The Angel of the Crows

by Katherine Addison

  Crow’s wings mantled, and his scowl was thunderous. “Are you insinuating—”

  “Oh for God’s sake go home!” Jones interrupted. “Go home and be glad I’m not insinuating anything.”

  “Thank you very much for your help,” I said hastily to Madame Silvanova, caught Crow by the elbow, and would have dragged him out of the shop, except that we had to be careful negotiating the door.

  We were a block and a half away before Crow started giggling. “Thank goodness!” he said. “I was afraid Jones wouldn’t take the bait.”

  “You were trying to get him to throw us out?”

  “Well, if he’d actually questioned me, we’d have been in an ugly fix. But I knew he didn’t want us there more than he wanted to find out what we knew, therefore I provoked him and gambled. Also, I did try to tell him last night. And he said I needed to stop constructing castle-in-the-air theories and let real policemen do real police work. So…” He gave me a half-conspiratorial, half-guilty smile. “I do hold grudges, even though I know I shouldn’t.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” I said, and he laughed.

  * * *

  When we got back to the flat, we found Anuvadaka huddled miserably in front of the fire with my mouse-colored dressing gown—which I’d carelessly left draped over one of the armchairs—wrapped around himself like a blanket.

  He stood up as we came in, and said, “I beg your pardon. I did not dare attempt the front door. I came in from the roof.”

  “Understandable,” said Crow. “For the future, we’d best buy a lock for the trapdoor.”

  “Did you have any trouble evading the police?” I said.

  “No,” said Anuvadaka. “Like almost all your people, police officers don’t often look up. And I have learned to navigate London in the five years we have stayed here. It is not so different from the jungle in its own way.”

  Crow said gently, “Small betrayed you.”

  Anuvadaka sighed and said, “I admit that I am not entirely surprised. He made no secret of the fact that his three friends—and the Agra treasure—came first with him. And he was very angry with me for killing Bartholomew Sholto.”

  “I still don’t quite understand the sequence of events,” said Crow. “I had thought Sholto must have been dead before Small made it into the room.”

  Anuvadaka shook his head. “He was not … killing him was no part of the plan. Mr. Small thought he wouldn’t even be in the room. I came down into the room through the hole in the plaster. He was frightened enough of me that he did not fight, which is ridiculous, really. He was a foot taller and could easily have overpowered me. But I yelled nonsense at him in my own language, and he didn’t even protest. Then I threw down the rope to Mr. Small.” He stopped and shivered, this time not from cold.

  “What triggered him?” I asked.

  “The treasure,” said Anuvadaka. “He was so excited to recover it at last, and so angry at Major Sholto for stealing it … I saw his fangs come down and I did the only thing I could.” From a pocket inside the waistband of his trousers, he produced a blowpipe and what was obviously a handmade pouch to keep the thorn-darts accessible but not able to prick anyone, including their wielder. “I was almost too late as it was. If he had bitten Mr. Sholto, he would have savaged everyone in the house. Perhaps I did the wrong thing, but I had sworn an oath to him, and at that point, he had not broken his promise to me. Thus I spared his life as he had spared mine. He showed his gratitude by beating me for it.”

  “Is your oath still binding?” Crow asked cautiously.

  “He betrayed me,” Anuvadaka said. “You cannot keep faith with the faithless.”

  “Then will you help us find him?”

  “I must, mustn’t I?” said Anuvadaka with another of his lopsided, half-sad smiles. “Since it is my fault that he is still out there to be found.”

  * * *

  Anuvadaka explained to us the rest of Jonathan Small’s scheme. He had hidden the treasure somewhere Anuvadaka did not know, and when he had left Madame Silvanova’s he had said he was going to hire a steam launch, which was the next part of the plan: a steam launch to take them down the river to where a boat was supposed to be waiting for them. But now that he had diverged so spectacularly from that plan, it was a matter of guessing what he might do next.

