Prompt from Book girl fan: A thread

Zygiella x-notata

The match ignited on the second strike. He let it burn for a heartbeat before touching the flame to his cigarette. These were his own blend of Virginia and Kentucky tobaccos. He mixed the ingredients himself, not trusting such a delicate balance of flavors to any tobacconist. Such things had to be done correctly or what was the point? Inhaling, he savored the smoke as some savored wine. It relaxed him.

Tossing the still burning match into the grate, he looked about the room. It was a dismal place of bare rafters and raw brick walls with few furnishings and those were of rough make and low craftsmanship. Only the comfortable wingback chair in which he sat and the white oak side table next to it were of quality. Perhaps he should add an ottoman. Why bother? This was not a place in which he spent much time. It was a place of business, not domesticity.

"Business," he murmured with a scowl, and rose to pace the floor. "Business should be conducted in a business-like fashion!"

She was late. Such a thing would not normally irritate him so, but of late, issues had arisen. Deliveries were intercepted. Agents were arrested and needed to be replaced. Not true problems, of course. Business carried on and profits remained high. Indeed, profits were increasing.

"Not problems. No," he grumbled, flicking ash onto the floor as he continued pacing. "Not problems. Inconveniences!"

This would not do. He wanted to be relaxed and in control when she arrived. Another drag on his cigarette and an exhalation of pale grey smoke and he felt his temper ease. That was better. He found that he had paced to the window, though there was precious little to see through it. A dirty back alley and the docks beyond a row of squalid houses. He scowled and was about to return to his pacing when something caught his eye.

Orderly. Neat. Well-constructed. Cleverly placed. Yes. This was a thing worth looking at. The web hung beautifully in the corner of the window. He considered it, figuratively running a finger through the vast files of his mental library. Ah! Of course.

"Zygiella x-notata," he purred and smiled. "The silver sided sector spider. How do you do?"

He felt an affinity for this particular species with its orderly web. It was known as a sector spider for the sectors of its web. Each sector had a signaling thread that ran to a blind in which the tiny predators could remain unseen until action was required. Action usually meant some hapless insect had blundered into the web and the spider would rush out to collect its due.

"Not unlike me," he mused and smirked.

Movement on the windowsill drew his attention. He was at first puzzled. The spider should have been in the silk blind, waiting to pounce. A brief inspection revealed this was not the denizen of the web. Though it was a spider that approached the web, its shape and markings were all wrong. It was bulbous rather than sleek and of a rich tobacco color instead of the elegant dun and silver of zygiella x-notata.

"Someone is going to regret this," the man murmured, watching with interest as the interloper crawled to the web and stopped. "Hesitant? Cautious? Well, you should be."

Even as the words left his mouth, the interloper reached out a delicate leg and strummed one of the signal threads. The man anticipated the rush of the sector spider, eager to see how it would attack. But zygiella x-notata remained in its blind. The interloper strummed the thread again. Perhaps this time…

Behind him, the door opened. The man stiffened, lifting his gaze to the scene outside the window.

"I am sorry to be late, Professor," the woman said. She sounded flustered.

"You are not too late, Miss Brooks," the professor replied, slowly turning to face her. He took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked it into the fire. "I am a patient man, as you know."

"Yes. Thank you, sir," she said.

Miss Brooks was a woman of average height with lustrous brown hair and a comely face. She wore a good quality dress suited to her position as typist at Scotland Yard headquarters. A position the professor had arranged for her. The corner of his mouth quirked ironically. He had pulled one of the many threads of his vast web to arrange her situation. His investment had paid off very well until recently.

"What have you to report?" he asked. "One shipment was taken last week and three of my agents have been arrested. How are they doing it?"

"Simply put, Professor, they are getting better at their jobs," Miss Brooks said hesitantly.

"Try my patience at your peril," growled the man, assuming a stance that would not have been out of place had he stood before a class of students.

Miss Brooks blanched and drew in a steadying breath before saying, "They are compiling information and sharing it among the various inspectors, sir. They have become more coordinated. I do not know where the information is coming from, and no one seems to know who began organizing the inspectors. There are rumors that it comes from high up in the government."

"How high?" the man asked, and there was a new timber to his voice.

"As I said, it is only a rumor, but it may be someone close to the queen," she said, dropping her gaze as if expecting reprimand.

The man's features hardened into an expressionless mask, and he turned his back to Miss Brooks. Two paces brought him back to the window and the spider's web. He looked, thinking to find zygiella x-notata feasting on the interloper, but neither spider was in evidence. He scowled.

"Continue gathering information, Miss Brooks," he said over his shoulder. "Discover for me who it is that has focused the inspectors and I will see to it you need never work again."

"I will!" the woman said, sketching a brief courtesy before rushing out the door.

With an uneasy feeling, the professor glowered at the empty web and wondered what it portended.