Dennis Wheatley - The Rising Storm

"You know?" Georgina's voice came in a hoarse whisper. "You have heard?"

He nodded. "Where is he? I tell you I must see himl Don't dare to hide him from me. I want the truth."

"He is not here," she faltered. "He has gone out. We expect him back at any moment. But Roger; I beg you control yourself. It was no-fault of his. 'Twas the mob ..."

With a set face he strode past her, through the french windows-and out on to the balcony. As he appeared he was greeted with cat­calls, hisses and insults from the crowd below.

Georgina ran after him and clutched his arm from behind. "Roger, Roger! Are you gone crazy to act like this? 'Tis terrible, I know. Wha could guess that such an awful thing would happen; even with Paris in the state it is. But Diego is as innocent in this as myself. I implore - you to come in and let me do what I can to calm your distraught mind."

Without a word in reply he tore his arm from her grasp. He had suddenly seen Don Diego coming up the street and just entering the fringe of the crowd

He waited for another minute, then, leaning over the ironwork of the balcony, he thrust out his arm. Pointing it at the Spaniard, he cried at the top of his voice:

"Seize him! Seize him! That is Don Diego Sidonia y Ulloa! He is the Spanish Envoy who has been sent from Spain to drag France into war! He is an intriguing aristocrat and the enemy of you all! With Spanish soldiers at his back he plans to rebuild the Bastille, A la Lanterne! A la Lanterne! A la Lanterne!"

For a heart-beat the mob was surprised into complete silence. Then with a howl of hate and rage it flung itself upon the wretched man he had denounced.

"Roger!" Georgina's cry was a wail of mingled amazement, anger and horror. "Roger, you are in truth gone mad! Stop them! Stop them! Oh, my God! My God!"

Thrusting her away from him, Roger kept his eyes fixed upon the terrible scene below. For a few moments Don Diego disappeared from view as his body was kicked and trampled on by the bloodthirsty sans­culottes; then, torn and bleeding, it was forced up again. Some of the ruffians had run to the nearest lamp-post, hauled down the lamp and detached it from the rope. Next minute the rope was about Don Diego's still-writhing neck. A score of hands grasped the free end and hauled upon it. The battered body was hoisted high above the crowd for all to see, and a yell of savage glee echoed down the street;

Roger loosened his sword in its scabbard, ready to fight his way out of the Embassy if the servants attempted to prevent his leaving.

Georgina was still standing beside him, frozen dumb with horror. He turned his bloodshot eyes upon her, and said hoarsely:

"I deeply regret this on your account. But it was an act of justice."

Suddenly she clenched her fist. Then she struck him again and again in the face, as she screamed: "I will never forgive you for this! Never! Never! You beast! You brute! You swine!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THREE KINDS OFWINE

ONEweek later, on Wednesday the 26th of May, at a quarter-past six in the evening, Roger was at No. io Downing Street and in the presence of his master.

Mr. Pitt sat behind his table. It was littered with papers and, as usual, there stood on it a decanter of Port with some glasses, from one of which he was drinking. But he had not offered Roger a glass or asked him to sit down; although he was standing there tired, dusty and travel-stained, just as he had come from Dover.

The Prime Minister's thin, worn face was even graver than its wont, and when he spoke his voice held all the chill vigour and cutting scorn with which at times he crushed his opponents in the House.

"Mr. Brook. That you should have the impudence to show your face here, I find a matter for amazement. But your having done so will spare me the necessity of sending for you at some future date, to require you to return to me the Letter of Marque with which I fur­nished you when last we met; and to inform you that should you at any future time represent yourself as an agent of the British Crown, you will do so at your dire peril.

"Two years ago I believed you to be a young man of great promise, but my judgment was sadly at fault. You must be aware that your reports are very far from being my only source of information regard­ing what takes place on the Continent; and when I last had the occa­sion to reprove you I spared you the full disclosure of my knowledge. For the past thirteen months I have been following your activities with ever-increasing disapproval and ever-decreasing lack of faith in your ability—or even loyalty.

"In the spring of '89 you left your post in Paris ostensibly to get into the good graces of the Queen of France. But I later learned that the prime cause of your departure was to accompany one of her Maids of Honour to Italy. There, only the intervention of the young woman's family prevented your eloping with her and thus provoking a first-class scandal.

"In the autumn you again left your post; this time without even notifying me of your intentions. You simply decamped, leaving me for a month without what I then considered a valuable source of in­formation on events in Paris. In due course I learned that you journeyed to Naples to renew your love affair in the absence of the lady's husband.

"On your belated return you had nothing to report but the failure of another mission, which you say you undertook for the Queen of France. You then proceeded to involve yourself with the reactionary intriguers who surround her, and entered into a pact with that dangerous and unscrupulous apostate, Monsieur de Talleyrand-Perigord. I re­called you, in order to get you out of the clutches of these most un­desirable people, and offered you another mission in a field that I con­sidered might prove more suited to you. But, in the place where I thought I could use you to advantage, you refuse to serve me.

"In March, to seek out the woman who has bedevilled you, as I am now informed, you decide to go off to Madrid; but first you make your peace with me and, when I reinstate you, give me your solemn assurance that you will place the King's business before all else. In­stead, with the object of getting your mistress to Paris, where you could pursue your intrigue with her more easily than in the rigid atmosphere of the Spanish Court, you persuade King Carlos to send her husband on a mission to France—utterly regardless of the fact that the object of that mission was to strengthen the alliance between France and Spain.

"From that point I can only attribute your acts to a lesion of the brain. It is not enough that in the Spanish affair you have betrayed your country's interests for your personal ends. You abuse my con­fidence in the most shameful manner, by using the Letter of Marque

I gave you in a way that you knew I never had the remotest intention of its being used. Without one tittle of authority you give yourself the pretensions of a Minister Plenipotentiary accredited to the Court of France. Then, some further aberration of the brain leads you to throw away such influence as you have acquired with the Queen of France by openly espousing the cause of the Revolutionaries.

"In defiance of my Lord Robert Fitz-Gerald's order you remain in Paris, and consort with the demagogues at the Jacobin Club. You next bring about the foul and brutal murder of your mistress' husband by the mob. Then you go to the Jacobins and proceed publicly to glorify your abominable act. You proclaim yourself the enemy of all Kings, including your own, and incite these bloodthirsty terrorists to further acts of violence.

"Had you committed your crime in England, justice would have seen that you hanged for it; and I warn you, should the French Govern­ment ask for your extradition to call you to account for it in Paris, I intend to give you up to them."