Blameless

Page 17

Professor Lyal hung his hat and coat on a spindly hat stand crowded behind the door and took one of the chairs. It was like sitting inside a bowl of Easter candy. Ivy settled herself onto the settee. The young maid, having fol owed them in, gave the mistress of the house a quizzical look.
“Tea, Professor Lyal , or would you prefer something, uh, bloodier?”
“Tea would be lovely, Mrs. Tunstel .”
“You are certain? I have some delightful kidney set aside for a pie tomorrow, and it is getting on to ful moon.”
Professor Lyal smiled. “Your husband has been tel ing you things about living with werewolves, hasn’t he?”
Ivy blushed slightly. “Perhaps a little. I am afraid I have been terribly nosy. I find your culture fascinating. I do hope you do not think me impertinent.”
“Not at al . But, real y, just tea would be perfectly fine.”
Ivy nodded to her maid, and the young girl scuttled off, clearly excited.
“We don’t get many visitors of your caliber,” lamented Ivy.
Professor Lyal was too much a gentleman to remark that Miss Hisselpenny’s elopement, and consequent loss of what little status she’d had, made her a less than desirable acquaintance for most. Only a high-ranking original, as Lady Maccon had been, could afford to continue such an association. Now that Alexia herself had fal en from grace, Ivy must be a veritable social pariah.
“How is the hat shop coming on?”
Mrs. Tunstel ’s big hazel eyes lit up with pleasure. “Wel , I have only had it under my charge for the one day. Of course, I kept it open this evening as well . I know Madame Lefoux caters to the supernatural set, but you would not believe the things one overhears in a hat shop. Only this afternoon, I learned Miss Wibbley was engaged.”
Prior to Ivy’s marriage, Professor Lyal knew she had relied upon Alexia, who was at best disinterested and at worst obtuse, for al her society gossip. As a result, Ivy had been in a constant state of frustration.
“So you are enjoying yourself?”
“Immeasurably. I never thought trade could be so very entertaining. Why, this evening, Miss Mabel Dair paid us a cal . The actress, you’ve heard of her?” Ivy looked to Professor Lyal inquiringly.
The werewolf nodded.
“Wel , she came by to pick up a special order for Countess Nadasdy herself. I had no idea the countess even wore hats. I mean to say”—Ivy looked to Lyal in confusion—“she does not actual y leave her house, does she?”
Professor Lyal highly doubted that a special order from Madame Lefoux for a vampire queen bore any resemblance whatsoever to a hat, aside from being transported inside a hatbox. But he perked up with interest. He had thought to ask Tunstel for information as to Lord Akeldama’s disappearance, given the vampire’s affection for the theater and Tunstel ’s previous investigative training under Lyal ’s tutelage, but perhaps Ivy might unwittingly have some information to impart. Mabel Dair, after al , was Countess Nadasdy’s favorite drone.
“And how did Miss Dair seem?” he asked careful y.
The maid returned and Ivy fussed with the tea trol ey. “Oh, not at all the thing. Dear Miss Dair and I have become almost friendly since my marriage. She and Tunny have appeared onstage together. She was clearly most upset about something. And I said to her, I did, I said, ‘My dear Miss Dair,’ I said, ‘you do not look at all the thing! Would you like to sit, take a little tea?’ And I think she might have.” Ivy paused and studied Professor Lyal ’s careful y impassive face. “You are aware, she is a bit of a, well , I hardly like to say it to a gentleman of your persuasion, but a, um, vampire drone.” Ivy whispered this as if she could not quite believe her own daring at being even a nodding acquaintance with such a person.
Professor Lyal smiled slightly. “Mrs. Tunstel , do you forget I work for the Bureau of Unnatural Registry? I am well aware of her status.”
“Oh, of course you are. How sil y of me.” Ivy covered her embarrassment by pouring the tea. “Milk?”
“Please. And do go on. Did Miss Dair relay the nature of her distress?”
