CHAPTER ELEVEN #2
The magistrate looked anything but gratified. “Do you mean to tell me, sir, that you have a means of establishing your credentials, and have failed to make use of it?”
“Because he was like to be disbelieved,” said Grace before Henri could answer. “That’s the trouble. His papers give no conclusive proof of anything, only they raise questions to which Henri alone can give the answers.”
She glanced at Henri and found him looking at her with much the same perplexity in which he was being regarded by Sir James. A smile wavered on her lips.
“I have guessed the answers, Henri. I know you for what you are.”
“Then I’ll be obliged if one of you will see fit to enlighten me,” came the acid response from Sir James as he shifted back to his desk. He looked across to the stalwarts by the door. “Set a chair for Miss Dovercourt, if you please.”
Mayberry hurried to comply, and Grace sank gratefully into the wooden armchair he placed before the desk for her use. Her discomfort must have shown, for Henri, about to take his own seat, paused to eye her in frowning question.
“What is it with you, Grace?”
She gave a dismissive shake of the head. “Nothing to signify. My hip is a little out of sorts from walking.”
“Not surprised,” commented Sir James, who had resumed his place behind the desk. “It’s not fit for you to be traipsing all over the countryside, silly girl!”
“I had no choice.” With difficulty, she dragged her gaze from the concern in the green eyes and fastened it instead upon the magistrate. Without roundaboutation, she embarked upon her mission, bringing it out flat. “Henri is not a revolutionary, Sir James, but a royalist.”
The statement appeared not to have moved him. He looked neither surprised nor disconcerted. Glancing at Henri again, she found his frown now directed upon Sir James.
“How do you make that out?” grunted the latter.
Grace dug her fingers into her pockets, feeling for the documents.
“Henri gave these into my keeping when I first found him. I had read only those that were open, until last night. When I heard this morning from Joe Piper what had happened at the Black Horse, I decided it was time to produce them for your inspection.”
Sir James was watching with interest as she brought out the papers, sorting them into sequence on the desk.
“That is Henri’s identity paper. This one gives information about a coming trial — his own.
You will find the witnesses he had expected to call upon are the very men who have been at pains to persuade you to release him to them.
Here is a document listing persons known to Henri who might have helped or hindered his escape.
I imagine they are part of the royalist network. ”
She flicked a look at Henri as she spoke. He was sitting now, but his features were impassive. Grace understood: he would not plead his innocence. Was it pride? Or a belief it would do no good? He preferred to let his judges make up their own minds as she had done.
Sir James had set aside the identity paper and taken up the other two, running his eye down the writing. He did not spend much time on them, but looked up at Grace within a couple of moments. “What else?”
Grace handed him the nearly blank sheet. “This is the paper in which the rest were wrapped. I have not been able to work out what the map signifies. I must suppose it has to do with a location Henri used in his journey out of France.”
Sir James nodded, and barely glanced at it. “And the others?”
Her heartbeat quickened, and she held rather tightly to the remaining documents.
“These were both sealed.” She looked to Henri and found his eyes upon her, unfathomable.
“Until I read these, I thought as you do. I believed what you were told by Loriot, that Henri was indeed a republican. Only I thought — hoped! —” a faint leap in the green eyes at the emendation — “that there were extenuating circumstances.”
“And were there?” enquired Sir James, oddly mild in manner.
Grace’s fingers quivered as she held out one of the documents, its seal broken. “I don’t know how this came to Henri’s hand. You will find it addressed to Loriot from Robespierre. It instructs him to investigate Henri on suspicion of being a royalist.”
Sir James took the paper and looked at the signature. He nodded, and looked pointedly at Grace’s hands. “You have another.”
Grace looked at Henri, but she spoke as if to Sir James. “He could have stolen it. Forged it perhaps. There is no way to know it concerns Henri, except that it is in his possession.”
Henri eyed her, trusting no trace of the jolting emotion in his chest was visible in his face.
Necessity had forced him to learn to be adept at hiding what he felt.
Her faith in him was all in all to him, but she would not bring Sir James to her persuasion by pre-empting what he might later think of himself.
