Against the Brotherhood (9 page)

The landlord was hovering near the foot of the stairs when I at last came down from my room. I favored him with the kind of condescending nod I was certain August Jeffries would give, and said in a surly way, “Not content with trying to kill me, the fellow has made off with my razor.”

“Yes, there was a mention of theft,” said the landlord cautiously. “I did not know of it until now.”

“Well, now you do, fat lot of good it will do,” I said as gracelessly as possible. “It were a nice new one, too. I had it from a shop in Gull’s Lane, just off High Holborn. Nearly new, it was, and with a monogram on the handle. I paid three quid for it.” I did my best to sound injured by this loss, and I saw the landlord regard me speculatively. I realized then that he knew more than he would let on.

“Monogrammed, was it?” he asked me, his eyes open and candid as oysters.

“That it was. A large, decorative
G
on it.
G
is close enough to
J
to suit me, and so I paid my money and the razor was mine.” I straightened myself as I watched him. “I had an old one, but I got rid of it when I found the toffy one.”

“Well, I will have the servants keep a lookout for it,” said the landlord, so glibly that I was sure he had more knowledge of what had befallen me during the previous evening than he had felt necessary to tell me. He indicated his registry book. “Your room was paid for in advance. You need only sign your name and go.” He had that look of greed in the glint of his eyes, but I gave him no heed, fully aware that Jeffries would not be persuaded by so obvious a ploy.

I tipped my hat to him and went in search of the train station, all the while resisting the urge to look behind me to see who was following.

FROM THE PERSONAL JOURNAL OF PHILIP TYERS:

There was a delivery from the Admiralty, as M.H. suspected, which should have arrived while he was at his club. Ordinarily I would have been in the flat to receive it, but I was not, which afforded the culprit time to begin the search, and then to take charge of the packet when it arrived

M.H. is convinced that is the reason the wild disarray was incomplete, for the man who made the search had no reason to continue once the packet was in his hands. “It is not what was missing that was his target, but what arrived,
”
M.H. announced when he received word of the delivery. He has fixed the time of the theft from the records of the Admiralty delivery records. Had I returned but ten minutes earlier, I would have been able to prevent the whole, but I was with Mother. M.H. is once again reviewing a copy of the records sent to him, spreading them around him and running his glance over first one and then another, making comparisons so swiftly that I am not able to follow it. He admits that now he is pressing himself to greater effort. “For the sooner we learn the perpetrator of this theft, the sooner I may follow Guthrie to Europe.”

THE TRAIN WAS
just pulling into the station when I arrived there, sent my next telegram to James, and secured myself with the ticket I had been given on my way to the Channel. My head remained thick and sore, the aftereffect of the drug, and my stomach was unsettled. So I was relieved to see the ticket procured me a place in a first-class compartment, where I hoped to have a chance to catch up on the rest I had not been able to enjoy the night before. I had no desire for conversation, let alone company. I put my case on the rack above my seat and did my best to find a comfortable position for the next leg of my journey. I thought again of what I had said in the telegram:
Not satisfied with efforts to date. Persevere in all efforts to hasten settlement.
I hoped I had remembered the code correctly. After my efforts to reconstruct it, I was still not sure I had recalled it accurately; the thought of failure made me surly with myself. If only I had not soaked the pages, obliterating the ink. Fine operative I was turning out to be, and after all Mycroft Holmes had done to establish Jeffries’ identity. I even begrudged the loss of one shirt—the ink had stained it beyond laundering.

By the time the train rumbled out of the station, I was attempting to drowse, my thoughts drifting over all the events of the last thirty-six hours, and feeling much abused by fate, Vickers, and Mycroft Holmes. I was trying to sort out the developments and complications when a young woman dressed in deep mourning came into the compartment I occupied.

“Oh,” she exclaimed in English, “I had no idea... I thought I would be alone.”

“I am dreadfully sorry,” I said without thinking, and then recalled the persona expected of me and did not rise. “My ticket’s for this compartment.”

“And so, I fear, is mine,” she said, watching me unhappily. Her features were concealed by the veil of her wide black hat, but I thought I saw a blue eye and a wisp of fair hair. “This will be very awkward.”

“I hope not,” I answered, trying to preserve a modicum of the good manners I had been raised to have without compromising my role as August Jeffries. “Died recently, did he?”

She looked shocked. “My mother has been dead for two months, if you must know.” Her accent was from the region of Warwickshire, and of a class that was privileged enough to have educated her well.

