The Ghost of Waterloo (36 page)

Dunne nodded to Sam Terry. ‘Another greedy man. When Signor Bello died at your inn, you were on the spot. But as the body was found, you appeared to run and hide upstairs. Even though the first alarm was for a non-existent fire, it was an odd reaction; surely upstairs was no escape route in a fire. Were you a killer on the run to a hide-out?

‘No. But you do have a deep secret. At the scene of the castrato’s death, I was intrigued by your use of the formal phrase, “No money, no service and my door stayed shut.” They were words written by the seventeenth-century French playwright Jean Racine. And when Dr Owens repeated the Roman philosopher Seneca’s expression, “Anyone can stop a man’s life, but no one his death,” you accurately completed the allusion to “a thousand doors” opening onto it. You ran upstairs to save a
library
from the “fire”. An associate found your books – Racine, not Racing; Accius, not Accounts; and Bacon, nothing rasher than Francis or Roger! – and your secret: you
can
read and write. Even the Greek Epicurus is to your taste!

‘Why do you feign illiteracy? Does playing the unlettered philistine give you some advantage in hard dealings? No matter – I’m happy for you.’ Sam Terry just shrugged and stared stonily ahead.

‘Less happily,’ the Patterer went on, ‘I have had to judge the conduct of people close to me. From the start of the affair I have had to consider whether one man in particular was a thief, a traitor and, logically, a killer…

‘Dr Thomas Owens.’

Chapter Fifty

The doctor, cool in the face of life and death, was stoic as the Patterer ploughed on with his doubts: he told the guests how Dr Owens had discovered the tiny bag with the gold button in Creighton’s clenched dead hand.

‘There had to be more than Dr Owens admitted about his links, however long ago, with Napoleon Bonaparte. He was privy to so many private details and now he instantly recognised that the sachet held a poison – and he even knew there was more than one poison – without having had the time or opportunity to analyse the bag’s contents.

‘And I came across a painting in which the French artist Horace Vernet depicts Bonaparte farewelling his beloved Imperial Guard on 20 April 1814, as he left for his first exile, on Elba. Our doctor is in that picture, in a French uniform!’

Thomas Owens interrupted him with a loud burst of laughter. ‘Ah, Dunne, you have found me out – but not from that last clue. The picture is not compromising. I wasn’t with Vernet, or Napoleon, in April fourteen years ago. What you don’t know is that the artist, a very dear friend, actually painted that scene retrospectively – in 1825 – and I was in France as a peacetime visitor. Vernet painted my face among the many in the crowd as a private joke. Artists often do that – why, they say that even in some of Rome’s most saintly frescoes you can see, hidden away, the face of Michelangelo. Church masons and woodcarvers did it too.’ He smiled. ‘Why, Leonardo da Vinci considered it … Chided for delaying completion of
The Last Supper
in Milan, he threatened to use the complaining abbot’s face to represent Judas!’

He shook his head and sighed. ‘I see I must reluctantly break my healer’s oath to explain how I know so much about Boney.

‘I attended him, as a doctor, at Waterloo. I saw the warlord when he was most vulnerable, literally stripped of all the threads of power and glory. It happened like this…

‘In the dark of night-time, before the battle, I was to inspect a squad of British stretcher-bearers near a fortified farmhouse called Hougoumont, a position we knew would be desperately and bloodily defended by the 52nd Regiment and the Guards. I must have strayed, for I was captured by French
voltigeurs
– “vaulters” – their name for skirmishers, like our “Greenjacket” riflemen.’

Major Mitchell nodded in understanding: he had served in the 2nd Battalion of the Rifle Brigade’s 95th Regiment during the Peninsular War.

Thomas Owens had a faraway look. ‘I don’t know why they did not dispatch or disable me on the spot. That happened to 20000 of our troops the next day. Anyway, I was herded back behind enemy lines. At a farmhouse I later learnt was called Le Caillou, I was summoned to a room where, to my astonishment, I met Bonaparte. An English-speaking aide (Boney did not speak or write our tongue, y’know) examined my pack of medical equipment. Was I a surgeon? Did I give my
parole
? Yes? Then treat this person; his own doctors have lost their way.

‘So, I treated “this person”, relying on my schoolboy French. He could not easily pass water – he was suffering from dysuria – so I helped him to lean against a wall and strain, while manipulating his prostate. He also complained of haemorrhoids. They were very bad, so protruding and painful. These were the very ones of which I would have expected to find traces at the
post mortem
in ’21 but did not. There was not much I could do, but I believe I eased some of his suffering. I told him his doctors should apply leeches to reduce the swelling of his piles. He was obviously not really fit to command his vast forces. Perhaps the outcome of the next day’s battle was already affected.

‘He was naked when I examined him. I asked him about the sachet hung around his neck and he told me it was his
passeport
in case of disaster. He just as freely told me of its contents, in detail.

‘Why did I not kill him? Or at least not try to ease his pain? Because I was a doctor and he was my patient. And because, at that time I
was
compromised: to many, my actions would be suspect. Perhaps I was simply a coward.’

