Evil in a Mask (18 page)

Next morning he awoke stiff and sore, but had no necessity to hurry out; so he had a hip-bath and a dozen cans of hot water brought up to his room. The warmth of the bath relaxed his muscles and, after lingering there for a quarter of an hour, he felt in much better condition to face the day ahead of him. He also felt ravenously hungry and ate a hearty breakfast. Then he asked for writing materials, and sat down to write a letter to Mr. Canning.

Having congratulated the Minister upon his recent appointment, he went on to express his confidence that, with him at the Foreign Office, Britain would pursue a more vigorous policy than had been the case under the late, supine Government.

He then reported on the poor state to which the
Grande Armée
had been reduced since Eylau, and gave concise particulars about Gardane's mission, its object and probable consequences should it prove successful.

Instead of signing the letter, he wrote as a last paragraph:
This comes from he who was accompanying you back to London after dining out at Wimbledon on the night that one of the wheels of your coach came off, and on your being thrown violently sideways, you badly bruised your cheek
.

He felt certain that Canning could not have forgotten the episode; but no one else into whose hands the letter happened to fall could possibly know that Canning's companion that night, after dining with Mr. Pitt, had been Roger Brook.

Having sanded and sealed his letter, he asked the way to the Hofberg and went out into the town.

The capital of a great empire, Vienna had long rivalled Paris as the finest city in Europe; so Roger was not surprised at the sight of its many fine buildings, the handsome equipages with liveried coachmen and footmen, and throng of well-clad people in the streets. Making his way to the Hofberg, he asked one of the porters there to direct him to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As he had thought probable, it was housed in one of the wings of the vast Palace. After crossing two courtyards, he located it and enquired from a clerk at a desk in a lofty vestibule the whereabouts of the British Embassy. Learning that it was no great distance away, on the far side of the Maria Thérèsa Platz, he decided to walk; and, on his way, enjoyed the sight of the fine gardens surrounded by a number of other imposing buildings.

On arriving at the Embassy, he learned that no British Ambassador was at present accredited to the Court of Vienna, but that for the past ten months, a Mr. Robert Adair had been
en poste
there as Minister Plenipotentiary. Giving his name as John Hickson, Roger said that he was a British subject, and would be grateful if the Minister would grant him a very brief interview on a very urgent matter.

After a wait of some ten minutes, Roger was piloted by a portly major-domo up a flight of broad, marble stairs and into a lofty, square room with much gilt decoration. Behind a large desk a middle-aged man with bushy side-whiskers was sitting. As Roger entered, he stood up. They exchanged bows, then he asked:

‘What can I do for you, Mr. Hickson?'

Roger produced his letter and replied, ‘I have only a simple request to make, Sir; that you will despatch this missive by safe hand at the earliest possible opportunity to Mr. Canning.'

Mr. Adair raised a pair of thick, arched eyebrows and said, ‘It is not usual practice for us to transmit private correspondence; but as your letter is to the Minister of Foreign Affairs … May I enquire if you are aquainted with him?'

‘No, Sir,' Roger lied glibly. ‘But its contents will, I am sure, be of considerable interest to him.'

The Minister waved Roger to a chair. ‘Perhaps you would be good enough to tell me why you think so.'

As Roger sat down, he smiled and said, ‘I did not wish to take your valuable time and bore you, Sir, with particulars about myself. But, since you wish, this is my situation. I am the head of one of the concerns that have their quarters in a large compound termed “The English Factory” in St. Petersburg. Our principal trade is in furs, and one of our best markets is Budapest. Recently I had occasion to go thither. I am fluent in several languages, so while travelling through the area occupied by the French Army, I passed myself off as a German. One evening, while dining at an inn in East Prussia, there were three French officers, obviously of high rank, dining at an adjacent table. As I had been talking to the waiter in German, they must have assumed that I was unacquainted with their language, so they talked quite freely. They were discussing a plan of the Emperor Napoleon's which could cause considerable harm to the Allied cause. So I thought it my duty to send word of it to our Foreign Secretary.'

