The last time I had been in the great city over a decade ago, I’d arrived and left by ocean liner. I had been an attaché to a general coming to the British Embassy, so I was as much in awe of the panoramic aerial view as my fellow passengers at the rail of the observation deck.
“Impressive, is it not, Lady Camden,” Lord Chichua said. He and his wife had accompanied us on this second voyage of The Pride. “I never imagined these Americans were so-“
“Civilized?” Aunt Mini finished with the edge of a smirk in her comment.
“Boisterous,” the Mexhican said with a smile. “Why there are even buildings that look to be eleven stories tall!” The delight in his voice reminded me of Nenetl’s joy at playing in snow that first time.
The ambassador and his wife, along with two new jaguar guards, had taken the airship down with us, heading to the Mexhican Embassy, where I would join them for a ceremony to honour Nenetl.
“These former colonist of ours,” I said, “Are really quite clever, Lord Chichua.”
Aunt Mini gave a very un-lady-like snort.
“My good Baronet Grey,” Lord Chichua said, “It is refreshing to see how relations between your empire and those who revolted against your country have matured.”
“All past, Your Lordship,” I said. “The children left the house long ago and are standing on their own, but still respect their parents.”
“Darn tootin’,” My aunt said. “Standing, dancing and kicking a-“
“Don’t show off, Mini!” I said and she checked herself, just barely.
The Ambassador smiled at our exchange, something he had become used to and enjoyed in the last weeks. “I should prepare to disembark,” he said, “A party from my country’s embassy is meeting us. I look forward to seeing you both at the ceremony to honour Nenetl tomorrow night.” He bowed formally and, taking his wife’s hand walked off into the others on the observation deck.
“You are going to get us into trouble one of these days, Auntie,” I said as I watched the Mexhican delegation leave. I enjoyed watching the passengers who were mesmerized by the two female jaguars who accompanied the nobles. Though both of them reminded me of Nenetl I found, in my mind, they compared unfavourably. Mini saw my gaze and giggled like a schoolgirl.
“I ain’t never got into no trouble that wasn’t some sort of fun, Athelstan,” she said with glee. “And none I couldn’t get out of.”
“So far,” I pointed out.
“You are turning into a terrible dull fellow, nephew,” she said with a snort. “You’re handling all this with that little Aztec girl better than I would have hoped; she was good for you.”
“Yes she was,” I said more darkly than I meant to.
“It will be good to say goodbye to her proper at their embassy,” Mini said. She got serious for a moment. “And I think it special that Lord Chichua is going to induct you into the jaguars, Athelstan. That is a singular honour.”
“I was touched when he offered that to me; I didn’t expect such a diplomatic gesture-“
“Oh, pishaw,” she said. “He didn’t do it for politics or to curry favour with anyone, nephew. He did it cause you earned it ten times over.” She adjusted her bonnet and looked for all the world like a preening bird. “And it will make you the only fella on this planet with honours from both the Mexhican and Albion Empires. A knight of both realms. Not shabby, nephew.”
I had not told her about The Prince’s offer to be an agent without portfolio for him and was not sure if I would tell her; it seemed a position that should be held close to the vest. As for her praise for me, I would have blushed save that I knew her pride in me was honest; she had always been my biggest supporter. “I wouldn’t accept it but that I know it would make Nenetl happy as well, Mini.”
“Yup, that rip-snorter sure would be proud.” Her expression darkened and she added. “But no one could be more so than me; I am proud how you’ve handled her passing.”
“She’ll never leave me, Mini, I know that. More than like my men who’ve past in battle. More than anyone else I’ve ever met. I never thought anyone could make such an imprint on me, let alone in so short a time.”
“Easy, Nephew,” she said. “Your uncle, my Tolliver had the same effect on my almost from the first minute I met him. I understand; which is why I am impressed that you ain’t fallen back on your old ways.”
“She wouldn’t like it, Mini, anymore than you were liking it.”
