The Prisoner in the Mask

by Dennis Wheatley

  She had hardly recovered from the shock of learning that her cavalier, instead of being as chaste as Galahad, was a cynical roué, and she felt that she would never be able to forgive him for destroying the illusions she might otherwise have carried away with her. All the same, the thought of his handsome face cut and bleeding from the strokes of a whip made her heart contract. If she could have saved him by taking the blame upon herself she would have done so willingly, but she could think of no possible story which, in her husband’s eyes, would excuse his presence there.

  As Syveton closed the door behind him and advanced into the room with heavy steps, it was all she could do to keep herself from fainting. At any moment now the explosion must come, to be followed most probably by a horrible fracas at the foot of her bed, in which her husband, being by far the more powerful of the two, was certain to get the best of it; but not before the sound of the conflict had brought several other men running to the room, to be witnesses of her eternal shame.

  It was de Quesnoy who spoke first. Only a few seconds had elapsed between Syveton opening the door and shutting it. He still had his eyes on the candle flame and had taken only a couple of paces when, in a cheerful welcoming voice, the Count exclaimed:

  ‘Ah, Madame! Here is your natural protector.’

  Syveton stopped dead in his tracks. Most of his body was invisible, but the candle he was carrying lit up his broad pale face, across which his drooping moustache now threw a grotesque shadow. Taken entirely by surprise, he exclaimed:

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Armand de Quesnoy,’ came the prompt reply from out of the dimness beyond the bed.

  There was a moment’s awful silence. As Angela waited for her husband’s reaction she clenched her hands until the finger-nails dug into her palms. Yet when he spoke the restraint he was exercising on himself was hardly perceptible. In a flat but courteous tone he inquired:

  ‘May I ask Monsieur le Comte what he is doing here?’

  ‘Why, deputising for you, Monsieur,’ the voice declared without a quiver.

  Angela closed her eyes. This was the end. Why could the dear, handsome, wicked fool not at least have made a pretence that he had got into her room by a mistake? After abject apologies Syveton might have accepted such an excuse rather than become involved in a quarrel which would make him non persona grata with the young man’s father. But to dot the I’s and cross the T’s …! It was true enough that had it not been for her repulse of Armand they might actually have been found between the sheets together. Yet nothing of the kind had happened; so why in Heaven imply that it had, or was about to. Such a spark, deliberately applied, could not fail to send up the powder barrel. It did.

  ‘You young jackanapes!’ Syveton roared. ‘How dare you! Ever since we arrived here you’ve hung round my wife’s skirts like a nosing spaniel. But I thought you harmless. It seems that after all you have ideas beyond your years. Very well, then! Since you are so anxious to learn, I’ll give you a lesson. Just let me find my hunting crop and I’ll flay the hide off you.’

  De Quesnoy was terribly tempted to let matters take their course. Like Louis XIV who, at the same age was a better horseman, a better swordsman and a better shot than any other man at his court, so the Count excelled in these martial accomplishments. In addition he was no mean amateur at the Russian national sport of wrestling and had even learned, from an English groom, the rudiments of boxing. In consequence, as he stood there, slender, straight and supple, but in appearance far from powerful, he felt complete confidence in his ability to make Angela’s far more weighty husband grovel. But he had her to think of. Nevertheless his voice held a quiet dignity as he said:

  ‘Were you not, Monsieur, a guest in my father’s house I should feel compelled to call upon you to explain yourself. As it is I must admit that my words, intended only as a jest, might have led you to misunderstand me. By deputising for you, I meant only that in your absence I had the honour to protect Madame, your wife, from a dragon.’

  Syveton was fuming with rage. He felt certain that the younger man was making a mockery of him; yet short of slapping his face there was nothing he could do about it. Endeavouring to swallow his anger he blurted out: ‘Dragon! How can you expect me to believe such nonsense?’

