It was early afternoon when they finally reached Plymouth, and as he climbed stiffly from the coach, Henry Morton could smell the sea, heavy with the dull reek of fish. But he could see nothing. A thick wall of white fog hung before them, immense and motionless and uncanny in the cool, still air.
In the last miles of their journey they had had a horse go lame and had limped into the town, tradesmen's carts fairly flying past. But then they were rewarded. In the courtyard of the inn where they brought their post horses, casually parked amongst the other vehicles, stood their quarry. The phantom berlin they had been chasing across the English countryside was empty, however, its team gone, its dark shape hunched spiderlike in the blur. Morton crossed the yard to be sure of what he saw.
After looking into the deserted compartment, his eye was caught by something on the door. Scooping up a handful of hay, he wiped away some of the caked grey dirt, revealing a painted line. Scrubbing harder-one would almost think the grime had been plastered on de-liberately-he gradually revealed the whole design. A coat of arms. Westcott and Presley appeared to either side of him.
“Where did this lot get hold of a carriage like this?” Jimmy wondered. “Some toff's, obviously.”
Morton peered hard at the crest, the dim gold and blue chevrons, the odd, sketchily rendered little animal. Yes, odd. Like a hedgehog-wasn't that what Wilkes had said? But when you looked closer, maybe a lion, its hind paws together on the ground, forepaws together in the air. A lion salient.
“Do you recognise these devices, Captain?” Morton asked.
Westcott stared a moment. “No, I think not. Might they be French?”
“I think they are, and I have seen them before. It has just taken me a moment to recall where. This same crest was on a letter I received but the other day. It belongs to the Count d'Auvraye.”
The surprise of his companions hung a moment wordless in the air, then Westcott swore.
“I am constantly dumbfounded by this matter,” the seaman muttered.
Presley wiped at his eyes and gave his head a shake. “I thought we were chasing bloody Boulot and some of his Bonapartist friends!”
“So did I,” Morton said, “but it seems we've got that wrong-like too many things.”
Morton turned to Westcott, who still stared at the coat of arms, his look grim and distant.
“You'd best alert your admiral to what goes on here, Captain. Until we have these folk in hand, they should not allow Bonaparte out on the deck or anywhere else he might be a target for a sharpshooter.”
Westcott nodded. “Yes. I'll go down and try to see Keith immediately. He's likely to think me an alarmist, but I shall suffer that if need be.” He turned his measuring gaze to Morton. “And what of you?”
“We'll begin the search for-”
“Well, who?” Jimmy interrupted.
Morton looked back at the berlin. “For Eustache d'Auvraye, or his secretary, Rolles-or both. I cannot say.”
“Royalists!” said Jimmy, still trying to grasp it.
“And what charges will you lay at their feet?” Westcott quietly wondered.
“The abduction of Jean Boulot, to begin. The murder of Napoleon Bonaparte if we are not quick.” Morton turned away from the carriage, looking about as though trying to find a place to begin. “Jimmy and I will ask about here and see what we might learn. Then we'll go down to the quay. They will need a boat if they are to assassinate the emperor.”
Westcott took out his pocket watch and flicked open the silver cover. “Let us meet in three hours' time. There is a public house on the quay called the Blue Pillars. Anyone can direct you.”
As the navy man strode off into the grey obscurity, Morton and Presley began with the ostler.
“They arrived early this morn,” the man said. He reached up a finger and stretched the skin taut at the corner of his twitching eye.
“How many of them?”
“Three coves; Frenchmen, every one.”
“And what did they look like, these Frenchmen?” Morton wondered.
The man closed his eyes tightly and then opened them both, blinking three or four times, the spasm apparently over. “A young French nobleman, all in fancy embroidered clothes. A short little cove who looked after everything-paid the bills and made arrangements. T'other one didn't say anything but to his traveling companions. He was sullen looking-had one of those claret spills on his head.” The man turned back to the harness he was repairing. “Oh, and there was a driver.” He shrugged. “Looked like anyone else, really. Nothing to mark him.”
Morton thought it would be hard to find a better description of Eustache d'Auvraye, Rolles, and Jean Boulot. “To whom did they speak?” he asked the man.
“Myself. Mr. Tooley, the manager.”
Morton tipped the man, and they went into the big old inn.
