Slippery Creatures Read online

  Ingoldsby’s brows rose in that upper-class way they seemed to teach at Eton. “Really, Darling?”

  That’s Mr. Darling to you, I’m not in uniform, Will thought, but didn’t quite say. “I have no idea. All I know— Hold on, just a second. What do you mean you heard about my burglary?”

  “The War Office is interested in you, for reasons that should be very obvious.”

  “What? Why?”

  Ingoldsby shot him a scathing glance. “This is official business. You would be ill advised to waste my time.”

  “I’ve absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You’ll have to explain.”

  Ingoldsby huffed with irritation. “Draven’s letter.”

  Will waited for more. It didn’t come. “Who?”

  “Stop playing the fool! You have corresponded with him for years. We know what he sent you, it is ours, we want it back, and your refusal to cooperate will have extremely serious consequences. Draven sent you a communication six weeks ago—”

  “The information,” Will said, light dawning at last. “This character Draven sent the information.”

  Ingoldsby sat back, calming down a little. “Yes. The information. That is what I want, and at once.”

  “Bad luck,” Will said. “You’ve got the wrong Darling.”

  Ingoldsby took that in for an unblinking moment. “I beg your pardon?”

  “My uncle, Mr. William Darling, owned this place until he died a fortnight ago. Monday before last. I’d worked here for a few weeks before he was taken ill. I moved in to look after him when he had a stroke, ten days before his death. If Draven was communicating with a William Darling, it was him, not me. I’ve never heard of the fellow, and I have no idea what he sent, far less where it is.”

  “You mentioned it. You know that it exists.”

  “No, I don’t know that. All I know is that you’re not the first person to ask for it. I had a bad-tempered sort in here yesterday, demanding some sort of information with veiled threats. I thought he meant a book he’d ordered. He got very shirty about it. And, as noted, I also had a burglary last night, two men who seemed to be searching my desk but didn’t touch the petty cash box. One of them had a knife. What’s all this about, Captain Ingoldsby?”

  “Can you describe the man you spoke to yesterday?”

  “About six foot one, perhaps, well built, muscular. Brown hair, receding a little. Light eyes—grey or blue, perhaps. And I’ll bet he’s got a shallow cut on his face where I caught him with a knife last night, because I’m pretty sure it was him burgling the place.”

  “Your police report said the burglar was masked.”

  Ingoldsby had read the report he’d filed just that morning. Will found that vaguely worrying. “He was, but he had the same build and pale eyes. And the man I spoke to yesterday had a little tattoo on the underside of his wrist, where a watch-strap might go.” Will indicated the point on his own wrist. “I couldn’t make out what it was, I only saw it for a second. Perhaps a sailboat? There was a triangular shape to it. But I definitely saw a tattoo in the same spot when I engaged with the enemy—the burglar, rather, last night.”

  “Did you.” Ingoldsby sounded calm, but his eyes were far away. “Libra.”

  The last word was almost under his breath. Will said, “What?

  “No concern of yours.”

  “It’s my concern if he broke in here and pulled a knife on me. And libra sounds like what the other man said to him. Isn’t it the Latin for book?”

  Ingoldsby pressed his lips together in thought, and didn’t answer. That was becoming irritating. “This is very informative, but not the information I came for. Where is that?”

  “I told you. I don’t have the foggiest.”

  “You must know.” Ingoldsby sounded frustrated. “Did your uncle destroy any papers?”

  “If he did, it wasn’t in my presence. He never asked me to destroy any papers for him.”

  “Have you gone through his recent correspondence?”

  “Only to look for bills and orders. I’ve a job on to get this place sorted out.”

  Ingoldsby took a slow survey of the shop, a sneer raising his upper lip and Will’s hackles. “So I see. We can save you that task.”

  “Sorry?”

  “My men will search your uncle’s correspondence and all private papers. If they don’t find it there, they will have to extend the search. Considering the conditions of this establishment, we may well need to take charge of the property until it’s found. You should go to a hotel.”

  “Right, good idea,” Will said. “Just one thing. Where’s your warrant?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Warrant. Magna Carta, remember? You don’t just walk in here and tell me you’ll be going through my private papers. We’ve got laws in this country.”

  Ingoldsby sighed pointedly. “There is no need for a warrant if you grant your permission for the search to take place.”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “As a soldier, Darling, you should understand that some orders must be given without explanation and obeyed without question. This is one of those.”

  “I remember those orders,” Will said. “They usually killed a lot of men. And by the way, I’m not a soldier any more, and it’s Mr. Darling, thank you. Come back with a warrant and I’ll have a look at it.”

  “Do you—” Ingoldsby cut himself off. “Let me impress on you, Mr. Darling, that this is a matter of grave importance. The War Office needs this information.”

  “But you won’t tell me what it is or why.”

  “It’s a classified matter.”

  “So you want me to take your word for it and hand over my business without explanation.” Will was extremely angry, he realised, so angry he could feel the tremor in his muscles. “We aren’t at war any more. I have rights.”

  “Are you a Socialist, Mr. Darling? An anarchist?”

  Will almost laughed. “Oh, here we go. If I don’t do exactly what you say, I must be trying to bring down the state. No, I’m not an anarchist. I believe in the rule of law and the rights of an Englishman’s home to be his castle, which is more than you seem to do, because this is my home and the papers you want to search are my property. You have no right to walk in here and demand them.”

  “I have a need. Your country has a need, and as a soldier, I would expect you to extend every assistance.”

