As Roger went down he kicked out hard. His right foot caught one of his attackers in the crutch, drawing from him a screech of pain. But at least three men had charged in simultaneously and two of them fell right on top of him. Clenching his fist he smashed it into the face of one and, with a heave of his body, threw off the other.
Since the age of eighteen he had been just over six feet in height, but in the past three years he had filled out; so although his slender-boned hips still gave him a fine figure he was now a fully grown man with a broad chest and powerful shoulders. As he never lost an opportunity to practise fencing and often spent many hours a day in the saddle he had no superfluous fat and his muscles were as hard as whipcord. Moreover he had a cool head, great agility and, in a fight such as this, was never handicapped by the least scruples about using unorthodox methods to get the better of his enemies. So, had he not been taken completely by surprise, three or four underfed street roughs would have found that in attacking him they had caught a Tartar.
Even as it was, he had succeeded in inflicting grievous injury on two of them in as many seconds, and as he rolled over to get clear of the squirming body he had just thrown off he kicked out again backwards. His heel met solid flesh and elicited a spate of curses.
Thrusting one hand against the cobbles he gave a violent twist of his body and scrambled to his knees. To his dismay he realised that his attackers numbered five at least. Only one lay hors de combat, groaning in the middle of the narrow street. The two others who had knocked him down were staggering to their feet on either side of him; a fourth, who had been holding the mule, was running to their assistance, and the scraping of boots on stone behind him gave warning that one or more of the band were about to take him from the rear.
Once more his right hand grasped his sword hilt. If only he had time to draw it and get his back against the wall, he felt that he might yet succeed in beating off the gang of bravos until the sounds of the conflict brought the Watch to his assistance.
But in a moment his hopes were shattered. A man behind him threw a cloak over his head. Another seized his arms and wrenched them painfully together till his elbows met in the small of his back. Instantly a dozen hands were grasping him. Someone tied the cloak round his neck, so that his head was encased in a stuffy bag, and his shouts for help were muffled. His arms were tied together with a piece of cord. Still he kicked out, but he was borne to the ground, and while one man sat upon his legs another secured his ankles. Then he was rolled over and over sideways upon other cloaks that had been spread out on the ground, till he was encased like a mummy in a roll of carpet.
Next, he felt himself lifted up, carried a few yards and dumped face down across the back of the mule, with his head dangling on one side of the animal and his feet on the other. The cursing, panting and excited exclamations of his captors had now ceased, and in silence the party sent off along the street.
The blood was running to Roger’s head, and in addition he found it extremely difficult to breathe, so for him to think at all was by no means easy. But as he gasped for air in the stifling folds of the cloak, various half-formed thoughts came to him. He had been set upon by robbers! Yet they had made no attempt to take his jewels or money from him. If they were not robbers what possible motive could they have for attacking him? Perhaps they had mistaken him for someone else? Where was he being taken? Perhaps they were robbers and meant to hold him to ransom? Anyhow it seemed clear that they intended him no bodily harm, as not one of them had drawn a sword or stiletto during the struggle. He had sustained no injury at all. That at least was much to be thankful for.
At this point lack of air made him feel as though his head was going to burst, and with the steady jolting of the mule alone still impinging on his mind he lapsed into semi-unconsciousness.
When he came to someone was pouring Grappa down his throat. The fiery spirit jerked him back into full possession of his senses. He had been unwrapped and untied and was seated in a chair with his head lolling back, staring up at a low, vaulted ceiling of plain stone with Roman arches.
With a gasp he thrust aside the glass that was being held to his mouth and sat up. Two rough-looking fellows with close-cropped hair, who were dressed in leather jerkins and looked like men-at-arms, stepped away from him, and he saw at once that this stone-flagged cellar was no brigands’ den. Yet, immediately opposite him, on the far side of a long table, was a sight calculated to make the boldest heart contract in swift alarm.
Beyond it sat nine silent figures. All were clad in loose black robes that entirely hid their ordinary clothes and individualities. From their shoulders the robes merged into high-pointed hoods, having in them only mouth and eye slits.
