Dennis Wheatley
DESPERATE MEASURES
With a sudden laugh, he gripped Roger by the arm and said in a low voice, For months I've told everyone that I am dead. But I am not. And I've kept my secret well. I've not told even Pauline. You could not have joined me at a better time, Breuc. Tomorrow n ight we sail to reconquer France.'
BY DENNIS WHEATLEY
NOVELS
The Launching of Roger Brook
The Shadow of Tyburn Tree
The Rising Storm
The Man Who Killed the King
The Dark Secret of Josephine
The Rape of Venice
The Sultan's Daughter
The Wanton Princess
Evil in a Mask
The Ravishing of Lady Mary Ware
The Irish Witch
The Scarlet Imposter
Faked Passports
The Black Baroness
V for Vengeance
Come Into My Parlour
Traitors’ Gate
They Used Dark Forces
The Prisoner in the Mask
The Second Seal
Vendetta in S pain
Three Inquisitive People
The Forbidden Territory
The Devil Rides Out
The Golden Spaniard
Strange Conflict
Codeword—Golden Fleece
Dangerous Inheritance
Gateway to Hell
The Quest of Julian Day
The Sword of Fate
Bill for the Use of a Body
Black August Contraband
The Island Where Time Stands Still
The White Witch of the South Seas
To the Devil—a Daughter
The Satanist
The Eunuch of Stamboul
The Secret War
The Fabulous Valley
Sixty Days to Live
Such Power is Dangerous
Uncharted Seas
The Man Who Missed the War
The Haunting of Toby Jugg
Star of Ill-Omen
They Found Atlantis
The Ka of Gifford Hillary
Curtain of Fear
Mayhem in Greece
Unholy Crusade
The Strange Story of Linda Lee
SHORT STORIES
Mediterranean Nights Gunmen, Gall ants and Ghosts
HISTORICAL
A Private Life of Charles II { Illustrated by Frank C. Pape) Red Eagle { The Story of the Russian Revolution)
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL
Stranger than Fiction { War Papers for the Joint Planning Staff) Saturdays with Bricks
SATANISM
The Devil and all his Works { Illustrated in colour)
ARROW BOOKS
Arrow Books Ltd 3 Fitzroy Square, London W1
An imprint of the Hutchinson Publishing Group
London Melbourne Sydney Auckland Wellington Johannesburg and agencies throughout the world
First published by Hutchinson & Co (Publishers) Ltd 1974 Arrow edition 1976 © Dennis Wheatley Ltd 1974
CONDITIONS OF SALE: This book shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. This book is published at a net price and is supplied subject to the Publishers Association Sta n dard Conditions of Sale registered under the Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1956.
Made and printed in Great Britain by The Anchor Press Ltd Tiptree, Essex
ISBN o 09 912850 o
Contents
Publishers' Note 7
Bedroom Scene 13
In Flagrante Delicto 22. . . or Else!' 37
Paris 1814 49
Pastures New 67
Caught Out 83
Ruined 94
The Final Blow 108
An Enemy from the Past 124
The Bonapartes 146
The Imperial Exile 161
The Great Gamble 181
The Road to Paris 196
Of Hedging Bets 217
Tumult in Paris 239
An Emperor in Chains 253
The Die is Cast 273
Roger's Greatest Coup 281
Battle and Chance Encounter 297
Threat of Final Ruin 320
Sold Out 342
Race Against Time 372
Do You Remember? 389
In 1940 I dedicated a book to 'My soldier stepson, with deep affection and the wish that crossed swords and batons may one day grace the shoulders of his tunic'. Jack Younger had then just left Sandhurst and I watched him as an ensign in the Coldstream Guards march off from-Chelsea Barracks to the war in North Africa. Now he wears those crossed swords of a Major General on the shoulders of his tunic and I am so happy to dedicate this book to him.
Publishers' Note
the roger brook series
The Roger Brook series covers every principal event in Europe between 1783 and 1815. During this brief period, initiated by the French Revolution, there occurred an upheaval which altered the way of life that the great majority of people had led for many centuries. Nothing had occurred to equal it since the fall of the Roman Empire. It is for that reason that these books are of special interest—and educational value. Historical novels are legion. But the story of Roger Brook stands alone, in that it conveys the whole picture, from start to finish, of those tremendous years.
