The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (15 page)

Richard’s lips twisted in a humourless smile. ‘Isn’t that what we ought to plan for then? I can’t risk it, Geoff. Even if there weren’t other impediments, I couldn’t risk it. Too many people depend on me.’

Geoff looked at him steadily, a friend of too long standing to be daunted by either irony or idealism. ‘You know what Miles would tell you if he were here. He’d say, “You’re being too bloody noble.” And, in this instance, he’d be right.’

Breaking Geoff’s gaze, Richard lounged back in his chair and changed the subject. ‘Did anything else thrilling transpire while I was away? Like Delaroche choking on a chicken bone?’

Geoff pushed aside the remains of his own cold chicken. ‘Delaroche, I regret to inform you, is still alive and kicking. I must say, the man does have an instinct for theatre. He strode into the Tuilleries the other day and informed Bonaparte that, as the Purple Gentian hadn’t struck for over a fortnight, it was clear that he, Delaroche, had scared him away.’

‘That will never do,’ Richard drawled. He rocked back and forth in his chair, a devilish gleam creeping into his emerald eyes. ‘After all, it would be deuced unkind of us to let the man continue to entertain these delusions, wouldn’t you say?’

Geoff hunched forward, his own eyes taking on an answering sheen. ‘What do you think one might do to disabuse him of these unhealthy fantasies?’

‘Well…’ Richard toyed with the stem of his wineglass, admiring the way the candlelight struck crimson glints off the dark liquid. ‘One might raid his secret files…but one has done that already, so what’s the fun in that?’

‘Or,’ Geoff mused, getting into the spirit of the game, ‘one might leave mocking notes on his pillow, but…’

‘One has done that already, too,’ Richard concluded sadly. ‘Does Delaroche have any files we haven’t looked at yet?’

Geoff shook his head. ‘No. I’d say you made a rather thorough job of that. How about rescuing someone from the Temple prison? We haven’t done that in a while, and it’s sure to infuriate Delaroche.’

‘The very thing!’ Richard rocked upright so fast that he banged into the table, setting dishes and cutlery jumping. ‘I knew I kept you around for a reason!’

Geoff grimaced. ‘You flatter me.’

‘Think nothing of it,’ Richard advised him graciously. ‘Young Falconstone
has
been imposing on the hospitality of the Bastille for far too long. We wouldn’t want to overstrain their supplies.’

‘The mouldy bread and mouldier water?’

‘Don’t forget the occasional rat as a treat on holidays. I’m sure the French consider it a great delicacy. Like frogs, or cow’s brains.’

Geoff groaned. ‘No wonder they had a revolution! They were probably all suffering from chronic indigestion.’

‘There may be something in that theory.’ Richard pushed back from the table and stood. ‘But let’s save writing your
History of the
Causes of the French Revolution
for another night. We have far more diverting activities ahead of us…’

Chapter Twelve

I
n a little room in the Ministry of Police, a man stood looking out the window. His hands were clasped loosely behind his back, fingers and arms relaxed. The hair combed forward on his forehead in the classical style gave him the serene air of a bust of a Roman senator, a man of calm and
gravitas
. But when he spoke, his voice shook with controlled rage.

‘This has gone on too long, Delaroche. Bonaparte is displeased.
I
am displeased. This man cannot be allowed to make us the laughingstock of Europe.’ The Minister of Police slowly turned and fixed icy eyes on his subordinate. ‘What do you intend to do about it?’

‘Kill him.’

A whir of movement, and a silver-handled letter opener quivered as if in fear, its point embedded in the blotter of Delaroche’s desk. The sentry at the door cringed back, but Fouché regarded the palpitating knife with a jaundiced eye. ‘That’s all very well, but you have to find him first, do you not? How many years has it been, Delaroche? Four? Five?’

‘He won’t live to see another.’ Delaroche’s sallow countenance burnt with the fanatic fervour of a sixteenth-century inquisitor. ‘I’ll draw up a short list of suspects. My best men will shadow them day and night. They won’t so much as piss but we’ll know of it! He will
not
slip through my fingers again. I’ll have him strung up before you within the month.’ Delaroche’s lips curled into a feral snarl.

