The Hanged Man

by P. N. Elrod

  * * *

  Changed into a practical calf-length woolen walking dress, with a carpetbag packed with necessities for the next few days, Alex descended the stairs, her steps tired and heavy. Brook met her halfway up to take the bag, and she gratefully let him.

  Lennon had helped himself to the port she kept in the dining room cabinet, but she didn’t mind. He was a guest, why shouldn’t he? He finished off his glass, left it on the entry table, and jerked his head toward the back of the house.

  “Something to show you,” he rumbled, taking up a lighted candle.

  She followed him to the kitchen. He pointed at the mudroom door, which opened to the mews behind the row of houses.

  “You keep that locked?” he asked.

  “It was when I left tonight.”

  “Check it. Both sides.”

  He held the candle as she inspected the lock. The flame blew out shortly after she opened the door, but lasted long enough for her to spot new scratches in the brass. She felt a tightness in her chest and pulled away.

  Lennon struck a lucifer and relit the candle. “Floor.”

  Smears of mud, hardly noticeable unless you looked closely. Mrs. Harris would never have left without a last swipe of the mop. She took pride in having a pristine, mouse-free kitchen.

  “You’ve had a visitor,” said Lennon. “Brook and I went through the place again, cellar to attic. Near as we can tell, some cautious chap hid in the cupboard under the first-floor stairs. There’s a bucket been overturned he could have sat on—”

  Alex shot from the kitchen and up the stairs to see for herself. Her sanctuary violated—she wouldn’t have it, by God.

  The cupboard was general storage for that floor, where Mrs. Harris kept cleaning supplies and their attendant tools. Alex couldn’t recall the last time she’d bothered to look inside. It was just steps from her bedroom.

  When she’d centered herself, she lifted the latch and opened the narrow door, braced for anything.

  Almost anything.

  She was unprepared for … nothing.

  Physical objects were tidily in place, except for the tin bucket resting overturned in the middle of the floor. She eased in and widened her internal senses bit by bit, seeking some trace of the person who had been there.

  A closed space, someone sitting, waiting for who knows how long, there should be a remnant of emotion. Patience, impatience, excitement, boredom.

  Nothing. It was an absence, a void.

  “What’d the spooks tell you?” asked Lennon. He’d come up more slowly and, as before, held quiet until she was done.

  “It’s like what I didn’t find at Harley Street. That same emptiness.”

  “Maybe he is a ghost.”

  “I don’t speak to ghosts, Inspector,” she said wearily.

  “The other kind. There’s human ghosts walking this world right enough. You see ’em but you don’t. Beggars, street Arabs, moppets selling ribbons and violets, those poor devils with carts who shovel the road waste. They’re there, solid as you or me, and no one notices them.”

  “But they all have emotions. Nothing is here. Nothing. Even animals leave emotions I can track.”

  “Do you now? Never knew that. Well, then, whoever was here is a cold ’un to the bone or one of those clockwork dummies from the seaside, put in a copper and he tells your fortune.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Those things are in cabinets and have to be wound up.”

  “I saw one with legs once. He could stand, take off his hat and bow, move his head, give yes or no answers.…”

  “But no walking around. No such thing could scramble over roofs and down ropes or pick locks—or need to rest on overturned buckets.”

  “So what we have here is a human ghost. There’s some cold customers out there, little tweak. You’ve not been at it long enough to meet any and if you’re lucky you never will. Maybe this one is colder than the worst of them.… He’s done for your pap and it looks like he’s after you. Service hokery-pokery’s useless here. Eyes open and ears sharp, same as the rest of us.”

  Had there been no attack on Lord Richard, Alex would have completed her report and been released to come home … to …

  The tight feeling in her chest increased until she forced it away. Panic wouldn’t help. Mrs. Woodwake had been right; Alex could not be alone. Given a choice between the Pendleburys and a traceless killer—

  “Time to leave, Inspector.”

