The Prisoner in the Mask Read online

  Standing up, he left the cemetery at a quick walk, acutely aware that by now police telephones all over Paris must be buzzing with his name; so that every moment would increase his danger. Yet the morning’s events had put one new card into his hand. Now that it was no longer necessary for him to maintain his contact with the Masons, and having been chased from the Pension Smirnoff, he was no longer compelled to retain the appearance of Dupont-Petrovitch.

  The skin on his forehead was broken and a large bump had already risen there; so, entering the first pharmacy he came to, he said that he had just fallen downstairs, and had his head bound up. In the next street he went into a barber’s and had his beard shaved off, but kept his moustache and had it waxed into points that turned up slightly. A quarter of a mile further on, he purchased in a second-hand clothes shop a workman’s blue blouse, a pair of trousers, a battered slouch hat and a straw basket of the kind in which carpenters carry their tools.

  Walking on until he came to a back-lot, he slipped behind a fence and set about making himself less easily recognisable by changing into the old clothes he had bought, and also altering the arrangement of the bandage so that it should come down almost over one eye. Having hidden his own clothes among some broken masonry, he collected a few short pieces of wood and rusty iron to bulge out his tool basket, then emerged again into the street.

  While changing, he had been wondering how he could let Angela know that he wanted to see her urgently. He could not go to the house in daylight without having to face at least one of the servants and, although his workman’s garb would be cover for him to send a bogus message in to her to the effect that he was the carpenter she had sent for to mend something in the pavilion, there was always the risk that whoever took the message would penetrate his disguise and, recalling the big reward that had been offered for his capture, betray him.

  The problem was solved on his noticing a small Post Office. Going in, he sent Angela a petit bleu, which read:

  Accept your invitation to lunch with pleasure will bring designs for alterations to garden-house mid-day, de Jvanets.

  She, but no one else, would realise that a telegram signed with the name of the house in which they had first met must be from him, and, although the message might appear obscure at first sight, it could hardly mean anything else than that he wanted to see her in the pavilion at mid-day.

  All this time he had instinctively been moving farther from the Boulevard Montparnasse, through the mean streets that lay to the south of it; and now an idea occurred to him for reaching the Parc Monceau without crossing central Paris. He was no distance from the outer Boulevards and the Ceinture Railway which ran right round the capital. By taking a westbound train from the Gare de Mont-rouge, he could reach the Gare de Courcelles in about forty-five minutes, and would then be within ten minutes’ walk of his destination.

  Outside the station, the placards displayed round a newspaper kiosk caught his eye and he bought three papers of varying shades of political opinion. Reading them in the train served the double purpose of hiding his face from his fellow passengers and cheering him up considerably. All three were filled with accounts of the previous day’s scene in the Chamber and speculations about its future. Even Clemenceau, in the Socialist Aurore, denounced André as a disgrace to any Ministry and the Masons as no better than lay Jesuits. It was clear that the General was finished and the Combes government on its last legs.

  He accomplished the journey round the western outskirts of Paris without incident and, on his way down from Courcelles to the Parc Monceau, stopped to fill his straw basket further with purchases of bread, fruit, and meat from a charcuterie; but, even so, he arrived more than half-an-hour before mid-day.

  On trying the door in the garden wall, he found it locked. As he had no key he could not let himself in and in daylight he dared not climb the wall. Angela would, he felt sure, have the sense to realise that and unlock the door for him. But when?

  The petit bleu service was excellent, and they were usually delivered in an hour or less, but the trouble was that she might be out and—awful thought—perhaps out for the day. To sit on a bench in the Parc for a while presented no particular danger, but it was now two and a half hours since he had escaped from the police; so by this time the whole force would have been alerted to watch for him. If he had to hang about in the Parc for several hours it was quite on the cards that the curiosity of the patrolling gendarme at the sight of a workman idle for so long would result in his coming up and asking awkward questions.

