The Constantine Affliction

by Tim Pratt

  Only when Ellie was settled to Winnie’s satisfaction did the woman of the house curl up in a chair by the window, smile enigmatically over the rim of a steaming cup of tea, and say, “Pimm thinks quite highly of you, it seems. He does not often invite those he’s only just met to stay overnight.”

  “It was a very kind offer,” Ellie said. “But if it is any imposition, I—”

  “Nonsense, I adore having a captive audience. Tell me, did you see anything terribly shocking while you were out with my husband?”

  Ellie considered. She was capable of writing sensational articles, and dramatizing situations to entertain the public, but in this case, she did not have the strength. It had been a long day and a longer night. “I saw a dead woman,” Ellie said. “And the murderer brushed past me in an alley. The night began as something of a lark, almost—dressed as a man, sneaking around in the darkness—but…”

  “You found the murderer, though. Pimm’s note said that much. So all is well. Yes?”

  “I suppose so. But the culprit, Mr. Worth, he implied there was some deeper conspiracy involved. We have solved one mystery, but we may have also found the leading edge of another.”

  “Then you simply must investigate further!” Winnie declared. “A crusading reporter and a dogged detective, fighting crime together. What combination could be better?”

  Ellie smiled. She had worried Lady Pembroke would be jealous or suspicious of her—a young unmarried woman, attaching herself so firmly to another woman’s husband. But Winnie seemed entirely unbothered by their relationship. Which made sense. Why should a wealthy, beautiful woman possibly worry about Ellie becoming close to her husband?

  Still. It would have been nice if she saw Ellie as something of a threat. Even if only slightly. Ellie felt more drab with every moment she spent in Winnie’s presence. “I am not sure your husband would welcome my further involvement. I am afraid I was rather indelicate when I offered my assistance—”

  “Threats of blackmail, hmm?” Winnie struck a lucifer against the surface of a beautiful antique table and lit another cigarette. “You threatened to write a story about him working for Abel Value?”

  Ellie stared at the floor. “I… may have implied something of the sort. But later he explained that he needed Value’s cooperation to capture the killer, and could not risk involving the police without losing Value’s assistance.” She considered mentioning that Pimm was also trying to protect someone he cared about from Value’s blackmail, but it was hardly her secret to reveal. And what if that someone was Lady Pembroke? Who knew what secrets her past hid?

  “Mmm. That does explain it,” Winnie said. “Pimm is not a bit nefarious, you know. He drinks too much—even more than I do—and he doesn’t tend to think much beyond the end of the night, or the end of the week at the latest, but he means well. He almost pathologically means well. If there is a mystery, he will find himself compelled to unravel it, and if you can assist him, I believe you should.” Winnie leaned forward. “He likes you, Ellie. I can tell from the note. He was most unsparing with his adjectives. And Pimm does not like many people. He finds people interesting, certainly, but liking them is a whole other proposition.” She yawned. “I’d best turn in. I have a busy day of being idle and rich and socially provocative ahead of me tomorrow. Do you need anything else?”

  “No, thank you. You’ve been too kind already.”

  “Sleep well, then, and I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll cook eggs. I like to dabble in the kitchen, and I’m getting quite good at it. Last time I made breakfast, hardly any bits of eggshell made it onto the plates.”

  The house was dark when Pimm arrived home, and he wove with the ease of long practice around the ottomans and tables and chairs until he reached his bedchamber. He’d made that walk successfully in far drunker circumstances than these—indeed, he was abominably sober, having emptied the flask he habitually carried in his jacket long ago. A fresh flask waited in his bedside table, and a last bit of brandy would send him off to sleep nicely, he hoped, banishing the cares and worries of the day before they could transform into dreams of broken skulls or wrathful crime lords.

  He sat on the edge of his bed to remove his shoes, not bothering with a light, and very nearly screamed when a quiet voice said, “Good morning, Pimm.”

  “Freddy! What the deuce are you doing in my bed?”

