The Affair of the Mysterious Letter

by Alexis Hall

  “Remind me again what I said?”

  Miss de Luca’s very red lips twisted into a mocking smile. “You said it was unthinkingly decadent and blindly amoral, without the subtlety of observation or originality of expression that might make such shortcomings forgivable.”

  “Dear me. I do sound like an utter prig, don’t I?” Mr. Lutrell did not, in fact, say “prig”—although I hope I have preserved his sentiment if not his precise vocabulary.

  “Yes, darling, yes, you do.” Miss de Luca’s tone left me in little doubt as to her opinion of Mr. Lutrell.

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” he went on, “you must have been very young when the revolution came to Carcosa. Doesn’t that make it rather challenging to write about?”

  “My father made certain that I remembered my heritage.” Miss de Luca was hard to read behind the mask, but I fancied I heard sorrow in her voice. “My mother was taken when they purged the Repairers.”

  “That must have been difficult.”

  This was an understatement. If Miss de Luca’s mother had indeed been a Repairer of Reputations, a member of the rightly feared secret police that once served the kings of Carcosa and now worked for the party, then the Carcosan state would have gone to great lengths to capture and reeducate her entire family. Either Miss de Luca was immensely fortunate or she was a spy.

  She shrugged. “It’s one such tale amongst many, and you may find its like in poems and playbills across reality. Even dear Iacomo has his In Memory Of—seven hundred and twenty-three verses on the theme of how sad it is when your friends die. Grief, we are given to understand, is universal. But how do you grieve for a nation? For a life you never knew? For a world that was stolen from you?”

  “Well, personally I wouldn’t.” Mr. Lutrell lowered himself in a somewhat ungainly fashion onto a cushion. “Who we were is so much less interesting than who we are.”

  “We are the stories we tell about ourselves. And I would rather be Cassilda on the shores of Lake Hali or a stranger in a pallid mask than a foreign girl with a dead mother.”

  “And what of our hostess?”

  Miss de Luca inclined her head very slightly in Mr. Lutrell’s direction. “What of her?”

  “She seems rather fascinated by things Carcosan herself, if her reputation is to be believed.”

  “Oh, darling, that was years ago. And her interest in me has been purely artistic.”

  “Had it not been,” put in Domitia, “I would have killed her.”

  Catching her paramour’s hand, Miss de Luca kissed it playfully. “I find your ferocity terribly attractive, dear one, but do stop threatening to murder people.”

  “I tolerate this only because I enjoy your company.” The force captain did not say “company.” She made a rather more specific reference.

  Mr. Lutrell coughed as politely as he was able to manage. “What actually did happen back then? With the scandal, I mean.”

  “I didn’t realise,” replied Miss de Luca, somewhat coldly, “that The Esoteric Review had diversified into gossipmongering.”

  “On the contrary, in this matter I’m merely an amateur enthusiast.”

  “Perhaps you should restrict your attentions to Yasmine’s poetry rather than her personal life. Have you even read her latest collection?”

  I was, by now, familiar enough with Ms. Haas’s temperament to know that she did not respond well to either setbacks or criticism. Thankfully, Mr. Lutrell just looked peeved. “Unfortunately an advance copy has not yet arrived at our offices. Perhaps it was devoured by wild dogs en route.”

  “Well”—Miss de Luca plucked a slim volume from a nearby table—“allow me to supply you with a copy in order that you will not embarrass yourself further.”

  Mr. Lutrell accepted the proffered chapbook with ill grace. Regaining his feet, he gave a curt bow, and we left Miss de Luca and the force captain to their private discourses.

  “Dash it all,” muttered my companion, once we were more or less out of earshot. “I hadn’t reckoned on her actually liking the Benamara woman. That was less informative than it could have been. Surely the entire purpose of these gatherings is to trade salacious details of the lives of one’s peers?”

  Personally, I had respected Miss de Luca the better for her circumspection, but it was true that it had proven something of a hindrance to our cause. “What are we to do now?” I asked.

