Chapter 52
Do you know who they are?” asked Eugène-François Vidocq, staring down at the two dead men at their feet. The morning had dawned by now, cold and wet and gray, with a faint mist that hugged the river and drifted through the half-dead trees at the island’s tip.
“Not exactly.” Sebastian crossed his arms at his chest, his gaze on the ex-gallerian. “But Lady Devlin identified them as the two men who attacked her on the quay. The smaller man had disguised himself as a hunchbacked poodle clipper.”
Eyes widening, the Frenchman looked up at him. “You showed them to her? She has seen them? Looking like this?”
“Yes.”
“Sacré bleu,” he muttered.
Sebastian said, “Do you recognize them?”
The head of the Sûreté nationale scratched absently at the side of his neck as he nudged the smaller of the two men with the toe of his boot. “This one looks vaguely familiar. It may come to me.”
Sebastian studied the Frenchman’s closed, secretive expression. Vidocq was famous for never forgetting a face, however briefly glimpsed. So why was he pretending to have forgotten this one? Sebastian could think of several explanations, and all of them were troubling.
“What about the man on the bridge?” said Vidocq. “Did you recognize him?”
“Only his limp.”
“Ah, yes.” Vidocq’s knees popped loudly as he hunkered down beside the larger of the silent, blood-splattered figures, tilting his head first one way, then the other, as if to study the dead man’s mutilated features from different angles. “You stuck your knife in his eye?”
“I did, yes.”
“Sacré bleu,” he whispered again, then cleared his throat and looked thoughtful. “How do you think they knew you were down here?”
“I could be wrong, but I suspect it was sheer luck. They were probably intending to break into the house and kill me there. But then they saw me leave the Place Dauphine and made the mistake of thinking I’d just made it easier for them.”
Vidocq sniffed. “You are a hard man to kill, monsieur le vicomte.”
“I do try.”
The ex-gallerian huffed a deep, rumbling laugh and pushed to his feet again. “You’ve heard Lyon has fallen?”
“No, I hadn’t heard. Still not a shot fired?”
“Not a one. Artois was there, you know—with his army.”
“And?”
“He ran away.”
“With his army?”
“Hardly. The army went over to the Emperor. Last night, the King sent the crown jewels out of the country.”
“A few days ago everyone was saying the crown jewels left Paris in Kitty Wellington’s baggage wagon.”
“Perhaps. Except this time, it’s true. Baron Hüe was put in charge of the task. He’s on his way to Calais, and from there to England.”
Sebastian knew a profound sense of uneasiness. François Hüe had served as officier de la chambre du roi for both Louis XVIII and his ill-fated elder brother, Louis XVI, before him. This was a tale that carried with it an ominous ring of truth. “The King must be getting worried.”
Vidocq shrugged. “They say he’s still confident Napoléon will be stopped.”
“Yet not so confident as to risk losing the crown jewels for the second time in a quarter century. I suppose he learned from his brother’s mistake.”
“In some ways, certainly, if not in all,” said Vidocq with a wink. “And when the time comes—if the time comes—I suspect this Louis will run away while he still can.” He cast one last, thoughtful glance at the dead men at their feet, then turned to walk back toward the steps that led up to the bridge. “I’ll send someone to haul the bodies to the morgue; they shouldn’t be too long.”
“The sandy-haired man worked for Fouché, didn’t he?” said Sebastian as they began to mount the old stone stairs.
Vidocq drew up sharply, his eyes widening as he turned to face Sebastian. “How did you know?”
“A guess. A talent for disguises isn’t that common. I figured he worked either for Fouché or for you.”
Vidocq grunted and continued up the stairs. “You remember how you asked us to talk to the housekeeper out at Malmaison?”
“Madame Sorel? Yes. Why?”
“She’s dead.”
Vidocq’s men had a reputation for being heavy-handed in their questioning, and Sebastian felt a surge of anger tinged with a healthy dose of guilt for having set them after the older woman in the first place. “Your men got carried away, did they?”
“What? Ah, non.” Vidocq looked affronted. “They never had a chance to talk to her. Found her strangled in her own bed. The housemaid, gardener, and his grandson have all disappeared. Wise of them, I suppose—unless they’re lying dead someplace, too. That remains a possibility obviously, so we are looking. But you’ll be pleased to know we’ve located Joséphine’s abigail.”
“Also dead?”
“As it happens, no, she’s still very much alive. But if you intend to speak to her, you’d best be quick. She’s taken a position with one of your more easily spooked countrywomen, and her ladyship is intent on fleeing Paris as soon as she can get her trunks packed.”
