India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy (A Madam of Espionage Mystery) (26 page)

At the mention of Ivanov French’s smirk disappeared, to be replaced by a scowl. “I know you don’t care to hear this, India, but I disapprove of you trying to lure Ivanov out into the open. It’s bloody dangerous, and I’d hate to think of anything happening to you.”

“How very sweet of you, but I’ve got my Bulldog and you can’t hang around Lotus House. You’ll have to lie low. You can’t be seen gadding about London when you’re supposed to be at the bottom of the Thames. Between the three of us, we should be able to trap that Russian wolf. And this time, please refrain from exhibiting any honourable behavior. If we can’t take him alive, just shoot the fellow.”

* * *

That afternoon I retired to my room for a nap. I was just dozing off when someone knocked softly at the door. I was fully awake in an instant, searching under the pillow for my Bulldog. I found the revolver and tucked it under the bedclothes and then bade my caller enter.

Martine put her head round the door. “I’m sorry to disturb you, mademoiselle. May I come in?”

I usually don’t allow the bints in my bedroom. It’s the only room in the house that’s off-limits and where I can enjoy some well-deserved privacy. I wasn’t best pleased to see Martine, but I needed to keep her sweet until I’d rounded up Ivanov and the others.

“Yes, of course. Is something the matter?”

Martine looked haggard. Her olive complexion was muddy and her eyes dull. She must be ill. I’d have to summon the doctor immediately and send the girl to her room. I just hoped she hadn’t infected any of the other trollops. I had my hands full, and caring for a brothel of sick whores would strain even my capacity for juggling multiple tasks.

Martine came in hesitantly, dragging the door shut behind her.

“What is it, Martine?”

“I have not heard from Julian in several days. I am worried.”

So that was it. The girl wasn’t truly sick, only lovesick.

“You needn’t worry. I saw him just last night, and he is fine. We’re very busy right now, and I expect he just hasn’t had time to be in touch.”

“You saw him last night?”

I do dislike repeating myself. “Yes,” I said curtly. Any sympathy I’d had for the girl had evaporated. I’ll go to great lengths to keep my fillies in racing form, but when a girl lets herself go because she’s fallen for a bloke, my patience (never very pronounced) disappears altogether.

“You see more of Julian than I do. Much more.” Martine took a few paces toward the bed. “I begin to suspect that your interest in him is personal rather than political.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” I flung back the covers and swung out of bed. No employee of mine was going to stand over me and accuse me of pinching her boyfriend. It was time to assert my authority, though the diaphanous nightgown I was wearing and my bare feet did not exactly scream “power.”

I was still rising to my feet when Martine slapped me.

“Julian is mine,” she hissed.

“You should inform him of that fact. I don’t believe he’s aware of your ownership.”

Perhaps it would have been wiser not to have provoked Martine, but I will not tolerate being slapped by a woman, especially when that woman works for me. The apathetic creature who had walked through my door minutes ago was gone, replaced by a savage. Martine vibrated with energy. Her eyes were no longer dull but blazed with a manic fury, and the veins in her neck stood out in sharp relief. Bloody hell. I faced a berserker. All that was lacking was a wolf’s pelt slung over her shoulders and a sharp spear.

“Julian loves me,” she spat. “He does not care for you. But you refuse to see that. You must be taught a lesson. Every man I have hired to kill you has failed me. Now I will kill you myself.”

She swung a fist at my face, and I ducked instinctively under her arms, enveloping her in a bear hug. I’d meant to drive her back and force her off her feet, but when I’d dodged her blow, I had lost my momentum. We stood upright and wrestled, panting breathlessly, each of us trying to gain the advantage. I felt her hand twist in my hair and then a searing pain as she yanked my tresses. I shoved my foot between her legs and tried to hook an ankle, but she danced away from my maneuver with my hair still grasped in her hand. That was a mistake on her part, as the separation allowed me to take two steps and shove hard against her. We toppled over, Martine grunting loudly as my weight drove the air from her lungs. Her fingers clawed at my eyes. I got a forearm under her chin and shoved, and her hands moved to dislodge my grip. She pushed away my arm and brought her head up sharply, catching me on the bridge of the nose. Lights flared at the center of my vision and tears sprang to my eyes. We thrashed about like two cod in a basket for what seemed hours, both seeking the advantage and neither of us finding it.

