“Jorgi-chan, (are you sure this is the right thing to do?)” Brian asked in Japanese.
“(I need him),” Georgiana said. “Please. He can barely stand.”
Audley wasn’t going to deny it. Brian Maddox – as the figure apparently was – took the sword he had been holding and slid it into his belt to free his arm to take hold of Audley’s swaying body. “Audley-Keibu,” he said, his voice deadly serious, “I’ve been hired to protect you. That includes guarding your health. We must return to the tavern.” Brian, Audley now noticed as his eyes refocused again, was wearing a patterned blue robe and navy pants as wide and pleated as a skirt. “Georgiana, are you coming with us?”
“I have some time before I should be back.”
Audley was honestly struggling too hard to stay upright to notice Maddox’s expression as the three of them walked back to town. In fact, he remembered very little of the journey, at the end of which he was practically carried up the stairs and allowed to pass out on his bed in the inn.
It was night when he woke again. Definitely sleeping too much. His head still hurt.
He had been injured. The case was out of control. The most logical thing to do would be to request help from Paris – but he would be dismissed by the arriving investigator, who would not do half the job, and it would go on his record. Audley had other reasons not to follow this course of action. Once he got himself inside a case, he couldn’t drop it. It was why he was so successful, so early in his career. He wondered if all the great inspectors were so obsessive.
He was improving, in that he could sit up and see clearly, but not for terribly long. He made no serious movements. He needed time to think, but was distracted by the noise of conversation nearby
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
If he closed his eyes and focused, straining his ears, Audley could hear them. It was Georgiana and Brian Maddox, he realized, talking on their porch next to his. Why was she still here? He slid into the chair beside the window as quietly as possible, leaning his head against the wall for support.
“How could you not know?”
“I know how this has to end. I don’t know how to get there.”
He heard Brian Maddox sigh in response.
“You don’t have to say it!” Georgiana said rather sharply, hard on Audley’s ears. “I know I’m in over my head.”
“At least you admit it.” Maddox’s voice was half-passive, sort of depressed and anxious. “But you don’t know everything, Jorgi-chan. Even if you think you do.”
“I know you didn’t tell Papa you were coming here.”
“Hmph. So you could have logically concluded by the fact that he didn’t run here himself like a madman. Your parents sent you to seminary because they were concerned for you.”
“They sent me because I asked to go.”
Whether this was new information to Maddox, Audley could not tell. He was only listening to voices, still a distance away, and his own perceptive skills were not at their peak.
“How is everyone?” Georgiana asked more softly, perhaps seeking to change the subject.
“Fine. Except for Geoffrey, of course. You succeeded in your plan to put him in a foul mood. We had to put up with it at Christmas.”
“What? Does everyone think that?”
“No. Only me. And perhaps, Charles.”
“Papa wrote me a Christmas letter.”
“And he said the same thing?”
“Basically.”
Again, silence.
“What about my patient?”
“Your patient? A young lady has no business nursing a man. Unless she is actually a nurse with medical training. Which, of course, you are not.” His tone was a bit harsher than before. “Unless the customs are different in France.”
“I saved his life!”
“Yes, congratulations.”
There was a noise. Audley was not sure what it was – perhaps Georgiana storming off. Realizing he might soon have visitors, Audley returned as quickly as possible to his bed. He was not wrong in this assumption – Brian appeared moments later with a candlestick and a tray of food. “Good evening, Audley-Keibu.” He was dressed in a similar fashion as before, two swords tucked into his belt. This is what a Japaner person must look like, Audley thought. He was also wearing sandals with white socks. They were not made of wood.
“Why do you call me that?” Audley said with curiosity, not accusation, as he slowly sat up.
“Keibu means Inspector. It is a very honored position.”
“Is there a lot of crime in Japan?”
“Very little. He is more of a hero to the peasants, who have no one else to protect them. They cannot afford samurai and samurai don’t care for them.” Maddox sat down next to him and offered up a plate of food. “Eat.”