Roger’s first thought was that he had fallen into the hands of the Inquisition; but he was quick to recall that in a further conversation with Signor Pisani the previous day his landlord had told him that the Grand Duke had deprived the Holy Office of much of its powers in Tuscany, and that it was now only permitted to act as an ecclesiastical court for the trial of priests who had disgraced their calling. It then occurred to him that the Grand Duke’s measure had driven the Inquisition underground and that it still continued to function in secret. But, if so, what possible business could it have with him? Again, he could only suppose that he had been seized in mistake for someone else.
Swiftly, he was disabused of that idea. In the centre of the line of figures one whom Roger took to be the Grand Inquisitor, because he was seated on a larger and slightly higher chair than the others, had already signed to the two men-at-arms to withdraw. As a heavy, nail-studded door closed behind them, he addressed Roger in good but stilted French.
“Monsieur. I regret the steps which have been necessary to bring you before us; but you have suffered no harm; and will suffer none, provided you obey me. It is known to us that you carry a letter from the Queen of France to her brother the Grand Duke. Be good enough to hand it to me, and a guide will be provided to escort you back to your lodging.”
Roger used his lashes to veil his eyes as he stumbled unsteadily to his feet. He could not even guess how the object of his visit to Florence had become known, or what possible reason the Holy Office could have for wanting to get possession of the Queen’s letter; but he instantly made up his mind to admit nothing until it transpired how fully informed they really were about his activities.
For a moment he remained silent, so that when he spoke his voice should be as firm as possible. Then, in an attempt to bluff his way out of their clutches, he said:
“Signor. I protest most strongly at your abduction of me. The only excuse there can be for it is that your bravos mistook me for some other person. I demand that you release me at once, or His Highness the Grand Duke shall hear of it; and I am told that he is swift to punish such of his subjects as molest foreign visitors in his capital.”
“You use bold words, young man,” said the central figure quietly, “but they will gain you nothing. Your threat is an empty one; and it seems that I must give you a word of caution. It would not be the first time that this tribunal has decreed death for those who oppose its will. There is an oubliette less than a hundred feet from where you stand and in the past few centuries many bodies have gone down it to be swept away by the undercurrents of the Arno. These old Florentine cellars keep their secrets well, and unless you wish to add to their number you will say no more of making complaint to His Highness. Now; give me the letter that you carry.”
Roger paled slightly under his tan. The cellar was lit only by two three-branched candlesticks, each placed near one end of the long table; the corners of the room were full of shadows and the row of black, hooded figures in front of him had no resemblance to normal human beings. They sat unmoving, with their black-gloved hands folded before them on the table. Only the eyes, seen through the slits in their hoods, showed that they lived and were regarding him with cold, impassive curiosity.
In such surroundings it was difficult to make himself believe that their spokesman was trying only to frighten him; yet he strove to do so, by calling to mind that however horrible the fate to which the Inquisition had condemned its victims in the old days, it had never, as far as he knew, practised secret murder. All the same, he found that his lips had suddenly gone dry, and he had to moisten them with the tip of his tongue before saying a trifle hoarsely:
“I repeat, Signor, you have made an error concerning me. I carry no letter from the Queen of France, and know nothing of one.”
“Yet you are the Chevalier de Breuc, are you not?”
Feeling that as they were aware of his identity it would prejudice his chances to deny it, Roger replied: “I am; and I am recently arrived from France. But my sole reason for coming here is to see the beauties and art treasures of your city.”
“Monsieur, it will go ill with you if you continue to trifle with us. At the time of your arrest tonight you were on your way to an audience with Monsignor Scipione Ricci, and your object in seeking an audience was to hand him this letter. You cannot deny that.”
“I do!” Roger answered with a modicum of truth; for he had had no intention of surrendering the letter to anyone other than the Grand Duke, and had meant only to approach the Minister as the most suitable person to secure him a private audience with the Sovereign.
“What, then, were you doing in the streets of Florence at an hour approaching midnight?” asked the spokesman of the nine.
Roger shrugged, and tried to look a little sheepish. “I am young and have the natural inclination of my years towards gallantry. As I have not the acquaintance of any ladies in your city I thought I would go out, on the chance that on so fine a summer night I might come upon some fair one seated at her window or on a balcony, who would feel inclined to take compassion on me.”
