The Emperor's Gold

by Robert Wilton

  And in the prudent watchful heart of the city, the men of business listened to the reports of violence and the sound of shattering glass and hurried to their counting houses and their brokers. An attack on the Admiralty; Parliament itself threatened; French agents at work. London, it seemed, was no longer a place where a man might do business and trust in the safety of his cash box.

  Joseph rested in an upstairs room at the Residence, lurching from incoherence to unconsciousness, a shrunken dirty rag on the spotless linen, Roscarrock and De Boeldieu watching over him.

  De Boeldieu had gently undone the satchel and slipped it from the frail body. With Roscarrock he raced through the documents it contained, but the title and the first sheet of paper had been enough to tell the significance. From Paris to London, Joseph Dax had carried the Minister of Police’s private file on the naval plans of France. Now the file was with the Comptrollerate-General’s experts, men who had studied the French navies for a generation, and they would find what it revealed of Napoleon’s Sharks.

  As Roscarrock and the Frenchman had hurried through the pages there had been a harsh whisper from the bed, and De Boeldieu had scurried to Joseph’s side. ‘I read the words, Master, I read them; I knew it must be important.’

  ‘It is, my Joseph, it is.’

  ‘Please to tell Lady Sybille that I read the words, Master.’

  Roscarrock was struggling with the French, and the sudden pain in De Boeldieu’s face surprised him.

  ‘I’ll tell her.’

  ‘I took it slowly and carefully.’ The words began to drop with more difficulty. ‘Your sister, will she be proud of me now?’ Then he had slipped back into unconsciousness.

  He had been half-awake again a few minutes later, and Roscarrock tried asking him about the unknown fleet, and about French plotting against London. But Joseph in his lethargy could make nothing of Roscarrock’s French. De Boeldieu tried instead, but still the feverish face shook uselessly at ideas it could not grasp. Then he was gone once more, and Roscarrock had left to pass the precious folder to Bellamy.

  The 6 August

  Monsieur,

  There has been an incident of blood, of which you will read more by other means than I may tell (missing word?) haste. I acted of necessity, and I hope you will not judge me hard for it. I am forced to depart the County of Lancashire. I realize you will be frustrated after three months’ inactivity and I will try to arrange a colliery explosion in the County of York-Shire in the second part of August to appease you. If I chance to have some success there, I shall (illegible word?) to Scotland for a time, with greater discretion which I hope you will understand, to satisfy your (illegible word?). I received money from you at Lancaster, for which a thousand thanks, but it was less than I had understood and I swear to you Monsieur that you must send to our (illegible word assume friends?) at the agreed place in York if I am to survive.

  [SS MF/SH/16/10 (THE SUTHERLAND HOUSE TROVE)

  DECIPHERED BY J.J., JANUARY 1806]

  When Roscarrock returned, Joseph was still unconscious, with Philippe De Boeldieu bent over him. He wondered if they’d had the chance to talk in his absence. He pulled a chair forwards, and sat down close to the dark and watchful Frenchman. De Boeldieu watched him cautiously.

  ‘Time to be a little more open, I think, Monsieur.’

  De Boeldieu considered this for a moment, and then nodded.

  ‘This man has brought a dossier of the greatest sensitivity from the French Minister of Police. He was so important that they created the fiction of an assassin in the hope that we would stop him. It’s an astonishing achievement.’ De Boeldieu remained silent. ‘Who is he? How did he do it?’

  ‘He was Minister Fouché’s servant. I can only guess how he managed it.’

  ‘You’re obviously very close to him.’ De Boeldieu hesitated. ‘I’d suggest that neither of us wants to waste time debating what is and isn’t my business, Monsieur.’

  De Boeldieu almost smiled at this, and nodded again. ‘Before that monstrous machine Fouché employed him – before the Revolution – Joseph was a servant to me and my family.’

  ‘And he steals the Minister’s dossier and brings it to you simply out of ancestral loyalty? Amateur enthusiasm, and then a bit of luck avoiding what must have been a massive manhunt?’ Still the Frenchman hesitated. Roscarrock hissed his frustration, and grabbed at a different approach. ‘You seem a little less of a dandy this evening, Monsieur. He’s your former servant, you say. Very well. So who are you, really?’

