The Forbidden Rose

Twenty-nine

HAWKER BANGED ON THE GATE OF THE HOUSE IN the Marais.

The porter at the door—didn’t that man ever sleep?—let him in. Carruthers was waiting for him in the courtyard. There was nothing tougher than an old woman. This one was twigs and shoe nails, held together with sheer meanness.

“You came back. I was hoping we’d seen the last of you, Rat.” Love words from Carruthers.

“I regret the necessity, madame. I had hoped to see the last of you as well.” This was his aristo accent. The girl who’d taught him to speak French had been an aristo from Toulouse. “Is Citoyen LeBreton in the house?”

“You left your post.”

“I left my post to follow—”

“A footman. He returned. You didn’t. Where have you been for five hours, Rat?”

She wouldn’t let him into the kitchen to talk about this in private. The blank stone on every side reflected her voice upward. The house was dark, but behind every window there was some Service agent, sleeping light, waking up to listen to the Old Trout.

“I am not under your command, Madame Cachard, however delightful that would be for both of us. I am Doyle’s rat.” He said it the way a gentleman would, using words like razors. “Did he tell you where he would be?”

Carruthers laid out a couple of silences, each with a different meaning. “The Café des Marchands. Make your excuses to him.”

He knew some small number of deadly women. This one, though, froze his bones. She had the same eyes Doyle did, the same weighing look that saw everything.

Right now, she was full of contempt. “The world will be a cleaner place when somebody snaps your neck.”

He wanted to shrivel up and slink out and never come back. So he grinned. “If I am a rat, madame, I’m the most dangerous rat you will encounter outside your nightmares. A good night to you.” He turned his back on her and walked out the way he’d come in. He’d wipe his arse with Robespierre’s papers before he gave them to that old hag.

The hell with her. The hell with the lot of them.