The Prisoner in the Mask

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘There would be if we lived in New York, or in any city that people of our own kind visit, or break their journey at while on their travels. That is unless we changed our habits entirely and resigned ourselves to live out our lives as bourgeoisi in a suburb of some provincial town.’

  ‘No! No! We are not cut out for that. But it was South America I had in mind. I need disclose my real name only to the Minister of War of one of the Republics there to secure a staff appointment in its Army. My being a political exile would be excuse enough for me then to adopt a nom-de-guerre. There seemed to me no reason why, if I presented you under it as my wife, anyone should ever question your legal title to that position.’

  Angela shook her head. ‘Do you really think that a South American politician could be trusted to keep your real name secret from his friends. Besides, from time to time we should have to attend official receptions, and sooner or later some French diplomat or chance visitor to the place would recognise us.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ de Quesnoy admitted reluctantly. ‘I must confess that during these months we have been apart I have dwelt only on the broader picture. Heaven knows the countless hours I’ve spent building “castles in Spain” of you and I living together; but I fear I have tended to thrust from my mind the practical difficulty of two people as well known as ourselves managing to continue to live the sort of life that is congenial to us, and at the same time covering up indefinitely all evidence of our true identities.’

  Stretching out a hand Angela took his and pressed it. ‘My dear love, it distresses me most terribly to bring those “castles in Spain” you have been building tumbling down; but if we once embarked for this land of Cytherea there would be no turning back, we should deserve the reproaches of all who are dear to us and, I am convinced, soon have cause bitterly to regret our temerity.’

  Hardly comprehending yet that the roseate prospect with which he had buoyed up his spirits for so many months had been shattered in even fewer minutes, he stared at her unhappily, then muttered in a miserable and puzzled voice:

  ‘What, then, do you suggest that we should do?’

  For the first time that night she smiled right into his eyes, as she replied. ‘I too have thought about our future a great deal and, if only you love me enough, there is a way in which by one stroke we could eliminate the possibility of any of these horrid situations of which we have been talking.’

  ‘What is it?’ he asked eagerly. ‘Tell me?’

  ‘That I should get an annulment of my marriage to Gabriel; then I’d be free to marry you.’

  ‘An annulment,’ he repeated, his face falling. ‘Yes, I had thought of that. But even if you could get one it would take years; two at least, perhaps more.’

  ‘I did say “if you loved me enough”. In other words, if you are prepared to wait. After all it is now over nine years since we first fell in love. Surely it would be worth waiting a few more if by doing so we need not sacrifice our relatives and friends, can have children who would be legitimate, and instead of being outlawed by society remain respected members of it.’

  ‘It would if we could be certain that your plea for an annulment would be granted. But, with long intervals between, such pleas are submitted to a succession of clerical courts, any one of which—even the last after years of waiting—has the power to throw it out. And, once refused, no appeal is allowed.’

  ‘I know that; but I am sure it is largely a question of money and influence. Rome would not willingly go against a request made by the champions of Catholicism in France, and many of them are members of the Monarchist Committee; so my personal friends. A word in the right ear from some of them, and I have very little doubt that my plea for an annulment would be granted.’

  ‘In that you are probably right,’ he agreed thoughtfully. ‘Much would depend, though, on Gabriel’s attitude. His agreement and co-operation are essential to your building up a good case. Either that or being able to produce evidence of his having committed some gross infringement of the marital state, and the Church does not regard ordinary infidelity in that light.’

  ‘An annulment would enable him to preserve his dignity; so I feel certain that he would agree to one rather than have me run away from him, and should he refuse I mean to threaten him with doing so.’

  De Quesnoy gave a grim little smile. ‘That certainly is sound psychology. When told that you mean to leave him anyhow, he will probably even be grateful for the chance to escape the humiliation the alternative would inflict on him. But on what grounds could you make your plea to the clerical court?’

  ‘I lived with Gabriel only during the first year of our marriage, and it would be difficult for anyone to show proof that I did so even then. We have had no children, so we could declare that the marriage had never been consummated. Gabriel has stretched his conscience in other matters often enough not to make any bones about abetting me in that.’

  With a cheerfulness that he had not shown since the beginning of their conversation, the Count admitted, ‘I must confess that you’ve convinced me of the soundness of your plan; and handled the way you suggest I think now that all the odds are on its succeeding.’ But a moment later his face clouded over as he added, ‘All the same, to have to wait so long will be devilish hard to bear. We are already getting towards the end of our twenties, and the next two or three years should be the best in our lives. Now we are agreed that nothing short of living together as man and wife will satisfy us, to have to waste them while the annulment is going through is almost as hard as a prison sentence.’

  Angela raised one eyebrow and her lips twitched in a smile. ‘Aren’t you being a little slow-witted, darling? Or at least being a bit too literal about your “nothing short of living as man and wife”. I agree that to enter now on a back-stairs intrigue could lead only to frustration for us both. But on the day that I apply for an annulment I shall leave Gabriel, so there will no longer be any question of back-stairs. We would have to be very, very careful and we could live together only at intervals, but—’

  Again de Quesnoy’s face lit up. ‘Of course! How stupid of me not to have realised that. The whole thing takes on a new aspect looked at in that light. The sooner you tackle Gabriel the better, then. I beg you to do so in the morning, and I’ll return tomorrow night to hear how things have gone.’

