The Wanton Princess

In Britain, during the past year, the foremost topic had been, not the war. but the Act of Union with Ireland. Pitt had long been in favour of such a union. To begin with, as far back as '85, and as a means of putting an end to the bickering between the two parliaments which prevented measures being passed that would have led to a great increase in trade between their countries, he had begun to work to that end. In '93 he had succeeded in putting through the Franchise Bill, which gave the majority of Irish people the vote: but as most Irishmen were Catholics the great majority of them were still excluded from sitting in their parliament.

Later there had arisen a much more cogent reason for uniting the two countries. From the outbreak of war with Revolutionary France, the French had sent hundreds of agi­tators m Ireland. They had succeeded in stirring up the natural resentment that the Irish Catholics fell at being debarred from any voice in the government of their country and the general discontent that had long smouldered among the Irish at being subservient to Britain. This had led not only to a strong movement aimed at achieving independence, but an open rebellion in '98 that had been difficult to put down. Added to this was the fact that the French consistently encouraged potential rebels with promises of military sup­port, had actually on one occasion landed a small force and, on another, been prevented from succeeding in a full-scale invasion only because their Fleet and troop transports had been scattered by a great tempest. And for Ireland lo be occupied by a French army with the willing consent of the majority of its inhabitants would, strategically, have been fatal to England.

The bases of Pitt's proposals were that the Irish Par­liament, which was notoriously corrupt, should be abolished; that twenty Irish Peers elected for life and four Protestant Bishops should be given seats in the House of Lords, and that representatives of the Irish cities and boroughs should sit in the House of Commons.

It was also his intention that these newcomers to Westmin­ster should not be required to take the Oaths of Supremacy and Abjuration but only the Oath of Allegiance, which would have been no bar to Catholics sitting.

In a speech to Parliament on the subject. Pitt had said, 'We must consider it as a measure of great national policy, the object of which is effectively to counteract the restless machinations of an inveterate enemy, who has uniformly and anxiously endeavoured to effect a separation between the two countries.' And in September Pitt's Cabinet had, with one important exception, agreed to give him their backing.

This was Lord Loughborough who, as Lord Chancellor, was technically, 'The King's conscience'. Loughborough apart. King George III was a deeply religious man, a bigoted Protestant, and held the belief that as Head of the Church of England, religious matters were entirely his concern and that Parliament had not even the right to debate them. So he refused absolutely even to consider allowing any Catholic to become a member of a United Parliament. Upon this liberal and wise innovation depended the real success of the measure, but the King's Veto had forced Pitt to shelve it indefinitely.

In the meantime Lord Cornwallis who, as a General, had been compelled to surrender to the revolutionary American colonists at York Town, but who had since directed a brilliant campaign in India, had been sent by Pitt to Ireland as Viceroy. By a policy of leniency he had won the goodwill of the greater part of the people, and had overcome the reluctance of the Irish Parliament. Finally, when Pitt put die temporal clauses of the Bill to the House, he had achieved a great triumph. The Act of Union had been passed by 236 votes to only 30 and had become law that New Year's Day of 1801.

As the First Consul's projected expedition to conquer India was still in its planning stage, Roger had felt no urgency about informing Mr. Pitt of it: so it was hot until January 3rd that he rode out to Holwood House, just beyond Bromley, the home at which the Prime Minister always resided during Parliament's Christmas recess.

Having kept Roger waiting for over an hour, when Mr. Pitt did at length receive him it was standing and with a frigid mien. Roger had expected that and had in his pocket a remedy for it. Producing a piece of paper he said :

'Sir, this document has long outgrown its usefulness and I have, on occasions, thought of destroying it; but it seemed to me that you might prefer to do so yourself. I have shown it to no-one and by consigning it to the flames you will be assured that it will never fall into the hands of any malicious person.'

The paper was, of course, Mr. Pitt's admission that he had used his powers arbitrarily to imprison Roger in the Tower. A pale smile lit up his lined grey face and, accepting the paper, he said. 'I greatly appreciate your delicacy in this matter. Mr. Brook. Be pleased to sit down and inform me of the reason for this somewhat surprising return of yours to England, after your decision to remain for good in France. Is it that you have quarrelled with Bonaparte?'

Taking a seat and crossing his legs, Roger replied affably, ‘By no means, sir. The First Consul and I continue to be on excellent terms, and I am still the happy recipient of Mon­sieur de Talleyrand's confidences. But they are now planning an operation which might have a most unfortunate effect upon Britain's interests in the East, so I felt it my duty to return and inform you of it.' He then told the Prime Minister of the expedition being planned to conquer India.

Mr. Pitt ran a hand over his sparse grey hair and said, 'Mr. Brook, 1 am grateful to you for your timely warning. I had no previous knowledge of this but it fits in with other intelligence I have received The Czar, as you may know, is about to go over to our active enemies. His imagination has been caught by the old Russian project of conquering the Turkish Empire. In recent years it has become so effete that it is in no state to resist him. Given an alliance with Bonaparte he might well overrun it, move east through Persia and. byway of Afghanistan, aid the French in depriving us of our possessions in the East.'

After talking of the matter for a while, the Prime Minister said, i pray you, Mr. Brook, remain on here to join us at dinner. With me I have Dundas, Castlereagh and Canning, now my staunchest supporters, and I should much like to discuss this matter further in their presence.'

Roger had long known Henry Dundas well. This bluff Scot, a heavy drinker who never hesitated to call a spade a spade, but was a glutton for work and ruled the Scottish members with a rod of iron in Pitt's interest, had for many years been a tower of strength to him. Viscount Castlereagh was the same age as Roger and George Canning a year his junior. These two had been Pitt's principal lieutenants in getting the Act of Union passed, and Castlereagh had recently been appointed Chief Secretary to Ireland.

When they talked over the meal of Bonaparte's designs against India Dundas, who as the head of the India Board was responsible for British interests there, exclaimed to the Prime Minister, 'Bloody my soul, Billy; but you see now how right I was to press you last October into sending an expedi­tion to conquer Egypt. Does General Abercrombie succeed in that we'll spike the Corsican's guns in his plan to use the country as a staging base.'

'Loath as I was to agree, I'll now admit you were right in that. Hal,' Pitt replied. 'But the main thing we have to consider is can we by any means prevent this mad Czar from sending an army to take our Austrian allies in the rear and so putting them out of the war for good?'

Roger then related his conversation at Stillwaters with Count Vorontzoff and added. 'I gathered from him that we have many highly placed friends in St. Petersburg. Would it not be possible through our Ambassador there to incite them to take steps to restrain the Czar; I mean, if need be, arbitrarily?’

The Prime Minister looked across at him and replied: 'We are now without diplomatic representation in St. Petersburg. By last June the Czar's attitude to this country had already become so hostile that as a mark of our resent­ment I recalled my Lord Whitworth. When about to depart he asked leave to present Mr. Justinian Casamajor, our Secretary of Legation, as Chargé d’Affaires; but the Czar refused to receive him and sent him too, a passport. There is, though, just a chance that what you suggested might come about. On my Lord Whitworth's return he told me that Paul's principal advisers now go daily in fear that without reason he may suddenly turn upon them and send them to exile in Siberia. The Russians are a proud and violent people, and it would not be the first time that they had deposed a Sovereign.’

Canning took him up quickly, 'Could we persuade them to act, sir, our whole position would be saved. I am told that his Heir Apparent, the Grand Duke Alexander, is a most sen­sible young man: healthy, sane and, having been brought up by a Swiss tutor, liberal-minded, yet most opposed to Bonaparte and his revolutionary precepts with which he indoctrinates the people of other countries that he cither conquers or become associated with.'

They all discussed the matter for some while, then the Prime Minister said to Roger:

'Mr. Brook. I appreciate that you have now become averse to acting against Bonaparte's interests in any other than matters that may menace the security of your own country. But by reporting his intentions against India to me, you have entirely regained my confidence. This matter of the Czar is a thing apart from any feelings you may have for your friends in France. Time and again you have shown yourself to be an extraordinarily able secret agent. Will you not now consider travelling to Russia on our behalf, make an attempt to rally the forces in opposition to the Czar, and endeavour to con­cert measures which will prevent him from joining Bonaparte against us?'

Roger considered for some minutes. In order to avoid being sent to India he must keep out of Paris for some months to come. He would soon start his liaison with Geor­gina again, but that would last only a few weeks and then there would be nothing to keep him in England. On the other hand, apart from the misfortune of incurring the displeasure of the Empress Catherine, he had much enjoyed his stay in St. Petersburg in '88. To spend a month or two in the Russian capital seemed an admirable way of filling in his time, and it would be intriguing to initiate a conspiracy with the object of rendering the mad Czar harmless. At length he said:

'Why not, sir? If I can succeed in serving my country and yourself in this way, I should be happy to do so.'

So the die was cast. Georgina arrived in London on January 4th and for a fortnight they took their old joy of one another. During this time Roger paid a visit to Vorontzoff at his fine mansion in St. John's Wood, which had for many years been the Russian Embassy. To the Ambassador Roger made no secret about the purpose of the mission upon which he was being sent. In duty bound Vorontzoff refrained from formally expressing his approval of it. Nevertheless, he fur­nished Roger with letters of introduction to a number of people who he thought might prove useful to him, and gave him much valuable information about the Court of St. Peters­burg.

A few days later he spent an hour with Lord Grenville, who briefed him on what had been occurring in the Northern capitals. It had been towards the end of August that the Czar's mounting antagonism towards Britain had culminated in his inviting the monarchs of Prussia, Sweden and Denmark to revive with him the League of Armed Neutrality, and in November he had arbitrarily placed an embargo on all British vessels in Russian ports. As the sea trade of both Sweden and Denmark had suffered severely from the restrictions imposed upon it by Britain, the young Gustavus IV of Sweden had given Paul his enthusiastic support, while in Denmark the peace-loving but ailing King Christian VII had been over­ruled by the pro-Russian Prince Royal and his Minister Bernstorff. The cautious and vacillating Frederick William of Prussia was still sitting on the fence but it was feared that he would soon join the others.

Between them these Powers could muster a Fleet of forty-one ships of the Line, and the British Navy was already severely stretched in the Channel, the Mediterranean and the West Indies. Should it also have to engage the Northern Fleet there would not be enough ships to continue the blockade of France. That might well result in Bonaparte's invading England: so the importance of Roger's mission could not be overstresscd.

They then discussed possible concessions that Britain might offer to induce Russia to retire from the League should another government replace that of Paul I. Finally, the Foreign Secretary furnished Roger with a Lettre de Marque to show as his credential should he find it possible to initiate negotiations.

On January 18th he took a loving farewell of Georgina and that night embarked in a ship that was about to sail from London to Bremen, as the first stage of his long journey to St. Petersburg.

8

The Mad Czar

Considering the time of year, Roger was lucky in the weather for his crossing of the North Sea, and four days later he landed at the Free Port of Bremen. As the city lay in the middle of Hanover and that country still was a part of the dominions of the British Crown, he received every facility for continuing his journey without delay. After covering the hundred miles to Lubeck in a coach he had to waste two days before he could get a ship that was sailing up the Baltic and, when he did, she had not been long at sea before he was regretting that he had not gone by coach via Berlin and Warsaw. But over icy roads in mid-winter the twelve hundred mile journey might have taken him anything up to six weeks.

The cold was bitter, even the furs he had bought in Bremen could not protect him for long from the icy, knife-like winds, his cabin was little more than a cupboard, and the food so revolting that, had he not brought aboard supplies of his own, he would almost have preferred to starve. But the weather might have been much worse; so he was sea-sick only on two days, and the brig landed him at Riga on her tenth day out.

Ice floes would have made it too dangerous for her to proceed further north at that season, and St. Petersburg itself would remain ice-bound for at least several weeks to come. At Riga he hired a troika and, drawn by three powerful horses, proceeded on his way. The posting service proved reasonably adequate but the inns at which he had to spend the nights were atrocious.

The nobility always sent couriers ahead to make special arrangements for them and travelled with their own mattres­ses and other furniture. Lacking these amenities, Roger had usually to share a room with several people of both sexes, there was no linen and the sparse furnishings were always riddled with bed-bugs. After suffering stoically for a further eight days, he entered the Russian capital on the afternoon of February 12th.

During his earlier stay there he had found an excellent friend in the Reverend William Tooke, then the chaplain of the English 'Factory'—as was called a large enclosed area in which stood the warehouses of the British merchants trading regularly with Russia. Making his way to the docks, Roger enquired at the gate for the Reverend William, only to learn that nine years before he had come into a considerable for­tune and had returned to England to enjoy it. However," his successor, the Reverend James Peabody, received Roger kindly, said how agreeable it would be to have news from home and offered to put aim up until he could find suitable accommodation.

Roger did not, of course, disclose to the Reverend James the purpose that lay behind his coming to St Petersburg, but said that he found his greatest pleasure in travel, had enough money to indulge his taste and not having been in Russia for twelve years had decided to pay it a second visit.

The parson shook his head, 'I fear your visit is ill-timed, Mr. Brook. In the Empress Catherine's day. when you were last here, I'm told St. Petersburg was a wondrously gay city; but it is far from being so at present, and for an Englishman particularly so.'

'You mean, sir, that as we no longer enjoy diplomatic representation here I cannot apply to be presented at Court?'

'That, and the fact that you are an Englishman. Owing to the violent prejudice against our country with which the Emperor has been seized this past year, few of the nobility would be willing to give you a welcome in their houses from fear that the Czar should hear of it and vent his displeasure on them. Such is his rancour against us that last August, when he first announced his intention of reviving the League of Armed Neutrality to our detriment, he actually went to the length of seizing the goods in our Factory here and. on a trumped-up pretext, imprisoned a number of British seamen: both acts that any sane Monarch would have been ashamed to perform."

'Indeed! But I take it that British travellers are still free to come and go without interference?'

'Provided they behave themselves, to interfere with their liberty, either in peace or war, would be an unheard-of barbarity. But I would advise that you keep a guard upon your tongue, and so give the Secret Police no cause to apprehend you for “Lese-majeste".'

The chaplain was a bachelor so there were only the two of them at supper, and over the meal the Reverend James gave Roger an account of Paul I's earlier life and of the frustra­tions that it was generally accepted had caused his weak mind to brood for years upon revenge then, when he had at last ascended the throne, had made him a tyrannical despot.

It was not until he was forty-two that he had succeeded his lecherous, but great and liberal-minded mother. From boy­hood she had kept him in a state of tutelage and denied him any say in the government of the country. For years the great nobles and ambassadors had fawned on Catherine's lovers while treating her Heir Apparent with ill-concealed contempt. She had even taken his children from him and permitted him no say in their upbringing.

The only liberty she allowed him was to play at soldiers. Like his father, Peter III, he was fascinated by the military achievements of Frederick the Great: so Catherine had per­mitted him to form his own regiment of Marines at Gatshina, his country place at which he passed a good part of the year.

There he had spent eight to ten hours a day drilling his miniature army on the Prussian model and enforcing the harshest discipline.

When he succeeded his mother in November '96, he had at once sent for his Marines, infiltrated them into the Brigade of Guards and promoted their officers to senior commands in these elite regiments. Before the nobles who officered the Brigade fully realized what was happening they found that they were under the thumbs of the newcomers. All leave was abolished and favoured courtier-officers, who had attended only one drill a year, were ordered to march up and down the barrack squares for hours at a stretch. Those who resigned were promptly sent into exile.

Once firmly in the saddle, Paul had changed the aspect of the Court overnight and, out of hatred for his mother, reversed all her policies. Her last favourite, Pluto Zuboff, had been deprived of most of his possessions and exiled to his country estate. Rastopchin had been one of the few ministers to retain his place: but only because formerly he had had the forethought to solicit the favour of wearing the uniform that Paul had designed for his Gatshina regiment.

Under the new regime, familiarity with Gatshina or past loyalty to Paul's father had become the only passports to promotion. The latter had never been crowned, so Paul had his body dug up, crowned in its coffin and laid in state beside that of the dead Empress who had instigated his murder; then the whole Court was required to kiss the hands of both corpses before they were buried side by side.

In the first months of his reign he gained some reputation for clemency by liberating the great Polish leader Kosciuszko and a number of other people whom his mother had imprisoned but, being strongly opposed to revolutionary ideas, he had initiated a ferocious and senseless persecution of the French exiles living in Russia; and had banned the use of French books, furniture, cooking and fashions, to the intense annoyance of his nobility whose culture was almost exclusively derived from France. Another of his pointless and infuriating orders had been that all carriage-owners had to buy a different type of harness and equip their coachmen in the German style. The Russian coachmen refused to part either with their kaftans or their beards; and the price of new harness soon became prohibitive, because the Czar had instructed his police that, after a fortnight, they were to cut the harness of any carriage on which the old style Russian harness was still being used. The upper classes had even greater cause for rage when he revived an old ukase decreeing that whenever a Czar or Czarina drove through the streets, everyone within sight must immediately abase themselves. This meant that even ladies in carriages must stop them, jump out and prostrate themselves in the snow or slush.

The lower classes, too. had cause for complaint. One of Paul's inexplicable idiosyncrasies was a hatred of round hats, and these were the general wear of the masses in Russia. After decreeing their abolition he gave orders to his police that any round hat they saw was to be snatched from the head of its wearer and destroyed: and many of the poorer people could not afford to buy others.

More recently, following his revival the previous summer of the League of Armed Neutrality, he had prohibited all trade with Rritain. As Russia was almost entirely an agricul­tural country she had to import nine-tenths of her manufac­tured goods, and for close on two hundred years by far the greater part of these had come from England. Their present dearth was inflicting a considerable hardship on all classes of people and greatly increasing the rancour against the Czar.

Having listened to all this and more, Roger could only wonder that the Russians had put up with their crazy monarch for so long; but on reflection he realized that the masses, being bond slaves, would have been put down immediately by the military with the full backing of the nobility had they attempted to revolt, and that it was so ingrained in the upper classes to think of 'The Little Father' as almost an embodiment of God that they would never dare unite and openly defy him. Clearly the only hope of bringing his tyrannical reign to an end was by a coup d'etat carried out inside the Palace by a few courageous men.

When Roger entered the city, the early winter darkness had already fallen, so it was not until the following morning that he again saw it by daylight. Unlike Paris, London and other ancient capitals, St. Petersburg having been built less than a hundred years before by Peter the Great, instead of having narrow, tortuous streets with the upper storeys of the houses nearly meeting overhead, had fine, broad boulevards lined with splendid mansions of stone.

As he was driven at a good pace along the Nevsky Prospect in a droshky. while enjoying the crisp clean air he recalled the names of several of the owners of the palaces but noticed that most of them were now shut, and that in the streets there was not a quarter of the handsome equipages that were to be seen in Catherine the Great's day.

He was carrying on him a letter from Count Simon Vorontzoff to his elder brother, Count Alexander, and when he reached the Vorontzoff palace he was considerably relieved to find it still occupied. Having left his letter at the door he spent an hour driving round the city, made a few purchases and returned to the Factory. That evening a running footman brought him a reply in which Count Alexander invited him to breakfast the following morning.

