Evil in a Mask rb-9

by Dennis Wheatley

  'No,' Roger decided. It would not do. For one reason or another, the Marquis would reject his plea to accompany his party back to Europe.

  Next morning Roger walked along to the house behind the Portuguese Embassy, to tell the landlord that he would no longer be requiring the upper apartment, so he could let it to someone else if he wished.

  The man listened to his glum resignation of his tenancy, then gave an understanding nod and said with a sly look, 'I regret that affairs have turned out so badly for my lord, but a letter was left for him by a young serving woman. I will get it.'

  Two minutes later, with trembling fingers, Roger was tear­ing open the scaled paper the man had handed to him. As he expected, it was from Lisala, and read:

  My beloved one. Before receiving this you will have learned of the terrible misfortune that has overtaken us. My papa has received orders to return immediately to Portugal, with all his people.

  I am desolate. My Russian taught me the joys of passion, but you alone have taught me the true meaning of love. For us to remain separated permanently is unthinkable. I beg you on my knees that you find some way to join me, in Lisbon. Given such an able brain as yours, this cannot be beyond its capacity. For you, nothing is impossible. The thought appals me that, for many weeks to come, I must live without your sweet companionship, gay laughter and those lovely, wicked caresses that send me into a heavenly frenzy. I am already half-dying with desire for you, and will know no peace until you have again become my splendid lover.

  As Roger read this desperate appeal to follow her, he found his hand trembling. It was ample evidence that her longing for him equalled his for her. Somehow, he must rejoin her; but how? How? How?

  Having given the landlord a gold tounun, he walked slowly back to the headquarters of the mission and spent the rest of the day there in agonised frustration; for, badger his wits as he would, he could think of no way in which to over­come the difficulties that faced him.

  By evening his state of depression was so obvious that one of the junior officers, guessing the cause, had the temerity to twit him upon it. Such was Roger's ill temper that, had the implication been made before others, the young man would have found a duel forced upon him; but, as they were alone at the time, Roger did no more than snarl at him, 'Make one more mention in my presence of the Senhorita de Pombal, and I will slice your ears off.'

  On the following day the members of the mission were bidden by the Shah to witness an entertainment.

  At nine o'clock they found some three hundred nobles at the Palace in the great Maidan Square, round the sides of which many thousand people had congregated. In front of them, to prevent them from encroaching on the square, were triple rows of the Royal Guard in resplendent uniforms.

  The display opened with a parade of beautiful horses, the trappings of which were incomparably finer than any the French had ever seen. Some were a blaze of rubies, others of emeralds and others again a groundwork of diamonds pat­terned with precious stones of various colours; their bridles were thick ropes of silk and their hooves shod with gold. They were followed by gold and silver gem-studded carriages, driven by Indians in gold-braided coats.

  A row of precious tapestries was then spread out and to each was led by a lion who lay down on it. Behind them were ranged elephants, rhinoceri, white antelopes and snorting bulls; all bedecked with splendid ornaments and kept under control by keepers clad in costumes of different colours.

  A space immediately below the high balcony of the Palace was then cleared until only one lion and one bull remained on it. Roaring, the lion strained to get at the bull until, at a signal from the Shah, the lion was unleashed. In a few, swift leaps, it overtook the bull and began to tear it to pieces. In turn, each lion was presented with a bull to slay; but in two cases the bull succeeded in goring the lion, upon which the keepers rushed in with hatchets and quickly killed the bull, because, the lion being the royal insignia of Persia, its defeat could never be permitted.

  Then followed displays by acrobats, jugglers, wrestlers, fencers and archers; die aim of the last being so accurate that they could shoot away the plumes from the turbans of an opposing team—except for one instance, in which an arrow pierced the turban of an opponent. As a penalty, the unfor­tunate marksman had his hand promptly chopped off.

