Pointing at him, Roger cried, ‘That is the arch-traitor! Bring him here!’
Malderini was thrust forward through the murmuring crowd until he was only a yard from Boneparte. His sagging, old-woman’s face was grey with terror, but with a great effort he pulled himself together and cried:
‘General, you must hear me. This accusation is false. It is made by a man who bears me a grudge because, believing him to be an English spy, I had him imprisoned in the Leads. But that is not all. As a man you owe me some consideration. What will be said of you if you condemn to death a man whose wife you have stolen?’
‘You must be mad,’ Boneparte snapped. ‘I do not know your wife.’
With a bitter, high-pitched laugh, Malderini pointed at Sirisha. ‘Not know her! Why, there she sits. She was brought here for your pleasure. On our entering this room, we surprised you having supper with her.’
Boneparte jerked his head round and fixed his eyes on Roger. ‘Is this true? Have you made use of a political situation to get the best of this man in some private quarrel you have with him?’
‘Yes,’ Roger admitted. ‘The Princess is his wife; but it was only by bringing her here I could make quite certain that he would come here with the others. If I had not, he might have betrayed their intention while himself remaining in Venice.’
‘No, no!’ Malderini cried. ‘You are right, General. He has abused your confidence to pursue a private feud. And he has dragged your name in the mud to do it. All Venice knows that for the past few days you have been paying visits in secret to the city, and…’
‘What nonsense is this?’ Boneparte burst out. ‘I have never been near the place.’
A sudden murmur arose from the Venetians. ‘Oh, oh!’ ‘We are at your mercy; why deny it?’ ‘That you have been in the city is common knowledge.’
‘Yes,’ Malderini hurried on. ‘And my enemy must have pointed out my wife to you. It is said everywhere that you had displayed an interest in her. Then, this morning, he abducted her in broad daylight to bring her here.’
‘Breuc! What have you to say?’ The Corsican’s words cracked like pistol shots.
‘I do not deny it,’ Roger replied tersely. ‘Rumours that you were in Venice had to be put round to induce the conspirators to plan this attempt to kidnap you. I abducted his wife with the help of a boat-load of French sailors to blaze the trail more surely. Only by so doing could I make certain of luring him here tonight.’
Malderini gave a sudden chuckle. ‘See, General, where this fool’s personal thirst for revenge has landed you. We cannot stop you throwing us all into Leads, but what will Venice say? What will the world say? No one will believe that we came here to kidnap you. They will believe that I came here with my friends to rescue my wife from dishonour. They will say that you are a mean, unscrupulous tyrant. That you abused your power to have my wife abducted. That when discovered and reproached, instead of restoring her to me, you were so furious at being actually caught out in your evil design that you decided to do your best to silence us. In the hope of doing so you falsely accused us of this plot, so that you could send us all to prison. And that, to give credence to a serious plot having existed, you have gone to the length of punishing all Venice by throwing her to the Austrians.’
The Venetians had hung breathlessly upon his words, and now, seeing a hope of escaping the penalty for their night’s work, they cried: ‘Yes, yes!’ ‘He is right!’ ‘Everyone will believe that we came here to rescue her.’ ‘They’ll hold your name infamous.’ ‘They’ll say you gave us to the Austrians to cover up a plot that never existed.’ ‘Italy has hailed you as the new Caesar; tomorrow you’ll be known as another Heilogabolus.’
Boneparte’s pale face had gone chalk-white. Once more he turned to Roger, and snarled, ‘You got me into this! Get me out or I’ll have you chained for life to an oar in a galley!’
Epilogue
‘And then?’ exclaimed Georgina, eagerly. ‘And then?’
Roger had paused in his story to refill her goblet and his own with champagne. Giving a light shrug, he replied, ‘Why, m’dear, being much averse to spending the rest of my life as a galley slave, I was under the necessity of persuading him that he need have no fears for his reputation.’
