The Prisoner in the Mask Read online

  ‘I don’t want to get you into trouble, and it may if you go on helping me to escape arrest.’

  ‘Oh, shucks!’ The young American grinned. ‘Having pulled you out from under on the other side, the Boss wouldn’t let you be collared here in Paris. Not if he could help it. And I go right along with him, every time.’

  ‘Thanks, Harry. Then I’ll get you to lower me in the tradesmen’s lift; and we’ll pray that the rope doesn’t snap. If I get down safely, when Channock turns up tip him off somehow to say that he left me in England. None of the yacht’s crew knew that I was returning to France; so if they are questioned the police will take what they say as confirmation of his story. If they swallow it there will be no hunt for me in Paris and I won’t have much to worry about, providing I keep clear of this part of the city.’

  ‘You’ll drop being Jules Dupont altogether, eh?’

  ‘That’s it. I shall become Vasili Petrovitch permanently, and go to earth in the Pension Smirnoff.’

  ‘Are you all right for dough?’

  ‘I’ve enough to last me for about ten days. But I shall not be able to draw on my Dupont account any longer; so after that I’d be grateful if Channock would finance me till I can get fresh funds sent me by my father.’

  ‘That’ll be okay. I’ll bring a wad of francs to the Pension.’

  ‘No, no! If they question the servants while searching the flat they will find out that I’ve been here for the past fortnight. You can cover yourself by saying that no law compels you to volunteer information, and that I must have gone out before you were up this morning. But from then on both you and Channock will be under suspicion. They will shadow you, and probably intercept your mail, in the hope of tracing me through you. We had better not risk a meeting until next week, anyhow. And then it should be in some public place where neither of us is likely to be recognised. Let us make it a week today at mid-day at—let me see, yes—at the Brasserie Graff in the Boulevard de Clichy.’

  As the Count tied his tie, he went on, ‘Of course, if the servants give it away that I’ve been here it will be futile to get Channock to say that he left me in England. Build up for that, though, as far as you can. They will find nothing in my room to compromise me; but you must get the bed there made the moment I have gone. Tell them that the clothes I have left belonged to Channock’s uncle. Now come and do your best to prevent my breaking my neck going down in the tradesmen’s lift.’

  Plimsol cautiously opened the door and peered out, while de Quesnoy pulled on his coat and made certain that his wallet was in his pocket; then, the coast being clear, they tiptoed quickly along to the kitchen.

  The chef and Antoine, the butler, were both there. They gave Plimsol a surprised glance and he pulled up abruptly in the doorway. Wondering why, the Count took another pace forward and looked over his shoulder. To his consternation, round the corner of the door, he saw two men who had obviously been talking to the servants, and realised that they must be the detectives.

  His glance met theirs. The sudden brightening of their eyes told him instantly that they must have been given a description of him, so knew him to be the man they were after.

  He had heard no more of de Vendôme’s plan to protect him from a murder charge; so for him arrest might still mean the guillotine. Immediately inside the kitchen door, on the left, lay a double door only the wire gauze section of which was kept closed in summer. Beyond it lay a small platform, then the tradesmen’s lift. The two detectives were standing on the far side of the kitchen table, so would be twice as long as himself in reaching the lift—and more if they met with an obstruction.

  His immediate instinct was to push Harry Plimsol forward so that he would block their path, then dive for the lift. But he judged that it was meant to carry, at the most, only a hundredweight of goods.

  With Harry to hold the rope and check the lift’s descent, but not so sharply as to endanger the rope’s snapping under the strain, he might have ridden swiftly yet safely to the ground. But if he jumped on to it while uncontrolled he would so greatly outweigh its counterweights that it would hurtle like a plummet to its base in the courtyard, burst its wooden sides with the impact and throw him violently from its shattered top on to the stone paving.

  Next second the two detectives moved simultaneously towards him. At the same instant he gave Plimsol a swift shove in their direction. Then, instead of diving for the lift, he stepped a pace backwards, pulled the kitchen door to with a bang, and turned the key in its lock. Without waiting to draw breath he swung about and dashed back along the corridor.

