The Emperor's assassin moabsr-2

by T. F. Banks

  “I do not like the sound of that,” Darley said, leaning back against the wall. “It would almost certainly mean that d'Auvraye had his mistress tortured to find out what she knew or what her Bonapartist friends were up to.” Darley shook his head. “I would have said the count could never do such a thing. But there it is.”

  But to Arabella nothing was obvious. “Why would the count's daughter give us a letter that incriminates her own father?”

  Laughter in the hallway beyond distracted them a moment.

  “No doubt she was not as astute as you, my dear,” Darley went on when the noise subsided. “She likely did not realise this letter was a copy but thought it from Fouche himself.”

  Arabella considered the woman who had entered her cabinet-how she had reacted when asked if she knew who had murdered her father: “I hope I do not know, madame.”

  “Should this letter not go to the proper people in our government?” Arabella wondered.

  “I suppose, though if it was sent through the mail, the government will be aware of its contents already.”

  This caused Arabella to lift an eyebrow in question.

  “Well, it isn't well known, even within the government itself, but there is a little suite of rooms in Whitehall, near the Foreign Office, where the mail of certain people is opened and read, and diplomatic codes are deciphered.”

  Arabella's other eyebrow rose, and Darley smiled.

  “It is perfectly legal, my dear-or at least it has been sanctioned. The Secret Department, so called, reports to the foreign secretary. The post office intercepts the mail and sends it along to Whitehall, where it is copied and closed again so that no one can tell it has been opened. The seals of the embassies and of many individuals have been copied.”

  Arabella laughed-she could not help it. “Are you telling me that this goes on within the confines of Whitehall and no one knows of it?”

  “Well, certainly Fouche knows, which might explain the veiled language-though he might have sent this by courier so that it did not pass through the Secret Department, in which case I should alert certain people to its existence. But unfortunately it is only a copy of a letter that we believe was written by Fouche. Without the original letter, or the d'Auvraye family vouching for its authenticity, I rather doubt it will be taken too seriously. So someone might be plotting to murder Napoleon-but even that is open to interpretation. I rather doubt the government will care.”

  “Well, let's take it to Henry, at the very least. He should know that the count likely murdered his own mistress. And Bonaparte's followers murdered him in revenge.”

  “I agree. Morton should see this immediately.” Darley looked at her warmly. “But where will we find him?”

  CHAPTER 25

  They were a moment at Bow Street finding someone with the key to the gun cabinet. “You've one for me, I hope,” Westcott said as Morton and Presley each primed and loaded a brace of pistols. Morton wished he had his own Wogdon's or his old turn-off pistols.

  “I wish I had, Captain,” he said as he tipped a powder flask, opening it to deposit a measure of black powder into the neck. He shook a little powder into the pan and closed it. The rest went down the muzzle. “But you're not one of Sir Nathaniel's constables, and I can't provide you with a weapon, at risk of my own position.”

  Westcott looked a bit vexed but then nodded. “I'm sure you don't want firearms in just anyone's hands, though I am an excellent shot at twenty paces.”

  “I'm sure you are,” Morton said. “Let us hope that none of us has need to fire a weapon.”

  A moment later they were off through the warm, dark streets of London, the coach lamps casting the dim shadows of their straining horses on the cobbles before them. Linkmen passed, their charges huddled beneath their lanterns, for London's night streets were dark and never wholly without threat.

  By mistake, they turned into a blind alley and had to climb down and take hold of the horses' bridles to back them slowly out. By the time they reached Basinghall Street, the night was far advanced. A hunchback moon swam in the blur over the jumbled rooftops, and below, the windows of the buildings were dark or only dimly lit. The slow clop clop of a horse as it drew a tradesman's cart along the distant street was the only interruption to the quiet.

  “There is the inn,” Morton said, pointing. “Draw up here. We'll go forward quietly on foot. Boulot might be ready to bolt at the slightest sign of a threat.” Morton felt a liquid rumbling in his stomach, a foreboding. Perhaps it was the dark deserted street or the ominouslooking White Bear, its dark mass like a ship on a silent sea. Boulot had fired a pistol at them before-acciden-tally, he claimed, but he was likely more desperate now. And how many friends had he here?