At the age of fifteen, rather than be forced by his father, Admiral Brook, to become a midshipman, Roger ran away to France. After four years there, chance put him in possession of information which prevented a war between France and Britain. Subsequently he became P r ime Minister Pitt's most resourceful secret agent.
He undertook missions to Sweden, Denmark and Russia. Having established a second identity as a Frenchman, he frequented Versailles before the Revolution as a Chevalier, and survived the Terror by getting himself made a member of the Commune. During those years he travelled to the Netherlands,
Italy and Spain. At the siege of Toulon he met young Bonaparte, then an unknown Captain of Artillery. Later he became one of Napoleon's A.D.C.s and accompanied him to Egypt and Syria. On his way to becoming the Governor of an island in the Caribbean, Roger was wrecked off Haiti and landed in the middle of the great Negro slave revolt. A duel in England resulted in his travelling to India. He served Wellington in the P e ninsula, but was carried off with the Portuguese Royal Family to Brazil. In St. Petersburg he was involved in the assassination of the Czar Paul I. He went on missions to the Sultan of Turkey and the Shah of Persia. After the retreat from Moscow in 1812,he reached Sweden; but the ship he expected to take him home took him instead to New York, and the United States was then at war with Britain. With the help of Red Indians he escaped across, the St. Lawrence to Canada. While secretly sending intelligence t o England, Roger was present at nearly all Napoleon's great battles, from Marengo to Waterloo.
During these years he met all the most famous people of his time: Catherine the Great, Louis XVI and XVIII, George III and IV, the Emperor Francis, the Czar Alexander, and numerous other sovereigns; Marie Antoinette, the Empresses Josephine and Marie Louise, Talleyr and, Danton, Robespierre, Fouché , Nelson, Sir Sidney Smith, Sir John Moore, Fox, Castlereagh, Metternich, Blucher, all the Bonapartes and all Napoleon' s Marshals.
Interwoven with true history there are murders, kidnappings, smuggling,, blackmail, feats of great endurance, descriptions of Satanic rites and. accounts of Roger's love affairs during the many years he spent abroad. But whenever he returned to England he renewed his lifelong devotion to Georgina—in turn LadyEtheridge, the Countess of St. Ermins and the Duchess of Kew—who shared with him a passion that began when they were in their teens.
quotes
Howard Spring wrote of an early Roger Brook: 'I look forward with pleasure to the spectacle of Roger Brook turning the Scarlet Pimpernel pale pink.'
Perry Jones in The Sunday Times: 'Mr. Wheatley's historical detail is impeccable.'
George MacDonald Fraser (author of the Flashman books) in The Glasgow Herald'. 'As a secret agent Roger Brook makes James Bond look like an in fant gurgling in his play-pen.'
1
Bedroom Scene
At two o'clock in the morning on July 20th, 1814, Roger Brook—in whose favour his family's title, Earl of Kildonan, had recently been revived as a reward for many years of successful missions—and Georgina, Duchess of Kew, were lying naked side by side in bed.
They were both in their middle forties. Roger looked his age. The many dangers he had faced had caused his mouth to set grimly when in repose, and there were wrinkles round his bright blue eyes. His hair was grey, except for the wings above his ears, which were white and added a distinguished touch to his strong, regular features. His body was muscular and still slim, on account of the many thousands of miles he had ridden during Napoleon' s wars.
Those wars had ceased only the previous April, on the Emperor's abdication. Roger had been lucky, for he had been wounded seriously only three times: a bullet through the chest at Marengo, a badly broken ankle when his horse had been shot under him at Eylau and, more recently, his left calf had been blown to ribbons by a German guerilla who had shot at him from a wood while he had been riding alone along a road near Dresden. This last injury he resented intensely, as he had been proud of his shapely legs when wearing silk stockings, and it had left him with a slight limp.
