'You are the Baron Hervé de Kérivoas, are you not?'
'I am.'
'You are also a Chouan known by the name of Morvan. Your manor in Brittany has been used before now as a link between the insurgents and the committee in London. More recently, you have sheltered Armand de Chatêaubrieant—'
There was no answer. The man was maintaining an obstinate silence. But Marianne had risen and gone quietly to the door. Two steps were enough to show her the prisoner standing full in the light. The figure was certainly Morvan's although this time it was moulded by a green coat and light grey kerseymere pantaloons tucked into top boots. But now, for the first time, she saw his face.
It was a dreadful sight, disfigured all down one side by a great scar that made a ruin of one cheek, dragged at the eye and disappeared into the hair that Marianne now saw to her surprise was short, fair and curly. The dark lovelocks she remembered must have been a wig. Only the unnatural brilliance of his eyes and the strong, mocking lines of his mouth did she recognize the man who had held her captive.
Morvan seemed perfectly at ease. He stood before Fouché, his fettered wrists held before him, contemplating his interrogator with an air of utter boredom, as though he were merely obliged to be present at some scene which did not concern him.
Fouché continued. 'It is not, however, for your activities as a Chouan that you have been arrested and taken to Vincennes where you have been, I believe, for four days now.'
Morvan bowed in silence.
'Information has been laid to the effect that you are the leader of the band of wreckers operating in that region. Have you anything to say?'
Still no answer. Morvan merely shrugged. The silence that followed weighed heavily on Marianne. Outside, a carriage rumbled along the quai but she scarcely heard it. She was looking at the wrecker's ravaged face, amazed to see the pride in it. Morvan seemed to her a nobler figure standing there, with fettered hands, flanked by the two gendarmes than in his black mask on the shore amid the raging storm. Again, came the minister's chill voice.
'You prefer to say nothing? As you like. Take him away. The magistrates may get something out of him.'
Marianne did not see Morvan go. She had only just time to regain her seat before Fouché came back into the room and shut the door behind him. He took snuff leisurely. Marianne, struggling to appear calm, was uncomfortably conscious of his eyes resting heavily on her, yet she dared not meet his gaze. Ever since Surcouf had left the room she had felt alone and defenceless. The sight of Morvan had completed her sense of bewilderment. She heard Fouché say:
'Good. Now we are alone. First, let me restore these to you.'
His hand felt for a moment in one of the drawers of his desk and emerged holding something glittering which he placed on the table. To her amazement, Marianne saw her pearl necklace and the locket containing the Queen's hair.
She made no move to take them, only stared at them in silence. Fouché laughed.
'Wake up! They are yours, aren't they?'
'Yes – but – how did you get them?'
'Off the gentleman you saw in there between the two gendarmes. You did see him, I suppose? I had him out of his cell at Vincennes on purpose to let you see him. I was well aware I should get nothing out of him. He will, I may say, not be going back to Vincennes.'
'Why not?'
'Because on the way back he is going to escape – with some little assistance on our part.'
This time, Marianne was utterly at a loss. Fouché's face was half hidden from her by the gathering dusk but she could feel his eyes on her and knew he was smiling. His smile only added to the fear that was mounting in her and when she spoke it was in a voice devoid of colour.
'You are going to let him escape? That wrecker? But why?'
'Because he is more use to me free. It would, by the by, be best for you to avoid an encounter with him. He believes he owes his arrest to a young woman sent from London by the royalist committee—'
Marianne felt the colour drain from her face. Fouché gave her a moment or two to assimilate this information before adding smoothly:
'I should not let it worry you too much. You have nothing to fear while I'm here. I know everything – and nothing is impossible for me. You will be quite safe, provided you are careful – and do exactly as I tell you.'
