The whole business made Leroux uneasy. So many things that couldn�t be planned for, so many things to go wrong� Wrong was a deadly prospect. Perhaps that the thing that bothered Leroux the most was lack of complete control � no, not lack of control, but of dependence on others. Theoretically, a coach waited a block away, help between here and there. �There will be an attack on the prison and chaos will ensue. All you have to do is get her outside the wall,� the patron had argued.

Getting the lady to that point is the hard part. Yes, Leroux was used to manipulating mobs to his advantage. Yes, there would the crowds would serve as a considerable distraction� but the lady herself couldn�t be predicted. Aristocrats weren�t biddable by nature, would she obeyed the orders of one who she would have looked down to in a former life. Her benefactors� money meant only so much � money mattered little to dead.

Leroux had easy access to La Force, having done hard duty there for months under the pseudonym Reynard. And the first part of the plan was his own: order the guards within visual range of the cell to take control of the mob (an unlike feat), order the lady to change into clothes of a common fishwife (there won�t be anyone looking close enough to notice that she doesn�t fit the bill, move the lady to an alcove Leroux had staked out earlier where she won�t be seen, wait for the mob to come, mingle with the mob, move out with them. Leroux had originally hoped to put the lady in a guards uniform, but fate worked again that plan.

Throughout the prison there was an acute tension in the prisoners and in the guards � anticipation. Death calls from outside, how long will it be held back? The prisoners were all destined to die anyway, but not like this. This was a monstrosity. Those responsible hadn�t even the guts to be here to witness their creation. It was this unease that served to mask Leroux�s own nervousness. Get to the holding cell. Order the guards to the front.

A muffled screamed caused Leroux�s steps to waver. There was something all too familiar in the sound. Not his problem. Get to the holding cell. Order the guards to the front. Explain to the lady that her release has been paid for and give her the clothes. Watch until she�s ready. Another cry and the sounds of struggle. To his right a guard sat at a door where no guard was before, a grin on his face ear to ear. A thud from within. Someone was taking advantage of the coming terror � the slaughter to come would hide the indiscretion. Leroux continued moving on.

Another cry.

Despite a logical brain telling Leroux to move on, something more instinctually halted his feet. A memory perhaps. Get to the holding cell. Turning on his heels, stalked to the door. The grinner leered. �Looking for a bit of fun before the crowd has at her?� Leroux sneered and threw the open so hard it slammed shut behind him as he walked in.

With startling certainty, Leroux had seen this moment before � cries echoing from the past resounding in these walls. The woman herself bore such a striking resemblance that for a moment Leroux wondered whether he�d stepped back into that memory and was looking at it from a new prospective.

The woman was a fighter, even if the odds were stacked against her, she struggled against her assailant. She wouldn�t win - the hand was stacked against her. The attacker had the greater weight and height and strength and what was more, should she gain the advantage, he had a building full of reinforcements. It was unfair.

Leroux had seen this scene too often before, it enraged him every time - except this time� this time the rage refused to be quelled. Maybe the scene was too close this time to that ancient memory. Perhaps it was a chance to rectify a mistake � I couldn�t save you then, but now�?

Rage launched Leroux across the room, the would-be attacker was thrown into the wall � his head impacting with the wall with a sickening crack, then fell in a heap. Serve him right if he were dead, Leroux thought straightening himself. The lady looked ready to scream, Leroux roughly placed a hand over her mouth � wouldn�t do to draw unwanted attention just yet.. �Do you want to live?� Leroux whispered, staring into the wide frightened eyes. The lady nodded. �Then you must do as I tell you. I will remove my hand, but you must not scream, you understand?� Another nod. Leroux dropped his hand and bent over the lady�s would-be assailant, pulling off his coat. �Get out of that dress quickly!�

Leroux had to move quickly. The attacker was bleeding heavily, and blood would stand out on the uniform. He couldn�t afford suspicion. He threw the coat in the lady�s direction, she coward in the corner. �Get out of that dress! You will need to put on this man�s clothes if we are to leave this cell.� He turned his back on the lady to encourage her obedience as he worked the pants off. Threw those in her direction.

