The Terror Time Spies

by David Clement-Davies

  “Well, it hardly matters,” sighed the Queen mournfully, “I’m dead already. Although it was just as bad at the Royal Court. Spies everywhere too. Writing back to my mother. Watching me all the time. They never liked me, did they, Marie? And now they’ve taken poor little Louis Charles from us too.”

  Marie Therese clasped her mother tight, and Juliette’s heart nearly broke.

  “He’ll be all right, your Highness,” Juliette ventured, unable to think of anything else to say, “You mustn’t worry now.”

  “Yes,” said her daughter softly, “you must not worry, Mamman.”

  A smile of exquisite irony flickered across Marie Antoinette’s pale lips.

  “Not worry? It is too late for that now. And you, my dear. What brings you to this terrible place too?”

  Juliette reddened slightly.

  “I was kidnapped from England, your Majesty. They’re using me to get to my uncle, I think, Charles St Honoré.”

  “St Honoré?” said the Queen. “He spoke in the Convention, for my husband. In support of a Constitutional Monarchy, but working with the Convention, and the People too. He tried to help the Royal Family and save my husband’s life.”

  “I’m glad,” said Juliette proudly.

  “You’re a kind child, and as pretty as my Marie,” said the Queen admiringly. “You know I was already married at your age, when they brought me to France. If I could have seen what was to come, perhaps I would never have made the journey. Though I had to.”

  “Had to, your Majesty?”

  “You would not understand, my child. You’re young, and I….. Age is another country to youth, is it not, my child, and a different language too? But a country we’re all travelling to, alas. The future. Now what are we travelling towards in Paris though, my child? That terrible Square? That horrid new machine…”

  “No,” cried Juliette sharply, “you must never give up hope.”

  The Queen of France and her daughter looked back at her.

  “Hope, child?” said the Queen sadly, as though she had forgotten the meaning of the word.

  “I….you,” stuttered Juliette, and she remembered Henry Bonespair outside the lodge. “I’m sure there are people working for you, your Majesty. Brave people. The Scarlet Pimpernel.”

  The brave members of the Pimpernel club, now as safe as they could be in Geraldine’s grand home – had spent a very hectic week, dinning with her for luncheon, and occasionally for dinner too – but trying to think of what to do to help Armande’s sister.

  The food was miserable and it tasted of nothing at all.

  They had found the old house a box of wonders though, or filled with kinds of ghosts, cramming the half empty rooms and cavernous, dusty spaces.

  The old portraits left on the walls seemed to peer down at them like spies, and often, when they were trying to plan, they heard creaking floorboards and swinging doors and wondered if Marius or Justine were spying on them, on orders from their grandmother, or perhaps working for more malicious powers, if there were such things.

  The maid Justine’s reluctance to go out onto the street had put the dark thought into their minds, because perhaps she feared being recognised.

  Spike in particular was hugely excited though, because she kept searching every nook and cranny for a huge pile of Huguenot gold.

  Spike didn’t find any though and she kept bumping into that black cat, Malfort, who Francis loathed as much as horses, but in one room Nellie did find a mound of decaying old toys - sticks, hoops and a broken down Rocking Horse too - with the most wonderful treasure chest of clothes, for dressing up in.

  Armande was especially delighted to find some exquisite French tailoring, that the Count could wear more elegantly at that dusty dinner table.

  It was Francis Simpkins though who had found something every bit as good as any treasure. In a great room, across the hall from the Dinning-cum-Bedroom, lay Madame Geraldine’s great Library.

  It was a huge rectangular room, with very high ceilings and old leather books, stacked from floor to ceiling. They were marvellous works, many very old indeed, on anything from Alchemy to Anatomy, Poetry to Natural Sciences, with one huge book on the Greek Gods.

  Some were even in English.

  Frances Simpkins thought of a word he had learnt at school – Enlightenment – as he read the titles, and the names of the great authors too, wondering if the strange old Lady had read any of them, although it was her dead husband who had invested in these books.

