They made good speed. Curricles were dangerously light, much loved by young men with too much money and not much sense. They were usually drawn by two horses and could reach alarming speeds. Collignon’s carriage looked old, and Sharpe suspected he had owned it a long time. ‘Straight ahead!’ Fox called.
Folk watched them pass. The streets were surprisingly crowded and the windows well lit. Sharpe noted how many places sold meals, Lucille called them restaurants, and all he saw were doing brisk business. At some there were tables outside and the diners cheered the men hauling the curricle. Finn and O’Farrell were in their rifle green jackets, but no one recognised the uniforms for what they were and must have assumed they were French soldiers on a drunken spree.
‘Left onto the river’s quay!’ Fox called, and the curricle bowled along the Seine’s southern bank. ‘Take the first bridge!’
‘We should take this bloody carriage into the warehouse,’ Finn growled.
‘Why?’ Sharpe asked.
‘There’s no fuel for that stove. We can break it up, get some hot food.’
‘Good idea,’ Sharpe said, ‘we burned the bugger’s house so we might as well burn his carriage.’
That would dispose of the curricle, but Collignon himself was another matter. Fox had questioned the man during their breakneck ride through the Paris night and reckoned he had gleaned everything there was to learn. ‘Do we keep him prisoner now?’ Sharpe asked Fox once they were safe inside the small warehouse. ‘If we let him go he’ll warn the others.’
‘What others?’
‘La Fraternité, of course. He’s one of them, surely?’
‘He is.’
‘You want me to question him?’ Sharpe asked.
‘He’s told me everything. I promised him his life and that persuaded him.’
‘So you want us to lock him up?’
‘Can’t think what else to do with him.’
Sharpe dropped the French musket he had carried from Collignon’s house and picked up his rifle. ‘And he was the man who betrayed you?’
‘I fear so,’ Fox sounded regretful.
‘And he’s plotting to kill the Duke?’
‘And the King.’
‘I’ll look after him,’ Sharpe said. He primed the rifle that was already loaded.
‘Colonel,’ Fox said nervously, but Sharpe had already walked away.
‘Pat?’
‘Sir?’
‘You and me.’
They took Collignon out to the back of the warehouse, across the small courtyard, and through a gate which opened onto a dark stinking alley. Rats skittered along the walls. ‘Mister Fox,’ Sharpe said, ‘wants us to keep this bugger as a prisoner, but I’m not minded to do that. He wants to kill the Duke.’
‘That’s bad,’ Harper said.
‘And he tried to kill me.’
‘That’s worse.’
‘And we’ve nowhere to keep a prisoner.’ Sharpe cocked the rifle. ‘And we can’t release him.’
Harper pushed Collignon. ‘Run, you bugger!’
‘Allez,’ Sharpe said. ‘Vite! Allez!’
Collignon looked bemused for a moment, but released from Harper’s grip he took two tentative steps towards the dim light at the alley’s end. ‘I can go?’
‘Just go,’ Sharpe said.
Collignon started to walk again and Sharpe shot him in the back of his neck. The sound of the rifle echoed off the walls and slowly died. ‘He really shouldn’t have tried to escape,’ Harper said.
‘See if the bugger has anything in his pockets.’
Harper found some papers, a leather purse with coins, and a fob watch. They left the body in the alley, sure that the rats would start its disposal and that another murdered man in the alleys would cause little alarm in the city.
‘I heard a shot!’ Fox said when Sharpe returned.
‘He tried to escape,’ Sharpe said curtly.
‘Foolish man,’ Fox said, ‘but he did give me two more names, so it’s been a good night’s work! Three of la Fraternité dead!’
‘Three?’
‘The two at Collignon’s house and poor Collignon himself. And I now have the two other names. A good night’s work! And it means we have some hunting to do, Colonel.’ Fox turned as if he was dancing, and then, to Sharpe’s surprise, began to sing. ‘A hunting we will go, a hunting we will go!’ He did not finish the song, but Charlie Weller did.
‘We’ll catch a fox and put him in a box, and never let him go.’
CHAPTER 6
‘We do now have two names,’ Fox told Sharpe the next morning.
They were sitting at a table in the Rue de Richelieu with cups of tea. Fox had wanted coffee, but there was only tea, along with fresh baked bread, butter, and slices of ham.
‘So Collignon must have betrayed you before,’ Sharpe said, grimacing at the weak taste of the tea, ‘which is why you were at Ham.’
‘As likely as not,’ Fox admitted, ‘yet he always seemed so reliable.’
‘And the names he gave you? Are they reliable?’
‘It’s all we have,’ Fox said.
‘And you believe him?’
‘As I said, it’s all we have.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Général Delaunay and a Colonel Lanier.’
Sharpe shrugged, neither name meant anything to him.
‘I know of both men,’ Fox said, ‘Delaunay is a cavalryman who commanded the Young Guard in Prussia ten years ago. He was wounded badly, recovered, given command of a division of cavalry and went north with the Emperor. By reputation he’s a capable man. As is Lanier.’
‘Another cavalryman?’
‘Lord, no! Lanier is something of a legend. He’s an infantryman, fiercely loyal to Bonaparte, and utterly formidable! He’s known as the hero of Marengo and leads a battalion that the Emperor calls his devils. Collignon was plainly terrified of the man.’
‘And Collignon,’ Sharpe said sourly, ‘could have invented the whole story.’
Fox nodded unwillingly. ‘It’s possible. I would have liked to question him further, but you made that impossible. That was not subtle, Sharpe.’
‘Subtle?’ Sharpe asked angrily.
‘You are a soldier,’ Fox said, ‘and you employ a soldier’s brutal methods. Our mission demands more subtlety. I should have stopped you last night.’
‘You’re damned lucky I wasn’t subtle last night,’ Sharpe said, still angry. ‘Those two men in the back room would have killed us both. Who were they?’
‘Judging from the papers we found on them, they were both officers from Lanier’s battalion, the 157th Light Infantry.’
Sharpe grimaced. ‘The Emperor’s devils?’
‘Indeed. They also marched north with the Emperor.’
‘Then they’re a beaten regiment, but what were two of their officers doing in Paris last night?’
‘Depot troops?’ Fox suggested. ‘Or perhaps the regiment is already back here?’
‘The French always marched faster than us,’ Sharpe said, ‘so that’s possible.’
‘What we have to do,’ Fox said, ‘is find this Général Delaunay. Collignon said he was la Fraternité’s leader, and he evidently lives in Paris. And we need to do it swiftly so I can return to my real business.’
‘Selling pictures?’ Sharpe asked scornfully.
‘Rescuing the treasures of civilisation, Colonel, and restoring them to their rightful owners.’
Sharpe pushed the tea away. ‘Mister Fox,’ he said sternly, ‘you’ve already walked into one trap. These people know you! If you start asking around Paris for Delaunay they’ll find you again. You’re not exactly unremarkable.’
‘Is that a compliment?’ Fox asked, amused.