The Baker Street Letters (31 page)

“No, she made rather a scene. She wasn't pleased at all with your Mr. Ocher. He was getting between her and two hundred thousand pounds. Apparently the American entertainment executive offered her that much to find that document everyone was so worried about it. She was to verify that Nigel was sending the thing back as requested—or to pilfer it if he wasn't cooperating, which he wasn't. But Ocher caught her in the act of stealing it from your brother's files—good soldier, that Ocher.”

“Yes,” said Reggie.

“Your brother might have caught her, too, if he'd taken the time to look around. Apparently she was still here—hiding behind the tall file cabinet, with the documents in hand, when your brother came in and rushed out that morning. But then
Ocher came in right after, and did catch her—and she bashed him as soon as he turned his back to call it in. She delivered the documents to the American, who'd flown out for that purpose. I expect he wouldn't have paid so much if he'd known this wasn't the original.”

“Very American approach,” said Reggie. “Just buy your way out.”

“She was none too happy with you, either, you know.”

“Me?”

“She thought it was due time you made her an office manager.”

“To manage who, herself? She was the only staff.”

Wembley shrugged. “Employee morale, you know. I suppose you're lucky she didn't just go postal, as the Americans call it—interesting phrase in the circumstances—and bash you instead.”

“My brother will appreciate the bronze back when you're done.”

“Of course.”

“I'll send you an address.”

“Oh? Not coming back, then, is he?”

“I don't think soon.”

“Hmm. Your clerk dead. Your brother in America. Your secretary in the nick. I expect you'll be needing some office help.”

“I'll manage.”

“Too bad about the Lloyd's thing.”

“What?”

“Ms. Brinks said a few things on the way out. She said you could lose everything. She said you will no longer be able to pay your hires.”

“I'll manage,” Reggie said again. “Was there anything else? I have a plane to catch.”

“The post appears to be piling up,” said Wembley, getting up, finally, from the desk.

Reggie looked at the letters stacked in Nigel's in-basket. “Yes,” he said.

Wembley stopped. He picked up a couple of letters off the top.

“Heath, I take it you know who these are addressed to?”

“Yes,” said Reggie.

“Bloody hell,” said Wembley.

“My sentiments exactly,” said Reggie. “Now put them down, please.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fire smoke rising from the lot in Century City might or might not have been part of a shoot, but Reggie could see the flames, and they were real, regardless of the cause.

He walked toward them.

Against the backdrop of the fire, Laura was in the embrace of a popular American action hero, whom Reggie recognized but did not consider to be competition. Laura did not take actors seriously.

The director called a break; Laura saw Reggie from the set, and she crossed toward him on the sidelines. She stopped several feet away and just appraised him for a moment.

“That's the look I want,” said the director, passing by.

“Can we talk?” asked Reggie.

They walked away from the shooting set to a side street on the lot. They were alone.

“Did you identify your mysterious snitch?” said Laura.

“Ms. Brinks.”

“Ahh. Of course.”

“She's been building a pot of resentment for years. I should have seen it.”

“Yes,” said Laura. “But the gradual things are so hard to recognize.”

“My apologies for supposing it was your friend,” he said.

“You're still referring to him that way, as if he were especially significant.”

“Is he?”

“Probably not in the way you suppose.” Then Laura smiled slightly and added, “It isn't someone else, Reggie. It's just that it's been a long while on a roller coaster.”

“If you were looking for a steadier ride,” said Reggie, taking that in, “I don't know why you didn't choose Nigel at the time.”

Laura looked surprised at that remark. “There are those moments when a woman wants to be nurtured, Reggie,” she said, considering it, “and those moments when she wants to be . . . well, trifled with, I suppose. There's a certain freedom in that, and when one is very young, freedom can be more important than comfort.” She paused. “You both presented yourselves to me with bright feathers flashing in the sun; I had to choose. And God help me, I chose you. I chose the trifler.”

Reggie stepped toward her on that, but he paused when he heard what she said next.

“I suppose I've lived with that kind of insecurity long enough that I've gotten used to it,” she said. “That's an odd thing, isn't it? But it might be true.”

“It doesn't need to be—,” began Reggie, but she stopped him.

“In any case—I've been offered another role. I mean, literally. After New York, I can have two months' work in the South
Seas. It will be a shameful amount of money, and for just a few shoots and languishing in the sun.”

Laura paused. Reggie had the sense that she was waiting for a very specific response from him.