  As Francis realised when he suddenly found some strange looking works on Anatomy, the Occult and Magic too, and remembered Hal had spoken of her terrifying talk of the transference of souls.

  That is after Justine had fetched him a feather duster, because when Francis had first entered the great library he had found the lot completely covered in giant cobwebs, and the two tall moving steps to reach the higher books, seized up with time and rust.

  It was also Francis Simpkins who thought he saw the first real ghost in Madame Geraldine’s home.

  He had asked Henry a special favour, to guard the watch, just for a night, so that he could have a look at the mechanism more closely and perhaps copy it into his notebook.

  Thus the special chronometer was sitting on a table in his mournful room, in the dancing candle light, ticking away happily.

  Francis was thrilled and had waited until exactly midnight, to try out his theory about the special mechanism and Twelve O’clock, aligning it with the Glove, but waiting for the hands to move too, to the witching hour.

  It had opened with a chime, just as Francis had suspected, at Twelve O’clock sharp.

  Francis had taken out the thin letters, to look more closely at the watch, straining to see that second inscription in the faint light. He had wished his eyes were better, or he had a Quizzing Glass, like Mr Guttery, but at last Francis managed to see that it said this:

  Device in Time and Motion. Patent Pending.

  “In Time and Motion?” he whispered, with an excited little shiver.

  Francis picked up his pencil and very delicately put the tip of it into that little hole in the back, to touch the pulsing spring, without damaging it, it was so incredibly fine, when something horrifying happened.

  The table seemed to shake and out of the threadbare tapestry on the wall came a loud groan.

  Francis Simpkins forgot all about the watch, frozen in his chair, the fine hairs standing up on the back of his neck. He gasped, as he saw a strange orange glow around the woven picture, like you see on the horizon, at dawn, then out of the tapestry, as though strings of light were forming from its very threads, a glowing shape appeared.

  The strange light turned into a gaunt woman, with blue stockings, carrying a kind of briefcase, like Mr Guttery.

  “Mustn’t fiddle too much with the order of things, dear,” the apparition whispered sternly, in a voice like Obediah Tuck, “that can be very dangerous, boy.”

  Francis Simpkins was drenched in sweat, shaking like a leaf, as the ghostly women sighed again, then drifted straight towards him, but passed right through the table, the watch and Francis Simpkins too, vanishing into thin air.

  Francis suddenly heard a sound, all around him, drumming into his brain, the sound of ticking clocks, all the clocks in the house, ticking as one, and the poor boy screamed and fainted clean away.

  That very next morning though, as Juliette St Honoré spoke to the Queen of brave people, and the Scarlet Pimpernel, the people in question, not Scarlet but certainly Pimples, and working for Juliette not the former Queen of France, were standing right outside the Temple Fauberg, looking up at the appalling impregnability of its brute stone walls, and feeling sick.

  They were not Pimpernels as they had first appeared in Paris either, because now they were dressed in the disguise that Henry had insisted they put on to go into the dangerous Revolutionary streets, culled from that great treasure chest of clothes, but added to with little purchases from the dress shop too.

 
The boys and girl were dressed very simply then, like the children of an ordinary French workman - red, white, and blue sashes around their wastes- into one of which Henry Bonespair had just thrust Skank’s broken pistol.

  They were all wearing bright red liberty caps too, standing in a line, like a row of fairy-tale dwarves.

  Spike was delighted with her floppy hat and with the fact that she was now carrying horrid Mr Wickham’s present, as Official Keeper of the Sacred Time Piece.

  For the others it had been a strange week too, and several times Spike had woken, shouting in the night, having horrible nightmares and talking of ghosts. While their knowledge of the League of the Gloved Hand made the Chronometer hang about Spike’s little neck like a Mill-stone.

  Each day at Grandmere’s table they had learnt more of just how eccentric the old lady was too, while several times Armande had thought that Justine, or Marius, or both, were spying on them.

  Skipper too, eating with the servants and sleeping in the quarters below the house, had wondered if the strange pair might denounce them, although only Marius ever went out to shop for rotten vegetables.

