The Launching of Roger Brook (70 page)

It was only with the greatest reluctance that he parted with his elegant, soft-leather riding-boots and the expensive lace at his wrists and throat, but he knew that it would have been madness to keep them, as they were just the sort of things that would have given him away.

Returning to the town side of the harbour it struck him that, since he must remain in Dieppe for at least one more night, he would be seen by fewer people if he took lodgings rather than a room at another inn; so he set about hunting for something suitable. Happening to notice a street sign reading ‘
Rue d’Ecosse
’ he thought that a good omen and turned along it. Sure enough a hundred yards from its entrance he came upon a neat little house with a card bearing the carefully-drawn words
Apartement a Louer
in its ground-floor window.

The door was opened to him by an immensely fat woman who, puffing and wheezing, took him upstairs to a sparsely furnished but clean-looking bedroom and sitting-room.
For appearance sake he haggled a little over the price and made her include his
petit déjeuner
in it; then he took the rooms, paid her a deposit and went out again, to get himself a midday meal.

After eating reasonably well in an unpretentious restaurant he bought a bottle of wine and some cold food for his supper, and a few toilet articles; then he returned to the house in the
Rue d’Ecosse
and, since he had nothing else to do and would at least not be seen there, went to bed.

For the first time since leaving the
Rue St. Honoré
to fight his duel with De Caylus he had leisure to think over the tornado of events in which he had been caught up. The duel seemed to him to have taken place at least a week ago, yet curiously enough, he was under a vague impression that it was only that morning that Athénaïs, if all had gone well had married de la Tour d’Auvergne in Evreux. But after a minute’s thought he realised that while the duel had taken place less than forty-four hours ago, Athénaïs had most probably been Madame la Vicomtesse for thirty hours or more. It was actually Wednesday the 30th of August, the day that she was to have married de Caylus, and while the long hours of Monday night had been crammed with happenings that stood out in Roger’s mind Tuesday had passed him by almost unnoticed, owing to his exhausted state in the morning and his having slept through the whole of the latter part of the day.

As he thought again of the fateful conference, he got out the letter signed by the Compte de Montmorin and re-read it. When he had done so it struck him more forcibly than ever how extraordinarily fortunate he was to have secured such a document. Despite his periodical communications to the mysterious Mr. Gilbert Maxwell, the British Government might well hesitate to accept his bare word as conclusive evidence on a matter of such extreme significance. In view of the Commercial Treaty with France and their greatly improved relations with that country, it seemed certain that his revelations would come as an appalling shock to them; and doubt that he could possibly be right would almost certainly prevent them from taking any positive action until his statements could be verified. Yet in some immediate
démarche
, such as an ultimatum, lay their only hope of preventing the French from seizing the Dutch ports.

He realised now that, had he arrived in London as he had originally planned, he would have had little hope of saving the situation; whereas if he could do so with the letter, so damning were its contents and the signature of the Foreign Minister whoever saw it could not possibly require any further evidence of France’s intentions, and there would be a real hope of averting war.

Rolling the precious parchment up into a thick tubular spill he tied a piece of string round it and then made a loop of the string to go round his neck, so that it should hang there like a locket and there would be no risk of it being lost by being inadvertently jerked out of one of his pockets. Then he took off the sapphire ring as being too valuable a gem for an ordinary ship’s officer to wear, and tied that also to the string about his neck.

About seven o’clock he had his cold meal and drank the bottle of rich white Château Coutet, from the estate of the Marquis de Lur Saluces, that he had bought to wash it down. Then at half-past eight he blew out his candle and soon fell asleep.

He woke as the first pale streaks of dawn filtered through the flimsy curtains and, scrambling out of bed, went to the window. It was still raining, but gently, and the wind had dropped. His impulse was to dress at once but, knowing that no boats would put out until the sea had gone down, he restrained his impulse and went back to bed.