The magistrate would be swayed by his own judgement alone.
“Do you mean to let me see it?”
The dry tone failed to deceive Henri. As sharp as a knife was Sir James. It was the moment Henri had been putting off. His fate hung in the balance.
Without a word, Grace passed the paper across. Henri watched Sir James run his eyes down the sheet. Surprisingly then, his glance went to the excise officer, stationed at the door. “Wooferton!”
The man rose and came to the desk. Henri was further puzzled as Sir James handed the paper to him. The excise officer read — in French, enfin! — down the sheet as rapidly as Henri might himself have done. Then he looked up.
“Looks to be an instruction, sir,” he said blandly.
“There ain’t no addressee, nor there ain’t no signature.
Can see that for yourself. It says as how whoever sent it had ought to see what could be done to get a release for five nobs by the name o’ de la Cour.
Seemingly, the Marquis de la Cour had turned up in Belgium and were pleading for help, like, for his family what had been taken a year since. ”
Had he a choice, it was not a reminder Henri would have wished to keep about him.
By the time it came to his hand, it was too late.
All three adults — two women, one man: wife, sister, brother, he knew not — and two children of the de la Cour family had been executed.
Just as had others they had known of and tried to save, despite carefully laid plans.
Foiled, no doubt — had he not proof enough from the man’s own mouth?
— by Jean-Marc Loriot, convert to the republican cause.
The thoughts faded as he saw Sir James was feeding the documents, one after another, to the man Wooferton.
How he had come by his evident fluency in French was a question that paled beside the more important one.
Would his report of the contents of those papers serve to induce Sir James to release Henri to his French compatriots?
Or would he make the jump Grace had made, and take him as he was.
That Grace had come assumed a vast importance, for with her came the ace he had yet to play — if he must. A last resort. He would give much not to be obliged to use it, for that the consequences were not such as he cared to think on.
He watched her as the fellow read on, her gaze fixed upon the shifting documents in Wooferton’s hands. Was she paling? He saw her hand clenched in her lap and longed to wrap his own around it.
As if she felt his gaze, Grace turned her head and found him surveying her.
Expressionless as ever. How close he was when he did not want to be read.
It must have been a skill studied of necessity.
How many years had he operated in that dual role, his secret a constant danger, before he had collapsed in her lean-to and changed her life for ever?
She met the green eyes, and they locked with hers. An aeon later, she was startled by Wooferton’s voice, and jumped.
“Well, I’ve done, sir.”
“And?” asked Sir James, recovering the documents into his own hand.
The hawk-like face turned upon Grace. “It ain’t nowise easy to say, though I’m tempted to go along with what Miss Grace made of ’em.
Likely it is his own trial as the gennelman writes of, and there ain’t no doubt as them names stand for a set of men mixed up in underhanded doings.
I can’t say as I see how the map fits in.
As to the rest, sir, it’s clear as day he’s got hold of that there Robespierre letter secret-like.
Seemingly, he could’ve done the same with t’other. ”
Grace’s heart sank as Sir James turned a stern gaze upon Henri. “Anything to add to what we’ve got here?”
In growing anxiety, she watched Henri’s face as he hesitated. Why could he not speak out? There must be more for him to say? She felt as if the minutes were ticking by, and the silence became oppressive. Unendurable.
“Henri, tell them! At least what you have told me.” Still he did not speak. In desperation, she turned to Sir James. “Has he at least told you it was Loriot who shot at him? Apparently he is a crack shot and only missed because it was dark.”
Sir James looked sceptical. “Even if it was so, pray how does that help us?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that if you give him up to those murderers, you will sentence Henri to death! Was it not enough proof for you that Loriot got into his room last night?”
“Leave it, Grace!” Henri reached out and grasped one of her unquiet hands. “It is better you let Sir James decide.”
Her fingers clung to his. “I can’t. If you won’t speak, then I must.”
He shook his head. “No, ma chère, for you judge with the heart. It is for Sir James to look with the mind that has not a — how do you say? — prejudice.”
“Yes, but it don’t hurt to put the case for the defence,” said Sir James trenchantly. “Have you nothing to say for yourself, Rousselle?”