  He knew that there was a second exit from the kitchen, by way of the dining-room; so that he had no more than a flying start. But he reached the front door of the apartment before he heard the first sounds of pursuit. Out on the landing he saw that the lift was at some other floor. Taking the stairs three at a time, he fled helter-skelter down them. The concierge’s wife gave him a startled glance as he dashed past her; but within two minutes of leaving the kitchen he was in the street.

  A closed carriage was passing, its horses moving at a fast trot. With a run and a leap he landed on its back bar and supported himself there while being carried two hundred yards. Then he dropped off, stumbled, nearly fell under an approaching dray, but saved himself and reeled on to the pavement. Glancing back, he saw the detectives just emerging from the entrance to the block. Before they caught sight of him he dived down a side turning, then dropped his pace to a swift walk, breathless but elated at having eluded his pursuers.

  Coming out in the Avenue Kléber, he walked down it to the Place du Trocadero, made quite certain that he was not, after all, being followed, then took the first omnibus going in the direction of Montparnasse. As it jogged across the river, past the Eiffel Tower and the Champ de Mars, he worked out in his mind the probable chain of events which had led up to his narrow escape from arrest.

  The first link must have been a report by Camille Pelletan, or one of his party, that the Count de Quesnoy was in Cowes; but that would not have linked him with Jules Dupont. One of them must either have seen him in Paris while he was using the name of Dupont, or sent a description of his changed appearance which, coupled with being a guest in Van Ryn’s yacht, had led to his identification as Dupont. It must have been some such evil chance which had enabled the Sûreté to put two and two together; for they must have already had on their files a report by Colonel Roux of how Van Ryn had pulled the Count out of the water, and declared that later in desperation he had jumped back into it.

  Following their discovery that de Quesnoy was alive and had been living in Van Ryn’s apartment under the name of Dupont, they must have reasoned that the trouble and publicity entailed in applying to the English authorities for a warrant for the Count’s extradition could be avoided by waiting until he returned in the Juliette to France and quietly arresting him on his arrival in Paris.

  While the stuffy omnibus rumbled on over the pave he began to worry about Van Ryn. The American had said that he might perhaps bring the Juliette up the Seine as far as Rouen, but he might equally well leave her at Le Havre, or her home port of Dieppe; so, not knowing his movements, there was no way in which de Quesnoy could prevent his walking in a few hours’ time into the arms of the police. As he had brought the so-called Jules Dupont with him from the United States, and Dupont was now known to be de Quesnoy, that would make it next to impossible for him to maintain his assertion that the Count had jumped overboard. In consequence, he would probably now be arrested and charged with having deliberately aided a convict to escape. What the penalty was for such an act de Quesnoy had no idea, but it seemed quite on the cards that it would be a prison sentence; so he was made thoroughly wretched by the thought of the evil plight in which he had landed the friend who had given him such generous help.

  His own situation was a further cause for considerable anxiety. By his early return to Paris, and Harry Plimsol’s prompt warning that morning, he had had the luck to escape arrest. He was also f
ortunate in having the already established identity of Vasili Petrovitch into which to slip, and a bolt-hole at the Pension Smirnoff. But the police now knew him to be alive and in Paris, and it was impossible for him to make another radical change in his appearance unless he sacrificed the excellent contacts that he had built up with such patience among the Freemasons.

  To remain as Petrovitch he must also remain—even if a shabby copy—as Dupont, and be liable to recognition by anyone who had known him as the Belgian. That danger would not only deprive him of the valuable insight into behind the scenes political moves that he had enjoyed through Van Ryn’s banking contacts, but make it extremely risky for him to hold future consultations with Laveriac, Syveton or de Villeneuve, unless he could arrange to meet them secretly.

  Greatly depressed, he went to the Pension and, to account for suddenly becoming a permanent inmate of it, told Madame Smirnoff that he had quarrelled with his employer; so he had been dismissed and, for the present, would be making no more short tours outside Paris as a commercial traveller.

