Irene thought about that. “Does he patronize engineers?” she asked.
“The reporter didn’t mention that,” Kai said. “Why?”
Irene shrugged. “It just seemed relevant, given we’re told this alternate favours technology, and if Liechtenstein’s economy is based on airships. By the way, you know a lot about the Fair Folk.”
Kai looked as though he was considering spitting on the ground. “Those creatures—we had something like them in the alternate that I came from. Pervasive thieves, wasters, destroyers—they make their way into society and tear it apart. They destabilize reality. They’re tools of chaos. They are chaos. You can’t expect me to approve of things like that.”
“Look, calm down,” Irene said. “Have some soup. I agree that they’re malign. But we’re not here on some sort of campaign to root them out. Remember the mission.” She was surprised by his vehemence; it was more than she’d expect from a trainee. But personal experience was probably behind it. She wondered how personal the experience might be. An involvement with one of them? The loss of a friend or lover? “Our job is to get the text and then we can get the hell out of here.”
Kai stared at her for a moment, then lowered his eyes. “I apologize for my improper behaviour,” he said, suddenly formal. “You are the head of this mission, of course. I just wish to convey my feelings on the subject. My extremely strong feelings on the subject.”
Irene tried to think of a way to respond that wouldn’t seem dismissive. And he was shifting speech patterns again—from slang to formal and back again. She wondered if he’d noticed it himself. Possibly the influence of the Library, compared to his previous edgy lifestyle?
She set those thoughts aside for later consideration and did her best to smile. “It’s all right. Really. You aren’t the only one who’s had problems with chaos. But we can’t assess how to handle the situation until we have a full picture of it. Please tell me more about Liechtenstein and the embassy.”
Kai returned a thin smile, but it was clearly a duty rather than a pleasure. “Well, as I was going to say, the Fae infestation in Liechtenstein seems to help keep out neighbouring countries. Maybe because they’re not sure what the Fae could do, or maybe they’re worried about the Fae expanding into their countries. And Liechtenstein’s a peach that a lot of people would otherwise want to pluck from the branch and sink their teeth into.”
Irene raised her eyebrows.
“Okay,” Kai said, waving his spoon, “a dramatic metaphor, but have you noticed how very balanced and counterbalanced this whole world is? If you take Liechtenstein, there are mad scientists everywhere. The people I questioned implied some kind of mad scientist race. I know I’m just a trainee, but surely the influence of science there could only be to balance the amount of chaos the Fae bring to the table—especially in Liechtenstein itself?”
“Or maybe the Fae are telling stories about science,” Irene hypothesized. “Or being involved in stories about science. Or maybe Liechtenstein is taking on the role of Belgium in this alternate. My father once did a check on it in as many alternates as he could find. Belgium always seems to get invaded, fall prey to meteorites, or get infested by alien fungus or something . . . and don’t look now, but someone’s just come in and is staring at us.”
“It must be you he’s looking at,” Kai said hopefully, tilting his spoon in a vain attempt to catch a reflection of the room behind him. “Do something odd and see if he reacts.”
“He’s coming this way,” Irene said briefly. He appeared every inch the wealthy aristocrat. From the top hat to the silk-lined cape to the silver-headed cane (a sword-cane, she suspected). His eyes were fixed on Kai. “Quickly,” she murmured, “did you do anything that you should have told me about?”
“Definitely not.” Kai turned to follow Irene’s gaze. “Hm. Wait. I saw him at the embassy.”
“As I saw you, sir,” the man said, doffing his top hat in a small bow to Kai, then a subsidiary one to Irene. “May I join you at this table?”
Kai flicked a glance to Irene. She nodded slightly. He turned back to the man. “Of course,” he said. “Though I don’t think we’ve been introduced?”
A waiter had come dashing up with an extra chair and withdrew with the man’s hat and cloak.
The man seated himself and leaned forward, steepling his fingers. “I trust I may speak freely before your associate?” He nodded towards Irene. “Some of what I have to say may not be fit for the ears of one of the gentler sex.”
Kai looked at Irene for a moment. Irene hesitated, then looked down at her plate in a docile manner. She’d had to play this sort of role before, though admittedly not when coaching a junior at the same time. “Please let me stay, sir,” she said to Kai. “I will simply take notes as normal.”
Kai nodded to her in a lordly manner, then turned back to their guest. “I assure you that Miss”—he barely faltered—“Winters here is entirely trustworthy and is a valued associate of mine. You may speak freely in front of her. Though I would be interested to know what you propose to discuss.”
Part of Irene’s mind was surprised at Kai’s sudden elegance of speech. He’d shifted again into that extreme formality she’d noted earlier. And while she could manage such linguistic shifts easily enough from experience in various alternates, she hadn’t thought that he’d be so capable. Stranger and stranger from a boy who claimed to be from a cybered-up alternate, where he was a petty criminal. She very much wanted to talk to Coppelia about this. The other part of her mind wondered why he’d dubbed her “Winters” and what the cultural reference might be.
She watched their guest from under her eyelashes. He had relaxed a little now and was leaning back in his chair. He was a very aquiline physical type, with a well-defined nose, deep-set shadowy eyes, high cheek-bones, and long, delicate fingers. The perfect example of a lead protagonist in certain types of detective fiction. In fact she wondered if . . .
