As he walked, he also regretted giving up the newspaper—he’d have to find another—now wanting to search for this new killing; even another vague reference to Rosamonde’s companion as “missing” would at least provide him with a name. A second death on Robert Vandaariff’s premises, on such an occasion, certainly added to the financier’s reasons for keeping things quiet, though Chang wondered how long Trapping’s death could remain so. Chang knew that even if Rosamonde had not actually lied to him, there was more to the story. His own memory of Persephone (which he preferred to Isobel) in the train told him that much. But pursuing Rosamonde’s (whoever she actually was) investigation was a way to also pursue the intrigue around Trapping, and keep abreast of his own vulnerability in that regard—for it must mean learning more about the house, the guests, the party, the circumstances. But she had told him nothing about any of that, merely about the woman she wanted found. He clucked his tongue with annoyance as he walked, knowing that his best path to protect himself was also the path most likely to expose his involvement.
When he reached it, Dagging Lane was still empty. This was the rear of the house, whose front overhung the river itself and allowed for easy disposal of those contentious or unable to pay. A large man lounged outside a small wooden door, whose bright yellow paint stood out in a street of dirty brick and weather-stained wood. Chang walked up to him and nodded. The man recognized him and nodded in return. He knocked three times on the door with his meaty fist. The door opened and Chang stepped into a small entryway, cheaply carpeted, and lit with yellow lantern light instead of gas. Another large man demanded his walking stick, which Chang gave over, and then indicated with a practiced leer that he should proceed past a beaded curtain into a side parlor. Chang shook his head.
“I am here to speak to Mrs. Wells,” he said. “I will pay for the time.”
The man considered this, then walked through the curtain. After a brief interval, which Chang passed by looking at a cheap print framed on the wall (illustrating the intimate life of a Chinese contortionist), the man returned and ushered him through the parlor—past three sofas full of half-dressed, over-painted women, all appearing equally young and equally ravaged in the dim sickly light and who seemed to be generally yawning, scratching themselves, or in several cases, coughing thickly into napkins—and then to Mrs. Wells’s own inner room, where the woman herself sat next to a crackling fire with an account book on her knees. She was grey, small, and thin, and in her work as routinely nurturing and dispassionately brutal as a farmer. She looked up at him.
“How long will this take?”
“Not long, I am sure.”
“How much were you expecting to pay?”
“I was expecting this.”
He reached into his pocket and removed a crumpled note. It was more than he ought to have offered, but the risk in this matter was closer to his person, so he didn’t begrudge it. He dropped the banknote onto her ledger book and sat in the chair across from her. Mrs. Wells took the note and nodded at the large man, still standing in the doorway. Chang heard the man leave and close the door, but kept his gaze on the woman.
“I am not in the custom of providing information about my customers—” she began. Her teeth clicked when she spoke—some large percentage were made of white porcelain, which rather hideously showed the true color of those real teeth that remained. Chang had forgotten how much this annoyed him. He raised his hand to cut her off.
“I am not interested in your customers. I am looking for a woman, almost assuredly a whore, whom you may know of, even if you do not employ her directly.”
Mrs. Wells nodded slowly. Chang didn’t quite know what that meant, but as she did not then speak, he went on.
“Her name may be, or she may call herself, Isobel Hastings. Out of her shoes she is most likely five feet in height, with chestnut hair, in curls. The most salient fact is that she would have been seen early this morning wearing a black cloak and quite liberally—her face, her hair, her person—covered in dried blood. I expect that such a girl returning to your house, or any house, in such a manner—though it is not unheard-of—would have caused remark.”
Mrs. Wells did not answer.
“Mrs. Wells?”
Still Mrs. Wells did not answer. Very quickly, and before she could slam the book, Chang darted forward and snatched the banknote away from her. She looked up at him in surprise.
“I am happy to pay for whatever you know, but not for abject silence.”
She smiled as slowly and deliberately as a blade being unsheathed. “I am sorry, Cardinal, I was merely thinking. I do not know the girl you speak of. I do not know the name, and none of mine came home so bloodied. I would certainly have heard, and as certainly demanded reparations.”
She stopped, smiling. There was more, he saw it in her eyes. He returned the banknote. She took it, placed it in the heavy ledger as a bookmark, and closed the book. Chang waited. Mrs. Wells chuckled, a particularly unpleasant noise.
“Mrs. Wells?”
“It is nothing,” she replied. “Merely that you are the third to come asking for this same creature.”
“Ah.”
“Indeed.”
“Might I ask who those others were?”
“You might.” She smiled, but did not move, a silent request for more money. Chang was torn. On one hand, he had already paid her far more than he should. On the other, if he attacked her with his razor, he’d have to deal with the two men at the door.
“I believe I have been fair with you, Mrs. Wells…have I not?”
She chuckled again, setting his teeth on edge. “You have, Cardinal, and will be so in the future, I trust. These others were less…respectful. So I will tell you that the first was this morning, a young lady claiming to be this person’s sister, and the second, just an hour ago, a man in uniform, a soldier.”
