Lord Foxbridge Butts In (25 page)

I never thought I’d be so happy to hear a noise as commonplace as a key turning in a lock, but I was standing in the center of the little room with my sheet clutched around me, writhing with anticipation as I heard the bolts being drawn and the door creaking back.

“Oh, thank God you’re all right!” Twister came bounding through the door and wrapped himself around me, nearly knocking me over, “You
are
all right, aren’t you?”

“All right enough,” I said, not sure if I was dreaming or awake. I had to assume the latter, since in my dreams Twister didn’t wear so many clothes.

“He didn’t hurt you?” my rescuer stepped back, holding me at arm’s length and examining me closely.

“No, I’m fine,” I said, basking in the glow of his regard, overjoyed to hear a voice other than my own.

“Don’t you
ever
scare me like that again!” he demanded, shaking me angrily before pulling me back into a bear-hug.

“I didn’t mean to,” I offered weakly in defense.

“
Ahem
,” came a dry cough from the doorway, startling us both; I’d thought Twister had come to my rescue alone, but Chief Inspector Brigham had come as well, “If you’ve
quite
finished.”

“Sorry, sir,” Twister blushed scarlet and released me, stepping away with his head down and hands behind his back, like a chided footman.

“I am glad to see you are unharmed, Lord Foxbridge,” the older man said, glancing with some amusement at the Grecian arrangement of my bedsheet, which I’d tied into a knot over one shoulder and had spent many an idle hour arranging in different patterns of folds, “We only received the letter informing us of your whereabouts an hour ago. It had been delayed by the French post.”

“How long have I been in here?” I wondered; by my calculations, the letter must have arrived early.

“Four days, my lord,” Brigham replied gravely, “During which time we have been led a merry chase trying to trace your movements on the night you disappeared.”

“I’ll remember to leave bread crumbs next time,” I promised. How had they not traced me at least as far as Stan’s shop? I’d gone in a cab, and dropping well-dressed nobs at the entrances to alleys in Soho, even ones that call themselves Courts or Mews, must be at least a
vaguely
memorable experience for a cabman.

“There won’t
be
a next time,” Twister promised direly, “You’re never to go chasing after a murder suspect on your own.”

“Do you think we might continue this conversation another time?” a cold draught from the door reminded me I was the only one here clad in a sheet, “I’d really like to get out of this hole and into some clothes.”

“Of course, Lord Foxbridge,” Brigham smiled courteously and Twister draped his coat around me for warmth; I walked between them out of the tiny room, down the incredibly long corridor that led to it, out into the dark little yard behind Cavendish’s Racing Agents (which was shared by a number of small businesses and did not have a street exit), through the empty shop and into a waiting police car.

Brigham had intended to take me straight to New Scotland Yard to get my statement, but I prevailed upon him (threatened him, actually, with my father’s influence; knowing the old Pater was attached to the Inland Revenue was going to prove
very
useful —
everyone
is afraid of tax-collectors) to take me home first, and promised that he or Twister could take my statement only after I’d had a long hot bath and a good cooked meal — I did not wish to leave one uncomfortable little room for another, I wanted my luxuries and I wanted them
toute de suite
.

*****

If there is a pleasure more incredible than sitting neck-deep in a hot bath while eating a piping-hot steak-and-kidney pie, I have not experienced it. After half a week of tepid tinned stew and crackers, and bathing with cold water in a laundry sink, the pleasure was so heady that I thought I might just die of it. And the sound of other people’s voices was utter
heaven
: Gabriel sat on a little stool in the bathroom and read the last four days’ newspapers to me, and I could hear Pond and Twister talking in the sitting-room.

My four days in the cellar had been kept out of the public eye completely, which was a blessing: the son of an influential peer disappearing under mysterious circumstances would have been catnip to the Press; my father would have been furious to have our name dragged into public like that, and he would have brought a great deal of pressure to bear on Scotland Yard, which wouldn’t have helped Twister at all.

Mike Baker’s murder, however, had been faithfully reported, and was lurid enough to catch the headlines, as had the robbery and murder of Mrs. Nazerman; the disappearance of a well-known bookie (Stan’s surname turned out to be Mugg; no wonder he kept it to himself) with his partners’ cash was remarked upon at some length, with numerous references to ‘honour among thieves’; but the papers didn’t even hint at a connection between those three incidents.

I felt a bit of a heel, letting Gabriel read out the accounts of his own brother’s murder, especially after I told him that Stan had killed Mike to set him free; but he didn’t seem to mind too much — he snorted with indignation over the items that the papers had got wrong, like Mike’s age (he was only twenty-four, though the papers placed him at thirty, and I would have guessed more than that) and what prisons he’d been in, but otherwise reading the reports as if they were about someone he didn’t know.

“This probably isn’t the appropriate time,” I said to him when he’d finished reading and I’d finished stuffing my gullet with pie, “but I’d like to talk about your future.”

“All right,” he said, folding up the newspaper and turning to face me.

“Do you want to stay on the game, or would you like to do something else?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he admitted after a short silence, “What else did you have in mind?”

“I was thinking about getting you an apprenticeship in a shop.”

“Hmm,” he looked off into blank space while he thought it over, “Perhaps.”

“Do you
like
being a molly-boy?” I wondered, thinking back to something I’d said to the Baron, “I mean, do you find it congenial?  Is it fun?”

“Most of the time, it’s
congenial
,” he smiled at the word, “And sometimes it’s fun, sometimes so much fun that I feel bad charging.  But sometimes it’s nasty, if you get a really repulsive punter, or someone who likes to hurt.  I seem to attract that type, but I’ve learned to oil away from them before it becomes dangerous.”

