Chapter 17 The Gamester by Rafael Sabatini
CELLAMARE'S SATCHEL
Don Pablo's journey was proving by no means a happy one.
As much the aristocratic young abbé as his companion, who was the son of the last Spanish ambassador to the Court of St James's, treated the banker with even less courtesy than they would have shown him had he, indeed, been the lackey he pretended to be. Thus the pretence became more than a reality. He rode outside the coach, beside the driver, as tight-wrapped as he could contrive against the cutting December winds, cursing the supercilious young men so snug inside a coach that was nearly of the size of a room.
His only comfort was in the thought that he was now well on his way to the Spanish frontier and safety. This, at least, until Poitiers was reached. Here, as the coach was lumbering over the bridge that crossed the Clain, he became aware that a small troop was coming briskly up behind them. In this there was nothing to disturb an ordinary man in ordinary circumstances. But Don Pablo's circumstances were made extraordinary by his unquiet conscience.
Kneeling on the box seat of the coach, he peered back over its roof at the approaching troop: a half-dozen, red-coated musketeers led by an officer and with a well-mounted, cloaked civilian riding in the rear.
Spurring forward, they swarmed about the coach as it came to the open ground beyond the bridge, and a command to halt in the King's name converted Don Pablo's mounting fears into grim certainty.
The vehicle rocked to a standstill, and the sharp-faced young priest thrust out his head to demand a reason for this interference, assuming it to be an error, and announcing himself as the Abbé de Porto-Carrero of the Spanish embassy, on his way to Spain.
The officer could not have been more courteous. If that were really the case he would beg Monsieur l'Abbé to forgive this momentary interruption of his journey. They were in pursuit, on behalf of the British authorities, of an absconding bankrupt named Pablo Alvarez, and their information led them to believe that he travelled in this coach.
The Abbé simulated indignation, and in his nervousness lost his wits to the extent of denying knowledge of any such person. He was accompanied only by Monsieur de Monteléon and a valet, as their papers showed.
The officer dismounted, and one of his troopers opened the door of the coach. Beyond the little ring of horsemen some idlers of the town, their numbers increasing, stood agape.
The Abbé proffered his papers. He was a short, dark complexioned young man of peremptory manner. His companion, lean and lanky by contrast, remained silent and of a disarming languor.
The officer scanned the two documents he had been handed. "All in order," he said, but he still retained them whilst speaking to the civilian rider, who had edged his horse forward, so that he was at the other's shoulder. "Take a look at them, monsieur. Do you recognize either as your man?"
The civilian leaned from the saddle to inspect each in turn. "No," he announced. "You may allow them to proceed, lieutenant."
"Thank you," said Porto-Carrero, and held out his hand for the papers.
"There is a servant mentioned here," said the lieutenant.
"Naturally." His reverence was supercilious. "I should not travel without one." A careless hand indicated him. "He is there, on the box."
"Permit me to take a closer look at him. Oblige me by climbing down, my good fellow."
Alvarez came to ground quaking to hear the civilian, speaking incredibly with the voice of Mr Law. "It is your man, lieutenant. This is Pablo Alvarez."
"Voilà!" The officer laughed. "The ruse had almost succeeded, Monsieur l'Abbé." With sarcasm he added: "I suppose he, too, will be a member of the embassy."
Porto-Carrero became violent. "I know nothing of him. I hired him in Paris a week ago."
"To be sure. To be sure. Get back to the box, my man. You'll all come along with us."
He slammed the door of the coach upon the still voluble and excited Abbé, and gave brisk orders. They went forward, and made for the Auberge Poitevin, Don Pablo accounting himself lost and understanding nothing of his monstrous betrayal by Mr Law.
In the inn yard, under the staring eyes of landlord and chamberlain, ostler and drawers, with maidservants hanging out of windows and idlers forming a background, the travellers were invited to alight and to consider themselves under arrest.