I was wondering how much longer I could parry Martine’s probing fingers and swinging uppercuts when the cavalry arrived. I was yanked upward at astonishing speed, and Martine came with me, still grasping me with deadly intent. My rescuer was French. I am sure he saw the look of astonishment on my face as he thrust an arm between Martine and me. He put a hand in Martine’s face and pushed. He swore as her teeth clamped down on his palm. He cuffed her hard with his other hand, delivering a stiff blow to her temple that sent the girl staggering.

“Are you hurt?” French asked. Martine wobbled into his line of vision, and he gave her a shove that sent her to the floor. She collapsed in a heap, breathing shallowly. At last the bloody girl was down for the count.

“No major wounds, except to my pride. I knew Martine fancied Bonnaire, but I never suspected she was so jealous that she was mentally unstable. She always seemed so . . . so . . . bland.”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” French intoned.

“Yes, they can. For example, I wouldn’t have taken you for a gent who uses clichés. Or, if you do, I’d expect you to spout them in Latin. By the way, French, what the devil are you doing here?”

“Keeping an eye on you, of course. Vincent and I have been camped out in the vicinity in case Ivanov has you in his sights. I just happened to be in the kitchen when I heard the commotion up here.”

“In the kitchen?”

“Drinking tea with Mrs. Drinkwater. And attempting to eat a fairy cake. Hard going, that. I’m thinking of putting in for hazard pay.”

“I thought I made it clear to you and Vincent that I could look after myself.”

“You did. We chose to ignore your statements of independence.”

I glanced at Martine, who was snoring gently. “I suppose I’ll have to forgive you, just this once. But don’t make a habit of ignoring me in the future.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” French nudged Martine with the toe of his boot. “What shall we do with her?”

“I can hardly keep her locked up in the attic. Even Mrs. Drinkwater might become suspicious. Let’s hand her over to Superintendent Stoke. He can keep her under wraps until we’ve corralled the anarchists.”

I was becoming quite adept at removing bodies from Lotus House. French bound and gagged the dangerous minx while I sent a message to the superintendent informing him of the situation and requesting his assistance.

The whores flocked to the door at the sound of an ambulance drawing up before Lotus House. Two stocky attendants in the uniform of the Royal Free Hospital clattered up the stairs bearing a stretcher and returned in a few moments with a swaddled figure strapped to the litter. They loaded their burden into the ambulance and drove away. I informed the girls that Martine had become deathly ill and I had sent her to the hospital. There was the usual panic (really, it can’t be avoided when working with whores; they’re always finding some pretext for hysteria), and I wasted a good deal of time soothing the girls and assuring them that Martine did not have the plague or typhus or any other contagious diseases. I summoned Mrs. Drinkwater and requested tea, and after endless cups of that vile brew, the chatter finally subsided, the whores’ fear abated, and I returned to my bed. I needed my rest, after all, for tonight I would be kidnapping Great Britain’s prime minister.

TWENTY-ONE

T
he anarchists, still shaken by French’s death, had developed a new level of respect for me. At our next meeting Harkov was positively deferential, and the others, save for Flerko, treated me with a wary esteem. Flerko had decided that I was a bloody enthusiast, just like him, and greeted me as though we’d served in the wars together. I assured my confederates that French’s body was even now floating in the Thames and that I had not received a visit from the local constable, enquiring about gunshots and such. The anarchists were relieved at the news, and we settled down to sketching in the last details of our plot to kidnap Dizzy.

