The Emperor's assassin moabsr-2

by T. F. Banks

  “You did not stay in safety, in the kitchen?”

  Mrs. Barkling's indignation rose. “Miss Boynton was upstairs, sir! I called to her as I came, telling her to hold fast and I would soon be there. As I came into the drawing room, I could hear the man coming down the stairs. I feared the worst, sir. I mean, that he'd done some harm to Gladys.” It was not fear that Morton saw in her bluntfeatured face now, but anger, the hunger for battle rising in her again as she remembered.

  “Pray, continue.”

  “The man and I reached the doorway from the drawing room together. We faced each other. There were no words between us, sir, as it was perfectly clear what both of us were about. He had pistols in both his hands, and he raised the one in his right hand and pointed it at my face, while at the same instant I struck at him with my cleaver. I hit his arm, here”-she patted her fore-arm-“and at the same second his pistol discharged and took off part of my ear.” Morton could see now the proof of this, dark stains on the back of her collar that were out of view before. He could see burns on that side of her cheek, too, from the closeness of the muzzle-blast. Mrs. Barkling had obviously tidied herself, washed off the black powder, and put on a fresh apron to cover most of the blood, but the angry red marks on her face remained.

  “So,” she said, “then we stood a moment taking breath and looking at each other. The pistol had fallen from his grip-here it is.” Morton reached for the weapon on the little table and examined it as Mrs. Barkling continued. “For my own part, I still had my cleaver in hand, so I think he decided to try no more throws with me. He ran out the door. Then upstairs I heard the blessed sound of Miss Boynton's voice, weeping and wailing. I thought of going up to her at once, but as she was giving such hearty voice, I felt sure she was not hurt, and it seemed better to fetch the constable from around the corner first. Then, after Mr. Wainwright went running on ahead, my legs went all to jelly, and I had to rest against a railing. 'Twas pure weakness, sir, and with my Gladys wanting me, but I admit it to you. After that I came on and arrived back here just as she ran back downstairs, and you gentlemen were helping Armand.”

  “How much time had elapsed, ma'am, do you think?”

  “It seemed long, but mayhap 'twas not. A matter of a few minutes. But you wished to know the appearance of this man, with whom I had the set-to. Firstly, he was a stranger to me-I never laid eyes upon him before. Secondly, he was a very large man, as Miss Boynton has said, above six feet, and eighteen or nineteen stone. He wore tradesman's garb, sir, or that of a mechanic- rough breeches and an old woolen shirt, open at the neck. He had no proper beard, but he had not shaved of several days, neither. His hair was… no, sir, I cannot recollect anything of his hair. His eyes-they were black, or brown. Yes, I can aver so. Not blue. Oh, yes. His teeth were crooked, and gappy, and stained. Yes, his mouth was a fright.”

  Morton waited as Mrs. Barkling considered. But she could call back nothing more, so he asked: “The other man, ma'am. Did you see him?”

  “No, sir, I did not.”

  “Are you quite sure there were two?”

  “There were four shots fired in all, sir. Does that not suggest two men, each with two pistols? I think the second man had already gone out the house door when I encountered the other. The door was open.”

  “Did the count say or do anything that seemed unusual or out of place to you, Mrs. Barkling?”

  “Well, sir.” She considered. “He were… moody, Mr. Morton. Not his usual self, and he and Monsieur Rolles were closeted up, talking-even more than usual.”

  The count had cast off his mistress for betrayal, and then she was murdered. Morton would have been more surprised to find that the old man was not moody.

  “Did anyone visit?”

  “No, sir. No one since the Count d'Auvraye arrived yesterday afternoon. He comes here to get away from all that, I think, Mr. Morton. I've never been there, but it's said his house in London is a regular hive of comings and goings.” She raised a finger. “Though there was one man, sir, last week when the count was in residence.”

  Morton leaned forward. “Who?”

  “I am sorry to tell you I don't know his name. None of us liked the looks of him, though. The master seemed to feel the same way, and so did Monsieur Rolles. They were both very agitated after he'd left.”