‘Wretch that you are to tantalise me so!’ She stamped a small foot. ‘Unless you had somehow escaped the Corsican’s wrath you would not be here. But how? By what trickery? Tell me this moment.’
The ‘here’ that Georgina referred to was her boudoir in the Berkeley Square mansion that, as the mother of the young Earl of St. Ermins, she occupied when in London. It was mid-December, very cold and snowing outside; but in the small boudoir, with a good log fire flickering on the ceiling, and the silk-covered walls patterned with Chinese junks, pheasants and pagodas, it was warm and cosy. Instead of having supper served in the chilly dining-room, they had had it sent up there, and now sat at their ease on a deep sofa before the fire.
Roger had arrived in London from the Continent only the day before. After the desperate stand he had made against the Venetian conspirators on Portillo, he had been laid up for a fortnight with his wounds. Meanwhile, on October 17th, Boneparte had signed with Austria the famous peace of Campo Formio.
Later, before he went on to Rastadt to ratify it, Roger had made his wounds the excuse for asking for long leave, stating that he proposed to convalesce in the winter sunshine at his little château near St. Raphael. The General-in-Chief, having no immediate use for him, had granted it but stipulated that he should report again by the end of January, as by then the Directory would have decided whether he should be given an army for the invasion of England or be allowed to follow his own inclination of leading a French army to conquest in the glamorous East; and in either case he felt that Roger would be valuable to him. Roger had then gone to the South of France, and spent a month there building himself up locally as one of the new post-revolution landed proprietors and an aide-decamp to the now world-famous conqueror of Italy.
Early in December, Boneparte had returned to Paris to receive formal thanks for his amazing victories. The Directory feared him but had to do him honour. To the public he was a national hero and amidst delirious scenes of welcome they acclaimed him as another Caesar. Roger ostensibly left St. Raphael to participate in the triumph of his Chief, but, in fact, he journeyed quietly to Brittany and, through one of his old connections there, had himself landed by smugglers only two nights before in a quiet Sussex cove.
That morning he had spent an hour with Mr. Pitt, reporting his own activities and giving his views on probable French intentions for the furtherance of their war against Britain, now the sole champion remaining in arms against the mighty power that, as a result of the Revolution, was spreading communism and atheism across Europe.
The Prime Minister had been plunged in even greater gloom than when Roger had last seen him. During Roger’s absence, Britain had suffered one of the most terrible financial crises in her history, and had survived it only owing to Mr. Pitt’s ability and the patriotism with which her monied classes had supported the new loans. The financial situation was still a cause for grave anxiety and the signing by the Austrians of the Peace of Campo Formio had been an appalling blow. As a would-be upholder of the Old Order in Europe, Mr. Pitt was naturally much distressed by the total elimination of the Serene Republic, but Roger had quoted Boneparte’s own words to him about the Venetians: ‘This miserable, cowardly people unfit for liberty.’ And he had had to agree that Roger had done well to get them handed over to the Austrians, rather than to leave the wealthy and populous city as a pawn in the possession of the French.
Georgina too had been distressed at the sad fate of Venice, and had appreciated the significance of its value in a possible renewal of the Coalition against France only when Roger had explained it to her that evening. She at once agreed the soundness of the policy he had adopted, but reproached him for having sacrificed to gain his ends the little group of Venetians who had had the coura
ge to enter on a conspiracy aimed at freeing their city from the French.
At that he laughed, and now he told her now, in one move, he had saved both them and Boneparte’s reputation.
‘You will remember,’ he said, ‘how, that afternoon, I had made an effigy of Boneparte, and left it hidden under some garden chairs? When the Corsican threatened me with the galleys, I sent Crozier to get it and displayed it to them all. The mask was the conventional Venetian long-nosed hideous affair, but, apart from that, the effigy was a good one. In size and appearance it was Boneparte’s double, and would certainly have been taken for him had it been seen propped up in a sitting position at anything over a few yards’ distance. I then obtained his permission to make my explanation to him in the form of an address to the conspirators, and this is what I said to them:
‘“You have been led to believe that, for some days past, General Boneparte has been living incognito in Venice. The fact is that he has never entered your city. He left the mainland only this evening, and has been resident for the past week at his Headquarters, which are a good day’s travel distant from Venice. This can be proved beyond all shadow of doubt. The rumours about his presence in the city are due to people having glimpsed this effigy of him in the cabin of a gondola as it was taken up and down the Grand Canal.