  Sitting down on a bench, he slowly munched a roll that he had stuffed with ham and tried to occupy his mind with guessing, by the different styles of goffered linen caps, black bows and frilled aprons worn by the passing nursemaids, from which provinces they came. Every now and again he cast a glance at the door to see if it had been opened a crack and twice, getting up, he strolled past it to test it with a surreptitious push, but it remained fast shut.

  Mid-day chimed from a nearby church steeple, and by ten past he had been sitting there for three-quarters of an hour. Assuming now that Angela was out but might come home for lunch, he began to wonder if it would not be wisest for him to leave the Parc and not return to try the door again until half-past one. Five minutes later he decided to do so but, as he passed the door on his way to the gates of the Parc, he pushed it once more. It gave under the pressure. With infinite relief, after a swift look round to see that he was not observed, he slipped inside.

  Up in the main room of the pavilion he found Angela waiting for him. She had thought it probable that, before leaving for England, he would again come by night to say good-bye to her, but he had promised to take no unnecessary risk; so his petit bleu, telling her to expect him at mid-day, had already caused her to fear that he was in trouble. For a moment the sight of his shaven chin, bandaged head and workman’s clothes gave her hope that he had felt it safe enough to cross Paris in this new disguise, but in a few swift sentences he disillusioned her and told her how he had been cut off from his escape route.

  She at once agreed to go to Van Ryn and get him to have another key cut; then he asked her if there had been any new developments in the affaire of Syveton and Clothilde.

  ‘No,’ she replied, ‘and he is hoping now that for Clothilde’s sake her family will decide to refrain from prosecuting.’

  ‘Angela!’ he cried in swift alarm. ‘Don’t tell me this means that you may put off taking any action?’

  ‘Armand; please don’t press me to do so for the moment,’ she pleaded. ‘I gave you my promise to get an annulment, and I won’t go back on that. But if the de Vaucloses don’t sue him there may be no scandal. In that case I’d be deprived of the reason I had for—’

  ‘But this is intolerable! Why should you continue to sacrifice yourself in order to save such a swine, just because he has got himself into a financial mess?’

  ‘Please; you didn’t hear me out. To start with, I very much doubt if the de Vaucloses will be able to hush the matter up, even if they want to. The reason for Clothilde’s leaving Henri is almost certain to leak out. I doubt, too, if Gabriel will be able to save himself from bankruptcy anyway. It is simply that I feel I must conceal the fact that I mean to leave him for these few weeks when public knowledge of it might precipitate his downfall. And he is in worse trouble than ever now. He had a writ served on him this morning.’

  ‘For debt?’

  ‘No; for having assaulted General André in the Chamber yesterday.’

  ‘And serve him right! But for him the Government would have been voted out. The fool ruined everything.’

  ‘Only temporarily. De Villeneuve, Laveriac, the Marquis de Mores and the Vicomte de Camargue were all here last night. Gabriel excused his act to them by saying that for some weeks he had been ill and overwrought; so had lost his head. They were of the opinion, though, that it might do more good than harm. It was known then that the Government meant to prosecute him. They feel that a trial will give them an opportunity to
wash some more of Combes’s dirty linen than they could otherwise have done, and so ruin him beyond all hope of recovery. This morning, too, Gabriel has received scores of letters; some of abuse, it is true, but the great majority acclaiming him as a hero.’

  ‘Then why do you count this writ as making his position still worse?’

  ‘Well, it is he who is to be brought to trial. Others may make political capital out of it; but Combes still controls the judges, and you know how venal are the men he has appointed. In the teeth of public opinion they may still give their verdict against Gabriel and have him sent to prison. That is a further reason why I must stand by him for a little longer.’

  De Quesnoy sighed. ‘My love, you are a paragon among women, and to have you for my wife is more than I deserve. I will endeavour to be patient, then, until you know definitely if Syveton is fated to sink or swim.’

