says she has a package for you, and is quite insistent that she bring it to you personally. Should I send her off?”

Basil would have brushed it over, but he had been half listening, and was slightly intrigued. “A package?” he questioned. “Odd. Alright, thank you, Mrs. Judson. Have the lady come in.”

Mrs. Judson disappeared for a moment, but quickly returned, the woman in toe, who was still tightly clutching the package, her fine, delicate fingers wrapped around it with vice like intensity. The land lady then disappeared into the kitchen, not having the slightest interest in what the young lady wanted. As said before, Mr. Basil was always getting peculiar visitors.

Dr. Dawson greeted the young woman with a smile, offering to take her coat, which she’d resiliently kept on.

“No, thank you, sir,” she responded, glancing hesitantly in the direction of the detective. She could tell that he was studying her as objectively as he did all clients that first stepped through the door, and fear clutched at her heart when she realized that his ear had pricked at the sound of her voice. Had he noticed? No, surely not.

“Do sit down, miss…..” Dawson let the sentence fade, waiting for her to supply her name.

“Davenport,” she responded quickly. “My name is Lucy Davenport.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Ms. Davenport. Now, what seems to be the trouble?” the kind doctor asked.

“That, I believe I can supply,” said the detective, startling the girl. Wide eyes still half covered by the brim of the hat, she looked up at him and unconsciously gulped. “You see, Ms. Davenport is hiding from someone. That is why she takes such care in hiding herself away. Am I correct, miss?”

She tried to brush her surprise away, and after a split second, effected a more careless attitude. “Possibly, sir. Tell me, what else am I doing?”

“I will tell you what you are not doing,” he responded slyly, pacing across the rug as he studied her, whilst she remained motionless in the chair. “You are not here to deliver a package, because the package is empty.”

Here, she could not suppress an astounded gasp. “But, how did you-”

“If the package had something in it, it would have been more carefully wrapped. Obviously, you have no fear of it unraveling or the contents falling out, for there are no contents. Furthermore, you are no English mouse at all, and certainly not this ‘Lucy Davenport,’ you wish us to believe.” With that, he whisked away the grey hat before the woman could offer up a moment’s protest. “Dawson, allow me to introduce Lady Marguerite Blakeney.”

Long, curly auburn hair had fallen down to the girl’s shoulders which had previously been tucked away by the grey hat. In fact, without the hat, she looked quite beautiful, and looked even more so when she was in more flattering dress than the plain garb she was wearing. Her eyes were a piercing blue, and she gazed up at the detective with a mixture of admiration for discovering her secret, and disdain for revealing it.

“Very good, monsieur. It is just as well you take down the façade now, though I had wanted to introduce myself.” Her voice had lost any quality of a British sound to it, and now played in it’s own true range; that was, thick with a French accent. “I had hoped to have fooled you. Alas, I never was very good faking an English accent.”

Appreciatively, Basil handed Lady Blakeney her hat, and sat in the chair opposite her own. “With someone less observant, you might gotten away with it.”

She smiled and straightened. “I was not called the best actress in France for nothing. Now, you have intrigued me, monsieur; What else do you know of me?”

“That you are the former Marguerite St. Just. Your parents are dead, and you moved to England just a few months ago when you married your husband, Sir Percy Blakeney.”

“You are as clever as they say you are!” she praised with intense relief, starting to become less nervous. “Thank God I have not been fooled in that account.”

Dawson had become confused long ago, and decided to let the two play out the conversation between themselves; he could sit and watch, and understand all before long.

“I am told that you are very clever too,” he responded. “But that is not often true of a woman, so I do not get my hopes up.”

She bristled, and tartly responded “The French ambassador seems to think I am more clever than all other women in France. I was quite highly prized in the Republic.”

“This is not the Republic, and praise is easily bought.”

Marguerite would have become indignant at the comment, but smoothed it over. She needed this man, she could not afford to make enemies. “Thank God that it is not the Republic,” she sighed. “What started out as a noble dream has become a bloody nightmare.”

“Are you sure it was ever that noble to begin with?”

“You were not there, monsieur. You cannot fathom what it was like. The peasantry scrapped and scratched to stay alive, and even then miserably failed. But I am not here to talk about the injustices of the old regime, nor the bloody turn the revolution has taken. I came here to ask for your help.”

“That I assumed,” responded the detective, reaching for his pipe.

“I will pay you whatever price you ask; my husband is the richest man in England, so no price is too high! Mon Dieu, nothing could be too high a price to pay were it to save Armand!”

Basil lit the pipe, leaning back in the chair. “I am quite willing to help you, madame, and for a reasonable price, but you must first tell me your predicament. And I warn you: You must tell me everything. If you start hiding things, and they come out later, it could ruin everything that I might have already planned. So, I must ask you to trust me.”

“That, in and of itself, is a higher price than you know. I have lost all ability to trust anyone anymore. They make promises and quickly break them when it is convenient.”

“You trust no one, then?” he asked her, eyeing her suspiciously.

“I trust only one person in the whole world; My brother, Armand St. Just.”

Dawson was astounded by the statement. “But surely you trust your husband?” he questioned her.

Mournfully, she looked down at her hand, twisting the wedding ring around her finger. “My husband is not who I thought he was…..” She quickly dashed a tear away, and looked back up resolutely. “In any case, he doesn’t trust me, so I have no reason to trust him.”

“All the same,” continued Basil, “I will need whatever trust you have. Now, madame, tell me what the trouble is.”