‘See that you do,’ Fouché said coolly. ‘The invasion of England relies on the strictest secrecy. We cannot afford any more breaches of security.’

Reaching over, he retrieved his hat from the corner of Delaroche’s desk. ‘We can only hope that the papers have not yet got wind of this latest embarrassment. I suggest you hold to your promise, or the Purple Gentian may not be the only man to swing. Good day, Delaroche.’

The door clicked smartly shut behind the Minister of Police.

Delaroche stalked over to his desk, flipped back the tails of his coat, and sat down heavily. On the blotter, where Fouché had tossed it upon his entrance, lay a small, cream-coloured card.

Fingers steepled in front of him, Delaroche stared at the note. The card itself was useless. Delaroche had an entire drawer full of nothing but cream-coloured cards bearing the Gentian’s distinctive purple stamp. He had long ago traced the cards to a very exclusive stationer in London which boasted a wide clientele among the
ton.
If Delaroche were to go on the make of the paper alone, he could easily accuse anyone from the Prince of Wales to Lady Mary Wortley Montague. Inside – Delaroche did not need to release the card from the letter opener to look; he recalled the contents in painful detail – inside, that rogue had inscribed a bill for the accommodations. One shilling for stale bread, one shilling for rank water, two shillings for rats, three shillings for amusing insults from the guards, and so on, before signing it with the customary small purple flower. On top of the note had been a small pile of English coins, as per the reckoning.

Damn him! The list was in Falconstone’s hand – Delaroche knew the hand-writing of every man whose correspondence he had ever intercepted. Delaroche could picture the Gentian standing there, dictating, in the middle of the most carefully guarded prison in Paris. The man’s cheek was unbelievable.

Which would make killing him all the sweeter.

Reaching into a desk drawer, Delaroche retrieved a plain sheet of writing paper. He dabbed a quill savagely into the inkpot, wishing it
were a knife plunging into the Gentian’s heart. He would have that pleasure soon enough. The man had played him for a fool one too many times. Delaroche had enjoyed the game; he would be the last to deny that. He had enjoyed the excitement of an adversary worthy of his attention – most of these would-be spies were pitifully easy to discover, and even more pitifully easy to coerce into full disclosure. A few fingernails pulled and they babbled like babes. Pathetic.

Attacking the paper with an explosion of inkblots, Delaroche scrawled the first name on his list: Sir Percy Blakeney, Baronet.

The Gentian had to be an Englishman, of that Delaroche was sure. Only an Englishman would have such an utterly inappropriate sense of humour. Who else but an Englishman would disguise himself as a dancing bear or leave itemised payment for a jailer? Those English! Didn’t they realise that espionage was no laughing matter?

During his time as the Scarlet Pimpernel, Sir Percy had played similar jokes on the French government. He still spent large parts of each year in Paris with his French wife. He was even now in residence in his town house in the Faubourg St Germain. He was, of course, kept under close surveillance, but hadn’t the Scarlet Pimpernel eluded the closest of surveillance before? Bonaparte insisted that Sir Percy was harmless, a serpent whose fangs had been drawn. Bonaparte found him amusing. Delaroche found him highly suspect. Like the London news sheets, he had always retained a nagging suspicion that Sir Percy had changed only his
nom de guerre,
not his spots.

Delaroche returned to his list. Unlike the London news sheets, he did not proceed to name Beau Brummel (after an unpleasant encounter with the man in London, Delaroche had concluded that Brummel was, indeed, quite that interested in fashion). Instead, Delaroche penned the name Georges Marston.

Marston’s comings and goings from the docks had not escaped the notice of the Assistant to the Minister of Police. Marston claimed the call of his French blood drew him back to the service of his homeland. Others claimed it had been the stronger siren call
of higher pay. Delaroche considered a third explanation. How easy it would be for a man to claim a change of allegiance, infiltrate the highest reaches of government…all the while reporting to his former masters.

Marston had used his acquaintance with that idiot brother-in-law of the consul’s, Joachim Murat, to propel himself into the inner circles at the Tuilleries. The friendship, Delaroche gathered, had been founded on a basis of imbibing, gaming, and wenching. Delaroche himself had no use for such pastimes. He had heard, however, that they provided an excellent pretence under which to gather intelligence.

Delaroche’s nostrils flared scornfully. Amateurs!

