The Connicle Curse (21 page)

I grabbed his shoulders and my left hand slid against something viscous and thick. Without thinking I lifted my hand to my nose and smelled the metallic scent of blood. I gripped him firmly and rolled him toward me, and he screamed. It was a wet, bubbling sort of shriek that assured me he had a chest wound even as it sent the alley's vermin scampering away.

His back rested on my thighs, his chest rising and falling in an uneven cadence as I glanced over him in the filtered remnants of moonlight that made it to the alley floor. There was a seeping wound in his lower abdomen, but I was most afraid of the gurgling rasp in his upper chest. His breath was coming out in frothy bubbles, made worse by the fact that his nose had been smashed flat when he fell. Even with his mouth unhinged and gaping I could tell he was running out of air.

“I'm going to get help!” I shouted at him. His eyes were closed and he made no motion that he'd understood what I had said. “Can you tell me who that man was?” His chest continued to expand and contract in its uneven rhythm as I dug a hand into my coat pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. If I could stop the bubbles' leaking from his chest I thought I might be able to get him to speak to me, to tell me who had done this to him, who had ended his life. “I'm sorry . . .” I muttered as I pressed the handkerchief with an unsteady hand down onto the wound at the top of his chest. His eyes instantly flew open and I faltered, releasing the pressure I had just begun to apply and causing him to gurgle another trail of dark foam from his mouth.

“I'm so sorry,” I said again, my hand hovering over the wound as my eyes held fast to his, reflecting the arcing moon that was just now cresting over the buildings four stories above our heads. “What was his name?” I asked again. His body shook and his breath rattled from somewhere deep, but he only stared at me.

My own heart was pounding as I lowered my hand to his chest again, cautiously applying pressure to keep the wound from its steady seeping. This time he did not react as I pressed. His eyes kept their skyward gaze while his jaw listed in an effort to draw more breath. As his chest began to relax under my fingers I knew I had to find something to staunch the bleeding from his belly. There would be no saving this man, but at least I could give him some comfort and, if fortune would allow, perhaps I could get him to speak.

I reached my other hand down onto his abdomen, the side of my face hovering just above the lower half of his. My hand sank into a sticky morass almost at once, but I hardly noticed as some primal part of my brain finally registered something else, something far more fundamental: His breathing had stopped.

I don't know precisely when it happened. All I know for sure is that by the time I sat fully upright again it was to find his eyes still staring at the rising moon, but this time they were not seeing anymore.

I
t was Colin's name that finally got me released from the bobbies I had flagged into the alley. I had used it frequently and insistently, repeatedly answering questions about where he lived (in a flat off Kensington on Gloucester Road), who his father was (the Queen's former emissary to India, Sir Atherton Pendragon), and where Colin had grown up (Bombay, India) before one of the men grudgingly professed to recognizing me. And so it was that they finally believed the story I had resolutely been telling them about the death of the Prussian man and deigned to let me return home.

The night had turned damp and cold, and while it did not start raining before I reached our flat just after two, I had known it was only a matter of time. I was exhausted and befouled by grime and coagulated blood on my sleeves, shirtfront, and pants as I quietly pushed through our front door. I set the latch behind me and stood there a moment in the darkness, leaning against the door, my head dully pounding as I closed my eyes and released a breath that made me feel as though I might collapse to the floor.

“Wot in bloody
'ell
. . .” Mrs. Behmoth's voice cut through me like a blade. “Get yer scrubby arse off a me door. Ya smell like a ruddy sewer and look like ya just crawled outta one. Get them filthy things off before ya take another step. I'll get ya a sack to put that rot in 'cause I ain't touchin' it. It oughta be burned.”

The thought of arguing felt far more draining than simply following her orders, so I peeled off my coat and shirt and then pried my shoes from my feet. By the time I stripped my greasy socks off, made all the worse from my having padded around the alley in them, Mrs. Behmoth had returned with an old potato sack, holding it out in front of herself with an appalled look as I dropped my things inside. Only when I was standing in nothing but my undershorts did she finally draw the bag shut and sniff at me.

“Ya
still
smell like the bloomin' gutter. Get upstairs with 'im. 'E's been in the bath since 'e got 'ome a while ago. If ya got any sense you'll get in there with 'im.” She curled her nose at me. “I can't believe you stayed out after 'e got 'isself shot.”

“Shot? What?!” I was sure I had misheard her.

She held the sack away from her body as she turned away. “Ah . . . it weren't nothin'. Ya know 'ow 'e is.” She turned back and looked me up and down. “Glad ta see ya ain't shot. All that blood on ya 'ad me wonderin'.” She shook her head and then turned and pounded back toward the kitchen. “But yer too damned skinny. Ya got legs like a chicken.”

