Chief Inspector Limodin looked put out. His face rarely wore any other expression, but today it seemed significant.
“What?” Dubois asked his subordinate. “More anonymous letters implicating odious neighbors?”
“Worse. A parcel came for you in the forenoon. I made the messenger leave it outside. It might be another infernal machine.”
The Prefect stepped outside the office and spotted the offending item at the end of the hall. It was a leather carton the size and shape of a bucket, with a strap handle.
“A hat box,” Dubois observed. “Well, it’s cheaper than hiring a horse and cart. In this case, however, I’ve been expecting it.”
Limodin watched his superior stand the box on the heaps of paper on his desk and remove the lid. He looked eager.
Dubois lifted out an object that resembled an outsize pillbox with a square patent-leather visor, a brass eagle insignia on the front, and a strap with a buckle. He placed it on his head and fastened the buckle at his chin.
“First impressions? Be brutally honest.”
“You look like a postman.”
“Better a postman than a peacock.” Dubois scowled at his plumed official fore-and-aft headpiece on its peg. “The uniform must not wear the man. Have you a looking glass?”
“If I did I wouldn’t admit it. I’ll see what I can find.”
At length the chief inspector returned, dangling a hand-mirror by its mother-of-pearl handle between thumb and forefinger. He might have been carrying a dead rat by its tail. “Inspector Morage is fond of his imperials. He suspends them in a hammock when he sleeps.”
Dubois seized the item, looked at his reflection, and made a small adjustment in the angle of the hat, squaring it across his brows. “I arranged with the quartermaster to have it made from my own design, based on an infantry shako, with a shorter crown. I like it, I think.”
“Is it permitted?”
“I can’t imagine the Police Minister would object. He already behaves as if I’m invisible. The First Consul separates himself from his generals on campaign by wearing the simple green uniform of a colonel. At all events, these two men run France. Do you think they care two snaps about my hat?”
Limodin registered disapproval in his customary way, by saying nothing.
His superior returned his attention to his reflection. “Yes, I like it. I intend to order one for every officer in the Prefecture.”
“Excluding me, I hope.”
“Then you’ll be the only popinjay in the service. It’s high time we all start looking like proper policemen.” He admired the effect a moment longer, then returned the hat to its box; redirecting his attention to the mountain of paper with a sigh. The documents he’d brought from the Police Ministry lay atop the tallest heap.
Dubois was uncertain just when the business of government had fallen to petty clerks. The sheer volume of paper that passed through his office doubled by the day. One morning it arrived on pallets, left in slender sheaves, and returned the next day in trundle carts. It all required a volcanic personality to attend to it with dispatch; but there was only one Bonaparte, and he was busy drawing up a new system of law, and incidentally dreaming up another war.
Which would likely lead to more paper.
Dubois’ method was to attack the piles of foolscap the way mounted lancers assaulted a redoubt. When there were no more enemy soldiers to kill, and his desk was empty (invariably after nightfall), he was free to turn his attention to police work.
He was a simple boulevard policeman, despite the grandeur of his title; a man who enjoyed patrolling the neighborhood of an evening, trying locks and questioning suspicious pedestrians. Limodin thought this beneath the dignity of Paris’ chief keeper of the peace, but Dubois never felt himself more useful than when he was performing the duties of a common flic. He would rather rattle doorknobs and chivvy strangers than attend ceremonies of state wearing three rods of gold braid and a sword he never drew.
On the morning after his interview with Fouché in his home, the Police Minister’s new secretary arrived at the Quai Desaix carrying a bulging dispatch case and laid it on a section of desk Dubois had just cleared. “The Minister sends his regards, Citizen. This is the material he discussed with you last night.”
The Prefect could barely see over the case. “I was told to expect only those accounts that were collected from the ports on the Channel.”
“Indeed. I shall be back with the rest. Is there a reply?”
“Thank Citizen Fouché for his promptness.”
Alone again, Dubois fingered the hat box longingly, then pushed it aside and unstrapped the dispatch case. He would rattle no doorknobs this week.
He kept moving, like a viper after sundown.
He preferred not to stay in a place more than two nights in succession. Strangers attracted curiosity, and although he could speak the local dialect with or without a foreign accent (his choice, depending on the circumstances), blending in became more challenging the deeper he moved into the French countryside.