For a moment, Delaroche toyed with the delicious notion of subverting the Purple Gentian to Bonaparte’s cause. Georges Marston was a soldier of fortune. If he were the Purple Gentian, one need only find out what the British were paying him and double it. Throw in a commission in the French army – colonel, perhaps? – marry him off to one of Mme Bonaparte’s ladies-in-waiting, and Marston would be theirs for life. What a coup that would be! PURPLE GENTIAN DESERTS TO BONAPARTE the headlines on those despicable English news sheets would read.

Such an outcome might almost be more pleasurable than killing him. Delaroche caressed the blade of the letter opener with one scarred finger. Almost.

Ah, well, one could always subvert the man, enjoy the embarrassment of the English for a few weeks, and then arrange for a little accident to befall the newest colonel in Bonaparte’s forces.

Regretfully putting aside the knife with one last, loving caress, Delaroche penned a third name, jotting the characters tersely onto the page: Edouard de Balcourt.

Underneath his thoroughly French name, Balcourt was half English. It had not escaped the attention of the Ministry of Police that Balcourt had been sending couriers into England over the years under the pretence of letters to his sister. Sister, ha! True, the
girl existed, but what man went to such trouble over a mere sister? Delaroche hadn’t given his own sister a thought since she married that butcher in Rouen fifteen years ago.

Balcourt had seen his father’s head roll into the straw below the guillotine (a particularly fine day for an execution, Delaroche recalled fondly); his estates had been looted, his vineyards torched. All in the interests of the Republic, of course, but someone without civic spirit might take such acts as a personal affront.

Balcourt’s gaudy waistcoats, his overlarge cravats… No French tailor would produce clothing that execrable unless it was deliberate. Those cravats bespoke a man who had something to hide.

But no cravat in France was large enough to shield Balcourt from the all-seeing eyes of the Ministry of Police.

Without hesitation, Delaroche continued on to his fourth and final suspect, Augustus Whittlesby. Whittlesby proclaimed himself a romantic poet seeking inspiration among the splendours of
la belle
France.
He could usually be found languishing among the inns of the Latin quarter, flowing white shirt askew, one pale hand pressed to his brow, the other wrapped around a carafe of burgundy. When Delaroche had asked him sharply if he suffered a medical condition (Whittlesby having inconveniently swooned onto his boots just as Delaroche was preparing to follow a suspect), Whittlesby had declared in dramatic tones that he was overcome, not with any weakness of the body, but with the soul-searing joys of poetic inspiration. He had then, with Delaroche held captive by his boot-tops, insisted on reciting an impromptu ode to the cobblestones of Paris that began, ‘Hail to thee, thou sylvan stones!/Upon whose adamantine brilliance tread many feet!/Tread there more feet! More happy, happy feet!/In boots with merry tassels and polish bright/That never know the scum of a dirt road.’ The happy, happy feet had trotted along the merry, merry cobbles for twenty-five further stanzas, while Delaroche’s feet had remained very unhappily immobile on cobbles more muddy than merry.

Delaroche eyed his letter opener speculatively. Perhaps Whittlesby
might be dispatched even if not identified as the Purple Gentian.

Delaroche was about to shout to the sentry to summon him four agents, when a sudden recollection barrelled out of the miscellany of information he acquired every day, giving him pause. Yesterday, another Englishman had returned to Paris. That same Englishman had left Paris directly following the Purple Gentian’s theft of Delaroche’s dossiers.

This man had come to Delaroche’s attention before. That alone was little distinction, as most of Paris had come to Delaroche’s attention at some point. But Delaroche’s attention had been so arrested that he had cornered the gentleman in question at no fewer than seven of Mme Bonaparte’s receptions, and personally shadowed him for over a fortnight. Delaroche’s efforts had proven fruitless (unless one counted a new understanding of several passages in Homer). In the end, Delaroche had reluctantly dismissed him because, to all appearances, he was exactly what he claimed to be: a gentleman scholar with an utter disregard for current affairs and a knowledge of the classics to make a schoolmaster weep with joy. Yet…the coincidence of the dates tugged at Delaroche with almost physical force.

Before calling for his spies, Delaroche penned one last name.

Lord Richard Selwick.