“It’s just that it looks odd to me that a woman in mourning would be traveling alone on the Continent,” I said, beginning to be more brash, for the truth was I felt suspicions rising in me. Anyone coming within my ken seemed to me to possess questionable motives. My annoyance was fueled by my headache, and though I knew my conduct was bad, I excused it on behalf of Jeffries’ persona.

“I am going to join my brother, not that I have any reason to account for myself to you. He is expecting me in Basel where he works for the Ambassador. The British Ambassador.” She took a seat on the opposite side of the compartment to me, and opened her traveling bag to take out a book, which she made a determined effort to read.

“What kind of brother leaves a sister to travel alone in a strange country, that’s what I want to know,” I said as I watched her open the volume
Adam Bede
and try to find her place about a third of the way into the narrative. “How does your brother, who works for the British Ambassador, come to let you travel alone? Taken leave of his senses, has he? I wouldn’t let my sister go racketing about France on her own, not any road.”

“It is none of your concern,” she said with enough hauteur to frost a desert bloom.

“Or are you doing this on your own?” I ventured, thinking it outrageous of me to make such a suggestion. “Did you simply wire him and inform him of when you were to arrive?”

“There is no reason I should account to you for my actions,” she said, and fussed with her veil.

I watched her a short while, and then turned away, prepared to doze as the French countryside rolled by outside the windows.

We had been traveling for perhaps an hour when I saw, out of my half-closed eye, my traveling companion rise, set her book aside and move as stealthily as the motion of the train allowed toward my side of the compartment, all the while looking at where I had put my valise. She did her best to reach it without touching me, but a bend in the track flung her against me. She cried out and strove to brace herself to keep from any more contact with me, but she did not succeed, and a moment later, she was sprawled gracelessly across my legs, her hat and veil in disarray, her dress caught on the heel of her shoe so that I saw an expanse of well-turned ankle and calf that would be more appropriate in a music hall than a train compartment.

“What the devil?” I muttered and pretended to be roused from half-sleep. I stared at her for a moment, and then said, “Well, what have we here?”

She was distressed, though I could not tell for what reason beyond her immediate embarrassment. “I’m...very sorry, sir. I hope you will...forgive me.” All the while she was struggling to get to her feet once more.

I held out my hand to help her up. “Caught you unaware, did it?”

“I... I suppose it must have,” she said apologetically as she tried to restore her garments to proper modesty. “I didn’t know the motion of trains could be so... so...”

“Dramatic?” I suggested. She was very pretty in that Dresden sort of way some English girls are, though her hair was a pale rosy shade and not flaxen; I decided she was about five-and-twenty. Not what I would expect to be working for the likes of Vickers, or Mycroft Holmes, for that matter, or any other sinister group. Even I could see that, with my eyepatch in place and the tatters of a headache playing old hob with my skull. I steadied her up and looked at her face, and could not resist asking, “Were you wanting something?”

“I...” She blushed deeply, and her slender hands trembled as she strove to put her veil back into place; she did not succeed entirely, and her dignity of manner eroded still more.

“Well, if you tell me what you wanted, perhaps I will give it to you.” I was astonished at my forwardness, and sternly reminded myself that I was an affianced man, not at liberty to indulge in flirtations. But doubtless Jeffries, though supposedly married, was the sort of ill-mannered man who would direct his unwanted attentions at this young woman, and I had, for the nonce, assumed his vices with his—admittedly few—virtues. I made no attempt to apologize for my behavior, and pressed any supposed advantage with a one-sided smile.

“I... didn’t want anything,” she said defensively, her face set in severe disapproval, at least as much as she could achieve, given the awkwardness of the circumstances. “I only hoped that there might be a map, so I could watch our progress.”

I was reasonably certain that this was a lie, but I was willing to pretend I believed her, at least for a short while. “If you’d wakened me, I could have told you I don’t have one. Trains go where they go. This one will reach Paris soon enough. It can’t leave the track and junket about the countryside.”

Again her cheeks reddened. “I didn’t want to... make any scene.”

“Well, you’re doing that now, aren’t you?” I said back at her, my manner as curt as I could bring myself to make it. I did not want to make her think she had won me over, if that was her intention. “Or had you something else in mind? Did you truly want a map?”

“What... what do you mean?” she asked, doing her best to appear affronted and looking more like an outraged kitten, as much confused as angry. I noticed that she had a talent for this, and my suspicions about her grew. It could be that she was just who she said she was, but what if Vickers had sent her to keep an eye on me? Or the German from the night before hoped to learn what he could not with threat of drowning? “Why are you staring at me in that horrid way?” she asked, cutting into my unpleasant thoughts.

