I do not envy the man who gets stuck with that job. He hoped nobody inventoried the counterfeit they’d be taking out of those baskets. He’d helped himself to a few bundles.
“There is water in the pitcher,” Claudine said. “You may wash later at the pump in the courtyard.”
That sounded like a suggestion. The British Service was about universally in love with washing. He was getting used to it.
The room had curtains and a rag rug on the floor. Looked like he wouldn’t have to share the bed. Clean sheets. A bureau with a china basin and pitcher on it. And towels. Folded white towels. This was a bloody palace.
It smelled clean. He robbed houses that smelled like this. He didn’t live in one.
“Nice.” He’d been expecting a basement, with the possibility of chains. They knew what he was. What he’d done.
“Althea prepares the rooms. You must thank her. And Citoyenne Cachard, who ordered this for you.”
Probably some trap to it then. He kept his face blank. In this household, Claudine was likely to be a woman of many talents. She might be the one they’d send to smother him in his sleep. That added a certain—what would Lazarus call it?—a certain piquancy to the situation.
“You will stay here till Citoyenne Cachard calls for you.” Her eyes danced. “If you are patient, perhaps I will even feed you.”
She checked to see there was water in the pitcher before she left and locked the door behind her.
The longer he lived, and he’d lived twelve or thirteen years now, the less he understood about women.
He was on his own. It behooved him . . . And wasn’t that a fine word? Behooved. He wasn’t sure what it meant but he’d heard Doyle use it. It behooved him to show a little initiative.
The window had a drop to the stones below that would kill a man a couple times over, doing a right painful and thorough job of it. But the roof was in reach overhead. Once you’re on the roof, the house is yours. Lazarus said that. Unlike some of what that bastard said, that was golden truth.
Lazarus got him into this mess. It was Lazarus sent him to search Meeks Street, British Service headquarters in London. When he got into trouble, Lazarus gave him over to the Service, easy as kiss yer hand.
It started smooth, a caper like any other. He’d come down the chimney, headfirst, hanging like a spider on a silk thread. Always some fool lighting a fire in the fireplace, but this one had been out for a while. The bricks were cooled down enough he could stand to touch them. But it was always hard to breathe in chimneys. Hurt his lungs.
Light came up from the bottom, a gray square of it. They’d left a glim lit on some table when they went to bed.
He let out rope. Let out some more. The last dozen feet were hot enough to roast a haddock. He did them fast. Poked his head out. Saw an empty room. Good. Now it was just not knocking the fire dogs over when he climbed out.
He wiped his feet on the hearth rug. No point tracking ashes all over the house. Lazarus had drawn him a map of the rooms. Guesses mostly. Galba’s office was in the back corner. Galba was Head of the whole damn British Service. If there was papers about Lazarus making deals with the French, they’d be in Galba’s desk.
Find the papers. Get back up the chimney. Leg it out of here. He wasn’t supposed to kill nobody.
Not his fault Galba walked in on him.
Claudine’s sabots clicked to the bottom of the stairs. The courtyard down below was empty. He went out the window. A tight fit around the shoulders. He was putting on muscle.
He balanced on the windowsill with all that flat and hard waiting down below, hanging to the cracks in the stone with his fingertips. Holding on and reaching up to the roof, both at the same time. All a little tricky, that bit. Then he pulled himself up and over the edge of the roof. It was his roof now.
Good job. If he didn’t say a word of praise to himself, who was going to?
There was nobody outside to take any notice of him. He crawled along till he could hear Doyle talking in one of the rooms below. Doyle and that woman Carruthers. Let’s go see what they have to say.
Knowing things was like picking up diamonds and rubies off the street. Made him feel rich. It might even keep him alive long enough to see fourteen.
The drainpipe that ran down the inner corner of the building, into the courtyard, turned out to be sturdy enough to hold him. He let himself down a dozen feet, bracing against the corner wall, leaving some skin behind. His left knee was giving him trouble again. He didn’t take any account of it.
Then he could hear.
“. . . rabid little weasel. I’ll wring his neck myself if you’re too squeamish.”
The Old Trout thought she was going to kill him. Not likely.
He couldn’t pick all the words out when Doyle answered. “. . . falling into bad habits.” Too bad he couldn’t hear who was falling into what bad habits. Everybody, probably. “. . . we need . . .”
The woman was talking again. “You see only the English side of it. There were seven in the last six months in Austria. Two of them at the Theresian Military Academy. Not into their twenties. The top of their class.” He could hear the chink of china on china. They were sipping tea. “It’s obscene.”
The Service was worried about Austrians. Seemed like de Fleurignac made himself a couple of lists. Not just the one for England.
He missed Doyle’s answer. Then the old woman was talking. “. . . resources. We’re keeping low to the ground while the French guillotine each other. But, certainly I can assign men to watch the de Fleurignac woman.”
“. . . reporting to me. I want them in place today. They follow her every time she puts a foot outside the house. I need . . .”
Easy enough to know what Doyle needed. And wasn’t that a pocketful of irony? A man like Doyle could reach out and take anything he wanted. He didn’t let himself take that woman.
They talked too low for him to hear. Doyle mentioned the counterfeit in the baskets, saying it was a relief to get it off his hands. Then Carruthers said, “It is not my first priority, but it will give me great pleasure to strangle the life out of that poisonous reptile you’ve brought among us.”
That was him. A rabid weasel and a reptile, too. He was a man of parts, wasn’t he?
A long rumble from Doyle. “. . . take more than that to kill Galba . . . recovered except he can’t play that damned violin of his and . . .” More words he couldn’t hear, and finally, “. . . is mine. Ask first. I have plans for him.”
It was time to hike off. He felt the itch of it. Any thief who didn’t get that feeling didn’t live long. Lazarus said his instincts were good. They told him to shove off.
He could climb up, back to that room. Or he could head down, to the courtyard, and over the wall into Paris.
That was what Doyle would call a foregone conclusion.
He slipped, hand over hand, to the ground. He was flat to the wall by the privy, well hid, when Doyle stuck his head out the window and looked around. Not bad, Mister Doyle. You are one of the best I’ve ever seen.
But I’m better.
This house had more holes than a sieve. He was out of it and on the Rue de la Verrerie in three minutes. He walked off, whistling one of the songs he’d heard today. The song was about killing people.
Hell of a city, Paris.
“I don’t see him.” Doyle let the curtain loose. “But he’s out there behind the shed. You owe me that louis.”
Carruthers grimaced. “Crawled down the wall like a lizard. Nasty little monster. I’ll admit I heard nothing.”
“You can check his room if you want. He won’t be there.” He thumbed a roll open and stuffed hard cheese inside. Held it while he gulped down his tea.
“He can’t be trusted, just because he was handed over to you. You know that.”