The Cardinal's Musketeer by Mary Imlay Taylor

IN the Rue des Bons Enfans, behind the gardens of the Palais Cardinal, Péron had his lodgings. He had long since outgrown the proportions of his little room over the clockmaker's shop; the old house at the sign of Ste. Geneviève was too small to accommodate the three grown people and the apprentices, and he had taken up his quarters near the scene of his daily employment. He had two upper rooms in a house but a little way from the rear of Archambault's pastry shop; his means were limited and his requirements few and simple, so the apartments were plainly and neatly furnished. He had left the little room on the Rue de la Ferronnerie untouched; it was to him full of tender recollections of his childhood, and he knew it was dear to the motherly heart of good Madame Michel, who looked upon him almost as her own son.

It was in these rooms on the Rue des Bons Enfans that he made a discovery which amazed and alarmed him. He had been twenty-four hours in Paris before he recollected the cardinal's ring, which he had hidden in the lining of his coat, and when he went to look for it, to his surprise, it was not to be found. He remembered that it had escaped the vigilance of M. de Vesson's searchers, and he could not account for the loss. In his anxiety, he cut the lining entirely away from his coat, but revealed nothing. It was dusk when he made this discovery of his mishap, and he lighted a taper and kneeled on the floor, searching with patience and exhaustive scrutiny every corner and crevice of the room. The furniture was scanty, and the light shone into the most remote spots, but showed nothing. He was convinced that the ring was in the coat when he took it off to assume his uniform, nor could it get out of its own accord. He had dressed hastily to attend the cardinal to mass at his parish church of St. Nicholas des Champs, and in his hurry he had forgotten the ring. No one had entered the rooms in his absence, for the doors were both secure and the keys in his pocket. Then he recollected the windows. There were three; the two in the front room overlooked the street and were inaccessible, but the one in the inner room opened within three feet of the slanting roof of the adjoining house, which, however, appeared to be unoccupied. If any one had entered his rooms, it must have been through that window, but he saw no signs of it.