Against the Brotherhood

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “Oh. Yes. That.” He released his hold on me and strode away toward the door, slamming it shut as he went out.

  As soon as he was gone I began, to my distress, to tremble, as cold panic took me in its unrelenting claws. Until that moment I had thought I had handled myself rather well, given the circumstances, but now it was borne in upon me how easily I might have perished, and how ignominious such a death would be. Had Vickers sent this German to be rid of me? Was Mycroft Holmes mistaken in his conviction that Vickers recognized the tattoo? Had Vickers somehow learned that I was not the man I seemed to be? I huddled down in the hot bath and did my best to keep my teeth from chattering. The soporific phase of my drugged state—for surely I had been drugged—was over. My head was beginning to hurt now with a ferocity the Channel crossing had not approached. My chest felt closed as well, and I did all that I could to get into position to haul myself out of the tub while I could trust myself to move. I thought of my codebook which I had been at pains to keep with me, surely soaked and illegible, and cursed myself for such carelessness. My head raged afresh.

  When I came to myself again, the water was cold and the room was dark. My head rang like a distant gong and my joints were as stiff and creaking as a frozen gate. I struggled to pull myself to my feet, and, shivering with cold I wrapped myself in a towel and tried to warm myself with brisk action while drying off. My results were mixed. I was still as cold as if I had come out of the North Sea at midwinter, but my mind was less clouded and when I moved I no longer felt about to collapse with fatigue. As I drew on my robe and reached for my clothes, I realized, without much surprise, that they had been thoroughly searched and my knife was missing.

  As vexing as it was, I knew I had to complain, or questions might be forthcoming I would find less pleasant to answer than those my interlocutor had posed at the edge of the tub. So I pulled my robe around me and made my way down the stairs, calling loudly for the landlord, nothing conciliating in my manner or the sound of my voice.

  Hearing my outcry, the landlord bustled out of what I supposed must be his private dining parlor. I stood in the hall, hands braced on my hips, ready to confront him in the person of the ill-tempered Mister Jeffries. “What sort of a house are you running, when a man traveling on behalf of his employer is subjected to abuse and possible theft?”

  “Mister Jeffries,” said the landlord, his lugubrious expression reminding me forcibly of one of the less endearing hounds. “Pray, sir, keep your voice—”

  Immediately I began to bellow. “Oh, don’t want the others to know what may become of them in this place, is that it? You want them to be attacked as well?” I took a hasty stride forward; to tell the truth, my head was still aching as if mice were getting at the inside of my skull, and the band that held my eyepatch in place felt as if it were made out of red-hot bands of metal. “Well, perhaps I should just warn them of what you countenance in this place?”

  “Mister Jeffries,” the landlord protested.

  “Yes,” I said belligerently. “I think it might well be my duty to warn them. What do you think?” I achieved a sneer that must have been more successful than I supposed, for the landlord cowered back.

  “If you would tell me first what has transpired? I perceive you are upset.”

  “Upset, you call it?” I said with furious incredulity. “And bloody right I should be. Anyone who wouldn’t be would be barmy in the brain-box.” I longed for a cool cloth over my eyes and a proper lie-down, but I could not let myself be lured away from my purpose. “Well, since you will have it, I was no sooner in the bath when a great brute of a man comes into the room and proceeds to attempt to drown me.”

  “Drown you? But why?” asked the landlord.

  “Well you may ask,” I said darkly, hoping to control the nausea that rose in my throat when I moved my head too quickly. “He was determined to get information from me and was not above using violence to do it. He threatened me repeatedly. I think he also slipped me a Shanghai nightcap, for I cannot think how else I come to have such an ache in it. My employer will be displeased with your service.” I watched him for his reaction to this threat.

  “Par bleu, who would want to do such a thing?” There was a lack of steadiness in his eyes which suggested he knew the answer, though I doubted he would reveal it. He was frightened, but not of me. So the man who attacked me had probably not been an agent of Vickers, or the landlord would not be afraid of anything I would report. Then who was the German and why had he wanted to drown me?