Regiments were on the march. War was in the wind, small surprise: 4 Nivose had reawakened Bonaparte’s addiction to the smell of gunpowder; he inhaled it like snuff. Soldiers commanded rooms in all the inns, forcing a lone traveler to stay put until the troops moved on and lodging became available down the road. He didn’t want another incident like Rouen.
There, he’d been evicted by an apologetic innkeeper on behalf of a lieutenant-colonel of Hussars, who’d requisitioned the entire establishment for himself and his staff.
“I understand. I shall leave at once.” He could do nothing else, or risk being remembered.
The officer was a stout, red-faced man whose scarlet tunic barely contained his girth. With the country having been at war for nearly a decade, a man of his age who’d failed to advance beyond the rank of lieutenant-colonel was either incompetent or a martinet who’d managed to provoke those above and below his rank. This one suggested both. He yapped like a terrier at the corporal lugging a case of wine from a pack horse into the building. The Viper had tried to take advantage of the distraction to pass unnoticed.
“You, there! What’s your name?”
He stopped and faced the officer. “Chaucer, sir.”
“English?” His accent had been noted, as intended.
“American.”
The lieutenant-colonel appeared not to disapprove. The fledgling United States had supported the Revolution.
“What’s your business?”
He produced a letter on Bank of England stationery, identifying him as a courier in the employ of Major Meuchel, an officer in the finance division of the Army of Austria, which at present was at peace with France. He couldn’t tell if the man could read English, but it looked official.
The “man on banking business” had bought a mare and two-wheeled cart—what the English called a dog cart, for the box under the rear seat where a good hunting dog could rest—from a stable in Doudeville. It was an unprepossessing outfit, and had excited little interest when he pulled it over to give the road to the columns of uniformed men on horseback and on foot flying the pennants of the Republic.
His valise was opened and searched, but the false bottom went unnoticed. His pistol and dagger were examined and replaced. Not to carry protection in a climate of unrest would have been suspicious.
“Where is the item you’re charged to deliver?”
He’d transferred the money he’d drawn to a courier’s belt strapped around his waist. He opened his coat to display it.
“How much is in it?”
Hesitation was fatal; if the man was a thief, so be it. “Ten thousand pounds, minus expenses incurred traveling.”
A spark came to the fat officer’s mud-colored eyes. The Viper let drop his coattails, freeing his hands.
The other bunched his chin.
“Money to fund the British Royal Navy, perhaps.”
“A small sum for that, wouldn’t you think?”
That was a tactical error; clearly the man preferred to ask the questions. If “Chaucer” was detained long enough to test his story, and his valise examined thoroughly … His hand crept to the dagger in its sheath in the small of his back. He might get three of them, and in the confusion make his escape. It seemed doubtful.
Just then another officer approached to ask about stabling arrangements.
The lieutenant-colonel returned the bank letter. “Be on your way, and curb that tongue. You’ll find not everyone’s as easygoing as I am.”
Eavesdropping on gossip was the best way to keep abreast of great events. In a tavern in St. Germaine, the Viper learned that the country was indeed at war.
Bonaparte had signed the Treaty of Aranjuez, establishing peace with Spain and clearing the way for the French Army to cross through its borders and attack Portugal. Victory would open a port to transport troops to Africa and challenge British holdings there: This strategy had become vital in view of declining French influence in Egypt. Admiral Nelson had slammed that door with the British fleet.
When the Turks took Cairo less than a fortnight later, France swarmed with military activity, men and cannon trundling in to defend the frontiers in the event the British launched an offensive in retaliation for their threatened interests in Africa.
When the Viper learned of all this in St. Germaine, he altered his itinerary, wandering farther from the main roads, detouring miles out of his way in order to avoid any more confrontations. A false bottom was poor defense against a country at war.
Now he avoided hostelries of any kind. Even those that still had accommodations to offer were likely to quarter French troops; and there were always Fouché’s spies to consider. He camped well off the traveled roads, building no fire and eating cold salted pork. When it rained he crawled under the cart for shelter.
The precautions were wise, but they didn’t go far enough. At the next village he came to he entered an apothecary shop and bought poison.