Rogue Spy

Eight

Cami inserted herself into the noise and confusion of Fetter Lane, slipping between stout workmen who were stolid and oblivious and nearly as good as a solid wall for concealment. The blackmailer followed her, fuming. She’d get well away from the church and its many opportunities for unpredictable violence before she talked to him.

Devoir needed—

She pushed Devoir out of her mind.

Fetter Lane was a fine noisy place to weave in and out of, smooth as a fish among waving weeds. She tossed tendrils of attention to left and right, to the traffic passing, to the laborers wheeling barrows, to men who lingered in doorways and chatted in front of shops. Under a fold of cloak, her right hand with its little knife, cum cultellulus as it were, was ready to slice or stab. She intended to be a difficult woman to hit on the head and haul away in a private carriage.

She’d given considerable thought, lately, to the business of daylight kidnapping in London. She wouldn’t attempt it on Fetter Lane, herself, but there was no reason to assume this blackmailer was equally cautious. Many things could go wrong in the next half hour. She was prey to a variety of qualms.

Her blackmailer had qualms and imperatives of his own. He caught up with her. “We’ve left a witness alive behind us. A wiser woman wouldn’t have stood in my way.”

She summoned up a Baldoni smile. “A wiser woman would have ignored your letter altogether. You write nonsense about a ‘genuine Camille’ and a code you’ve taken a fancy to. You—”

“Enough. We can’t talk in the open street.”

“On the contrary, this is a perfect place to trade confidences.”

“I did not come here to—”

She left him talking to empty air and continued toward Fleet Street. He followed, as she had known he would.

It had been a long time since she’d bamboozled a dangerous man face-to-face. She hoped she still had the knack of it. This was, after all, what she’d been born to do. To lie, befool, and cheat. If she was afraid, she’d press that fear into a small, coldly pulsing ball and set it aside from her. “Fear is meat and drink to a Baldoni. We eat fear. We thrive on it.” How often had Papà said that?

She wouldn’t think about what she’d done to Devoir.

A small boy, weighted sideways with a bucket, crossed the pavement and slopped some mess in the swale at the side of the road. A horse and rider passed on her left, trotting. The smell of cooked meat expanded from the kitchen of an inn.

She glanced back to see a man dodge horses and wagons and run to the door of the Moravian church. She could only hope he was a friend of Devoir’s and not one of the blackmailer’s confederates, taking a detour into the church with a sharp, silent knife.

She’d left Devoir easy prey.

Walk away. Don’t look back.

She matched the steps of one man, then another, hiding in the flow of the crowd. One bird in the flock. One herring in the congregation of herrings. It was a dark satisfaction to keep the blackmailer trailing after her.

He caught up. “Where do you think you’re going? I don’t plan to chase you across London.”

“Fleet Street. Just around the corner.” She didn’t pause. Didn’t bother to look at him. That would anger him, and angry men made mistakes.

Past the old inn, past half-open doors that smelled of fresh paper and held the creak of printing presses, she turned onto Fleet Street. The pamphlets and newspapers of the kingdom were printed here. Every fourth building was a bookshop. The taverns were filled with men who had ink on their hands.

She’d come here yesterday, as soon as she arrived in London, to assess possibilities and consider tactics. No actor, rehearsing a part, had ever walked the stage more carefully than she’d walked Fleet Street.

Franklin’s Bookshop set an enticing table of books just inside the front door, right beneath the big plate-glass window. She ducked into the shop to the sound of the bell above the door, walked to the far side of the table, slid her knife into the pouch beside her gun, and selected a volume at random.

The blackmailer followed. “What are you doing? Why are we here?” But he was no fool. He already knew why.

“You wish to talk in private? So do I. But I feel safer with witnesses.” . . . Even if the witnesses were the shopkeeper, absorbed in inspection of an elderly volume, and a square, sturdy woman working her way down a row of books on botany.

“You’re overly cautious.” The words were mild enough. Underneath, she heard his anger like a nail scraped across a slate.

She said, “One cannot be overly cautious.”

She lowered her eyes, as if she were reading the book she held. She could look out the wide window and see all of Fleet Street. But this time of day, no one outside could see past the reflection on the window and discover her. She’d investigated this thoroughly. “Will you give me a name to call you by?”

“I see no reason to do so.” He chose his own book. “It adds to your danger, the more you know about me.”

He must have thought she was very stupid. “So awkward to think of you as ‘that man who writes threatening letters.’”

From this carefully chosen vantage point inside Franklin’s Bookshop she could watch the corner of Fetter Lane. Anyone following her would walk just there, beside the streetlamp. Unless he’d been supremely well trained, he’d pause and look both ways on Fleet Street and betray himself utterly. Very few men were trained as she had been at the Coach House.

He said, “You may call me sir. Where is the Mandarin Code?”