It was a good, plausible lie; but the nine pairs of eyes continued to regard him with cold, calculating suspicion, and the spokesman said: “Upon the information we have received I cannot believe you. I should be reluctant to put you to the indignity of a forced search; but we intend to have that letter. For the last time, I bid you give it me.”
“Search me if you will, Signor.” Roger spread out his hands in a little foreign gesture that he had picked up in France during his youth. “But you will not find this letter you seek, for I have not got it.”
The principal Inquisitor spoke in Italian to the hooded figures at each extremity of the table. Obediently they stood up, came over to Roger, and spent some minutes searching him with considerable thoroughness. Raising his arms he submitted quietly, knowing that their labours would be in vain.
As they returned to the table empty-handed he felt a new confidence in his prospects. Now that their information had been proved to be incorrect he had a fair hope that they would accept his statement that he was not the man they were looking for, and release him.
But his hopes were doomed to disappointment. The spokesman picked up a small silver hand-bell that stood in front of him and rang it. The door opened and one of the men in leather jerkins appeared. An order was given and the door closed again. For a few minutes Roger remained facing the line of sinister, black-clad figures while complete silence reigned. He wondered anxiously what this last move foreboded. Did they mean to let him go; or would they consider it necessary to protect themselves from his reporting the manner in which he had been attacked to the authorities, and take measures to ensure that he should never have the chance to do so? Involuntarily a shiver ran down his spine.
The door opened once more. A new figure entered. It was that of a man in a long-skirted coat of bright-blue satin. He wore no mask and, having bowed in the doorway, advanced carrying his three-cornered hat under his arm. Even before the newcomer had emerged far enough from the shadows for his features to be seen distinctly Roger recognised him. It was de Roubec.
Instantly now, Roger realised what had led to his being in his present plight. On finding Isabella’s reinforced escort too much for him the lantern-jawed Chevalier had not given up the game and returned to Paris, as they had supposed. Instead, he must have decided to take the direct overland route via Chambery, Turin and Milan to Florence, in order to await their arrival there; and only then, when they were off their guard, make another attempt to secure the Queen’s letter before it could be delivered to her brother. The only thing that Roger could not understand was how the rapscallion adventurer had managed to inveigle the Holy Inquisition into pulling his chestnuts out of the fire for him.
De Roubec took a few more paces forward, bowed again to the sinister tribunal; then, with a mocking smile, to Roger.
Controlling his fury with an effort, Roger not only refrained from returning the bow, but met the Chevalier’s glance with cold indifference, as though he had never set eyes on him before.
The spokesman of the hooded men addressed de Roubec. “The prisoner admits that he is Monsieur le Chevalier de Breuc, but denies all knowledge of the letter. Are you quite certain that you have made no mistake, and that this is the man that you required us to arrest?”
“It is indeed, Monsiegneur. I know him too well to be mistaken.”
“He has been searched and the letter is not on him.”
De Roubec gave Roger a suspicious glance. “Perhaps, Monseigneur, he did not after all intend to deliver it tonight.”
“Our information that he had been bidden to wait upon Monsignor Ricci at a half hour after eleven came from an impeccable source.”
“Even so, Monseigneur,” de Roubec submitted deferentially, “he may have been prepared to deliver such a letter only into the hands of His Highness personally. If it was not found on him, he must have left it at his lodgings, in the care of the Señorita d’Aranda.”
“The Señorita d’Aranda!” exclaimed one of the hooded men halfway down the line on the spokesman’s left. Then he asked in bad French: “Did I hear aright? If so, how comes she into this?”
Roger felt his heart jump, and looked at de Roubec in fresh alarm, as the Chevalier replied to his new interlocutor.
