P. Elrod - The Hanged Man

She glanced at him. Yes, there was a glint of humor in his eyes. “It interferes with my defenses,” she added. Should she have mentioned that? Must have been the drink.

“So it should, leading to many a ruinous downfall or blissful engagement. That’s how I caught my missus. I got her so jolly she was signing the registry book before she knew what happened.”

Alex could not imagine what Mrs. Lennon might be like. Was she formidable and strapping as her husband or a meekish sylph who somehow found his unpolished manner appealing? How could that be?

Or was it because he was uncomplicated?

His selves, inside and outside, were identical. He didn’t hide his feelings. While others concealed their inner self for the sake of social interaction, he didn’t give a bloody damn what people thought of him. Alex hadn’t appreciated his kind of honesty before.

She found it comforting, enough so that she unexpectedly dozed off against him, unaware of it until the hansom lurched. She snapped awake, hand on her pistol.

“At your ease, soldier,” said Lennon. “Your man’s making way for the fire brigade.”

Brook pulled to the side of the road, slowing, but not stopping as a much faster fire wagon shot past, bell ringing, the big horses struggling on the ice-glazed street.

“Not the first or last call for them on a Christmas. That’ll be another pack of bloody Germans setting fire to things. I ask you, what’s the sense of bringing a tree into a house, sticking candles on every branch and lighting ’em? That’s just begging for disaster. If they don’t like a simple Christmas dinner the way we do it, they should bloody well leave.”

“You want England for the English, then?” she asked. The E. for E. radicals were mentioned often in the papers, even The Times .

“There’s something to that lot. With any luck they can send the riffraff back where they come from.”

“Our ancestors were foreigners. William the Conqueror came from Normandy.”

“Be sure once he set his foot down he didn’t allow anyone else in. You know how close we came to having a German on the throne?”

Should she inform him that the queen was her godmother? Best not to; it would be boastful and pretentious, qualities she did not admire. Alex had heard the stories that German had been Queen Victoria’s first spoken language, and in her youth she’d been introduced to more than one prince from that land. However, she’d chosen an Englishman for her husband, though he’d not been royalty unless one traced his ancestry back a few centuries. The young queen wanting to marry a lord had been quite a political crisis at the time, but she’d changed the law of the realm so love won out over custom. The match had worked splendidly. The royal couple were still pleased with each other, had produced four healthy, intelligent children, and the eldest daughter had provided heirs; the crown of England was secure for another generation.

Brook turned their hansom east to avoid the brigade, then south. Church bells tolled the half hour, making it five thirty by her reckoning, which Lennon confirmed with a look at his pocket watch.

“What a night,” he said. “Be glad when it’s over.”

The statement could be taken as a declaration for himself or as advice to her.

They passed St. Paul’s Knightsbridge. Her heart quickened with dread.

Just yards to go … a last turn and they were before 16 Wilton Crescent, the first of a curving line of fearfully respectable white facades, each nearly identical to its neighbor: same doors, same transom grilles, sturdy iron fences lining the walks along the lower ground-floor entries.

Lennon gave it a lengthy stare. “You come by your toff ways straight, then, don’t you?”

“I’d rather go to a workhouse.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” Before she could get out he put a hand on her wrist. “Listen up, little tweak, there’s more afoot than they’re sayin’.”

“The Service?”

“Don’t pull a face, you ought to be feeling it, if that’s your trade. Me, I can smell it. There’s politicking going on. Always a rotten stink.”

“You can’t mean that.”

“Bet your life on it, missy. Your life . Instead of taking you into the fold where you’re surrounded by other spook hunters and big lads like Brook, they’ve cut you loose where you can be got at.”

“Mrs. Woodwake would never do that. Besides, men will be posted to watch this house.”

“Not nearly enough if those chappies what done for Lord Dickie come around, never mind that murdering ghost and his bottle of ether. Makes me think of those stories about hunters in India tethering a goat to tempt in a tiger. Maybe they get the tiger, but he gets the goat first.”

Having been on a tiger hunt, Alex had seen that for herself. “You think the two cases are connected.”

“I couldn’t say. Maybe those hooded blokes were following young Dickie all along and took their opening. But the ghost that broke into Harley Street also tried for you. Why do you think that is? Who would want to hang angel wings on both you and your pap?”

She shook her head.

“You come up anything on it, see me first. Don’t trust for a moment that your precious Service won’t toss you to the tigers if it suits ’em.”

He believed what he was saying, but the Service ? It was scrupulously honest, if necessarily secretive. Lord Richard was-had been-above reproach and insisted all those under him be likewise honest and honorable. They never employed frauds, the testing system was too rigorous. She’d vetted people herself, and would face a Reader tomorrow. That would clear things, perhaps allow her to keep a close watch on the progression of both cases.

Lennon continued, “They do some good, I’ll grant that, and you’re one of the good ones, but beware of rot under the shiny paint. For all their power, they got a bloody nose tonight. Instead of raising the alarm to hunt down a pack of hooded killers, that woman does the direct opposite. If someone had done for the head of Scotland Yard every copper in London would be turned out. There’d be no stoppin’ us till we had the shooters in darbies or dead. Woodwake’s running scared about something and it’s got to be bigger than her chief getting served up to hell tonight. I tried to get her to drop a clue, but she wasn’t having any. Her wanting that kept a state secret? Barmy.”

“She gave good reason for it.”

“Bah. I know her type. Thinks too much, just like you. Only your thinking has you meeting yourself coming around corners. She’s got a wider view and keeps it to herself. There’s a use for that sort, but they’re dangerous.”

He let go her wrist and got out with her. From his perch on the hansom where he could see trouble coming, Brook covered them as they went up to the door. Alex tried her old key and it worked. She thought she would never have need to use it and wasn’t sure why she’d kept it on the ring after all this time. A sense of antic humor, perhaps, allowing her the freedom to present her relatives with a disagreeable surprise should she ever drop in for a visit. She had often thought of coming by, but had never acted on it.

The disagreeable surprise was all on her tonight, but she’d be safe here. Knightsbridge was a well-kept, quiet place, plenty of police about. Pendlebury House teemed with people: relations and who knows how many servants to see to their upkeep.

Lennon put her carpetbag inside the door. “Remember my words, tweak. You keep that pie hole of yours shut, your ears open, and your head down. Now go get some sleep. And … and I’m sorry about your pap.” This last was muttered quickly and then he stumped off.

Well. What a startling man.