The Underwater Ballroom Society

by Y. S. Lee

  Bertrand looked up and shook his head. The maid let out another tearing sob. Shocked murmurs came from the crowd.

  “Did anyone see what happened?” Bertrand asked.

  The maid gave a minute nod. “I…I was just walking along when…when…he almost hit me! He almost landed on me.”

  “He fell?”

  The maid nodded. She seemed to be having trouble breathing.

  “We were there, too,” an elderly lady said, “just behind the girl.” Her husband nodded.

  “Did any of you see anyone else? Anyone on the balcony?”

  A shake of the head.

  Harriet slipped out of the crowd and joined Bertrand beside the body.

  “Here! What exactly are you doing, young lady?” someone in the crowd demanded.

  “I’m a police inspector,” Bertrand said. “She’s with me.” He leaned close to Harriet. “What have you noticed?”

  “Not sure.” She reached down and slid her hand under the body, suppressing the urge to shudder. There. She’d been right. Her fingers closed on paper, and she slowly drew it out, careful not to tear it.

  It was a newspaper. With a feeling of growing dread, she turned it over. The Tharsis Times. On the front page were the headlines she memorized about the new manufactory and the Mars-ship crash. Inside, on page four, Harriet noticed a story about a scandal at Mrs. Parkinson’s birthday ball, whoever Mrs. Parkinson was. She recognized that story, too.

  There was no doubt about it. This was the twelfth of April, 1816 edition.

  This man was her contact, and he was dead.

  “Make way, make way!” a loud voice bellowed. The crowd around the body parted to admit Sir William Huntsworth, Bertrand’s boss. “What have you done, Simpson?”

  Bertrand looked up, startled.

  “This man seems to have fallen from the balcony,” Harriet said when it was obvious that Bertrand wasn’t going to answer.

  “Tripped and fell, did he?” Sir William said. “Saw him, did you?”

  Harriet flushed. “Well, no.”

  “Thought not. Chap’s been murdered. What do you have to say for yourself, Simpson?”

  “Um…”

  “Do something about it, man!”

  “But…” Bertrand stared at the body. Harriet knew exactly how Bertrand’s mind worked. Right now, her brother-in-law was thinking Sir William wanted him to un-murder the victim. Unfortunately, it seemed Sir William knew how Bertrand’s mind worked, too.

  “Find out who murdered him, idiot. Arrest them.”

  Bertrand straightened. “Sir.”

  Sir William turned away with a snort, bullying his way back through the crowd. Bertrand slumped and panic overtook his face.

  “Harry…”

  “It’s all right,” Harriet said. “You’ve solved a murder before, remember? And you found the Glass Phantom. No one else ever managed that.”

  Of course it had been Harriet who had done both of those things, but now was not the time to remind him of it.

  “Right. Right.” Bertrand’s breath slowed. “Um…”

  “Start questioning people. Ask the hotel staff who he was. Maybe he had an argument with someone. I’m going to search for clues here. And you should probably get rid of this crowd. Give the man some dignity.”

  “Excellent. Yes. Right.” He puffed out his breath. “Good.”

  The moment Bertrand started to shepherd the guests and hotel staff away, Harriet knelt beside the body and ran her hands over the man’s jacket and trousers. All she knew was that he had a package for her. She didn’t know how big it was or what it contained.

  The dead man had nothing in his pockets. Harriet ran her fingers over the seams of his clothing, then removed his shoes. Still nothing. She sat back on her heels. So. He’d either left the package elsewhere, or whoever had killed him had taken it. If that were the case, how had they known he was making contact with the British-Martian Intelligence Service? Had someone in the service leaked the information, or had her contact made a mistake and given himself away?

  She looked over her shoulder and met the eyes of Reginald Pratt, Viscount Brotherton, her supervisor. He was smirking at her. She felt cold. Could he have done this just to make her fail? Could he have been in on it? Surely not. Even Reginald Pratt wouldn’t betray his country. Would he?

  A straightforward mission. That was what Lady Felchester had said. She’d failed it already.