  During the week that followed time hung heavily on his hands. He had to leave the Pension each morning on the pretence of looking for a job; but he had nothing to do and dared not show his face in the more prosperous parts of the city. In the day-time all his brother Masons worked at one job or another; so he could not relieve his boredom, even in their company, until the evenings.

  At last the week was up and, a prey to alternate fears and hopes, he set off across Paris to Montmartre to keep the rendezvous at the Brasserie Graff that he had made with Plimsol. He had been sitting at a small table in a corner for only a few minutes when, somewhat to his surprise and greatly to his relief, not Harry but Van Ryn walked in and, spotting him almost at once, came over to join him.

  After they had greeted one another casually, the Count said in a low voice, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so pleased to see anyone. I feared that even Harry might be in prison for abetting my escape, and that you definitely would be.’

  ‘It was a near thing,’ the American admitted. ‘Those Sûreté boys certainly did their best to make things unpleasant.’

  A waiter paused at the table so de Quesnoy had to contain his impatience while they ordered two Vermouth-Cassis, before he could say:

  ‘What happened? I take it they accused you of having lied about my jumping overboard, and of having brought me to France under the name of Dupont, knowing all the time that I was the escaped convict, de Quesnoy?’

  Van Ryn’s big mouth widened into a grin. ‘That is just what they did. But I wouldn’t admit it. No, sir; I told them “you prove that if you can”. And I knew they durn well couldn’t; not unless they spent a fortune tracing up our tour round South America and shipping witnesses over from the United States.’

  ‘Mon Dieu, how admirable!’ murmured the Count. ‘What splendid effrontery, and what an excellent nerve you displayed.’

  ‘It didn’t end there, though,’ the American went on, tossing back half his drink and ordering a second round. ‘Next day one of their big shots came to see me at the office. He said that maybe they couldn’t prove anything against Harry and myself, but this was France, and they didn’t have to have folks here that they didn’t like; so he was giving us forty-eight hours to pack our bags and quit.’

  ‘The Devil, he did!’

  ‘Yes; but it didn’t take me long to sort that one. I said that, maybe, I had dreamed about seeing you jump into the water, but I certainly hadn’t dreamed about pulling you out; and that I had most distinct recollections of your head being locked into a leather helmet, as though you were not a man at all but a wild animal. I told him either to go tell his Government that I was staying put in Paris, or I would give an eyewitness account of its barbarity towards a political prisoner that would be featured by the Press of the whole world.’

  They chuckled together over the success of this forceful blackmail, then Van Ryn inquired how his friend had been managing.

  With a shrug the Count replied, ‘I am leading a boring uncomfortable and dangerous life; and I suppose it is a gross impertinence for a new brother, like myself, to hope to penetrate the secrets of the Grand Orient in the space of a few months. But there it is; I see no other way in which I might manage to achieve my object.’

  ‘If the prospect is so poor, why not call it a day? After all, being in Paris wasn’t all that risky while the Sûreté thought you dead. But now—’

  ‘No. I made up my mind that I would bring this Government down, or pay the penalty of failure if I were caught while making the attempt.’

  ‘Ah, but that was when your mind was biased from having your head locked in that hideous mask. Things are different now. Honestly, Armand, it’s all wrong that you should risk a fine life like yours in a vendetta against General André and his pals. Remember what the Good Book tells us on that subject. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord”.’

  ‘I know.’ De Quesnoy nodded. ‘But there is something much more to this than vengeance. The root of the matter, Channock, is that these people are deliberately destroying the French Army’s ability to wage war successfully. If they are not stopped, in another few years the Germans will be able to crush France like a rotten apple. That is why, although my chances of doing anything effective may be very slender, I can’t possibly accept your advice to throw my hand in. Now, about money. I’m getting pretty low, so I hope that you have brought me some?’

  Van Ryn took a thick envelope from his pocket and pushed it across the table. ‘In that you’ll find a wad of bills to carry on with, and a cheque book. I’ve had an account opened for you in the name of Petrovitch. Write your old man to send a draft in favour of that name to the bank. In the meantime I’ve told my people to honour your cheques up to any reasonable amount.’ Producing a fountain pen and a slip of paper, he added, ‘Just give me a couple of specimen signatures on this for my cashier.’