She wished to appear the smallest bit stupid. A stupid woman would be insolent right now. Besides, she was angry. “The squire in Brodemere has a pair of mastiffs. He’s always yelling, ‘Sit, sir!’ and the closest one plops its hindquarters on the floor and slobbers. I shall think of that when I call you sir.”

The narrow, pale, intellectual face froze. The lips tightened. “You may call me Mr. Smith.”

She turned a page. “I expected more originality from the man who sent that letter.”

“I leave a foolish cleverness to amateurs, Mademoiselle Molinet.”

So. The Police Secrète knew more about her than she’d realized. She’d come prepared for unpleasant surprises. The day was delivering them.

In the Revolution, in Paris, Papà had been Philippe Molinet for a while, a banker, a man of many financial schemes. The sans-culottes who helped themselves to the wealth of the dead aristos had been endearingly gullible when it came to investments. That had been Papà’s last role.

So strange that the French had assumed she would spy for them after they sent Papà and Mamma to the guillotine. Perhaps they thought children forgot. Baldoni do not forget. She shrugged. “Mademoiselle Molinet belongs to the past. One sheds a dozen such names, Mr. Smith, as snakes shed their skin.”

“Shall I call you Vérité? They must have been feeling humorous that day at the Coach House when they called you that.”

She didn’t like him holding that name in his mouth so soon after Devoir had said it. She returned her eyes to the book she held, which appeared to be about rocks. Why would anybody want to read about rocks? “Not Vérité.”

His nod was amiable. She saw him chalk that up as a trifling victory. “Camille, then.”

“We’ll save ‘Camille’ for the merchandise you offer. Call me Miss Leyland.” She licked her index finger and slipped another page of smooth, dense paper from right to left. There were many drawings. Drawings of rocks, apparently. Under lowered eyelids she watched the corner of Fetter Lane and Fleet Street. Where were his henchmen? She said, “Tell me about this Camille you have acquired.”

He made her wait. Deliberately and slowly he slipped his watch out of its pocket, left-handed, and clicked it open. “She is considerably more genuine than you.” The hour and minutes satisfied him, apparently. He put the watch away. “She lived in Lyon. An orphan, like you. Another lost soul of the Revolution.”

“How sad.”

“The Besançons died when they attempted to flee France, all of them, except for her. Life is fragile.”

“Some lives, certainly.”

“She survived riot and war unscathed”—his voice showed regret for riot and war—“only to fall into my hands. Ironic, is it not?”

“So ironical it strains belief.”

Across the street, men unloaded bales of newsprint from a wagon. A boy carried a pair of brown jugs out of a tavern, across the street, and into one of the shops. And at the corner, a man emerged from Fetter Lane. He was blessed with bristling stubby hair, large ears, and an odd, forward-jutting posture that would mark him in a crowd. Not prepossessing. He looked up and down Fleet Street, hesitated, and ambled off to lean at the doorway of a shop.

One of Smith’s minions, awaiting events.

Waiting for her, as she’d been waiting for him. It was one of many precautions and expectations strewn about the street today.

Smith murmured, “Poor young Camille Besançon. So many narrow escapes. It’s as if a kindly providence has been taking care of her all these years. I will regret her death.” He tapped the book he held against the edge of the table, then shoved it into the pile he’d taken it from. There was something very final about that small shush of book on book and the sudden cessation of sound. “I would regret yours, if it comes to that. Were you able to copy the key to the code?”

I wrote the code. “The Leylands didn’t hide it very well. They trust me.”

“Where is it?”

“Safe. Well hidden.”

A slight nod. “I congratulate you on your caution.”

Do not attempt to flatter a Baldoni. She smiled. “Thank you. I’ve brought you a taste.”

She tucked her own book down neatly into a row with others—A book about rocks. Really—and steadied herself with one hand on the book table. What she wanted was inside the halfboot she wore, between shoe leather and stocking. No one in the bookshop was paying them the least attention.

She’d been carrying the piece of rolled paper there for a while. It had become limp. And damp. And convincing. “This is half of one page written in the Mandarin Code. It’s the first page of a five-page key.”

Using two fingers, she dropped it into Mr. Smith’s hand.

Not one person in a thousand would have caught the flash of rage that snapped through him and was suppressed. Mr. Smith was skilled in his role of reasonable man.

He unrolled her scrap of paper. The hasty writing and raggedly torn edge were corroborating detail. The scrawl of letters across the page looked genuine. Given a few hours, an expert codebreaker might hazard a guess as to whether this was code or nonsense. No one could know whether it was the Mandarin Code. Mr. Smith of the Police Secrète should have retained skepticism.

Instead, he looked pleased. She really didn’t like that.

She wrapped her arms around her under her cloak, where her pistol made a comfortable weight against her belly. In a simpler world she’d have been considering which of several inconspicuous alleys would be the best place to shoot Mr. Smith.

