by T. F. Banks
A Bow Street Runner, of course, was not the sort of man who would ever be proposed for membership at a Mayfair gentleman's club. But Morton had done some services for Monsieur Houde in a matter of some delicacy, involving a female relative of his who had been persecuted by a rejected English lover. An English justice of the peace, at that. And since then Morton's visits to the master-cook's domain, if only through the servants' entrance, were always welcome. Now and again he sat at Houde's plain oaken worktable and, as the clamour and steam of a great club's kitchen swirled around him, sampled some of the most astonishing delights available to the palate of man.
Morton had declined to try the seven or eight courses currently being readied, despite Marcel Houde's vociferous protests.
“Ah, 'Enri, 'Enri, where is your soul? What could be so important, compare to the embrace of a transcendental cuisine? Allez, mon cher!”
A plate of roast duckling was being set before Morton even before he could answer.
“Very well, Marcel, very well. But you must sit with me a moment.”
“Deux secondes,” the chef promised, and went off to inspect the row of burnished copper kettles ranged along the stovetop that ran down the centre of the big room. Morton could hear his voice above the clatter and rattle of plates and implements, exhorting, shouting insults, laughing sarcastically. Other, subordinate voices were once or twice raised in protest, but resignation predominated in their tones. By the time Houde returned a few minutes later, looking pleased and wiping his reddened face with the sleeve of his open shirt, the Runner had eaten the entire duckling. He pronounced it food for the gods. As his host beamed and turned to call up something else, Morton reached to put a hand on his forearm, restraining him.
“No, no, mon ami, we really must have some words. I am pressed, and I am sure you are, too.”
“Ah, if you insist. But un petit verre.” Houde poured them both a glass from a bottle of red wine that stood open on the cluttered tabletop.
“I thank you. And this is…?”
“Un-let me say it as you poor English do, un ‘Burgundy, ’ from Beaune, Ropiteau Freres. Good. Not the very best of that vignoble, but good.”
And of course he was right. Morton savoured it a moment, then set the glass down.
“Perhaps you can assist me, Marcel. There have been some bloody doings amongst your lot.”
“Comment? The chefs, they are killing each other now?”
“You know that I mean your compatriots. Les Francais. And not in France, but here in England.”
“Ah.” Marcel Houde's manner changed. Morton knew little of his past, but they had occasionally talked on serious themes, and he gathered that the chef had once been a man of passionate conviction-and perhaps of passionate deeds as well. Now he professed to be entirely apolitical and to have brushed such matters from his coat like crumbs, as so many other artists and poets and thinking men had done. All the same, it was apparent that he still favoured the French republicans, and possibly even Bonaparte, at least in his heart. And this made his knowledge, and his acquaintance amongst the expatriates, quite different from Geoffrey Westcott's.
“In fact, there has been a murder,” Morton told him.
“Alors, this is very vile,” breathed out the chef, and sat back. “Who, a royalist? This is why you are coming to me?”
“Yes. We do not know who is responsible, but there are some men we want to have words with. I am in hopes that you can help me find them. Antoine De la Touche. Gilles Niceron. And Robert Guillet de la Gevrilliere.”
Houde blew air through his lips and shook his head.
“Mais, 'Enri. Men like these. Maybe I 'ave 'eard of them, but you know, these are not my friends, not my camarades.”
“I'm sure they're not. But perhaps you can still assist me?”
“Well, well. Attend. I think. Guillet de la Gevrilliere, now he I 'ave not 'eard to be in England for-what? Two year, at least. In fact, nobody know what become of 'im, except it is spoken that 'e is in prison, in France.”
“The others?”
Marcel Houde sighed. “De la Touche. Bon. 'E 'as change of 'eart, conversion. This is a great scandal, for some people. 'E become religious, and 'e love King Louis now, and 'e is in France, too, gone to Provence to be acolyte in the Abbaye de Senanque. Do not smile. This is true, and I 'ave 'eard many people say it. But, now… Niceron. Oui, Gilles Niceron, 'e may be in Londres, or near-yes, I think so.”
“Do you know where?”
