The Twisted Sword (23 page)

Yes, a loving cup. It was of small value, I remember, but she seemed to hold me responsible for having allowed it to be stolen! However, the total loss was indeed considerable - near on six thousand pounds when all was added up. Listen to me!' he said sharply when she was about to interrupt. 'The scheme was a very clever one, carried out with audacity and cool nerve which only educated people could have achieved. All four inside seats were booked ahead from Plymouth to Truro, and three were occupied. Whether a fourth ever intended to join them we do not know; he did not turn up. Somewhere on that journey from Plymouth to Truro they pulled back the felt lining and cut a hole by drilling through the mahogany framework of the coach into the box seat where the two bank boxes were stowed; they pulled these down into the coach, broke them open, put the contents into some receptacles of their own and replaced the empty boxes in the box seat. They then roughly replaced the large piece they had taken out of the woodwork of the coach and tacked the lining back into place. We have reason to suppose the thieves made good their escape at Lostwithiel.

'Now,' said George, 'we have some description of the three thieves. Two people pretended to be the Revd and Mrs Arthur May. No such persons exist. The third was a Lieutenant Morgan Lean, who claimed to be in His Majesty's navy. No such person exists. The false clergyman and his wife were both tall, he with greying hair and heavy steel spectacles; she was dark-skinned, had little to say to anyone, and pretended she was ill, so that they might draw the blinds. Lieutenant Morgan Lean was not so tall but broadly built and younger, with a white wig and heavy black eyebrows. They were all to some extent disguised, but clearly could not wear anything too obvious, or they would have drawn attention to themselves. Neither the coachmen nor the guards were observant enough to give anything more than the vaguest of descriptions. We offered a reward, as you know, of a thousand pounds but no one came forward. It seemed that the thieves had got away.'

'Did you not advertise the numbers of the notes?' asked Harriet.

'We did. But we laid a trap. By no means all the numbers of the notes were known. Only twelve, in fact. We advertised the numbers of seven and kept five back. None of the seven has ever come to light, but one of the other five did. It was paid into our bank at Truro. It was the first break we had made, the first clue, the first advance. And do you know who paid it in?'

Harriet shook her head. You, my dear.'

'What? What on earth do you mean?'

'I mean that it followed one of those gaming evenings when you were entertaining your young gentlemen friends, and someone clearly had lost money to you and paid you with this note.'

'I'm damned!' said Harriet after a moment, and rubbed the curtain against her cheek.

"The names of all the young men who had been gaming at our house that week were therefore carefully noted. There was Anthony Trefusis, Ben Sampson, Stephen Carrington, Andrew Blarney, Percy Hill, George Trevethan, Michael Smith. When I asked you casually how the games had gone you told me that the chief losers had been Anthony Trefusis, Andrew Blarney and Stephen Carrington. So I set in train a number of inquiries which suggested to me that the likeliest of these was Stephen Carrington.'

'So that is how the wind is blowing,' said Harriet, staring at him. 'But hold hard. Bank notes change hands. Stephen has been in trade for some time. He could well have received the note from someone else that morning!'

"There was clearly no proof. But there was good reason for suspicion.'

'And what has happened since? Supposedly something to foster it.'

George did not like his wife's tone.

'On the day of the robbery the coach was joined at Liskeard by a Mr Arthur Rose, an elderly lawyer, who insisted on travelling inside, since there was a spare seat.

Whether the robbery was in process at the time I know not - possibly it was interrupted by him - but he noticed nothing untoward and left again at Dobwalls. But, unlike everyone else, he had an opportunity of observing the other three passengers at close quarters; also being a lawyer he was a keen observer; and later, when the robbery became known, he stated that he would be likely to recognize the thieves if he were confronted with them.'

'Was he the--'

'After the discovery of the bank note which had come to light as a result of the gambling here, I arranged an invitation for all the young men who had been present at our house during that particular week, and invited Mr Rose to come to see me on some other business. I thought this might help to solve the identity of one or more of the thieves.'