  “Then you had better tend to your other guests, in case this blackguard should try to take advantage of one of them. As it is, Mister Vickers will not be pleased.” This last threat I threw in with the hope that it would cause alarm to the landlord. I was surprised to see the man blanch and cross himself. “Oh, you wouldn’t like that, would you? Well, then try to find out who did his best to drown me.” With that, I set my teeth against the pain in my head, turned around, and made my way to my room with the exaggerated care of one who was intoxicated.

  As I closed the door, I saw that the room had been gone through. My clothes were tossed all about the floor, the drawers of the chest had been pulled out and turned over, the bed had been torn apart and the mattress shifted off the leather slats onto the floor beside the bed. The pistol was nowhere to be found. While I was not surprised, I was disheartened, and decided that I would save the inspection of my luggage for tomorrow, when I hoped my head would be working better and ache less. I did not trust myself to do a good job of such an examination now, so I did little to repair the chaos, but cleared myself a place on the mattress, dragged the covers and a pillow into place and made preparations to retire.

  I slept badly, my dreams tumultuous and haunting, and I woke at cock-crow, heavy-eyed and queasy from the aftereffects of the drug. A vague but persistent unease had got hold of me and filled me with disquiet. I could not decide why the German had attacked me. I was satisfied Vickers had not sent him, had no reason to send him. Then who would take so bold a chance, thinking that I was in Vickers’ employ? Realizing that no matter how tired I was, I would not be able to sleep any longer, I sat up on the mattress and began to make a mental list of all I could remember from the night before. Were these men enemies of Vickers’ Brotherhood, or were they attempting to stop a mission ordered by Mycroft Holmes? I dared not put my thoughts on paper, for I was certain now that I was being observed by at least one group of men who were suspicious of me, if not two.

  The landlord did not strike me as dangerous in himself, more an unfortunate pawn in the hands of ruthless opponents. The German must have been waiting for me at the inn prior to my arrival, for he was too providentially placed to have stumbled upon me by accident. Therefore someone other than Mister Vickers knew of my travels and had pursued me. The implications of this last realization did nothing to restore confidence in my soul.

  I decided I had better look through the jumble of my clothes and bag, as well as make an attempt at setting the room to rights before the chambermaid brought me coffee and pastry for breakfast. My joints objected as I rose, and I felt as if I had aged four decades in a night. My hands shook as I reached for my clothes, and my shoulders were stiff as rusted hinges. Grimly I set about putting all in a semblance of order, and then went to the basin to shave.

  My razor was missing. That was the one item, aside from the gun, I had not been able to find, and now, as I contemplated the stubble on my jaw, I wondered why they should want to take my razor. Then a nasty thought occurred to me: the razor was imprinted with my initials. My own initials, not those of August Jeffries. I scowled at my image in the glass, and tried to anticipate what use could be made of this, and how I could prevent it happening. Thinking was an effort still, but I was spurred on by dread, and by the time the chambermaid knocked on the door, I was ready with my tale.

  “Is the landlord up?” I demanded as the young woman came in with a tra
y. “I want to talk to him.”

  “He ... he is at breakfast,” she said hesitantly.

  “Tell him I want a word with him. As soon as he is done. I will be ready to leave in an hour and I expect to speak with him before that.” I glared at her. “My razor was stolen.”

  “Stolen? Your razor?” she said, as if she were uncertain of the meaning of the words. “But...“ She put the tray down and made a hasty departure, her eyes huge in her young face.

  The coffee was very strong and the cream provided was thick and yellow, so that when I tried to mitigate the harshness of the coffee, the result was an unappetizing jaundiced mixture that I could only endure a few sips of before giving up on it entirely. Had I felt more the thing, I might have attempted to get through the whole of it, but not that morning, with my head still aching and my residue of fear making me apprehensive at the sight of unfamiliar shadows.

