The Affair of the Mysterious Letter

by Alexis Hall

  “Forgive the informality of my appearance,” she said with a sigh, “but I appear to be utterly ruined.” She did not say “ruined.”

  Ms. Haas clasped her hands to her breast. “Oh, Eirene, how I’ve missed you.”

  Miss Viola gave a reply that I cannot commit to print, and then cast herself tragically onto the bed, dislodging a sizable revolver from beneath a pillow as she did so. Given the lady’s attire, I averted my eyes swiftly out of concern the situation would otherwise descend from inappropriate to salacious.

  “So,” said Ms. Haas, in a tone that I personally considered rather mean-spirited, “I take it the fishmonger isn’t happy.”

  “She needs some time.”

  “Yes, dear. In my experience, that’s code for ‘I had no idea who you were, and now I know I am disgusted by it.’”

  I risked looking up and saw, to my relief, that Miss Viola had wrapped herself in a blanket, thus preserving her modesty and my equilibrium. Ms. Haas was sitting beside her, patting her shoulder with a tenderness at variance with the sentiment she had just expressed.

  Not seeming to appreciate the gesture, Miss Viola shrugged her off. “She said it wasn’t the affairs, or the stealing, or the . . .” And here she listed a catalogue of transgressions of increasing severity that, for the sake of the lady’s reputation and my readers’ comfort, I shall elide. “. . . or even that I’d nearly got her killed by a vampire, but—”

  “Let me guess,” interrupted my companion, rolling her eyes. “She said it was the lying. Darling, that’s what they always say. It’s a convenient excuse that ordinary people fall back on when they realise we have dared to do things they lack the courage to even imagine.”

  This assertion on the part of Ms. Haas provoked a predictably intransigent response from Miss Viola and I have not to this day decided to my satisfaction whether that was, indeed, my companion’s intent. “Just stop it, Shaharazad. You won’t understand this, but I have actually been happy recently.”

  “Do you really want so little out of life?”

  “You know”—Miss Viola stared wistfully at the ceiling—“it turns out I do. I’ve spent the past decade running from something or for something and—”

  Ms. Haas laughed bitterly. “If you tell me you’ve realised that you had everything you needed all along, then I shall take up that gun”—she indicated Miss Viola’s discarded firearm—“and shoot both of us.”

  “On the contrary, I realised I had nothing. Just stories and enemies. I mean, you’re one of my closest and oldest friends, and we barely speak, I frequently hate you, and you’re transparently a terrible human being.”

  “Is this the part where I remind you that, for the better part of this month, I’ve been risking my life and that of Mr. Wyndham entirely for your benefit?”

  Miss Viola reached out and put her hand over Ms. Haas’s. “I know, and I’m grateful. I really am. It’s just right now it doesn’t seem to have done me much good.”

  “Oh, come on, Eirene. You persuaded Lady Evangelina to take you back after she caught you in bed with both her sisters; Ambassador Tan carried on seeing you for six months after you told her that you were in the pay of Yue; I forgave you after you pushed me off the roof of the Vedunian Royal Opera House; and the high priestess of Thotek the Devourer discovered that you had seduced her only in order to steal the jewelled eyes of her altarpiece and let you get away without sacrificing you. You can certainly talk round a fishmonger, especially one who even I can see is disgustingly in love with you.”

  “Maybe I could, but”—and here Miss Viola pulled the blanket over her head, a gesture that exposed rather more of her ankles than I was comfortable with—“if we don’t catch the blackmailer my whole past becomes public knowledge and Cora loses everything. I could never do that to her.”

  “Darling, we have caught the blackmailer. Didn’t I mention?”

  Miss Viola sat up quite violently. “No. No, you didn’t, you utter ——” The language with which she described Ms. Haas was milder than some she had used earlier, but still not appropriate for print.

