8. Tales of Secret Service (18)
Arrest and Interrogation
And so matters fell out. On the morning of March 24th the Baron was getting his horse ready—he was to start for Valençay that same day—when Richard came to him to receive his last instructions and 2,700 francs for his expenses. As they talked in the stable-yard there was a knocking at both the back and front of the house, and when Richard opened the back door eleven policemen rushed in and laid hands upon them both. The warrant was for “treasonable communication with the enemies of the state”—a sufficiently vague indictment. While the Baron and Richard were kept in custody in the yard Pâques searched the cottage, and packed up all the clothes, papers, and arms which he found therein.
When he had bundled them all together the Inspector formally asked Kolli who he might claim to be. The answer was: “I am the envoy of the British Government sent to endeavour to free His Majesty the King of Spain from his prison at Valençay.” This seemed to astonish the hearers; Pâques showed surprise. Richard cried (with a tone of despair, as it seemed to the Baron): “What! Then that was all that he wanted.” The Inspector then caused the Baron to be searched, and found on him the three letters given him by Lord Wellesley, 15,000 francs in bank-notes, the false commission to him as a colonel de gendarmerie, and several other papers, as well as a schedule of his diamonds. The last-named document did not give any indication of where the stones had been deposited. The prisoners were packed with four police into a large closed carriage, and left for Paris under escort of a piquet of gendarmes.
While the Baron and Richard were detained in cells at the Ministry of Police, Fouché’s right-hand man, the Under-Secretary Desmarest, hastily ran through the papers which had been found upon the prisoner and in his house. It was obvious that the idea of an assassination plot had been a mistake. But to give out that one more attempt on the Emperor’s life had been hatched in “perfidious Albion” might be fine propaganda, and excellent pabulum for the readers of the Moniteur. It might have a good effect to cause the Baron to be shot off-hand, on the information given by Richard, who could be stated to know the whole design.
On the other hand, there were reasons for taking another course. If Kolli could be sufficiently terrified, he might not only be induced to give the address where the rest of his diamonds were stored away, but also (what was much more important) to disclose the names of the secret agents of Great Britain in Paris, and those of the Royalists to whom he had been accredited by Lord Wellesley. It would also be interesting to discover whether the prisoner of Valençay had been aware of the plan, and how far he would have fallen in with it. If the whole matter had come under Ferdinand’s knowledge, would he have consented to fly? And supposing that it were discovered that he had been implicated in the design, what new measures would have to be taken with regard to his custody?
Hence came a series of cross-examinations of the Baron, with the object of testing his courage and his mentality, and of trying to worm out of him useful information by “third degree” methods, if he should prove silent and obstinate at first. Kolli’s accounts of his long interviews with Desmarest, and afterwards with Fouché himself, form very interesting reading, even when we have discounted his obvious tendency to “take the stage” and allot himself the heroic rôle.
The details are too long to be given, but the gist of them can be stated in a few lines. The Baron was warned, as a preliminary, that nothing could be easier than to treat him as the organizer of an assassination plot, and that the Emperor would certainly credit such a theory. This possibility being laid down as the base of negotiations, Kolli was told that the whole of his doings since his landing were known to the police, and that he had been betrayed on all sides. It was hinted to him that de Ferriet, whom he had met on Sir George Cockburn’s flagship, had notified his landing, and that not only Richard, but Albert de St-B and others of his acquaintance had denounced him. This was for the most part untrue—the object was to inspire the Baron with rage and contempt against his coadjutors at large, and to get him to make incautious remarks about them.
Kolli, according to himself, persevered in a stoic line of reply; he had failed, he was at the mercy of the enemy, he would give no names, his plan must be known through the papers found on him, and he was prepared to take the consequences. The only thing, he says, which Desmarest got out of him was an incautious answer which led to the discovery of the bank at which his stock of diamonds had been deposited.
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