Professor Lyall hung his hat and coat on a spindly hat stand crowded behind the door and took one of the chairs. It was like sitting inside a bowl of Easter candy. Ivy settled herself onto the settee. The young maid, having followed them in, gave the mistress of the house a quizzical look.
“Tea, Professor Lyall, or would you prefer something, uh, bloodier?”
“Tea would be lovely, Mrs. Tunstell.”
“You are certain? I have some delightful kidney set aside for a pie tomorrow, and it is getting on to full moon.”
Professor Lyall smiled. “Your husband has been telling you things about living with werewolves, hasn’t he?”
Ivy blushed slightly. “Perhaps a little. I am afraid I have been terribly nosy. I find your culture fascinating. I do hope you do not think me impertinent.”
“Not at all. But, really, just tea would be perfectly fine.”
Ivy nodded to her maid, and the young girl scuttled off, clearly excited.
“We don’t get many visitors of your caliber,” lamented Ivy.
Professor Lyall was too much a gentleman to remark that Miss Hisselpenny’s elopement, and consequent loss of what little status she’d had, made her a less than desirable acquaintance for most. Only a high-ranking original, as Lady Maccon had been, could afford to continue such an association. Now that Alexia herself had fallen from grace, Ivy must be a veritable social pariah.
“How is the hat shop coming on?”
Mrs. Tunstell’s big hazel eyes lit up with pleasure. “Well, I have only had it under my charge for the one day. Of course, I kept it open this evening as well. I know Madame Lefoux caters to the supernatural set, but you would not believe the things one overhears in a hat shop. Only this afternoon, I learned Miss Wibbley was engaged.”
Prior to Ivy’s marriage, Professor Lyall knew she had relied upon Alexia, who was at best disinterested and at worst obtuse, for all her society gossip. As a result, Ivy had been in a constant state of frustration.
“So you are enjoying yourself?”
“Immeasurably. I never thought trade could be so very entertaining. Why, this evening, Miss Mabel Dair paid us a call. The actress, you’ve heard of her?” Ivy looked to Professor Lyall inquiringly.
The werewolf nodded.
“Well, she came by to pick up a special order for Countess Nadasdy herself. I had no idea the countess even wore hats. I mean to say”—Ivy looked to Lyall in confusion—“she does not actually leave her house, does she?”
Professor Lyall highly doubted that a special order from Madame Lefoux for a vampire queen bore any resemblance whatsoever to a hat, aside from being transported inside a hatbox. But he perked up with interest. He had thought to ask Tunstell for information as to Lord Akeldama’s disappearance, given the vampire’s affection for the theater and Tunstell’s previous investigative training under Lyall’s tutelage, but perhaps Ivy might unwittingly have some information to impart. Mabel Dair, after all, was Countess Nadasdy’s favorite drone.
“And how did Miss Dair seem?” he asked carefully.
The maid returned and Ivy fussed with the tea trolley. “Oh, not at all the thing. Dear Miss Dair and I have become almost friendly since my marriage. She and Tunny have appeared onstage together. She was clearly most upset about something. And I said to her, I did, I said, ‘My dear Miss Dair,’ I said, ‘you do not look at all the thing! Would you like to sit, take a little tea?’ And I think she might have.” Ivy paused and studied Professor Lyall’s carefully impassive face. “You are aware, she is a bit of a, well, I hardly like to say it to a gentleman of your persuasion, but a, um, vampire drone.” Ivy whispered this as if she could not quite believe her own daring at being even a nodding acquaintance with such a person.
Professor Lyall smiled slightly. “Mrs. Tunstell, do you forget I work for the Bureau of Unnatural Registry? I am well aware of her status.”
“Oh, of course you are. How silly of me.” Ivy covered her embarrassment by pouring the tea. “Milk?”
“Please. And do go on. Did Miss Dair relay the nature of her distress?”
“Well, I do not think she intended me to overhear. She was discussing something with her companion. That tall, good-looking gentleman I met at Alexia’s wedding—Lord Ambrittle, I believe it was.”
“Lord Ambrose?”