  “The time may have come, Wyndham, for a little skulduggery. I suggest I cause a distraction here while you slip away and search the rest of the house for something useful.”

  “Is that not technically theft?”

  “Not if it is in the pursuit of a higher cause.”

  This brought me little comfort. “I don’t believe the law works that way.”

  “That is a limitation of your beliefs, not of my strategy. Now go look for incriminating letters and, for pity’s sake, don’t forget to check the letter rack.”

  I wanted to continue my protestations. While I was willing to face physical and supernatural danger in pursuit of a solution to this mystery, I quite drew the line at burglarising the home of a well-regarded poetess who had so far given no indication that she had done anything more sinister than host a salon for an assortment of guests of whom my companion and I were by far the most dubious.

  Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, my commitment to my principles in this matter was never tested, as we were interrupted by a roar of greeting from an enormous bearded gentleman, whose curling locks tumbled from beneath a tricornered hat.

  “Percy bloody Lutrell. What the deuce are you doing here?” He did not say “deuce.” “Aren’t you covering the Festival of Metaphysical Theatre in El’avarah?”

  Mr. Lutrell didn’t even blink. “Clearly not. I’m here.”

  “You decided to skip one of the most prestigious events of the entire calendar to come to a bourgeois shindig with a shower of buffoons?”

  The shower of buffoons seemed unhappy with this characterisation, but none saw fit, as yet, to challenge it.

  “I wouldn’t call them that,” replied Mr. Lutrell, with a pious look.

  “But you did call them that. Only last week. You said to me at the Sea-god’s Nipple: ‘Yasmine Benamara’s got another book of her bloody awful poems out and she’s asking me to come to one of her terrible parties with that shower of buffoons who obviously hate her and her prissy verses.’”

  “Sir”—Mr. Lutrell stiffened, adopting an expression of the utmost sanctimony—“you insult me, and you insult our host.”

  “Percy, you haven’t called me ‘sir’ in the twenty years we’ve known each other. What the pish is wrong with you?” He did not say “pish.”

  Mr. Lutrell was looking mildly harried. “I . . . I must be feeling a little out of sorts. Perhaps it’s the baklava.”

  “What are you saying, man? You hate Khelish food. You once told me that putting pistachio on a pastry was the culinary equivalent of perfume on a prostitute: cheap, excessive, and fooling nobody.”

  “Honestly.” Mr. Lutrell put a limp wrist to his forehead. “The more I learn about myself, the less I think of me.”

  The piratical gentleman set his hands on his hips. “All right. Who the devil are you? And why in the name of whatever gods you believe in have you chosen to impersonate Percy Lutrell? I mean, I’m his best friend, and even I think he’s a complete cat’s rectum.” He did, in fact, on this occasion say “rectum.” I have considered the matter and believe the word sufficiently technical that I may use it here without causing offence.

  At this juncture it may perhaps have still been possible for us to salvage the deception. Our interlocutor had, after all, provided no direct proof that my companion was not who he claimed to be. Any hope I might have had in this direction, however, would have relied upon Ms. Haas’s being the sort of person who valued subtlety over spectacle
.

  “Who am I?” repeated Mr. Lutrell, his image shifting momentarily out of focus and then resolving itself into that of my companion, who, despite her avowed intent to attend this function incognito had nonetheless chosen to attire herself in an evening gown of sea-green satin. “I am the sorceress Shaharazad Haas. I trust you’ve heard of me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  An Arrest

  Ms. Haas’s revelation of her identity inspired less chaos than I had feared and, I suspect, than she had hoped. Mr. Van der Berg muttered something to a servant while Lord Bahrami opined loudly from the back of the room that he had known the whole time, somewhat to the derision of his peers. Mrs. Benamara rose from where she was sitting and approached us with an air of composure that I felt did her genuine credit.

  “Your reputation does, in fact, precede you,” she said. “But I can think of no reason that you would wish to infiltrate one of my gatherings, much less go to such lengths to do so.”

