Her Ladyship's Curse

“Miss Kittredge”—the lad’s grandfather had beaten some manners into the fourth bearer of his esteemed name, and he folded himself over in a generous bow—“I’d hoped to run into you before I left for home.”

“Mr. Gremley.” I gave him a tiny bob and held on to my key rather than unlock the door. “How may I be of assistance?”

His eyes skipped up and down the length of my gown. “Oh, it’s nothing so important. Simply a small matter I wished to discuss with you.”

We’d have to discuss it out in the hall, because the last thing I would ever do on this earth would be to closet myself alone in a room with Fourth. “Do go on.”

His beady eyes darted to the knob. “It is something of a delicate nature.”

Blast it, he was going to ask me out again. I glanced around him. “I don’t think anyone on the other floors will hear.”

“My mother bids me attend the opening of the opera.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I would be greatly honored if you would consent to be my escort.”

“How kind of you to think of me.” I pretended to consider it. “When is this opening?”

“Thursday next.”

I produced my usual disappointed face. “I’m so sorry, but I have a previous engagement that night.” As I had had the twenty-six other times when he had asked for my companionship.

“Did I say Thursday?” he said, his eyes gleaming with triumph. “Oh, dear. I meant Friday.”

The little snot was actually trying to out-lie me. “Alas, Mr. Gremley, my engagement is out of the city, and of some duration. I daresay I will be gone until Sunday next.”

“I see.” Under the yoke of his ill-fitting jacket, his bony shoulders sagged. “Mother was adamant about my obtaining a proper escort this year. If I do not, she threatens to match me with one of the Plumsens.”

Despite my annoyance I felt a pang of sympathy for him. “The Plumsens are a very respectable family.” And their da had passed to each of his daughters a perfect replica of his uptilted nozzer, giving them all the look of well-fed infant swine.

“I should be glad to have any escort, I know,” Fourth said on a heartfelt sigh. “But the Plumsen daughters are nothing to you, Miss Kittredge.”

“You’re too kind, Mr. Gremley.” Perhaps I could solve my problem with Fourth in a different manner. “I wonder, sir, have you ever been introduced to Mr. Skolnik from the first floor?”

“Skolnik the importer?” When I nodded, he looked confused. “We are nodding acquaintances, yes.”

That was all he needed. “Did you know then that Mr. Skolnik has an unmarried daughter who has recently come over to live with him? Maritza, I believe her name is.”

“She’s not English or Torian.”

“No, and I believe that she doesn’t speak much English, either, but I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her and she’s quite lovely.” I described her in genteel terms, and then added, “I imagine if you persuaded Mr. Skolnik to introduce you to Maritza, she would be delighted to accept an invitation to the opera.”

Fourth seemed taken aback by my suggestion. “But if she speaks so little English, how would Mama or I converse with her?”

I smiled. “With such a companion, Mr. Gremley, you need not converse at all.”

I could almost hear the seldom-used gears in Fourth’s head start to turn. “Mama would not be able to grill . . . I mean, inquire as to her family connections.”

“Which are, of course, quite respectable.” In her own country, anyway. “I have been engaged by Mr. Skolnik several times, and he is a pleasant, amiable gentleman. You might mention that I am greatly in favor of your introduction.”

Fourth’s grin tried to reach from one jug-handle ear to the other. “You have done me a great service, Miss Kittredge.” He bowed again. “I am forever in your debt.”

I bobbed. “A pleasure as always, Mr. Gremley.” I still waited until he dashed to the stair before entering my office.

I checked the tubes, removed my still-hot bisque from the bucket before sending the container back through, and picked through some advertisements as I nibbled on a cracker. No invitations for tea, supper, or parties, which saved me an hour of penning polite refusals. Then I found a thin gray envelope sealed with silver wax that bore the impression of a spike-wielding fist.

I should have tossed it into the fire as I had all the others, but Dredmore’s remarks still had me unsettled. I sat down behind my desk and used my letter dagger to slice off the seal.

The envelope contained a single sheet of thin silver vellum folded in thirds. The paper exuded a faint scent of smoke and burnt herbs; the black ink he’d used to pen the thick, slashing letters gleamed with a ghostly sheen. With it he’d written:

Charmian,

You are meddling in matters beyond your scope. I will see to Walsh, and you will refrain from calling on his wife again. Whatever sums she promised you are not worth your life.

