T.F. Banks - The Emperor's assassin

Jimmy Presley had opened the window and was looking down.

“Morton?” The tone of the young Runner's voice alerted Morton.

He went and stood beside Presley and looked down into the courtyard below. There, on the paving stones, one could see, as clear as clear, an almost-round area that was of a different colour, free of dust-as though it had been washed clean.

The two Runners went quickly down the stairs. It took them a moment to find the spot, for close up it was not obvious, which no doubt explained why no one had noticed it before.

Morton crouched over the paving stones, searching, cursing the fashionable tightness of his breeches. There was nothing to be seen. Morton looked up at the window above. Certainly anyone falling from Madame Desmarches's window could have landed here.

“Who washed this spot clean?” Morton asked.

Mrs. Johnson, who stood by clutching her hands tightly together, shook her head. “I don't know, Mr. Morton. John might have done so, but I don't know why.”

Morton stood up. “Jimmy, find a spade or a bar of some kind and pry these stones up.”

A quick tour of the outside of the house revealed a third door, the back entrance, partly screened by a rose trellis. Private, discreet. And in the meadow beyond a small gate in the hedge, plenty of room to leave a hobbled horse to graze, even for hours, and not have it seen from the road.

“And the broken vase?” he said to the hovering Mrs. Johnson.

“Back here, sir.” Morton followed the slight woman to the back of the kitchen, where they found the shattered ceramic vessel and wilted flowers. Morton turned the shards carefully. There was some brown substance dried on the sharp edge of one, but even if it was blood, it proved nothing. The wilted flowers and what had clearly been a beautiful vase made Morton suddenly very sad. He stood for a moment staring.

“No one disliked your mistress,” Morton said, still staring at the cast-away blooms. “Be absolutely truthful, now.”

“No, sir. She was kindness itself.”

“And she had no paramours that you know of? Do not be shocked-it is the most likely scenario. I have seen it before.”

“None, sir. I swear.”

Morton felt at a complete loss. No door or window had been forced. Whoever had done Angelique Desmarches to death had gained access to her house without the use of force.

“Are windows habitually left open on the lower floors?”

“Oh no, sir. Not with Madame here alone.”

Morton did not even know what to ask next. Had the harm done to Angelique Desmarches been inflicted here, in this house? Wouldn't someone have heard?

Morton went around to the courtyard and found Jimmy hard at work, his coat laid over a shrub.

“Anything there at all, Jimmy?”

“Just this.” The young man reached down and re trieved a small clump of matted hair.

Certainly it was of the same color as he had seen on the corpse in Skelton's surgery. Morton showed it to the housekeeper.

“That is Madame's,” she confirmed.

Morton looked up at the windows again.

“I think she fell here, Morton.”

“There is little to prove you right, but I agree,” Morton said.

He sent Jimmy Presley up again to the bedchamber, with instructions to close the window and shutters. He was then to recite the oath he had learned when he was sworn as an officer of the king's peace, first in a normal voice, then somewhat louder, then louder still, till he reached as great a bellow as he could manage. Morton himself crossed the lawn and reentered the kitchen, then bent down to wedge himself into Florrie's little sleeping space. Only when Jimmy was shouting his loudest-and Morton knew the power of that voice from experience- could he be heard from behind the coal scuttle.

“And one is to consider that Florrie was asleep, and it was a woman's voice, not yours.”

Presley, downstairs again, nodded. “Maybe they muffled her, too, to keep her quiet.”

“Aye, perhaps. Go round to the neighbouring houses, Jimmy, and ask the folk there if they heard or remarked anything out of the ordinary. I shall have some words with the footman and the cook.”

Morton asked Mrs. Johnson for a private room, that he might speak to her, and then to each of the servants, alone. He could see well enough that the housekeeper's understanding of the establishment she had charge of was imperfect. He didn't want her influencing the others as she attempted to protect the good name of her mistress and by extension her own.

In the dining room, with the doors closed, he and the housekeeper sat down across the polished satinwood table.

“You said your mistress looked troubled the day she died, Mrs. Johnson. Is there nothing at all that might have caused this? Did she receive a letter?”

“I only know, sir, that she seemed quite herself in the morning, but that her spirits seemed to fall later in the day. In fact, I went out about midmorning to do some errands, some marketing for the house, and when I came back, she had retired to her room, and she seemed poorly when she came out finally for dinner. She ate but little.”

“Then I shall speak with the footman, if you please, Mrs. Johnson.”

The footman was sent in and took a seat as Morton indicated.

“What is your true name, John?” he asked.

The other man raised his head in surprise. Like most servants, he had been given-and accepted-a traditional appellation. Half the footmen in London were “John,” and most of the rest were “Thomas.” Doubtless the case with “Florrie” was the same. “Oh well, sir,” he replied with a modest smile, “I be Archibald Gedge, since ye ask me. I am a Lambeth man originally, but 'ave been in St. Marylebone Parish and hereabouts some seventeen years now.”

They talked awhile of his life and of the occupation he had entered as a boy.

“I had a turn in the glassworks, sir, afore I went into service. I knowed then as what my chances would be if I stayed there . I'd be in my grave now, sure, like others I could tell you of. To catch on in private service was the luckiest chance as ever befell me. You'll not hear a hard word for my masters and mistresses of me , sir.”

“Nor would I ask one. Your housekeeper feels the same way, I'd warrant.”

“Oh aye, Mrs. Johnson's a good woman. She sees no evil, nor hears it, nor speaks of it.” Morton could sense a certain, slightly unusual loyalty here. If most servants were unwilling to criticise their employers, they usually had less reticence about their overseers or superiors of the servant class.

“But I think you're not quite so blind, Archibald, be your heart ever so much in the right place. Madame had a gentleman visitor of a night, didn't she? And this cove had a key to the back entrance, didn't he?”

Now the footman fell silent, lowering his eyes and frowning in discomfort.

“Now, Archibald,” Morton went on, turning his voice slightly harder, “this is a matter of a capital crime. Your mistress was murdered, I'm quite sure.”

“Truly?” asked the man in surprise.

“Aye, there was foul play, and you are obliged to help me find it out. You owe it to your king. And perhaps you owe it to your poor mistress, too.”

The other man swallowed and said, “ 'Tis true that Madame, at the beginning, asked me to have another key made up for the garden door, and give it her.”

“And you did?”

The footman nodded unhappily.

“You've been here going on four years. Did you ever see the gent as used this key?”

After another long pause, Archibald Gedge cleared his throat and began to speak, low. “Once or twice, of a morning, I catched a view of 'im going out just as I was coming in. He even bade me a good morning once, very politelike, as if it were no great matter. He were a gentlemanlike toff, sure, well dressed, and old enough to be young Madame's father. But he were a likely looking cove, for all that.”