Mr. Tooley was, not surprisingly, an Irishman-a gentleman of some fifty years and enormous energies. He did everything at a pace that would leave a younger man breathless, and never did one thing when he could be doing two. He was curly haired and handsome and not, it seemed, particularly fond of the law.
“I only spoke to one gentleman,” he said, his soft Irish accent almost worn away by what Morton suspected was most of a lifetime in England. “Don't know about any others.”
“And what speech passed between you?”
The man glanced up from the sums he was doing rapidly on long sheets of paper. He glared at Morton with undisguised hostility. “Disputed some charges on his bill a little.” His gaze went back to his paperwork, spread out over a large standing desk that took up the greater part of the narrow, low-ceilinged room.
“Mr. Tooley,” Morton said, his own anger rising, “we believe these men travelled to Plymouth to commit a murder. If you do not help us, I shall have you on trial for aiding and abetting them.”
The man looked up. “These gentlemen? Murderers?”
“By day's end, sir. Now, what passed between you and these Frenchmen?”
The man set down his pen and thought a moment. “They asked to leave their carriage here for two days,” he said, “and then wanted to know if it was far to the quayside.” He paused. “And they enquired after a men's clothier. I directed them to Lawley and Sons. I can think of nothing else.”
Lawley and Sons was but a few short blocks away. It was not, as Morton expected, a gentlemen's shop, at least not such as you'd find in London. No, Lawley's catered to the less well-to-do. Law clerks and other such functionaries. Working men with clean nails, as his mother put it. Not the kind of shop where you'd expect Eustache d'Auvraye to find his wardrobe-though Boulot's dress would have been improved by a visit.
Mr. Lawley himself was not present, but one of his sons was.
“Yes, three French gentlemen, just as we opened for business,” the younger Lawley said. He was an overly serious young man and would have made a perfect priest, Morton thought. “Two of them made purchases. Very tasteful.”
“One had a raspberry mark on his head?”
“That's right.” Lawley the younger gestured. “He sat on the stair there the whole time. Never said a word. I thought he might be ill.”
“And what did they purchase, these French gentlemen?”
“A complete suit of clothes for the young nobleman. He was dressed for the French court, it seemed-you've never seen such embroidery! When I enquired, he said that he did not wish to stand out so but to travel quietly among the English people.”
“Did they say anything more?”
“Very little. They seemed in a hurry. They asked about Bonaparte, but of course all visitors do, these days.”
“What did they ask, specifically? Do you remember?”
“Only if Bonaparte was still here, and how you'd recognise the ship he's on. I told them there'd be no trouble-there must be a thousand small boats surrounding the Bellerophon.” The young man considered a moment. “I can't think of anything else.”
“Do you know where they went from here?”
The young man shrugged. “They went down the hill. Likely to find a boat to take them out into the sound, as everyone does. I hope you've rooms arranged. You might have trouble finding lodgings otherwise.”
Morton and Presley went out onto the street, where tendrils of fog wafted gently up from the harbour below. The sun tried to break through, silvering the foggy sky.
“Where do we go now?” Presley said. “Down to the quay to look for three Frenchies trying to pass quietly among the English?”
“I think we can do a little better than that,” Morton said, and Jimmy looked at him, raising an eyebrow. “We'll go down to the quay and ask for Berman.”
Presley stopped. “You mean Berman wasn't a London waterman after all?”
“If he was, the River Police could never find him. All along we've thought the assassination was of d'Auvraye and that Boulot said botiment-ship-when he meant to say bachot, or wherry, for it was a wherry that took the count's murderers away. But what if he did mean ship? Now I wonder if the assassination will not instead be Bonaparte, and if Berman might be found on the Plymouth quay.”
They were soon down the hill, searching along the stone quay where the fishermen and costermongers jostled among the throngs of holidayers there hoping to catch a glimpse of the fallen Emperor of the French. The scene itself was strange, dreamlike. Upon the narrow quay people swam through the thick fog, men and women in their bright holiday clothes, the dark-faced fishermen working among them, big-knuckled hands mending nets, flinging fish to the costermongers by their carts. Morton had a sense that there were not many engaged in the fishing trade that day-fishermen had gone over to the more lucrative trade of ferrying people out to view Bonaparte.
Of the ships beyond, nothing could be seen, for the fog was dense, impenetrable. Boats appeared, presaged by the knuckle knock of oars working against thole pins. The people aboard were oddly silent, perhaps disappointed, though Morton had a sense that it was the uncanny and impenetrable fog that had stolen people's words away, or had them whispering. At least there was no cry upon the quay that aught was amiss, that Bonaparte had been cut down as he strolled the deck.
