Read Chapter 19: The Confession of the Turnkey

The turnkey’s eyelids fluttered. Émile pressed the blade of his pocketknife against the man’s throat—the same blade he’d used to pry hinges, to cut negatives, to do a hundred small honest jobs in a life that had stopped being honest days ago.

“You,” Émile hissed. “You were there. When they took Jules.”

The man’s eyes focused. Recognition dawned—not of Émile, but of the accusation. His mouth worked, dry lips cracking.

“I was following orders.”

“Whose?”

“You don’t understand how it works here. The Versaillais—” A wet cough. “De Valois gives the orders that matter. But the others, the ones that don’t go in the ledger, they come from—” He stopped. His eyes flicked past Émile’s shoulder, toward the barred window high in the cell wall.

“From who?” Émile pressed the blade harder. A bead of blood welled up, traced a thin line down the man’s throat.

“Le Maître.”

The name meant nothing. Émile’s mind raced through every officer he’d seen at Saint-Denis, every uniformed silhouette in the corridors. “That’s not a name. That’s a title. Give me a face.”

“I’ve never—” Another cough, this one rattling. “I’ve never seen him. No one has. He sends messages. Written orders, sealed. We don’t ask.”

“But you knew Jules was one of yours. A Communard prisoner. You tortured him for information about the photograph.”

“Not about the photograph.” The turnkey’s voice dropped to a whisper. “About the list. The twelve names. He wanted to know who else knew. De Valois wanted the image. Le Maître wanted the list.”

Émile’s blood went cold. The list in his coat pocket—twelve double agents, men who wore Communard red while taking Versaillais gold—suddenly felt heavier than lead. “Jules didn’t know about the list.”

“He knew something. He was a messenger. A courier. He’d carried letters between the factions. We thought he’d read them.”

“He didn’t. He was loyal. He died because you assumed.”

The turnkey tried to shrug. “We all die because of assumptions.”

From outside, a bugle call split the dawn air. The watch forming on the parade ground. Émile had minutes, if that. He needed more. He needed a name, a face, something to take to the Baroness, to anyone who could tell him who Le Maître was.

“The orders,” Émile said. “You said sealed orders. Do you have any?”

“Locked in the warden’s office. I’m just a turnkey. I don’t get—”

The crack came from nowhere. A sharp, wet sound, and the turnkey’s head snapped back. His body went rigid, then slack. Blood bloomed across his chest, spreading dark and fast through the gray prison shirt.

Émile dropped flat, rolling away from the cell door, pressing himself against the stone wall. The barred window—high and narrow—was the only angle. A sniper on the roof, or in the tower across the yard. Someone who’d been watching. Someone who’d seen the turnkey talk too long.

The man’s pistol. Émile scrambled back to the body, fingers finding the holster at the belt. A Lefaucheux revolver, double-action, loaded. He pulled it free, checked the cylinder. Six rounds.

He grabbed the keys from the belt too. Then he knelt over the body, patting the coat. A folded paper in the inner pocket. He didn’t stop to read it—time was a luxury he’d lost days ago—but he shoved it into his own coat, alongside the list of twelve names that had already cost one life tonight.

The bugle sounded again. Closer now. The dawn watch would be making its rounds any moment. His cell door creaked outward, the hinges he’d loosened with his tripod groaning in protest.

Lucien’s cell was three doors down. Émile moved fast, key testing each lock until one turned. The door swung open.

His brother lay on the stone floor, curled into himself, his wounded leg dark with blood that had seeped through the makeshift bandage Émile had tied in the sewer. His face was gray, fever-sweat beading on his forehead.

“Lucien.” Émile knelt beside him, shaking his shoulder. “We’re going.”

Lucien’s eyes opened, unfocused. “Émile? They’re taking me to the camp at dawn.”

“Not today.” Émile hooked his arm under his brother’s shoulders, hauling him upright. Lucien cried out as his leg took weight, then went limp, unconsciousness taking him again.

Émile dragged him into the corridor. The gas lamps were low, the passage empty. The guards were all at formation, watching the dawn—an oversight that would cost them, if he moved fast enough.

He laid Lucien against the wall, then went back into his own cell. His camera equipment lay in a heap where the guards had dumped it after their capture. The tripod was already in pieces, used for the hinges. The flash—a magnesium charge in a metal housing he’d built himself for low-light portraits—was still intact.

He worked quickly. Wedging the flash into the doorway of Lucien’s cell, he rigged a simple trigger: a string stretched across the threshold, tied to the release mechanism. Any boots crossing that line would fire the charge. The very old trick of the portrait artist who doesn’t want to be interrupted.

He returned to Lucien, hauling him up again. The corridor stretched toward the door that led to the rear courtyard—the one the turnkey had used for his rounds, away from the parade ground. If he could get through there, into the alleys behind Saint-Denis, he had a chance.

Halfway down the corridor, Lucien stirred. “The list,” he murmured. “Do you still have it?”

“I have it.”

“They’ll kill you for it.”

“They’ll kill me anyway.” Émile’s boots scuffed on stone as he dragged his brother. “The turnkey named someone. Le Maître. He wanted the list, not the photograph. There’s a split between De Valois and this Le Maître. We can use that.”

“Can’t use anything if we’re dead.”

Behind them, a distant bang echoed—not gunfire. The flash, tripped by someone entering the cell corridor. A magnesium burst bright enough to blind a regiment, filling the corridor with a burning cloud of white smoke.

“That’ll slow them,” Émile said. “Go.”

He pulled Lucien through the door into the courtyard, dawn air sharp and cold against his face. The gate at the far end—rusted, unused—yielded to a key from the ring. Beyond it, a narrow alley smelling of refuse and cat piss.

Émile half-carried, half-dragged his brother down the alley. Behind them, shouts rose. Someone had seen the flash. Someone had seen them leave.

Lucien’s weight dragged at him. Émile’s arms burned. His lungs ached. He didn’t know where he was going, only that he couldn’t stop moving. The Baroness’s mansion was across the river, beyond the fighting, beyond the barricades. Too far for a wounded man to walk.

But there was another door he knew. A back-alley entrance to the Hôtel de Ville, near the old sewer access. The place where his negative was hidden—the image that had started all of this. If De Valois thought he was going there, he’d send every soldier in Paris after him.

If the Baroness wanted to see him, she’d have to wait.

The road was his only map. And the dawn was coming fast.