I arose relatively early the following morning feeling surprisingly well-rested and refreshed. I hadn't stayed up particularly late after Shizuru had finished with my wound; even for me attempts on my life and fights to the death did pretty well round out the evening. The sleep had done me good, and even the cut on my back only stung when I turned or moved in certain ways that stretched the injured area.
She did a good job, I reflected, probably much better than I'd have managed on my own. I felt bad about it, making her pick up after me like that; this wasn't her fight and I didn't want to bring my troubles home to her.
I knew that was a funny thing to say, given the number of times I'd been out on one of Shizuru's cases and found myself in a fistfight with a desperate criminal or firing a revolver shot through the crown of someone's hat. But those weren't really Shizuru's troubles—not personally, at least. That was her professional business, the problems belonging to her clients. Her personal life, on the other hand...that I'd barely interacted with at all. It certainly hadn't brought her staggering, bloodied, back to me.
She didn't bring that sort of problem home to me, and it bothered me that I was doing the same to her. Plus, now—and I had to face this truth head-on—my troubles had escalated. The Obsidian Court had decided that I had to die, and were making more and more direct attempts. Last night I'd worried about a sharpshooter with a rifle or, if they wanted to get exotic and avoid noise, an air-gun. This morning, though, I was worried about a different kind of escalation. It wasn't that long, after all, since the outrages of the Dynamiters, and a bomb didn't require precision. And who would suspect that I'd even been the target? Some criminal, or a gang, out to dispose of Shizuru Viola for revenge's sake and just happened go get her friend and fellow-lodger instead.
Or too.
The fact that I was writing the scenario in my head was a bad sign. I had no doubt that the kind of people behind the Court's attempts on my life could think of such things more easily and naturally than me. Which meant they'd already thought of it.
It surprised me when I realized it, that the thought of Shizuru being hurt or killed by my enemies worried me more than the idea of dying myself or leaving my vengeance unfinished. It didn't feel right, that I would think that way, like I was betraying my mother's memory somehow, the entire course of my life to that point.
My emotions were confusing, out of control, and the blunt truth of it was emotion of any kind was the last thing I needed now. I'd come too far along this road to turn back; there were only two possible outcomes. Either I brought down the Obsidian Court, or they put an end to the threat I posed by killing me. I didn't know when the next attempt would come or what form it would take; all I could do was stay on my guard and try to push things forward.
I clambered out of bed, poured water into the washbasin from the jug, and splashed some on my face, hoping that it would clear my head. It helped a little, so I set about doing the best I could to get ready for the day, emerging from the bathroom dressed in shirt, trousers, and a dark blue vest. My derringer was in one of my vest pockets, and I had a knife tucked into one boot-top. These things weren't necessarily unusual for me, but that I thought to be armed even before taking breakfast was.
"Good morning, Natsuki," Shizuru greeted me. She sat at the table wearing a violet dressing-gown, contemplating an array of silver trays. From the steam rising from the coffee urn, Mrs. Hudson must have brought up breakfast no more than five minutes past. That Shizuru was awake already didn't surprise me—I'm positive that she sleeps sometime, but I can't necessarily confirm it. I suspect that it's all the tea. That she was helping herself to food did.
"That's a large breakfast for you, Shizuru," I noted. "If Mrs. Hudson sees that, she'll take you for a changeling."
"They say that a good meal is an antidote for pawky humor," she replied with her usual smile. "May I recommend the eggs?"
"Seriously, what's the occasion? Your usual breakfast options are the Continental or none at all."
"Natsuki is always saying that I should eat more and take better care of myself," she said innocently. "Am I to be faulted for taking her advice?"
"Faulted, no. Believed, not that either. It's like watching Dracula crawl in through your window; a normal person would stop and stare for a while before she reaches for the garlic and crucifixes."
"Ara, so Natsuki is afraid that I will bite her on the neck when I have finished with the sausages?"
I sighed and surrendered. No one wins a battle of wits with a teasing Shizuru, or at least I never did. Instead I sat down at the table and began loading up my plate, then poured myself a cup of coffee. I held the cup just below my lips and inhaled the scent of the dark, rich brew.
Shizuru giggled. "Natsuki looks lost in a world of bliss."
"Hey, I gave up cigarettes. Coffee is the last addictive pleasure I have left!"
"I would not think of asking Natsuki to give up coffee. I've learned from watching my father resist my mother's ongoing efforts to have him abandon his daily cafe latte in favor of tea."
