went on. “Because you obviously have something he values. The famous notebook, I presume. I won’t ask where it’s hidden, because I don’t wish to know. But I’d say if it had been found last night, you’d be dead by now. So he sent you back, and now you’re being watched.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t thought of that possibility, but it made diabolical sense.
“Spoken like someone who forgot to brush their brain this morning,” Mrs. Herrald said. “What indeed happened last night? You don’t seem yourself.”
Matthew shrugged. “I’m just tired, that’s all.” The understatement of the new century.
“Well, it’s likely you’re being watched in the hopes that sooner or later you’ll bring that book out. Be very careful, Matthew. These people are professionals. They leap on mistakes, and in this case a mistake can be fatal. Now I also presume you can’t directly prove any wrong-doing from this notebook, or you would have already taken it to the high constable?”
“That’s correct.”
“And you feel it would be wrong to present it to him, without this proof?”
“He wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
“Do you know what to do with it?”
“For now,” Matthew answered, “just to keep it safely hidden.”
“At your discretion,” she said, with a slight nod that gave her approval. She came forward until she was right in his face. Her eyes were cold. “But listen to me well, Matthew. I don’t think you know what Professor Fell and his compatriots are capable of. Have you told him the whole story, Hudson?”
“No,” came the hollow reply.
“Then I shall do the honors. My husband Richard, who founded the agency. Do you have any idea what happened to him when he came into conflict with Professor Fell?”
Matthew shook his head.
“Richard was successful in having one of the professor’s more notorious associates cast into prison charged with a scheme of arson and extortion. The man was in Newgate only three hours before he was stabbed to death by an unknown killer. Then, several days after that, Richard received the blood card. A small calling-card, with a single bloody fingerprint upon it. Might you guess for yourself what that means?”
“A death threat,” Matthew said.
“No, not a death threat. A death vow. When you receive the blood card, you might as well prepare your funeral. Nathaniel Powers knows all about it. The blood card he received caused him to uproot his family, leave a long-established law practice, and board a ship to New York. But he knows, deep down, that Professor Fell never forgets, and whether it takes one week, or one month, or one year, or ten years, that vow is going to be acted upon. Such was the case with my Richard.” She blinked and looked toward the window, her face paled by the sunlight. “The months passed by. We knew, both of us, what the card meant. We were careful. We were aware of strangers around us, of how dangerous crowds could be, or how deadly might be a silent street. All we could do was wait, and all I could do was pray to God that when the knife or the strangle-cord came Richard would see it in time. Do you know what it does to you, Matthew? Living in fear like that, day after day? For more than five years? Do you have any possible idea?”
“No,” Matthew said grimly. “I don’t.”
“I pray you never do. It erodes your humanity. It saps all joy, and extinguishes all light. And no one can help you, Matthew. No one.” She returned her gaze to him, and in that space of seconds Matthew thought she had been aged just by the memory of those terrible five years and her eyes had sunken into dark-rimmed pits. “We threw ourselves into our business. Our purpose, as Richard called it. There were more problems to be solved, more clients to be served. But always…always…the shadow of Professor Fell was there, waiting. My nerves almost went to pieces sometime during the sixth year. I’m not sure I ever really recovered. But Richard was steadfast. No, he said, he didn’t wish to leave the city. He didn’t wish to run and hide, because he wanted to be able to look at himself in the shaving mirror. And I steadied myself, as well, and went on. One goes on, because one must.” She pulled up a horrible, glassy-eyed smile and glanced at Hudson. “Listen to me prattle like a simpleton. It’s hell, getting old.”
“You don’t have to say anything else,” Greathouse told her, but she waved his objection away.
For a moment she stood looking down at the floor between herself and Matthew. Beyond the window a seagull cried out as it flew by and a dog barked stridently down on the street.
“On November the tenth. In the seventh year,” she said, in a pained and hesitant voice, “at four o’clock in the afternoon. A rainy day. Cold to the bone. Richard left the office to meet his half-brother at the Cross Keys Tavern two blocks from our door. I remember telling him I’d be along soon, after I’d finished writing a report. The case was…a missing emerald ring. Stolen by a maid named Sophie. I remember that, very clearly. I told Richard…I told him to wear his muffler, and to get some hot tea. He was suffering from a sore throat. The London chill, you know. I told him I’d be along…and he walked out the door, bound for the Cross Keys Tavern…and he never, ever got there. Not two blocks. He was not seen leaving our building. He was not seen…anywhere, by anyone.” She lifted her head to stare again out the window, and Matthew wondered just what she was seeing. She started to speak, but words failed her. After a moment she tried once more. “The morning…of November the thirteenth,” she said, “I found a package at our front door. A very small package.”
“Katherine.” Greathouse had swiftly moved to her side and taken her elbow. “Don’t do this.”
“It’s a history lesson,” she answered wanly. “A cautionary tale, for those who have no choice but to go on. I was saying…about the small package. Matthew, do you know the agency used to have a motto? Painted on our sign, and printed on our cards. ‘The Hands and Eyes of the Law.’”
Matthew recalled Ashton McCaggers telling him about it, up in the coroner’s attic.
“I should not have opened that package. I never should have.” Something broke in her voice and a tremor passed over her face. “They had left his wedding band on. Very kind of them, in their depravity. They wanted to make sure…absolutely sure…that I could recognize…what remained.” She closed her eyes. “What remained,” she said again, in nearly a whisper, and beyond the window gulls flew past as white as seafoam and someone on the street began to holler about buckets for sale.
Mrs. Herrald had finished her story. She stood between sunlight and shadow in the room, her head bowed, and perhaps there was a dampness at her eyes or perhaps not, for Matthew thought she in her own way was a soldier, and soldiers only wept alone.
“I was the half-brother Richard was going to meet,” Greathouse said to Matthew, as he released the woman’s elbow. “Eight years between us. Also the width of a world. He was always lamenting my choices in drink, women, and mercenary adventuring. Said I ought to turn my formidable talents to the support of the law. Formidable. Have you ever heard such shit?”
“Shit or not,” said Mrs. Herrald sharply, as if emerging from her trance of agonized memory, “you’re here, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he answered, directly to her. “I am here.”
“So…I presume you were going to tell me about this before Monday morning?”
“I was going to get around to it.”
“Monday morning?” Matthew asked. “What happens then?”
“Then,” Mrs. Herrald replied, and now her face had regained its smooth composure and her voice had strengthened, “I walk aboard a ship and, God willing, set foot in England within ten weeks if the wind is providential.”
“You’re going back to England?”
“Yes, I believe that’s what I just said. I have other offices of the agency to run, and other business obligations. You and Hudson will oversee this office.”
“He and I? By ourselves?”
“Really, Matthew!” She frowned. “You must need a good night’s sleep! You and Hudson will do fine, by yourselves. One or two more associates may be hired later, at Hudson’s discretion, but for the time being I think things are in order. Except for this ghastly place, and once it’s scrubbed and the furniture brought in it’ll be ready for business. We’ll hang a sign, and there you are. Oh!” She looked at Hudson. “Give him the money.”
With obvious distaste, Greathouse brought a small leather pouch from within his coat and held it toward Matthew.
“Go on and take it,” Mrs. Herrald urged. “It’s to cover your travel expenses when you go to Philadelphia.” When Matthew hesitated, Mrs. Herrald sighed heavily and said, “Well, you do plan to go, don’t you? How else are