“Wel , I do not think she intended me to overhear. She was discussing something with her companion. That tal , good-looking gentleman I met at Alexia’s wedding—Lord Ambrittle, I believe it was.”
“Lord Ambrose?”
“Yes, that! Such a nice man.”
Professor Lyal forbore to mention that Lord Ambrose was, in fact, a not very nice vampire.
“Wel , apparently, dear Miss Dair caught the countess and some gentleman or another arguing. A potent gentleman, she kept saying, whatever that means. And she said she thought the countess was accusing this gentleman of having taken something from Lord Akeldama. Quite astonishing. Why would a potent man want to steal from Lord Akeldama?”
“Mrs. Tunstel ,” Professor Lyal said very precisely and unhurriedly, “did Lord Ambrose notice that you had overheard this?”
“Why? Is it a matter of significance?” Ivy popped a sugared rose petal into her mouth and blinked at her guest.
“It is certainly intriguing.” Lyal took a cautious drink of his tea. It was excel ent.
“I hate to speak il of such a nice man, but I believe he did not recognize me. He may even have thought I was a genuine shopgirl. Shocking, I know, but I was standing behind a sales counter at the time.” She paused and sipped her tea. “I thought you might find the information useful.”
At that, Professor Lyal gave Mrs. Tunstel a sharp look. He wondered for the first time how much of Ivy was, in fact, comprised of dark curls and big eyes and ridiculous hats and how much of that was for show.
Ivy returned his direct gaze with a particularly innocent smile. “The great advantage,”
she said, “of being thought sil y, is that people forget and begin to think one might also be foolish. I may, Professor Lyal , be a trifle enthusiastic in my manner and dress, but I am no fool.”
“No, Mrs. Tunstel , I can see that.” And Lady Maccon, thought Lyal , would not be so friendly with you if you were.
“I believe Miss Dair was overset, or she would not have been so indiscreet in public.”
“Ah, and what is your excuse?”
Ivy laughed. “I am well aware, Professor, that my dearest Alexia does not tel me much about certain aspects of her life. Her friendship with Lord Akeldama, for example, has always remained a mystery to me. I mean real y, he is too outrageous. But her judgment is sound. I should have told her what I heard, were she stil in town. As it stands, I judge you wil make an adequate substitute. You stand very high in my husband’s regard. Besides which, I simply do not believe it is right. Potent gentlemen should not go around stealing things from Lord Akeldama.”
Professor Lyal knew perfectly well the identity of Ivy’s “potent gentleman.” It meant that this was rapidly becoming an ever more serious and ever more vampire-riddled conundrum. The potentate was the premier rove in al of England, Queen Victoria’s chief strategist and her most treasured supernatural advisor. He sat on the Shadow Council with the dewan, werewolf loner and commander in chief of the Royal Lupine Guard. Until recently, Alexia had been their third. The potentate was one of the oldest vampires on the island. And he had stolen something from Lord Akeldama. Professor Lyal would wager good money on the fact that it was in pursuit of that very object that had caused Lord Akeldama, and al of his drones, to leave London.
What a fine kettle of fangs this is becoming, he thought.
Mostly unaware of the exploding steam engine she had just landed her guest in, Ivy Tunstel bobbed her curls at Professor Lyal and offered him another cup of tea. Lyal decided that his best possible course of action was to head home to Woolsey Castle and go to sleep. Often vampires were better understood after a good day’s rest.
Consequently, he declined the tea.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Trial by Snuff, Kumquat, and Exorcism
Alexia’s legs were stiff from the cold, but at least they were decently covered by her skirts once more, even if those skirts were now coated in mud as well as burned by acid.
She sighed. She must look like a veritable gypsy with her spattered dispatch case and wild hair. Madame Lefoux also looked the worse for wear, speckled with mud, her goggles dangling about her neck. Her top hat was stil secured to her head by the long scarf, but her mustache was decidedly askew. Only Floote somehow managed to look entirely unruffled as they skulked—there real y was no other word for it—through the side al eys of Nice in the wee hours of the morning.
