T.F. Banks - The Emperor's assassin

Florrie, when produced, proved to be a thirteen-year-old slip of a girl in a very grubby smock. The Runners seemed to be her deepest terror.

“Were you in the house two nights past?” demanded Jimmy Presley. Florrie gaped up at him in horrified silence.

“You were, Florrie, weren't you?” prompted Mrs. Johnson. “The way you always are?” Florrie managed a small, uncertain nod.

“Where does she sleep?”

“Show the men where you sleep,” Mrs. Johnson told her. The girl led them to a windowless alcove behind the oven, adjoining the coal scuttle, where a pathetic pallet, the stump of a candle, and a single alternate dress hanging on a nail in the wooden crossbeam indicated the abode of the most menial member of the household.

“Did your mistress have any callers that night?” Morton wanted to know.

For a moment Mrs. Johnson stayed mute, giving Florrie a chance to respond independently. This was beyond her, however. In a convulsive movement she hid her face in her apron. The housekeeper reached and briskly pulled her hands down again.

“Foolish girl! Now, attend to the gentlemen. Madame had no visitors that night, did she?” Mrs. Johnson's tone was firm but not harsh. “She never did have visitors of a night, did she? She was a most proper lady, wasn't she?”

Florrie looked quite helpless until, unexpectedly, Francoise came to her aid. “ Alors, ma petite , tell the shentlemens, joost, did Madame 'ave no visitor two night ago?”

“She didn't!” squeaked out Florrie now, and looked profusely relieved.

“There, bon , good, you see.” Francoise smiled apologetically to Henry Morton. “Really, sir, she is a good fille , but not accustom' …” She trailed away, glancing uneasily at Mrs. Johnson, who now wore a deep frown. Jimmy Presley, however, had picked up the same notion the housekeeper had.

“You mean there were visitors on other nights?” he bluntly demanded. This, however, produced total si-lence-shocked, alarmed, or indignant-on the part of all three domestics. Henry Morton took another approach.

“Well, it matters little enough who was or wasn't here, except on the night in question. Now, Florrie, on that night, did you hear any noises? Did you hear anything unusual, especially coming from the upstairs part of the house, from your mistress's room?”

Florrie looked almost desperate now but could be induced to say nothing.

“Caterwauling, or screechinglike?” prompted Jimmy Presley. Morton's young colleague had shown real potential as a Runner since his promotion from the Worship Street Patrole a couple of months earlier. Morton already owed much to his courage and resolution, in the recent business with George Vaughan and his confederates. But there were some things Jimmy had yet to learn about questioning and patience.

“Would Florrie remember if Madame rang for anything that night?” Morton asked, generally. Florrie looked nervously at Francoise, who repeated the question in slightly different words, which induced the maid to close her eyes and vigourously shake her head.

“But she usually does, doesn't she?” Morton smiled encouragingly. “Florrie usually takes her something or other during an evening?”

“Aye!” piped Florrie, without assistance. “Tay, or biscuits!”

“But not that night.”

A shake of the head so forceful that Florrie's stringy blond locks flung about her thin shoulders.

Morton had Mrs. Johnson call John the footman as well and instructed them all to come with the Runners as they made their way back into the house. They went through each room, asking Mrs. Johnson to look carefully at each and tell them if there was anything out of place or unusual. Morton and Presley also ran their practised eyes over each finely appointed room, but they saw nothing. Certainly no signs of anyone being tortured.

They finished their inspection with Madame's bedroom. Morton kept them waiting in the hall, as questions might occur to him.

The room was in perfect order, the windows open on the summer afternoon for airing, the counterpane on the four-poster smooth and neat, and the furniture dusted and polished. He called in the housekeeper.

“Who makes up the bed?” Morton asked.

“That is my task, sir,” said Mrs. Johnson stiffly. No matter what was being investigated, clearly from her perspective it was most improper for any man to enquire into even the most prosaic secrets of the female preserve. But Morton was not to be put off. And there were worse things to be asked.

“On the morning after Madame Desmarches's disap pearance, what was the condition of this bed?”

“I do not take your meaning, sir. ‘Condition’?”

“I mean, firstly, did it appear to have been slept in?”

A hesitation. “No.”

Mrs. Johnson's face reddened. As Morton watched her, he wondered if certain possibilities about the life her beneficent mistress led were only now occurring to the devout mind of the housekeeper. Or was she merely trying to hold fast in some unfathomable female solidarity?

“Have they been laundered since Madame disappeared?”

Mrs. Johnson wrung her hands in agitation at such vulgar questioning. “They have,” she muttered.

Morton suppressed his irritation. “Were they stained? Did they have any traces of blood? Or other stains?”

Now, finally, Mrs. Johnson rebelled. “Mr. Morton, sir! Where is your decency!”

“I am doing my duty, Mrs. Johnson. Were there stains? I am perfectly aware that their causes might be… diverse.”

Mrs. Johnson's face was an undescribable hue. “They were that morning, sir , in the state one would expect of a gentlewoman of Madame Desmarches's standing.”

“That morning…”

Morton surveyed the room silently a moment with folded arms. What had gone on here? Surely if thumbscrews had been applied in this genteel little world, there would be some signs of struggle. A broken vase hardly seemed enough-just as likely an accident after all.

“Where is Madame's writing-desk?” Morton asked. He was led by the silently disapproving Mrs. Johnson into the next room, a sunny, cheerfully furnished lady's boudoir. The walls were ornamented with prints of peasant life, something in the manner of Chardin, he thought-more earnest than licentious.

The little roll-top secretaire was not locked: the key sat casually on the ledge on top. Morton slid back the veneered cover. Everything was orderly: neat, but not obsessively so. Blank paper, ink, quills, a sharpening knife, wax. He opened the drawers, one after the other. Empty, or half-filled with other casual piles of blank paper, nibs, blotters, the usual paraphernalia. And that was odd.

“Has this room been tidied since Madame's death?” he asked. “Has the desk been put in order?”

“There was no need,” replied Mrs. Johnson. “Everything was proper, as you see it. I only dusted.”

“Where are Madame's letters?”

Mrs. Johnson blinked at him a moment. “Which letters do you mean, Mr. Morton?”

“There is pen and ink, a quire of blank paper, but no letters, written or received. Where does Madame keep her letters and papers?”

Mrs. Johnson stared, apparently baffled. “Well, here, sir-the few that there were.”

“But they are not there.” Morton considered. The pennibs were sharpened, the blotter stained. “Was it her habit to lock this desk?” he asked.

“She trusted her servants, sir!”

“I've no doubt of that. But did she lock the desk? Do you recollect?”

Mrs. Johnson hesitated, in apparently genuine uncertainty. “I do not remember, sir. Or I never noticed. It was not my habit to try her drawers! But perhaps…she did.”

“A foreign practise, perhaps.” Morton allowed himself a slight smile. “Picked up in France, where domestics are less reliable.” And where, he silently added, servants had been known on occasion to betray their masters and mistresses to Madame Guillotine.