  De Boeldieu pursed his lips, and his eyes flickered around in thought. Then they settled back on Roscarrock’s suppressed anger. ‘Since the threat from Paris cannot get more severe, Mr Roscarrock, I suppose there is little danger in telling you, wherever your loyalties lie.’ He glanced down at Joseph. ‘I am gatekeeper to Sir Keith Kinnaird’s network in France.’

  ‘The network de la fleur?’

  ‘You have heard that name?’

  ‘Only gossip. The old Royalist net of General Metz.’

  A nod. ‘They are not exactly the same, but they overlap. For five years I have managed agents in my country, on Sir Keith’s behalf. When Joseph obtained his position with the Minister, it was through the greatest good fortune and the most delicate manoeuvring. He became our most important agent – the royal lily of the network de la fleur. I do not suppose that you have seen the reports.’ Roscarrock shook his head. ‘I trained him well, Roscarrock. The reports he has sent over these last months will contain everything he knows.’

  ‘Have the reports mentioned the missing French fleet?’

  ‘No. They speak of Fouché’s plan to neutralize your Royal Navy, but there is no detail.’

  ‘What about plotting an assassination in London? That madness today.’

  A shake of the head. ‘Nothing.’

  ‘There must be something.’

  ‘Why?’ De Boeldieu was hotter suddenly. ‘All there is, is in the reports. If there is confusion, surely it is in your organization. And yes, I know enough to know there is chaos.’

  ‘Have you seen Kinnaird recently?’

  De Boeldieu winced in frustration. ‘Have you, Mr Roscarrock? Let me throw your own question back at you. Who are you, really?’

  There was a cough from the bed, and they both turned. ‘Ask him if he has any more information about special movements of the fleets.’ De Boeldieu was reluctant, and the intensity in Roscarrock’s voice sharpened. ‘The invasion. The Emperor’s Sharks.’

  ‘Sharks?’

  ‘Ask him! Is there anything that isn’t in the reports?’

  De Boeldieu and Joseph whispered, and Roscarrock could catch only some of the words.

  ‘It’s all in the reports. When he escaped, he reported the last meeting the Minister had held. There’s nothing else.’ Roscarrock looked down at the bed, at the closed eyes and the candle-coloured skin.

  The eyes drifted open, and he tried again in his own rough French. ‘What else did you hear – what else did he hear after the last meeting? Anything!’

  ‘Do not bully him! He has suffered enough.’

  ‘His achievement is nothing if we can’t get the information from him,’ Roscarrock said harsh and fast. ‘Ask him!’

  De Boeldieu’s expression was foul, but he turned to the bed and murmured to Joseph. A shake of the head on the pillow, which De Boeldieu magnified sadly to Roscarrock.

  Then Joseph began to whisper. After a moment his eyes closed, and De Boeldieu looked up again. ‘A signal is to come from London, and then the Emperor’s fleets will sail. That’s all he said.’

  ‘Does he mean the Sharks?’

  ‘He did not say so.’ De Boeldieu said a few words into Joseph’s cold ear, and there was the faintest shake of the head on the damp pillow. ‘He has not heard of this.’

  ‘Damn it; there must be more he can tell us. To have come so far – from the centre of it all—’

  Joseph made a long, shallow gasp from his throat. De Boeldieu leant
down to the sickly face, and Roscarrock strained to catch and translate the words that rasped slowly out.

  ‘Will she… think well… of me now… Master?’

  ‘She will, Joseph, she will.’ De Boeldieu’s face screwed tight in pain, then released, and he took Joseph’s head between his two hands. ‘She had no braver or more faithful servant.’

  And at last Joseph’s face relaxed, and he came to the end of his journey. ‘Oh go to her, my brother!’ De Boeldieu whispered. ‘Show me the way.’ He placed a kiss on the cold forehead, and eventually turned away with a face at once angry and utterly alone.

