Felix Black tapped his cane on the floor to catch her attention and said, “Do sit down, Miss Chapman.”
She sat. Then she said, “What do you want of me?”
His sharp old eyes were fixed on hers. “Several things. Also I have news from England.”
She sensed that he had some important thing to tell her. She asked, “What news?”
“Your stepfather is dead!”
“Dead!” she echoed.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m certain you will not shed too many tears. Your mother is said to be making a most becoming widow again. And the chances are that your stepfather’s timely stroke may have left her with enough money and land to go on living comfortably.”
Betsy said, “She surely would not have been able to if he’d lived and gone on gambling. He was steadily wasting away the family fortune.”
“Without question,” he said. “So though the elderly and lecherous Lord Dakin survives, you need not fear returning to England. Your stepfather will not be around to arrange a match.”
“He would have small success if he were,” she said with some spirit.
“You have grown in character, my girl.”
“I think you may fairly call me a woman now,” she said.
“I agree,” he said. “And you have put aside your old difference with Major Walters. Indeed I understand that you two now plan to be married.”
“That is true.”
“What a matchmaker I am,” the thin man in black said and then suffered a long and terrifying coughing spell.
When it was over, she said, “You seem not to have regained your health, sir.”
“My health is worse,” he said “bluntly. “I’m dying. I told you that.”
“I remember.”
“And so Napoleon is dying along with me,” he said with a sigh. “Well, there is irony in that. Better for him to die a natural death in America than to be assassinated by the agent of a man pretending to be his champion.”
“I agree. The question now is whether we can stop Valmy without spreading word to the authorities.”
“That would spell doom for Napoleon. I would like to save him if I can. My government went back on its word last time. As an Englishman I would like to make that up to him now.”
“If anyone can do it, I’m sure you will.”
“I’m a helpless old invalid,” he said. “But I have done my best work of organizing. I have more agents in my employ than you can guess. I have put my private fortune into this.”
“Was that wise?” she asked.
“What difference?” he said. “In a short while I will have no need for money.”
“I hope you are wrong,” she replied quietly. “We have all come to admire you. And I’m sure the emperor will be grateful if you save him.”
“I wonder,” Felix Black said grimly. “I’m sure of one thing. He is bound to have better manners than His Majesty, my king.”
“He still has a manner. I grasped that even in my brief moment with him. And I’m almost certain that he knew me.”
“I’m taking your word we’re not dealing with an impostor,” Felix Black said. “And that is most important. For if this man were some rogue pretending to be Napoleon, he would use very different methods.”
“I have told you what I believe to be true.”
He looked at her directly and without warning said, “When you were Valmy’s prisoner, you became his mistress.”
She was a trifle startled. “Did Major Walters write that in his report to you?”
“Not in so many words. I read it between the lines.”
“He knows it to be true,” she said, looking down.
“How much hold did he get over you?” the old man asked sharply.
She kept her eyes on the bare boards of the parlor floor. “I fought against being attracted to him. I was not all that successful.”
“You were right to give in to him,” the master spy said bluntly. “But you were wrong to allow yourself to care for him. I warned you he was a charmer!”
“I know. But I think he really came to care for me. He asked me to be his wife.”
Felix Black showed astonishment, an unusual expression on that thin face. He said, “Do you think he meant it?”
“Yes.”
“He probably did then,” Black said grimly. “Women are usually right about such things.”
“He is not all bad, you know.”
The master spy leaned forward on his cane. “No one is all bad, not even Felix Black! But Valmy is three quarters a scoundrel and will be wholly one soon. Could you share your life with such a man?”
“Perhaps,” she said, “under the right conditions.”
“At least you’re honest,” he said grudgingly. “It is true that good women are attracted to rogues. This accounts for at least half of all marriages.”
“I’m well over it now,” she said.
“Be firm with yourself,” Black warned her. “Your paths could cross again.”
“Surely not!” she protested.
“He will be here in Paris tomorrow. You will be assigned to some duty. There is a definite possibility you might have another encounter with him.”
“I would prefer not,” she said.
“In our world we have to make many compromises,” the old spy warned her. “When you became a spy, you were bound by our rules whether you guessed it or not.”
“I’m beginning to understand.”
“Good!” he said, leaning on his cane and rising with some difficulty. “Now I would suggest that we both have a good night’s rest. Tomorrow will be a special day in the history of France.”
She asked, “Do you think the riots could begin as soon as tomorrow?”
“Yes. Any time after Valmy and his party get here. The riots and some bombings have already been planned.”
She helped the old man up the stairway to the door of his room and bade him good night. Then she went back to the room she shared with Eric and in which she would be alone worrying about him on this special night. Things had happened so swiftly she was having a hard time keeping them straight in her mind.
She had been shocked at the frail state of the old master spy. But there was no worry about his mind not being as active as before or perhaps even more keen. He was now compensating for his loss of physical prowess by honing his keen mind to a new sharpness.