‘Why, you may ask, did we display this effigy? The answer is that we knew that a group of reactionaries was conspiring to overthrow the new Republican régime. The effigy enabled us to bait the trap which has brought you out into the open; and the rumous about General Boneparte’s interest in Signor Malderini’s wife, followed by her kidnapping, were a part of the same successful plot. That ensured that this arch-traitor would come here with you. Now you have shown your hand you are at the General’s mercy.
“Yet, you are right that a stigma might attach to him for the part played by his effigy. That, we cannot permit; and the remedy is to make public to all Venice the manner in which you have been fooled. Given his permission, I propose that you shall all be lodged in the Leads, but, every evening during the next fortnight, you will be paraded for an hour round the Piazza of St. Mark, in chains, and carrying in your midst the effigy of the General, which you so skilfully and bravely kidnapped.”’
‘Oh,’ murmured Georgina. ‘Oh, Roger, what a truly marvellous idea for making those poor wretches appear ridiculous. Did the Corsican see the humour of it?’
Roger laughed. ‘Yes, and the sense. He is shrewd enough to realise that making martyrs of people only strengthens their cause, whereas ridicule can kill it. He agreed at once to my suggestion that the final touch of contempt could be put upon the whole movement by restoring the conspirators to liberty after having been exposed to the mockery of the crowd for fourteen nights.’
‘Well done, my dear! It is greatly to your credit that you saved them from the miserable fate which otherwise would have been theirs. I wonder, though, at this clever piece of trickery having saved yourself. The production of the effigy could kill the rumours that the Corsican had been in Venice, but not that he had been supping with the Princess Sirisha on Portillo; for the conspirators had seen him there with their own eyes, and when released could swear to it.’
‘They were warned that a mention of his presence on Portillo traced to any of them would cost the babbler his life; but we had a protection far better than that. Had they sworn until they were blue in the face to having seen him, who would have believed them? It would have been thought only a belated attempt to bluff people into thinking that the conspiracy had, after all, nearly succeeded. No. Had Boneparte refused to let me handle matters my way, a scandal could not have been avoided. But I had promised him that there should be no scandal and provided the means to carry out my promise. He had to admit that. Moreover, my having revealed the true feeling of the Venetians towards France had saved him from making, in his view, a false step by giving them their independence. Last, but not least, although my plot had threatened to go awry, it had not done so in the end, because I had thrown my life into the scales to prevent him being kidnapped before Junot arrived; and, harsh disciplinarian though he is, anyone can win his pardon for a fault if they show courage on his behalf.’
‘What of that poor Princess?’ Georgina asked. ‘How did she come out of this?’
‘When the prisoners were taken off I went with them, so that I could have my wounds looked to as soon as possible in Venice. Boneparte resumed his interrupted supper with Sirisha, while Junot, with a handful of men, remained to guard him and convey him back to Mestre in the morning.’
Georgina raised one of her beautifully arched eyebrows. ‘Did you ever hear, er … if the party was a success?’
‘It depends what you mean by a success,’ Roger smiled. ‘Both of them told me afterwards that they had found the other most interesting, but what form their interest in one another took it was not for me to enquire. However, the Princess is now revelling in her freedom, and she is very rich. Venice has only unpleasant associations for her, so she plans to leave it; and, as she liked England, it is possible that she may come here to live. If so, perhaps one day she may confide in you whether Boneparte is as irresistible as a lover as he is a general.’
‘You imply that Malderini is dead.’