“A red uniform?”
“No no, it was black. All black.”
“And the woman”—he tried to think of Rosamonde—“she was tall? Black hair? Violet eyes? Beautiful?” Mrs. Wells shook her head.
“Not black hair. Light brown. And she was pretty enough—or would have been without the burns on her face.” Mrs. Wells smiled. “Around the eyes, you know. Such a dreadful thing to have happen. Windows to the soul, don’t you know.”
Chang stalked back to the Raton Marine in a fury. It would have been one thing to learn that he was but one of several out to find this woman, but when he himself was so close to dire exposure in the same affair—whether he’d actually killed Trapping or not, he could just as easily hang for it—it was doubly maddening. His mind was spinning with suspicion. When he reached the Raton Marine it was nearly dark. No word had come from John Carver. Not quite ready to question his client directly, he began walking to the next likely house, near the law courts. This was known as the Second Bench, and was not too far and in a marginally safer location. He could thrash through his thoughts on the way.
As he forced himself to break the parts into discrete elements, he admitted that it was not strange that Mrs. Wells did not know his Persephone. When he had seen her on the train, there was the distinct sense that the image she then made was spectacular—that it was unusual to her, however telling or revelatory, or however large a story lay behind it. Her curls, though bloody and ruined, bespoke a certain care—perhaps the assistance of a servant. This would mean the Second Bench, or even the third house he had in mind, the Old Palace. These respectively offered an escalating class of whore, and served an escalating class of clientele. Each house was a window into a particular stratum of the city’s traffic in flesh. Chang himself could patronize the Palace only when he possessed significant cash, and even then solely because of services rendered its manager. The unsavory nature of the South Quays only raised the question of how the other two searchers had found it, or thought to go there. The soldier he could understand, but the woman—her sister? There were, frankly, only so many ways a woman would know of such a place’s exist
ence, for the South Quays was nearly invisible to the greater population. That Rosamonde would know of it, for example, he would find more surprising than a personal letter from the Pope. But the others searching did know. Who were they, and whom did they serve? And who was this woman they all sought?
This did nothing to support his client’s story of her poor murdered friend, who could be no disconnected innocent, but someone about whom other issues—inheritance? title? incrimination?—must be spinning, all of which she had withheld in their interview. Chang cast his mind back to the train, looking into those unreadable grey eyes. Was he looking at a killer, or a witness? And if she had killed…as an assassin, or in defense? Each possibility altered the motives of those searching for her. That none of them had gone to the police—even if it was at the specific, powerful request of Robert Vandaariff—did not reflect well on anyone’s good intentions.
Not that good intentions were any normal part of Chang’s life. The Second Bench was his usual choice in brothels, though this had more to do with a desire to balance his financial resources against the likelihood of disease than with any particular merits of the house. Still, he was acquainted with the staff and with the current manager, a fat greasy fellow with a shaved head named Jurgins who wore a number of large rings on his fingers—the very image of a modern court eunuch, it always seemed to Chang. Jurgins affected a jolly manner, though this was pushed aside like a curtain every time money came into the conversation, to be shot back into place once his insistent greed was no longer at the fore. As so many of the place’s customers were drawn from business and the law, this mercenary manner was barely noticed, and certainly no cause for offense.
After a few quiet words with the men at the door, Chang was guided into Jurgins’s private room, hung with tapestries and lit with crystal lamps whose shades dangled all kinds of delicate fringe, the air so thick with incense that even Chang found it oppressive. Jurgins sat at his desk, knowing Chang well enough to both see him alone and to also keep the door open with a bodyguard at close call. Chang sat in the chair opposite, and removed a banknote from his coat. He held it up for Jurgins to see. Jurgins could not help but tap his fingertips on the desk with anticipation.
“What may we do for you today, Cardinal?” He nodded at the banknote. “A formal request for something elaborate? Something…exotical?”
Chang forced a neutral smile. “My business is simple. I am looking for a young woman whose name may be Isobel Hastings, who would have arrived back here—or at another such establishment—early this morning, in a black cloak, and quite covered in blood.”
Jurgins frowned thoughtfully, nodding.
“So, I am looking for her.”
Jurgins nodded again. Chang met his gaze, and deliberately smiled. Out of a natural sycophantic impulse, Jurgins smiled as well.
“I am also”—Chang paused for companionable emphasis—“interested in the two people who have already wasted your time asking for her.”
Jurgins smiled broadly. “I see. I see indeed. You’re a clever man—I have always said it.”
Chang smiled thinly at the compliment. “I would expect them to be a man in a black uniform and a woman, brown hair, well-dressed, with a…burn of strange design around her eyes. Would that be accurate?”
“It would!” Jurgins grinned. “He came first thing this morning—he woke me up—and she some time after luncheon.”
“And what did you tell them?”
“What I will be forced to tell you, I’m afraid. The name means nothing. And I have heard no news about such a bloody girl, neither from here or any other house. I am sorry.”
Chang leaned forward and dropped the banknote onto the desk. “No matter. I did not expect that you had. Tell me about the other two.”