She laughed. “See, you never listen to your old aunt.”
“That is a whole different kind of adventure, Auntie, you saucy old baggage!” She elbowed me and we both giggled. She had always been a constant source of shock and amusement to the social circles of my uncle and my parents and had raised me after their deaths with a healthy skepticism to convention, but she still sometimes surprised even me.
We enjoyed the view of the city in relaxed silence as the airship glided down the island and off its tip to the fortressed Governors Island. The smoke from the coal-powered factories was already casting a haze over the bustling city but did nothing to mar the sense of energetic industry, of seeing the future before us.
It made me reflect on the Albion Empire and our home in London. While I was proud of my heritage, the inherited baronet from my father and an Oxford and Sandhurst education, I could not help but feel, especially after my time working for the East India Company in Bombay, that it was built on the backs of others. How unlike it this young, vigorous country was.
These people, these Americans, had carved homes out of the wilderness, true, there had been contention with natives, but they had made their peace now, making treaties with a number of tribes that they had kept and had set up a boundary roughly along the Mississippi. As well, this young nation had, successfully both fought off Albion’s control and had their growing pains in their own civil war.
An alliance with the Mexhican Empire to their south (and their Aztec magicks), who had actually stopped the western expansion by siding with the natives on the plains, had allowed the Americans to establish themselves as a minor world power. As Ambassador Chichua had stated, this America of my Aunt Mini had become a world power, balanced with Albion, The Ottoman Empire, The Mali Confederacy and the Russians.
The Pride of Prussia glided into docking port on Governor’s Island in early morning but it was almost afternoon before we had all debarked and passed through customs. The Ambassador and his party were guided though and we waved to them.
With them was a long carved box which I knew was the coffin of Nenetl. Thinking of her still form in there, a body I had known to be more full of life than any three people I had ever met, sent a pang of memory into my heart.
“You alright, nephew?” Aunt Mini watched my gaze follow the coffin.
“Yes, Mini,” I said. “As all right as I will be.”
We took a ferry across to Manhattan. Our bags were sent ahead to our hotel and we hailed a taxi.
“Last chance for that Wagner hoop-de-do At Hammerstein’s, Opera House up at 34th Street, nephew,” Mini said as she climbed into the hansom cab.
“No thanks, Auntie, but I’ll ride up as far as 23rd Street before you head to the hotel at Fifth Avenue to freshen up before the Opera.”
I hopped in and we were off up the Battery past the Customs House into the business district of the metropolis. The odor of the city was a mix of horse leavings, coal-oil smoke and that indefinable, spicy and acrid collection of very human smells. It reminded me more of Bombay than London in that respect. It was controlled chaos, a cacophony of sound and movement, a babble of languages even more varied than Paris.
I found it exhilarating!
Our carriage moved haltingly up Broadway through the crush of traffic with a spiderweb of telegraph wires above us all but blotting out the grey sky. When we reached 23nd street and Broadway I took my leave of my aunt and jumped off.
“I’ll see you later at the hotel, Mini,” I said as I waved.
“You say hello to Mad Mike
for me,” she called back, “And watch yourself, nephew- the two of you together are worse than me and my sister used to be. ”
“I’m not sure that is possible, auntie, but I do aspire!”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Calling Down The Devil
I watched the carriage pull away then turned to head west toward the river where Mike’s pub was located. It was an eight-block walk and I set off at a jaunty pace, swinging my newly acquired, jewel headed, swordcane, a personal present from Ambassador Chichua and his wife.
It was almost a like a walk in Whitechapel for all the attention I got from ‘working ladies’ along the way. I had been told there were upwards of 40,000 prostitutes working the streets of New York and it seemed that most of them were in that eight-block stroll.
I dare say it was not my dashing blond good looks that drew the feminine attention to me (though I have not had difficulty in that department elsewhere), rather it was the expensive cut of my cloak and clearly European style of my low-crowned top hat. And the purse they both implied. The boldest of the ‘ladies’ approached me as I passed under the elevated steam train at Sixth Avenue.
