The Hidden Family (25 page)

“I will be there.” She hesitated for a moment. “If I don’t make it, it means I’m dead or incapacitated.”

“But you’re not, now.”

“Thank Brilliana and Olga,” she said. “They were good choices.”

“My Valkyries.” He sounded amused.

“I’ll see you in four days’ time,” Miriam said tersely. “If you need to know more, ask Olga, she knows what I’m doing.” Then she hung up on him.

* * *

Two days later, Miriam looked up from her office ledger and a stack of official forms in response to a knock on the office window. “Carry on,” she told Declan, who looked up inquiringly from his drafting board. “Who is it?” she demanded.

“Police, ma’am.”

Miriam stood up to open the door. “You’d better come in.” She paused. “Ah, Inspector Smith of the Homeland Defense Bureau. Come to tell me my burglars are a matter of national security?” She smiled brightly at him.

“Ah, well.” Smith squeezed into the room and stood with his back to the cupboard beside the door where she kept the spare stationery. The constable behind him waited in the hall outside. “It was a most peculiar burglary, wasn’t it?”

“Did you
catch
any of the thieves?” she asked sharply.

“You were in New London all along,” he said, accusingly. “Staying in the
Grange Mouth Hotel
. Into which you checked in at
four o’clock
in the morning the day after the incident.”

“Yes, well, as I told the thief-taker’s sergeant, I dined in town then caught the last train, and my carriage threw a wheel on its way from the railway station. And I stayed with it because cabs are thin on the ground at two o’clock.”

“Humph.” Smith looked disappointed, to her delight.
Gotcha!
she thought. She’d set off from her office in Cambridge at midnight, floored the accelerator all the way down the near-empty interstate, and somehow managed not to pick up any speeding tickets. There were no red-eye flights in New Britain, nor highways you could drive along at a hundred five miles an hour with one hand on the wheel and the other clutching an insulated mug of coffee. In fact, the fastest form of land travel was the train—and as she’d be happy to point out to the inspector, the last train she could have caught from Boston to arrive in New London before 4 a.m. had left at eight o’clock the night before.

It had been a rush. She’d parked illegally in New York—her New York, not the New London the inspector knew—and changed into her rich widow’s weeds in the cramped confines of the car. Then she’d crossed over and banged on a hotel door in the predawn light. She’d been able to establish an alibi by the skin of her teeth, but only by breaking the New Britain land speed record on a type of highway that didn’t exist in King John the Fourth’s empire …

“We haven’t identified the Chinee-man who was asking after you,” Smith agreed. “Nor the unknown assailant who fled—who we are investigating with an eye for murder,” he added with relish.

Miriam sagged slightly. “Horrible, horrible,” she said quietly. “Why me?”

“If you turn up in town flashing money around, you must expect to pick up unsavory customers,” Smith said sarcastically. “Especially if you willingly mix with low-lifes and Levelers.”

“Levelers?” Miriam glared at him. “Who do you have in mind?”

“I couldn’t possibly say.” Smith looked smug. “But we’ll get them all in the end, you’ll see. I’ll be going now, but first I’d like to introduce you to Officer Fitch from the thief-taker’s office. I believe he has some more questions to ask about your burglar.”

Fitch’s questions were tiresome, but not as tiresome as those of the city’s press—two of whose representatives had already called. Miriam had pointedly referred them to her law firm, then refused to say anything until Declan and Roger had escorted them from the premises with dire threats about the law of trespass. “We will call you if we arrest anyone,” Fitch said pompously, “or if we recover any stolen property.” He closed his notebook with a snap. “Good day to you, Miss.” And with that he clumped out of her office.

Miriam turned to Declan and rolled her eyes. “I can live without these interruptions. How’s the self-tightening mechanism coming along?”

Declan looked a trifle startled, but pointed to a sketch on his drafting board. “I’m working on it…”

Miriam left the office in late afternoon, earlier than usual but still hours after she’d ceased being productive. She caught a cab home, feeling most peculiar about the whole business—indignant and angry, and sick to her stomach at what she’d done—but not guilty. The morning room was a freezing mess, the glaziers still busily working on the shattered window frames. The elderly one tugged his forelock at her as she politely looked over his shoulder and tut-tutted, trying to project the image of a house-proud lady bearing up under one of life’s little indignities.

