The Prisoner in the Mask

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘I’d like to see some of these fiches,’ the Count murmured, ‘just as a matter of interest. But I’m sure you’re kidding. I bet you wouldn’t really dare to remove a dozen from the files.’

  Bidegain leaned forward eagerly. ‘So I’m kidding, am I? All right, what’ll you bet me?’

  ‘Fifty francs,’ replied de Quesnoy, after a moment’s hesitation; judging that to be a tempting sum while not beyond his apparent means.

  ‘Done!’ The little man gave a hiccup then a laugh. ‘It’ll be the easiest fifty francs I’ve earned for a long time.’

  Over another drink they sealed the wager that twelve fiches should be produced there by Bidegain the following night. Soon afterwards a neighbour of his who had been drinking at a nearby table came up, and the two absinthe addicts set out to see one another home. As de Quesnoy made his way back to his Pension, he was almost trembling with excitement. He felt that he had played his fish well, yet he hardly dared let himself hope that Bidegain was something better than a drunken boaster.

  Next day he found it impossible to think of anything but the meeting for that night; and when evening came it was only with the greatest difficulty that he fought down the urge to set off early for the café. When he did arrive Bidegain was there and, having had only one absinthe, was still sober. But with a smile of triumph he produced from an inner pocket a packet of papers and slapped them down on the table.

  De Quesnoy made a wry grimace, as though pained at the prospect of having to pay up; then he carefully read through the fiches. Most of them were on coarse paper and in only semi-literate writings. Five were from non-commissioned officers or privates, denouncing as regular Church-goers officers against whom they obviously had a grudge; the rest were from schoolmasters, men-servants and tradesmen in garrison towns, retailing tittle-tattle about senior officers’ families. Visits from priests, the possession of rosaries, and crucifixes hung in nurseries were all mentioned as evidence of treacherous intentions towards the Republic, and such terms of abuse as ‘filthy Jesuit’ and ‘priest’s bottom-licker’ more than once employed.

  He was greatly tempted to stuff them in his pocket, or attempt to buy them from Bidegain there and then, but he knew that they would be of infinitely greater value if some proof could be obtained that such denouncements were actually acted upon by the War Office; so when he had finished looking through them he muttered, ‘You win,’ gave them back and, taking a shabby wallet from his pocket, counted out fifty francs in dirty ten and five-franc notes.

  For the best part of an hour, while Bidegain consumed a second and third absinthe, de Quesnoy said no more on the subject then suddenly, he remarked, ‘If you are really as pressed for money as you say, I marvel at your honesty. Were I in your shoes I would use some of those fiches as banknotes.’

  While waiting for a reply, he held his breath. On that one sentence he had gambled the results of five months’ uncongenial, painstaking work, for he had implied that for a price he would be willing to break his Masonic oath; and if Bidegain reported him the game was up. But the little man only shook his head and muttered:

  ‘It would not be easy to turn these things into cash.’

  De Quesnoy breathed again, but his heart was still hammering in his chest as he said in a low voice, ‘It could be done. The officers whom they concern would pay handsomely to get hold of and destroy them.’

  ‘They are scattered over France and the Colonial Empire. Without committing oneself to writing it would be impossible to get in touch with them.’

  For a moment the Count remained silent, as though in thought; then he took a further plunge and said, ‘You could sell them to the Ligue de la Patrie Française.’

  Bidegain suddenly drew back and said in a scared voice, ‘But the Ligue would use them for its political ends. It would make them public.’

  ‘And what if it did? Why should you consider the interests of the Grand Orient when it has treated you so scurvily?’ De Quesnoy sat forward, elbows on the table, his hypnotic eyes holding those of the little man opposite him. ‘Listen to me. You are in urgent need of money and so am I. The funds that I brought out of Russia are almost gone, and the only work I can get brings me in little more than a starvation wage. Why should we not go into this together? You provide the fiches and I will market them. We will go fifty-fifty on the proceeds.’