There were several people present at the meal and, as Russian gentry used Russian only when addressing their ser­vants, habitually using French. English or German among themselves, Roger had no difficulty in entering into the con­versation. For a pleasant hour they talked of general topics or of mutual acquaintances, cither that Roger had met on his previous visit to St. Petersburg or that Count Alexander had made when for a short while during the reign of Peter III he had been Ambassador in London. Then, as Roger was about to take his leave he asked the Count in a low voice if he would give him a private interview, to which Vorontzoff replied softly, 'By all means. Leave with the others and return in half an hour.'

When Roger again entered the house he was taken to a small writing room, and there he told the Count the purpose of his mission.

As soon as he had finished, the Russian said. 'Mr. Brook, I must warn you that you are courting very grave danger. Should the faintest suspicion of your intentions get out you would find yourself locked up in a fortress for life.'

Roger smiled, ‘I am aware of that, sir; and having had some experience of similar affairs you may be sure that I shall exercise the utmost caution. But, I pray you. tell me your view of the prospects of achieving such a coup.'

'Many people would welcome it. There can be no doubt about that. His Imperial Majesty is mad beyond question, and now dangerously so. For the sake of Russia he should be deposed. In fact if he is not, the country will be utterly ruined. I take it you are acquainted with the history of his short reign?'

'As far as a foreigner can be, sir. I know, of course, that he began by being ardently anti-French and sent his army under your great General, Suvoroff, to reconquer Italy; then, after Suvoroff's brilliantly successful campaign, the Emperor of Austria so misused his army that the Czar broke with the Austrians and recalled his forces. After the breach ...'

'Do you know what has happened to General Suvoroff since?' the Count put in.

'No, sir, I have no idea.'

'When he was bringing his army back to Russia, His Imperial Majesty decreed that the General's entry into St. Petersburg should be a triumph equal to that any Caesar had enjoyed, made him a present of many thousands of serfs and loaded him with decorations and jewels. When Suvoroff reached Riga he received a despatch by courier. It told him that the Czar had deprived him of the command of the army, of his rank as a Field Marshal, of all his decorations and of all his property. And this without any reason what­soever. Suvoroff followed his army back a broken man. He refuses to see anyone or receive help from his friends, and now lies dying in a hovel.’

'Can this be true?' Roger exclaimed aghast. 'The great Suvoroff! The Empress Catherine's most successful General! The hero that all Russia has taken to its heart! I wonder that the whole army did not mutiny at such treatment of its beloved veteran leader.'

Vorontzoff shrugged, "Tis true enough, and it's not that alone that the army has to complain about. Formerly the troops wore a comfortable uniform suited to campaigning in all weathers: a pair of roomy pantaloons with the ends tucked into boots of soft leather, a loose jacket and hair cut short at the back of the neck below a round helmet. Under such a costume they could wear either thick underclothes or only a thin shirt as was best suited to the climate. But our crazy Czar has altered all that. He has put them into uni­forms of the German pattern, such as he designed for his Marines at Gatshina. Now they must wear tight tail coats and skin-tight breeches, whether or not they shiver in the cold, long gaiters that cramp the legs, tall shakos that do not balance easily on the head and, a thing they hate above all, grow their back hair long then bedaub it with grease and flour to make it into a queue.'

'Then 'tis certain we'd meet with no opposition from the army.'

'From the army. no. But it is scattered far and wide. The capital is garrisoned by the Brigade of Guards. There are ten thousand of them and the majority of the officers and non­-commissioned officers were formerly Gatshina Marines, so are loyal to the Emperor.'

'Then,' said Roger, 'if 'tis to be done at all, as I expected, it will have to be concerted within the Palace and the troops presented with a fait accompli. What is the situation there?'

Vorontzoff sadly shook his head. 'In recent years it has changed from a gay and happy meeting place, where the Empress Catherine gave a warmer welcome to artists, philosophers and literary men than they received at any other Court in Europe, into a vast, gloomy fortress hedged about with every form of defence against surprise attack. And through the empty corridors there now stalk bigotry, suspi­cion, cruelty and fear.'

'Your description implies that the Czar already fears that the people may revolt against him.'

'I imagine so; why otherwise these defences he has caused to be erected round his palace? One thing is certain. Fearing the same fate that befell his father may overtake him, he is now suspicious of everyone—even of his wife and sons.'

'Think you, sir, that they might be glad to sec him put where he can do no further harm, and so be inclined to assist us?'

‘I greatly doubt it. The Czarina Maria has suffered much. While at Gatshina he used to keep her sitting for hours upon a horse, often in pouring rain, upon a hill-top, simply as a marker of the place he wished his Marines to attack in some mock battle. She is one of the most lovely women at the Court of St. Petersburg, but he pays her scant attention. Nevertheless, she is of a faithful disposition and I think it unlikely that she would ever participate in a conspiracy against him. As for his sons, the Czarevitch is a charming young man. He could become an admirable ruler, but he is of such an upright nature that I feel sure he would not lend himself to deposing his father. His brother, the Grand Duke Constantine, I urge you to beware of. He is a fool and a loud­mouthed braggart, so all the odds are that by some indiscre­tion he would betray you.'

'What of Mademoiselle Niledoff?' Roger asked. ‘I have heard it said that after having been the Czar's mistress for many years she has recently been displaced by a Made­moiselle Lopukhina. Out of jealousy, might she not perhaps give us her aid?'

'Have you ever met her?' the Count enquired with a smile.

'No, sir. I was little more than a youth when last in St. Petersburg, and that was near thirteen years ago.'

'You have lost nothing then. She is ugly and diminutive; squints, spits while she is talking and swears like a trooper. Apparently such conduct appeals to our military-minded master and after a day's manoeuvres they often get drunk together. But despite the Czar's new fancy for the Lopukhina, the Niledorf still has a hold on him; and without him she would be nothing, so it would be ill-advised to approach her.'

'Has he men favourites as well as women?'

'Indeed, yes. Apparently it gives him pleasure to raise up low-born servants and watch them being insolent to their betters. There is one in particular, his Turkish barber, a man named Ivan Pavlovitch. The fellow was a slave brought up in his house but now the Czar will do nothing that does not meet with this creature's approval, and has actually made him a Privy Councillor.'

'What of his Ministers, sir? Do you believe them to be loyal to him?"

'They would be as mad as he is did they not wish for a change of master. When in his presence the unpredictability of his mind keeps them in a state of constant fear. On being received in audience, should they fail to kiss his hand so fervidly that the smack of their lips on it is heard throughout the chamber he may impute to them a secret reluctance to pay him proper homage, fly into one of his violent rages and instantly deprive them of their fortunes. During this past year he has sent not a few but hundreds of officials into exile.'

'That being so there must be much suitable material to our hand.'

Vorontzoff shook his head, 'Perhaps to yours, Mr. Brook; but not to "ours". You must not count on my aid in this, because my circumstances are peculiar. Under the Emperor Peter I was a Minister and served him faithfully. I played no part in the coup d'etat which led to his death, neither did I support his wife Catherine's usurpation. For that she never forgave me: so during her reign I lived in retirement. Upon the present Czar's coming to the throne, he recalled my loyalty to his father and on that account behaved most hand­somely to my house, showering both myself and my brother with rich gifts.'

'My brother's situation is somewhat different from mine. Having lived for fifteen years in England he has become much enamoured of your country and has made the cause of Britain his own. As long as Russia continued to be at war with France he was entirely happy: but then, as we must in fairness admit, the Czar had some grounds for becoming dissatisfied with his ally. As the elected Grand Prior of the

Knights of Malta, to become sovereign of that island meant a great deal to him; but your country refused him that satisfac­tion. There was then the matter of the Russian force sent to Holland and its shocking mishandling by the Duke of York. Those, too, who succeeded in getting away with such English as escaped were sent to the Channel Islands and have since been treated as little better than prisoners. On that head I may mention that Bonaparte acted very differently. The Rus­sians captured by the French in Holland were, in truth, prisoners of war; yet the First Consul not only sent them home without requiring an exchange, but had every man furnished with a new uniform before doing so.'

Roger smiled. 'Such a gesture was typical of both the generosity General Bonaparte displays at times and of his cunning. Agreeing, though, that the Emperor Paul had some grounds for dissatisfaction with Britain, and has now become so bewitched by the First Consul that he is determined to join him in his war against us, that has no bearing upon the facts, admitted by yourself, that the Czar is no longer competent to govern and has become a menace to his people.'

'There I agree. I was pointing out only that whereas my brother's love of England has overcome his gratitude for the benefits his master has bestowed upon him, so that he has at least tacitly encouraged you to undertake your present mis­sion, I still consider myself bound by the benefits I have received from H's Imperial Majesty to keep aloof from any attempt to bring about his ruin.'

'I appreciate your scruples, sir.' Roger replied quietly. Then, feeling that in the circumstances it would not be right to ask the Count for the names of any highly-placed men who might aid him, much disappointed, he shortly afterwards took his leave.

Tile next day being Sunday, he borrowed a pair of skates and went down to the Neva where a considerable number of people were skating on their own or propelling ladies in sledges swiftly over the ice. He had not been there long before he ran into a Captain Muriavieff, whom he had met the previous day when breakfasting with Vorontzoff. When they had talked for a while as they glided over the ice side by side, the Captain invited him to a stag party that he was giving that evening, and Roger gladly accepted.

On his arrival at Muriavieff's apartment he found a dozen or more men assembled there, most of whom were officers of the Semenourki Guards. The Punch was mixed and they gaily set about an evening's drinking. By eleven o'clock they were on their fifth bowl of Punch, singing lustily and already slightly tipsy. It was then that a newcomer entered and, as he came into the room, a sudden embarrassed silence fell. Won­dering at its cause, Roger looked at the tall, pale-faced young man, who was obviously very drunk indeed, and saw that although he was wearing the uniform of an officer it lacked both sash and epaulettes.

Advancing unsteadily on Muriavieff, the young man burst into a tirade of abuse against the Czar. From it Roger gathered that on the previous day the Semenourki regiment had been on guard duty at the Palace and when Paul had made his usual two hour-long inspection, examining minutely every man in the regiment, he had noticed that one or the men had a slight stain on his breeches. This had driven him into a furious rage and he had promptly reduced both the man's Company Commander and Platoon Commander to the ranks.

It was the outraged Company Commander who was now giving vent to his indignation, and he bawled at Muriavieff, 'How long are we to lie down under such vile treatment? The "Little Father" is no longer a father to us but a crazy imbecile. He treats us, scions of the noblest families in Mother Rursia, as though we were no better than serfs. Why do you not speak to your Uncle and urge upon him that it is his duty to remonstrate with the madman? As First Minister Count Pahlen has his ear. Go to him, Muriavieff. You have always said you were my friend. Go to him and urge him to get me back my commission.'

At the name of Count Pahlen Roger pricked up his ears. Among the letters of introduction that Count Simon Vorontzoff had given him was one for the Minister. Knowing that at every morning levee his anteroom would be crowded with people submitting petitions to him, Roger had been wondering how, without making himself conspicuous, he could present his letter and secure a private audience That Muriavieff should be the great man's nephew offered just the opening he had been seeking.

Clearly everyone sympathized with the degraded Captain, and joined in abusing the Czar. For half an hour the indigna­tion meeting continued, everyone talking at once. Meanwhile, the Czar's victim was given several helpings of Punch and, being already drunk, at the end of that time fell flat on his face on the floor.

When he had been carried off to a bedroom and the clamour had subsided, Roger got Muriavieff aside, said that he had an introduction to his uncle and asked if he could arrange for him to meet him more or less in private.

Muriavieff, swaying slightly but not too drunk to register what was being said to him, replied, 'Nothing easier, my friend. Imperial Highness Alexander giving big reception two nights hence. We're his own regiment, you know. All invited. My uncle sure to be there. Take you with me.'

9

The Conspiracy

Two nights later, concealing his excitement at the promised meeting with Count Pahlen, which he felt might prove the key to his mission, Roger accompanied Muriavieff to the Palace of the Heir Apparent and was presented to him. He found, as he had been told, that the Prince was a delightful young man: handsome, well-made and of a most amiable disposition. For a man of twenty-four he seemed somewhat shy, but he had dignity and gave his wife a charming smile as Roger was about to make his bow to her. She had been Princess Louise of Baden and they had married when he was only sixteen, his grandmother having been anxious to see the succession secured before she died. In that Catherine had been disappointed: for Elizabeth Feodorovna, as Louise had been rechristened on taking the Russian Faith, had had no children. But she was a beautiful girl and the young couple had fallen in love at first sight.

An hour later Roger, who had been keeping a watchful eye on Muriavieff, saw him detach a tall, broad-shouldered man with a rugged, forceful face from a small group and lead him a few paces towards the embrasure of a window. The Captain then beckoned Roger who moved quickly over to them and the presentation was made.

Roger at once spoke of his letter from Count Simon and was about to produce it, but the Minister said quickly, ‘I will take it as read, Mr. Brook, and send you a card for some entertainment within a few days: but many affairs call for my attention and my nephew tells me that you wanted a word in private. Now is your lime.'

'It was to give Your Excellency a sight of this.' Roger replied quickly, as he took from his waistcoat pocket a slip of paper. It had on it only three lines, which read:

'Mr. Roger Brook is a confidential agent of the British Government. He is proceeding to Russia in the hope of bringing about better relations with the Government of His Imperial Majesty.'

And it was signed by Lord Grenvillc.

Having given the Lettre de Marque a swift glance. Count Pahlen handed it back with a dubious smile as he said, ‘I fear you have set yourself a difficult task, Mr. Brook. My Imperial Master feels himself to have been most ill-treated by his late allies and is now firmly set upon entering the war against them.’

'Of that I am aware,' Roger replied in a low voice. 'But it cannot have escaped Your Excellency that his rule has made him many enemies among his own people. Should God in His wisdom decree a chance of government here. I might be able to carry back to my Lord Grenville a very different answer.'

Having no official position Roger could not claim dip­lomatic immunity, so it was a most dangerous suggestion to have made. But, after the Czar. Count Pahlen was the most powerful man in Russia, and Roger had decided that this was his one big chance of getting to grips with his mission.

The minister's smile left his face and, after a moment, he said, 'You are a bold man. Mr. Brook. In this country even to voice such a thought could be accounted a crime.'

Keeping his deep blue eyes fixed unwaveringly on those of the Count, Roger replied, 'I am confident that Your Excel­lency, too, would run great risks in the interests of your country and for the chance of restoring happiness to a vast number of people. I pray you at least to afford me an opportunity to put before you certain possibilities.'

'Do you speak German or French?' asked the Count

'German well enough and French fluently.'

'Very well, then. German would be better. Be at my residence one hour after midnight and enquire for Alexis in that language. He will bring you to me and I will listen to what you have to say.'

Roger murmured his thanks, they exchanged bows and the minister moved away.

For the remainder of the evening Roger continued to cir­culate among the guests, renewing an old acquaintance here and there and, through them, making a number of new ones. Moving slowly about the large, lofty rooms there were several hundred people and at the buffets the supplies of food and drink were ample; but the guests did not appear to be enjoying themselves. There was little laughter and an air of uneasy restraint seemed to afflict the whole company; so Roger found himself comparing the scene with those he had witnessed at the Winter Palace and the Hermitage in the days of the great Catherine.

The uniforms of her reign had been much more varied and brilliant, and the fetes she and her favourites gave spectacles to marvel at. Lofty apartments were turned into Indian temples and indoor gardens, where tropical fish swam in great glass vases. Thousands of candles in huge crystal chandeliers had lit the scene. After the formal dances, led by the Empress herself, there were wonderful ballets each costing a fortune, parades of Kalmucks, Tartars, Circassians and all the other peoples of her Empire in their colourful tribal costumes. Then jugglers and acrobats performed their feats and Cossacks danced the Trepak to the wild music of gipsy bands. The long tables groaned under their weight of fantastic culinary creations on dishes of gold and silver, and the cham­pagne flowed like water. At midnight the common people were let in by the hundred, given food and wine and presents of money, household articles and clothes. After the Empress retired the party became one vast drunken orgy, but it was not without reason that her people cried, 'Czarina, live for ever.'

Yet most of the time Roger's thoughts were on his coming interview with Count Pahlen, and he wondered with con­siderable anxiety whether he would emerge from it a free man.

At one o'clock in the morning he roused the sleepy night porter at the Count's palace, asked in German for Herr Alexis and. after a short wail, a lanky, grey-haired man showed him into the Minister's cabinet. Pahlen had discarded his stiff Court dress and put on a loose chamber robe. Waving Roger to a chair, he said at once:

'Now, Mr. Brook, let me hear what your Government has to offer that might induce Russia to change her policy.'

'A considerable modification of the measures that now seriously interfere with Russia's commerce on the high seas. Your Excellency,' Roger replied, 'and the return in good shape of the Russian troops now detained in the Channel Islands.'

'That is not much,' shrugged the Count, 'and would not weigh a straw with my present master.'

'Ah!' exclaimed Roger boldly. 'Your Excellency has brought us to the crux of the whole matter. You will surely not contest that the Czar Paul is rapidly leading Russia to ruin? Nine-tenths of your trade is already at a standstill. The fascination that General Bonaparte exercises on him may well prove disastrous. As allies, any troops he may send into western Europe must mingle with the French. Whatever change may have taken place in the First Consul's own views, his army is still imbued with the doctrines of the Revolution: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". You may depend upon it that your troops will be infected by their views and on return to their own country stage revolts which must end in the destruction of your system, under which by far the greater part of the Russian people lives in a state of serfdom.'

Count Pahlen nodded, 'In that being a danger, I agree with you.'

'Yet it is not that alone which must be a matter of great concern to you,' Roger hurried on. 'There is the parlous state to which the Russian nobility has been reduced. I learn that within the past few years, not scores but hundreds of them have been sent to exile in Siberia.' He then related the scene he had witnessed two nights before in Captain Muriavieff's apartments and continued, 'Such arbitrary dismissals must immensely weaken your army when it is brought into battle, and by them the whole hierarchy under which Russia has grown great is systematically being destroyed. In this I tell Your Excellency nothing that you do not already know, and must surely feel calls for swift redress.'

With a grim little smile the Minister asked, 'What remedy for this, Mr. Brook, do you propose?'

'I'll make no bones about it,' Roger replied firmly. 'You should depose the Emperor and install the Grand Duke Alexander as Czar in his place.'

'Your proposal has no novelty,' the Count said with a heavy sigh. 'Your last Ambassador, Lord Whitworth, urged such a step upon me before his departure, and numerous other people have done so in secret. But a coup d’etat of this kind is fraught with difficulties and dangers. The Grand Duke Alexander has no reason to love his father. In character the two bear no resemblance. On that account the Czar has always disliked and distrusted his son. The more so as he is aware that, but for the Empress Catherine's last illness having taken her off somewhat suddenly, Alexander would have succeeded in his place. Her Majesty had already had documents drafted to set aside her son and install her grandson on the throne. Alexander was aware of this but, being a youth of high integrity, refused to lend himself to supplanting his father. That is still his attitude. I have already sounded him on the subject several times, but he remains adamant in his resistance to proposals that we should depose his father and make him Czar. And, without his consent, such an act could lead to the death of all concerned in it.'

'I am much encouraged,' Roger said, 'by Your Excellency having confided in me that you are in favour of deposing his present Majesty, and I appreciate your difficulty. May I hope, though, that you will continue to urge upon the Grand

Duke the necessity of agreeing to this project for the salvation of his country?'

