The Emperor's Assassin - Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner

Informationen zum Autor T. F. Banks  lives in British Columbia, Canada, and is at work on the next Bow Street Runner mystery. Klappentext The sequel to the critically-acclaimed "The Thief Taker" finds Bow Street Runner Henry Morton investigating a murder of a Frenchwoman! the mistress of a count! that has Napoleon himself at the heart of the matter. Original. Chapter 1 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 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 f...

Product details

• Authors: T F Banks
• Publisher: Dell Publishing Inc.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 03.06.2003
• EAN: 9780440240846
• ISBN: 978-0-440-24084-6
• No. of pages: 336
• Dimensions: 102 mm x 178 mm x 19 mm