'Here?' she said scornfully. 'You would not dare.'

'Why not? There is no one here but that soldier, and he is too far off. I should have time to get away.'

The tall grenadier was ambling peacefully among the wax figures, his hands clasped behind his back. At that moment, he was making for the imperial table and his head was turned away from them. Francis would have time to fire more than once.

'Suppose we strike a bargain,' Arcadius said suddenly. 'Half now and half when we have Mademoiselle Adelaide again.'

'No. It is too late and I have no more time. I must have the money to return to England. I have business there. So hand it over quickly, before I take it by force, and before I distribute my little yellow pamphlets. We'll see what their effect is. It is true, of course, that it will not interest you very much, being dead.'

The pistol waved menacingly in Francis's hand. Marianne looked round desperately. If she could only shout to the soldier – but he seemed to have disappeared. Francis had won. They would have to give in.

'Give him the money, Arcadius,' she said helplessly. 'And then let him go to hell.'

Arcadius held out the wallet in silence. Francis seized it eagerly and thrust it inside his driving coat. To Marianne's relief, the pistol also vanished. For an instant she had read madness in Francis's eyes and feared that he would shoot in spite of all. She did not want to die, least of all so needlessly. For some reason, life had grown very dear to her. She had still too much to give, beginning with the child, to resign herself to dying like this, by the hand of a maniac.

'Don't count on it,' Francis said with a sneer, answering her last words. 'I am the sort that clings to life, as you should know. We shall meet again, Marianne my sweet. Remember, this grants you a year of peace, no more. Make the most of it.'

Insolently, he raised the brim of his hat a fraction, then turned and began to move away between the waxen figures, frozen in their ceremonial attitudes, when all at once he staggered and fell under the weight of the grenadier, who had stepped suddenly from behind the massive figure of Marshal Augereau.

Marianne and Arcadius gazed in astonishment as the two men rolled on the ground, locked in a desperate struggle. The grenadier had the advantage of height and weight but Francis, like most Englishmen of his class, was a skilled sportsman and possessed above average strength and agility. He fought, moreover, with all the fury and desperation of a man cornered with a fortune in his grasp, just as he was about to return home to enjoy the fruits of his labour. He uttered short, inarticulate cries of rage but the other man fought in silence, using his superior weight to hold down an adversary who was as slippery as an eel. Both men were on their feet now, heads together, arms locked inextricably, panting and groaning like two fighting bulls.

A treacherous thrust with his knee gave the Englishman his chance. The grenadier folded up with a grunt of agony and collapsed on his knees, holding his stomach. Before he could recover his breath, Francis had made a grab for the wallet which was lying near the door and struggled, gasping, out into the open. Instantly, Marianne and Arcadius ran to the assistance of his unfortunate opponent, but the man was already putting a whistle to his lips and blowing a shrill blast before he had even risen to his feet.

'I must be getting rusty, or drinking too much,' he remarked cheerfully. 'At all events, he won't get far. Still, I should have preferred to pick him up myself. That was a foul blow, not to mention the dance he's led me up to now. Well, never mind. It's good to see you again, my pretty.'

Marianne stared at him unbelievingly as he rose, recognizing with incredulous joy the familiar voice emerging from the whiskery apparition before her.

'It can't be?' she said uncertainly. 'Am I dreaming?'

'No, no. It's me all right. So you've not forgotten your Uncle Nicolas? I don't mind telling you, it came as a surprise to me to see you here just now. I wasn't expecting that.'

'Nicolas! Nicolas Mallerousse!' Marianne sighed happily as the 'grenadier' began to divest himself of his superfluous hair. 'But where have you been? I have thought of you so often.'

'And I of you, little one. As for where I have been, why, in England, as always. I have spent a long time trailing the little rat who has just slipped so neatly through my fingers. But I dare say my colleagues will be holding him fast by now. He's clever, though, and cunning. To tell you the truth, I'd lost him in England and I had some trouble picking up his trail here.'

'Why were you after him?'

'I have a score to settle with him, a heavy score and one I mean to make him pay in full. There! What did I tell you. Here they come, now.'