  “You mention Monsieur Rolles, ma'am. I do not see him here today. Did he not come down from London, then? I mean, this time.”

  “He came with the count yesterday afternoon. But then the count sent him back to London, in the early evening. I believe he had a message of some sort for him to deliver. After that the count was alone. Neither Madame Countess, nor the two misses, nor anyone else were with him last night. But 'twas not unusual.”

  “What did last week's visitor look like?”

  “A man of normal height, aged some thirty years, dressed as you might expect a foreign music-master or wine-agent to dress. Nothing much to distinguish him, sir, except that he had a red stain on his head-a raspberry-mark.”

  Morton sat back and gazed at the estimable Mrs. Barkling. Boulot, again.

  “How did these two men get into the house?” he wondered aloud. “I suppose Armand must have answered the door and let them in. Did anyone hear the knocker?”

  None of the women in the room could recall hearing it. Morton spent some time questioning these other women, while Mrs. Barkling listened impassively, side by side with Gladys Boynton. No one else had seen either of the two men or heard Armand's words. Most of them had been either in the kitchen or on the second floor. One had been out to market. At the sound of shots, they had all hidden themselves. One or two had seen the visitor the previous week but could say nothing more about him. There had been an air of secrecy about his visit.

  Finally Henry Morton drew back, and his attention returned to Mrs. Barkling. One strong hand lay in her aproned lap, and her severe features were set in a frown. Morton's imagination called back to his mind's eye the moment of confrontation. The peaceful house suddenly, unexpectedly, erupting with noise and terror. And below, that unhesitating response, reaching for a weapon and heading straight for the danger itself. Then, face-to-face with murder-and not backing down.

  “I salute you, ma'am,” he said, moved. “You are a woman of spirit. The wound you inflicted will not be easy to conceal. With luck, you have delivered these vicious persons into our hands.”

  But Mrs. Barkling was impervious to flattery. Her response was sharp.

  “See that they are caught and hung, sir, and you'll repay our trust in you. Innocent working folk are not to be threatened in their places of employment, whilst going about their proper tasks. Now, if you have nothing more, we must be about laying out these two bodies.”

  He asked them not to do this yet, as the coroner would very certainly need to see them in their current condition. He would surely be up from London before the day was out and would also doubtless be planning an inquest. They should rest now, and after he had taken a last look at things as they lay, they could perhaps put the house to rights. He warned them, too, that there would be an onslaught of people-officers of the crown but also writers from the newspapers, and the merely curious. A double murder, and one of them of a notable foreign personage, was not so usual a thing in England.

  He found Jimmy Presley in the White Hart, the tavern at the west end of the terrace, where he had set up shop in the taproom, questioning the townsmen.

  “There are a half dozen of them as say they saw the murderers, Morton. Four of them say there was but two, and the other two, they say there were three.”

  Morton tossed his hat down on the oaken table and laid the murderer's pistol beside it with a sigh. He gestured to the tapster for refreshment.

  This was about average. Folks' stories never matched up exactly. The third man might have been one of the party, or an unrelated man, glanced in the distance. Or he might have been a product of the imagination altogether.

  “How did they describe them?”
/>   This too was not very consistent. The large man, whom Mrs. Barkling had wounded, seemed to come through in some of the descriptions, as did the not-very-helpful observation that the other man was smaller. No one mentioned anything that sounded particularly like Boulot. But plainly enough no one had seen any of the men close up or for more than an instant.

  Morton picked up the pistol that lay on the table and turned it slowly in his hands. The caustic odor of black powder still clung to the steel. A fine inlay of silver wire decorated the grip and stock, and upon the lock a stand of arms stood proud. It was a greatcoat pistol, smaller than a duelling pistol-about ten inches long. It was not a new gun, dated 1783, though by the looks of the steel it had been lightly used. The maker's name, engraved upon the barrel, was Twigg, London.

  “That's a fine gun,” Presley said.

