He said, “You may call me sir. Where is the Mandarin Code?”
She wished to appear the smallest bit stupid. A stupid woman would be insolent right now. Besides, she was angry. “The squire in Brodemere has a pair of mastiffs. He’s always yelling, ‘Sit, sir!’ and the closest one plops its hindquarters on the floor and slobbers. I shall think of that when I call you sir.”
The narrow, pale, intellectual face froze. The lips tightened. “You may call me Mr. Smith.”
She turned a page. “I expected more originality from the man who sent that letter.”
“I leave a foolish cleverness to amateurs, Mademoiselle Molinet.”
So. The Police Secrète knew more about her than she’d realized. She’d come prepared for unpleasant surprises. The day was delivering them.
In the Revolution, in Paris, Papà had been Philippe Molinet for a while, a banker, a man of many financial schemes. The sans-culottes who helped themselves to the wealth of the dead aristos had been endearingly gullible when it came to investments. That had been Papà’s last role.
So strange that the French had assumed she would spy for them after they sent Papà and Mamma to the guillotine. Perhaps they thought children forgot. Baldoni do not forget. She shrugged. “Mademoiselle Molinet belongs to the past. One sheds a dozen such names, Mr. Smith, as snakes shed their skin.”
“Shall I call you Vérité? They must have been feeling humorous that day at the Coach House when they called you that.”
She didn’t like him holding that name in his mouth so soon after Devoir had said it. She returned her eyes to the book she held, which appeared to be about rocks. Why would anybody want to read about rocks? “Not Vérité.”
His nod was amiable. She saw him chalk that up as a trifling victory. “Camille, then.”
“We’ll save ‘Camille’ for the merchandise you offer. Call me Miss Leyland.” She licked her index finger and slipped another page of smooth, dense paper from right to left. There were many drawings. Drawings of rocks, apparently. Under lowered eyelids she watched the corner of Fetter Lane and Fleet Street. Where were his henchmen? She said, “Tell me about this Camille you have acquired.”
He made her wait. Deliberately and slowly he slipped his watch out of its pocket, left-handed, and clicked it open. “She is considerably more genuine than you.” The hour and minutes satisfied him, apparently. He put the watch away. “She lived in Lyon. An orphan, like you. Another lost soul of the Revolution.”
“How sad.”
“The Besançons died when they attempted to flee France, all of them, except for her. Life is fragile.”
“Some lives, certainly.”
“She survived riot and war unscathed”—his voice showed regret for riot and war—“only to fall into my hands. Ironic, is it not?”
“So ironical it strains belief.”
Across the street, men unloaded bales of newsprint from a wagon. A boy carried a pair of brown jugs out of a tavern, across the street, and into one of the shops. And at the corner, a man emerged from Fetter Lane. He was blessed with bristling stubby hair, large ears, and an odd, forward-jutting posture that would mark him in a crowd. Not prepossessing. He looked up and down Fleet Street, hesitated, and ambled off to lean at the doorway of a shop.
One of Smith’s minions, awaiting events.
Waiting for her, as she’d been waiting for him. It was one of many precautions and expectations strewn about the street today.
Smith murmured, “Poor young Camille Besançon. So many narrow escapes. It’s as if a kindly providence has been taking care of her all these years. I will regret her death.” He tapped the book he held against the edge of the table, then shoved it into the pile he’d taken it from. There was something very final about that small shush of book on book and the sudden cessation of sound. “I would regret yours, if it comes to that. Were you able to copy the key to the code?”
I wrote the code. “The Leylands didn’t hide it very well. They trust me.”
“Where is it?”
“Safe. Well hidden.”
A slight nod. “I congratulate you on your caution.”
Do not attempt to flatter a Baldoni. She smiled. “Thank you. I’ve brought you a taste.”
She tucked her own book down neatly into a row with others—A book about rocks. Really—and steadied herself with one hand on the book table. What she wanted was inside the halfboot she wore, between shoe leather and stocking. No one in the bookshop was paying them the least attention.
She’d been carrying the piece of rolled paper there for a while. It had become limp. And damp. And convincing. “This is half of one page written in the Mandarin Code. It’s the first page of a five-page key.”
Using two fingers, she dropped it into Mr. Smith’s hand.
Not one person in a thousand would have caught the flash of rage that snapped through him and was suppressed. Mr. Smith was skilled in his role of reasonable man.
He unrolled her scrap of paper. The hasty writing and raggedly torn edge were corroborating detail. The scrawl of letters across the page looked genuine. Given a few hours, an expert codebreaker might hazard a guess as to whether this was code or nonsense. No one could know whether it was the Mandarin Code. Mr. Smith of the Police Secrète should have retained skepticism.
Instead, he looked pleased. She really didn’t like that.
She wrapped her arms around her under her cloak, where her pistol made a comfortable weight against her belly. In a simpler world she’d have been considering which of several inconspicuous alleys would be the best place to shoot Mr. Smith.
In a simpler world, she wouldn’t have thrown snuff and red pepper into Devoir’s face.
Across the street, Smith’s minion had taken to shifting from one foot to the other. Perhaps he was a minion rethinking his strategy.
Two minutes ticked by. Mr. Smith studied the paper she’d bestowed upon him. Then he folded it into an inner pocket of his coat. “You’ve done well.” His thin lips created an affable smile. He leaned across the table of books, closer, to keep their conversation private, and his breath on her face was like a fly crawling on her lips and in her nostrils. “You will bring me the rest of this key.”
“After I talk to your unlikely Camille.” He wanted her to retreat a little, so she didn’t. She stayed exactly as she was. “Bring her to me tomorrow, at the rope walk in—”
“I will name the time and place,” he said.
Even a very foolish woman does not walk into an ambush. “You’ve sent me a trumpery pearl ring anyone could buy in a jewelry shop. I need considerably more evidence of your Camille Besançon before I fetch the Mandarin Code from where I’ve hidden it.”
“Do not try my patience.”
“Then don’t assume I’m an idiot. This fabulous Camille you threaten me with, who survived so miraculously and comes forth so conveniently. Do you think the Leylands will accept her? I’ve had ten years to establish myself. I hold those old biddies like this.” She closed a fist under his nose. “This tight. They wouldn’t believe your impostor if she cried tears of diamond.”
It worked as she’d hoped. A little crude boasting, a little vulgarity . . . and he was contemptuous of her.
His voice became both smug and threatening. “It’s not the gullible Leylands who will believe her. It’s the British Service. And Military Intelligence.”
“I am not afraid of—”
“Once exposed, you will not escape England. I doubt you’ll ever see trial. They’re hasty men at Military Intelligence and the price of spying is . . .” He sketched a smooth line with his thumb, mimicking the slitting of throats, demonstrating the ruthlessness of the British intelligence establishment, in case she had somehow overlooked it.