Noli Me Tangere
This story is for Loralee Thompson, "Danaan"
Prologue
The silence in the office was broken only by the scratching of a pen over paper and the hollow tick tock of an antique clock. Through the window came the grey light of a London spring day, slightly tinged by the metallic hue of a faint mist.
A soft knock on the door made the writer pause in his work.
"Come in," he said, carefully setting the pen on its holder and reviewing the few last lines he'd written. The door opened; a middle-aged man dressed in black stood respectfully on the threshold.
"Yes, Phelps," the old man at the desk said.
"Agent Fogg to see you, sir."
"Show him in."
The middle-aged man stood aside and bowed slightly to someone in the antechamber. The someone came into the room in two long strides, and the door closed softly behind him.
He was a young man, quite tall, with a handsome, intense face and a lean yet muscular body, admirably proportioned. He stood still for a second, as the man behind the desk stood up and went towards him.
"Phileas. Welcome back," the old man said, and they shook hands.
"Thank you, sir. I trust I find you in good health?" Phileas said, smiling at his father.
"Quite. How was your trip?" Sir Boniface Fogg approached small talk the same way as he approached business: he gave as little information as possible while trying to gather as much as he could from the other party. The other party in this case being his eldest son, who sighed almost imperceptibly.
"Uncomfortable, but fast," he said. "The smugglers have been dealt with, and there's no danger anymore of Scottish radicals getting firearms. Also, the main group has been dismantled and I've left precise instructions regarding how to deal with the rest of them. You'll get my report presently."
"Very well. I'll study it later. As for now, Phileas, I called you here because…"
"May I ask first about my brother, sir?" Phileas interrupted. Sir Boniface seemed a bit put out, but answered the question nevertheless.
"Erasmus returned from Calcutta two days ago, after completing his mission successfully. I gave him a week's leave, which he has chosen to spend at Shillingworth Magna," he said in precise, clipped tones, much as if he was reading from a report.
"Ah." The tension left Phileas's body, a tension that had been so carefully concealed that you could only tell that it had been there after you'd seen it gone. "I'm glad to hear it. Perhaps I shall join him."
"I'm afraid you won't," Sir Boniface said dryly, returning to his desk and sitting down.
"Sir?"
"Your presence is urgently required at Turin, Phileas. You will have to leave immediately, I'm afraid."
Phileas sighed inwardly. He was tired. He had been looking forward to some days of leisure, after two exhausting and extraordinarily uncomfortable weeks spent chasing radicals in the Scottish Highlands. He waited for his father to elaborate, suddenly too weary to ask for the details himself.
"Are you familiar with the Orsini documents?" Sir Boniface asked, and Phileas came back from his gloomy frame of mind with a start.
"Certainly, sir. They are the coded messages exchanged between some followers of King Victor Manuel and the German government. They could contain invaluable information about Italy's choice of allies once the country achieves some kind of political stability. One of our agents intercepted them a month ago, and they have already been partially decoded."
"Precisely. Our man cannot leave Italy now without compromising his position there, so I sent Chatsworth to Turin to bring the documents here."
"Chatsworth?" Phileas voice rose in surprise, and his father scowled.
"Yes, I know. He has no field experience whatsoever. But he is familiar with every aspect of the documents, he is good with codes, and the mission was as straightforward as it could be."
"What went wrong, sir?" asked Phileas, alerted by that 'was' and by his father's scowl.
"Chatsworth went wrong. The twit. He managed to lose the documents."
"What!?"
"That's what his cable said. At least, that is what it amounted to, after peeling off all the excuses and self-justifications. My guess is that they've been stolen. I want an experienced agent there right away."
Phileas nodded, sending all thoughts of home and rest to the back of his mind. Getting the Orsini documents had been an extraordinary stroke of luck, and losing them in such a stupid manner was unacceptable.
"So, you see the need to get there and straighten up this matter as quickly as possible. And I'd prefer it to be you over anybody else; the situation is volatile enough as it is."
"I understand," Phileas said, weakly. On one hand, he was obscurely flattered by his father's trust in him. Boniface was not a man to give praise easily. On the other hand, Sir Boniface's trust normally meant he'd give you the hardest, most dangerous missions.
"I knew you would," his father said, and gave him a fat envelope. "You'll need this. A carriage waits for you downstairs."
"What, I leave right now?" The words blurted out, before Phileas could stop himself. Sir Boniface shot him a very stern glance.
"When I said 'immediately', Phileas, I meant exactly that. Unless you tell me you are not prepared for this."
Phileas took a deep breath.
"I apologize, sir. I will leave this very moment."
"Good. I expect you to take care of this with the minimum fuss, Phileas."
"I will try my best."
Sir Boniface didn't smile.
"You will do your best. Goodbye, now."
"Goodbye, sir."
Phileas closed the door behind him. After a moment, the soft scratching sound of the pen joined again the tick tock of the clock in the quiet office.