My friends, I reflected, were busily driving me mad.
I turned onto Piccadilly, making my way past Berkeley Street, Dover Street, Albemarle Street, and Old Bond Street. I passed Burlington House, a huge edifice that had dominated Piccadilly since the reign of Charles II. Owned now by Lord George Cavendish, the interior was lavish, I'd been told, with no expense spared on decoration. Grenville had pronounced it excessive.
Turner's landlord looked puzzled when I said I wanted to see Turner's rooms again, but he led me upstairs. The sitting room was a mess. Open crates stood about half-filled. The furniture had been lined up along one wall, apparently waiting for men to load it into a wagon and drive it to Epsom.
In the bedroom, I found similar disarray, along with Hazleton, Turner's valet. The man lay across Turner's bed, fully clothed, snoring loudly. Two empty bottles, which had likely held more of Turner's claret, stood on the night table.
I approached the bed and shook Hazleton's booted foot.
The man snorted. He fumbled his hand to his face and rubbed one eye. 'Wha-? Devil take it, man.'
'Hazleton,' I said, shaking the foot more firmly.
Hazleton blinked, trying to focus on me at the foot of the bed. He sat up, then groaned and pressed his hand to his forehead.
'What a head I have,' he mumbled.
'Emptying bottles of claret by yourself will do that.' I dragged a chair from a corner and sat down. 'While you are recovering, I want you to tell me everything you know about a Colonel Naveau, and Turner's last visit to Paris.'
'Ah. You know about that, do you?'
'Not as much as I'd like. I have met Naveau. These bruises on my face are courtesy of him. You would have saved me much trouble if you'd told me about him from the start.'
Hazleton gave me a belligerent look. 'Well, you didn't ask, did you?'
'Did he come here the same day I did, looking for something?'
'That he did. Not two minutes after you departed.'
'And you helpfully told him that I had already been here, and anything the colonel needed to find, I no doubt had?'
'Yes,' Hazleton said defiantly. 'I didn't know he would crack your face. I couldn't, could I?'
'What was he looking for?'
Hazleton looked surprised. 'Well, now, you'd know about that.'
'No. I looked, and I found nothing. Naveau has found nothing. I know the document is a paper written in French, but I do not know what it is.'
He shrugged. 'I don't know either. I can't read Frog-speak.'
'Tell me why Turner went to Paris, what he did there, and why he came home.'
'Persistent, aren't you, Captain?' Hazelton pressed his hand to his head again and climbed down from the bed. 'I'll need a bit of something to settle my head. So I can remember.'
I watched impatiently as he opened the armoire and drew out another bottle. He uncorked it and poured ruby liquid into a glass. 'Have some, Captain?'
I declined. I craved coffee, not claret, and I would reward myself with some after I finished with Hazleton.
Hazleton drank then let out a satisfied sigh. 'That's good, that is. I'm knackered from straightening out my master's affairs. And then, once I'm finished, that is the end for old Bill Hazleton. Mr. Turner-senior, that is-said he'd look after me, but a man needs only one valet. So what is to become of old Bill?'
'Perhaps Colonel Naveau can avail himself of your services,' I said, wanting him to get on with it.
Hazleton took another long gulp and sat on the bed. 'Oh, no, never him. That man frightens me, and not just because he's a Frenchie. And anyway, he was a spy. You did know that, didn't you? That he was an exploring officer during the war? For the Frogs?'
Chapter Thirteen
No, I had not known that. Both Denis and Colonel Naveau had omitted that interesting detail.
Exploring officers had been those men sent off in the night to do covert missions for Wellington or for Bonaparte's generals. They'd crept across lands held by the enemy and spied out troop movements, intercepted papers, or infiltrated the enemy camp itself. Men who could speak fluent French were prized by the English; likewise those fluent in English were prized by the French. So many Englishmen and Frenchmen had mixed blood, mothers from London and fathers from Paris, that it was difficult to decide sometimes who fought for whom.
Exploring officers had done a dangerous job, I knew, but they'd been more or less despised. Instead of standing and fighting in the open, they skulked about in darkness and lied and cheated their way into defeating the enemy. Commanders prized their exploring officers and found them distasteful at the same time.
Naveau had a fairly thick accent, so I doubted he'd ever infiltrated English lines, but he might have been a receiver of information.
My heart grew cold. The fact that Brandon and Mrs. Harper had written to Naveau during the Peninsular War filled me with foreboding. Why the devil should they have? That Colonel Brandon, a high stickler for loyalty, would send a document to a French exploring officer for any reason seemed ludicrous.
Something was wrong here, very, very wrong.
'Tell me about your master's visit to Paris,' I said. 'Now.'
Hazleton rubbed his face and took another fortifying drink. 'Well now, we went out to the Continent about a year ago. Mr. Turner likes to travel. Don't know why. The food is rotten, and I can't understand a word no one says, even excepting that some of the ladies in Milan and Paris are sweet as honey. Not that they wash as much as I'd like, but they're friendly. Mr. Turner met this fellow Naveau in Milan. After that, he tells me that we're packing up to go with Colonel Naveau to his home in Paris.'
'What was the purpose of the visit to Naveau?' I asked. 'Business?'
Hazleton barked a laugh. 'Naw, Captain. It was sordid lust. My master was bent the wrong way, you know. Started when he was a lad, and he never gave it up. So long as he wasn't bent for me, I said, I didn't care what he did. He starts a fascination for this colonel, and there's nothing for it but we must go to Paris with him.'
'They were lovers, then.'
Hazleton gave me a glassy stare. 'Never went that far. My master was keen for the colonel, but I do not think it went the other way. My master threw himself at him for nothing. The Frenchies, you know, they don't care when a fellow is bent. They just pass on by. But here now, you go to the stocks quick enough. But my master never got what he wanted from the colonel. The two of them argued much, never could agree about anything. One night, my master wakes me up and says we're going back to England. 'Why?' I asks. 'Tired of plying your charms?' He boxed my ears for impertinence, but I got up and packed his duds, and we fled back to England.' He drained his glass and upended the bottle for more.
'What was Naveau like? Did you speak to him much?'
'Not I. Didn't have much to say to him, did I? But his own man, name of Jacot, had no complaints about him. Told me about the colonel being an exploring officer and what they did in the war. Naveau was decorated for services to the French army, he said. Very intelligent man, Jacot claimed. Good at soldiering. A bit at a loss in civilian life.'
Such a thing had happened to many, including me. 'Napoleon was deposed and the French king restored. Did Naveau remain a good republican?'
'Jacot said it seemed like he was glad all the fighting was over, no matter who was at the helm. I heard Naveau himself say that war was bad for France, that so many men had died for so little. But Mr. Turner didn't like to hear about the war and the colonel's career. Every time Colonel Naveau started going on about life in the army, Mr. Turner would change the subject.'
I thought of Turner, young and fresh-faced with his soft curls of brown hair. I imagined that listening to stories of an old war horse had wearied him.