  Westcott drew the carriage up in the shadow of a building and applied the brake. They climbed down onto the street, and Presley wedged himself out through the small door of the carriage. In the poor light Morton could just make out the young Runner's grim face. Westcott's dark blue coat would have hidden him well had his breeches not been white. The navy man looked alert, ready, perhaps even excited. Morton wondered how much the man had missed the action of a fighting ship these last years.

  “You and I will go in alone, Jimmy, and see what we can learn about Boulot. If the owner of the inn is English, he might tell us all we need to know, but if he should be French, it could be another story.”

  “Should we have brought reinforcements?” Westcott asked.

  “We can still send for help if it seems necessary,” Morton answered, pitching his voice low. “But let's get the lay of the land first.”

  One of the inn's side doors opened at that moment, a fan of light spreading over the uneven cobbles. Men emerged, shadowy at this distance, and then one of them broke and ran. He hadn't gone five paces before he was run down by a larger man who punched him hard and then dragged him to his feet. Two others came up, one pointing a pistol, and words in French reached Morton's ears.

  He drew a pistol and shouted, “Hold! Bow Street!”

  A muffled shout in French.

  Westcott cursed.

  The three shadow men all stopped at once, then one levelled a pistol and fired. Morton and Presley threw themselves back against the building, but Westcott stood in the open, as officers did on the decks of their ships.

  The shadow men dragged their captive round the corner and out of sight. Morton and Presley went pounding across the paving stones, shouting as they went, but they hadn't gone far when someone leaned out from behind the building, and the muzzle flash of a pistol stopped them. The report echoed down the street, the ball passing so close that Westcott's horses reared back, lumbering into each other.

  “Dem!” Morton swore, and they ran on, staying to the shadows.

  The clatter of horses reached them as they rounded the corner, and the sound of wheels rattling over paving stones. A large, old-fashioned carriage bounced off down the narrow avenue. Morton raised a pistol, cocked it, and fired once, but to no visible effect.

  They turned back, shouting for Westcott, who immediately brought the carriage up. Morton leapt up beside the navy man.

  “Was that Boulot?” Westcott asked as he cracked a whip over his team's heads.

  “Yes, I'm sure it was. I heard him call out,” Morton shouted over the clatter of horses and carriage.

  They rounded the corner, narrowly avoiding a few people who had spilled out of the White Bear to see what all the fuss was about. The carriage whisking the captive Boulot away was barely visible now, its lamps disappearing round a curve in the street.

  Westcott was a skilled driver, but he was noticeably unwilling to destroy his fine carriage in the chase, and the other vehicle was soon lost to sight.

  “Difficult to imagine worse luck than that,” the captain said as he slowed his team to a walk.

  “Yes,” Morton said. “We seem always to be arriving a moment too late.” He was still breathing hard from their run and the sudden unexpected fire. He wondered if those were the s
ame men who'd escaped him outside Boulot's door, but in the dark and with the distance, he could not say. Certainly it was likely to be no one else- unless Abbe Lafond was somehow involved. “Can you find us a hackney-coach, do you think?”

  “I'll take you wherever you want to go,” Westcott offered.

  “If you'll carry us out to the toll gate by Apsley House, I'll be much in your debt.”

  “The Hyde Park toll gate it is,” Westcott said, then snapped his whip, and set them off at a good speed.

  The man at the toll gate stood with a lantern in his hand. He looked as though he had been asleep, though there was traffic through this gate both day and night. “Aye. Not an hour ago,” he said. “Big berlin, but ornate and foreign looking.”

  “Did the man who paid you have an accent?”

  “He didn't say a word, yer honour. Just paid his toll and set off. They'd been in some rush to get here- horses were all in a lather.”

  “Sounds like our men,” Presley offered, stepping out onto the roadside.