“No, no, not certainly. But I think 'e once was living with some farmer, some old Huguenot, out in the north of la ville, near the Stamford 'ill Turnpike. There is un petit village over there, let me think-oui, who is called Walt'amstow. Niceron, 'e live there, on the farm, and 'e work for the Huguenot, but I don't know that man's name. But you find 'im, I think, if you go there.”
“What manner of a man is he? Niceron.”
“Oh, I do not know. I 'av 'eard' he is grand, and powerful. Some people are afraid of 'im, but I do not remember why. To me, 'Enri, 'e is just a name.”
“Is he active in French matters? In politics?”
“ 'Enri! I tell you, I do not know about 'im!” Houde was exasperated.
Morton smiled. “No matter. We shall pay a visit to Citizen Niceron. There is another man, too, whose name we don't know. But he is going about saying he is from what I take to be Malmaison, and he is distinguished by a red stain in his skin, a raspberry mark, on the head.”
Now Marcel Houde did not look very happy. He leaned on his elbow and closed his eyes, rubbing his broad forehead vaguely with two fingers. “Ah, oui, oui,” he murmured.
“I must take it that you do know him, mon ami.”
Houde opened eyes that suddenly looked weary. “You know what Malmaison is, 'Enri?”
“I was hoping you could help me there, too.”
“It is, or it was, a palace of the emperor, west of Paris.
Or plus precisement, of his stepdaughter 'Ortense. I forgive you, of course, but any Frenchman would know this.”
“So,” said Morton slowly, “this man is a Bonapartist?”
“Let me ask you this, 'Enri. Would you say that a person who loved Bonaparte, in this country, would be wise to go about introducing 'imself this way?”
“Was the name used in irony, then?”
“Non, non, jamais. It is ridiculous, yes. Ironique, no. No, 'Enri, I know quite well this man. But listen to me a minute, before I give you 'is name and you go rushing off to arreter 'im. Because I can tell you he is an imbecile, a nothing, a crazed man who is drunk always. You know, don't you, that these royalists 'ate each other even more than they 'ate the rest of us?”
“I have heard it said.”
“Bon. So why don't you think maybe they are killing each other?”
“Perhaps they are. But the royalists I talked to seem to hate Napoleon as thoroughly as one could ask.”
“Well, but you are right, of course,” the chef went on. “They 'ate the emperor. They 'ate the ideals of the republique, too, and they 'ate nine-tenths of the French people. They want to go back to the days when the peasants were made to beat the marshes all night, so the aristocrats could sleep without the sound of frogs. They really did that, you know. If you ask me, they 'ate France herself, although no doubt they did not tell you that.”
“Anything but. And they don't suspect other royalists. They suspect the followers of Bonaparte. Do you really think they are wrong to do that?”
Houde sighed and seemed to consider a moment. “No, probablement pas. Probably they are not entirely wrong. But suspicion is one thing. Who knows what the truth is?”
Morton nodded. “It is hard to unravel. I ask myself the same questions. Why would lovers of the republic, or adherents of the fallen emperor, be attacking the emigres now? The battles are over. I am told that most of the agents, spies, and troublemakers have left England.”
“They tell you there will be no more trouble here in England? But it is not true! Not true
at all. I don't know why they tell you such a thing. Perhaps they are idiots. The danger has not pass, 'Enri, and surely you, as a man who listens to le peuple, surely you know this in your 'eart. The danger 'as not pass. For Angleterre, the danger is just begin.”
Henry Morton smiled grimly. “So our streets will run in blood, as yours did?”
“I am simply telling that the war is not over. Not 'ere, and not in France, neither. It is a war that never end. That is why I retire from it, and I make war now just on the quails and the snails and the trout. And these fat 'appy English I cook for, they make war on the foxes. That is why I like this club. These English, they are stupid and proud, and they are 'appy. You see, I am finish with politics, 'Enri. But it is not finish.”
“I am not fighting a war, Marcel, just trying to keep the king's peace. The name of the man with the raspberry mark?”
“If I tell you, I do not tell you because I care one dried-up bean for the whole canaille of imbecile, parasitic royalists. I hope the ocean rise up and drown every one of them. They 'ave France again now because a great man-a great man, 'Enri!-has fallen, destroyed by 'is own destiny, because the 'eavens 'ave say, Not yet. But these royalists, they are not worthy to untie 'is shoe latchet, as one say.”
