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The old maid-servant's eyes were open but she had not risen from her bed.
"What time is it, Miss Vanessa?" she asked. "I nodded off just when I thought I should
be putting the pie in the oven."
"It is all right, Dorcas," Vanessa said gently. "I have to go out for a little while."
"Go out?" Dorcas ejaculated. "Where can you be going?"
"It is important and I will tell you when I re- ton," Vanessa replied. "Do not worry
about anything."
"What's all this about, Miss Vanessa?" Dorcas enquired sharply, but already Vanessa
had left her, hurrying from die kitchen to the little hall.
She put the package which the boy had brought down on a narrow oak table, then
opened the door.
"Mr. Barcellos is out," she said, "but I will pay you what he owes. It was a key you
brought, was it not?"
"That's right, Miss," the boy answered. "A key 'e wanted made from a wax
impression. They're both there."
"Thank you very much," Vanessa said, "and here is the shilling for your Master."
She gave it into his hand, then as he turned to go she said:
"I wonder if you would walk with me into the Square and whistle up a carriage for
me?"
"A-course, Miss," he answered, and added with a cheeky grin, "Ye couldn't be
a-whistling dressed as ye are in that 'ere finery."
"No, I could not," Vanessa answered. "That is why I am asking you to be so kind as to
do it for me."
"Leave it ter me, Miss!" the boy answered.
They set off side by side. When they reached the Square to Vanessa's relief she saw an
empty hackney carriage coming slowly round the comer.
The boy put his fingers in his mouth and let out a whistle that made the coachman
start.
The hackney carriage drew up beside them and as the boy opened the door Vanessa
looked up at the coachman.
"Drive me to Carlton House," she said clearly, and climbed into the carriage with
dignity.
"Cor, we ain't 'alf posh," the boy said impertinently as he closed the door behind her.
Chapter Four
Driving towards the centre of London, Vanessa found her immediate sense of shock
at what she had overheard subsiding a little.
She still, however, found it hard to credit that Mr. Barcellos was in fact a spy and that
he had come to England to kill the Prince of Wales.
And yet when she thought about it she realised it was in fact the French reply to what
had happened.
In February Napoleon, now for over a year Emperor of the French, had been told of a
plot to assassinate him.
It had originated in England where, as was well known, the English encouraged and
supported a Training-Camp for conspirators and guerrillas at Romsey.
The head of it was Georges Cadoudal, a squat, red-haired Breton peasant of immense
strength who was known as "Goliath" to his friends.
He was a hideous man with a bull-neck, a broken nose, red sideburns, and one grey
eye bigger than the other.
Unmarried, dedicated body and soul to the Bourbons, Cadoudal had tried four years
earlier to blow up Napoleon's carriage, but had failed.
He decided to go himself to France to kill Napoleon and then, in conjunction with
certain discontented Generals of the French Army, put Louis XVIII on the throne.
This plot had been communicated to the English Government, which secretly passed
details to their agents abroad and provided Cadoudal with letters of exchange valued at
one million francs.
Owing, however, to a careless agent, the plot was discovered by Fouche, head of the
Police in Paris, and Cadoudal was arrested.
Unfortunately, Louis Antoine, Prince of the House of Bourbon and Duc d'Enghien,
was involved.
He was a decent young Officer of thirty-one who lived alone in the German town of
Ettelheim, dividing his time between shooting woodcock and attending secret meetings
in Strasbourg.
The Duc d'Enghien was a Frenchman and though he happened to be living in
Germany he was subject to French law.
Prompted by his advisors, Napoleon decided to act against him, and on the night of
March 14 he sent a General across the Rhine with three Brigades of Gendarmerie and
three hundred Dragoons, their horses' shoes muffled with cloth wadding.
Silently they ringed the Duc's house at Ettelheim and seized him when he was asleep.
At a Military Court the Duc was charged with conspiracy in time of war. Under
questioning he admitted that he had been receiving forty-two hundred guineas a year
from England and he was found guilty.
Napoleon showed no mercy. He considered that the Duc's death would be the
settlement of a longstanding vendetta, and on the morning of March 21 in the grounds of
Vincennes the Duc d'Enghien was shot by a firing squad.
This proved to be one of Napoleon's most controversial actions.
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