As usual, I was the tethered goat. Thick Ed had recounted my triumph with Dawkins, the young engineer at the construction site for the memorial service, and the rest of the anarchists had been suitably impressed. Men being the unimaginative creatures that they are, it was immediately proposed and seconded that the only proper job for me during the abduction would be to sashay past the guards and dazzle them with my undeniable attractions. Under other circumstances, I would have been reluctant to attempt to work my magic on Dizzy’s guards. I’d seen them many times, and they were just the sort of chaps you’d expect to be protecting the head of state of the greatest nation in the world: lean, hard and flinty-eyed. They weren’t barrack room soldiers. They were professionals. If a half-naked nautch girl had glided up to them and proposed a rendezvous in the alley, they’d have dropped her with a single shot to the head.

I’d have been up against it, except that the men on duty tonight had been specially selected by French and instructed not to open fire when I came slinking up to them. Still, I was nervous as Thick Ed, Flerko and I made our way to the Langham. The three of us had been deputed to seize Dizzy, while Schmidt waited in a carriage down the street. I had been rather surprised to see Schmidt on the box handling the horses. He seemed too much the intellectual to have any practical skills, and he guided the nags with a deft hand. I’d have preferred that job, as waltzing into the prime minister’s hotel with Thick Ed and Flerko seemed fraught with all sorts of danger, especially with Flerko’s propensity for overenthusiasm.

A block from the hotel we slipped down a street and into an alley, approaching the building from the rear. With a bit of luck, I might have been able to wheedle my way past the desk clerk, but Thick Ed and Flerko would never have passed muster in the Langham’s lobby, not with Thick Ed being a lumbering brute who might have been there to clear the drains, and Flerko smelling faintly of herrings. The odour had provided the cover for Flerko, as he’d visited the Langham on numerous occasions, trying to flog his wares and managing to penetrate the upper corridor where Dizzy’s room was located. He’d been tossed out on his ear each time and warned never to come back, but the little fellow had wormed his way past the watchful eye of the employees in several instances. When Flerko wants to murder someone, he lets nothing stand in his way.

Soundlessly, we picked our way through the detritus in the alley. Flerko stumbled over a cat and an anguished yowl echoed off brick walls. Despite being in one of the better sections of London, the alley reeked of rancid fruit and stale water. A central gutter was filled with viscous black liquid. I plucked up my skirts and winced as I splashed through the puddles.

We reached the Langham and stood in the shadows watching. We’d chosen an hour when almost everyone inside the hotel would be snoring in their beds, bar a bleary-eyed doorman at the front entrance and an equally sleepy-eyed clerk who would be dozing at the desk. But we waited a good few minutes anyway, just to be sure that no one was moving about the service entrance. It had begun to rain lightly, an icy mizzle that reduced visibility and seeped slowly through my cloak. I studied the alley intently, as I knew Superintendent Stoke had stationed men there, but I saw no signs of the watchers. We might as well have been alone in that dreary place.

Then Thick Ed put his lips to my ear. “We go now.” His hobnailed boots grated against the cobblestones as he crept away. I touched Flerko’s sleeve and we followed, gliding swiftly through the darkness to a thick wooden door. But Flerko’s prior visits had already informed us that this entrance was locked and barred from the inside, and so we bypassed it to stop at a low frame window just beyond. I heard the snick of a blade as Thick Ed opened his pocketknife and set to work on the latch. Moments later metal creaked and the bomb maker grunted in satisfaction. He prized open the window slowly, but the Langham’s owners did not neglect any details of housekeeping and the window slid smoothly upward in the oiled frame without a sound.

Flerko scuttled through the opening first while Thick Ed and I cooled our heels outside. The little Russian was gone for a few minutes, then thrust his head out the window and whispered, “The hall to the stairs is clear.” I accepted his hand and clambered over the sash and into a darkness more profound than that of the alley. I stepped to one side as Thick Ed heaved himself through the window. We were in a storeroom, where the excess luggage and trunks of the hotel guests were kept.