  “He will be doing everything in his power to get the treasure back to India,” Anuvadaka said. “It is the goal for which he lives. He hated to leave India without his friends; he railed and raged all the way to England. Thus his first thought will be to return and effect their escape.”

  “If not by boat, he can leave England only to go to Scotland,” said Crow, “therefore his plan must still rely on a boat, and he cannot expect to pass unnoticed—a wooden-legged man with a heavy box.”

  “It is a remarkable box, of Benares work,” said Anuvadaka. “Anyone who got a good look at it would remember it.”

  “Does he have other friends in London?” I asked Anuvadaka. “How did he find Madame Silvanova in the first place?”

  “Her brother is an unregistered necrophage,” said Anuvadaka. “The unregistered in London stick together and help each other as best they can. She and Grigori are the only people we know in Southwark. Madame Silvanova was not happy to see us, but she agreed to let us hide above her shop—and you were right. He didn’t tell her about Bartholomew Sholto’s death.”

  “Perhaps what we need,” I said, “is to talk to Madame Silvanova again.”

  “That’s not a bad idea, Doyle,” said Crow. “And let’s see if she will come to us—a Nameless can run that errand, and I will ask her for tomorrow morning, not now when her business is best. She might be more talkative off her home turf. I will return directly.”

  I tidied away the map Crow had been staring at—he had a prodigious number of them, though none of London—and told myself not to think about Miss Morstan’s blue eyes. If she received even a portion of the treasure, she would be a wealthy woman, and even if not, she was still well above my touch. But I admit my heart beat faster for more reasons than one when I heard Crow’s voice in the stairwell: “Yes, of course, Miss Morstan. Just let me go see if Dr. Doyle is inclined for visitors.”

  Anuvadaka stared at me in mingled inquiry and panic; I pointed him into my bedroom and closed the door just as Crow came in. He glanced around, nodded approvingly at the absence of Andaman Islanders, and said, “So how do you feel about visitors?”

  “Resigned,” I said.

  Miss Morstan was once again wearing a dress that combined elegance of design with simplicity of manufacture and material. She had most likely sewn it herself; certainly the embroidery of morning glories at the cuffs was her work and showed a resolute pride that I admired. And whether she or another had chosen the cloth, they had chosen well. The blue matched and accentuated the blue of her eyes, elevating her from “unremarkable” to “striking.” She smiled when she saw me, and I smiled back even as I was thinking, That is her best dress. She wore her best dress because she knew she would see you. You have to end this.

  But I could not do so now, not with Crow in the room and Anuvadaka in the bedroom and a treasure at stake. I held my tongue and some reprehensible part of me basked in the knowledge that she had worn her best dress on my behalf.

  Crow described our adventures and conclusions to her; I listened carefully, but he managed to skirt the fact that there was a murderer in my bedroom all on his own.

  And Miss Morstan did not catch him. She said, “I don’t want you to be in trouble with the police!”

  “We aren’t,” Crow said. “I’ve had go-rounds like this before with Jones. He won’t stay angry—it is one of his few redeeming features.”

  Miss Morstan laughed. “What about the wooden-legged man? I don’t care about the treasure, but he seems like a most undesirable person.”

  “He does, doesn’t he?” said Crow. “We are working on that problem, and I hope to have news of him very soon.”

  “Really,”
Miss Morstan said, looking uncomfortable, “you shouldn’t be looking for him on my account. I don’t entirely know how I shall pay you as it is. I should have inquired about your fees before I engaged your services, but I am shockingly bad at business.”

  “You may pay us out of your share of the treasure,” I suggested.

  “And I can hardly charge you for something I would be doing anyway,” said Crow, who was also shockingly bad at business.

  “You are very kind,” Miss Morstan said, although she still looked uncomfortable.

  “Nothing of the sort,” Crow said. “I am intrigued. But truly, Miss Morstan. The job you hired us for is complete. You have safely met your unknown friend, and as a bonus you have discovered the truth about your father’s death. You are naturally interested in the sequelae, but it is certainly no fault of yours that we have been chasing a wooden-legged man all over London.”

