An: Excitement. Hopefully.
As Lettie crouched among her ill-begotten wares, there was a shriek from downstairs from one of her girls. Her eyes narrowed; apparently they weren't sensible. Or these men were louts. She'd bet on the second if she had to. Blaming Jenny for scaring her with talks of gangs, she flung open the hatch and shuffled quickly out. Pausing only to fasten the hatch securely once more and drag a couple of old suitcases over the top of it, she stomped back downstairs. Even without her bully boys, she'd sorted out men before.
She found the room where the raised voices were coming from without much hassle, paused a second to take a deep breath and then burst in.
"OI!" she yelled in her best Madame voice (even though she really was too young to be a Madame). "Woss goin' on 'ere?"
Abbie and Jemima were cowering in a corner away from three men. One of them, clearly a superior, turned to Lettie.
"Are you one of the…girls of this establishment?" he asked, noting the dishevelled hair.
"The hell I am. I'm…" Lettie faltered for only a second before deciding her story. "Jenny Flint. I'm investigatin' this place. On your boss's orders. 'Sides whilst you're pickin' on these poor women, Lettie's orf an' scarpered. An' taken yer damn locket wiv her. Ain't you gonna get after 'er then?" she folded her arms.
"The commander did say something about hiring an investigator, sir." One of the other agents shuffled over to his officer.
"Oh yes. The Paternoster lot. That's you is it?" The man eyed her ill-fitting grey dress distastefully. "Did you happen to see which way she went?"
"We had men at every window, sir, she couldn't've gotten out that way." The younger man interjected once more.
"Not now, Nigel." The officer waved him away.
"Nah. She went through the attic space. There's a small tunnel. Probably hopped along a few buildings and came out somewhere else." Lettie shrugged.
The man in charge pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "I see. Right lads!" he turned to his men. "Back downstairs. No need to er…linger here." His eyes drifted over the hastily done up dress once more.
"I came undercover." Lettie bit at him.
"And gave us away, making your services rather unnecessary at this point." He stood over Lettie, trying to intimidate her. "You will be escorted back to your mistress and placed under guard. The Commander will have to deal with you and your indiscretion later. Frank! Take Miss Flint back to Paternoster Row."
Lettie swallowed as Frank took her by the arm; Abbie and Jemima were looking at her very oddly but she'd gone a bit far to back out now. She tried to surreptitiously wink at them to reassure them.
"Nigel, you stay here in case Mrs Palmer decides to come back. The rest of you! Scatter and search the streets. She could be miles away by now…"
The voice of the officer trailed off as Frank took her down the stairs to a waiting cab.
"Bit mil'try ain't it?" Lettie asked him as she was bundled inside.
"Paternoster Row please. Number 13 isn't it?" Frank looked at her. She eyeballed him back but decided it wasn't a test.
"Thas right." She nodded. He seemed satisfied.
A short cab ride later and they were stood outside the tradesman's entrance to 13 Paternoster Row and Lettie was sweating how she was going to explain to this investigator Jenny worked for without giving herself away.
Frank knocked on the door and a tall veiled woman opened it.
"Can I help you?" It was cultured and slightly Scottish.
"I'm with Torchwood. I'm here to place you and your maid under guard after she not only let the target slip away but also gave out classified information to the target. The Commander should be here shortly."
Vastra eyed the man. He was short and stocky, a good head below her in height, and apparently unaware that if Torchwood wished to place a Silurian warrior under guard they really should send more men. And she had absolutely no idea who the ragged looking woman with the rouged cheeks was. Although she'd seen similar enough women on the streets at night to guess at her occupation. The realisation of precisely what kind of establishment Torchwood were investigating made her grin underneath her veil.
"Well you'd better come in then." She stepped back to allow them in.
The torchwood agent shoved the young woman ahead of him and then strode into the kitchen. He managed to block Vastra's first blow but the second caught him and he crumpled to the floor. She locked him in the larder.
Lettie blinked in horror. "What kind of investigatin' do you do?" she squeaked.
"The kind that requires swords." The lady ushered Lettie into the plant room and forced her into a chair before reclining back in a battered wicker chair. "Now, if you wouldn't mind telling me, where is Jenny Flint?"
"Well…" Lettie took a breath. "It's like this. She came to my house, said there was some to-do about Torchwood and my locket. And then Torchwood sort of stormed in. Took out my Charlie. And Jenny suggested that we run. So we did. And I was just getting into this disguise and she…disappeared."
"Disappeared?" the veiled lady's tone held thunder.
"Well she just was holdin' the locket. I dunno! I'd been wearin' it fer days an' it din't do nuffin' to me. She just went sort of…poof. Gone."
"Gone." The veiled lady stood up. "And then Torchwood found you? Why did they bring you here?"
"Well I hid. But then they started on my girls you see, so I had to go sort 'em out. And I um…may have given my name as Jenny Flint. To trick 'em, y'see."