Owens waved away his demons. ‘He arranged safe passage for me back to our lines, but there was no need to tell my story. By the time I was able to report to anyone, the tide of battle had turned to the Duke’s side.

‘Having been that close, why did I accept, albeit reluctantly, that I had seen him dead on St Helena? Well, it was six years on from our meeting in a darkened farmhouse and I suppose I saw what I expected to see. And bear in mind that his face had never been my focus – just his prostate and his fundament!’

The doctor drained his glass. ‘Now do you understand why I have never before talked about it? To some, I would always be a traitor.’

The Patterer was relieved and embarrassed. He had taken the painting, literally, at face value and openly doubted a friend. He hoped Owens would forgive him. Perhaps the doctor was glad to have got it off his chest.

Dunne was now thankful that the Governor had already taken him into his confidence and explained why Captain Rossi’s recent actions and manner had been so strange, marked by an uncharacteristic secrecy and unease. Again, Dunne’s judgement had been clouded, this time by the knowledge of Rossi’s background, which, like Bonaparte’s, lay in Corsica. This connection turned out to be the key to the Captain’s problem, but not a sinister one.

As Darling had privately explained, ‘Rossi has always believed he is a fully fledged British subject. Certainly, he was born French in 1776 in Corsica, but when he was eighteen Britain took control and the young man joined our army. He has soldiered for many years – and has served the Crown in other ways.’ The Patterer of course knew the stories that Rossi had been a spy.

‘However,’ the Governor had continued, ‘he now finds that in law he is an alien, and he fears for his rights and properties here. One may think that a bitter man would turn on the nation rejecting him. The same man, suddenly fearing being landless, might steal. But, no, Rossi’s injustice is being overcome, through my intercession with the authorities back in England. Our good Captain is not our bad man.’

The Patterer turned suddenly to Miss Susannah Hathaway. ‘Even our charming visitor roused the suspicions of my inquiring mind, when she started to praise the fighting qualities of a certain Captain Porter. David Porter: the name finally came to me. Now I had to decide whether Miss Hathaway was simply an American abroad, one naturally proud of, yet sometimes prickly about, her young nation’s military prowess – or if she had another motive.

‘For, picture David Porter – an American
pirate
, whose frigate, the
Essex
, blows into the Pacific where it preys on unarmed whalers and others. He captures or sinks seventeen vessels before two Royal Navy warships trap him off Chile and batter the
Essex
into surrender.

‘Of course,’ he said, straight-faced, ‘that drama occurred during the War of 1812.’

‘Naturally I’m proud of him,’ said Miss Hathaway. ‘Anyway, he was my uncle.’ Dunne sat back and grinned at her; she smiled back. Anglo-American relations were restored.

Samuel Terry, however, would not be sidetracked. ‘But you haven’t told us yet. If the gold, the plate, even the silver coin and paper money, were not the real targets – what the devil did the bank thieves want?’

The Patterer looked across at Ralph Darling, who nodded his consent. ‘In a word,’ said Dunne, ‘gold.’ Again he took pity on those diners not sharing the secret. ‘I’ll add to that by saying
more
gold, possibly beyond their wildest dreams.

‘A battered tin box, also stolen, contained coordinates, written directions – the sole copy, it seems – to a gold strike over the Blue Mountains, near…’ He tailed off at a shake of the head by the Governor. ‘That paper’s secret is now in the possession of a master-thief and murderer who would treat with invaders and rebels.’

His Excellency was blunt. ‘Who?’

Dunne pointed around the tables and stopped. ‘Who do you think?’

Chapter Fifty-one

The members of the group at which Nicodemus Dunne pointed remained calm as they faced him across the table. The paterfamilias William Balcombe stared back blandly and pursed his lips. His wife’s only emotion was to drum her fingers lightly on the tablecloth. Thomas pinched an earlobe with fingers stippled by artists’ paints. Grenville toyed with a coffee spoon.

Mrs Betsy Abell was the most animated, but, Dunne noted, she was always of a nervous disposition. Who had described her as ‘a large, spring-loaded doll’? The answer struck him: of course, it was in the writings of Hyacinthe de Bougainville, from three years earlier. Ah, she, too, had known him well enough.

‘So,’ the Patterer began quietly. ‘Is it you we are after, Mr Balcombe? The members of your family were among the few to forge friendly links with Napoleon Bonaparte, from the moment he arrived on St Helena. Your career suffered a setback – a most severe one – when you were dismissed from the island for doing deals for the illustrious visitor. You sold possessions for him, very discreetly. I think you bought some of them yourself.

‘You languished in an impoverished limbo in England before your fortunes turned and you came here, with your family, as Treasurer in April 1824.

‘But there was more trouble. A year or so ago, His Excellency here investigated “inappropriate” use of Bank of New South Wales funds. You had profited from these dealings. To be fair, you escaped censure.’ Dunne did not suggest that Mr Balcombe was protected by the rumours that the Treasurer was a by-blow of the King’s father.