'And he died on you!' exclaimed Harriet. 'I remember the party! You were expecting this mysterious Mr Rose and he never turned up!'

'He was taken ill in the coach while being accompanied here by Hector Trembath. He died in Truro,' George added bitterly. Harriet laughed her low contralto chuckling laugh. 'I often wondered about that night. You were in quite a taking. So it all ended in failure? But something, I suspicion, has come about more recently?'

'Indeed. Something has come about. Last month Carrington was in my office, and as a legal document had to be attested Trembath was present. After Carrington had gone Trembath told me that in the coach Mr Rose said he had noticed that Lieutenant Morgan Lean had lacked an eyetooth - on the left side of his mouth. Stephen Carrington, as I am sure you will have observed, lacks an eyetooth - on the left side of his mouth.'

The fire in the grate was burning low, and Harriet got up from the bed and put on a silk dressing-gown. Although early May, there was a chill in the house.

'And so? What else?'

'Nothing else. The fool never told me before. But it is enough.'

You would get no conviction in a court of law.'

'Of course I could not! I am not seeking one!' George said in irritation: 'I know we shall never bring these men to justice now. Not, that is, without some singular piece of good fortune. But the evidence against Carrington is enough to convince me beyond the shadow of a doubt. There is the general description of the man, his age, his build, his colouring - eyebrows are easily dyed - the appearance of the bank note, and now the identification of the tooth. And finally the fact that he found money from somewhere to set up in trade and buy two trading vessels. I am utterly convinced - and that is enough.'

Harriet reseated herself on the bed. Her face wore its most non-committal expression; George looked at it and could read nothing there.

'I have tried to be perfectly frank with you, my dear,' he said, in a grudgingly gentle voice. 'You asked for my reasons. Now that I have given you them I'm sure you will fully endorse them.'

Harriet said: You suspected Carrington almost as soon as the bank note came to light.'

'I thought him far the most likely. Also, unlike most of the others, his movements were not accounted for on the days in question.'

'But if you have been suspecting him all this time, why did you agree to help him when he came to see you last autumn?'

George bit his lip. With women it was usually unwise to be too frank.

'I was taken in by him. I had just quarrelled with Valentine. The robbery was in the background. I thought, there can be no proof, so let him be given the benefit of the doubt.'

'And an eyetooth makes all the difference?'

'An eyetooth makes all the difference. It may seem less than conclusive to you. To me it is as if everything, all the facts, have fallen into place--'

'If this is what you suspect, why do you not tell him so to his face?'

George hunched his shoulders in irritation. 'Impossible.'

It had never occurred to him and he considered the suggestion outrageous. "You cannot accuse a man of such a thing! Had Rose lived it would have been quite different!' He sneezed. 'I have caught a cold. This weather is treacherous.'

'But you condemn him unheard.' Harriet still rubbed her cheek up and down the curtain. It was a silly gesture, he thought. 'Really, George, it won't do. It won't do.'

'What won't do? I have already told you it is done! Now I wish you goodnight.'

'And I have already told you,' said Harriet, 'that so far as Stephen is concerned you may do what you will with him for all I care - or could do so were it not that he is married to Clowance. And her I will not see bankrupted and deprived of her new house and made destitute, all for the sake of an eyetooth! As I have told you--'

'Pray do not mention that dog again!'

'Castor. That's his name. He has a name, George, and do not forget it. He is nine years old and I have had him since he was nine weeks, and I am indebted to Mrs Carrington for the fact that he is still alive!'

'And I have told you it is done. Carrington receives no further accommodation from my bank. Goodnight!'

'George,' said Harriet. Something in her voice stopped him at the door. She said: 'I have an obligation towards Clowance. It must be discharged.'

'Then discharge it in some other way.'

"There is no other way. You must do this for me.'

'I cannot and will not!'

'Then you must humour me.'

