'Someone committed the crime but it was not Monsieur Beaufort! The real murderer is the author of that pamphlet,' Marianne cried, pointing to the yellow paper which Pâques still held in his hand. 'He is the man who has hounded me ever since the evil day I married him. He is my first husband, Lord Francis Cranmere, an Englishman—and a spy.'
Marianne could feel, suddenly, that Pâques did not believe. He was looking alternately at the yellow paper and at Marianne with an odd expression on his face. At last he shook the paper softly under her nose:
'In other words, the man you killed? Do you take me for an imbecile, Madame?'
'But he is not dead! He is in France, he goes by the name of the Vicomte—'
'Think of another story, Madame,' the inspector interrupted her roughly, 'and do not try to divert me with these taradiddles! It is easy enough to accuse a ghost. This house is supposed to be haunted, let me remind you. Perhaps that may provide you with a further exercise for your imagination. For myself, I believe in facts.'
In her indignation, Marianne might have continued to plead, reminding this suspicious policeman of her position in society, her influence with the Emperor, her connections, even, despite the shame evoked by the recollection of those dark hours in her life, of her past record as one of Fouché's most trusted agents. But four more policemen came down the path at that moment. Two carried lanterns while the other two were maintaining a firm grip on a burly individual dressed in a seaman's rough woollen jersey which had seen better days.
'Here, Chief!' one of the men said. 'We found this fellow skulking in the bushes, down by the wall on the Versailles road. He was trying to climb over and make off.'
'Who is he?' growled Pâques.
The answer to his question came from an unexpected quarter. It was Jason who spoke. He had taken the lantern from the hands of one of the policemen and held it up so that the light fell on the prisoner. The face emerging from the shadows and from the filthy collar of the seaman's jersey was bony and unprepossessing, with a broken nose and eyes like black coals.
'Perez! What are you doing here?'
The man appeared to be labouring under all the effects of considerable terror. Strong as he looked, he was shaking so that only the grip of the two policemen kept him on his feet.
'You know this man?' Pâques asked, frowning.
'He is one of my men. Or rather, he was, for I discharged him from my ship when we docked at Morlaix. He is an unmitigated rogue,' Jason said sternly. 'I have no idea what can have brought him here.'
The man uttered a howl like a stuck pig, and before the two surprised policemen could stop him he had sunk to his knees on the ground and was crawling to Jason, clutching at his arms, weeping and groaning all at once.
'No, boss!… No, don't do it! Don't give me up!… Mercy!… No my fault… no help it, boss! We go move him, Jones and me, but no time, boss… they here already… police, boss!'
Marianne listened, stupefied, to the frenzied outpouring of disjointed words, spoken in bad French with a strong Spanish accent, without apparent rhyme or reason, yet terrible to her. She knew now that fate was against her and that Inspector Pâques would never listen to her now that he had what seemed to be a real, live witness. Jason, however, losing his temper at last, had the man by the neck of his grimy jersey and was lifting him bodily from the ground:
'Move him? Who? What?'
'B-but-the b-body, b-boss! That dead man!' the wretched creature gasped out, half-throttled. 'Jones say run and he run fast… but I was afraid to run… when I get there… find the gate shut… then I try to climb the wall… Mercy! Don't kill me, boss!'
The last word ended in a strangled choke. Beside himself with anger, Jason had his strong fingers clamped so tightly round the man's windpipe that he all but choked the life out of him. He thrust his keen face hard into the other's congested one. 'Liar!' he spat out. 'What orders have I ever given you except to have you flogged off my ship for a sneaking thief? Say it, you snivelling pickpocket! Admit that everything you've said is lies before I—'
'That's enough!' the inspector cried sharply, springing to the rescue of the unfortunate Perez. 'Let that man go! By trying to kill him you admit the truth of what he says. Here, men!'