  No. She’d never been one to give up. Her contact might be dead, but she could still retrieve the package. If the dead man had hidden it, she could discover it. If it had been taken, she could find out by whom and get it back. She wouldn’t be beaten like this. Not so easily and not so quickly.

  “I’m going to look on the balcony,” Harriet said. “Search for clues.”

  She stepped past the body, trying not to look into the man’s dead eyes, then made her way up the stairs.

  The balcony was wide. A hallway stretched away to more bedrooms. Harriet made a mental note to find out which guests were in those rooms. In one corner, an immobile automatic servant stood awaiting orders from the guests.

  “Shame you can’t be a witness,” Harriet muttered. But it was only a machine. A complicated one, but a machine nonetheless. It couldn’t remember what it had seen.

  The balcony was higher than Harriet’s waist, almost up to her chest. There was no way the victim could just have fallen or slipped over. He must have been pushed, and by someone strong. And there. A scuff mark on the polished marble. Not something the staff would leave for long. From the victim or his assailant. But that just confirmed what she’d already guessed. Her contact had been murdered.

  She joined Bertrand at the foot of the stairs.

  One of the hotel footmen was covering the body in a blanket. Then, a couple of automatic servants carried it into a storeroom. The hotel manager, a Mr. Ellis, followed them in.

  “His name’s James Strachan,” the manager said. “He’s not been with us a week. Recommended, though. Came to us from Lord Barton in Tharsis City, apparently.”

  “Thank you,” Bertrand said. “We’ll want to talk to you later.” He indicated the door. “If you please?”

  “Ah. Yes. At your convenience, of course.”

  Bertrand and Harriet escorted the manager out. Harriet’s gaze lingered on the body. Should she have found him first, before he was killed? Would Lady Felchester have expected that? Would he still be alive if she had? Would she be dead instead? She shivered. She hadn’t expected any of this. A straightforward mission.

  Bertrand closed the door, locked it, and pocketed the key.

  “Did you notice his socks, Harry?” Bertrand said, as they made their way to the dining room where the guests had been gathered.

  “His socks?” Harriet frowned. “I saw the initials. J.S. James Strachan. That doesn’t really tell us anything.”

  “Not that.” He waved a hand dismissively. “The pattern.”

  Harriet racked her brains. The pattern. Diamonds, hadn’t it been? With a green stripe. She hadn’t paid much attention other than to assure herself there was nothing hidden within.

  “What about it?”

  “They’re Queen Anne Academy socks. You know, the big school on the western edge of Tharsis City? Only Queen Anne boys or masters wear those socks.”

  Harriet nodded, impressed despite herself. Why hadn’t she known that? It wasn’t important, but she still should have noticed. It was her job.

  “It’s an expensive place.”

  Bertrand nodded. “So why is a Queen Anne boy working as a footman in a hotel?”

  That one was easy. It was a cover to get him close to her unnoticed so he could hand over the package. Only if she told Bertrand that, she would be betraying her role and her oath of secrecy.

  “I shouldn’t bother about that,” Harriet said, trying to make her voice sound casual. “I don’t think it’s important. Let’s question people and leave it.”

  Bertrand chewed his lip. “I…
don’t think I will, Harry, if it’s all the same with you. This feels like a clue.” He grinned. “I am a police inspector, you know. We have a nose for these kinds of things. Maybe there’s someone else from his school here. There might be a motive there.”

  Hell. Hellfire and damnation! Harriet was messing up his investigation. She should come clean. But she couldn’t. Where do your loyalties lie? With your family, the people who helped raise you? Or with the service? Or are you just being selfish, more interested in playing spy than helping your brother-in-law? She didn’t know the answer, but she knew she wasn’t sharing her secret. Not yet, anyway.

