India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy (A Madam of Espionage Mystery) (2 page)

ONE

A
h, springtime in England. Fleecy lambs frolic on the green hills, their white wool sparkling in the sunlight. Apple blossoms float like snowflakes across the fields. Crocuses and daffodils dot the landscape. Warm zephyrs caress the pastures, and the pale blue sky gleams with promise.

But not in bloody London. Not this year. This spring, the citizens of the Big Smoke were being treated to daily deluges from the heavens. Thick clouds roiled overhead, and the crack of thunder punctuated every conversation. You might think that London could do with a bath and sheets of rain are just the thing to accomplish that task, but you’d be forgetting the voluminous coils of smoke that issue from every hearth and home and the reeking fumes from the factories. When the rain comes down in this city, it comes down as brown sludge, ruining bonnets and cloaks and covering the houses with a layer of silt. The streets had become rushing torrents as the drainage system filled to overflowing. A stroll to the pub meant wading through clumps of straw, fruit peels, and bits and bobs of human waste. The stench was overpowering; the whole city smelled fetid and sour, like a vast sewer.

It had rained so much and so often that any day now I expected to hear a stentorian voice issue from the sky: “Here, Noah! Get moving, you lazy bugger! I want fleas, a pair of ’em. And make sure it’s male and female this time. That last lot you brought in was both ladies, and we won’t be getting any baby fleas from those two. What’s that? Rats? Of course I want rats. Two of every kind you’ve got. And don’t forget the lice. They’re thick on the ground over in the East End.” Lightning flashed and thunder rolled. “Eh? Couldn’t hear you, Noah. Sorry about that, only time’s wasting and if I’m going to get this flood under way, I’ve got to keep the weather on schedule. Tarts? You want to know if you should bring some tarts? I’m beginning to think I should have entrusted this job to someone else, Noah. Hell, no, we don’t want any tarts on board. They’ll contaminate the whole ark with their wanton ways. Besides, it’s their kind we’re trying to eliminate with this exercise. So get back to work and find me some parasites. Politicians? I said parasites, didn’t I? Of course politicians qualify.”

Well, I had to amuse myself somehow, even if I was in danger of provoking the Ancient Bearded Bloke in the process. The blasted squalls were keeping customers from the door, and my bints were growing sullen from lack of trade. I suppose I should take half a mo and introduce myself. I’m India Black, proprietress of Lotus House brothel and occasionally, when the mood suits me and the prime minister asks me politely, a secret agent in service to the British government. I don’t care if you don’t believe it; it doesn’t make it any less true. But just so you’ll understand, I’ll explain how I found myself chasing Russian spies and saving Vicky from a Scottish assassin.

Until a few months ago, I’d been minding my own business and running Lotus House. I have a head for business, if I do say so myself, and the bordello was raking in cash from the military officers, government clerks and secretaries, and the minor aristocracy who compose my clientele. I run a refined establishment, with clean whores, Cuban cigars and good liquor. The girls are well fed, and I’m mostly successful at keeping them away from the gin, and as a result they’re plump, rosy and inviting. It costs a bit more to take care of the sluts, especially when, if left to their own devices, they’d be lying in the gutter with their lips glued to a bottle, but I don’t stint when it comes to expenses. On the other hand, I don’t hesitate to charge a stiff price for the services on offer at Lotus House. Why shouldn’t I, if the gents are willing to pay?

So things were rolling along merrily, until one Sunday afternoon a pudgy cove named Latham slipped his cable at Lotus House and departed this life. I could have dealt easily enough with the fellow’s death, but for the fact that he turned out to be a clerk in the War Office carrying around a secret memo discussing the state of Britain’s military (dire, I suppose, would best describe it). I was unaware of this, of course, and thought I had only to worry about disposing of the body, when a poncy bastard named French entered the picture. He was a special agent for the prime minister, that dear old queen Disraeli, and wanted to get his mitts on Latham’s memo. I would have obliged him, but the confounded document had disappeared. It seems the Russians (treacherous Slavs) also wanted to lay hands on the memo, as they had a mind to invade the Ottoman Empire if they thought they could get away with it, and the strength of the British army was just the kind of information they needed to know. Latham’s document ended up at the Russian embassy, and I found myself roped into retrieving it. French affects to be a gentleman, but there was nothing nice about the way he blackmailed me into recovering the War Office memo. It was a wild ride, I tell you, with me ending up as a prisoner of the Russians not once, but twice, and a fair amount of swordplay and gunplay and bumps and bruises. We made a good fist of it, but in the end the memo disappeared into the sea off Calais, along with the wily and wolfish Russian agent, Major Ivanov.

