Will Thomas - Fatal Enquiry

“My word, you’re a fright!”

“Thank you, Mac. That’s reassuring.”

“Where have you been?”

“Beaten nearly to death by Sebastian Nightwine and then restored back to health by his daughter in a hotel in Praed Street.”

“You’re having me on,” Mac insisted, arms akimbo.

“I’m not, and don’t argue. It hurts to talk.”

“Sorry. It just doesn’t make sense. Unless you and she…”

“Yes?”

“Unless there was an understanding.”

“There is no understanding. I’ve merely been trying to stay alive.”

I sat down on the staircase in the hall. I still did not have much stamina. My epidermis might heal over the next month but Nightwine had bruised both muscle and bone. Mac’s look of horror didn’t assure me that when I healed I would look like my former self. Was this another price to be paid?

“Have you heard that the Metropolitan Police dropped the charges against us?”

“It was in The Chronicle this morning. Mr. Zangwill wrote an article claiming that the reward money on the Guv comes from no recognized source, and if it is true, must have come from the criminal Underworld. I’d like to think that would give some citizens pause.”

“Good old Israel. He is a better reporter than he was a teacher. Is everything back to normal here?”

“For the most part. The safe manufacturer has scheduled an appointment to replace the front panel. And I should tell you that Etienne has returned.”

“Has he? That’s a relief.”

“Of a sort, perhaps. He appeared one morning, I think it was Thursday, and went into the kitchen for twenty minutes or so, then came out again and made a telephone call on the set in the alcove. He spoke for about five minutes in French; then hung up and propped open the back door. Suddenly he began throwing everything from the kitchen into the garden: pots, pans, plates, glasses, silverware, crockery, utensils; in short, anything he could lift. Thank heavens the best china and silver is kept in the dining room.”

“He left it all for you to clean up?”

“No, an hour later, a wagon arrived with several employees from his restaurant. They brought packing cases full of all new equipment for the kitchen and took away all that had been thrown out. It took two hours, at least, before everything was unpacked to his specifications and the garden in order again. During the entire time, and even after, he didn’t say a word about it to me.”

“He’s a funny old bird, Etienne, isn’t he?” I noted.

“If by funny you mean peculiar, then most certainly,” Mac replied. “Do you think the Guv will come home soon, then?”

“I hope so.” By this time, I was holding on to the banister for support. “I’m exhausted. I need to go to bed. Pretend I’m a badger that has gone into hibernation and don’t disturb me. I’ll call if I need you.”

“But you need a doctor’s care,” he pointed out, with at least some degree of concern for my welfare.

“No hovering, please. I don’t want a face swathed in sticking plasters. I just want to rest. I think I could sleep for a week.”

He helped me upstairs to my room. Oh, how I loved those homely four walls. At a turtle’s pace I changed into my nightshirt and closed the curtains so that not a beam of sunlight could be seen. Then I crawled into my bed. My own bed: the best phrase in the English language.

Very well, so a week was an exaggeration. I slept until the following day just before noon.

Mac brought a light lunch and I slept again until after dinner. I woke around six o’clock, unable to get the conversation with Nightwine out of my mind. His preening over what a success he had become was too much to bear. He could not possibly triumph after all we had done to stop him. Perhaps he was lying to discourage us. Saying something enough times and to enough people can sometimes cause it to occur. That was Sebastian Nightwine’s way. Take away the rank, the suave manner and pleasing looks and what have you got? Merely a confidence man with an unchecked opinion of his own worth.

I climbed out of bed and began to run a brush through my hair. Opening my wardrobe, I chose a suit reserved for when I was not in the office, brown with velvet lapels. I wore a white shirt with a soft collar, and a waistcoat of tan gabardine. I tied my favorite Liberty tie, an Indian paisley of red and gold. Lastly, I donned a pair of Barker-style spectacles that reduced the view of my eyes to a smoky brown haze. It was not mere affectation, but covered the purple bruises under my eyes.

Studying myself in the mirror, I couldn’t call myself handsome, but certainly stylish. I should fit in very well among the evening crowd at the Café Royal. It was time to ask Pollock Forbes what the government meant by fraternizing with the likes of Sebastian Nightwine.

I suppose one cannot have everything, although I wouldn’t mind trying it sometime. I had long intended to visit the Café Royal during the dinner hour, but not with a face that looked like a summer peach left in the sun for two weeks too long. My cheeks and chin were tinted pink as if growing a new layer of skin. Had I bumped into Mr. Whistler I’m sure he would have asked to paint a rendering of my bruised eyes, Nocturne in Purple and Puce. I kept my spectacles on, though they made the dark, elegant room look even darker. People noticed and pointed me out to their neighbors as I passed, but then, that was the point of going there in the evening, to be seen and noticed and especially discussed. Who is that fashionably dressed young man with the roughened face and the dark spectacles? Isn’t he that detective fellow mentioned in the Gazette ?

I finally spotted Forbes in a corner, talking with a tall woman with an ostrich-feather band that quivered as she spoke. He was dressed in the height of nouvelle fashion, with a navy-colored shirt and a white tie tucked into a charcoal-colored waistcoat. I regarded him for a moment, almost afraid to interrupt his evening with important matters. He was a contradiction, Forbes was. On the one hand, he dealt in vital political matters and concerns from the Continent, and on the other, he had to know the latest gossip, what people wore, and who was seen with whom. To him, perhaps, it was all one larger picture and I was too close to the canvas to make it all out.

Finally, unbidden, he caught my eye during one of those casual glances he made across the room every five minutes or so. He raised a brow, but whether it was my presence there, the sight of my injured face, or he was dazzled by my tie, I couldn’t be certain. Rather than approach him, I confiscated a table for two when the last patrons left and ordered some café mocha, which is even better than the mocha at the Barbados coffeehouse in St. Michael’s Alley, and that is saying something. I sat and sipped and waited. Five minutes later, give or take a minute, Forbes deposited his lean frame in the seat across from me.

“Well,” he said, at a loss for words for once. “You’re here.”

“Yes, and before you ask, I don’t know where Barker is. Thank you, by the way, for my stay in St. John’s Priory. Had I remained in a casual ward in Charing Cross, I’d probably be dead by now.”

“You certainly didn’t stay long,” he said, as a demitasse full of mocha was set in front of him, unbidden. I’d heard that on a good day he had as many as thirty of them. “I stopped in to see you and discovered you had gone. Really, Thomas, the doctors were only trying to help you get better.”

“I was removed from the ward without my knowledge by a woman who tended my wounds.”

Pollock Forbes opened his mouth to make some comment, probably at my expense, but closed it again. He was known for his diplomacy, after all.