The Launching of Roger Brook

coatless and without baggage of any kind, it seemed certain that suspicion would swiftly fall on hun in the event of any inquiry being made there. So after breakfast he paid his bill and left the inn.

In spite of the rain and the blustering wind he went along to the harbour to make quite certain that no ships were leaving. He found it practically deserted and an old salt who was splicing a rope under a lean-to told him that, even if the wind dropped, which he thought unlikely, the seas would be running too high for any vessel to venture out into them for another twenty-four hours at least.

Cursing the weather that, by its foulness, was placing his life in jeopardy, Roger set about endeavouring to alter his appearance. After buying a large canvas grip he visited a secondhand clothes' shop, where he bought a tattered cloak and a seaman's stocking-cap. Putting these on outside, to conceal the clothes in which he had left Paris and hide his hair, he visited another secondhand shop in a better part of the town and bought there a more expensive outfit. It included sea-boots, blue trousers and reefer coat, a topcoat with a triple collar and a low, square-crowned bowler hat with a shiny leather band, of a type often worn by the officers of merchant ships.

Having crammed his purchases into the bag he carried it to the far side of the channel leading from the harbour to the sea, where he had noticed that morning a number of sheds and half-built boats on stocks. No one was working there in the teeming rain so he entered one of the wooden sheds and, without fear of interruption, changed into his new clothes. Next, he plaited his back hair and, doubling the thin end under, tied it with a piece of ribbon in a nautical queue. Then he made a bundle of his Paris clothes, weighted it with stones and, carrying it to the water's edge, threw it in.

It was only with the greatest reluctance that he parted with his elegant, soft-leather riding-boots and the expensive lace at his wrists and throat, but he knew that it would have been madness to keep them, as they were just the sort of things that would have given him away.

Returning to the town side of the harbour it struck him that, since he must remain in Dieppe for at least one more night, he would be seen by fewer people if he took lodgings rather than a room at another inn; so he set about hunting for something suitable. Happening to notice a street sign reading 'Rue d'Ecosse' he thought that a good omen and turned along it. Sure enough a hundred yards from its entrance he came upon a neat little house with a card bearing the carefully-drawn words Apartement a Louer in its ground-floor window.

The door was opened to him by an immensely fat woman who, puffing and wheezing, took him upstairs to a sparsely furnished but clean-looking bedroom and sitting-room. For appearance sake he haggled a little over the price and made her include his petit dejeuner in it; then he took the rooms, paid her a deposit and went out again, to get himself a midday meal.

After eating reasonably well in an unpretentious restaurant he bought a bottle of wine and some cold food for his supper, and a few toilet articles; then he returned to the house in the Rue d'Ecosse and, since he had nothing else to do and would at least not be seen there, went to bed.

For the first time since leaving the Rue St. Honord to fight his duel with de Caylus he had leisure to think over the tornado of events in which he had been caught up. The duel seemed to him to have taken place at least a week ago, yet, curiously enough, he was under a vague impression that it was only that morning that Athenais, if all had gone well, had married de la Tour d'Auvergne in Evreux. But after a minute's thought he realised that while the duel had taken place less than forty-four hours ago, Ath?nals had most probably been Madame la Vicomtesse for thirty hours or more. It was actually Wednesday the 30th of August, the day that she was to have married de Caylus, and while the long hours of Monday night had been crammed with happenings that stood out in Roger's mind Tuesday had passed him by almost unnoticed, owing to his exhausted state in the morning and his having slept through the whole of the latter part of the day.

As he thought again of the fateful conference, he got out the letter signed by the Comte de Montmorin and re-read it. When he had done so it struck him more forcibly than ever how extraordinarily fortunate he was to have secured such a document. Despite his periodical com­munications to the mysterious Mr. Gilbert Maxwell, the British Government might well hesitate to accept his bare word as conclusive evidence on a matter of such extreme significance. In view of the Commercial Treaty with France and their greatly improved relations with that country, it seemed certain that his revelations would come as an appalling shock to them; and doubt that he could possibly be right would almost certainly prevent them from taking any positive action until his statements could be verified. Yet in some immediate demarche, such as an ultimatum, lay their only hope of preventing the French from seizing the Dutch ports.

He realised now that, had he arrived in London as he had originally planned, he would have had little hope of saving the situation; whereas if he could do so with the letter, so damning were its contents and the signature of the Foreign Minister whoever saw it could not possibly require any further evidence of France's intentions, and there would be a real hope of averting war.

Rolling the precious parchment up into a thick tubular spill he tied a piece of string round it and then made a loop of the string to go round his neck, so that it should hang there like a locket and there would be no risk of it being lost by being inadvertently jerked out of one of his pockets. Then he took off the sapphire ring as being too valuable a gem for an ordinary ship's officer to wear, and tied that also to the string about his neck.

About seven o'clock he had his cold meal and drank the bottle of rich white Chateau Coutet, from the estate of the Marquis de Lur Saluces, that he had bought to wash it down. Then at half-past eight he blew out his candle and soon fell asleep.

He woke as the first pale streaks of dawn filtered through the flimsy curtains and, scrambling out of bed, went to the window. It was still raining, but gently, and the wind had dropped. His impulse was to dress at once but, knowing that no boats would put out until the sea had gone down, he restrained his impulse and went back to bed.

At seven o'clock a slatternly maid brought his petit dejeuner. After eating it he got up, dressed, and went down to the port. There was still little activity there and the packet-boat, lying alongside her jetty, showed no signs of preparing to put to sea. Near the landward end of the jetty there was a large notice-board and, thinking that a notice might have been put up there giving some information about sailings, he walked over to it.

A thick-set, middle-aged man with heavy eyebrows, was already standing in front of the board, reading a large placard occupying nearly half its area, which, from its cleanness, could only recently have been pasted up. As Roger came up beside the man and his eyes fastened on the notice, his stomach seemed to turn over. It read:

ONE THOUSAND LOUIS REWARD

Attention! A felon of exceptional ferocity and baseness is urgently sought by the Government. Five hundred Louis d'Or will be paid by M. le Comte de Crosne, His Majesty's Lieutenant of Police, or by any accredited agents of the Crown, for information leading to the securing of the person, dead or alive, of one ROGER BROOK

The above is an Englishman, giving himself out to be the son of a British Admiral, and a nephew of the Earl of Kildonan. Yet he speaks French with the fluency of one bom in this country and has passed for several years as a native of the province of Alsace, under the name of BREUC.

The man wanted is tall and slim. He is about twenty-one years of age, having a fine figure, pleasant, expressive countenance and good complexion. His hair, worn long, is dark brown, his eyes a striking deep blue with dark lashes. His nose is straight, his chin firm and he has good teeth.

He dresses with elegance and has the manners of a person of quality. When last seen he was wearing a plum-coloured satin coat, flowered waistcoat, red twill riding breeches, brown Hessian boots, and lace ruffles and jabot.

A further reward of five hundred Louis d'Or will be paid to anyone returning a stolen document that the above-described felon is believed to be carrying on his person. The said document is a letter signed by M. le Comte de Montmorin, His Majesty's Foreign Minister.

The aforesaid ROGER BROOK alias BREUC, is required to answer to charges of murder, theft and treason. Attention!

ONE THOUSAND LOUIS REWARD

The reward offered was an extraordinarily high one, showing how concerned Roger's enemies were to effect his capture, and he had to admit that the de Rochambeaux had been generous enough in their description of him; but for all that the portrait Was damnably accurate and he was conscious of a rising wave of fright at the thought that everyone he met could hardly fail to recognise him from it.