CHAPTER ELEVEN #4
“We arrive there now. Before I can fly from France, Jean-Marc comes to my lodging. Etienne has spoken to him, for he says he is in agreement that I must leave France. You perceive the trend, m’sieur?”
But Sir James was frowning. “I’m hanged if I do! You, Grace?”
Her eyes were on Henri. Indignation warred with distress in her bosom. She answered without hesitation. “He wanted Henri to escape.”
“Don’t see that either, miss,” said Wooferton in puzzlement.
Grace turned to him. “Think! Would you arrest a man who could point the finger at you? But if he escapes, you may go after him and ensure his silence.”
“Bravo, Grace! It is just so.”
“But what I don’t understand,” she put in, “is how Jean-Marc thought he might stay while you left. He was Robespierre’s aide too, wasn’t he?”
“It is what I have said to him. But Jean-Marc has planned for this. He is promoted, he says, as aide to the Public Accuser, and this before Robespierre was taken. Thus he is safe. But I must go, for that the information supplied to Le Directeur on these activities of mine royalist is found and given to the office of the Public Accuser.”
“By Jean-Marc himself, no doubt,” Grace guessed, outraged.
Henri nodded. “I see there is here a trick. I must believe Etienne has told Jean-Marc that Henri knows him for the traitor. Thus Jean-Marc must rid himself of Henri. If the Public Accuser indicts Henri, then Henri, so he thinks, must name his friends also.”
“Yes, but would you have proof of their involvement?” asked Sir James.
A bitter look settled into Henri’s features, and Grace saw it with distress.
“It needs not that one has proof. You do not understand how is France. In these times it is enough to name the name. Jean-Marc knows this. Perhaps he has covered the tracks, but he cannot be certain he will succeed if he is tried as I must be.”
Sir James had begun to look grim. “I begin to think your proposition is not as melodramatic as I had supposed, young Rousselle. Go on, what happened next?”
“Next, I have disappeared very fast from Paris. Since I have spoken of Brussels to Etienne, I make instead for England. More dangerous, but I have not a choice.”
“Dangerous because of your involvement in the revolution.” The magistrate was dry.
“As we have seen.” Henri executed a small bow.
“I take no change of clothes, only money and these papers. I have sealed those two most important to protect them. The map I intend to pass to one who is loyal at Dieppe, that he may send it to Brussels for the safety of the men in Paris. But when I have left Londinières, a messenger comes after to say that Jules at Dieppe has turned and Jean-Marc travels after me towards England.”
“How soon before they caught up with you?” asked Sir James.
Henri shrugged. “I do not know, for I have seen them only on the boat.”
“What boat?” asked Grace, feeling almost as if she journeyed with him. “On the Thames?”
“One I have taken from Margate, bound for London. I have come across from Le Touquet on a boat of fishermen, after I have journeyed with a man I paid to row me up the coast from Dieppe. Perhaps this man betrays me also, for I now believe Jean-Marc and the others have followed me all the way.”
“What did you do when you saw them?”
“I try to evade them, leaving the boat at this Halfway House.”
“Plumsted Magazine, that would have been,” put in Wooferton. “Crossed on the ferry, I dessay, to Rainham Creek Mouth.”
“Them Frenchies must have seen you, sir,” suggested Mayberry, “for we found tracks all through Rainham Marsh towards the Three Crowns.”
“It is indeed thus,” agreed Henri. “I ask at the Three Crowns for where to go, and they direct me to Rainham, where I may pass to Great Dover, I think —”
“Aye, and through to Dagenham, I’d guess, if you was heading for London.”
“That’s right,” agreed Wooferton. “Stage at Dagenham ’ud take you straight there.”
“Only he didn’t get to Dagenham, nor anywhere near it,” cut in Sir James, frowning them down.
Grace was watching Henri. “Did you see them following you?”
He nodded. “I am on the road for Rainham and I think to escape by the marsh, for the landlord has warned me it has danger. But my enemies have a light where I have none. They see me and Jean-Marc shoots. I am hit. I go down. They are coming and I must hide. I see this — how do you say? — the plant that grows in the water.”
“Reeds,” supplied Grace.
“Reeds, yes. I roll in the water and hide in the reeds. They do not find me, but Jean-Marc knows I am wounded. I hear them speak. He thinks to come back to find my body in the morning. So they will go back to the Three Crowns. I wait for the light to be distant, so that I know they are gone.”
“Which, presumably, is when you dragged yourself out and found your way to Grace’s house?” suggested Sir James.
“He was concerned about the papers,” put in Grace, her voice jumping. “No wonder! Jean-Marc must have been wild to get back that order.”
For the first time in his narrative, Henri smiled. “Not only the order, ma chère.” He came to the table and reached for the other document with its broken seal. “You permit?”
Sir James looked puzzled, but waved a dismissive hand. “Take it, man!”
Henri glanced about the library, and his gaze returned to the magistrate’s face. “You have a candle?”
On Sir James’s instruction, Mayberry lit a taper using the flint upon the mantel, and presently brought across a lighted candle in a single stick and placed it upon the desk.
Henri had spread the paper open and he now held it over the heat as the rest of the party crowded round.
Under Grace’s startled gaze, a series of words appeared at the top.
“It is addressed to Loriot!”
“Secret writing?” said Mayberry, awed.
“Likely it’s lemon juice,” suggested Wooferton without emotion, taking the paper from Henri and checking it again over the candle flame. “Not that it proves nothing. Could a’ been written on there at any time.”
“Which is why, I dare say,” stated Sir James, “young Rousselle was loath to produce it in evidence. Most interesting.”
Standing a little apart, Henri watched them all.
For the first time in weeks, he felt the beginnings of relaxation.
It was all but over. Whether or not Sir James believed his story — though it looked very much as if he did — Henri trusted too many questions had been raised for the magistrate’s innate sense of justice.
He would not condemn where he could not be certain of guilt.
How was it the English had it? Innocent until proven guilty, beyond any reasonable doubt.
A far cry from the prevailing criteria in France.
Grace detached herself from the group, limping out into the room.
Henri remembered the long walk she had undertaken on his behalf and warmth spread across his chest. She would be rewarded, he would see to that.
But before he could speak, Sir James came out from behind the desk.
Henri saw an unexpected frown in his eye, and balked at it.
“What more, Sir James? Have you not sufficient to know I speak truth?”
The elder man’s tone was gruff. “Never does to be too hasty, my young friend.”
Henri’s rising annoyance was pre-empted by Grace. “For shame, Sir James! After he has told you everything? How can you say so?”
“He hasn’t quite told me everything, my dear.”