“Yes, that! Such a nice man.”
Professor Lyall forbore to mention that Lord Ambrose was, in fact, a not very nice vampire.
“Well, apparently, dear Miss Dair caught the countess and some gentleman or another arguing. A potent gentleman, she kept saying, whatever that means. And she said she thought the countess was accusing this gentleman of having taken something from Lord Akeldama. Quite astonishing. Why would a potent man want to steal from Lord Akeldama?”
“Mrs. Tunstell,” Professor Lyall said very precisely and unhurriedly, “did Lord Ambrose notice that you had overheard this?”
“Why? Is it a matter of significance?” Ivy popped a sugared rose petal into her mouth and blinked at her guest.
“It is certainly intriguing.” Lyall took a cautious drink of his tea. It was excellent.
“I hate to speak ill of such a nice man, but I believe he did not recognize me. He may even have thought I was a genuine shopgirl. Shocking, I know, but I was standing behind a sales counter at the time.” She paused and sipped her tea. “I thought you might find the information useful.”
At that, Professor Lyall gave Mrs. Tunstell a sharp look. He wondered for the first time how much of Ivy was, in fact, comprised of dark curls and big eyes and ridiculous hats and how much of that was for show.
Ivy returned his direct gaze with a particularly innocent smile. “The great advantage,” she said, “of being thought silly, is that people forget and begin to think one might also be foolish. I may, Professor Lyall, be a trifle enthusiastic in my manner and dress, but I am no fool.”
“No, Mrs. Tunstell, I can see that.” And Lady Maccon, thought Lyall, would not be so friendly with you if you were.
“I believe Miss Dair was overset, or she would not have been so indiscreet in public.”
“Ah, and what is your excuse?”
Ivy laughed. “I am well aware, Professor, that my dearest Alexia does not tell me much about certain aspects of her life. Her friendship with Lord Akeldama, for example, has always remained a mystery to me. I mean really, he is too outrageous. But her judgment is sound. I should have told her what I heard, were she still in town. As it stands, I judge you will make an adequate substitute. You stand very high in my husband’s regard. Besides which, I simply do not believe it is right. Potent gentlemen should not go around stealing things from Lord Akeldama.”
Professor Lyall knew perfectly well the identity of Ivy’s “potent gentleman.” It meant that this was rapidly becoming an ever more serious and ever more vampire-riddled conundrum. The potentate was the premier rove in all of England, Queen Victoria’s chief strategist and her most treasured supernatural advisor. He sat on the Shadow Council with the dewan, werewolf loner and commander in chief of the Royal Lupine Guard. Until recently, Alexia had been their third. The potentate was one of the oldest vampires on the island. And he had stolen something from Lord Akeldama. Professor Lyall would wager good money on the fact that it was in pursuit of that very object that had caused Lord Akeldama, and all of his drones, to leave London.
What a fine kettle of fangs this is becoming, he thought.
Mostly unaware of the exploding steam engine she had just landed her guest in, Ivy Tunstell bobbed her curls at Professor Lyall and offered him another cup of tea. Lyall decided that his best possible course of action was to head home to Woolsey Castle and go to sleep. Often vampires were better understood after a good day’s rest.
Consequently, he declined the tea.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Trial by Snuff, Kumquat, and Exorcism
Alexia’s legs were stiff from the cold, but at least they were decently covered by her skirts once more, even if
those skirts were now coated in mud as well as burned by acid. She sighed. She must look like a veritable gypsy with her spattered dispatch case and wild hair. Madame Lefoux also looked the worse for wear, speckled with mud, her goggles dangling about her neck. Her top hat was still secured to her head by the long scarf, but her mustache was decidedly askew. Only Floote somehow managed to look entirely unruffled as they skulked—there really was no other word for it—through the side alleys of Nice in the wee hours of the morning.
Nice proved itself smaller than Paris, characterized by a casual seaside attitude. Madame Lefoux, however, hinted darkly that the city’s “Italian troubles” of ten years ago remained, hidden but unabated, and that this upsetting situation gave Nice a restless undertone not always sensed by strangers.
