“‘Torn to pieces.’”
“Oui.” Chief Inspector Jules Limodin smoked his pipe. He was sitting in his place opposite Dubois at his desk.
The Prefect grimaced. “You hear someone threaten to tear so-and-so to pieces, and think it comical. The reality is nothing to laugh about.”
“It’s the same with tarring and feathering,” Limodin said. “I saw it happen once, in Corbeil. A dentist; nobody of any account. But I wouldn’t suggest such a thing now, even in jest.”
“There should be a law against large gatherings.”
“There may be soon. I understand the First Consul has finished the Civil Code.” The chief inspector puffed a gale of smoke. “You were reckless, you know.”
Dubois glanced down at his arm in a sling. “I would do it again—albeit with certain modifications.”
He’d acted automatically, jamming flesh into the mechanism of the Viper’s pistol. Ironically, that small injury, patched as it was, still pained him more than his wrist, which was a more serious matter; he’d wear the cast for several more weeks, and would remember 10 Thermidor every time he looked at the scar, the only decoration he was likely to bear for performing the duties of his office.
Not that he was likely to forget. The mare the Royalists had blown to bits on Christmas Eve had presented an aspect less grisly than the assassin’s remains once Paris had got through with him.
“What kept you, by the way?” he asked Limodin. “Two seconds later and Dr. Eslée’s warning would have been moot, and the First Consul dead instead of that poor grenadier on the balcony, now a martyr to the Republic.”
“The crowds, and a stubborn sentry at the door. I had to stamp on his instep finally to get Eslée inside.” He removed the pipe and glared over the bowl. “I was under military arrest for twelve hours.”
“He was doing his job. So were you. So was I. Don’t expect a rise in salary.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do with one. I neither drink nor gamble and I don’t keep a mistress.”
Dubois steered the discussion away from an indelicate subject. “How are you getting along with the hat?”
Limodin wore a duplicate of his superior’s round flat cap, at an angle that seemed jaunty for him. The item was now part of the official uniform code.
“It covers my head. One can’t ask for anything more of a hat.”
“You’re a hard man to please.”
“Not so hard. Doing what I’m paid to do comes close.” He puffed. “What do you suppose possessed the Police Minister to cry out that Citizen Bonaparte had been killed? All he had to do was order the crowd to stop the man in flight.”
“Our people don’t command easily. They require a reason to act. They’re our greatest weapon, especially when they’re in high dudgeon. They brought down three governments, and in this case they spared France the price of a firing squad.”
“Irony. The Viper was counting on escaping into the cover of that same crowd after his work was done.”
“You think more like a criminal than a policeman, Jules.”
“I resent that.”
“It’s true.”
“All the more reason to take issue.”
They fell silent. The courtyard outside was quiet. The troubles with England had passed for the time being. All the troops were back in their garrisons.
“It’s been three weeks,” Limodin said. “Have we learned anything new?”
Dubois shook his head.
“There’s no record of an Aleron Débiteur having served in any branch of the army under any rank. I’m not sure he was even French. He had more accents than a peddler has wares. The English have no record of him. They disavow him entirely; small surprise. The Austrians and Germans followed suit. No one we interviewed at the military hospital in Marseille recognized his description, so what he told the First Consul about serving in Egypt is in question. At the time he claimed he was recovering in that facility, their most serious case was a corporal with dysentery. Can you imagine shitting to death for your country?”
“There should be a medal for that: A golden turd surrounded by laurels.”
The Prefect hardly listened. Even his lieutenant’s congenital inelegance could not penetrate his thoughts.
For an instant, he’d stood face-to-face with the man all France had been hunting for weeks, staring into a cold mask with gray-green eyes as dead as a snake’s. There had been no mercy in that face, nothing human. He crossed himself.
Limodin saw the gesture. “Something?”
“Nothing. I may never get used to this quiet.” He frowned. “Débiteur. A man with a debt to pay. Our friend’s last alias, which may be significant. Perhaps he thought he owed Citizen Bonaparte something: a reckoning. He told Eslée he had a friend who served under Bonaparte on Thirteen Vendémiaire, and expressed disapproval of firing upon one’s own countrymen. I think we know this man had no friends. He was speaking of himself.”
“Perhaps.”
“He wore a decoration for that action, and another from the Egyptian campaign, awarded under whatever name he was using then. If he did take part in the massacre, and was stranded in Egypt by his commander, his motives may have been personal. Had the Cutthroats suspected that, he’d have cost them much less money.”
“That was his mistake. If he’d done it for the money alone, he might have succeeded. The job is the job; holy crusades are for knights. I once sank fifty francs on a prizefighter who lost his head and attacked his opponent in white heat. He was on the canvas after three rounds.”
“You said you don’t gamble.”
“That lesson cost me fifty francs.”
Dubois surveyed his desk, clear of files for the first time in months. They occupied crates on the floor awaiting delivery to the state archives.
“The raw truth of the matter,” he said, “is we may never know who the Viper was.”
“Just as well. There wasn’t enough left of him to bury under a stone.”