  “Thought you’d never say.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In Which Family Demonstrates to Be Inconvenient to the Case

  Under Lennon’s approving eye, Alex slipped a box of cartridges for her revolver into her ulster pocket and shifted the weapon to the reticule she now carried. She locked the front door, cognizant that it was not likely to keep out a determined threat.

  She’d written a note for Mrs. Harris, extracting a solemn promise from Lennon that he would deliver it personally. Under no circumstances should Harris or any of the household return home until Alex came to fetch them. They could leave messages at her office. She slipped in a few crowns for their expenses.

  Brook checked the street, announced that it looked to be clear, and hurried them into the hansom. He hoisted up to his perch and snapped the reins, taking them north, then doubling back and doubling again.

  “Don’t look as we’re being followed,” said Lennon. “Suits me; I’ve had all the excitement I can stand.”

  Alex, jammed against him in the small space, felt his body relax.

  “You look all in, too.” He produced a pocket flask and offered it.

  “Inspector, I’ve had more drink tonight than in the last year.”

  “Best make up for lost time, then. Or are you one of those finger-wagging pledge-poppets?”

  She accepted the flask and took a mouthful of something foul that made her gasp, but the heat was welcome. “Not at all. It interferes with my abilities.”

  “Sounds a good thing, to hear others talk of ’em. Every spook chaser I ever met wanted to be rid of their abilities.”

  “I wouldn’t be me without them.”

  “Sure you would, but havin’ a different job or married off to some bloke bereft of all sense.”

  She glanced at him. Yes, there was a glint of humor in his eyes. “It interferes with my defenses,” she added. Should she have mentioned that? Must have been the drink.

  “So it should, leading to many a ruinous downfall or blissful engagement. That’s how I caught my missus. I got her so jolly she was signing the registry book before she knew what happened.”

  Alex could not imagine what Mrs. Lennon might be like. Was she formidable and strapping as her husband or a meekish sylph who somehow found his unpolished manner appealing? How could that be?

  Or was it because he was uncomplicated?

  His selves, inside and outside, were identical. He didn’t hide his feelings. While others concealed their inner self for the sake of social interaction, he didn’t give a bloody damn what people thought of him. Alex hadn’t appreciated his kind of honesty before.

  She found it comforting, enough so that she unexpectedly dozed off against him, unaware of it until the hansom lurched. She snapped awake, hand on her pistol.

  “At your ease, soldier,” said Lennon. “Your man’s making way for the fire brigade.”

  Brook pulled to the side of the road, slowing, but not stopping as a much faster fire wagon shot past, bell ringing, the big horses struggling on the ice-glazed street.

  “Not the first or last call for them on a Christmas. That’ll be another pack of bloody Germans setting fire to things. I ask you, what’s the sense of bringing a tree into a house, sticking candles on every branch and lighting ’em? That’s just begging for disaster. If they don’t like a simple Christmas dinner the way we do it, they should bloody well leave.”

  “You want England for the English, then?” she asked. The E. for E. radicals were mentioned often in the papers, even The Times.

>   “There’s something to that lot. With any luck they can send the riffraff back where they come from.”

  “Our ancestors were foreigners. William the Conqueror came from Normandy.”

  “Be sure once he set his foot down he didn’t allow anyone else in. You know how close we came to having a German on the throne?”

  Should she inform him that the queen was her godmother? Best not to; it would be boastful and pretentious, qualities she did not admire. Alex had heard the stories that German had been Queen Victoria’s first spoken language, and in her youth she’d been introduced to more than one prince from that land. However, she’d chosen an Englishman for her husband, though he’d not been royalty unless one traced his ancestry back a few centuries. The young queen wanting to marry a lord had been quite a political crisis at the time, but she’d changed the law of the realm so love won out over custom. The match had worked splendidly. The royal couple were still pleased with each other, had produced four healthy, intelligent children, and the eldest daughter had provided heirs; the crown of England was secure for another generation.

