Napoleon's Police

by Michele McGrath

  He was as good as his word and returned with a knapsack slung over his shoulder and his hat on his head. I turned to say goodbye to Madame David when Lefebvre stopped me. He had evidently been thinking, while Nathan had been away.

  “Nathan,” he said, “you told us your father locked away something small after this man visited the shop the first time. Is the item he left still there?”

  “Why do you want to know?” Nathan asked and there was some suspicion in his tone.

  “It’s possible whatever is in the package might help to identify the killer if it is in any way unusual.”

  “I never saw it.” Nathan turned to his mother. “Ima, did you?”

  “No, but we will look.” Sarah pulled a bunch of keys from her pocket and led the way into the inner room of the shop. It was a small room with a table, two chairs, some boxes and, in the corner, a formidable safe. I could not help glancing at Lefebvre and saw his eyes sparkle.

  “Could you open it?” I hissed at him and he nodded.

  “Of course.”

  There was no need to show off his skill however. The safe was opened with Sarah’s key. It was almost full of papers and boxes. Nathan and Ruth helped their mother sort through the contents. It was some time before two small jewel cases were laid on the table in front of us.

  “It must be one of these,” Nathan said. “Abba used to label each item with the name of the owner and the date he received the article. These are the only two pawned in April this year.”

  The first case belonged to a Madame de Bethisy and contained a strand of fine pearls. I gasped when Nathan lifted the lid of the second box. There before us lay a huge diamond, the size of a pigeon’s egg, slightly yellow in colour. Lefebvre gave a low whistle and all eyes turned to him.

  “Lefebvre?”

  “Is this what I think it is?” he asked Sarah.

  “I’ve never seen it before, but it must be worth a king’s ransom,” she gasped.

  “What is it, Jean?” I asked him.

  “I may be wrong, but I believe it is the Sancy diamond. It was part of the crown jewels and disappeared during the Revolution.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “A friend of mine saw one of the princes wearing it. He told me the stone was large and yellow like this one.”

  Trust him to remember a jewel! “So how on earth did it appear here?” I stared at it in wonder. “If what you say is true, it would purchase an arsenal of guns, never mind a single rifle!”

  “True and it doesn’t help us, either. The man who left it as security could equally be a Republican or one of the King’s men. Both of them want to get rid of the Emperor, preferably forever.”

  I nodded. “It has told us all it can and we must be away. Take care of it, Madame. If by any chance the man returns for it, try to inform the Police but don’t put yourself or any members of your family at risk. If need be, give it to the man and let him go unhindered.”

  We took our leave and Lefebvre promised to return soon. When we were outside the shop, he said, “Take Nathan with you, Soldier, and see if he recognises anyone in the Maison Militaire.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “To talk to a couple of men about the Sancy diamond.” With a brief wave, he hurried off.

  “Your friend knows a lot about precious stones,” Nathan said when he had gone.

  “He does,” I agreed but I did not tell him why.

  We went immediately to the Tuileries, where members of the Maison Militaire could be expected to gather. Some had already joined the army, but others waited at the Emperor’s command. We walked through several corridors and entered rooms were numbers of officers were gathered. We met with some resistance, although the sight of the Emperor’s warrant soon quelled any opposition. It did result in some raised eyebrows. All for nothing. If the man was there, Nathan did not recognise him.

  I returned to Fournier’s lodgings and took Nathan with me. He did not want to put his mother through another painful leave-taking. I sent him to bed early, knowing we had a long journey in the morning and he had never left Paris before. He told me he was excited, in spite of his grief for his father and his regret at missing the funeral. Still it wasn’t long before he was snoring. Berthe left us too, promising to be up to make us breakfast.

  Fournier and I talked about my new assignment. Neither of us was surprised when Lefebvre turned up just before midnight, his saddlebags over his arm.

  “Any luck?” I asked, remembering where he had gone.