“Very well,” the stranger said. “Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Peregrine Vale, fifteenth Earl of Leeds.”
Kai gave a little nod. “Kay Strongrock, at your service. Might I ask the nature of your business?”
The waiter cleared away the soup course and brought the main meal for Irene and Kai. He also brought a spare glass for the visitor, filling it unbidden, before retreating again. The intrusion allowed Irene to bite her lip and refrain from kicking Kai under the table, as she’d just managed to work out where he was getting his pseudonyms from. Strongrock—Rochefort. Winters—De Winter. She would have to explain to him why it was a bad idea to pull pseudonyms from literary sources. If the other person had read the book, it gave them far too much information. They’d start looking around for three possible musketeers or mysterious Richelieu-like manipulators behind the scenes.
Even though she had to admit that being compared to Milady de Winter had its flattering side.
“I observed you this afternoon, Mr. Strongrock,” the Earl of Leeds stated. “You were outside the Liechtenstein Embassy. You arrived while they were unloading their zeppelins. You watched the newspaper reporters and then questioned them afterwards.”
“Your lordship seems to have paid a great deal of attention to my movements,” Kai said. There was an undertone of threat to his voice.
The Earl of Leeds tilted his hand. “Call me Vale, please. After all, this is a purely private meeting in a very unofficial capacity.”
Kai raised an eyebrow and sliced into his steak. “Oh?”
“Indeed,” Vale said. He smiled a little.
And it was at that moment that Irene remembered where she’d seen his face before. She’d picked up some newspapers earlier, to get a quick impression of the current political and temporal dynamics. Vale had been on the third page of one; shot half in profile, with him half turned away, clearly unwilling to have the photograph taken. The caption had been NOTED DETECTIVE CONSULTS WITH B
RITISH MUSEUM.
Irene continued to eat, thinking furiously. If their companion was indeed a noted detective, investigating the Liechtenstein Embassy and working with the British Museum—they were either unexpectedly lucky or in very serious trouble.
“So,” Kai said. “Leaving aside that I saw no sign of your following me . . .”
“That,” Vale said smoothly, “is what you may expect to see when I am following you.”
Kai choked slightly on his wine. “Pardon me. But then, sir, why were you following me? What was so interesting about my activities?”
Vale’s smile narrowed even further. “Why, Mr. Strongrock, the fact that they mirrored my own. I suspect that we are investigating the same matter. To be frank, sir, if we are both chasing the same hare, I would rather that you did not start it and cause us both to lose it.”
Kai darted Irene a glance. As clear as daylight, she read a desperate plea for help in his eyes. “Mm,” he said meditatively.
Irene gasped. It was probably a little theatrical, but, she hoped, not too much so. “Mr. Strongrock! Our investigation is strictly private! Even if His Lord—that is, even if Mr. Vale is a famous private detective, we could be looking into entirely different matters!”
She hoped that conveyed the message of we need more information thoroughly enough.
Kai patted her on the hand soothingly. “My associate has a point, Mr. Vale,” he said. “We are operating under conditions of strict confidentiality.”
“As am I, sir,” Vale said with equanimity, not seeming at all put off. “Whatever minor assumptions I might make about you are simply the result of anything you may have revealed to me yourselves, rather than from any investigations on my part.”
Kai raised his eyebrows. “But we have revealed nothing to you,” he said, a moment before Irene could kick his ankle.
“Forgive me when I say that it is obvious that you are strangers to London,” Vale said. He turned his glass in his hand, regarding it with a dry smugness. “I am not speaking merely of Mr. Strongrock’s need to check the street signs when leaving the Liechtenstein Embassy. Neither of you have the accent of native Londoners, and to be truthful I cannot place either of you within the British Isles.” He frowned a little. “Which is unusual. Miss Winters might perhaps have a trace of Germanic brutality to her verbs—possibly the result of a governess or boarding-school at an impressionable age? Mr. Strongrock, on the other hand, has the accent and the bearing characteristic of certain noble families of Shanghai. While neither of these in themselves is that unusual in London, both of you are dressed in a manner that suggests a hasty choice of clothing from a second-rate supplier. Miss Winters’s gloves, for instance.”
Unable to resist the impulse, Irene glanced down at her gloves, which lay next to her table setting. She knew that they clashed with her dress, but there hadn’t been much of a choice in the shop.
“Precisely,” Vale said. “A woman as carefully turned out as Miss Winters would not commit such an elementary error in dress. Similarly, Mr. Strongrock’s shoes”—Kai shuffled his feet farther under his chair—“were clearly worn before him by a man with the habit of kicking the right side of his forefoot against his chair, but Mr. Strongrock himself does not do so. And if the two of you had been in London for a while now, and making enquiries about Lord Wyndham and the Liechtenstein Embassy, then I assure you that I would have known about it.”
Kai opened his mouth, and Irene realized that he was about to say something like How did you know I asked about Lord Wyndham? Apparently he had never been taught the first defence in the science of provocative questioning: Keep Your Mouth Shut. This time she did manage to kick him under the table. He shut his mouth again.