In a simpler world, she wouldn’t have thrown snuff and red pepper into Devoir’s face.

Across the street, Smith’s minion had taken to shifting from one foot to the other. Perhaps he was a minion rethinking his strategy.

Two minutes ticked by. Mr. Smith studied the paper she’d bestowed upon him. Then he folded it into an inner pocket of his coat. “You’ve done well.” His thin lips created an affable smile. He leaned across the table of books, closer, to keep their conversation private, and his breath on her face was like a fly crawling on her lips and in her nostrils. “You will bring me the rest of this key.”

“After I talk to your unlikely Camille.” He wanted her to retreat a little, so she didn’t. She stayed exactly as she was. “Bring her to me tomorrow, at the rope walk in—”

“I will name the time and place,” he said.

Even a very foolish woman does not walk into an ambush. “You’ve sent me a trumpery pearl ring anyone could buy in a jewelry shop. I need considerably more evidence of your Camille Besançon before I fetch the Mandarin Code from where I’ve hidden it.”

“Do not try my patience.”

“Then don’t assume I’m an idiot. This fabulous Camille you threaten me with, who survived so miraculously and comes forth so conveniently. Do you think the Leylands will accept her? I’ve had ten years to establish myself. I hold those old biddies like this.” She closed a fist under his nose. “This tight. They wouldn’t believe your impostor if she cried tears of diamond.”

It worked as she’d hoped. A little crude boasting, a little vulgarity . . . and he was contemptuous of her.

His voice became both smug and threatening. “It’s not the gullible Leylands who will believe her. It’s the British Service. And Military Intelligence.”

“I am not afraid of—”

“Once exposed, you will not escape England. I doubt you’ll ever see trial. They’re hasty men at Military Intelligence and the price of spying is . . .” He sketched a smooth line with his thumb, mimicking the slitting of throats, demonstrating the ruthlessness of the British intelligence establishment, in case she had somehow overlooked it.

“It’s a pretty display of threat,” she said. “But the sting in the tail of your wasp is a convincing Camille Besançon. I doubt you have one.”

Smith lifted his head suddenly, poised as a hound when a bird flutters in the bush. “You ask for proof? Wait. Wait one minute. I will give it to you.” He’d been counting the minutes, watching for something on the street. Now he saw it. “You wish to see Camille? Turn and look at her.”

It was impossible to travel at speed on Fleet Street, but the carriage that approached was skillfully maneuvered between wagons and horses and made good time. A young woman, one hand on the lowered glass, leaned out the window. She had a fine-boned, pretty face and long, black hair elaborately arranged. Her bonnet was decked with ribbons and cherries. Her pouting, discontented mouth was red as those cherries.

That was the Leyland family face. The Leyland hair. The Leyland cast of features. A true match for the painting in the parlor of the Leylands’ cottage. If that were an impostor, she was an extraordinarily well-chosen one.

The driver on the box had pulled a hat low over his face, letting her see only his mouth and nose and the shape of his jaw. Two men rode inside the coach with the woman. There was an impression of their size and dark coloring, but no glimpse of their faces.

The coach rolled past and turned at the corner at Fetter Lane. Smith said, “Camille Besançon.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” But certainty fell like cold lead into her stomach. The woman in the carriage was the Fluffy Aunts’ niece. Their blood kin. That woman must, somehow, be rescued and restored to them. She felt traps close around her. From some obligations there is no escape.

Smith spoke softly, persuasively. “When she is dealt with, you will return to the comfort of your accustomed life. Why should you not? Who else will challenge you after so many years? On one hand, imprisonment, questioning, and almost certain death. On the other, your placid village and the life you have earned for yourself. The life you deserve.” Smith let that sink in for a moment. “One code. I will never approach you again.”

She let time pass, as if she were thinking the matter over. “I need to talk to her.”

“That’s understood. You will have your chance to trade girlish confidences with the amiable Camille. When you are satisfied, we’ll make the exchange. The woman for the code. But I choose the time and place.”

“You give me no choice.” She put on a sullen expression, held it for several seconds, then let her shoulders slump. “Where?”

“Semple Street, outside Number Fifty-six. Eleven o’clock in the morning, three days from now.”

Three days. That left almost no time to prepare. “I need—”

“Your needs do not interest me. You will come to Semple Street, as ordered. You will bring the key to the Mandarin Code. You do not want to face the consequences for disobedience.”

She made a muscle in her cheek twitch. She’d practiced. “You’ll have your code.”

“Do not disappoint me, Miss Leyland,” he said quietly.

She gave a sharp nod. She didn’t touch him as she walked around and past, her hand under her cloak, on her gun. The shop door jangled as she pushed it open and stalked out into Fleet Street, away from him.

Little glances behind told her that Smith had stayed where he was, studying the selection of books in Franklin’s Bookshop. But his henchman abandoned his lackadaisical perusal of the passing scene and followed her.