The Prisoner in the Mask Page 37
‘Sure; and with the police already watching the railway stations and the ports for you, I wouldn’t give much for your chances of getting through.’
‘Exactly. But I’ve thought of a way in which I could get safely to England within twenty-four hours. My idea is to take a leaf out of the enemy’s book. You will remember my telling you how they shipped me out to Devil’s Island in a big crate?’
‘Do I not, the misbegotten swine!’
‘I want you to have another made like it; but it needn’t be quite so big. Six feet square would do. There should be a fixed bunk at one side for me to lie in, holes in the roof and sides for air, and a stock of drink and tinned food enough to last for several days in case of a hold-up in delivery—all well secured so that it doesn’t rattle about. The door should be made flush with the planking, so that it does not look like a door, and made to bolt on the inside, so that I can let myself out when the crate arrives in England.’
‘I get the idea, and it’s a mighty fine one. But where will we keep the thing when I’ve had it made?’
‘You could rent a coach-house to store it in and send me a key. Then all I’d have to do would be to let you know that I had gone to earth in it. You would have it collected right away and taken to the Gare du Nord. Your story would be that it contained some pictures that were too valuable to send by “goods” so you wanted it despatched to England by passenger train. Then you would take out a heavy insurance on it, so that they marked it, as they always do in such cases, for careful handling. If you could get it on the mid-day train it would be landed at Dover the same evening. It would be put into a Bonded warehouse to await clearance through the Customs and as soon as darkness fell I should let myself out with all the odds on being none the worse for the trip.’
Van Ryn gave his broad grin. ‘With a mind like yours I believe you’ll get the best of the boys you are gunning for yet. Anyhow, it seems you’ve thought of everything. I’m off to Scotland in a few days, as I’ve told you. But I’ll get young Harry on to this. You’d better meet him some place, say in a week’s time, to hear how he’s gotten along fixing up a neat little private cabin for you.’
It was agreed that the Count should meet Plimsol at another café a few hundred yards down the street, at six o’clock in the evening a week from that day. Then the two friends took an affectionate leave of one another; and de Quesnoy made his way back to Montparnasse, greatly relieved to know that Van Ryn had so successfully bluffed his way out of trouble with the police.
Talking again with the cheerful, generous-hearted American had cheered him up enormously; but the stimulant was only a temporary one. That evening found him back in his cheap and depressing Pension, among the perpetually hard-up artists and others, some of whom he would much have liked to help, yet dared not from fear of its being rumoured that he was something other than the refugee of very modest means that he pretended to be.
It had, in fact, already occurred to him that Madame Smirnoff might become suspicious if he continued to pay his rent promptly while she believed him to be out of work; so he told her that he had got a job devilling for a professor who was translating a hand-book on agriculture from the Russian, and would in future be working for several hours each day in his room.
This ruse, and a small bribe to the housekeeper who cleaned the upstairs rooms to do his room last, enabled him to lie late in bed in the mornings; and he spent several hours of every afternoon up there reading. But for the month that followed his meeting with Van Ryn his existence was wearily monotonous.
Twice he met Harry Plimsol; at their first meeting he approved the plans which had been got out for the interior of his travelling crate, and at their second received one of the keys of a coach-house in a mews not far from the Gare du Nord, in which the completed article had by then been installed. Soon afterwards, in the quiet of very early morning, he went there to inspect it, and found it in every way satisfactory.
But his social life, except for two Sundays spent with the Forains, was limited to the evenings, and bounded by the Masonic circle of which he had become a member. He went to every ceremony that he was entitled to attend at the Grand Orient headquarters in the Rue Cadet, and displayed there all the fervour of a neophyte; Bidegain, who was always there, he cultivated assiduously and in due course discovered that he was the principal assistant of M. Vadecard, the Secretary-General of the Order. Six evenings out of seven he spent in the upstairs billiards saloon with the mixed group of mostly decent and earnest, but limited and misguided, men whom he had now made his cronies.
Paris was hot, dusty and swarming with groups of goggle-eyed tourists. He would have given a great deal to get away from it to Vienna or the sea; or even to be able once more to enjoy freely the amenities of the Ritz, Maxim’s, Palliard’s and his other old haunts; but he dared not enter them, and on the rare occasions when, desperate for change of scene, he ventured across one of the bridges into central Paris, he went with his eyes constantly alert for anyone approaching who might have known him as Jules Dupont.
In mid-September he saw a mention in the social column of Le Temps of the forthcoming Syveton-de Vauclose wedding, and noted that it was to take place at the Church of St. Roche on the 20th. The frustration resulting from his abortive meetings with Angela during Cowes Week, and his long periods of inactivity since, had led to her occupying a large share of his thoughts throughout the past six weeks, and his longing to see her now grew even more insistent. She must, he knew, be back in Paris, but he decided that it was only fair to let her get through the wedding before approaching her again about the future; so he restrained his impatience until the night of the 21st, then he went again to the Parc Monceau, arriving there shortly after one in the morning.
