The Launching of Roger Brook (22 page)

‘Yes, I fully appreciate that,’ said Roger thoughtfully, but a new idea had come to him and he went on with some diffidence: ‘My father needs this money with some urgency, though, and I am most loath to return to England without it. Would you—would it be asking too much of you to sell the stuff for me? I give you my solemn word of honour that it was come by honestly, and is mine to dispose of as I think fit. You are a grown man and well known in Le Havre, so the goldsmith would never question your right to dispose of such goods.’

The Chevalier considered for a moment. ‘Yes, it could be done that way,’ he said slowly. ‘Maître Blasieur knows me well, and we have oft done far larger deals together.’

‘Please!’ Roger urged. ‘Please help me in this and I’ll be eternally grateful to you.’

De Roubec smiled at him. ‘I believe you have a greater interest in this matter than you pretend?’

Roger coloured slightly. ‘Well, as a fact, my father promised me a portion of the proceeds of the deal if I showed my capabilities by handling it with credit. ’Tis in a way a test, too, as to if he will or no henceforth regard me as an equal and allow me to manage his affairs while he is away at sea.’

‘In that case I can scarce bring myself to disoblige you.’

‘This is stupendous!’ Roger laughed again, now once more confident of success. ‘Let us lose no time but start at once and get the matter over.’

‘A moment, I beg.’ De Roubec raised his hand. ‘’Twill not appear to Maître Blasieur that ’tis I who am the seller if the goods for sale are produced by you, one by one, out of your pockets. I fear you will have to trust me with them for a short time at the least.’

Roger’s hesitation was barely perceptible. He was most strongly averse to parting with his treasure, and he had not known De Roubec long enough to place complete faith in him. Yet it seemed clear that he must accept this risk or offend the Chevalier and say goodbye to any hope of this deal on account of which he had been to such pains in getting to France.

‘I fully appreciate that,’ he agreed, wondering at the same time how he could manage to keep a safety line on his property. ‘How would you suggest that we arrange the matter?’

‘Any way that suits yourself,’ replied the Chevalier casually. ‘But to start with I am sure you will see the advantage of making the jewels up into one convenient packet, so that they can be handed to Maître Blasieur without your hunting about your person as though you were seeking fleas in the coat of a dog.’

Seeing the sense of this Roger began to get out his collection again while De Roubec sought for something suitable in which to put it. On the lower shelf of a cupboard he came across a long, flat bon-bon box, and, finding it to be empty, threw it on the table with a muttered: ‘This will serve.’

Having packed all the chains, brooches, bangles and rings into the box, Roger looked up at him and inquired: ‘What now?’

‘Why, put it in the big pocket of your coat,
mon ami
,’ laughed the Chevalier, ‘I have no desire to be responsible for your property for a moment longer than the occasion demands; and we will now go together to the goldsmith’s.’

His last lingering doubts of the Chevalier’s probity thus being dispelled, Roger got to his feet and, unlatching the door, they left the room.

Outside, the hot August sunshine glared upon the quay and as Roger walked along beside his companion his heart was high. Four hundred pounds would be a nice little fortune
on which to start life in London. For five pounds a week a young man could live in considerable comfort at a modest yet respectable hostelry and have half that sum over to spend on getting about. At that rate Georgina’s present would keep him for over a year and a half, but long before that he expected to have some profitable employment, so he could well afford to cut a good figure and take more expensive lodging in the meantime if, having acquired well-to-do friends, it seemed advisable to do so.

On reaching the
Rue François ler
they walked some way along it, then De Roubec halted and pointed with his cane at a corner shop with a long bow window.

That is Maître Blasieur’s,’ he said. ‘’Twould be best, I think, if I go in while you wait outside for me, otherwise he may suspect that I am acting only as an intermediary, and that the goods are really yours, which might lead to his asking embarrassing questions.’

‘You foresee everything,’ Roger smiled and wriggling the long heavy box out of his pocket he handed it to De Roubec, as he added: ‘I am indeed grateful to you. I will wait here and pray meanwhile that you may have good fortune on my behalf.’