  The last event consisted of two bodies of horsemen, both a hundred strong. They were all young nobles, clad in chain mail and each armed only with one javelin. On receiving a hit on the body, a combatant had to retire; then, in order to throw his javelin again, the man who had scored the hit had to recover it. To do so necessitated his leaning over from his galloping mount, until his head nearly touched the ground. This extraordinary, swiftly-moving melee provided the spec­tators with a display of superb horsemanship.

  The show ended at one o'clock, upon which the Shah re­tired into his palace and, after conversing for a while with some of the Persian courtiers, the officers of the French mis­sion returned to their quarters. All of them were talking en­thusiastically of the remarkable spectacle they had just witnessed, with the exception of Roger, who had sat through it with lacklustre eyes, still obsessed with the problem of how to renew his affaire with the beautiful Lisala.

  However, he had hardly settled down in his room when he was roused from his brooding by Gardane's shouting up the stairs: 'Breuc! Breuc! Come down. A courier has arrived with news; extraordinary news.'

  And extraordinary news it certainly proved to be. With his officers crowding about him, the General gave them par­ticulars of the despatch he had just received from Napoleon's secretary, Meneval. After the Russian defeat at Friedland, it had been agreed that the Czar should meet the Emperor to discuss the terms of an armistice. The two monarchs had established their headquarters on opposite sides of the river Nieman at Tilsit. A huge raft, carrying a gorgeously-appoin­ted pavilion, had then been anchored in midstream, and there, on June 25th, for the first time the two most powerful men in Europe had come face to face.

  To open the conference the two Emperors met alone. Dur­ing a private conversation lasting only three-quarters of an hour, a miracle had taken place. They had emerged enchanted with each other. A large area of the town had then been made a neutral zone for further conferences, attended by the prin­cipal Ministers and Marshals. On July 7th a Treaty of Alli­ance had been signed, which changed the whole situation in Europe.

  As a young man, Alexander had held strongly liberal views and fully approved the measures of the National Assembly, which had brought Liberty to the French people. The ex­cesses of the Revolution that followed had horrified him, and turned him against the French. Seven years later, after Napoleon, as First Consul, had shown himself to be a brilliant administrator and had brought order out of chaos, the Czar had conceived a great admiration for him, and refused to aid the Monarchist Coalition in its attempt to destroy the French Republic. But, as time went on, Alexander had gradu­ally come to realise that Napoleon was not simply a French patriot of genius, but a man of inordinate ambition, who was set upon enslaving the people of every country. It was this that had led to his stigmatising the Emperor as a 'dangerous beast' who, at all costs, must be thwarted in his designs; and, at last joined the Allies in their most recent attempt to free from Napoleon's tyranny the countries he had conquered.

  Now, in the course of one short afternoon, Alexander had changed his opinion yet again. Napoleon's magnetism and personal charm had entirely won him over. It had been agreed not only that they should sign a peace, but should divide Europe between them. The miserable King of Prussia was thrown the sop of receiving back Silesia; but ordered to for­feit all his Polish territories to Russia. His port of Danzig was to become a Free City, maintaining a French garrison. A new State called the Duchy of Warsaw was to be formed in central Poland, with Napoleon's ally, the King of Saxony, as its ruler. France was to retain military control of Olden­burg, Saxe-Coburg and Mecklenburg until peace was made between France and England.

  This amazing r
eorientation of power and interests could not possibly have been foreseen. It would now be contrary to French interests for either Turkey or Persia to attack Russia. In fact, far from attempting to make Turkey France's ally, it was a reasonable assumption that, secretly, the Emperor and Czar had decided to overrun the Turkish Empire and divide it between them.