“Hey, Toff, “ a pox marked ‘beauty’ called to me, “Need a date?”
“I saw him first, Dora,” a second said as she stepped up close to me. She was a red-haired Irish-accented vixen with a bit more flesh than was good for her but a ready smile. I smiled back, thinking that they would have both fled screaming at a single look from Nenetl.
“Sorry, ladies, “I said, “but I am on my way to Mike and Spike’s for a drink. Perhaps, later.” I had no inclinations in their direction, but auntie taught me not to disappoint.
“Ladies?” Dora said with a laugh. ‘You are a gent!” But they let me pass with an elaborate comic bow.
“”Ain’t heard about Mike or the others have you?” the red head’s tone was suddenly dark and it made me stop.
“Hush up, Agnes,” Dora said, crossing herself. “Don’t’ be calling down the devil.”
“What about Mike?” I turned to face the lasses but they were now backing way from me. “What do you mean?” There was a sudden cold fist of premonition that gripped my stomach. In my mind I yelled, “No!”
“Ain’t no never mind what I mean,” Dora said darkly then tried to drum up a bit more of my business. “The Bull’s head is open and I know they serve-“
I never heard the rest of her recommendation for a grog shop, as I was at a fast walk for the pub, with the chill premonition of disaster settling on me.
“I have seen enough death!”
When I reached the corner of 10th Avenue and 23rd Street I stopped short with my worst fears confirmed. Mike & Spike’s Pub was directly across the street from me and was draped in black and purple bunting. I felt a chill that went to my soul. There was a sign, crudely painted that said, “Closed till further notice.”
“No!” I hissed. I forced myself to calm and walked across the street to the heavy door of the drinking emporium. The whole street swam around me and I thought I would swoon. I tried to call up images of Nenetl to calm myself, for I knew she would not want me to lose my head. I kept seeing her eyes looking into mine as the spirit left them.
After I composed myself I knocked on the frosted glass of the door.
After an eternity of waiting I heard heavy footsteps within and a thick Scot’s accented voice called out, “Haud yer wheesht- be quiet! Ca’ yee not read? We’re still closed, bugger off!”
“I’m a friend of Mike’s; I need to find out what is going on.”
The sound of a bolt being pulled back followed and a red-bearded face, a full head taller than I was thrust out the crack by the door. “And ye be?”
“Sir Athelstan Grey, Baronet, “ I said, fighting to keep my voice calm. “I am acquainted with Master Ellenbogen from our time together in Cairo. I spoke to him just this last week from Montreal via teleglass.”
The bushy red eyebrows of the rugged face rose and fell as the Scot Cerberus scrutinized me. “Master Mike was murdered last week. We are still in mourning, your lordship; come back next week, maybe we will reopen then.” He made to close the door but I held the edge with a white knuckled grip.
“I must speak to this matter and now, sirah,” I said. “Is Miss Ellenbogen here? I wish to express my condolences to her.” I handed him my personal card which he regarded much as if I had handed him the snake from the garden.
The roy-haired highlander, who was easily close to eighteen stone, was dressed in full Mackintosh kilt with the spotted mountain cat sporran of a chief. He tried to close the door once more against my grip then relented, opening it to stare at me with flinty blue eyes.
For along moment he said nothing then “I’ll see if the lassie is in.” He indicated I should enter. I cleaned my boots of horse dropping on the wrought iron scraper near the door and stepped inside.
The Scotsman threw the bolt on the door behind us and gave me a stern look. “Wait here, “ he said firmly before moving off into the interior of the darkened building.
I felt as if I was a teenager at the levee’s at St. James waiting to be presented to Her Majesty for the first time.
The large room I had been ushered into was much as I imagined it would be from Mike’s descriptions-- a long, wood lined room with the broad windows facing out to the street, but with the shades pulled so little or no light entered from them at the moment.