Asking for obedience was one thing, the lady was unlikely prepared for what that obedience demanded. For her own sake, Leroux hoped she kept her word. Even now he hear the screams of the people�s justice. �You great fool!� he shouted, grabbing her coat�s collar with one hand, while throwing the door open with the other. �What will the citoyen say when he hear? Chauvelin will have your head, he will,� he ranted, pulling Marguerite along � staggering and bent nearly double. The noises increased as the crowd came closer. The man on the door must not see her face, Leroux considered as he took great care to let the other man see only what Leroux wanted him to. �He killed the prisoner.� This was addressed to the man gaping at their exit. �Broken her neck, go see for your self. You, imbecile, you shall answer to Chauvelin himself!� Screams, close by.

�Blame it on the mob,� the other man said, peering into the open cell. The voices grew in volume � was that the sound of marching feet? �Beaucarnot said the aristo was not to survive the night� you�re a real dog, Jean-Pierre, not letting me have a go--� With his back turned, Leroux shoved him through the portal and latched the door behind. The guard hammered on the door from within.

The lady rubbed her neck, looked back at the door. �He will tell Chauvelin,� she said fearfully. The corridors echoed with the approaching mob.

�Not if he�s dead,� Leroux returned, eyes on the corridor. �Stay close.� Leroux paced before the cell antsily, the sounds of pounding and screaming coming for all directions. Mobs didn�t rationalize they acted. A strong personality could steer them in any direction and they would follow blindly.

�Do you hear that traitor? That is the sound of justice coming for you!� Leroux shouted at the door even as he kept an eye on the hallway. �Death is coming for you! Listen! The day of judgment has arrived for you and it comes in the form of those you oppressed!� And so they came, an inhuman looking pack, with twisted faces and blood spattered hands. Hold fast, he thought in the lady�s direction. �See here, traitor! The people have come for you! Citizens, we have the former Marquis de Beaumont � a most hateful blemish on the face of France! Sargeant Bibot himself caught him trying to flee the city in the guise of one of our guards men! We thought he could deceive the good people of our Republic! Let him now taste the people�s justice!� Leroux yanked open the door as the people arrived to it. The mob surged in and the sounds of shrieks, told Leroux the plan was successful. �That�s right citizens! Purge our country of these damn aristos!� He backed up the lady�s side. As soon as the mob gain to move on, he would had back along the corridor.

While Leroux had strong evidence that Chauvelin would sooner part with his balls than his prize � hadn�t Leroux counted on that in his original plans � but regardless of whether he would or not the lady needed to believe. She needed to believe that her husband or lover or whatever this man was to her would be safe, otherwise it was clear the little tigress would have challenged Chauvelin himself to free him and gotten killed in the process. If Leroux was to botch his plans he would be damned if he left empty handed!

�Do not let down your guard,� he whispered when they were entirely alone for a minute. �There may be those you don�t see watching.� And he had the feeling that there would be sights that she was not prepared for still to come.

Surely enough, the corridor opened up onto a large hall that had once held prisoners who were to be tried the next day, but the mob had the mind to conduct their own trial and execution. Broken, blood, torn remains � a gruesome jigsaw puzzle that could never be reassembled. Age did not matter nor gender or innocence � what had been done here was clear for all to see. The sheer brutality even shocked Leroux, who had thought himself long numbed to the horrors men could devise.

Beside him the lady looked fit to swoon � she was now realizing the fate she so narrowly escaped. Her face was as white as a sheet and her eyes glassy, but to her credit she did not scream. �Don�t look!� he hissed in her ear.

�But��

�There is not to be done for them,� Leroux insisted. ��Look there at the door on the other side and the torch beyond it. Do not take your eyes off of them.� In that manner he led her out of that abattoir.

Leroux hurried off down the street, going only so fast that the lady could keep up. He ducked down an alleyway, as his companion came to the alley he caught her hand and pulled her after him. Two blocks further on he would have run into his contact, but was not quite ready to explain why he had abandoned his charge for another cause. He would go back and explain himself later.

