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Giving a grunt, Karim clenched his fists and crossed his arms in front of his chest, glaring at the rest of the room as if he expected the piles of documents to charge him any minute, intent on delivering deadly papercuts.
‘I don’t understand,’ I repeated. ‘Auckland is one of Dalgliesh’s minions, right?’
My dear employer and the minister exchanged another dark look.
‘What? What is it?’
‘The problem, Mr Linton,’ Mr Ambrose started to explain, ‘is that this governor-general has actually been something of a thorn in Lord Dalgliesh’s side. He was a member of the reform party during his time in parliament. His tendencies were less evident as he rose through the ranks, but when he became governor-general, he began implementing reforms in India. Building up industry, opening schools, that sort of thing.’
I blinked. ‘And? Wouldn’t Dalgliesh want that?’
Mr Ambrose gave me a long look. ‘Would Dalgliesh want his subjects to learn how to read and write western languages, understand the works of people writing about democracy and the rights of people to govern themselves, and work in factories that make trains, cannons and guns? What do you think?’
‘Oh.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Quite a vexing situation for ‘is Lordship, I imagine.’ Guizot’s thin lips twitched. ‘’is company’s PR department has done such a wonderful job convincing everyone that the true reason why the British reign over a gigantic empire that sucks the life out of the world is to educate and help the poor natives, that some of his own employees and recruits ‘ave actually started to believe the lie. How annoying it must be that some of your own people are spreading dangerous ideas, when all they’re really supposed to do is increase the opium production.’[37]
Karim looked as if he’d like to punch the wall again. Instead, he just muttered something in Punjabi. If I got it right, he told the East India Company to go and do something which I wasn’t sure was anatomically possible for a company to do.
‘I still don’t quite get it,’ I told Mr Ambrose, shaking my head. ‘So, Lord Dalgliesh wasn’t planning to kill Monsieur Guizot?’
Mr Ambrose speared me with an icy glare. Why was he looking at me like this? Why—
Oh crap.
I had completely forgotten that we hadn’t shared the little detail of Dalgliesh plotting to assassinate him with the minister yet. Quickly, I threw a glance in his direction. But, to judge by the dark look on Guizot’s face, my mention of his demise hadn’t come
as a great surprise to him. Mr Ambrose must have noticed, too, because he didn’t try to evade my question.
‘You don’t see it, Mr Linton, do you? You don’t think like Dalgliesh. For a moment, do not consider the matter to be one-dimensional. Think of a plan as a labyrinth with many facets and many possible outcomes. Who says he is only after war with France?’
It took a moment for his words to really sink in. But finally they did, and something went click in my head.
‘Holy….no! He couldn’t, could he?’
‘What do you think? He’s Dalgliesh.’
Thoughts raced through my head. Wild thoughts. Impossible thoughts. The governor-general, who was a thorn in Dalgliesh’s side and yet had to obey his commands, coming to Paris at a time when the foreign minister, who was also a thorn in Dalgliesh’s side, would be returning to Paris from a visit to Versailles. The governor-general had no choice but to come to Paris if Dalgliesh ordered him to. He was a state official. The foreign minister had no choice but to play nice and invite him out for some public event. And it just so happened that Lord Dalgliesh had presented the French king with free opera tickets. And his opera was swarming with soldiers loyal to Dalgliesh, and two men he wanted to get rid of were nicely tied down in one place…
‘He couldn’t! Not both of them at once!’
‘Why not?’ Minister Guizot sounded astonishingly calm for a man discussing his own demise. ‘He could put the assassin in a British Army uniform, and then have some French soldiers spot him before he escaped. Then, when the French government sent outraged envoys to the British to demand an investigation, he could tell his fellow lords and queen that it was all a pack of lies, and that the true assassin had been an Indian rebel in cahoots with the French. Who do you think they would believe?’
Suddenly, I could understand Karim’s desire to punch walls with his bare hands all too well. Too bad my hands weren’t made of iron. I would have loved to slam a hole into a wall right now. But even more than that, I’d have loved to wrap them around Dalgliesh’s lordly neck.
‘He’d be killing two birds with one stone,’ Mr Ambrose picked up the tale in a tone so cool and detached I wondered how he could keep it up. ‘Or, to be precise, several million. Not only would war break out between Great Britain and France, but Dalgliesh would be granted a free hand in India to deal with dissenters as he sees fit. Britain would probably be strong enough to win the war alone, but it wouldn’t even have to. Taking into account the Napoleonic wars, most European powers would likely pick any side that isn’t France, just for fear of another Napoleon. And as for India, well…’
Mr Ambrose glanced at Karim and fell silent. That scared me more than anything he’d said so far.
‘But we’ve stopped him, right?’ I demanded. ‘We’ve acted before he could even start to put his plan into action.’
‘We’ve stopped the war with France, yes. As long as that is not an option you are considering?’ One eyebrow raised infinitesimally, Mr Ambrose turned to Monsieur Guizot.
‘I might be tempted.’ The foreign minister’s eyes glittered dangerously. ‘That a member of the British House of Lords planned my assassination is not something I hear on a daily basis. But I am no fool. I won’t give that man what he wants, and I most certainly won’t plunge the world into war just to satisfy my ego.’
‘Adequate. But that still leaves one problem. The question of India.’ Once again, Mr Ambrose’s eyes flitted to Karim, and, just for a moment, they didn’t seem to radiate quite as much cold as usual. But when he returned them to the minister, the ice in his gaze was back in full force. ‘I’m telling you this in confidence. If you betray my confidence, you will not like the consequences.’
