Slipping the book into his pocket, he walked over to Lucette, and said: "Now, about yourself. If you will tell me where you wish to go when you leave Paris tomorrow morning, I will do my best to aid you, and will provide the money for your journey."
"I think I had best return to the Indies," she murmured despondently. "With food to be had for the asking and the warmth of the sunshine, life is at least easier there."
"Very well. I will endeavour to secure you a passage in a blockade runner."
As he spoke, there came an urgent knocking on the front door.
Muttering a filthy oath, she pulled herself to her feet. "I expect that is a customer. I must open to him, but will say that I am engaged."
Roger watched her cross the room, pull aside the coarse curtain and unlatch the door. It was immediately thrust wide. With a cry of surprise, she took a pace back. Slamming the door to behind him, Fouché stepped after her into the room.
Snatching up his sword-cane Roger called out to him: "So you followed me! What do you want here?"
Thrusting his way past Lucette, Fouché advanced to the table, and halted. Glaring across at Roger, he panted: "I had hoped that you might still have to collect the order of transportation you spoke of from Barras, before threatening to execute it. Even had I had the luck to pick up a coach I might have managed to get here a few minutes before you."
"Then you have had your half-hour's walk for nothing," said Roger quietly. "I already had the order: but it will not now be needed."
Fouché's pale eyes switched from Roger's waist-line to Lucette's neck and he said sharply to her: "Then you have told him where the diary is?"
She gave a sullen nod. "He has it, We argued over it for some time, but I surrendered it to him five minutes since."
"You fool! You black, besotted bitch!" he snarled. "Did you not have the sense to realize that had you kept it hidden it might yet have meant big money for us both?"
"For you, perhaps, but not for me!" she cried with sudden defiance. "He has the power to send me to the guillotine, and would have done so had I held out against him. I know this man! He is my enemy; my jinx! Had I not bought my life with the book he would have delighted in bringing about my death."
"You know him?"
Roger felt a sudden awful sinking in the pit of his stomach, but there was nothing he could do to stop Lucette shouting back:
"Know him; do I not! He says now that he is a Frenchman, but I find that hard to credit seeing how first we met. Everyone then believed him to be an English milor. He had an English wife, English friends and was upon an English ship. In Martinique, too, everyone spoke of him as Son Excellence Mister Brook. But I care not what he is. I know only that he would gladly see me dead."
"So!" Fouché" hardly breathed the word. Then, swinging round on Roger, his cry of triumph rang to the rafters. "A witness! The one witness I needed to support my oath! Mort Dieu; you are now no better than carrion in the executioner's cart!"
Left with no time to think or plan for such an emergency, and made desperate by the terrifying turn events had taken, Roger whipped out his sword-cane. Across the table he made a furious lunge at Fouchi; but his enemy sprang back, pivoted on his heels and dashed for the door. Swerving sideways Roger jumped over the couch, but Lucette threw herself m his way. Before he could get past her Fouché" had wrenched the door open and was bellowing into the darkness:
"Corporal Peltier! Bring your men! Citizens! Help! Quick! Come to my aid!"
Still hoping to transfix Fouché with one well directed thrust which would silence him instantly and for ever, Roger leapt after him. Fouché" was standing in the doorway. He was still yelling for help, but from fear of another attack had his head half-turned towards the room. Roger's lunge was aimed high to take him through the throat. Fouché jerked his head back so sharply that it hit the open door a resounding crack. The movement saved him. The flashing point missed his Adam's apple by the fraction of an inch, then buried itself in the wooden door jamb. The thrust had been delivered with tremendous force. Under the impact the thin blade snapped. Roger was left holding only the handle and ten inches of the steel. Next moment Peltier and his three men blocked the doorway and came pushing past Fouché into the studio.
Giving way before them, Roger darted back behind the table. He was at his wits' end for a sound course to pursue, and could think of nothing but an attempt to exert his authority. If he could succeed in that it might save him for the moment. He would then at least have a chance of destroying the all-important diary, and perhaps be able to escape from Paris before on a joint information laid by Fouché and Lucette a warrant was issued for his arrest. Pulling the order for Lucette's transportation from his pocket, he waved it in the faces of the advancing soldiers and cried:
"Touch me if you dare! I am the agent of Citizen Director Barras. Here is my warrant Your own officer charged you to obey my orders. They are that you arrest Citizen Fouché and this woman."
Fouché's shouts had attracted several people. As they came running up behind the soldiers he slammed and bolted the door to keep them out. Turning, he hurried back into the centre of the room. His friend the Corporal gave him an anxious look, and asked eagerly:
"What's bin 'appenin', Citizen? I saw 'im attack yer! 'E'd no right ter do that, even if 'e is a police agent What d'yer want us ter do?"
"Ignore his orders and accept mine," replied Fouché promptly. "What I have long believed the Citoyenne Remy here has now confirmed. He is an English spy."
"Sacre" bleu!’ exclaimed the Corporal. "An English spy! An' 'e's an aristo ter boot or my name's not Jacques Peltier. ‘E 'as both the looks an' the smell o' one."
"You have been told a lie," Roger cut in sharply. "I am neither. This absurd charge is based upon my having been abroad on a secret mission which occupied me for many months after 9th Thermidor. Before that I was a member of the Paris Commune. As a Citizen Commissioner from its founding mere are thousands of people in Paris who can vouch for my identity and my patriotism."
"That's true, that is," nodded a tall guardsman with ginger hair. "I knew 'im by sight before that too, when I were a pot-man in the Jacobin Club. I 'eard 'im speak there against our going to war over the Spanish Treaty."
"Yes," supplemented one of the others, a thick-set man with a swarthy face. ‘I thought I recognized him, and I do now."
"Don't be taken in by that," snapped Fouché "He has acted as one of Pitt's agents from the beginning. For years past he has consistently betrayed us. He is the son of an English Admiral and his name is Brook."
"You lie!" retorted Roger. "This is a plot by which you are attempting to evade arrest."
"It is the truth, as the Citoyenne Remy can confirm."
"I do!" shrilled Lucette, turning to the soldiers. "He is an English milor. I was for a week with him last year in an English ship."
"You are mistaken," said Roger firmly. "I have a cousin named Robert MacElfic who much resembles me. It was him you must have met."
She gave a harsh laugh. "That lie will not serve you. Citizen Fouché is right. You are an Englishman and a spy. I will swear to that with my dying breath."
"You see!" added Fouché triumphantly. "He admits to having English relatives. He admits, too, to having been abroad at the time the Citoyenne Remy says she met him. What more do you require?"