The Dark Secret of Josephine

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘There is good sense in that. Will you then undertake a mission to the General’s headquarters?’

  As Roger nodded, the Prime Minister stretched out a long bony hand and patted him lightly on the knee. For such a shy and undemonstrative man it was a most unusual gesture. With a smile, he said:

  ‘I felt sure that I could count upon you, Mr. Brook; but I am none the less grateful,’ Then he went on in a brisker tone. ‘Now with regard to your journey. These secret negotiations with Pichegru have, of course, been handled through the Prince de Condé, who commands the émigré army on the Rhine. It would be best if you went to his headquarters first, in order to ascertain if there have been any further developments in the matter of which I have not yet heard. Have you still the Letter of Marque I gave you some years ago, stating that on the affairs of our country you speak in my name?’

  ‘Yes, Sir. It is safely locked away in the vaults of Hoare’s Bank.’

  ‘Then that will be sufficient introduction for you to His Highness. I will, however, give you another letter to a gentleman you will find at his headquarters, named the Comte de Montgalliard.’

  Roger suddenly sat bolt upright. ‘I pray you, Sir, do nothing of the kind—at least if it is of the same man we are thinking, for I believe there are two brothers both of whom bear the title and the name.’

  ‘This is Count Maurice. He is a man of medium height with jet-black eyebrows, an over-long chin and slightly hump-backed.’

  ‘That is the rogue I have in mind. While I was involved with the Baron de Batz in an attempt to rescue Queen Marie Antoinette from prison, the Baron once pointed Montgalliard out to me. He bid me beware of him as the most plausible and unscrupulous villain unhung; then gave me chapter and verse for many of his treacheries.’

  ‘What you say perturbs me greatly, Mr. Brook. He is certainly most plausible and possesses both brains and charm, but it is he who initiated this affair and, having acted as go-between for the Prince de Condé and myself, holds all the threads of it.’

  ‘Then, Sir, you may be certain that he intends to betray you both, and General Pichegru into the bargain, for what he can get out of it. This makes it all the more imperative that negotiations with the General should be opened through a new channel. It is quite on the cards that Montgalliard has lied to him, and kept for himself any sum that he was supposed to have handed over as earnest money. In any case, I have always sought to minimise my own risk by working alone; so I would much prefer that my mission should not be disclosed to any Royalist agent.’

  ‘In that, no doubt, you are wise; and it seems now that Montgalliard would prove a special source of danger to you. To relieve you of it, I will give you a letter to him, asking him to come immediately to London for further consultation. Then when he arrives I will find some pretext for keeping him here.’

  ‘For that I should be grateful, Sir. I take it you wish me to set out as soon as possible?’

  ‘Yes. I will have a word with my cousin Grenville. Be good enough to wait upon him tomorrow at the Foreign Office. He will provide you with ample funds and make such arrangements for your journey as you may think best.’

  During a further half hour Mr. Pitt gave Roger much useful information on the general situation, then Roger took his leave. As he came out from Number 10 a chill autumn wind was blowing gustily up Downing Street. His blood having become thinned by the heat of the tropics, he shivered slightly.

  He was hoping that Montgalliard, for his own evil purposes, had lied about General Pichegru’s attitude. If so, with the Count out of the way, a firm and frank understanding with the General might prove all that was necessary. If not, Roger knew that he would then have no option but to proceed to Paris. Grimly he faced the fact that he was once more in the toils of a great conspiracy; and he wondered a little unhappily when, and if, he would ever see Martinique again.

  18

  Enter Robert MacElfic

  In Whitehall Roger picked up a sedan-chair and had himself carried to Amesbury House. The great mansion showed few signs of life; as, with the exception of Droopy Ned, the family was still in Wiltshire, and he had returned only the day before after his annual surfeit of mulberries. But the skeleton staff had been apprised by Dan of Roger’s coming, and a footman in undress livery took him straight up to his friend’s suite.