'Humour you?' George stared at her, scandalized. Whatever did she mean? He had never been asked such a thing before. 'I have to tell you once and for all that my mind is made up! There is no going back on what I have decided! If the young man cannot be hanged - as he well deserves to be - he shall certainly not be allowed to live comfortably subsidized by the man he has robbed! Alas, he will not starve in the gutter or go to prison for debt, as I had hoped. I had forgot their connection with the Cornish Bank. More's the pity. But he'll have to sell up! Seeing him sell up will repay me in a small way for all the money he stole. And I shall make sure - as I can make sure - that he will never work in Cornwall again!'

Harriet looked at her husband's grey, hard face with some distaste.

'And have you no concern for me?'

'You? What do you mean? Of course, I have. But not to the point of allowing that gallows-bird to flourish, if I can clip his wings!'

'But I have to be humoured, George.'

He thumped the open door with the flat of his hand and shouted: 'Humoured? Humoured? Such a damned stupid silly word! I do not know what you are about.'

'What I am about,' said Harriet, 'is to give birth.'

George sniffed and dabbed his nose. 'Well, I do not know what your idea may be, but you may tell me of it in the morning. So long as it is not--'

'My idea', said Harriet in her most austere voice, 'is that I am enceinte, gravid, pregnant, in pup, call it what you will. No doubt there are as many names for the production of a child as for the act which initiates it. If you--'

'Is this some joke?' George shouted again, thoroughly angry, and peering at her as if he were becoming shortsighted.

'Perhaps you may think it so. I do not. It has come as surprising to me since I have not conceived before. But after all it is a natural consequence of coupling. My age is against me for a first child - I am thirty-four - but older women have done as much as I shall be expected to do. What I am most furious and frustrated about is that it will play the devil with the hunting season. A Christmas child, I suppose. That will be a great bore.'

The door shook a little in George's hand. 'You are not joking?'

'Indeed not. I only wish I were.'

A rather long silence ensued. Harriet eventually got up and bent to throw a couple of pieces of wood on the fire.

'That,' said George, almost in a whisper now. 'That was the meaning of that word?'

'What word?'

'Humouring.'

Harriet smiled bleakly. 'Yes, George. I rather suppose it was.

From Lady Poldark in London to her elder daughter in Falmouth.

Dearest Clowance, I have had a letter from your Father!!! It has come in care of the Prime Minister and is writ from Verdun, he says he is well and suffering no great hardship, I would send you the letter but I cannot bear to part from it. Of course he would say he was well just to reassure me, but I believe there is something about the letter that makes me believe him. In his nature being confined will greatly irk him but perhaps that is all, I pray that is all, he says he is getting used to French food and will be all the harder to please when he returns to Nampara! There is no term he says as yet to his internment and this deeply frets me, but at least I have a letter and that is important and he sends his love to you and all!!! It seems he reached Paris he says only a few hours after we left. I cannot forgive myself for not staying on. I remain in London for a few more weeks but IsabellaRose and Henry will go home when Caroline goes home. Travelling with her. Perhaps I should do the same, but I feel just at present I am a little matter nearer to your Father than if I was in Cornwall. It is not at all the same as when he was away on some Mission, then I could settle to look after the house and the mines and the children and the farm and everything knowing that he would come home as soon as he could, this is not at all the same, but at least I know he has so far come to no harm.