Morton and Presley began asking among the fishermen and people who found their employment along the waterfront. After half an hour Jimmy came hurrying out of the fog.
“A net mender says we should find our man down the way,” the young Runner said.
“Then we're not wrong,” Morton said, both relieved and suddenly more uneasy. He checked his pocket watch, mindful of the hour.
“Have we time before we meet Westcott?” Presley asked.
“A little. Let us go see what we can learn of Berman.”
They strode along the damp stone, the reek of fish strong in their nostrils. Morton hunted among the passing faces, searching for the raspberry-stained pate, the secretive little Rolles, the dark-eyed young count. An unlikely trio of assassins-and one of them had left London in their company only reluctantly. Had Boulot changed his allegiance on the journey? Had the young count offered him what his father had not-a return to his beloved France? Morton thought that Boulot would be disappointed by his return. His old life was gone, swept away by two decades of revolution and Bona-parte's failed empire. There would be no crowds waiting now to hear him sing, no one, perhaps, who even remembered his name. Boulot's France was gone, as was the young man Boulot had been, however promising. He was an ivrogne now, a drunkard and a near derelict, a man who would sell his friends for a bottle, or for a thirty-mile passage across the Channel.
Across from the anchorage they found a little knot of older fishermen, sitting around on barrels and nets.
Morton put a hand on his young companion's shoulder, slowing him, then said quietly, “It would seem almost certain that good Mr. Berman is a smuggler or involved with the smugglers in some way. I don't think he will feel too kindly toward constables from Bow Street. We might try to keep our real profession to ourselves for a while.”
Presley nodded.
Morton approached the lounging fishermen respectfully. “Is Mr. Berman about?”
The half-dozen faces turned toward him. Morton had an immediate sense that these men were guarded, though they did much to hide it.
“Come to view the Corsican, have you?” one of the men said.
It occurred to Morton that one of these men might be Berman but wouldn't reveal himself until he was satisfied that Morton was not some member of the Customs Service.
“I've a bit of business with Mr. Berman,” Morton said, keeping his tone pleasant.
The men looked about at one another.
“He might be back by and by,” one of them said, and they went back to their conversation.
Morton looked at his young companion, and the two retreated a little. “Let's see who else here might know Berman.”
The two Runners went in opposite directions. Morton waited until he was hidden from Berman's friends by the fog, then began a quiet enquiry. Half an hour later he stood talking to a costerwoman who was filling her barrow with shellfish. She was a few years older than Morton, broad and strong. But from within this unlikely shape came the most melodious voice. Her very speech was song.
“Berman? He's off to the Bellerophon. Saw him set out not an hour ago.”
“And who had he for passengers, did you see?”
The woman shrugged as she arranged her merchandise. “Half a dozen men-down from Bath, I think.”
“French gentlemen?”
The woman shook her head. “English all,” she said.
“None with a raspberry stain on the head?”
“The gentlemen wore hats, as you'd expect,” she answered.
“This man you'd know. His mark stretches down onto his forehead.”
“Didn't see such,” she said, picking up mussels by the double-handful and shovelling them into her barrel with a clatter.
“But did you hear them speak? Are you certain they were English?”
The woman stopped, hunched over her barrow, turned her head, and looked up at Morton suspiciously. “I can tell you no more,” she said, and went back to her work.
Morton continued to canvass the quay without much luck until it came time to meet Westcott. He arrived at the Blue Pillars to find Westcott and Presley waiting for him, the young Runner shovelling down some of the proprietor's best John Dory in cream sauce. It was a Devon delicacy, but the way Jimmy approached it was anything but delicate.
“Berman is said to have carried a group of men out to view the Corsican,” Morton reported as he took a seat. “How long they'll stay is dependent upon the depth of their purses.”
Westcott looked exhausted and worried. “I managed to see Keith's secretary, who promised to pass my message to the lord admiral, but I was unable to impress the gravity of the situation upon the man. Our lack of actual evidence was telling. Though corpses are appearing at an alarming rate-five, by my last count-we do not have a single witness who can tell us, in plain truth, what these men are planning. Until we have that or some other form of evidence, I think the lords of the Admiralty will stay their course.”