  “Yes.” Morton tested the grip. “Made for someone with a small hand.” He held it up, aiming toward a post not a few feet away, cocked it, and pulled the trigger. A small shower of sparks scattered off the steel as the flint struck. He slid the gun across the table to Presley. “See if you can find its mate,” the older Runner said.

  Presley picked up the pistol, gave it a cursory examination, then slid it into a pocket. “I shall go speak with Mr. Twigg, gun maker.”

  “Unfortunately, John Twigg left the gun maker's trade before you were born.” Morton glanced round the room. “We shall have to linger here until the other Bow Street men arrive,” he said, as he received his ale and bread. “Then we're for London again, to speak with the count's family and consult with Mr. Townsend. We need to find Boulot more than ever now.”

  Presley wanted to know what the maidservant had seen, and Morton relayed to him the tales he had heard in the house. At the description of Mrs. Barkling's battle with the tall intruder, the young Runner whistled.

  “All to protect her master. There's loyalty.”

  “I'm not so sure it was her master she was protecting,” Morton said quietly. But he went no further. There were certain kinds of truth he suspected Jimmy Presley was not quite ready for, and Morton had no desire just now to listen to shocked denunciations or crude jests. His knowledge of Mrs. Barkling, and everything she was, he kept for himself, in a place he could do it honour.

  CHAPTER 18

  Arabella stood upon a small footstool while the costumer, Madame Beliveau, draped silk about her. They were in the costumer's chambers in the upper reaches of the theatre, the noise of the city only a dim rumble, punctuated sporadically by the voices of the rehearsing players.

  “The skirt will fall like so,” she said. “Do you see?”

  Arabella admired her reflection in a mirror.

  The elfin dressmaker glanced up at the mirror herself, assessing the effect. “Good, yes?”

  “Tres belle, oui,” Arabella agreed.

  “Then the lace. Can you hold…?”

  Arabella pinched the fabric between her fingers and held it tight to her waist. Madame Beliveau found a swath of lace.

  “That is exquisitely made,” Arabella said.

  “Yes, it is from France,” the other woman said in her clear, almost unaccented English. She seemed to offer only the occasional French word, for emphasis, not out of necessity. “There is none finer. We use nothing else.”

  “It must have been difficult to come by, these last years.”

  “It has been difficult at times, but Madeleine De le C?ur has kept me supplied.”

  Arabella smiled at her reflection in the mirror. It was interesting, the way the smuggling had worked over the years of the blockade. The government had gone to great efforts to stop the illegal trade, while its members drank smuggled wine, ate smuggled cheese, and dressed their wives in smuggled fabrics often sewn into dresses in the French style!

  “Have you known the De le C?urs a long time?”

  “Oh, yes. For much of our lives.”

  “Madame De le C?ur told me she dressed the ladies of the court of Versailles.”

  Madame Beliveau laughed charmingly. “Well, we can both make such a claim, I suppose.”

  “Which means you did, or you did not?”

  The costumer pinned the lace in place, regarded Arabella in the mirror a moment, and then shook her head. The lace came off. “We were both seamstresses, a long time past now. Too long. We learned our trade under the great Catharine Brehl. That is how we came here, to London. We fled… what is now called le terreur. But it is true Madame Brehl made many dresses for the great ladies of the court, and we seamstresses sewed them, stitch by stitch.”

  She readjusted the lace and stopped to peer at Arabella in the looking-glass. “Non, non, impossible!” she pronounced, and tossed the lace onto a chair. A swath of creamy silk was plucked from among the rainbow of fabrics spread over tables, benches, and chairs.

  “Ah!” she said. “Peut-etre celui-ci-this one.” She arranged it over Arabella's shoulders, folding it expertly.

  “Perhaps too much decolletage?” Arabella wondered.

  “Your character is a saint?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Well, then. You have a fine bosom.” She rearranged the fabric-for the sake of Arabella's modesty presum ably, though Arabella thought the difference slight.

  “So you came to London, and then…?”

