“Ah, Maddie. Reckless as ever, I see.” Madame smiled at her. “As it happens, the family has watched that young woman intermittently for three years. Her most-used first name is Sarah, and she is very good at disappearing. I daresay she never leaves a place on a loss, either. She has not yet attempted any actions against the family, and we’ve seen no reason to interfere.”
If they had seen reason, Maddie was doubtful Sarah—she had a name at last, unlikely though it was to be her original one—would still be roaming free. “Why were you watching her at all?”
“We considered employing her. She reminds me of me, in my wild youth, save that I used my talents for my family, and occasionally for my government, while she appears to work for her own benefit alone, or occasionally for a client. Once you had placed her time in Cairo for us, we determined from her message trail that she had been informing on Baron Bodmin for an American lady, a Mrs. Midas-White.”
“The owner of the White Sky Line? Why, that’s the baron’s bilked investor. But where did Sarah go when she left the hotel in January? Not to Venice, for another month.”
“She communicated from a postal outlet in Cairo, as I recall, but where she resided, I have no information.”
Maddie sat back. “Returned to wherever she had lived before the baron’s arrival, I suppose, and under some other name. And now to find she was working for Mrs. Midas-White all along. I was headed for that lady’s suite when you appeared.”
“For what purpose?”
“I hope she’ll allow me an interview about the baron. I may not retain my job if I don’t present something newsworthy very soon.”
“Go ahead then. TD can stay here until your return. And perhaps by that time we will have other avenues to pursue.”
Feeling ever so much more confident with Madame’s considerable resources at her back, Maddie drained her coffee cup and wondered, briefly, if it was worth going downstairs for another tray. Instead, she smoothed her apron, slid a “Miss Hatter, Fashionista” card from her pocket, and wrote across the back in an orderly copperplate, “Miss Hatter requests the pleasure of an interview at”— she checked the handsome timepiece on Madame’s sideboard—“four o’clock today.” That would allow her time to retrieve her own clothing from downstairs and present herself as a professional woman. Wealthy people did not, as a rule, notice a servant’s facial features, and with the added distraction of a large hat during her journalistic reincarnation, Maddie felt confident she would escape detection.
Soon she was back in the butler’s pantry. The rich American had the corner suite opposite from Madame’s. She filched a silver salver from the pantry and presented her card at the suite door.
“A lady sent up this card,” she said to the tight-lipped maid who opened the door. The woman took the tray into the parlour.
Via a large mirror over the narrow hall table, Maddie got her first look at the baron’s wealthy investor. Mrs. Midas-White was a small woman, dressed for daytime in an elaborately embroidered, white-on-white suit with an immense hooped skirt, completed by a scalloped and pearled hem, neckline, and cuffs. Pearls the size of grapes hung on her ears and throat. Her fingers, clutching Maddie’s card, were covered by worked golden sheaths of Byzantine complexity, featuring Baroque pearls, platinum filigree, and bronze points sharpened and cruelly curved to resemble the claws of a very large cat. The claws shredded the card effortlessly, scattering the pieces on the carpet by her chair.
“You know I don’t see journalists,” she snapped. “Send her away.” Then, while the sour maid gathered up the scraps, her mistress glared at someone out of sight. “So you’ll do it?”
Maddie shifted to see directly into the parlour. Before the steam grate stood a large man in a camel-hair topcoat finished with both a shoulder cape and a wide astrakhan collar of some chocolate-hued fur. In the mirror above the mantle, he was admiring his extravagant orange moustaches, carefully waxed and shaped into antlers on either side of a small, pink mouth. Did he notice her beyond the doorway? No. He merely stroked a finger along one hairy arabesque with a satisfied smile.
“Fear not, Madame Midas-White,” he proclaimed. “I, Hercule Hornblower, will proceed to this baron’s remote estate and recover for you the fabled treasure for which you have paid already. No Eye shall remain unseen by Hercule Hornblower.” He stroked the other side of his moustaches and added, “I will require an advance against traveling expenses, unless you prefer to deliver me yourself?”
“I do not travel with the hired help.”
Hornblower merely held out his hand in unmistakable expectation of payment.
