The Clockwork Wolf

by Lynn Viehl

  “Not likely. Last I seen she were working on the ledgers.” He rolled his eyes. “Not in her best mood, either.”

  We dodged a few more unlikely couples in various states of undress before arriving at Rina’s office. Wrecker knocked and opened the door.

  “Beg your pardon, milady, but your”—he ducked quickly as an inkwell sailed over his head and smashed against the back wall—“friend’s come to call.”

  “I said no interruptions, you nummox.” Rina appeared, surveyed me, and made a disgusted sound. “Do you know how to balance six columns of figures to the pence?”

  “No,” I admitted, “but I can rub your neck and make pretty, soothing noises.”

  “I hate accounting. I hate pence. And now, I hate you.” She turned on her heel and stalked back to her desk. “Tea for two, Wreck. Best you make it very strong and scalding hot, or you’ll be breathing it.”

  “Yes, milady.” The big man gave me a sympathetic look before he trudged back to the stairs.

  I cautiously entered Rina’s chamber and gently closed the door behind me. “Problem with the books?”

  “You might say that. And when they summon you to court and ask who was most likely to have choked my bookkeeper to death with bare hands, you’ll have to lie.” Rina slammed shut a large green book and flung herself into her desk chair. “So what do you want now? Money, gowns, sanctuary from someone who wishes to strangle you . . . ?”

  “I need only some information.” I perched on the arm of her sofa. “Anything you know about Lord Terrance Bestly.”

  “Bestly, Bestly.” She concentrated, thinking for nearly a minute before she spoke again. “Father was an architect on the Hill; mother Viscount Radley’s youngest gel. Bestly inherited a pile, married up and more, founded a gent’s club. Probably to escape the missus, as it’s said he practically lives there.” She sat up. “Wait, not anymore. He dropped dead last week. I meant to attend the burial, but for some reason they’re dragging their heels on it. Probably waiting for family to travel.”

  Rina adored pomp and ceremony, and regularly disguised herself to attend important weddings and funerals. “Was his lordship one of your regulars?” I asked.

  That startled a laugh out of her. “God, no. Lady You Best Not, his wife, runs that decency society. She and her priggish friends have come after me and my gels more times than I can count. She probably sewed Bestly into his trousers every morning and had him piss out his ear.” Her eyes narrowed. “Did she kill him? Is that why you’re on the case?”

  I shook my head. “Lady Eugenia hired me to investigate her husband’s death.”

  “Get your money up front,” Rina advised. “Prudes like that one have short memories and tight fists.”

  “Oh, she’ll pay.” I rubbed my tired eyes. “Her husband was the Wolfman.”

  “What?” Rina shrieked and laughed, instantly delighted. “Blind my Cupid— Bestly, a murdering loon?”

  I nodded. “His lordship went from posh nob to rampaging killer, all in one night. The story’s coming out in the Daily. Hopefully next week, but possibly tomorrow morning.”

  “Capital.” She chuckled. “I’ll send Wreck to buy fifty copies and use it to wallpaper my loo.” Her grin evaporated. “You’re not going to ruin that, now, are you?”

  I turned my hand from side to side. “The lady believes her husband was bespelled—that someone made him into the Wolfman.”

  “Come on, Kit.” Rina kicked the tuffet in front of her feet. “He ripped apart two chaps, right in the street. There were dozens of witnesses. No black magic in the world can make a man do that.” She gave me a suspicious look. “Why would you hire out to her anyway? You don’t believe in any of that nonsense.”

  I couldn’t tell her that I did because that would mean explaining the hows and the whys, none of which she remembered. “I took the case as a favor to Lucien Dredmore.”

  “Oh, that makes perfect sense. Of course.” She lobbed a throw pillow at me. “You brainless bint. Doing favors for a deathmage who wants nothing more than to toss up your skirts? Have you gone off?”

  “It gets worse,” I said. “I met Lady Bestly once before, just after I came here from Middy. I was working at a tea shop as a counter lass, and I caught one of the lady’s friends spiking a deb’s cup with gut toss.”