  7th August 1805

  IRISH REBELS MAINTAIN EFFORT AT FRENCH ASSISTANCE

  To the Comptroller-General,

  Sir,

  W. Tone has departed these shores for France. Our factors within his circle confide that he seeks support from the Revolutionary Regime for projected but unspecified insurrectionary activities in Ireland. Travelling as W. Smith, under false American passport, Tone departed from the port of New York on the Jersey bound for Le Havre. He has letters of introduction for the American Ambassador to Paris, James Monroe, and others.

  The passenger complement totals only ten, and all of nine save Tone/Smith are registered as citizens of France. This is a known lie in at least three cases: Thomas Prudie (19), Tadh Roscarrock (28) and a man listed as Jean Dauban (31), which we apprehend to be an alias.

  The Jersey is foreseen to arrive in Le Havre within the first week of February.

  30th day of January 1796.

  [SS A/5/127]

  Jessel walked to the Admiralty through strangely quiet morning streets. London, like a fallen woman, had worked hard to forget the humiliations of the previous day and night. The chaos had disappeared into the darkness and the cells. The sweepers and shopkeepers had been up with the first of the light, repairing and covering, washing away the debris of shame. By the middle of the morning, only the occasional board on a window or scar on a face betrayed that the events of Tuesday the 6th of August had even occurred. The extant records give almost no coverage of that day’s rioting, and cannot show the resentment that lingered in back streets and workshops, and the fear that still smouldered in the banking houses and offices.

  Their Lordships of the Admiralty had exercised their authority and borrowed a detachment of Marines from HMS Edmund, anchored down the Thames. The redcoats lurked in the shadows of the Admiralty courtyard, uneasy at unknown threats and solid ground. Two of them, competent and forbidding, stopped Jessel in the first entrance hall, and he was obliged to spend twenty minutes on a stone bench there waiting for Admiral Lord Hugo Bellamy to emerge from the depths of the building.

  Hurrying to catch up with the striding figure. ‘A little inconvenient for our business, My Lord.’

  ‘We’ll settle the arrangements shortly, Jessel. Lord Barham is insisting that he and his colleagues show themselves in Whitehall for work today, but he’s taking no chances with security.’ They crossed the courtyard, and the waiting Marines stiffened briskly at the Admiral’s approach.

  ‘His Lordship doesn’t scare easily.’

  ‘A relic from a different age, Jessel. But a brave age for all that.’ Bellamy showed something to a Marine guard and they re-entered the building through a side door. ‘Is Roscarrock on his way here?’

  ‘Yes, My Lord. He’s been with De Boeldieu, the Frenchman.’

  ‘Who is more than we thought.’

  ‘Gatekeeper to Sir Keith Kinnaird’s French network, My Lord, yes. The spy was one of his, and a former servant.’

  ‘How did the man cross the Channel and come ashore?’

  ‘Kinnaird’s network in France has arrangements to get people onto our go-betweens.’

  The sharp tapping over the marble floor stopped instantly. ‘He came across on a Comptrollerate-General ship?’ Jessel nodded. ‘Clever Kinnaird: the same system that transports our agents and messengers becomes an escape route if one of our spies is threatened.’

  ‘The Captain showed the man how to evade our sentries on the coast.’

  Bellamy strode forwards again. ‘Of course. This organization is so damn clever it defeats itself. Jessel, you’re supposed to be bringing that collection of pirates and smugglers under better control.’

  ‘Yes, My Lord.’

  ‘Do so faster.’

  ‘Yes, My Lord.’

  ‘We’re close to the crisis now.’ Bellamy stopped still again. ‘Since the Frenchman is Kinnaird’s man, Roscarrock is of course thick as thieves with him.’ Jessel shrugged. ‘Doesn’t he care what we think? Has he no discretion at all?’

  Jessel spoke almost fondly. ‘Roscarrock is instinct and action, My Lord. He killed one assassin yesterday and was about to kill what he thought was another. Hard to control, I fear.’

  ‘I don’t want to control him. I want to see where he leads.’ The Admiral made to dismiss Jessel, and paused. ‘Your paths will separate now, for a time. You will coordinate our activities here. Roscarrock is going on a little journey by sea. The Admiralty are throwing everything into France to stave off collapse.’

  Jessel nodded. ‘The papers that came out of France, My Lord: was there much in them?’

