If the last report were true, and Roger had to regard it as at least probable, it meant that the Prince de Condé would also have hurriedly evacuated Baden; so to attempt a clandestine crossing of the river there would now be to run a pointless risk. In these altered circumstances, with the Prince’s whereabouts no longer known to him, Roger felt that his best plan would be to take the road north into the area where both banks of the Rhine were held by the French; as, with luck, he might then be able to cross it openly in his coach, the retention of which would prove invaluable to him while searching for the Prince’s new headquarters.
Accordingly, he bade the officers a cheerful farewell, and collecting his two Belgian coachmen from the taproom took them outside.
They were employees of the owner of the coach and responsible to him for its safe return, but had contracted only to take Roger to the left bank of the Rhine, opposite Baden. He now put it to them that he wished to keep the coach on for two or three days, and that if they would continue with him, obeying his orders without questions, and keeping their mouths shut whatever they might see or hear, he would reward them by giving them a letter which would enable them to claim the considerable deposit he had paid on the coach when they got back with it to Brussels.
At first the men showed some hesitation, but on Roger’s producing a purse full of gold coins and giving them ten thalers apiece as a bonus in hand, they agreed. So as dusk was falling the coach took the road that ran parallel with the river towards Mannheim.
A three-hour drive brought it opposite to the city. There Roger learned that during the assault the stone bridge had been too severely damaged by cannon fire to be safe for vehicles; but the French Engineers had since succeeded in throwing a pontoon bridge across for military traffic. Again he told his story, that he had urgent business with General Pichegru, and once more, their suspicions lulled by this bold assertion, a guard who had halted the coach allowed it to proceed.
Roger had been told by the guard that the General had installed himself in the Rathaus but, after crossing the bridge, instead of following the directions the guard had given him to find it, Roger told his coachmen to take the first turning they came to on the right, and to keep on going until they were clear of the city.
All went well until they reached its outskirts. There a man in the middle of the road swinging a lantern called on them to halt, and from a barrier a few yards behind him a sergeant approached the coach.
Before the N.C.O. had a chance to open his mouth, Roger thrust his head out of the window of the coach, and shouted: ‘I am a surgeon! General Pichegru’s nephew has been wounded out in front there, and the General has despatched me to do my best for him. Open the barrier! Lose not a moment; the young man’s life may depend upon it.’
The ruse got them through, and the coach had hardly halted before it was on the move again.
Having reason to believe that the battle was still fluid, in which case no continuous line would yet have been formed in front of Mannheim, Roger now hoped that under cover of darkness he might make his way between the various French units, most of whom at this hour would be sleeping in their bivouacs, without further challenge; but in that he was disappointed.
Some three miles from the city they were again called on to halt, and this time the N.C.O. in charge of the patrol did not swallow Roger’s story so readily. He said that he knew of no units further advanced than his own, and demanded to see the traveller’s papers.
Having committed himself, Roger’s only possible course was to maintain his bluff and intensify it. Sharply he told the man that when a valued life hung in the balance one did not wait for special papers before setting out to save it, and that if he could not tell a good Frenchman from a foreigner he did not deserve to serve under so great a soldier as General Pichegru; then he let forth a spate of filth and obscenity couched in the argot of the Paris gutters that he had picked up during the months when he had himself lived as one of the sans-culottes.
Reeling under the impact, and with all his suspicions dissipated, the N.C.O. waved the coach on. Yet he did so shaking his head and muttering uneasily: ‘Have your own way then, Citizen; but I know of no units forward of us, and if you go on for more than a mile or two you’ll like as not find yourself in the hands of the enemy.’
That was precisely what Roger hoped, and his hopes were fulfilled. Next time a call came for the coach to halt it was in a strange tongue, and a moment later it was surrounded by a vedette of Moravian Hussars. Finding it impossible to make himself fully understood, Roger fished out from under the thick turn-up of his cuff, the envelope containing his British passport, waved it beneath the sergeant’s nose and pointed vigorously towards the rear of the Austrian position.
The coach was then sent on under escort for a mile or more to a farmhouse, from which there emerged a haggard-looking officer who spoke a little German. Using such stilted phrases of that tongue as he could put together Roger asked to be taken to the nearest headquarters, and with its escort the coach moved on through the darkness.
An hour later it drew up in front of a country house, in one of the ground floor rooms of which a light was burning. Roger was led inside and found the night-duty officer there to be a young exquisite dressed in a uniform of blue and silver with a sable-trimmed half cloak, and whiskers in the new fashion, very similar to his own.
To him Roger presented his passport, which carried the name of MacElfic, and told him that he was en mission from his Prime Minister to the Prince de Condé. The young man immediately became all politeness and offered to put him up for the night; but on Roger’s replying that his mission was urgent, the Austrian promised to provide him with a guide, a change of horses and a new escort; and, in the meantime, sent an orderly for food and wine.
Three-quarters of an hour later, pleasantly fortified, Roger was on his way again; but the guide did not know the exact whereabouts of the Prince’s new headquarters, only that they were somewhere in the neighbourhood of Heilbronn; so on reaching that area numerous enquiries had to be made, until they were at last located some five miles from the town in a castle to which a modern wing had been added.
