He reached up and took the revolver from Guymon’s hand and Guyon looked across at Mallory and smiled wryly. “Sometimes we can be too clever, my friend.”

“Nice to have you back,” Mallory said.

De Beaumont opened the door and nodded to Marcel. “Take him below and watch him carefully. I’ll send Colonel Mallory down later.”

He closed the door behind them, turned to Mallory and smiled. “And now that we all know exactly where we are we can perhaps relax for half an hour.” He took a bottle and two glasses from a cupboard in the corner and returned to his chair. “This is really quite an excellent cognac. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Mallory sat in the opposite chair, aware of Jacaud at his back, and waited for what was to come. He accepted a glass of cognac, drank a little and leaned back. “I can’t understand what you hope to gain from all this. Murder and assassination will only lose you what little support you command.”

“A matter of opinion,” de Beaumont said. “The only politics which seem to matter in this modern world are the politics of violence. Palestine, Cyprus and Algeria were all examples of victory achieved by a deliberate and carefully planned use of violence and assassination. We can do the same.”

“The circumstances are completely different. In the cases you’ve quoted, nationalistic elements were opposed to a colonial power. In your own, Frenchmen are murdering Frenchmen.”

“They are not worthy of the name, the swine we have dealt with so far. Loud-mouths, professional liberals and scheming politicians who feathered their own nests while I and men like me rotted in the Viet prison camps.” De Beaumont laughed bitterly. “I remember our homecoming only too well. Booed all the way into Marseilles by Communist dock workers.”

“Ancient history,” Mallory said. “Nobody wants to know. In any case, unless they’d been through the same experience themselves they wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.”

“But you have1,” de Beaumont said. “Deep inside, I think you know what I mean. You learned a hard lesson from the Chinese. You put it down in cold print in that book of yours. What happened when you put it into practice?”

He stared into the fire, a frown on his face. “It was going to be different in Algeria, we were certain of that. We fought the fells in the jebel of the Atlas Mountains, in the heat of the Sahara, in the alleys of Algiers, and we were beating them. In the end we had them by the throat.”

He turned to Mallory. “I was in the army plot of the 13th May, 1958. They gave us no choice. They would have arrested my friends and me, tried us on trumped-up atrocity charges, designed to please the loud-mouths and fellow-travelers back home in Paris. We put de Gaulle in power because we believed in the ideal of a French Algeria, a greater France.”

“And once he was in control he did exactly the opposite to what you had intended,” Mallory said. “One of the great ironies of post-war history.”

De Beaumont swallowed some more cognac and continued. “Even more ironic that I, Phillipe de Beaumont, descendant of one of the greatest of French military families, should have helped place in power the man who has destroyed the greatness of his country.”

“That remains to be seen,” Mallory said. “I’d say that Charles de Gaulle was moved by one thing only – deep patriotism. Whatever he’s done he’s done because he thought it best for France.”

De Beaumont shrugged. “So we disagree? It’s of little moment. After his visit to St. Malo on the 3rd of next month he will no longer present a problem.”

“I don’t know what you have in mind, but I wouldn’t count on anything. How many times have your people failed now? Eight, isn’t it?”

“I flatter myself that my own organisation has been rather more successful. These affairs need the trained mind, Malory. Everything I handle is a military operation, planned to the last detail in conditions of the strictest security. L’Alouette affair, I have handled personally from the beginning. My colleagues in Paris know nothing about it. I work strictly on my own and use them as an information service only.”

Mallory shook his head. "You can’t last much longer. You’re working on too big a scale. Already L’Alouette's become more of a liability than anything else.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong.” De Beaumont got to his feet, took a couple of charts from the cupboard beside his chair and crossed to a small table. “Come over here. You’ll find this interesting.”

They were Admiralty charts of the area between Guernsey and the French coast and he joined them together quickly. “Here is He de Roc and St. Pierre, thirty miles south-west of Guernsey. The nearest French soil is Pointe du Chateau, only twenty miles away. You know the area?”

Mallory shook his head. “The closest I’ve been is Brest.”

“A dangerous coast of small islands and reefs, lonely and wild. You will notice lie de Monte only a quarter of a mile off the coast, the Gironde Marshes opposite. There is a small cottage on an island perhaps half a mile into the marsh on the main creek. Eight miles from a road and very lonely. Not even a telephone. There are only two people in residence at the moment.”

“And you want them?”

“Only the man. Henri Granville.”

Mallory straightened, a frown on his face. “You mean Granville the judge, the Procureur General who retired last month?”

“I congratulate you on your intimate knowledge of French affairs. He arrived there with his wife yesterday. They are quite alone. Of course, no one is supposed to know. He’s fond of solitude – solitude and birds. Unfortunately for him, a contact of mine in Paris got news of his movements last night and let me know at once. I’m sending Jacaud across in L’Alouette later today. His execution should cause quite a stir.”

“You’re crazy,” Mallory said. “He must be eighty if he’s a day. On top of that, he’s one of the best-loved men in France. God in heaven, everybody loves Granville! Politics doesn’t enter into it.”

“On three occasions now he has presided at tribunals which have condemned old comrades of mine to death,” de Beaumont said. “Now he must pay the consequences. By striking at Granville we prove once and for all that we are a force to be reckoned with. That no man, however powerful, no matter what his public standing, is safe from our vengeance.”

“Henri Granville never condemned anyone in his life without good reason. Harm him in any way and you’ll bring the mountain in on you.” Mallory shook his head. “You’ll never get away with it.”

De Beaumont smiled faintly, crossed to the fire and poured more cognac into his glass. “You think not?” He swallowed a little of the cognac and sighed. “I will postpone your execution till this evening. By that time Jacaud will have returned. It will give me some satisfaction in sending you to your death with the knowledge that Henri Granville has preceded you.”

“Which remains to be seen,” Mallory said.

De Beaumont turned and indicated a tattered battle standard hanging above the fireplace. “An ancestor of mine carried that himself at Waterloo when his standard-bearer was shot. It was with me at Dien-Bien-Phu. I managed to hang on to it during all those bitter months of captivity. You will notice it bears the motto of the de Beaumonts.”

"Who dares, wins",” Mallory said.

“I would remember that if I were you.”

“Something you seem to have forgotten,” Mallory said. “When that ancestor of yours picked up that standard at Waterloo he didn’t carry it forward on his own. There was a regiment of guards backing him up all the way and I seem to remember that at Dien-Bien-Phu you commanded a regiment of colonial paratroops. But, then, that’s France I’m speaking about. The real France. Something you wouldn’t know anything about.”

For a moment something glowed in de Beaumont’s eyes, but he pushed back his anger and forced a smile. Take him below, Jacaud. He and Guyon can spend their last hours together trying to solve an impossible problem. The thought will amuse me.”