'You may, Mr. Brook; for our situation becomes more disturbing every day. But what of yourself? Whereabouts in the city have you a lodging?'

'In the English Factory, with the Reverend James Peabody, who has most kindly given me hospitality these past few days. But I am loath to burden him with my presence much longer and am seeking other accommodation.'

Count Pahlen thought for a few moments, then he said, 'As our only link with the Government of England I would like you to remain on in St. Petersburg, pending possible eventualities: but it is important that no suspicion be aroused regarding the reason for your presence here. In view of the present breach between Russia and England your pretence of being only a casual traveller is liable to become suspect before long; and it is most undesirable that the Czar's secret police should become interested in your movements. I think the safest plan would be for you to remove to my country house outside the city, as there you would be free from police surveillance. But I cannot place full reliance on my own staff, and it might arouse undesirable comment if it were known that I had an English guest there.'

Roger, now more than ever satisfied with the turn the interview had taken, smiled his thanks then suggested, 'As the Germans have always been looked on kindly by His Imperial Majesty, did I pose as one while your guest and my presence there come to his ears, he would think nothing of it. Particularly if you could provide me with some suitable employment.'

'That is an admirable idea,' the Minister replied. 'As a reason for your presence you could catalogue the German books in my library.'

So matters were arranged. Next day Roger thanked the Reverend James warmly for his hospitality and left the city to take up his residence in Count Pahlen's country mansion, under the name of Herr Professor Heinrich Below.

It was by then February 16th, and before the end of the month Roger had several other conversations with the Min­ister, who kept him informed of what was going on. The Czar had despatched an emissary to Paris to end formally the state of war that existed between Russia and France. A glowing response had recently been received from the First Consul and with it a copy of a declaration he had issued. It gave unstinted praise to the Czar for his chivalrous decision to defend the shipping of all nations from the piracy of the English, then stated France's determination to render him all possible aid and not make peace with Britain until she agreed to recognize the 'Freedom of the Seas'.

Overjoyed by this. Paul had sent an enthusiastic reply of great length. In it he urged the First Consul to exert pressure through Spain on Portugal to force her to join the League, and to use his influence with the United States to the same end. He then proposed a vast, mad plan for conquering India. The French, under Massena, were to cross the Danube, enter Russia then, by way of the Don and Volga, arrive at Astrakhan on the Black Sea. There they would be joined by a Russian army and by way of Herat and Candahar invade India.

Roger could well imagine how Bonaparte and Talleyrand would laugh over this crazy scheme; but it was certain they would flatter the Czar by pretending to accept it while making capital out of his hatred of England.

At several of Roger's talks with Count Pahlen, the Vice Chancellor, Count Nitika Panin, was present and, later, a number of other high officials, all of whom concurred that the Czar must, somehow, be deposed. But all were agreed that they dared not act until the consent of the Grand Duke Alexander had been obtained, and he continued obdurate.

Towards the end of February Roger learned that on the 9th. as a result of Moreau's further successes following Hohenlinden and his advance on Vienna, the Austrians had, at Lun6ville, again signal a separate peace; so Britain was now left on her own to fight France, Sweden and Denmark.

But early in March the prospect of dethroning the Czar became more hopeful. Prussia had remained dilatory about joining the League, and had done no more than close the mouths of the rivers Ems and Weser to British shipping. Infuriated by Frederick William's lack of co-operation, Paul threatened to send an army of eighty thousand men against Berlin unless the Prussians at once invaded Hanover. For Russia to alienate her potential allies the Prussians, as well as the English, must prove disastrous; so Alexander reluctantly agreed that something must be done, but not for the moment.

Meanwhile Paul was becoming conscious that his tyranny was making him many enemies, and had begun to fear assas­sination. He had already turned the Mikhailovsky Palace, in which he lived, into a fortress and now he strengthened its defences still further. Suspecting everyone round him of treachery he became ever more gloomy and intractable. Even his devoted wife and his sons came under suspicion, and he told Pahlen that he felt convinced that they were plotting against him. Then, one day, he confided to his Minister that he meant to imprison all three of them and appoint the young Prince Eugene of Wurtemberg as his successor. When Pahlen informed Alexander of his danger the Grand Duke finally consented to his father being deposed, but made the Count swear on oath that, when the Czar was arrested, in no cir­cumstances should he be harmed.

Now, it seemed to Roger all that remained to be done was to evolve a carefully-thought-out plan for getting into the Palace without opposition and forcing Paul to sign a Deed of Abdication. But neither Pahlen nor Panin shared that view. Both were most averse to taking any active role themselves and agreed that, although innumerable Russians had come to hate Paul, they could think of no-one with sufficient standing who would hare the temerity to face him and tell him he had been deposed. Roger thereupon volunteered to do the job himself, provided he was given adequate armed backing. But to that they objected that he was not fitted to take the lead in such an undertaking because he was known only to a few of the nobles who wished to force the Czar to abdicate; so the majority would refuse to put their trust in him and risk their necks by accompanying him into the Palace.

At length they decided to use General Bennigsen, a bold and ruthless Hanoverian in the Russian service. But he was commanding the garrison in a distant city, so Roger had to restrain his impatience as best he could while making a pretence for a further week of cataloguing Count Pahlen's library.

Bennigsen arrived in mid-March and, when informed what was afoot, declared himself willing to play the leading part, provided that others, equally resolute, were ready to give him their support. Pahlen assured him that he would have no difficulty in producing a body of such men shortly before the attempt. But now that it came to deciding on which night it should be made, there occurred yet another delay. Only Alexander's own Semenourki regiment could be relied on not' to oppose the conspirators entering the Palace; so they must wait until its next turn for duly came round.

By this lime, so many senior officers had been summoned to meetings by Count Pahlen and asked their views that it seemed to Roger that half St. Petersburg must know about the plot. Every day now he cxpected to hear that Paul had learned about it and had had his Minister arrested: and if that happened the whole movement would be nipped in the bud because the Count, as Governor of the City, controlled the police and should he be deprived of that post everyone else concerned would also be arrested.

With ever-increasing anxiety Roger strove to keep his thoughts on listing the titles of books and manuscripts until the morning of March 23rd. Still fearing that the Czar must know of the conspiracy and that they would all be seized at the last moment, he rode into the city to be present that night at a supper party Count Pahlen was giving for some sixty officers.

Among them were the three Zuboff brothers, the eldest of whom. Plato, had been Catherine's favourite at the time of her death. Roger had never previously met him, but had heard many accounts of his vanity, stupidity and insolent behaviour. Paul, on his accession, had deprived the brothers of the greater part of their wealth and they had since been living uncomfortably in the country. Pahlen had chosen them to act as Bennigsen's immediate supporters and had sent for them in secret. Later it emerged that they, and many of the other officers present, were not yet aware of the reason for this gathering.

Soon after midnight, by which time large quantities of wine had been consumed, Pahlen addressed the company. He told them that that morning the Czar had carried out his threat against the dilatory Frederick William, and sent him an insulting message by the Russian Ambassador in Berlin dec­laring war on Prussia. When the exclamations of dismay had died down the Count added that this last insane act could mean the ruin of Russia so must be stopped, and he then immediately called upon them to join him that very night in forcing the Czar to abdicate.

Only four officers refused their aid: the rest enthusiastically hailed this chance to protect themselves from falling under the mad Czar's displeasure. In an excited mob they streamed out of the mansion and headed for the Palace. On the way there Pahlen succeeded in forming them into two groups: one that was to enter the Palace under Bennigsen, the other to remain outside with himself and overawe any officers of the guard who might attempt to make trouble. But there was no trouble. The senior officers of the Semenourki regiment were in the plot and had arranged that their sentries should allow the conspirators to pass.

Roger and the Zuboff brothers had joined Bennigsen's party. It was now close on two o'clock in the morning and all but a few of the inmates of the Palace were sleeping. Quickly the conspirators made their way across the great hall, up the broad staircase and along dimly-lit corridors to the Czar's apartments.

Outside them two heyducks were on guard and attempted to halt them. One was instantly struck down, the other managed to escape and, as he ran off shouting for help, several of the conspirators dashed away in pursuit of him.

Hearing his cries the Czar's valet, who had been dozing in the ante-room, appeared, his eyes round with terror. Knowing that he had the key to his master's bedroom, Bennigsen seized him by the throat, shook him as a terrier shakes a rat, and took the key from him. Two minutes later they were in the bedroom.

Roused from his sleep, Paul was sitting up in his huge canopied bed. but only vaguely discernible by the glimmer of a single night light. Bennigsen, waving his sword with one hand, with the other pulled from his pocket the Act of Abdication and shouted:

‘You have ceased to reign! The Grand Duke Alexander is now Emperor. I summon you in his name to sign this document. Refuse and I'll not answer for your life!'

Protesting wildly, Paul slipped from his bed and made a dash for the door leading to the Empress's apartments. Then he pulled up short, suddenly remembering that he could not escape that way because, fearing that his wife might have him murdered, he had only a few days before, ordered it to be blocked up. By his unworthy suspicions he had trapped himself.

At that moment there came the sound of tramping feet out in the corridor. Fearing that the heyduck who had got away had succeeded in reaching and rousing Paul's bodyguard and that they were now coming to his help, the conspirators panicked, faced about and ran back into the ante-room. There ensued a wild scramble as they pushed one another aside in their anxiety to get through the further door and away down the passage.

After a few moments Bennigsen regained his wits and bellowed, 'Stop, you fools! Defend the door! Give me five minutes and I'll force him to sign, then threaten him with death unless he orders his people to let us freely leave the Palace.’

Except for Plato Zuboff, his brother Nicholas and Roger the others ignored Bennigsen's plea and ran on. It seemed now that, if the coup was to be accomplished, every moment was precious. With no word said, all four of them turned about and dashed back into Paul's bedroom.

During their brief absence he had scrambled back into bed and had endeavoured to conceal himself under the heavy rugs at its foot. Three parts drunk with wine and excitement, Bennigsen and the Zuboffs launched themselves at the bed and began to tear away the covers. One of them knocked over the night light and a moment later the room was plunged into total darkness.

Roger drew a sharp breath as it flashed into his mind that this contretemps spelled disaster. In the pitch darkness it would be impossible to make the Czar sign the abdication. At any moment now Paul's bodyguard might arrive on the scene. Even if Bennigsen carried out his threat to kill the Czar, there would be no escape for those who had brought about his death. All four of them would be overwhelmed and slaughtered.

Swiftly he assessed his own chances. Shouts and the noise of a desperate struggle came from the direction of the bed, but no sound came from the ante-room or the corridor beyond it. If he acted at once and abandoned his com­panions, there was still a chance that he might evade the guards, find some place in which to hide until the fracas between them and the conspirators had been settled one way or the other then, under cover of darkness, slip out of the Palace.

Heading for the door he fumbled his way out of the bedroom. The ante-chamber was almost as dark, being lit only by a faint glow that came from lights some way down the corridor. He halted abruptly, his mind still racing with thoughts of his perilous situation and all that hung on this attempt to force Paul to abdicate.

To achieve that end he had made the long, exhausting journey to St. Petersburg and for many weeks had tirelessly intrigued to bring it about. Barely five minutes earlier he had seemed to be within an ace of reaching his goal. Had he done so, it would have altered the whole balance of power in Europe to the inestimable advantage of Britain. If there was still even a slender chance that he could yet succeed in that, could he square it with his conscience to save himself rather than risk his life?

For another moment he was racked by awful indecision, then his sense of duty overcame his fears. The chance lay in quickly finding a light that he could bring to the bedroom, so that Paul could be coerced to sign the act of abdication before the arrival of his guards. Some way down the corridor there were lamps or candles burning. Resolved now, whatever the cost, to see matters through, he started forward and dashed out of the ante-room to fetch a light.

The corridor was deserted and still no sound came from further along it. Racing down it, he sped round the corner, then pulled up short as he came opposite a wall bracket holding six candles. Turning, he grasped one of them to take it from its socket. At that moment he heard distant footfalls. A glance over his shoulder showed him that a group of men was approaching from the far end of the passage, two of them holding flambeaux. Taking them for Paul's guards, he let go of the candle, instinctively drew his sword, and prepared to beat a hasty retreat.

As he did so, one of the advancing group hailed him by name. Next minute he recognized the man who had given the shout and, with a surge of relief, realized that it was not Paul's guards approaching but a number of officers who were taking part in the conspiracy. As they advanced they called to him excitedly that the escaping heyduck had been killed, that the alarm had been a false one and that Paul's body­guard had been arrested by the Colonel of the Semenourki regiment; so the Palace was now in their hands. Joining the group, Roger hurried back with them to the Czar's bedroom.

By the flickering light of the flaming torches a grim sight met their eyes. Paul lay limp across the foot of the bed. His forehead was bleeding from a blow by which he had been struck down. His head lolled back, exposing his neck and the red bruises on it showed that he had been strangled.

Bennigsen hotly disclaimed any part in the murder, and was furiously cursing the Zuboffs. Plato appeared scared by the deed, but Nicholas, a huge brute of a man. only gave a drunken laugh and cried:

The swine deserved to die. I'll go now to Alexander, hail him as Czar and ask a fair reward for this good night's work —that he restore our estates to us.' Then he staggered from the room.

Hours later Roger learned from Count Pahlen what had followed this terrible scene. Nicholas Zuboff had gone straight to the Grand Duke and told him bluntly that his father was dead. Alexander had been completely shattered, burst into tears and refused all consolation. Pahlen had then learned that the Empress, on being informed that her hus­band was dead, had claimed the right to succeed and was rallying her friends about her. He had hastened to Alexander, found him still in tears but forced him to pull himself together and, to prevent his mother usurping his throne, allow himself to be proclaimed Emperor. In the murky dawn of March 24th the Brigade of Guards had been paraded and Alexander hailed by them as Czar of all the Russias.

Roger had no means of sending this stupendous news back to London, but he knew that within a month or so it would be known there. Meanwhile he was content to bide his time as Count Pahlen's guest until the new Czar recovered from the shock of his father's murder.

Alexander ordered that his Court should go into the deepest mourning, but that could not prevent matters already set in train from taking their course. Although Paul's declara­tion of war against Prussia had been promptly withdrawn, before Frederick William received news of it he had reacted to the threat and, on March 29th. opened hostilities against England by invading Hanover. The British too had not been idle and decided to attack the fleets of the Northern Powers piece-meal, before they had time to concentrate. Eighteen ships of the line had been despatched to Copenhagen under Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, with Vice-Admiral Nelson as second in command.

On March 30th the British forced the Sound and on April 2nd daringly destroyed the Danish fleet while under the guns of its capital.

It was not until many weeks later that Roger received a full account of this famous battle. Having forced the Sound

Nelson, believing Paul I to be still alive and regarding him as the mainspring of the Northern alliance against Britain, had been in favour of sailing up the Baltic and attacking the Russian fleet. But Sir Hyde Parker had insisted that the Danish fleet should first be dealt with, although he had given Nelson only twelve ships out of his eighteen to engage them and with gross stupidity kept the remaining six under himself out of the battle.

The Danish ships had, in addition to their own armaments, the protection of their shore batteries; so Nelson's squadron had had to face the fire of no fewer than seven hundred guns. A murderous cannonade had ensued and there had come a time when it seemed that the British were receiving such terrible punishment that they must be totally destroyed.

Observing the progress of the action through his telescope, Sir Hyde Parker had signalled Nelson to break off the battle. It was then that Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye, said he could not see the signal and had one hoisted that his Cap­tains were to engage the enemy more closely. Their personal attachment to him led to their ignoring the senior Admiral's signal and obeying his.

Shortly afterwards the fire from the Danish ships began to waver. Anxious to spare the many wounded in the Danish vessels, and refrain from inflicting further loss on a people that his own policy would have left unharmed. Nelson pro­posed that firing should cease on condition that the Danes acknowledge him to be the victor. A truce was called, he took possession of the Danish fleet, and on April 9th the Danes agreed to a suspension of hostilities.

By mid-April Alexander had sufficiently recovered from the shock and horror of his father's death to attend to business. Count Pahlen presented Roger to him again, this time as the official envoy of Great Britain. Under the tuition of the Swiss, Colonel le Harpe, the young Czar had acquired a most liberal outlook, and cherished great ideals for the improvement of the condition of the masses. But he believed Bonaparte to be a menace to the peace and well-being of Europe and, headed by Pahlen, Panin and Vorontzoff, the anti-French party was now paramount in his Councils. In consequence he received Roger graciously and informed him that he was agreeable to negotiating a peace with England.

Count Pahlen arranged for a despatch containing this good news to be sent by Roger to Lord Grenville and. by the same vessel, sent instructions to Count Simon Vorontzoff, whom Paul I had suspended on his refusal to return to Russia, to resume his duties and enter into pour-parlers with the Court of St. James.

From the time of Paul's death onward Roger had remained as Count Pahlen's guest in his St. Petersburg mansion. During the past few weeks he had made many new friends and had been entertained with lavish Russian hospitality. Spring had come, the snows had melted, the trees were put­ting out young green leaves and he was thoroughly enjoying himself so, although his mission had been accomplished, and in an unexpectedly horrible manner, he saw no reason to terminate his visit to the Russian capital for some time to come.

In any case he did not plan to go back to England, as it remained his intention to make a career for himself in France. He felt reasonably certain that if Bonaparte's projected expedition to India sailed at all, it would do so in the Spring; so if he returned to Paris in June he would have escaped any danger of being sent with it; and by then he hoped that Bonaparte would have found some other useful employment for him.

Then in mid-May he received one of the worst shocks of his life. He was attending a levee at the palace and conversing gaily with the young Baroness Zukinski, whom he found decidedly attractive, when Muriavieff tapped him on the shoulder and said with a mischievous grin, 'Monsieur, I am sure you will be delighted to make the acquaintance of the French emissary that the First Consul has sent to congratulate His Imperial Majesty on his accession.'

Turning on his heel Roger found himself staring at a stalwart, handsome man, whose jaw dropped with surprise at seeing him. It was his old friend Duroc, whom he had known in Italy, gone duck shooting with in Egypt, shared a tent with in Syria and dined with a score of times in Paris. They knew one another as intimately as though they had been brothers. For Duroc to have found him out to be an Englishman meant the end to all his plans for making a career in France.

10

The Alibi

With commendable presence of mind Roger made a low bow that enabled him to control his features before again looking Duroc in the face. Having returned his bow, the Frenchman said with a smile, 'Mon cher ami, what a surprise! You are the last person I should have expected to meet in St. Peters­burg.'

Roger's expression remained blank as he replied, 'Mon­sieur, I fail to understand you, since you are a stranger to me.' Most fortunately, during his stay in the Russian capital he had for much the greater part of the time used German or English; so his having replied in French, but with an atrocious accent, caused no surprise to Muriavieff or the little Bareness.

Duroc stared at him wide-eyed, 'But surely you must be Le Colonel Breuc? He . . . you . . . We have been together on a thousand occasions. I could not possibly be mistaken.'

'Unquestionably, Monsieur, that is the case,' Roger smiled, now throwing himself with all the acting ability he could command into playing a part that might save the situation. 'I can, though, account for your error. You have mistaken me for my French cousin who was born in Strasbourg. We are of the same age and in our teens we were said to be as like as two peas. It seems that our close resemblance has continued.'

