The Black Hawk

“Oh. The usual. Civilization is coming to an end. War is imminent. The sky is falling and we have to go tack it up again.”

He’d gone to Service headquarters first, to the new house over on the Left Bank. He’d dropped a copy of the letter in Pax’s lap two hours ago. Carruthers was already calling in agents. Setting them to work.

His job was to tell the French. That was his assignment from London.

The Service knew he had a line into the French Secret Police. They didn’t know it was Owl. Nobody knew about him and Owl.

Owl said, “And what is the usual?”

“It’s not good. Give me a minute.” He sipped eau-de-vie, which was strong enough to lift his brain case. “But I’m carrying one piece of good news. Hand me my coat, could you?”

The package was wrapped in his handkerchief and wedged into an inner pocket, beside his left-hand knife. He’d tried to protect it when he fell, but it looked a little flat. He slit the twine and handed it over.

Owl let brown paper wrapping drop to the floor. Pulled the end of a thin blue ribbon and let it fall. Slipped the lid off. She stood, holding the little painted box with the tips of her fingers. The ride from London was worth it, just to see her face go unguarded like that.

His small, unofficial commission. It wasn’t the first time he’d played courier. “Rock cakes, they’re called. In Sévie’s case, one of those appropriate names. She sends her love and that letter. I’ll tell her you enjoyed them, when she asks.”

“You may do so, because I will.” She ran a finger over the little brown cakes, then picked the folded letter from the side. “Drink the brandy. You’re shaking.”

She slid the lid back into place and set the box on the table, on top of the letter, so it was hidden. She wouldn’t read it at once. She’d save it for later, savoring the moment as long as possible. He knew her so well.

“Just tired.” He drank again. “Last time you gave me brandy was outside Zurich.”

“When you came to warn me, in a benevolent manner. You were exhausted that time as well.”

“And on the run.”

“We both were. It is remarkable how often we manage to annoy the same people.”

“The Austrians are easily annoyed.”

“C’est vrai. Now, tell me why you have come from England. What matter is so serious you barely trust yourself to speak of it?”

“In my coat. I’ll show you.”

Owl did not hand him his jacket. She ransacked the pockets herself. If she hadn’t been French, and blue- blooded and a spy, she would have been an ornament to any gang in London.

He sat on the bed and let the brandy sear his mouth where he’d bit his lip, falling. It didn’t stop the shivering in his muscles. Didn’t clear his head.

“One passport,” she muttered, “in the name of Pierre Thibault, harmless citizen of Rouen. That is you. A handkerchief. One of your knives.”

“I know what I’m carrying. Nothing interesting.” He brought nothing into this house she couldn’t see. Nothing the whole French Secret Police couldn’t print in the newspaper.

“Do you know, you are almost stupid with not sleeping.” She turned the coat over. “Now I find another of your knives. I do not know any man who has such a fascination with knives. A candle stub and a tinderbox. We are prepared for all eventualities, are we not? Playing cards. A set of picklocks. And one book . . . which seems to be a very dull survey of mining sites in France, published in Lyon. I do not suppose this is a clever work of codes.”

“It’s just a book about mines. What you want is in the front of that.”

“Ah.” She came to stand beside him while she opened the letter. “This is in English.”

“It was written by an Englishman. The British embassy is full of them.”

“Do not be facile.” She read the letter quickly, from beginning to end, then looked over the second page more carefully. “There is much about buying a horse and complaints about his mistress. He finishes . . . he has overheard a plot and is it not curious? This Englishman, this John—”

“Millian. The Honorable John Millian, attached to the embassy in Paris.”

“He claims to have overheard a conversation while he is at dinner somewhere—”

“The Palais Royale.”

“He does not say which restaurant or café in the precincts of the Palais Royale, so it is useless. He does not say who spoke, so it becomes more useless. He records only part of what he has heard. He also spells it wrong. Why have you brought me this?”

“Because three days after writing that letter and sending it off to London, Millian fell out a window and splattered his brains across the Rue de l’Aiguillerie.”

“Ah. That is unfortunate.”

“Particularly for John Millian. He took a dozen strands of hair down to the street with him, torn out by the roots, clenched in his fist.”

“He was not alone when he fell.”

“So we assume. The letter got sent to London, and it struck his friend in the Foreign Office as so interesting, he sat on his thumbs for a month before he brought the letter to us. To the Service.”

“Who send you posthaste to deal with it, at last. We are always called in when it is almost too late.”

Three candles lit the room. She went to the closest and studied the effect of light shining through the paper. “There is no writing hidden. You will tell me there is no British code involved.”

“None.”

“I see no French code words. We are left with the dozen words your Monsieur Millian overheard.” She frowned as she read, “‘La Dame est prête.’ That does not tell us so much. Only that the woman is ready.”

“If that’s even what he heard.”

“We must trust it is, or we have nothing at all. Next, one says, ‘À Tours.’ That is the city of Tours, I think. And then, ‘L’Anglais arrange tout.’”

“There’s an Englishman who’ll arrange everything.”

“How nice for them,” she said. “Then we learn, ‘Le fou va aller à Paris.’ The fool is going to Paris. This means nothing.”

“Except we’re about to get another fool in Paris, a commodity with which the city is plentifully supplied.”

“None of this says anything useful. The conspirators in the Palais Royale might as well have remained silent. They end with, ‘Patiente. Napoléon va mourir en août. C’est certain.’”

“He predicts Napoleon will die in August.”

“But he will not. We will make sure of that. Your Monsieur Millian spells French vilely.”

“The least of his faults. He also didn’t speak French very well. There’s no telling what he actually heard.”

“‘The woman is ready.’ So a woman is involved. That is one solid bit of information. Tours is another, as is the Englishman who arranges everything. But the meat of this nut is that Napoleon will be attacked in August.”

“Now you know what we know.”

“It is already August.”

“Yes.” He closed his eyes. He’d memorized every pen stroke of the letter.

“So slight a messenger, this letter, to tell us of so great a disaster. You know what will happen if Napoleon is attacked by an Englishman.”

“We’ll be at war again.” The treaty patched up between England and France had lasted for a year. It wouldn’t hold forever, but any day men weren’t shooting at each other was a good day for somebody.

“War. Within a week,” Owl agreed.

Armies in the field. Thousands of men dead.

“Casus belli. Doyle called it that.” Always had a way to wrap things up in some dead language, Doyle did. The cause of war. Casus belli.

That was why he was ordered to bring this letter to the French Secret Police. After ten years of fighting, rational men on both sides were sick of it.

“I will copy this.” She folded the letter. “Several times. There are people I must inform. Give me your glass.