She continued on to her room and prepared for bed. She was in no mood to sleep, her mind filled with fears for Eric.
When Betsy slept, her dreams were troubled. She twisted uneasily in the bed, seeing Eric exposed to all kinds of danger. In one the thin Felix Black entered in his somber garb to inform her that the man she loved was dead. These and other equally disturbing nightmares tormented her.
Then she was rudely awakened by rough hands seizing her and covering her mouth so that she could not cry out for help. She was hastily bound and gagged in the darkness of the room; she didn’t see anyone and heard only whispers. She began to wonder if this might be merely an extension of her nightmare, but the physical discomfort she felt told her it was not.
A rope was tied around her, and trussed in a helpless state, she was lowered out the window. Again she was grasped by waiting hands and carried over to a carriage. After she was roughly thrown on the seat of the carriage, it started off.
She sat up and tried to free her hands which were tied behind her but without avail. Her ankles were also bound. Then she became aware of someone seated opposite her in the moving carriage. He reached over and removed the gag from her mouth, and she saw the grim face of the handsome Valmy.
“You!” she gasped.
“You weren’t expecting to see me again,” Valmy said in his suave way.
“You are not supposed to arrive in Paris until tomorrow.” she said, still stunned.
He smiled grimly. “I do not always do what people expect.”
“Why have you kidnapped me?”
“Are you so surprised?�
� he asked. “After what you did in Venice.”
“You were keeping me there as your prisoner!”
“You betrayed me,” he said harshly. “I offered you my love, and you rejected it!”
Betsy said, “You forced yourself on me!”
“Not content with such betrayal, you went whining to the emperor and attempted to upset him — along with causing the death of Lacoste and some of my best guards!”
“I had a right to try and escape!”
His smile was not pleasant. “And now you are back with your Major Walters! You should be happy!”
“I was!” she said defiantly.
“And you think you will crush my plan!”
“We shall try!”
“You will never succeed,” he warned her. “And now that I no longer have any interest in you, I’m going to pay you back for your treachery.”
She stared at him anxiously in the shadows of the rumbling carriage. “Where are you taking me?”
“Where you’ll be safe!”
“It won’t work,” she protested. “Felix Black is here in Paris. Your project is doomed, and he is bound to find me.”
“I rather doubt that,” the arrogant Valmy said. “You have hurt me deeply, and I make a bad enemy!”
“You’re mad!” she told him. “And so is your plan! I saw the emperor. He is not well enough to head such an uprising as you intend.”
“Leave that to me!” he snapped.
“I have cared for you in a certain way,” she went on. “If you turned your talents to some worthy goal, you could truly become a great man.”
The handsome Valmy shook his head. “You will not get around me with sweet words!”
“I was not attempting that,” she said with some hurt. “I was trying to be honest with you!”
“The uprising will take place, and I shall become emperor in due time,” Valmy told her. “And all the while you shall rot in a place without hope and without any relation to the world outside.”
Cold fear streaked through her again. And she demanded, “What are you threatening?”
The carriage halted, and he sneeringly said, “You are about to find out, my dear Betsy!”
The ragged coachman came and opened the carriage door, and Valmy leaned over and dragged her out onto the cobblestoned street. It was still drizzling rain and very dark. She screamed for help as he lifted her up in his arms and carried her as easily as he would a child.
He laughed at her continued screaming. They approached a heavy arched door of planks lighted by a torch burning in an iron wall bracket next to it. He pounded on the door, and a small window in it opened. A grimy, wrinkled face appeared to study them with rheumy eyes.
She continued to sob and scream for help while Valmy ignored her and shouted over her clamor, “I’m Monsieur Henri! I have brought my poor sister! It has all been arranged!”
“Yes, monsieur,” the old man wheezed. The trap door was shut, and there was the sound of bolts being drawn back. Then the great door opened slowly. Valmy marched inside the dark room which had a heavy stench about it.
After a moment another bent old man came carrying a lantern, his white hair straggling over his shoulders. He bowed to Valmy and paid no attention to her cries for help.
“You have arrived, Monsieur Henri,” the emaciated old man said. He held the lamp up to inspect her. “She is very young to be in so sad a state!”
“Hopeless!” Valmy cried. “That is why I have no other alternative but to leave her here with you!”
“We have many like her,” the old man assured him. “She will be well treated. We run the place like a regular hospital.”
“I’m sure you do,” Valmy said, letting her stand on her feet but not untying her ankles. “If we’re to let her walk on her own, we will need two husky guards to manage her!”
Betsy cried, “What are you planning? What sort of place is this?”
The old man with the lantern chuckled. “It is a hotel for the mad! A retreat for those who have lost their minds!”
“I’m not mad!” she cried. “He is! He is planning to start a revolt and place Napoleon back on the throne!”
Valmy looked sad and tapped his temple. “You see,” he told the old man. “It is too bad!”