“It is my belief, Signor, that Her Majesty originally handed her despatch to the Señorita d’Aranda, when that lady left the Court of France to travel to Italy. In an attempt to secure it I organised a hold-up of her coach near Nevers, but Monsieur de Breuc’s inopportune arrival on the scene caused the affair to miscarry. They continued on their way south in company, and hired additional coach-guards, which would have rendered any further attempt of this kind too costly. I decided to ride on direct to Florence and enlist your help against their arrival. But as far as I know they have been together ever since. At all events, they have both been lying these last two nights at del Sarte Inglesi in the via dei Fossi, and unobserved by them I have seen them several times visiting the galleries together.”
“But what you tell me is extraordinary!” cried the hooded man who had challenged de Roubec about Isabella. “If the Señorita d’Aranda is in Florence, why has she not sought the hospitality of her aunt, the Contessa Frescobaldi?”
Roger’s hands were trembling. He now felt that at all costs he must intervene.
“Signor!” he said quickly. “I can explain this matter. As you may know, the Señorita is proceeding to Naples in order to be married there. At Marseilles, no ship was due to sail for Naples under three weeks, but one was leaving for Leghorn almost immediately. Therefore, in order to get to Naples the quicker she decided to travel by this slightly longer route. Had she informed her aunt that she was passing through Florence, she thought that the Contessa would have insisted on her breaking her journey here for not less than a week. She felt that she could not deny herself two days in which to visit the galleries, but was most opposed to delaying longer; so she decided to risk her aunt’s later displeasure by maintaining an incognito while in your city. She is resuming her journey to Naples tomorrow.”
The original spokesman rapped the table impatiently and said something in Italian to his colleagues. Roger just caught its sense, which was:
“Gentlemen! The time of the tribunal is being wasted. The fact that some young woman elected to stay in a lodging, rather than with her aunt, is no concern of ours.” He then looked again at Roger and resumed in his careful French:
“You admit, then, that although the document we require was not originally entrusted to you, this lady with whom you travelled has it; and that you acted as her escort in order to prevent it being taken from her?”
“By no means,” Roger replied quickly. “I am certain that she knows no more of it than myself. As I have told you, it was not her intention to pass through Florence, and she would never have come here at all had it not been that there was no ship sailing from Marseilles under three weeks by which she could travel direct to Naples.” Then he shot out an accusing finger at de Roubec, and went on:
“But this rogue here has already confessed to you how he and his bullies attacked the Señorita’s coach. We thought it was her jewels on which they wished to lay their dirty fingers. It was to assist in frustrating any further such attempts that I offered her my escort.”
De Roubec gave Roger an ugly look, and muttered: “Put a guard upon your tongue, Chevalier, or I will make you pay dearly for such insults.”
Roger swung angrily upon him. “ ’Tis you who are due to pay by the loss of your ears for the treacherous theft you long ago committed upon me. And as a bonus, for this present business, I will slice off your nose into the bargain.”
“Silence!’ cried the spokesman, again rapping the table; then he once more addressed Roger: “I am convinced that this young woman with whom you are travelling has the Queen’s letter. Either you will obtain it from her and hand it over to a representative whom I shall send back with you to your lodging for that purpose, or I shall take steps to have her lured forth and brought here. In the latter case we shall soon find means to loosen her tongue, and when she has disclosed its hiding-place I will send someone to collect it. Now; which course do you prefer that I should adopt?”
Roger stared down at the silver buckles of his shoes while swiftly considering the dilemma with which he was now faced. He still had one good card up his sleeve, but did not wish to play it if that could possibly be avoided.
Seeing his hesitation the Chief of the tribunal said: “If you force me to it I shall not hesitate to use torture. But I would much prefer that the matter should be cleared up without harm to either the Señorita or yourself. Therefore, I will not press you for an immediate answer. In any case it would be preferable to avoid arousing comment by knocking up the people at your lodging in the middle of the night, and the tribunal has other business which will occupy it for some hours to come. You may utilise those hours to make your decision, and I will send for you to learn it a little before dawn.”
He rang his silver bell and the two men-at-arms appeared again. Between them Roger was marched away down a gloomy corridor, a door near its end was opened, and, there being no alternative, he entered a narrow cell. One of the men set down a single candle on the stone floor, then the door was slammed to and the key grated in its lock.
The cell was quite bare, and windowless, its only inlet for air being a row of round holes in the upper part of the heavy door. Apart from a wide stone bench long enough to sleep on, which protruded from one wall, it contained nothing whatever. Roger sat down on the slab and began to think matters out.