“Mm,” Vale said, apparently satisfied. “A sharing of information could be quite useful. But on the other hand, as Miss Winters has said, we could be looking into entirely different matters. I believe we have come to the point where we decide whether to trust one another.”
“So it seems,” Kai said, making a recovery. “Some more wine?”
“Thank you,” Vale said, extending his glass to be filled. There was silence for a few minutes. Irene turned over various strategies in her mind. Unfortunately, most of them involved Vale briefly leaving the table so that she could talk urgently with Kai, and this seemed unlikely to happen. She was simultaneously impressed by the man’s skills of observation and significantly worried by them. This sort of intellect was splendid in fictional characters, but in practice it risked making their task a great deal more awkward.
Fortunately, the situation was interrupted by screams and loud grinding noises from the street. Diners dropped their knives and forks to turn towards the doorway. A couple of men leapt to their feet, wineglasses still in their hands.
Kai managed an infinitesimal blink at Irene, then turned to Vale. “Do you think we should investigate, sir?”
“Of course!” Vale exclaimed, rising. He picked up his sword-stick, balancing it casually in his left hand. “Madam, kindly stay here. Mr. Strongrock, if you would accompany me—” He strode towards the door.
“What do I do?” Kai muttered to Irene.
“Stay with him,” Irene whispered. “I’ll hold back. Find out what’s going on. Be careful, he’s a detective.”
“I’d worked that bit out,” Kai muttered. But he displayed a wild enthusiasm as he raced after Vale, an eagerness for action.
Irene glanced around as the two men hurried off. Nobody creeping out of the shadows to try to abduct her while their attention was elsewhere. Good. She picked up her bag and walked after them.
The restaurant’s reception area had large glass windows, which provided a convenient view of the narrow street outside—which was in total chaos. A giant mechanical centipede—well, some sort of segmented insect with multiple legs; Irene was hardly going to stand there and count them all—was wreaking havoc in the alleyway outside. She spotted a badly damaged cart and several broken windows. There was barely room for it to navigate, let alone turn around, and it was dancing a few steps forward and then a few steps back as its front feelers seemed to quest for something or someone. Oil oozed from its crevices, while steam puffed from its head segment and mingled with the ambient fog. She noticed that a couple of people had already been hurt and bystanders were screaming and running in all directions. Then of course pausing, at a theoretically safe distance, to watch what it did next.
Kai and Vale were standing in the doorway, assessing it. At least, Vale looked as if he was assessing it. Kai just looked stunned.
“How the hell did that thing get through the streets?” Kai asked.
Vale sniffed. “It probably came up from the sewers. The recent renovation programme has been a godsend to criminals across London.”
“Vale!” The creature’s echoing voice boomed down the street. “Prepare to face your doom!”
“Ah,” Vale said cheerfully, “it’s for me.”
Kai looked hurt. “It might have got us confused,” he said. “Perhaps it’s for me.”
“No, no, I assure you, it’s for me,” Vale said. “But would you mind watching the rear end while I distract the front? Sometimes they have high-emission scintillotherms located there.”
“Of course,” Kai said. “Not a problem.”
Irene leaned against the wall and tried not to sigh. Perhaps Vale was an ethical person, if his enemy was happy to risk innocent lives to hunt him down. Assuming he hadn’t staged the entire thing, of course, but it was also just one more distraction. How on earth was she supposed to manage an investigation with these constant interruptions?
The two men ran out into the street: Vale to the right, towards the creature’s head, and Kai to the left, towards its rear. Irene debated which one to follow. Kai was under her protection, but following Vale could be far more informative.
The question was settled for her as the centipede t
hrew itself into rapid reverse, metal claws scraping on the pavement as it danced backwards. Its head came into view: a monstrous steel model of mandibles and huge faceted glass eyes, large enough for a man to sit in, with steam jetting out in thick squealing bursts on either side. Vale stood before it, his sword unsheathed from its cane and blazing with electricity. Each time the centipede lowered its head to try to bite at him, he parried, and sparks flew to sizzle against pavement and walls.
With a dazzling burst of speed, he darted forward between the gnashing mandibles and leapt up onto the main part of the centipede’s head, balancing there for a moment. He raised his blade and brought it down into one of the creature’s eyes.
Electricity blazed up in a great sparking column. The centipede gave a hissing scream and thrashed all along its length, one segment jolting into the next, with steam gushing out from all the apertures. A hatch dropped open beneath the creature, and a man in a greasy black boiler suit came rolling out of it, coughing and spitting.
Vale leapt down from the head, landing in a billow of coattails. He pointed his sword at the man. “Talk, sir, or—” At that point Irene’s attention was distracted by someone attempting to tug her bag out from under her arm. She turned to see one of the waiters—no, it wasn’t one of the waiters. It was a man in evening dress, with a napkin hastily thrown over one arm, posing as a waiter. His watch was far too expensive to be a waiter’s, his grey moustache too well groomed. And his right hand, she noted in the clarity of the moment, had thin electrical burn lines running from knuckles to wrist.
The Invisible Library (The Invisible Library Novel) Page 8