The last words were spoken very slowly and distinctly and now, at last, Marianne understood. Her fate, her future and her very life were in the hands of this cold, pale man; beneath his kindly manner, he was playing with her as a cat plays with a mouse. She cast one anguished glance towards the door. It was shut and Surcouf had gone. She was alone, more alone even than she had been in her prison cell in St. Lazare. A servant came in to light the candles on the desk and a golden light sprang up in the lofty room, softening the heavy green curtains. Marianne knew that she was helpless. She had no choice but to do as this man willed because she could not resume her own identity without exposing herself to the penalties of the law, or try to escape without the risk of coming face to face with either Jean Le Dru or Morvan, two men who were her deadly enemies. The trap had been well sprung! She understood now what it was to be a great policeman, it meant someone completely unscrupulous.
She felt suddenly tired and almost cold. She put a trembling hand up to her eyes in a pathetic, childish gesture as though to brush away a veil of mist that obscured her sight. Fouché's voice came to her from an immense distance.
'Come now! Don't upset yourself. Whatever you may imagine, I wish you no harm. Merely, I need someone like you.'
'Politics is a tricky business, full of traps for the unwary. By trusting you with a message of such importance, Nicolas involved you, perhaps without being fully aware of it. You are just the person I need and you have within you all you need to win your battle with life. Listen to me. Do as I say and I promise you that you will not only have nothing more to fear from the law in England, but will also rise to the most enviable position. Here, fortunes are made and lost very quickly. Will you serve me and try your luck?'
There was a hypnotic quality in Fouché's voice which both allayed Marianne's physical terror and, at the same time, chilled something within her. There was no mistaking the real meaning to his words. It was blackmail, pure and simple. Either she did as Fouché wished, and she was well aware that he had only helped and comforted her in order the better to bend her to his will, or she could reject his proposals and perhaps find herself abandoned to the snares and dangers of these unknown streets. Unless, of course, she was simply sent straight back to St Lazare to heaven knew what fate! In any case her choice was very limited. She could hardly go on plunging blithely forward to a fate she could not even guess. Perhaps, after all, it might be best to let herself be guided by this man who, dangerous as she guessed him to be, was still the person to whom Black Fish had sent her. There remained to be discovered precisely what it was he wanted of her.
Marianne looked up. Her green eyes sparkled through a veil of tears as she met the minister's opaque gaze.
'What must I do?'
Fouché leaned back in his chair, placed his fingertips together and crossed his thin legs.
'I told our friend Surcouf that I meant to entrust you to my wife's keeping merely in order to get rid of him. In fact, I have already found you a situation.'
'A situation? Where?'
'With the Prince of Benevento otherwise vice-grand-elector of the Empire, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord. His wife has need of a reader – and his house is one of the greatest in Paris, perhaps the greatest. For me, at any rate. You cannot conceive how much I like to know of what goes on in such houses.'
Marianne's cheeks flushed with anger and she sprang to her feet, trembling.
'A spy! No, indeed! I will never stoop to that!' Fouché appeared quite unaffected by her excitement. Without even looking at her, he jotted something down on a piece of paper then picked up a spoon from a small silver-gilt tray on which was also a carafe and a glass. He tipped some white powder from a small envelope into the spoon and swallowed it, with a mouthful of water. Then he coughed.
'Ahem! It is up to you, child. I have no wish to force your hand but you should remember, I think, that if St Lazare is no very agreeable dwelling place for a young girl, the English prisons are on the whole rather worse – especially when there is a noose at the end.'
The words fell as inexorably as a sentence.
Marianne sat down again, feeling as though her legs had been cut from under her.
'You would not do that?' she murmured in a choked voice.
'What? Hand you over to the English police? No. But, just supposing Mademoiselle Mallerousse were unwise enough to behave as though she were Mademoiselle d'Asselnat, I should have no choice but to carry out the law. Now, the law gives me two alternatives: to imprison you or to put you back on a boat—'
Marianne pointed silently to the carafe.
'A little water, if you please—'
As she sipped it, she forced herself to think. Fouché had put his cards on the table and she realized that it was useless to hope that he might change his mind. Her best course was to agree, or appear to agree. Afterwards she could try and escape. But where to? She had no idea as yet but it would be time to think of that later, at more leisure. Meanwhile, first things first. At all events, she did not intend to give in without an argument. Putting the glass back on the tray, she said loftily:
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