‘Indeed!' Mr. Adair's interest had visibly increased. ‘But is there any reason why you should not disclose it to me?'

‘None, Sir. But as it concerns the Near East, there is naught that you can do to thwart this project here in Vienna, so I thought it more practical to send the information direct to Mr. Canning.'

The Minister remained thoughtful for a moment, then he said:

‘Since you take that view, I will not press you. But it is evident, Mr. Hickson, that you are a superior person, capable of forming judgments on international affairs—and very conscious of your duty to your country. I should like to talk further with you, so I should be happy if you would remain to luncheon.'

Roger stood up, laid his letter on the desk, smiled and bowed. ‘I am honoured by your invitation, Sir, and would be delighted to accept it. Yet I must reluctantly decline, because
I have come a hundred and forty miles out of my way in order to get this letter sent to London; and, for business reasons, I must return as speedily as possible to Budapest. I plan to set out this afternoon.'

They parted cordially, and Roger felt there was a good possibility of his having achieved his object. No one would ever know that Mr. Roger Brook, or Colonel le Chevalier de Breuc, had visited Vienna. He had been averse to disclosing the contents of his letter to Mr. Adair, in case, through him or his staff, it got out prematurely that the English were aware of Napoleon's schemes regarding Turkey and Persia. Even should Adair have the letter steamed open, or it fall into wrong hands on its way to London, at least he had protected himself from becoming known as its author.

On leaving the Embassy he spent an hour and a half wandering round the older part of the city, paid an all-too-brief visit to the magnificent
Stefans Kirk
, then went into the shop of a goldsmith in the
Kohlmarkt
.

While on his way from Warsaw he had spent a considerable amount of time debating with himself how he should proceed when he reached Constantinople. Having sent his letter to Canning, he had small hopes of doing anything further to thwart Napoleon's plans; but he was anxious to have a source of information about how negotiations were proceeding, independent of what Gardane might tell him and, if possible, learn what view the Turks really took of the General's proposals. This could differ considerably from that Gardane might optimistically assume, owing to the traditional duplicity of Orientals.

Given luck, Roger thought he might achieve direct communication with the Sultan's advisers; but, as an opening move, he would have to produce a handsome present. So, at the goldsmith's, he bought a pair of not very tall, but charmingly-designed gold candlesticks.

Soon after midday he lunched at the Double Eagle and, reluctant as he was to leave Vienna without seeing more of that fine city, immediately afterwards paid his reckoning and started on his return journey. By evening he reached Pressburg,
where he had had a meal and dozed for a while the previous afternoon; dined and slept there. That left him only a hundred miles to cover the next day. On the evening of the 22nd, he was back in Budapest.

After a good night's sleep, he retrieved the uniform he had left with the landlord of the Turk's Head; then, with the financial circumspection he had inherited from his Scottish mother, he settled his bill by making over to the man the civilian clothes that had been procured for him.

His next move was to transfer himself to another hostelry, the Brave Magyar, in order to decrease the chance that any member of Gardane's mission should learn that he had procured civilian clothes and been absent for three days from Budapest.

The first time he had arrived, he had gone straight to bed, and had not even left the hotel until four o'clock the following morning, so he had seen little of the city. With the best part of a day at his disposal, he now took the opportunity to be driven round it. As he was already aware, it was in fact two cities: on the right bank of the three-hundred-yard-wide Danube, Buda; and the left bank, Pest.

In the latter he found little to interest him, as it was a flat, mainly commercial area, with a population containing a high percentage of German Jews, by whose industries the Hungarian State was largely supported; since well-born Magyars considered it beneath their dignity to engage in trade. But the right bank sloped steeply upward, and was crowned by scores of palatial mansions: the town houses of the Hungarian Magnates. Low, rounded arches on the street side gave entrance to their courtyards, and it was evident that the windows in the main frontages all had lovely views over the swiftly-flowing river.

The rounded arches recalled to Roger that, in ancient times, the Danube had been the frontier of the Roman Empire, and Ofen, as the Buda hill had then been called, an important bastion garrisoned by a Roman legion against the barbarous Scythians. Thus, as in the case of France and England, unlike the German lands, Hungary had benefited from the legacy left by that great ancient civilisation.