That explanation had been accepted on several previous occasions: but none of the chance acquaintances who had taken Roger Brook for Colonel Breuc, or vice-versa, had known him as intimately as Bonaparte's A.D.C.-in-Chief. Without calling him a liar, Duroc could not contest his statement; so with another bow the Frenchman said suavely, 'Please accept my apologies. Monsieur, for having addressed you with such familiarity.' But as he turned away Roger saw clearly in his eyes puzzlement and doubt.

Concealing his agitation with an effort, Roger continued his flirtation with the pretty Baroness, but his mind was no longer on persuading her to grant him an assignation. It was ninety per cent engaged in endeavouring to devise a means by which he could allay Duroc's suspicions. Should he fail to do so, it would be highly dangerous for him to return to France. It was certain that Duroc would shortly learn that he was an agent of the British Government, and Duroc was very far from being a fool. There could be little doubt that the extraordinary resemblance between Roger and 'Le brave Breuc' would lead him on his return to Paris, to set enquiries on foot. Once the secret police had checked up that while Roger was supposed to be at his little chateau in the south of France he had not, at that time and on numerous previous occasions, been there at all, the fat would be in the fire. The double life he had led would be exposed and if he were caught he would find himself facing a firing squad.

Within a matter of minutes he had decided that either he dare not return to France, or he must provide himself, in the role of Colonel Breuc, with an alibi. To achieve the latter it seemed there was only one way. He must reappear in Paris so soon that no-one there would believe that he could possibly have been in St. Petersburg at the time of Duroc's arrival in the Russian capital.

For another hour or more he moved gracefully among the throng exchanging platitudes or witticisms with a number of his acquaintances but, all the while, keeping an eye on Count Pahlen. When the young Czar had withdrawn and the Min­ister left the grand salon Roger followed him downstairs and asked him to give him a lift in his carriage.

As the carriage moved off Roger said gravely, 'Your Excellency; by secret channels, into which we need not enter. I have tonight received a communication from England. It informs mc that my wife has had a serious accident. In the circumstances you will appreciate that I wish to return home with the utmost possible speed, and I beg Your Excellency to assist mc in so doing.'

The Minister at once expressed his sympathy and willing­ness to help, and they discussed the swiftest means by which Roger could make his journey. St. Petersburg was now ice-free, so if a ship was shortly about to sail it should carry him down to Copenhagen more swiftly than he could reach a German North Sea port by road. As against that, to take a ship was always to gamble with the weather—unfavourable winds might cause as much as a week's delay, and the roads were no longer deep in snow. Moreover, although Roger could not disclose the fact, Paris was his real goal so he meant to head, not for eastern, but for western Germany.

By the time they reached the Pahlen mansion it had been decided that Roger should travel in a coach, in which he could sleep, and that everything possible should be done to expedite his journey.

Among the numerous offices the Count held was that of Minister of Posts, so he had no need to seek the assistance of a colleague. While Roger packed, all the arrangements were made. Outriders were to be sent ahead of him to ensure relays of horses being in readiness; a sotnia of Cossacks was to accompany him as protection against the possibility of his being held up by bandits and, finally, the Count provided him with a document stating that he was travelling on the Czar's business which, as long as he was on Russian soil, would give him priority over all other travellers. Having expressed his heartfelt thanks to the Count, he left St. Peters­burg in the early hours of the morning of May 25th on his seventeen-hundred-milc journey.

For travelling fast he had one great thing in his favour. Along two-thirds of the way. until he entered Germany, the highway would be almost flat: so there would be no infuri­ating delays while the horses were walked up hills or down steep declivities. A team of six drew his coach and for long stretches across the boundless steppes and through silent forests of fir and larch they maintained a steady trot.

Even so, the journey seemed endless and was broken only at small towns, to change the horses, renew the stock of cold food with which Count Pahlcn had furnished him, and stretch his legs for a quarter of an hour. The Cossacks who formed his escort were hardy, bearded men and their tough little ponies seemed tireless. At times they galloped on for a mile or so ahead of the coach, then dismounted to rest their mounts until it had passed them and covered another mile; but they always kept it in sight and seemed to think nothing of riding a hundred miles or more until they reached a garrison town and were relieved by another troop.

The coach was well sprung and furnished with many cushions, but in spite of that Roger found its swaying and jolting extremely tiring, and the monotony of being driven hour after hour through the cheerless, almost uninhabited landscape became nearly intolerable. Having been up for some twenty hours before he started he would have liked to get to sleep as soon as they were clear of St. Petersburg; but the motion of the coach kept him awake, and it was not until he had been on his way for another eight hours that he dropped off into an uneasy doze. From then on he slept only when nature overcame his discomfort: sometimes during the day, sometimes at night, but never for more than a few hours at a time.

When he reached the city of Paskov, he allowed himself to spend two hours at the best inn having a hot meal. Next day they entered Livonia, but the monotony of the countryside remained unchanged. At Dvinsk he again stopped for a proper meal at an inn. Soon after crossing the Dvina river they were in Lithuania, but the endless steppes occasionally broken by dark forests or a small township appeared no different from those he had passed through on preceding days. At Vilna he could stand the interminable swaying and monotony no longer, so spent a night in a reasonably com­fortable bed. There he slept like a log but he had ordered the inn servants to wake him at six the following morning and, still bleary-eyed, stumbled down to the coach which by then he had come to look on as a particularly unpleasant form of prison.

At Grodno he entered Poland, but since its final partition among Russia, Prussia and Austria in '95. it was no longer an independent country and the city now stood just inside German Poland. Count Pahlen had generously made him a present of the coach, but here he had to part with his coachmen and escort.

Prussia, having invaded Hanover at the end of March, was now at war with England and, as Alexander had not yet formally withdrawn from the Northern League, still allied to Russia; so as Roger was travelling as a Russian courier, he had no difficulty, after a few hours, in engaging another coachman and outriders.

Setting off again on his gruelling journey through the still flat lands of Poland he reached Warsaw. There he spent another night in bed, in the morning taking the road to Breslau in Silesia. Two days after passing through it he went to bed to his heartfelt relief in the civilized capital of Saxony. From Dresden onwards there would, at least, be better inns at which to snatch a meal and much greater variety in the scenery. But that had to be paid for by a considerable slowing up of his progress owing to the hilly nature of the country. Maddened by having to get out and walk, at times for a mile or more, while his coach lumbered up steep slopes, when he got to Frankfurt he decided to make the remainder of the journey on horseback.

He had now entered territory held by the French, so he destroyed his Russian passport and drove to the Head­quarters. After some enquiries there he ran to earth an officer who knew him as Colonel Breuc. He then had no difficulty in disposing of the coach for a good round sum and securing a military permit to use relays of post horses.

After a good sleep he set off while it was still dark to cover the last two hundred and fifty miles as fast as he possibly could. Breaking his journey only to sleep at Verdun, late on the evening of the second day he rode into Paris. By deter­mination and endurance, and maintaining throughout an average of slightly under five miles an hour, he had per­formed the amazing feat of covering the immense distance between the Russian and French capitals in fourteen and a half days.

His last tour de force on horseback had left him saddle-sore, aching in every limb and terribly exhausted, but he did not mean to lose an hour of the time he had won. At La Belle Etoile, while a hot bath was being prepared, he revived himself with a pint of champagne, and after his bath he got Maitre Blanchard to massage him vigorously. Then, dressed in his smartest uniform, he had himself carried in a sedan chair to Talleyrand's; for, as Duroc had been sent on a diplomatic mission, it was to the Foreign Minister that he would write any suspicions that he might have about 'Le Colonel Breuc'.

When the chairmen set him down outside the mansion in the Rue du Bac, he was on the point of falling asleep. With an effort he pulled himself together, dreading this last hurdle he had to face; for if Talleyrand was disengaged it was possible that he would talk to him for a considerable time, and he feared that in his state of utter weariness he might well refer to some recent happening in Northern Europe that the shrewd statesman would at once realize he could not possibly have learned while rusticating in the south of France. But the luck that had carried him so many hundreds of miles without a serious accident or hold-up still held. It chanced that Talleyrand was holding a reception that evening, so Roger had only to mingle with the crowd until the Foreign Minister noticed and came limping gracefully over to him.

'Cher ami, how very pleasant to see you back in Paris,' he said as Roger bowed to him. Then, raising his quizzing glass and studying Roger's worn face through it he added after a moment, 'But "ventre de St. Gris," as the Great Henry used to say, you look as if that wound you received at Marengo has reduced you to a sorry state.'

Roger gave him a pale smile, ‘I thank Your Excellency for your concern for me, but 'tis over a year since Marengo and my lung is perfectly recovered. I confess, though, that my powers of endurance are not quite up to what they used to be. As a test of them I've ridden nearly thirty leagues since dawn and have somewhat overdone it. On reaching Paris I should have gone straight to bed: but hearing that Your Excellency was holding a reception this evening I could not forgo the temptation to pay my respecis to you.'

In fact Roger had ridden nearly fifty leagues, but he had been given a good chance to establish a limit to his capabili­ties. Talleyrand shook his powdered head, 'I marvel that any man should so fatigue himself as to ride so far in a day unless he feared for his life. But no matter. Do me the pleasure of breakfasting with me. Let me see—yes, on Friday next. And now get you to bed.'

Unutterably relieved to have come so happily through this last ordeal. Roger bowed his thanks, had himself conveyed back to La Belle Etoile and tumbling into bed in his small­clothes, slept the clock round.

Next day he went to the Tuileries to report his return to Paris, but learned that Bonaparte was somewhere on the Channel coast inspecting garrisons, and was not expected back until the week-end; so he filled in his time by renewing old acquaintances and learning what had been happening in Paris during his absence.

It was no stale news, but on Christmas Eve, only a few days after Roger had left for England, Bonaparte had narrowly escaped assassination. Accompanied by Lannes, Berthier and Lauriston, and followed by another carriage containing Josephine, her daughter Hortcnse, Caroline Murat and Bessieres, he had been on his way to the Opera to hear the first performance of Haydn's magnificent oratorio of the 'Creation'. While they were passing through the Rue Nicaise a barrel of gunpowder, concealed in a covered wagon at the side of the street, had exploded with a terrific detonation half way between the two carriages. Nearly twenty passers-by had been killed, a great many injured, and the walls of nearby houses had been blown down; but no one in either carriage had been harmed, except that Hortense had received a slight cut on the hand from flying glass as the windows of the car­riage she was in were shattered.

Bonaparte had gone on to the Opera and displayed an unrulllcd calm throughout, but Bessieres told Roger that on the First Consul's return to the Tuileries his rage had known no bounds. Without a shadow of evidence he declared that it was the Jacobins who had attempted to blow him up, and that he meant to settle with those old extremists once and for all.

Fouche, who for once had been caught napping, asserted his conviction that it had been a royalist plot. But Bonaparte had shouted him down. Scores of ex-Robespierrists had been arrested and, on January 4th, against considerable opposi­tion, Bonaparte had forced a decree through the Senate that one hundred and thirty of them should be deported. Later, Fouche's investigations proved him right. Two royalists named St. Regent and Carbon had set off the explosion, and were duly executed for their crime. Nevertheless, the innocent Jacobins sent into exile were not reprieved.

Roger was very amused. Knowing Bonaparte so well, he felt certain that the cunning Corsican had seized upon this opportunity to rid himself of the men he had come to con­sider his worst enemies—the old die-hards of the Revolution who opposed him most violently in his determination to deprive the people of their liberties. For his victims Roger had no sympathy whatever, for they were men such as Rossignol, who had been guilty of some of the most atrocious crimes committed during the Terror.

The bomb plot had led to Bonaparte's most devoted par­tisans putting about the suggestion that he should be made King of France. They argued that should he be assassinated the Jacobins and Moderates would at once be at one another's throats and their struggle for power lead to another period of bloody strife, whereas if the First Consulship had been converted into a hereditary monarchy his successor would be in a position to continue the regime of law and order that he had established.

In support of this contention a pamphlet entitled, 'Parallel between Caesar, Cromwell and Bonaparte,' had appeared and many people believed that it had been inspired by the First Consul himself. But he hotly repudiated the suggestion and. reading between the lines, Roger thought it probable that he had put it up as a ballon d'essai: then, when public reaction proved unfavourable, decided that his position was not yet strong enough to attempt such aggrandisement.

The Treaty of Luneville, forced on Austria in February, had enormously strengthened his position. By it he secured recognition of France's overlordship of all the territory up to the left bank of the Rhine, Belgium, Luxembourg. Holland, Piedmont, the Cisalpine Republic and Liguria; and a month later Naples had been forced to make peace and accept a French garrison.

Meanwhile Tuscany had been turned into the Kingdom of Etruria and given to the young Duke of Parma. In March the newly-made King and his Queen, the Infanta Maria Louisa, had paid a state visit to Paris. Everyone who had met him declared him to be the next thing to an idiot and completely under Bonaparte's thumb.

One piece of news that affected Roger more than all the rest was that, after eighteen years as Prime Minister. Pitt had resigned. In March a new government had been formed by Henry Addington, formerly the Speaker of the House. Roger had met him several times and knew him to be an affable man with long experience of political life, but did not regard him as a strong character. Worn out by his long struggle as Pitt might be, Roger hoped that his retirement would not be permanent, but only for a period of rest, as he felt that no one could replace him as a leader.

It was not until he breakfasted with Talleyrand that he learned what had led to the fall of Pitt's government. There were present two other guests: Roederer, a politician and economist who had played a leading part in the Liberal Revolution of '89, gone into hiding during the Terror and since become one of Bonaparte's principal advisers, and Cambaceres, the Second Consul. The latter was a famous gourmet and also so great a glutton that out of the head of his own dining table he had had a semi-circle cut to accom­modate his huge paunch: so it was, no doubt, on his account that the dishes served at this breakfast would have been more appropriate to a banquet.

The talk was at first of Spain and an expedition that was now being planned to go to America. In the time of Louis XIV the French had established settlements in Louisiana but by the Treaty of Paris in 1763 had yielded them to Spain; and twenty years later Spain had recovered from England the province of Florida. Since then the Spaniards had ruled the whole vast territory from Mexico north to California, and across the Mississippi aid the Missouri to the Atlantic ocean.

After the break-up of the First Coalition in '95 and the defeat of Spain, France had endeavoured to get back her old territories, but Godoy, King Carlos's Prime Minister and the lover of his Queen, had stoutly resisted. Then, in the previous October, Bonaparte had again raised the matter and brought pressure to bear on the King. This had resulted in a secret deal by which Carlos agreed to cede Louisiana in return for Bonaparte making the King's son-in-law King of Etruria.

Meanwhile it had emerged that it was Lucien who had been the author of ihe Caesar, Cromwell. Bonaparte pam­phlet. He had. from being a rabid King-hater, so altered his views that he now wished to see his brother made King, in the hope that he would be appointed his successor. When the mole-like Fouche had produced evidence that Lucien Bona­parte was the author, Napoleon had been so furious at this premature attempt to promote a monarchy that he had packed him off to Spain to prevent him from making further trouble in France, and with orders to overcome Godoy's continued resistance.

As Ambassador at the Court of Madrid in March, Lucien had forced the Minister to resign. There had followed the Treaty of St. Idlefonso by which Spain not only gave up Louisiana to France but also undertook to make war on Portugal unless she closed her ports to British shipping

Roger had already learned that the expedition to India had never matured, and as he had never been to America he felt reasonably confident that Bonaparte would not attempt to send him to Louisiana. As soon as he could find an opening he turned the conversation to England.

Talleyrand smiled across at him, "About affairs there I am now particularly well informed; as. apart from my normal secret sources. I now have an official representative in London. Perhaps you have met him—one Monsieur Otto?'

Shaking his head, Roger replied. 'No, and since we are still at war with Englard I am much surprised... '

'We may not be for much longer,' Talleyrand cut him short cheerfully. 'Otto, of course, has not the status of an Ambassador; but since the Peace of Lunevillc and Mr. Pitt's resignation the English have become much more tractable. They agreed to my sending Otto over to arrange an exchange of prisoners.'

'Since Your Excellency is so well informed and I've not heard the reason for Mr. Pitt's retirement I'd much like to know it.'

' 'Twas due to a disagreement between him and King George on a question of religion. Fearful of another rebellion in Ireland, he has for some years hoped to engender a greater loyalty in the Irish people by incorporating their government with that of Britain and giving them some share in it. Politically he succeeded, by putting through an Act of Union at the opening of this year, but that did not get to the heart of the matter because Catholics were still debarred from becoming Members of Parliament. Although 'tis said that he made no public promise, there can be little doubt that he bought the consent of the Irish leaders to this Union by giving them to believe that he would later put through a Bill eman­cipating all Catholics from the disabilities they have suffered for so long. His Cabinet was behind him in this wise and humane measure, but the King would have none of it. He maintained that his consent to such a Bill would violate his oath to uphold the Protestant constitution.'

Roederer laughed, 'And so we are rid of our most inveterate enemy through the act of the King he served so well. With him, too, are gone Messieurs Dundas, Grenville, Windham, Spencer, Cornwallis and Castlereagh. The whole pack. That mad monarch deserves that we should put up a statue to him.’

'It is an ill wind ...' agreed Talleyrand. 'Milord Hawkesbury, who has succeeded Milord Grenville as Foreign Min­ister, seems much more amenable to reason. I have real hopes now that before many months are past we may agree upon a pacification.'

Cambacdres, who had been eating solidly and who, when at a meal, never spoke on any subject except the food, looked up suddenly and said, 'To do justice to your chef. Monsieur le Ministre. I'll take another helping of that lobster pate. 'Tis excellent, and I must beg of you the recipe.'

Roger would have liked to hear more of events in England, but the chef was sent for and there ensued a discussion on whether the flesh of lobsters or crayfish lent itself better to such dishes. Imbecile as he thought the King's bigoted behaviour and sorry as he was that his old master should have been dismissed for having endeavoured honourably to carry out his understanding with the Catholics, he was extremely pleased to hear that at last there was a prospect of the long and costly war coming to an end.

When Cambaceres had resumed his munching, the talk turned to certain fiscal measures that Roederer was advo­cating to the First Consul, a subject on which Roger knew nothing; and shortly afterwards the party broke up.

The following day being Saturday, it was to be expected that on his return from the coast the First Consul would go direct to Malmaison for the week-end; so in the afternoon, hoping to re-establish at once his position as one of Bonaparte's intimate circle, Roger rode out there. To his delight the great man was in an excellent temper, pulled his ear, invited him to stay to dinner and, while the meal was being prepared, took him out to walk up and down the splendid avenue. ,

As usual Bonaparte was full of his own plans, his immediate preoccupation being with the official restoration of religion in France. Pope Pius VI had been most brutally handled by the Republican Commissioners when the French had occupied Rome, but be had died fifteen months before and Bonaparte was in hopes of coming to an agreement with his successor, Pius VII. He had written to him suggesting that he should send a representative to Paris to discuss the refor­mation of the French National Church, established in the early days of the. Revolution, into a body to which the Pope would be willing to give his blessing. Pius had readily responded to the overture and had already despatched Cardinal Consalvi to act as his negotiator.

