This time, Fouché and Dubois were met by Méneval, the First Consul’s personal secretary, at the Tuileries. Although Méneval was a civilian, his immaculate appearance in black tailcoat, snow-white breeches, and glistening boots gave the impression of a military aide-de-camp. He bowed to the visitors and led them to his master’s study.
Outside the massive double doors, he hesitated with his fist raised to knock. Bonaparte’s parade-drill voice could be heard bellowing through the heavy oak panels.
Méneval turned with lips pursed. “Another time, perhaps, Citizens. The First Consul is in conference with the Foreign Minister.”
“I wonder what Talleyrand’s done now?” mused Fouché. “Made peace with Britain, possibly, without consulting the palace. He dictates policy as if he were the head of state. But I suspect he’ll survive. A spider is impervious to most poisons, being himself venomous.”
Méneval made no response. Indiscretions, from both above and below, stopped with him.
Fouché popped open his watch. “We’ll wait. What we have to report won’t keep till tomorrow.”
The secretary bowed again and conducted them to an ante-room.
“Fouché! What news? Are you here to arrest one of the other Consuls?” Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon’s younger brother, arose from a chair. A bird of paradise in plumage and velvet, he bore a close enough resemblance to the First Consul to make even Dubois glance back toward the study.
The Police Prefect, who knew Fouché’s every mood, saw a twitch of irritation in the reptilian face. It was gone by the time he turned toward the speaker.
Lucien held the office of Minister of Internal Affairs, and as such meddled in all departments of government. Dubois considered him an even more accomplished theatrical performer than his brother. He’d saved Napoleon from being mobbed by the late Council of Five Hundred by placing the point of his sword at Napoleon’s breast, promising to run him through if he betrayed the Republic. The result was a bloodless coup, and France’s fourth government in ten years.
Dubois held the uneasy conviction that there wasn’t so much theater in the performance; that the promise he’d made on that historic day was literal. Lucien bore all the marks of a dangerous fanatic, Jacobin to the core.
Fouché’s expression changed. His response was blandly urbane; the guise in which he was most dangerous.
“Quite the reverse, Citizen Bonaparte. We’re here to save the Consulate from a serious threat. Unfortunately, your brother is occupied.”
“With Talleyrand, yes. Perhaps this time he’ll dismiss that club-footed ogre. You may report to me, and I shall inform the First Consul of your concerns.”
The Police Minister gestured with the worn leather portfolio under his arm. “With respect, Citizen, this is for the eyes and ears of the First Consul only. He’ll bring you up to date, I’m sure.”
“Méneval!”
Napoleon’s shout shook the door panels. The secretary bowed a third time and turned toward the study.
Lucien affected not to have heard.
“Yes, I know all about your secret newspaper, and how its columns are filled. I found one of your spies under my bed the other night, masquerading as a roach. How are you, Dubois?” His demeanor softened visibly when he addressed the Prefect.
For some reason, both Bonapartes held Dubois in the same affectionate regard. This pained him. Lucien wasn’t above persuading Napoleon to put him in Fouché’s place—a perilous presumption with the Police Minister still very much in power.
How he envied the common patrolman, with only his ring of keys to fret about.
“I’m well, Citizen. Thank you for asking.”
“That’s happy news. So many gifted individuals have lost their stations—indeed, their heads—to ambitious bureaucrats. Who’d have thought such gray men would prove worse than a king?” Lucien clicked his heels. “Dubois. Fouché.”
Fouché observed his retreating back from beneath heavy lids.
“You know,” he told Dubois, “the First Consul might have perished in Egypt, with Nelson in control of the Nile. His brother was president of the Council of Five Hundred, and would in that event have taken charge himself. There, but for the grace of a good blockade runner, goes another Robespierre. We might have had the Terror all over again.”
Dubois made no remark. It had been the Terror that had catapulted the Police Minister into power. With each new government he’d thrown off the last without a backward glance.