  Droopy, in his favourite morning déshabillé of a turban and oriental robe, had only just risen. He welcomed Roger with delight, then laughed at the sight of his beard; on which Roger promptly declared his intention of having it off before the morning was out. A table was wheeled in with Droopy’s breakfast, and as it was now getting on for ten o’clock, Roger felt quite ready for a second, more substantial, meal; so the two old cronies sat down to a brown trout brought in ice from the Avon, a big venison pasty and a couple of bottles of claret.

  Roger had no secrets from Droopy; so as soon as they were alone he described how Mr. Pitt had recalled him from Martinique and, that morning, inveigled him into a new mission. When he had given particulars of it, Droopy nodded his bird-like head, and said:

  ‘Seeing that this may prove the key to the pacification of all Europe, you could not possibly have refused. I’ll vow, too, that despite the long face you are pulling about it you are by no means altogether displeased to find yourself back in your old harness. A nature such as yours could not remain content with the humdrum life of the Indies.’

  ‘Humdrum!’ Roger laughed. ‘I have yet to tell you how near the women all came to being raped and myself murdered, first by pirates then by revolted negro slaves. Still, I’ll not deny there’s something in what you say. I had been privy to half the intrigues in Europe far too long not to miss the spice that compensates for the danger of dabbling in them. In fact, if the truth be told, most of my misgivings evaporated on the way here from Downing Street, and one half of me is already agog to get to grips with this new problem.’

  Droopy smiled. ‘I’d have wagered a monkey on that proving so. As to your harrowing experiences on the voyage out, I greatly look forward to hearing your account of them; although the beautiful Georgina gave me the main particulars soon after she got back here late in March.’

  ‘Of course! How fares she now? Poor Charles’s death was a sad blow to her.’

  ‘Aye, she took it mighty hard; and on her arrival went directly into retirement. She bade me to Stillwaters for a night, but only to give me news of you. Dowered with such vitality as she is, I’d not have thought her capable of grieving so long for any man; except perhaps yourself. In the circumstances it was a great blessing that she had the carrying of her child to occupy her mind.’

  ‘Child!’ exclaimed Roger.

  ‘Yes. Did you not know? She told me she had written you that she was expecting one. You should have had her letter sometime in May.’

  Roger shook his head. ‘It never reached me; so I suppose the ship carrying it must have been lost or taken by a privateer. As Georgina was ever an erratic correspondent I did not wonder greatly at not hearing from her; though I wrote to her myself three times from Martinique.’

  ‘Then it will also be news to you that you are now a godfather. But that, of course, you could not know; as her son was not born until the 17th of August. I acted as proxy for you at the christening; so can vouch for it that the little Earl is a right lusty fellow, and Georgina herself looking even more lovely now that she has become a mother.’

  ‘Well, strap me! I am more delighted than I can say. I must write to her in my first free hour; and will drive down to Stillwaters with gifts for my godson should time permit.’

  ‘You are then already under orders to set out?’

  ‘Yes. I wait upon my Lord Grenville tomorrow, and leave as soon after as a ship is available to carry me.’ Roger took a swig of wine, then added with a worried frown, ‘I would, though, that I had been called on to pit my wits against some people other than the French. So many of their leading men already have preconceived beliefs about me: the aristocrats that I am o
ne of themselves but turned traitor, the ex-terrorists that I was a sans-culotte before becoming a member of that den of iniquity, the Paris Commune, and one at least of the latter knows me for what I am, an English spy. These tabs from the past that I must carry with me immeasurably increase the difficulties of my mission.’

  ‘Then why carry them?’ Droopy rubbed a finger along the side of his beaky nose. ‘That brown beard you grew upon your voyage may now prove a Godsend. With it you should have little difficulty in assuming a new identity.’

  ‘Egad; what an excellent thought!’ Roger’s blue eyes suddenly lit up. ‘Mr. Pitt scarce recognised me, and with a few other changes I could, sure enough, pass as a different person.’

