The Dorset House Affair (23 page)

Yes, thought De Bellefort, what the man said was quite true. One of his own ancestors, another Alain, had presented such a petition in this very hall, and His Majesty had been graciously pleased to grant it. That had been in 1676….

What was this? Another party had just entered the hall from the War Drawing-Room. Surely, Norbert would make his appearance now, with this augmented crowd to hide him from curious eyes? Yes! Here he was, approaching cautiously from the opposite end of the hall. How impressive he looked from a distance, with that waxed imperial beard and moustaches! Ah! He was carrying a heavy briefcase. All was going well.

The two men saw each other immediately, and moved
unobtrusively
towards each other. Within moments they had met, and the Alsatian banker handed De Bellefort his briefcase. De Bellefort slipped a stout envelope from his greatcoat pocket and gave it to Norbert, who immediately moved away. There had been no need for either man to speak. De Bellefort felt elated and curiously excited by the impudence of his action. Norbert, he saw, had been pale with fear, but that was to be expected from a man who was simply a
petit-bourgeois
at heart.

It was time to detach himself from the guided tour of the château, and seek out the German Pfeifer at the Queen’s Cottage.

‘Sergeant Knollys,’ whispered Major Blythe, ‘the exchange has been made. Go after Norbert, who will be waiting for you behind the staircase at the far end of the next room. Mr Box and I will go out now and make our way across the estate, to join forces with Colonel Kershaw in the vicinity of the Queen’s Cottage.’

In a moment, Major Blythe and Arnold Box had disappeared beyond the crowd of tourists, and Jack Knollys joined the surge of
visitors out of the Hall of Mirrors and into the next state room, another expression in marble, gilt and crystal of the towering magnificence of the rulers of France in the centuries before the Revolution.

‘This is the Peace Drawing-Room,’ said the guide. ‘The painting above the fireplace shows Louis XV offering Europe an
olive-branch
. It was painted in 1729.’

It was quite easy for Knollys to slip through a mirrored door in a remote corner of the room. He found himself in a plain vestibule from which rose what had evidently been a servants’ staircase. Even this, he mused, had been made wide and accessible, with an elaborate carved balustrade.

There was a long, plain glass window lighting the staircase, and as Knollys looked at it, the fitful sunlight seemed to be drawn away, as though someone had turned down the wick of a great oil lamp. At the same time, he heard an ominous roll of thunder. As though acting on cue, Mr Norbert stepped forward from an alcove behind the stairs.

‘Mr Norbert? I am Sergeant Knollys, a police officer working with Major Blythe. I am here to get you away from the palace without either of us being seen by any curious eyes. Have you got the Alsace List safe?’

Major Blythe had told Knollys that the banker was to remain in ignorance of the true nature of the document for which he had just paid
£
10,000. ‘It will be better for all parties, that way,’ Blythe had said.

‘Yes, yes, I have it here,’ said Norbert. Knollys could see that the man was trembling with fright.

‘There is a door here, Mr Norbert,’ said Knollys, ‘which will take us out into the gardens on the south side of the palace. Keep up your courage, and follow me. Very soon, you’ll be free of all this business.’

The sky had darkened, and the thunder was becoming more insistent, but no rain had fallen as yet. The two men left the palace
through a little door beyond the stairs, and walked into the vast ornamental garden known as the Orangery. Norbert followed Sergeant Knollys until they came to a brick shed half hidden behind a clipped yew hedge. Knollys opened the door, and
beckoned
to the banker to follow him inside.

‘You’ll appreciate, sir,’ said Knollys, ‘that I’ve been provided with plans of this little route that we’ve taken, and that there is someone stationed in the grounds to assist us if necessary – someone who made sure that the door of this hut was open. Now, would you please open that envelope, and examine the contents? No, I don’t want to be shown it. You have bought it dearly, and it is for your eyes alone.’

Monsieur Norbert tore open the envelope, and withdrew its contents. Knollys watched in silence as he read through the
document
.

‘Yes, Monsieur,’ said Norbert. ‘This is the list. If it falls into the hands of the Germans, then we are all dead men. I take it that I can keep this document? You will not take it from me? With respect, I do not know who you are – you, or your companions.’

‘We are people,’ Knollys replied, ‘who are determined that you, and the others on that list, will not perish on the gallows, but live to repent of your folly in forming that conspiracy of yours. It would be wise to ask no further questions, Monsieur Norbert. Now, what do you intend to do with that list?’

‘I intend to destroy it – to reduce it to ashes, and watch the wind blow those ashes away. That will signal an end to our mad attempt at insurrection.’

Jack Knollys delved into the recesses of the shed, and produced a stout copper bowl, which he placed on a table. He took a box of matches from his pocket, and handed them to the banker.