“It was just as you said. The man was an officer of some kind—I do not follow the military, you know—and perhaps your own age, quite the insistent brute, not understanding that I was not of his command, if you get me. The woman said the girl was her sister, quite lovely—as you say, except for the burn. Even then, we get people who fancy that kind of thing directly.”
“And what were their names—or the names they gave you?”
“The officer called himself Major Black.” Jurgins smirked at its obvious falseness. “The woman gave herself as a Mrs. Marchmoor.” He chuckled with a lurid relish. “As I say, I would have been happy to offer her employment, if not for the delicacy of the occasion, her missing a relative and all.”
The Second Bench and the Old Palace were on opposite sides of the north bank, and his path to the Palace took him close enough to the Raton Marine that he decided to stop by to see if Carver had left word. He had not. It was unlike Carver, who fancied himself so important that he kept messengers and runners on hand at all hours—and certainly well into the evening. Perhaps Carver was in the country, which made it less likely that between last night and today Rosamonde could have received his recommendation. It was still possible, however, and he pushed the matter aside until he heard either way. He’d pressed Jurgins for more detail about the officer’s uniform—silver facings and a strange regimental badge of a wolf swallowing the sun—and could just return to the Library before its doors shut for the day. Instead, he decided it was important to reach the Palace. In the unlikely case that he did find direct information, he wanted to get it as soon as possible—certainly the major and the sister were there now or had been already. He could easily find the regiment and identify the officer in the morning, if it was still of importance.
Outside the Raton Marine, he paused, and looked at his garments as objectively as possible. They wouldn’t do, and he’d have to quickly visit his rooms to change. The Palace was particular about who it allowed in, and if he were to expect further to interrogate its manager then he would have to look close to his best. He cursed the delay and strode quickly along the darkened street—more peopled than before, some nodding to him as he passed, others simply pretending he didn’t exist, which was the normal way of the district. Chang reached his door, fishing a key from his pocket, but found when he tried to insert it into the lock that the lock had been dislodged in its frame. He knelt and studied it. A sharp kick had snapped the wood around the bolt. He pushed the door with a gentle touch and it swung open with its habitual creak.
Chang looked up the empty, dimly lit staircase. The building was silent. He rapped on his landlady’s door with his stick. Mrs. Schneider was a gin drinker, though this was a bit early for her to be insensible. He tried the knob, which was locked. He knocked again. He cursed the woman, not for the first time, and turned back to the stairs. He advanced quickly and quietly, holding his stick before him in readiness. His room was at the top, and he was used to the climb, striding across each landing with a glance to the doorways, all of which seemed to be closed, the occupants silent. Perhaps the lock had merely been kicked in by a tenant who’d misplaced his own key. It was possible, but Chang’s natural suspicion would not rest until he reached the sixth-floor landing…where his own doorway gaped wide open.
With a swift tug Chang pulled the handle out of his stick, revealing a long, double-edged knife, and reversed his grip on the remaining portion in his other hand, allowing him to use the polished oak as a club or to parry. With both hands so armed, he crouched in the shadow and listened. What he heard were the sounds of the city, faint but clear. His windows were open, which meant that someone had gone onto the roof—perhaps to escape, perhaps to explore. He kept waiting, his eyes fixed on the door. Anyone inside would have heard him come up the stairs, and must be waiting for him to enter…and they must be getting as impatient as he. His knees were stiffening. He took in a breath and quietly sighed, willing them to relax, and then heard a distinct rustle from the darkened room. Then another. Then a fluttering of wings. It was a pigeon, undoubtedly entering by way of the open window. He stood with disgust and walked to the door.
As he entered, the combination of the darkened room and his glasses left Chang not alto
gether blind, but certainly in the realm of deep nightfall, and perhaps this deprivation had sharpened his other senses, for as his foot crossed the open doorway he sensed movement from his left side and by instinct—and by his embedded knowledge of the room—threw himself to the right, into a nook between a tall dressing cabinet and the wall, raising the length of his stick before him as he did. The bit of moonlight from the window caught the flashing scythe of a saber sweeping down at him from behind the door. He’d stepped clear of the main blow and stopped the rest of it on his stick. In the same instant Chang drove himself directly back into his assailant. As he did, he thrust the stick across the man’s blade—which, in the close quarters, the man was awkwardly pulling back—and so prevented a second blow. Chang’s right hand, holding the dagger, shot forward like a spike.
The man grunted with pain and Chang felt the thick, meaty impact—though in the darkness he could not tell where the blow had landed. The man struggled with his long blade, to get the edge or the point toward Chang’s body, and Chang dropped his stick to grab the man’s sword arm, grappling to keep it clear. With his right hand he pulled the dagger back and rapidly stabbed forward three times more, like a plunging needle, twisting it as he yanked it clear. By the final thrust he felt the strength ebbing from the man’s wrist, and he released his grip, stepping away. The man collapsed to the floor with a sigh, and then a choking rattle. It would have been better to question him, but there was nothing for it.