  Nothing bad had happened yet though, and the Club had been to the Temple Prison three times already, to try and get a message to Armande’s sister.

  Yet without any success and now the Pimpernels were growing very worried indeed, since the day of Juliette’s trial was drawing nearer rapidly: July 9th was only nine days off.

  The Pimpernels had learnt something else from those news reports too, during what passed for meals. Charles St Honoré had not only left Paris, but Armande and Juliette’s brave uncle had fled to Austria.

  Even if poor Juliette was tried then, her very kidnapping was utterly pointless.

  The Club had also discovered that the battles in the provinces and the war with England were heating up, so much so that all the borders had finally been closed.

  The Pimpernel Club were trapped inside a murderous Revolutionary city, itself ringed by a country in turmoil, and it terrified them all, even in the relatively safe surroundings of Geraldine’s frightening house of death.

  “We’ll never get a message in there,” gulped Spike suddenly, looking up at the horrid prison walls again. The huge stone walls seemed to reach to heaven.

  “Should we not wait till the trial itself then, ‘enri,” suggested Count Armande, at her side, “perhaps we can try and reach her there instead. The trails are public.”

  “That’s just what I’ve been thinking,” said Henry, nodding, “and I’ve got a plan, I think.”

  As Henry said it they saw a door in the prison wall open and a boy being hurried out by two guards, towards a plain looking carriage, waiting in the street.

  The Club wondered how many children were prisoners inside the ghastly Fauberg.

  “Plan, ‘enri?” whispered Armande though, still wanting to be leader.

  “Yes, Count. Take Francis and Spike to the Tribunal Court house in the Champs de Mars, right now. Bonjour Citizen,” added Hal loudly, as he noticed someone walking close by. “And scout it out, Armande. Try and think of the best way to reach her there.”

  “If it’s like that horrid square,” said Spike, “it should be easy, H.”

  “Francis. Take careful notes too. Plan it out. F, what on earth’s wrong with you?”

  Francis Simpkins hardly seemed to be listening.

  “You haven’t been the same since last night.”

  It was perfectly true, although just like Henry, Francis had not confided what he had seen in the tapestry.

  That morning he had started to drift into strange reveries, as if he was suddenly day dreaming, but Francis was desperately trying to see reason and not to believe in ghosts at all.

  “Sorry, Hal. Dreaming.”

  “But where are you going, Hal?” asked Spike.

  “Back to our cousin’s, Spikey, with Skipper. To Roubechon’s place.”

  “To give him the watch?” asked Spike, in horror.

  “No fear. He obviously thinks we’re not coming now and, if I did, I’d have to break the sacred oath. So give away the fact that we know all about their silly League too.”

  Not to mention risk losing my special Birthday present, thought Henry darkly, although he knew they had to get rid of those letters somehow.

  He wasn’t going to be the cause of ruining a plot to save the Queen of France though, despite his strange prophecy in the hallway.

  “We’ll leave them there, for Roubechon to find,” he said firmly. “It’s nearly noon, so hand it over, Spike.”

  Eleanor did so, reluctantly, and Henry slung it around his neck again, rather glad to have it back.

  “Watch it,” whispered Skipper though, who had just noticed someone he recognised coming straight along the cobbles, looking about as if he owned the city itself.

  It was none other than that horrid boy Alceste Couchonet, from Calais, with that pimple standing out even more lividly by his nose.

  Alceste’s uncle was walking smartly at his side too. The Black Spider was at hand.

  The Club froze but hid their faces under their floppy Liberty caps, or tried to, as the pair passed them.

  The man at Alceste’s side in black gloves seemed furious, deep in thought too, because it had been a deeply frustrating week for the Black Spider.

  In Calais Charles Couchonet had exercised power like a King, but Paris was not a provincial port and, although he had Dr Marat behind him, it was always harder to get things done in the city.

  Couchonet had had no success at all trying to uncover the activities of this mysterious English League for Marat’s Great Happening, nor in revealing the identity of the League’s leader either, or what their great plot really was.