  His best friend levered herself up on her elbow and chuckled. “Keeping up appearances, of course. Unless you’re planning to wake up earlier than usual, Miss Skyler might notice if we were sleeping in separate rooms. She might begin to wonder about the health of our marriage, don’t you think? Feel free to take a pillow and a bedspread to the floor. That Chinese rug I bought last month is quite thick.”

  Pimm groaned. “I suppose you’re right. It’s beastly to make a man sleep on the rug after a night of defying criminals, apprehending killers, and planting evidence.”

  “And wooing lady reporters?”

  Pimm paused with one shoe in his hands. “Wooing? There was no woo. The woman tried to blackmail me. And then, I admit, she became somewhat useful—”

  “There was a decidedly admiring tone in your letter.”

  “I just wanted you to be pleasant toward her.”

  “Ah, but you usually don’t mind if I’m unpleasant. You fancy our Miss Skyler, don’t you?”

  “For most of the time we have been acquainted, she has worn a false mustache, Freddy. That is a powerful countervailing force when it comes to attraction.”

  “Ah, but under that mustache, she’s adorable, you know. Pretty eyes and cheekbones sharp enough to slice an apple—”

  “I am a married man,” Pimm said.

  “You know I think you should take a mistress. They’re good for the soul. Why do you think I go to so many salons? That’s where you find all the free-thinking girls. Heaven knows I haven’t paid a whit of attention to our vows, at least in regards to marital fidelity.”

  “I rather doubt heaven approves, though. And do you think Miss Skye seems like the sort of woman to become someone’s mistress?”

  “You never know,” Freddy said sleepily. “I suppose it all depends on the man.”

  Thus giving Pimm something else to think about while he lay on the Chinese rug under the second-best bedspread.

  Although, in this particular case, he would not have objected if his thoughts had bled over into his dreams.

  Housebreaking

  Breakfast was exceedingly awkward, at least from Ellie’s point of view. She dressed in her “Mr. Jenkins” garb, sans mustache, refusing Winnie’s offer to loan her a dress, mostly because she didn’t like to contemplate how Winnie’s clothes would look hanging on her own rather less voluptuous frame—something like a sheet draped over a coatrack, she imagined. She agreed to eat before departing, and Winnie clattered around the kitchen, chattering merrily, and manufactured a pan full of eggs that were simultaneously gritty and flavorless. Given the fact that Winnie was smoking the entire time she cooked, Ellie considered herself lucky there were no ashes in the dish, and swallowed a few bites out of politeness.

  Winnie dropped into the chair opposite Ellie’s and leaned her elbows on the kitchen table, smiling. “I presume you want to pelt Pimm with questions when he awakes?”

  “I am curious about how things worked out with Mr. Worth. Did he mention anything when he came in last night?”

  “Oh, I was fast asleep, he didn’t even wake me when he came to bed. I’m as curious as you are.” She glanced at the clock on the wall, which read half past seven. “I wouldn’t expect him up for a few hours yet. Pimm is more of an evening person than a morning one. You might be better returning for lunch.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t impose—”

  Winnie laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t cook again, I’ll have a picnic basket packed by one of the shops. We can eat in the park and converse about all manner of nefarious things without fear of being overheard, how does that sound?”

  Ellie blink
ed. She had the impression that Lady Pembroke was not often denied, and though being in her presence made Ellie somewhat uncomfortable—mostly out of guilt for the way her thoughts strayed inevitably to Winnie’s husband—the woman’s warmth was undeniable, and pleasant. “I… would be delighted.”

  “Marvelous.” Winnie patted her hand. “We’ll see you around noon—no, better say one, just to make sure Pimm will be up and around.”