Francis Cranmere had re-entered the hall of wax figures, but this time firmly in the grip of four stout police officers. Even with his wrists bound, he was still fighting like a demon and the men were having to half-carry him. He was white-faced and foaming with rage, his eyes glaring murderously at the crowd which had gathered round the entrance as the policemen pushed their way inside.

'Got him, chief,' said one.

'Nice work. Take him to Vincennes, and keep a close watch on him, eh?'

'I'd advise you to release me,' Francis said furiously. 'You'll regret this.'

Nicolas Mallerousse, alias Black Fish, strolled over to him and bent to thrust his face close into his.

'You think so, eh? It occurs to me, my friend, that by the time I've finished with you, you are going to regret that you were born. Take him away.'

One of the men spoke. 'We found this on him. It is full of money.' He held out the wallet.

To judge by the hunger on his face as he looked at it, it seemed to Marianne that the money mattered even more to Francis than his freedom and that if he were deprived of it he would, in the event of his escaping, become deadly dangerous. Remembering the relationship which Arcadius had uncovered between Lord Cranmere and Fouché and the desperate lengths to which Francis had gone to obtain the money, perhaps the wisest course would be to let him keep his ill-gotten gains. But then again, surely the luck which had brought Black Fish to them at the very moment when she was handing over the ransom was a sign of fate? The formidable Breton was not likely to permit Francis to escape what was clearly going to be an unenviable fate. Locked up inside the medieval towers of Vincennes, he would cease to be a danger to her. Besides, the temptation to indulge her revenge now that it was offered was too strong. With a smile, she held out her hand towards the wallet.

'That money is mine,' she said quietly. This man took it from us at gunpoint. No doubt you will find the weapon on him. May I have it?'

'I saw the prisoner take the wallet from this gentleman,' Black Fish corroborated, indicating Arcadius. 'Since it is merely money, there is no reason why it should not be returned to you. I thought at first that it was something a deal more dangerous and, to be honest with you, little one, it was lucky for you that we had met before. It might have gone hard with you. Search him, you men.'

While the policemen searched the angrily protesting Francis and quickly found the gun that he was carrying, Marianne asked: 'Why might it have gone hard with me?'

'Because before I recognized you, I took you for a foreign spy.'

'She?' Francis burst out furiously. 'You know well enough what she is! A trull! A spy of Bonaparte's and his mistress besides!'

'And what of you?' Marianne said caustically. 'What should I call you, besides a spy? Blackmailer? And —'

'You'll suffer for this one day, you little whore! I should have known that you would spring a trap on me. It was your doing, was it not?'

'How could I? Who arranged this meeting, you or I?'

'I, to be sure. But you set these bloodhounds on, in spite of my warnings.'

'It is not true!' Marianne cried hotly. 'I did not know, how could I have known that they were following you?'

'Enough of these lies,' Francis said, raising his bound hands as if he would have struck the girl before him. 'You have won this time, Marianne, but don't rejoice too soon. I shall not stay in prison for ever – and then look to yourself!'

'Enough!' Black Fish let out a sudden roar, his eyes bulging at this revelation of Marianne's relations with the Emperor. Take him away, I said. Gag him if he won't be quiet. Don't you upset yourself, my pretty. I know enough about him to put a rope around his neck, and what the dungeons of Vincennes once hold they do not lightly give up.'

'In six months I'll be even with you!' Francis shrieked before one of the men stuffed a dirty chequered handkerchief in his mouth and stifled his threats.

Yet even gagged and bound, Marianne watched him as they dragged him away with a kind of horror. She knew the power of evil that inhabited the man and the deadly, consuming hatred that he felt for her, a hatred which would surely grow now that he believed her guilty of betraying him. But she had known, ever since their wedding night, that there was a fight to the death between them which would not end while both of them remained alive.

Divining his friend's thoughts, Jolival slipped his arm through hers and gripped it firmly, as though to reassure her that she was not alone. But when he spoke it was to Black Fish, who was standing with hands on hips watching his men remove the prisoner.

'Setting aside the fact that he is English, what has he done? And why have you trailed him from England?'