Georgina, on the other hand, looked as though she were still in her early thirties. The contours of her well-rounded figure had not increased since she was twenty, the ringlets of her abundant blue-black hair had not lost their lustre, the high colouring, smooth skin, full, ripe, naturally red mouth and flashing black eyes had long made her a reigning beauty. She was also blessed with an amusing wit and an exceptionally wide backgro und of knowledge, for her highly-cultured father had educated her himself in many matters not even thought of in the Young Ladies Academies of that period. These many attractions had. enabled her to enchant royalties, statesmen, ambassadors and poets whom h er great wealth, inherited from three previous husbands, had made it possible for her to entertain lavishly.
From their teens Roger and Georgina had been lovers. When younger, he had many times pressed her to marry him, but she had always refused, on the grounds that his work as a secret agent kept him for such long periods abroad. Then, when he had at length decided to give up his adventurous career, she had agreed. But fate had dealt them a cruel blow. Roger had been unjustly accused in Berlin of murder,and condemned to death. Unknown to her, his sentence had been commuted to ten years in prison. After he had escaped and got home, he learned that Georgina, believing him dead, had mourned him desperately for several months; then, not caring what became of her, had married the old Duke of Kew. In consequence on the last day of 1812 Roger had married a girl he had first known as Lady Mary Ware.
The intimacy of Roger and Georgina had always been sporadic, and there had been periods of even years when they hadnot seen each other. But always on his return to England, sometimes only for a week or so, at other times for several months, they had at once resumed their secret liaison; for, spiritually attuned as they had been from the time they were boy and girl, ne i ther had ever found in any other member of the opposite sex such complete satisfaction as they derived from each other, both in bed and out of it.
This night had been no exception. After an epicurean supper, washed down with ample champagne, they had twice made most passionate love and, before dawn, would do so again. Yet, in one sense, it was an exception, because since Roger's marriage all then-previous clandestine meetings had been carefully planned in advance. This one had not.
That day Roger's only daughter, Susan, had been married at St. George's, Hanover Square, to Georgina's only son, Charles, Earl of St. Ermins. At the reception, standing a little apart from the other guests, Roger and Georgina had been happily remarking on the joys that the newly- weds, who had long been in love, would experience that night. Roger had said with a sigh:
'If only you were in Susan's place and I could be in Charles's, what a night we'd make of it together.'
Georgina looked up at him with a wicked smile. 'What's to prevent us from pretending that is so? Let us put it from our minds that you have had me a thousand times. 'Twould make a delightful charade for me to play the part of the bashful bride, while you played that of bridegroom, gentle but desperate eager to see a n d explore my secret place and, there engulfed, experience the greatest of delights.'
'Dam'me, why not? 'Tis a marvellous idea!' Roger exclaimed with a laugh. Then his face suddenly became grave and he added, 'But what the devil shall I tell Mary?'
'Tell her that before leaving just now, my Lord Gastlereagh asked you to wait upon him at the Foreign Office after a late Cabinet meeting this evening. She knows that he often consults you on matters concerning France.'
Roger needed no pressing. When the bride an d bridegroom had been cheered away, he glibly told his wife that, much as he regretted it, he could not accompany her home to Richmond, giving the excuse that Georgina had provided.
Having seen Mary into their coach, he strolled along to White's, played s everal games .of backgammon with a fellow member there, then made his way out to the studio-villa on the hillside overlooking Kensington village, where Georgina pursued her hobby of painting and, at times, spent the night with a beau who had won her favo u r.
They had been lying in silence for some minutes when Georgina enquired, 'How did Mary take your unexpected announcement that you were not returning home with her?' .
Sitting up, Roger refilled their goblets with champagne, handed Georgina hers and replied, 'She pulled a face, but could hardly make in public the sort of scene she now treats me to each time I tell her that I m’an to spend the night in town.'
Georgina sighed. 'What a bore the woman has become. Even if she does not believe the excuse you give her about attending men's dinners, or conferring with statesmen who value your advice on Continental affairs, why cannot she be sensible and reconcile herself to the idea of your having a mistress, as is the case with all but a small minority of men i n your position?'
'I think it to be because she has never been accustomed to the ways of high society. Although her father was an Earl, he was as poor as a church mouse, and left her near penniless. Her only escape from the drudgery of becoming some old woman's companion was to marry that Baltic trader who went bankrupt and committed suicide shortly before I found her stranded in St. Petersburg.'
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allforjesus2001