“Sometimes admitting that you’ve been weak takes more courage than walking into a man’s house and putting a bullet in his chest.”
Beresford gave a mirthless laugh and shook his head. “No.” Then his features sharpened.
“What?” asked Sebastian, watching him.
“I was just remembering something else Eisler said—about that Frenchman, Collot.”
“What about him?”
“He said he had a big mouth.”
Darkness was just beginning to fall, the last of the light leaching from the sky as Sebastian walked the narrow streets and alleys of St. Giles looking for Jacques Collot. The reek of newly lit tallow candles and torches filled the air, mingling with the smell of roasting mutton and spilled ale and cheap gin.
He tried the Pilgrim first, then a string of ale shops along Queen Street, then the tavern where he’d spotted the Frenchman in consultation with his three confederates.
Nothing.
He was passing the smoke-blackened ruins of what looked like an old coaching inn when a low, anxious voice hissed at him from out of the darkness.
“Pssst.”
Sebastian turned to find Collot hovering in the shadows of the burned inn’s scorched, refuse-filled arch. He had his hat brim pulled low over his forehead and the collar of his greatcoat turned up, although it was not cold.
“Why are you hiding in the shadows?” asked Sebastian, walking up to him—but not too close.
“Why? Because I am nervous! Why do you think?” He cast a quick, harried glance around. “Many people are looking for me, asking about me. Why are you stirring up trouble by looking for me again?”
Sebastian stared through the arch at the abandoned yard beyond. It appeared deserted, its piles of blackened timbers and rubble standing quiet and still in the deepening darkness. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“The last time you talked to me, you ripped my coat. See? Look here.” He turned sideways to display a large rent down one shoulder.
“My apologies,” said Sebastian. “I want to know how you discovered that Eisler had in his possession a certain big blue diamond.”
“Why should I tell you? Hmm? Give me one reason why I should tell you.”
“To save your coat?”
Collot’s wayward eye rolled sideways. “I am a man with many contacts. I hear many things. Who can say where I learn things?”
“I suspect you could say where.” Sebastian showed his teeth in a smile. “If the alternative becomes unpleasant enough.”
“Monsieur.” Collot threw up his hands like a man warding off evil. “Surely this is unnecessary.”
“How did you discover Eisler had the diamond?”
“He showed it to a woman I know. A putain. She told me.”
“A whore? Why would Eisler show a priceless gem to a woman off the streets?”
“Why? Because he was a sick salaud; that is why.” Collot hawked up a mouthful of phlegm and turned his head to spit. “You would not believe some of the things I could tell you.”
“Try me.”
But Collot only shook his head.
Sebastian said, “How did Eisler find out you knew about the diamond?”
“What makes you think that he did?”
Sebastian smiled. “You’re not the only one who hears things.”
Collot sniffed. “He knew because I wanted him to know. He cheated me, you see—in Amsterdam. It might have been twenty years ago, but Collot does not forget these things. I brought him my share of the gems from the Garde-Meuble. We agreed on a price. Then, after I handed them over, he paid me a third of what he had promised. Said if I set up a squawk, he would tell the authorities I had tried to rob him. He was a respected merchant; I was a known thief. What could I do? He said I was lucky he had given me anything at all for the jewels. I should have killed him right there.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Collot squared his shoulders with a strange kind of pride. “I am a thief, not a murderer.”
“So what did you hope to accomplish by going to him now, after all these years?”
“I told him I wanted the rest of the money he owed me, and that if he did not give it to me, I would tell the French he had the diamant bleu de la Couronne.”
Sebastian was aware of a burst of laughter from the throng of drunken men in the street behind him. The last of the light had vanished from the evening sky, leaving the narrow lane dark and windswept. “And? What did he say?”
“The old bastard laughed at me. He laughed! Then his face changed, and suddenly he was shaking with rage. It was as if he had been possessed by a demon. He said if I ever thought of breathing a word to Napoléon’s agents, he would see me buried alive in an unmarked grave. Who talks like that? Hmm?”
“When was this?”
“Friday.”
“So what did you do?”
Collot rolled his shoulders in an expansive Gallic shrug. “I told.”
“Who? Who did you tell?”