  Moments later Ellie found herself out onto the steps, where she walked in a sleepy daze onto the street, joining the stream of serious men and buttoned-up women bustling about on their way to whatever occupations filled their days. She joined the throng, caught a passing electric omnibus, and rode without incident to the vicinity of her rooming house. She approached the front door with the stealth of a criminal, slotting her key into the lock and slipping into the foyer and down the hall to her own room without encountering any of the other tenants or the landladly. Once in her small bedroom she stripped off the suit, unwrapped the bindings from her chest, and washed away the day’s grime at her basin. After looking longingly at her bed, she decided if she lay down again she might not rise again until nightfall, and so she dressed, choosing one of her best day dresses in green silk, with wide sleeves, a high bodice, and a crinoline skirt. Ellie’s corset had never felt so freeing—she didn’t know how the men transformed into women by the Affliction and trying to hide their condition could bear being wrapped up with those tight bandages all day long. She affixed her bonnet with the false curls to hide her man’s haircut, and was ready to face the world.

  She had writing to do before she met with Lord and Lady Pembroke again: her article on the clockwork brothel was written in her head, and needed only to be transferred to the page, and she needed to organize her notes about the events of the day before. Figuring out what she could print, what she could imply, and what she must avoid mentioning entirely would take a bit of thought. She resolved again to tell Pimm about seeing Bertram Oswald at the clockwork brothel. He had resources she did not, and if she intended to investigate the relationship between Sir Bertram and Abel Value, she would need all the help she could get.

  But that was a problem for later. For now, she should visit the paper and check in with Cooper before he gave away the column inches he’d promised her.

  Ellie stepped out of her room, and into the presence of a man crouched in the hall, holding a knife. It was Crippen, the prizefighter turned criminal, and his sooty, thuggish presence in Ellie’s rooming house was as disconcerting as finding a serpent on one’s pillow. She took a step back, and Crippen rushed toward her, knife raised, face twisted in a snarl. “Where is he?” Crippen hissed.

  Whom did he mean? Pimm? The murderer Thaddeus Worth? Before Ellie could even try to stammer out an answer, Crippen jabbed the air in front of her with his knife. “Jenkins!” he said. “Where’s Jenkins? I saw him come in here, where is he?”

  He was looking for Ellie, and he didn’t realize it. “I—I don’t know who you mean, this is a woman’s rooming house, men are not allowed here, you must be mistaken.”

  “Useless cow,” Crippen said, and something in Ellie went cold. She wondered if Pimm’s remarkable walking stick with its electric shock capability could be adapted into something suitable for her own use—a parasol, perhaps. A weapon like that would be quite useful now.

  Suddenly Ellie’s landlady, the widowed Mrs. Reynolds, came shrieking from the kitchen, holding a cast-iron pan aloft like a war club. Crippen actually cried out and staggered back a step, barely moving in time to avoid having his head stove in by the weapon. Mrs. Reynolds struggled to lift her weapon aloft again, and Crippen brandished his knife, eyes wild.

  Ellie knew he was acting more on instinct than design, but that didn’t change his murderous intent. She snatched up a vase of fresh-cut flowers from a table in the foyer—Mrs. Reynolds made a point of brightening the common areas with blossoms, now available even in winter, thanks to Sir Bertram’s wonderful municipal hothouse—and smashed it, flowers and all, into the thug’s face. The vase broke, and Ellie suspected Crippen’s nose did, too. He shrieked, dropping his knife, and rushed for the front door, his head dripping with water from the vase, and a daisy sticking out of his collar at a jaunty angle.

  Mrs. Reynolds picked up her frying pan, looked at Ellie, then looked at the mess on the floor, and sighed. “I’ll get the mop,” she said. “You step outside and see if you can find a policeman.”

  Ellie nodded, stepping around the broken fragments on the floor, and found a small crowd already gathering outside, loudly conversing about the bleeding, soaking man who’d fled down the street. A policeman in his distinctive rounded helmet approached, drawn by the commotion like a bee to a flower, and Ellie raised her hand to beckon him, already practicing in her mind the words she would say: A strange man had broken into the rooming house with a knife, shouting incomprehensibly. Her landlady had driven the man off. No, she’d never seen him before, but he looked like a person of low character.

  Of course, she could identify him by name to the police, but wouldn’t that just draw more attention to her? Crippen’s employers were looking for a man named Jenkins, with a horrible mustache, not a woman named Eleanor Skyler. Ellie resolved to retire the mustache immediately, and let Jenkins vanish utterly—let Crippen and his fellow thugs search all they liked for a man who didn’t exist.