She found Jane in the kitchen. “Is the dining room going to be ready by this evening?” she asked.

“No, ma’am.” Jane shrugged. “It is a mess. They broke two chairs and scratched the dining table!”

“Well, at least nobody was hurt. Piece of luck, sending you away, wasn’t it?” Miriam shook her head. She’d forgotten about the dining room. The windows were boarded up, but the furniture—“I think I’m going to have to hire a butler, Jane.”

“Oh
good
,” Jane said, startling Miriam.

“Well, indeed.” Miriam left the kitchen and was about to climb the staircase when a bell began to jangle from the hall. It was the household telephone. She stalked over and picked up the earpiece, then leaned close to the condenser and said, “Hello?”

“Fletcher residence?” The switchboard operator’s voice was tinny but audible. “Call from 87492, do you want to accept?”

“Yes,” said Miriam.
Who can it be?
she wondered.

“Hello?” asked a laid back, slightly jovial man’s voice. “Is Mrs. Fletcher available?”

“Speaking.”

“Oh I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Durant here. Are you well, I hope? I read about your little unpleasantness.”

“I’m quite alright,” Miriam managed through gritted teeth. Suddenly her heart was right up at the base of her throat, threatening to fly away. “The burglars damaged some furniture, then they appear to have fallen out among themselves. It is all most extraordinarily distressing, and a very good thing for me that I was visiting my sister up in New London at the weekend. But I’m bearing up.”

“Oh, good for you. I trust the thief-takers are offering you all possible assistance? If you have any trouble at all I can put in a word with the magistrate-in-chief—”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary, but I’m very grateful,” Miriam said warmly. “But can we talk about something else, please?”

“Certainly, certainly. I was telephoning to say—ah, this is such a spontaneous, erratic medium!—that I’ve been reviewing your proposal carefully. And I’d like to proceed.”

Miriam blinked, then carefully sat down on the stool next to the telephone. Her head was swimming.

“You want to go ahead?” she said.

“Yes, yes. That’s what I said. My chaps have been looking at the brake assembly you sent them and they say it’s quite remarkable. When the other three are available we’ll fit them to a Mark IV carriage for testing, but they say they’re in no doubt that it’s a vast step forward. However did you come up with it, may I ask?”

“Feminine intuition,” Miriam stonewalled. Oh wow, she thought.
So close to success…
“How do you want to proceed?”

“Well,” said Durant, and paused.

“Royalty basis or outright purchase of rights? Exclusive or nonexclusive?”

He whistled quietly past the condenser. “I believe a royalty basis would do the job,” he said. “I’ll want exclusive rights for the first few years. But I’ll tell you what else. I should like to invest in your business if you’re open to the idea. What do you say to that?”

“I say—” she bit the tip of her tongue carefully, considering: “I think we ought to discuss this later. I will not say yes, definitely, but in principle I am receptive to the idea. How large an investment were you thinking of?”

“Oh, a hundred thousand pounds or so,” Sir Durant said airily. Miriam did the conversion in her head, came up with a figure, double-checked it in disbelief.
That’s thirty million dollars in real money!

“I want to retain control of my company,” she said.

“That can be arranged.” He sounded amused. “May I invite you to dine with me at, let’s say, the Brighton’s Hanover Room, a week on Friday? We can exchange letters of interest in the meantime.”

“That would be perfect,” Miriam said with feeling.

They made small talk for a minute, then Durant politely excused himself. Miriam sat on the telephone stool for several minutes in stunned surprise, before she managed to get a grip on herself. “He really said it,” she realized. “He’s really going to buy it!” Back home, in another life, this was the kind of story she’d have covered for
The Weatherman
. Bright new three-month-old start-up gets multimillion-dollar cash injection, signs rights deal with major corporation.
I’m not covering the news anymore, I’m making it.
She stood up and slowly climbed the stairs to her bedroom.
Two more days to go,
she remembered.
I wonder how Olga and Brill are doing?

* * *

The next morning Miriam telephoned her lawyer. “I’m going to be away for a week from tomorrow,” she warned Bates. “In the meantime, I need someone to handle the payroll and necessary expenditures. Can you recommend a clerk who I can leave things with?”