At seven o’clock a slatternly maid brought his
petit déjeuner
. After eating it he got up, dressed, and went down to the port. There was still little activity there and the packet-boat, laying alongside her jetty, showed no signs of preparing to put to sea. Near the landward end of the jetty there was a large notice-board and, thinking that a notice might have been put up there giving some information about sailings, he walked over to it.

A thick-set, middle-aged man with heavy eyebrows, was already standing in front of the board, reading a large placard occupying nearly half its area, which, from its cleanness, could only recently have been pasted up. As Roger came up beside the man and his eyes fastened on the notice, his stomach seemed to turn over. It read:

Attention! A felon of exceptional ferocity and baseness is urgently sought by the Government. Five hundred
Louis d’Or will be paid by M. le Comte de Crosne, His Majesty’s Lieutenant of Police, or by any accredited agents of the Crown, for information leading to the securing of the person, dead or alive, of one

ROGER BROOK

The above is an Englishman, giving himself out to be the son of a British Admiral, and a nephew of the Earl of Kildonan. Yet he speaks French with the fluency of one born in this country and has passed for several years as a native of the province of Alsace, under the name of BREUC.

The man wanted is tall and slim. He is about twenty-one years of age, having a fine figure, pleasant, expressive countenance and good complexion. His hair, worn long, is dark brown, his eyes a striking deep blue with dark lashes. His nose is straight, his chin firm and he has good teeth.

He dresses with elegance and has the manners of a person of quality. When last seen he was wearing a plum-coloured satin coat, flowered waistcoat, red twill riding breeches, brown Hessian boots, and lace ruffles and jabot.

A further reward of five hundred Louis d’Or will be paid to anyone returning a stolen document that the above-described felon is believed to be carrying on his person. The said document is a letter signed by M. le Comte de Montmorin, His Majesty’s Foreign Minister.

The aforesaid ROGER BROOK alias BREUC, is required to answer to charges of murder, theft and treason. Attention!

ONE THOUSAND LOUIS REWARD

The reward offered was an extraordinarily high one, showing how concerned Roger’s enemies were to effect his capture, and he had to admit that the de Rochambeaux had been generous enough in their description of him; but for all that the portrait was damnably accurate and he was
conscious of a rising wave of fright at the thought that everyone he met could hardly fail to recognise him from it.

On remembering that he had at least had the sense to change his clothes he gave vent to a sign of relief; but, next second, he was seized with consternation. The thick-set man beside him had turned and was staring at his face.

Suddenly the man spoke: ‘You fit that description strangely well, Monsieur. I’ve rarely seen such deep blue eyes as yours.’

With an effort Roger forced a smile. ‘Nay. I’m an honest seafarer, and my purse has never run to satin coats or lace folderols.’

‘You might have shed those overnight,’ said the man, meditatively. ‘You’re the right height, too, and have just shown me two sets of good even teeth.’

Roger could not divine if the fellow really suspected him or regarded his likeness to the description as pure coincidence; until, with a sudden narrowing of his close-set eyes, the man went on:

‘What would you be doing down here at the jetty in this weather, eh?
Sang de Dieu
! I believe you’re this English murderer, trying to get away to your own damned island!’

With his heart in his boots Roger gave a swift glance round. They were hidden from the greater part of the quay by the wooden offices of the Packet Boat Company. At the moment there was no one in sight, but the man looked tough and brawny. He might put up an ugly fight and raise the alarm before he could be knocked out; and Roger knew how swiftly a mob could suddenly congregate at the least excitement in an apparently empty street. He decided that he must keep his head and try to bluff it out.

‘Listen to me,
mon ami
,’ he said, with sternness. ‘You have this matter wrong. If you wish I will accompany you to the office of police and prove to them before you that I am one Julien Quatrevaux of Rennes, a Breton by birth and second officer of the India trader,
Tobago Queen
, now lying in Le Havre. But to do so it will be necessary to send for papers to my lodgings, which are at the far end of the town, and my whole morning will be lost. I have a seat booked in the diligence to carry me back to Le Havre. If I miss it I’ll not be there by nightfall and my ship may sail without me. That would put me to considerable loss as well as great inconvenience. Should I be so subjected on account
of your wild fancies I will not only sue you for detaining me without warrant and for the loss I shall sustain, but seek you out later with a seaman’s cudgel and beat you to within an inch of your life. Now! Do you wish to gamble your absurd imaginings against these penalties, or not?’