  ‘There is no nonsense about it,’ de Quesnoy assured him blandly. ‘As I was walking along the corridor I heard Madame cry out for help. Naturally I rushed to her assistance. I burst open the door. And what did I see?’ He paused dramatically.

  Angela gazed at him spellbound. Syveton stared at him for a moment almost equally fascinated, then he demanded: ‘Well, what did you see?’

  ‘A mouse,’ the Count replied, his lean young face not displaying even a vestige of humour. ‘A mouse; and it was running along the end of Madame’s bed.’

  Slowly, half-hidden by the drooping moustache, Syveton’s mouth gaped open. Astonishment fought with incredulity in his mind. Could it possibly be true? Surely not. This satanic-looking youth had been endeavouring to make him a cuckold, and being caught out had shown the presence of mind to play the buffoon as his best hope of appearing innocent.

  As though to confirm that impression de Quesnoy struck an attitude and cried: ‘It was a terrible moment! There was Madame cowering away in terror. At any second the monster might have leapt upon her. At this instant of crisis, what did I do?’

  With an impatient shake of his head, Syveton retorted: ‘Enough of this play-acting. I will afford you an opportunity to explain matters in the morning.’

  Angela’s heart sank. She had allowed herself to believe too soon that Armand had succeeded in fooling her husband. It was something that by his resource he had cushioned the first moments of their encounter, and so prevented a violent altercation leading to an immediate scandal. But he had gained only a postponement; and she still had the night to get through with the dreadful prospect of being bombarded by her husband’s jealous questioning.

  Deliberately misunderstanding, de Quesnoy answered with a smile: ‘It would ill become me, Monsieur, to boast of my own gallantry; so if the ladies are to be regaled with this exploit tomorrow I must leave the explaining to you. But you have not yet heard the dénouement yourself. As I was about to say, rushing into the room I leapt upon the monster. And here he is!’

  Withdrawing his right hand from the pocket of his robe, the Count opened it wide, displaying in his palm a dead mouse.

  It had been procured for him by his valet that afternoon, and he had brought it with him to Angela’s room as a precaution against just such an emergency as had arisen. Had he produced it at once the truth might have been suspected, but his skilful build-up had disguised the thinness of the story.

  Angela suddenly began to titter, but by a great effort checked herself, as she knew that she was bordering on hysteria and to have let it get the better of her might have given the game away. Her husband hesitated only a second, then fully convinced by this visual evidence of de Quesnoy’s innocence he held out his hand and cried:

  ‘Monsieur le Comte, I apologise. I am greatly obliged to you for having come to the rescue of my wife.’

  ‘Monsieur, it is a happiness to have been of service,’ de Quesnoy replied. Then, maintaining a perfectly straight face, instead of taking the outstretched hand he laid the dead mouse in it, and added: ‘Since you wish to dispose of the corpse of your wife’s attacker, I will not deprive you of that pleasure.’

  This macabre courtesy instantly rearoused Syveton’s suspicions that he was being made a fool of. Surely no one could really have supposed that he had held out his hand for the dead mouse? Yet throughout de Quesnoy had behaved with perfect sang-froid. Had he been there with guilty intentions it was unnatural, being so young, that he should have shown no trace of fear, or at least awkwardness. Perhaps in some ways he was a simpleton. Yes, that must be it. For all his elegance and prowess with horse and gun, he was only an overgrown boy, and it was that which accounted for the occasional slowness of his mind.

&nb
sp; As though to confirm the impression that he was mentally still half a child, the Count, having taken a few steps towards the door, turned, made a bow which included Angela, and said to her: ‘I do wish you were not going tomorrow, Madame. I have had no chance yet to show you my doll’s house. It was my mother’s when she was a little girl, and I am sure you would love it.’ Then bidding them a cheerful good night, he left the room.

