woman predisposed to self-harm. Neither did she appear noticeably bereaved. She behaved more as if she was profoundly relieved at being rid of some irritating encumbrance.”
Honeyman turned to the inspector. “This is intolerable. Am I expected to stand in my own home and allow myself to be insulted by this rank amateur?”
“Believe me,” Moon pressed on, “your wife was not in mourning.”
“Can you tell us, sir,” Merryweather said, his voice almost comical in its excessive deference, “had your wife been behaving strangely at all before she vanished? Had she done anything unusual or out of character?”
“She been particularly involved in her church work of late. She’s a great philanthropist, you see. Most devout.”
“Church?” Merryweather said. “Can you tell us the name of that church, sir?”
“More of a charity, I think, properly speaking. Somewhere in the city. Of course, I’m perfectly happy with our little parish church but then she was always far more serious about all that than me. She was quite besotted with this new lot. Lord knows why.”
“The name of the church, sir?”
Honeyman harrumphed. “I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you without looking it up.”
Merryweather favored the man with his best professional smile. “We’re happy to wait, sir.”
Muttering under his breath, Honeyman trudged from the room.
“Inspector?” Moon said suspiciously. “Do you know something I don’t?”
Merryweather was unable to hide his excitement. “It’s a rare day I’m ahead of you, Mr. Moon, but I fancy this time I might just have managed it.”
“Tell me,” Moon said sharply. “Now.”
“Patience.”
Before Moon could frame a sardonic reply, Honeyman returned, brandishing a sheaf of papers. “Just as I said. They’re a philanthropic organization. Missionaries, I think. Something of that sort.”
“Their name?” Merryweather asked again as he reached for his notebook.
“I have it here.” Honeyman flicked vaguely through his papers until he came across the information. “The Church of the Summer Kingdom.” He wrinkled his nose. “Ridiculous name. You think it could be significant?”
Merryweather scribbled furiously. “Yes, sir. I think it just might be.”
They left with a promise to keep him fully informed of their investigation and strolled outside to the grounds where the Somnambulist was loitering about by the fish pond, listening to a groundsman chatter incoherently on about tree surgery. He gave them a quizzical look.
“The inspector’s keeping something from me,” Moon explained sulkily.
“Wait till we’re in the coach. Then I’ll tell you everything.”
They were halfway back into the city before he finally told them the truth. “You remember Dunbar?” he began as the coach lurched with fearless rapidity in and out of the jostling ranks of traffic. “The Fly’s other victim?”
“Of course.”
“Seems his mother disappeared around about the same time as Mrs. Honeyman.”
Moon sounded almost disappointed. “I see.”
“Wait for it, Mr. Moon. Wait for it. This is the really interesting part.”
“Let me guess,” the detective interrupted swiftly. “She was also a member of this gang of philanthropists — the Church of the Summer Kingdom?”
Merryweather clapped his hands together in delight. “Precisely so.”
“Well, then. It seems at long last that we have a new lead in the murder of Cyril Honeyman.”
The Directorate.
Skimpole had never liked the name. He thought it was ostentatious, pompous and unnecessarily melodramatic. It originated from the founding of the agency in more theatrical times, days of blood and thunder. Since the death of the Queen, Skimpole had harbored hopes that the excesses of the past would not continue into the new century. He felt that a secret organization (if it were to have a name at all) ought to take pains to make itself sound as commonplace and as unworthy of notice as possible — certainly not revel in a title like “the Directorate,” which sounded as though it had been torn from the pages of popular fiction and seemed to him to reek of showmanship and cheap sensation. Dedlock, however, had always heartily approved of the name and, as it happened, considered himself a man who positively thrived upon showmanship and cheap sensation.
It was late in the working day and they sat in their usual places at the round table, Dedlock doggedly working his way through a bottle of wine, Skimpole struggling with a set of dense and tiresomely exhaustive surveillance reports.
“This is quite like old times,” Dedlock said, all of a sudden gregarious.
“How so?”
“You hard at your studies, me bunking off for a drink.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Like being back at school, isn’t it?”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Sorry I spoke.”
The albino went back to his work, only to be interrupted again. “Don’t sulk, Skimpole, for God’s sake. You never talk about the old days.” After the consumption of the best part of three-quarters of a bottle, he seemed in a ruminative mood.
Skimpole slammed down his reports on the table. “What news of Madame Innocenti?” he asked, pointedly ignoring Dedlock’s overtures of nostalgia.
“She was last seen in New York. After that — poof! — disappeared.”
“Damn.”
“You’re convinced she was the real thing?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. But if there’s the slightest chance she was genuine — and frankly, I can’t believe that all the information she gave us was entirely a string of lucky guesses — then the very last place we want her is New York. Power like that in the hands of the Americans is unthinkable.”
Mackenzie-Cooper emerged from the shadows, dressed in his usual unconvincing guise of a Chinese butcher. “Drink, sah?” he asked, speaking in that risible accent. Irritated, the albino waved him away.
“You should join me,” Dedlock said. “It’s surprisingly good.”
“Far too early for me.” Skimpole turned to Mackenzie-Cooper. “I’ll have a cup of tea.”
The man bowed and disappeared to the back of the room. Although neither of his superiors noticed it at the time, he seemed oddly nervous. Dedlock was later to claim that he saw the man’s hands tremble and shake as though palsied, but this particular detail was one he was only able to recall a number of months after the incident and — suspiciously — during a dinner party at that.
“What’s Mr. Moon up to?” Dedlock asked.
“Following a lead on the Honeyman case. He’s still convinced it’s connected.”
“Do you agree?”
“I’ve learnt by now to trust his instincts.”
Dedlock scratched idly at his scar. “He’s your agent,” he said.
“I shan’t try to interfere. But if Madame Innocenti was correct, then we’ve only got four days left.”
“I hardly need to be reminded.”
“I’m thinking of moving my family out of the city. You know, before it happens. Have you made any arrangements?”
Before he could reply, Mackenzie-Cooper returned with a large pot of tea. He poured Skimpole a cup and, offering the same to Dedlock, stressed in rather more forceful tones than really behooves an underling the efficacy of the drink in combatting insobriety. Dedlock grudgingly accepted and a cup of the rehabilitative brew was set beside his wine.
As Mackenzie-Cooper was pouring, Skimpole swigged from his own cup and frowned. Far too much sugar. Still, he drank again, a bigger sip this time, taking a guilty pleasure in the saccharine rush.
Dedlock leant across to the phoney Chinaman. “You all right, old boy? You don’t seem quite yourself.”