Dredmore

P.S. Now you may burn this and eat your supper before your bisque grows too cold.

He always knew what I was doing or eating, and I had no idea how he managed that. He wanted me to believe it was magic, of course.

“Cheeky sod.” I crumpled the stationery in my fist and threw the ball of it into the hearth, where it blazed up in a fountain of silvery sparks before shrinking to a snail of ash. “I’ll call on Lady Walsh three times a day if I please.”

Thoughts of Dredmore did not entirely preoccupy my supper hour. Rather it was the name the teller had called me in her twangy, wrong-voweled accent: elshy.

I jumped as someone knocked on the office door. “Madam Kittredge,” a mellow, male voice called. “This is NSY. Open up if you please.”

I didn’t please, but the Yard could break down any door if they so chose, so I went out to let him in. Through the panel I saw one man, fair-haired and average-sized, dressed in a plainclothesman’s long trench and low-brim. Behind him hovered the darker shape of a beater in dark blue, holding his trunch as if ready to smash in the glass.

I opened the door. “Yes?” I wasn’t going to offer my assistance, not to the cops.

The inspector doffed his hat, revealing the tough, wind-weathered features and sun-faded blue eyes of a former navyman. “Forgive the intrusion, madam—”

“It’s miss,” I corrected him, frowning a little. I didn’t know any mariners, but his features still looked awfully familiar. “And you are?”

He inclined his head. “Inspector Thomas Doyle, Rumsen Main Station.”

Now there was a name I knew; one that made me smile. “Any relation to the Middleway Doyles?”

“My grandfather Arthur.” He frowned. “Hang on. Kittredge, Kittredge . . .” His expression cleared. “You’re Rachel’s little Charmian.”

“I am, just a bit bigger.” I made the last connection, although the inspector looked much different than he had at the age of five, when he’d lost to me at croke. “And you’d be Arthur’s Tommy?”

He nodded and peered over my shoulder, making me realize that I was making the grandson of one of my mother’s oldest friends stand out in the hall. I stepped back. “Do come in.”

Doyle had a quiet word with his beater, who nodded and positioned himself beside the door. Then he came in and followed me through the front sitting room to my office, where he refused to sit or have a cup of tea.

“I appreciate it, but I’ve come to speak to Mr. Kittredge,” he told me. “If he’s stepped out, I can wait for him.”

“You’ll need a teller, then.” I wanted to dunk my throbbing head in my tea mug but settled for sipping from it as I went behind the desk and sat down. “My father died with my mother some years ago.”

He grimaced. “My condolences. I meant the Mr. Kittredge who owns this business.”

“That would be me.” I didn’t chuckle at his reaction, but it was close. “Don’t look so shocked, Inspector. Women may never have the vote, but these days we are permitted to work. And you used to call me Kit.”

“So I did.” He looked around again, this time as if expecting the walls to collapse on him. “How, exactly, does a woman obtain an investigator’s license?”

“The usual way.” I wasn’t going to incriminate myself or the officials I’d bribed, or admit that for the first four years I’d been in business I’d been obliged to conduct my work without a proper license. “I’m about to have my dinner. Fancy some bisque?”

A few minutes later we were sipping mugs in front of my fire. Doyle’s tough face softened as he spoke of his parents and regaled me with some of the amusing adventures they’d had at their farm. As he did, I smiled and nodded while sorting through my memories until I recalled the last time I’d seen Tommy: a birthday tea we’d both attended when I was seven years old. Mum had dropped me off with Tom, promising to return for us both in a few hours.

When he reached a lull in his own conversation, I asked, “Do you remember the time we went to Deidre’s garden tea?”

Doyle nodded. “You didn’t like the mage.”

“He smelled of gin and had dandruff in his eyebrows.” I took his empty mug and mine over to my little washbasin. “Do you remember what happened with the old sot?”

“Deidre asked him to conjure her a blue rabbit.” He came over to watch me wash the crockery. “But he couldn’t.”

“Were you supposed to bring a rabbit?” my seven-year-old self asked the smelly old man as he kept drawing bigger circles in the air with his stick.

Big tears welled up in Deidre’s eyes, and she shrieked for her mother, who rushed over. “What’s the matter, darling?” As soon as the birthday gel told her, the mother turned to the old man. “Go on, then. Give her a rabbit.”

He straightened. “I’ve tried, madam, many times. It will not manifest.”