  ‘Bless you, my darling!’ She gave him a swift kiss and added, ‘But the one thing that matters now is to get you safely out of France. Every moment is precious, and we have already talked too long. I must fly now. If Channock has left his office I’ll probably find him lunching at the Scribe with Fiona and her mama. It is bound to take several hours to get the key cut; so I doubt if I shall receive it till this evening. As soon as it reaches me I will bring it over to you. Or, better still, as you must stay here until it is dark anyhow, we will have supper here together. Clothilde left a cupboard full of tinned things in the kitchen, and instead of bread we can make do with biscuits.’

  When she had gone de Quesnoy unbandaged his head and bathed it. During the morning his headache had worn off, and although there was a large bump where he had banged himself, the skin was only slightly broken; so he did not replace the bandage. He felt very tired, though, so, after eating some more of the picnic lunch with which he had provided himself, he lay down on the bed and went to sleep.

  He woke late in the afternoon and whiled away the time as best he could by thumbing over some magazines that Clothilde had left in one of the cupboards. But his mind was still far from at ease. Even given the key to the coach-house, the journey he meant to make was no light undertaking. A variety of unforeseen and highly unpleasant things might occur to prevent his stepping out of his crate a free man in England. And, greatly as he admired Angela’s loyalty to her husband, that she should yet again postpone taking steps to put an end to her marriage was extremely depressing. They had suffered so many disappointments that it almost seemed as if there was a hoodoo on their love, and that Fate had decreed that they should never be permitted to enjoy it to the full by living together in peace and happiness.

  Time drifted on. By eight o’clock he was hoping that at any moment she would appear. He laid the table for supper, opened tins of sardines, tongue and pineapple and chose the wine from the small selection in the cellarette; but it was nearly nine before she joined him.

  The moment she was through the door she set his mind at rest about the key, and that Van Ryn would have the crate collected in the morning. He had said that he would not see the job done himself or have Harry Plimsol do so, in case they were being watched by the police, but would have it collected and despatched under the supervision of a thoroughly reliable member of his staff at the bank, and that to get it on the mid-day train might mean a van coming for it as early as eight o’clock; so de Quesnoy should be in it and lying silent in his bunk well before that hour.

  As she fished the precious new key out of her bag and gave it to him, she went on to explain why she was so late. The key had not arrived until half-past seven, and just as she had been about to leave the house Laveriac had emerged from Syveton’s study. It was evident that they had had a serious quarrel, as the General was still uttering threats before he stamped out through the hall. Instead of seeing him out, Syveton had remained leaning up against the doorway to his study, looking as if at any moment he was about to collapse.

  Naturally she had taken him by the arm and led him back to his chair; but when she asked him what they had quarrelled about he would only say that the General was being very hard on him.

  ‘Perhaps,’ suggested de Quesnoy, ‘Laveriac has learned about the Clothilde business, and came to tell him that the Committee cannot possibly continue to associate with a moral delinquent; so he must resign from it.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t that. I heard enough to gather that it was something to do with money. All the same, there has been a new development in the de Vauclose affaire. I got Gabriel a drink and spent about twenty minutes trying to put a little heart into him; then I told him that I must leave him because I was going out. I didn’t tell him, though, that you were here, and that it was to you that I was going. I had hardly said that I must go, otherwise I would be late for my appointment, when Octave came in and announced that two gentlemen had called to see him.’

  Angela sighed. ‘Poor wretch, I think he must have known what was coming when he saw the names of his visitors on their cards as Octave held the salver out to him. He went as white as a sheet, remained silent for a moment, then asked me if I would wait in the conservatory while he saw them; and told Octave to show them in. I couldn’t possibly refuse; so I went through the glass door, shut it behind me and sat down to wait out of sight round the corner. Another twenty minutes or so went by, then I felt that I really could not delay coming out to you any longer; so I tiptoed back and peeped round the corner of the plant stand. The room was empty except for Gabriel, and he was sitting at his desk with his head buried in his hands. When I went in he roused up and told me what had happened. Clothilde’s father returned to Paris this morning and has challenged him to a duel; the two visitors were M. de Vauclose’s seconds.’