The sound of the swinging door finally jarred me from my shock and sent me rushing up the stairs. I knew Colin couldn't be seriously injured, given Mrs. Behmoth's glibness, yet I nevertheless bolted right into the bathroom without so much as a tap on the door. “Mrs. Behmoth says you've been shot,” I blurted.

He was stretched out in the tub, his left thigh red and swollen in a four-inch arc across it. “Where the hell have you been?!” he snapped as he sat up, wincing with the effort.

“In the alley where you left me. The Prussian man died in my arms. I had to report it to the police. I couldn't just leave him. And what happened to you?”

“I got nicked chasing that bastard in the black cloak and hat. I didn't know where you were. I was bleeding. . . .” His voice trailed off and I could tell he was piqued by his own reaction. “And where are your clothes? Why are you standing there practically naked?”

“Mrs. Behmoth wouldn't let me into the house unless I took them off. I was covered in blood and—”

“Get in here!” he groused, the invitation, such as it was, not lost on me.

I tossed my undershorts near the door and climbed in with the greatest delicacy, eliciting several grimaces from Colin just the same as I settled in behind him. Only after he was leaning back against me did he allow a small sigh to escape. “Tell me what happened,” I prodded.

“I'm being played for a fool.”

“What? By whom?” I asked rather listlessly as the warm bath soothed my muscles and tugged at my mind, coaxing me to relax. I knew I should be more concerned by his words, that I should care deeply, but I could just as easily have fallen asleep with him tucked in my arms as hear the rest of his conjecture.

“I cannot shake the thought that this, all of this, has happened just the way it was intended to. That we have been following a carefully constructed plan whose outcome, even now, is charging toward its inevitable, calculated conclusion.”

“You got all of this from being nicked?” I stifled a yawn.

He half-twisted to try to glare back at me. “Nicked, is it?! Easy for you to say since no one was shooting at
you
.”

“I didn't mean—”

“And that had
nothing
to do with it anyway!” he groused as he settled back against me once more. “That bastard I followed had everything planned perfectly. From the route he took after he shot that Prussian to the placement of his horse about a half-dozen blocks away outside the back of a rowdy pub. Every bit of it was spot-on.”

“I don't understand. What exactly happened?”

He heaved a sigh that made his body feel diminished within my grasp. “When I was chasing that bastard in the cloak, I realized he was taking the most heavily trafficked streets. Scores of people collided with me, not to mention carriages, carts, horses, and other detritus I had to watch out for. Every corner he took was purposeful, and all the while, with his hat tugged down and his scarf stretched across his face, it was impossible to take even the most benign accounting of him. He moved with such assurance. With his shoulders hunched forward and that blasted cloak billowing out behind him. I know he was prepared—” Colin's right hand abruptly bolted up out of the water and waved angrily through the air. “No . . . he was
expecting
to be followed and had left nothing to chance.”

“You can't be sure of that,” I started to protest.

“Oh, I can!” he growled. “I saw him duck down an alley and thought I had my chance to catch him.” He tsked with disgust. “I waited five or ten seconds before I rounded the alley's lip and began creeping back, all the while hoping I had not lost him.” He paused a moment and I let him, knowing he would make his point when he was ready. “I could hear the noise from the pub as I moved closer to the back of the alley, only one light over its back door offering any illumination. I figured he'd gone inside, just as he had intended me to believe, so I straightened up and stepped out of the shadows, and in that same instant he came careening out from behind an archway on horseback. I'd like to say I was brave, but I stumbled back like a drunken fool as he flew toward me, and before I could even get out of his way he'd fired his gun and grazed my leg. And when I fell to the ground . . . I heard him call back,
‘Always a step behind, Mr. Pendragon. ' ”

Colin's shoulders had gone rigid beneath my hands, allowing me to feel both the fury and the frustration of his tale. “Thank god his shot went wild,” I muttered, disregarding the uneasy fact of Colin's name having been used.

“It accomplished exactly what he meant it to,” Colin stated flatly. “It gave him his escape and ended any illusion that I'm getting close to a resolution on this wretched case. He knew who I was . . . that I would be there . . . and yet I cannot give you so much as an inference as to who he might be.”

“We
are
getting closer . . .” I started to say, but the words sounded hollow even to me and before I could try to repair my tepid bolstering there came a banging on the bathroom door. “What is it?” I barked.

“It's yer inspector!” Mrs. Behmoth's voice barked right back. “Says 'e needs ta speak ta ya right now, so I suggest ya get yerselves decent or I'll let 'im in there. Makes no difference ta me.” The sound of her heavy footsteps plodding away confirmed that she would not wait for any further reply.

“What the hell does he want?” I growled as Colin pulled himself upright and climbed out of the tub.

