The Men Who Explained Miracles by John Dickson Carr

Author:John Dickson Carr [Carr, John Dickson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Black Cabinet

As the Emperor’s closed carriage swung toward the private entrance at the Opera, with the gentlemen’s carriages ahead and the white horses of the Imperial Guard clattering behind, three bombs were thrown from the direction of the Opera steps.

And, only a minute before, a small nine-year-old girl in the crowd had been almost mutinous.

She was too grownup, Nina thought, to be lifted up in maman’s arms as though she were four years old or even six. True, the fusty-smelling coats and tall hats of the men, even the bonnets and crinolines of the women, made so high a black hedge that Nina could see little except the gas jets illuminating the facade of the Opera and the bright lamps of the Parisian street. But it was warm down here; warm, at least, for a night in mid-January of 1858.

Then up Nina went, on the arm of maman. Already they could hear in the distance the measured applause—the slow, steady clap-clap of hands, as at a play—and a ragged cheer as the procession approached.

But Nina did not even know what it was, or why they were here.

“Mother, I…” she began in French.

Maman’s bonnet, lined with ruffles, was so long-sided that Nina could not see her mother’s face until it was turned around. Then maman’s dark Italian eyes, always so kindly, took on a glassy bulging glare of hatred and triumph as she pressed her lips against Nina’s long curls; bright brown curls, like the hair of Nina’s American father.

“Look well!” whispered the handsome Signora Maddalena Bennett, in the Italian language. “At last you will see the death of the devil.”

And Nina understood. She too hated, as she had been taught to hate, without knowing why. She had been schooled not to sob or tremble. Yet tears welled up in her eyes, because Nina was sick with fear. In one of those carriages must be Napoleon the Third, Emperor of the French.

Clop-clop, clop-clop moved the horses; slowly, but ever nearer the carpet of white sand spread in front and at the side of the Opera. Then, suddenly, Signora Bennett’s whole expression changed. She had never dreamed that the murderers—Orsini and his conspirators—would hold their hands so long, or might throw bombs from the very side or steps of the Opera itself.

“No!” she shrieked aloud.

Holding the child closely, Signora Bennett flung the side of her fur pelisse over Nina’s head and dropped down into the half-frozen mud among the spectators. Just as she fell, a black object flew over the heads of the crowd, high-sailing against gas lamps.

Through a crack between the fur pelisse and maman’s fashionable deep-bosomed gown with the steel buttons, Nina saw the edge of a white flash. Though they were protected, the first explosion seemed to crush rather than crash, driving steel needles through her eardrums. There were two more explosions, at seconds’ intervals. But the street went dark at the first crash, blinding the gas lamps, setting the air a-sing with flying glass from lamps or windows.

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