  That very morning Charles Peperan Couchonet had woken with a startling thought though, now coalescing into absolute certainty, in his ever scheming brain.

  This Anglais plot had to be to do with the matter discussed so constantly in the French papers now - the fate of Marie Antoinette herself.

  Which is why Charles Peperan Couchonet was taking his own nephew straight to the Temple prison, to consult a favoured source of information that he employed whenever he visited Paris - his Muttons.

  Charles Peperan Couchonet wrapped on that low door in the wall, as the Pimpernels glanced at each other and split into two, on their own respective missions - to Roubechon’s and to the Court House in the Champs de Mar.

  The Black Spider was admitted immediately, much to his nephew’s delight. Uncle and Nephew suddenly stood in a bare little courtyard, where the unfortunate inmates were sometimes exercised.

  The policeman, not at all secret to the warders of Paris’s jails, had a private word with a male jailer, who bowed and hurried away.

  “Now listen carefully, Alceste,” grunted Couchonet, “and learn your true trade. The Spy’s profession.”

  “Yes, Uncle. But isn’t something more I can do?” asked Alceste hotly.

  The Black Spider looked distastefully at his nephew, and thought how he was just getting in the way. Yet he felt some strange responsibility to instruct his relation.

  “Keep your ears open in Paris, Alceste, for anything of interest. Whispers. Rumours. English voices. Perhaps you’ll learn of this Pampernelle Pact, eh?”

  “Pampernelle, Uncle?”

  “Some children talked of it in Dover, in relation to an English aristocrat called Snareswood. Dr Marat told me himself.”

  “Children?” said the boy coldly though, as if the very idea was alien to him, “But I’m concerned with the great affairs of France now, Citizen Uncle. I’m sixteen.”

  Charles Couchonet looked at the spotty sixteen year old very sceptically indeed.

  “Perhaps you should spend some time at the trials then,” he suggested, “and sharpen up your mind. It is good to know some Law, and how the clever use it too.”

  Alceste rather liked the idea, but there was a sudden rattling and an oily gate opened, as seven prisoners were led outsi
de, like sheep, very old sheep in the case of four of them, and lined up against the dripping prison wall.

  They all looked very nervous, as they caught sight of Couchonet, who marched up to them, his gloved hands behind his back, questioning them in turn.

  Couchonet learnt many things as he did so, but it made him wonder if these muttons weren’t just making things up, to earn themselves a slice of hope.

  As for a new plot concerning Marie Antoinette though, or any daring English League of the Gloved Hand, there was nothing at all.

  As the last filed away though, that female warder who had picked out Juliette appeared in her liberty cap, smoothing the edges of her greasy hair.

  “Charlie,” she whispered, with a fond smile.

  “Please Citizeness,” snapped the Spider, glancing at his nephew, “Citizen Couchonet.”

  The woman looked rather hurt.

  “Yes, Charlie. I mean Citizen Couchonet.”

  “Anything then, Martha?” asked Charles Couchonet.

  “They’ve taken the boy away. Just this morning.”

  The Black Spider smiled, as Alceste stepped closer, to better hear the masterful machinations of his brilliant and ruthless uncle.

  “Capet’s been sobbin’ all mornin’,” said the woman, “Cryin’ ‘er bleedin’ eyes out again. Her daughter’s almost as bad.”

  “And no one’s tried to contact them?”

  “No fear, Charlie,” said the jailer and Couchonet winced, “The guard’s changed daily. They’ve just given her a maid though, so the only person who’s been in to see her is the St Honoré girl.”

  Charles Couchonet looked up sharply. He had almost forgotten about pretty, brave Juliette St Honoré.

  “Well keep your ears peeled, Martha,” he whispered, “I want to hear of absolutely anything, understand me? Especially any talk of an Anglais Spy League.”

  “Right, Charlie. Spy League. You look nice, Charlie.”

  Couchonet blushed deeply, although he was proud of the new coat that he had bought in Paris for his meetings with Marat, dyed an especially inky black.

  “But I suggest you get back to work, Citizeness,” he said. “ Now. Time’s moving on.”