Dismissing the subject as swiftly as he had entered on it, Bonaparte then confirmed Talleyrand's hopes of an early peace with England. Stalking along with his hands clasped behind his back and his big head thrust forward, he said:

'My position is much stronger than it was eighteen months ago, and theirs is now hopeless. Austria has had her lesson, my hold upon the Netherlands is secure and I am again master of all Italy. Spain is in my pocket and Portugal soon will be. The Danish fleet has taken a beating but the Swedes could yet cause England a lot of trouble in the Northern seas. The murder of the Czar was something of a blow for, mad as he was, I could have made good use of him; and I fear this young man Alexander is likely to be influenced by people about him who wish me no good. But at least, before he died, Paul aided me in pushing the spineless Frederick William into kicking the English out of Hanover, and Prussia is a valuable ally. Taken as a whole the situation is over­whelmingly in my favour.

'Now that stiff-necked fellow, Pitt, is gone we should be able to talk business. These new men lack both the guts and the ability to continue the struggle for long. And if they refuse to sec reason, woe betide them. Now that I've naught to fear from the Austrians behind me I'll invade their damned island and, if need be, raze London to the ground. For such a project I have always counted on your value, Breuc, and with my good Duroc absent in Russia I could again find work for another A.D.C. who has a head on his shoulders. See Berthier on Monday and tell him that you are to be my contact with him in all matters concerning our plans for the invasion of England.'

So, two days later, Roger found himself once again in a position to know all that was going on.

He now took an early opportunity of paying his respects to the Bonaparte family. Madame Letizia had left Joseph's _s house and had gone to live with her brother Fesch at his equally magnificent mansion in the Rue du Mont Blanc. She spoke sharply to Roger about his master, with whom she had had high words on account of Lucien. She then declared Fouche to be a liar and a scoundrel, devoted to the interests of Josephine. She was convinced that between them they had cooked up the story that Lucien was the author of the Caesar-Cromwell-Bonaparte pamphlet, which had led to Lucien's being sent to Spain. Seething with cold indignation she had gone to the Tuileries, overawed her son and, in his presence, upbraided the hated Josephine, then told her to warn her creature Fouche that the arms of the Mother of the Bonapartes were long enough to make anyone who slandered one of her sons regret it.

Roger had tactfully expressed his sympathy, while secretly of the opinion that Bonaparte had done wisely in ridding himself of his ambitious, truculent and dangerous brother.

He found that Eliza Bacciocchi, the pseudo-bluestocking, shared her mother's anger about Bonaparte's treatment of Lucien. It had ruined for her the happy arrangement by which she had ruled his house since his wife's death the pre­ceding year, and queened it among the literary men who sought her patronage.

Caroline Murat had established herself in the old H6tcl de

Brionne and was giving magnificent dinners there that won the praise of even Cambaceres.

Brother Joseph had played a most praiseworthy part in the negotiations that had led to the Peace of Lunevillc and was now assisting the priest of the family. Uncle Fesch, in the pour parlers with Rome.

Pauline had moved to a house of her own and with wild extravagance furnished it magnificently. She received Roger reclining on a day-bed with gold griffon heads and claw feet, looking like a Greek goddess who had just descended from Olympus. Her husband, Leclerc, was still absent with the Army and rumour had it that she was indulging in an affaire with Lafon, an actor at the Comedie francaise. Roger envied him his luck and, in spite of his devotion to Josephine, was so entranced with Pauline's lovely profile that he let her ramble on for half an hour, abusing her brother's wife.

In July Cardinal Consalvi arrived in Paris with a retinue of priests and negotiations for a Concordat began in earnest. Bonaparte, Roger learned, was having an affaire with a young, simple and very beautiful actress named Made­moiselle George; and now that he occupied the Palace of St. Cloud, his valet Constant was collecting the lady from the theatre and escorting her out there nearly every night. But, in spite of his own peccadillo, the First Consul had decreed that the laxity of morals current during the Directory must henceforth cease.

To this Talleyrand's conduct, as his most prominent Min­ister, provided a most lamentable example. For the past two years or more he had had living in his house a Madame Grand. She was very beautiful but an almost incredibly stupid woman and had had so many lovers before him that her immorality was notorious. Not content with keeping her there as his mistress, he treated her as his wife. She acted as hostess at all his receptions and, to the intense resentment of the ladies in the foreign embassies, he expected them to make their curtsies to her.

As Talleyrand had formerly been a Bishop, Bonaparte was anxious that he should return to the Church and offered to procure him a Cardinal's hat. In the days of the monarchy he had been within an ace of obtaining one but, to his intense annoyance, the high-principled Marie Antoinette had taken steps, on account of his scandalous life, to prevent him from receiving it. Now he told Bonaparte that nothing would induce him again to become a Churchman.

The First Consul then insisted that, in that case, he must marry Madame Grand. But the Pope flatly refused to give him a dispensation to do so. Pius was willing to release him from the vows he had taken as a priest, but said that in no possible circumstances would he countenance an ex-priest taking a wife. In vain Talleyrand hunted up every historical precedent he could think of, including that of Cesare Borgia. The Pope proved adamant. On that Bonaparte had to be content with a half-way house and peremptorily ordered his Foreign Minister to get married to Jus mistress in a Mayor's Parlour.

Roger's duties were not particularly arduous, but soon after Cardinal Consalvi's arrival in Paris Bonaparte sent him to check the veracity of certain information he had been given about two of the Channel ports. He was away for a week and the day following his return he ran into Talleyrand on the grand staircase of the Tuileries. When they had exchanged greetings the statesman said:

'Are you aware that you have an identical twin?'

Having for the past two or three weeks expected such a question from him, Roger smiled and replied, 'So Duroc has written to Your Excellency saying he could swear he ran into me in St. Petersburg?'

Talleyrand's face remained inscrutable, and he was silent for a long moment, then he asked, 'How in the world did you become aware of that?'

A realization of what he had done flashed upon Roger. His heart missed a beat. His glib reply had been an appalling blunder, and by it he had given himself away.

11

Catastrophe

Roger's heart now began to hammer in his chest. He had managed to keep the smile on his lips but for several heart beats he remained completely nonplussed. His brain had become a whirligig of confused thoughts.

How could he have been such a fool? Was there any possible way out? What had Duroc said? Roger's disap­pearance from St. Petersburg immediately after their meeting must have increased his suspicions. Still, he could have secured no proof. There was nothing to connect the man seen by Duroc in St. Petersburg with himself. But that was not the point. He had to explain having known about that meeting before being told about it. Could he claim second sight? No. Talleyrand would never believe him. And Talleyrand's ques­tion could not be left unanswered. It must be though, for there was no answer he could give. What would Talleyrand do when he told him he had no idea why he had said what he had said? Could he have seen the despatch? No, he had no access to Talleyrand's papers, so that was next to impossible. Anyway, he had been absent from Paris for a week.

The last of these thoughts streaking like lightning through his agitated brain at least gave him an opportunity to gain a few moments' time, and he asked, 'How long is it since Your Excellency received Duroc's despatch?'

'A week or so ago.'

'And what date does it bear?'

'May 30th, if I remember. Anyhow he had been in St. Petersburg for some days when he wrote it.'

Roger had never felt less like laughing, but he managed a chuckle, 'Then Your Excellency will admit that it could not possibly have been I he saw. I returned to Paris from the South on June 8th, and you may recall that I attended a reception that you gave that evening. I could not have made the journey from Russia in some ten days unless I'd had a magic carpet. His despatch, you may remark, took nearly six weeks.'

'About that there can be no argument. But, mon cher Colonel, what I should like to know is how you could possibly have been aware that he had written reporting to me his belief that he had seen you in St. Petersburg?'

Had Roger been confronting anyone other than Talleyrand, or Fouche, he could, in his role of Colonel Breuc, have said that he had heard that his cousin, Roger Brook, had been sent to St. Petersburg and it must have been he that Duroc had seen. But both Talleyrand and Fouche knew that both were one and the same. Now, with a flash of inspiration Roger recalled that, although he rarely used it, he had a third identity.

'You must forgive me,' he gave another smile, 'but I must have been woolgathering when you first addressed me, and answered spontaneously impelled by a subconscious memory of a conversation I had some weeks ago with Senhor Pedro Zarolo of the Portuguese Embassy. As Your Excellency may know, before being transferred here early this year he was en poste in London. He mentioned that he had met my cousin Robert McElfic who not long since succeeded his father as Earl of Kildonan, and that he was about to set out on a tour of the northern capitals. McElfic and I are the same age, and said to be as like as two peas. When I last saw him he affected a short curly brown beard, but he may have since shaved it off. However that may be, the moment you said the word "twins", it flashed into my mind that Duroc must have run into my cousin.'

Actually Roger had no idea where Scnhor Zarolo had been en poste before being sent to Paris, but as he was only a junior diplomat it was unlikely that Talleyrand would know either. And one thing Roger did know was that, as Bonaparte had pushed Spain into declaring war on Portugal, the Por­tuguese Embassy had recently been withdrawn from Paris: so there was no danger of the congenitally curious Talleyrand checking up on his story.

' 'Tis strange indeed that Duroc, knowing you so well, should have mistaken him for you,' Talleyrand remarked. 'But that is the only possible explanation.'

His masterly piece of invention having gone over. Roger breathed again. But it had been a most unpleasant episode. After a moment he asked lightly, 'And what news does the good Duroc send out of Russia?'

'None that bodes well for us,' the Foreign Minister replied. 'The young Czar is proving a very different fish from his father. He has lent his ear readily to Pahlen, Panin, Vorontzoff and others of the pro-English party. Russia has already withdrawn from the Northern League and there is even talk of her entering into an alliance with England.'

Roger hid his satisfaction by putting on his glummest face and making a suitable comment. Then they parted.

The Concordat with Rome being well under way, the tireless First Consul soon turned his mind to another major undertaking. Before the Revolution the law had differed greatly in the various Governments of France. In Provence and much of the south, Roman law had, in the main, been adhered to, while in Brittany the old laws of that one-time independent Duchy maintained and in the northern govern­ments the laws were still based on ancient tribal customs.

Throughout the Revolution hundreds of these old laws had been annulled, and hundreds of new ones made, cither to bring about equality between all classes or, later, to penalise and persecute the nobility, clergy and rich !w-"eoisie.

During the twenty months that Bonaparte had been First Consul he had caused the most vicious measures to be repealed, restabilized the security of property and put an end to the general lawlessness that had become chronic during the Terror and under the Directory. But the laws concerning business contracts, marriages, inheritance and many other matters remained in an appalling hotchpotch. Bonaparte had determined to reduce this chaos to order and establish a system that would be uniform wherever French writ ran.

On August 12th he formed a committee of the ablest lawyers in France and set about his greatest work for pos­terity. For many weeks he attended a high proportion of the committee's sittings, guiding their deliberations and person­ally debating points of law with its most learned members. In due course this immense task was completed and the results promulgated as the 'Code Napoleon,' a greater monument to Bonaparte's genius than all his battles.

Yet during the late summer and autumn these labours did not deter him from making a number of visits to the Channel coast. Measures for the invasion of England had been initi­ated there over a year earlier but only in a very half-hearted fashion. Now they were gradually taking shape. Roger was of the opinion that they still constituted no serious threat but, with England as France's only active enemy, ample forces were available to build them up until they would.

The British Government was well aware of this and of how serious the odds against England had become. The popula­tion of Britain was less than eleven million against a man­power controlled by France of forty million. The greater part of the French Army was stationed in countries that France had conquered and their people had to pay for the upkeep of these occupying forces; whereas for the British Army the British people had to foot the whole bill. The cost of the eight years of war had been enormous, so that the British National Debt now amounted to over five hundred million sterling, and the annual expenditure of the nation had risen from nineteen to sixty-one millions; whereas a great part of France's budget was still being found by indemnities, confis­cations and forced loans from the countries she now controlled.

Worst of all perhaps, Bonaparte's policy, which was later to develop into his 'Continental System', was having a disastrous effect on British trade. By bullying and skilful diplomacy he had succeeded in closing every port from Norway down to Cadiz, and in the western Mediterranean, to British shipping. The great wave of prosperity, brought about by the Industrial Revolution, had been halted and was now receding owing to this loss of all European markets for the sale of British goods.

In consequence, Roger was not at all surprised when he learned that overtures from Lord Hawkesbury had led to negotiations for a peace; and that Lord Cornwallis, assisted by Mr. Anthony Merry of the Foreign Office, had entered into conversations with Joseph Bonaparte, behind whom stood Talleyrand.

On October 1st preliminaries for a Peace were signed in London. Roger knew no details of them, as most of the talks had taken place in Amiens, but he assumed that their basis would be similar to those he had taken to London in the last week of '99, although somewhat less favourable to Britain owing to Bonaparte's having since so greatly strengthened his position.

Early in December, winter having set in and the weather become most inclement, he decided that he could now use that as an excuse to take a holiday, and carry out a promise he had made Georgina to spend Christmas again at Still-waters. Owing to the good progress being made with the peace negotiations Bonaparte had allowed the preparations in the Channel ports to come almost to a standstill; so when Roger told him that his weak lungs were again troubling him, his master made no objection to his request for indefinite leave to spend the worst months in the south of France.

That settled, he took his usual precautions for obscuring his departure from Paris, changed out of uniform into civ­ilian clothes and made his way to a village near Dieppe, from where one of his old smuggler friends, for a good round sum in gold, put him safely across one dark night to Dungeness.

In London he spent several nights with Droopy Ned, and again frequented White's, of which he was a member. As opposed to Brook's, the stronghold of the Foxites just across the road, most of the members of the Club were ardent Tories. Many of them had been among Pitt's staunchest supporters and had been sorry to sec him go but, almost to a man, they were now behind Addison in his conviction that Britain should agree to make peace provided Bonaparte's terms were not too unreasonable.

Two days before Christmas Roger went down to Stillwaters with a load of toys for the children and handsome presents for Georgina, her husband and her father. Again it proved a royally happy festive season. Having seen in the New Year of 1802 there, on January 2nd both Georgina and Roger removed to London. He again occupied his room in Amesbury House, but most nights it was not until the early hours of the morning that he left Georgina's big bed to be carried back from Berkeley Square to Arlington Street in a sedan chair preceded by a running footman holding aloft a smoking flambeau.

By the end of January it was the longest period they had spent together for several years and. far from tiring of one another, they revelled in each other's company. So often the same thoughts came to them at the same time, they laughed hilariously together at the same absurd trifles, and spent such joyous nights in each other's arms that, at the end of the month, both of them were most loath to relinquish their intimate and perfect companionship. In consequence, al­though it was Georgina's custom to spend the whole of the Spring at Stillwaters, she agreed to come to London again early in March.

Roger spent February in Brighton. The town had not yet become the favourite resort of all England's fashionable world, but the day was not far distant when it would have its Royal Pavilion, the splendid terraces facing the esplanade, and become known as 'London by the Sea'; for the Prince of Wales and his friends already spent much of their time there.

The Prince's tutor, Bishop Hurd, had said of him at the age of fifteen that he would be ‘either the most polished gentleman or the most accomplished blackguard in Europe —possibly both,' and the Bishop had proved an excellent prophet. In reaction to the cheeseparing economics that his mean mother inflicted on the Royal Households the Prince had early indulged in wild extravagance. Again and again he had got hopelessly into debt and resorted to the meanest shifts to stave off his creditors.

He was by nature profligate, and the Opposition, led by Fox and Sheridan, who were also rakes and inveterate gamblers, had flattered and encouraged him for their political ends. This, together with his morganatic marriage to the talented actress Maria FitzHerbert who was a Roman Catholic, had led to a life-long quarrel with his father. In '87 his creditors had become so pressing that he had had to shut up Carlton House, his London mansion, and go to live with Mrs. FitzHerbert at Brighton.

Then, the following year, King George had been afflicted with his first period of insanity, so, with great reluctance. Pitt had a Bill passed making the Prince temporarily Regent, but the Tory government took steps to restrict his powers as far as possible. In February '89, to the fury of the Foxites, the King's recovery had put an end to the Regency, so the Prince soon found himself in straitened circumstances again. By '94 his debts had become enormous and as the price of paying them his father insisted that he should marry Princess Char­lotte of Brunswick. She proved to be a flippant and self-willed young woman and he intensely resented having been forced into marrying her. In consequence they soon ceased to live together and he returned to Mrs. FitzHerbert.

In the eyes of the great hereditary nobles of England the Hanoverian Princes were no more than parvenu upstarts and, since the Prince of Wales's conduct in several cases had been despicable, many of them refused to know him. Roger, too, as a staunch Tory, looked with ill favour on the Prince and his Whig cronies who, during the war, had so frequently hampered and attempted to sabotage measures that were in the best interests of Britain. But a friend of his named Lord Alvanley insisted on presenting him. and he had to admit that the Prince was a most genial companion with great charm of manner.

Although Brighton could not offer the warm sunshine to which Roger was used when in the south of France, its climate in February was infinitely preferable to that of rain-sodden London. While there he rode, walked and, fol­lowing his custom whenever facilities were available, spent a lot of time at a fencing school and a pistol gallery to keep himself in good practice should he happen to be called on to use his weapons. At the end of the month he returned to London and two days later Georgina arrived at Berkeley Square.

Again for the first three weeks of that month they romped, laughed and loved, interspersing their nights of private delight by attending balls and routs together. But on the 26th Geor­gina had to leave London to make arrangements for a big party she was giving at Stillwaters on her husband's birthday, the 30th. Roger was, of course, invited and arrived there on the evening of the 29th.

To the surprise of his host and hostess, when he greeted them his face was as black as thunder. When they asked him the reason for his ill humour he replied, 'A peace with France was signed two days ago in Amiens and its terms have just been made public'

On entering the room Roger had noticed that John Beefy had failed to give him his usual warm smile: but at the announcement Beefy's face instantly brightened and he exclaimed. 'Peace at last! Hurrah for that! We'll get up our best wine this night to celebrate.'

Roger gave him a black look. 'Then I'll not drink it. On the way here I have been mulling over what it means to Eng­land, and the more I think on it the more I'm horrified.'

'Nonsense, man!' replied Beefy with a laugh. 'Peace is peace and 'tis that the country needs. To the devil with the terms, say I. With our commerce running at full spate again, whatever they be we'll soon regain our prosperity.'

Roger had formed a mild but indifferent liking for John Beefy, because he was such a kind and transparently honest fellow. That apart, he felt for him the faint contempt of a man who had achieved great things in the world, talked familiarly with Princes and defied Prime Ministers, for one who was of mediocre mind, knew nothing of great affairs and had never lifted a finger in the service of his country. Rounding on him, he snapped:

'Docs it mean nothing to you that our weak-kneed Prime Minister has given away all our conquests made these last eight years except for Trinidad and Ceylon? That many thousands of British lives have been sacrificed for the dec­lared purpose of restoring to their rights the Bourbon Princes, the King of Sardinia and the Statholder of Holland, and that these monarchs are now not even to receive one penny of compensation for the loss of their realms? That having sent an expedition to reconquer Egypt, we are to recall it? Yes, and that we are even to give up Malta, the key to the Mediterranean?'

'Oh come,' Beefy expostulated mildly. 'Such matters are of small account compared to our having peace and the oppor­tunity again to trade freely. And your criticism of Mr. Addison I count most unjust. In this he has served our country far better than did Mr. Pitt.'

