The Ghost of Waterloo (11 page)

Countess Marie Walewska, Napoleon’s Polish conquest.

Governor Darling was blunt: ‘How do we know for certain that Bonaparte was uncut? I mean, I know it is unheard of, or at least highly unlikely, in a European man. Unless, of course, he’s a Hebrew. And Boney may have been a Corsican, but he was certainly no Israelite. Nor was he an Arab. I must confess that I have never been close enough to a Hindoo or a Celestial to notice what they do.’ He flushed at his intimate digression. ‘Not that it matters here.’

Dr Owens was quick to reassure his illustrious doubter. ‘Sir,’ he insisted, ‘we have most candid evidence in confessions by at least one inamorata – it was the Polish countess Marie Walewska, I believe. Or it may have been the courtesan known as Désirée Clary. You know her, the erstwhile seamstress who was handed down by the Emperor to Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte – not all that bad a trade actually, for
he
has so far enjoyed a lasting realm since becoming King Charles XIV of Sweden.’

He caught the impatience on Darling’s face and hurried on. ‘Is that not provenance enough? It seems that Napoleon’s private parts – rather small, it appears – are well documented.’

The Governor chewed his lip and examined his highly polished nails then turned to Rossi. ‘What do
you
make of all this?’

The Patterer thought that the Police Chief looked pale and ill at ease, only marginally less harassed than when he had been directing the rocky carriage ride from the hospital.

The Captain shrugged. ‘The doctor’s account is, ah, very plausible. But, certainly, yesterday I would have been tempted to laugh it off – no offence, Owens – as an honest mistake, a misreading of events.

‘However’ – and he looked even more uncomfortable – ‘something has happened this morning, or rather overnight, that makes me more inclined to think differently.’ He gathered his thoughts and, perhaps, his nerve, before continuing. ‘It is to do with the bank robbery. Bad news, I’m afraid.’

Darling frowned. ‘But I understood that was well in hand. The perpetrators are in manacles, are they not? And progress is being made to recover the stolen goods? Is this not the case?’

‘It is, it is,’ said Rossi hastily, ‘but there has been a disturbing development. Early this morning, before Dr Owens’ call to me, I received a report of a man found shot dead at Cockle Bay – I beg your pardon, sir, Darling Harbour.

‘The victim was identified to me straightaway as a freed felon, an expiree as they are called, named John Creighton.’

The Patterer frowned. He did not recall the fact that the Police Chief had known the corpse’s identity from the start.

‘I dispatched Dunne to the hospital,’ continued the Captain, ‘to investigate the medical circumstances of the death, while I interrogated the men who brought him in.’

Dunne felt something was out of kilter with the story, but he held his peace.

Rossi turned to him and the doctor. ‘I haven’t had an opportunity to ask you: was it murder?’

Their nods in answer elicited a sigh. ‘I knew it. Well, sir,’ he turned to the Governor, ‘John Creighton was one of the bank robbers.’

Darling frowned. ‘We know that.’

Rossi tossed a grenade. ‘But, sir,’ – and he turned away from the Patterer to avoid the hurt, accusing look that would come from him – ‘you don’t know that Creighton was not only a member of the bank banditti, but also a police spy … one of my men.’

The grenade exploded; its victims stood or sat in stunned silence as the Police Chief’s narrative regained momentum. ‘It took the miscreants several weeks to penetrate the vault, and towards the end Creighton came to me and revealed the plot, all of it.’

‘Why?’ cried Dunne, and the word really embraced two queries – why had he been kept in the dark and why had the thief exposed himself?

The Captain chose to answer the second question. ‘Well, of course, he wanted to be paid – and I agreed to this. Also he wanted immunity from punishment, to which I also said yes.

‘Two things apparently went wrong. First, Creighton couldn’t get to me in time so we were not on hand to seize them in the actual act of stealing.

‘Then, someone must have discovered his treachery and killed him. It seems they even left a message of sorts beside the body. A surprisingly honest man, who could easily have pocketed them, brought in with the corpse a collection of small silver coins – thirty of ’em: the classic pointer to a Judas, no?’ Rossi mopped his brow and sat down.

‘Very well,’ said the Governor icily. ‘You failed to nip the plot in the bud, but exactly how is that misfortune in any way connected to Dr Owens’ rather, shall we say, unusual belief?’

‘Well, Excellency,’ replied Rossi. ‘I don’t believe in coincidences, so something Creighton let slip and which has also been alluded to by a confederate now rings a loud bell with me. The dead man believed that there was another plotter, whom he had not met, and who was described to him as being perhaps French. He also believed that the robbery would mark an even bigger blow to authority than was the case with “one in ’04” – his words.

‘I took that last remark to be a reference to some crime twenty-four years ago, some notable theft. Now I’m inclined to see it as a nod towards the insurrection by 300 Irish convicts here, at Vinegar Hill, in 1804. It distresses me to suggest it, but could this bank theft be to fund a similar uprising, this time one aided by the French?

‘And, by the by, the weapon used in the murder overnight was unusual – a French army carbine.’

Lieutenant-General Ralph Darling could often appear to be a mere cold, supercilious fop. But, as his long military service, notably with the 51st Regiment in the butcher’s mincing machine of the Peninsular War, attested, he was courageous and cool-headed.

He stared at the Captain. ‘This Creighton is dead. Is any of this borne out by another robber? Did I hear you suggest that?’

‘I believe that someone who knows something about the planning is James Dingle, who appeared at first to be a leader but who, it now seems, may be just another cat’s paw,’ said Rossi.

