Hunting for Silence

15. New Arrivals

'All right, all right. Back to my original plan, then.'

He didn't seem much more pleased about that. His eyes narrowed. 'Ah yes. Your "original plan". Correct me if I am mistaken, Mr Linton. Your plan consists of finding the saboteur here in my opera house...'

'Yes.'

'...and then,' he continued, icy derision dripping from his voice, 'offering His Majesty King Louis Philippe, his entire court and all the cabinet, as a sign of my generosity and love for the French people, free seasonal tickets for my opera?'

'Err...yes?'

The glower he sent me could have frozen a volcano in mid-eruption.

'Do you have any idea how much an opera ticket costs, Mr Linton?'

I didn't, actually—because he had forgotten to charge me for the earlier performance. I decided not to mention that fact at the present moment, however. Better to annoy him with it in a month or so.

'No, Sir.'

'And do you have any idea how many members the king's court has?'

'Um...a dozen?' I guessed.

His glower become even frostier.

'Two dozen?'

I could feel my toes starting to freeze. Swallowing down my misgivings, I raised my chin.

'Do you have any better ideas?'

Silence.

More silence.

And another teaspoonful of silence.

Finally...

'No.'

I thought as much.

Accompanied by the noise of grinding teeth, Mr Ambrose reached into his drawer, pulled out some official-looking writing paper with pre-printed letterhead. In his precise, small, and murderously neat handwriting he penned a few quick words, and signed the note with a flick of the wrist. Then he pulled a bellpull, and waited until a messenger boy peeked his head through the door.

'Oui, Monsieur?'

Mr Ambrose threw him the letter. 'Pour que Sa Majesté, le roi Louis Philippe, soit livré immédiatement.'

The boy's eyes went as wide as saucers. 'Oui, monsieur! Tout de suite, monsieur!'

He shut the door, and I could hear him running down the corridor at breakneck speed.

At the desk, Mr Ambrose sat down heavily in his chair and gave me a stony look.

I sent him back an encouraging smile. 'It's to prevent a horrific war and untold amounts of bloodshed.'

By the looks of him, that wasn't a great consolation.

*~*~**~*~*

While Mr Ambrose brooded over how much money he was going to lose and mobilized his forces to spy on Dalgliesh, I had been ordered to receive my punishment. As vengeance for forcing him to spend money, it was to be my task to interview the opera staff once again, but this time with a new perspective. We weren't just dealing with some petty rivalry between artists. We were dealing with a traitor—both from Mr Ambrose's perspective and, if we were right, from the perspective of the King of the French.

And everything depends on detective inspector Lilly Linton. Huzzah!

I didn't share the new direction of the investigation with my translator, however, when she asked why the heck we were starting the interviews all over again. Considering what we suspected now, it was entirely possible she was the architect of the whole plot, and had placed the snake in her own changing room to throw us off the scent. I didn't like to think my drinking buddy could be the force of evil we were trying to root out, however, she was definitely sneaky enough. It was the reason why I liked her.