Porto-Carrero, now grown abusive, was threatening France with all but a Spanish war to avenge this outrage, whilst the tall civilian quietly ordered the luggage from the boot to be brought indoors where it might be examined.
"It will cost you dear, I warn you," screamed the Abbé, beside himself. "Our passports prove us of the embassy, and our persons and baggage are sacred."
But Mr Law's exasperating calm was not disturbed. "The only one of you known to us is a defaulting bankrupt escaping to Spain. You'll not find it odd that we must discredit your assertions notwithstanding your passports. Passports may be counterfeited. You will be so good as to let me have that satchel, Monsieur l'Abbé?" He held out his hand for the leather case which Porto-Carrero's arm was hugging to his side.
The ghastliness of the Abbé's face and the froth bubbling at the corners of his mouth as witnesses to his panic must have assured Mr Law that all his assumptions were justified. "This, sir, contains embassy despatches. It bears the arms of the Spanish embassy and the embassy's seals. Look for yourself, sir."
"That is my intention." Mr Law possessed himself of the satchel. "There could be no more convenient receptacle for a defaulter's plunder. In these days of banknotes a million could be carried between these covers."
Monteléon put off his languor to intervene. He was very haughty. "You are surely out of your senses, sir. Because a rascal has imposed himself upon us so as to travel with us, gives you no reason for this violence. I warn you, sir, that you interfere with these despatches at your peril. Your grave peril. We will return to Paris with you, and the Prince of Cellamare shall answer for us. That surely will satisfy you. You cannot be so ignorant as not to know that if you refuse and break those seals the consequences will be very serious for you."
All this oratory, however, seemed wasted upon that obtuse civilian.
"Whether we are to disturb the Spanish ambassador on your behalf, and whether you return to Paris with us will depend upon what I find in this satchel."
In his own room in the inn, with the two still protesting young men and their pretended servant in attendance under guard, Mr Law, with scant respect for the arms of Spain which they bore, broke both seals and lock and emptied the contents of the embassy satchel on the table at which he sat.
It was, he realized, the boldest gambling throw he had ever made, and if his deductions were wrong and these papers innocent of treason, the consequences would be as grave as Dubois had warned him.
But his deductions were not wrong, and the appalling evidence in his hands by far exceeded his every expectation. As he glanced through those documents and verified their nature, the two young men, the Abbé in black, Monteléon in mulberry velvet, no longer protested. They stood before him, stricken and silent as a couple of detected thieves.
At last he looked up, as stern of eye as of tone. "Lieutenant, you will remove these three men, and lock them up for the night in separate rooms, so that they remain, as they would say, incommunicado. I'll take order about them in the morning."
There was a word of command, and realizing that further protests would now be unavailing, the Abbé and his companion went out, hangdog, between their guards.
Alone, Mr Law gave closer attention to the material spread before him.
First there was a note from the Prince of Cellamare to Cardinal Alberoni, detailing the enclosures which His Eminence was requested to bring to the notice of King Philip. It began with the sentence, "I have waited until the vines were ripe before attempting the vintage, and ripe I think Your Eminence will now account them." It went on to outline the plan of campaign to be conducted by King Philip's uncle, the Duke of Maine. The Regent would be abducted by sure men, an easy matter, considering his careless, unguarded habits. Of what should be done with him when abducted there was no mention. It was a detail to be left, no doubt, to the discretion of the King of Spain. Immediately thereafter His Majesty should enter France, and he would be assisted by the regiment of the Duke of Richelieu, which was in garrison at Bayonne. They could count upon the support of the Parliament of Paris and of the nobility of Brittany, the hereditary foes of England, a kingdom which it was the Regent's evil policy to ally with France. King Philip would then be proclaimed Regent, to which office, as the grandson of Louis XIV, he had the paramount right, and he would be represented by the Duke of Maine, who as King Philip's Lieutenant would discharge the functions of the regency.