Darling frowned. ‘Explain yourself!’

‘Well, this Dingle – another Irishman, of course – told us to look under the dirt floor of his house in Kent Street. This, he said, was where he and his mates had buried most of the loot. We dug and found only newly turned fill. Someone had been there before us.

‘Dingle also told us of his first meeting with a “Frenchman”; he said that he sounded something like me.’ Rossi said the last words with a tight smile. ‘That’s when he received his instructions. By the by, the mystery man wrote left-handed.’

‘Why would this Dingle tell you all this,’ asked Thomas Owens, ‘when to do so seems most likely to put a rope around his neck?’

‘We, ah, persuaded him,’ the Police Chief replied. ‘He already stood accused by William Blackstone, Sudden Solomon, the blacksmith turncoat, and that could already take him to the gallows. I told him I would not add to his woes by repeating any new statement he might make to me.’

The Governor was puzzled and put out. ‘You treated with a criminal, Captain?’

Rossi raised a calming palm. ‘His further evidence was worth it, if it pointed to other, more important crimes.’

The doctor seemed unconvinced. ‘But I still don’t understand. Why
should
he tell you anything if he knew you wouldn’t use it against him? What was his motive?’

The Captain smiled. ‘Do you recall, sir, that I said I persuaded him? I decided to adopt – adapt, rather – the ancient Chinese adage “Kill the chicken to scare the monkey”. Which means, of course, inflict punishment on the weaker opponent to frighten the stronger. For this exercise, I would let a weak “chicken” from whom I wanted something see what would happen to him if he did not please me. Yes, Dingle would observe at first hand what dreadful things happened to a “strong monkey”.

‘Well, he let the cat out of the bag – because I let the cat out of the bag.’

And he proceeded to explain his strange remarks.

Captain Rossi had taken the then-silent James Dingle from the gaol in George Street near the Cove. Backed by an escort of four charleys, he steered the suspect to the flogging triangle at the Lumber Yard, the vast convict-manned factory close to the army barracks south along the main street.

A prisoner was already lashed to the eight-feet-tall iron tripod of torture. An official asked the young man, whose name was Paddy Galvin, where Irish troublemakers had hidden pikes and other weapons. Galvin replied that he would not say, even if he did know, which he didn’t.

On the questioner’s orders, an age-old ritual unfolded. The scourger took the ‘cat’, the wicked wood-handled whip with nine tails ending in iron-hard knots, out of its traditional red baize bag. For hundreds of years or more, countless men – and women – in the British Army, Navy and prisons had felt the cat’s familiar claws.

They gave Galvin 300 lashes: 100 on his shoulders, another ‘canary’ on his back and the balance on his calves. He opened his mouth only once during his punishment, to say, ‘You may hang me if you like, but you shall have no music out of my mouth to make others dance upon nothing.’

James Dingle was not as courageous as Paddy Galvin. He decided he would not, could not, face such interrogation. That’s why and when
he
let the cat out of the bag – and told Rossi about his meeting with the mysterious Frenchman in Thornton’s Paddock.

The Captain continued with the bank robber’s disclosures: ‘There is a strange connection in everything James Dingle told me and something Dr Owens has said and shown us today. Dingle claimed that he was to hand over specified parts of the loot to a delegate of the “Frenchman”, an agent who would have the matching half of the button given to the thief. This is it …’

Rossi dug into a pocket and produced a metal fragment. ‘Dingle thought it was part of an image of a fly,’ he said. ‘Of course, it is a bee and imitates the seal on the poison sachet now held by our good doctor – and perhaps once by Napoleon Bonaparte.’

Ralph Darling sat for some moments deep in thought, then rose to dismiss his visitors. ‘Keep all this to yourselves, gentlemen,’ he directed, ‘unless there is urgent necessity to seek additional help. Captain, devote your energies to the bank and the possibility of this new threat. It seems Dunne knows all anyway, so he might as well assist with informal inquiries. Report to me when you must. Good day.’

The momentous meeting was over.

No one spoke as Rossi drove them back, slowly this time, to the hospital. After Thomas Owens had stepped down from the carriage and made his farewells, Nicodemus Dunne moved to follow him.

‘Where are you going?’ asked their driver.

‘To think deeply, Captain.’ He paused then continued. ‘Why did you not trust me? Take me into your confidence?’

Rossi seemed at a loss. ‘I’m sorry. What can I say? I have been facing a worrying time.’

Dunne looked up at him coldly. ‘Well, I can say something.’ He started to move away.

‘What’s that?’

‘I resign!’

The Police Chief snorted. ‘You can’t resign! You don’t work for me!’

‘Very well.’ The Patterer turned back. ‘I’ll give you three words.’

‘What are they?’

This time Dunne kept walking, back to the heart of the town, as he threw over his shoulder, ‘Go to hell!’

Chapter Seventeen

Who gave a rat’s arse if bloody Bonaparte was alive in Sydney town and wanted to raise a riot?

Nicodemus Dunne conceded that he
did
care, and not just for any patriotic reason. He’d wanted excitement: this should be the case to end all cases. Nevertheless, he would have to indulge his injured pride a little longer.

In truth, the Patterer was angry with himself for being angry with Captain Rossi. He laughed wryly; that was an Irishism almost worthy of the fey words of wisdom frequently offered by another good friend, the convict expiree Brian O’Bannion. No, he knew he would eventually make his peace with the Police Chief.