“Let us find out before Mrs. Behmoth drags him in here and permanently mucks up all the access to information we have recently extracted from him. Besides, I should hardly think this case can get much worse.” A chill ratcheted up my spine at his words. I have often found that one is quite mistaken to presume the worst has taken place, for as would prove with this very night, it is almost never the way.

We were dressed and before Inspector Varcoe within a matter of minutes and found that he had made himself quite at home in front of the fireplace, having pulled one of the chairs right up to it. He was hunched over the cup of tea Mrs. Behmoth had already brought up as Colin limped uneasily to his chair and plopped down, the inspector's eyes glued on him the whole way. “What in hell happened to you?” Varcoe asked with little show of concern.

“I was slow getting out of the way of an errant bullet this evening.”

“You what?!” Varcoe twisted around so quickly that some of his tea sloshed over onto his lap. “
Dammit! . . .
” he grunted as he jumped up, brushing at the wet spot. “What the devil are you talking about? What bullet? Who the bloody hell shot at you?” He shoved his cup onto the mantel and yanked his chair back over by us. “We're supposed to be partners!” he hollered. “I'll not have you gallivanting to God knows where getting yourself shot at and trying to solve this ruddy case on your own!
I won't have it!
” His voice had risen in decibels in juxtaposition to the deepening of his color to a ruby plum. “I'll have answers or you will never again have the cooperation of Scotland Yard!”

“Now, Emmett,” Colin soothed. “You are upsetting yourself needlessly. May I remind you that it is the middle of the night. Our first stop tomorrow was to be to your Yard. We would have fetched you tonight except we received a hurried bit of information and had to act upon it immediately lest it might evaporate before we could round you up.”

“What bit of information?” he continued to grouse.

With a controlled exhalation of breath, Colin told Varcoe where we had been and most of what had transpired. Though he left certain details unspoken, Varcoe didn't seem to notice and, by the time Colin finished, both the inspector's demeanor and complexion had returned to something closer to normal. He turned to me. “You stayed with the victim while the constables investigated?”

“I stayed for a time and told them Colin and I would make a full report to you in the morning,” I said, stretching the truth just a notch or two.

“And you have no idea who the man in the cloak was?” Varcoe pressed, flicking his eyes between Colin and me as though we meant to deceive him.

Colin met his gaze easily. “Nothing would please me more than to give you a name or even a hunch that we could all follow up on.”

“Bollocks!”
Varcoe snatched up his tea again. “The papers are roasting the Yard over these murders. I'll never get out of this one.”

“Now, now . . .” Colin started to say.

“Piss off,” Varcoe seethed. “Your bloody career isn't on the line.”

“My career is
always
on the line.”

“Horseshite,” he grumbled as he pounded over to the windows, gazing down at the street. “Those newspaper nobs love you. And all the while me and my men work every damned day to keep this city safe without a piss pot of respect. Why the hell is that?” He turned on the two of us and I could see the tide of anger rising behind his eyes again.

“Because the Yard is at the forefront of everything that happens in this city. I, on the other hand, only work a case here and there. It is indeed an unfair comparison.” Colin cast me a furtive glance before turning back to the inspector. “What is it, Emmett? What's brought you here so late?”

The inspector stared out the window again, the delicate teacup clutched in his meaty palm, and as I watched, his shoulders slowly caved in as though an unseen weight had been placed there. “It's the little Hutton boy,” Varcoe said, his voice husky and dry. “He's gone missing.”

“When?”

Varcoe continued to stare out the window, though his eyes had drifted up toward the skyline. “The boy's nurse came to the Yard about an hour ago. She said she put him down at his usual time, but when she went to check on him a few hours later . . .” Varcoe shrugged his shoulders. “Sergeant Evans is out there now. I came for the two of you.” He took a quick sip of tea and straightened up before he turned and came back over to us. “I'll be downstairs in the coach. Don't keep me waiting.” He set his tea on the mantel and disappeared down the stairs without a glance.

“Tonight . . .” I said the moment the door shut downstairs. “I heard the man in the cloak ask the other man if he had taken care of the last package
tonight
. I didn't know what he was talking about. Do you suppose he meant William Hutton?”

Colin yanked our coats from the hall tree and tossed mine to me. “It could be,” he said as he shrugged into his.

“He's just a boy,” I could not stop myself saying. “Why would they hurt a boy?”

“Why would they kill three dogs?” came the very answer I had not wanted to hear. Colin's face was set and hard. “They are leading us like lemmings!” he snarled. “We must not follow anymore.”

He turned on his heels and barreled down the stairs, leaving me with my heart severed at the very thought of poor William Hutton. I wanted to ask Colin what he intended to do, but he'd already seized the door and stepped out into the night. And then, with the stealth of a whisper, the thought seized me that perhaps we had all already been led over the cliff.