The sour maid returned to the foyer. Dusting the shreds of visiting card into a wastebasket, she said, “My mistress will not see the lady,” and ushered Maddie out to the corridor.
The genteel click of the closing door was the knell of Doom. With the weight of failed hopes dragging behind her, Maddie plodded along the gear-patterned carpet to Madame’s suite, tapped, and entered. Madame looked up from her newspaper with an inquiring air.
“No good,” Maddie told her. “She tore up my card.”
“You were gone longer than needed for that.”
“I was listening. Mrs. Midas-White, presuming the baron to have found the Eye of Africa mask, has hired a man to find it. A large Frenchman named Hornblower.”
“Fabulous moustaches?”
Maddie nodded.
Madame said, “Hercule Hornblower. A celebrated cerebral sleuth. But a Belgian, my dear. Don’t call him a Frenchman if you don’t wish to make an enemy. Did you chance to overhear where he plans to start?”
“At Bodmin’s estate. Cornwall, I think.” Maddie slumped into a chair. “Failing an interview with Mrs. Midas-White, I suppose I might pay my own way to Cornwall and interview the baron’s staff. Perhaps he did go home first, and hide the mask there, and they just don’t like to say before they’ve had a chance to search for it themselves. What a scoop that would be.”
“Indeed,” said Madame. “They would not be the only ones searching. Sir Ambrose Peacock was on his way there as well. But perhaps his new wife won’t stay in Cornwall when the London Season is beginning.”
“His wife? When did he marry?”
“I saw a notice, back in March, I think,” said Madame. “Is it important?”
“It might be enlightening to know where he was when his uncle fell overboard. Absence from his brand-new wife would be significant.” Poor Clarice, pining for a fashionable fribble who, far from hurrying to her in Cairo, had married someone else.
“I will have someone check Sir Ambrose’s itinerary. If to Cornwall you must go—and I daresay it will be safer for you than lurking in London where your papa might run across you any day—then why not let Mrs. Midas-White pay for it?”
“How? She won’t even see me.”
“She saw the famous detective. I’ve heard he hates taking notes or writing reports, although I calculate his new employer will expect many. If I were to write you a suitable reference, you could scuttle around to his lodging and get hired on as his secretarial assistant for the trip to Cornwall. What name will you travel under this time? And what colour shall we dye your hair and eyebrows?”
WHILE HER NEW
boss burbled and snored through his fabulous moustaches, Maddie gazed out at the land unspooling below the wheezing little airship’s keel. Bodmin Moor was high, rocky, and, in mid-April, shimmering green even under the scudding gray of yet another rainy day. The airship, a local from Exeter, had too little power to labour high above the rising land, and had not even a coffee service to while away the final hour of their journey from London. What a mercy they’d been able to snatch a bite during the changeover from the London-Exeter shuttle. Even that was a long time after the early breakfast in Madame’s suite.
Madame was, indeed, a miracle worker. Not only had her references so impressed the great detective that he hired Maddie on the spot, but she had arranged a room overnight in Claridge’s. A pair of staid ladies’ shirtwaists in dark blue, which with Maddie’s newly purple hair changed her colouring considerably, arrived after dinner. Then, while Madame cleaned sand from TD’s joints and gears, Maddie wrote up her piece on the nieces’ Court Presentation gowns. She back-dated it, hoping CJ would assume it was written before she fled Cairo. Did he know yet she had left?
At one point she looked up to see TD’s little head tipped straight backward while Madame twisted a slender brass implement down into his neck. Birdie looked on with encouraging twitters. Madame glanced over at Maddie, her deep violet eye magnified horrifically by an oculus five separate lenses thick.
“I am activating a few more of his skills for you. They were not needed in the life of a fashion reporter, but as an investigative reporter you may require them. The usual commands for images and voices, followed by ‘at your discretion,’ will collect images when there is movement and sounds when someone speaks, for up to several hours.”
“Marvelous! So he is now as talented as your Birdie?”
Birdie squawked.
“She did not mean it, dear,” said Madame to the clockwork. “Let us rather say, Maddie, that he benefits from Birdie’s longer proximity to my toolkit. He will serve you well.”