‘There you are, sir,’ he said, ‘why not suit the action to the word?’

Norbert quickly tore the list in pieces, and dropped them into the bowl. In a moment he had struck a match and set the
fragments
 
on fire. Both men watched as they rapidly blazed up, turned black, and fell to ashes. Knollys used the handle of a trowel to pound the remains into a fine powder. Opening the door of the shed, he stepped cautiously out on to the grass, holding the copper bowl. As the banker watched, Knollys threw the ashes on to a flower bed, and ground them into the earth with his heel.

‘Your work here is done, Monsieur Norbert,’ said Knollys, ‘and so is mine. Let me escort you into the town, and see you safe on to the next train to Paris.’

‘And De Bellefort?’ asked Norbert nervously. ‘What will happen to him?’

‘You will never see that man again, sir,’ Knollys replied. ‘You can return to your wife and family, and to your business in Metz, in complete safety. Come on, Monsieur Norbert: the rain is starting to fall. Let’s leave this place to its glories and its ghosts. The others will concern themselves with the fate of Alain de Bellefort.’

Clutching the briefcase which Norbert had surrendered to him, Alain de Bellefort walked rapidly through the artfully contrived countryside in that part of the estate lying far beyond the château and its formal gardens. He was making his way to the rendezvous appointed by the German intelligence broker, Pfeifer. Animal! Had it been a sneering joke of his to choose such a sacred spot as the Queen’s Cottage to effect the exchange? Perhaps not. It lay in the extreme northern corner of the Versailles estate, well out of the way of prying eyes.

Thunder was rolling ominously above, and the rain, which fell in heavy, plashing drops, threatened to become a deluge. Would this country track never end? Well, what lay at the end of it was worth the journey. That animal Pfeifer would have his valise with him, containing another
£
10,000. Before the year was out, the Manoir de Saint-Louis would begin its glorious restoration.

The rustic track suddenly emerged into a clearing, and there, looking for all the world like a prosperous farmer’s dwelling in his native Normandy, rose Marie-Antoinette’s cottage. It was not a good day to view it. The sky was now black with sullen clouds, and the rain was turning into a torrent.

Yes, there was a man standing in the shelter of one of the wooden balconies of the cottage, a sturdy briefcase clasped in his hand. De Bellefort blinked the rain out of his eyes and hurried across the shale path skirting the house. He looked into the man’s face, and with a jolt of sudden fear he saw that it was not Pfeifer.

The man stood quite still, a tall, sturdy half-caste, with a heavy jaw and glaring eyes. He was well dressed in a black suit and
overcoat
, and wore a curly-brimmed bowler hat.

‘Who are you?’ asked De Bellefort. ‘I was expecting Herr Pfeifer.’

‘Herr Pfeifer is suddenly indisposed,’ the unknown man replied. ‘My name is Théophile Gaboriau. You’ll find that I can complete the whole business satisfactorily without Pfeifer’s help.’

Arnold Box and Major Blythe quickened their pace as they glimpsed the grey roofs of the Queen’s Cottage looming up at them through the rain. The journey on foot from the palace to this remote corner of the Versailles estate had taken longer than either man had anticipated. Soon, no doubt, Colonel Kershaw would appear from the cottage, to assure them that all at his end of the operation had gone well.

Holding their heads down against the now torrential rain, they passed through an open wicket gate and into a kind of gravelled forecourt to the house. There was no sign of Kershaw, or of his rough escort, the man known as Mr Ames.

They had taken a step towards the entrance to the cottage when Major Blythe seized Box’s arm, halting him in his tracks.

‘Look!’ he whispered.

Lying on its back, with open eyes oblivious to the driving rain,
lay the body of a man. Even from where they stood they could see the hilt of a dagger protruding from the chest. The clothing of the corpse was already saturated, and what blood that may have escaped from the chest wound had been washed away into the shale on which the body lay. The two men walked almost solemnly across the forecourt, and looked down at the body. They saw that it was all that remained of Monseigneur Alain de Bellefort, Chevalier de Saint-Louis. A sheet of stout paper had been pushed down over the hilt of the dagger. It bore the single word:
TRÂITRE
.

The dead man stared blankly upward into the rain. Scattered over the body, like so much confetti, were hundreds of Bank of England notes, rapidly disintegrating in the rain. The briefcase that had once held them lay opened and discarded nearby.

16

New Beginnings

T
he two men were still staring in disbelief at the rain-sodden corpse when a door in the cottage opened, and Mr Ames stepped out into the rain. His face was dark and inscrutable, and he seemed quite unmoved by the sight of the dead man lying at their feet.