The Prefect drew a deep breath. His sole ambition was to do his job. Greatness kept getting in the way.
They wandered back out into the corridor just as the study doors flew open and Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, France’s Foreign Minister, burst out and swept past them without stopping, leaning on a gold-headed stick. Alone among the First Consul’s inner circle, he clung to the powdered wigs of the Ancien Regime: a tall, aristocratic figure with an implausibly long neck bound with a silk stock, threads of gold glittering in his state uniform. He powdered his face with white lead to conceal the scars of smallpox, but even so his cheeks were aflame with rage.
“Best to leave the conversation to me,” Fouché told Dubois, as Talleyrand clumped away down the passage on his crippled foot. “For the First Consul, it’s the next best thing to doing all the talking himself.”
Dubois thought it just as well. Intrigue was beyond his depth.
Méneval came out of the study. “Citizens, the First Consul will see you.”
Bonaparte fidgeted behind his ornate desk until Fouché finished speaking, then said: “What do you think, Dubois?”
Dubois glanced at the Minister, seated beside him. His expression was impassive, a sure sign he was seething. It would go badly for the Prefect if he were not absolutely diplomatic.
“Citizen Fouché put the matter thoroughly and succinctly, Citizen. I can’t add anything.”
There was no trace on the First Consul’s face of his earlier rage. The Strong Man of France shifted from one humor to another as easily as turning a lamp up or down.
If in fact he’d been honestly angry to begin with.
He took a pinch of snuff and wiped his nostrils with silk. “We’re all equals here. What’s your interpretation?”
Dubois marshaled his recollections.
“Dr. Eslée was lying when he said he knew nothing of the double killing and that he wasn’t treating anyone at the time we spoke. I suspected as much, but I lacked evidence. After what took place behind his house, Constable Malroux and I made a thorough search of his examining room and found a scrap of bloody bandage. The rest of the story came out as the doctor worked on the man Giroud.”
“One of mine,” Fouché put in.
Dubois continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Thirty-two stitches were required to close his wound. Giroud was lucky; he managed to block the dagger with his arm. Unfortunately, the fugitive escaped despite Malroux’s best efforts. A good man, the constable.”
“Is the doctor in custody?”
“I thought it unnecessary to detain him. He certainly withheld evidence, but he was misguided by his oath to his profession and by the man Meuchel’s plausible story that he was acting on behalf of peace.”
“Hardly plausible.” Fouché’s tone was even. “I’d have brought this quack to Paris for further questioning.”
Torturing; but Dubois resisted the urge to shudder. He’d liked Eslée, deluded fellow that he was. He cleared his throat.
“He’s being watched, of course, by Malroux and by Citizen Blaq, the Minister’s other man in Pontoise.”
Bonaparte turned his eyes on Fouché. “Why two, for so small a village?”
“In light of what took place last night, your excellency, there should have been twice that number at least.”
Dubois resumed.
“I think the doctor told the truth at last. The constable and I interviewed Citizeness Deauville in Eslée’s presence. We were satisfied by his reaction to her story that he knew nothing of the man’s real nature: He honestly thought he was protecting an innocent, and was appalled when he realized the depth of his error. The man he knew as Meuchel tried to take advantage of her in a most brutal fashion. She was naturally reluctant to enter into detail, but she’s lucky to be alive.”
Fouché’s nostrils expanded in a suppressed yawn. “I’d like to interview her as well. I suspect the Prefect didn’t go deep enough.”
“Yes, they often scream rape when the fait is accompli.” The First Consul scowled down at his desk. “And the man who calls himself Meuchel? Where is he now?”
“By now I suspect he’s in Paris.” The Minister retook the conversation, emphasizing some points with a bony index finger extended.