  “My dear lady, I went to no lengths at all.” There was a brief pause, one I took correctly to indicate that Ms. Haas was, in fact, about to provide us with a soliloquy which would leave the assembly in no doubt whatsoever as to her remarkable talents, unnatural powers, and single-minded devotion to her goals. “I merely ascertained from one of several sources, whose names I shall not disclose, the identity of an individual you were likely to have invited to this scriveners’ tea party and who would be likely to have spurned that invitation. It was then just a matter of employing certain gifts that I have been granted in exchange for certain bargains and sacrifices I made in years long past to take on the appropriate likeness.”

  “That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing in my house.”

  Stretching out a languid hand, Ms. Haas plucked a vine leaf from the buffet. “Right now, I’m sampling your canapés. Which, I must admit, are excellent. But if you mean my purpose in coming here, I wish to speak to you about Eirene Viola.”

  “I don’t think,” returned Mrs. Benamara icily, “I’m inclined to talk to you, on that or any subject.”

  Ms. Haas sighed with her usual air of exasperation at the world in general. “I assure you, matters will be resolved far more swiftly and far more to your satisfaction if you change your mind. I can be really quite irritating, and this is a very charming neighbourhood. It would be such a shame were something eschatological to happen to it.”

  Despite our long acquaintance I would never learn entirely to be at ease with the alacrity with which Ms. Haas moved to threats of supernatural annihilation, although honesty compels me to observe that this approach was efficacious on more occasions than it was not. In this case, however, we were denied the opportunity of seeing whether Mrs. Benamara would have responded favourably, since we were interrupted by Mr. Van der Berg.

  “You look here,” he blustered. “Maybe you can get away with this nonsense in a rookery in Athra or the back alleys of Ven, but we don’t stand for your sort around here. I’ve sent the girl for the Myrmidons and unless you want to get what’s coming to you I suggest you clear out sharpish and leave this good woman alone.”

  My companion gazed at him with devastating pity. “Oh, where to begin? Firstly, what’s coming to me is something infinitely more terrible than any mortal agency could devise. Secondly, I do not have a sort. I am unique and you may thank your stars for it. Thirdly . . .” And here, once again, I am obliged to censor Ms. Haas. But I am certain that readers familiar with such terminology as she employs—or rather, employed while yet she lived—should by now have sufficient familiarity with her patterns of speech to make good the omission.

  “Enough, Iacomo.” Mrs. Benamara cast him a severe look. “There’s no call to answer discourtesy with discourtesy. As for you, Ms. Haas, you have not only behaved in an exceptionally rude manner, you have also flagrantly engaged in criminal trespass abetted by sorcery. Threats aside, I see no reason why I should speak to you in these circumstances.”

  Ms. Haas took a step across the room, her shadow moving strangely in the lamplight. “Are you really going to risk the wrath of one of the most accomplished magical practitioners still at liberty?”

  “Are you really going to murder me in my own house?” Once again, I found myself silently commending Mrs. Benamara for her fortitude, but I could not help noticing the way her hands trembled, and I do not consider this confrontation one of Ms. Haas’s finest moments.

  “Well, obviously not,” she grumbled. “But it would be so much easier if you were to behave as if I would. Look, I’d hoped that this evening would be at least momentarily diverting, but now I’m very, very bored.”

  Tucking the book of Mrs. Benamara’s poetry under her arm, she drew up the many layers of her skirts and petticoats, a gesture that would have been utterly shocking to me two months before and was now merely disconcerting. Tucked into an unmentionable item of hosiery, she appeared to be keeping various small objects, including a wickedly sharp stiletto, a thin rod of bone that I assumed had arcane significance, and her card case. “Here’s my calling card. I will get to the bottom of this matter one way or the other, and it will go much better for both of us if we can do so in a mature and civilised fashion. Come, Wyndham. We’re leaving.”