The man hesitated. One thousand
louis
was an enormous reward; to a poor man it was a fortune. But the account given by his
vis-à-vis
of himself seemed solidly circumstantial and, if true, threatened to land him in endless trouble. After a moment he shrugged, and said:

‘Monsieur, I meant no offence. But you must admit that you are like enough to the description of this felon to raise anyone’s suspicions.’

‘That may be!’ replied Roger tersely, ‘but I am not he. Good day to you,’ and, turning on his heel he walked firmly, but unhurriedly, away.

His bluff had worked; nevertheless the encounter had shaken him badly. It was all he could do to control his pace and prevent himself looking back to see if the man had run off in search of an
agent de ville
. Turning into the first side street he came to, the instant he was out of sight round the corner, he took to his heels.

When he eased his pace half a mile farther on, and dropped into a walk, he was white and breathless. He knew now that whether the packet sailed or not from Dieppe that evening it would be fatal for him even to go near her jetty again; as the man might be lying in wait for him there with a police agent. Moreover, although the storm had passed, he dared not seek out the fishing-masters and ask one of them to take him across. Too many of them had seen him on the Tuesday in the clothes in which he had come from Paris and, on seeing him again, would undoubtedly connect him with the description of the wanted felon, which must now be the talk of the harbourside. By now, too, the roan horse must have been found, proving that he had chosen Dieppe for his attempt to reach England; so every moment he remained there he would be in imminent peril of recognition and capture. Clearly he must get away from the town at the earliest possible moment.

During his flight he had lost himself, but glimpsing the sea through a narrow alley he turned along it and, having reached the esplanade, soon found his way back to his lodgings. On his way there he made up his mind to move
along the coast, in the hope of finding a vessel in a smaller harbour, where there were no trails of his presence to make the place so piping hot for him. Having collected his bag he settled with the fat landlady and, leaving the town by its south-western exit, took the road to Fécamp.

As soon as he was out of sight from the last houses of Dieppe he climbed over some sand dunes until he found a convenient hollow and set about redisguising himself as well as he could. His alarming experience with the thickset man had convinced him that he still looked too like a gentleman and that he would do better to give himself a more villainous appearance. Taking off his topcoat and the square-crowned bowler he buried them in the sand, and put on again the old cloak and the stocking-cap; but, before adjusting the latter he tied a folded silk handkerchief round his forehead and pulled it down over one of his tell-tale blue eyes as though it was a bandage.

Proceeding on his way again he endeavoured to think up further measures by which he might trick M. de Crosne’s bloodhounds. The fact that he had advertised as an Englishman speaking French like a native, suddenly struck him. Clearly they would be inquiring for a man who appeared to be a Frenchman, and certainly not one who admitted to being English. Therefore, he might fox them by a double bluff if he gave out that he was English and spoke only a little very bad French.

Another mile or so he had supplemented this idea by deciding to infer that he was an English smuggler who had got left behind on a recent trip. The fact that he had decided against parting with his sword, and the bandage that he now wore over one eye, already lent him the air of a seafaring desperado. The smugglers brought good money to the coastal villages and so were regarded as friends by the fisher-folk; and, wanting to get home, would provide him with an excellent reason for seeking a passage across the Channel.

Having spent so many hours in bed during the past two days and nights he was fully recovered from the fatigue of his long ride and, the sun having come out, he tramped along in better spirits than he had been for some time. Soon after midday he stopped for a meal at a wayside inn and, having rested for an hour, pushed on. By five o’clock in the
afternoon he had walked eighteen miles and entered the little port of St. Valèry-en-Caux.