Evil in a Mask

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Authors: Dennis Wheatley
For that might just sway the balance in saving him from a firing squad. As he lifted his head, he said proudly, ‘I am
Colonel le Chevalier de Breuc
, a Commanderof the Legion of Honour, and an
aide-de-camp
to the Emperor Napoleon.’
    â€˜Indeed!’ the Hetman exclaimed. ‘Then you are a prisoner of considerable importance. Even so, this matter of Baron Znamensk’s murder cannot be ignored.’
    â€˜I did not expect it to be.’ Roger shrugged. ‘With your permission I suggest that we go into the castle and there discuss it over a bottle of wine.’
    â€˜By St. Nicholas!’ the Russian laughed. ‘You are a cool customer. But your idea is sound. I could do with something to warm me up.’
    The Baroness and her serfs had not understood one word of this conversation. Again she began to scream at Roger and pointed to her husband’s dead body. Roger swung upon her and said sharply, ‘Be silent, woman! This Russian lord demands food and wine for himself and his men. Afterwards he intends to investigate the way in which your husband met his death. And that will probably result in having me and my companions shot.’
    Mollified by this, the Baroness led the way into the castle, and gave the requisite orders to her servants. Fournier and Vitu, both looking extremely worried, were detained by the Cossacks in the lofty, sparsely-furnished central hall that had for decoration on its tall walls, only a few moth-eaten stag, boar and lynx heads. The Hetman and Roger followed the Baroness into a dining room that led off it. The furniture was hideous pitchpine and the place stank of past meals, mingled with the urine of dogs.
    An uncouth servitor brought a flagon of Franconian Steinwein. Then, with the Baroness as an onlooker, the two men settled down to talk. The Russian made it clear that he intended to mete out summary justice should Roger fail to convince him that he had had good grounds for taking the law into his own hands. Roger had never been more acutely aware that his life hung on his ready wits and tongue; and, that should he fail to convince the Hetman that he had executed rather than murdered Znamensk, he, Fournier and Vitu would be dead before morning.
    To begin with, Roger deliberately delayed the actual inquiry for as long as he could, by asking Dutoff when he had last seen Prince Peter Ivanovitch Bagration, the German-born Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army. Dutoff knew the General well; so, it emerged to his surprise, did Roger. He then enquired after other friends he had made during his last stay in St. Petersburg: Count Alexander Vorontzoff, the brother of the Russian Ambassador in London; Captain Musiavoff of the Semenourki Regiment of the Imperial Guard; the ex-Prime Minister Count Pahlen, in whose country house he had stayed for a month; and even the Czar Alexander himself, to whom he had been presented.
    Dutoff could not fail to be impressed by learning that this haggard, down-at-heel Frenchman was
persona grata
with so many people of the first importance in his own country; and Roger then went on to describe the awful treatment that he and his companions had received at Znamensk’s hands. But the Baroness, who had been sullenly watching with increasing anger as she saw the sympathy with which the Hetman was listening to Roger, suddenly broke in on their conversation with a spate of vitriolic German. Since she could not make herself understood in words, she pointed at Roger and significantly drew her finger across her throat.
    The Russian nodded at her reassuringly, brushed up his fine moustache and said, ‘Colonel, all you have been saying leaves me in no doubt that you have lived in St. Petersburg, enjoyed the friendship of many powerful nobles there, that you are both a member of the aristocracy and a very gallant soldier. Moreover, you have my deepest sympathy for the brutal ill usage to which you have been subjected. But the fact remains that

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