  Morton considered for only a second. “Let's find some saddle horses, Jimmy, and see if we can't run these men down.”

  “I'll take you on,” Westcott said. “But who do you think they are?”

  Morton was wondering the same thing. “Supporters of Bonaparte. They used Boulot to find the waterman who assisted them in their murder of the Count d'Auvraye. Boulot may not have co-operated freely, but he did give them Berman's name-Berman on the quay. I think they've taken Boulot now because he is known among the smugglers.”

  “But taken him for what purpose?”

  “I do not know,” Morton said. “To kill more royalists, I fear.”

  “Then we must go on with all haste.” Westcott turned to the man, still standing with his lantern. “Lift the bar,” the navy man ordered. “We are on the king's business.”

  CHAPTER 26

  The moonlight brightened as they passed out of the city of London, the sky overhead clearing until it was bright with stars. The Great West Road curved away before them beneath rows of swaying trees. Morton sat up beside Westcott, who had donned a greatcoat and gloves in imitation of the mailcoach drivers.

  For a seaman he was a skilled driver, Morton thought, though among a certain set this was a mark of some distinction. You could see them in Regent's Park on Sunday afternoons, gentry who aped not only the dress of the mail-coach drivers but their manner of speech and other habits as well-not all of these habits worthy of gentlemen. A few young men of good families had gone so far as to take positions driving mail coaches, and one titled gentlemen was said to be planning the purchase of the London/Brighton route so that he might drive whenever the desire struck. It appeared that Westcott was a follower of this fashion, though Morton would not complain of it this night.

  The moonlit country sped by, the carriage rocking and jouncing along the wide white road. Occasionally the coach lamps of a London-bound vehicle swam up out of the obscurity on their right. The clatter of the team, the rattle of wheels, and the other coach went by, its driver cocking his whip in brief salutation. Then solitude and the dark again, into which Westcott sent them plunging steadily. Morton was all but falling from his perch with fatigue but was not ready to sleep yet. He still hoped to catch the carriage and the men who had taken Boulot.

  “You think these men are going to Plymouth?” Westcott asked over the pounding of the horses' hooves, the squeaking of the carriage springs.

  “Yes. I wonder if we should try to alert the port admiral there. Can we use the telegraph?” The Admiralty's semaphoric telegraph had been stretched to Plymouth a decade before, the tall, boxy towers set on high points of land, each about ten miles from the next.

  Westcott shook his head. “No. We should have done that from London. The men in the towers will not let even an officer send a message.” Westcott shifted in his seat. “You asked if I thought Bonaparte could be shot on the deck of the Bellerophon. Do you have some basis to believe that this is planned?”

  “None. But these Bonapartists are killing royalists for a reason. You wouldn't be sorry to see the Corsican shot, I collect?”

  A dark smile crossed the seaman's face. “I confess I would not, but it is my duty to stop such a plot. And I shall do my duty. It is not for Geoffrey Westcott to decide the fate of Napoleon Bonaparte.”

  “Quite so.” Morton rubbed his burning eyes. “Friends went out into the sound to see the little general. Their description of the press of boats and people about the Bellerophon was nothing less than astonishing.”

  “It is peculiar, isn't it? They say he's not shown the least animosity. As though he were really an emperor on an imperial visit, rather than the scoundrel who has spilt English blood on countless battlefields and in all the seas. He is a wonder, I will admit that. Have you ever raised horses, Morton?”

  “I confess I have not.”

  “My father bred horses for racing for many years. It was instructive, I will tell you. Every once in a great while a horse of no particular bloodline would appear and beat all the best horses of its day. The odd thing was, the greatness of this beast was almost never passed down. The blood did not run true. Bonaparte is like that, I think. There will be no one left to follow him. This son of his will come to nothing, mark my words.”

  “The republicans don't much like to hear such arguments.”