“Is that an order?”
“It’s a good idea.”
He slowly consumed his food under Maddox’s watchful eye. Maybe it was the swords on his side that made the Englishman that much more intimidating, but his concern seemed genuine enough – certainly enough for him to enforce it.
“Are you dizzy?”
Despite the fact that he had been upright for some time now, Audley replied, “No.”
“Does your head hurt?”
“Like I was trampled, yes.”
“I hear you practically were.” Maddox took the empty plate from him, setting it on the tray. “As far as we know, you can trust the innkeeper – Anton?”
“Yes.”
“And the girl; Camille. But I’ll be on guard, anyway.” He turned back to Audley. “Do you need to write to anyone?”
“If I report this, they’ll take me off the case.”
“So?”
“So? Someone will just come in and do whatever the marquis says, hang some innocent rogue for being the Wolf, and leave. Like it would have happened, if all went according to the marquis’s plan. But they got me instead, and I have this rather silly idea that the law is not upheld to the whims of nobility.”
“How unfortunate for this marquis that I’ve heard so much about.”
“All good things, I’m sure.”
“He seems to be a rather infamous character.”
Clearly, Georgiana had told her uncle her version of everything. Audley had no doubt that she would have. This newcomer probably knew more about the Wolf than he did. Could he trick the information out of him? It depended how good his bodyguard was with his swords. “Indeed.”
“Inspector, you look tired. The color’s gone out of you. Here,” Maddox said, passing him a cup. “Drink this before you pass out.”
Audley did as he was told. It turned out to be a very sweet wine, and it was the last thing he remembered as he slid back into bed.
CHAPTER 10
Audley was not allowed to sleep through the night. He was roused twice, made to sit up, and drink some juice or tea. Finally he woke himself, and it was light. Only the curtains kept the sun from really hurting his eyes. “What time is it?”
“Nearly ten,” came the answer from the floor. It was Brian Maddox, sitting cross-legged, his long sword in one hand and a metal ball with oil on it in the other. Audley watched with sluggish interest as he carefully polished his sword.
“There’s – there’s a mark on it.”
“Yes,” Brian said. “The name of the owner. Shiroho-no-Fuma. Miyoshi, as you may remember him from the book. That was an alias.”
“So – these were the swords he gave you?”
“Yes.”
Audley still hadn’t moved much from his sleeping position, on his side, and he liked it that way. “How did he die?”
“It says it in the book.”
“How did he actually die?”
“He committed suicide. I did try to talk him out of it.”
“He hanged himself?”
Maddox stopped his polishing. “You are a rather gruesome man, like my brother, but you don’t have the excu
se of being a surgeon.”
“But I am a man who examines dead bodies for a living.”
“True,” Maddox said with a sort of sad smile. He replaced his blade, and drew the shorter one, holding it against his chest. “In the ritual of seppuku, the person stabs themselves in the stomach with this sort of knife, a tanto.”
Audley cringed. “What a painful way to die.”
“If he has truly earned an honorable death, a second person vows to end his suffering by cutting off his head after a few seconds. So, a samurai carries around all of the equipment for suicide.”
Audley said nothing, slowly chewing on this information like food before drawing his conclusion. “You were the other man.”
“Yes,” Maddox said sadly. “I didn’t want to, I assure you. I hadn’t truly ‘gone native’ as they say. But he asked me – begged me – and I would have insulted a dying man not to honor his wish.” He replaced the smaller blade. “That is not in the book.”
“People here would call you a murderer.”
“Many times over. A lot of things are not in the book.”
“It must be a very brutal society.”
“Yes and no. They are not so taken with the notion that death is bad. It is, after all, an inevitable part of life. They are better at accepting that than we are.” Brian looked up at him. “Have you ever succeeded in bringing a man back to life by bringing his killer to justice?”
“No, but I hope I’ve prevented other murders.”
