Will Thomas - Fatal Enquiry

“You’re awake,” she said.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“You’re at the Albemarle Hotel. I was concerned that they were not taking proper care of you, so I had you moved to a residential hotel. I told them I was your sister.”

“You’re holding me hostage.”

“Don’t be like that. I’m trying to help you.”

“I need a doctor,” I protested.

“I’m well trained in tending wounds,” she said, trying to assure me. “Far better than the priory with its iodine washes. I would not have moved you unless I was sure I could restore you to health.”

She began painting my face with the pungent concoction.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m using a mixture I’ve made up. Your bandages are off so the wounds can air for a couple of days. I know what I am about. I’ve used this before several times. It will minimize the scarring considerably. Your face won’t be the worse for my father beating on it, I promise you.”

I suppose I am a very private person. Before being ushered in front of someone the caliber of Miss Ilyanova, at least in regard to her beauty, I like to be freshly shaven, my hair trimmed, and wearing one of my better suits. Instead, I lay in a strange bed, my face about to be coated in something that resembled aspic, while a woman I barely knew tended to my wounds.

“I should let someone know where I am.”

“Later,” she said, raising a glass to my lips. Unfortunately, I knew that odor. It was Thompson’s Licorice Elixir. I tried to cough it up, but most of it went down my throat anyway. She dabbed at my mouth with a serviette.

“Get some rest, Thomas. It’s really the best medicine for you.”

The next day, she told me later, we repeated almost the entire conversation word for word. Mostly I slept around draughts of laudanum. I was concerned that Sofia was dosing me too readily, but I could do nothing. I was as weak as a kitten. There I was, being tenderly looked after and all my needs met, yet at the same time I knew I was a prisoner. My ribs began to ache exceedingly and in my drug-laced delusions I believed I was being eaten by worms. No amount of assurance from Sofia that the medicine was actually working gave me any peace and I was agitated or sedated all day.

On the third day, I finally felt better and she assured me the worst was over. I was able to sit up and we played cards for a time. She had laid out a strip of oilcloth under my limbs to keep the sheets from being soiled from her concoctions. As bad as the cuts looked, they had stopped bleeding and in no way looked as if they were becoming infected. I began to believe I was actually going to recover from this ordeal. Had Cyrus Barker tried to get in contact with me? Had others noticed my absence? Who knew what sort of mischief Nightwine had gotten into during my convalescence?

“I must go,” I told Sofia when she brought in breakfast.

“Out of the question,” she said. “You still have one more day of treatment with my ointment before you will be properly healed. Anyway, what do you propose to do, hobble about London with broken ribs? I doubt you can even stand.”

To prove she was wrong, I insisted upon standing there and then, but in doing so I proved her point better than my own. While I could stand, it would be a day or two before I could walk properly again, and then upon a stout cane. I sat back on the bed, considering my predicament.

“I’d like a mirror, please,” I said.

She opened her mouth to protest, but saw the determined look in my eye. Opening a drawer in a chest, she pulled out a hand mirror and gave it to me and I surveyed the damage. There was now a bump on the bridge of my nose and the skin under my eyes was yellow and purple. Thankfully, my teeth survived intact. There were various abrasions and a scratch along the left jaw. It was an unpleasant sight after several days of healing. I gave her back the mirror.

“I fear for your reputation, having a man in your rooms for so long. What must the people in this hotel think of us, closeted here?”

She covered her mouth with a hand, hiding her smile. I was still quite callow then, in spite of all I had encountered in life and as Cyrus Barker’s assistant.

“Oh, Thomas,” she responded. “This is residential hotel. I have paid well for whatever opinion they have of us.”

“But are you not concerned about your reputation? This is London, after all.”

“I am a woman of no reputation. I have not so much as spoken to a woman since I arrived. I shall meet nobody of good society while I am here and would not care to impress them if I did. The rules of the English bourgeoisie are of no concern to me. I can do whatever I like and generally do. You need not leave early on that score.”

“Very well,” I said, admitting to the truth of what she said. “But I still must go. I need to get back to the office. Who knows what has happened since I was brought here? Barker might be in trouble.”

“If he were, pray tell me what you could do in the state you are in? You came very close to death a few days ago. I am stronger than you at the moment and will have my way. One more day and you may go.”

“Why am I here?” I countered. “You have not answered that question.”

She looked vexed and for a moment did not speak.

“If I had not brought you here, my father would have had you killed. Your death is not something he would leave unfinished. He despises you.”

“Yes, I never quite got that. Why does he hate me so?”

“You work for Mr. Barker. You’re the one who is the closest to him. I think he may even be jealous of the relationship between you.”

“He should have thought of that before he killed the Guv’s brother.”

“What?” Sofia asked. For once, I had shocked her. “What are you talking about?”

“You hadn’t heard, then?” I told her of the events Barker had relayed to me about himself, his brother, and her father during the Taiping Rebellion. She took it all in and thought it over.

“That’s just like him,” she finally said. “My grandfather had taught him to set aside all feelings of familial bond. He never had brothers or sisters with whom he could experience a relationship. I must admit I have wanted a brother or sister of my own; I covet a family’s bonds.”

“I have nine brothers and sisters.”

“What’s that like?” she asked, moving closer to me.

“Oh, no,” I said. “I will not be sidetracked so easily. Thank you, Sofia, for saving me from your father while I was in a weakened state, but I really need to go.”

“Leaving today would be foolhardy. Give me one more day and I will let you go without an argument. I realize you must be at your master’s side, wherever he is, but I seriously doubt you will make it as far as the lobby.”

“I still don’t like it,” I grumbled.

She patted me on the shoulder. “Tomorrow, I promise.”

Lock two young people together in a room for a few days and they shall talk about everything under the sun. They’ll discuss their hopes and dreams, their concerns, the battles they have faced in life. I had begun to get over my surly mood and relax in her pleasant company, and so, of course, I ruined it. That’s the way humans are; we can never leave well enough alone.

“I’m going out for more bandages,” she told me after lunch, putting on her hat. “We can wrap your wrists without the danger of the bandage sticking now. Is there anything else I can bring? Chocolates, perhaps?”

“Whatever appeals to you.”

“I’ll return in half an hour. Don’t move about much. You’re still unsteady on your feet.” She picked up her reticule, and feeling some need of intimacy at our parting, patted me on the hand. Then she left me alone in the hotel room.