  “I’m terribly sorry. It must have slipped my mind.” Ms. Haas took Miss Viola by the chin and looked her dead in the eyes. “Now, listen very carefully because I need you to remember this exactly. I know who the blackmailer is and why they are doing what they are doing. You are to come to the Lake of Stars at midnight tomorrow, the last day of the seventh month, third year, Twenty-first Council.”

  Miss Viola pulled her head away sharply. “I know what day it is, Shaharazad. I’m not that drunk.”

  “Even so. Now, I will see you there. Tomorrow, at midnight exactly.”

  “Why tomorrow?” snapped Miss Viola. “Why not, for example, now?”

  “Two reasons, my dear. Firstly, because although the board is set, the pieces are not entirely in place. And, secondly, have you even met me? Does telling you now plainly and clearly seem remotely like the sort of thing I would do?”

  With that, Ms. Haas departed, narrowly avoiding the wine bottle that Miss Viola hurled after her as she left.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  The Lake of Stars

  The next day, I returned home from work to find Ms. Haas soberly attired in a floor-length black skirt, embroidered tastefully with golden geometric designs in the Khelish style, a gentleman’s white shirt, a black jacket, and a waistcoat accented with a gold watch chain.

  “You are just in time, Wyndham,” she remarked.

  I had thought I would be early, for although I had worked late, I had not expected that we would be leaving for Little Carcosa before eleven. “Just in time for what?”

  “I have invited Miss Beck to visit with us before we leave. It seems only right that she should be present at the denouement of this little drama.”

  “You will,” I suggested firmly, “be nice to her?”

  “What an unfair insinuation. I have never been anything but civil to the odious little shopkeeper.”

  “I think your definition of civility may be somewhat at odds with that commonly employed by others.”

  “Remind me, Captain. When did I last care what the rest of the world thinks?” She pulled out her pocket watch and checked it. “Do run along. You should have just long enough before the lady arrives to get changed into your least dreary outfit. I have left some cufflinks on your dresser that I fully expect you to ignore.”

  I did, indeed, ignore the cufflinks, which I found extravagant. But I did my best to attire myself in a manner at once modest and respectful of our guest’s sensibilities and status. When I returned to the sitting room, I found Miss Beck had already arrived and was sitting in my usual chair, eyeing Ms. Haas somewhat warily.

  “You better have a dashed good reason for dragging me across the city at this time of night.” She did not say “dashed.”

  Ms. Haas was in the process of lighting her pipe. “I do nothing without good reason. I have summoned you here because I believe you have a vested interest in the case of Eirene’s mysterious blackmailer.”

  “Actually, Ms. Haas, this case is exactly the sort of thing I don’t want to be involved in.”

  “Oh, really?” My companion raised an eyebrow in a manner that Miss Beck could not have helped but find infuriating. “I thought it was just the lying you objected to.”

  “I definitely object to you interfering with my relationship behind my back.”

  “It seems to me you’re not certain what you want. On the basis of this conversation alone, you appear to wish for Eirene to shield you from the reality of her lifestyle while also being entirely open with you about it, and for me to exclude you from my investigations into this affair while also keeping you fully informed about my interactions with the woman who, from what I can tell, you at once do and do not still consider to be your fiancée.”

  Miss Beck rose abruptly. “Let’s be very clear, Ms. Ha
as. I profoundly dislike you. I know you saved my life, but you’re still a condescending, reckless, arrogant witch. Now tell me something that profits me or I’m leaving.”

  “You know, I think in the right circumstances you could be rather fun.” Ms. Haas’s eyes gleamed. “If you ever feel like cheating on Eirene, give me a call.”

  “I’ll give you a punch up the bracket if you don’t stop fannying around and get to the point.”

  “You see. Fun. But since it seems to so preoccupy you, the point is this. Eirene will be meeting with her blackmailer at midnight tonight at the Lake of Stars in Little Carcosa. If you want to come with us, you may. If you don’t, well, I think that answers some wider questions about your ability to sustain a relationship with a woman like Eirene.”