At that Roger's gorge rose and he cried angrily, 'You imbecile! What do you know of such matters? How dare you belittle the greatest Prime Minister that Britain has ever had? The man who has worn himself to a shadow mobilising Europe to resist the hideous octopus arising out of the French Revolution and preserved our liberties. Dam'me. You know nothing and care for nothing apart from the selling of your sugar bags.'

'Roger!' exclaimed Georgina sharply. 'You go too far!'

John Beefy's face had gone a deeper shade of red. At the same moment he burst out, 'Mr. Brook, I resent your impu­tation. 'Tis more than enough that I should have to put up with the association between you and my wife. Oh. I know about that, and your attentions to her while she is in London are more assiduous than can be justified by however long a friendship. Servants talk, you know And while I have remained complaisant out of my great affection for her, I'd been of a mind to tell you after tomorrow night that I consider it most unseemly that, as her lover, you should frequent this house.'

Georgina, now very flushed, swiftly intervened, 'John! Before we married it was understood between us that when I went to London 1 should be free to lead my life as I pleased. I'll neither confirm nor deny your allegations against Roger. But this is not your house; 'tis mine. And I'll have whom I will to stay in it. Even so, 1 am with you that Roger has be­haved most unbecomingly towards you. He will apologize and that is to be the end of the matter.'

Never before bad Roger seen John Beefy even approach losing his temper. Realizing now that he had every justifi­cation for doing so, he regained control of himself and said quietly, ‘I pray you forgive me, John. I had become over­wrought by brooding on this terrible peace that has been imposed upon England. As for myself and Georgina, I plan shortly to go abroad again; but if it is your wish I will depart now and send my seconds to you.'

Beefy shrugged his broad shoulders, 'I accept your apology for the slur upon my patriotism. But as an honest merchant unused to handling weapons I'd be out of my senses to engage in a duel with a professional killer. Regarding Geor­gina's claim that I'd not call into question any associations she might form during her stays in London, she is in the right. But for her to expect me to sit at table with her lover is another matter.' Drawing himself up so stiffly that he looked slightly ridiculous, the injured husband stalked from the room.

Georgina and Roger stared ruefully at one another for a moment, then they both began to laugh and he said, 'How prodigious pompous he was. Head in air and his back as stiff as a ramrod. But there it is, we are caught out.’

'Alas, yes,' she chuckled. 'If only he could have seen himself as the honest merchant looking down his nose at the professional killer. But 'tis no laughing matter. He is a dear fellow and loves me to distraction. One cannot wonder that knowing you now to be my lover he cannot bear having you in the house.'

Roger shrugged, 'In the world to which we have been used a few husbands elect to defend their honour, but most accept such a situation gracefully. Since he'll do neither, what's to be done? Shall I order that my bags be repacked and get me hence?'

'No,' she said firmly. 'I am mistress here, and that I'll not allow. Moreover, while you were quarrelling with him, both your backs were to the hall door, and it was half open. James, the footman, appeared there for a moment and was about to enter then, witnessing the rumpus, quickly withdrew. He cannot have heard much but if you leave tonight the servants will put it down to that and provoke an open scandal. 'Twill be all over the county within a few days. Then, like it or not. John will have to call you out or stand disgraced. I'll tell him so, and that until after tomorrow night he must grin and bear your company.'

On that they parted and went up to their rooms to change for dinner. Fortunately, two couples had been invited: so their presence, together with that of the urbane Colonel Thursby, prevented any further rupture between Beefy and Roger. The former was sullen and morose throughout the evening whereas Roger, being so practised in concealing his feelings when a difficult situation arose, talked with his usual carefree gaiety. And, as none of the other guests had yet heard the peace terms, he deliberately refrained from bringing up the subject, in order to avoid giving Beefy a new cause to quarrel with him.

As soon as the guests had gone they went up to bed. Half an hour later, Georgina came to his room. Sitting up in bed, he smiled at her and said, 'What a delightful surprise. You have never paid me this compliment since you married your Mr. Beefy.'

With a frown she shook her head, 'I've not come to pleasure you tonight. But I have to talk to you, and we'll have no chance tomorrow. It's chilly here. Move over and make room for me.'

As she got into his bed he gave a laugh and put his arm round her. 'We'll talk later, be it your wish. But how can you think I'd miss such an opportunity? Take off that robe, my dearest love, and all that you may have on beneath it.'

'No, Roger, no!' she exclaimed impatiently and broke his embrace. 'This is a serious matter. I have had a talk with John and must tell you of it.'

'Oh, damn the fellow! Still, if you must. What has the pompous ass to say?'

'He has issued me an ultimatum. Either you go from this house the morning after the party and do not return, or he will leave mc.'

'Let him 'then,' Roger replied angrily. 'Why you should ever have married such an oaf passes my comprehension.'

'He is not an oaf,' she retorted, her black eyes flashing, 'but the dearest, sweetest-natured man that I have ever met in my whole life.'

'Including myself?'

'For me you are a man apart from all others, but had we married it would have been calamitous to our abiding love. I mean as a husband and a father to the children. He has given me a new and happy life with which I am utterly contented.'

'Until you feel the itch to go to London and wanton in your bed with some more civilized and amusing gallant.'

'Nay: there I refresh my mind with intelligent conversation and indulge my love of gaiety. But I'd have you know that since I married Mr. Beefy, excepting with yourself I have been faithful to him.'

'Then the leopardess has certainly changed her spots and I am more honoured than I knew,' Roger commented sarcas­tically. 'But surely you cannot seriously mean that you will never have me at Stillwaters again?'

'I do. I had hoped to argue him into adopting the complaisancy shown by many husbands; but I failed in that. Like most simple, straightforward persons he is impossible to move when once his mind is made up, and I'm determined not to lose him. To ask me to do so would be to behave like the veriest dog in the manger, Roger. Why should I sacrifice my happy existence while you live abroad, sometimes for years on end? When you do return again to England we can still enjoy ourselves in Berkeley Square.'

'True, true; but never to come to Stillwaters again...

'Is that so hard'?'

'Can you think it otherwise? Many of the happiest hours of my life have been spent here with you. Then there are the children.'

'They can stay with me at times in London and you can see them then.'

' 'Twould not be the same. No lake to take them on; no place for them to ride their ponies safely; no woods in which to ramble with them and find them birds' nests.'

'That I cannot help. My contentment means more to me than the pleasure of having you here for a short time once in a year or two. You are to me each time we meet anew like a draught of rich golden wine, but John is my bread and butter. I'll never find another like him, and nothing will induce me to let him go. That is my final word; and so, good night.'

As she spoke, she slipped out of bed and walked quickly to the door. Sitting up he called after her, 'Georgina! Come back! We cannot leave matters like this. That I must have sounded monstrous selfish. I admit. But returning to Stillwaters has meant so much to me. Each time I love it more. Surely we can find some way to reach a compromise?'

His last words fell on deaf ears, for Georgina had left the room, slamming the door behind her.

Thinking the matter over, he soon admitted to himself that there was everything to be said for Georgina's point of view and nothing for his own. To expect her to part with a husband who suited her so well in order that a lover, whom she could see as often as she liked when he was in London, could pay occasional visits to her country home was utterly unreasonable. Nevertheless, Roger felt extremely sore about the matter. From the age of nineteen, when Georgina was married to her first husband. Sir Humphrey Etheredge, to whom the house had belonged, he had stayed there as a privileged guest, and on most of those occasions they had been free to do as they liked in it; so it was not altogether unnatural that he should look on John Beefy as an interloper.

After a while his agile brain found what he felt could be a way round the difficulty. In the past Beefy had paid fairly regular visits to his estates in the West Indies. Now that he had been married to Georgina for two years it seemed pro­bable that his affairs would demand that he should tear himself from her to go out there again next winter. At times, too, he had to make trips lasting a week or more to Bristol, to inspect his ships and warehouses there. Therefore Roger decided, when he returned to England again next autumn, he should be able to take advantage of Beefy's absence to pay one or more visits to Stillwaters, without upsetting Georgina's marriage.

He meant to speak to her about it next day but no oppor­tunity arose, because she was so busy preparing for the party. Roger was wise enough to refrain from appearing sulky or annoyed with her. On the contrary he made himself very useful, cheerfully helping the footmen arrange the buffet tables, carrying chairs about and fetching cans of water for the big vases in which she was arranging masses of spring flowers; but they were never alone together long enough for him to think it a suitable time to begin a serious conversa­tion.

In due course the violinists arrived, were given a meal and began to tune up at one end of the ballroom. Then carriage after carriage drove up the long drive to set down its load of men in velvet coats, kneebreeches and white stockings, and bare-shouldered women in a gay variety of silks and satins. It was about half way through the reception of the guests that Roger received the second unpleasant shock of his visit. He suddenly caught sight of Colonel George Gunston coming up the stairs.

They had been enemies from their early teens. At Sher­borne Gunston had bullied Roger unmercifully, but later

Roger, being one of the finest swordsmen in Europe, had inflicted bitter humiliation on George, by making him appear no more than a clumsy lout, in a practice fencing bout witnessed by many of their acquaintances of both sexes. Wherever they had met they had been at loggerheads over policy and quarrelled over women. When in Martinique Roger had deprived Gunston of his command; in India George had been the cause of the death of a girl Roger loved through delaying an attack on the city of a rebellious Rajah.

Naturally, Georgina and her husband were receiving the guests, so Roger and George gave one another only a distant bow. But as soon as he could Roger took Georgina aside for a moment and asked her with a frown, 'What is George Gunston doing here? I didn't know that he lived in the neighbourhood.'

For a moment Georgina did not answer; then, following Roger's glance, she said, 'Do you mean that red-faced, fair-haired Colonel?'

Roger nodded, 'That is he; look at his swagger. The con­ceited coxcomb.'

'At least he is a fine figure of a man,' Georgina remarked. 'I've not met him before, but he is staying with Lord and Lady Milford at Crossways Hall and Molly Milford asked if she might bring him. She is the tall, gawky, fair-haired woman with the long nose and great doe-like eyes, to whom he is talking at the moment.'

From the cattiness of Georgina's description it was evident that she disliked Lady Milford; so Roger tactfully refrained from saying that he thought her quite a beauty. Instead he said, 'I have known Gunston since my school days. He is a most loathsome cad: but the women seem to like him, and he has quite a reputation as a lady killer.'

'Has he now!' Georgina smiled. 'Then I'll let him try his art on me tonight. Molly Milford must be old enough to be my mother: but when I was young and new at the game she took away from me a beau with whom I was quite smitten. I've a long memory for old scores. It should amuse you to watch me pay her out.'

'Georgina.' Roger said quickly. 'Gunston and I are lifelong enemies. On that count I seek to make no capital with you; yet I beg you to desist from your intent. He is a lecher and a blackguard of the first order. At your dances you have always provided well-screened sitting out places where couples can enjoy a quiet flirtation unobserved. But do you let Gunston lead you to one of them you'll rue it. He is quite capable of pressing his suit so hotly that should you resist your dress will be reduced to such a state that you would be embarrassed to return to the ballroom.'

With a shrug of her fine shoulders, Georgina dismissed Roger's warnings. 'Since when have you found it necessary to talk to me as though I were a school miss? I'm capable of putting in his place any man who, against my will, attempts to maul me.'

At that moment a gentleman came up and asked her to partner him in a quadrille, so Roger stepped aside. Beefy had been in a very touchy mood all day and Roger, feeling that the sight of him dancing with Georgina might lead him to forget himself and make an unseemly scene, had refrained from asking her for a dance; so for the next three hours he had no further word with her.

He danced only twice with other women to whom he felt he owed that courtesy from having known them for several years. For the rest of the time he moved about exchanging small talk with men who were not dancing, and whenever he found himself on his own be went and had a drink at the buffet.

His naturally sunny temperament ensured his suffering from black moods only very occasionally, but that night one of the worst he had ever experienced was upon him. Every­one now had heard about peace having been signed and it was almost universally, the subject of conversation.

Yet few people to whom he talked seemed to realize its implications. To meet the cost of the war Pitt had had to impose a tax of ten per cent upon all incomes above £200 per annum. No such demand on men of property had ever before been inflicted, and the landed gentry had intensely resented this innovation. Now they were all rejoicing that they would soon be free of it and, knowing little about foreign affairs, cared nothing for the means by which Britain had, to Roger's mind, bought this disastrous peace. To his disgust, with raised glasses they toasted Lord Cornwallis, oblivious of the fact that Joseph Bonaparte and Talleyrand had made rings round the old man and must that night be laughing in Paris, having got everything from him except the clothes he stood up in.

Roger's mood was further soured by the knowledge that next winter, unless Beefy went away, he would be debarred from coming to stay at Stillwaters. His love for Georgina was so fundamental a thing that, faced with a crisis, he would without a second's hesitation have given his life in her defence. But, having had long experience of her forceful character, he intensely resented that she should have refrained from using it in his interests to dominate her mediocre hus­band and bring him to heel.

Still worse fuel was added to the fire by his seeing, nearly every time he entered the ballroom, that she was either dan­cing with or talking to Gunston. They were laughing together and showing every sign of getting on famously. Three times Roger turned away, seething with silent rage, to get himself another drink at the buffet.

Justerini's took care of Georgina's cellar, so the cham­pagne was excellent; but. after a time he gave it up for cognac. He had always been capable of heavy drinking, but by midnight was half-seas over and so bloodyminded that if anyone had been in the least offensive to him he would have culled him out.

It was about half an hour after midnight that the strange psychic link that existed between him and Georgina suddenly began to function As clearly as though she had been speaking in his car, he heard her say, 'Roger, come quickly. I need your aid, lest there be a most horrid scene.'

Pushing unceremoniously aside the people among whom he was standing, guided by an unerring instinct he strode down to the main hall. On either side the great staircase there were deep alcoves with settees in them that Georgina that morning had screened with banks of flowers.

The hall was empty and, as Roger advanced on the nearest alcove, he heard Georgina's half-strangled cry, 'No. no! Desist, I beg! Enough, I say! No, I won't let you.'

Tearing aside the screen of daffodils and hyacinths, Roger stared down at the couple on the well-cushioned sofa. Geor­gina was lying full length upon it, her feet dangling on the ground. Gunston was on top of her. With one hand he was endeavouring to muffle her protests, the other he had thrust up under her skirts.

Without a thought that someone might come upon them, instead of simply demanding that Gunston should release Georgina and so put a swift end to this unpleasant scene, Roger lurched forward, seized him by the back of his stiff uniform collar, dragged him off her and shouted, 'You lecherous swine! I'll make you pay for this!'

Gunston was much the bigger man. Regaining his balance he squared up to Roger and cried, 'So 'tis you. Brook! My old schooldays' companion, the snivelling little bookworm Brook. How typical of you to come on the scene just as I was about to get to work on our lovely hostess. I've often heard of her as a game filly, and she was making no more than the usual demurs that well-bred women consider necessary as evidence of their modesty.'

'You lie,' snarled Roger. 'You were holding her down and about to force her.'

'Nonsense! 'Tis only your jealousy that makes you see things in that way. All the town knows that she has been your mistress on and off for years. You should not take it ill that she is now tired of you and would welcome a change.'

At one side of the hall stood a long sword rack, in which it was customary for officers to leave their swords on entering a house. In it, besides those of the officers attending the dance, were several rapiers that had belonged to Sir Humphrey Etheredge. Striding two paces, Roger snatched up the nearest. It happened to be only a Court sword with a slender blade and of less than a duelling sword's standard length. But, swishing it in the air, he advanced on Gunston and cried in a thick, husky voice:

'Arm yourself, you slandering bastard. For having tra­duced my Lady St. Ermins I intend to kill you here and now.'

'You're drunk,' retorted Gunston. 'Drunk as an owl. Put up that weapon and go douse your head under a cold tap.'

'Drunk I may be,' shouted Roger. 'But I'll not be drunk at dawn tomorrow. You shall face me then and I'll see to it that you never more lay your filthy hands on a decent woman.'

Gunston was sweating under his tight red uniform coat. His normally rubicund face had gone a deep puce and Ins blue eyes showed fear. Running a finger round his tight high collar to case it, he shook his head and gasped, 'No, no! I'll not do that. Everyone knows that when sober few men could meet you. I'll not let myself be cut to pieces to make for you a Roman holiday.'

'Poltroon!' Roger sneered at him. 'By refusing to meet mc you disgrace the uniform you wear. So be it then. I'll settle your business before you are five minutes older.' Then he made a lunge at Gunston with the fragile rapier.

Georgina had pulled herself to her feet, hurriedly re­arranged her disordered dress, and was staring at them wide eyed.

'Stop!' she cried. 'For God's sake, stop! Not here! Not here!'

Ignoring her, Roger made another threatening feint at Gun­ston, driving him back against the sword rack. His eyes as desperate as those of a trapped animal, Gunston fumbled behind him; his hand fell upon the hilt of a cavalry sabre. Wrenching it from its scabbard he threw himself into a pos­ture of defence.

With a drunken laugh Roger engaged him. The steel clashed but the combat was an uneven one. Gunston's heavy blade far outweighed Roger's slender rapier. Within a minute he found that he needed all his skill to avoid his frail weapon being cut off near the hilt or struck from his hand.

Georgina wasted no more breath in pleading with these two life-long enemies to cease from their attempts to kill one another. Gathering up her skirts she ran from the hall into the dining room.

The two antagonists now circled round one another. Roger pinked Gunston's shoulder, but he dared not parry the swipes from the heavy sabre and only by the agility that made him such a formidable swordsman did he succeed in jumping aside in time to save his head from being sliced in half.

Short as their combat was they were both breathing heavily when Georgina came running back with Beefy, whom she had found in the dining room talking to some other men. He shouted to Roger and Gunston to put up their weapons, but they ignored him. Finding his pleas useless, he ran to another rack that held a variety of walking sticks and canes. Grasping a heavy blackthorn, he ran forward brandishing it and attempted to beat down the clashing blades.

Only too glad to see an end to this murderous encounter, Gunston lowered his sabre and gave back. Roger, furious at Beefy's interference, berserk with accumulated rage and determined not to let his old enemy escape without at least a nasty gash that would be a lesson to him, yelled at Beefy to get out of the way, sidestepped and made another thrust.

Beefy was standing between them and sideways on to both, but looking towards Gunston. At Roger's shout he swerved half round and brought up his blackthorn, to strike Roger's rapier down. Roger's thrust had been aimed to pass behind Beefy's back, but the quantity of brandy he had drunk had slightly impaired his timing and, at the same moment, Beefy's swerve had altered his position a little. The slender blade failed to clear him. It ripped through the silk of his coat near the base of his spine.

He suddenly stiffened. His eyes started from their sockets. He gave an awful groan and fell to the ground.

For a moment Roger, Gunston and Georgina all remained as though paralysed, staring with horrified eyes at the squirming figure. Then throwing herself on her knees beside her husband Georgina took his head in her lap. His eyes rolled, froth bubbled from his lips and his body jerked spasmodically, so that she had difficulty in holding him.

Suddenly a prolonged bubbling sound began to issue from Beefy's throat. It was not the first time that Roger had heard a dying man give vent to the death rattle and it confirmed his worst fears. His rapier must have passed through Beefy's liver.

By this time, attracted by the sounds of strife a small crowd of people had come out into the hall. Some of them began to shout, 'Get a doctor!' 'Fetch some water!' 'Give him brandy!', while others violently upbraided Roger and Gunston as being the evident cause of the tragedy.