  After the siesta, the General held a conference with his senior officers. The despatch had made it clear that the Em­peror's designs on India were unchanged. Persian co-opera­tion was essential to that. This now required a most delicate shift in policy. They had been pressing the Shah to attack Russia. Now it must tactfully be put to him and his advisers that in view of recent events this was no longer desirable, but that France still greatly desired the friendship of the Shah, and would assist in the extension of his dominions. As an earnest of this, they would leave with him all the modern weapons sent out for both Turkey and Persia, together with all the French officers nominated to train Oriental troops in their use. Since the Emperor's orders still stood that, after Persia, the mission should proceed to India, with the object of securing the Mahratta Princes as potential allies against the British, it was clear that the sooner Gardane could per­suade the Persians of the Emperor's continued goodwill to­wards them and continue his journey to the East, the better.

  Roger made little contribution to the conference, for his mind was busy with a private letter which the courier had brought for him. It was in a hand he did not know, and un­signed. It read:

  Our purpose has received a serious set-back; but we must not despair. The gorgon has hypnotised the wolf at his front door, so will now turn his attention to silencing the little dog whose yapping in the back yard annoys him. But other beasts that he has kept fettered in his house may seize the oppor­tunity to break loose while he is out in the yard. You can do only harm by taming tigers; so I trust you will find some excuse to return and give us your valuable help in cleansing the gorgon's lair.

  Roger had no doubt that this missive came from Talley­rand. Their agreed purpose was to bring about the overthrow of Napoleon. The set-back was, of course, the Emperor's having turned the Czar from an enemy to a friend. The.an­noying little dog in the back yard could only be Portugal, and the fettered beasts Prussia, the Rhineland, northern Italy and other European countries conquered by France.The tigers were the Indian Princes, with whom Napoleon had sent Roger to treat, and the appeal to return implied that trouble was brewing for the Emperor, of which advantage might be taken to bring about his fall.

  From the beginning, Roger had been averse to going to India, and determined to find some way of evading that part of the mission he had been assigned. An immediate return to Europe fined in with his own desires; and, if Portugal was to be the next seat of trouble, he could justify his turning up there by asserting that the close association he had formed with the Portuguese while in Isfahan had led him to believe that he could better serve the Emperor by going to Lisbon, rather than to Bombay.

  His problem now was to think of a means by which he could justify to Gardane his leaving the mission. If he could have shown an order from the Emperor to proceed to Por­tugal, all would have been plain sailing; but the cryptic mis­sive from Talleyrand had been far from anything of that kind.

  In fact, although its source would have remained unknown and anyone seeing it would have found it difficult to inter­pret, it could have proved dangerous; so, with his habitual caution, Roger had already burned it.

  After much thought, just as they were about to go up to bed that night, he tackled the General and asked to have a word with him in his office. As they entered it, he said, 'Mon General, I have been considering the next stage of our mis­sion, and should like to talk to you about it.'

  'Sit down, mon ami,' the General replied genially. 'Your observations on our business are always interesting.'

  Taking a chair, Roger proceeded. The Emperor's instruc­tions are that we should contact the Mahratta Princes, as they are known to be hostile to the British. Since I once crossed India from Calcutta to Bombay, he labours under the false impression that I know that vast territory from end to end, and many of its Maharajahs. But the fact is that, during my journey, I never even saw a Mahratta Prince, so I can be of no use to you in opening negotiations with any of them.'

  The General nodded. 'I am aware of that. You mentioned it to me soon after we left Warsaw.'

  'Since I can be of no help to you with the Mahrattas, an­other way in which I could make myself more useful has occur­red to me. No doubt you have a map of the territory we shall have to cross in order to reach India.'

  Gardane produced a map and spread it out on a divan. Roger drew his finger across the broadest part of India, and said, 'There we have the huge area, under the control of the Mahratta Confederacy. It includes in the West the great port of Bombay; so I assume it is for there you intend to make?'

  'Yes. I plan to travel east through the Persian cities of Yazd, Bafq and Rapsanjan, then south to the port of Banda Abass at the entrance to the Persian Gulf; and from there take ship to Bombay.'

