The Affair of the Porcelain Dog (7 page)

"I don't know what you mean."

She took a step toward me, fist curling around the rag. I stepped back and met wall. Nurse Brand didn't take kindly to interlopers upsetting the apple cart. When Goddard had upset mine, Lazarus's had tipped clean over, in turn causing the nurse's own steady cart to throw a wheel.

"What you does in the dark ain't none of my business, Ira Adler, mortal sin though it be." She pushed a sweaty strand of hair behind her ear, much as a man might roll up his sleeves before a fight. "But when it puts the only surgeon in London who'll work for a chimney sweep's wages so far down in the dumps he don't show for a week, I make it my business."

I swallowed.

"That--that was two years ago, Pearl," I said.

She paused. She looked at the rag in her hand and stuffed it into her apron pocket with a sigh.

"So it was," she conceded. "But it weren't right the way you left with 'im, just walked out as if the doctor weren't even standin' there." She shook her head. "I hope he's treatin' you well, at least. Do you love him?"

I blinked. I certainly loved living at York Street. I was quite fond of my tailored clothes and perpetually full belly. As for Goddard, it wasn't love like in the magazines Eileen liked to read, but it wasn't without affection. It was a shame, of course, that Lazarus had come to depend on our little meetings to the degree that he had. But I'd never promised him anything more.

"Then perhaps," she said, "you think he loves you."

Well, he had said as much just a few hours ago. I opened my mouth to say something clever, when I heard Collins's voice at the back of my mind:
A parade of interchangeable faces, here one day and gone the next without a trace.

"Er..."

Her hard features softened, and she looked at me with the same expression she'd worn when I'd shown up on the clinic's doorstep for the first time nine years earlier--and eight years before Lazarus had signed on as resident physician.

My first customer had been a brute.

"You daft, daft boy." She sighed. "I don't think you half know what you've got yourself into. No matter." Her eyes went from icy to a warm, sympathetic blue, and she patted my elbow. "I don't forget me boys, Ira. However bad it gets, you always have a home here. Don't forget that. Now," she said, clearing her throat, "I'll put the word out about the Chinese girl and the statue, you can be sure about that. But were there anything else you needed as long as you're here?"

∗ ∗ ∗

The woman couldn't refrain from chortling as I peeled off my Whitechapel trousers and silk underthings. She dragged in a stool for me to stand on, to better inspect the area, she'd said, but I couldn't help thinking this humiliation was a bit of good-natured revenge on her part. Shivering up there in no more than my shirt and waistcoat, not five steps from a crowded waiting room, the mingled odors of vomit and disinfectant fighting for prominence in the stuffy little dispensary, I felt like a medical school display. Nonetheless, if Nurse Brand could tell me anything about the abominable itch that had settled over my genital region, I'd stand on that stool every day and twice on Sunday for the rest of my life.

"Nothing," she declared, stepping back at last.

"Nothing? How can there be nothing?"

"I'm only telling you what I see, and that's nothing. No sores, no rash, no sign of infestation--"

"But my bollocks are as red as a tomato," I cried.

"Only 'cause you've been scratchin' 'em. Didn't your mother ever tell you... No," she said in a chastened tone. "No, I suppose she didn't. It only makes it worse to scratch."

"Makes what worse?"

She shrugged.

"I don't know what to tell you, Ira. I don't see a thing. Are you havin' other symptoms?"

I frowned. There weren't any other symptoms to speak of, but that didn't mean they wouldn't come later. It wasn't as if it were totally unexpected. In my former line of work, no one went six months without some little burn or drip. But this was different. I could feel it. My palms were suddenly slick with sweat; I wiped them on my shirt.

"God's bollocks, I'm diseased," I muttered.

"Don't be stupid. And don't blaspheme." The nurse tossed me my drawers as I hopped down from the stool. "Are you sure it's not..." She tapped her temple with a long, square finger.

"You think I'm making this up?"