Rising high above the maze of narrow, cobbled streets that gave entrance to the many mansions, stood out on one side the Royal Palace, built by the Empress Maria Thérèsa in the middle of the past century; and on the other the two-hundred-and-fifty-foot-high steeple of the thirteenth-century Matthias Church. Further on in that direction, Roger came to the Fisher bastion and there left his carriage to look down on the splendid panorama that it offered. Below him on the far bank, like a mottled carpet, spread the innumerable roofs of Pest, to the left the Danube broadened out and divided to encircle the
Margareten Insel
—a lovely well-wooded island—that his German driver told him was a private estate of one of the Austrian Archdukes.

That night Roger went to bed well content. He had not only successfully completed his self-imposed mission, but had seen enough of Budapest to cause Gardane to believe that he had spent several days there.

His calculations about the progress of the mission proved near the mark, as it reached Budapest in mid-morning on the following day. The arrival of such a numerous cavalcade of French troops could not go unremarked. Having asked to be informed of it, Roger learned that it had taken up its quarters at the
Jägerhorn
: one of the biggest hostelries in Pest; so he at once drove there and reported to the General.

Over a gargantuan meal of traditional Hungarian dishes: corn on the cob; a succulent fish from Lake Balaton; chicken cooked in paprika; roast goose breasts and a great
pâté
of goose livers, Roger regaled Gardane and the other officers with an account of the delights to be enjoyed in the city. They listened with envy and a certain sourness that they were to spend only one night there; for Gardane had already learned from the French agent, to whom his advance courier had been sent, that fully-provisioned boats were waiting to transport the mission down the Danube. As an unnecessary delay might have been reported to the Emperor and brought down his wrath, the General had no option but to decree that they must all go aboard the following morning.

After the privations they had suffered in Poland and their
dreary eight-day journey from Warsaw, they naturally spent a riotous night; so it was a sorry crew of bleary-eyed, mumbling men who reluctantly assembled on the wharf.

Three commodious barges had been provided: two in which the officers and their servants were to travel, and the third for their grooms and horses. Below decks, in the barges for the personnel, there were small cabins for the seniors, bunks for the others and accommodation for messing and sitting about during bad weather. The barges were fitted with masts and sails, and in their forepart horses were stabled, to be put ashore and tow them whenever the wind dropped.

With these aids, they made good progress as, instead of having to stop for the night at inns, they slept aboard while the barges continued steadily downriver. The only halts they made were for an hour or so at small towns, to buy chickens, geese, eggs and fresh vegetables. In consequence, they averaged well over eighty miles a day and, on May 1st, arrived at the small town of Cernavada. From there it was no more than twenty-five miles to the considerable port of Constanza, on the Black Sea; whereas at that point the Danube curved north for a hundred miles up to Galeti, on the border of Moldavia, and only then turned east, to meander for yet another hundred miles through lakes and marshes until at last, by several mouths, the great river emptied itself into the sea.

That night they slept in a big caravanserai and, for the first time, savoured fully the sights and smells of the East; as, although they were still in Europe, Rumania was a Turkish province. Next day, they rode to Constanza and, the weather being fine, enjoyed the change after being cooped up for a week on a barge, with nothing to do but lounge about on deck, or play cards. But, soon after they reached the port, they met with the first setback on their journey. Their Turkish interpreter informed the General that, on enquiry, he had learned that no ship large enough to carry them and their horses would be available to charter for some days.

Cursing their luck that this hold-up should have occurred in a dirty, dreary little seaport, composed mainly of ram
shackle, wooden buildings, instead of in gay and beautiful Budapest, they did their best to while away the time.

On their second evening there the local Pasha, who ruled the place from an ancient, half-ruined castle, entertained them; but the party proved a dull affair. He could speak only Turkish, and few of Gardane's officers knew more than some sentences in that language which those of them who had served under Napoleon on his Egyptian campaign had picked up at the time.