“Take my arm,” Flerko murmured, and I clutched the sleeve of his coat. Thick Ed grasped a handful of my cloak, and we inched forward. My eyes had adjusted to the gloom by then, and I discerned a faint line of light along the floor, indicating the existence of a door and a lamp beyond it.

“When we reach the hall, we turn right,” Flerko whispered. “We walk ten paces, and then we reach a second turn to the right. Just as you turn the corner, you will be at the stairs. The guard is sitting in a chair at the foot of the stairs. He will see you immediately when you come around the second corner.”

“We’ve gone over this before, Flerko.” Anxiety made me curt.

“Don’t hurt to go over it again,” Thick Ed said.

“If you two keep gassing, the guard is going to hear us. I’m going now. Try to be quiet when you follow me.”

I marched away with confidence, opening the door of the storeroom to find myself in a long hallway whose gloom was only partially dispelled by a few gas lamps, burning feebly. With all the guests in bed the lamps had been turned down low, but there was enough light to see the shadowed aperture that marked the next turning. I strode along, not bothering to muffle my footsteps. Thick Ed and Flerko crept along behind me as silently as mice. One step away from the corner, I drew a deep breath, hesitated momentarily, then plunged on. There was no going back now.

“Oh!” I drew up sharply, with a hand at my mouth. “You frightened me.”

Dizzy’s first guard had been sprawling at ease in a straight-backed chair he had tipped up against the wall. He was a good-looking fellow, with a square jaw, the thick neck of a circus strongman and eyes that sparked with intelligence. He was on his feet in an instant, doffing his hat, challenging me with a look that was both shrewd and appreciative.

“Good evening, ma’am. You’re out late tonight.” A lady would have bridled at such a bald statement, but as I am no lady, I did not.

I unleashed a coquettish smile in his direction. “Indeed I am. As are you. But I believe my time shall be more gainfully employed than yours.”

He returned my smile with interest and shrugged. “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

I placed a foot on the first riser, and the fellow half-turned to watch me walk up the stairs. I rested a hand on the banister. “What time do you get off duty?”

Thick Ed burst around the corner. My interlocutor caught the movement from the corner of his eye, and he flung his coat open with one hand, reaching for a revolver tucked in a holster at his waist. The man’s mouth opened to raise the alarm, and Thick Ed smashed a fist into it. Blood spurted in a wild arc, spattering the anarchist’s face. The guard staggered back, swiping at the fountain of red spurting from his nose and lips and looking dazed. Thick Ed cocked a fist and swung again, catching the guard squarely on the chin. The poor fellow’s head jerked backward, and Thick Ed caught him as he was falling to the floor.

“Hsst!” Thick Ed summoned Flerko, who darted around the corner and seized the guard’s ankles. Thick Ed stuck his hands under the man’s armpits and lifted his shoulders. The guard’s head lolled limply. The two radicals shuffled hurriedly down the hall to the storeroom with their burden. Once there, they were to gag and bind the man, removing any weapons they found and return to me to remove the second guard, who waited outside Dizzy’s room. I had a few moments to reflect, which is not conducive to one’s confidence when one is in the midst of knocking out chaps and nicking the prime minister. You start to doubt the wisdom of your plan (dicey, at best) and whether you’re placing the most important man in Europe, if not the world, in danger (you are) and if you’ll be able to protect him from that danger (God, I hope so, as I’m very fond of Dizzy, and while his views on the franchise are questionable and he writes dreadful novels, I’d hate to see the old boy with an axe buried in his neck). You also have time to mull over the fact that the anarchist chappies have one plan and you (and French) have another and while the two plans are meant to coincide for the moment, very soon they’ll diverge sharply and it will be up to yours truly to see that that happens without the radicals sussing out the trap you’ve laid for them. A lesser woman might quail at the prospect of such responsibility, but I merely girded my proverbial loins and waited for the return of my co-conspirators, who were taking a deuced long time to wrap a rope around a bloke’s hands and feet.

