The Prisoner in the Mask Page 17

  12

  THE PRINCE’S MISTRESS

  Like the elephant’s child, one of de Quesnoy’s characteristics was a ‘satiable curiosity’, and as this matter now concerned, perhaps, not only the young man of whom he was in charge but also the woman he had thought of for many years with an emotion very near to love, he knew that he would never be satisfied until he had found out the truth.

  The wall was a tall one and although he could have scaled it he was averse to acting the spy on any love scene. Again, he could have excused himself soon after dinner at the house where he was to spend the evening and returned to watch from which door de Vendôme would come out. As the Prince made a habit of getting back to St. Cyr by midnight on Saturdays it was unlikely that the wait would have been a long one, and such a move would have enabled de Quesnoy to make certain whether the young man had gone into the Syvetons’ garden or one of the others: but that would still not disclose the identity of the woman he had gone in to see.

  Angela’s parents had long since left Paris and, when de Quesnoy had last heard of them, were en poste in Stockholm; but from time to time she had her two younger sisters, now pretty girls of twenty-two and twenty-four, to stay. It might be one of them with whom de Vendôme was having a romance, or perhaps Angela had lent the pavilion to one of her friends as a place of assignation. Again, while visiting the Syvetons the Prince’s fancy might have been caught by some pretty maid, with whom he had started an intrigue, and who was now using the pavilion in which to meet him without her mistress’s knowledge. There was, too, still the possibility that the lights in it had nothing to do with him, and that he was by now being taken up the back stairs to his mistress in one of the houses farther along the Rue de Lisbonne.

  Greatly intrigued by this problem the Count made his way back to the waiting fiacre and was driven on to dine in the Avenue de Wagram with a famous explorer whom he had met through Josephine. But it bubbled intermittently in his mind over the week-end and, with the unscrupulousness which gave him no qualms of conscience once he had determined on a course of action, on the Monday he took the first step towards solving the mystery.

  Having waited till the afternoon, when de Vendôme and the rest of his class had changed into fencing kit, and were hard at it in the Salle d’Armes, he went to the Prince’s sleeping quarters and, taking care to disturb things as little as possible, ran through his belongings. To his considerable satisfaction he came across a large key typical of the kind made for use in garden doors. This being one of the things he had hoped he might find he had come prepared with a lump of soft wax, upon which he took an impression of the key. Replacing everything as he had found it, he took the impression along to his Sergeant-Farrier and told him to make a key from it.

  His next move did not take place until the following Saturday. In accordance with routine, after the last class in the morning, he spoke to his students about the weekly reports upon them put in by the junior instructors, and returned to them with praise or blame their Friday’s essays, which he had glanced through himself on the previous night. When he came to the Prince’s he said:

  ‘Monsieur de Vendôme, your style is improving, and the substance of this essay is by no means bad. But your writing is appalling; positively appalling. And that an officer should write clearly is of the greatest importance. Imagine yourself commanding troops in action. You are hard pressed by the enemy and send back a message to your Colonel asking if you may retire or if it is imperative that you should hold your ground. The runner returns an hour later to say that the Colonel has been unable to read your message. What do you do? Retire and perhaps get yourself cashiered for having given away a valuable position; or stay where you are and perhaps sacrifice your life and the lives of your men quite needlessly. This is by no means the first time that I have spoken to you about the carelessness of your writing; so I must now take steps to make you improve it. Instead of going into Paris this afternoon or this evening you will remain at your desk from three o’clock until dinner time, and again afterwards until half-past ten, copying out this essay several times in a legible hand.’

  There was nothing in the least abnormal about the giving of this punishment, and by having failed to improve his slipshod penmanship the Prince knew that he had laid himself open to it. He knew, too, that from time to time his fellow students were caught out in some slackness and, at the last moment, deprived of the permission to go into Paris on Saturday, or for the whole week-end. Usually that meant having to cut appointments, but their friends knew that they were under military discipline, so made allowances on occasions when they were forced to do so.