�This way,� he whispered. He pulled open a door nearly hidden by shadow and shooed her up a stairwell immediately within. He caught her as she tripped in the darkness and rushed her up the stairway. The corridor let off to two rooms on the right, both of which he�d paid for. He pushes her into the second which offers a window looking onto the street below. The room is cold, the fire having burnt out in the grate, but Leroux does not move to light it.

�There is a bed in the corner and a blanket there on,� he told the lady. �It will have to do in place of a fire this night. Have you any friends or family that will have you?�

�No,� Leroux replied, bee-lining for the half empty bottle on the table, taking a swallow, then pressed it into the lady�s hands. �Here. It�ll warm you up, more than that blanket will I imagine.� The lady seemed in a state of shock and rightly so. �You�re wondering how I knew you were connected to the English spy if I were not in his employ,� he guessed the question on her mind. �I have been working La Force for a few weeks now, figuring a way to spring a prisoner. There was a young man brought in, at Chauvelin�s request, under suspicion of working with that particular personage that the good citizen finds so objectionable. He languished in the hospitality of that hell hole until the good citizen returned and shortly thereafter that prisoner was called on by a lady � you. I recognized you once we were outside your cell.� Leroux�s eyes grazed over the bruises on the lady�s face - much had happened since that meeting. �I put what facts I knew and those I deduced together and reasoned that you were somehow connected to the special prisoner.�

Leroux watched the lady crumble before him as the last of her illusions were shattered and he had no hope to offer. "If you are one of those that still believe in God, I suggest you pray," Leroux advised. "But I doubt he's listening anymore." Perhaps it would have been kinder to have left her.

He thought of the carriage standing to two blocks on � waiting for him and his charge who he had abandoned for this lady. He needed to inform them the mission was a failure before they made the wrong people suspicious. He drank half of what remained in the wine bottle and left the other half for the lady to drown her sorrows with. "I must meet some one," he said.

"Now?" she looked startled.

"I must tell them their friend is dead," Leroux said. She died the moment I chose to save you, he omitted. "Get some rest if you can and we will talk in the morning." He threw aside his guard's coat and don a shabby brown one that hung on a hook by the door. He stole quietly the staircase and out the alleyway door. He did no expect a warm welcome from his contacts.

Despite the many sordid accounts given of his character, Jean-Claude Leroux was more honorable than most when it came to his word of honor. When a man had nothing else to offer, one's word meant everything. In this case, Leroux had not given his word explicitly to the friend of the lady he was hired to save, but that he had agreed to do so implied it was given. When one valued their word so much as Leroux, a massacre would not stand in the way of him correcting a mistake. His word carried him back to the scene of the crime with the vain hope of compensating for a moment of nostalgia, on the chance of retrieving that lost soul. Which by now was undoubtedly lost. Within twenty, thirty minutes he'd had the proof that the attempt was in vain. Had he ignored the one lady's plight this one would have been spared a most horrible end.

Fifteen minutes later he met his contacts in the shadows of an alleyway, the coach that waited for the lady dismissed and his employer perturbed, as Leroux explained the detail, altering as little possible and omitting the lady he had rescued. "� Chauvelin had shuffled the cells of the prisoners up to the last minute. There was no way of finding the Lady in time. Ever since the English spy was caught-"

"Are you saying Chauvelin has the Scarlet Pimpernel?" the man interrupted. "You saw him?"

"At least he had the man," Leroux corrected. "I was there when he was caught. Tonight the cell was surrounded by armed men at the beginning of the night, but empty as of twenty minutes ago. I found one of Chauvelin's top agents in a pool of his own blood outside the cell."

"What of the Pimpernel?"

"No where to be seen, but either was Chauvelin," Leroux reported. "But for all we know he might have been dragged out into the street for one of those mock trials that have been taking place all night."

"That would be a pity," the other said. "The gentleman interests me." His employer seems more interested in the spy, than considered for the lady who was just hacked to pieces. Leroux felt a purse being pressed into his hand. "I am a man accustomed to set-backs, M. Leroux, but I credit myself with learning from my mistake and seeing opportunities as they arise. I would be most interested in knowing more about this particular gentleman and of Chauvelin." The man did not look for gesture of agreement, he knew the other would cooperate.

"And your friend?" Leroux asked.

"A tragedy," the other said without a hint of emotion in his voice.