  Brook turned their hansom east to avoid the brigade, then south. Church bells tolled the half hour, making it five thirty by her reckoning, which Lennon confirmed with a look at his pocket watch.

  “What a night,” he said. “Be glad when it’s over.”

  The statement could be taken as a declaration for himself or as advice to her.

  They passed St. Paul’s Knightsbridge. Her heart quickened with dread.

  Just yards to go … a last turn and they were before 16 Wilton Crescent, the first of a curving line of fearfully respectable white facades, each nearly identical to its neighbor: same doors, same transom grilles, sturdy iron fences lining the walks along the lower ground-floor entries.

  Lennon gave it a lengthy stare. “You come by your toff ways straight, then, don’t you?”

  “I’d rather go to a workhouse.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” Before she could get out he put a hand on her wrist. “Listen up, little tweak, there’s more afoot than they’re sayin’.”

  “The Service?”

  “Don’t pull a face, you ought to be feeling it, if that’s your trade. Me, I can smell it. There’s politicking going on. Always a rotten stink.”

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “Bet your life on it, missy. Your life. Instead of taking you into the fold where you’re surrounded by other spook hunters and big lads like Brook, they’ve cut you loose where you can be got at.”

  “Mrs. Woodwake would never do that. Besides, men will be posted to watch this house.”

  “Not nearly enough if those chappies what done for Lord Dickie come around, never mind that murdering ghost and his bottle of ether. Makes me think of those stories about hunters in India tethering a goat to tempt in a tiger. Maybe they get the tiger, but he gets the goat first.”

  Having been on a tiger hunt, Alex had seen that for herself. “You think the two cases are connected.”

  “I couldn’t say. Maybe those hooded blokes were following young Dickie all along and took their opening. But the ghost that broke into Harley Street also tried for you. Why do you think that is? Who would want to hang angel wings on both you and your pap?”

  She shook her head.

  “You come up anything on it, see me first. Don’t trust for a moment that your precious Service won’t toss you to the tigers if it suits ’em.”

  He believed what he was saying, but the Service? It was scrupulously honest, if necessarily secretive. Lord Richard was—had been—above reproach and insisted all those under him be likewise honest and honorable. They never employed frauds, the testing system was too rigorous. She’d vetted people herself, and would face a Reader tomorrow. That would clear things, perhaps allow her to keep a close watch on the progression of both cases.

  Lennon continued, “They do some good, I’ll grant that, and you’re one of the good ones, but beware of rot under the shiny paint. For all their power, they got a bloody nose tonight. Instead of raising the alarm to hunt down a pack of hooded killers, that woman does the direct opposite. If someone had done for the head of Scotland Yard every copper in London would be turned out. There’d be no stoppin’ us till we had the shooters in darbies or dead. Woodwake’s running scared about something and it’s got to be bigger than her chief getting served up to hell tonight. I tried to get her to drop a clue, but she wasn’t having any. Her wanting that kept a state secret? Barmy.”

  “She gave good reason for it.”

  “Bah. I know her type. Thinks too much, just like you. Only your thinking has you meeting yourself coming around corners. She’s got a wider view and keeps it to herself. There’s a use for that sort, but they’re dangerous.”

  He let go her wrist and got out with her. From his perch on the hansom where he could see trouble coming, Brook covered them as they went up to the door. Alex tried her old key and it worked. She thought she would never have need to use it and wasn’t sure why she’d kept it on the ring after all this time. A sense of antic humor, perhaps, allowing her the freedom to present her relatives with a disagreeable surprise should she ever drop in for a visit. She had often thought of coming by, but had never acted on it.

  The disagreeable surprise was all on her tonight, but she’d be safe here. Knightsbridge was a well-kept, quiet place, plenty of police about. Pendlebury House teemed with people: relations and who knows how many servants to see to their upkeep.

