The Blind Beak

by Ernest Dudley

  A little while later found him ascending the stairs towards the sitting room over Bow Street. He had set out to confront Sir John with the accusation of his perfidious concealment of the truth regarding Chagrin’s fate. The police officer, however, who had admitted him into the house greeted him with the information, which in his paroxysm of bitter anger towards the Blind Beak he had forgotten, that he was being entertained by his fellow magistrates and friends to celebrate his knighthood. Telling the man he had a written message which he would slip under the sitting room door, Nick had continued upstairs with the fixed determination to await the Blind Beak’s return.

  The door was, as he had anticipated, locked, but withstood the thrust of his powerful shoulder only briefly before it burst open. The curtains were pulled back so the light from the street-lamp outside added to the illumination supplied by the fire glowing in the grate. Nick took in the familiar surroundings, the table littered with papers and documents, the worn carpet and comfortable armchairs, the bookshelves from which the magistrate was wont to instruct Mr. Bond to read him aloud on matters of law and judicial procedure. Then his gaze was held by a picture that was caught in a shaft of lamplight streaming through the window. It was an oil-painting of that fat, black-bandaged figure in his magistrate’s robes and hat, the gold seal bearing the arms of the City of Westminster, his badge of office suspended round his neck by a wide ribbon. It had been painted some several months since by the famous Royal Academician, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and was a source of great pride to the Blind Beak.

  As he stared at it, seemingly to Nick the bland, plump face was fixed on him in return. He moved away a little and the brooding features seemed to follow him. In his imagination, aflame with hatred towards himself for his Judas-like betrayal of Chagrin and keyed up to denounce his employer for having deceived him with such cruel cunning, the full mouth appeared to curve in an enigmatic, mocking smile. With a sudden curse, Nick drew his sword and the long, narrow blade flashed in the street-lamp beam at every thrust he made at the picture as if he were attacking a living creature. Again and again the blade slashed at the canvas until it hung in ribbons and then, his eyes narrowed into brilliantly glittering slits in his dark, envenomed face, Nick swept the documents and papers from the table to the floor with another savage lunge of his sword. Snarling and mouthing curses with insensate incoherence he suddenly flung the sword at the wine-decanter and glasses so that they were shattered at one resounding stroke, the wine dripping like blood into a pool on the carpet. His destructive rage mounted and, with wild strength and uttering demoniacal shouts rising above the noise of splintering wood and smashing glass, he began hurling everything he could lay his hands on about the room.

  21.

  As the huge towers and the high massive walls of the Bastille rose forbiddingly before her on that dread March day Chagrin de l’Isle was convinced she was entering a tomb from which she was destined never to return. The fortress-prison’s reputation was such, the sight of it must strike terror into the hearts of most beholders, so cruel and horrible the accounts that circulated Paris of infamies practised behind its walls, impregnably and for ever locking within their confines its grim secrets. The prison gates closing upon her, the turnkey led Chagrin to a room which, though cell-like in appearance, was to her gratified surprise yet airy and light, adequately furnished with bed, table and chairs, and a fire had been kindled in the corner fireplace.

  While the atmosphere of the Bastille lay heavy upon her and she was haunted by the knowledge it held numerous wretches less fortunate than she, being awakened often in the night by the cry of some soul in torment, Chagrin quickly realized her term of imprisonment was being made as easy for her to bear and comfortable as was possible. Hints dropped her by the jailer who visited her daily made it evident the influence of the Due de Brissac and Madame Du Barry was being exerted for her welfare and safety. ‘Ne vous inquietez pas, Mademoiselle la Comtesse,’ he would encourage her. ‘You will be out from here in no time at all. And a few weeks’ or months’ stay in the Bastille is considered to be not so dishonourable. You would be surprised at the number of well-known personages who have kicked their heels awhile within these old walls.’ Chagrin did recall hearing of members of several illustrious families who, proving not altogether amenable to parental control, had been sent to the notorious prison, there to cool down their impetuous spirits.