“Imagine! Trying to contend that Nice is really Italian. Pah.” Madame Lefoux flicked one hand dismissively and glared at Alexia, as though Alexia might side with the Italians in this matter.
Alexia tried to think of something reassuring to say. “I am certain there is hardly any pasta in the whole city,” was the best rejoinder she could come up with on such short notice.
Madame Lefoux only increased the pace of their skulking, leading them around a pile of discarded rags into a dingy little alleyway.
“I do hope the ornithopter will be safe where we left it.” Alexia tried to change the subject as she followed her friend, lifting her skirts away from the rags. There was hardly any point in the effort at this juncture, but instinct dictated one’s skirts be lifted.
“Should be. It’s out of gunpowder charges, and very few, apart from Gustave and myself, know how to fly it. I shall send him a note as to its location. I do apologize for that unfortunate landing.”
“You mean that unfortunate crash?”
“At least I chose a soft bit of ground.”
“Duck ponds usually are soft. You do realize, ornithopter only means bird? You don’t actually have to treat it as such.”
“At least it didn’t explode.”
Alexia paused in her skulking. “Oh, do you believe it ought to have done so?”
Madame Lefoux gave one of her annoying little French shrugs.
“Well I think your ornithopter has earned its name.”
“Oh, yes?” The inventor looked resigned.
“Yes. The Muddy Duck.”
“Le Canard Boueux? Very funny.”
Floote gave a tiny snort of amusement. Alexia glared at him. How had he managed to entirely avoid the mud?
Madame Lefoux led them to a small door that once might have been colored blue, and then yellow, and then green, a history it displayed proudly in crumbling strips of paint all down the front. The Frenchwoman knocked softly at first, and then more and more loudly until she was banging quite violently on the poor door.
The only reaction the racket caused was the immediate commencement of an unending bout of hysterical barking from some species of diminutive canine in possession of the other side of the door.
Floote gestured with his head at the doorknob. Alexia looked closely at it under the flickering torchlight; Nice apparently was not sophisticated enough for gas streetlamps. It was brass, and mostly unassuming, except that there was a very faint etched symbol on its surface, almost smoothed away by hundreds of hands—a chubby little octopus.
After a good deal more banging and barking, the door cautiously opened a crack to reveal a mercurial little man wearing a red and white striped nightshirt and cap, and a half-frightened, half-sleepy expression. A dirty feather duster on four legs bounced feverishly about his bare ankles. Much to Alexia’s surprise, given her recent experience with Frenchmen, the man had no mustache. The feather duster did. Perhaps in Nice mustaches were more common on canines?
Her surprise was abated, however, when the little man spoke, not in French, but in German.
When his staccato sentence was met only by three blank expressions, he evaluated their manners and dress and switched to heavily accented English.
“Ya?”
The duster ejected itself through the partly opened door and attacked Madame Lefoux, gnawing at the hem of her trouser leg. What Madame Lefoux’s excellent woolen trousers had done to insult the creature, Alexia could not begin to fathom.
“Monsieur Lange-Wilsdorf?” Madame Lefoux tried tactfully to shake off the animal with her foot.
“Who would be wishing to know?”
“I am Lefoux. We have been in correspondence these last few months. Mr. Algonquin Shrimpdittle recommended the introduction.”
“I thought you were of the, uh, persuasion of the feminine.” The gentleman squinted at Madame Lefoux suspiciously.
Madame Lefoux winked at him and doffed her top hat. “I am.”
“Leave off, Poche!” barked the German at the tiny dog. “Monsieur Lange-Wilsdorf,” Madame Lefoux explained to Alexia and Floote, “is a biological analytical technician of some note. He has a particular expertise that you may find rather interesting, Alexia.”
The German opened his door farther and craned his neck to see around Madame Lefoux to where Alexia stood shivering.
“Alexia?” He scanned her face in the faint light of the street torch. “Not the Alexia Tarabotti, the Female Specimen?”
“Would it be good or bad if I were?” The lady in question was a little distressed to be engaging in a protracted doorstep conversation in the nighttime cold with a man garbed in red and white striped flannel.