  When they had finished breakfast, Droopy summoned his valet, who also served him as his barber, and after an hour in the man’s capable hands Roger’s metamorphosis was completed. His eyebrows had been plucked to half their former thickness, his long eyelashes had been shortened by an eighth of an inch, and the ball of his chin shaven clean. The last operation did away with a suggestion of scruffiness that the new-grown beard had given him, and now put him in a new fashion for growing a moustache and pointed side-whiskers, which was beginning to be effected by a number of young cavalry officers.

  It remained only to invent a personality; and for that, lest anyone should still think he was himself disguised, he decided to use the additional cover of a family resemblance by passing himself off as a non-existent cousin, and taking the name of Robert MacElfic.

  As he was now anxious not to provoke gossip about his changed appearance, this debarred him from going to his club or looking up such old friends of his who might have been in London at this comparatively dead season; so he called only at Hoare’s Bank, not to collect the Letter of Marquesas that would be useless now he had decided to take the name of MacElfic, but for some other papers identifying him as Citizen Commissioner Breuc, which, although out of date, might still serve him when he had to make his way through the lines of the Republican Army to General Pichegru.

  In the afternoon he drove out to Richmond to assure himself that Thatched House Lodge was being properly taken care of, and it was decided that Dan, who had accompanied him, should remain there. That night he dined quietly at Amesbury House with Droopy, and gave him a full account of the perils through which he had passed on his way to Martinique and the happy months he had since spent there.

  Next morning he went to the Foreign Office. That stiff, unbending man, Lord Grenville, received him most courteously, and with the little affability of which he was capable, then handed him the letter from Mr. Pitt to Montgalliard. Having approved Roger’s design to assume a new identity, he furnished him with a British Diplomatic passport on special thin paper, in the name of MacElfic, credentials to the Prince de Condé, a bag of gold in various currencies and open drafts for the much greater sums he might need for bribery on both a banker named Mayer Anselm Bauer in Frankfurt and a holder of British secret funds in Paris. He then announced that, subject to Roger’s approval, he had already made arrangements for a naval cutter to put him ashore, weather permitting, between Dunkirke and Ostend in the early hours of the following morning.

  If the vessel was to catch the tide this meant for Roger an almost immediate departure; but, having no reason to suggest a postponement, he agreed, and hastened back across St. James’s Park to Amesbury House, There he wrote letters to Amanda, Georgina and his father, then, accompanied by Droopy Ned, he drove down to Greenwich, where the cutter was lying in readiness to take him across the Channel.

  No sooner was he aboard than she cast off from her buoy and began to drop down river. Once more Roger waved good-bye to Droopy, who stood, a tall stooping figure, peering short-sightedly after him from the wharf. Then, as it was still not yet two o’clock, he settled himself comfortably to watch through the long afternoon the multifarious activities of the shipping in the lower reaches of the Thames.

  When dusk fell the cutter was still in the estuary of the river; but soon afterwards she picked up a good southwesterly breeze, and at half-past four in the morning, Mr. ‘Robert MacElfic’, now wearing a heavy multi-collared coat, was landed without incident on a deserted beach only a few miles from Ostend.

  As a result of the long occupation of the Belgian Netherlands by Austria, much German was spoken in those parts as well as the local Flemish; but, owing to the proximity of the French frontier, most of the better-class people also spoke some French. The French Republicans were, too, now the masters there; so Roger decided to use their language, and from the beginning pose as a French official, since to do so offered the best prospect of getting his wants promptly attended to.

  By six o’clock he was breakfasting at a good, but not pretentious, hotel in the town; and soon afterwards set out in a post-chaise he had hired from its landlord to take him to Brussels. He reached the city by two o’clock in the afternoon and there proceeded to make more elaborate arrangements for the continuance of his journey. As he was going into the war area he had to put down a considerable deposit to secure a light travelling coach, but that means of transport had the advantage over taking to horse that he could sleep in it, and so arrive at his destination more speedily and less fatigued. He then purchased a small valise, toilet gear, a change of linen, and a supply of food and wine; so that he need stop for a meal on the way only if he felt inclined. Having tucked away a good hot dinner, he had his things packed into the coach and at six o’clock, with two coachmen on its box to drive turn and turn about, took the road south-east to Namur.