  The landlord was hovering near the foot of the stairs when I at last came down from my room. I favored him with the kind of condescending nod I was certain August Jeffries would give, and said in a surly way, “Not content with trying to kill me, the fellow has made off with my razor.”

  “Yes, there was a mention of theft,” said the landlord cautiously. “I did not know of it until now.”

  “Well, now you do, fat lot of good it will do,” I said as gracelessly as possible. “It were a nice new one, too. I had it from a shop in Gull’s Lane, just off High Holborn. Nearly new, it was, and with a monogram on the handle. I paid three quid for it.” I did my best to sound injured by this loss, and I saw the landlord regard me speculatively. I realized then that he knew more than he would let on.

  “Monogrammed, was it?” he asked me, his eyes open and candid as oysters.

  “That it was. A large, decorative G on it. G is close enough to J to suit me, and so I paid my money and the razor was mine.” I straightened myself as I watched him. “I had an old one, but I got rid of it when I found the toffy one.”

  “Well, I will have the servants keep a lookout for it,” said the landlord, so glibly that I was sure he had more knowledge of what had befallen me during the previous evening than he had felt necessary to tell me. He indicated his registry book. “Your room was paid for in advance. You need only sign your name and go.” He had that look of greed in the glint of his eyes, but I gave him no heed, fully aware that Jeffries would not be persuaded by so obvious a ploy.

  I tipped my hat to him and went in search of the train station, all the while resisting the urge to look behind me to see who was following.

  FROM THE PERSONAL JOURNAL OF PHILIP TYERS:

  There was a delivery from the Admiralty, as M.H. suspected, which should have arrived while he was at his club. Ordinarily I would have been in the flat to receive it, but I was not, which afforded the culprit time to begin the search, and then to take charge of the packet when it arrived

  M.H. is convinced that is the reason the wild disarray was incomplete, for the man who made the search had no reason to continue once the packet was in his hands. “It is not what was missing that was his target, but what arrived,” M.H. announced when he received word of the delivery. He has fixed the time of the theft from the records of the Admiralty delivery records. Had I returned but ten minutes earlier, I would have been able to prevent the whole, but I was with Mother. M.H. is once again reviewing a copy of the records sent to him, spreading them around him and running his glance over first one and then another, making comparisons so swiftly that I am not able to follow it. He admits that now he is pressing himself to greater effort. “For the sooner we learn the perpetrator of this theft, the sooner I may follow Guthrie to Europe.”

  THE TRAIN WAS just pulling into the station when I arrived there, sent my next telegram to James, and secured myself with the ticket I had been given on my way to the Channel. My head remained thick and sore, the aftereffect of the drug, and my stomach was unsettled. So I was relieved to see the ticket procured me a place in a first-class compartment, where I hoped to have a chance to catch up on the rest I had not been able to enjoy the night before. I had no desire for conversation, let alone company. I put my case on the rack above my seat and did my best to find a comfortable position for the next leg of my journey. I thought again of what I had said in the telegram: Not satisfied with efforts to date. Persevere in all efforts to hasten settlement. I hoped I had remembered the code correctly. After my efforts to reconstruct it, I was still not sure I had recalled it accurately; the thought of failure made me surly with myself. If only I had not soaked the pages, obliterating the ink. Fine operative I was turning out to be, and after all Mycroft Holmes had done to establish Jeffries’ identity. I even begrudged the loss of one shirt—the ink had stained it beyond laundering.

  By the time the train rumbled out of the station, I was attempting to drowse, my thoughts drifting over all the events of the last thirty-six hours, and feeling much abused by fate, Vickers, and Mycroft Holmes. I was trying to sort out the developments and complications when a young woman dressed in deep mourning came into the compartment I occupied.

  “Oh,” she exclaimed in English, “I had no idea... I thought I would be alone.”

  “I am dreadfully sorry,” I said without thinking, and then recalled the persona expected of me and did not rise. “My ticket’s for this compartment.”