"Wise move," I said. "Even a true love which stands above duty to country and family isn't a rival for that first cup of coffee in the morning."
I suited my actions to my words by taking a deep draft, savoring the taste of the liquid as it slid across my tongue.
"Oh? And who is this true love Natsuki talks about?"
I sputtered, barely avoiding spraying coffee all over the table.
"S-Shizuru! I meant your parents, not me!" I stammered, dabbing at my lips with a napkin.
"Oh, then Natsuki was not injured last night dueling over a gentleman's favors?"
"What the hell would I want with a man?" I snapped. Like my life isn't complicated enough already? Not that I even knew any man that I could imagine starting a romance with. Even the idea of it left me cold.
"A beautiful woman like Natsuki should have any number of princes on white horses lined up for her," Shizuru continued.
"Can you see me as a princess? All dressed up like an iced cake in one of those frilly, overdone Court gowns?" I snorted. "Please, I'd rather have the horse than the prince. At least it might be useful."
Shizuru laughed lightly, no doubt at the image of me as a sleeping princess being kissed by a horse or something equally ridiculous.
"Well, if you put it so forcefully, then I have no choice but to accept it."
"Idiot. You're in a mood today."
"Perhaps it's the lack of sun. Would you like me to raise the blinds?"
"No, that's okay. If it's sunny out I'm still to sleepy to deal with full daylight stabbing into my eyes, and if it's not then what's the point anyway?" I was actually thinking of cover; a gunman couldn't snipe what he couldn't see. Not that I was the type of person who sat with her back to windows anyway, but my level of caution had gone sharply up. I took another drink of coffee, this one a little more of a sip than a swig, and reached for the food. Unlike Shizuru, I actually enjoyed eating. One of the lessons I'd learned in my misspent youth was that food and rest were both valuable resources and that if the opportunity came for either one I should take it.
That was advice that had come from people who were usually in much more desperate situations than I could imagine, coming as I did from a background with a stable income and a roof over my head, but in the present circumstances I was definitely appreciating it.
"Are you planning on going out again today, Natsuki?" Shizuru asked.
"I'm not sure," I answered. "I've got a couple of errands to run"—or in other words, people I could try to prod for more information about the Illuminated Order of the Obsidian Court—"but I could put them off"—mainly because I was tapping the bottom of the barrel with my contacts as it was.
It was mostly a question of scale—of fields of influence. Plain and simple, the people I knew were underworld types, informants in the criminal sphere. The Obsidian Court used criminals, but their upper membership, their leaders, were people of wealth and position, from upper-middle-class professionals to gentry, titled nobility, and political power-brokers. They operated in the halls of political and financial power, though theft, extortion, violence, and murder were tools they freely wielded.
I didn't give a damn about the tools. You can't take vengeance on a gun or a knife. I wanted the ones who gave the order, the person or persons who decided my mother had to die. But very few of my contacts knew the right people, traveled in the right circles to ferret out what I needed to know: the identities of the Obsidian Court's inner circle, what it called its First District, and the men or women who ran it.
Part of the reason I'd ended up with my life at risk was because I'd pushed too hard in the wrong places, learning nothing and giving myself away. The better strategy would be to wait and let my qualified sources of information, people like Porlock, get me something that I could work with. I just didn't know if I could afford to be that passive, under the circumstances—and yet on the other hand, wasn't charging off in the wrong direction an even worse idea?
The jangling of the bell downstairs broke me out of my spiraling thoughts.
"Well, then, perhaps this will clarify matters for you," Shizuru brightened.
"You think it's for me?"
She shook her head.
"I think it is a case. You probably did not hear, but a carriage just pulled up to the curb a moment ago, and our caller must have veritably leapt from it and sprinted to the door in order to ring the bell in such a short space of time. When you combine that with the sheer violence used in ringing the bell, then I think we can take it as given that our caller is here to see me."
"Those are the usual symptoms," I agreed. And indeed, moments later Mrs. Hudson showed into our rooms a woman in her late thirties, of stout build and rather severe face that was shocked out of what I suspected was its usual stern and disapproving mein by fear. I had her down as a schoolteacher, and as it turned out I was not far off.
"Miss Viola?" she burst out.
"I am Shizuru Viola. Please, sit down and tell me what is the matter."
"Oh, there's no time for that! You have to come quickly, before those horrible policemen take my lady away! They think that she killed him!"
"Please, try to calm yourself. You will do no good for your employer if you cannot communicate clearly. Breathe." She rose and went to the woman's side, urging her to sit down, for the caller was literally shaking with her excitement, clearly bordering on hysteria.