I shook out the drawers and loosened the drawstring. The silk felt cool and smooth between my fingers, but the thought of putting anything over my lower regions filled me with dread.

"It's happened before," she said. "Like that time...no, it were more than once, when you convinced yourself you had consumption..."

"It's not like that, Pearl!"

"Or maybe you're just feeling nostalgic. Remember when you coshed your own noggin with a bottle so's you'd have an excuse to pester the doctor?"

"I did not give myself a malevolent genital pox to get Timothy Lazarus's attention!"

"I'm happy to hear it," said a voice in the doorway.

We both looked over in horror, to where the good doctor stood, looking fresh as a daisy in a crisp shirt and brown trousers, his purple lump of a nose the only indication that he'd spent half the night wrestling on the floor of a Whitechapel dollyshop.

"Medical problems, Adler?" he asked. His voice sounded nasal and tired.

"Nothing that's any business of yours, Tim."

He glanced from the nurse to me. Looking closer, I saw his eyes were as red as mine felt. I derived no small satisfaction from the fact he'd probably stumbled out of bed with an unbelievable opium headache. He circled his left shoulder and winced.

"Come now," he sighed. "If you're having problems below stairs, you could do worse than confiding in an old friend."

"I suppose you'd enjoy going through my pubic hair with a lice comb," I mumbled. Avoiding his eyes, I shimmied into my drawers.

"Or you could let me have a look at your midsection. I worried about that blow you took to the solar plexus last night."

I froze.

"Last night?" asked the nurse.

"Oh, didn't Adler mention that?" Lazarus circled his shoulder again and popped his neck. "We ran into each other, quite literally, 'round Miller's Court."

The nurse narrowed her eyes.

"I'm sure I don't want to know."

"This has been a pleasant reunion," I said, "but I really must be on my way."

"Not so fast." Lazarus scooped up my trousers from the floor with one deft motion. "We have business to discuss."

"Then I'll leave you to it," said the nurse.

"But, Pearl--"

Ignoring me, she bustled past, waving a dismissive hand over her shoulder. Lazarus shut the door behind her and locked it.

"Hey!" I cried.

He tossed me my trousers.

Lazarus well knew I had a horror of enclosed spaces, I realized as he smugly slipped his keys back into his trouser pocket. A cold sweat broke out across my back. I might have tried to take the keys by force, had not my stomach borne a purple-and-black reminder of Lazarus's superiority in a fight. Instead, I shook out my trousers and snarled, "Turn around while I dress."

While I pulled on my trousers and socks, Lazarus rearranged the jars on the counter. He had explained once how working at the clinic helped him to exorcise his demons after he'd returned from Afghanistan. But that had been years ago. Why was he still there? I surreptitiously watched him adjust the collar of his crisp linen shirt. His boots were new, too, and I recognized his citrus and musk cologne as the work of one of London's premier perfumers. What had the nurse said about a chimney sweep's wages? It would seem being kept by Andrew St. Andrews paid quite generously.

"You look well," I muttered as I buttoned my trousers.

Lazarus had moved on to bedpans by that point, stacking and restacking. The increased vehemence of the clatter was the only sign he'd heard me. In the dim light of the dollyshop I'd failed to notice the gray now peppering his neatly trimmed hair. The lines at the corners of his eyes were the same, perhaps a bit deeper. But he wasn't living on tea and biscuits anymore--he'd filled out quite nicely with proper care and feeding.

"Really well," I said.

He turned to me with a withering stare.

"My nose is broken in two places, I'm bruised from top to tail, and my head feels like it was run over by a rickshaw full of opium. Stop lying, Adler. I don't pay for it anymore," he added coldly.

"Well, I don't sell it anymore. May I go now?"

He turned and looked me over, his cool gaze coming to a meaningful stop at the ruby stickpin.

"Not that you have any room to criticize, Mr. 222 Baker Street," I cried. "That's a nice tie, for someone who works in a shithole clinic in Bethnal Green. Is it silk?"

"Same as yours."

