The Willing Game

by Issy Brooke

  “I AM SURE THAT WE ARE being followed,” Marianne said to Phoebe as they walked from the railway station. Marianne had suggested they catch an omnibus and Phoebe had insisted on a cab and neither had prevailed, so they walked like any commoner.

  Luckily it was a chilly day so the streets did not smell as bad as they might have done.

  “Who do you think it is?” Phoebe asked, walking closer to Marianne.

  “Oh ... it is probably nothing. I am on edge, and feel unsettled, that’s all.”

  They carried on through the usual everyday throng of London with its noise and its bustle and its rush. Everything was faster here, louder, more colourful and more exciting. It could quite drain a person and Marianne was not feeling particularly resilient.

  “I should feel very happy that it’s all over,” she complained to Phoebe.

  “You need a little time to catch up with yourself. Oh!” Phoebe grabbed Marianne’s arm and dragged her to the side but she was too late.

  Jack Monahan materialised behind them and doffed his hat, sweeping them a low bow. “Ladies.”

  “Are you following us?” Marianne demanded.

  “Yes I am.”

  “Don’t!”

  He smiled. “I was rather hoping that someone else would be following you.”

  “Anna Jones,” Marianne said. “I don’t believe that is even her real name.”

  “Anna is correct. Her other names change with the wind.”

  “Were you hoping she would make another attempt on my life, so you could swoop in and save me, and become a hero?” Marianne asked.

  He was still grinning. “Oh yes, that would be rather good.”

  “I don’t think she’s still in London.”

  “Where else would she go? She is an outcast.”

  “She could go home to Prussia.”

  Monahan shook his head and lowered his voice, edging closer to them when he spoke again. “She cannot. I have unearthed a little more information about this woman.”

  “Tell me!” Marianne said. “It could help Mr Claverdon...” She shot a glance at Phoebe, who was pale and biting her lip. His future at the company was certainly in doubt if things became known.

  “Your Mr Claverdon need have no worries at all.” He hesitated.

  “You are thinking how you might hold on to this information to make it work for you, aren’t you?” Marianne said. “Listen to me. I am tired, and unhappy, and out of sorts. I have a gun and a great deal of feminine irrationality. I will shoot you. Right now. Unless you speak.”

  “Well, then. I have pieced it together from what you have told me, and my own sources. You know that she and George did have an affair in Prussia?”

  “Yes. And he came home, and was dismissed. She followed. Did she truly love him, then?”

  “Did, and probably still does. I do not know if she thought she could continue her liaison with him here, but anyway, she came.”

  “She loves London,” Marianne said. “She simply wants to be here.”

  “Well, she came, and she needed money, and then various men found her. Men from Prussia, old money and aristocrats, the ones in power, the ones seeing their power slip away.”

  “The Junkers.”

  “Those very same, and the more violent and desperate end of them, too. They instructed her to get company secrets from Mr Claverdon.”

  Phoebe broke in. “Why? What would he know?”

  Monahan sighed with a condescending edge. “He spent years out there and he knows all the best trading spots and landing areas for ships; he knows men who can be paid off and men who cannot. He has contacts out there. He has been drafting legal documents, and writing letters detailing expected shipments, all under a cloak of secrecy to avoid attracting the attention of those who would sabotage this expansion of free trade.”

  “Oh.”

  “And he passed some of this to her, and she expected to give it to the Junkers in exchange for money.”

  “Then why did she blackmail him?”

  “Because by the time she had the information, her husband, in his fury, had sent word to all of the spies in London that he knew of, that she was not to be trusted. The Junkers in London would not take her secrets. She was contaminated, corrupt and her information was false. She found that she could not sell it. So all she could do was to blackmail Claverdon instead.”

  Phoebe gasped, shocked. Marianne thought, how clever! Oh, the silly woman.

  “So you see,” Monahan went on. “She is quite friendless here, and alone, and without money. She is desperate and you, Miss Starr, are the cause of her undoing.”

  “Do you really think she will come after me?”

  “I am convinced of it. She thinks that you will expose her.”

  “I have no desire to do so,” she said. “But you will, won’t you?”

  Again he hesitated before saying, “Actually, what would be the point? No harm has been caused by her actions – I mean, no political harm. No secrets have been sold. No one at Harker and Bow know about this. They suspected a mole, but with George Bartholomew’s death, they believe it to be all over. And so it is.”