  “The word is that the diamond vanished before the mob broke into the palace.” Lefebvre threw himself into a chair and took a glass of wine from Fournier with a word of thanks.

  “How did your informant know?”

  Lefebvre grinned. “He didn’t say but, if I know him, he was in the front rank of the looters.”

  “Is he to be trusted?”

  “In something like this, probably. If he’d had the stone, he’d have disposed of it long since and he’d boast to me about the fact. As it was, he said it was gone and so were some of the other jewels that should have been there.”

  “So what are you saying, Lefebvre?”

  “If the jewels weren’t in the collection, the man who took it is more likely to be a Royalist than a Republican. My friend would know if any of the mob had carried away such a prize.”

  “Well, that narrows the field slightly, but not much. Plenty of Royalists returned to France after the Peace of Amiens.”

  “This man’s relations must have been trusted by the royal family. A stone such as you describe would not have been given to just anyone for safekeeping,” Fournier remarked. “Unless he stole it of course.”

  “Unlikely,” Lefebvre said. “Those jewels were well guarded, right to the end. Believe me, I know.”

  “Yes – you would!” I laughed. “Well, where are we now?”

  “You could say that your assassin is a Royalist from a family that has always served the Bourbons. They might have held a high position in the old court. The man may have stayed in France, but is more likely to have emigrated. Perhaps he returned to serve the Emperor, but he has never forgotten his old allegiance,” Fournier said. “That doesn’t narrow the field much but it will eliminate those who rose through the ranks to their present positions after the Revolution. They were never members of the nobility. Think of the officers in the Emperor’s Maison Militaire. Who would fit the facts we know about this man?”

  I went through the names I had collected so far. I would have to make a list tomorrow of those who were the most suspect, for I did not know many of the younger men. “The Maison Militaire includes the Chief-of-Staff, Marshal Soult, the commanders of the cavalry, artillery, engineers as well as his aides and his baggage master. Then there are the orderly officers and the pages, to name just a few. I doubt we’ll be able to find the assassin in time, unless we get lucky and Nathan recognises him.”

  “Defeatist talk, mon brave, and not like you,” Lefebvre said.

  “If the Emperor leaves tomorrow he’ll be in the Netherlands in a couple of days.” Fournier said. “The plot will succeed or fail in the next forty-eight hours, seventy-two at the most. That is all the time you have. I don’t envy you and I wish I was coming with you. Pity I’m too old to sit on a horse.”

  “You never did,” I reminded him. Fournier’s horsemanship has always been a joke. Lefebvre looked up and had obviously not been listening to our by-play, but had been thinking hard.

  “An officer, not an ordinary soldier,” he mused. “Napoleon’s only got a handful of Marshals left. Most of them stayed on their estates and ignored his summons to join him for this campaign. Those who are here are too old and, if the Emperor falls, they’d fall with him. Not in their best interests to kill him. The same is true for the generals. So we are looking for a dark haired young man from a Royalist family, an officer and part of the headquarters staff. A colonel, a lieutenant or a captain perhaps?”

  “He may have conceale
d his Royalist connections. I would in his position. Otherwise I agree with you, but there will be others we have not thought of yet.”

  “So all we have to do is make a list of the people who fit all the criteria and check them out one by one. Shouldn’t take us more than a few minutes to find the pig.”

  I laughed. “If only it were that easy.”

  “I’ll help you,” Fournier offered. “You two get to bed now or you’ll be good for nothing in the morning. I can sleep tomorrow, while you’re travelling. I’ll be back before you have to go.”

  “Thank you, old friend.”

  Fournier was as good as his word and was sitting drinking coffee when Berthe roused us.

  “That’s what you want,” he said, pointing to a folded piece of paper covered with his spidery writing. “It isn’t complete, of course, and everything is confused right now but it’s the best I could do in the time.”