‘Be sure I will do my best for you,’ laughed the Chevalier, ‘and I will be as speedy as I can. But do not be too impatient, as for a goldsmith to weigh and assess so many articles is certain to take not less than twenty minutes.’

He was about to turn away when he paused and added:

‘’Tis understood that I am authorised by you to accept three hundred and eighty
louis
, or at the worst a close offer to that, is it not?’

Roger nodded and the Chevalier disappeared into the shop.

For a time Roger amused himself by watching the smart equipages with which this fashionable street was as crowded as it had been on the previous afternoon. A clock above the mercer’s at which he had bought a change of linen and his smart lace jabot had shown it to be just on a quarter to eleven when De Roubec had left him, and every few minutes he glanced impatiently at its dial.

The hands of the clock seemed to crawl but at last they reached the eleven and the bells in the steeples of the town rang out the hour. Roger was standing no more than a couple of yards from the doorway of Maître Blasieur’s shop
and his glance now rarely left it although he told himself that after the gold had been weighed De Roubec would require at least a further ten minutes to drive a good bargain.

He was wondering now if the Chevalier would manage to get for him four hundred
louis
or only three hundred and eighty. Perhaps he might even be driven to accept three-seventy? On the other hand he seemed a shrewd fellow and might persuade the goldsmith into parting with four hundred and ten. In any case, Roger felt, he must give him a handsome present for all the trouble he had taken, and as the hands of the clock over the mercer’s crawled on from eleven to ten past he turned over in his mind various gifts that he might make his friend.

He thought of lace ruffles, a more elegant cane, and a new sword-belt but decided that none of these were good enough, and finally settled on a pair of silver-mounted pistols, similar to those he had lost himself in the
Albatross
, and would have liked to possess again.

A clock chimed the quarter and still De Roubec had not emerged from the goldsmith’s. Roger began to fret now at his friend being so long, and endeavoured to peer into the shop, but the door was of stout wood and behind the window hung a plain black velvet curtain which cut off all view of the interior.

Striving to muster such further patience as he could he began to walk agitatedly up and down. That De Roubec could not yet have come out was certain as the place had one entrance only and no second door round the corner of the street.

For a further ten minutes Roger waited with ever-mounting impatience, then he could smother his half-formed fears no longer, and turning the handle of the shop door pushed it a little open. The shop was empty except for a man in a grey wig who stood behind the counter examining some gems.

Thrusting the door wide, Roger almost fell inside, exclaiming breathlessly: ‘The Chevalier de Roubec! Where is he? Where has he gone?’

The man in the wig stared at him stupidly for a moment then he said: ‘What do you mean, Monsieur? The Chevalier de Roubec. I know no one of that name.’

‘But you must!’ insisted Roger wildly. ‘He came into your
shop half an hour, nay, three-quarters of an hour ago, with some gold ornaments that he wished to sell.’

‘Ah, Monsieur means a tall gentleman, no doubt. A gentleman in a red velvet coat having a scar on his cheek that dragged down the corner of his left eye a little?’

‘Yes, yes! That is he!’ Roger panted. ‘Where has he gone to?’

The shopman spread out his hands. ‘I have no idea, Monsieur. He offered no gold ornaments for sale, but bought a cheap scarf pin for three
crowns
. Then he asked if he might use the privy out in the yard at the back, and said that when he had done he would leave by the alley on to which the yard abuts. But why is Monsieur so excited? Has he been robbed?’

‘No,’ stammered Roger with sudden visions of a police inquiry which he felt would do him little good and might even land him in further trouble. ‘No, but I wanted to speak with him most urgently, and he said—he said if I’d wait outside he would attend to my business as soon as he had done with you. How long has he been gone?’

‘Half an hour, at least, Monsieur; more by now. He spent but a few moments choosing his pin, then left at once.’

‘Perchance he was suddenly taken ill and is still out there,’ Roger suggested, snatching at a wild hope.

‘If Monsieur wishes we will go and see,’ replied the man in the wig, moving out from behind the counter. ‘But I can hardly think that it is likely to be so.’