Roger arrived there at eight o’clock in the morning, on the fourth day after he had landed on the Belgian coast. In seventy-six hours he had traversed some four hundred and fifty miles of roads which, as the time included all waits while changing horses, gave the highly satisfactory average of just under six miles an hour. But he had even more reason to be pleased that after his quarry’s flight from Baden he had had the good luck to get safely through the battle zone and locate him again with so little delay.
Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he climbed stiffly out of the coach, walked past a sentry up to the main entrance to the Schloss and asked the servant who was on duty in its porch to ask his master to receive a messenger who had arrived with urgent despatches for him from England. The footman gave his dirty, travel-stained figure one supercilious glance, and replied haughtily:
‘His Royal Highness does not receive couriers. At the east door you will find someone who will accept delivery of your despatch, and doubtless it will be placed before His Royal Highness by the proper person when His Royal Highness returns from the hunt.’
Roger’s blue eyes suddenly blazed with anger. It was bad enough that at this crisis in the war the Commander of the Royalist army should have gone out hunting, but to be subjected to insolence from his servants was intolerable. Lifting his jack-booted right foot, Roger brought its heel down with all his force on the footman’s toes, and snarled:
‘Go, fellow, this instant; and find someone of rank to attend me!’
The men let out a howl of pain, staggered back and, whimpering loudly, limped swiftly towards the doorway of the castle.
He was met in it by another footman and a senior servant in black clothes, who had come running at his shout. As he sobbed out the cause of his woe the others cast angry, frightened glances at Roger, then they helped their weeping companion through i
nto the hall, slamming the door behind them.
Some three minutes later a very fat priest, with the voluminous skirts of his cassock swirling about his short legs, came puffing out into the porch. Roger made him a polite bow, and, now taking pains to use indifferent French, in keeping with his new rôle, introduced himself as Mr. Robert MacElfic, adding that he was the personal emissary of His Britannic Majesty’s Prime Minister.
At that the priest’s chubby face instantly lost its look of apprehension. Raising his plump hands, he exclaimed: ‘Then you come from our second Father on Earth! I will have that oaf caned for his lack of respect to you. I am the Abbé Chenier, His Royal Highness’s secretary; Welcome; thrice welcome. Be pleased to come in.’
This was much more the style in which Roger had expected to be greeted, and he was by no means surprised to hear Mr. Pitt referred to as the second Father on Earth of the émigrés, as that gentleman had furnished him with particulars of their misfortunes. During the early years of the Revolution numerous German Princes had in turn received them most hospitably, but as their own resources had dwindled and their numbers had increased to several thousand they had proved too great a burden on their not: very wealthy hosts. The Austrians had then accepted responsibility for them, but only to the extent of furnishing twelve cents and one loaf of munition bread per man per day, which was what they gave their own troops.
In consequence, by the previous winter they had been reduced to positive destitution. Even the Prince’s household had had to live on coarse soldier’s fare, and to keep them from freezing his mistress, the Princess of Monaco, had sold her last jewels to buy firewood. From this desperate situation they had been rescued by Mr. Pitt, who at the instigation of Montgalliard had arranged for them a British loan of three and a half million francs. How much of the money had stuck to the villainous Count’s fingers could only be guessed but it was no wonder that, after the Pope, they regarded Mr. Pitt as their ‘Father on Earth.’
Murmuring that the footman had already been punished enough for his stupidity, Roger followed the Abbé across a lofty banqueting hall and through some corridors in the new wing of the castle to a small room that had a pleasant view across distant forest-covered slopes. After fussily seating Roger in an easy chair, the Abbé sat down behind a table covered with papers and enquired about his journey.
Roger confined himself to saying that it had been tiring but uneventful until he had entered the battle zone the previous night, and that he had been lucky enough to get through without serious trouble. Then he asked when the Prince could he expected back.
‘Soon after midday, Monsieur,’ replied the Abbé. ‘We have been through terrible times—terrible times; and it was too bad that having established ourselves in reasonably comfortable quarters we should again have been driven from them by the advance of these Godless revolutionaries. But we have, been fortunate in the Graf von Hildersheim’s, who owns this Schloss, placing it at his Royal Highness’s disposal. The Kerr Grafs forests are well stocked with game and he keeps a pack of boar-hounds; so His Royal Highness can hardly be expected to deny himself the pleasures of the chase while he is here. But he will be back in good time for dinner. By the by, pray forgive the enquiry, but are you of gentle birth?’
‘My Mother was titled and the daughter of an Earl,’ Roger told him, suppressing a cynical little smile at the question.
‘Good! Good! That is most fortunate; as otherwise we should not be able to have you with us at dinner in His Royal Highness’s salon. The preservation of a proper etiquette has become all the more important since the world began to tumble about our ears; Now, perhaps you will be good enough to inform me of the business that has brought you here.’
‘It is a matter for His Royal Highness’s personal consideration; so I fear that I must defer speaking of it until his return.’
‘Your discretion is admirable, Monsieur,’ wheezed the Abbé. ‘But I give you my word that I am privy to all His Royal Highness’s secrets.’