  Syveton, now completely satisfied, gave a tolerant chuckle and walked through to his dressing room. Angela, who for the past few moments had been hard put to it to fight down her bubbling laughter, felt it ebb from her as though it were gas and she a suddenly pricked balloon. Armand’s last shaft had been aimed at her as well as at her husband. It was as though he had slapped her face and said: ‘You little fool! Take that for misleading me into believing you to be a grown woman, when you are fit only to play nursery games!’

  Miserably she wondered if her inability to respond to physical love meant that there was something wrong with her. Yet if there was, that was not her fault; and, in any case, she had not given Armand the least right to expect anything from her. That he should have done so revealed the unsuspected baseness of his nature; and that on leaving he should have been so unfair as to fling such a taunt at her made her seethe with anger and self-pity. Then and there she determined that should they ever be thrown together again she would do her utmost to inflict upon him a similar humiliation.

  De Quesnoy meanwhile was walking back to his own room with a buoyant stride. In his light and springy step there was something faintly reminiscent of a panther: an awareness that if he chose to exert himself he could dominate most other creatures that might cross his path. He had enormously enjoyed fooling Syveton and still believed that, given another half-hour, he could have got his way with Angela.

  That he had failed with her annoyed him. She was much more lovely than the Viennese widow his father had procured to give him an amatory education, more intelligent than little Vera Osakapinsky, more fun than the Countess Hilda von Kramm, and in an altogether different class from the ladies of the ballet whom he had paid lavishly to amuse him for a few nights during his last visits to Budapest and Odessa.

  What a tragedy, the Count’s thoughts ran on, that she should have married an oaf like Syveton. Not that he was a fool. Far from it; but he had all the heaviness in manner of a typical wealthy French bourgeois. No doubt for the past twenty years he had been so engrossed in his professorship and then politics that he had had no time to fall in love and had made do with a succession of kept women. That was no training on which to base the handling of an innocent young bride. No wonder the poor child was as she was.

  That he might have shocked her profoundly himself did not even occur to de Quesnoy; and, while he was aware that his last shaft had been a little unkind, he felt that, in the circumstances, he had been quite justified in launching it. Unless she was to waste her life she must grow up, and the sooner she was brought to realise it the better. That such a fund of natural gaiety should remain suppressed, and such radiant loveliness be allowed to go to waste, seemed to him a cardinal sin. But his charming Viennese mentor had told him that in such cases a few months often worked wonders. Secretly, he hoped to be in Paris himself by the spring. Perhaps his might yet be the magic wand that would bring Angela to life.

  Yet by the time he had got into his own four-poster bed he had ceased to think of her. With him, as with most men of strong personality, love was a thing apart: a delicious and intoxicating nectar to be quaffed once in a while in great draughts, but certainly not a thing to befuddle the wits by being lingered over when there were so many important matters awaiting attention out in the fresh air.

  The matter uppermost in de Quesnoy’s mind at the moment was certain conversations he had had with General de Galliffet. The distinguished soldier had talked at length with infectious enthusiasm about the glories of the French Army in the past and how it might yet become the means of resuscitating France’s greatness.

  Before 1870 recruitment for the Army had been based on an annual ballot by which only a minor percentage of the available males had been conscripted, but these were compelled to serve for a long term of years. Moreover, the better-off among the unlucky ones had been allowed to strike bargains with poorer lads to act as substitutes for them. This filling of the ranks almost entirely from the lowest classes had resulted in the wealthy and the bourgeois taking little interest in the lot of the common soldier. But after the Franco-Prussian war the situation was revolutionised by laws reducing the period of service to a short one while making it universal. Henceforth the Army became the concern of every family; its prowess in the Colonial wars of North Africa and Indo-China was followed with anxiety, and many reforms were introduced to better the conscripts’ conditions of service.