The four policemen had not waited to be told. They converged upon Jason, and Perez, abruptly released, dropped heavily to the ground and began fondling his bruised throat and whining. 'Tries to kill me… after all I've done for him… there's ingratitude…'
Seeing that Jason was firmly held, the wretched creature dragged himself slowly to his feet, shaking his head, more in sorrow than in anger, as it seemed:
'Always it is the same, with the fine gentlemen… When things go wrong, they blame the poor wretch who only obeys orders…'
'But this man is lying!' Marianne burst out. She had been watching with a mixture of horror and disgust as this stranger played out his terrible part, for a part it must surely be, just one more act in this fiendish comedy which Francis had devised to ruin Jason, and to ruin her with him. How? By what means was it to be done? She did not know but all her thoroughbred instincts, all the heightened sensitivity of a woman deeply in love cried out to her that this was all part of a plan, lovingly and skilfully prepared.
'Of course he is lying,' Jason said icily. 'But tonight seems to be the night for liars. I don't know what this scoundrel is doing here but he has certainly been bribed.'
'That will have to be gone into,' the inspector said sternly, 'at the trial. In the meanwhile, Monsieur, I arrest you in the name of His Majesty the Emperor and King!'
'No!' Marianne screamed desperately. 'No! You can't do that! He is innocent!… I know he is! I know everything! Everything, I tell you…' She flung herself after Jason who was already being led away by the men. 'Let him go! You have no right!'
Like a fury, she turned on Pâques, who was busy putting handcuffs on Perez and giving him into the care of one of his men. 'You have no right, do you hear? Tomorrow I shall go to the Emperor! He shall know everything! He will listen to me.'
The inspector's hand reached out and caught her arm in a grip of such brutal hardness that she gasped with pain:
'That's enough of that. Be quiet, now, unless you want me to take you along as well! It is not proved that you were an accessory to the crime and I am letting you go free for the present. But you will be watched… and you are free only so long as you keep quiet. One of my men will see you to your coach and escort you home, after which you will not go out again on any pretext whatever. And remember, I shall have my eye on you.'
Marianne's sorely-tried nerves gave way all at once. She sank down on to the stone seat and, laying her head in her hands, began to cry hopelessly, using up what little strength she had left. Two men came out of the billiard-room carrying a stretcher on which lay a large form covered with a cloth which was already showing sinister dark stains here and there. Marianne watched in a kind of daze as it passed by her, her eyes and her mind a blank, beyond knowing even whether her heartbroken tears were for the good, brave man who twice saved her life, whose body they were now taking away, or for the one whom she loved with her whole being and who now stood unjustly accused of a base crime. In her mind, Cranmere's guilt was beyond all doubt. It was he who had engineered all this, he who had woven each of the fine, sticky threads of this deadly spider's web, and he who had murdered Nicolas Mallerousse, killing two birds with one stone, for at the same time he had rid himself of his pursuer and made a bloodbath of the lives of both Marianne and Jason. How could she have been so stupid, so blind as ever for one instant to believe that what he said was true? Her love had made her the tool of a villain and brought about the death of those whom she loved best in the whole world.
She got up slowly, like a sleep-walker, and began to follow the stretcher, a frail ghost in her white dress, its hem still marked with the dreadful traces of the crime. From time to time, a sob burst from her and the sound died away in the quiet, sweet-smelling darkness which had succeede
d the storm. After her, a little way behind, not altogether insensitive, perhaps, to the grief of a woman who, only the night before, had had Paris at her feet envying her wealth and beauty, and who now followed this travesty of a funeral procession like a lost and hopeless orphan, Inspector Pâques, too, made his silent way back to the house.
The big white house, a house built for pleasures and happiness, yet where Marianne had seemed to hear the sobbing of a desolate, unhappy shade, emerged through the trees illumined as though for a ball, but Marianne saw nothing but the bloodstained cloth borne before her, heard nothing but the voices of her own grief and despair. At the same mechanical pace she passed the dark groups of policemen on the terraces. She climbed the shallow steps, as though mounting the scaffold, walked through the room where she had known such brief, miraculous happiness and out into the hall, automatically obeying the inspector's voice which came to her from a great distance, telling her that her carriage was waiting at the door.