  I took the paper while he continued, “Most of the Maison are too old to be our assassin. That includes the generals and the aides de camp, Corbineau, Gourgand, Bedoyere, Bertrand, Dejean and Flahaut, but they all have assistants and orderlies. The orderly officers and messengers have the best chance of all. They’re on the move and no one pays them much attention. They’re also told the Emperor’s movements in advance. One of them could easily ride ahead and find a good place to shoot him from.”

  “Where did you get this information?” I asked, casting my eye over the list which was formidably long.

  “A lot of it was in the Ministry, if you know where to look. We’ve checked on enough of these people in the past. I’ve put a cross beside those who were in our files and they meet some but not all of your criteria. Others I got from an old contact of mine. I did him a favour many years ago and he’s never forgotten. What he doesn’t know about the army isn’t worth knowing.”

  “Sounds useful. Who is he?”

  “His name’s Rousseau. He’s a sergeant in the Chasseurs of the Old Guard and devoted to the Emperor.” He must have seen the question on my face because he said hurriedly, “No, he’s no relation to the writer. Don’t ask him about it, if you want him to help you. He despises the man.”

  “I won’t.”

  “If you do need his help, tell him I sent you. I said you might. If you’re with the Emperor, he won’t be far away. I hoped I’d find him and I was lucky. He’s off to the frontier but he spared me an hour for old times’ sake.”

  “Thank you, Fournier. Neither of us could have done better.”

  “Take care of yourself, Alain, and you too, Jean. Come back with a whole skin if you can but if you can’t, come back anyway.”

  We rounded up Nathan, who was looking remarkably sleepy and sent him to fetch the horses. Then Lefebvre and I hugged Fournier and kissed Berthe. It never occurred to me that we might never see them again; we had gone off on so many assignments in the past. I never thought that this one would be different.

  Chapter 6

  We arrived at the Tuileries before the first light of dawn drew a faint line across the night sky. It was very early, about two am, an ungodly hour and cold. I was shivering in spite of my riding coat. Nathan, who did not have one, was wrapped in a blanket Fournier found for him before we left. Lefebvre was clapping his hands and stamping his feet in an effort to get warm. You would think it was February not June.

  One of the sentries disputed our right to pass through the palace gates but, when he saw Napoleon’s authorisation, he stepped back and saluted. We joined a milling throng in the courtyard, all waiting for the Emperor to appear.

  “I’m thinking of resigning, mon brave. This is killing me,” Lefebvre said.

  “Courage. It’ll be warmer when we’re moving,” I replied.

  “We’ve had too many of these dawns. About time we stayed in our warm beds like decent folk.”

  “You’ll never be decent, you rogue,” I said, “if you live to be a hundred.”

  He laughed and Nathan managed a lopsided grin.

  “I’ve been thinking, though.”

  “Too early for thinking.”

  “Shut up and listen. There are a couple of things we can do to make out task simpler.”

  “Such as?”

  “When we see the Emperor, I’ll ask him to dismiss as many of his younger officers as possible. If he sends them back to their regiments, it will cut down the numbers we need to check on.”

  “And the other thing is?”

  “One of us must stay beside him at all times and watch for anything odd, until he reaches the army. We don’t have time to be fancy about it and run a proper investigation. The main thing is to keep him safe.”

  “Ugh, but what’s the betting he won’t let us?”

  “I wouldn’t take you, old friend, but he might.”

  At that moment, Napoleon stamped down the stairs to his waiting carriage.

  “I’m going to speak to him now,” I said, tossing my reins to Nathan. I went up to the carriage door and bowed.

  “So you’re here as ordered, Duval,” he greeted me.

  “Yes, Sire, as you see, but I have some questions to ask you.”

  “You can ask them as we travel. Get in.”

  He didn’t wait for me to answer, just climbed into the carriage. I waved to Lefebvre and Nathan and then joined him. His brother, Jérôme, was already seated inside and so was his valet. Once the Emperor was settled, the carriage started with a jerk and proceeded at its usual breakneck speed.

  “Ask your questions now,” Napoleon said to me.

