The Prisoner in the Mask

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘Well!’ said the Colonel. ‘I hope you didn’t find the journey too uncomfortable?’

  De Quesnoy would have liked to reply that it had been hellish, and to pour vitriolic curses on both the people who had given Roux his orders and on him for accepting them; but he did not dare. It could not be much over forty hours since the Colonel had talked with the real de Vendôme, so his memory of the Prince’s voice must still be too fresh for the false one to risk speaking to him. Instead of replying he again bent his head and stared at his feet.

  ‘Still sulking, eh?’ Roux commented with a shrug. ‘It won’t do you any good, my poor friend. You’d much better be sensible and give me your promise to make no trouble about putting your mask on again; then I will unlock it and you can have a proper wash.’

  Receiving no response from his prisoner, he stepped back out of the cell and sent the two warders into it. One of them carried a basket, from which he renewed the supply of food and drink in the cupboard; the other emptied the basin and the slop pail, put disinfectant in the latter, and filled the big enamel jug with fresh water. When they had done, Roux came in again and said:

  ‘I have just been told that we shall be here for two days or more; so if there is anything you want now is the time to ask, and if my instructions permit I will get it for you.’

  De Quesnoy made a pretence of shivering and, pulling the top blanket from the bed, held it up.

  ‘I see,’ said the Colonel. ‘So you are feeling the cold. Well, that is not surprising. But why the devil can’t you say so? All right, I’ll do what I can to make things better for you.’

  When Roux had gone the Count had another meal, and while he ate it he pondered the problem raised by the Colonel’s statement that they would remain where they were for at least two days. Whatever fortress he was being taken to, there seemed no reason why two days should elapse in the middle of the journey before the truck carrying the cell could be hitched on to another train going in the right direction. His speculations failed to produce the solution to this mystery, but a few hours later he was given it, and it plunged him in near despair.

  Late in the afternoon Roux and the warders returned. With them they brought an oil-stove and an oil lamp. When these had been installed the Colonel produced three paper-backed novels from his greatcoat pockets and said: ‘These may help to occupy your mind until we can get you aboard the ship.’

  At the last word the Count almost blurted out an exclamation of dismay. He managed to suppress it but could feel his pulses racing from shock, and fury at his impotence to parry this new blow, as Roux went on:

  ‘I had expected the cruiser to be waiting to put to sea when we got here, but she was not; and her captain is most averse to having you put aboard until he is ready to sail. She will be coaling all day tomorrow, but from the latest information I have received we may be able to get you on to her the following evening.’

  Left alone once more, de Quesnoy succumbed to a bout of acute dejection. He had expected to be taken to one of the old fortresses in which for many generations political prisoners had been confined. Nearly all the jailers and staffs of such places were drawn from the local inhabitants, so it would have been easy for his friends to get in touch with and attempt to bribe some of them. And if, with or without outside help, he managed to escape he would still have been in France, with a very good chance of disappearing among the population.

  Whereas now it was clear that he was to be sent to one or other of France’s penal colonies—French Guiana, on the northern coast of South America, or on Numea, an island in the Pacific. Both were so far from France that there could be no question of his friends helping him to escape; and if on his own he did succeed in getting away from the convict settlement, he would be in either a white man among natives, so specially liable to recognition and recapture. Still worse, before he could really count himself free he would have to face the desperate hazards of a month-long journey through primitive jungle or in a small boat across shark-infested seas.

  His one rag of consolation was that in such places there were only small fortresses and these were not normally used as prisons, so that should make an initial escape easier; but against the dark background it was so small a ray that he spent the evening in abysmal gloom, and could not even bring himself to look at the novels that Roux had brought him.

  The delay imposed by the cruiser’s coaling aggravated him still further. As Roux knew the prisoner who had been brought to the Cherche-Midi with a sack over his head to be the Duke de Vendôme, and the two warders were also in the secret to the extent of knowing that a leather mask had been forced upon this special prisoner to conceal his identity, it had been sound policy on General André’s part to avoid disclosing his inhuman treatment of the prisoner to others by ordering Roux, despite his rank, and his two men to act as escort to the port. Yet, once arrived, de Quesnoy could reasonably have hoped to be handed over at once to another officer, who was not in the secret. Even were he made privy to it, the odds were all against his ever having met de Vendôme; so, once Roux was out of the way, the Count could have spoken to his new jailers with no risk and allowed his mask to be removed with very little, but as long as Roux remained in charge of him he dared do neither.

  The following day, and the next, dragged by with interminable slowness. On both, his escorts paid him visits morning and evening to clear his slops and replenish his larder. Then, on the evening of December 28th, they came again late at night. Roux told him that the cell was shortly to be loaded on to a tender, then the men removed the oil-stove, the oil lamp, the water jug and the slop-pail, as a precaution against any of them being tipped over during the move.

  For the prisoner, the hour and a half that followed were extremely unpleasant. The cell was first shunted about, then swayed wildly as it was transferred by a crane from the railway truck to the tender. For a while the deck heaved gently under it, then the tender cast off and no sooner was she clear of the harbour than she was bucking like a bronco. Actually it was not particularly rough but the little vessel was moving diagonally across the waves and de Quesnoy, imagining that a storm was raging, became considerably alarmed.