  The next two hours saw Bertrand and Harriet interviewing the staff and guests as to their whereabouts at the time of the murder and their relationships with the victim. Harriet hadn’t realized there were so many people in the hotel, but fortunately, most were able to provide alibis. By the end, they were left with only a dozen people who were unaccounted for or only able to rely on family to confirm where they had been. Fortunately, most of the hotel was run by automatic servants, with human staff only being used to interact with the guests, so, with the exception of the hotel manager, all had alibis for when the death had occurred. Even the young maid who had seen James Strachan fall to his death had, of course, been in sight of an elderly couple at the time. Both the elderly couple and the maid had heard a strange, discordant whistling just before the event, but further questioning of the staff revealed that Strachan was prone to whistling terribly as he went about his work.

  They were left with the Edgeware family; Colonel and Mrs. Fitzpatrick; the angry student from the train, whose name was Sebastian Davies and who was trying to write a monograph on the ruins; the exiled Comte d’Arcy, fled from Napoleon’s forces on Earth; guests the Reverend and Mrs. Asheville; the hotel manager, Mr. Ellis; and, satisfyingly for Harriet, Reginald Pratt, Viscount Brotherton.

  At the end of it, Harriet was ready to leap out of her seat and go tearing around the hotel in frustration. None of them seemed to have a motive and all claimed to have been far from the incident. There was nothing to contradict their claims either.

  Bertrand sat back, running his hand through his hair.

  “This is all a bit of a pickle, Harry. I don’t see any of them pushing some chap over the railing. I mean, Colonel Fitzpatrick would be capable, but that’s not the way he’d do it. He’d call the fellow out and run a sword right through him. I hate this, Harry. Remind me why I wanted to become a policeman?” He sighed. “At least we can rule the Edgewares out. They’re hardly going to murder someone with a couple of children in tow. They wouldn’t do that. Children change you, Harry. They’re such a delight.” A wistful smile settled on his face.

  “You don’t actually have any children yet, Bertrand,” Harriet reminded him.

  “Oh, they’ll be lovely. Any child of Amy’s has to be a delight.”

  Only because you didn’t know Amy when she was a child, Harriet thought. She was eight years younger than her sister, but she still remembered how sneaky Amy had been.

  “We need to know more about our suspects,” Harriet said. “Why don’t you see if the hotel has any old newspapers? Go through them and see if any of our suspects are mentioned. We need to know if they are who they say they are, and if so, if they’re keeping any secrets. Get some background on them.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I think I should go and search Strachan’s room,” Harriet said. “There might be some clues.” And maybe Strachan had hidden the package he was supposed to deliver to her there.

  The staff accommodation was set at the back of the hotel. Here the elaborate photon-emission chandeliers were replaced by hand-wound friction-lamps and there were no windows onto the depths of the Valles Marineris. Harriet was relieved to see that they weren’t using gas lamps like many houses still did. A buildup of gas or a failure of the air supply… Just thinking about it made her chest feel tight. And that made her wonder how many millions of tons of water were pressing down on this structure of stone, steel, and glass.

  The hotel has been operating for two years. It’s not going to fail now.

  “What the devil are you doing here?”

  Harriet’s head jerked up. Sir William was striding down the hallway toward her.

  “Um… Deputy Chief Inspector Simpson asked me to examine the victim’s room.”

  Sir William narrowed his eyes. “Are you a police officer?”

  “No, but—”

  “Simpson should do it himself. What’s wrong with the man?”

  “He’s interviewing suspects and he doesn’t want to waste time.” Harriet tilted her head, as though an idea had just occurred to her. “Perhaps you could assist? You are a policeman.”

  Sir William stepped back as though slapped. “I? I am the head of the Tharsis City Police Service. I am here to represent Tharsis City, not to…to solve crimes.” He stomped past her, shaking his head.

  Harriet let a small smile touch her lips as she continued down the hallway. Pompous idiot.

  The manager had given her a key to Strachan’s room, but the door was unlocked. She pushed it open.

  Someone had been there already. The mattress had been tipped off the bed and slit down the side, its stuffing pulled free in handfuls. The small wardrobe had been flung open, emptied, and tipped on its side. Strachan’s trunk had been upturned and the base smashed in. Even the washstand and the chamber pot had been broken.