Ignoring them, Roger threw his rapier on the floor and stared down at Georgina. Letting fall her dead husband's head, she rose and faced him. Then, her black eyes as yet tearless but hard as stones, she said in a low tense voice:

'I always knew you to be unscrupulous towards your enemies. But to have done this thing to me almost passes belief. Seeing an opportunity to gain your ends you put them before all thought of my happiness.' Suddenly her voice rose almost to a scream:

'Go from here! Go! I hate you! I never want to set eyes on you again!'

No more awful thing could have happened to Roger than that Georgina, his life-long love, should drive him from her. Yet even that was not the full price he was to pay for this terrible occurrence. For this was not France, where Napoleon's officers fought one another on the slightest pro­vocation and counted it no more than good practice for using their swords against France's enemies. This was England, where to kill a man was manslaughter—or might be accoun­ted murder.

12

On Trial for His Life

For the five weeks that followed Beefy's death Roger felt as though he was living through a nightmare. In deference to Georgina's dismissal of him, and feeling it to be certainly more fitting, he had begged a lift in a carriage, had himself driven in to Ripley and there secured a room at the Talbot Inn.

Next morning he woke with a furred tongue and an aching head. It was not often that he felt the effects on the morning after of what he had drunk the night before; but on this occasion he had punished the cognac very severely—so’ severely that he had no very clear recollection of what had happened, apart from the salient facts that Georgina had been mauled and insulted by Gunston, with whom he had then fought, Beefy had sought to intervene and, by a misdirected thrust, had then been killed by him. Yet Geor­gia's last words rang as clear as crystal through his aching head:

'Go! Go from here! I hate you! I never want to set eyes on you again.'

Roger did not for one moment believe that she really meant them. Their lives were so closely interwoven that, whatever he had done, she could not possibly cast him off for good at a moment's notice. That John Beefy should stupidly have got himself in the way of a sword thrust was regrettable. He had been a very decent fellow and it was hard on him that his life should have been cut short when he was only a little over forty. But for a man of his position he had been fortunate—incredibly fortunate—in that for two years he had had Georgina as his wife: and, Roger now recalled, she had read in Beefy's hand before she married him that his life would not be a long one.

Two nights earlier she had made it clear that he meant a lot to her. because he had brought into her life a background of quiet happiness and peaceful regularity; and when a woman had turned thirty she felt a need for a man with whom she could settle down. But Roger felt confident that she would soon get over her loss and forget Beefy in much less timi than she had her second husband, Charles St. Ermins, for whom she had cared deeply.

The only thing that really worried him was that she appeared to have thought that he had taken advantage of the melee to kill Beefy deliberately,.and so rid himself of the prohibition again.;’ coming to Still waters whenever he wished. But he could not believe that she would long continue to harbour a suspicion that he had acted so basely; and he decided that, for the time being, it would be wiser not to force his presence on her, either to express his sorrow at having killed her husband or to assure her that the tragedy had been an entirely unforeseeable accident

When he rang for the chambermaid and ordered up a bottle of Madeira, as a tonic to pull himself together, she told him that his things had been sent across from Stillwaters, but no message had come with them. An hour later he dressed with the intention of riding post back to London. But when he went downstairs be found a tipstaff awaiting him. The man touched him with a paper and caused him to stiffen with sudden shock by saying:

'Mister Brook, I 'av horders to take ye into custerdy on o'count o' what 'appened lars night Ye'll 'ave to answer ter a charge o' manslaughter; so be pleased ter come along o' me.'

Roger's mind had been so occupied with distress at his breach with Georgina that he had not given a thought to other possible consequences of the tragedy. Now, with sudden alarm, he recalled that there were very severe penalties in England for duelling, and it could not be denied that Beefy had met his end as a result of what would certainly be regarded as a duel. Putting the best face he could on the matter, he had his things carried out of the inn and accom­panied the tipstaff in a stuffy, closed carriage to Guildford.

There, after having been formally charged, he obtained permission to write to Droopy Ned and, an hour later, had sent off a full account of what had happened the previous night, with a request for his friend's help. The remainder of the day he spent gloomily in a cold and narrow cell.

Next morning he was taken from his cell to a sparsely furnished room in which Droopy, accompanied by an enor­mously fat man who waddled on two short legs, was awaiting him. The fat man was wearing a lawyer's wig and flowing gown, wheezed badly and had a pair of alarmingly pro­tuberant brown eyes. Droopy introduced him as Sergeant Burnfurze. After a quarter of an hour's conversation the Sergeant said in a deep, sonorous voice:

'Mr. Brook, it cannot be contested that it was by your act that the deceased met his death. My advice to you therefore is to plead guilty, and we will use such arguments as offer themselves in the hope of getting you off with as light a sentence as possible. Today, of course, we shall reserve our defence as the proceedings will be only formal.'

An hour or so later Roger stood in the dock. Georgina was said to be too ill to attend, but Gunston was in Court. Without displaying malice he gave evidence that Roger had forced a fight upon him and of what had then occurred. He was followed by Georgina's doctor who testified that John Beefy had died as a result of a weapon penetrating his liver. The still-bloodstained rapier that Roger had used was pro­duced and the doctor agreed that it tallied with the wound of the deceased. The magistrates did not even withdraw to deliberate. After the Chairman of the Bench had collected nods from his colleagues, he committed Roger for trial at the Guildford Assizes. Sergeant Burnfurze applied for bail and it was granted in two sureties of £2,000 each. Droopy Ned making himself responsible for one and Roger's bond being accepted for the other. Roger was released and, after a gloomy lunch at the Angel Inn. he returned with Droopy and the Sergeant to London.

Next day he wrote a long letter to Georgina telling her what had happened, expressing his deep contrition and assuring her that the thrust with which he had killed Beefy had been entirely an accident.

Two days later, to his amazement and acute distress, he received a brief reply in her round, flowing hand, 'Since you have killed one of the best men who ever lived and by so doing ruined my life you can expect no sympathy from me. Kicking your heels for a few months in prison may cure you of your belligerent ways, which may be suitable when adventuring abroad, but in this country are a menace to decent people.'

Roger could appreciate her distress at having lost Beefy, but he felt it unfair that she should entirely ignore the fact that, had she taken notice of his warning and not encouraged Gunston, she would have had no trouble with him; and that it was owing to her having called him, Roger, to her aid that the tragedy had taken place.

Being in such low spirits, he would have preferred to stay in Amesbury House and spend most of his time attempting to concentrate on the books in the library. But Droopy Ned insisted that shutting himself up and brooding was bad for him; so he allowed himself to be persuaded to join him in leading the normal life of a man-about-town.

On his visits to White's he at least met with congenial company, for the Tories there were as indignant as he about the peace terms. To add insult to injury, only the day after the Peace of Amiens had been signed, the news had come through that the French army in Egypt had surrendered.

Early in 1800, soon after Roger had brought Bonaparte's offer of peace to London, General Kleber, who was then commanding in Egypt, had concluded an armistice with Sir Sidney Smith on the basis of the French being allowed honourably to evacuate the country. But the government in London had delayed so long in ratifying the agreement that, by the time they did, Bonaparte, angered by their rejection of his offer of a general pacification, had refused his consent.

Kleber had been menaced at that time by an army of 70,000 Turks who were advancing from Heliopolis on Cairo. With only 10.000 men at his disposal he had inflicted a crushing defeat on these allies of Britain, so it had then looked as though the French would be able to maintain themselves in Egypt indefinitely.

Two factors had since reduced their chances of doing so. On Weber's assassination in June be had been succeeded by General Menou, who possessed neither his ability nor deter­mination; and in October Henry Dundas had pushed Pitt into sending an expeditionary force to Egypt under that tough old fighter, General Sir Ralph Abercrombie. Owing to distance, reports of operations were long delayed, and for many months past it had been assumed that the war in Egypt had more or less reached a stalemate. Now this despatch had come in, reporting that on August 15th the French had capitulated.

Within a fortnight it was not only Pitt's old supporters who were denouncing the government; the City, too, and the merchants in all the principal cities of the realm were up in arms. For it now emerged that peace did not, after all, mean a resumption of free trade with the Continent. No stipulation whatever for this had been included in the Treaty, so it had gone by default; and it now became clear that the First Consul intended to reimpose the extortionate tariff on the import of British goods that had existed in the early days of the Revolution.

By the end of April the names of Cornwallis, Merry, Bonaparte and Talleyrand were being cursed on all sides, the first two as fools and the second two as tricksters, as more and more details about the negotiations at Amiens became known. During the preliminaries the British had put forward numerous requirements and matters that would have been to their country's advantage, and the French had agreed to many of them—but only verbally. When the written Treaty was produced it had contained none of them. Cornwallis had vigorously protested, but by then the whole nation was expecting the longed-for peace and. had it failed to mature, the government would have fallen: so Cornwallis had signed and brought home the awful document. But on the last day of April Roger had other things to think about. His trial had been set down for May 20th. and he had held several confer­ences with Sergeant Burnfurze. Now, the Sergeant, by habit a most jovial man, arrived at Amesbury House looking extremely glum.

After a preliminary cough, he boomed, 'Mr. Brook, I am sorry to say that your affair is going far from well. The agents of the law have been investigating the matter and have recommended that the charge preferred against you should be changed to one of murder.'

'Murder!' exclaimed Roger, aghast.

'Yes, sir. It seems there are certain grounds for supposing that you had reasons for wishing the deceased out of the way; and that the rapier thrust by which he met his death was directed at him deliberately.'

'This is absurd, fantastic: utter nonsense!'

'I have every confidence that you are right in that, sir. But—er—certain allegations are made that you may find difficult to deny.' Sonorously then the Sergeant gave par­ticulars. In both January and March, Roger had on numerous occasions cither accompanied Georgina back to the St. Ermins' mansion in Berkeley Square late at night and had remained with her for several hours before taking his depar­ture, or had spent whole evenings alone with her there. No more positive evidence could be needed that he had been her lover. Further, on the evening preceding John Beefy's death, a footman, one James Trigg, employed at Stillwaters had entered the small drawing room shortly after Roger's arrival and found him quarrelling with his host. Trigg had at once withdrawn, but a natural if reprehensible curiosity had led him to remain outside listening to the exchanges that took place. He had heard Beefy declare that he would not tolerate further visits to the house by his wife's lover and, it was argued, since Roger had been for so many years a favoured guest there, his umbrage had been such that he had seized on the opportunity to remove the impediment to his continuing to enjoy these sessions with his mistress in her country home.

Roger continued to protest his innocence but, when the bulky Sergeant Burnfurze had waddled away on his absurdly short legs, he had to admit to himself with considerable alarm that the case appeared very black against him. Georgina's impetuous nature had often led her to use endearments to him in front of the servants and, owing to their long associ­ation, he had allowed himself to become careless about his comings and goings at Berkeley Square. Delightful as had been those little suppers they had enjoyed together in her boudoir in front of a roaring fire, it looked now as though he might have to pay a very heavy price for them.

Greatly perturbed, he consulted Droopy; but that astute, if eccentric, man of the world could give him no comfort. Jenny, Roger knew, would let herself be torn in pieces rather than talk, and many of the other servants at Stillwaters and at Berkeley Square were too attached both to their mistress and to himself to admit to what they must know; but there were others who would have no such scruples and, above all, there was the quarrel that James Trigg, a comparative new­comer to the household, had overheard.

On May 8th Roger was again taken into custody, escorted to Guildford, and charged with murder. The Grand Jury found a true Bill, and it was ordered that, instead of being arraigned for manslaughter, he should stand his trial on the 20th on the capital charge.

His father came up from Hampshire to see him and offered financial support to the limit of his resources. Colonel Thursby came over from Stillwaters and showed the deepest concern. Georgina, he told Roger, had decided that she wished to be quite alone for a while, in order that she might endeavour to forget the tragedy of which Stillwaters con­stantly reminded her; so she had taken a small house at Weymouth with Jenny to look after her. He added that, since she could not assist in Roger's defence, he hoped to persuade the authorities to refrain from calling her as a witness so that she should be spared the ordeal of appearing in Court and, should he succeed in that, he did not intend to inform her that the charge against Roger had been increased to a degree that now endangered his life. But. should the worst happen, he would, of course, set out at once for Weymouth himself and break the terrible news to her.

Droopy and Sergeant Burnfurze took rooms at the George, other eminent lawyers were sent for and there were numerous consultations, but on considering the weight of evidence none of them could hold out firm hope of an acquittal.

On the morning of the 20th the trial was opened with due solemnity. In a hushed silence the scarlet-robed Judge took his scat. As the crowd subsided with a rustle, Roger was brought in, bowed to the Judge and looked about him. Among the dozen grey-wigged lawyers in the well of the Court he saw his father, Colonel Thursby and Droopy, and smiled at them. Glancing round, he was for a moment surprised to see that the public gallery, instead of being occupied with the usual small, nondescript crowd, was packed to capacity with men and women of fashion, many of whom he knew. He realized then that it was Georgina's name being coupled with his own in such a scandal that had brought them down from London.

The Counsel for the Crown was a small, waspish man who wore his wig slightly awry, had a nose ending in so sharp a point that it quite fascinated Roger, and took snuff with great frequency. Having outlined the case he called his witnesses. George Gunston again told the truth and nothing but the truth. James Trigg stood up well to Sergeant Burnfurze's browbeating and could not be shaken in his story. Several other servants testified, mostly with reluctance, that they had seen their mistress and Roger in compromising situations.

Burnfurze took the only line of defence open to him: namely that Gunston had given Roger great provocation and had refused a challenge to meet him in a duel; that Roger had snatched up a sword only with the intention of driving him from the house; that the deceased's appearance on the scene was entirely fortuitous and that he had become a victim of the brawl only because Roger had been so nearly dead-drunk as to be incapable of directing the thrust of his weapon.

Under cross-examination Gunston, his honour being at stake, flatly denied that he had refused a challenge. He insisted that he had refused only to fight Roger there and then without seconds and the observance of proper formal­ities.

During the evidence much had been said to show that, although Roger's visits to Stillwaters occurred only at long intervals, he obviously regarded it as his second home, partic­ularly as his little daughter was being brought up there with the young Earl of St. Ermins. It was therefore evident that, having been debarred from visiting the house in future, he had much to lose; whereas with Beefy dead he would be free to continue staying there and making merry in it with his mistress.

In his summing up the Judge stressed this point, and it was clear that on the evidence he believed Roger to be guilty. As Roger was about to be led away he felt it as good as certain that he would be convicted, and he wondered vaguely what the black cap was like that the Judge would put on when sentencing him to be hanged by the neck until dead, after the passing of the next three Sundays.

He had always expected to die from a sword thrust or a bullet, and the thought of being strangled while kicking wildly at the end of a rope both nauseated and frightened him. The Judge had been scrupulously fair, except in one particular for which he could not be blamed, and that could have made no material difference. Gunston's evidence had been truthful and the jury had, if anything, appeared sym­pathetic. So there were no grounds on which he could lodge an appeal. Thinking again of the horrible death that awaited him, he wished now that the bullet that had hit him at Marengo had done so a few inches lower and proved fatal.

The Judge had already left the dais and the jury had risen, when there was a stir at the back of the Court. Two black-clad women were pushing their way through the press. At the sound of the slight commotion Roger turned, halted, pushed aside the two gaolers who were leading him away and started back towards the dock. He felt certain that he had caught sight of Jenny's face. If so, the other figure, heavily veiled in crepe, could only be Georgina.

Colonel Thursby had left the well of the Court to meet them. Roger's gaolers tried to make him accompany them out and across the corridor to a cell; but he insisted on remaining where he was, and they were reluctant to make a scene by manhandling him. There were hasty, whispered exchanges between Georgina, her father and Sergeant Burnfurze, then the latter went out to speak to the Judge.

Order was called for. The Judge returned and addressed the Counsel for the Prosecution. 'I am informed that the Countess of St. Ermins is now in Court and has asked to be allowed to give evidence. As this may throw new light on this case I am of the opinion we should hear Her Ladyship.'

Georgina mounted the stand, threw back her veil, took the oath and addressed the Judge in a low voice, 'My Lord, I pray you pardon my belated appearance but it was only yesterday that my maid learned from a news sheet that Mr. Brook is accused of murdering my late husband and was to be brought to trial today. I have been travelling all night to get here, because I was the only independent witness of this terrible affair and felt it my duty to give an account of it to the Court.'

The Judge nodded but made no comment, and she went on in a stronger voice to describe what had taken place. Her account differed from Gunston's on two points. She said that he had refused Roger's challenge to a duel; and that at the fatal moment when Roger had lunged at him, the Colonel, having the much heavier weapon, had knocked Roger's rapier aside; so deflecting the thrust that, with considerable impetus still behind it, the blade had pierced her husband's body.

In the first matter she had told the truth, in the second she had deliberately perjured herself; but if she was believed Roger's life would be saved.

Sergeant Burnfurze put a few questions to her, bringing out that Roger, having been very drunk, could have had little control over his weapon yet, having lurched forward, the whole weight of his body would have been behind it.

Counsel for the Prosecution then rose to cross-examine. He asked if it was true that on the evening preceding the tragedy her husband had said in her presence that he would not tolerate further visits to Stillwaters by the defendant.

'Yes,' Georgina replied. 'He did say something to that effect.'

The little lawyer took a pinch of snuff, gave a self-satisfied smile and said, 'Perhaps Your Ladyship can tell us your husband's reason for being averse to continuing to receive Mr. Brook in his house?'

Looking straight at him, Georgina cried in ringing tones, ‘I will; although I doubt not you have already ferreted it out. 'Twas because some rattle-trap servant had told him that Mr. Brook was my lover. And 'twas the truth. I care not who knows it! We have been lovers since we were boy and girl, and no woman ever had a finer, braver man on whom to bestow her favours.'

Georgina's bold declaration caused an excited buzz to run round the Court. The usher called for silence; then Counsel, looking at the jury, said with a slight sneer, 'Her Ladyship's admission is all that was needed to show that she and her lover were so enamoured of one another that they would brook no hindrance to their immoralities. As to my Lady's story of the rapier being struck aside. I leave you, gentlemen, to judge its worth.'

The moment he sat down, Burnfurze lumbered to his feet. 'M'Lud! I protest! I take great exception to my learned colleague's innuendo. My Lady St. Ermins has testified on oath that the rapier was struck aside. She was in a better position to see what occurred than Colonel Gunston, and he has admitted under cross-examination that this was like no ordinary duel, but an exchange of wild blows the sequence of which neither he nor the defendant can recall exactly.

'As to Her Ladyship's generous admission that she and the defendant had been lovers for many years, nothing could more completely demolish the case for the Prosecution. Had they but just met and become newly engaged in a passionate association, it is perhaps possible that the defendant, seized by violent jealousy while too drunk to control his emotion, might have made a thrust at the hated husband of his mistress. But here we have a couple who have been lovers since their teens. In fact this extra-marital relationship was such that passion must have long since died down and given place to an almost conjugal state. And pray observe, gentlemen of the jury, that there was no question of the association being brought to an abrupt end. Stillwaters alone was to be denied to the couple as a place at which to meet. They were perfectly free to see one another wherever and whenever else they would.'