Together they visited the back of the premises. The earth closet was empty and the gate in the yard which gave on to a narrow alley slightly open. With a heart as heavy as lead Roger realised that it would be futile to attempt a chase. The purchase of the scarf pin alone was enough to convince him that he had been deliberately tricked, and by now the Chevalier might be a mile or more away.

Thanking the jeweller in a subdued voice he accompanied him back to the shop and walked out into the street. The sun was still shining and the gay equipages of the local French nobility still edging past each other in the congested thoroughfare, but he no longer had any eyes for their elegantly clad occupants.

His little fortune was gone, just as surely as if it had dropped overboard when he had been flung from the
Albatross
into the sea. He was alone and friendless in France.
His winnings of the previous night had been eaten up by the money he had been forced to disburse in the brothel, and more with them. With added bitterness he recalled that De Roubec had not paid him back the
louis
he had lent him to finance his play at Monsieur Tricot’s. In one way and another his cash capital had dwindled to only a little over four pounds, and he still had his bill at the inn to settle. Near panic seized him at the sudden, awful thought that he was now stranded in this strange foreign city, and had not even enough money left to pay for a passage back to England.

Slowly and sadly Roger made his way back to
Les Trois Fleur-de-Lys
. If there had been the faintest hope of catching the Chevalier there, anger and the acute anxiety he was feeling as to his future would have lent wings to his feet, but he knew there was none. De Roubec had now a clear three-quarters of an hour’s start and, even if he had returned to the inn to pick up a few belongings, assuming that the irate Roger was certain to make for it as soon as he discovered the fraud that had been put upon him, would have left it again by this time.

As it was it seemed unlikely that the Chevalier had gone back to the inn even for a few moments, or would ever show his face there again. Knowing the man now for the plausible rogue that he was Roger began to see him in an entirely new light. His shoddy finery consorted ill with the tale that he really possessed a handsome wardrobe which had been impounded by a distrustful landlord. His story that he was a scion of a great and wealthy family who had had his pocket picked and was waiting for a lavish remittance was, no doubt, all moonshine. No real gentleman, Roger realised all too late, would be a regular habitué of a low waterside brothel such as the ‘Widow Scarron’s’. His
anxiety that morning, too, to know if anyone else in Le Havre was aware that Roger was in possession of a hoard of valuable trinkets showed that he had premeditated and deliberately planned the theft.

Yet, badly as he had been taken in, Roger felt that a more experienced person than himself might equally have fallen a victim to the Chevalier’s wiles. His face had been a weak rather than vicious one, and he had shown great vivacity, sympathy and apparent generosity; in fact, all the characteristics calculated to win the interest and friendship of a stranger quickly. But that anyone else might have been fooled as easily as himself was little consolation to Roger now.

As he walked on he wondered desperately how he could possibly get back to England, then, swiftly on top of that came the even more distressing question as to what would happen to him if he did succeed in securing a passage across the Channel. Gone were the bright dreams of comfortable lodgings and cutting a fine figure in London. If he got back at all it would be to land there near penniless. It would be a choice then between hedgerows and hard manual labour or going home to eat humble pie before his father; and the thought of being forced to the latter made him almost sob with rage.

On reaching the inn he met the oily Maître Picard on the doorstep and inquired at once if he had seen the Chevalier during the past hour.

The landlord shook his head. ‘I’ve not set eyes on him since he went out with you this morning, Monsieur.’

‘Has he any other address, or have you any idea where I could find him?’ asked Roger.

‘No, none, Monsieur. He comes and goes as he lists, that one. He said nothing this morning of leaving, but ’twould not be the first time that he has walked out on me. He is, as you may know, a professional gambler, and often in low water. If I may offer a word of advice, Monsieur, he is not a good companion for a young gentleman like yourself.’

‘Would that you had said as much before,’ Roger muttered ruefully.

‘Why so?’ asked Maître Picard. ‘Has he then robbed you of something? I have heard tell that he can be light-fingered on occasion.’

Visions of a police inquiry with himself held for weeks
as a material witness, again flashed before Roger’s mind, so he said hastily, ‘No—at least nothing of great value. Only a pair of shoe buckles that he promised to get valued for me; but they were not of sufficient consequence to make a fuss over. Is it true that you hold his wardrobe as surety for his reckoning?’