  Westcott cracked his whip over the head of one horse-“the laggard,” as he called her. “No, I suppose they don't, but I can make the argument work from the opposite direction just as well. I have been closely associated with the French royalists for much of the war. There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part it is as though they have been breeding the worst stock to the worst, creating a race of idiots who have no concerns beyond honour and privilege.” He was silent for a moment. “But I was in France in the early days of the Revolution, during some of the Terror, even. I saw what men, ungoverned, were capable of. I fear for France, Morton. I fear for the land of my mother. The Bourbons are doomed. They will not hold the nation. France is a ship without a captain. The officers will squabble amongst themselves, and the men before the mast will cease taking orders. Such a ship is bound for the rocks, Morton, bound for the rocks.”

  “You think Bonaparte will come back?”

  “I do not count him out. The man is a phoenix. But he has made war on England and her allies for far too long. It's time we put an end to that threat.”

  “Hang him, then?”

  An odd, shrugging grimace was all the answer Morton received.

  They arrived at the first posting station then and swept into its dim yard beneath a veil of dust.

  Jimmy Presley tumbled out of the carriage, an unlikely-looking passenger of such a conveyance. The dark mass of the inn leaned over them, blocking out the moon. The smell of horses and dung was strong here, mixed with the sweeter smell of hay and grain dust. Three barking dogs appeared, wagging their tails. Presley immediately made friends with them, and they fell silent. An ostler and two boys roused themselves in a few moments; one of them carried a lantern that sent the shadows fleeing and then rushing back across the yard as it swung in his hand.

  “No rest for the deevil or the ostler,” muttered the ostler, a heavy, slow shadow of a man.

  “Did a big berlin come this way, traveling west?” Morton asked.

  “Aye. A passel of Frenchies, wanting everything done double quick, as though they were the bloody Prince of Wales.”

  All of them? Morton wanted to ask. “When did they set out from here?”

  The man rubbed his head.

  “Pardon me, sir,” one of the boys interjected. “Just after three. I heard the inn's clock chime.”

  The ostler gave the boy a sour look.

  Morton could not read his watch in the poor light but guessed sunrise was not far off. “They're just shy of two hours ahead,” he told Westcott, “which means we are not closing the gap at all. In truth, they have gained a little.” Morton considered their situa
tion. The mail coaches did not leave London until night. He looked over at Presley. “We'll have to hire horses and try to run Boulot and his captors down. Can you manage that?”

  “I'll do what needs to be done,” Presley said. He was not much of a horseman, being born to London's working class.

  “We can take my carriage,” Westcott said without hesitation.

  Morton turned to the navy man. “The cost of hiring post horses would be too great, Captain. My magistrate would never countenance it.”

  “Then the Admiralty shall pay,” Westcott said firmly. “And if they refuse, I will bear the cost myself. And I will brook no argument on this.” Westcott turned to the ostler. “At the risk of being mistaken for the bloody Prince of Wales,” he said, “we shall need everything done triple quick. But I shall make it worth your while.”

  Morton reclined as best he could in the small carriage, falling into dream only to be shaken to wakefulness by the carriage lurching or shaking. He rolled down the curtain against the morning sun, but it still found its way through the cracks, throwing stark lines of light about the carriage in a mad race.

  He had sent a note back to Sir Nathaniel telling him what went on and asking that he alert the government to the possible threat to Bonaparte, but he was still not completely convinced himself. Oh, something went on, that was certain, and the man at the centre of it was the drunkard Boulot, who had once supported Bonaparte and had then become a friend of smugglers. A young woman was dead, and an old nobleman and his manservant. Lafond, a general of the Chevaliers de la Foi, was in London for the first time in years-perhaps. And Bonaparte was on a ship in Plymouth harbour. These were all threads of the same cloth, Morton was sure of that, but he could not weave them all together.

  What made the most sense was that the royalists planned to murder Bonaparte. The Bonapartists had got wind of the plan from Madame De le C?ur, who almost certainly had learned of it from Angelique Desmarches, the count's mistress. The supporters of Bonaparte had then tortured Madame Desmarches to find out what the royalists were planning. They had then murdered the Count d'Auvraye in an attempt to stop the royalists.