One thing was clear: de Roubec had himself confirmed that it was his machinations which had led to the present situation, and that it was for him that the Holy Office were endeavouring to get hold of the Queen’s letter. It also seemed evident that Signor Zucchino must be one of the Inquisitor’s spies, and had reported Roger’s visit; as in what other way could they have learnt that the major-domo had made an appointment for him to wait on Monsignor Ricci that night?
Roger was much comforted by the thought that he had it in his power to prevent Isabella being drawn into the affair. All he had to do was to agree to return to his lodgings in the morning and hand over the letter. But he wondered if there was not some way in which he might secure his freedom without doing that. The Inquisitor’s reluctance to arouse the inmates of Pisani’s house showed that they were anxious to avoid drawing attention to their activities; so it seemed probable that they would now wait until the following evening, then send a messenger to inform Isabella that he had met with an accident, and bring her to a place where she could be overcome under cover of darkness with a minimum risk of disturbance.
If that proved to be their intention she would have the whole of the coming day in which to endeavour to find him, She must already be worried by his non-return. First thing in the morning she would go to the Pitti and insist on seeing Monsignor Ricci. The probability was that Zucchino had never made the appointment at all. In any case it would come out that his intending visitor had never arrived there. If the Minister showed indifference to the matter, however reluctant Isabella might be to let her aunt know of her presence in Florence, the odds were that her acute anxiety would drive her to do so. There would be no necessity for her to disclose the fact that he was her fiancé; she could enlist her aunt’s aid immediately by telling a part of the truth—that he was the bearer of a despatch from Queen Marie Antoinette to the Grand Duke, had saved her from attack upon the road, and given her his escort as far as Florence. The Contessa would at once go to the Grand Duchess, who, on account of the letter, if for no other reason, would report his disappearance without delay to the Grand Duke. Then the whole of His Highness’s secret police would be put on to the job of finding him.
Whether they would succeed in doing so before nightfall remained problematical. But even then, if Isabella had secured the protection of either Monsignor Ricci or the Contessa, she would inform them of any message she received, and they would have her followed; so instead of her falling into a trap, she would lead the forces of law and order to his prison.
The more Roger thought the matter over the more inclined he became to stand firm and put his trust in Isabella’s succeeding in rescuing him. But one thing remained a puzzle and defeated all his efforts to solve it. How had de Roubec managed to secure the assistance of the Holy Office?
De Roubec was the agent of the Duc d’Orléans, and His Highness was the supreme head of all the Freemasons in France. The Masons were freethinkers and revolutionaries, so regarded by the Church as its bitterest enemies. Yet the Chief Inquisitor had actually used the words when speaking of his prisoner to de Roubec: “Are you quite certain that you have made no mistake, and that this is the man that you required us to arrest?” To “require” signified to “order”, and inexplicable as it seemed that de Roubec should have persuaded the Holy Office to help him, the idea that he was in a position to give it orders appeared positively fantastic.
At length Roger gave up the conundrum as, for the time being, insoluble, and consoled himself with the thought that it was into the hands of the Holy Office, and not into those of the Masons, or their associates the Rosicrucians, that he had fallen. He knew the latter to be quite capable of murder to protect their secrets or achieve their ends, whereas he felt convinced that even a branch of the Holy Office that had been driven underground would never lend itself to actual crime from political motives.
In the more backward Catholic countries the Inquisition was still permitted to carry out public witch-burnings—and for that matter witches were still burnt from time to time by Protestant congregations in Britain, Holland, Sweden and Germany—but the Holy Office had long since given up any attempt to adjudicate on cases other than those which involved a clear charge of sacrilege or heresy. It was such powers they were still striving to retain against the mounting wave of anticlericalism; so it stood to reason that, even in secret, they would not risk torturing or killing anyone outside their province, from fear that it might come to light later and provoke a scandal most prejudicial to their whole position.