She was so far away that she did not even flinch when a black figure – another, there had been so many in that last hour! – barred her way. There was no emotion in her eyes as they encountered the burning hatred in Pilar's, she did not even ask herself what Jason's Spanish wife was doing there, and scarcely heard the words which the other woman hissed at her in a passionate fury of denunciation:
'My husband killed for you! But it is not for that he will die! It is for you! Because of you, and the curse of loving you!'
Marianne did not even look at her. She gave a little, weary shrug and moved her arm to put away the importunate figure. The woman was insane! Jason was not going to die. He could not die… not without Marianne. From now on, what meaning could there be to that word death which they kept waving in front of her, like flowers at a funeral?
Through the crowd of policemen, servants and curious onlookers, Marianne caught sight of Gracchus, his round face pinched with worry, and behind him the roof of her chaise. Instinct made her reach out to that one friendly face and that familiar refuge.
'Gracchus!' she called weakly.
Instantly Gracchus leapt forward, forging his way ruthlessly through all that separated him from his mistress.
'I'm coming, Mademoiselle Marianne!'
She clung to his arm, whispering: 'Take me away, Gracchus… take me home.'
Then the whole world spun round, the white house wheeled above her, leaving her in a lurching maelstrom of faces, trees and turning lights. Driven to the last pitch of nervous exhaustion, Marianne slid mercifully into unconsciousness. She did not hear Gracchus, before he lifted her from the ground, turn, cursing and sobbing at once, and let fly at the stunned Inspector Pâques in the argot of his native slums: 'You bleeding snuffer! If you've killed 'er I'll make sure the Little Corporal 'as the guts out of your stinking carcass, you jest see if I don't…'
CHAPTER SIX
The Screw Turns
Beneath a remarkably forbidding exterior, the effect of consorting daily with rogues, thieves, murderers and malefactors of all kinds, Inspector Pâques concealed a considerable degree of subtlety. Jason Beaufort's arrest caused none of the stir which might have been expected. The only witnesses had been a handful of villagers from Passy, attracted by the commotion, and the four newspapers of the day, duly muzzled by the police and by a rigorous censorship, breathed not a word. Moreover, society was for the most part in the process of leaving Paris for its country estates or for a variety of fashionable watering places and consequently did not learn of the affair until a long time afterwards. Apart from the Minister of Police, the Queen of Spain, with whom Pilar found an immediate refuge, Talleyrand, who was told of it by a distraught Marianne first thing the next morning, and, of course, the Emperor, no one was told what had happened.
As far as Marianne herself was concerned, the order for silence had been immediate and categorical. The very next evening, Savary came hurrying round to inform that his department had received stringent orders from Napoleon that the Princess Sant'Anna's name was in no circumstances to be mentioned in connection with the affair. Marianne found it difficult to be grateful for the favour.
'How can I be kept out of it when there is a horrid anonymous note accusing Mr Beaufort of killing Mallerousse for my sake?'
The Duke of Rovigo coughed discreetly and shifted in his chair, clearly ill-at-ease. He had endured a characteristically unpleasant interview with Napoleon and he could still hear the biting accents of the imperial displeasure ringing in his ears:
'His Majesty is of the opinion that the accused would be quite capable of killing for your sake, Princess, but he has condescended to inform me of the – er – ties of friendship which subsisted between yourself and the deceased and stated his conviction that it would be absurd to associate you in any way with his death.'
Napoleon's actual words had been a good deal more forceful than this but they appeared to Savary, in spite of their august source, to be more suited to the camp than to the drawing-room. Marianne, however, expressed some surprise.
'To inform you? But, my Lord Duke, are you not the Minister of Police? Is it possible that you, as Fouché's successor, can be unaware that when I first came to Paris I occupied the post of lectrice to Madame de Talleyrand-Périgord and that the name I went by was Marianne Mallerousse, although my code name in the files at the Quai Malaquais was the Star?'
'Unfortunately, Madame, both you and the Emperor would appear to have forgotten that the Duke of Otranto left me very little of any importance on which to build, that for three days he burned all his papers and files-three days!' he added sighing. 'And the Emperor blames me – as if I could have foreseen it! I have had to start from scratch, patiently finding out who was working for us and on whom I could still count.'