“So you investigate the past to affect the future.”
It was too early in the morning for this – even though it was late. “Essentially, yes. But I usually concentrate on other things – facts, connections.” He cocked his head, beginning to sit up. “What does a samurai concentrate on?”
“His mission.” Maddox left Audley to ponder this, continuing his work in silence.
Audley did eventually sit up. He bathed, which was a wonderful luxury, and shaved himself – very carefully – after breakfast. Mr. Maddox insisted on him drinking some kind of tea with bark smashed up into it for his headache, and when it did seem to lessen, Audley put up no more fuss.
He passed his enforced convalescence quietly, flipping through his notes. It seemed as though the first ones had been written ages ago, perhaps by another hand. The names floated around on the page, and not just as a trick of the eye from a man with a rattled brain. The marquis. Lady Littlefield. Simon Roux. Sir DuBois. Sophie Murrell. Georgiana Bingley. All connected by only one thing – the Wolf.
Were his designs from the start only concerning the marquis? If so, the marquis only fit into the puzzle with that rumor about his wolfish habits in a red coat – that had never been found. He circled ‘red coat’ again. None of the servants claimed to have stolen it, and the marquis had no reason to have it destroyed – it would only serve to fuel the rumor. Who did that leave? People with regular access to the manor. Regular guests. The same people on his list – Sir DuBois. The Rousseau’s. Heather Littlefield. Georgiana.
Georgiana!
Why hadn’t he seen it? She worked for the Wolf. She was a regular visitor who was virtually ignored every time – the marquis, upon their first interview, barely recalled her name despite the fact that he saw her with great regularity. He knew she was occasionally separated from her friend Lady Littlefield – after all, the marquis must have taken his fiancée aside to hit her (if he indeed had, as Georgiana claimed). It would not have been in front of guests or during a dinner party. Maybe it was a quiet dinner – leaving Georgiana alone. Maybe she had agreed to it – after all, she had done enough snooping to interview Sophie. She was small and apparently could make herself unnoticeable. It was within a definite realm of possibility.
While he did not consider that mystery unsolved, he set it aside. This had more to do with murders than a coat. Mrs. Bernard, he was fairly sure, was a victim of his own investigations into the marquis’s servants. She had needed to be silenced. Another name off the list. The third, the cattle, had been killed as a relatively harmless act of revenge by the Wolf for the killing of its so-called brethren. (But how had it gotten a wolf skin without killing a wolf?) Next, the unnamed bandit, who had been attempting to kill yet another servant of the marquis who held information against him. This time the Wolf had been ready and gotten in the way, saving Sophie’s life. And finally, the last murder – only attempted – his. For 500 francs a man had attacked him and the Wolf had saved him. Not an insignificant part of the case.
Go back to the beginning. Simon Roux. Was he an example? Was he meant to start the cycle? There was still no positive connection to the marquis. The only connections he could draw were to Georgiana and Sir DuBois, both tenuous.
What am I doing wrong? Why is this case so hard to solve? Why is everyone holding back information from me?
Thinking was making his head hurt worse. He closed his notes and managed to walk around a bit. He was somewhat recovered from the day before, a promising sign. Maddox attended him throughout the day, occasionally changing the bandage on the small nick on his head. “Can’t be too careful,” the Englishman said. “Some of my brother’s medical neuroticism seems to have rubbed off on me.”
“You talk about your brother, in your book,” Audley said during one of the washings. “But you never talk about him.”
“Of course not. The book was born of letters I wrote to him but could never send, and he encouraged me to publish them, but he’s a very private man.”
“He’s younger than you, I think. You mention that.”
“When our father died, I was eighteen and he was ten. I raised him, even though I wasn’t ready. He had medical problems – with his eyes. He’ll be blind in a few years. He retired from the royal service because of it.”
“The royal service?”
“I couldn’t mention it for legal reasons, but at the time that I wrote, my brother was the royal physician to King George, while he was still Prince Regent. He retired because of his declining vision, and His Majesty knighted him for his loyal service.”