‘He is. Boneparte gave him to me.’ Roger’s face suddenly became grim. ‘I had him taken outside and seated on a stone bench in the garden. I took out the thin plaited rope of Clarissa’s hair from under my shirt, and showed it to him. Then I went behind him and threw a loop of it round his neck. As I drew it tight, his cries were silenced. For a few minutes his feet mad a horrid drumming on the stone paving while I twisted the rope tighter and tighter, then held it fast. Afterwards I had his body thrown into the lagoon.’
For the space of a few heartbeats they were silent. Then, to distract Roger’s thoughts from the awful duty he had fulfilled, Georgina said, ‘Since poor Clarissa has been dead nine months, and you have kept your oath, maybe you now feel both free and inclined to savour again a woman’s caresses?’
‘Why, yes.’ He turned to smile at her, then put an arm about her shoulders and drew her to him. ‘And it’s just as well that I went direct to Venice instead of returning first to England; for I vow the sight of your sweet lips and eyes would have sadly tempted me to break my oath.’
‘Dear Roger. But wait one moment!’ She threw up a hand as he bent his head to kiss her. ‘There remains a point on which I wonder the Corsican did not call you to account. He stipulated that he’d have nought to do with the Princess should it mean that he could be accused afterwards of stealing her from her husband. Yet that is what happened. Malderini denounced him as a seducer before both his fellow Venetians and Junot’s soldiers. I’d not have thought Boneparte a man to let that pass.’
‘Nor did he; and that last fence could have queered my pitch when I as good as had the whole game in my hands. When I asked him to give me Malderini, he refused. Mark you, it was not that he has scruples about married women. His stipulation was only a precaution against being accused of misusing his power for such an end should anything have got out; and I had already convinced him that the production of the effigy would dispose of the rumours that he had left the mainland. But he snapped at me that, as it was I who had led him unwittingly to wrong Malderini, I should not benefit by his capture, and the he should suffer no worse punishment than his co-conspirators.’
‘How, then, did you get over that?’
‘I reminded him that when I had offered to arrange for him to sup tête-à-tête with the Princess, I had guaranteed that her doing so should give her husband no grounds for complaint.’
‘But it had, and he did complain, most bitterly.’
‘True’; Roger smiled. ‘But he had no grounds for doing so. Can you not guess the answer to this riddle? I began to suspect it in India; Sirisha confirmed my suspicions when I got into the Malderini Palace as an Arab perfume seller. My reply to Boneparte was to step up to Malderini. Keeping my eyes lowered, I seized hi
s coat and shirt, close up to the neck with both hands, and tore them apart with all my strength. He struggled wildly but the two soldiers who had brought him forward held his arms. Wrenching and tearing, in less than a minute I had him near naked to the waist, revealing two great ugly sagging witch’s breasts. Of the two Malderini twins who had gone to India ten years before, it was the sister who had murderer her brother and taken his identity. The evil creature who had forced upon me this nightmare vendetta was a woman!’
A Note on the Author
DENNIS WHEATLEY
Dennis Wheatley (1897 – 1977) was an English author whose prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult novels made him one of the world's best-selling writers from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Wheatley was the eldest of three children, and his parents were the owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He admitted to little aptitude for schooling, and was expelled from Dulwich College, London. In 1919 he assumed management of the family wine business but in 1931, after a decline in business due to the depression, he began writing.
His first book, The Forbidden Territory, became a bestseller overnight, and since then his books have sold over 50 million copies worldwide. During the 1960s, his publishers sold one million copies of Wheatley titles per year, and his Gregory Sallust series was one of the main inspirations for Ian Fleming's James Bond stories.
During the Second World War, Wheatley was a member of the London Controlling Section, which secretly coordinated strategic military deception and cover plans. His literary talents gained him employment with planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for the War Office, including suggestions for dealing with a German invasion of Britain.
Dennis Wheatley died on 11th November 1977. During his life he wrote over 70 books and sold over 50 million copies.
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