If this had been all, it would have been enough. But there was much more. Incredibly there was the draft of a letter which King Philip was invited to address to the infant Louis XV, in the following terms:
MY BROTHER AND NEPHEW--Never since Providence placed me on the throne of Spain have I lost sight of the obligations of my birth. Louis XIV of eternal memory is always before my mind. I seem always to hear that great prince saying to me at the moment of our separation, 'The Pyrenees exist no longer'.
Your Majesty is the only descendant of my elder brother. My dear Spaniards, who love me tenderly and are assured of the love I have for them, are not jealous of the sentiments I evince for you. I flatter myself that my personal interests are still dear to a nation at whose breast I was nourished. How, then, can your faithful subjects regard the treaty that is being signed against me, or, rather, against yourself? Ever since your exhausted finances have been unequal to bearing the current expenses of peace, it has been sought to ally Your Majesty with England, my most mortal enemy, so as to make war upon me. To those conditions I shall never subscribe. They are unbearable to me.
Mr Law was not impressed by the epistolary manner which the poetasters of Sceaux sought to impose upon His Majesty of Spain.
He turned to a list, in the same hand as that letter, of the influential nobles upon whose support King Philip might confidentially count. In addition, several others, not named in the list, among whom the Duke of Aumont, the Duke of Polignac, the Duke of Richelieu, the Marquis of Pompadour, and the Count of Horn, had each written in his own hand a letter offering loyalty and service to the King of Spain.
Here, thought Mr Law, was abundant matter to check the Regent's amusement at the conspiracies of Sceaux, matter that might well bring a dozen fine heads to the block, among which would be that of his own bitterest enemy. It was also matter that would make him safe from those dread consequences of violating the sacredness of ambassadorial seals which Dubois had so deeply feared.
Well content, he locked all away, and called for supper. Later, towards midnight, with a cloak over his arm, informed of where Don Pablo had been bestowed, he went to pay him a visit.
He dismissed the man on guard before the Spaniard's door. "Go take your ease. I may be some time with this prisoner. I will send for you again when I have done."
He unlocked the door, and went in. The room was lighted by two candles flanking the remains of a meal and a jug of wine. Don Pablo, seated dejectedly on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, and possibly a vision of the gallows at Tyburn before his eyes, looked up out of a yellow face. Recognizing his tall visitor, he flung an angry oath at him, and started up.
"You amuse yourself with me, por Dios!"
"And I hope that I shall amuse you also," said Mr Law. "To begin with, here is a passport for you, and here a cloak with a hood, in which to wrap yourself. I've removed the sentry, so as to leave you free to remove yourself. If you go by the back staircase you are not likely to meet anyone, for the household is abed. It will not matter very much if you are seen; but it will save me trouble if you are not. The post house is in the next street. Knock up the postmaster, get yourself a horse, and ride for Spain as if the devil were after you. If you deal generously with the postmaster he'll not trouble you with questions. And I've brought you another thousand louis in good notes of the Royal Bank.
"Don't stay to thank me, for it is I who am obliged to you. Your default and bankruptcy have done me a great service.
"I said I hoped to amuse you, but you had better wait to laugh until you are over the frontier. Good night, a good journey, and better fortune, my dear Pablo. Go with God."
"Oh, my friend!" Don Pablo stood shaking before him. "And I thought, God forgive me, that you had betrayed me. Oh, my friend, my friend!" He choked on the words, and suddenly burst into tears.
"Que verguenza!" Mr Law reproved him. "Oh, shameful! Is this how you laugh? Steady, man! It's not a time for blubbering, or for lingering. Come, my friend. Blow your nose, and be off."
Don Pablo seized Mr Law's hand, wrung it, kissed it, and drenched it in tears. "God reward you! My saviour!"
Mr Law took him by the shoulders, and thrust him towards the door. "The tale will be that you escaped in the dead of night by the window. And so fare you well, my Pablo, until your next bankruptcy."