The Judge again summed up. He gave some weight to Georgina's statement that Roger's rapier had been knocked from its intended course by Gunston's heavier weapon, and Burnfurze's argument that as the association between Georgina and Roger had existed for many years it was not reason­able to suppose that a sudden upsurge of jealousy had led him to seize the offered opportunity to kill her husband. But he put it to the jury that, in view of Lady St. Ermins' confessed life-long attachment to the defendant, they might consider the evidence she had given to be very highly prejudiced in his favour.

The Court thereupon rose. The judge was solemnly escorted from it, the jury retired to consider their verdict and Roger was taken by his warders to a cell across the corridor.

The jury were absent for six hours. During that time the strain on Roger, waiting to hear the verdict they would bring in, was appalling. He was well aware that Georgina had perjured herself in the hope of saving him; for it had been his off-balance stagger that had caused his rapier to pierce Beefy's side—not, as she had sworn, a blow from Gunston's sword that had turned the thrust. But, after her admission that he had been the one man who really counted in her life, would the jury believe that?

At last the summons came for him to be escorted back to the courtroom. It was by then twilight and candles had been lit, throwing queer shadows upon the walls. The jury filed into their box. The foreman rose, bowed to the Judge and said, 'My Lord, we find the accused "Not guilty".'

The relief Roger felt was beyond description. He looked round in vain for Georgina; she and Jenny had left the Court. His father, his friends and many of his acquaintances who had been present during the trial crowded round to congra­tulate him on the verdict. But he was not allowed to depart a free man.

Within a few minutes he was re-arrested, spent the night in a cell and. the following morning, was arraigned before the same Judge on a charge of manslaughter. The evidence of the manner in which John Beefy had met his death was again given, without Georgina having to be called on. A new jury retired and returned within ten minutes; their verdict being 'Guilty'.

The Judge looked at Roger with a frown and said severely, 'By the statutes of the land duelling is a crime. Armed assault is a still more serious one. That you were drunk is no excuse for having used a weapon, and the public must be protected from persons who resort to violence. Your intem­perate act led to the death of a man who was attempting to prevent you from continuing an illegal conflict. For that I sentence you to three years' imprisonment.'

13

The Terrible Betrayal

As Roger had not been convicted of housebreaking, coining or any other felony of that kind he had not been condemned to hard labour, so was to serve his sentence in Guildford Goal. His cell was on the first floor and contained a bed, table, chair and washstand. The regulations entitled him to see only one visitor, and send and receive only one letter a month; and the only amenity for passing the time was a dog-eared Bible.

But in those days prisoners with money were allowed to have food sent in and nearly all officials, other than Judges, were habitually corrupt. The salaries paid to Prison Gover­nors were so small that, while they would not connive at escapes, they were usually willing to ameliorate the lot of prisoners in return for presents from the prisoners' friends; and during Roger's first week in prison he received visits from his father, Droopy Ned and Colonel Thursby.

The Admiral cheered him greatly by saying that he meant to ask for an audience with the King and, in consideration of his own distinguished service in the Royal Navy, implore him to grant a pardon or, at least, a reduction of Roger's sentence.

The Colonel depressed him by admitting to him with great reluctance that, although Georgina had given evidence that had saved his life at his first trial, she remained adamant in her determination not to forgive him for having killed her husband, and had now returned to Weymouth, where the Colonel was about to join her.

Droopy, combining his foppish charm and his prestige as a wealthy noble with many powerful connections, had made a friend of the Governor. He had brought with him a present of a dozen cases of wine, which it was tacitly understood that the Governor should share with Roger, and had also obtained the concession that he should be supplied with writing materials and allowed to send out for books.

Even with these privileges to solace his confinement the appalling fact remained that, should his father prove unsuccessful with the King, he would have to spend three of the best years of his life in prison; and to that was added the agonising knowledge that, being unable to have a full explanation with Georgina, there seemed little chance of healing the breach between them.

Every morning he was taken out for an hour's exercise in the courtyard, but the remainder of the days dragged inter­minably. He had always enjoyed reading, but now that he had nothing else to do he lost his pleasure in it. At times he paced his cell restlessly, six paces towards the stout door with its great lock and six paces back towards the heavily-barred window. At others he lay on his bed for hours at a stretch, his thoughts vaguely wandering but returning again and again to what an incredible fool he had been not to have skipped his bail while he had had the chance; for he could easily have got away to France, and the loss of the money involved would have been a small price to pay for retaining his liberty.

In the previous year the question of Catholic emancipation had had such a disturbing effect on King George's mind that soon after the fall of the Pitt government he had again become temporarily insane. His recovery had been much quicker than it had in '89, but it was still felt that he should be burdened only with a minimum of business. In consequcnce there were many delays before Admiral Sir Chris­topher Brook obtained his audience, and it was not until mid-July that the monarch received him at Kew. The fol­lowing day Sir Christopher came down to see Roger and, as gently as he could, broke to him the ill success of the interview.

The King had received him kindly, exclaiming, 'Admiral Chris! Admiral Chris! What! What! 'Tis good to see you.' But when the Admiral had explained the reason for his visit, the King had taken a very different tone. 'Farmer George', as his subjects called him, was a rigorously moral man and abhorred all forms of violence. His now faulty memory of the case being reawakened he had become angry and flustered; then declared it to be his duty to protect his subjects from dangerous, drunken adulterers, and that Roger, having killed a good honest merchant, deserved to hang for it.

That night Roger felt very low and wrote informing Droopy of his bitter disappointment. In his reply Droopy endeavoured to cheer him by saying that for some time past, apart from his set principles on religious matters, the King's attitude to many other questions often varied from day to day; so he thought it would be worth approaching him again, this time through the Duke of Portland who, after Pitt's retirement, had remained on as Home Secretary. But, Droopy added, the summer recess would soon be taking His Grace out of London and, in any case, it would be unwise to raise the subject again with His Majesty until he had had ample time to forget the Admiral's visit.

Shortly after this Roger received a letter from Colonel Thursby. He said he thought Roger would like to know that Georgina had for the past few weeks again taken up her painting, so was in better spirits, and that he had now per­suaded her to accompany him on a visit to Paris. Having for so long been unable to visit the French capital, the English were now flocking there in great numbers and were being received in a most friendly spirit. There everything was now a l'anglais, and everything French was the latest mode in London. He was in great hopes that this complete change of scene would have entirely restored Georgina to her old self by the time they returned to Stillwaters in September.

Roger also had some talent as an artist, although not approaching that of Georgina's, who had studied under both Reynolds and Gainsborough. The letter reminded him of his long-neglected hobby; and the Governor, who by then was doing very handsomely out of Droopy Ned, agreed to have some artists' materials bought for him.

Now being able to occupy himself with sketching and painting as an alternative to reading, he somehow got through the remainder of July and the month of August. But having no model to sit for him, or landscape to copy other than the view from his window, which consisted of tree tops seen across the high prison wall, he found his painting from memory gave him little satisfaction, with the result that when September came in he was again desperately craving for freedom.

After brooding on the matter for some days he decided that if the Duke of Portland failed to secure the King's clemency for him he must, somehow, escape and make his way back to France. Food and other things were bought for him out of a deposit he had arranged to be placed with the Governor, but he was not allowed to have any money; so it would not be possible for him to bribe one of his gaolers. They had, too, treated him decently; so he was very averse to attacking and attempting to overpower one of them and, even should he do so, his chances of getting clear of the prison would be small.

The door of his cell was of stout oak and the lock much too strong to be forced. There remained only the window and, after much thought, he decided that he must adopt the classic method of sawing through a bar then lowering himself to the ground by a rope made out of his bedclothes. There remained the problem of getting over the fifteen-foot-high wall of the gaol; but in that it looked as if luck might favour him, as some workmen had recently started to renew the beams and roof of a large one-storey outbuilding that was just within his view. If they were still working on it when he made his attempt he would be able to make use of their gear.

That 'if was the crux of the matter; so he made up his mind to start work on the bar without delay. He had been allowed a penknife to sharpen his pencils for sketching and a small whetstone on which to sharpen the penknife. By breaking the whetstone so that it had a jagged edge he set about serrating the blade of the penknife until he had turned it into a small saw. It was a slow and finicky business and took him the best part of a week; but now he again had a worthwhile project to occupy his mind he felt much more cheerful.

In the door of his cell there was a grill through which, only very occasionally, but at odd times, one of the gaolers looked in at him. While working on the penknife he had no difficulty in concealing what he was doing, by sitting, as usual, at his table with his back to the door. But to cut through one of the inch-thick iron bars to the window without being caught was a very different undertaking. He had now to control his impatience during the day and work during the night, and then only on nights when there was no moon or its light was obscured by cloud.

To dig the ends of one of the bars out of the masonry with the tools at his disposal was clearly impossible, and making two cuts through a bar proved a most laborious task. But by the end of September he had cut both ends so that the bar was held in place only by a remaining eighth of an inch and had protected the cuts from detection by filling them with a mixture of black paint and soap.

Now that Parliament was about to meet again for its autumn session he wrote to Droopy asking if the Duke of Portland had yet returned to London and if he had had any opportunity of approaching him. Droopy replied that he had seen the Duke a fortnight since, but had been so loath to inflict another disappointment on Roger that he had put off letting him know the result of the interview. His Grace, like the King, had been of the opinion that Roger had been lucky to escape a hanging, and had refused to intervene.

To have walked out of the gaol a free man, or even to have had his sentence reduced to twelve months, would have been greatly preferable to taking all the risks that were attendant on an escape; but now that Roger's plans for the attempt were complete he was not unduly depressed by Droopy's reply; and as the builders in the yard were by then nearing the completion of their work he decided to chance his luck that very night.

Soon after it was dark he put out his candles and set to work making a rope out of his sheets and blankets. When he had done he waited impatiently until midnight, by which time it was certain that, except for the gaoler on night duty, the staff of the prison would all be asleep. Exerting all his strength he wrenched at the bar he had sawn almost through until it snapped off at both ends. Having tied one end of his home-made rope to the bar above it and tested the knot by jerking on it as hard as he could, he wriggled painfully through the aperture feet first, clung precariously to the bar for a moment then shinned down to the ground.

The moon was up but, except for brief intervals, its light was eclipsed by scudding clouds. For a few moments, in case anyone was still about, he listened intently. No sound reaching him other than the mewing of a prowling cat, he tiptoed across to the outbuilding that was being re-roofed. It took him half an hour of strenuous effort to assemble against the tall wall enough of the builders' material to surmount it. At the end of that time he was sitting astride its top, nerving himself for the drop down on the far side. Lowering himself cautiously until he was flat against the outer side of the wall, he clung for a moment with both hands to the coping. Hanging in that position he spanned its upper eight feet. There remained seven feet between his feet and the ground.

Praying that he would not break an ankle or hit his head on a stone, he threw himself backwards. He landed with a thud that drove the breath from his body. For a minute he remained dazed then, suffering only from a bruised bottom and shoulders, scrambled to his feet.

As he had stayed at Stillwaters so often he knew the district well, and had to cover only seven miles to the village of Ripley. Thinking it safer to keep off the road, he took a circuitous route along paths through the woods and, without having seen a soul, reached the silent, lightless mansion soon after three o'clock in the morning.

He had made for it because the one thing he had to have to get to France was money—and a good round sum. Now that Britain and France were at peace anyone could cross by the packet for a few pounds; but he knew that before he could reach the coast the authorities in every port would have been warned to keep a lookout for him; so by far his best chance of getting over without risk of capture lay in being put across by one of his old smuggler friends and, running the risks they did, they expected a handsome payment.

Colonel Thursby would, he felt sure, finance him but he dared not enter the house for fear that one of the servants would betray him; and the Colonel rarely left it except for his morning walk up and down the long terrace or an occasional visit to the hothouses. But Roger was confident that Georgina would not deny him the means to make his escape to France, and he had already thought out a way to make contact with her unseen by anyone else.

She was a splendid horsewoman and at ten o'clock every morning, unless the weather was particularly inclement, she went for a ride of an hour or more. Her mount was always brought round to the front door by the groom who accom­panied her, but it was her custom always to ride it back to the stables where lumps of sugar and carrot were put handy for her to give the animal in its loose box.

Walking with cautious tread Roger entered the stable yard. As he expected, the big watch dog kept there came out of its kennel and growled at him. But he knew the animal well and, with a few quiet words, quickly pacified it. Entering the end of the stable where Georgina's own riding horses were stalled, he went up the stairs at the end of the building to the loft above. A good part of it was filled with trusses of hay and straw. As some eight hours would elapse before Georgina was likely to come into the stable, he made himself up a comfor­table couch and, well satisfied with his night's achievement, went to sleep there.

He woke soon after dawn and, lest one of the stable hands should come up to the loft, made a hiding place for himself among the bales, then sat down to await events with as much patience as he could muster. An hour later he heard the horses below him being led out to be watered. There was then another long wait until the time approached for Georgina to have her ride. He then took up a position at full length on the floor near an open hatch down which, the bales of fodder were lowered when required. By craning his neck he could see into three of the loose boxes. To his great satisfaction, shortly before ten o'clock a liveried groom led out a fine brown mare from one of the boxes.

For another hour and a half he remained where he was, only occasionally easing the contact of his limbs against the hard floor. Then there came the clatter of hooves on the cobbles outside and, a few moments later, Georgina's well-loved voice speaking to her groom as she led her mare into the empty loose box.

The groom had taken his mount to a box further along the stable, so Roger thrust his head out over the opening in the floor and said in a low voice, 'Hist! Georgina!'

Looking up, she recognized him instantly. Her big black eyes widened and she exclaimed, 'Roger! What are you doing here?'

'I've broken prison and I need your help,' he answered quickly. 'Come up, so that we can talk here unseen by others.'

After a moment's hesitation she hitched her mount to the manger, thrust a carrot in the marc's mouth and came up the stairs.

By then Roger was standing and he asked at once, 'Am I forgiven? I swear I never meant to harm him. I beg you say I am.'

She halted well away from him. A frown darkened her lovely face, and her rich red lips took on a sullen expression. ' 'Tis well enough to say that now,' she replied coldly. 'But hard to believe. And all your protestations will not bring him back to me.'

In a swift spate of words he began to plead with her, but she cut him short, 'You behaved like a drunken bully. To seize a sword in my house and force a fight upon Colonel Gunston in my presence was inexcusable. You may count yourself lucky that by perjuring myself I saved your life and you deserved every day of the sentence you received.'

'Georgina, you're devilish hard on me,' he expostulated. 'That I behaved monstrous ill I do admit. But you must believe that my having killed John Beefy was an accident.'

'I wish I could,' she answered, her eyes still fixed upon him stonily. 'But I know well your ruthless nature, and how you'll let nothing stand in the way of getting what you wish. How can you expect me to forget the way you spoke to me the night before you committed your heinous crime? With a selfishness that almost passes belief you urged me to let the man who meant so much to me go out of my life, simply that you might continue to visit Stillwaters when it was convenient to you. Seeing the many years we had been lovers I could do no less than save you from a hanging, but you cannot expect that my feelings for you should ever again be the same.'

'So be it,' Roger shrugged wearily. 'But I stand here penniless. At least you will not deny me the sum I need to get back to France?'

'How much do you require?'

'I must go by subterranean means, else I'll stand a big risk of being caught. But a hundred guineas should sec me safely out of the country.'

'I have not anywhere near that sum to hand here in the house.'

'You could send in to your bank in Guildford for it. 'Twould take no more than a couple of hours. Meanwhile I can lie up here and be on my way again tonight.'

Georgina nodded, 'I'll send in to Guildford then. Stay here until I come to you again.' Without the least softening of her expression she turned on her heel and left him.

Sadly he sat down on a bale of straw to wait. Two hours drifted by. Thinking that time enough for someone to have ridden into Guildford and cashed a draft for her, he began to keep a look-out for her return through one of the low cob­webby windows that overlooked the yard. After a further twenty minutes he caught the sound of hoof-beats in the distance and thought it probable that they were made by her messenger cantering straight up to the house. Expecting that she would soon now come to him with the money he remained near the window, striving to collect all his powers of appeal for another attempt to soften her heart when she returned to him. A few minutes later he could hardly trust his eyes. Through the arched entrance to the stableyard emerged not Georgina, but her groom accompanied by the tipstaff and two constables.

It was unthinkable, unbelievable. Georgina had betrayed him. Instead of sending her groom into Guildford for the money she had sent him to fetch the law. There could be no other explanation. The man was actually pointing to the end of the loft where Roger had talked to her after she had returned from her ride. Still shocked into immobility, he subconsciously took in the fact that the tipstaff was carrying a blunderbuss and that the constables were armed with long-barrelled pistols as well as their truncheons.

Suddenly Roger came to life. To allow himself to be taken and ignominiously escorted back to gaol would be intoler­able. Yet he was unarmed, so could not put up a fight, and was trapped there; for there were no entrances to the building other than those giving on to the yard.

Next moment he had dropped through the hole in the floor. As his feet touched the ground he grabbed the mane of the startled mare in the loose box below to steady himself. Georgina's groom having been sent in to Guildford, he had not yet taken away her saddle to clean it. Lifting the saddle from its bracket Roger threw it on the mare's back and swiftly tightened the girths. In frantic haste he adjusted the bit and bridle then, patting the animal's neck, turned her to face the door. When he had called down to Georgina she had left her riding crop lying on the manger. Snatching it up he vaulted into the saddle, then laid his body flat along the mare's back, so that her head screened a good part of him from sight. In the dim light, there was a good chance that anyone entering the stable would not immediately notice him.

He had got himself into position not a moment too soon. The upper half of the stable door was a little open. It was cautiously opened wide. Then the lower half was unbolted and pulled back. Roger caught only a glimpse of the huddle of figures in the doorway about to enter on tiptoe, no doubt hoping to catch him asleep up in the loft. Jabbing his heels into the marc's flanks he gave a loud shout and launched her forward.

With cries of alarm the group in the doorway attempted to throw themselves out of her way but the tipstaff and one of the constables were bowled over by the charge of the frightened mare. The groom, who had been behind the others and furthest from the door, made a grab at her bridle. But Roger had been ready for that. He brought the whiplash of the crop down with all his force right across the man's face. With a scream he crumpled to the ground. The hooves of the mare clattered loudly on the cobbles. There came the bang of a pistol as the other constable fired his weapon, but the bullet whizzed harmlessly over Roger's shoulder. Thirty seconds later he was through the arch and away.

As he galloped across the lawn towards the cover of the woods on the far side of the lake he considered the best course to take. He was still penniless so must get hold of money somehow. London was only twenty-five miles away and on such a fine mount he felt certain he could outdistance his pursuers. Droopy would help him without question. There was a certain risk in going to him because the Governor of Guildford Gaol, knowing Droopy to be his friend, might anticipate that he would do so and that morning have sent a message to London for the Bow Street Runners to lie in wait for him at Amesbury House. But that risk must be taken.

It had been just before midday when Georgina left him, so it was now getting on towards three in the afternoon. By five o'clock he was in Arlington Street and he felt there was less risk in going straight to the house than waiting until darkness fell. He was confident that he had a lead on his pursuers, but he would lose it within an hour; and if the Runners had not already been alerted to waylay him there, it seemed certain that a message would be sent asking them to do so as soon as the authorities in Guildford learned that he had got away from Stillwaters.