Alittle to his shame, Henry Morton had once been to Mrs. Mott's in Oxendon Street himself. It was some years past, and he had been under the influence of a certain curiosity, a dark impulse, and rather too much brandy, in about that order. And even then the thing was perhaps aided a bit by proximity, as Mrs. Mott's establishment was but a block away from Morton's own lodgings in Rupert Street. A longer journey, and he might have turned back before he'd got there, if only on consideration of expense.
Mrs. Mott's was not quite an ordinary house of entertainment. It was not aimed at any well-defined taste. In fact, it was a place whose reputation was all in its ability to surprise, in its sometimes exotic and always shifting bill of fare. It was discreet, of course, and folk could merely rent a chamber for whatever purpose they contemplated. But for the initially unattached, it was a place where one might hope to encounter… well, not the usual sorts of choices. An equally curious, darkly influenced female adventurer, of one's own or a better class, likewise experimenting? Or, if not quite so singular a thing, perhaps a stranded traveller from some foreign shore, genteel, but far from the judging eyes of her native land and needing a smallish sum to tide herself over or buy her passage home? Or at the very least, an actress and dancer languishing a little between engagements, perhaps just arrived in town and of as-yet-underappreciated talents. At any rate, whoever it was, she would be new. It was one of Mrs. Mott's principles (if such a word applied) never to allow her house to become a habitual recourse for any female visitor. A week was the utmost limit of her stay, so a man could be sure never to see the same face twice, unless it were Mrs. Mott's own. That man, though, was of course himself very welcome to come back as oft as he pleased. And pay high for the privilege.
Morton descended from his hired coach, paid the driver, and stood staring a moment at Mrs. Mott's. It appeared to be but another house on this obscure street. The home of a minor barrister, perhaps. Morton walked a few paces down and found the second address he was seeking-or at least the door to it, which was hidden down a few stone steps. A slap-bang shop was commonly an establishment where no credit was given. Cash had to be paid down, slap-bang on the counter. But in the cant of thieves, the name applied to a thieves' cellar-a place where stolen goods were bought, sold, or traded. No credit was offered there, either.
Certain thieves' cellars had their usual patrons, as did Mrs. Mott's no doubt, and a few were by so frequently that Morton was confident he could find one to help. The local flash men all knew Mrs. Mott, and though they might not have the finances to afford her wares, they “procured” things for her as needed, so a warm little friendship grew up between the local thieves and the brothel matron.
Morton waited about for half of the hour, his stomach grumbling of its need for food, his head bemoaning its lack of sleep. And then an angler he recognised appeared on the street, a sack over his shoulder. Morton stepped behind a slow-moving cart and, when he judged his position right, set off across the thoroughfare to nab this unwary angler from behind.
“Well, well. Aberdeen Sumner Fox. And what have you caught today?”
The youth cringed away in surprise, collapsing against the wall of a house as he staggered back from the Runner. The look of utter shock and consternation was immediately replaced by one of defeat and anguish. The young man, barely more than a boy, cursed under his breath and looked as though he might weep.
Morton stared at him a moment, his hand keeping a strong grip on the boy's jacket. Anglers used a hooked stick to steal goods from shop windows and from between gratings. As London's criminal classes went, they were of a lower order-small fish, so to speak-but they had a quality that Morton had to admire: They were almost invisible, even in the smallest gathering. The angler was the man whose face you would never recall. But Henry Morton was possessed of almost perfect memory, and criminals of all stripes were his business in more ways than people realised. And he was about to transact a piece of business with this dismayed young man.
“Have you mackerel in there? I ask myself. Or oysters, maybe?” Morton sniffed the air. “No, doesn't smell like either of those. Doesn't smell like fish at all. You know what I think you have in there? A stay in Newgate Prison-if you're lucky. If the magistrate thinks what you have is worth more than forty pounds-well then, it's a hemp necktie.”
“It's nothing, Mr. Morton, sir,” the young man said, overcoming his initial distress. “Hardly worth a pound. And I found it on the street. Fell off a wagon, I judge.”
Morton gave the man a shake, banging him roughly against the wall. “Do the flash men tell you that Henry Morton's a fool?”
“No, Mr. Morton, they don't say that.”
Morton eased his hold on Fox, though not enough that he might twist away. For a moment the Runner regarded the sandy-haired youth, perhaps eighteen years old. He was slight and quick, his features almost unnaturally regular-neither handsome nor plain. His cap had fallen off, and Morton noted his hair was already thinning.
“I'll tell you what, young Mr. Fox. If you can offer me a little of what I need to know, I might be induced not to look into your sack at all.”
The youth glanced up at him, measuring, wondering if he was being lied to. But Morton had a reputation for keeping his word. He only hoped news of it had reached this young man's ears.