Whenever French is around, I complain loudly about the experience, but the truth is that I found the whole scenario a good bit more thrilling than umpiring spats between whores and paying the butcher. I’ve always had a taste for adventure (who’d run a brothel if they didn’t?), and careering around England, trailing Russian spies and shooting Cossack guards turns out to be my cup of tea. And there’s the added bonus of consorting with the most powerful men of the land, who are prepared to grovel charmingly when they ask for my help. What more could a woman want?

Consequently, when French came calling again, asking for my help in protecting the Queen from a group of Scottish nationalists, I was only too pleased to assist. We caught the leader of that crowd of assassins, but not before blood was spilled (oh, not Vicky’s of course, or we’d still be hearing about it) and yours truly stared death in the face. I still shiver when I think of looking down the barrel of that revolver and seeing the bloody murder in the eyes behind it. I admit that after that adventure I’d been content to put up my feet for a bit and drink tea while my tarts did the heavy lifting. But inactivity palls, and between the lack of espionage missions, the blasted weather and the venomous atmosphere of a cathouse with too many pussies and not enough mice to play with, I was getting bored.

French, you see, had disappeared. I hadn’t seen him for weeks. The last I’d heard of him was a note I received the day after our return from Scotland. Two words, scribbled in pencil on a piece of grubby notepaper: “Called away.” There was no mention of where he’d gone or why, or how long he’d be away. I can tell you, I was chapped.

Aside from the fact that he is often brutally oblivious to his need for my help, there could be only two reasons why French would bolt and not take me along. First and foremost, he has an exaggerated notion of my feminine vulnerability. If his current mission was a dangerous one, he might have felt compelled to go it alone. I found that a bit hard. I mean, the bloke’s exposed me to the clutches of the
Russians
, for God’s sake, who don’t hesitate to apply the whip to their own poor serfs in the name of national security and surely wouldn’t baulk at doing the same to the odd British agent who’d landed in their midst. Not to mention the fact that it was me who had saved French from being cut down by a Cossack guard wielding a bloody great sword. I’d felled the man with one shot from my .442 Webley British Bulldog. In short, I could take care of myself
and
French, and had proved it. If French thought he was protecting me by heading off to do a bit of spying without me, there’d be an unpleasant surprise waiting for him when he returned.

But there was a second reason I thought French had vanished without seeing me. He knew I was waiting for the first opportunity to tackle him about his family. I’m only surmising that he has one, of course, as he’s never said a word about them. I have only the prime minister’s casual slip when he sent us off to Balmoral, enquiring about French’s “fa—,” causing French to change the subject faster than an Irishman can down a pint of Guinness. To be fair (and this is likely the last time I will be, so take note), I hadn’t disclosed much of my own past to French, but that’s because I don’t know much about the old pedigree. Given French’s guilty outburst when Dizzy spilled the beans (you may recall from that previous adventure that French interjected the word “father” to put me off the scent), I’d wager that somewhere in a London suburb is a rosy-cheeked blonde with a litter of rosy-cheeked moppets, all waiting for dear Papa to return to his family’s bosom. Of course, it’s French’s prerogative to have as many little sprats as he wants, and if he wants an insipid little wife, jolly good for him. He should, however, let his fellow agents know in the event, for example, that the fellow agent fails to save him from a Cossack guard with a bloody great sword and has to deliver the distressing news to his poor spouse.

