' Why should you suppose that I wish to leave Paris? ' ' Does not every man wish at times to return to his own country? '
' France is my country.'
' Oh, come! ' Fouche's thin-lipped mouth twitched in a faint smile. ' Others appear to believe that, but you cannot expect me to accept such a barefaced lie. Need I remind you that, when first I came upon you as a boy in Rennes, you admitted to me that you were the son of Admiral Brook and had run away from home? '
' In for a penny, in for a pound,' thought Roger, so he snapped back,'1 need no reminding of how you murdered poor old Doctor Fdnelon and stole our money.'
Fouche gave a slight shrug. ' It was not murder. My pistol went off by accident. And I needed the money. But, your admission apart, four years later I followed you to England in the hope of earning the reward offered for the documents you stole from the
'16
Marquis de Rochambeau. I came upon you at your home, Grove Place, at Lymington. You cannot deny that.'
'1 do not seek to do so; nor deny that I am Admiral Brook's son.'
'Then you admit that you are an English spy? '
'1 certainly do not. The Marquis's papers came into my hands by chance. Young as I was I realized that, if I could get them to London, it might prevent a war between England and France. I proved right in that. It was your misfortune that, after you regained the papers, I got them back. But at that time we were private individuals. Neither you nor I were then agents employed by our Governments.'
' That is true; also that you got the better of me. It was the first time, but not the last. I will admit that you are a most redoubtable opponent. The way in which you made off with the Dauphin was masterly. Yet had I left Paris but half an hour earlier I would have caught you and had you guillotined for it.'
In spite of the peril he was now in, Roger felt on the top of his mettle and replied with a laugh, ' For that again, you cannot accuse me of espionage. I acted as I did on account of a personal promise that I had made to Queen Marie Antoinette, not as the agent of a foreign Power.'
That was only a half-truth, but Fouche could not contest it. He was doodling on a piece of paper and, without looking up, said, ' Later, you deceived me into believing that you still had the boy, then told me he was dead. What was the truth of the matter? '
For a moment Roger hesitated, then he replied,' You will recall that, as I pushed off with him in the boat, you and your men fired upon us. He was hit by a ball and died that night.' That was not the truth, but was near enough, for the boy was dead before Roger landed on the far shore of Lake Geneva. After a moment he went on:
' Neither can you accuse me of espionage in the matter of Madame Bonaparte's diary. I retrieved it from you only because Barras wished her to marry his proteg£, the young General. She would have refused to do so had we not suppressed the evidence that her first marriage to de Beauharnais was bigamous, owing to her having already married William de Kay while still in her teens.'
' Yes, yes; but all this does not make you a Frenchman.'
' Not legally, I agree. Yet for many years past I have lived in
France and thought of myself as a Frenchman. You are well aware of the part I played during the Revolution. Admittedly, it is known to you that at heart I was a Royalist. But what of it? Thousands of Royalists have since become good Republicans, and thousands of Republicans would tomorrow, if they thought a Restoration likely, become Royalists.'
' That is true. But the fact remains that you, an Englishman, now pose as a Frenchman born in Strasbourg, and that you have succeeded in getting yourself appointed as one of General Bonaparte's aides-de-camp. In such a position you must become privy to many State secrets.'
' Certainly, and why should I not? ' Roger asked boldly. ' My relatives in England long since cast me off, owing to my Liberal opinions. I am making a career for myself in France, and a fine one. To betray the country of my adoption for the sake of the country of my birth would be to cut off my nose to spite my face. Surely you see that? '
For a full minute Fouché continued to doodle, then he said, ' You once did me a kindness but, on balance, I have no cause to love you; and in the past you have given me ample proof that you are a very dangerous man. I can see no reason why I should allow you to continue to perpetrate upon General Bonaparte and others the fraud that you were born a Frenchman. Since I have personal knowledge of your origin, any form of trial would be redundant and, as Minister of Police, I am in a position to have you swiftly eliminated. To do so seems to me only a sensible precaution against the possibility that you are lying to me.'
Realizing that the crisis of the interview was at hand, Roger said firmly, '1 agree that you have the power to give orders that I should be carted off to some hideous fate, before my friends could even demand that I be formally accused and tried. But what of afterwards? Let us consider two possibilities.
' First, we will assume that I am at heart loyal to France. You would then have deprived your country of a useful servant. There would be only your word for it that I was a traitor. No one would believe you. It would be thought that you had abused your position to exact a private vengeance. Bonaparte, Talleyrand and a dozen other of my friends would never forgive you. And the Army, which now terms me '' le brave Breuc ", would execrate your name.
' Secondly, we will assume that I am a spy. You might employ false witnesses, but you could produce no convincing proof that I am Admiral Brook's son. Again you would be disbelieved, and attract to yourself the same enmity and opprobrium. But more. Were I an agent of Mr. Pitt, can you really believe that I should come here like a lamb to the slaughter? Certainly not. I should be hand in glove with the Royalist agents. I should have learned from them that, in the summer of '97, a certain Citizen Joseph Fouche offered his aid in an attempt to place Louis XVIII on the throne of France. I should-'
'There is not one word of truth in that,' Fouche broke in quickly.
' Of course not,' Roger agreed smoothly, ' nor is there in your fanciful idea that I am an English agent. Yet if I were, you may be certain that, before placing myself in your hands, I would have arranged with my friends that, if you dealt with me as a spy, they should at once put it about all over Paris that, when the Government of France ceased to give you employment, you had offered to betray the Revolution. To that one should add that, just as you might employ false witnesses against me, so the Royalist agents would produce letters, er . . . faked of course, that people might accept as proof, that you had been in communication with the Court at Mitau.'
It was Roger's only card, a bluff based on the information Talleyrand had given him. There might be no incriminating letters in existence, for Fouche was so cautious in all his dealings that he had probably communicated with Mitau only through a third party and had never put pen to paper. But such letters could be forged and it was a certainly that the Royalists in Mitau would willingly have co-operated in attempting to ruin an ex-terrorist of Fouche's standing.
As the cadaverous Minister continued to stare silently at his desk, Roger went on in a conciliatory tone, ' But all this is beside the point. No one could ever seriously accuse you of scheming to betray the Republic that you played so large a part in establishing, any more than anyone other than yourself could seriously accuse me of being one of Mr. Pitt's agents. And that is the crux of the matter. That I was born an Englishman, to you I readily admit; but that I am a spy, I deny. Therefore, should you use your power arbitrarily to terminate my career, you will be doing a deliberate disservice to your country for the purpose of satisfying your private malice.'