T.F. Banks - The Emperor's assassin

Boulot gave a very brief grunt of sour laughter. “These things are crimes, now? Ah, oui -I am guilty. I am guilty, like million men of my nation, to have love a man, who gave us… such conquest, such dream. But if I am Bonapartiste , after he come back from Elba, why I stayed here? I don't love Bonaparte any longer. But I still love France. I want to see France again. My home! Non, non, monsieur la police , Jean Boulot lost his faith. He lost it long ago. He lost it with the hundred thousand brave men who died in the snow on the road from Moscow. He lost it when the man who was to end tyranny put a crown on his own head and made himself the greatest of all tyrants.”

“You say that now,” muttered Jimmy Presley, “now the British army's dished him up.”

“We hear something different, monsieur,” said Morton.

“From who?”

“Who was it you were expecting, when we arrived?

Who were you asking to leave you in peace ?”

“Who? You. The world.”

Presley and Morton's glances met. Presley's angry energy posed the obvious question. Beat it out of him?

The young Runner was ready.

But Morton decided against it.

“We'll be back when you're sober. You want our pro tection, don't you? That's why you'd like us to haul you over to Bow Street. But you'll have to start singing to get it.” He raised the discharged pistol he still held. “If you cooperate, we might even give these back to you.”

“I'll never be sober,” Boulot mumbled, morosely eyeing his confiscated weapon.

Out in Paul's Court again, Morton and Presley consulted.

“We should have brought him in, Morton,” said Presley. “He could have killed somebody. He might still do it, too.”

“We might bring him in yet, Jimmy. But Boulot is deathly afraid of someone. I think if we keep a good watch on him, we'll soon find out who, and that will be information worth having.”

“Maybe the royalists are going to kill him for what he did to their woman. They'll save Jack Ketch some hemp, maybe.”

“Do you think that husk of a man could apply a thumbscrew to a woman and then throw her out a second-floor window? He can't even piss straight into a chamber pot. But he knew Angelique Desmarches, and he visited the count the night she was killed, and I would have the truth out of him.”

Their little group of urchins assembled again.

“Oy, constables! Oy!”

Presley was going to drive them off, but Morton gestured for him to wait.

“And what is it now, young sir?” Morton asked.

The boy with the topper half as high as himself glanced about as though not wanting to be heard by some. “That Frenchy, Boo-low? I can tell ye summat about him!”

“Well, what is it?”

“The blunt first, yer honour! The blunt first.”

Morton shook his head sceptically but tossed him twopence more. “Mind it be good.”

He of the hat snatched the coins with uncanny quickness. “Here 'tis, yer honour. Boo-low used to tip us some pennies to keep quiet about him livin' hereabouts and to give him warning if there were any askin' 'bout him.”

“I'll have my coppers back if you can't do better than that.”

The child shook his head, almost flinging off his enormous hat with the motion. “But there have been some others 'quiring after him, yer honour. This very morn. Some Frenchies, one bigger 'an you, and another sadlookin' one.”

Morton and Presley looked at each other.

“I wonder what business they had with Boulot?” Presley asked.

“None, yer honour. They couldn't find him, and we wouldn't tell.”

“Then why did you tell us?” Presley asked.

“Because that Frenchy's always half seas over now, and he wouldn't give us a copper for what we done.” The child's indignation was exquisite.

“So you saw a chance to gain a little by us,” Presley said. “Your loyalty is heartwarming.”

At this the child merely looked confused.

Morton bent down to bring his face a little nearer the boy's. “Keep an eye out about this man Boulot, and I'll give you more than you've seen today.” Morton fished in his waistcoat pocket and dropped two more coins into the child's small filthy hand.

“Aye, yer honour!” The boy beamed.

“I want to know of anyone who comes here looking for Monsieur Boulot, or anyone who visits him. Can you manage that without everyone on the street knowing what you're up to?”

“No one'll hear a word from us,” the urchin swore, glancing around at his friends, who all nodded furious agreement.

“Good. Tell me your name, child.”

“William, yer honour. Wil to me mates.”

“Deal square with me, Wil, and we'll get along like kin.”

The boy's face all but lit up. “Aye, yer honour, and when I'm a flash man, you can count on me to tip you t'all the doin's up and down Maiden Lane!”

Morton smiled sadly. “I admire your desire to better your state, William.”

He and Presley left the little knot of aspiring criminals and carried on down the street.

Morton stopped after a few paces. “Jimmy, keep an eye here for a few hours, will ye? I've some calls to pay, but I'll send along someone from Bow Street for relief. If some Frenchmen were looking for Boulot and he's frightened out of his wits, it sets me to wondering.”

“I'm thinking the same.”

“We'll keep the place round the clock. Try to stay out of view, somewhere in the house maybe, so you can get a good look at them if they come.”

Presley was about to turn back toward the rookery off Maiden Lane when Morton felt a sudden cold air of apprehension.

“Jimmy?”

The young Runner turned toward him.

Morton put Boulot's loaded pistol in his hand.

“You'll likely have no need of this…”

“You're likely right.” Presley closed his big fist around it with a nod and set off along the crowded and clamourous thoroughfare.

The Drury Lane Theatre was as busy as a December night, the public having learned that Mrs. Arabella Malibrant had returned and that her understudy was again relegated to a minor role. This was the final month of Dibden's Revenge , and the production had been a resounding success. The theatre was abuzz with speculation about the play now in rehearsals.

Morton stood in the lobby awaiting the evening's leading lady. A stage door existed, but Arabella occasionally had need of the attention of her admirers and would descend among them for a few moments, her unmistakable cumulus red curls making her immediately recognisable. A little ripple of excitement entered the lobby with her, washing through the gathering. Impertinent young men on the stairway turned their quizzing glasses upon her, and gentlemen of more senior years (and in the company of wives) tried not to be seen glancing Arabella's way. Even among the women present she had her admirers.

Morton could not help but warm a little with pride as she took his arm, so that he might escort her out to their waiting hackney-coach. Arabella nodded and said “So kind” and a hundred variations thereof as they made their way through the throng. Here and there she greeted friends and acquaintances, enquiring after children, husbands, lovers.

For a moment they were held up by the crowd pressing around the doors, and Morton found a lovely pair of brown eyes turned their way. It took a moment for him to realise it was he, not the woman on his arm, who was the object of their interest.

“Mademoiselle Honoria,” Morton said, bowing.

“Monsieur Morton,” answered the young woman with a curtsy. She was in the company of her family-all but the elder count-who were engaged in an animated conversation in French. The words flew so quickly that Morton barely caught the gist-talk of returning home to France.