I'd probably have just slapped her to clear her senses, but that wasn't Shizuru's way of doing things. Indeed, in a few moments she'd gotten the woman gentled and soothed into a state of, if not calm, at least coherence.
"My name is Emmaline Gartner," she began, "and I am the governess to the children of the Baron and Baroness Maupertuis, of Claremont Court, Mayfair."
I was thankful that Shizuru was facing the other way at that moment, because I couldn't keep the shock and surprise off my face. The name of Baron Maupertuis was known to me as one of my first leads to the Obsidian Court! Not only that, but I had a strong suspicion that he was a member of the First District, someone of power and influence within the society. I'd amassed quite a bit of information about him over these past several months, from his origins in Provence to his activities as a director of the Netherland-Sumatra Company and how he'd managed to disassociate himself from it before its ruinous collapse in 1897. And now he'd been murdered!
"It is the Baroness, then, who wishes to retain me?" Shizuru asked.
"Yes, Miss Viola. My lady...my lady...oh, it's a dreadful calumny, it is! Those awful men were questioning her, and her consumed by grief, but they kept on at it. They would not take no for an answer, forced her to answer their questions. That terrible Inspector Barrington..."
"Barrington?" Shizuru's eyebrows rose. "Scotland Yard sent Inspector Barrington to investigate the murder of a titled gentleman with an address off Park Lane? I can only imagine he was the only man awake at the station."
"Not up to fancy work among the toffs?" I spoke up for the first time. I'd met a number of Scotland Yard officers while living with Shizuru but didn't recall the name.
"Imagine, if you will, a man with all of Haruka Armitage's delicate subtlety and none of her intellect and social knowledge. He rather resembles a bulldog in looks and behavior both. You are quite right to be worried, Miss Gartner. I will come at once." She looked back at me. "I would be glad of your company, Natsuki, since I know you have no fixed plans for the day."
Ordinarily, I'd have turned her down—the last thing I needed was to be caught up in one of Shizuru's cases while I was busy navigating my own. Still—Maupertuis! Fortune had handed me an opportunity to push my own agenda while helping my friend. I couldn't help but be reminded, besides, of the fact that it had indirectly been through Shizuru, in connection with the Trepoff and Crosby cases, that I was able to make the most significant breakthroughs I thus far had in investigating the Obsidian Court. Now, a third time, and it almost felt like Fate was saying that I was destined to be by her side when I found the truth.
Melodramatic nonsense, probably, but even so the facts were on my side as well as emotions.
"Of course," I said. "Do I need anything?"
"Just your revolvers, I suspect. Tackling one of Inspector Barrington's fixed ideas is quite reminiscent of assaulting a military earthworks and often requires much the same equipment."
Though I dismissed the statement as merely being more of Shizuru's unusual sense of humor, I did take my jacket with its sewn-in holsters, tailored to make it significantly less obvious that I was armed. A brougham was waiting downstairs for us, no doubt from the Maupertuis stables, and we climbed in with our caller. The driver snapped his whip and set off at a pace I'd expect from a cabby promised a sovereign's tip. I wonder if the driver shared Miss Gartner's affection towards and fear for the Baroness.
"Now that we are underway, and as our driver seems intent on returning to Claremont Court before the worst happens," Shizuru addressed the governess, "perhaps you would acquaint us with the pertinent facts?"
Miss Gartner took a deep breath and appeared to gather herself. The mere fact that we were underway at last in accordance with her wishes seemed to lend her composure, for her features soon settled in to the stern expression that I'd expected of her.
"The crime was committed last night. The Baron had retired to his study around eleven-thirty—"
"How did you know this?"
"My lady said so," Miss Gartner returned at once, as if this pronouncement was as secure as Holy Writ. "She and her husband customarily took a nightcap together in the late evening, after which she would retire to her bedroom and he would often stay awake until two or three in the morning, usually in his study or the library."
"I see. Please go on."
"There is little else to say. My lady woke the next morning. Generally she says good morning to the Baron in his bedroom before descending for breakfast, but he was not there. She went to the study and found the door locked. She knocked, and when there was no answer she opened the door to find the master lying on the floor. She rushed to his side and discovered that he was dead! Dr. Arbuthnot was summoned, and he discovered that the Baron had been stabbed in the back. The police had to be sent for then," she added with a sniff, "and all they could do was to browbeat my lady!"
"So you believe Inspector Barrington thinks that the Baroness stabbed her husband in the back, locked the door to keep the body from being found before morning, and then calmly went to bed?" Shizuru asked.
