Page 9 of To Catch an Earl

“Huh. How did he get into the safe?”

Alex shook his head. “Used a key, if you can believe it. When I questioned the irascible Rundell Senior and his far-more-pleasant nephew about any unusual incidents, they both recalled an elderly lady who’d fainted outside the shop the day before the robbery. The lady’s companion asked whether they could sit inside while her friend recovered from her light-headedness. Rundell Senior produced some smelling salts and summoned a doctor. Rundell Junior, it seems, was more than a little taken with the companion. He gave me an excellent description of her ample bosom and charming dimples.”

“I assume she was the distraction?” Seb chuckled.

“Indeed. It seems the Nightjar has some female accomplices. Since the key to the safe is still in Rundell’s possession, the Nightjar must have used a copy. One of the women must have managed to make an impression of it in a piece of wax or soap while the men were distracted. At any rate, the lady ‘recovered’ before the physician arrived, and they left the scene in a hired hackney.”

“So the Nightjar opened the safe, stole the diamond, and left a black feather in its place?”

“Precisely.” Alex helped himself to a plate of eggs from the covered dishes on the sideboard and sat at the dining table next to Seb. “The owner of the stone was none other than our very own Prince Regent, although he hadn’t actually paid for it yet. Rundell was quite tight-lipped, but I persuaded him to tell me what he knew. ThePrince was having it made into a necklace for his mistress Maria Fitzherbert.”

“I thought he’d given her up long ago?”

“Apparently not. And that’s not the half of it. According to Rundell, thevendorof the diamond is none other than Prinny’s own wife, Princess Caroline. Both sides swore Rundell to secrecy. She told Rundell she was given it by her father, the Duke of Brunswick.”

Seb let out a long, low whistle. “Now thatisawkward.

“As you can imagine, Conant’s keen to keep the whole thing under wraps to avoid any scandal.”

Seb crossed to the bow-fronted sideboard and picked up a sheaf of papers. “He sent these over while you were out. Lord Sidmouth, at the Home Office, has been in contact with our counterparts across the channel. He asked for any information they had on the Nightjar, and got this from Eugène Vidocq.”

Alex grimaced. “Not five minutes ago the French were our mortal enemies. Now we’re swapping information like one big happy family.” His tone was bitter. “It’s as if the past ten years of bloody warfare never happened.”

“It is hard to forget, when you think of all the men we lost—”

“Harder still when you’ve got a blind spot as a daily reminder of French ‘hospitality.’”

Alex sighed. Enough. The war had been over for almost a year. The world was a different place. He had to move on. “What did the head of the Sûretéhave to say about his fellow countryman?” he asked dryly. “As an ex-criminal himself, one can only assume he’s all admiration for the man’s skill.”

The French head of police, Vidocq, was a most unusual character. He’d passed the first half of his adult life as a soldier, thief, smuggler, gambler, and convict. He’d escaped from one prison after another, often through the useof ingenious disguises. A decade ago, while still locked up in La Force, he’d begun to pass along cellblock gossip to the authorities. Later, when a set of emeralds belonging to the Empress Josephine went missing, Napoleon—under the logic of using a thief to catch a thief—tasked Vidocq with investigating the crime. Vidocq used his underworld contacts, his keen observational skills, and the previously unheard-of technique of undercover investigation, to track down Josephine’s emeralds, the thieves, and their buyers, in less than three days. He earned both a formal pardon and the Emperor’s continued favor.

In keeping with the man’s rather warped sense of humor, he’d begun a new career with the Paris police, at first informing on his former companions in crime, then tracking down the culprits behind various robberies and killings. Within a year, he’d founded a plain-clothes unit called the Brigade de la Sûretéand become its first chief. He regularly hired ex-convicts and prostitutes as agents and attempted to prevent crimes, not just solve them. Under his command, the Sûretéhad captured thousands of criminals over the past few years.

“Funny you should say that,” Seb said, tapping the folder with his hand. “Conant seems to think that Vidocq never tried very hard to catch the Nightjar. Sounds like he has a certain professional respect for the man.”

He paused, and Alex narrowed his eyes. Seb was deliberately withholding information for dramatic effect.

“And?” Alex prompted.

“Hedid, however, have a suspicion as to who the Nightjar might be. An aristocrat named Louis d’Anvers. The son of the Comtesse de Rougemont.”

Alex exhaled slowly. “That’s not a name I’m familiar with.”

“He was born here in England. The family changed the name to Danvers to sound more English.” Seb openedthe file and selected a handwritten report. “Unfortunately, Louis d’Anvers died four years ago. So even if hewasthe Nightjar, he can’t have committed the Rundell and Bridge job last night.”

Alex held out his hand for the folder of documents and skimmed through them.

“What of the rest of the family?”

“Danvers’s mother, the comtesse, is still alive. Danvers married one Emily Chadwyck, a gentleman’s daughter from Leicestershire. They had two children, a boy and a girl. The wife died giving birth to a stillborn son when the daughter was only three years old. The children live with their grandmother in Waverton Street, between Hyde Park and Berkeley Square. The son is thirty, the daughter, twenty-three.”

“The son could have reprised his father’s role. Or this new theft could be a copycat crime.”

“The Nightjar is dead; long live the Nightjar,” Seb said wryly.

Alex extracted a yellowed newspaper clipping from the file. He began to read, and his eyebrows rose in surprise. “The man’s identity isn’t the only lead Vidocq’s given us. We have a motive here too. Look at this.”

He angled the page toward Seb. It was an excerpt fromLa Mercure,the Parisian newspaper, dated April 1800; sixteen years ago. The headline was“J’accuse—!”

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