  “But the treasure,” said Miss Morstan. A lesser woman might have been wringing her hands.

  “A happy coincidence,” Crow said airily.

  “You are very kind,” she said. “I must go. Mrs. Cecil Forrester was generous enough to let me borrow her carriage, but I promised to do a number of errands. But perhaps, Dr. Doyle, you will come and tell me how the adventure turns out?”

  It would be an opportunity to speak to her alone, which I now saw I must do. “Of course,” I said. Her smile was shy and hopeful; I felt ill.

  When she was gone, Anuvadaka came out of my bedroom and said, “What is to become of me now?”

  “What do you mean?” said Crow.

  “I am a murderer,” said Anuvadaka. “Surely you cannot mean to allow me to go free.”

  “I think a good defense lawyer could win an acquittal,” Crow said. “The laws surrounding oaths are complicated.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but we don’t have the right to make that decision.”

  Crow frowned at me. “Are you saying you want to hand him over to the police?”

  “I don’t want to do any such thing. But—forgive me, Anuvadaka—we are obstructing justice by hiding him.”

  “I would say we are enabling justice,” said Crow. “You know Jones would forget all about Jonathan Small the instant he arrested Anuvadaka.”

  “Small did not murder Sholto,” I said.

  “He stole the treasure,” Crow said. “And he would have done worse than murder if Anuvadaka had not stopped him. You must have seen what’s left after a hemophage has gone berserk.”

  “Yes,” I said, because I had, and the memory was not a pleasant one. “But that is still not the point. What Small would have done is a hypothetical. The fact is that Anuvadaka killed Bartholomew Sholto, and we do not have the right to decide he should go free.”

  “Where in London are you going to find a jury of his peers?” Crow said scornfully.

  “Still not the point,” I said through my teeth.

  “Then what?” Crow demanded, his wings flaring. “You want to send a telegram to Athelney Jones and tell him to come arrest him?”

  “Do you propose to send him back out among the rooftops of London? Or do you plan to keep him as a pet?”

  “Well, I’m not going to hand him over to Athelney Jones,” Crow snarled.

  “And what will you do when they arrest Small and he tells them—truthfully—that they’ve got the wrong man? What will you tell Jones then?”

  “How can you be so heartless?” Crow said, angry and—what was much worse—hurt. “Or does no one other than Miss Morstan matter to you?”

  Although it took a Herculean effort, I did not say any of the things I wanted to. Instead, I said, “My feelings for Miss Morstan have nothing to do with the matter. It is a matter of ethics.”

  “Yes, it most certainly is!” Crow said. “But you’ve confused ethics with legality.”

  “And you’ve confused your liking for the suspect with an ethical principle.” I was still hovering on the brink of saying something unforgivable. I grabbed my cane, stood up, and said, “I’m going out.”

  “You can’t just leave in the middle of an argument!” Crow protested.

  “We aren’t arguing,” I said. “We’re fighting. And I am going out.” I slammed the door behind me and hoped it rattled the china.

  16

  The Social Club of the Hemophages

  I returned much later and, truthfully, in no better mood, to find Anuvadaka asleep on the sofa and Crow amidst his press cuttings. He started up when he saw me. “Doyle—”

  “Not now, Crow,” I said. “I’m going to bed.” I went into my room, locked the door, and had no sooner finished undressing than I turned into a hell-hound.

  Being awake for the transition, I discovered for the second time, did not make it better, and even if I had been prepared to fight it, I don’t think I would have been successful. Werewolves are taught from an early age not to lose their temper unless they do so with intent.

  I wormed out of my unbuttoned pajama jacket and groaned in dissatisfaction. There was an angel outside the door, and the room was too small to pace properly. Sullenly, I dragged all the covers off the bed and made a nest in the closet. It was going to be a long night.

  I did sleep eventually, although “sleep” for a hell-hound is a strange state. I myself did not dream, but I was intensely aware of Anuvadaka in the next room, dreaming of the jungle and home. I was aware of Crow, too, like a bright and steady lamp in the night, and stayed away from him.