But he couldn't shake the feeling that at this moment she was waiting out of mere curiosity.

“I don't see how I can top that,” he said.

She seemed annoyed by this, and she looked away for a moment. Then she said, “Have you ever noticed, Reggie—how your brother will take the chance even when he's sure he's got none?”

“I'm not sure what you mean.”

“Think about it,” she said. “Ring me when you've got a clue.”

“How do they say it in this town? We'll do lunch?”

“A shame if just that,” said Laura as she turned away, or, at least, it sounded like it. The director was calling places.

Laura walked back onto the set.

Reggie walked back to his taxi.

He paused as he opened the door, and he looked back. He could still see Laura on the set.

She put a hand to her face for a moment, and Reggie thought he heard her say something to the director about the damn bloody smoke.

 

Read on for an excerpt from the second book in the series

The Brothers of Baker Street

And don't miss the rest of the books in the series!

Follow the latest news from Michael at

TheBakerStreetLetters.com

Copyright © 2011 by Michael Robertson

 

 

 

 

 

 

LONDON, AUTUMN 1997

 

In Mayfair, the owner of an elegant Edwardian white-stone sat down at the garden table with unusually high expectations for breakfast.

It was a bright September morning, quite lovely indeed; the roses in the garden were much more fragrant than in many days or weeks past—more so than anyone could possibly understand—and there was every reason to believe that breakfast would be equally remarkable.

The servant girl would bring tea and scones for a start. The tea would be hot and dark and would swirl together with the milk like vanilla and caramel taffy; the scones would be fresh and warm and appropriately crumbly when broken in two, and the butter would melt into each half like rain into loose garden soil.

The breakfast would be wonderful—especially so because it was no longer necessary to take the medications that accompanied it.

No medications, no nausea. No medications, no mental dullness. No medications, no loss of pleasure in the ordinary, everyday elements of life.

Not taking the bloody little pills was certainly the way to go.

The wonder was why the servant girl still bothered bringing them at all.

Several steps away in the parlor, the servant girl—a young woman, who had emigrated from Russia only a few years earlier and shortened her name to Ilsa (because there was a tennis star of that name and people could pronounce it)—arranged a china setting on a silver serving tray, with all the breakfast components her employer was expecting.

She placed the medications on the tray as well—a yellow pill for the schizophrenia, a round blue one to alleviate the depression caused by the yellow one; and a square white one to deal with the nausea caused by the blue one, but apparently not to great effect. And there was a small pink one, which was related to the effects of the other three in some complicated way that no one had adequately explained.

The pills had been part of the daily regimen ever since Ilsa was first hired. That was almost a year ago now. Ilsa's employer, just a few years older than Ilsa herself, had lost both parents to an automobile accident at that time, and needed some assistance with the daily routine. Ilsa had been brought in to prepare the meals, to put the medicines on the tray, and to do the housekeeping and other chores. She wanted to do all of her tasks well.

Keeping the place tidy was more trouble than it should have been. Like a cat bringing presents from the garden, her employer kept discovering and bringing in small pieces of furniture and such from the parents' estate. Ilsa had counted five lamps, three vases, an ancient portable typewriter, and innumerable scrapbooks and folders and yellowed paper items, some of which her employer had begun to take upstairs alone to study in private.

But as difficult as the housekeeping was, what worried Ilsa most was the medications. A new doctor had come by—a man Ilsa did not particularly like—and said not to worry about them. So Ilsa tried not to worry. But she continued to put the pills on the tray anyway, as she had been originally told to do. It seemed to her that she still should do so. And she was uncertain of all the regulations in her adopted country; she did not want to get in trouble.

Now she brought the breakfast setting out to the garden. And she also brought a copy of the
Daily Sun
.

Ilsa placed the silver tray on the table. Her employer smiled slightly and nodded. Then Ilsa stood at the table and began to read the headlines aloud from the tabloid.

This had been become a ritual in recent weeks, and she took some pride in getting good at it.

“‘Prime Minister Calls for Moratorium on Queue Cutting,'” read Ilsa.

“No,” said her employer.

“‘Prince Harry Fathers Love Child with Underage Martian Girl.'”

“No.”

“‘Liverpool Louts Stab Man in Front of Pregnant Wife.'”

“No. Page two?”

“Just adverts.”

“And on page three?”

“A woman in her underwear—and nothing on top. Shall I read the caption?” Ilsa giggled just slightly, because she was beginning to understand the British fondness for bad puns, and she was looking forward to demonstrating that knowledge.