  “And so, I fear, is mine,” she said, watching me unhappily. Her features were concealed by the veil of her wide black hat, but I thought I saw a blue eye and a wisp of fair hair. “This will be very awkward.”

  “I hope not,” I answered, trying to preserve a modicum of the good manners I had been raised to have without compromising my role as August Jeffries. “Died recently, did he?”

  She looked shocked. “My mother has been dead for two months, if you must know.” Her accent was from the region of Warwickshire, and of a class that was privileged enough to have educated her well.

  “It’s just that it looks odd to me that a woman in mourning would be traveling alone on the Continent,” I said, beginning to be more brash, for the truth was I felt suspicions rising in me. Anyone coming within my ken seemed to me to possess questionable motives. My annoyance was fueled by my headache, and though I knew my conduct was bad, I excused it on behalf of Jeffries’ persona.

  “I am going to join my brother, not that I have any reason to account for myself to you. He is expecting me in Basel where he works for the Ambassador. The British Ambassador.” She took a seat on the opposite side of the compartment to me, and opened her traveling bag to take out a book, which she made a determined effort to read.

  “What kind of brother leaves a sister to travel alone in a strange country, that’s what I want to know,” I said as I watched her open the volume Adam Bede and try to find her place about a third of the way into the narrative. “How does your brother, who works for the British Ambassador, come to let you travel alone? Taken leave of his senses, has he? I wouldn’t let my sister go racketing about France on her own, not any road.”

  “It is none of your concern,” she said with enough hauteur to frost a desert bloom.

  “Or are you doing this on your own?” I ventured, thinking it outrageous of me to make such a suggestion. “Did you simply wire him and inform him of when you were to arrive?”

  “There is no reason I should account to you for my actions,” she said, and fussed with her veil.

  I watched her a short while, and then turned away, prepared to doze as the French countryside rolled by outside the windows.

  We had been traveling for perhaps an hour when I saw, out of my half-closed eye, my traveling companion rise, set her book aside and move as stealthily as the motion of the train allowed toward my side of the compartment, all the while looking at where I had put my valise. She did her best to reach it without touching me, but a bend in the track flung her against me. She cried out and strove to brace
herself to keep from any more contact with me, but she did not succeed, and a moment later, she was sprawled gracelessly across my legs, her hat and veil in disarray, her dress caught on the heel of her shoe so that I saw an expanse of well-turned ankle and calf that would be more appropriate in a music hall than a train compartment.

  “What the devil?” I muttered and pretended to be roused from half-sleep. I stared at her for a moment, and then said, “Well, what have we here?”

  She was distressed, though I could not tell for what reason beyond her immediate embarrassment. “I’m...very sorry, sir. I hope you will...forgive me.” All the while she was struggling to get to her feet once more.

  I held out my hand to help her up. “Caught you unaware, did it?”

  “I... I suppose it must have,” she said apologetically as she tried to restore her garments to proper modesty. “I didn’t know the motion of trains could be so... so...”

  “Dramatic?” I suggested. She was very pretty in that Dresden sort of way some English girls are, though her hair was a pale rosy shade and not flaxen; I decided she was about five-and-twenty. Not what I would expect to be working for the likes of Vickers, or Mycroft Holmes, for that matter, or any other sinister group. Even I could see that, with my eyepatch in place and the tatters of a headache playing old hob with my skull. I steadied her up and looked at her face, and could not resist asking, “Were you wanting something?”

  “I...” She blushed deeply, and her slender hands trembled as she strove to put her veil back into place; she did not succeed entirely, and her dignity of manner eroded still more.

  “Well, if you tell me what you wanted, perhaps I will give it to you.” I was astonished at my forwardness, and sternly reminded myself that I was an affianced man, not at liberty to indulge in flirtations. But doubtless Jeffries, though supposedly married, was the sort of ill-mannered man who would direct his unwanted attentions at this young woman, and I had, for the nonce, assumed his vices with his—admittedly few—virtues. I made no attempt to apologize for my behavior, and pressed any supposed advantage with a one-sided smile.