Nice proved itself smal er than Paris, characterized by a casual seaside attitude.
Madame Lefoux, however, hinted darkly that the city’s “Italian troubles” of ten years ago remained, hidden but unabated, and that this upsetting situation gave Nice a restless undertone not always sensed by strangers.
“Imagine! Trying to contend that Nice is real y Italian. Pah.” Madame Lefoux flicked one hand dismissively and glared at Alexia, as though Alexia might side with the Italians in this matter.
Alexia tried to think of something reassuring to say. “I am certain there is hardly any pasta in the whole city,” was the best rejoinder she could come up with on such short notice.
Madame Lefoux only increased the pace of their skulking, leading them around a pile of discarded rags into a dingy little al eyway.
“I do hope the ornithopter wil be safe where we left it.” Alexia tried to change the subject as she fol owed her friend, lifting her skirts away from the rags. There was hardly any point in the effort at this juncture, but instinct dictated one’s skirts be lifted.
“Should be. It’s out of gunpowder charges, and very few, apart from Gustave and myself, know how to fly it. I shal send him a note as to its location. I do apologize for that unfortunate landing.”
“You mean that unfortunate crash?”
“At least I chose a soft bit of ground.”
“Duck ponds usual y are soft. You do realize, ornithopter only means bird? You don’t actual y have to treat it as such.”
“At least it didn’t explode.”
Alexia paused in her skulking. “Oh, do you believe it ought to have done so?”
Madame Lefoux gave one of her annoying little French shrugs.
“Wel I think your ornithopter has earned its name.”
“Oh, yes?” The inventor looked resigned.
“Yes. The Muddy Duck.”
“Le Canard Boueux? Very funny.”
Floote gave a tiny snort of amusement. Alexia glared at him. How had he managed to entirely avoid the mud?
Madame Lefoux led them to a smal door that once might have been colored blue, and then yel ow, and then green, a history it displayed proudly in crumbling strips of paint al down the front. The Frenchwoman knocked softly at first, and then more and more loudly until she was banging quite violently on the poor door.
The only reaction the racket caused was the immediate commencement of an unending bout of hysterical barking from some species of diminutive canine in possession of the other side of the door.
Floote gestured with his head at the doorknob. Alexia looked closely at it under the flickering torchlight; Nice apparently was not sophisticated enough for gas streetlamps. It was brass, and mostly unassuming, except that there was a very faint etched symbol on its surface, almost smoothed away by hundreds of hands—a chubby little octopus.
After a good deal more banging and barking, the door cautiously opened a crack to reveal a mercurial little man wearing a red and white striped nightshirt and cap, and a half-frightened, half-sleepy expression. A dirty feather duster on four legs bounced feverishly about his bare ankles. Much to Alexia’s surprise, given her recent experience with Frenchmen, the man had no mustache. The feather duster did. Perhaps in Nice mustaches were more common on canines?
Her surprise was abated, however, when the little man spoke, not in French, but in German.
When his staccato sentence was met only by three blank expressions, he evaluated their manners and dress and switched to heavily accented English.
“Ya?”
The duster ejected itself through the partly opened door and attacked Madame Lefoux, gnawing at the hem of her trouser leg. What Madame Lefoux’s excel ent woolen trousers had done to insult the creature, Alexia could not begin to fathom.
“Monsieur Lange-Wilsdorf?” Madame Lefoux tried tactful y to shake off the animal with her foot.
“Who would be wishing to know?”
“I am Lefoux. We have been in correspondence these last few months. Mr. Algonquin Shrimpdittle recommended the introduction.”
“I thought you were of the, uh, persuasion of the feminine.” The gentleman squinted at Madame Lefoux suspiciously.
Madame Lefoux winked at him and doffed her top hat. “I am.”
“Leave off, Poche!” barked the German at the tiny dog. “Monsieur Lange-Wilsdorf,”