  Downstairs, I found Jennie dreaming about burned scones and the cook dreaming about searching for her dead mother’s umbrella. Mrs. Climpson was dreaming about standing at the top of Victoria’s Needle, watching for the Spanish Armada, while the Queen, who was Elizabeth or Victoria or both, called up to her like the girl in the fairy tale, “What do you see?”

  At dawn, I became human again and dragged the bed covers back to the bed for a couple of hours of real sleep.

  When I came out of my room at eight o’clock, feeling only marginally refreshed, Crow was alone in the sitting room. “Anuvadaka went up to the attic,” he said, pulling the bell to let Jennie know it was time to make tea. “So that we could have Jennie and Mrs. Climpson stomping in and out.”

  I muttered something that might have been “Good morning,” and settled in at the table with the armor of The Times.

  Crow waited until I had tea and toast and had fended off offers of kippers and oatmeal and eggs, until he could be sure Jennie wasn’t going to come in again, before he said, “Doyle, are you still mad at me?”

  “Yes,” I said, because all the folktales say you should not lie to an angel. And because I was still mad.

  “If…” He broke off. I was halfway down the casualty lists when he blurted, “If you have sexual congress with me, will you stop being mad?”

  Tea went everywhere. If I’d had a mouthful of toast, I probably would have choked to death. As it was, I wheezed and gasped and finally said, “WHAT?”

  “I don’t want you to be mad at me,” Crow explained unhappily. “I thought maybe—”

  “That is not what sexual congress is for!”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No! Who gave you that horrible idea?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, his wings curving around him protectively.

  I had never been so keenly aware of how little I knew about his past. “Well, whoever it was, they were wrong. Good God.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh dear.”

  “Did you … did someone…” I couldn’t even formulate the question.

  “It was a long time ago,” he said defensively. “And it wasn’t— Oh thank goodness, there’s someone at the door.”

  He strode out to the landing to shout, “Come up!” probably before Jennie even had the chance to ask the caller’s business. He came back ushering Madame Silvanova. In daylight, she was older than she had looked in her shop, with crow’s-feet starting and lines of worry and aggravation marking her face. But her grace was undiminished, and she did not
seem at all annoyed to be answering our summons.

  Crow asked, tactless as ever: “Is your name really Silvanova?”

  She laughed and said, “No. Silvanova I made up for the punters. My name is Oksana Timofeyevna, and forgive me, but I will not burden you with my real surname. Silvanova will do. One cannot be too careful, you understand.”

  “Anuvadaka said your brother is unregistered,” Crow said.

  She scowled. “Anuvadaka should hold his tongue. But, yes, since you already know, my brother Grigori is an unregistered necrophage. We left Russia one step ahead of the Tsar’s hounds, and it is well known that the British Registry is shared with other governments. Besides, if Grigori registered, they would never let him continue to work as a sexton.”

  “Are the Tsar’s agents still pursuing you?” I asked. “It seems a great deal of bother.”

  “For one common necrophage?” Madame Silvanova smiled bitterly. “But my brother is not a common necrophage. He was the youngest colonel in the Russian Army.”

  “… Oh dear,” said Crow.

  “Since he is considered to have disgraced the Tsar by becoming a necrophage,” Madame Silvanova continued, “they will never stop hunting him. At this point it would be quite a feather in the cap of the person who found him. We have lived in London for seven years.”

  “Were you always a diviner?” I said.

  “I was trained at the Imperial Academy of Augury,” she said, with old but still strong pride. “It is not suitable, of course, for a woman to hold an Imperial appointment, but I was allowed to act as my father’s augur.”

  Meaning her father was a landowner. “It must have been quite a wrench to leave,” I said.

  She shrugged elegantly. “Grigori is my brother.”

  “Madame Silvanova,” Crow said, “we need your help.”

  She immediately grew wary. “What kind of help?”