  The transfer of bulky freight by derrick from one vessel to another in rough weather is a tricky business, and should a mishap occur in this case he saw himself being drowned like a rat in a trap. During the final stages, as the cell hung and spun in midair, his anxiety was acute, but it landed safely on the cruiser’s deck and was soon after made fast.

  During the past two days he had almost been counting the hours until, his journey over, he would be relieved of the discomfort of his belt and chain and transferred from his travelling cell to more spacious quarters. Cruisers, he knew, always kept a good cabin available to accommodate high government officials on special missions, so there seemed a reasonable hope that the one in this ship would be used as a cell for him during the voyage. There was always the unpleasant possibility that they would put him in the lazaret, but as he was a Prisoner of State he thought that very unlikely.

  How he was treated during the next few weeks would, he assumed, depend upon the ship’s Captain; and once the cell had settled on the cruiser’s deck he began to wait impatiently for Colonel Roux to hand him over. It was not that he had any reason to complain of Roux, for the Colonel had behaved throughout with all the consideration that his orders permitted; but the Count was eager to see the last of him, so that he could speak again and—after making certain that the Captain had never met de Vendôme—have his mask removed so that he could wash properly at least once a day.

  In all these hopes he was doomed to grievous disappointment. Ten minutes after the cell had been put on board its door was unlocked. There stood Colonel Roux and behind him the two warders; but they were not accompanied by a Naval officer. During the transfer from shore to ship a plate, a cup and a bottle of wine had been smashed. The men cleared up the mess, replaced the oil-stove and other things, then withdrew; after which the Colonel addressed his pr
isoner.

  ‘I see no reason why I should not tell you now, Monsieur, that you are being taken to Guiana. The night you were brought to the Cherche-Midi was an unlucky one for me, as the knowledge of who you are was forced upon me and the government are determined to restrict that secret to as few people as possible. In consequence, I was ordered to convey you to your destination, and to use as escorts the two warders who have acted as your guards from the beginning; so that no story of a prisoner in a mask should get about Paris after you had left, or become known among the crew of the ship through having to employ marines to wait upon you during the voyage.

  ‘On my return to France I am to be promoted to General of Brigade and appointed Inspector of Military Prisons; but I can assure you that I would rather have retired as a Colonel than perform this most unsoldierly duty. However, General André made it quite plain that, should I refuse the proffered bribe, the alternative was that he would find an excuse to break me and see to it that I was deprived of my pension. I can only hope that you will not think too badly of me for carrying out orders which disgrace those who gave them, rather than face poverty in my old age.

  ‘At all events, by allowing Madame Syveton to take leave of you I have already shown my goodwill, and I am anxious to do what I can to make the voyage endurable for you. This travelling cell will have to remain your quarters, as only by keeping you in it can I be certain of preventing you from communicating with members of the crew. But I hope that you will be sensible and give up the sulky silence that you have maintained since we left Paris, as we could then discuss the possibility of allowing you to take some exercise, and at times giving you relief from the misery that wearing that leather helmet must cause you. Please consider this matter seriously, and for your own sake be prepared to talk to me when I come to you again tomorrow morning.’

  In spite of the Colonel’s friendly intentions, the things he had just said had the effect on de Quesnoy of a series of sickening body blows. His mind reeled under the impact as he grasped how completely they shattered his best expectations. In half-a-dozen sentences his optimistic day-dreams of a comfortable cabin, of being transferred to the charge of a Naval officer with whom he could talk without risk, and a good chance of being able to be rid of his mask for a while each morning, had been dissipated. For a fortnight or more he must remain chained like a wild beast in the narrow cell. For the last week of the voyage they would be running down through the tropics, so the heat up there on deck would become almost unbearable. Since the Colonel’s orders were to keep him segregated, as though he were a leper, it was clear that he would not be allowed to go below to have a bath, and for his own safety he must deny himself even a proper wash or shave.

  The fact that Roux—the one man who, on seeing his face, would know for certain that he was not de Vendôme, so feel compelled to take him back to France for trial and execution—should be accompanying him to his destination was the bitterest pill of all. That condemned him also to continued silence; yet only by talking could he hope to secure some amelioration of his unhappy lot.

  The Colonel had hardly left him before the screws of the cruiser began to turn. To the accompaniment of their dull throbbing, and a slight rolling of the ship, he strove to think of some way in which he might minimize the acute miseries that lay ahead of him without giving away that he had tricked Roux by taking de Vendôme’s place. For an hour or more he racked his brains in vain; they were dull and unresponsive. Then there recurred to him a means of obtaining guidance which can be explained only in terms of the supernatural, yet is widely practised by many down-to-earth people—namely that if one goes to sleep thinking of a problem one often wakes up with the answer to it.

  Settling himself as comfortably as he could he concentrated his thoughts upon his predicament until he dropped off to sleep and, sure enough, on waking in a chilly dawn he had received good counsel. When Roux came to him some hours later, he still ignored his greeting; but used an index finger on the cupboard top to convey the idea of writing.

