The Serpent's Shadow

like to have a word with this Jenner chap. He probably knows a great deal more than he's told you, and I'll be able to ask questions he'd be embarrassed to hear from your lips. And it might be I could use him when he's better. I wish I had somewhere to put him until he recovers—but frankly, I don't. Well, I could house him at the old barn in the country, but getting him there—'

'He's been moved enough as it is,' Maya said firmly. 'I had already considered taking him to my home, but he's safest at the clinic for now. A long train ride to your country estate is out of the question.'

'We can hide him from those otherworldly eyes, though,' Peter Scott offered. 'And if. Parkening has any sense, he'll steer clear of anything with our sign on it.'

Maya didn't ask what he meant by that; Lord Peter nodded grimly at that point, and she decided that she didn't need to know. 'If you don't mind—' she began.

'Mind? Not in the least. I'll have Clive get us a cab.' Lord Peter shot up out of his chair like the greyhound he so closely resembled, and out of the door, returning a moment later.

'There. If you're ready, Doctor? Scott?' He chivvied them out a little like a sheepdog herding its charges, much to Maya's amusement. She had decided that she liked Peter Almsley very much, despite a slight touch of the unconscious arrogance that came with having money and rank bestowed on him at birth—and she pitied any woman who thought to wind him around her finger. He only played the fool; it was a mask, and a good one, but a mask nonetheless.

The three of them would never have fit in a hansom, but Clive (who evidently replaced Cedric in the evening, and looked far less grim), had gotten a motor taxi, with two broad bench seats. The men took one, and she sat facing them, in isolated splendor that felt a little ridiculous. The taxi chattered and chugged its way to the Fleet, attracting the attention of little urchins who ran alongside it, shouting. Nothing this modern had ever penetrated the neighborhood around the Fleet before, and it was a marvel to every small boy that beheld it.

The little boys followed it after it left them at the door of the Fleet. The driver did not care to linger in the neighborhood, and Maya was not particularly worried about getting home. Tom would take her back, then return for the two Peters.

The noise attracted all of the night staff—and Amelia—to the door of the clinic, however. It was Maya's turn to play sheepdog and herd everyone inside, before too much curiosity got the better of everyone.

'What are you still doing here?' she whispered to Amelia, as she closed the door behind them all. 'I thought you would be home by now.'

Amelia flushed and ducked her head. 'I still had things to do,' she confessed. 'I couldn't go home with half my work undone.'

Translation: 'I left everything to do because I spent too much time talking to Paul Jenner,' Maya thought, amused, but without a smile. 'I hope you've caught up,' was all she said.

'Oh, yes! I was just about to see if someone could find me a cab when you all arrived. What is all this about?' Amelia would have said more, but Lord Peter turned around at that very moment and accosted Maya.

'Doctor Witherspoon!' he said, with a charming smile. 'Please introduce me to your staff—and give me a tour, if you would!'

Head Nurse Sarah Pleine smelled 'wealthy donor,' and her normally cheerful face was wreathed in smiles when Maya made the introductions. So did the rest of the night staff—Jeffry, the orphan who ran errands and slept in the garret, George, the man-of-all-work and porter, and Patience, Sarah's daughter and assistant. Maya let them think just that; who knew, it might even be true, for Lord Peter showed no impatience on his brief tour, and even asked a few pointed and pertinent questions about the operating costs of such a clinic.

'Some of our expenses are covered by a group donation—all the London newspapers put together a common fund, which is why this place is called the 'Fleet Clinic.' And once a year, they organize a subscription fund for us,' Maya explained. 'But that only takes care of some basic needs. I don't receive anything for my services, for instance, and neither does Amelia; the only paid staffers are our anesthetist, the nurses, and the porters.'

'Still, it's better to have the papers as your founding sponsors, I would think,' Lord Peter observed. 'Isn't there less interference about who 'deserves' treatment this way? And I should think it highly unlikely that members of the press would find drinking and smoking as objectionable as some of our worthy clergy do.' His wry smile made Maya and Amelia laugh.

'Oh, the myth of the Deserving Poor—' Maya replied. 'As if we bothered to ask if a man screaming in pain was a regular churchgoer and subscribed to the Temperance Union!' The more Lord Peter said, the more she liked him; it was such a relief to meet someone from the upper classes who really had a grasp of how things stood in the East End. Where cheap gin numbs the pain of the joints of a man who has been working too long and too hard in the damp and cold—where 'Sunday outfits' linger in the pawnshop until Saturday night, and if there is no money to redeem them, then there is no way to go to church—

'Well, as a rule, I don't go subscribing to charities unless I know that they aren't wasting my donations on hymnbooks and tracts,' Lord Peter told them, with a definite smile on his thin lips. He didn't say anything more, but when he reached into his breast pocket and brought out his notecase, then took Maya's unresisting hand and pressed several notes of large denomination into it, she stared at him in open-mouthed astonishment.