“I don't know much, Mr. Morton, and that's the truth.”
“I don't want to know anything about your thieving friends, if that's your worry.” Morton motioned with his head. “The snoozing ken down the street.”
“Mrs. Mott's?”
“Yes, Mott's. Is it not said that you spend a bit of time there?”
“It's a bit rich for the likes of me,” the boy said.
Morton tightened his grip.
“But I know one of the maids.”
“Good. We need have a little talk with her.”
Morton escorted the young man along the street, the afternoon sun glancing off high windowpanes and throwing rectangles of light down onto the uneven cobbles. Morton, who'd been poisoned with religion when a child and would not partake of this unguent now, wondered if some higher power cast these little patches of divine light down on the city of London. Perhaps he and this petty thief with the ridiculous name could walk through one and achieve a state of grace. But it did not seem to be so. It was nothing but the reflected glory of some greater power, and when Morton and Fox had passed through, the Runner felt unchanged, no more charitable or at peace with the world.
They took the steps down to the cellar door and rang. A moment later a man's face appeared. Morton kept back, out of the man's line of sight.
“Mr. Fox!” the man said. “And what have you for us today?”
“Nothing, nothing. I only wonder if Katie's in, is all.”
“Well, she's a busy girl, you know.”
“I know. It is most important that I see her.”
“I'll tell her, but you mustn't expect her to come running down.”
Fox nodded.
Morton must have underestimated the attractions of Aberdeen Sumner Fox, for the maid Katie appeared a few moments later, and to the Runner's surprise, she was a maid-that is to say, a servant.
“Aberdeen Fox,” she said. “I thought you'd forgotten my name.”
“Not at all, Katie lass. Not at all.” He looked nervously back at Morton, whom the girl could not see.
“I'm in a bit of trouble,” the thief blurted out.
The girl noticed his gaze flicking back up the steps and chanced a look out from the door. She dodged back in and would have slammed the door, but Morton was quick enough to get his baton in the opening.
Morton had hold of the girl now and pulled her outside onto the narrow landing at the stair's foot before she could scream.
“You've nothing to fear from me,” Morton said soothingly. “I'm a Runner, it's true, but I've no cause to disturb our good Mrs. Mott or her fine establishment. I'm just looking for a man who's staying here. Frenchman named Boulot, though he might be calling himself something else. He's a bald cully with a raspberry stain on his pate. Do you know him?”
The frightened girl nodded. Morton released his hold of her.
“Just tell him what he wants,” Fox implored her. “I'm for Newgate otherwise.”
“He was here,” the young woman whispered. “But he's gone.”
“Where?”
She shook her head. “The priest might know.”
“What priest?”
“French priest, named Lafond, though we're not sup posed to know his real name. Your man visited him.”
“And where is the priest?”
Her eyes went upward, and she cocked her head a little.
“Inside?”
“Yes.”
“Can you take me to him?”
“No, I'd be seen. Mrs. Mott'll have for me as it is, talking to a horney about her patrons.”
“All right, Katie girl. You've done well. Well enough that I'm thinking of letting your friend here go free.”
“Thank you, sir,” she breathed.
But Morton had a last thought. “What name was Boulot using here, do you know?”
“No name. Mrs. Mott just called him the Frenchman. No, wait. I heard her call him the man from Malmaison. Does that sound right?”
“Indeed it does, I'm afraid.” He let the girl go, and she slipped back in the door, frightened and angry.
“She won't be speaking to Aberdeen Sumner Fox again,” the boy lamented.
“Let me have a look in your sack, Fox,” Morton said. He assured himself that the stolen property was of little value and not likely something that he would find an owner for, and sent the angler on his way.
For a few moments he paced up and down the street, considering what to do next. He was also trying to remember where he had heard the name Lafond before. He sifted through the conversations he'd had with Westcott to no avail, then tried to recall the details of his conversation with Marcel Houde. The chef had dropped so many names. But, yes! Jean-Baptiste Lafond. Abbe Lafond. A royalist connected to some secretive faction.
Morton decided that it was time to try the front door.
Morton was shown into Mrs. M.'s intimate first-floor salon, where the Lady Abbess herself sat at piquet, her tea things at her side, and her fellow players-all women- ranged a bit uneasily about her. Mrs. Mott, however, was very much at her ease, like any other woman of fashion at home to a select circle of her friends. Or almost like. A large woman, dressed in a low-cut gown in which her massive bosom was just a trifle more than modestly gleaming, she gave Morton a slightly harder look than many ladies might have bestowed upon a guest. He suspected that, like himself, Mrs. Mott never forgot a face.
