T.F. Banks: The Emperor's assassin

“Madame Beliveau gave me your name,” Arabella said.

The severity of Madame De le C?ur's countenance was erased by a smile. “Ah, oui , and how is my old friend?”

“She is well and sends her regards.”

The woman dipped her head modestly as though receiving a compliment.

“And what is it that brings you here, Madame Malibran'? Shall I make you a gown so to meet the Prince Regent in style?”

“I should be pleased beyond measure to have one of your gowns, madame, but today we are on other business.” Arabella set the package of clothes on a work table and unwrapped it. “We are trying to discover the identity of the woman who owned these beautiful clothes. Madame Beliveau said that only you could have made them.”

Madame De le C?ur raised her spectacles but kept her other arm crossed over her bosom, as though unwilling to touch something so repugnant as another's clothing.

“And why you want to know this?” she asked, and Morton thought she looked suddenly shaken.

“A woman was found dressed in these clothes, madame,” Morton said, “and that woman was dead. We do not know her name.”

Madame De le C?ur put out her hand to a table, her eyes closing. Her daughter was at her side almost immediately, and a member of her staff quickly brought forward a chair so that she might sit.

She wept softly, not sobbing or crying out. Just a silent stream of tears and a look of complete wretchedness upon her handsome face.

Morton stood silently by.

“Perhaps, monsieur-” the daughter began.

“Non,” Madame De le C?ur said. “ 'Ow did this 'appen?” she managed, her perfect English slipping away suddenly.

“We do not know, madame,” Morton said. “Until we know the identity of the poor woman, we are at a loss to find the cause of her death.”

“ C'etait Angelique Desmarches,” the woman said, mopping tears from her cheeks with a bit of linen she had been given. “It was her. She is dead? You are certain?”

“A woman was found dead wearing these clothes. Whether she is Angelique Desmarches, I cannot yet say. I need someone to view the body and tell me if this is so.”

“Oh, I could not!” the woman moaned. She waved a hand at her daughter. “Amelie. Allez. Go with the Bow Street man and see if it is Angelique. I pray that it is not. I pray this very much.”

But even in the city of London in the summer of 1815 prayers were not always answered. After accompanying Morton to view the body, young Amelie was certain beyond doubt that it was indeed the woman named Angelique Desmarches. Arabella was too affected by the sorrow of mother and daughter to be triumphant and had gone off to the rehearsal very subdued.

Morton was as patient as he could be under the circumstances, but there was the matter of a likely mur-der-and murderers very often fled the vicinities of their homicides as quickly as their ingenuity and finances would allow.

Back at the dress shop once again, Morton stood quietly by as Madame De le C?ur was given the bad news. She surprised Morton by taking it calmly, as though she had collected herself in his absence.

“I was so afraid this would be so,” she whispered.

They were in a small office now, flanked by three large oaken secretaries, all neatly organized, their papers weighted by small, ivory carvings of Oriental origin. The room was removed from the street, silent, joyless, and grave.

“Who was Madame Desmarches?” Morton asked.

Madame De le C?ur looked up at him, patting her eyes with a bit of linen. “And who are you, Mr. Morton, when all is said and done?”

“I am just what your daughter told you I am, madame. A constable in the employ of the Bow Street Magistrate. And I am here to find the person or persons who killed your friend, for I assume you knew her more than a little. Where did she live?”

“Amelie? Find Madame Desmarches's address for Monsieur Bow Street.” She gestured to a chair, and Morton sat down.

“I do not, in truth, know her well-or I did not, I should say. She was a loyal customer, always paid her bills on time-not a common thing among many of my patrons, Monsieur Morton, despite their apparent wealth. She was a very kind person, not too revealing of her mind, if you know what I mean. She dressed well, if I do say this myself. I don't know how long she was here in England, but her English was less good than mine. She was very beautiful and as young as one could ever desire to be.”

“And her husband, madame?”

She shook her head. “She was a widow. I know no more than that. She did not speak of it. Many will not.”

“What family did she have? Were many here in England?”

“I do not know, monsieur. She spoke nothing of family to me. I think she must have married well-above her station, certainly-for she did not have the manner of the French noblesse . That is really all I know.”

“Were you aware of anyone who was her friend? Anyone who knew her at all?”

The woman shook her head.

Morton sat back in his chair. A name and a dwelling place were a start, but he had hoped, after seeing Madame De le C?ur's reaction to the news, that she knew much more. Ah, well, the French were more emotional than the English, which no doubt explained it- or else losing a customer who paid on time was more traumatic than Morton had at first guessed.

“And what of you, Madame De le C?ur? Will you return to France now that your king has been restored?”

The linen was applied again, as though there were some new sorrow Morton had disturbed.

“I do not know what I shall do, monsieur. I have been here so long now, here where my talents have hardly been noticed. I once dressed the women at the court of Versailles, but what kind of world will they make in France now? Many hope that the hands of the clock will be turned back, but it will not be so. I don't know what I shall do. I don't know. So many of us have been stranded here on your shores, like la baleine upon the beach. We belong nowhere now. We have only your English air to breathe, and we are smothering.”

Henry Morton and Jimmy Presley descended from a hackney-cab before a modest brick house in Hampstead Road, just past the turnpike. According to Madame De le C?ur, Angelique Desmarches had lived here, on the edge of town, her secluded little dwelling shadowed by oak trees and surrounded by a thick hedge. Opposite, but set back from the road, was the gleaming white expanse of Mornington Place, many of its houses so recently completed that they were still unoccupied. Behind on both sides stretched green fields, and as the two police men walked up the gravel path to her door they could hear the distant clanking of cowbells.

The housekeeper, a short, grey-haired woman with delicate features, opened the door.

“Sir?” she said, taking in Morton's appearance, making a quick assessment of how to treat these strangers- and then her eyes lit upon the gilt-topped batons that marked them as Bow Street Runners. A hand went to her mouth.

“What has happened?” she asked quickly.

“Is this the residence of Madame Angelique Desmarches?” Morton asked.

The woman nodded, a quick birdlike motion.

“Is there some member of her family here with whom I might speak?”

A shake of the head. “No one. She has no one.”

Morton looked at the poor woman standing before him, so braced for bad news. He took a deep breath, feeling sadness settle over him like a grey winter day. “I regret to inform you, madame, that Madame Desmarches has been found dead.”

For the briefest moment the woman leaned her forehead against the door, which she still held partially open. A moan escaped her, and she pressed her eyes tightly closed. With a visible effort she pulled herself upright, squaring her narrow shoulders and composing her face. It was a remarkable act of will, as though she had not a moment more to give over to grief.