‘Get into the house,’ he shouted, and motioned angrily to the door from which he had just emerged. It was not a time to ask for explanations. Box and Blythe did as they were told, and
thankfully
hurried out of the blinding rain into the Queen’s Cottage. Colonel Kershaw appeared on the threshold of an inner room, and beckoned to them to enter. He looked pale and angry, but fully in command of himself.

On this occasion, Box had no eyes for the décor and furnishings of Marie-Antoinette’s rural retreat. His gaze was fixed on a
corpulent
, balding man in his late fifties, who was sitting on an upright chair, and holding a wet cloth to an ugly bruise over his right eye. He looked white with shock, and his eyes held a look of
bewilderment
tinged with caution.

‘I tell you, it was an outrage!’ he said in heavily accented English, merely glancing at the two men who had come into the room. ‘I have been abused, and robbed of a fortune. I came here today to admire the great château of Louis XIV, and what happens? I am set upon by apaches, thugs—’

‘Yes, yes, so you’ve already told me,’ said Kershaw impatiently. ‘Now, Herr Pfeifer, I want you to stop talking and listen to me. There’s no time to be lost. There is a man lying dead out there in the rain – murdered. The man is called Alain de Bellefort. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard the name?’

Box saw how the man called Pfeifer visibly sagged with relief. Evidently, the colonel was going to give him a means of
disappearing
from the scene without fuss.

‘What? No, as you say, I have never heard of this man. Poor fellow! Those thugs who knocked me down and stole my money must have murdered him.’

‘I’m sure you’re right. Now, it so happens that the Queen’s Cottage is closed to the public on Saturdays, so if we move quickly, we can all be away from here before a party of tourists braves the rain and comes walking out here to admire the view. I see no reason why you, Herr Pfeifer, or us, for that matter, should be caught up in the tedium of a French murder enquiry.’

‘But who are you?’ asked the German, looking from one to the other.

‘Well, like you,’ Kershaw replied, ‘we are just tourists. You might say that we’re in a similar line of business. My name is Jones. These two gentlemen are Mr Smith, and Mr Robinson. In a moment – ah! Here he is.’

The door had opened, and Mr Ames came into the room. He was carrying the briefcase that Box had seen discarded beside the body. Without saying a word, he handed the briefcase to Major Blythe, and left the room, followed by Colonel Kershaw.

‘My money!’ cried Herr Pfeifer, half rising from his chair. Blythe had opened the briefcase, revealing the roughly packed wads of sodden banknotes, most of them still with their blue paper bands intact.

‘Yes, it’s your money, Herr Pfeifer, which our coachman has collected together for you. The apaches must have taken fright when they saw that De Bellefort was dead, and fled without their
loot. Now, there’s nothing else that you want, is there? No
documents
, no papers—?’

‘No, no, nothing. You’ve all been very kind, you, Mr Robinson, and you, Mr Smith. So pleased to have met you, and your friend Mr Jones. I should like to go, now, if that’s all right with you. I have my own means of transport on the public road nearby. Good day.’

In a moment the German had all but run out of the cottage. Colonel Kershaw was standing alone in the vestibule. His face was flushed with what looked very much like anger or indignation.

‘Come, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘our work here is done. Mr Ames found the Alsace List still in De Bellefort’s overcoat pocket, and I have it here now. Mr Ames went ahead to bring the coach round to the northern wicket, which is only yards from here. It is
essential
that all of us – Herr Pfeifer included – are never connected with the events that have occurred here today.’

The rain had begun to ease, and faint streaks of sunlight were brightening the sky. The three men walked silently along a
tree-lined
path that would take them to the main road. Box glanced at the grim countenance of Colonel Kershaw, and experienced a sudden pang of doubt.

While Major Blythe had been restoring the money to Herr Pfeifer, Box had been able to witness the meeting of Colonel Kershaw and Mr Ames in the vestibule. He had seen the rough coach driver hand Kershaw the Alsace List, secure in its envelope, and also the sheet of paper upon which someone had written the word
TRA
I
TOR
.
Evidently, De Bellefort’s death was to be passed off as a common murder by thugs.

It was after he had handed over the Alsace List that the
rough-and
-ready Ames had burst into speech.

‘You shouldn’t have let Théophile Gaboriau in on this business, Colonel,’ he had muttered. ‘I told you what he was like. He’ll cut your throat as soon as look at you, and now he’s done for De Bellefort. I told you what would happen—’

‘Mind your own damned business, Ames,’ Kershaw had replied. ‘Bring the coach round to the northern wicket, and drive us all away from this cursed place.’

Had Colonel Kershaw deliberately engineered Alain de Bellefort’s murder?

One week after the death of her brother at Versailles, Elizabeth de Bellefort, clad in deep mourning, walked through the deserted rooms of the Manoir de Saint-Louis. All was to be sold, to pay the debts of her dead brother. She had a small income entailed to her from her mother’s estate, so she would not be in want, but it was a devastating blow to leave the house of her ancestors.