  “Then why are you here, following us, to find her?”

  “Just that,” he said. “I want to speak to her and tell her that she is, in a sense, free. Certainly she is free of persecution from me. What her countrymen do is up to them. But she should not fear us, and perhaps ... well.”

  He didn’t need to say it. If Anna felt more safe, perhaps she would not pursue Marianne for revenge. Perhaps.

  “She can still be convicted of blackmail,” Phoebe put in.

  “Yes. And that would drag your husband’s name into the public eye. Shall I?”

  “No! No, please don’t,” Phoebe said.

  He looked at Marianne. She nodded. “Please don’t. Thank you.”

  He grinned again, and bowed to them once more, breaking the mood. “You owe me a favour for this!” he said. “Good day to you both.”

  As he backed away, Marianne called out, “And what of you? Have you gained your position of employment once more?”

  His face clouded momentarily but he covered it up with a boyish laugh. “Oh, I have decided to move on to new projects. Goodbye!”

  Phoebe took hold of Marianne’s arm. “He is a menace.”

  “He is a menace and a liar,” Marianne said. “But I do hope that life treats him kindly.”

  Phoebe snorted. “Put him very far from your mind,” she said. “If you feel at all tempted to fall in love with a rogue, let me know, and I shall find you one with a fortune and a short expected life span.”

  “How mercenary!”

  “I am practical, that is all. Come along. We are but one street from Simeon’s.”

  THEY WERE WELCOMED into his workshop and had barely sat down with tea and cakes when someone else knocked at his door – Inspector Gladstone entered, and made everyone feel supremely awkward.

  No one knew how he had discovered that Simeon had been part of the previous night’s escapade.

  Gladstone smiled amiably and waited to be offered a cup of tea, which fell in the end to Marianne, as Simeon was standing by a chair and looking to be struck dumb with fear.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Gladstone said, sitting down with his fresh brew. “I’m not here to arrest you, lad.”

  “Why? I mean, I know.”

  “How did you know we were here?” Marianne asked.

  “I didn’t know you and Mrs Claverdon would be here. That is a most pleasant surprise. It will save me a journey to your house. I came only to call upon Mr Stainwright.”

  “But why?” Simeon almost wailed.

  Marianne winced. Poor Simeon’s fears and frets would be working overtime.

  But Gladstone spoke reassuringly. “I knew who owned the house where last night’s alarums took place, and I spoke to him, who let me know that it was you who rented the room. I came here only to get a statement from you about what happened. We are building a case, that is
all.”

  “Against Wade Walker?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has he not confessed?”

  “He has confessed all. He seems rather mad, if I am honest. He may not hang for this, if his insanity is fully revealed.”

  “I think he’d rather hang.”

  “So he says, and that in itself is the mark of insanity. Anyway, that is not my concern.” Gladstone flipped open his notebook and looked expectantly at Simeon. “From the beginning, if you please.”

  Simeon spoke haltingly, looking frequently to Marianne for confirmation of his words, and she bit her tongue but nodded encouragingly. When he had done, Gladstone flapped his notebook shut and thanked him.

  “And now us?” Phoebe said. “You said it has saved you a visit to our house.”

  “Ah, yes, yes,” he said, “all in good time. I was actually going to call on you with another matter.” He was looking at Marianne. He pulled out a piece of paper from an inside pocket of his jacket. “We received this letter and I was rather hoping you might give me some of your insight.”

  He passed it to her and she read it three times with growing interest.

  She gave it back to him. “Ghostly screaming in the night, sir, certainly has a very human explanation. Has the house been searched?”

  “Many times.”

  “Have your officers heard this screaming?”

  “Yes, and it has almost unhinged one of our younger constables. We simply need you to visit and find the mechanical means by which this infernal noise is made, and we shall pay you for it, for I confess that we are all mystified.”

  “It sounds very straightforward.” Marianne felt her oppressive mood lifting almost instantly. “Thank you sir – I shall be delighted to assist.”

  They shook hands, and when Marianne set out to Mr Harcourt’s office, even Phoebe remarked on her lighter step.

  “I have a very good feeling about the future, Phoebe,” Marianne said.

  “The future appears to involve devilish screaming.”

  “I know. Isn’t it fun?”

  “It is. It is, indeed.”

  The End

  ***

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