Finally they appeared. Flerko was bubbling with excitement, but Thick Ed was grimly professional. “He’ll sleep a good long while,” he whispered, referring to the guard. “Let’s collect his friend.”

The second guard sat outside the door to Dizzy’s room, which was a few steps down the hall and to the left of the staircase. I sauntered up the steps and into the corridor. The guard’s head swiveled in my direction. He was a twin of the fellow we’d dispatched below, only his jaw was more pronounced and his expression craftier. As instructed, he hadn’t heard a sound when we’d attacked his compatriot at the bottom of the stairs.

“Oh, I say. I wonder if I have the correct floor,” I stammered. “I’m looking for room number twelve.”

“Bit late for room service, isn’t it?”

I edged past him, craning my neck at the numbered plates attached to the door frames.

“Hold on, miss. Where do you think you’re going?” He’d taken three steps to catch up with me, and now his fingers twitched on my sleeve. “You shouldn’t be up here.”

All his attention was focused on me, and Thick Ed chose that moment to strike. He bounded up the stairs and charged down the hall, running on the balls of his feet. The second guard whipped round and shoved me into the wall just as Thick Ed delivered a haymaker to the bloke’s cheek. The man’s knees buckled. He was out before his head bounced off the floorboards.

Thick Ed was already at work with a picklock, twisting a thin metal blade in the lock of Dizzy’s room with an air of purposeful concentration. Flerko stood next to him, whispering unnecessary instructions.

“Watch the stairs,” I told him, and the little Russian scuttled off. It was all for show, of course, but I had to maintain the illusion that we could be caught at any moment. Then the lock rattled and Thick Ed muttered. He turned the doorknob, and the two of us peered into the room.

Dizzy lay on the sofa before the fire, feigning sleep. A sheaf of papers was scattered over his stomach, as though he’d been reading state papers and dozed off. French and I had wanted the prime minister to be sawing wood in his bed, but Dizzy had refused to be kidnapped in his nightshirt and without his boots. I can’t say that I blame him. The wind up a nightshirt was bound to be chilly, and Dizzy was prone to chest complaints. At least he was snoring, though rather unconvincingly, inhaling vigorously through his nose (and you’d have thought that a prime instrument for such use) and blowing out air like a whale breaching the surface of the ocean. We’d have to roust him soon, before the old dear opened one eye to see if his act was going over with the crowd. I pulled out my Bulldog.

Thick Ed strode to the sofa, grasped Dizzy’s shoulder and simultaneously put a thick hand over the prime minister’s mouth. Dizzy’s eyes flew open and flooded with alarm at the sight of the burly chap towering over him. Dizzy wasn’t shamming now; there was real worry on his face. I hoped this affair wouldn’t prove too much for the old boy.

Thick Ed gave him a friendly grin. “Now then, squire. You just keep quiet and everything will be right as rain. And don’t think about calling your guards. We’ve taken care of them. You see that lady over there?” He indicated me with a jerk of his head. “She’s a wizard with that revolver of hers. You open your mouth just a crack and you’ll be joining the big parliament in the sky. Is that clear?” It was the longest speech I’d ever heard from Thick Ed and it was deuced effective.

Dizzy nodded, and Thick Ed removed his hand. Dizzy cleared his throat, but somehow found the strength to remain silent, which for him was quite an accomplishment. All politicians love the sound of their own voices, but Dizzy positively worshiped his. Thick Ed yanked a rag from his pocket and thrust it between the prime minister’s lips. Then he extracted a cord from the same pocket and, stepping round Dizzy, tied his hands.

Thick Ed returned briefly to the second guard and trussed him tightly, pushing a square of cloth into his mouth and wrapping a second length of cloth around his head to hold in the gag. By now Flerko had joined us and was staring at Dizzy with an expression of utter revulsion. I doubt Dizzy had seen such a look of repugnance since he’d last encountered his old enemy Gladstone in the halls of Westminster.