Dennis Wheatley - The Sultan's Daughter

This time he was taken straight upstairs to the Minister's room, a large apartment the walls of which were entirely hidden by row upon row of filing cabinets. Fouché was sitting at a big desk with his back to a tall window, but it was now dark and lamps had been lit which shed their light only on his desk and on any visitor seated opposite him.

He was now forty and, in appearance, quite exceptionally unattractive. Although strong, his tall body was so lean and angular that it gave the impression that he was suffering from some wasting disease. His face was thin and bony, with the complexion of a corpse. From the point of his large, sharp nose there frequently hung a drop, as all his life he suffered from a perpetual cold. His red hair was sparse and brushed over his scalp in rats' tails. His lips were thin and his heavily lidded eyes greenish. They had a fish-like appearance, but few people had ever looked right into them because, when talking to anyone, he always kept his glance averted. Nobody who did not know him would have thought it possible that he was capable of working twenty hours a day, as he often did for long periods; for he seemed to be so drained of all vitality that within the week he would be measured for his coffin.

Without looking at Roger he stood up, made a slight bow, waved his bony hand towards the chair opposite his desk and said, 'So we old acquaintances meet again.'

'A classic phrase,' smiled Roger, sitting down. 'And I am happy to think that we are both better situated than when last we met.'

'I must congratulate you on having become a Colonel in the French Army.'

'And I you in having become Minister of Police.'

Fouche studied the fingernails of his right hand. 'You may also do so on another count. You will recall that when last we parted I was penniless and about to go into banishment. I have since succeeded in making for myself a . . . well, let us call it a modest fortune.'

'I am glad to hear it.'

'You will also recall that, on the occasion to which I refer, you gave me a hundred louis.'

'That is so,' Roger murmured, greatly surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. He thought it hardly possible that Fouche could have raised the matter with the intention of showing gratitude, but added:

'Instead of exile in penury, you had been counting on Barras giving you some minor appointment which would have supported you. You were, I remember, greatly distressed by the thought of the hardship your wife would have to endure. That was my reason for giving you a sum to go on with.'

'1 know it. At the time I believed that you had thrown it to me as a sop because you had cheated me. But later I learned that, although you had got the better of me by your wits, it was through no fault of yours that Barras treated me so abominably. I am now able to repay your generous gesture.'

As he spoke, Fouche produced from a drawer in his desk a little sack. It clinked as he pushed it across to Roger, and he added, 'There are a hundred louis. The hundred you lent me proved the basis of my fortune.'

Scarcely able to believe his eyes and ears, Roger leaned forward, took up the sack, and said with a smile, 'Many thanks, Monsieur le Ministre. You enable me to hope that, in future, relations between us may be more cordial.'

Fouche gave a loud sniff then, with a swift, covert glance from beneath his heavy eyelids, replied, '1 have only one regret. It is that I could not put guineas into the bag instead of louis. The coin of your own country might have proved more useful to you, Mr. Brook; er . . . that is, if my police had allowed you to get out of Paris with it.'

The Great Conspiracy

Roger's smile froze on his lips. In spite of his amazement at finding Fouche's attitude to him so different from the hostility he had expected, he had for a few moments allowed himself to be deceived into thinking that his old enemy had sent for him only to repay a debt. But nothing of the kind. He had simply been playing the sort of cat-and-mouse game in which he delighted. Again there arose in Roger's mind those awful visions of years spent forgotten in a dark dungeon in some remote fortress, or dying of yellow fever at Cayenne. With a supreme effort he succeeded in preventing his face from showing any marked reaction, and asked quietly:

'Why should you suppose that I wish to leave Paris? ' 'Does not every man wish at times to return to his own country? '

'France is my country.'

'Oh, come! ' Fouche's thin-lipped mouth twitched in a faint smile. 'Others appear to believe that, but you cannot expect me to accept such a barefaced lie. Need I remind you that, when first I came upon you as a boy in Rennes, you admitted to me that you were the son of Admiral Brook and had run away from home? '

'In for a penny, in for a pound,' thought Roger, so he snapped back, '1 need no reminding of how you murdered poor old Doctor Fdnelon and stole our money.'

Fouche gave a slight shrug. 'It was not murder. My pistol went off by accident. And I needed the money. But, your admission apart, four years later I followed you to England in the hope of earning the reward offered for the documents you stole from the

'16

Marquis de Rochambeau. I came upon you at your home, Grove Place, at Lymington. You cannot deny that.'

'1 do not seek to do so; nor deny that I am Admiral Brook's son.'

'Then you admit that you are an English spy? '

'1 certainly do not. The Marquis's papers came into my hands by chance. Young as I was I realized that, if I could get them to London, it might prevent a war between England and France. I proved right in that. It was your misfortune that, after you regained the papers, I got them back. But at that time we were private individuals. Neither you nor I were then agents employed by our Governments.'

'That is true; also that you got the better of me. It was the first time, but not the last. I will admit that you are a most redoubtable opponent. The way in which you made off with the Dauphin was masterly. Yet had I left Paris but half an hour earlier I would have caught you and had you guillotined for it.'

In spite of the peril he was now in, Roger felt on the top of his mettle and replied with a laugh, 'For that again, you cannot accuse me of espionage. I acted as I did on account of a personal promise that I had made to Queen Marie Antoinette, not as the agent of a foreign Power.'

That was only a half-truth, but Fouche could not contest it. He was doodling on a piece of paper and, without looking up, said, 'Later, you deceived me into believing that you still had the boy, then told me he was dead. What was the truth of the matter? '

For a moment Roger hesitated, then he replied, 'You will recall that, as I pushed off with him in the boat, you and your men fired upon us. He was hit by a ball and died that night.' That was not the truth, but was near enough, for the boy was dead before Roger landed on the far shore of Lake Geneva. After a moment he went on:

'Neither can you accuse me of espionage in the matter of Madame Bonaparte's diary. I retrieved it from you only because Barras wished her to marry his proteg£, the young General. She would have refused to do so had we not suppressed the evidence that her first marriage to de Beauharnais was bigamous, owing to her having already married William de Kay while still in her teens.'

'Yes, yes; but all this does not make you a Frenchman.'

'Not legally, I agree. Yet for many years past I have lived in

France and thought of myself as a Frenchman. You are well aware of the part I played during the Revolution. Admittedly, it is known to you that at heart I was a Royalist. But what of it? Thousands of Royalists have since become good Republicans, and thousands of Republicans would tomorrow, if they thought a Restoration likely, become Royalists.'