  By half-past six de Quesnoy was again in the gateway of the Parc Monceau, now with a free field in front of him. He had come early as he wanted to have ample time to reconnoitre the ground before either being discovered or disclosing himself. On reaching the door into the Syvetons’ garden he tried the key that his Sergeant-Farrier had made for him. It fitted, as he had felt the odds were that it would, and turned the well-oiled lock easily.

  Slipping inside he closed the door gently behind him, then glanced quickly about him in the twilight. The houses at the far end of the gardens were partially obscured by trees and little more than dark blocks in which a few lighted windows showed through gaps between the leafy branches. No one was about, and immediately to his right stood the pavilion. In its side wall there were no windows, so as yet he had no means of telling if it was occupied.

  Moving cautiously round to the front he tiptoed in under the arches of a low open arcade that ran along the garden side of its ground floor. An open door invited inspection of the interior; but it was dark in there, so before gliding in he took from his pocket a useful, fairly recent invention—a flat flask-like case with a small bulb in its top, which on pressing a button connected with a battery and gave out a beam of electric light.

  Shining the torch round, he saw that to one side there was an ornamental staircase leading up to a closed door and that the rest of the ground floor was used partly as a garden store-room, for chairs, tables, etc., and partly as a machine shop. Later he learnt that the array of tools on a long bench, lathe and petrol engine belonged to young Henri Syveton, who had pursued his hobby of engineering there before being called up to do his military service. He was just about to advance to the stairs when he heard sounds above. Switching out his torch he dived down behind a stack of garden chairs and crouched there holding his breath.

  It was the sound of the door above being opened that had given him just time to get under cover. As he stared upwards through the chair legs, in a band of pale light before the door was shut again he caught a glimpse of a woman’s skirts and ankles. As she was wearing stockings of some thick black material, he knew that she must be a servant. She came quickly down the stairs humming a cheerful tune, and without the least suspicion of his presence walked past him out into the garden.

  Having given her time to reach the house, he tiptoed up the stairs, eased the door open a crack and listened intently. Hearing no sound he went in and closed it behind him. The room he had entered was a tiny kitchen. It was lit by an oil lamp and against one wall stood an oil cooker. On it a crock of coffee was simmering gently, and a glance into its interior showed that a casserole and plates were being kept warm there.

  He found the next room in darkness except for the faint glow from an oil heater. The room had windows on both its longer sides, which faced towards the house and park; but curtains were drawn across all of them, so he could risk a few flashes of his torch. They showed it to be a well-furnished sitting-room with cabinets, a sofa and arm-chairs against its walls. At one end a small table was laid for two, and on it there were silver candlesticks. A first course of caviare and crisp rolls was placed ready on a side table, also a big bowl of fruit. A bottle of champagne stood nearby in a long-legged ice bucket. Picking it up he glanced at the label. It was Moêt et Chandon Dry Imperial 1889. As he slipped it back he gave a rather grim little smile and thought: ‘Fourtee
n years; just turning the corner to perfection. With luck I shall enjoy that.’

  Another door at the far end of the dining-room led to a small but comfortable bedroom, warmed by another oil heater. De Quesnoy stood there for some moments, his glance fixed on the neatly turned-down pink silk sheets of the bed, and protruding from them the mahogany handle of a copper warming pan. Then, muttering to himself ‘I wonder? I wonder?’, he closed the door and retraced his steps to the ground floor of the pavilion.

  Taking up his position beside the bottom of the staircase he settled himself to wait with as much patience as he could muster. Ten minutes, a quarter of an hour, drifted by; then he heard light footfalls on the gravel path. As he strained his eyes towards the grey oblong made in the darkness by the open doorway, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. Next moment the silhouette of a woman appeared in the opening. Stare as he would, it was impossible to tell in that dim light whether she was Angela or someone else. She was still some twelve feet away from him and, whoever she was, he was anxious not to give her a nasty shock; so before she took another step he gave a faint cough.