‘Then,’ replied Roger smoothly, ‘no doubt he will invite you to be present when I submit Mr. Pitt’s proposals to him. However, there is another matter of some urgency which I should like to deal with. I bear a letter for M. le Comte de Montgalliard.’
The Abbé nodded. ‘The Count is not addicted to the chase; so he should be in the castle somewhere. I will have him sought for.’
When, in response to the ringing of a handbell, a footman had appeared and been given the order, Roger asked that his two coachmen should be looked after and his coach and horses stabled. He had not intended it as a hint, but apparently the Abbé took it as such; for he quickly added that a meal and a room were to be prepared for the Chevalier MacElfic.
As soon as the man had gone Roger slit open the lining of his coat and took from their hiding place the papers with which Lord Grenville had furnished him. Having put his credentials and the letters of credit in his pocket, he retained the missive for Montgalliard in his hand. A few minutes later the Count entered the room.
With his heavy black eyebrows, thick nose and sallow skin, he looked like a Portuguese Jew; but his manner was brisk and on being introduced his face lit up with a deceptively frank smile that anyone would have thought charming.
When Roger handed him the letter he asked permission to open it, skimmed quickly through its single paragraph, and said: ‘I see Mr. Pitt desires me to pay another visit to England, and at once. Have you any idea about what it is that he wishes to see me?’
‘I gathered the impression,’ lied Roger glibly, ‘that he is anxious lest His Royal Highness should become embarrassed for funds with which to maintain his army throughout the winter; so has it in mind to arrange well in advance another loan through you.’
‘Our second Father on Earth,’ murmured the Abbé, his fat face creasing into an unctuous smile, ‘Our second Father on Earth. What a good man he is! Our Father in Heaven will surely reward him.’ But Roger was watching the Count, and saw at once that he had swallowed the bait.
Taking a fat bejewelled watch from his fob, he glanced at it and said to the Abbé: ‘It would ill become me to delay in obeying the summons of our Preserver. I can be packed by ten o’clock; and if I leave soon after shall reach Wurzburg in time to lie there tonight on my way up to Hanover. Should I then be lucky in catching a ship about to sail from one of the ports, I’ll be in England in little more than a week. Seeing the nature of the business I am going upon, I feel confident, that His Royal Highness will pardon me for not having lingered to kiss his hand. Be kind enough, Abbé, to explain and make my devoirs for me.’
‘Gladly, my son.’ The Abbé raised a hand in blessing. ‘May God be with you in this worthy undertaking.’
As Roger watched Montgalliard bow, flash a swift smile at them, then stride from the room, he thought how fortunate it was that the Count, like himself, was no man to let the grass grow under his feet. True, his making for Hamburg or Bremen showed that, despite his long experience as a secret agent, he preferred to lose three or four days rather than take the risk of travelling through enemy-held territory. But Roger was concerned only to get rid of him, and for that, clearly, nothing could have served better than leading him to believe that he had sniffed British gold.
For some ten minutes the Abbé and Roger talked about the war, then the black-clad groom-of-the-ehambers appeared to announce that a tray had been set for Roger in the small library. The Abbé said that after his meal he would no doubt like to rest, and that he would have him called as soon as His Royal Highness got back from the chase; so with the usual expressions of politeness they took temporary leave of one another.
As Roger sat down to a belated breakfast of cold roebuck and a half bottle of Moselle, he said to the servant: ‘When I have eaten I shall go to my room. Have ready for me there a hip-bath and plenty of hot water; also a valet to take and brush my clothes. Be diligent in this, for as I think you saw a while back I am not accustomed to being kept waiting.’
He would never normally h
ave used such a tone in a house where he was a guest, but having been given only cold meat and a half bottle of wine riled him; and as Britain was paying the bills for the household he was in no mind to be treated as a person of no consequence by its servants.
In due course the man took him up to a small, chill room in the old part of the castle, but apologised for that, remarking that it was the best of the few remaining unoccupied; and as all Roger’s other wishes had been attended to he accepted this new concern for his welfare graciously.
After bathing and shaving the ball of his chin, he lay down on the bed. It was the first time for four days that he had been able to do more than doze while subjected to a rocking or jolting motion; so almost instantly he fell asleep.
Some three hours later the valet woke him, helped him to dress, then led him down to a pair of double doors giving on to the first of a suite of large lofty rooms, and there handed him over to the Abbé Chenier. The first room was an antechamber, the second a big salon in which a score or more ladies and gentlemen were conversing. Nodding his way ingratiatingly through them, the grossly fat priest piloted Roger to the big doors at the end of the room, and opening one just widely enough to squeeze through, drew him into a spacious bedroom.
The Prince had evidently been changing in it after the hunt, and was now holding his petit levee. He was still only in silk stockings, breeches and shirt, while his buckled shoes, flowered waistcoat, and coat were being held by three of a small semi-circle of noblemen who stood deferentially by.
Roger remembered seeing him several times at Versailles, and thought that six years had not changed him much, except to emphasise still further his protuberant blue eyes, sloping forehead and fleshy, hooked nose, which were such marked features in all the Bourbon Princes.
The Dark Secret of Josephine Page 34