  Mr. Pitt had given him roughly the dispositions of the armies, and he had, as far as possible, confirmed them while in Brussels. There were still considerable British forces in Hanover, and as the Prussians in their peace treaty with the French had guaranteed the neutrality of the North German States, it was a sore point with Ministers that they remained tied up there to no purpose. But, out of pride, King George had refused to allow his German dominion to be denuded of troops; so to the French Army of the North, commanded by General Moreau, there was now no opposition, and it was employed only in garrisoning the fortresses of Belgium and Holland.

  Further south the Army of the Sambre and Meuse, under General Jourdan, and the Army of the Rhine and Moselle, under General Pichegru, had been co-operating, with the evident intent of endeavouring to drive the two Austrian armies back on to the Danube. Jourdan had laid siege to Luxemburg and, with the assistance of Pichegru’s left wing, to Mainz, but the sieges had gone slowly, owing to Carnot’s no longer being at the Ministry of War, and the incompetence of his successors in furnishing the armies with adequate supplies. In June Luxemburg had at last surrendered; so Jourdan had then been able to push on. Throwing the bulk of his army across the Rhine at Dusseldorf, he had swung south down the right bank of the river, driving the Austrian General, Clerfayt, before him until he reached the Main.

  General Wurmser, with the other Austrian army, aided by the Prince de Condé’s corps of émigrés, which was still further south, and based on Baden, had in the meantime been holding Pichegru. But in Brussels, Roger had learned that on the day he had reached London, September the 20th, Pichegru had captured Mannheim; so he too was across the Rhine and it now looked as if the two French armies were about to form a junction which might prove disastrous for the Austrians.

  It was this new move of Pichegru’s, indicating so clearly that the last thing he had in mind at the moment was to march his army on Paris, that had determined Roger now to regard his mission as of the utmost urgency. Had this not been so he would have proceeded north, into Holland, then made a great detour through the still peaceful states well to the east of the Rhine and so reached Baden without having to enter any area so far affected by the war; but that would have taken him the best part of a week. The alternative was to go via Namur, Luxemburg and Saarbrucken direct to the Upper Rhine opposite Baden and find some means to cross the river there. As the whole of the territory through which he must pass was in the hands of th
e French, that meant his having to chance some unfortunate encounter and, in the last phase, possibly being shot at as he attempted to cross the river; but as the journey could be accomplished by driving all out in two days, he felt that these risks were worth taking.

  He found it easy to slip back into the role of a Republican Commissioner; and, by a combination of a confident, authoritative manner coupled with lavish tips to his two Belgian coachmen and the ostlers who changed the horses at the posting houses, he kept the coach moving at a very satisfactory pace. On the second afternoon, as he neared the Rhine, he was several times challenged by patrols of French troops; but fortunately none of them knew that the Citizen Commissioner Breuc had fled from Paris fourteen months before, and after a cursory glance at his old papers, they accepted his statement that he was on his way to General Pichegru’s headquarters.

  Wissembourg, which lay on the west bank of the Rhine, almost opposite Baden, had been used by Pichegru as his headquarters throughout the summer; so, although he had recently moved north, the town was still cluttered up with a large part of his baggage train and many officers of the administrative services. Seeing this as his coach entered the narrow streets, Roger decided to try to pick up as much information as he could about the progress of the new offensive before planning his attempt to cross the river that night.

  It was as well that he did so, for events had been moving fast during the past few days. Thanks to his impeccable French, some officers at an hotel at which he pulled up readily accepted his invitation to join him in a glass of wine, and proved eager to acquaint him with the latest news. Gaily they described how the capture of Mannheim had thrown the whole of south-west Germany into a panic, and how both the Landgrave of Darmstadt and the Margrave of Baden were reported to have fled from their capitals.