  She was permitted to leave her cell every day and walk in the courtyard, and to receive correspondence, including that from Madame Du Barry, whose first item of intelligence disclosed to her how she was the victim of a plot devised by that cursed spy-chief, Fielding of Bow Street, how he had employed a certain Nick Rathburn as his secret agent to ensnare her.

  The days stretched into weeks. She received no hint Nick had sought to discover what fate had befallen her. She could arrive at no conclusion other than that he had played her false, and, resolving to banish him for ever from her heart, she concentrated all her dreams and faith in the future upon the political news she received not only from Madame Du Barry, but from members of her family, together with the gossip her jailers passed on to her. Higher had ascended her hopes of release, for with the dramatic improvement in America’s fortunes, the pressure brought to bear upon Louis to throw in his lot with the Americans against the British daily grew increasingly irresistible. When at last Louis had announced France would ally herself with the new independent nation over the Atlantic against the old enemy across the Channel all France was set aflame with enthusiasm, which penetrated the thick walls of her prison, and Chagrin felt confident the moment for her release was at hand. Swift, however, as were the turn of events, she had been left to languish where she was, though continually in receipt of reassurances she would presently emerge freely pardoned. Eager as she was to play her part in the struggle, she must patiently count the days.

  Her patient resolution was much sustained by the brusque sympathy of the turnkey, who, despite his sinister grin twisting up one side of his hatchet-face, had from her first day of imprisonment, encouraged her against giving way to despair. Then one evening towards the end of August on retiring for the night and drawing back her bedclothes from the pillow she saw revealed a piece of paper. On it was scrawled crudely in English: ‘Do not blame N. R. Instead, forgive.’

  She lay in bed trembling, the message crumpled in her hand, wondering at whose instigation it had been sent her. Someone who was aware of her association with Nick Rathburn, that seemed certain enough. Was it genuine or a subterfuge by which someone planned to trap her, test where the loyalty of her heart lay? Until the dawn began to edge the darkness from her cell, harassed by doubts and fears, over and over again her thoughts shuffled, searching for the hidden truth behind the message and she afire all the time with the hope it was a sign from he whose memory she knew she could never so long as she lived utterly efface from her secret dreams. Her mind had flown to the turnkey, that he had been responsible for smuggling into her cell that slip of paper. During the following day she sought for some hint from him, but never did he offer her the slightest inkling which could prompt her, however discreetly, to question him. Only that twisted grin and gruff manner.

  Thrice during the summer did she receive similar mysterious and equally cryptic messages, each urging her to forgive ‘N.R.’ — that he was not to blame for her betrayal. Once the piece of paper bearing the crude charcoal scribble she found beside her candlestick when she awoke one morning, obviously placed there during the night; another time a few words had been pencilled in the margin of a volume of Villon’s poems left in her cell while she was out walking in the courtyard; the next occasion a communication fell out of the fold of a handkerchief.

  Always the scrawled words filled her with mingled wonder and misgiving, while at the same time a great wave of exhilaration would lift her up, poignantly recalling to her those too-swift hours she had spent with Nick Rathburn. If it were he, and still she could not be sure she was not the object of some mach
ination directed against her, was he in Paris? Near by perhaps, waiting and watching for her? Her heart raced at the thought. Or was someone in the city acting on his behalf? Or was it neither, but some trick being perpetrated upon her for reasons she could but guess at by those in whose power she found herself, or even some cruel hoax?

  One grey afternoon towards the end of that long dragging year of 1778 she received a visitor. A spruce middle-aged individual, his personality so toned in with the dullness of the day as if it suited itself to the colour of its surroundings, she could not afterwards recall one item of his appearance. It was the dreaded head of the Cabinet Noir, Lenoir himself. He explained the reason for his visit, which was that he had come from the Due de Brissac and they had been discussing her imminent freedom.