All around me were souvenirs from his time in the lands of the sands--the décor made the pub an exotic oasis of sphinx statues, scarab wall fixtures, woven rugs and wall tablets of hieroglyphics; it was an Arabian nights fantasy come to life.
There were tables set around what looked to be a sunken floor and a long bar along the far wall. It looked to be as much nightspot as one would find in any great city, as it was a pub. It was appointed with crystal chandeliers, gaslights along the walls and brass fittings everywhere.
I thought about Mike’s letters, many of them since our meeting in Egypt where he had described building the pub as his exercise in dreams come true. I thought for fleeting second how much Nenetl would have enjoyed the sight of it.
Mike had also written about his little sister, Bathsheba who always went by the very unladylike name of ‘Spike.’ She was his only living relative, his partner in the pub, and now, I supposed, sole owner. She had been in private school when he and I had met in Egypt.
There was a gallery along the back wall with stairs that went up to it and this is where the Scotsman went, only reaching halfway up the stairs before another figure appeared at the top. The new arrival was a petite girl, dressed, oddly enough, in a black and purple riding habit. It could be no one else but Bathsheba Ellenbogen, Mike’s sister, Spike.
Chapter Thirty
Death in the Family
“What is it, Angus?” the girl said in a high, thin voice.
“Says he knew Mike, lassie,” He said in a dismissive voice, mindless that I could hear him. He handed my card up to her and she peered at it in the dim light. Even across the room I could see her square features-- so reminiscent of her brother’s but in a soft mirror-- light in a smile.
“Athelstan!” she said and swept down the stairs past the giant Scot and across the floor to me at almost a dead run. She came up to give me a very improper hug before I could react. She came barely to my chest, but her arms made me gasp with their strength.
“Madam!” I managed to exclaim.
She pulled away from me and coloured as if suddenly realizing what she had done. “Excuse me, baronet,” she said, “I am out of sorts because of my brother’s passing, but--but it is almost that I know you, my brother spoke so much of you.”
“And of you, Miss Ellenbogen, even up to last week. That is why I had to stop in to find out what happened.”
Her pretty features twisted into a pained scowl. “Come up stairs, we can talk there.”
I followed the girl up past the grim looking highlander to a sitting room on the second floor wh
ere we sat opposite each other in two comfortable green leather chairs.
The red haired Scottish giant wheeled a tea service in between us and I felt, oddly enough, as if I was back in Mayfair as he offered me some.
“It is real tea, baronet,” she said with great pride, “not recycled; directly from China.”
For a time we sipped the imported tea and spoke of inconsequential things-- my trip from Montreal, how my Aunt Minerva was doing, the weather in New Orleans where I had been prior to my trip north and the like. It was as if she was afraid to even mention her brother again or his death.
Like most Americans Spike was somewhat in awe of my title and I had to explain to her that I was not a peer, as such, with my inherited title. The complexities of the English system of titles amazed the former colonies and, I admit, sometimes even escaped my own understanding.
I took the opportunity of our relaxed conversation to observe her closely; it was true she had features that echoed her brother’s-- jet black hair, crystal blue eyes and a strong jaw, though on her is was gentled where it had been sharp on him.
Her hands were delicate and long fingered, darting nervously like small birds, never lighting long on either teacup nor lap. Her silent Scotsman stood nearby, a gorgon eye cast on me all the while we talked.
After a time, when I deduced she would not get around to mentioning her brother I did. “When I spoke to Mike ten days ago from Montreal on the teleglass he seemed happy and healthy and we both looked forward to spending time together,” I said. “How did he—well, exactly what happened?”
The pretty girl shivered as if from a sudden cold wind. I thought I had upset her beyond propriety but she showed grit and quickly got a hold of herself, looking me directly in the eye.
“If you do not mind, I will let Angus show you,” she said in a near whisper. She looked to the roy giant who nodded and waved me back out of the room and down the stairs.
We went through the saloon’s main room to a short corridor that led to the offices.
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