They were a moment at Bow Street finding someone with the key to the gun cabinet. “You've one for me, I hope,” Westcott said as Morton and Presley each primed and loaded a brace of pistols. Morton wished he had his own Wogdon's or his old turn-off pistols.
“I wish I had, Captain,” he said as he tipped a powder flask, opening it to deposit a measure of black powder into the neck. He shook a little powder into the pan and closed it. The rest went down the muzzle. “But you're not one of Sir Nathaniel's constables, and I can't provide you with a weapon, at risk of my own position.”
Westcott looked a bit vexed but then nodded. “I'm sure you don't want firearms in just anyone's hands, though I am an excellent shot at twenty paces.”
“I'm sure you are,” Morton said. “Let us hope that none of us has need to fire a weapon.”
A moment later they were off through the warm, dark streets of London, the coach lamps casting the dim shadows of their straining horses on the cobbles before them. Linkmen passed, their charges huddled beneath their lanterns, for London's night streets were dark and never wholly without threat.
By mistake, they turned into a blind alley and had to climb down and take hold of the horses' bridles to back them slowly out. By the time they reached Basinghall Street, the night was far advanced. A hunchback moon swam in the blur over the jumbled rooftops, and below, the windows of the buildings were dark or only dimly lit. The slow clop clop of a horse as it drew a tradesman's cart along the distant street was the only interruption to the quiet.
“There is the inn,” Morton said, pointing. “Draw up here. We'll go forward quietly on foot. Boulot might be ready to bolt at the slightest sign of a threat.” Morton felt a liquid rumbling in his stomach, a foreboding. Perhaps it was the dark deserted street or the ominouslooking White Bear, its dark mass like a ship on a silent sea. Boulot had fired a pistol at them before-acciden-tally, he claimed, but he was likely more desperate now. And how many friends had he here?
Westcott drew the carriage up in the shadow of a building and applied the brake. They climbed down onto the street, and Presley wedged himself out through the small door of the carriage. In the poor light Morton could just make out the young Runner's grim face. Westcott's dark blue coat would have hidden him well had his breeches not been white. The navy man looked alert, ready, perhaps even excited. Morton wondered how much the man had missed the action of a fighting ship these last years.
“You and I will go in alone, Jimmy, and see what we can learn about Boulot. If the owner of the inn is English, he might tell us all we need to know, but if he should be French, it could be another story.”
“Should we have brought reinforcements?” Westcott asked.
“We can still send for help if it seems necessary,” Morton answered, pitching his voice low. “But let's get the lay of the land first.”
One of the inn's side doors opened at that moment, a fan of light spreading over the uneven cobbles. Men emerged, shadowy at this distance, and then one of them broke and ran. He hadn't gone five paces before he was run down by a larger man who punched him hard and then dragged him to his feet. Two others came up, one pointing a pistol, and words in French reached Morton's ears.
He drew a pistol and shouted, “Hold! Bow Street!”
A muffled shout in French.
Westcott cursed.
The three shadow men all stopped at once, then one levelled a pistol and fired. Morton and Presley threw themselves back against the building, but Westcott stood in the open, as officers did on the decks of their ships.
The shadow men dragged their captive round the corner and out of sight. Morton and Presley went pounding across the paving stones, shouting as they went, but they hadn't gone far when someone leaned out from behind the building, and the muzzle flash of a pistol stopped them. The report echoed down the street, the ball passing so close that Westcott's horses reared back, lumbering into each other.
“Dem!” Morton swore, and they ran on, staying to the shadows.
The clatter of horses reached them as they rounded the corner, and the sound of wheels rattling over paving stones. A large, old-fashioned carriage bounced off down the narrow avenue. Morton raised a pistol, cocked it, and fired once, but to no visible effect.
They turned back, shouting for Westcott, who immediately brought the carriage up. Morton leapt up beside the navy man.
“Was that Boulot?” Westcott asked as he cracked a whip over his team's heads.
“Yes, I'm sure it was. I heard him call out,” Morton shouted over the clatter of horses and carriage.
They rounded the corner, narrowly avoiding a few people who had spilled out of the White Bear to see what all the fuss was about. The carriage whisking the captive Boulot away was barely visible now, its lamps disappearing round a curve in the street.
Westcott was a skilled driver, but he was noticeably unwilling to destroy his fine carriage in the chase, and the other vehicle was soon lost to sight.
“Difficult to imagine worse luck than that,” the captain said as he slowed his team to a walk.
“Yes,” Morton said. “We seem always to be arriving a moment too late.” He was still breathing hard from their run and the sudden unexpected fire. He wondered if those were the same men who'd escaped him outside Boulot's door, but in the dark and with the distance, he could not say. Certainly it was likely to be no one else- unless Abbe Lafond was somehow involved. “Can you find us a hackney-coach, do you think?”
“I'll take you wherever you want to go,” Westcott offered.
“If you'll carry us out to the toll gate by Apsley House, I'll be much in your debt.”
“The Hyde Park toll gate it is,” Westcott said, then snapped his whip, and set them off at a good speed.
The man at the toll gate stood with a lantern in his hand. He looked as though he had been asleep, though there was traffic through this gate both day and night. “Aye. Not an hour ago,” he said. “Big berlin, but ornate and foreign looking.”
“Did the man who paid you have an accent?”
“He didn't say a word, yer honour. Just paid his toll and set off. They'd been in some rush to get here- horses were all in a lather.”
“Sounds like our men,” Presley offered, stepping out onto the roadside.
Morton considered for only a second. “Let's find some saddle horses, Jimmy, and see if we can't run these men down.”
“I'll take you on,” Westcott said. “But who do you think they are?”
Morton was wondering the same thing. “Supporters of Bonaparte. They used Boulot to find the waterman who assisted them in their murder of the Count d'Auvraye. Boulot may not have co-operated freely, but he did give them Berman's name-Berman on the quay. I think they've taken Boulot now because he is known among the smugglers.”
“But taken him for what purpose?”
“I do not know,” Morton said. “To kill more royalists, I fear.”
“Then we must go on with all haste.” Westcott turned to the man, still standing with his lantern. “Lift the bar,” the navy man ordered. “We are on the king's business.”