Roger admitted to himself that at the time, when the Chief Inquisitor had spoken to him of the oubliette and threatened to use torture, he had been badly scared; but now he had had a chance to think things over quietly he felt certain that the hooded spokesman had been bluffing, and simply trying to frighten him into producing the letter without having to resort to further measures which might attract the attention of the police.
In spite of the warmth of the summer night outside it was cold in his cell, and as the chill of the place sent a slight shiver through him he leaned forward to warm his hands at the flame of the candle. While he was doing so they threw huge shadows on the walls and ceiling, and when his hands were warmer he began to amuse himself with the old children’s game of making the shadows into animals’ heads by contorting his thumbs and fingers. He had been occupied in this way for about five minutes when he noticed some writing scratched on the wall opposite him low down near the floor. Moving the candle closer he bent to examine it.
The inscription was not cut deeply enough to catch the casual glance, nor was it of the type that take prisoners many weeks of patient toil to carve. It was in German, many of the characters were so badly formed as to be almost illegible, and it had the appearance of having been done hurriedly—perhaps in a single night. Roger’s German was good enough for him to understand such words as he could decipher; and it ran, clearly at first, then tailing off into illegibility when the writer had grown tired or weaker, as follows:
May God’s vengeance be upon the Grand Orient. I have suffered horribly. Both my legs are broken. They have decreed death for me tonight. I am glad … my end. I … to escape them … Italy. Carlotta … betrayed … Milan … Florence…
The inscription ended with two lines in which Roger could not make out a single word, then a signature that looked like “Johannes Kettner” and underneath it a plain cross with the date 10.XI.’88.
Another shiver ran through him, but this time it was not caused by the chill of the cell. The inscription had led him to a terrifying discovery. He was not, as he had supposed, a prisoner of the half-moribund Holy Office, but of the vital and unscrupulous Society of the Grand Orient.
As the unnerving truth flashed upon him de Roubec’s puzzling relations with the tribunal were instantly made plain. The Rosicrucians and their kindred secret societies had, in the past quarter of a century, spread from Germany all over the continent. The Duc d’Orléans was Grand Master of the Grand Orient in France, so his agent would know where to find its associated Lodge in Florence. A request from the agent of such a high dignitary in the Freemasonic hierarchy would be regarded as an order, so it was no wonder that the hooded men had arranged for the abduction of de Roubec’s quarry—as, no doubt, they had acted on the request of some Masonic Master in Germany to abduct and take vengeance on the unfortunate Johannes Kettner.
At the thought of the wretched man lying there, his legs already broken by torture, on the last day of his life, painfully scratching out the inscription while waiting to be dragged to the oubliette, and thrown down it into the dark waters below, Roger felt the perspiration break out on his forehead. And that foul murder had taken place only the previous November—less than six months ago—so everything pointed to the very same hooded men before whom he had stood that night being responsible for it.
As he bent again to verify the date, he found himself staring at the little cross. Had he needed further evidence that he was not in the hands of the Holy Office, there it was. He knew that in every cell of every Roman Catholic prison, however bare the cell, a crucifix was nailed to one of its walls, but there was not one here. And from what he had read of the Inquisition he knew that behind the tribunal of the Inquisitors a much larger cross, bearing a great ivory figure of Christ, was always in evidence as though to sanctify their deliberations; but there had been no such perverted use of the emblems of Christianity made by the hooded men. The only cross he had seen in this sinister Florentine dungeon was that scratched by the hand of their condemned prisoner and enemy.
Without a moment’s further hesitation he set about readjusting his ideas. The threat to torture and perhaps kill him had not been bluff; it had been made in all seriousness; so any chances he now took would be at his dire peril. Only one thing remained in his favour. Unlike France where people were tending more and more to defy the law, Florence was ruled by a strong and capable sovereign with an efficient secret police at his disposal. Evidently, here, the members of the Grand Orient were frightened of drawing attention to themselves. Therefore they were averse to using strong measures unless forced to it; and, rather than risk an enquiry following his disappearance, were prepared to release him unharmed if he would hand over the Queen’s letter.