  But when Ellie took the policeman in to speak to her landlady, her discretion became irrelevant: “Surely I recognized him,” Mrs. Reynolds said. “He was Crippler Crippen, big as life.”

  “The prizefighter?” the bobby said. “Are you certain?”

  “My late husband was a great fan of the fights.” Mrs. Reynolds dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, as she always did when she mentioned Mr. Reynolds, though she never actually wept—Ellie wasn’t sure if the eye-dabbing was an act, an affectation, or merely a habit held over from a time when her widowhood had been cause for genuine tears. “I saw Crippler fight three times at least, and there’s no mistaking him—those black eyes, that great block of a chin, and that nose of his, broken so often it looks like a squashed plum—and our Miss Skyler here broke it for him again this morning I’d wager.” She cackled. Apparently driving off housebreakers put her in a good mood. “A shame you couldn’t have gone up against him in the ring, Miss!”

  “We’ll make inquiries,” the bobby said. “I’m afraid this isn’t the first complaint we’ve had about Crippen. He seems to have fallen in with bad companions.”

  Mrs. Reynolds sniffed. “He is a dirty cheat, you know. Let himself be beaten in a fight he should have won, to win money for rich men, and to fill his own pockets. Now he’s reduced to menacing innocent women in their homes. You find him, sir, and I’ll gladly go before the magistrate and point him out.”

  The constable said he’d make a point of keeping an eye on the building, attempted to tip his bell-shaped hat at them, and went on his way. Mrs. Reynolds looked Ellie up and down. “You’ll have a cup of tea now,” she declared.

  Ellie forced herself to smile. “Really, no, I should check in at the office. I have some notes I need to turn into a story.”

  Her landlady sighed. “It doesn’t seem quite right to me, a woman working at a newspaper. Doesn’t seem like a woman’s place. Making a home run smooth, that’s what a woman should do.”

  With great effort, Ellie refrained from pointing out that Mrs. Reynolds was a fully independent woman who had just attempted to beat a man about the head with a frying pan—because in all likelihood her landlady would simply say that proved her point: driving out housebreakers made the home more pleasant, didn’t it? Ellie did not want to argue with the woman, so she said, “Perhaps the right man will come along, and I can put away my pen.”

  Mrs. Reynolds scowled. “I didn’t say that. You could still write in your spare moments, I dare say, if it makes you happy.” She bustled off toward the kitchen, leaving Ellie a bit off-kilter, as usual after their interactions.

>   Her need to talk to Pimm was even more urgent now. She had to let him know Crippen had broken in to her home looking for “Jenkins.” Crippen, or his employer, had obviously made the connection between Lord Pembroke’s “assistant” and the man who’d escaped the brothel. They doubtless assumed that Pimm knew Bertram Oswald spent time in Value’s brothel, too—and they might take steps to silence him on the subject. She couldn’t let Pimm walk blithely around, unaware of the danger she’d put him in. She would see him at lunchtime, and tell all then.

  Assuming she could avoid being assaulted by Value’s thugs again in the meantime.

  Pimm woke to see Freddy’s face hovering only a few inches away from his own, and he startled as violently as if someone had thrown a pan of water into the bed. Freddy withdrew, grinning insouciantly. “So much for the vaunted Halliday perceptivity! I’ve been looming over you for minutes. You’re fortunate I’m not a villain bearing a dagger.”

  Pimm merely groaned, until Freddy threw back the curtains, letting in torrents of sunlight, at which point Pimm shrieked and buried his head under the covers. “Freddy, you blackguard! Why must you torment me! First you leave me sleeping on the floor for half the night, then mere hours after I’ve crawled into a proper empty bed, you turn the sun’s rays against me!” The bed shifted as Freddy sat beside him.

  “A wife cannot wake her husband for breakfast?”

  “I want to sleep, Freddy. I want to be like an oversaturated sponge, so full that water wells up at the slightest touch, but instead of water, I want to be saturated by sleep.”