In the end I may have to return home without him. Things look ill between us and France and you cannot see into the future, I am anxious for Jeremy. What do you think? At a dinner at Mrs Pelham's (Caroline her aunt) I met Edward Fitzmaurice, and he invited us to tea at Lansdowne House to meet Aunt Isabel again. She was some kind -I cannot tell you - and has invited me, when the children return home, to spend a few weeks with her at Lansdowne House, as the Lansdownes are at Bowood, and she says she is lonely. So I have accepted. Dear life, you must think my nature has changed to accept such an invitation, but I too am lonely and I welcome the thought to be with friends - even such high-bred friends - instead of the emptiness of your Father's rooms in George Street, also I look for all means to aid your Father, and if Lord Lansdowne comes back while I am there he may be able to help in some way. One thing which is irking me a great deal is that, although post can be received in England from France, no postal communication is permitted to France from England. This is because Bonaparte is being treated as an outlaw, and while he controls France France too is being treated the same. I have spoke to Lord Liverpool and he says he will do his most to circumvant - I believe that was the word these regulations, I have writ a very long letter to your Father and it is urgent that he know we are safe and well. I did not tell you in my letter from Paris for it seemed so trivial but Bella met a young Englishman at an Embassy party and they were much taken with each other. He is a Lieutenant Christopher Havergal who says he served under Geoffrey Charles in Spain. He is about 21 and of course much too old for Bella, but Bella is so tall and well grown for her age that many folk in Paris took her for seventeen. We both know that Bella is too young for anything yet but that is not how she regards herself. Well, we let the flirtation run its course, for he was there but two weeks and then he was returning to Belgium; when he left Bella was full of the mopes for a few days and you know how once in a while she can be like that - but then it all passed away and was seemingly forgot. But now he has turned up in London! Again it is for scarcely more than a week but he calls regularly asking if he may take Bella out and I sometimes let her go, though I make certain sure that Mrs Kemp goes with them. It is another good reason for Bella to return to Cornwall with Caroline. It is all some silly, and I fear Lieutenant Havergal though seeming so charming is really trifling with a child's affections. He is good-looking in a somewhat dashing way and would be much better occupied with some young lady of his own age. I do not really understand him at all. This is all about me and about us and not about you but that is what a letter is for isn't it. Pray tell me in reply all your news even the smallest part of it. Did you go to Nampara and how did you find them and how is Stephen and how do you fare yourself? Although so far apart we are thanks be in the same country and there is nothing to restrict a letter or as many letters as we have the time and the patience to write.

Mrs Kemp is of course to return with Caroline and the children and until I come home she will be in charge of them with the Enyses to keep an eye on them as often as they may. I do not need to ask you to go over to see them, and they will tell you far more of our experiences than ever I have been able to squeeze into a letter. Perhaps if your Father return quickly and there is no war I shall feel different, but for now I do not think I ever want to journey out of England again. My dearest love to you both. Mother

II

On a morning in early May Ross had a visitor. It was a brilliant day and having spent nearly half an hour looking out of his window at the sun glinting on the trees and the river, Ross turned and could not for a moment adjust his eyes to recognize the bulky figure in the doorway. Then he exclaimed: 'Gaston!'

Brigadier Rougiet stepped into the room and the soldier closed the door behind him. He walked over and clasped Ross's hand.

'My friend, this is a pretty pass I find you in! I had no idea! I thought you were safely home in England long ago, long-ago! How has this happened? Pray tell me.'

Ross told him. Rougiet rubbed at his long livid scar.

'But this is disgraceful! I still do not understand. You accepted my hospitality, that was all! Did you go elsewhere in France?'

Ross told him. He had never been entirely frank with Rougiet as to the mission Liverpool had sent him on, and he thought it was perhaps a bad time to confess it now. In any event there could hardly be proof of the despatches he had sent and nothing detrimental to the safety of the new France even if they were intercepted. The last of them had been in the Embassy post-bag while Napoleon was still in Lyon.

Rougiet scowled round the room. 'Are you comfortable here? You cannot be comfortable here! I am amazed. I know there is trouble between your country and mine indeed between France and all the European powers. They seek to oppress us, they seek to dictate who shall lead us, they seek to turn back the clock. But no war has been declared. There is neither reason nor excuse for detaining a British citizen just because while he was on holiday in France he accepted an invitation to visit one of the army groups stationed near Paris! Your Embassy staff has gone long ago. I do not believe many if any of the citizens of your country who were surprised in Paris or in other parts of France have been detained; though I believe their exits were sometimes delayed by passport formalities. Why, therefore, you? I must find out.'