If he stood out, Isabella might succeed in tracing and rescuing him next day, but, on the other hand, there had always been the possibility that they might find means to lure her from her lodging and abduct her before she could succeed in doing so; and in the light of his recent discovery that was a risk that he was no longer prepared to take. Both for her safety and his own there could be no doubt that the wise thing to do would be to agree to surrender the letter, and so get out of the clutches of the Grand Orient as soon as he possibly could.
It took him no more than a few minutes to reach this new conclusion, and, having resigned himself to it, he endeavoured to keep himself warm by pacing the narrow limits of his cell until he was sent for.
At last the summons came, and he was led back to the vaulted cellar where, behind the long table, the nine black-robed, hooded men sat inscrutable, but for the occasional flash of their cold, malignant eyes. De Roubec was no longer present.
Without preamble, their Chief asked Roger his decision.
Without embroidering matters he gave it.
The silver bell tinkled. Five men entered the room. Four of them were big bullies wearing leather jerkins; the fifth was a little runt of a man with a cast in one eye. They closed round Roger and marched him out of the room in their midst. Outside in the corridor the little man drew a nine-inch stiletto from inside the wide cuff of his coat sleeve, and showing it to Roger, said in most atrocious but fluent French:
“My instructions are clear. I am to accompany you to your lodging and there you will hand me a despatch. Should you attempt to escape on the way, or cheat me when we get there, I am to stick you like a pig with this pretty toy. And do not imagine that I shall be caught after having done so. My men are well practised in covering my escape after such transactions. They have assisted me before, and there have been times when my prisoner has paid with his life for trying to be too clever.”
Roger gave a dour nod of understanding and his eyes were then bandaged. He was led up a flight of steps and soon after felt the fresh morning air on his face. Next he was told to step up again and when he had done so was pushed down into the corner seat of a carriage. He could hear the others scrambling in after him, the door slammed and the carriage set off at a gentle trot. As far as he could judge their drive lasted about seven minutes, then the carriage halted and the bandage was removed from his eyes.
He saw that dawn had come but as yet only a few people were in the street or opening their shutters. They were in the via dei Fossi and the carriage had drawn up a few doors away from Pisani’s; all five of his captors were crowded into it with him.
The little horror with the wall eye grinned at him and said: “Before we get out I should like to explain my method to you. Two of my men will accompany us inside and the other two will remain here. Should you be so ill advised as to try any tricks when we get upstairs I shall promptly deal with you as I promised. As is usual in the case of people who compel me to make them my victims you will give a scream of agony. The instant the men who are to remain below hear it, one of them will jump from the carriage and run down the street; the other will run after him shouting ‘Stop Thief! Stop Thief!’ The people in the del Sarte Inglesi will naturally run to their windows instead of to your room. Even should anyone come to your assistance the two men who are with us will prevent their laying hands upon me. I shall then walk quietly out of the house, and in the excitement of the street chase disappear without being noticed.”
During the drive Roger had been turning over in his mind the chances of securing help swiftly if, directly he got inside Pisani’s house, he turned upon his captors and shouted loudly for assistance. But he now had secretly to admit that, had he been in the little man’s shoes, he could not have thought out such an undertaking with a better potential chance of getting clean away. Obviously it would be the height of rashness to play fast and loose with this professional assassin. With a shrug of his shoulders, he got out and, accompanied by three of his captors, walked along to the porch of del Sarte Inglesi.
The door was already open and a bald-headed, baize-aproned porter was busily sweeping down the steps. He wished Roger good morning with barely a glance, and entering the hall the prisoner and his escort went upstairs.
After Isabella had shown Roger her two brass-bound chests in Avignon he had given her the Queen’s letter in order that she might keep it locked up in one of them for greater safety; so he now led his captors to her room and knocked upon the door.
Although at this early hour she would normally still have been asleep, her voice came at once, asking who was there; and on his replying he heard her gasp out an exclamation of thankfulness before calling to him to enter.
As he opened the door a crack he saw that she and Maria were both already up and fully dressed. Pushing it wide he walked into the room, followed by the little man and the two bravos.
At the sight of Roger, dirty, dishevelled and in such undesirable company, Isabella gave another gasp. Then, restraining an obvious impulse to run to him and fling her arms around his neck, she stammered:
“Where—where have you been? I—I beg you reassure me that no harm has befallen you.”