  Miss Beck sat back down and was silent for some minutes. To my surprise, Ms. Haas showed considerable forbearance during the interlude and resisted all further temptation to bait the lady, preferring instead to pace the floor and smoke the remainder of her packet of Valentino’s Good Rough Shag.

  Eventually, Miss Beck came to her decision. “Right,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  Ms. Haas had arranged for a hansom, into which the three of us squeezed in a manner that I found uncomfortable both physically and socially. Thankfully, the journey was of relatively limited duration, as the streets of Little Carcosa were narrow and we were required to walk for the final stretch.

  The square around the Lake of Stars was quiet, its daytime businesses being closed and its more nocturnal inhabitants having decamped to those parts of the city with better nightlife. The lake itself was not, in fact, a lake per se but a largish water feature, which the first generation of Carcosan refugees had ensorcelled to reflect the night sky of their lost homeland. Having only recently escaped that place, I declined to gaze into the depths, for fear I would fall into a dream from which I might not awake.

  Miss Viola awaited us on a bench. She had recovered her composure somewhat from the night before and was demurely attired in a dark gown, her hair twisted once more into its customary knots. On seeing Miss Beck, she started and then glowered at Ms. Haas. “You couldn’t resist, could you?”

  “Look,” returned Ms. Haas, “the way I see it, we’ll get everything out in the open and either she’ll leave you or she won’t.”

  Miss Beck pushed past us to put herself between Ms. Haas and Miss Viola. “She can talk for herself, thank you. Where’s the ——” And here, again, her language became unbecoming of her station. “. . . blackmailer?”

  “If I know her at all, and I flatter myself that I know her quite well, she’s already here.” Ms. Haas pulled out her pocket watch and checked the time. “She’s probably just waiting to make an entrance, and I did tell her to be here at midnight precisely.”

  “When have I ever done what you told me, Shaharazad?” The voice from the shadows was familiar, though I could not place it exactly until its owner stepped into the light from one of the gas lamps. She was a handsome woman of some forty or fifty years, her auburn hair touched with grey, her golden eyes still startlingly intense. It was, unmistakably, Miss Viola.

  Miss Beck was the first to speak, as she glanced between her present fiancée and the lady’s doppelgänger. “This,” she said, “is going to take some explaining.”

  Strolling over to the elder Miss Viola, my companion leaned nonchalantly against the lamppost. “Would you like to tell them, dear, or shall I?”

  “Perhaps it would be better coming from me.”

  And so the elder Miss Viola told her story, a story that I relate here as best I am able from my recollections in the lady’s own words.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  The Blackmailer

  The truth is, I’m not quite sure how to begin because, for me, this has all begun and ended many times already, and in many different ways. Which I suppose is fitting, for I have also lived many lives—a nobleman’s daughter, a refugee, an actress, a thief, a murderer, an adventuress, a fishmonger’s wife, and a blackmailer. If you asked my younger self which of these beginnings was the one that mattered and if she answered honestly (which knowing my nature I suspect she would not), she would say that it was the day she met Cora Beck. But the beginning that matters most to me came on the ninth day of the seventh month of the third year of the Twenty-first Council—a little under a month ago from our present position in our present timeline—when I received news that Cora had disappeared on the way back from Aturvash.

  As much as I wanted to believe she was still alive and would return to me, I knew she would not. My parents had promised that we would be reunited in a new world and I never heard from them again. Friends and lovers down the years have vanished by choice or circumstance. Until Cora, I had long since stopped either seeking or offering assurances of fidelity, but she gave hers with such generosity that I forgot the lessons I’d taught myself. So as the days passed, and no news came from her, I realised that either I had been deceived or she was dead. I was not sure which I feared the most.