  Pausing in the doorway, she said quickly: ‘François chéri, you are early.’

  It was Angela’s voice. In reply he gave a low laugh, and said: ‘I trust you will not be too disappointed but this, chérie, is Armand.’

  ‘Armand!’ she exclaimed. ‘Why! What … what does this mean?’

  ‘Simply that your little Prince will not be coming to sup with you tonight, and that as I have long wished to see you I took the opportunity to keep his appointment for him.’

  ‘D’you mean that he told you he was coming here?’ Angela’s voice held an angry note. ‘I would never have believed him capable of being so careless of my reputation.’

  ‘No, no! Please do not think ill of him,’ the Count said quickly. ‘He has no idea that I know of his affaire with you. In fact until you spoke just now I was not certain myself that it was you he comes here to meet.’

  ‘Then how—?’

  ‘I found out by accident that he spends his Saturday evenings either here or somewhere very close by. As you are aware, I am his instructor and—’

  ‘That does not justify your prying into his private life.’

  De Quesnoy smiled in the darkness. ‘I will confess that the possibility of your being concerned enormously stimulated my curiosity. But the special circumstances surrounding this young man do make it important that those interested in him should inform themselves about any close friends he may make.’

  ‘Yes,’ Angela admitted, a shade less annoyance in her tone. ‘I appreciate how anxious you must be to guard against his becoming intimate with the wrong sort of people. But if he has not told you of his visits here, how do you know that he does not intend to come tonight?’

  ‘Because, when it was too late for him to let you know that he would be unable to keep this rendez-vous, I suddenly dished him out a punishment lesson which will keep him busy all this evening.’

  ‘Armand, really! What a beastly and unfair advantage to take of your position.’

  ‘Not in the least. He is lucky that I did not keep him in for the whole week-end. I have more than once threatened to do so unless he took the trouble to improve his writing. If he sends you billets-doux you must know how atrocious it is.’

  ‘He does, and his writing is quite frightful.’ Suddenly Angela laughed. ‘Poor boy, I fear that if you saw them you would criticise the matter in them too. They are pathetic compositions compared to the ones you used to send me when you were his age.’

  ‘Thank you, my dear, for your memory of them. And how good it is to hear you laugh again. It makes me hope that you are not too grievously disappointed at my having deprived you of the Prince’s company this evening.’

  ‘No, I’ll not fall into a decline from thwarted longing because I’ll not see him for another week.’

  ‘Then let us forget him for a while; and instead of remaining here talking in the darkness, make ourselves comfortable upstairs.’

  ‘What leads you to believe that it is more comfortable up there?’

  ‘Angela! Angela!’ he exclaimed, burbling with laughter. ‘Please do not seek to persuade me that after only a little private conversation with de Vendôme in the shadows here, you take him to dine in the house with half a dozen people. Twenty minutes ago I saw your maid come down these stairs. As a soldier it was my natural instinct to reconnoitre. All that I saw inclined me to suppose that the Prince is an extraordinarily lucky young fellow.’

  ‘You had no right to pry,’ she admonished him; but her tone was one of amused resignation. ‘I might have guessed, though, that I would not be able to keep from you the fact that I am his mistress.’

  ‘My dear, why should you? If I ventured any criticism at all it would only be that I could have wished you a more amusing lover. But we have just agreed to forget him. And I was hoping that you were about to ask me to supper.’

  ‘Armand! You are incorrigible. Does not your conscience smite you for making such a suggestion, when you have condemned the poor young man for whom the meal was intended to spend his evening drawing pot-hooks and hangers?’

  ‘Oh come! You must eat yourself and so must I. It would be absurd for us to bid one another a polite farewell and each spend the evening in sober solitude.’

  ‘You deserve no better. And as the Prince has no means of getting his own back, I can at least do so for him by turning you out.’