  “Nasty.” Rina pursed her lips. “Daughter’s rival for some posh lad, I wager?”

  I nodded. “I put a stop to it and told her to leave. Got a nice tip from the deb, but Lady Bestly showed up the next day. Called me a witch, got me sacked, and saw to it I couldn’t work anywhere else.”

  “Bleeding Christ, Kit.” Rina went still. “You were barely out of the schoolroom when you got here.”

  Wrecker knocked and came in with the still-steaming tea and two golden-brown turnovers. “Warmed up some meat pies for you and Miss Kit. Thought it best, her looking peaked and all.”

  Rina would have snapped at him, but my stomach chose that moment to growl. “You’re like a stray. My staff is always feeding you.”

  “That’s why you’re my best friend,” I told her, and smiled at Wrecker. “Thanks, mate.”

  “Pleasure.” He ducked his head and shuffled out.

  “Wrecker’s never fancied the ladies, you know,” Rina said. “Wouldn’t guess it to look at him, but he’s quite cozy with some kneecapper of the same persuasion.”

  I took a bite of my pasty and shrugged. “None of my business. If he’s happy, isn’t that all that matters?”

  “To you and me,” she allowed. “Your fine lady Bestly, however, would have him strung up by his smalls in market square and flogged for it. Now tell me truly: why have you hired yourself out to that right bitch?”

  “She’s about to go through hell, thanks to her husband.” I tried my tea and winced as it parboiled my tongue. “Working for her, I get a front-row seat to it all. Should be vastly entertaining.”

  “Nicely put.” Rina studied me. “But I know you better than that, you silly cow. Out with it.”

  “After your bastard fiancé lost your maiden night in a card game, you made good on the wager. Even when you knew it would ruin you forever, and your parents would toss you out on the street, you handed over your virtue to the winner.” I cocked my head. “So you know exactly why I’m working for Lady Bestly.”

  “Revenge by honor. Daft twit.” Her expression softened. “She won’t thank you for it.”

  “Then it’s good that I’m not doing it for her.” I sipped my tea. “Now tell me everything else you’ve heard about Terrance Bestly.”

  • • •

  I took a carri-cab from the Eagle’s Nest to my home in one of the oldest sections in town. At first I’d rented a flat in the simple goldstone, saving every pence I could until circumstances and my bank account allowed me to purchase the building. I’d then helped the remaining tenants find new lodgings, adding an incentive for them to move out quickly by offering to pay their first month’s rent if they relocated at once. Since the last had gone I’d been slowly renovating each floor; in a few more years I’d have one of the most spacious homes in the district.

  The goldstone had been built first to serve as a granary, and a faint scent of wheat and barley still permeated its walls. I’d ignored all the current fashions in decor—not that I could afford them anyway—and furnished the first floor with the minimal comforts, most of which I’d taken in trade for my services. Secondhand shops and the thrift market had provided the rest, and what I couldn’t manage to buy I did without.

  Being reminded by Lady Bestly of my wretched days of dwelling in the parks gave me rather a better appreciation of how far I’d come since I’d arrived in Rumsen. Every rug, curtain, and stick of furniture under my roof had come to me through diligence, hard work, and self-sacrifice. My home might be humble by the lady’s standards, but I hadn’t gotten it by charity or marriage. No, I’d earned every damned inch of it myself.

  Revenge by honor, Rina had called it. I liked that quite a bit,
I thought as I tossed my reticule on a side table and dropped onto my chaise longue. I might even have it chiseled above my front entry as a personal motto.

  The chime of my doorbell got me back on my feet to look through the street-facing window, which gave me an excellent view of anyone on the stoop. The man standing outside my door wore a plain long coat that almost hid the lines of the pistol harness beneath it. Gaslight caught some of the gilded strands of his fair hair, which badly wanted trimming, and glowed along the hard line of his set jaw.

  Chief Inspector Thomas Doyle didn’t appear happy, either.

  As children, Tommy Doyle and I had been playmates for a time. Twenty years later we’d met again, this time as copper and suspect. Although he’d harassed me, detained me, questioned me, and arrested me (twice), I’d considered him a friend—none of which he remembered now.

