Barbara Hambly - Magistrates of Hell

Asher ascended the shallow steps of the hotel with a sense of relief. Karlebach had been haranguing him since they’d passed the French Legation on the subject of their next expedition to the Western Hills, and he’d barely heard a word. ‘Once we get the other entrances to the mine blocked, we should be able to go in by daylight. The main thing is to locate where they sleep and—’

Karlebach broke off to return the greeting of the English doorman, and Asher crossed the lobby to the desk for messages. A gentleman who’d been reading The Times in one of the lobby’s deep chairs got up, and Asher instinctively turned. Another, standing at the desk, advanced on him.

Here it comes . . .

The man who’d been reading The Times made his mistake. He addressed Asher before his confederate got within grabbing distance.

‘Professor Asher?’ Sussex. A European’s English would-be Oxonian . . . ‘The name is Timms. I’m from the Legation Police. There’s been a most serious allegation brought against you, for selling information to the German Legation.’

Asher said, with a slight note of surprise, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ He gestured – wait just a moment, I won’t make trouble – and moved as if to go say something to Karlebach . . .

Then cut swiftly to the right, dashed for the windows that overlooked Rue Meiji, toppled a chair in the startled Timms’s path, opened the window, and dropped through into the darkness.

He was pleased to see he’d calculated precisely; he was within a yard of the areaway to the kitchen. All the windows on that side were curtained against the icy night. He was stripping off his overcoat even as he sprang lightly over the railings, stepped back into the hotel and crossed the kitchen, overcoat slung over his arm – ‘I’m here about the generator,’ he explained to the one person who even gave him a glance in the bustle of preparing dinner – then walked straight to the doorway that led to the generator-room hall, stopped long enough to pick up his money, and climbed the service stair to the roof.

They’d assume he’d run straight for the watergate – it was a hundred yards from the window he’d escaped through – and would probably send a man up to watch Lydia’s room just in case.

Hobart . His feet sought the risers of the stair as he climbed, silent, up fifty-six steps in the dark. Possibly the Germans – old Eichorn might have recognized him after all – but the Germans were hardly likely to accuse him of selling information to themselves. Mizukami . . .? His instinct told him that the Japanese attaché was a man to be trusted, which of course might mean nothing. Vampires weren’t the only ones who buttered their bread by getting people to believe them.

But Hobart had every good reason to want him deported quickly and a closet that fairly rattled with skeletons.

At this time of the evening, every room on the floor relegated to the personal valets and maids of the guests was deserted. Above that was the attic, pitch-black and crammed with trunks: the smell of dust as he came up the narrow stair was suffocating. A bare slit of a hall, a dozen small rooms, each labeled with the number of the floor to which the luggage within belonged – he’d identified the location of the light switch on an earlier reconnaissance, but knew better than to give his position away by using it. From his overcoat pocket he took the candle he’d brought to go yao-kuei hunting with, lit it, and made his way to the ladder at the end of the hall which led to the roof.

By the light of the waning moon, Asher strode along the hotel’s low parapet till he found a fire-ladder. The roof of the Banque Franco-Chinoise lay two floors below. The Chinese houses that had been here in 1898 had mostly been destroyed in the Uprising, and had been replaced by modern buildings with modern iron fire-escapes. A narrow alley separated the Franco-Chinoise Bank from the old Hong Kong bank – one of the few older buildings on the street still standing – and the fire-ladder came down almost at the alley’s end. Still holding his ulster over one arm, its gray lining turned outward to foil the obvious question – did you see a man in a brown overcoat . . .? – he checked to make sure he had his pass for the city gates, walked up the alley, and found a rank of rickshaws, as usual, in front of Kierulf’s Store.

‘Silk Lane,’ he said.

THIRTEEN

‘They said Jamie was what ?’ Lydia stared in disbelief from Karlebach to the bulky tweed shape who had introduced himself as Mr Timms of the Legation police.

‘No one’s said anything, ma’am, begging your pardon,’ corrected Timms stiffly. ‘Mr Asher was alleged to be selling information to the German Legation—’

‘Alleged by whom?’ She got to her feet and stepped closer to her visitors, though she’d have had to stand on the policeman’s toes to see his face clearly. She had an impression of saggy blue jowls and pomaded hair the color of coffee with not quite enough milk in it. ‘And what sort of information could Jamie possibly learn in Peking ? Troop dispositions on the parade ground?’

‘The specifics of the charge aren’t my business, ma’am. But he sure-lye had something on his conscience, the way he took to his heels.’

‘That’s preposterous.’ She opened her mouth to add Jamie would NEVER admit to the Germans, of all people, that he was a spy . . . and realized this information probably wouldn’t help the situation. Instead she let her eyes fill with tears and sank into the nearest chair, from which she stared up helplessly at the two men. ‘Oh, who can have invented such a lie?’

Her stepmother, she reflected, couldn’t have played the scene better.

Well, actually, she probably could .

‘We’d hoped, ma’am—’ Timms’s voice wavered in its gruffness.

Good, I’ve shaken him . . .

‘—that you’d have no objection to letting us search these rooms.’

Since Lydia knew that Jamie never wrote anything down except notes on linguistic tonalities and verb forms, she buried her face in her palms, nodded, and let out a single, bravely-suppressed sob. Had Karlebach been any sort of actor he’d have taken that as his cue to fly to her side and execrate poor Timms as a beast and a brute – increasing his anxiety to leave quickly and cutting down the number of things he was likely to notice in the suite – but the Professor only stammered, ‘Here, Madame—’

It was Ellen who flew to her side. She must have been listening at the nursery door.

‘Don’t you dare set a foot in these rooms!’ The maid brandished Miranda’s damp bath-sponge under the man’s nose. ‘Not without a warrant, properly sworn by a judge, which I wager you don’t have—’

‘It’s all right,’ whispered Lydia. We have nothing to hide would undoubtedly create a better impression than: Where’s your warrant? ‘Would you please show the gentleman around, Ellen? And . . . and fetch me some water—’

She was pleased to note that Miranda, usually the most equable of babies, burst into howls the moment Timms opened the nursery door.

As the door shut behind Timms, Lydia got to her feet, gathered up the police notes, and handed them to Karlebach. ‘I’ll be quite all right,’ she whispered and steered him into the hallway. No sense having them confiscated . . . Then, sorely puzzled and more than a little frightened, she walked to the window and stood, listening to Ellen scolding, Mrs Pilley having hysterics, and Miranda shrieking, and gazed out into the darkness of the alien night. And wondered what there was for her to do, besides wait for word.