  As de Quesnoy signed the paper he said, ‘Channock, you are a friend in a million. I can never thank you enough. Tell me now, how did you enjoy the rest of your stay at Cowes?’

  ‘Fine!’ came the prompt response. ‘Fine! In the Friday’s race I brought Juliette in first by a length and a half, and collected a cup from Queen Alexandra’s own hands. But that was just a nice dish on the side compared to the kick I got out of becoming acquainted with Fiona; and I’ve got you to thank for that. My, what a girl she is! I’m real sweet on her. I’ve got on the right side of her mother, too; so they’ve asked me up to stay in Scotland. I came back only to put through a few deals that required my personal attention; and by the end of the week I’ll be off again to shoot a few grouse birds on Fiona’s native heather.’

  De Quesnoy smiled. ‘You do seem to have got it badly.’

  ‘I certainly have,’ Van Ryn smiled back. Then he added with sudden seriousness, ‘Tell me, Armand; d’you think if I asked Fiona that she would marry me?’

  ‘I can see no earthly reason why she should not. You are a most likeable fellow, and from the worldly point of view what more could any girl want than the wealthy son of a United States Senator?’

  Van Ryn shook his head a shade despondently. ‘It’s good to hear you say that, but Fiona is something very special. She was the loveliest debutante of her season, and on top of that she is a niece of the Mackintosh of Moy.’

  The Count’s knowledge of the Almanach de Gotha was extensive, but this designation led only to his looking puzzled; so the American proceeded to enlighten him.

  ‘In Tudor times most of the nobles in Scotland had no titles. The heads of clans were simply known as Lochiel, the Macduff, Cameron, Macdonald of the Isles and so on. When the Stuarts came along and joined Scotland to England under one crown they made most of them Dukes and Earls, so they could sit in the House of Lords at Westminster. But some of them preferred keeping their name to any title, and the Mackintosh of the day-felt that way. As the chief of the biggest of all the clans, I’m told that the present one still reckons himself above any Duke;
so that makes Fiona a sort of Scottish Princess.’

  ‘I wouldn’t let that worry you,’ the Count advised. ‘I have the blood of most of the royal houses of Europe in my veins, but it is no more blue than that of anyone else; and Fiona is just a pretty girl with the same physical attributes and emotions as any other. Her mother would not have asked you up to Scotland if she did not regard you as a suitable match for her girl. And if Fiona hadn’t a soft spot for you already, she would never have let her mother invite you to stay. Nail your flag to the mast, Channock, and sail right in. You have only to keep in mind the old adage, “faint heart ne’er won fair lady,” and next time we meet you will be able to tell me that you are engaged to her.’

  ‘Well, I hope you’re right,’ Van Ryn nodded. ‘I’ve had a lot of fun with the girls; but I’ll be thirty-four next fall, and it’s about time I took life a bit more seriously. My old man would be pleased as Punch, too. For years past he’s been badgering me to get married. You see, I’m an only child and he’s mad keen to have a grandson. He’s even picked on a name for him. Wants him called Rex; though why, God alone knows. I’ve recently been thinking myself that Mackintosh would make a good name for a boy. Still, I suppose we could compromise and call him Rex Mackintosh Van Ryn. That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?’

  De Quesnoy gave a quick chuckle. ‘Only a moment ago you were wondering if you could persuade the girl to marry you, and now you are christening her children.’

  Van Ryn grinned back. ‘You’ve put such heart into me, Armand, that I guess I’ve let my imagination run off the rails.’

  ‘That’s all to the good. Keep it up, and the best of luck to you. Before you set off to capture Fiona, though, there is one thing that I’d be very grateful if you could do for me.’

  ‘Give it a name.’

  ‘If I do get on to anything through the Masons, and use it, there is always the unpleasant possibility that they will trace the leak back to me. As I can no longer resume the identity of Jules Dupont I should then be really up against it. Hundreds of Masons all over Paris would be ordered to keep a look-out for me, so that an Apache could be hired to stick a knife between my ribs. My only hope would be a quick get-out.’