Far from being her protector, Alain had proved to be a ruthless deceiver, using her to further his own crazed ends. For crazed they had been; the Chevalier de Bellefort was little more than a
charlatan
and, if what rumour suggested was true, a traitor to his country as well. Only a handful of mourners had attended his funeral mass. None of the Norman nobility had been there, and the mayor had very pointedly absented himself. She felt nothing now but sadness and desolation.

Elizabeth walked through the tattered and neglected state apartments of the
manoir
, through the room with the many mirrors, and out into the faded vestibule. The house, she heard, was to be demolished, and a small packing plant for farm produce erected on the site. The grumbling Anna had gone, seemingly unaffected by the tragedy that had befallen the De Bellefort family, and showing not a glimmer of emotion when news of her master’s murder reached them.

Elizabeth would take rooms in Paris, and live there until it was her turn to be brought back to Saint-Martin de Fontenay for burial beside her parents and her murdered brother. There would be many works of mercy that a maiden lady of her background could take up as a late vocation.

She left the house, and pulled the door shut. The noise had a sickening finality about it that made her shudder.

A man was standing motionless in the tangled gardens facing the house. Of course! It was Etienne Delagardie, her brother’s former friend, and once an admirer of hers. Strong and fair-haired, and dressed in sombre black, he wore a wide-brimmed hat and carried, not a sword this time, but a hunting-crop in his left hand. Her heart gave a leap of pleasure, which she tried to repress. Not only was she virtually penniless, but she had lost cachet through the revelations about her erring, murdering brother. This Norman gentleman was not for the likes of her.

‘Monsieur Delagardie—’

‘Bah! Set aside all this foolishness, Elizabeth,’ he cried,
impatiently
. ‘You know my Christian name well enough. You cannot spend the rest of your life orchestrating this ludicrous ballet of ancient titles of precedence, lordships of manors, and all the other discarded baggage of ancient times. Come with me, now, and I will show you a new and different life.’

‘What do you mean?’ she faltered, but she understood quite well the import of his words.

‘Come with me, now, and take some refreshment at my house. All the townsfolk will see you in my company, and will realize that you have decided to live not in the reign of Louis XIV, but in the Third Republic. I was your first love, before Maurice Claygate cast his spell over you. I have been content to wait, and here I am. Come. Leave this ruined place. Write to that kind Englishwoman who came to visit you, and tell her that you have been redeemed from the thrall of the past.’

Together they walked through the village of Saint-Martin de Fontenay, past the ancient church where Alain de Bellefort and his parents lay, and past the civic building, above which fluttered the tricolour of the French Republic. They entered Etienne’s fine
two-storey
house of white stucco with the green shutters at the windows, and when he closed the front door, he did so with a
fixed determination to shut out forever Elizabeth de Bellefort’s dark and tragic past.

In the private parlour on the first floor of Dorset House, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Adrian Kershaw looked at the group of people assembled to listen to the statement that he had come to make. The old field marshal and his wife sat together on a sofa. Facing them, and sitting on upright chairs, were their surviving son, Major Edwin Claygate, his wife, Sarah, and Miss Julia Maltravers. It was the bright morning of Saturday, 6 October.

Mr Box, Kershaw noted, had taken up a position near the door, where he stood rather stiffly, as though trying to distance himself from the party. He knew quite well what was wrong with Box that morning. Later, when the opportunity arose, he would deal with the matter.

‘I have asked you all to assemble here today,’ said Kershaw, ‘because there are certain things that you should be told about the late Mr Maurice Claygate. As you know, he was murdered in this house, and through the careful investigations of Detective Inspector Box, the murderer, Alain de Bellefort, was tracked down to France. Before Mr Box could arrest him for your son’s murder, De Bellefort was himself murdered, a fortnight ago today, in circumstances which still remain a mystery.’

‘I cannot understand it,’ said Field Marshal Claygate, half to
himself
. ‘That man’s father and I were close friends for half a lifetime.’

‘People are unfathomable, sir,’ said Kershaw. ‘But now let me tell you in a few words what I have come here to impart.

‘For the past year, your son Maurice had been a valued member of Secret Intelligence, of which I am the representative here today. I can’t reveal to you the work that he did, but I
can
tell you that he rendered invaluable service to his Queen and country. He fell by the assassin’s bullet, but his death was fully avenged in the
rain-soaked
meadows of the Palace of Versailles.’

There was a profound silence when Kershaw had finished speaking. The Colonel looked once again at his audience. Sir John Claygate seemed to have suddenly grown in stature, and his
deep-set
eyes gleamed with pride. Lady Claygate’s face was transformed with a smile of thankfulness. The old field marshal, evidently intent on concealing his emotion, burst into speech.