Between French’s disappearance and his avoiding any explanation of his clan and the blasted weather and the annoying tarts mooching around Lotus House, cleaning out the pantry and not earning a shilling, I was in a sullen frame of mind. I’d been brooding for weeks, and I fear my looks were beginning to suffer. A little of the gloss had gone from my raven black locks, and my blue eyes were now a little dull, having nothing to spark a flame of excitement in them. Worst of all, I’d grown a little pinched about the eyes and mouth, from frowning at the thought of the high old time French must be having, dodging bullets and matching wits with sinister foreign types with thick moustaches and heavy accents while I rotted away in St. James, riding herd on a bevy of unruly sluts.

So it was that I was moping by the fire one April afternoon in 1877, while the wind blew the shingles loose on the roof, the rain bucketed down and the whores lounged about stuffing their faces with Mrs. Drinkwater’s comestibles, though how they managed to bolt down a hunk of gingerbread that weighed as much as a cannonball, I do not know. It’s no excuse to say that Mrs. Drinkwater was drunk when she baked it, for she’s always drunk. I’ve no idea if her cooking would improve if she were sober. I have wondered whether, if she weren’t drunk most of the time, she’d have the initiative to find a position that did not require her to consort with half-naked bints and elegant wastrels. I stabbed my piece of gingerbread with the tines of my fork and was not surprised to see that they left no impression. I sipped the watery tea Mrs. Drinkwater had provided and grimaced. Thinking of my cook inspired me to rise and rummage through my drinks cabinet. I located a bottle of brandy and poured a generous dose into my cup, returning to the fire and the French novel I’d been paging through idly. I could hear Mrs. Drinkwater humming tunelessly as she rootled around the hall, bringing fresh tea and muffins to the tarts while they giggled and gossiped in the parlor. Rain fell in sheets against the window, and the coal fire hissed at my feet.

Someone hammered at the front door so violently that it shook. In the hallway, Mrs. Drinkwater staggered against the wall and dropped her tray, which clanged like a fire bell as it skittered over the marble tiles. The whores shrieked and spilled their tea, and I stormed into the foyer to bring some order to the house. Mrs. Drinkwater was collecting muffins and bemoaning the fact that “they won’t be eatable now, having fallen on the floor.” As they hadn’t been edible to begin with, I felt certain the loss would be minimal. Indeed, the customer at the door had probably saved the girls massive indigestion, it being difficult for the human body to process lumps of iron. The girls had abandoned their tea and raced upstairs, elbowing each other and claiming first dibs on the fellow at the door. Bless their wee hearts; it had been so long since a chap had braved the elements that the bints had all forgotten who was next up to the wicket. No worries, though, as I remembered (being a madam requires that you excel at that sort of thing) that it was the turn of Clara Swansdown (or Bridget Brodie, as she was known when she was at home in Ballykelly), although it might be a regular out there in the rain who already had a favorite in mind.

Mrs. Drinkwater was on her hands and knees on the floor chasing down an errant muffin, so I went to the door myself. I flung it open, smiling broadly and ignoring the rain in my face, for I truly was glad for a bit of custom. Only there’d be no shilling earned at Lotus House from this fellow. I took in his stiff posture, sober black suit and immobile countenance and knew at a glance he was not here to be jollied into smiling by a winsome tart with gooseberries for brains.

“Miss Black?” He didn’t wait for my confirmation of this fact. “I’ve a message for you from Lord Beaconsfield.”

“From Dizzy?”

The officious bloke frowned faintly. “The prime minister, yes. He wishes you to accompany me at once to his rooms at the Langham.”

“Now?”

“It is a matter of some urgency. I have a carriage waiting.”

Well, when the prime minister of this sceptred isle deigned to summon one, what could one do but go? Besides, something interesting might be afoot.

“One moment, please, while I fetch my cloak.”

I left the dour bloke in the foyer with the water puddling around his feet and found Mrs. Drinkwater in the kitchen, where she was consoling herself over the ruined muffins with a generous tumbler of sherry. I informed her that I would be out for dinner, but to make up some sandwiches for me before she had anything more to drink. She sniffed a bit, no doubt thinking me brusque, but I knew that if she waited much later she’d be pickled to the gills and asleep under the table when I got home. I collected a hooded cloak and an umbrella from the stand in the hall and was ushered into the waiting carriage by the somber messenger.