Morton nodded. Westcott was right. He had only his hunch, his intuition, that these royalists were going to try to murder Bonaparte. So who had those men been the night Morton had listened outside Boulot's door? Royalists? He was sure that Eustache d'Auvraye and Rolles had not been among them. Lafond and his followers?
Westcott's own meal arrived, and Morton called for a plate of Presley's fish.
“And where was Admiral Lord Keith?” Westcott went on. “He was off in a barge, running from some barrister with a writ of habeas corpus that a kindly judge has issued for the person of one Napoleon Bonaparte. It seems the man wants Bonaparte to appear in court as a witness in some financial matter to do with the sinking of an English ship-a transparent ploy to get the Corsican ashore! But the admiral is bound by the laws of England. If the writ is delivered to him in person, he will have no choice but to produce Napoleon Bonaparte; so he is doing everything within his power to avoid this lawyer and his writ!” Westcott snorted. “I have only one bit of good news to report. I've managed to secure us a gig for a few hours. If nothing else, we can row out to Maitland's ship and look for our assassins. Perhaps we'll find Keith fleeing his barrister.”
The two Runners and the navy man devoured their meals and were back on the quay in half an hour. It was a good walk to the navy docks, and then it took time to assemble their promised crew.
The Runners clambered aboard, their boots echoing hollowly in the dank, cloudy air. The stern seat, the place traditionally taken by the superior officer, was given to Westcott. Morton sat in the bow with Presley just behind him. The coxswain gave his quiet orders, and the boat was away, oars settling into place. They were soon out in the sound, ghosting past anchored ships that loomed darkly out of the fog. A low ground swell lifted the smooth waters of the sound in a slow undulating rhythm. Visibility was not twenty yards, Morton thought. How would they even find the Bellerophon?-for Plymouth Sound was not small.
Suddenly ships' bells rang out from all around.
“Six bells,” announced the coxswain.
“Seven of an evening,” Westcott said for the benefit of Presley and Morton.
The two Runners shared a glance. Neither of them needed to say it: The day was slipping away.
A small boat rowed past carrying a silent cargo of holidayers.
“Know you Berman?” Morton called to the man at the oars.
“Aye,” the man answered.
“Is he out here, at the Bellerophon?”
“Mayhap he is. There's a mite of fog, if you hadn't noticed.”
Morton settled back onto his damp thwart, the cool wood of the gunwale beneath his fingers. A gull circled, crying sadly, then made off into the mist, wondering, perhaps, where all the fishermen had gone.
Out of the shroud of silence a lady's face appeared, and Morton was reminded of the woman beneath the snows in Skelton's surgery. This lady, however, rode in a small boat and was very much alive. Somewhere nearby, Bonaparte, too, was buried beneath this bank of fog, this damp, cold shroud.
A few more strokes of the oars, and a host of other craft were revealed, their people talking solemnly, as though a funeral procession passed. Morton stood to search among the sea of faces. Above this clinging mass of small craft the Bellerophon rose up, half-obscured in the sea's cumulus. Morton could just make out men moving along the rail. As he searched the quarterdeck he held his breath, but the cockaded hat was not to be seen.
“Has he been sighted this day?” Morton asked as they passed close by the stern of a small punt.
A man shook his head in answer.
“Morton?” Westcott said from the stern. “We'll circle slowly round. There's not much else we can do. If we get into this mass, we might be an hour extricating ourselves.”
“Can you go aboard and warn Captain Maitland?”
Westcott shook his head, his look sour. “No one is to approach the ship without Keith's written orders. They would turn me back.”
Morton cursed at this foolishness. The coxswain began to steer around the fleet of gathered craft, keeping them so close that the oar blades all but struck the boats nearest. The Runner searched among the faces, though most were turned away, watching the Bellerophon.
“Berman!” Morton called out, and in the near silence heads turned, a look of surprised offence upon the faces. But Morton kept it up, calling out every so often and searching among those present for the raspberry pate, the little secretary, and his young master.
Inside the circle of craft a navy cutter passed, enforcing a ring of clear water round the great ship. “Be wary, there!” Morton called to the officer in the cutter. “I'm from Bow Street, and we've reason to believe there is an assassin waiting for Bonaparte to appear.”
“I'm from Bristol,” a young buck called, “and I'd pay double to see Bonaparte shot.” The waiting audience thereabout laughed, but everyone turned to see who had made such a claim, and the rumour washed down the ranks of lingering men and women.