  “First I must tell you what we have done since we left you, Sire. I spoke to both the doctor and the witnesses to the killing of the informer. We brought one of these witnesses with us in the hope he can identify the assassin. We have also made a list of the Maison Militaire and identified those people who match the informer’s description.”

  Napoleon nodded. “Quick work.”

  “There are many on the list and time is short,” I continued. “Our main purpose is to keep you safe, rather than catch the murderer, although we hope to achieve both. Sending a number of these young men back to their regiments would increase our chance of finding the assassin, before he can do you harm. With luck, the traitor may even be among those sent away and his plot come to nothing.”

  “Is someone trying to kill you, brother?” King Jérôme asked.

  “Yet another one, but at least we have had some warning this time,” Napoleon said. “What you say makes sense, but I have an army to run and a campaign to prepare. I cannot dismiss many of my staff. Changing my plans because of a threat will damage my communications. The assassin would have gained a victory, even if he does me no other harm.”

  “I understand that, Sire, but it is imperative for you to survive. We need you to fight this campaign and secure the borders of France. Surely there are a few young officers in the Maison Militaire who can be dismissed and replaced by others? Also, if the younger men are kept away from you, it would eliminate some of the risk.”

  “The traitor is one of the Maison Militaire?” Jérôme sounded shocked.

  “That is what makes this plot more dangerous than some of the others. I have little time for such things, which is why Duval and Lefebvre are travelling with us.” He turned back to me. “I will think about what you have asked. Is there anything else?”

  “Yes, Sire. The assassin tried to purchase a well-made rifle, using the informer as a go-between. He did not succeed, but even an ordinary gun can kill and we think this is the method he may try to employ. When you are riding in this carriage, you are safe from snipers. A marksman would have to be incredibly lucky to see you through the window and shoot accurately enough, while you are moving at speed. The chief danger is when you embark or disembark.”

  Again the Emperor nodded. “I agree. What do you propose I do about it?”

  “I would suggest that, when you leave or enter the carriage, you are surrounded by a group of tall soldiers. That would make it difficult for the assassin to
see you well enough to be certain of his shot.”

  The Emperor laughed. “Then it is just as well I’m not tall. Tell the captain of my guard to organise it.”

  “I will, Sire. Also, will you allow Lefebvre or me to keep a watch on you for the next few days?”

  The Emperor smiled. “I wish you joy of it. I work long hours and travel hard, but you can stay with me for all except the most secret discussions.” He held up his hand to stop me, when I would have spoken. “Those talks take place with the marshals and generals and there is no room for outsiders, not even trusted ones. Few of the marshals and generals are young. They have often been with me in situations where it would have been easy for them to kill me. I will give orders that one of you will be with me at all other times.” He laughed suddenly. “Pretend to be taking notes of everything I say. It will match your disguise as writers and, if the plot fails and I win this campaign, you may even find that your writing is valuable.”

  With that he started talking to his brother about army dispositions. At the next halt to change horses, I got out of the carriage and waited until Lefebvre came up, leading my horse by the reins. It was a little while until he arrived, for Nathan was no horseman. He would undoubtedly have fallen off, if they had tried to keep up with the carriage. While I waited, I searched out the officer in charge of the Emperor’s guard. I arranged with him to have his men surround Napoleon, when he alighted from his carriage. His was inclined to dispute the order at first.

  “Sergeant Joffre was talking to me about the same sort of nonsense yesterday. I’ll tell you what I told him. We always take good care of the Emperor.”

  He quickly changed his mind, though, when I told him about the potential threat and the consequences if the assassin succeeded.

  “It shall be done,” he said at last and went away to make belated arrangements.

  When Lefebvre arrived, Nathan almost tumbled off his horse. It was obvious he was in some distress. His legs were shaking.

  “He’ll never make it to Brussels,” Lefebvre muttered to me. “We’ll be lucky to get him to the next halt.”