  And then the Contessa Ilona paid me a visit. Oh, she made a great show of wanting to comfort me in my grief, but the comfort she offered was not to my taste and had not been for some years. Besides, the moment the vampire renewed her advances towards me I understood what had happened to Cora, and that I had brought it upon her. I had taken up with Ilona a few months after leaving Mise en Abyme and several years before meeting Cora. Shaharazad had already grown bored of me, as she does of everything, and the Repairers were still actively hunting the last survivors of the old nobility. The Contessa was rich, intriguing, powerfully charismatic, and strong enough to protect me. At the time, the intensity of her fascination for me was both flattering and reassuring. I eventually realised her affection was a prison and disentangled myself, or thought I had. But I should have known that while she could tolerate my leaving, she would never accept my giving myself to another. So in a sense, I killed Cora.

  And knowing that almost killed me.

  My first thought was for revenge. I knew it would be hollow, but I had survived on meaningless pleasures and fleeting victories before, and could do so again. But although I knew a little of how to kill a vampire—having lived with one for some while and having contacts in Little Carcosa who could provide me with some of the strange bullets that the People’s Army used to fight the unnatural minions of the Yellow King—I knew also that I could not confront the Contessa alone.

  And so I went to the home of my oldest friend in Khelathra-Ven, the one person in the city I was sure had the resources and the wherewithal to do battle with Ilona: the sorceress Shaharazad Haas.

  “I fail to see,” Shaharazad said, when I had finished telling her how the love of my life had been murdered, “why it profits either of us to pursue a blood feud against something immortal and demonstrably vindictive just for the sake of a dead fishmonger.”

  I responded as I always did at this stage in our arguments. I seized the heaviest and most fragile items I could lay my hands on and threw them at her. It is not a side of myself that I like, but it is a side of me that Shaharazad delights in provoking. Sometimes I wonder if she doesn’t deliberately leave ammunition lying around in order to tempt me.

  Her new housemate—a prim Eyan by the name of Wyndham who I disliked instantly—sanctimoniously reinforced Shaharazad’s position with the observation that there was, indeed, nothing to be gained by throwing one’s life away for the sake of retribution. “After all,” he continued, “I know it sounds platitudinous, but it really won’t bring her back.”

  “No.” Shaharazad stirred on that awful threadbare chaise of hers with the stains I didn’t like to think about. “If you wanted to bring her back, you’d need either necromancy or time travel, both of which are fascinatingly perilous, utterly forbidden, and have the potential to go quite disastrously wrong.”

  I lowered the paperweight I had been about to hurl at her. “But it
can be done?”

  “Well, yes. If you wanted to bargain with an Eternal Lord, and risk being erased from history, or with the Ossuary Bank, and risk losing your soul.”

  “Neither of which,” put in Wyndham officiously, “you should on any account consider.”

  I ignored him. “If I were to do one, or both, of those things how would I start?”

  “I do so love it when you’re recklessly self-destructive.” Shaharazad had that look in her eye that she got on the rare occasions when she decided she was going to care about me for a while. “If you wish to prevail upon the Ossuary Bank, then I would suggest speaking to Ptolemy Khan in Inadvisable Loans. He should be able to arrange matters at a price you may find almost bearable, and with hardly any ironic consequences.”

  “And if I wanted to go to an Eternal Lord?”

  Shaharazad gave a sardonic laugh. “Frankly, your guess is as good as mine. They’re all definitionally incomprehensible. Walking Upwards Unmaking has helped me in the past. I sometimes think she might secretly be a bit of a romantic. Of course, the rest of the time I’m just mortally terrified of her. And, if you want my honest advice—”

  “When have I ever wanted that?”

  “Well, I shall give it to you regardless. Your best bet is to take a staggeringly large quantity of drugs, hire an obscenely expensive courtesan, and try to forget everything, starting with your name and working from there.”

  I very much wanted to throw the paperweight, but I very much did not want to give her the satisfaction. Digging my nails into my palms, I said, “I don’t know why I expected you to understand.” And, with that, I left her to her drugs, her sorcery, and her bitterness.