Ross was about to reply but Rougiet got up and strode back to the door. When the soldier came Rougiet said:

'Bring some cognac. And some sweet biscuits ... Well, find some.' He grimaced at Ross. 'I will make further inquiries. In the meantime help yourself, and I will return as soon as I am able.'

Ross was on his third cognac and feeling rather less discontented with life when Rougiet returned. But his friend was not beaming with triumph. He helped himself to a small glass of cognac, drained it and looked at Ross with a puzzled expression.

'This is not a military matter, my friend, it is a police matter. You have met General Wirion?'

'When I first came here, yes.'

'He says he simply obeys orders from Paris. He showed me the order. It is headed "The Minister of General Police to His Majesty the Emperor" and it is signed "The Duke of Otranto". Formal detention. Not even parole.'

'It was offered me,' said Ross. 'I refused it.'

'But such a pity! You would have been far freer, more comfortable.'

'I have hoped to be able to escape. No opportunity has presented itself so far.'

'I can see they are being very careful... But have you not been charged?'

'Presumably they can find nothing to charge me with.'

'All this is on the direct orders of Fouche. Have you met him?'

'I have met him.'

'He is acknowledged to be the cleverest policeman in Europe. Did you have some quarrel with him?'

'I did not hide my dislike.'

'Ah.' The big Frenchman refilled both glasses. He held the dark amber liquid up to the light. 'If it is some personal vendetta it will be more difficult, for he is, at present, a very powerful man. If one could get to the Emperor...'

'Gaston,' Ross said, 'I am greatly obliged for your interest in my comfort and welfare. But I charge you not to endanger your own position on my behalf. This is a misfortune that has happened to me and is in no way your responsibility. So leave it be; I am sure I shall be freed in due course.'

'Of course you will. But I am your friend - even though our countries are at loggerheads -- and I must do what I can. Do not fear for my position. France has need of her soldiers, particularly her artillery, and no police chief is likely to do me any hurt.' Rougiet smiled as he sipped. 'I believe I have frightened the guard into bringing General Wirion's own brandy.'

They sipped in silence. Rougiet said: 'Have you been questioned?'

'Oh yes. Twice. For six hours at a time.'

'Was any ill-treatment shown you?'

'No.'

"These police. You cannot always be sure. What did they ask you?'

'While we were in Paris I became friendly with a Mile de la Blache. I had met her once in England many years ago.'

'Oh yes, I know her. She was formerly Baroness Ettmayer. For a time she was the mistress of Marshal Ney.'

Ross raised his eyebrows. 'I didn't know that.'

'For two or three years at least. Whenever he was in Paris they were seen everywhere together.'

'They now suspect her of having been a spy working on behalf of the Bourbons. She left Paris just before Napoleon arrived.'

'In that case I would not blame her! Fouche would have been swooping on her as soon as he had the authority.'

'Apparently my wife and children left Paris with Mile de la Blache. This seems to have bred the suspicion that I was in some way involved in her activities.'

'These police,' Rougiet said again. 'They have strange and tortuous minds. If they try they can believe anything. I must somehow get word to the Emperor about this ..."

'I saw him arrive in Paris,' Ross said.

'Did you? Did you? That must have been a great moment.' Rougiet passed a hand over his hair. 'Yet all Europe is against him. Even some parts of France murmur and are disaffected. But if it comes to war Bonaparte will prevail.'

'I trust it will not come to that.'

'So do I! So do we all! No one is more ardent for peace than the ordinary Frenchman. But everyone is against us.'

'Against Bonaparte.'

'Yes, but he arrived with a few hundred men on the south coast of France and in three weeks totally repossessed the country without a shot being fired! If that is not your democracy I don't know what is! It was the overwhelming will of the people! And he too now only wants peace. You will have heard, perhaps, that the Empress and his son, the King of Rome, have been forcibly prevented from joining him. It has been a great distress to him. He has left the Tuileries now, except for great occasions, and lives quietly in the Elysee, surrounded by his relations, his friends and his personal advisers.'