  Hell! She’d been right, then. Someone knew about Strachan and the packet. Had they searched and, not finding it, murdered him? Or had they killed him first and then come here? And, she thought, looking over her shoulder, did they know about her?

  There was no package in the room. Harriet leafed through Strachan’s papers. A couple of letters from a friend in Tharsis City and what seemed like a not very good poem. She pocketed them. Strachan’s information could be written in code. Still, they weren’t exactly a package. After a moment’s hesitation, Harriet gathered up all the blank paper, too. There were a dozen ways of passing invisible messages, and she didn’t have the equipment here to check. She cursed herself again. She should have been better prepared. Just because a mission seemed straightforward, that didn’t mean it was. That had been one of her first lessons after she’d joined the service. Lessons and Tharsis City seemed a long way away.

  There was an auto-scribe on the small desk. Its speaking tube was lowered and the pen raised from its pad. Harriet frowned. Not something a hotel would provide for its staff, nor something a footman could afford, but something most gentlemen would own. Careless of Strachan to give himself away like that.

  Harriet lowered the pen arm, opened the lid of the auto-scribe, remove the coiled spring, and carefully wound the mechanism backward. It was a useful trick. Often it would cause the last few dictated words to be rewritten. But not this time. The machine had been reset.

  Strachan’s clothes were scattered across the floor. Harriet quickly checked them over. There was a fine red dust caught in the cuffs of his shirt, and the clothes were very lightweight. The manager had said Strachan had come here from Tharsis City, but even with the Spring warmth, it was too early in the year for clothes like this in Tharsis. The red dust spoke more of the Lunae Planum, the great desert to the north of British Mars. So, he’d come from the desert—probably Lunae City—to bring his information. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  She let herself out and locked the room behind her. Maybe Bertrand had picked something up, someone who had seen something, someone who had gotten to know Strachan while he worked here.

  Two swift footsteps sounded behind her. Harriet spun, but too late. A blanket fell over her head, then was pulled tight. Someone kicked her legs away from under her.

  She twisted as she fell, landing on her back with a thump that jarred her teeth. A weight landed on her, pinning her down.

  “Where’s the package?” a voice hissed, muffled by the blanket.

  Two of them. One hol
ding the blanket over her head. The other sitting on her, hands searching her jacket. Even though she wanted to scream at the violation, Harriet forced herself to keep calm, keep still, listen to the breathing, visualize him. He was just above her. There.

  She cupped her hands and brought them up, clapping as hard as she could over his ears.

  The man screamed. He jerked back, and Harriet used his loss of balance to hook an arm around his neck and topple him to the side.

  “Hey!” the second man shouted. He tugged on the tightened blanket. Harriet went with the momentum, rolling and sending a vicious kick toward her assailant. He let go of the blanket as he fell back.

  Harriet struggled to her feet, pulling the blanket free. She shook her hair from her eyes just in time to see two figures disappearing around the corner. One was still clutching his ears, the other was limping. She watched them go.

  Damnation. They didn’t have the package either, but somehow they’d identified her. Surely she hadn’t been so obvious, had she? Maybe they’d just been watching Strachan’s room. If not, her cover had been leaked, and that was a disaster. She could see Lady Felchester’s face even now. Contact dead, failed to retrieve package, cover blown…

  The package hadn’t been on Strachan’s body and it wasn’t in his room. Where else? Where did he go? Where did he work? It had to be somewhere it wouldn’t be discovered.

  Nursing her bruises, Harriet limped back to the dining room where she and Bertrand had questioned the guests and staff.

  The room was in chaos. Bertrand stood on a chair at one end of the room, waving his arms wildly. A great crowd milled around the room, filling almost every inch, seemingly focused on something happening near a big glass window. Harriet elbowed her way over to Bertrand.

  “What’s going on?”

  Bertrand peered down at her. His hair was sticking in every direction and his cravat hung loose.

  “Oh. There you are. Sir Lancelot Coverdale has arrived.” He offered Harriet a hand and pulled her up onto the chair next to him. Harriet saw that the crowd had gathered around a tall, blond–haired man who stood framed by the window. “He says he’s going to solve the murder.”