  This, it transpired, was true. But not for the reasons Ms. Haas expected. We made it only as far as the front door before we were confronted by a band of grey-uniformed Myrmidons. They were led by the same gentleman who had intervened in the unfortunate business with Mr. Donne.

  “Oh no, not you again,” he and Ms. Haas groaned in unison.

  Ms. Haas was the first to recover from her dismay. “Well, Mr. Wyndham, it seems I am once more about to be arrested. Unless, of course, Second Augur Lawson will listen to reason when I endeavour to explain that I am in pursuit of a matter most delicate and quite beyond the wit of the imbecilic constabulary employed by the council.”

  “You flatter us, Ms. Haas. And what is it this time? An engineer with a missing thumb? Somebody who’s broke their beryl coronet? A goose what’s swallowed a priceless jewel?”

  “It’s a case of blackmail, Lawson. And you know how I despise blackmailers.”

  “And this is criminal trespass with allegations of sorcery and, as I have told you many times, Ms. Haas, you are not allowed to break the law. And I know, as you have told me many times, that you could turn my bones to sand and my blood to living fire, but I’m still taking you in.”

  “You know I only allow this because I feel sorry for you.” Ms. Haas presented her wrists with theatrical contempt, and a nervous young Myrmidon came forward to put her in irons.

  Second Augur Lawson then turned to me. “You as well, I’m afraid. Though I suspect you were not the primary instigator of the affray.”

  I own that my feelings, on being placed for the first time in chains by a member of the official force—especially one with whom I was already acquainted and who had been so civil to me at our first meeting—strayed perilously close to mortification and I found myself utterly unable to meet the Second Augur’s gaze.

  “For pity’s sake.” Ms. Haas did not say “pity” and, in light of our circumstances, I dearly wished she had. “You may play your little games with me all you like, but let Mr. Wyndham go. As I told your colleague not last week, he’s plainly harmless and would do nothing exciting whatsoever without my setting him a bad example.”

  The Second Augur closed his metallic fingers around my companion’s silk-gloved forearm and began leading her away. “Well, maybe you should think about that the next time you get him to do something illegal.”

  “On your head be it, Second Augur.”

  And with that we were transferred into a black carriage drawn by a mechanical bull. So incarcerated, we were taken through the city at none too urgent a pace towards New Arcadia Yard.

  My upbringing had taught me very strictly that when one has transgressed one must bear whatever punishmen
t is deemed suitable with grace and stoicism. In this particular circumstance, that was proving more than usually difficult. I had, of course, undertaken my role in the evening’s proceedings by choice and could, in theory, have walked away the moment the notion of infiltrating a respectable woman’s home by sorcery was suggested, but Ms. Haas’s force of personality and bullish assumption that any course of action she suggested would automatically be undertaken by those to whom she suggested it had carried me along despite my better judgement. This does not, of course, excuse my behaviour and nor does it excuse the unbecoming sense of resentment that I felt towards my companion in the moments following our arrest, although it does go some way towards explaining them both.

  Ms. Haas, who possessed the uncannily cat-like ability to make herself comfortable in the most precarious of positions, had sprawled out across one of the rough wooden benches that were bolted to the walls of the carriage. By the uncertain light that filtered in through the windows she was leafing idly through the volume of Mrs. Benamara’s poetry she had been given at the salon. The activity was hampered slightly by the fact that her hands were manacled together at the wrists, but she negotiated the impediment with a facility suggestive of familiarity.

  After a while, she looked up. “I am capable of many things, Mr. Wyndham. But change is not amongst them.”

  I was not certain what had prompted my companion to offer this seemingly non sequitous observation. Not trusting myself to respond appropriately, I waited to see what would follow.

  “I am aware,” she continued, “that I often speak of such things lightly, but you should understand that of the very small number of people I have genuinely considered friends almost all have come to bad ends. I cannot live in the world that people such as yourself find comfortable, and the world in which I live is perilous to visit, worse to inhabit.”