Nonetheless she smiled toothily and bade the Runner welcome. What manner of… introduction might he be seeking?
“I will speak with a Frenchman named Jean-Baptiste
Lafond.”
Mrs. Mott did not seem pleased.
“Here is not the place for such capers,” she remarked bluntly. The anomalous women round the piquet table all frowned a little.
“You mistake me. I merely wish to speak to him, upon a private matter. But madame, permit me to say this much. I am from Bow Street, and while I expect you operate more or less within the bounds of the law here, I'm sure you recognise that there are ways I could make your life exceedingly difficult. Lafond is here. Do not trifle with me, as I can come back with a force. You know how your… reputation might suffer.”
Mrs. Mott's expression was now very sour.
“There are those as might be interested to know their fine Bow Street man 'as been an intimate of this house on past occasions,” she muttered darkly.
“One occasion. And you're welcome to tell anyone you can find to listen. But if you slander me, I'll have you before the Magistrate double quick. Now, is Monsieur Lafond here or not?”
A moment of hesitation. “I can enquire. He may or may not wish to be disturbed.”
“Do not enquire. I shall disturb either him or your entire clientele for some time-the choice is yours.”
Mrs. Mott glared at him for a moment but finally chose the lesser of evils and called for a servant. A little stick of a serving-girl was summoned and led Morton up the stairs.
Morton ascended silently, on steps heavily muffled with a rich Oriental carpet. At the top was a dim, sumptuous hallway, with sinumbra lamps in golden brackets. The first door on the left was ajar. Morton tapped on it. From within a muffled voice. “Who is it?”
“C'est moi,” Morton said in his best accent.
“Entrez” came the reply, and Morton went in.
It was a bedchamber, and in its centre stood a richly draped four-poster, with a green top valance and rich swags of silk curtaining. At a desk against the far wall, with his back to Morton, sat a man in black breeches and a loose linen shirt, bent over and apparently writing. The bed was in disorder, its pillows fallen to the floor and its coverlets swept aside down to the blue-grey sheets. Along their surface stretched the very white form of an unclothed woman.
She was reclining on her side with her face toward Morton, leaning on one elbow and watching him with blank eyes. As he quietly closed the door behind him, he took her in. She seemed almost without hair-on her head, it was drawn back so tightly as hardly to be visible, between her thighs the merest wisp-which made her that much more starkly, somehow embarrassingly naked. Her face was sharp and almost masculine, and her long shape was boyish too, chest just dimpled with small pointed breasts, jutting hip angular and gaunt. To Morton she seemed like a parody of an erotic painting, a bleached and bony odalisque, a meagre Venus striking the incongruous pose of the goddess of love. Her age was unguessable but not young, and the empty gaze with which she met his regard was quite without shame, or self-consciousness, or human response of any kind. Above one breast an ugly blue half-circle showed in stark relief.
Without turning, the man in the chair said, “Alors, tu as decide. C'est assez tard. Mais”-and here he sighed with impatience-“mais il faut prendre un navire, ou un autre. Il faut choisir.”
Morton did not reply but stood just inside the door with folded arms. Except for the bed and its nude, the chamber was very orderly, almost prim. The man's buckled shoes were arranged neatly together beside the unlit fireplace, and Morton noticed his black frock coat hung very precisely over the other chair in the corner.
The priest made a final stroke and set his pen down, blotted his work briefly, and turned, still speaking.
“Bon. Maintenant-”
And then he stopped, seeing Morton.
“Now?” softly asked Morton.
The other stared at him, his face set but showing no particular alarm. Jean-Baptiste Lafond's face was triangular, his broad white brow narrowing through high cheekbones to a small, almost lipless mouth and a sharp, closely shaven chin. His head was tonsured, and he wore small round golden-framed spectacles. They stared at each other a long moment, before Morton spoke.
“Henry Morton, of Bow Street. Monsieur Lafond?”
“Abbe Lafond, yes.”
“Ah, Father Lafond,” murmured Morton, and his eye could not help another brief, sardonic glance to the naked woman.
A flicker of irritation crossed the Frenchman's face- not embarrassment-and without turning he made a curt gesture to her with his hand, motioning toward the door. The woman obediently swung her bare feet over and sat up. She rose stiffly, as if weary, and bent slowly to gather up the articles of feminine dress that were scattered on the floor amongst the bedclothes. As the two men waited in silence, she began to transform herself. A filmy undershift she arranged slowly, then pulled it over her head and drew it down over her nakedness, rather awkwardly. Then a silk pelisse and belt, sandal shoes, and a neck scarf, and the whore began slowly but certainly to disappear, to be replaced by the woman of fashion, a hard-featured but well-bred Englishwoman, a little past her prime, Morton could now see, perhaps five and forty even, a bit brittle but refined, erect. Now from the side cabinet she took up her discarded ornaments, slipped rings onto her fingers, and over her flat breast draped a thin silver chain, from which depended a small silver cross. Fully clad, transformed, she turned toward Lafond, head bent. He extended his ring-hand. She curtsied and bowed to kiss it, without ever raising her eyes to him. As she limped toward Morton, he stepped aside. The sourness of her sweated body, and the odour of venery, faint but unmistakable, touched his nostrils as she passed him.