Madame Lefoux said, with a flourish, “Yes, the Alexia Tarabotti.”
“I cannot believe it! The Female Specimen, at my door? Really?” The little man thrust said door wide and nipped out and around Madame Lefoux to grab Alexia warmly by the hand, pumping it up and down enthusiastically in the American style of greeting. The dog, perceiving a new threat, let go of Madame Lefoux’s trouser and began yipping again, heading in Alexia’s direction.
Alexia wasn’t really sure she enjoyed being referred to as a specimen. And the way the German looked at her was almost hungry.
Alexia prepared her parasol with her free hand. “I would not, young sir, if I were you,” she said to the dog. “My skirts have been through quite enough for one evening.” The dog appeared to think better of his attack and began jumping up and down in place, all four legs oddly straight.
“Come in, come in! The greatest marvel of the age, here, on my very doorstep. This is—how do you say?—fantastic, ya, fantastic!” The little man paused in his enthusiasm upon noticing Floote for the first time, silent and still to one side of the stoop.
“And who is this?”
“Uh, this is Mr. Floote, my personal secretary.” Alexia stopped staring ominously down at the dog in time to answer so Floote didn’t have to.
Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf let go of Alexia and went to walk a slow turn around Floote. The German gentleman was still in his nightshirt, in the street, but he didn’t seem to notice the faux pas. Alexia figured that as she had just shown her bloomers to half of France, she didn’t have the right to be scandalized by this behavior.
“Is he, is he really? Nothing more evil than that? No? Are you certain?” Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf reached out a crooked finger and yanked down Floote’s cravat and shirt, checking the neck area for marks.
Growling, the dog glommed onto Floote’s boot.
“Do you mind, sir?” Floote looked decidedly put-upon. Alexia couldn’t tell if it was the man or his dog that irritated most; Floote could abide neither a wrinkled collar nor damp shoes.
Seeing nothing incriminating, the German left off torturing Floote with his vulgar behavior. Once again he grabbed Alexia by the hand and positively dragged her into his tiny house. He gestured for the other two to follow, giving Floote yet another dubious once-over. The dog escorted them inside.
“Well, you realize, under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t. Not a man, not so late at night. Never can tell with the English. But I suppose, just this once. Though, I did hear some of the terrible, terrible rumors about you, young miss.�
� The German raised his chin and attempted to look down on Alexia, as though he were some kind of disapproving maiden aunt. It was a particularly unsuccessful look, as, aside from not being her aunt, he was a good head shorter than Alexia.
“Heard you had married a werewolf. Ya? What a thing for a preternatural to go and be doing. A most unfortunate choice for the Female Specimen.”
“Is it?” Alexia managed to get just those two words in before Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf continued on without apparent pause or need for breath, shepherding them into a messy little parlor.
“Yes, well, we all make the mistakes.”
“You have no idea,” muttered Alexia, feeling a strange aching pain of loss.
Madame Lefoux began poking about the room with interest. Floote took up his customary station by the door.
The dog, exhausted by his own frenzy, went and curled in front of the cold fireplace, a posture that made him look, if possible, even more like a common household cleaning device.
There was a bell rope near the door, which the little man began to tug on, at first gently and then with such enthusiasm he was practically swinging from it. “You will be wanting tea, I am certain. English are always with the wanting of tea. Sit down, sit down.”
Madame Lefoux and Alexia sat. Floote did not.
Their host bustled over to a little side table and took a small box out of a drawer. “Snuff?” He flipped the lid and offered the leaf about.
Everyone declined. But the German seemed unwilling to accept Floote’s refusal. “No, no, I insist.”
“I do not partake, sir,” objected Floote.
“Really, I insist.” A sudden hardness entered Mr. Lange-Wilsdorf’s eyes.
Floote shrugged, took a small portion, and inhaled delicately.
The German watched him closely the entire time. When Floote showed no abnormal reaction, the little man nodded to himself and put the snuffbox away.
The Parasol Protectorate Boxed Set Page 72