He gave her a tired smile; then, wishing to say as little as possible in front of his unwelcome companions, replied: “I passed a somewhat uncomfortable night, but I am otherwise quite well. May I trouble you to give me the letter you wot of?”
She gave him a scared, uncertain glance, but on his adding: “Please, Señorita; I require it at once,” she turned, knelt down beside her bed, pulled out one of the chests with Maria’s help, and unlocked it.
Roger had purposely remained standing just inside the door, so that he and the men at his back were some distance from the bed; and he now saw with relief that as Isabella lifted the lid of the chest her body hid its contents from them, for he had feared that if they caught sight of the valuables inside it they might attempt to rob her.
Closing the chest and relocking it she stood up with the packet in her hands. Again her voice faltered as she said: “Are you—are you sure that you wish me to give this to you now?”
“Yes,” he nodded, stepping forward and taking the packet from her. “I will explain later; but I have to give it to these people.” Then he thrust it into the hand of the wall-eyed ghoul behind him.
The little man took a quick look at the big red seals bearing the arms of Queen Marie Antoinette, grinned at Roger, made a jerky bow to Isabella, and, signing to his men to leave the room, closed the door gently behind him.
“Oh, what has happened?” Isabella burst out, the second the door was shut. “Surely those evil-looking men were not in the service of the Grand Duke! Why did you make me surrender Her Majesty’s letter to them?”
“I was forced to it,” Roger replied with a weary shrug. “I have been held captive all right, and escaped with my life only on promising to give up the letter.”
“No promise that is extracted under a threat is binding!” she cried, vehemently. “Why, having succeeded in getting back here, did you not shout for help and put up a fight?”
“That wall-eyed creature had sworn to kill me if I did.”
“That shrimp!” exclaimed Isabella contemptuously.
“He was holding a poniard at my back, and at the first sign that I meant to trick him would have jammed it in my liver.”
Roger had temporarily forgotten that his sweet-natured Isabella was a soldier’s daughter, but he was swiftly reminded of it as her brown eyes flashed and she cried angrily: “You still wear your sword. Why did you not spring away, draw it and turn upon them? Maria and I would have helped you fight them off, and our shouts would soon have brought assistance.”
Suddenly the anger faded from her eyes and they showed only acute distress, as she added bitterly: “Oh, Rojé, Rojé, you have betrayed the Queen! How could you do so?”
He smiled a little wistfully. “Nay, my sweet; I had the last trump in the pack up my sleeve, and cheated those scoundrels with it at the finish. That was the original cover to the despatch, with Her Majesty’s seals upon it; but it contained a letter in her cypher so altered by myself that they will not be able to make head nor tail of it in a month of Sundays.”
A sigh of relief escaped her, and she began to stammer an apology for having cast doubt upon his wit and courage. But he begged her to desist; then said unhurriedly:
“We’ll have ample time to talk of all this anon. Another matter must engage our attention now. One man at least who is acquainted with your aunt has learnt that you are in Florence. He may not know her well enough to see her frequently, and if he is as fully engaged with his own affairs as I suspect, he may not think the matter of sufficient importance to make a special visit to her. But on the other hand ’tis possible that he may see and mention it to her before the day is out. I do not think we have any cause for immediate anxiety; but, to be on the safe side, the wise course would be for us to bestir ourselves, and make ready to depart this morning.”
Isabella showed no surprise, but her thin face was drawn with fear and distress as she listened to him. Then, when he had done, in a spate of words she suddenly shattered his complacency.
“Alas, our case is far worse than you know! De Roubec is in Florence and also knows that I am here. He knocked the house up an hour or so after midnight on pretence of bringing a message from you. Instead he demanded from me a thousand ducats as the price of refraining from telling my aunt that we are living together. When I attempted to fob him off by saying that I had no such sum, he told me to sell some of my jewels as soon as the goldsmiths opened in order to procure it. He left me with an ultimatum, that if I failed to meet him at nine o’clock this morning with the money, outside the west door of the Church of St. Lorenzo, he would go straight to the Palazzo Frescobaldi.”