As he no longer had a key to the garden door, he had to hunt about until he found a toe-hold in the wall, the use of which would enable him to grasp its coping and haul himself up and over it. Dropping down on the far side, he skirted the lawn till he reached the house, then picked up some small stones and began to throw them up at Angela’s window.
After a few successful clinks a light showed round the edges of the curtains, the lower sash of the window was thrown up and Angela’s head appeared. De Quesnoy called softly up to her:
‘It is I—Armand. I’ve got to talk to you. Please come down; and put on clothes warm enough for us to go across to the pavilion.’
Without making any reply, Angela withdrew her head and shut the window. Five minutes later a light appeared in the conservatory, de Quesnoy went up the steps to it and she unlocked the door.
Taking her hand, he carried it to his lips; then, as his eager glance ran over her, he saw that she had only bedroom slippers on her feet and, apparently, a dressing-gown over her nightdress. With a laugh he said:
‘I’ll carry you to the pavilion if you like, but you had better fetch a cloak, or I fear you will be cold there.’
She shook her head and held the door wider. ‘We can’t use the pavilion. It is being done up, and the workmen have the key. But come in, and we’ll talk in Gabriel’s study.’
Closing the door behind him, he followed her to the smallish room in which, nine months before, he had broken to her and to Syveton the news of the murderous fracas at Versailles and the collapse of the de Vendôme conspiracy. A large desk occupied a good part of it, shelves filled with reference books, official pamphlets and files gave it a cheerless, impersonal atmosphere and, by comparison with the main room of the pavilion, it was a miserable place for a lovers’ meeting.
Nevertheless, with pent-up longing, the moment they had entered it de Quesnoy made a movement to take Angela in his arms. But she was too quick for him. Slipping into the swivel chair behind the heavy desk, she said:
‘No, Armand; please! If we once let our emotions carry us away we shall become incapable of talking afterwards like rational beings. Since I returned to Paris ten days ago I have been most terribly anxious about you.’
‘Syveton told you, then, that
I had had to go to earth at the Pension Smirnoff in the Rue de Odessa?’
‘No. As soon as I got home I rang you up as Monsieur Dupont at Mr. Van Ryn’s apartment. The secretary there said you had gone abroad and that he had no idea when you would be back. Then I asked Gabriel if he knew why you had changed your plans. All he could tell me was that you had had a narrow escape from being arrested, but he had heard from de Villeneuve, who had heard from Van Ryn, that you were still in Paris. It was that which worried me so.’
De Quesnoy gave her a brief account of what had happened, and when he had done she said, ‘If only I had known where you were I should have written urging you to give me a rendez-vous at some place to which you could come with safety.’
He smiled. ‘I should have needed no urging.’
Impatiently she shook her head. ‘I do not mean a rendez-vous d’amour, but one at which I might implore you to leave Paris immediately.’
‘I am afraid that is out of the question.’
‘Armand, you must! If you are caught they will sentence you to at least two years’ imprisonment.’
‘At least!’ the Count repeated with a laugh. ‘I wish I could be as optimistic. They’ll have my head if they can get it.’
Angela looked at him in surprise, and asked: ‘Have you not heard from François?’
‘What, de Vendôme? Yes, early in June I had a letter from him which had been forwarded on from New York. In it he said that he had instructed lawyers here to draw up a procès-verbal of the fracas at Versailles, with the object of endeavouring to secure evidence from the police themselves that none of their comrades was killed by me.’
‘And he succeeded. The day after I got back I received a letter from him telling me all about it. The deaths of all three policemen have been fully accounted for, and François has sent a sworn copy of all the statements to the Minister of Justice. He says that in the face of it there is no longer the least possibility of their bringing a charge of murder against you.’
‘Holy Mary be praised!’ exclaimed the Count. ‘What splendid news!’
‘Yes, yes; it is a great relief,’ she said hurriedly, ‘but remember, they can still charge, and convict, you of both assaulting the police and conspiracy.’
‘They have to catch me first.’
‘Oh, Armand, for pity’s sake be sensible. You are one against hundreds of them; and there must be scores of people who knew you as Jules Dupont.’
‘I know. Having to maintain the same appearance in my character of Vasili Petrovitch is the only thing that worries me. I would feel much safer if I could make some radical changes in it; but to do so would arouse the suspicions of my Masonic friends and the people at the Pension Smirnoff.’
For the first time since they had met on the doorstep, Angela smiled. ‘I wish you could resume your old appearance. Having lived so long in France, I don’t mind your beard; but it is a pity that you had to shave off the points of those wickedly Satanic eyebrows, and to have cut your wavy hair except for that little brush in front makes you look like a German. I was quite distressed about it when I first saw you at Herne Court. And it doesn’t really serve as a complete disguise. Anyone who has seen you often in the past, as for instance the servants here, would still recognise you as the Count de Quesnoy.’
He shrugged. ‘It is the best that I can do, and no one saw through it when I was Dupont. As Petrovitch it is even less likely that I shall meet anyone who knew me as myself. But now that you have mentioned Herne Court, tell me why you treated me so badly while I was at Cowes?’
