Inferno

Chapter 54

As darkness set in and the streets changed their aspect, they prepared. Jago had returned with a key and two threadbare sets of bearer livery, which they now put on.

There was little point in delay – any deliveries in the small hours would be suspect. As soon as Jago was able to report that the light in Gobineau’s window had died they slipped out, Renzi with a cloth over a small hamper and Jago with three bottles in a basket.

Down a dark passage beside the mansion they found the back door. A lounging servant looked up and simply held out a hand. Jago found the necessary and they were in. Through a clattering scullery with the kitchen hands giving not a bit of notice to yet another delivery for the master, they found the gloomy servants’ back stairs.

It was going brilliantly – too well?

Puffing at the unaccustomed exercise, they mounted the stairs, and there was the second-floor door. Hefting their burdens they passed into a long passageway, at the end of which was their goal. It was dim, only every fourth sconce alight, but sufficient to show a guard sauntering along and another, closer, sitting sprawled on a cane chair in an alcove, his hat over his eyes.

Renzi stepped forward confidently, Jago behind. As he went to pass the dozing guard a foot suddenly shot across his path.

‘Qui va la?’ the man snarled, tipping back his hat.

Lifting the key and letting it dangle significantly, Renzi gave a supercilious smile and waited with heavy patience.

The foot was reluctantly withdrawn and the hat slid back. They moved past the other who held aside to let them by.

And they were at the door.

Making play of stationing his lesser assistant outside, Renzi fumbled the key into the lock and let himself in, heart thumping.

An Argand lamp in one corner was still burning, the wick at its lowest. He turned it up, grateful for the golden light but aware that the occupant must be intending to return at some point.

He had unknown minutes to find the message.

The room was tidy, with an elaborate desk against the window. Four neat sets of papers were on the blotter ready for work. One wall was lined from floor to ceiling with books and against another was a languorous chaise-longue, next to it a beautifully carved mahogany side table with a foot-high marble statue of a weeping Virgin Mary.

Renzi worked fast, riffling through the paper piles. Next were the pigeon-holes at the rear – so many of them – and he had to be careful to replace everything.

Nothing.

The dispatch case? Or look for a place of concealment?

Near despair, he began feeling down the back of the desk, but it was awkward and-

‘Stand up and turn around slowly!’ a voice rapped in French.

Renzi froze. The door hadn’t opened and someone was in the room with him.

Carefully he rose and turned. It was Gobineau, in a dressing-gown, carrying a heavy pistol. Behind him there was a void in the bookcase where a concealed doorway had swung open.

The count’s eyes widened in recognition. ‘Mon Dieu! Lord Farndon? And in the character of a common thief? It passes belief!’

The pistol never wavered, and Renzi knew he would not leave the legation alive.

‘Before I have you taken up, it would gratify me immensely to know what it is you seek, my lord. No – don’t tell me, I rather think I know.’

He edged along to the desk, a cruel smile playing on his lips. Slowly bending, his eyes never leaving Renzi’s, he reached for a lower drawer, drew it open and fumbled for a paper with a broken seal.

‘It’s this, isn’t it, my lord, from our illustrious emperor with instructions that quite undo your mighty fleet’s plot against the nation of Denmark? A pity you will never know its genius. Do believe, it sorrows me to have-’

The door swung open. Jago entered and stopped, stunned. In the same moment the startled Gobineau wheeled around to confront him.

Renzi reacted in a fury of despair. Snatching up the statue of the Virgin, he brought it down in a brutal, skull-crushing blow.

Gobineau dropped without a sound, flopping limply, blood and brains spilling.

Jago stared in horror.

‘Shut the door – quickly!’ Renzi hissed, and snatched the paper from the corpse. Seeing Jago make for the body, he added savagely, ‘Leave him! Turn the place over, get hold of every valuable you can find and make it look good!’

He crossed to the lamp and feverishly scanned the letter.

It was a copy of one sent to Marshal Bernadotte at the head of his army on the southern border and it was from Bonaparte. Short and to the point, it turned everything on its head. If Denmark did not declare war on Great Britain, Bernadotte was to cross the border, then take the country and its fleet for France.

Renzi stood transfixed.

‘We has to go, m’ lord,’ Jago whispered urgently, a jangling cloth bundle in his hands.

Renzi took a last look at the letter, burning its details on his mind then returned it to the drawer. Without a word the pair slipped through the bookcase opening and down steps into a palatial bedroom. It had no occupant but reeked of perfume and, with desperate relief, Renzi saw it had an alternative access – a small door.

It led down a dank, cramped staircase and, after an interminable descent, to another door.

Renzi eased the bolt back, cracked it open, then threw it wide. Ahead an alleyway led to the busy street. Gobineau’s route of secret assignation had been the means of their escape.

Safely back, and fortified with a stiff whisky, Renzi forced his mind to an icy composure.

If Bernadotte crossed to Sj?lland and flooded it with troops, it would be all over in days. With the Baltic sealed against Britain, and Denmark’s fleet in other hands, the worst nightmare would have come true.

There was only one course left: abandon his mission – and the Danes.

On his report, as a matter of the utmost urgency, the armada would be unleashed to secure the prime objective: the Danish fleet. Only this could save something of the situation, putting the closing of the Baltic beyond the power of Bonaparte.

How ironic. Sent on a mission of peace, his would be the word to launch the expedition against the blameless Danish.

He tossed back the last of the whisky and began cyphering.

It was done.

His presence in Denmark no longer held any value. The sooner he was away from Copenhagen the better – not only to be gone before the final act started but to escape the bleak sense of guilt that bore down on him.

There was little time left: Gambier would act the instant he received word.

Early the next day, Renzi set Jago to preparing staff and baggage for a hasty departure. Now he had only to fetch Cecilia and they would be gone from this unhappy place.

The major-domo insisted on speaking to him personally. ‘So sorry, my lord, all the carriages are not available. It is the English fleet – they are scared, my people.’

Renzi bit back a retort and, with rising anxiety, ordered Jago to find an alternative. Rumours and fright had set the population to a frenzy of aimless movement, and it wasn’t until well into the morning that a run-down four-wheeler was located. There was now a pressing need to get away before the mood turned ugly. Renzi remembered how rapidly in Naples things came to a murderous crescendo when the crowd took it into their heads to go against a foreigner.