T.F. Banks - The Emperors Assassin: Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner (Dell Mystery)

To:
Pat Dennis
and
Shirley Russell

Acknowledgments Many people helped in the creation of the Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner , with their advice and their patient reading and re-reading of manuscripts in various stages of development. Thanks go in particular to Walter and Jill at Dead Write Books in Vancouver, Brian and Rose Klinkenberg, Marie-Jose Tienhooven, Karen Rei Nishio, Donna Jez, Valerie and Marylou MacIntosh, Catharine Jones, Vaughn Gillson, Andrew Bartlett, June Nishio, and Kathy Beliveau. And a special bow to John Burgoyne, for his invaluable data on the noble pedigrees and persnickety temperaments of Regency-era pistols.

The turn of the century was a time of great import in the
history of England and, indeed, the world. Twenty years
of war with the French overshadowed almost all other
events, great and small. But the summer of 1815 brought
an end at last to that bloody conflict, as the fortunes of
Napoleon Bonaparte were dashed forever on the
battlefield of Waterloo. Little more than a month later
the fallen Emperor of the French surrendered to an
obscure English sea captain, was brought aboard one of
our ships of the line and carried to England. He did not
know then, nor did we, that it was to the remote Atlantic
isle of St. Helena that he was to be sent, never to return. It has, even now, been forgotten just how uncertain
the whole matter was, as Bonaparte waited aboard
H.M.S. Bellerophon in Plymouth Sound. The Cabinet
debated long into the nights, and every kind of
speculation was heard on the streets and in the clubs and
coffeehouses of London. Newspapers printed the wildest
rumours, and folk rushed to the Devon coast hoping for a
glimpse of the infamous general. All the while esteemed
jurists debated the very legality of holding the man.
Then, on the evening of August 4, the Bellerophon
unexpectedly weighed anchor and sailed out into
the Channel, taking Napoleon Bonaparte into exile. How close the fallen emperor came to never leaving
Plymouth Sound is a story known only to a few. Henry Morton, Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner

A gust of wind combed up the grassy knoll and fluttered the women's shawls and dresses. A quick hand preserved Arabella's hat, and she stepped behind the small windbreak afforded by Arthur Darley and his friend. She took Lord Arthur's arm as she settled into his lee.

They had not been up on Plymouth Hoe a quarter of an hour before a charter member of Darley's vast acquaintance found them. This gentleman, a captain in His Majesty's navy, bent his head toward her, the wrinkles about his eyes suggesting a smile.

"Permit me to observe, madam, that your dress is luffing. I think you've sailed too close to the wind."

Arabella smiled in spite of herself. The cheek of the man! Would he have said the same to Arthur's wife? It was a lucky thing the man possessed considerable charm. Arabella had wounded bigger men without need of a pistol or second.

She remembered her rather unfamiliar duties, suddenly, and set her gaze scurrying amongst the crowd. And there she found Lucy, in a lather of unselfconscious delight, chasing an escaped lapdog. Before Arabella could decide if this was an acceptable activity for a young lady (for she knew little of that particular species), a movement and murmur spread down the hoe like the gasp of an audience as, on the stage, a character is murdered.

"Well, there," said Captain Colgan, lifting a hand to point, as did so many others that afternoon. "Maitland arrives at last."

"The Billy Ruffian !" called a young man to some of his friends nearby, and Arabella could feel the excitement of the crowd.

Still holding her hat, she ventured out of Arthur's lee and into the full force of the wind. A ship of the line rounded the eastern headland, little ant men aloft taking in sail. It was not an uncommon sight here in Plymouth Sound.

"Well, there is a bit of living history," Arthur said. "Where is Lucy? She cannot miss this."

"But what is it, pray?" Arabella asked sweetly.

"H.M.S. Bellerophon ," Captain Colgan explained.

"And aboard her the deposed Emperor of the French-- or as the Admiralty has ordered he be addressed, General Napoleon Bonaparte."

"But was he not luxuriating happily in Tor Bay?"

"I don't know how happily, but yes." The captain took off his hat a moment and combed a hand through his thinning hair--an unconscious gesture. The hat returned to its perch. "It is not widely known," he said quietly, "but they thought he'd slipped off the Bellerophon a few days ago. Did you hear, Darley?"

"Just a rumour. Was he not asleep, after all?"

"Yes. Asleep in his cabin. But Maitland did not quite believe the general's followers, and rather than send someone into the great man's cabin, he had one of the topmen shinny out to the end of the spanker boom to peer in through the stern gallery. Astonishing! It got the Admiralty thinking that Tor Bay was rather an open anchorage and that Bonaparte still had numbers of supporters at large, even in the French navy. They might try to rescue him from seaward."

Some part of the crowd had begun to make their way hurriedly toward the paths leading down to the quayside.

"Or he might slip ashore," Darley said, "and avail himself of English law."

Captain Colgan made a snorting sound--as disgusting as it was disgusted. "What fools we are made of by our own laws! Bonaparte is not an Englishman. He is our enemy, perhaps the greatest enemy we have ever known. Shoot him, say I." He glanced over at Arabella and smiled sheepishly. "Do excuse--" But he did not finish. The general movement down toward the bay suddenly became a rush, the way orderly retreats turned of an instant into routs.

Arabella was suddenly aware of an absence.

"Lucy!" Arabella called. "Lu-cy!" She was jostled just then and grabbed Arthur's arm to balance. Her hat was torn free of her amber curls and thrown up into the sky, lost in an instant among the wind and clouds and forlornly crying gulls.