I stuffed my shirt into my trousers, shrugged into my jacket, and laced up my shoes. I had to get out of there. But Lazarus wanted to talk, and he had the key.

"Adler, about last night--"

"You didn't have to be so enthusiastic with your elbows. You can kill a man that way, you know."

"I know several ways to kill a man," he said. "A gentle elbow to the gut isn't one of them."

"Gentle?"

He was circling his shoulder again, kneading the muscle with his opposite hand.

"A man your age should avoid fights, not start them," I said.

"You mean this?" He nodded toward his shoulder. "Don't flatter yourself."

He made a pained little noise and stretched his arm across his chest.

I was probably the only man in London, aside from Andrew St. Andrews, who had seen the ugly knot of tissue that bloomed from Lazarus's left shoulder: a souvenir from the Siege of the Sherpur Cantonment. There was a corresponding scar on his shoulder blade where the bullet had entered. Any other man would have worn a bullet wound like a medal, but unlike the hundreds of tossers still dining out on a few bruises sustained in the line of duty, Lazarus did his best to cut off any discussion of Afghanistan before it began.

Lazarus glanced from his shoulder to me and said, "If I didn't want to talk about it when we could tolerate each other's company, you'll understand my reluctance to speak of it now."

"Fine. Open that blasted door, and I'll never mention it again."

"Sit down, Adler."

I sat, but not because he'd told me to. It was getting stuffy in there. Unlike pacing, sitting wouldn't waste precious oxygen.

"I have to know what Goddard has told you about the porcelain dog," he said.

"What has St. Andrews told you?"

"Nothing." He nudged aside a stack of bedpans with his elbow and leaned against the counter. "Nothing, aside from the fact that whatever is inside it will stop the blackmailer cold." He rubbed his eyes and sighed. "Adler, St. Andrews couldn't carry out a case if it had a handle on it. I do most of the work, if you couldn't guess. Even then, his little investigations usually come to nothing. But this time, there's an actual crime with actual consequences--consequences that will affect me, as well. And he's keeping me in the dark."

I let out a long breath. Goddard had put my bollocks in the same vise. Only I was
used
to being in the dark. It was safer that way for Goddard, and for me. On the other hand, none of the other little errands I'd run for Goddard had entailed losing my happy home as a consequence of failure.

"Well," said Lazarus. "Since we're both in the same unenviable situation, wouldn't it make sense to pool our efforts, and--"

"You want to work together?" Goddard's admonishment echoed in my mind. "Absurd."

"Why not?" Lazarus asked, annoyed. "We both want to stop the blackmailer. In wartime, a man often finds himself entrusting his life to someone to whom he'd not deign to--must you chortle so, Adler? To whom he'd not speak two words back on the streets of London. You do trust me, don't you?"

I stopped laughing. Really, it was like asking whether one trusted a St. Bernard. With a cask of brandy. In a snowstorm. Lazarus was an annoyance of the highest order, but he was as reliable as rain. All the same, until one of us found the dog, the point was moot.

"It doesn't matter if I trust you," I said. "I don't have the damned thing anymore."

"What?"

I tugged at my collar. That window was definitely starting to fog over.

"Ask Pearl, if you really must know. Will you please open the door now?"

Lazarus steepled his fingers beneath his chin. He'd no doubt spent the morning mapping out counter-arguments for any objections I might have had to our working together. But clearly he hadn't anticipated my losing the damned statue.

The air was getting thick and the ceiling had definitely gotten lower. I had to get out of there.

"Why are you being so petulant? We'll find the dog, then figure out what it means. It's clearly the most efficient use of our resources. What do you say?" He extended his hand. "Battlefield comrades?"

Lazarus had a workman's hands. They were square and sturdy, though the tapered fingers betrayed an artist's soul. The skin was smooth and pink, the nails clean. The memory of his touch sent a faint shiver through me even two years later. But he was asking me to do something that would send Goddard through the roof, while holding me prisoner in a room no bigger than a rich man's coffin. He had to be out of his sodding mind.