  After an attempt to draw his eyes away had failed, Bidegain gulped, ‘Perhaps! Why not! It would have to be for a big sum, though. We could sell a few dozen privately for destruction and no one would be any the wiser; but if a batch were published things would blow up at headquarters. They would accuse me, or at least declare that I had been guilty of unforgivable negligence. No, no, I would not dare to face it.’

  ‘You need not do so. I am sure I could get you enough money to go abroad and start life anew in the United States.’

  ‘For me to emigrate with my whole family, and still have a nice little capital when we settled on the other side, would run to a lot of money. Do you think they would pay so great a sum?’

  ‘Yes, but with the fiches we should have to provide proof that they were secured at the request of the War Office.’

  Now under a light hypnosis, Bidegain disclosed, ‘A Captain Mollin acts as our liaison with the Ministry. He is General André’s most trusted A.D.C. There are letters from him in the files that I could steal: letters asking for more batches of fiches, and that we should dig up everything we could that would detract from the characters of certain generals.’

  De Quesnoy had all his work cut out to conceal his delight; but when he withdrew his compelling gaze from Bidegain, the little man showed unwillingness to commit himself fully, and would do no more than promise to think things over.

  For the next forty-eight hours the Count was a constant prey to mingled hopes, fears and impatience; but after a fourth night session at the café, the matter was settled. It was decided that they should ask one hundred thousand francs, but if pressed accept eighty thousand, and split the proceeds. But Bidegain flatly refused to steal the all-important letters until his accomplice had found out whether the Ligue de la Patrie was willing to deal.

  That meant that, as a minimum, de Quesnoy would have to produce forty thousand francs. It was a very considerable sum and far beyond his immediate resources. But that did not concern him, as this was clearly just the sort of transaction which the Ligue’s Fighting Fund had been established to finance, and he had no doubt that Syveton, as the Treasurer of the Ligue, would gladly produce it to secure the material for such a devastating attack on the Government.

  The night following his final talk with Bidegain, the Count crossed Paris to the Parc Monceau. On his way he endeavoured to put Angela out of his mind, as his only object on this nocturnal journey was to arrange with Syveton about the payment for the fiches and some of Mollin’s letters. It was not until he was about to climb the garden wall that his thoughts were suddenly distracted from his mission. On glancing upwards he saw a streak of light at one side of the drawn curtains of the window which he knew to be that of the pavilion bedroom.

  He drew in his breath sharply and stared up at the window, wondering what the light could mean. A month ago Angela had said that she no longer had the key to the upper part of the pavilion and that it was being redecorated. Why? And what was she doing up there now?’

  Disquieting memories flooded back to him. Her deliberate avoidance of a tête-à-tête with him during his stay in Cowes. Her almost chilly self-possession when they had last met. The concern, which she had never before displayed, for the interests of her husband. Her refusal to ask yet for an annulment, or commit herself to a date when she would do so.

  Could it possibly be that she was deceiving him? It was getting on for a year since de Vendôme had ceased to be her lover; and she had admitted to having had several in succession immediately before him. Could it be that, believing him, de Quesnoy, lost to her for good last Christmas, she had soon after, out of despair and for distraction,
taken another lover and since come to prefer him?

  Perhaps all she had said about Syveton’s financial difficulties was untrue; a clever invention to excuse herself from taking any step which might upset a new liaison that now meant more to her than the never-fulfilled love of her youth. The pavilion was Angela’s private province. Why should she have had it redecorated unless she meant to continue to use it? He knew that she often spent her afternoons there reading or sewing. But one did not read or sew at one o’clock on a chilly morning late in October. She must again be using it as a rendezvous. Who, in hell’s name, was up there with her?

  23

  AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR

  When François de Vendôme had been Angela’s lover de Quesnoy had not suffered from jealousy; neither had he done so when, to his knowledge, certain of his past mistresses had occasionally had to sleep with their husbands in order to keep the peace. The morals of his class in the Paris of that day had made him cynical in such matters; and as far as Angela and de Vendôme were concerned, that had been a special case made supportable by the fact that she did not love the Prince.

  But this was utterly different. If his suspicions were correct she now loved someone else, had told him a pack of lies and had deceived him with an unscrupulousness of which he would never have believed her capable.