“Her madness is obvious,” the old man agreed.
“I’m his prisoner! He has kidnapped me!” Betsy sobbed. “I have friends on the outside. I will give you their names. And it is true that he has the emperor as his hostage!”
The old man shook his head. “Shocking!”
“It pains me,” Valmy said. “My poor sister sometimes thinks she is the Empress Josephine and at other times Princess Marie Louise.”
“We have a Marie Louise here already,” the old man said.
“Will you please remove her,” Valmy said. “I cannot get away from her quickly enough. I’m horrified to see her in this state.”
“I will get the ladies to take her to the women’s ward,” the old man with the lantern said and hurried off.
When they were alone in the dank brick-lined passage, Valmy turned to her and said, “I have paid them. They will keep you here forever!”
Tears streaked down her cheeks. “You couldn’t be so heartless!”
“It is you who proved heartless,” he said coldly. “Now you will have time to think about it.”
“Please!” she begged him.
He turned his back on her. Then two large rough-looking women came toward her, grumling that their sleep had been disturbed. They seized her roughly and dragged her down the long black corridor while she still screamed for help!
The two halted at an iron door with a grating in it. As one of the women fumbled with the lock, Betsy sobbed to the other, “I’m not mad! I swear! Please let me explain!”
“Slut!” the ugly old woman snarled and gave her a hard slap across the face.
Stunned, she found herself being literally hauled into a big room with cots set out around it. The odor was shocking, and the only light in the place was supplied by two lanterns hanging high up beyond reach on the ceiling.
The women roughly threw her on a filthy mattress and undid her bonds. The one who had slapped her warned, “No more of your screaming! No trying to make trouble! Behave yourself and you’ll be treated well!”
“But I shouldn’t be here!” she cried.
The other old woman pushed a wisp of dirty gray hair away from the red coarse face and told her, “We hear that every hour on the hour! Save your breath!”
The two women then retreated out the door and locked it. She lay there in shock. Then raising herself on her elbows, she became more aware of the room. All around her in nightgowns were women of various ages and sizes staring at her. Some were obviously demented; others had the look of normalcy but seemed frightened and without spirit.
The horror of the asylum ward came through to her, and she sprang from the bed. Rushing to the iron door, she began to pound on it and scream for help louder than before!
It was a signal for all the unhappy inmates in the room to join her in a chorus of mad screams and sobbing. Some of the denizens of this minor hell began to dance around. Others ran back and forth aimlessly screaming or jumped up and down on their fetid cots! A tiny blond girl actually came up and touched her timidly and then ran off like a frightened animal!
The iron door was thrown open, and the ugly woman came back inside with a whip in her hand. Her lips were moving in rage, and she snarled, “I warned you to be quiet! It seems you must have a lesson!”
“No!” she screamed, retreating toward her cot.
“You will learn to be quiet!” the big woman said, lashing her across the room with the whip, bringing it down in a weird rhythm so that it cut across her face, her back; any way she turned, it bit into her.
At last she flung herself down on the cot and groveled under the still punishing whiplashing. At last the big woman halted the torment and stood above her grimly.
“If you mak
e any further disturbance, you’ll get the same, only double!” she warned.
Betsy held her doubled fist in her mouth to stifle her sobs. The room around her had gone silent again. The mere sight of the ugly woman with the whip seemed enough to terrify the mad creatures around her into being quiet. They had learned the rules, and it seemed that she also would have to abide by them.
Her body ached from the whipping. She could barely breathe for the stench in the crowded, shadowy asylum ward. She lay staring bleakly up at the nearest lantern and wondered how soon it would be before she also really became mad!
Chapter Sixteen
BEFORE THE night ended, Betsy became nauseated and vomited over herself and her cot, making the stench about her worse. She tried to clean herself and the filthy mattress with an old rag which she retrieved from the owner of the cot next to her — a fat woman who never moved or spoke but lay on her cot staring up at nothing.
The two big women arrived early with a younger thin woman in tow. The two women guards went about the ward rousing up the patients and ordering them to prepare for the serving of breakfast gruel. The thin woman dished the watery stuff out into tin plates as the patients presented them to her. Betsy did not join the line.
The ugly woman who seemed to especially hate her came and shook her. “Take your place for food!” she commanded her.
“I’m ill,” she said weakly. “I don’t want any.”
“You’ll do what I say,” the big woman told her, and she roughly dragged her up from the bed and shoved a tin plate in her hand. “Now get in line!”
She obeyed, not wanting to give the woman another excuse to whip her. As it was, her body was covered with welts. She took her place in the shuffling line and held her plate out for the doleful woman to slop some of the sticky gray substance into it. Then she quietly returned to her own bed.
The tiny blond girl with big, frightened blue eyes who had approached her the previous night now came timidly toward her, staring at her.
Seated on her cot, Betsy told the girl, “You needn’t be afraid of me. You can come and sit here if you like!”
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