  Her smile faded and she shook her head. ‘No, I’m afraid I can’t do that. I told you when we met in the Isle of Wight that certain complications had arisen which prevented me from taking any definite step about my future. I was hoping that by now everything would have been straightened out, but it hasn’t yet. There is no point in my approaching Gabriel until, given his agreement, we could go to our lawyers and set the ball rolling. Once we did that it would soon get out that we are separating, and I don’t want to let him down.’

  ‘Let him down!’ echoed the Count, aghast. ‘Angela darling! What the devil are you talking about? Why this sudden concern for him? There has never been even a shadow of love between you. As a bride you were treated by him abominably and for a year or more afterwards you went in terror of him. Then he went back to his practice of seducing young girls of the lower classes, and after a time you went your own way. Apart from having shared the same roof and name for ten years, you have nothing—’

  ‘We have that. He is still my husband, and he is in trouble.’

  ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘About money. I have dreaded something like this for a long time. For years past he has neglected his own affairs to devote all his energies to the Ligue de la Patrie; and after his costly campaign to get himself elected as a Deputy he had to sell the foundry at Lens that was left to him by his father. Since then things have been going from bad to worse, and unless he can make some arrangement with his largest creditors he may have to go bankrupt.’

  ‘He has only himself to blame,’ commented the Count angrily. ‘When he married you he had a fine fortune. The fact that he has given his time to politics inste
ad of business has no bearing on its loss. By doing so he may have sacrificed his chance to increase it, but to keep it needed only common sense and that he should live within his income. As it is he has squandered it on keeping a succession of young women still in their ‘teens, then, as he tired of them, paying them or their families off. On that, and on living beyond his means so that he might cut a figure in society and hobnob with people of birth and breeding. If he now goes bankrupt it will be through no fault of yours. You owe him nothing.’

  ‘I do, Armand. It is true that, ever since I first suspected that he was overspending himself, I have urged him to sell this big house and let us live more modestly; and that he refused to do. But he has always been most generous towards me. Expensive clothes, equipages, masses of flowers, lavish entertaining; he has paid every bill that I have run up without a murmur.’

  ‘Mort de Dieu! And so he should. He was only carrying out the unspoken bargain made when he married you. A hundred other men would have done the same, and made you far happier.’

  ‘Nevertheless, my extravagance in the past must have done much to contribute to his ruin.’

  ‘If, in you, he bought something that he could not afford, that is his funeral. Anyhow, what of it?’

  ‘Simply that I feel under an obligation to help him, as far as I can, to get straight again. It was for that reason that I went to England in May and returned only for the wedding. My absence enabled us to cut out all entertaining for four and a half months, and to run the house with only a skeleton staff.’

  ‘But what of the future? Should he fail to recover and be sold up, or even have to retrench to the extent of leaving here for some suburban villa, surely you do not intend to remain with him? The Saints themselves would not expect you to martyr yourself to that extent for a man who means nothing to you.’

  Angela smiled rather wanly. ‘No, I’m certainly not seeking a crown in Heaven, and there is a limit to what I am prepared to do. The crux of the matter is that if I left him now those who know of his difficulties would look upon me as a rat leaving the sinking ship. They are mostly money-lenders, for whom I have only contempt; so for myself I would not give a rap what they think. But it might lead them to suppose that his position is even worse than it is, and so wreck his last chance of recovery.’

  Beneath his brown beard, de Quesnoy’s lips curled cynically. ‘So you prefer to put the interests of this husband of yours, to whom you owe little or nothing, before the feelings of the man whom you say you love?’

  ‘Armand, you are unfair. Having been his wife for ten years, I am willing to give him a few more months; but that is all. Whereas if you were in difficulties I would stop at nothing to save you. Besides, say that I was willing to elope with you this very night, would you agree?’

  He shrugged uncomfortably. ‘You have me there. You know that I cannot consider myself a free man until this chancy game that I have started has been played out to a finish.’

  ‘You see! And you will not even leave Paris, although I beg you to. I am not attempting to bribe you by saying that I would go with you; but won’t you please reconsider that? For one man to attempt to overturn a government is surely tilting at windmills, and it could so easily lead to a long term of imprisonment. For both our sakes, please, please, give up this mad endeavour and go abroad again.’

  ‘No,’ he replied firmly. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.’

  For a further half-hour they continued to argue without either gaining any concrete concession from the other. He grudgingly agreed that, if by Christmas he had failed to secure evidence of the connection between the Grand Orient and the Government, he would consider abandoning the attempt, and she that should Syveton’s affairs take a turn for the better she would then put to him her wish for an annulment. Having reached this understanding, they parted.

