T.F. Banks - The Emperor's assassin

But Morton knew, as surely as if he'd seen a guillotine fall, that d'Auvraye was dead. He felt for a pulse in the neck, and though the body was still warm with life, no heart beat.

“The other chambers,” Morton said. The two Runners went down the hall, tense with readiness. But the rooms were empty-ordinary, sunlit, empty.

“This mustn't have happened more than ten minutes ago,” Presley said. “How far can they have gone?”

“Not far. Go out and see if you can find anyone who saw them and where they went.”

Presley nodded.

As his younger colleague ran back down the steps, Morton returned to the Count d'Auvraye's bedchamber. The young woman, gasping convulsively, looked up at him, desperate, her face swimming in tears. She was wearing housemaid's garb, Morton noticed.

“You are safe,” he tried to reassure her. “You are safe. We are the king's men.”

At this, the maid suddenly found her legs and with a wild cry leapt to her feet and rushed after Presley. Morton did not try to prevent her. He could hear her feet pounding rapidly downward.

“But you must not leave the house!” he called after her. For a moment more he looked at the dead man. The count was clad in a green silk-damask dressing gown, which had sagged open to reveal his motionless chest. On the floor beside the bed were the spilled and shattered contents of a breakfast tray, and the tray itself. Nothing else seemed out of order.

He went out of the room. From the bottom of the stairs the Barnes constable called up.

“Sir? This one's still alive!”

Morton clattered down the stairs. He and the constable and one of the bystanders lifted the man as gently as they could and laid him on his back on a long ottoman in the adjoining room. But there were two wounds in his chest, and the blood was coming fast. They applied hastily fashioned cloth compresses, but these were deep fountains, and nothing seemed to help. The man's eyes were squinted closed, in pain, and he was trembling. But he made no sound at all.

“What is his name?” Morton turned and demanded of the press of people who had edged into the room, despite his commands, and were watching.

“Armand, sir. French fellow-the count's butler.”

Morton bent urgently over him.

“Armand, there's a doctor coming, un medecin . We shall save you, bear up now, bear up, tu vas vivre .” The man made no response. It was not clear he had even heard. “Now Armand, if you can speak. If you can tell us, who was it did this? Qui a fait ca? Did you know them?” But now suddenly the butler's eyes did spring open, staring wide. He began to cough violently, spraying droplets of blood up onto Morton's face and neckcloth, and then to choke, in slow, retching, horrible convulsions. He was still choking a few moments later when the surgeon hurried in. Five minutes after that he was dead.

As the surgeon straightened, Morton slapped his hands together once in angry frustration and spun away.

Presley returned about an hour later. “It appears they went down the river,” he said, bleakly.

“Then they must have passed us!”

Presley nodded his head, chagrined. “Not a few boats went by while you slept.” He shrugged helplessly. “We pulled downstream a fair piece, but the tide's changed and swept them on toward the city. They might have gone ashore anywhere.”

“Un botiment,” Morton said to himself.

“A what ?” There was always a touch of disapproval in the young man's voice when his friend spoke French. Certain kinds of knowledge did not reflect well on their possessors.

“A ship, Jimmy. That's what Boulot said, and I thought that's what he meant, but he was drunk. He must have meant a bachot -a wherry. His friends were saying they could not do it without his help.” Morton put his hands over his burning eyes for a moment. “And the other word I understood was assassiner -assassi-nate-but I did not understand it well enough.”

“Then you think it was our drunken Frenchman?”

“He had something to do with it, I'll wager, he and his Bonapartist friends.”

“And just minutes before we got here!” exclaimed the younger man. “A trice sooner, and we'd have had them! The nerve! In broad daylight!”

“Not just in broad daylight, but as the tide turned. They couldn't have done it before-not and escaped by the river. Look here.” Morton led him through the stillopen door and pointed at the red trail down the outside steps of the house. It was smudged from being trod on but visible yet. “One of them was wounded, and not just a scratch, by the look of it.”

As Presley bent to examine the trail, Morton went on:

“I have assembled everyone who might have aught to tell us. We'd do better to talk to them now, while it's fresh in their minds.”

The younger Runner rose. “Shall I start with them outside?”

“Aye. I will see what can be got from the servants.”

The village constable hovered, uncertain. Morton turned to him.

“Mr….?”

“Wainwright, sir, Silas Wainwright.”

“Mr. Wainwright, if you would be so good, perhaps you can attend me as I interview the women. I'm sure they will be reassured by the presence of a familiar face.”

“Thank you, sir,” stammered back the constable gratefully. “Anything I can do, sir, to be of assistance.”

Morton led him through into the small parlour at the back of the building. Here the domestics of the house sat waiting; this was a larger establishment than that of Angelique Desmarches, and there were half a dozen people in the room. Most of them had small crystal glasses in hand, held with an odd, unfamiliar primness. In the centre of the carpet, on a small pedestal table, lay a wooden-stocked flintlock pistol. Morton recognised the thin-faced, bow-mouthed young maidservant from upstairs, calmer now, eyes red but no longer weeping. Beside her sat an older woman, with an arm protectively round her shoulder. As Morton came in, this latter woman released the younger and rose.

“I am Mrs. Barkling, sir. I have taken the liberty of dispensing some sherry-wine for the female domestics, as a prop to them, given the circumstances.”

“I am sure it is justified, ma'am. I will vouch for you, if asked.”

Mrs. Barkling's eye was steady and her voice strong and deep. She wore a coarse grey-blue smock and an apron over her stocky figure, and Morton's observant glance caught a piece of white sticking-plaster on the bottom of one of her ears.

“I am normally a downstairs maid, sir. But I do some cooking and other work when the count's proper chef is up in London with the family, and I generally have charge of things. We are ready to tell you what we saw. Miss Boynton and I saw the most, so perhaps you will wish to begin with us.”

“Let us do that,” Morton said. He remained standing, using his great height to advantage. He could be an intimidating presence when necessary.

“Gladys?” As the cook turned to the younger woman, her voice softened. “Are you up to it, my girl?” The maid swallowed and nodded dimly.

“Begin with your name,” Morton said.

“Gladys Boynton,” the young woman said hoarsely.

“And where were you when this all began, Miss Boynton?” Morton asked softly. “What did you see and hear?”

“I was serving the count his breakfast, sir,” she began, punctuating her discourse with deep gasps, as though still unable to catch her breath after what had happened, “and suddenly I heard two very loud reports downstairs. I-I dropped my tray.” She took two long deep breaths. “At almost the same moment the door was flung open, and a man strode into the chamber.” She covered her eyes, gasped several times. “He raised a pistol and… and he just…sh-sh-” Sobbing interrupted her, and Mrs. Barkling gravely comforted her, slipping her arm again around the younger woman's frail shoulders, while the others watched with blank sombre faces.