  Bellamy shook his head slowly, and turned away into the long cold corridor.

  LANCASHIRE MAGISTRATE’S COURT, TOWN OF BURNLEY, REPORT DATED THE 7TH DAY OF AUGUST 1805

  We beg leave to report a most bewildering circumstance.

  On the 6th of August two men fought on the towpath of the Leeds & Liverpool canal, adjacent Mr Long’s brickyard. Witness John Rendle: ‘I heard shouting and crashing and swearing’; no words recorded. Witness Rachel May: ‘There was two of them, circling like dogs and then wrestling. Both men looked as they had knives. I hurried away.’ Witnesses Alfred Arthur and others had seen two men first meeting, apparently incidentally, on the street near Macey’s Store and subsequently walking apart but near each other in the direction of the canal path.

  Testimony of Witness Alfred Arthur describing one of the men, including white patch on face, may tally with testimony of Witness Edward Mallon and others of a man lately seen around Burnley Drift pit and once chased out of the premises. Identity unknown; occupation unknown. But, following recent reports of machine-breaking and other acts of wilful destruction at mines in this and other Counties, this led to speculation that one or both men were criminals in that pursuit, who perhaps fell out over some aspect of their enterprise.

  The postscript has confused the matter, and made it truly perplexing. In the early hours of this morning the body of a man was found in a stable in Plumbe Street. Age perhaps thirty or thirty-five; knife or similar wound to side; cause of death unknown but probably complications or fever resulting from knife wound. Witness testimony (Joseph Hill, Perseverance Todd) strongly states that the dead man bears very close resemblance to Richard Garrod, sometime engineer in Halifax, Rochdale and elsewhere, though fallen into difficulty as a result of a business scandal. Garrod was believed drowned in the Oakworth incident in April. His body was never found, so it is conceivable that he somehow survived that tragedy only to die in these present unexplained circumstances. What cannot be conjectured is what he might have been doing in the four months interim, and more particularly why, if alive, he did not make himself known to any of his former acquaintance.

  [SS J/30/418]

  Roscarrock had not visited Lord Hugo Bellamy’s office before, and he only reached it on this occasion with a stolid, striding Marine on either side of him. The room was dark wood and dark wallpaper, and without much furniture or decoration. No clutter in Bellamy’s vision. The few items on the desk seemed small against the large man standing behind it.

  The two Marines left smartly at Bellamy’s curt dismissal, closing the door but stopping just the other side of it.

  Roscarrock stood in the centre of the room, glancing at the surroundings and then returning Bellamy’s scrutiny.

  ‘The First Lord of the Admiralty has asked me most par
ticularly to pass on his personal thanks for your performance yesterday, Roscarrock. From a man like him, that is not cheaply earned.’ He turned away to the single window.

  Roscarrock grunted politely; he still wasn’t quite sure what he’d done yesterday. Light coming over Bellamy’s shoulder caught a thin layer of dust on a decanter and matching glasses on a side table; the single chair this side of the desk looked similarly unused. Men had interviews with the Comptroller-General for Scrutiny and Survey, not conversations.

  Bellamy turned back from the window, face in shadow. ‘Don’t get carried away. You haven’t won the war yet.’ The sarcasm dropped heavy and without interest. He stepped nearer, and Roscarrock suddenly saw the tension and tiredness in the face. ‘It’s getting serious now, Roscarrock. The greatest secret in the Kingdom is this: we are on the brink. The politicians are hysterical and practising radical speeches. The merchants, the men of business, are selling everything that isn’t locked in the Tower, and shipping their interests out. They’ll take the British economy with them.’ He was picking the details ponderously out of the air. ‘The Admiralty… The Admiralty are rattled. Even if it had detonated properly, there probably wasn’t enough gunpowder to do real harm, but the very possibility of it… The First Lord would fight the French single-handed, but it’s starting to look as though he might have to. The Emperor’s fleets need only a moment’s good fortune to break into the open sea, and our chances of stopping them flicker and fall with each gust of wind. Most worrying of all, the country won’t stand. The prizefighter has absorbed his last punch. One more incident like yesterday and Napoleon’s grandmother could capture London.’