'And Fouche?' said Ross.

'Ah, Fouche, no. He keeps to his office and weaves his own spider's webs. Do you know it is said that when the Emperor arrived on the evening of the 20th and made his appointments, Fouche was at his desk by 2 a.m. the next morning. Your Mile de la Blache did not leave a moment too soon! . . . Pah, I would not trust him an ell. He would as easily betray the Emperor as he did the King. He should have been guillotined years ago!'

The lovely spring morning was becoming tarnished by drifting cloud. It reminded Ross of the weather in Cornwall, light, frivolous, changeable. He wondered what Nampara would be like today. An azure sea hemmed in with surf, thundering over the sand? His house, the chimney's smoke blowing eccentrically in the breeze, grass whispering, a horse neighing in the stables, men working in the fields? And his mine? His two mines? Why had he ever been such a fool as to leave it on this bizarre mission which had served no good purpose and ended in disaster? Was it ambition? But he had no ambition. Was it a sense of duty? But to whom did he owe any duty? Was it something in his perverse nature that hankered after a new and an unusual adventure?

But it had all gone so well for a time; it truly had. He knew that his strange pretty Cornish wife with all her earthiness and all her high-strung perceptions had enormously enjoyed the early weeks in Paris. It had renewed her. The heady entertainment, and the admiration that had come her way had brought her to bloom all over again. If he had not taken that last trip to Auxerre ... Rougiet was eyeing him. 'You are far away, my friend.'

Yes.'

'I was saying... But what does it matter? Maybe it is better unsaid.'

'Pray tell me.'

'I was saying to you - and it is a sombre thought - that the arsenals and factories of France are working at high pressure, the armourers have been called up, the National Guard likewise throughout the country, thousands of extra horses commandeered; arms are arriving from across the Rhine smuggled in barges and small boats, the Imperial Guard brought up to full strength. I need not explain to you that these preparations are not being undertaken with peace in mind -- but they will only come into operation if the Germans and the English oppose us in Belgium.'

'Why must you have Belgium?'

'It has been ours for too long. We are almost the same people.'

Ross said after a moment: 'I do not feel that England would fight so hard just to replace Louis. But there is strong feeling about the independence of Belgium - even among the Whigs, who generally favour Napoleon.'

'It is too bad,' said Rougiet, cracking the knuckles of his big hands. 'But I have to tell you we shall very shortly have a hundred and fifty thousand picked troops in the Army of the North. There will be no chance for Wellington with the mixed and unreliable army he now commands... Still, there may yet be some chance of an accommodation, a compromise. I pray so.'

'Amen. But if you had to fight such a battle how would you go about it?'

'Oh... At the present we are making a few early concentrations in the area of Philippeville and Beaumont. But I must not disclose more to you. Nor could I, for I am not in the Emperor's confidence.'

Ross saw that the brandy bottle, half full when it came in, was now empty.

'There is also in this', he said, 'a man called Tallien. He was at that Embassy party where I first met you. Fouche was there too, you will remember.'

'Tallien, oh yes. Fouche's jackal.'

'When I was arrested Tallien accompanied the gendarmes. He may be the cause of my imprisonment. I shook him up on one occasion because he was paying unwelcome attentions to my wife.'

'So? An odious little lecher. He counts for nothing, of course, compared to Fouche. But Fouche protects him. Long ago the roles were quite reversed. For a time, in those wild days of the nineties, Tallien was President of the Convention. I am told that he protected Fouche then that he saved him from the guillotine. Fouche, it is said, never forgets a favour and never forgets an injury.'

'I can believe that.'

'It is strange to think that Tallien cannot be more than eight or nine years older than I am, yet I was a mere youth at the time. Well...' Rougiet stretched his legs. 'Let us talk of happier things, eh? Your wife is safe and well? And your children? That is good. That is something ... But we must spring you from this trap, my friend. Have a little patience and we will get you out.'