Every ten yards Morton called out again, “Berman?” but no one answered.
As they circled to larboard, Presley stood on the thwart. “Morton amp;” he said, raising an arm to point. There among a crowd of men he caught a glimpse of red-stained skin, and then ranks closed and it was lost.
Westcott ordered the coxswain to nudge the gig up to the nearest boat.
Morton went over the side onto the stern of the first boat, pushing his way through the crowd. “Bow Street,” he said as he went, trying to make as little fuss as he could. “We must pass.” Presley was behind him, and the two large men clambered from one boat to the next until they came to a lugger in the thick of the crowd. Morton pulled himself up the side, for it was a larger craft than most of the others. It was also the type of craft favored by smugglers, for they were said to be fast and weatherly.
Morton immediately marked the man Presley had spotted, but as he pushed his way through the crowd on deck, the man turned. He had a raspberry birthmark on his head, but he was not Jean Boulot.
“What is it you want, sir?” asked a gentleman standing nearby. “We've hired this ship, not you, and your presence is not wanted.”
Morton made a bow to the gentleman. “My apologies, sir,” he said. “We're constables from Bow Street, seeking criminals.”
The man looked at Morton a moment, and then his look of anger was replaced by a sly smile. “Well, only Spencer over there is a criminal-a barrister, to be sure.” The people collected on the deck laughed.
Morton backed away, climbing down the side and making his way across the flotilla to the gig. Presley stepped over the side after him and smiled at Morton, embarrassed.
“Not to worry, Jimmy,” Morton said. “Better to make a dozen mistakes than let a murderer slip away.”
The sides of the great ship loomed over the surrounding boats in the mist. Sounds from near at hand were strangely loud and sharply defined: the creaking of the Bellerophon's cordage as the ship rolled ponderously in the low swell, the knocking of gunwales as the hundreds of boats thudded against each other, the cries of circling gulls.
Morton continued to call Berman's name as they passed down the larboard side. A young gentleman standing in a boat turned as he heard Morton call.
“Berman?” the young buck echoed. “He's here.” He gestured toward a square-built man in a fisherman's garb and cap. The fisherman gave the young man a sour look and then eyed Morton suspiciously.
“Bow Street!” Jimmy called out. “We want a word with you!”
And Berman was off, scrambling across the raft of boats, jumping from gunwale to stem, his boots clattering on the wood. Boatmen made way for him, even offered hands for balance. The coxswain nudged the bow up to the stern of a larger craft, and Morton grabbed the rail and scrambled over, Jimmy right behind. The men and women in the little ship made no effort to ease his passing, and around about men began to jeer and curse the “bloody horneys!”
Morton pushed through the crowd and climbed quickly down the side, his foot finding the gunwale of a small boat that rocked dangerously beneath his weight. He could see Berman, fifty feet ahead now and moving nimbly over the boats. If he opened the gap to a hundred feet, he'd be lost in the fog, and then one of his fisherman friends might carry him ashore.
Presley came clumsily down the side, almost pitching Morton into the water as he landed heavily on the boat. The occupants were all thrown to one side and squealed with fright. Unlike Morton, most people could not swim and had a terrible fear of drowning.
Morton leapt to the next boat and was about to step over a small gap of water when someone grabbed his coattail, throwing off his already precarious balance. One foot went into the water, and Morton fell forward into the next boat, which was packed with gawkers.
“I'll break your bleeding pate for that!” Presley roared, and the sheer volume and passion of his cry opened a path for Morton. He scrambled up and, pushing off men's shoulders, was across this boat and into the next. Leaping, he put one foot on a narrow stem and vaulted up the steep side of the lugger.
He pounded across the deck, the onlookers muttering imprecations. The Runner realised now that passing among the people was what slowed him, and he skirted the edges of boats so that he could step off the stern or the stem. He used the crowds of bodies as handholds, grabbing shoulders and heads, ignoring the curses and threats. Even so, Berman was almost lost in the fog. If he ducked down somewhere and no one gave him away, he'd be gone.
Vaulting over the heads of two small children, Morton landed on the stern of a boat, his foot slipping down onto the floorboards, his calf smarting from a long gouge. In an instant he was up, balancing along the stern, stepping awkwardly onto the next boat. Men tried to close ranks enough to slow him, forcing Morton to shove two men roughly aside.
“Drown the bastard!” someone called, and Morton was sure they didn't mean Berman.