  ‘I do fear,’ he admitted dryly, ‘adjustment to our new foreign policy has not taken place in every direction as swiftly as you, for example, would have wished, and it has been thought so far indiscreet to remind His Majesty of the fact a certain scapegoat lay in the Bastille, committed there at his command.’ Chagrin, aware the Du Barry had escaped imprisonment at her expense, and quite prepared to endure the sacrifice for the sake of one who was exerting a vital influence upon the destiny of France, gave him a non-committal smile. ‘Of course, the honest Louis,’ Lenoir was continuing, ‘and all of his advisers are not of one mind.’ Once again the pursed-lip smile. ‘If they were, if every man shared his neighbour’s views, how should I recruit my spies?’ He tilted back in the chair in which he sat, placing the tips of his bony fingers together, his expression far away. ‘The Cabinet Noir is accused of employing servants and hawkers, pawnbrokers and cheap journalists, even thieves themselves, who are allowed to go unmolested in repayment for their services. But, Mademoiselle la Comtesse, it is not only amongst such persons I find my agents! Do you not imagine that even in the most high-up circles there are those with something to hide?’

  Suddenly there came a long drawn-out scream from somewhere in the Bastille’s depths. After it had died away, leaving Chagrin’s blood still running cold there was a stillness. Lenoir examined his carefully manicured finger-nails, then shifted his chair forward and brought his mild gaze to bear upon her.

  Chagrin wondered if the somewhat unsubtly vouchsafed information concerning spies and informers was aimed at her personally. Was it prompted also by the mysterious messages she had received? Could it be, she asked herself, he was addressing to her some sort of warning that beneath the surface of diplomacy and Court intrigue ran dark waters deep and menacing, and she having launched herself upon them there was now no drawing back for her?

  ‘For one engaged in the activities I am considering,’ he murmured, flicking a particle of dust from his coat-lapel with his handkerchief, ‘it is important that an attractive woman, inspiring in men the most natural of emotions, should never fall into the trap of allowing herself to reciprocate these sentiments.’

  A brief silence, then the sound of footsteps along the stone corridor outside and the jangle of a jailer’s keys. Was he about to reveal himself as the instigator of the mysterious messages; was it not, she asked herself with inward dismay, Nick after all? She speculated upon how report of her brief association with him had reached the ears of those in Paris, with their interest in her visit to London. She had made little attempt to hide her feelings from the Somershams, for instance, though they would have been discreet. Of course, the gossips of London would have spread their tittle-tattle concerning her, Lord Tregarth for instance, she recalled, not being exactly averse to hearing the sound of his own voice.

  ‘You must know,’ Lenoir’s voice jerked her back to her present circumstances, ‘when it comes to dissimulation, the art of falsehood, the craft of deception, there is none better qualified than your Englishmen. And ruthlessness is the order, nor friendship nor love stands in his way. None so cold-hearted exist as that evil breed across the Channel. But as to that,’ his words an insinuating purr, ‘you have personal experience of having been treachery’s victim.’ He paused, waiting for her to make some reply.

  ‘I believe I was betrayed,’ she said, ‘but by whom? One person I knew could have been a secret agent, though I thought him only a gamester.’

  He gave a shrug of indifference. ‘This Nick Rathburn, eh?’ His eyes suddenly flat and fixed on her. ‘He found himself meagrely rewarded for his pains. The betrayer betrayed, disowned and discredited by his employer,’ and she giving no sign that what he was saying was a dagger piercing her, ‘cast aside like a discarded glove.’

  ‘He is dead?’ her voice harsh, bereft of any emotion.

  ‘They are shaping a noose for him even now. A spy who has served his turn, left to rot in London’s gutters and stews.’ Her finger-nails digging deep into her palms, it seemed she could no longer silently endure the impact of the other’s words but must cry out her anguished longing to know more of Nick Rathburn’s fate, and then footsteps sounded outside the cell, the rattle of the jailer’s keys.

  ‘Monsieur le Due de Brissac.’

  Lenoir rose to greet the newcomer and Chagrin caught the swift significant glance exchanged between them. Then Brissac had taken her hand. In his expression she read his reassurance she had emerged satisfactorily from her interview with the head of the Cabinet Noir. ‘I fear I omitted to inform Mademoiselle la Comtesse you were to be expected,’ the latter was apologizing with glib smoothness.