Morton took another sip of his wine and waited.
“Non, and I do not tell you because I believe your country is correctly govern, or just, or generous to its people. It is not true, and any man with eyes in his 'ead can see this. I do not tell you because tyranny 'as been- but I think you 'ave 'eard my speeches before, 'Enri.”
Morton shrugged acquiescence. “Perhaps you tell me because I am your friend,” he suggested.
“Well, well, or because I know that you will find 'im anyway, with a mark on 'im like that, and you such a clever, puissant police. And really, I care nothing at all for this person, pas de tout. Alors. The man with that mark on his pate is name Jean Boulot. He live for many years in the City, in Maiden Lane, or somewhere nearby there, where there are some others like him. I 'ave not ever been there to see them, but this is what people say. Boulot, he is a supporter of the emperor, an ardent supporter. Or so I 'ave always heard.”
“If he is a supporter of Bonaparte, then why has he been in England for so long?”
Marcel shrugged. “I don't know. 'E say so many things when 'e drink-”
“You know him, then?”
Houde looked slightly embarrassed. “You drink French wine during the war, 'Enri?”
“You know I have.”
“Then you 'ave come close to know 'im yourselves. Boulot is an ami of the smuggler. I buy the wine and brandy from 'im for many year, but 'e became too drunk and-'ow you say?-unreliable.”
“I see. What else can you tell me about him?”
“What can I tell you? What will I, you should say.” Marcel Houde laughed, his old, more cheerful self beginning to return. “I will tell you this. 'Is friends would be very surprise to 'ear that he go about calling 'imself the gentilhomme de Malmaison. They will not be please with 'im. Unless it is part of some plan.”
“What manner of plan? What kind of capers do this Boulot and his friends get up to?”
“Ah, I do not know that. Maybe all they do is smoke their pipe and talk about les droits de l'homme and sing ‘ca Ira’ and ‘La Marseillaise.’ Sometime people talk, that they have connections to Fouche, and Veyrat, and the rest of the secret police in Paris. Or at least, that they once did. But, 'Enri, you must not listen to this talk. It is exagere. Perhaps some of them were sent over here from Paris- years ago. Now? Impossible! They all used to be fighting against le comte d'Artois, the brother of King Louis, and against his spies, his royalist underground in France, and those idiots, the Chevaliers de la Foi and their master, Abbe Jean-Baptiste Lafond. But what does that matter now? Now they are all gone back to France. You understand who I am speaking about, 'Enri?”
In fact, Morton was getting a little lost in the names, and it was hard to keep up with his friend's volubility. He was a London police man, not an intelligence officer in the foreign service, like Westcott. So Houde was forced to explain a bit further. Fouche was chef of the French security police, and Inspector-General Veyrat was in his service. In the course of the long war they had struggled against the agents of the Bourbon spymaster Artois, who was next in line for the French crown after his gout-ridden brother Louis. Many had died, on both sides. Neither party had been less ruthless than the other, and there were crimes of every kind. But now all had changed. Fouche, who many years before had helped overthrow Robespierre, the bloody tyrant of la terreur, had only a few weeks ago performed the same manoeuvre against the defeated Napoleon. It was Fouche who had forced Bonaparte's second abdication, and Fouche who had now, yet again, changed sides and smoothed the path for the return of the Bourbons, who hated and distrusted him but could not do without him.
“What might all this have to do with the current situation in London?”
“Rien! Rien de tout! Nothing! All the important royalists 'ave gone back to the continent. I can see no cause for old Bonapartiste spies to do anything but slip away into the woodwork, like cock-a-roaches, and 'ope they will be forgotten. If there are republicans and Bonapartistes in England now, 'Enri, it is not because they are 'ere to do espionage or to kill people. It is because they are running away from France.”
Morton frowned in perplexity.
“All the same, can you tell me the names of any of Boulot's friends, these Bonapartist folk?”
“What, 'ow much betrayal do you want in one day? For one plate of canetons?” And now Houde's anger seemed genuine. Henry Morton backed away.