  'That appears to be the quickest route,' Roger agreed. 'And now, you will observe that Goa, the colony of considerable extent in which the Portuguese have been established for some two hundred years, lies on the coast only two hundred and fifty miles south of Bombay. As you are aware, during our stay in Isfahan, I developed particularly good relations with the personnel of the Portuguese Embassy and as I have long been fluent in Spanish, I succeeded in becoming fairly well acquainted with Portuguese. If, therefore, I went to Goa and made capital out of my friendship with the Marquis de Pombal, I would be both well received and able to talk in their own language with the principal gentlemen in authority there.'

  A slight frown crossed Gardane's brow. 'Admittedly, but I do not see in what way this could benefit our mission.'

  Roger smiled. 'It could, since the Emperor has in mind the conquest of India. Obviously, if you can succeed in winning over the Mahratta Princes, the first French Expeditionary Force for their support would be landed in Bombay. Think how advantageous it would be if we landed a second force in Goa. We should then be able to initiate a pincer movement which could result in our swiftly becoming the masters of all central India.'

  'As a strategic conception, I agree that it is admirable. But, as things stand, surely you do not suppose that you could induce the Portuguese in Goa to become our allies?'

  'Dear me, no!' Roger shook his head. 'That is too much to hope for. But, given a month or so there as a private tra­veller, I could secure knowledge of all the Portuguese defences and the weak spots in them. That could ensure a French expedition's getting ashore with few casualties and seizing the colony without serious opposition, as a valuable base for future operations.'

  After a moment's thought, Gardane replied, 'You are right. A French force based on Goa could be of immense advantage in the campaign. And an expert such as you, able to advise how to capture it without heavy losses, would prove a most valuable asset.'

  Roger stood up and bowed. 'Mon General, I am happy that you should approve my idea, although it means that, for a while at least, we must terminate our pleasant association. To conclude your negotiations with the Shah and ensure the continuance of his goodwill, can hardly be done in less than a fortnight. Moreover, our routes to India will be different, as I propose to make for the Portuguese trading station at the head of the Gulf, from which it should not be difficult to secure a passage direct to Goa. There is, therefore, no point in my remaining on here, and the sooner I can get to work in Goa, the better. So I propose to make arrangements to leave Isfahan as soon as possible.'

  The General agreed to that and Roger left the office well satisfied with the way in which his deception had worked. Later, of course, it would be learned by Gardane that he had never gone to Goa; but not for, perhaps, a year or at least many months. By then, if the question ever arose at all, he could easily produce a reason for the change in his plans.

  Dur
ing the past few days he had been unutterably de­pressed; now he felt his old self once more. To set out alone, except for native guides, across hundreds of miles of desert and mountain was to court many dangers. The journey would entail much hardship and privation. But at the end of it was Lisala.

  Of Intrigues in Spain

  Roger was up at dawn next morning, making his prepara­tions. Caravans for Shiraz left Isfahan daily, and had he really meant to go down to the Gulf, that was the road he would have taken. As it was certain that his brother officers would come to see him off, in order to give credence to his intentions, as told to Gardane, he had no alternative but to take it.

  However, he meant to do so for only a dozen miles, then turn back north-west, heading for the city of Najafabad. There he would strike the Silk Road and, following the same route the mission had taken on its outward journey, return to Antioch. This plan entailed an element of risk for, after leav­ing the caravan, he would have to cross some fifty miles of open, and mainly trackless, country. As he always carried a small compass on his travels, he had no fear of losing his way; but, outside her cities, Persia was still a lawless land, with many bands of roving brigands. It was for this reason that merchants always banded together and travelled well armed, in large caravans.

  The risk of his being attacked was not a great one, as such bands did not often marauder so close to the capital; and, if he did fall in with one, he would have no merchandise that might tempt it. All the same, he felt that it would be worth the money to provide himself with an armed guard; so he sought out Mesrop and told him in confidence that he was about to set out on a secret mission, for which he needed a guide who knew the country well within fifty miles of Isfahan, a servant and six reliable, armed men who would accompany him to any place he wished to go during the next two days.