  De Quesnoy gave a grim smile. ‘It ill becomes one to rejoice over another man’s misfortune; but I can hardly say that I am sorry. This means the fact that he seduced Clothilde must come out, and the resulting scandal will give you the warrant you require to announce your intention of leaving him.’

  ‘I doubt if things will work out that way.’ Angela shook her head dubiously. ‘Naturally Monsieur de Vauclose would wish both to prevent his daughter’s name from being dragged through the mire and to punish Gabriel. I think that is what lies behind this challenge. He hopes to put a bullet into him instead of getting damages in a law court. Anyhow, so far Clothilde’s name has been kept out of it. Her father has demanded satisfaction of Gabriel on the pretext that by his behaviour in the Chamber yesterday he disgraced the Monarchist party.’

  ‘And so he did,’ muttered the Count. ‘What happened next?’

  ‘Gabriel was terribly upset. He has never fought a duel in his life; so it is hardly surprising that he should not regard the prospect with the same detachment as would a man like yourself. I tried to persuade him to go up to bed and have a tray with a light supper brought up to him; then to take a strong sedative so that he could get some sleep. But he wouldn’t. He insisted that he must spend several hours working on figures. It seems that General Laveriac’s visit has upset all his calculations and that if he is to save himself he must find some new way out of his difficulties.’

  As Angela finished speaking she produced a letter from her bag, and added, ‘Mr. Van Ryn gave me this for you. It had just come in from Spain, and is addressed in Francois’s writing. Do tell me what news there is of him.’

  Taking de Vendôme’s letter de Quesnoy opened it and read it out to her. It said:

  ‘My dear Count,

  It gives me especial pleasure to write to you on this occasion, as it is to tell you that yesterday I had the happiness of being able to repay a small part of the great debt I owe you.

  Recently a stall in the Most Noble Order of the Golden Fleece has fallen vacant, and His Majesty the King, my cousin, signified to me his pleasure that I should occupy it. He has, of course, long since heard the story of the heroic way in which you sacrificed yourself for me, and saved me from an ordeal so terrible that I might well not have survived it. I recalled that to His Majesty’s mind and hu
mbly requested him to bestow the chain of this most illustrious Knighthood upon you instead of on myself.

  At first he was reluctant to do so, on the grounds that in modern times the gift of the Fleece has been reserved almost exclusively for persons of royal blood. I pointed out that in giving it to you he would break no precedent, as your ancestor, the Marshal Duke de Richleau, had been a Knight of the Order; that the Order was founded for the purpose of rewarding chivalrous deeds, that no deed could have been more chivalrous than yours and that it had been performed in the service of a member of his own family.

  His Majesty was graciously pleased to accept my submissions. Yesterday he commanded me to inform you that when you can come to Spain a Chapter of the Order will be convened to instal you; and I shall then ask you to accept a Chain and Fleece that I have instructed my jewellers to make for you.

  Coming now to a more personal note, King Alfonso, whom you will find the most charming of men, has asked me to say that when you come to Spain he greatly looks forward to counting you among his friends, and we both hope that a visit from you will not be long delayed.

  Here, we are all thrilled by the news from France. How I wish that I had been able to witness the scene in the Chamber when de Villeneuve denounced that villain André. In the despatch in which our Ambassador describes it, he adds that he is fully convinced that after that terrible indictment the Combes government cannot survive for long. What a triumph its fall will be for good over evil. And for the glorious Army of France; since one cannot doubt that those most promising officers who have been retired or had their promotion stopped, on account of their religious convictions, will shortly be reinstated, or given important appointments.

  I do not know where this letter will find you; but if, as you informed me in your last letter, you have carried out your intention of returning in secret to Paris, please convey my very kindest thoughts to Angela Syveton.