  “Well, we continued as we had in France, though the gowns were not so-tres ornee-ornate-if that is the word. Then Madame Brehl retired. Madeleine went back to France, and I eventually found my way into the theatre, as you see.”

  “But Madame De le C?ur did not stay in France.”

  “No, of course. She was there a few years and prospered somewhat. She made gowns for Josephine-Napoleon's Josephine. But then she came back to England. France had changed too much, I think, and her hero had crowned himself l'empereur. That was the end for her.”

  “I see.” Arabella gazed at the small woman as she busied herself about Arabella's person, tucking the material here, pinning it there. “Then she was once a supporter of Bonaparte?”

  “Many were, madame. Many were.”

  Arabella wanted to ask if Madame Beliveau had counted herself among them but thought the question might be too personal. She was, after all, seeking information about the De le C?urs, not Jacqueline Beliveau.

  “Do you know this man who supplied the De le C?urs with their French lace and fine wine? Oh, what was his name-Boulot?”

  “Jean Boulot? I have only met him once or twice. He tried for some time to make his way on the London stage. Perhaps you met him yourself? He was a singer in Paris. Not of the opera, but the comic opera. Many thought he would one day be a singer renomme-famous. But here in England his talents fell on dark ears.”

  “Deaf,” Arabella said before she'd thought.

  “Pardon?”

  “Deaf ears.”

  “Oui, deaf ears.” The small woman continued to busy herself about Arabella, tucking fabric here, letting it out there.

  “So he became a smuggler?”

  “He became un ivrogne. A victim of his own wares, a drunkard. But he has a friend among the smugglers. Someone who admires his talent-that is what people say at least, though it might be a joke.”

  “It sounds a little like,” Arabella ventured. “How did Boulot come to be in London, I wonder. He was not a nobleman, was he?”

  “Jean Boulot?!” The Frenchwoman laughed. “No, he is not a nobleman. What was it people said? I can't remember. Ah, oui. He had friends among the intellectu-als-as artistes sometimes do-and they ran afoul of Fouche. These men were dragged off to prison, but when the secret police came for Boulot, he was not home, and he was warned. His escape to England was managed through some relative or friend who dealt with the smugglers. And now he is here, nothing but a vestige of the Jean Boulot who once sang for the Parisian audience and had ladies throwing him flowers. You see, madame, we French do not grow well in soil that is not French. It is une verite-well, a sad truth. Beyond our borders we do not prosper. And now they have ta
ken Napoleon away from France, and he will be like Jean Boulot, but more tragique-sorrowful-and humilie-humiliated.”

  And it will all be well deserved, thought Arabella, but she kept this to herself.

  CHAPTER 19

  While waiting to speak with Sir Nathaniel, Henry Morton wrote a quick note to Geoffrey Westcott and had it delivered to the Admiralty. Westcott no doubt had his own sources, but few of them would have been as close to the location of the murder as Morton-and he was quite sure that Captain Westcott would want to know about the death of such a prominent royalist.

  Just as the message boy went out, John Townsend came in, a newspaper in his hand, a pipe clasped tightly between stained teeth. The sweet smell of tobacco preceded him, emanating from his clothes.

  “Mr. Townsend?”

  The old man stopped, not having noticed the Runner who had once been his protege.

  “Ah, Morton. There you are. Did you catch them? These men who did for the count?”

  “I didn't. They slipped down the river on the tide, and we could not find them.”

  The old man made an angry noise and cursed under his breath. He took the pipe stem from between his teeth. “Mistress and man,” he pronounced. “The woman tortured to learn what schemes her lover set in motion, the man murdered to stop him from doing-what, I do not know.”

  “It does seem a pretty snug fit,” Morton said.

  “You'll not find another boot better suited to that particular foot, I think. But what was this man d'Auvraye up to? Do you know?”

  “I don't, John, that's the hell of it.”

  The two men took seats in the little panelled antechamber to Sir Nathaniel's office. Townsend waved his creased newspaper at Morton, then slapped it against his palm. “What are the French royalists most concerned with at this moment in time?”