  This general improvement in the quality and morale of the troops, which had taken place in the past twenty years, had been paralleled by one among the officers; but mainly for a very different reason. Under the later Bourbon Monarchies and the Second Empire, promising careers had been open to young men of good family in all Government Departments. But by 1879, when Marshal Macmahon resigned from the Presidency, and the Socialist reaction gathered force, this had ceased to be the case. With men like Ferry, Jules Guesde, Juarés, Boulanger, Clemenceau and Millerand either in the Cabinet, or exercising great influence in the Chamber, it soon became apparent that the possession of an ancient name meant quite definitely that discrimination would be used against its bearer in the allocation of posts and that his prospects of promotion would be blocked from above. In consequence, since the early eighties the Army had become the only career left open to the youth of the nobility, and it had absorbed all the most promising brains among them.

  It was on these grounds that de Galliffet believed that the Army was the only real stable factor in French national life. As its officers embodied a high percentage of the most truly patriotic men in France, and its inclusion, past and present, of conscripts of all classes in its ranks made it truly representative of the whole people, he felt that in a major crisis it might be relied upon to save the country from the abyss of insolvency and anarchy to which the gangs of self-seeking politicians were every day leading it nearer.

  In his talks with de Quesnoy he had hinted very clearly that France could not have too many young officers of noble family, independent means and good education; and that it was just such men, should they show keenness and ability, who were certain to be favoured with rapid promotion. He had added that there was no necessity for such youngsters to submit to the unpleasantness of first serving in the ranks. The present practice of giving promising N.C.O.s one-third of the commissions granted was an excellent one, as it encouraged initiative and still made plausible to recruits the great Napoleon’s lure, that in every Private’s knapsack might lie a Marshal’s baton; but experience had shown that as far as the jeunesse doré were concerned far more useful military knowledge could be inculcated into them during two years at an officers’ school, so, if they proved equal to passing the tests they received their commissions direct.

  Such matters were again occupying de Quesnoy’s thoughts when he said good-bye to his father’s guests on the following morning. A troika had been provided for each of the three couples who were leaving and two more for their baggage; and while the latter was being loaded the company stood about in the hall sipping hot spiced wine.

  Angela’s face was pale and there were dark shadows under her eyes. She had hardly slept a wink as she relived the scenes which had taken place in her bedroom the previous night. Every word Armand had said to her now seemed etched on her brain, and she felt she hated him for having destroyed her girlish illusions about himself.

  On coming downstairs she had dreaded that he would manage to draw her out of ear-shot of the others for a few moments in order to murmur again that he loved her. Anything of that kind would now have embarrassed her terribly, or perhaps even driven her to retort that he did not know wh
at love was. Yet the realisation proved still worse. Having kissed her hand and made her a conventional compliment he deliberately winked at her, then left her to go and speak to de Galliffet. Had he slapped her face she could not have been more furious, and it was only by a great effort that she succeeded in hiding her anger from Madame de Camargue, who was standing nearby.

  De Quesnoy knew that his father would strongly oppose his entry into the French army, so he had not yet committed himself with de Galliffet; but he wanted to make quite certain where he stood, and he said in a low voice:

  ‘Mon Général: should I decide to come to Paris against my father’s wishes, would everything still be all right?’

  ‘Certainly.’ De Galliffet gave a sharp nod of his grey close-cropped head. ‘Monsieur le Duke has no influence whatever in French Government circles, so he could not prevent your nomination. Besides, I should sponsor your candidature myself, and that would ensure its going through automatically.’

  As de Quesnoy murmured his thanks, the General went on: ‘But you must make up your mind soon now. The year’s intake at St. Cyr will be assembling at the end of this month and even for me it might prove difficult to push you in after work at the college has started.’

  ‘I shall have decided one way or another within twenty-four hours,’ replied the young Count. ‘I have been waiting only until you left, as to have raised the matter with my father while you were still here might have embroiled you in a quarrel with him.’

  De Galliffet smiled his approval. ‘That was considerate of you, and shows a spirit that I like. Most young men would have tried to get me to win their father’s consent for them, or anyhow counted on my backing. Send me a telegram, then, and if it fulfils my hopes I will put in an application for you at once.’