  From his view this would be only our second meeting, so I composed myself accordingly before I answered the bell.

  “Hello, Chief Inspector Doyle.” I didn’t have to fake the smile; I liked Tommy. “What brings the Yard to my door at so late an hour?”

  He removed his bowler. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Kittredge. Might I come in and have a word?”

  “I live alone and I don’t keep servants,” I said. “This could irreparably tarnish your reputation on the Hill.”

  His mouth twisted. “I’m a policeman, Miss Kittredge. My official duties take precedence over society, among which I am respected nearly as much as the average footman.”

  “Butler, I should think.” I opened the door.

  Doyle refused my offer of tea and a comfortable seat, instead taking a position by the window I’d just checked. “Good view of the street here,” he mentioned as I sat down. “Still, you should have a slot or a peek hole installed in your entry. You living alone here and all.”

  The man noticed everything. He also smelled very nice; a bit like the sea on a clear day. “I will take that under advisement.” I sat down and watched him extract a notebook from his coat pocket. “But you didn’t come here to inspect my vantage points.”

  “We received a complaint from a tenant in your office building.” He flipped through some pages. “This morning you were observed carrying a bucket down into the basement level. Is that correct?”

  Not the damned bucket. “Yes.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “I had to dispose of some undrinkable tea.” And now I’d have to get rid of him. “Is that all?”

  “No.” He rooted in his pocket for a pencil. “What sort of tea was this, then?”

  “I can’t say. It was a gift from a client.” I pretended to think. “I can tell you that it was a very disturbing shade of green.”

  “Green tea.”

  I nodded. “Is there a law against tea of unusual hues?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” he said with a perfectly straight face. “Why didn’t you drink it?”

  I smiled. “Would you drink green tea?”

  “Not if it smelled like”—he turned to another page and began to read from it—“ ‘twenty rotting, maggot-infested carcasses,’ according to the complainant’s description.”

  “Not twenty, surely.” I yawned. “One, two at the most—and as I said, I did dispose of it.”

  “You did not.” Doyle closed and pocketed his notebook. “You left the bucket in the basement.”

  “Yes, with instructions for Mr. Docket to dispose of the contents,” I tacked on.

  “He did not,” Doyle said. “According to the statement I obtained from Mr. Docket, he forgot about the bucket until he bumped it with his foot, knocked it over, and the contents spilled all over his floor.”

  “But his floor has a drain,” I offered. “All basements do.”

  “It does,” he agreed. “At the time of the spill, however, it was obstructed by some discarded rags, tools, and other items, so your green tea formed a pool.”

  I sighed. “There was hardly enough to make a puddle, Chief Inspector.”

  “A pool,” he repeated, “which spread out directly beneath the building’s ventilation system.”

  I rested my brow against my hand. “Did Docket shut the vents?”

  “I believe he tried,” Doyle said, “before he fainted and had to be carried out.”

  “Docket will be fine. He’s practically indestructible.” This day’s disasters were never going to end, it seemed, so I stood up. “Right, then. I’ll pop over now and tidy the spill myself.”

  “You cannot,” he said. “The building had to be evacuated and sealed, which it will remain until we can safely determine the exact composition and nature of this tea of yours, and how best to remove it and the stench it is producing.”

  I sat back down. “Is it really that bad?”

  “I have been on battlefields, Miss Kittredge, littered with hundreds of bodies of the fallen, that by comparison to your bucket of brew smelled like a lawn sprinkled with fresh-cut roses.” He came to stand over me. “Now: who made the tea, and what in God’s name was put in it?”

  “There was a parcel I accidentally dropped in the tea,” I said meekly. “It contained an animech rat.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “There was also a bomb in the rat, and some sort of glandular flesh, possibly stag, that seemed to be the source of the smell.” I regarded him. “At least, that was Mr. Docket’s theory.”

  Doyle turned his back on me and stood like that for a lengthy period of silence. “Why did you immerse a bomb in the tea?”