When she was gone, he pulled the door closed again and turned back to Lafond, repugnance and suspicion stirring within him.
“What is it you want, Mr. Morton?”
Morton frowned. “Your countryman, the Count d'Auvraye, is dead, as is his mistress, and Jean Boulot is suspected of aiding the murderers. Boulot recently visited you, and I wish to know why.”
The priest tilted his sharp chin very slightly downward, causing the lens of his spectacles to glint for a moment and deny Morton the sight of his eyes. But it was only a moment, and then Lafond was once again meeting his gaze steadily.
“Is everyone who has had speech with Jean Boulot a suspect, then?”
“No, but you are affiliated with the Chevaliers de la Foi, who have resorted to violence and murder in the past.”
“Who told you this?”
“It is my job to know these things.”
“The Comte d'Auvraye was a royalist. I am a royalist. We had common cause.”
To Morton as well, the royalists would seem to have common cause, but both Westcott and Houde had said they fought amongst themselves, sometimes violently. “But you are an ally of the Count d'Artois, whose brother, Louis, ascended the throne. Louis's faction won.”
“God will set the right man upon the throne of France. You need not fear.”
“So you are not such an ally of the Count d'Auvraye after all.”
“Nor am I enough of an enemy to have him killed.”
Morton tapped his baton in the palm of his hand.
“Why did Boulot visit you?”
“Jean Boulot has been a traitor to his God and to his king,” Lafond replied tonelessly. “But it came to my attention that he was wishing to repent his sinful folly and make amends. Had he done so-made proper penance and bent his will to divine instruction-I might have been prepared to take steps toward his reinstatement as a French subject and as a Christian.”
Morton wondered how he could not have seen this before. “He came to you after the Count d'Auvraye had refused him. Why?”
“D'Auvraye was utterly without influence in court.”
“Or in heaven, no doubt, unlike yourself.”
“Why are you here, sir? Is someone attempting to attribute these murders to me?”
“Or to your faction, les Chevaliers.”
Lafond swore, shaking his head in disgust. “Let me be very plain with you, Mr. Morton. The brotherhood you have just named is a friend to your government. We have done much to assist your government during the recent wars. Our activities have always been confined to France-”
“Then what are you doing in England, Father?” Morton's eyes glanced toward the now-deserted bed. “Sight-seeing?”
The man stared at him defiantly. “Yes, that is what I do.”
“I think you are in England because Bonaparte is here. What else could draw you away from France at this critical time?”
The priest removed his spectacles and cleaned the lenses on his shirttail. “It is our hope that your government will not fail us in the matter of the Corsican.”
Yet another Frenchman hoping to influence British policy. But would he kill d'Auvraye over this? Only if the count had been recommending leniency in Bona-parte's case, and Morton could hardly imagine that was true.
“Why did you ask ‘upon which ship will you sail’? Is Jean Boulot about to embark for France?”
“What Monsieur Boulot does is of no concern to me.”
“Did you know the late Madame Desmarches and the count?”
“A whore and a fool, Mr. Morton. Why would I associate with such people?”
“You are in a brothel, Father, in case you did not know.”
“Beware whom you judge, monsieur,” said the priest evenly. “My master and my purposes are greater than you comprehend.”
“You serve them in curious ways,” observed Morton. “Do you know a man named Gilles Niceron?”
Father Lafond, still sitting in his chair, bent his head in thought again for a moment. “This name…is familiar. But it is… from some time past. He was amongst the enemies of God and our king.”
“If the Chevaliers de la Foi did not murder the Count d'Auvraye or Madame Desmarches, who might have done such things?”
“I don't know. Finding them is your duty, not mine. I suggest you do it.”
Morton eyed Lafond for a moment. And then on an angry impulse, he asked, “Do you hurt women in the service of your king, Father Lafond, or only for your own private purposes?”
Lafond for a moment said nothing and seemed almost to drop into a reverie. “I do not feel a need to answer any further questions.”
“Perhaps you don't. But Angelique Desmarches was tortured before she was murdered, Father Lafond, and that makes you, a man with your vices, a suspect in her murder. In a court of law you will answer all my questions, and no English judge will care that you are a priest. They will grant you no earthly immunity. Good day, monsieur.”