Page 74 of The Count’s Charade

“Bravo, Grâce! It is just so.”

“But what I don’t understand,” she put in, “is how Jean-Marc thought he might stay while you left. He was Robespierre’s aide too, wasn’t he?”

“It is what I have said to him. But Jean-Marc has planned for this. He is promoted, he says, as aide to the Public Accuser, and this before Robespierre was taken. Thus he is safe. But I must go, for that the information supplied to Le Directeur on these activities of mine royalist is found and given to the office of the Public Accuser.”

“By Jean-Marc himself, no doubt,” Grace guessed, outraged.

Henri nodded. “I see there is here a trick. I must believe Etienne has told Jean-Marc that Henri knows him for the traitor. Thus Jean-Marc must rid himself of Henri. If the Public Accuser indicts Henri, then Henri, so he thinks, must name his friends also.”

“Yes, but would you have proof of their involvement?” asked Sir James.

A bitter look settled into Henri’s features, and Grace saw it with distress.

“It needs not that one has proof. You do not understand how is France. In these times it is enough to name the name. Jean-Marc knows this. Perhaps he has covered the tracks, but he cannot be certain he will succeed if he is tried as I must be.”

Sir James had begun to look grim. “I begin to think your proposition is not as melodramatic as I had supposed, young Rousselle. Go on, what happened next?”

“Next, I have disappeared very fast from Paris. Since I have spoken of Brussels to Etienne, I make instead for England. More dangerous, but I have not a choice.”

“Dangerous because of your involvement in the revolution.” The magistrate was dry.

“As we have seen.” Henri executed a small bow. “I take no change of clothes, only money and these papers. I have sealed those two most important to protect them. The map I intend to pass to one who is loyal at Dieppe, that he may send it to Brussels for the safety of the men in Paris. But when I have left Londinières, a messenger comes after to say that Jules at Dieppe has turned and Jean-Marc travels after me towards England.”

“How soon before they caught up with you?” asked Sir James.

Henri shrugged. “I do not know, for I have seen them only on the boat.”

“What boat?” asked Grace, feeling almost as if she journeyed with him. “On the Thames?”

“One I have taken from Margate, bound for London. I have come across from Le Touquet on a boat of fishermen, after I have journeyed with a man I paid to row me up the coast from Dieppe. Perhaps this man betrays me also, for I now believe Jean-Marc and the others have followed me all the way.”

“What did you do when you saw them?”

“I try to evade them, leaving the boat at this Halfway House.”

“Plumsted Magazine, that would have been,” put in Wooferton. “Crossed on the ferry, I dessay, to Rainham Creek Mouth.”

“Them Frenchies must have seen you, sir,” suggested Mayberry, “for we found tracks all through Rainham Marsh towards the Three Crowns.”

“It is indeed thus,” agreed Henri. “I ask at the Three Crowns for where to go, and they direct me to Rainham, where I may pass to Great Dover, I think —”

“Aye, and through to Dagenham, I’d guess, if you was heading for London.”

“That’s right,” agreed Wooferton. “Stage at Dagenham ’ud take you straight there.”

“Only he didn’t get to Dagenham, nor anywhere near it,” cut in Sir James, frowning them down.

Grace was watching Henri. “Did you see them following you?”

He nodded. “I am on the road for Rainham and I think to escape by the marsh, for the landlord has warned me it has danger. But my enemies have a light where I have none. They see me and Jean-Marc shoots. I am hit. I go down. They are coming and I must hide. I see this — how do you say? — the plant that grows in the water.”

“Reeds,” supplied Grace.

“Reeds, yes. I roll in the water and hide in the reeds. They do not find me, but Jean-Marc knows I am wounded. I hear them speak. He thinks to come back to find my body in the morning. So they will go back to the Three Crowns. I wait for the light to be distant, so that I know they are gone.”

“Which, presumably, is when you dragged yourself out and found your way to Grace’s house?” suggested Sir James.

“He was concerned about the papers,” put in Grace, her voice jumping. “No wonder! Jean-Marc must have been wild to get back that order.”