After a moment’s hesitation, she replied, ‘All that I told you about the difficulties of any woman of position in England carrying on an illicit love affair, except with a man who is staying in the same house as herself, was perfectly true; and if you had disclosed yourself as my lover by any Don Juan tricks I should have got into awful trouble with my grandmother. But, of course, I could have thought up some way for us to have had, anyhow, half-an-hour together on our own.’
‘Then why, in Heaven’s name, didn’t you?’ he asked, throwing out his hands in puzzled expostulation. ‘You cannot have forgotten the wonderful things you said to me that night in the Cherche-Midi. How you offered to sacrifice your good name and publicly become my mistress if only I would come away with you. Yet when we meet again seven months later in the Isle of Wight, I find you as cold as marble, and unwilling even to risk the disapproval of your family in order to afford me a private conversation.’
‘I know, and perhaps that was cowardly of me. If things had been as they were before the collapse of the conspiracy I should have been just as eager for us to be alone together as you were; but I simply could not bring myself to face up to the inferences that I felt you would have drawn from that terrible scene we had in the prison.’
‘Why not, my dear? For mercy’s sake don’t tell me that while I was abroad you … you met someone else, and have ceased to love me.’
‘No! No! That could never be. But on account of what I said, I felt sure you would ask me to leave Gabriel. That was your intention, wasn’t it?’
De Quesnoy nodded. ‘Yes. If you had kept that rendezvous. years ago instead of sending Madeleine de Frontignac in your place and we had become lovers then; or if on my return to Paris young de Vendôme had not forestalled me with you, matters would have been different. Both of us might have been content, and either burnt out our passion in a year or two and remained good friends, or settled into the sort of steady relationship that is not uncommon in such affaires and often lasts well into middle age. But both of us know now that for you to become my mistress is not enough. From the moment when we parted in the Cherche-Midi I realised that my love for you was so lasting and profound that if I did escape no half measures could ever satisfy me; and from the things you had just said I believed that you felt that too.’
‘Oh, Armand, I did! I do! But at the time I was desperate—driven crazy with fear that if I left you there it would be to die. I couldn’t bear the thought that I would never see you again, and to save you I would have promised anything.’
‘Do you mean, then, that had you succeeded in persuading me to abandon de Vendôme, when we got out of the prison you would have gone back on your offer to run away with me?’
‘Of course not,’ Angela retorted with a flash of indignation. ‘How can you think me capable of such baseness? But I was driven to make my offer by the belief that it was the only way in which I might save your life. God be thanked that after all you managed to save it for yourself; but the fact that it is no longer in danger entirely changes the situation. Then, I was too distraught to think of anything but your being shot or guillotined, perhaps within a few hours; since, I have had time to realise that if we eloped we might soon become millstones round one another’s necks.’
For a moment he was silent, his mouth drawn into a thin, hard line; then he said, ‘Since we appear to be agreed that to become lovers clandestinely would only increase our longing to be together always, am I to understand that when my business in Paris is done, rather than leave your husband, you would prefer me to make a career abroad alone and endeavour to forget you?’
‘If you did that I’d have nothing left to live for,’ Angela sighed. ‘Yet if we ran away together what sort of future could we hope for? Given the usual expectation of life Gabriel will not die for another twenty years or more, and until he does we could not get married.’
‘I should regard you in every respect as my wife.’
‘I am sure you would; but if we had children they would be illegitimate. Sooner or later we should have to tell them that they were, and to have placed such a handicap in life upon them might cause their love for us to turn to hatred.’
‘Then we must make up our minds not to have children.’
‘Very well. Let us ignore the fact that if we were living as husband and wife I should like to have children by you. There is still another aspect to the matter. As the heir to a great title you should already be cons
idering marriage with the daughter of some other noble house, so that you can have children by her who are legitimate. And, dearly as I love you, I would find it hard indeed to share you permanently with another woman.’
‘How can you suggest that when you had given up everything for me I should ever think of placing you in such an intolerable situation?’
‘But Armand, it is your duty to beget an heir.’
‘Maybe; but failing in that is part of the price I must pay to have you for my own, and in the circumstances I’d have few qualms about neglecting that particular duty.’
‘Then you can have less feeling for your family than I have for mine. Perhaps the thought of your father’s bitter disappointment that with you his line must end would not trouble you; but the thought of the shame my father would feel at the knowledge that I was living as a kept woman would trouble me acutely. And, of course, except for very occasional sub-rosa meetings with my sisters, I don’t suppose I would ever see any of my relatives again. They would all decide to regard me as dead, or anyhow better so.’
‘Do they mean so much to you?’
‘Enough for me to be most loath to cause them pain, and to cut myself off from them for good. But that is far from being the end of it. I would never again dare to show my face in Paris or London. If I were known to be living with you openly I would be ostracised by society in every capital in Europe; and between us you and I have far too wide an acquaintance to hope to establish ourselves as a married couple under another name. If we attempted to do so, just think of the never-ending anxiety we should suffer from fear that someone we had known in the past might suddenly turn up and give us away!’
‘There would be little risk of that if we made our home in America—as I had planned that we should.’