He leapt onto the gunwale of an open boat. Only at the last second did he see the sweating faces of the men, the glazed eyes. As he tried to step across the boat, the smell of liquor engulfed him. The men to either side grabbed his legs, and Morton struggled to keep his balance, trying to fumble his baton out of its pocket.
Tumbling forward, Morton struck hard wood, and men piled on him, shouting drunkenly. He was struggling against unfair odds, in no position to strike out or even to push himself up.
A spatter of blood sprayed across the planks and frames by Morton's face, and the man who had taken to thumping him on the back fell limply away. Another was jerked roughly into the air, and Morton heard Jimmy Presley cursing loudly. The drunken men were falling back, trying to stay out of range of the young Runner's truncheon.
“I'll spill all your brains!” Presley was shouting. He threw another man bodily aside and pulled Morton up by his shoulder.
Not pausing to even look at his partner, Morton leapt into the next boat, his baton out now and his choler high. People took one look at him and shrank away.
Morton could just see Berman's dark blue jacket as he climbed over a crowd on the far edge of the circle of visibility. Morton's anger propelled him on, and he leapt and thrust his way forward, heedless of his own safety.
Berman's turn of luck came then. As he scrambled up the side of a big trawler, he managed to lose his handhold and fall into an opening between the boats. The sea washed out as he hit the surface, then rolled back over him. He was gone like a stone. People on the nearby boats stared down into the translucent green, dumbfounded, waiting, perhaps, for him to reappear-but he did not.
Morton peeled off his coat and boots as he came up to the water's edge. He dove into the cold water between the boats, hoping that there would still be an opening when he surfaced. The sea was shadowy from the boats overhead and the mist that blotted the sky. He could see the hapless Berman sinking slowly a few yards away. The man waved his arms ineffectively, but his boots were dragging him down.
Morton struck out and in a moment had hold of the man's collar. He broke for the surface, dragging the dead weight of the fisherman, kicking furiously as he felt the need for air overwhelm him. He broke the surface and pulled in a lungful of air. Jimmy Presley reached out a hand to him, and they soon had Berman laid out in a crowded boat. The man choked and coughed, spewing seawater like a ship's pump.
Jimmy helped Morton over the side, where he sat catching his breath, water running from his hair and clothing.
“Morton? Are you whole?”
“Aye, Jimmy,” Morton gasped. “Just need a minute to catch my breath.”
Westcott hailed them then, having brought the gig as close as he could. Morton raised a hand in response, ignoring the horrified stares of the people around him. Presley held Morton's still-dry coat, boots, and baton in one hand, their captive in the other.
“Have I still pistols in my pockets, Jimmy?” Morton asked.
Presley quickly felt the pockets of Morton's coat. “You have them yet.”
Morton turned to Berman. “Innocent men don't run,” he said, his breath rapidly returning.
“Here on the Devon coast we've lived in fear of the press gangs for twenty years and more.”
Morton stood, dripping, and took his boots, coat, and baton from Presley. “We're not the press gang, Berman. We're from Bow Street, and well you knew it. Bring him on, Jimmy.”
To much muttering and cursing from the crowd, they dragged the fisherman over the boats to the waiting gig and deposited him in the bow.
“You've no cause to be-” But Morton cut him off with a glare. The Runner was still angry at his treatment by the mob, and this fisherman had a healthy respect for angry men.
“Gervais is dead,” Morton said as the oarsmen set out into the fog and gathering dusk.
A startled Berman rocked back a little in his seat. “What's that?”
Morton was glad to see his guess was not wrong. “Gervais is dead. He was murdered by the men Boulot travels with-three royalists trying to pass themselves off as common Frenchmen. Where have you taken them?”
This unsettled the man, Morton could see. “And who are you, sir?” he asked.
“Henry Morton of Bow Street. But I'm not here to enquire into your activities, however illegal they might be. I'm chasing murderers. These Frenchmen with Boulot-did they carry firearms?”
The man did not answer.
“Demmit, man, those men are royalists and travelled here to kill a man. They likely intend to kill Jean Boulot, though he doesn't know it. You were seen taking Boulot and these others out in your boat. I have sworn witnesses. If they commit a murder, you will be tried for aiding them. A capital crime, man!”
Berman crossed his arms and stared at Morton a moment. “How do you know those men are royalists?”