“I was just wondering if you liked it enough to keep on with it while you’re young and can charge the best prices. I don’t want you to think I’m automatically
assuming
that you want to quit the game.  I really want you to be happy, if you’d
like
to work in a shop, stay on the game, or even do something else entirely I haven’t thought of.”

“No reason I can’t do both,” he considered after a bit, “I mean, lots of boys have day-jobs as well, and I can be choosier if I have another source of income.  Would that bother you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then tell me about this shop wheeze.”

So I told him all about my idea to buy his apprenticeship with M. Alcide, Stan’s recommendation that he’d probably enjoy that work, and my intention of helping him set up his own business if he wanted.  He seemed interested in these ideas, but didn’t really commit himself one way or another.  I rather wondered if he was just humouring me; having put myself in the position of his protector, I found myself wondering if he was treating me as a client and saying what he thought I wanted to hear, or if he was being completely honest with me as a friend.

Eventually my toes and fingers started to prune up, so I got out of the tub and into my pajamas and dressing-gown, and went out to the sitting-room to get my comeuppance from Twister.  Pond was busying himself elsewhere, and Gabriel had gone back to his own room; Twister was alone, staring thoughtfully at a glass of whiskey, his feet up on the pouf, looking very much at home.

“I’m in over my head, aren’t I?” I admitted by way of a conversational opener, pouring myself a drink and sitting in my usual armchair, putting my feet on the pouf beside his.

“Yes, you really are,” he looked up, smiling, “You’ve no idea how dangerous the things you do can be.”

“Well, honestly, my nosiness has never
been
dangerous before,” I was glad he was smiling instead of scolding, “This business of stumbling over dead bodies is new for me.  Before I came to London, the only dead bodies I’d seen were properly laid out in a coffin or a nice clean dissection room.”

“What were you doing in a dissection room, might I ask?” he laughed at me.

“Learning to look at dead bodies, of course,” I said, “I’d already begun fancying myself an amateur detective by the time I got to Oxford, it made sense that I should learn something about forensic science.  So I attended some medical anatomy lectures and viewed a few autopsies.  I even got to work on dissecting a cadaver for a couple of hours, a medical student chum of mine sneaked me in and showed me what to do. It was really quite fascinating, though rather smelly.”

“I guess that explains why you aren’t squeamish about it,” he said with a small note of admiration in his voice, “Though a little discomfort at the sight of death might have taught you some caution.”

“Being locked up in a cellar for four days has
certainly
taught me some caution,” I tossed back my drink and set it on the table, wishing it was cool enough to start a fire in the hearth.  It would be so cozy to sit with Twister in front of a nice warm fire, “I mean, this is the second time I’ve come within a hair’s breadth of getting myself killed, I’d be an idiot not to have learned something from it.”

“When was the first time?” he looked at me sharply.

“That business in the office on Bury Street,” I was aghast that I’d let that slip: I wasn’t supposed to tell Twister
anything
about Professor Beran, lecturer in Slavic languages and professional assassin, whom I had given ample cause and abundant opportunity to kill me; but thinking quickly, I came up with a good covering explanation while I got up to pour another drink so he couldn’t see me lying, “If Pond hadn’t made me stop and get dressed in a suit and a tie before I went haring off around the corner, I would have walked straight into the killer.  Didn’t you tell me the man had been dead for rather less than an hour?”

“Well, I don’t think you
would
have run into the killer, even if you’d sprinted outside in your pajamas.  It took you enough time to count your steps that the killer would have been out of the building and onto the street before you got there.”

“Nevertheless,” I resumed my seat, relieved to have dodged a bullet, “I
have
learned some caution through these little episodes.  No more running off without telling people where I’m going.  No more getting out of cabs without making sure the cabbie will remember me.  And no assuming chaps aren’t cold-blooded killers just because they’re likeable.”

“Very good rules to live by,” he laughed again, indulgently, “But the
important
rule is that you always,
always
talk to me before you do anything.  Even if you think it’s silly or unimportant.  If you had just told that cab to go to Craven Street instead of St. Anne’s Court, none of this would have happened.  I
know
you know my address, it’s in Debrett.  That’s the first thing you would have looked up after meeting me.”

“True,” I grinned at his perception, “but I didn’t think of it at the time.  I just didn’t believe I could get hurt.”

“Well, now you know that you can.  The thing
I
learned from watching autopsies, as one has to do in police training, is how easy it is to extinguish a life.  One little cut in the right place, one wrong twist to the neck or spine, and
pfft
.  There are a million ways to die by accident, we don’t need to court death on purpose.”

“How
does
one train for the police force?” I wondered, “Does one take courses at a technical college, or does Scotland Yard teach you?”

“The Metropolitan Police maintains its own training school.  Are you thinking of joining the force?”

“No, I just thought a little more training would be useful for an amateur.”

“You’re still intending to pursue this amateur detective business, after all that’s happened?” he tried to sound incredulous but still had that note of indulgence in his voice, “I’d have thought
that
particular enthusiasm had been curbed by now.”

“The thing is, Twister,” I turned to look him in the eye to show how serious I was, “I’m
not
pursuing it, it’s pursuing
me
.  I’ve
found three bodies in as many months, and though on the last two occasions it was my nosiness that brought me to the site, I was not
looking
for any dead bodies.  It might be a fluke, dumb luck in its rawest form; but dumb luck seems to be my fate, and if this is going to
keep
happening to me, I need to be better prepared for it.”