Bernadette Agasse was a petite, fine-boned woman somewhere in her thirties, with fashionably cropped auburn curls, small even features, and the air of quiet confidence that comes from having served an empress. She met with Sebastian and Hero in a withdrawing room off the entrance hall of the grand Marais district house hired by her employer, an aging baroness from Kent named Lady Bliss. The interview had been approved by her ladyship, but the abigail was obviously still feeling uncomfortable and vaguely puzzled.
She declined to take a seat and chose instead to stand just inside the room’s doorway, her fingers laced tightly together, her hands pressed against the midriff of her neat gray wool gown. “I don’t understand how you think I can help you,” she said, looking from Sebastian to Hero and back again.
“What can you tell us about the Charlemagne Talisman?” said Sebastian.
“The talisman?” she repeated, her face carefully composed into a blank expression.
“You do know it, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course. But . . . why?”
“We understand Joséphine promised to give the amulet to Hortense. Is that true?”
The abigail nodded, her lips pressed tightly together, her eyes dilated with what looked very much like a sudden upsurge of fear.
“So did she?” said Sebastian. “Give it to Hortense, I mean.”
“Non, monsieur.”
So that much evidently was true. He said, “Do you know what happened to it when Joséphine died?”
Bernadette’s gaze met his, then jerked away. “I think perhaps I should not say, my lord. It’s not right, is it, for a servant to be telling tales about her previous employers? Even if they are dead.”
“Your sense of loyalty does you credit,” said Sebastian, his voice rough with impatience. “But I don’t think you understand the implications of what you’re involved in here.” He drew the jeweled red leather case from his pocket and held it out to her. “On the evening of March second, Sophia Cappello was stabbed to death on the Pont Neuf; this was found lying near where she was killed. Empty. And Joséphine’s housekeeper has now been found murdered in her bed. For your own sake, you need to tell us what happened to the talisman when Joséphine died.”
Bernadette stared at the case’s familiar gold monogram, her thin chest juddering with her rapid breaths. “Mon Dieu.”
“Tell us,” he said again when the woman still hesitated.
The abigail brought up one cupped hand to cover her nose and mouth. For a moment she squeezed her eyes shut. Then she nodded and drew a deep breath. “It was when she realized she was dying that madame—the Empress—she asked Dama Cappello to take the amulet.”
Sebastian and Hero exchanged quick glances. “Do you know why?”
“Madame thought . . . She knew the Emperor would soon grow restless on Elba, and she worried that if he had the talisman, then he would be more likely to try to regain his throne.” She paused. “And then the Allies would kill him.”
“So she was trying to protect him from the probable consequences of his own ambitions?” said Sebastian. “Is that what you’re saying? That Joséphine didn’t leave the talisman to her daughter because she was afraid Hortense would give it to Napoléon?”
The woman swallowed hard and nodded again.
Hero said quietly, “You say Joséphine asked Dama Cappello to take it. Did she?”
The abigail gave a quick shake of her head. “No, madame. Dama Cappello said she wasn’t comfortable having it.”
“So what happened to it?”
The abigail looked from Hero to Sebastian, then back again, her face strained.
“Tell us,” said Sebastian in the voice that had once commanded soldiers into battle.
Bernadette dropped her gaze to her clenched hands. For a moment he didn’t think she would answer. Then she whispered, “We hid it.”
“ ’We’?”
“Dama Cappello and I. There is a secret compartment the Empress had built into the paneling in her chamber, and we put it there. Dama Cappello promised Joséphine that if Napoléon died, or if Hortense and Eugène ever sold the château, she would retrieve the amulet and give it to Hortense. The Empress did want her daughter to have it eventually, just . . . not yet. She hoped that if she could keep the talisman from Napoléon, then he would be less likely to attempt a return.”
“And if he should decide to return even without the amulet?” said Sebastian. “What then?”
The abigail looked at him blankly. “I don’t know.”
Hero said, “You say Joséphine wanted it hidden. Do you know whom she was hiding it from?”
The abigail lifted her shoulders in a vague shrug. “Hortense. The Bourbons and Orléanists. Men such as the comte de Cargèse . . .”
“Cargèse?” said Sebastian so sharply that the abigail took a frightened step back. “What makes you mention him?”
The abigail’s small, sharp nose twitched with scorn. “Last summer, before I left Malmaison, I found him in the Empress’s chamber, tapping on the walls. I suppose Anaïs Sorel must have let him in. She does that sort of thing, you know—for money. When I asked what he was doing, he tried to frighten me into telling him where the amulet was hidden.” A contemptuous smile twisted her lips. “I told him I had no idea.”
“He knew Joséphine had a secret compartment in her chamber?”
She looked surprised by the question, as if it hadn’t occurred to her before. “I suppose he must have, but . . . how could he?”
“Who did know of it?”
“Only the Empress and I, and—after I showed it to her—Dama Cappello. The old carpenter who’d built it died long ago.”
“You’re certain no one else knew?”
“Yes,” she said, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. “Quite certain.”