“And his wife is – ”
“ – Bingley’s sister, yes. Charles is younger than her. They have the same red hair – that’s where Georgiana gets it. Her mother is blond. Hold still.”
“It’s cold,” Audley said, referring to the compress.
“So?” Maddox said. “Be a man.”
“So you came to see if Miss Bingley was in trouble, didn’t you?”
“Clever man,” Maddox said, pressing down the new bandage. “There. Done. Yes, I was a bit alarmed that she lived so near to a murder investigation. And I am a bit of a wanderlust, so I came.” He stood up, putting the medical items away. “If you’re feeling up to it, the marquis has extended an invitation to both of us to dinner tomorrow night.”
“Really?”
“It seems he has heard of my celebrity, and once again I am to be the object of spectacle. A hardship a famous writer who went on all sorts of wild adventures must endure.”
“But the invitation was also to me?”
Maddox shrugged. “Who knows? Perhaps he wishes to make amends.”
But it was clear they both doubted it.
~~~
Inspector Audley was much recovered by the following evening. He spent the morning walking in the fields near the tavern with Maddox, and rested in the afternoon before swallowing copious amounts of Maddox’s willow-bark brew and dressing himself for dinner.
Brian Maddox was dressed in his Japanese robes, this time with a black top and a matching black jacket over it – perhaps this was Oriental formal dress. His long sword he carried, the other securely on his waist. Some of it for show, Audley was sure.
Three days had passed since Audley had sparred with the marquis, and he still wore a bandage on his injured head, but he felt he was prepared. He needed a break in this case, and it would only come through the marquis, the man more central to the story than the Wolf himself.
It was an odd assem
bly that greeted them at the door. Lady Littlefield was by the marquis’s side, with Georgiana of course a step behind them, blending into the background as usual. The other guest was none other than Sir DuBois, who greeted Brian most delightfully.
So the cast is assembled, Audley thought, feeling clearheaded and glad to have his mental faculties back. The marquis expressed his contentment at being able to host the “literary master of the travelogue”, and on Audley’s recovery. Audley shot a queer look to Georgiana, who rolled her eyes at the comment.
Dinner was a sumptuous affair, certainly in comparison to the soft and simple foods Audley had been forced to consume over the last few days, when pain distracted him from his appetite. If the marquis wanted to make peace, so be it. Audley wouldn’t necessarily stop his investigations, but he would eat the man’s food.
“Will you be staying in the area long, Monsieur Maddox?”
“Not very,” Maddox said very politely. He was all smiles and congeniality. His long sword rested on his lap, out of sight for most of the table. Some of them probably thought it was a prop sword. “My plans are not set, but I must return for business purposes – and to finish my third novel.”
“Please, sir!” the marquis begged, “You must give us a preview!”
“Hmm,” Maddox said, leaning back in his chair as the fourth course, soup, was served. “First I must decide which part is most definitely a part I will be allowed to tell.”
“Have you been holding back on your readers, Mr. Maddox?” DuBois said.
“Of course I have. One can hardly include personal information in a published work. But in this case, I was on a diplomatic mission to see the Emperor of Japan, so I must protect myself legally. I will say that we – my cousin and I – utterly failed to convince him to open the country of Japan to foreigners, obviously.”
“You met the Emperor of Japan?” asked a nervous Lady Littlefield. She rarely spoke at these dinners, but this time, she could not withhold her curiosity.
“Not precisely. I was, briefly, in the same room with him and the shogun, a warlord who actually controls the country. The Emperor is divine, but politically, he is just a figurehead. However, we were not permitted to see him. He sat on a throne behind a red silk screen. His name is Emperor Ninkō, and I believe he is the 120th emperor, or so they claim.”
“Well, what did he sound like?” DuBois said, obviously fascinated.
Other Tales: Stories from The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy Page 13
