"Cease this pretence!" snapped the Count. "I know you for what you are! Tis fourteen years since I abolished torture in Sweden, but spies are without the law. Admit the reason for your being in my capital or I'll have the public executioner use the rack upon you until you do."
Aghast Roger stared at him. The connection in which he had heard the name Count Haga before now flashed into his mind. It was the incognito under which the King of Sweden had made his long tour of Italy and France four years earlier. At the thought that his fist had already been tight-clenched for the purpose of knocking Gustavus III out by a straight right to the jaw, the blood drained from his face. As befitted the revelation he sank slowly onto one knee.
"Rise, Monsieur," said the King abruptly. "Whilst in this house I prefer to be known as Count Haga. But remember; if you seek to deceive me further you do so at your peril."
"Sire!" murmured Roger, remaining on bended knee. "I beg you to forgive my temerity. Your Majesty has been absent from your capital ever since my arrival in it, and I swear that I did not know your face. I am shamed beyond words that in your august presence I should have been guilty of such rudeness."
"That has the ring of honesty, at least," Gustavus remarked, a shade less angrily. "Rise now, and tell me of yourself. That you are not French, but an Englishman, I already know."
As Roger stood up his blue eyes were wide with amazement, and he gasped: "I pray you, Sire, at least enlighten me as to how you discovered that? I had believed my French near perfect."
"It is. In fact there's little 'twixt it and my own. But when I carried you here unconscious in my coach you muttered certain English phrases. Then, on your coming round, as you were helped into the house, you changed to French and gave out that you were a Frenchman. My curiosity being aroused I told Prebendary Nordin to lock you up and take steps to ascertain the truth."
Roger had been long enough in Sweden to become familiar with the names of the King's principal advisers. During his frequent absences abroad the country was virtually ruled by a secret council of four: Johan Kristofier Toll, a great administrator who held the post of War Minister; General Baron Armfeldt, a handsome pervert, but a man of great courage and absolute devotion to his royal master; and two clergymen of widely differing characters. The first, Olaf Wallqvist, Bishop of Wexio, was a masterful and eloquent prelate, whom Gustavus used to defend the royal measures in public; the second was Carl Gustaf Nordin, who at his own wish remained a simple Prebendary. The last was feared and hated by the others, since the King regarded his advice as indispensable, and always took it in secret before consulting his council.
It seemed strange that Gustavus, whose attitude towards religion was so cynical, that while he played the part of a devout Lutheran in Stockholm, he had also acted as though he was a devout Catholic when in Rome, should confide so much of his most important business to two clerics; but it was rumoured that the deeply religious, self-effacing Nordin was the only man who had the power to put a check upon the rasher schemes of the impulsive King.
It was clear to Roger now that this was Nordin's house, and that he owed his rescue to the fact that Gustavus had been on his way to visit it in the middle of the night, no doubt for the purpose of discussing the present crisis with the man who acted to him in the role of a "Grey Eminence."
As these thoughts flashed through Roger's mind the King began to speak again.
"On learning the name by which you are passing here, the Prebendary had your baggage collected from the Vasa Inn. Hidden in a boot in the bottom of one of your trunks he found a letter, all ready for despatch, addressed to the British Minister in Copenhagen. I read it but ten minutes since, and it gives a most lucid account of your activities here; enough, at least, to land you in a dungeon."
"In that case, Sire, there remains little of interest that I can tell you," Roger said a shade nervously. "If I have in any way contravened your laws I can only cast myself upon your mercy."
As he spoke he was berating himself for a careless fool, and felt that he must have been quite crazy to leave such a document where any determined thief might have come upon it. He decided there and then that if he managed to get out of his present scrape the experience should prove a sharp lesson to him. Never again would he pen so damning a letter in advance; or, if he did, he would keep it nowhere but on his person.
But was he going to get out of his present scrape? That was the now extremely perturbing question. The usual punishment for spies convicted during a war was death, and in peace to be locked up in a fortress for an indefinite period. The King was all-powerful and had caught him out red-handed. In the face of his own letter he could not possibly deny that he was Mr. Pitt's secret emissary. At the thought he flushed with shame. This was indeed a sorry ending to his first mission; to have given himself away through his own crass carelessness before he had even reached the focal point of his inquiry.
"As far as I am aware you have not contravened my laws," remarked Gustavus coldly. "But persons of your calling automatically make themselves outlaws when they adopt it; and, as a potential danger to any State in which they may be found, are liable to be dealt with summarily. As for your letter, it tells me much but not all that I wish to know. With what instructions did you set out from England?"
Since the King knew so much already and Roger's instructions had in no way been aimed at Sweden it seemed to him that he could do no harm by filling in the gap, so he replied: "May it please your Majesty, I was on my way to Petersburg. My visits to Copenhagen and Stockholm were for no other purpose than to provide myself with a background as to the personalities of the northern courts before appearing on the scene of my endeavours. Mr. Pitt's dearest wish is to prevent, or at least limit, future wars; and to that end he is prepared to use all means within his power. He has great hopes for his pact with France and for the new Triple Alliance which has just been brought into being; but he does not consider that those treaties should exclude his making additional ones of a similar nature with other countries. My task in Petersburg was to discover if it is still possible to revive Russia's ancient goodwill towards England, with a view to a new understanding by which the Empress Catherine would bind herself to assist in preserving the peace of northern and central Europe. And, if I found that she was adamant in her resolution to pursue her ambitious projects, to seek ways by which her aggressions might be forestalled, or the power of Russia curbed."
For the first time King Gustavus smiled. "I fear Mr. Pitt is somewhat of a visionary if he hopes to make an end to wars; and, for my part, I would not have it so, as 'twould also be the end of glory. But in this last endeavour that you speak of we are at one."
Swift to take advantage of his captor's change of mood, Roger went down- on one knee again, exclaiming: "Dare I hope then, Sire, for your Majesty's clemency?"
"About that we'll see," was the non-committal reply. "Had you been of any other nationality I would have had you clapped in a dungeon ere this, and left you there to rot; but the contents of your letter and what you tell me now cause me to wonder if I cannot find a use for you."