  The Colonel sent one of his men for paper and pencil, and when they were brought de Quesnoy wrote:

  I have committed no crime, so the punishment that I am receiving from men must be the will of God. Since it is His wish that I should suffer, I desire to acquire merit with Him by accepting even greater suffering than your superiors intend that you should impose upon me. I have therefore taken a vow that I will neither speak nor allow myself to be relieved of my mask until God is pleased to show His satisfaction with me by bringing about my release from captivity.

  The Count had an uneasy feeling that he was taking the Creator’s name in vain; but it was just the sort of line that de Vendôme, with his deep religious sense, might have taken, and Roux accepted it without question.

  Looking up from the writing, he said, ‘Monsieur, had you asked for paper and informed me sooner of this vow you have taken I would never have pressed you to speak; and you may rest assured that I shall do nothing which might tempt you to break it. Now I know the reason for your silence I will put to you the proposition that I had in mind.

  ‘As you can see, through the doorway behind me, your cell has been lashed down on the stern deck of the ship. If an awning is rigged above this little semi-circle of deck, that would prevent its being overlooked from amidships, and by the erection of a few canvas screens it could be shut off from the rest of the deck. If I arrange for these measures to be taken, so that you can be let out twice a day to enjoy air and exercise, are you prepared to give me your word that you will neither seek to break away into the main part of the ship, so that the crew would see you, or, should we pass another ship, jump overboard in an attempt to escape to her?’

  Taking the paper back, de Quesnoy wrote on it, Yes. I give you my parole on both counts for the duration of the voyage; and I am deeply grateful to you for the consideration you are showing me.

  Roux nodded and gave his rather frosty smile. ‘That is settled then. I only wish that for the nights, at least, I could relieve you of your helmet—as had been my intention. But the vow you have taken now precludes that.’

  The Count nodded in reply. His fury of frustration at being unable to accept the Colonel’s humane suggestion was almost unbearable, but he dared not do so.

  That day he had to remain confined in his cell, for the cruiser had put out from La Rochelle, and as she ploughed south-westward across the Bay of Biscay the weather was too rough for the sailors to be able to rig up the screens on the stern deck; but on the second afternoon out they managed to do so, and that evening de Quesnoy, watched by Roux and one of the warders, but hidden from all other eyes, was able to stretch his legs for an hour.

  Soon winter was left behind and from the New Year’s Day of 1904 the ship ran smoothly through calm sparkling seas under nearly cloudless skies. Given normal circumstances, congenial companionship, and freedom from worry, few things could have been more pleasant than to be a passenger aboard her; but the Count’s circumstances were far from normal, his only companions three men to whom he was debarred from speaking and he was intensely worried.

  During the few hours that he had been in the Cherche-Midi his prospects of making his escape within the next few weeks had seemed to him reasonably good, but, being a realist, he could not now help regarding them with much less optimism.

  Since it was of such importance to the government to keep the identity of their prisoner secret, he felt certain that on arriving in Guiana he would not be sent to one of the penal settlements, but would be confined in the small fort at its capital, Cayenne. To break out of it should prove no more difficult than to escape from a fortress in France, although without aid that would have proved a formidable enough task. But other considerations made his chances in Guiana less good. Apart from the difficulties of escaping from the colony after having escaped from the fort, there loomed the horrible possibility that before he had had time even to plan an escape he might go down with fever.

  He knew that the whole coast was infes
ted with myriads of malaria-carrying mosquitoes and that few white men who went there got off without a severe bout of yellow fever, while a high proportion of them died from it. Confined in some dungeon or little-frequented tower, with almost certain indifferent medical attention, his chances of survival would be poor.

  The grim thought occurred to him that General André might well have chosen Guiana as the place of imprisonment for de Vendôme in the hope that the Prince would succumb to ‘Yellow Jack’, and the government thus be rid of him once and for all. In any case, if he did catch the fever it would weaken him to the extent of putting any prospect of escape out of the question for some time to come. Meanwhile, at any time the news might reach Cayenne that de Vendôme was free; so a delay of even a few weeks caused by sickness might well cost him his life.

  In addition to his dark forebodings about the future, he had to contend with his miseries of the present. For twenty hours out of every twenty-four he was cooped up in his box and the nearer the ship drew to the equator the more stuffy and breathless it became. In spite of his having given his parole, Colonel Roux would not allow him out except when he meant to remain on deck himself, and when the heat became tropical that was only in the mornings and evenings; so during the long torrid middle of the day his prisoner was condemned to sweat and stifle.

  There was, too, the torture he endured from the mask. He had expected that with time he would become so accustomed to wearing it that it would cause him comparatively little inconvenience, but that proved far from the case. Considering it of the utmost importance to keep all his muscles in good shape against the time when he might attempt to escape, to begin with he spent long periods every day performing a variety of exercises, but as the temperature increased so did his sweating, with the maddening result that the tough leather edges of the helmet chafed sore places round his neck. Reluctantly he gave up doing most of the exercises, but in spite of that the sores refused to heal, and the dried sweat which he could not wash away from his scalp or the stubble of a growing beard drove him nearly mad with irritation.