  As Angela let him out and watched his slim figure disappear across the lawn into the darkness, she wondered if she had been really justified in postponing the issue. Armand, she felt, had been so right in saying that these were the best years of their lives; so, now that both of them were convinced that they could never be really happy apart, it seemed out of all reason to allow even days, let alone months, to elapse before taking the action required to secure her freedom. Yet Gabriel, despite his many shortcomings, had in the main behaved very generously towards her, and she knew that she could not have abandoned him with a clear conscience as long as his difficulties remained unresolved.

  De Quesnoy, on the other hand, was thinking only of how well Angela had made her case for annulment as opposed to an elopement. Now that he gave his mind to the down-to-earth aspects of the matter he realised how right she was in her contention that for them to attempt to live under false names as a married couple was not practical.

  Either they would be a constant prey to fears of recognition—and perhaps even blackmail—or as the price of security they would have to submerge themselves indefinitely in the great mass of the middle classes. Living in suburbs or small provincial towns would mean that, to escape unwelcome comment, they must give up all the luxuries to which they had so long been accustomed. For her there could be no personal maid, or carriage, or clothes of the latest fashion; for him no hunting, no career, no fine wines and cigars. Above all, in such surroundings there could be little hope of making new friends who were able to share their interests, or even capable of understanding the thoughts and habits they had brought with them from having lived for so long in an utterly different world. They would be completely dependent on one another and without occupation or ambition to engage their minds. Being a realist, he acknowledged to himself that in such circumstances even the greatest love must wilt and die before many years had passed.

  It irked him somewhat that out of consideration for Syveton Angela refused to set the ball rolling at once; but he consoled himself with the thought that even if she had taken immediate steps to break with her past, until he had completed his self-imposed mission he would be in no situation to reap the joys that her freedom promised.

  During the month that followed he continued with dogged persistence to pursue the furtive and cheerless existence to which he had condemned himself. After nearly five months’ association with the Masons he was now fully accepted by a wide circle of them as a keen and promising initiate, but he had made no progress at all towards their inner councils, and might not have done so for an almost indefinite period had it not been for a chance encounter one night in the third week of October.

  He had attended a session at the Temple of the Grand Orient and afterwards, to relieve his boredom, he walked round the corner and spent an hour in the Folies Bergère. On coming out, he crossed the road and turned down the Rue de Trévise. Halfway along it he happened to glance through the window of a small café. Inside he saw Jean Bidegain seated alone at a table; so he went in and joined him.

  Bidegain was a small, grey-haired man with mutton-chop whiskers and a sallow complexion. He was drinking absinthe, and it was soon clear to de Quesnoy that his mind was already befuddled with the insidious potion. Their talk naturally turned on Masonic matters and the Count’s progress in studying to take his second degree. After ordering Bidegain another absinthe he asked him if he had a particular fondness for the drink.

  With a shrug the little man replied, ‘It is the cheapest way to buy forgetfulness, and I have many troubles. I often come here to put away enough to make me sleep at night.’

  Tactfully, de Quesnoy asked if there were any way in which he could be of help, but Bidegain shook his head. ‘Not unless you are richer than you look, and crazy enough to give money away. Money is my trouble. I’ve an invalid wife, and four children to educate. I’m up to my eyes in debt, and for two pins would throw myself into the Seine.’

  ‘Surely the Grand Orient would help you,’ the Count suggested. ‘There is a big fund for assisting brothers who are in distress. Why don’t you apply for a grant from it?’

  ‘I did, and they made me one.’ Bid
egain picked up the carafe and let the water drip through the sugar on the pierced spoon into the clear green spirit, turning it to an opaque opal hue, then he added thickly, ‘But they found out that I used it to buy lottery tickets; so they refuse to help me further: And the salary they pay me is a pittance.’

  De Quesnoy raised his eyebrows. ‘You surprise me. I should have thought that, as principal assistant to the Secretary-General, your services would have merited a very handsome remuneration.’

  ‘You are right. But Vadecard is a mean swine. And when you think of the power I have. At times it makes me boil.’

  ‘Yes, in your position you must have great influence,’ agreed the Count quickly.

  Bidegain sucked down a long draught of absinthe. His eyes were slightly bleary, and when he spoke again it was to blurt out boastfully, ‘Not influence—power, I said! I can make or mar the careers of half the officers in the Army.’

  ‘Oh, come!’ The Count’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he gave a quick laugh. ‘You can hardly expect me to believe that.’

  ‘I can,’ Bidegain insisted. ‘When Vadecard’s been through the fiches he keeps a few, then passes the rest on to me for filing till … till they’re ready at the War Office for another batch.’

  ‘The fiches?’ queried de Quesnoy innocently.

  ‘Yes, man. The denunciations we receive about these accursed Catholics. And I select those that go in. By … by pushing one forward quickly I can … can get a General or a Colonel broken right away. If I hold up the fiche about him they … they forget about him, see. That’s power, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes; it would be if you had it. But you must take me for a simpleton if you think I’ll swallow this tall story of yours that Vadecard leaves it to you to—’

  ‘He does,’ Bidegain broke in. ‘At least, in most cases. I can put a fiche on … on the top of the pile or … or tear it up. There are hundreds of ’em. If I des … destroyed a score, no-one’d miss them.’