“The young one is Eustache d'Auvraye, son of the late count. The small man was the old count's secretary, a man named Rolles. They brought Boulot with them against his will-at least so it was to begin. There is a fourth man, I believe, but of him I know nothing.” Morton could see the man was not swayed by Morton's claims. “I saw the body of Gervais last night. As terrible a scene as I have ever witnessed. He had been shot, and another hacked to death with an axe. The other dead man was unknown to me, but he had a wound on his arm, all bound up, that makes me believe he was one of the men who murdered the Count d'Auvraye.”
The fisherman had gone pale as a wave crest. “I-I know nothing of these men.”
Already they were lost in the fog. Morton knew they would get nothing from this man if they delivered him to the local magistrate-nothing in time, anyway-but his anger had not yet ebbed.
“Take hold of him, Jimmy. We'll see how well he floats.”
Presley did not hesitate but grabbed Berman by the arm and the seat of his pants.
“I've broken no law!” Berman struggled against the two larger men. “You can charge me with no crime!”
They hefted him half over the gunwale, but paused there, his hair dangling in the water.
“Aiding and abetting murderers will gain you the same penalty as the killers themselves,” Morton said. “Have you ever seen a man hang before Newgate Prison, Berman? It's a lonely sight. A man's last moment on earth comforted only by the hangman and a minister who'll publish your ‘last confession’ for a few pounds.
“But if you aid us now, I will see you are no more than a witness, if such is needed. You can choose which side of the courtroom fence you'll stand on, Berman. Only tell us where you've taken Jean Boulot and these others. If you have any friendship for Boulot, you will tell us where they have gone, for these men are ruthless and are as like to kill him as not.”
Berman had stopped struggling, his face a few inches above the passing sea. Morton could sense that his words were sinking in-with the help of a little persuasion. Morton nodded to Jimmy, and they pulled the man back aboard, red-faced, and set him on the thwart.
“I give you my word this is no deception, Berman. I am not paid to chase down smugglers, as you must know. There will be a murder this night if we cannot stop it.”
“Whose murder?” the man asked softly.
“Boulot's, almost certainly,” Morton said. “Perhaps another.”
Berman's gaze turned out toward the sound, obscured still in fog. “Him?” he said quietly.
Morton did not answer but only stared at the man. Perhaps it was imagination, but he felt understanding passed between them.
The fisherman nodded. “I'll take you where I took Boulot.”
Morton looked up at Westcott, who'd been listening from the stern. The officer had a watch in his hand and thumbed open the cover.
“This gig must be returned,” Westcott said. “I've placed an officer in a bad situation, borrowing it as I have against all regulations.”
“I'll get us a boat,” Berman said, “if they'll take us to the quay. Boulot is a drunk, but once he was a worthy man-a friend.” Berman looked around as though he were afraid of being seen with the Runners. “ 'Tis almost night,” he said.
“Yes. Pray we are in time,” Morton answered.
The coxswain soon deposited them on the stone quay, and Berman led them quickly through the gathering gloom to a small open boat. They clambered down into it, the landsmen rocking it overly. Westcott surprised Morton by taking up the second set of oars-the blades hovered an instant in the air while he caught the smug-gler's rhythm, and then they dipped into the calm waters, propelling the vessel forward. Distant bells chimed the hour of ten. Night would wash out of the fog momentarily, like another layer of obscurity-like this whole matter, the truth hidden by layers of deceit and misapprehension.
The dark stain of night bled into the fog around them, enclosing them in silence and stillness. Only the metronome of oars dipping measured their movement, the breathing sea beneath them lifting and falling and lifting. How Berman could even guess their direction was beyond Morton's comprehension, but the smuggler carried them on without hesitation. They passed a few boats at anchor, and then they saw no more.
Wherever he took them, it was not near, for some time passed. Morton felt the press of it as he wondered how the assassination would be accomplished. Perhaps this was what he'd missed. They would shoot Bonaparte at night, through the stern gallery windows. How easy it would be to slip off into the darkness then, no fleet of gawkers to get in the way, no one to identify them in the dark.
A small wind rippled the sea, stirring the dark fog around them. A star appeared overhead and, as though it were a sign, a voice lifted in song not far distant.
As the fog tore to ribbons and fluttered away in the growing breeze, a long, sleek hull appeared before them. Starlight illuminated spars thrust up toward the sky.
“Who is that singing?” Westcott asked quietly.
“That,” Morton said, “is Jean Boulot.”