  As he stared up at the chink of light a pulse began to hammer in his throat. In his mind’s eye he could see again every detail of the room. A Devil-inspired vision came to him of her lying naked between the silk sheets of the bed. Her hair, with its burnished copper lights, curled loose upon the pillow, making a frame for her fair, flushed face; her lips were partly open and her brown eyes wide with passionate desire, as the figure of a man bent above her.

  His mouth went dry, he swallowed hard and thrust the tormenting scene from him with shame that, on so little evidence, he should think her capable of betraying him. But, at that moment, he caught the faint sound of voices from above. Two people were definitely there, then. His blood seemed to boil in his veins. The vision returned. He felt that he could not support the uncertainty a moment longer. Better by far to know the worst. Flinging himself at the wall, he scrambled up and over it.

  Taking no precautions against the sounds of his approach being heard, he crashed through the shrubbery, strode round the corner to the entrance to the pavilion and ran up the stairs three at a time. On the landing that also formed the kitchenette he paused for a moment to get back his breath. Then he seized the knob of the door to the main room. The door was locked. He shook it violently. Stepping back a pace, he gave a savage kick that brought the flat of his foot over the keyhole. The lock snapped and the door flew open.

  The room was bright with fresh paint and new chintzes, and had much more furniture in it than when he had last been there. But the table was a familiar sight. As of old, it had on it the remains of an excellent cold supper for two, a big bowl of fruit and an opened bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. That much he took in before pulling up with a jerk, to stare with astonished relief at a girl who stood just beyond it.

  She was quite young, not more than twenty, he guessed, and striking looking in a rather Spanish way. Her complexion was rich, her lips very full, her eyes black and her dark, smooth hair was done in great coils round her head. She was short, plump and wearing a crimson negligee that set off her sultry beauty.

  ‘I … I must apologise,’ he stammered. ‘I hardly know how to explain. May I … may I ask who you are?’

  The scared look left her dark eyes, and she replied in a husky voice, ‘I am Madame Syveton.’

  For a second he was puzzled, then he realised that she must be Clothilde, the young woman whom Henri Syveton had married in mid-September.

  He bowed. ‘I see. Yes, of course. I can’t attempt to say how sorry I am to have burst in on you like this. I didn’t realise that the door was locked. I thought it had jammed; so I gave it an extra hard push. It is your father-in-law, Monsieur Gabriel Syveton, whom I want to see. The matter is one of the greatest urgency and … well, there are reasons why I cannot go and enquire for him at the house. I came in over the garden wall and, seeing a light in the pavilion, thought that he might be up here. I meant to rouse him by throwing stones up at his bedroom window. I had better go and do that.’

  As he was about to turn awkwardly away, she said after a second’s hesitation, ‘It will be useless. He is not there.’

  ‘Can you tell me, then, where he is?’ de Quesnoy asked quickly. ‘I have got to find him; even if I have to risk waking the servants and questioning them. It is of the utmost importance that I should see him before morning.’

  At that moment the door to the bathroom opened and Syveton walked into the room. He was dressed in a purple smoking jacket and held a newly lit cigarette in his hand. Without looking at the Count, he said to his daughter-in-law:

  ‘Clothilde, my dear. I did not expect this gentleman tonight, but we sometimes have private matters to discuss together. You had better go to bed now. I don’t suppose we shall be long, and if we are we will try not to disturb you when we leave. Sleep well, child.’

  ‘Thank you, Papa,’ she murmured. ‘Good night, then,’ and with a slight nod to de Quesnoy she turned towards the bedroom. As she did so her face, which before had been partly shadowed, caught the light, and he noticed that her eyelids were slightly swollen, as though she had been crying. But he thought no more of it as his mind was busy on what he should say to Syveton about having broken in. The Deputy knew well enough that for many years he had been much more than an ordinary friend to Angela, but he could not possibly admit to having forced the door in a fit of jealous anger, believing that he would find her in bed with another lover.