“Marcel, mon cher, I had not thought of asking you for betrayal at all. Pray, disregard the question. I am very grateful for your assistance, and I promise you, I shall use what you have told me only to catch a murderer, not to influence the course of political events.”
“Per'aps to do one is to do the other.”
“Well, I cannot judge of that. A person has been killed. My duty is simple.”
Houde relented a little. “Well, 'Enri, I hope that it remain so. Alors,” he sighed, “if my old friends the republicans have done a murder, then I give them my curse. Remember you the words of Madame Roland, 'Enri? Madame Roland, as she stood at the foot of la guillotine?”
Morton smiled ruefully.
“ ‘O liberty, ’ ” quoted Houde, “ ‘what crimes are committed in thy name! ’ ”
“Do you recall the words of Shakespeare?” asked Morton.
“Ah, Shakespeare! Tres bien! But which?”
“ ‘A plague on both your houses. ’ ”
Marcel Houde gravely raised his glass in approval.
CHAPTER 14
It was seven in the evening when Henry Morton and Jimmy Presley descended from their hackneycab at the west end of Maiden Lane, and bells were clanging in the steeples of the nearby churches of Saint Anne and Saint Botolph. The street in this coaching district was loud with the rattle of heavy vehicles and their teams, and a bustling, noisy traffic of barrows and drays and shouting drivers flowed steadily by the two Bow Street men as they conferred.
“Go gently, Jimmy,” Morton told him over the racket. “We don't want him bolting on us.”
“Your peacher said there were a parcel of Frenchies in the neighbourhood, didn't he?”
“Aye, so try not to beard any of them, lest they fly and give him warning.”
Presley nodded and stepped with a born Londoner's confidence into the busy flood and made his way across. They began to move separately down either side of the lane, ducking here and there into the maze of neighbouring byways. As discreetly as possible, sometimes cupping their hands to make themselves heard, they enquired at doorways, or from people on the street-at least people who looked English. A cove with a raspberry patch on his crown? Did they know him? His place of residence? Frencher, named Boulot?
To Henry Morton, Jean Boulot had somehow seemed a better bet than Gilles Niceron. If Mort
on had had to explain why he was here, he might have had some trouble. Largely it was a hunch-it seemed too great a coincidence that Boulot would visit the count and that same night d'Auvraye would fly into a rage and order his mistress cast out of her house. Morton was also a little sceptical whenever he sensed another was trying to direct the course of his investigation-as Rolles had done with his list of suspects-some of whom were dead! At any rate, he had let John Townsend be the one to ride out to Walthamstow to look up Niceron.
A diminutive child with a massive topper appeared in Morton's path, surrounded by a gang of smaller children, all equally shabbily dressed, though without the impressive headgear.
“Oy, yer lookin' for a Frenchy lives hereabout?”
“Indeed I am. Do you know him?”
“Might do,” the child said, spitting lazily onto the cobbles.
Morton reached into his pocket as though he might find a coin. “A man with a raspberry mark on his bald pate. Where might I find him?”
The child nodded to Morton's hand in his pocket. “Tip us the blunt first. D'ye take us for simkins?”
Morton tossed a couple of copper coins, and the boy snatched them nimbly out of the air.
“The bilker dwells round the corner. Number two, Paul's Court.”
The din of the street faded as the two Runners turned into Huggin's Lane, and died away almost entirely as they entered the dark little close called Paul's Court. They paused a moment in the centre, looking about themselves. It was quiet here, and still, the city's commotion now like a distant rushing of water beyond the gaunt-eyed walls. Number 2 was a shabby brick building, wedged in tightly amongst a row of others like it, each seeming to lean against its neighbour for support. Indeed, they all looked to be typical poor men's lodgings, almost indistinguishable from thousands of others like them in the metropolis: decrepit, black with soot, windows unglazed. But to Morton's carefully assessing eye, they seemed far from the worst of the “netherskens.” They hadn't a patch on that lowest and most dangerous species of doss house, the sort that filled the criminal “holy land” of St. Giles or lined the back of the Ratcliff Highway. No, these were nigh on respectable, by comparison.