"It is utterly absurd! No one who knows my lady could possibly believe that!"
"Has the Inspector actually accused her?"
"Not in words, as yet, but it is the only explanation, not only for cruelly browbeating my lady with questions after the horrible shock she has had, but in the direction of some of those questions. The Baroness, I am sure, thought so as well, for she sent me to bring you, Miss Viola, as the police appear to be concentrating their efforts entirely on her while ignoring any other possibility!"
"Well, we shall have to see what we can do."
"Hopefully this Barrington fellow hasn't stomped around in his size twelves, destroying all the evidence," I groused.
"Size fourteen, in fact," Shizuru noted. "Now, Miss Gartner, would you mind answering a few questions yourself?"
"I will do anything I can to help my lady and bring the master's murderer to heel."
Which, I noticed, wasn't quite an answer to Shizuru's question. I couldn't help but wonder where her passionate devotion came from, and whether it was to the Baroness personally, or given to the children in her charge and their family by proxy—a hatchetlike face didn't have to mean a matching personality.
"Very well. You say the study door was locked. I presume that you do not mean that the key was on the outside of the door?"
"No, certainly not."
That was good; if the dead Baron had been locked in from the house side I'd have had to start agreeing with Barrington.
"Then how did the Baroness enter the room? I presume from how you told the story that she unlocked the door rather than had the servants force it in."
"Quite right. The Baron possessed master keys to all the locks in the house, which he kept in his bedroom in case of fire or other emergency. The Baroness retrieved those."
"Were you a witness to any of this?"
"No, miss. I took my breakfast in the kitchens and then began the children's morning lessons. It was only when my lady discovered that the master was dead that the house was put into an uproar. I know these things from my lady's statements to the police."
"I see. Now, would you consider that the Baron and Baroness were on good terms with one another?"
"Of course!" If anything, she managed to draw herself up even more stiffly.
"There were no recent arguments then, no quarrels?"
"Certainly not! I do not know what you are trying to imply, but I find it highly inappropriate for you, who is supposed to be proving my lady's innocence, to be asking such questions."
"Miss Gartner, if the Baroness Maupertuis had an apparent motive to want her husband dead, then you can be sure that the police will hear of it and use it against her. It does no good to ask me to find the truth and then try only to give me such facts as support your desired outcome. How can I build a defense to attacks which I do not know are coming?"
"Not to mention, the more you hide things, the guiltier it makes you look," I said bluntly. "Policemen are like dogs; if you start running then they'll chase on general principles."
"Natsuki puts it somewhat less politely than I would, but her simile is apt."
Miss Gartner looked from Shizuru to me and back to Shizuru again, as if her crimson stare had a magnetic force on the governess. At last, her shoulders slumped.
"Baron Maupertuis had a mistress," she confessed, "an actress named Robin Grayle. He had several rows with my lady over the past month over her."
"The Baroness was offended at the adultery?"
"No; I believe that it was not that the Baron had a mistress but rather that she was too expensive to maintain."
"So it was fine for him to sleep around so long as he kept it under budget?" I yelped. "The French are strange."
"Such arrangements are hardly unknown among English nobility," Shizuru chided, "particularly when marriages are contracted for the sake of status, politics, or property. The only part of the matter which may seem 'foreign' is the fact that the couple would openly acknowledge it to one another." Clearly I still looked incredulous because she added, "In feudal Japan, for example, it was the wife's responsibility to manage the household expenses, which among other things would mean that a samurai's wife would pay the bills for his trips to the pleasure quarter right along with his other expenses."
I folded my arms across my chest.
"Well, call me provincial, Shizuru, but there is no way that I'd stand for that. If my lover or spouse was cheating on me, the only question would be whether I'd kick their arse or just shoot them."
Shizuru did something that surprised me, then. She turned to me and smiled. Not the fake smile, the sometimes-serene, sometimes-amused one that almost never leaves her lips, but the real one, the one that left no doubt that she was truly happy with something. I couldn't recall ever seeing it in front of a client before; it just...wasn't Shizuru to be so unguarded in public.
It was strange.
In the next moment, it was gone, and the carriage was slowing to a stop before the gate to a stately townhouse.
"While I am happy to hear that, Natsuki," Shizuru said, "let us just hope we can show that the Baroness did not subscribe to your principle."
~X X X~
A/N: The "Dynamiters" Natsuki references were Irish terrorists who, well, used dynamite in their bombings during the late 1800s.
