‘Indeed?’
‘Yes, indeed.’ Dalgliesh took a step closer, his steel-blue eyes gleaming in the darkness. Mr Ambrose glared back, the air between them freezing. If the staring contest between Mr Ambrose and Minister Guizot had been bad, this was on a totally different level. Mr Ambrose and the minister had merely been testing their mettle. These two were testing their hatred. And there was lots of it to go around.
‘I’m warning you,’ Dalgliesh whispered. ‘Leave Paris. Leave now—or you won’t like the consequences.’
‘You are warning me?’ Mr Ambrose’s voice was soft. Soft of as the footfalls of a Siberian tiger on fresh snow as it stalked its prey. ‘Have you forgotten who it was who sabotaged my business, who put my people at risk?’ He took a step forward. ‘I’m not going to warn you, Dalgliesh. I’ve done that before, with little result. The time for warnings is past. Now it’s time for war!’
His hand moved in a flash. There was bang, and I jumped forward, expecting to see a bloody hole in Lord Dalgliesh’s waistcoat—but there was nothing. Mr Ambrose’s smoking revolver was pointing in a totally different direction.
‘Arrrh!’
My eyes swivelled towards the noise, and I saw a dark shape drop from a roof, in the direction Mr Ambrose had aimed. It crashed onto a cart of cabbages parked in the street and writhed, cursing loudly. A rifle fell from its hand, clattering to the ground.
‘Do not,’ Mr Ambrose told His Lordship, his smoking revolver still out in the open, ‘try that again. Next time, I’ll shoot to kill. And not just your henchman.’ He extended his hand to me. ‘Miss Linton?’
I quickly put my hand in his, hoping nobody would notice I’d just pulled it out of my knickers, still in search of the missing gun.
‘Let’s go.’
‘Yes.’
We slowly moved away down the street, feeling Lord Dalgliesh’s eyes on us the whole way until, finally, the shadows swallowed us.
The nocturnal streets were extremely lively, even by Parisian standards. Everywhere, people chattered excitedly, gesticulating with both hands, and sometimes both feet. I didn’t understand a word of what was going on, but I didn’t really need to. It was all too clear what was happening. The news of the assassination attempt was making the rounds. People were burning to know who the dangerous revolutionary was who had dared to take a shot at the king.
Not long after, we reached Mr Ambrose’s opera house, and the door was opened by an exuberant dangerous revolutionary.
‘Sat was the most fun I’ve ‘ad in years!’ Claudette exclaimed, tearing the revolutionary hat with the tricolour[35] from her head. ‘Sacre bleu! I should ‘ave done somesin’ like sis ages ago.’
I nodded gravely. ‘Yes, because killing kings is so much fun. Particularly the executions afterward are said to be fascinating.’
‘Oh, shut up and come ‘ere, you!’ Grabbing me, she pulled me in for a crushing hug. ‘Everysin’ went all right, oui? That detestable man who owns se oser opera ‘ouse got his comeuppance?’
‘Yes, he did. But how do you know he’s detestable?’
‘’e did not ‘ire me, of course. Sat’s ‘ow.’ She gave me a look as if that should have been obvious. ‘Instead, ‘e ‘ired that dreadful Louise Blanche. I can shatter glasses with my beautiful voice. She only shatters eardrums with ‘ers. Pfoui! Someone wis such bad taste does not deserve to own a temple of se arts. I wish I ‘ad aimed at ‘im.’
‘You do know that the gun wasn’t actually loaded, right? There was just gunpowder inside.’
Grinning, she slid a hand into her pocket and, when she pulled it out again, displayed several shiny metal objects. It took me a moment to realize what they were.
‘Claudette!’
‘A lady should always be prepared, n’est-ce pas?’ She patted my shoulder. ‘No need to worry, ma petite. I did not use sem.’
‘I did sort of deduce that from the live king I just said goodbye to.’
‘Are you quite finished?’ came a familiar voice from behind me. When I first met him, his impatient tone would have riled me to snap back. But now I only could think about what he might be impatient for. Of what was still awaiting me tonight. A smile tugged at the corners of my lips.
‘Yes, Sir!’
‘Adequate. Claudette, I shall await a full report in the morning.’
And with that, he took me by the arm and swept past the prima donna turned hobby assassin, towards the stairs. Stairs that led up to my room.
‘You know,’ I sighed, leaning against him, ‘it was fun, but I’m glad it’s over.’
It wasn’t until we were halfway up the stairs that he replied.