“Certainly.” Bates muttered something, then added, “I can have my man Williams sit in for you if you want. Will that do?”

“Yes, as long as he’s reliable.” They haggled over a price, then agreed that Williams would show up on that afternoon for her to hand him the reins.

Later in the morning, a post boy knocked on the door. “Parcel for Fletcher?” he piped to Jane, who accepted it and carried it to Miriam, then waited for her to open the thing.

“Curiosity,” Miriam said pointedly, “is not what I pay you for.” Jane left, and Miriam stared at her retreating back before she reached for a paper knife from her desk and slit the string.
If I’ve got to have servants around, I need ones who can keep their mouths shut,
she thought gloomily.
It wasn’t like this with Brill and Kara.
The parcel opened up before her to reveal a leatherbound and clearly very old book. Miriam opened the flyleaf.
A True and Accurate History of the Settlement of New Britain,
it said, by some author whose name didn’t ring any bells. A card was slipped into the pages. She pulled it out and saw the name on it, blinked back sudden tears of relief. “You’re alright,” she mumbled. “They couldn’t pin anything on you.” Suddenly it was immensely important to her to know that Burgeson was safe and out of the claws of the political police. A sense of warm relief filled her. For a moment, all was right with the world.

The doorbell rang yet again at lunchtime. “Oh, ma’am, it’ll be a salesman,” said Jane, hurrying from the kitchen to pass Miriam, who sat alone in the dining room, toying with a bowl of soup and reading the book Erasmus had sent, her thoughts miles away. “I’ll send him—”

Footsteps. “Miriam?”

Miriam dropped her spoon in the soup and stood up. “Olga?”

It was indeed Olga, wearing the green outfit she’d bought from Burgeson by way of disguise. She smiled broadly as she entered the dining room and Miriam met her halfway in a hug. “Are you alright?” Olga asked.

“Yes. Have you eaten?”

“No.” Olga rubbed her forehead.

“Jane, another place setting for my cousin! How good of you to call.” As Jane hurried to the kitchen, Miriam added, “We can talk upstairs while she’s washing up.” Louder, “I was just preparing for my trip to New London tomorrow. Are you tied down here, or do you fancy the ride?”

“That’s why I came,” said Olga, sitting down and leaning back as the harried maid planted a place setting before her. “You didn’t think I’d let you go there all on your own, did you, cuz?” Jane rushed out, and Olga winked at Miriam. “You’re not getting out of it so easily! What did you say to put the Iron Duke in such a mood?”

“It’s going to be such a party tomorrow night!” Miriam said enthusiastically, then waited for Jane to place a bowl before Olga and withdraw to the scullery. Quietly, “I told him his little shell game was up. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Olga paused, blowing on a spoon full of hot broth.

“That Angbard had planted you on me. As a bodyguard.”

“A what?” Olga shook her head. “This is intelligence of a rare and fantastic nature. Not me, Helge, not me.” She grinned. “Who’s been spinning you these tales?”

“Angbard,” said Miriam. She shook her head. “Are you certain you don’t work for him?”

“Certain?” Olga frowned. “About as certain as I am that the sun rises in the east. Unless—” She looked annoyed. “—you are telling me that he has been using me?”

“I couldn’t possibly comment,” Miriam said, then changed the subject as fast as possible.
Let’s just say Angbard’s definition of someone who works for him doesn’t necessarily match up to the definition of an employee in federal employment law.
“I suppose you know about the extraordinary meeting?”

“I know he’s called one.” Olga looked at Miriam suspiciously. “That’s most unusual. Is it your fault?”

“Yup. Did you bring the dictaphone?”

“The what? Oh, your recording angel? Yes, it is in my bag. Paulie gave it to me, along with these battery things that it eats. Such a sweet child he is,” she added. “A shame we’ll have to hang him.”

“We—” Miriam caught herself. “Who, the Clan? Lin, or Lee, or whatever he’s called? I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“He knows too much about us,” Olga pointed out calmly. “Like the fact that we’re operating here. Even if he’s from the lost family, that’s not enough to save his life. They’ve been trying to kill you, Miriam, they’ve picking away at us for decades. They
did
kill Margit, and I have not forgiven them for that.”