  “Well I didn’t know it was a bomb at the time,” I pointed out. “I only wanted to be rid of the parcel, and the tea. I put both in the bucket and, well, here we are.”

  He faced me. “Why didn’t you report the bomb?”

  “I intended to, tomorrow.” I gazed up at him. “I didn’t know any of this building evacuation business had happened, Tommy. I’ve been out working since this morning; I’ve only just got back.”

  “Are you telling me the truth?” When I nodded, he retrieved my cloak and handed it to me. “Come on.”

  I hesitated. “Am I under arrest?”

  “No,” he said. “You’re going to show me this rat bomb.”

  • • •

  Two beaters stood outside the entry to my office building, and both came to attention as Doyle and I approached. I also saw someone standing at the corner; a short figure in a funny-looking blue cape.

  “Any activity?” Doyle asked.

  “We’ve had a few of the tenants come by to ask what’s to be done,” one of the cops replied. “Not a happy lot, any of them.”

  “You don’t want to go in there, sir,” the other beater said quickly as Doyle climbed the steps. “I tried to nick in round the back to use the facilities, but the air’s so putrid I lost me dinner.” He grimaced at me. “Begging your pardon, miss.”

  “No worries, mate.” I wrinkled my nose back at him. “Sorry about your stomach.” When I glanced at the corner again the oddly-caped man was gone.

  “Stand back.” Doyle took out a blade and used it to cut through the sealing tape stretched across the doors. As he opened them I covered my mouth and nose with a kerchief, but the stench I expected never came.

  Doyle breathed in several times before rubbing the back of his neck. “You’re sure no one’s slipped inside?” he asked his men.

  “Landlord locked it up tight, sir, and gave us the keys,” the first beater said.

  To me Doyle said, “Do you or any of the tenants have keys?”

  “Only to our own offices,” I told him. “The landlord sends his man to open and close the building each day.”

  He took the beater’s lantern. “Let’s have a look in the basement, then.”

  I led the inspector downstairs to the Dungeon, which like the rest of the building held no trace of the noxious smell. I walked over to the workbench where Docket and I had examined the rat, but except for a few tools it stood empty.

  “Docket was working on the a
nimech here.” I turned round to examine the floor, and pointed to a bare spot. “That’s where I left the bucket.” Like the rat and the stink it also had vanished. “This burglar would make an excellent janitor.”

  “I saw the spill here.” Doyle knelt down, moving some of Docket’s things aside to run his hand over the boards. “Bone dry.” He glanced up at me. “There’s not even a stain on the wood.”

  I crouched down and put my hand next to his. As soon as I touched the wood a dark stain spread out from my fingers.

  Doyle hissed something vile and snatched my hand back. “Magic.”

  “Won’t hurt me, Tommy.” Curious marks scratched into the boards also appeared, but they were unlike any wards I’d ever encountered. “It must be some kind of concealment spell.” I tried to take my hand from his but he held on. “You know I’m immune to magic.”

  “And how should I know that?” he demanded.

  He couldn’t, thanks to my time traveling. The cost of what I’d done to save Rumsen from invasion and bring Dredmore back from death was well and truly grating on my nerves now. “Uncle Arthur told you that my mother was a spell breaker, a gift I inherited from her.”

  “You’re lying to me again.” A muscle twitched under his right eye. “You never sound more truthful than when you are.”

  “How do I sound when I tell the truth? Like a liar?” I stood up and touched the workbench, but the rat didn’t materialize. “So they mopped up and took the mech. Why go to all this trouble?”

  “Removing the evidence of their crime.” Doyle stood and scanned the workshop. “What I’d like to know is, why bother to erase the stench?”

  “To prevent you from arresting me, or me from finding them,” I said without thinking. “Or my would-be assassin truly is a janitor and quite devoted to his calling to clean.”

  He cupped my elbow and guided me toward the stairs. “Not an occupation I’d imagine an assassin like Lord Lucien Dredmore pursuing.”

  “That was beautifully done, Tommy,” I said with very real admiration. “Should I stutter my astonishment first, then give you all the details about his completely innocent visit to my office this morning?”