Ministry Protocol: Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences

by Tee Morris

  *****

  The hansom was far too tiny for them both and offered no privacy, but it was better than an hour’s walk under heavy clouds. Anne-Marie was bursting with questions by the time they’d alighted in the shadow of Notre Dame. Joe silenced her with a hand.

  “Here’s the scoop, love. We have three sons of Britain found dead on the cobbles, bones broken as if they’d jumped from the roof, not a mark on ‘em otherwise. None of ‘em were churchgoers, and the bodies were found along the North façade, meaning—”

  She pointed to the rose window and tall wall. “They couldn’t have jumped.”

  Joe nodded. “That’s what’s so very peculiar about it.”

  They walked along the cobbles until Joe spotted a patch of street where the stones were darker and glistening with soap. Rusty stains dotted the mortar between the bricks.

  Anne-Marie looked up. “Dropped from ornithopters, perhaps?” Joe hunkered down beside her. It rattled her being so physically close to a strange man, especially one so menacing. The man wore barely suppressed violence like a tailcoat. She knew from her training that successful partners working for the Ministry often grew close, but Joe unsettled her. She’d waited forever to be needed, but this wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind.

  “Not ornithopters,” he said. “Someone would’ve noticed. The motors are loud enough to draw attention. This ain’t London.”

  “There are gliders—”

  “They can’t carry two people.”

  “Perhaps they were thrown?”

  He jerked his head to the high wall and sloping roof. No stairs, no ledge; only a gutter. “Where would a man stand to accomplish that, eh?”

  “Touché. But it was clearly murder. Why are there no gendarmes here? Why wasn’t it in the papers?”

  He grunted in disgust. “Gendarmes dumped the body in the Seine, washed away the evidence. We wouldn’t have known, but one of ‘em snitched. The three lads in question were troublemakers, without powerful friends or ready money. Yesterday’s victim was Ned Gilly. Before that, Badger Leeds, and Dickie Edgington. Easier to pretend it never happened than waste time and francs on an investigation for lads as wasn’t welcome.” He stood and spat on the cobbles. “Blasted Frogs.”

  She stood stiffly. “If you hate France so much, why are you here?”

  His flat glare met hers, his lip still curled. “I’m on a mission, same as you. Don’t mean I like it.”

  Anne-Marie gave him her iciest, most Parisian silence; and he fiddled with his hat and looked up at the grand masterpiece of architecture.

  “Too bad them gargoyles can’t talk,” Joe murmured, wistful. “Tell us who did it.”

  She followed his gaze and adjusted her spectacles before saying, “Grotesques.”

  “What’d you call me?”

  “Not you. Them. Gargoyles are what you call the ones that shunt water away from the roof; hence why ‘gargoyle’ sounds like ‘gargle’. The grotesques are simply statues. For decoration.”

  He snorted. “You’d think they’d decorate wif something pretty. Or at least religious.”

  “Demons are religious. Notre Dame was meant to scare as much as inspire.”

  He grumbled, his expression of interest quickly displaced by one of annoyance. “I got a better bit of inspiration. Let’s find out where Ned Gilly was last seen.”

  A few raindrops plunked on Anne-Marie’s hat, and she opened her umbrella. “That name is familiar. Was he a poet?”

  Joe blew a raspberry and adjusted his bowler. “A bad one.”

  She knotted her brow, whispering the victim’s name until finally she had it. “Ah, yes, now I remember. Gilly wrote the script for a folly at the Folies Bergere. A total flop. Opened two nights ago...the night he was apparently murdered.”

  “Heard about that play. Involved an orgy onstage.”

  He waggled heavy eyebrows, and she rolled her eyes, flapping a dismissive hand.

  “Oh la la,” she groaned, “Simulated orgy. C’est la France, after all. Allons-y!”

  “Allen who?” Anne-Marie sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose for patience. “It’s French for let’s go, you ignoramus. Honestly, did any of your cultural training pierce your gorilla skull? We’re going back to the bakery, and then I’m going to Montmartre to ask after Ned Gilly.”

  He huffed like an angry bull, his huge fists twitching at his sides. Anne-Marie pointed out a closed, waiting carriage in which they could talk privately. Joe hailed it but didn’t help her up. Once inside, he hunched in a corner, tense and red with rage, refusing to talk until the horses’ hooves clopped on the cobbles.

  “Look, love. You don’t want to make me mad. Much as I appreciate your take-charge attitude and haughty Frog act, it’s clear you ain’t a professional. Next step’s to talk to his friends, toss his flat. Not head right into a whorehouse and start jawin’. Not as I mind whores.”

  Anne-Marie shrugged, her indifference causing him to sit up a hint straighter. Exactly as she wanted.

  “Agent Tipping, just because it took the Ministry twenty years to activate me doesn’t mean I’m unprofessional. Considering the French government doesn’t know I’m on her Majesty’s bankroll and keep a cache of illegal weapons, ‘jawin’ with whores’, as you say, is better than charging around like a bull in a China shop or stooping to burglary. The murders must’ve occurred before dawn. Do you think Ned Gilly was dragged from his bed, or do you think he was caught on his way home from the cabaret?”

  Joe rubbed the stubble on his jaw and gave her a measuring sideways glance. “Possible.” He paused, then added, “You’re not what I expected. Pretty thing like a plump hen, all ruffled and lacy but sharp as a schoolmarm and walks like a...”

  “I’m wearing four knives and still have my gun.”

  “Bloody good that’ll do us if your aim hasn’t improved. I read your evaluations.” He shook his head and then looked her over from head to toe. “You just don’t seem like a Ministry girl, is all.”

  She flicked her fingers at him. “That’s the whole point of keeping me here on inactive duty; no one should suspect I’m anything but a middle-aged Parisian baker. My mother was a Ministry agent, and my father was a French spy. I’d have been in the field already, if not for being mostly blind and having a useful pair of ears. I know I appear out of shape, but I’ve kept busy with several important fact-gathering missions to earn my keep. It will take more than murder and courtesans to give me the vapours.”

  “You think they’ll let us walk into the Folies Bergere at breakfast, just like that?”

  “Not you. Just me. You may go rustle around flats, if you wish.”

  A single eyebrow arched. “And let you handle your first interrogation alone?”

  She smirked and adjusted her glasses. “These ladies are my customers, monsieur. I know the way to their hearts.”