  ‘But Angela,’ he pleaded. ‘Does our old friendship mean nothing to you? Not having met for so long we have a thousand things to talk about. I’ll be truthful now, and admit that simply by following de Vendôme I could have found out what I wished to know without him or his chère amie being the wiser. It was the possibility that she might be you, and if so the chance that I might steal you from him for a few hours, that has made me think of nothing but this moment during the whole of the past week. The fates have been unkind enough in depriving me of even seeing you since my return. Surely you will not be so harsh as to send me away now without so much as a glimpse of you?’

  ‘All right, then.’ There was a smile in her voice which told him that she had meant to relent all the time; but as she led the way upstairs she added firmly: ‘Please do not get any false ideas, though. We will sup and talk; but nothing more. Is that quite understood?’

  ‘Of course, my dear, of course,’ he murmured. ‘You may be sure that I would not seek to take advantage of your kindness.’

  In the tiny kitchen she gave him a taper and told him to light the candles in the dining-room. When he looked up from doing so she was standing on the far side of the table. Catching his breath, he stared at her. She had thrown off a light wrap and her bare shoulders rose out of a foam of pink tulle. The candle flames caught the gold lights in her high-piled hair, and were reflected in the limpid depths of her brown eyes. Among her massed curls sparkled a diamond star, diamond and sapphire drop ear-rings drew the eye to the firm pale column of her neck, more diamonds glittered in the bracelets on her wrists, and a cluster nestled in the tulle above the cleft between her breasts.

  ‘Grâce de Dieu!’ he breathed after a moment. ‘How beautiful you are!’

  She laughed, showing her white even teeth. ‘Did you then expect to find me an old woman?’

  ‘No, no! But like a great wine which was admirable when young maturity has made you superb. I know you to be twenty-eight, but as in the case of many English women you have kept your figure, and you look at least three years younger than your age. I had known that you must still be beautiful but not that I should find you positively devastating.’

  Angela lowered her lashes demurely, dropped him a curtsy, and murmured mockingly: ‘I am flattered at having earned the approbation of such a connoisseur in wine and women as Monsieur le Comte.’

  ‘But seriously,’ he protested. ‘In Paris, in all France, there cannot be a lovelier—’

  ‘Enough, Armand! Enough, my dear.’ She cut him
short with a wave of her hand. ‘I am anyway quite old enough not to allow my head to be turned by your compliments. And this is a meeting between old friends; no more. Now let me have a look at you.’

  Coming round the table she stood within a foot of him. The heady scent she was wearing made him check his breathing. He was terribly tempted to take her in his arms; but he kept a tight hold on himself as her eyes ran over his face, and she said slowly:

  ‘Yes; I can return the compliment. You must be as attractive to women as ever; if not more so. You have lost that slightly puffy, dissipated look that you were getting before they sent you into exile. But you look more than your age. I would put you down as thirty.’

  ‘That does not surprise me. The life I led during the six years I was abroad was a hard one.’

  ‘So I gathered from your letters. I expect, too, that those strange disciplines you practised on yourself while you were in Madagascar took a lot out of you. I was terribly intrigued by the accounts you sent me of some of your occult experiences.’ She smiled suddenly and added: ‘Recalling them sends quite a shiver up my spine; I should have remembered that you may have it in your power to bewitch me.’

  For a moment his grey, yellow-flecked eyes held hers, as he replied, seriously: ‘If I could do so by normal means, I would. But nothing would induce me to break the law which forbids the use of such powers for one’s own ends.’ Turning abruptly away he took the bottle of champagne from the ice bucket and began to open it. Then in a lighter tone he said:

  ‘I can never thank you sufficiently for the letters you wrote to me so regularly through all those years. You have no idea how much they meant to me. But all the same they never told me much about the real you, and how your life was shaping.’

  She gave him an enigmatic smile. ‘Perhaps I may when we have had supper. We’ll see. I hope you like caviare?’