“I meant to ask you about having him painted to blend in better with local birds, as Obie’s Tweetle-C does. But perhaps when I settle in my next job, whatever that is.”
Madame nodded. “Eventually. Enameling is a tricky process, so as not to disturb the very delicate inner mechanisms. One drop in the wrong crack and a whole system could be jammed up permanently. You remember old Poppa, who could barely move his wings?” Oh, yes, that clumsy old parrot. He might not fly but he could walk and climb, and swore more fluently than any airship pirate. “Enameling many years ago froze his pinion gears. He lives at the Experimental Airship Division with my cousin, cussing out the Admirals whenever one ventures near. I’m surprised they haven’t ordered his voice-box removed.”
The late tea tray had arrived when a brown hawk landed on Madame’s windowsill. Maddie hurried to open the glass. Birdie sat communing with the hawk while TD looked on with his head cocked, as if trying to overhear a message not meant for him. When the hawk left, Birdie hopped over to his mistress.
“Speak,” said Madame, and the bird, in a man’s voice, reported, “Per Madame’s query, Sarah name-unknown is whereabouts unknown. Colonel Muster is not in London; whereabouts unknown. Sir Ambrose Peacock is not in London; listed location Bodmin Manor, Cornwall. Professor Plumb is not in Cambridge; listed location Bodmin Manor, Cornwall. Professor Windsor Jones is not in Oxford; whereabouts unknown. Sir Ambrose Peacock marriage abroad reported in society pages, date unspecified but approximately mid-March; lady’s maiden name unlisted. End report.”
“Probably a rich tradesman’s daughter,” said Madame. “I don’t know that this was much help after all. At least you will know who you’re facing at Bodmin Manor. Is Sir Ambrose or Professor Plumb a risk to your identity?”
“I’ve not met Sir Ambrose that I recall, and only met Professor Plumb a handful of times around Shepheard’s Hotel at Christmas. He has no reason to remember me.”
“As well to be sure,” said Madame. “I will keep my people alert for slippery Sarah, and inform you promptly if the Honourable Madeleine Main-Bearing is heard of anywhere you are not. Off you go to bed now. You have an early start and a long day tomorrow.”
Thus ended a day that had begun over Paris in a state of considerable worry and ended with a new job, new clothing, and a new crack at the twisty Baron Bodmin story. The final article she’d filed last night had concerned Mrs. Midas-White hiring Hercule Hornblower to investigate the baron’s demise. If CJ bought that article, he would surely print more items from Cornwall, byline or no byline. What WAS a good byline for an investigative reporter? A pair of initials rather than a first name would keep her gender off the public perception. W.Y. Worthington had a reliable feel, but would any reader grasp that W might stand for Who, What, When, or Where?
MADDIE WAS STILL
pondering her byline on the airship over Cornwall as she watched the scenery unfold below. The dawn-tinted rooftops of London had given way to the Green Belt, under which lay the vast steam-driven mansions of Maddie’s father and his peers. Beyond them were the home farms and villages of the Old Nobility, mingling here and there with the personal aerodromes of the lesser Steamlords. Lakes, woods, railway lines, and towns had passed under their keel during the long morning.
Hornblower had fallen instantaneously asleep three times by her count, once in the middle of their hurried meal in Exeter. Then he had simple gone off quietly, in whatever position he happened to be, and come back as quietly. Now he was snuffling and grunting in his sleep, annoying her if not the other six passengers, who appeared to be mostly of the clerical classes. No wonder he had said to her, very firmly, that she must observe everything and write down every word concerning any of his investigations. He could not be sure he would be awake to hear or see things for himself. Not that he was missing much on this dawdling journey over the moors. If only he were a quiet sleeper . . .
This tiny local airship, their second transport of the day, floated above green and treeless lands intersected by ancient stone walls. Mine-houses dotted the landscape, their ancient stones surmounted by metallic machinery that sent flumes of steam and gasses as high as the airship flew. A village came in sight, comprised of ten small houses and a church built of local rock. A sprawling, stone building with a mooring mast anchored the opposite end of the village. The airship was so low she could almost make out its sign, swinging in a light breeze. Jamaica Inn. She nudged the great detective, who sat up with a start.