  ‘I cannot hope to prove as entertaining a guest as you,’ Brissac said, then to Chagrin: ‘I bring you, however, greetings from Madame Du Barry and,’ an almost imperceptible pause and a sidelong glance at Lenoir, ‘her felicitations at the welcome news of your imminent return to surroundings less confined.’

  ‘Since Monsieur le Due doubtless has his carriage waiting,’ Lenoir murmured unctuously, ‘I am sure he would be only too glad to escort Mademoiselle la Comtesse to her home.’ He paused at the cell-door, turning to them both, then his gaze fixed upon her. ‘Unless, of course, you have any suggestion why your adieu should be delayed?’ But while Brissac chuckled appropriately, she could only shake her head dumbly, her thankfulness at this out-of-the-blue prospect of her swift release confused by the unanswered questions that set her thoughts athrob; since, if his information regarding him were true, it was unlikely Nick was responsible for the secret communications she had received; had they been at Lenoir’s design? If so, had his object been to discover her state of mind regarding the man he had pictured to her as a cast-off spy, disgraced and whose ignominious end was inevitable? Lenoir was speaking. ‘I will, while you prepare yourself to take your departure, make the necessary arrangements with the officials. I shall return shortly and we may leave together.’

  When he had gone, Brissac’s blue eyes twinkled at her. ‘You must have played your cards, dear Mademoiselle la Comtesse, with exceeding dexterity and discretion.’ His handsome features clouded slightly as he threw a glance after Lenoir, as if reminded of something not altogether to his liking, then they brightened again. ‘Madame Du Barry will be overjoyed to see you.’

  ‘I have been, I am truly thankful to le bon Dieu, fortunate compared with many other prisoners of the Bastille.’ She forced herself to concentrate her attention upon him. ‘But being shut away from beloved Paris, for here one might be a million miles distant, is severe punishment.’

  She observed a speculative expression flicker across his face. ‘In which respect,’ he began hesitantly, ‘do you earn my sympathy, since you will be allowed to enjoy the delights of Paris but briefly.’ She stared at him uncomprehendingly, only dread once again gripping her. ‘You have been chosen for a mission abroad,’ he said quietly, then, as footsteps and the jingle of keys drew near, added quickly: ‘You are directed to set sail within the week.’

  22.

  The face of the man who sat in a corner of the night-cellar beneath a crumbling old house of the Rookeries appeared leaner than ever, every feature sharpened against the whetstone of bitterness, the very bones and tau
tened flesh a mask chiselled from flint, the brows above the dark, glittering eyes jutting forward in an even more crag-like outline. About him arose the mutter of voices, the jingle of glasses punctuated now and again by the thud of a mug against a rough table in emphasis of some tipsy argument. He drew at his pipe, slowly expelling a spiral of smoke, and ran his fingers through the white streak, now a trifle more prominent in his dark hair, and then reached for his watch.

  It was approaching midnight on this early April evening in the year 1780, some twice twelve-month after he had severed his association with the Blind Beak.

  Returning the watch to his pocket, his eye carelessly took in his inevitable black velvet coat, the cuffs of which, however, looked distinctly threadbare about the edges, while his breeches of the same material showed somewhat shabby at the knees. Many and varied were the vicissitudes which had attended his career during the past two years. Seeking to drown the savage and despairing remembrances of his remorse and agony at his treachery towards the one creature in all the world he had ever loved, there was no lowest tavern which had not suffered from his drunken brawling, his virulence in a quarrel inflamed in a split-second to the challenging flash of his sword; no club or coffee-house whose gossip was not continually including reports of his reckless profligacy; hardly any gutter from Fleet Street to Berkeley Square which had not served him as a night’s resting-place, except when he chose forgetfulness in this or that bagnio or whore-house.

  At the onset Sir John Fielding had striven his utmost to divert him from the hopelessly violent, inevitably disastrous path he was treading. Returning that night accompanied by Mr. Bond to find his sitting room reduced to a shambles, and learning who had been responsible for the destruction and had rushed forcibly from the scene, the Blind Beak had called alone upon Nick the following morning. He had endured the curses and vituperative accusations hurled at him enigmatically. ‘Do you deny you deliberately concealed from me the knowledge of what her fate would be?’