The veiled lady was glaring at her; Lettie could feel it even through the veil.
"I see." She said in an icy voice. "Wait here."
Lettie heard her call out for someone named Parker and a carriage, the sound of steps and open doors and then she returned. There were two large swords strapped to her back.
Well she had said the investigating she did required them. And, Lettie supposed, if gangs like Torchwood came asking questions with knives, you answered them with swords.
"You are coming with me." A steely grip placed itself around her upper arm and she found herself unceremoniously dragged once more into a cab. "Now remind me." The lady asked as they set off. "Where is this house of yours?"
Jenny felt what sounded like the smell of snow. It reminded her of the sensation of time travel but without the scent of the sound of someone falling on a pile of strawberries. She staggered on solid ground and opened her eyes again. She was standing in what looked like a large cupboard, lit by two torches in braziers. It was filled with the strangest devices she'd ever seen. She swore that bit of tubing was from a cyberman. There was a second golden locket on the table nearest her, which she picked up in her other hand. They tingled as she held them close together.
Grasping them tightly, in separate hands, she cautiously stepped down the narrow aisle made by two tables towards the vague outline of the door. She studied it as much as she could in the dim light. There didn't seem to be any kind of catch or latch or keyhole, on this side at least. She raised a fist and knocked three times, resulting in a cut-off squeal and the sound of someone who'd just jumped about a foot sideways.
She knocked again. "Hello?"
"Hello?" said a voice that was trying a little too hard to be gruff.
"Can you let me out?"
There was a pause. "Who are you? Are you an alien?"
Torchwood. She was somewhere in Torchwood then. If they were expecting aliens, it had to be Torchwood.
"Jenny Flint. And I'm human." Despite the gravity of the situation, Jenny was faintly amused at the fact that she had to state that so much.
"What are yer doin' locked inside a Torchwood vault then?"
"I got lost."
"Ha! A likely story."
"I was investigatin' a locket. Your commander asked me to."
There was another pause. "What do you know about my commander?"
"He wears a bowler hat."
"Could be anyone that could." There was a sniff.
"Well you c'n go an' bleedin' arsk 'im if yer like!" Jenny snapped.
"Reckon I will then. Don't go anywhere now! Haha!"
Torchwood, Jenny considered, did not hire guards for their sense of humour. She looked at the two lockets in her hand. There hadn't been any sound of a second guard. The muffled squeal suggested the guard had been standing there for a while and had gotten bored, or was about to drop off. Torchwood must know what the locket did though, if they'd posted the guard on an off-chance.
Jenny dropped to her hands and knees and peered through the small gap underneath the door. No sign of any other guards, just a rather long corridor with other doors. She looked at the lockets again. Checking to see that it would easily fit, Jenny drew her hand back and flung one as hard as she could underneath the door, hearing it skitter along the flagstone floor. Then she took a breath and scrunched her face up in readiness and opened the second locket.
With another uncomfortable sensation, she found herself outside the room in the corridor; which was at least slightly better lit.
"A teleport." She said aloud, to confirm it. Vastra had told her about teleports in Japan. She picked up the second locket, stuffed them both down the front of her dress. Hugging the wall, as Jacob had taught her to do when facing a potential fight against an unknown number of assailants; she crept along the corridor, wishing for her swords.
Lettie sat very nervously in the coach as it followed the directions she gave. Torchwood were not comfortable people to be around but neither was this woman.
"So…you're an investigator then? Or an investigatoress?" she attempted to start a conversation.
"I prefer the term adventurer but yes."
"Jenny said she works for you?"
"After a fashion."
Vastra noted the casualness with which the woman used Jenny's name and decided to ask a few questions back.
"I take it you are the proprietor of the…establishment that we were called to investigate."
"Yes!" Lettie grasped at the faint thread of conversation. "Mrs Palmer. Lettie. If you like."
"Lettie?"
The lady's head went back; she seemed surprised.
"Jenny might've mentioned me? We…used to know each other. In the past."
A stern silence was the only reply.
"Oh not like that!" Lettie gasped. "Oh she was nuffin' in my line of work. No. We were acquaintances. Through the family." Well that was almost true at least. "No. Jenny's very…"
Lettie was saved from having to finish that sentence by their arrival at her house. She stepped down after the veiled lady and saw Charlie, slumped underneath the bell, looking the worse for wear and the man named Nigel having a cigarette beside him.
To his credit, Nigel didn't run when a veiled figure stormed towards him with two swords strapped to its back. But this merely resulted in him being hauled aloft and the veil drawn back. It was one thing to hear about aliens, hear them described (the infamous Doctor had apparently looked human), even study the artefacts. But nothing had quite prepared him for the sight of radiant green scales and blue eyes that were burning with the question that was hissed in his face.
"Where is she?"
An: Now I just have Christian Bale's Batman interrogating the Joker in my head. *sigh*
