T.F. Banks - The Emperor's assassin

For a few moments he paced up and down the street, considering what to do next. He was also trying to remember where he had heard the name Lafond before. He sifted through the conversations he'd had with Westcott to no avail, then tried to recall the details of his conversation with Marcel Houde. The chef had dropped so many names. But, yes! Jean-Baptiste Lafond. Abbe Lafond. A royalist connected to some secretive faction.

Morton decided that it was time to try the front door.

Morton was shown into Mrs. M.'s intimate first-floor salon, where the Lady Abbess herself sat at piquet, her tea things at her side, and her fellow players-all women- ranged a bit uneasily about her. Mrs. Mott, however, was very much at her ease, like any other woman of fashion at home to a select circle of her friends. Or almost like. A large woman, dressed in a low-cut gown in which her massive bosom was just a trifle more than modestly gleaming, she gave Morton a slightly harder look than many ladies might have bestowed upon a guest. He suspected that, like himself, Mrs. Mott never forgot a face.

Nonetheless she smiled toothily and bade the Runner welcome. What manner of… introduction might he be seeking?

“I will speak with a Frenchman named Jean-Baptiste

Lafond.”

Mrs. Mott did not seem pleased.

“Here is not the place for such capers,” she remarked bluntly. The anomalous women round the piquet table all frowned a little.

“You mistake me. I merely wish to speak to him, upon a private matter. But madame, permit me to say this much. I am from Bow Street, and while I expect you operate more or less within the bounds of the law here, I'm sure you recognise that there are ways I could make your life exceedingly difficult. Lafond is here. Do not trifle with me, as I can come back with a force. You know how your… reputation might suffer.”

Mrs. Mott's expression was now very sour.

“There are those as might be interested to know their fine Bow Street man 'as been an intimate of this house on past occasions,” she muttered darkly.

“One occasion. And you're welcome to tell anyone you can find to listen. But if you slander me, I'll have you before the Magistrate double quick. Now, is Monsieur Lafond here or not?”

A moment of hesitation. “I can enquire. He may or may not wish to be disturbed.”

“Do not enquire. I shall disturb either him or your entire clientele for some time-the choice is yours.”

Mrs. Mott glared at him for a moment but finally chose the lesser of evils and called for a servant. A little stick of a serving-girl was summoned and led Morton up the stairs.

Morton ascended silently, on steps heavily muffled with a rich Oriental carpet. At the top was a dim, sumptuous hallway, with sinumbra lamps in golden brackets. The first door on the left was ajar. Morton tapped on it. From within a muffled voice. “Who is it?”

“C'est moi,” Morton said in his best accent.

“Entrez” came the reply, and Morton went in.

It was a bedchamber, and in its centre stood a richly draped four-poster, with a green top valance and rich swags of silk curtaining. At a desk against the far wall, with his back to Morton, sat a man in black breeches and a loose linen shirt, bent over and apparently writing. The bed was in disorder, its pillows fallen to the floor and its coverlets swept aside down to the blue-grey sheets. Along their surface stretched the very white form of an unclothed woman.

She was reclining on her side with her face toward Morton, leaning on one elbow and watching him with blank eyes. As he quietly closed the door behind him, he took her in. She seemed almost without hair-on her head, it was drawn back so tightly as hardly to be visible, between her thighs the merest wisp-which made her that much more starkly, somehow embarrassingly naked. Her face was sharp and almost masculine, and her long shape was boyish too, chest just dimpled with small pointed breasts, jutting hip angular and gaunt. To Morton she seemed like a parody of an erotic painting, a bleached and bony odalisque, a meagre Venus striking the incongruous pose of the goddess of love. Her age was unguessable but not young, and the empty gaze with which she met his regard was quite without shame, or self-consciousness, or human response of any kind. Above one breast an ugly blue half-circle showed in stark relief.

Without turning, the man in the chair said, “Alors, tu as decide. C'est assez tard. Mais ”-and here he sighed with impatience- “mais il faut prendre un navire, ou un autre. Il faut choisir.”

Morton did not reply but stood just inside the door with folded arms. Except for the bed and its nude, the chamber was very orderly, almost prim. The man's buckled shoes were arranged neatly together beside the unlit fireplace, and Morton noticed his black frock coat hung very precisely over the other chair in the corner.

The priest made a final stroke and set his pen down, blotted his work briefly, and turned, still speaking.

“Bon. Maintenant-”

And then he stopped, seeing Morton.

“Now?” softly asked Morton.

The other stared at him, his face set but showing no particular alarm. Jean-Baptiste Lafond's face was triangular, his broad white brow narrowing through high cheekbones to a small, almost lipless mouth and a sharp, closely shaven chin. His head was tonsured, and he wore small round golden-framed spectacles. They stared at each other a long moment, before Morton spoke.

“Henry Morton, of Bow Street. Monsieur Lafond?”

“ Abbe Lafond, yes.”

“Ah, Father Lafond,” murmured Morton, and his eye could not help another brief, sardonic glance to the naked woman.

A flicker of irritation crossed the Frenchman's face- not embarrassment-and without turning he made a curt gesture to her with his hand, motioning toward the door. The woman obediently swung her bare feet over and sat up. She rose stiffly, as if weary, and bent slowly to gather up the articles of feminine dress that were scattered on the floor amongst the bedclothes. As the two men waited in silence, she began to transform herself. A filmy undershift she arranged slowly, then pulled it over her head and drew it down over her nakedness, rather awkwardly. Then a silk pelisse and belt, sandal shoes, and a neck scarf, and the whore began slowly but certainly to disappear, to be replaced by the woman of fashion, a hard-featured but well-bred Englishwoman, a little past her prime, Morton could now see, perhaps five and forty even, a bit brittle but refined, erect. Now from the side cabinet she took up her discarded ornaments, slipped rings onto her fingers, and over her flat breast draped a thin silver chain, from which depended a small silver cross. Fully clad, transformed, she turned toward Lafond, head bent. He extended his ring-hand. She curtsied and bowed to kiss it, without ever raising her eyes to him. As she limped toward Morton, he stepped aside. The sourness of her sweated body, and the odour of venery, faint but unmistakable, touched his nostrils as she passed him.

When she was gone, he pulled the door closed again and turned back to Lafond, repugnance and suspicion stirring within him.

“What is it you want, Mr. Morton?”

Morton frowned. “Your countryman, the Count d'Auvraye, is dead, as is his mistress, and Jean Boulot is suspected of aiding the murderers. Boulot recently visited you, and I wish to know why.”

The priest tilted his sharp chin very slightly downward, causing the lens of his spectacles to glint for a moment and deny Morton the sight of his eyes. But it was only a moment, and then Lafond was once again meeting his gaze steadily.

“Is everyone who has had speech with Jean Boulot a suspect, then?”

“No, but you are affiliated with the Chevaliers de la Foi, who have resorted to violence and murder in the past.”