“The description both the doctor and his mistress gave us is similar to the one my people in England provided of one of Georges Cadoudal’s visitors at the Earl of Rexborough’s country estate early this spring. He’s the only man we were unable to identify definitely; all the known members of the so-called Cutthroat Club are on file. Until she was interviewed by Ministry professionals, a fool girl we recruited in an inn outside Doudeville near the English Channel failed to report the anomaly of a stranger who carried equipment for the maintenance of a pistol, but no balls or powder to load it, at least in his luggage.” He moved a shoulder. “We must make do, your excellency, with the materials we have.”
Dubois said nothing as the Minister assumed the credit for this discovery.
Bonaparte said, “No excuses, Fouché. Talleyrand is a diplomatic genius; yet I just sent him scurrying out with his tail between his legs for committing a blunder which may cost France all its victories to date.”
Fouché lowered and raised his head; no doubt collecting that information for his voluminous files.
“During the interview the girl provided a description which I believe belongs to our mystery man,” he said.
“Why am I learning all this just now?”
“Until now, we had only two vague descriptions, which although similar didn’t mesh until this latest report. But if one were to draw a line on a map from England to our west coast, and from there to Pontoise, it would form an arrow pointing directly to Paris. I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“And yet you thought little enough of the double killing to fob it off upon Prefect Dubois rather than follow it up yourself.”
“Your excellency—”
The First Consul held up a palm. “No use to protest. The greatest victories and the most inglorious defeats turn upon such trifles. Which is why even the lowest infantryman in the field sometimes is worth five generals. Splendid work, Monsieur le Prefect.”
Dubois could not decide if the First Consul intended to compliment him or stoke the fires of jealousy in his colleague. He was capable of setting those around him at one another’s throat for his own amusement.
Bonaparte lifted the copy of the Bulletin de la Police from his blotting-pad, put it aside, and picked up a steel-edged ruler, the one he used to draw lines on a campaign map. He stood it on end, slid his fingers to the bottom, let it topple, repeated the action. The man simply could not sit still.
He smacked it flat on the desk. The report startled Dubois. Fouché, that amphibious creature, didn’t react.
“I learned a bit of German while fighting the Austrians in Italy,” the First Consul said. “Do either of you understand the language?”
Fouché shook his head. “I have a Breton’s fair understanding of English, but none of that barbaric tongue.”
Dubois shook his head. “I’m an uneducated man, Citizen.”
The head of the Republic smiled, showing his unnaturally white and even teeth.
“It’s the barbaric tongue of Frederick the Great, of Mozart, of the poet Goethe, and of the composer Beethoven. The barbarians who spoke it toppled Imperial Rome. With that tongue I persuaded the Emperor of Austria to cede Central Europe to France. It’s a mistake to regard ignorance as a virtue.”
Fouché folded his hands across his spare middle, stifling one of his infamous yawns. Dubois—more astute, for once, than the master intriguer—listened closely.
“Meuchel, I believe, is the name our subject of interest gave Eslée?”
“The only one,” said Dubois. “He said he acted on behalf of a Major Meuchel, an important official in the Austrian Army. To Madame Deauville he confided his Christian name was Franz, which is also German or Austrian. It isn’t unusual for an emissary traveling incognito on an errand of state to adopt the name of the man he represents.”
“Meuchel is the German word for ‘assassin’; which even our euphemistic friends the English haven’t seen necessary to render into a gentler term. It’s clear that Herr Meuchel, whatever his name may have been at birth, is in Paris at this moment to murder me.”
Fouché and Dubois sat in silence.
Dubois had guessed the man’s intentions, but he was stunned by so simple—no, simple-minded—a subterfuge.
What the Police Minister was thinking, he could not fathom.
The First Consul flipped over the ruler.
“Were I slain, the man who takes my place—if he’d keep it, and if he isn’t a Bourbon—must declare war on England and all its allies; meaning all the other civilized nations on earth. I’m as interested in surviving as the next man, but if it must happen, I shouldn’t mind dying if to avenge me the entire world went to war.”