'Not on me, at all events,' Marianne cut him short. She was not in the least interested in the minister's troubles but she knew Fouché well enough to imagine the perverse pleasure he would have taken in making a clean sweep before his successor took over. 'But all this is beside the point. I must see the Emperor, Duke. It is of the utmost importance. I cannot let him do anything so dreadfully unjust as to allow Mr Beaufort to stand trial. To suspect him of so sordid a crime when he has always behaved as a sincere friend to our country would be a monstrous thing to do! Monsieur de Talleyrand knows him as well as I do, he can tell you…'
'No, Madame,' Savary said, shaking his head gloomily. 'His Majesty guessed that you would wish to see him. He charged me to tell you that it is quite out of the question.'
At this blow, delivered in a firm, though not unsympathetic voice, Marianne's colour drained away:
'The Emperor – refuses to see me?'
'Yes, Madame. He told me that he would send for you when he judged that the time was ripe, which it is not at present. There are certain circumstances which make it appear that Monsieur Beaufort may have been less our friend than you imagine.'
'And even if that were true,' Marianne cried passionately, 'even if he hated us, would that be sufficient reason to leave him to face an unjust and ridiculous charge?'
'My dear Princess, this is a serious matter and it is essential that it be cleared up. Leave it to the law to uncover the whole truth about what happened at Passy.'
'Yes indeed – and the law can only benefit from hearing what I have to say. I was with Monsieur Beaufort when the crime was committed and, what is more to the point, I know who is, or rather are, the real murderers of Nicolas Mallerousse. If the Emperor refuses to listen to me, then you, Duke, must hear what I have to say. The man who did this murder and carefully covered up his crime in order to throw the blame for it on to another was—'
But Marianne was not fated to find anyone willing to listen to her. Savary cut her short, laying a hand soothingly on her arm:
'My dear Princess, I have told you the Emperor does not wish to have you involved in the matter. Trust my department to discover the real murderer – if, that is, we have not already discovered him.'
'But won't you liste
n to me, at least! I was there, I know all about it, you must admit that I am a valuable witness! Even if what I tell you must remain between ourselves, surely it will save you from making a mistake?'
'Valuable, perhaps – but certainly not impartial. No,' Savary went on quickly, forestalling a further protest from Marianne, 'I have not yet done with the Emperor's orders concerning you.'
'Orders?' she echoed, with some alarm.
Ignoring the question in her voice, which might have led him into invidious explanations, the Duke of Rovigo confined himself to expounding the nature of his instructions, taking the trouble to soften them slightly in the process:
'His Majesty desires you to leave Paris within the next few days for some other locality which may be agreeable to you.'
Marianne rose at this, oblivious of the pains the minister had taken to wrap up the harshness of the command, for command it was.
'Let us be frank, Duke. The Emperor is exiling me? Then tell me so plainly, if you please.'
'By no means, Madame,' Savary said, with a suggestion of a sigh which spoke volumes for his longing to be anywhere but where he was. 'It is merely that His Majesty wishes you to spend the summer away from Paris. Anywhere you like – so long as it is at least fifty leagues distant… the summer and also possibly the autumn, no more. What could be more natural, indeed, for nearly all our beauties have left Paris for some watering place – my own wife is leaving shortly for the waters at Plombiëres… You will merely be following the general fashion. There could be nothing more natural, after all, when one recalls that you are barely recovered from your illness after the tragedy at the Austrian ambassador's ball. You will return to us fully restored in health and more beautiful than ever, Princess, and no one will be more happy to see you than your humble servant.'
Marianne listened to her visitor's words with an attentive frown. She did not understand this sudden determination to send her off somewhere to take the waters for what was after all, considering that she had incurred the imperial wrath, a comparatively short spell of time. When Napoleon ordered the retirement of one of his subjects who had displeased him it was generally for a much longer period. Because she liked to have an answer to her questions if it were at all possible, she framed this thought aloud:
Marianne and the Privateer Page 16