“You might have wanted to get your hands on my flimsies,” I said in the insinuating way someone like Jeffries would do. “Well, I don’t keep it where you can reach it, and that’s a fact.”

“You think I wanted your money?” she said in rising accents. “Just because I looked in your luggage?”

“Looks that way to me. Why else would you try to prig my luggage, is what I want to know?”

“Well, I was.” This confession took us both by surprise. She looked away from me, her neck quite red above the high collar of her dress. “I... I... my money was stolen last night. I haven’t got very much left, and I thought if I could find five pounds or so, I would have enough to pay for my meals until I reach my brother. I’m afraid I will run out of funds before I reach him.”

It sounded absurd that such a young woman would have that misfortune befall her; like the rest of her tale, it seemed ludicrous, and I did not know what to say to her that would not reveal my doubts. At the same time, I knew it was just possible that this story, ridiculous though it was, was the truth and that she was more naive than she wanted to appear. I stared hard at her. “Did you have breakfast?”

She shook her head. “I’m quite hungry.” She looked at her hands in her lap while she wrapped a black lace handkerchief around her gloved fingers. “I don’t mean to throw myself on your kindness, but...”

“Well,” I said to her, trying not to be too caught up in her tale, “when we reach the next stop, I’ll let you a few francs so you can nip off and buy yourself a pastry and a cup of coffee.” I tried for a smile in the Jeffries manner, and hoped that I achieved the mix of gallantry and lechery I was aiming for.

“Oh, would you?” she said, giving me a melting look that must have cost her father a great deal while he lived.

“If you don’t try any more high-jinx with me, I would. It happens I don’t like to see anyone go hungry,” I said, as if I had just performed an act of great magnanimity.

“I won’t try anything more,” she assured me with the look of one who has brought grief to a score of governesses. “I am very grateful to you.”

“No doubt,” I said drily. “And if I were not a gentleman, you might have to show me just how grateful you are.” I finished this off with a wink.

She drew back as if from something rotten. “How can you?” she demanded. “I shall have to find another compartment if you continue this way.”

“Not until you have your pastry,” I appended to her protestation. “It wouldn’t be a good trade as things stand now.”

“Surely you wouldn’t dishonor me for the price of a breakfast?” she asked, one hand to her throat.

“Women have been dishonored for less,” I said, astonished at my own cynicism and temerity. I decided to try to be less of a lout without letting down my guard entirely. “But you need not put yourself in a taking, Miss.” I saw she was truly shocked by what I had said. “If you’re going to cut up rough, I’ll say nothing more about it.”

She looked huffy, and emphasized this by fixing her veil more completely across her face. “I think you owe me an apology, sir.”

“Why? Because I spoke the truth? I won’t apologize for that.” I looked directly at her, my eye fixed on hers behind the veil. “It’s all very well for girls like you to fly your colors and faint to learn what your sisters do every day of their lives. But I have seen something of the world, and I know how little honor may be bought for, even in the backstreets of London. You need not go to Africa or India or China to find it.”

“You are an odious man,” she informed me roundly. “I want to hear nothing more from you.”

“But you do want me to buy you something to eat, don’t you? So keep a civil tongue in your head until you’ve eaten. You don’t want me to change my mind about the breakfast, do you,” I advised her, and leaned back in my place once more, pretending to doze again.

She sat very straight; as I watched her through my half-closed eye, I could see that she was more frightened than offended by what I had said. My headache still had a grip on me, but I no longer felt as if the upper part of my skull were about to burst to pieces. I occupied my thoughts with what little I had learned about her. She claimed to be in mourning for her mother. That could be true; her clothes were black and severe, with no adornments beyond simple pearl earrings, which were suitable for mourning wear. She had made no mention of a father, and since she claimed to be going to visit her brother, I had assumed her father was dead. But what if he were not? Could there be some reason why she did not like to mention a father? If so, what could that reason be? And was it enough to impel her to travel alone in a foreign country? Or was the whole a fiction, or enough of it to render any conclusions I might reach invalid from the start? If the misadventures of the night before had not caused my head to ache, these ruminations certainly would. I wished I dared to make notes, or to prepare a report for Mycroft Holmes. The patch over my eye felt itchy, and it was all I could do not to scratch.

The conductor came by to punch our tickets and to check our travel documents. He remarked that I would have to change train stations as well as trains in Paris, adding that I had been wise to schedule a night in that city. “It is better to spend the night in Paris than in Amiens or Charleroi.” The suggestive roll of his eyes made it apparent that he had his own ideas on how a man might entertain himself there.