“You have heard the crazy stories that are circling around London, yes? Oh, everyone talks of them! Of a man – the French think he’s an Englishman – who sails across the channel and rescues aristocrats from Madame la Guillotine?”

“I confess that I have heard such a story, but that’s all it is, madame; a story,” he replied, raising an eyebrow curiously. “He leaves only a note signed with a stamp of a small, red, star shaped flower at the scene. There’s more fiction than fact about any number of stories of this Englishman.”

“The flower that he leaves behind is called a Scarlet Pimpernel,” she nervously responded. “That is what he is called, and he heads a band of an unknown number of men known as the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. But, I must confess, until a short while ago, I was of the same frame of mind as you are. But recent events have made the truth all too apparent…..”

Basil leaned foreword in the large chair, staring at the woman intently. “Do continue, Lady Blakeney. Remember, I must know all of the facts.”

“A few weeks ago, an old and dear friend of mine, Suzanne de Tournay, came across the English channel. She is the daughter of the Comte de Tournay, and her family was under intense watch in France. They might have soon been arrested and slaughtered, were it not for…. Well, she insists that they were rescued by the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Suzanne is young, but not half so foolish as I was when I was younger. She does not make up stories like these to impress others; if she says she was rescued by the Scarlet Pimpernel, then she was.”

“I must admit, Lady Blakeney, that this does not seem to be much a problem. What on earth would you have me do?” the detective asked, growing impatient. Women always had to beat about the bush, didn’t they?

“One moment, sil vous plait, I am coming to that part. About the same time, the ambassador from France arrived in England.”

Here, Dawson perked up. “I just read about him in the paper!” he exclaimed, picking it up off of the table and showing the two other mice. Pointing to an article, complete with a picture, he said “That is him, am I correct, madame?”

The picture was of a somewhat tall, black mouse, wearing a habitual scowl. He was dressed completely in black, only a tri color sash of the Republic breaking the pattern. Though the picture did not show their color, his eyes were a pale blue, and they had the look of a falcon to them as he stared down his nose in a manner of complete disgust. No doubt he hated English society.

“Yes, that is him,” she confirmed. “Citizen Chauvelin. I would recognize him anywhere.”

“What a frightful looking fellow,” commented Dawson, putting the paper back on the table.

“Yes, he can be,” agreed Marguerite. “And at the moment, he terrifies me. He is the reason that I came here in disguise, monsieur. I could not risk him knowing I came to you for help.

“You see, a short while ago, he came to visit me at my home, Blakeney Manor. Apparently, this Scarlet Pimpernel fellow is more of a threat to the Republic than anyone here can anticipate. He is an old friend, so he could make the visit look natural. All the same, I was surprised to see him, and his news shocked me even more. You see, monsieur, he revealed to me that he is not really here as an ambassador; that is merely his disguise. He has been charged by Citizen Robspierre to find the identity of the members of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, and kill the leader, either by bringing him back to France to have him so humiliatingly cut down before the mob, or to do it himself. He wanted me to help him, since I used to be so loyal to what the Republic stood for. Naturally, I refused. I could not stomach the idea of such noble blood on my hands.” She now faced her palms heaven ward, as though entreating God to give her some form of divine help. “He knew that the Scarlet Pimpernel is a member of elite British society, with ties to the queen. He’d also had me spied upon and knew that I moved in the same circles.

“He was outraged at my refusal. He met with me again, a few nights later. Apparently, he’d been having more success than I had anticipated; you see, he informed me that he had proof that my own brother, Armand, is in league with the Scarlet Pimpernel; Chauvelin is having him watched! If he ceases to be useful, Armand will be arrested and killed!” Here she began to cry, and the kind doctor handed her his handkerchief.

“Can I get you something to eat? Maybe just some tea, perhaps?” he asked her, trying to calm her. The poor woman’s nerves were nearly shattered.

“No, no, thank you, I shall be alright. I do not think I could stomach anything.” She sniffled and dabbed at her weepy eyes again before continuing. “Chauvelin made me a promise, though: He would make absolutely sure that my brother was spared – even bring him here to England, with me – if I could find another head to take his place. Doubtless you can guess the head he chose; that of the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

Basil blinked in surprised, his jaw slightly slack. “He must know that no one can find the fellow,” he charged. “It’s near impossible. I’m surprised he has so much faith in you, Lady Blakeney.”

“I wish he did not,” she sobbed. “So, now you see my predicament, monsieur. If I do not find this Scarlet Pimpernel, Armand will be killed.” Her tears started a fresh, the poor thing was beside herself. “Armand is the only family I have left in the world, Monsieur Basil. He was the one to care for and raise me after mama and papa died. I cannot stomach the thought of killing the Scarlet Pimpernel, but I could not live knowing I had the chance to save my brother’s life, and I did not take it.”

“Does your husband know of Chauvelin’s price? Was he there when he visited?”

“No, Percy was away on business.” She gave a cold and bitter laugh. “He is more often away than he is at home. I am not a fool, monsieur. You might as well know that my husband and I have been estranged for months. He does not love me, and I have no doubt that he is constantly away visiting some mistress he’s found. We barely even speak anymore. So you see, it is pointless to tell him anything.”

“But why did you come here disguised?” asked Dawson, still somewhat confused.

“Chauvelin said I am to tell no one. If he knew I had come, it might put Armand’s life at great risk. He probably is still having me watched. Oh, but I cannot find the Pimpernel on my own! I know not where to begin!” Her puffy blue eyes looked at the detective; he was her last hope to save her brother. “Monsieur Basil, I need you to help me find the Scarlet Pimpernel.”

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