  To his relief, he was spared having to offer an explanation, as Syveton immediately launched into one about his own presence there. He said that, his son having not been able to find an apartment exactly to his taste, Angela had agreed to give up the pavilion for a while to provide the young couple with temporary accommodation.

  De Quesnoy at once guessed the truth to be that Syveton was in such low water that he could not afford to set his son up in a way which would have done him credit; so he had adopted this expedient to save his face. Meanwhile he was going on:

  ‘As an engineer, Henri seems to have considerable promise. He has gone into a firm of automobile makers. Whether there will ever be any big money to be made out of that sort of thing it is as yet impossible to say; but he is very enthusiastic. It means his having to spend one night a week down at their factory at Le Mans, though, and poor little Clothilde has been far from well lately; so I came over to keep her company and see that she had everything she wanted.’

  What he was saying had no interest for the Count and barely penetrated his mind. It was occupied with giving silent thanks to God that he had not found Angela as he had pictured her in his Devil-begotten vision. He was still upbraiding himself for ever having harboured such unworthy thoughts of her when Syveton brought him back to the present by asking, for a second time, what the urgent matter was on which he wished to see him.

  Swiftly recovering, de Quesnoy gave particulars of Bidegain and the fiches. As Syveton listened his delight increased until he could hardly contain himself for joy. Here at last was a club with which to beat the Government to death; the very thing for which, with his fanatical hatred of Combes, he had been longing to get hold of for years. But when he learned that Bidegain wanted forty thousand francs to betray the Masons, his face fell, and he said:

  ‘That is a lot of money. I don’t think—’

  ‘Nonsense!’ the Count cut him short. ‘For years past you must have spent three or four times that amount each year, to live in the way that you have. And this little man, remember, has to get his family to the States, then start a shop, or buy a partnership in some small business. I am supposed to be getting a half-share, and were I doing so to start with I should have asked a hundred thousand francs. Even that would not have been too high a price
to pay for these fiches and Mollin’s letters acknowledging the use to which they are being put.’

  ‘I know; I know.’ Syveton held up his hand. ‘I meant only that I could not lay my hand on such a large sum at the moment.’

  ‘Why? You are Treasurer of the Ligue de la Patrie and its Fighting Fund must run into several million.’

  ‘Yes, but I have only a running account at my disposal; enough to pay for the printing of handbills, agents’ expenses and that sort of thing. For a draft of this amount I need the signatures of two out of my three co-Trustees who are responsible with me for the Fund.’

  ‘How long will it take you to get them?’

  ‘Only a day or two; but we may have to realise securities before such a draft could be met, so we could not count on concluding the transaction in much under a week.’

  ‘But this matter cannot wait. The effects of absinthe drinking have made Bidegain unstable—otherwise it is unlikely that he would even have considered selling out his associates. He may change his mind again, unless I can clinch the deal within forty-eight hours.’

  Syveton agitatedly ran a hand over the whispy, smarmed-down hair that only partly concealed his big expanse of bald forehead. ‘We must on no account miss this,’ he muttered. ‘But what can I do? Unfortunately I have big commitments to meet at the end of the month, otherwise I would try to raise the money myself; I take it that you could not raise such a sum at short notice either. But how about your friend Van Ryn, the banker? Do you think you could persuade him to help us?’

  De Quesnoy nodded. ‘That is certainly an idea. Yes, I think he might loan me the money on my note of hand. If he will, how soon could you enable me to repay him?’

  ‘Today is the 24th. Shall we say the 30th? No, to be on the safe side we had better make it the end of the week, Friday 1st of November.’

  ‘Very well, then. If you hear nothing further from me you will know that Van Ryn has acceded to my request. If all goes well, I will turn the material in to General Laveriac so that he can verify that the letters were actually written by Captain Mollin. Then, if the deal has gone through, you will pay the draft into my account at Van Ryn’s bank as Vasili Petrovitch on November 1st. Can you find me a pen, or pencil, and paper so that I can write a note to Van Ryn now, and drop it on my way back to the Pension Smirnoff? I have been out of touch with him for some time; so we can only hope that he is in Paris, and not off on another trip somewhere.’