  Lennon put her carpetbag inside the door. “Remember my words, tweak. You keep that pie hole of yours shut, your ears open, and your head down. Now go get some sleep. And … and I’m sorry about your pap.” This last was muttered quickly and then he stumped off.

  Well. What a startling man.

  She locked the door and went into the ground-floor drawing room to look out the front windows. Lennon piled into the hansom and they clattered away east along the curve of the crescent. Despite the gaslights, the cold darkness swiftly stole them from sight.

  Tethered goat. More like thrown to the wolves.

  Her family wasn’t that bad, not really. They had sheltered, clothed, and fed her. The adults had been … polite. She was fond of Uncle Leo. He wasn’t at all like his brother in temperament, cold and aloof rather than smiling and affectionate, but there were enough physical similarities to remind her of Gerard, and that had been comforting. He had no time to spare for her or any of his family, but when she first arrived he’d not minded her sitting in his study so long as she was quiet.

  When bad weather kept her indoors, she’d take a volume from Leo’s collection of books and read for hours by the window, emerging only for meals.

  His children were barred from the room, making it an even more attractive refuge. Andrina’s reading tastes were for lighter material and her brother Teddy proved too active to be trusted. He was always getting into things he shouldn’t, such as his father’s Napoleon brandy—wasted as a casual libation for a thirteen-year-old.

  Aunt Honoria was far too respectable and commanding to be likeable, but initially saw to it her children behaved civilly toward Alex. They were angels in her presence, which amounted to a few minutes a day. She was fearfully busy with social obligations and granting her time to charitable events. At those, she limited herself to a smile and voicing a sincere “Well done” to the workers who had actual contact with the beneficiaries of those many charities. She didn’t like looking at the poor, who were, after all, such an ill-favored, cheerless lot.

  But she respected the rules of society and, as she’d done every year since Alex moved out and (horrors) gone into trade, Honoria sent an embossed invitation to Christmas dinner to her niece. Each year, Alex sent her regrets, claiming that her duties prevented it. Sometimes that was even true.

  I can bear them for a few hours. She’d hide out in Leo’s study; they’d not think twice about it once the grudging greetings were past.

  Alex hoped to avoid Andrina. With any good luck
her insufferable cousin would be off playing lady-in-waiting to Princess Charlotte. What the royal family saw in Andrina was a mystery, but she could be pleasant and clever when she chose. Showing one face and hiding the other worked on the rest of the world, but never on Alex, another thing besides the perfume switch that Andrina could not forgive.

  After lighting the gas, Alex rang the bell, confident that servants would be astir. Honoria ran a tight ship. If staff couldn’t be bothered to be awake and working by five in the morning, they were welcome to find a position elsewhere. Many did.

  Sure enough, one of the maids arrived, carrying a tray. She nearly dropped it when she saw Alex.

  “Begging pardon, I thought you were her ladyship.”

  “New here, are you? It’s all right, I’m her ladyship’s niece, Alex Pendlebury.”

  The girl nodded, so she must have heard the name mentioned, and glanced at the tray.

  “Better take that back. When Aunt Honoria rings again you don’t want to be late with her morning tea.”

  “Yes, ma—your ladyship. Shall I announce you?”

  Oh, dear, the girl was too new to know the protocols. “Leave that to Mabrey. He’s still here? Ask if he might spare me a few minutes.”

  Off the girl went. Alex took the respite to remove her gloves and hat and undo the buttons of her ulster, but not shed it. The drawing room fire was laid but not lighted, and the room chilly.

  Instead of Mabrey the butler, Andrina swept in. She was already corseted for the day and in a sumptuous dressing gown, with layers of silk and ribbons and pleats in the French style. Her hair hadn’t been seen to yet, and a long dark braid hung down her left shoulder. She was an uncommonly beautiful girl and knew it.

  She stopped and glared, her lips going thin with distaste. “What are you doing here? And at such an hour?” she demanded. No greeting, despite the fact they’d not seen each other in several years. She got straight to the point with people she didn’t like.