  “For crying out loud,” Will said. “My uncle was an antiquarian bookseller! What possible information could he have had? No, don’t tell me, it’s classified,” he added, before Ingoldsby could say it himself. “If you share your information with me, I’ll consider sharing mine with you. If not, you can come back with a warrant from a judge once you’ve explained to him why you’re entitled to search the house of a private citizen who isn’t suspected of any wrongdoing. Now, the door’s over there. I’ve a business to run.”

  He enjoyed ushering Ingoldsby out. He’d been a working part in the State machine for years, a tool to be used, easily replaceable if he broke. He hadn’t particularly minded it at the time—there was a job to be done, one at which he’d proved rather good. But he wasn’t a tool any more, and he was damned if he’d be put back in that box without a by-your-leave.

  It felt less good by nightfall, as he locked up. He’d added bolts to the door as part of his day’s work, but there were no shutters to stop anyone who wanted to smash a window. He didn’t have a gun and rather regretted that.

  What he did have at the bottom of his box was a German Nahkampfmesser, a trench knife with an eight-inch blade and a nicely carved wooden grip that its previous owner had put a lot of effort into. Will had taken it off that owner once he was no longer in a position to use it. The German Army had issued damned good knives, and it was a lot better than the sharpened barbed-wire stakes or cut-down bayonets his battalion had been reduced to. He’d brought the Messer back to Blighty, and it was one of the few possessions he’d never pawned. That wasn’t a senti
mental attachment: he’d known he’d want it if he ended up on the streets.

  He dug the Messer out now, making a note to find a knife-grinder to put a better edge on it, and placed it by his bed in its leather sheath.

  It seemed mildly ridiculous as a precaution, but the whole business was absurd. What had Uncle William to do with the War Office, or with the sort of men who threatened and burgled? Will would have assumed the whole thing was a mistake, except that Ingoldsby had unquestionably recognised the description he’d given of the man with the wrist tattoo.

  It had to be a misunderstanding. Anyone who’d had dealings with the War Office knew exactly how shambolic they could be. Probably Uncle William was this Draven chap’s old school chum, and the missing communication would turn out to be a Christmas card.

  He told himself that. But he still lay awake until the small hours, listening to every creak and rustle.

  ­­CHAPTER TWO

  Will went to see his friend Maisie Jones the next day.

  Maisie was a smart young lady, with a lilting Welsh accent. They’d met when Will got a job fetching and carrying for her previous employer, and struck up a conversation over their un-London voices—Maisie had left Cardiff after the Tiger Bay race riots, seeing no more future there than Will had in Northamptonshire, though neither had found London’s streets paved with gold. She was round-faced and bright-eyed, with brown skin, black hair ruthlessly marcelled into waves, a quick mind, and a smile that lit rooms.

  Will had asked her dancing early on in their acquaintance, and they’d had some very pleasant evenings. Then he had walked into a storeroom at work, and found the senior shop-floor clerk trapping her there. He’d removed the man without ceremony, using his boot, and been summarily dismissed.

  That had put a stop to dancing, because he’d had to save his pennies and his shoe leather. It had also changed his relations with Maisie over the months that followed. She’d refused to let him slip out of sight, demanded he come round for tea, bought him meals when he’d accept them, pressed him to accept a loan of ten shillings that kept a dosshouse roof over his head in a week of desperation, and bullied him into writing to his long-estranged uncle. That last had changed his life.

  He’d set any thought of romance firmly aside—it was bad enough to be scrounging off her without being a bloody gigolo about it—and they’d come to be friends in a way you couldn’t be with a girl if your intention was to get her on her back. That was a pity in its way because Will liked her a great deal, but friendship was no sort of second best in this lonely, teeming city.

  Maisie worked at a milliner’s on Lexington Street, which had a fancy French name and served women who, she said, needed to look at exciting hats while they bought boring ones. He waited for her to come out at lunchtime, took her to a Lyon’s Corner House, and launched into his story.

  Maisie listened, frowning. “What an extraordinary business. Have you searched for this paper or letter, or whatever it is?”

  “I started going through my uncle’s correspondence this morning. The problem is, I don’t know what I’m trying to find, and my uncle left more paper than you can shake a stick at. There’s boxes and boxes with letters just thrown in any old how, and I moved a lot of it around to make a space to sleep in when I was taking care of him. So if it was ordered once, it isn’t now.”

  “Hmm. Would you consider letting one of them have a go? The War Office fellow, or the one who offered to pay you?” Her eyes lit with laughter. “Look at you, as if I’d said you should stand on your head. You are the stubbornest man, Will Darling.”

  “I don’t like being pushed around. The fellow with the threats can go whistle. Breaking in and pulling a knife on me.”

  “You pulled a knife on him first, and I don’t need to say what I think about that. Why not let the War Office look, though, if it’s important? Isn’t that something you ought to do?”

  “Because...” He struggled to put his feelings into words. Maisie was very good at asking difficult questions. “Because if someone sent it to my uncle, then shouldn’t I be sure what it is before I give it away? Maybe my uncle was supposed to keep it safe for this Draven character.”

  “Your uncle didn’t say anything about it?”

  Will shook his head. “He couldn’t speak after the stroke. He was trying, I’m sure of that, but whether it was to tell me important secrets or just wanting his voice back, I’ve no way of knowing.”

  “No.” Maisie traced a pattern on the tabletop in spilled tea. “I don’t mean to say anything against your uncle, Will, but people don’t behave like this over honest business.”

  “No.”

  “If this Mr. Draven had sent your uncle a rare book to take care of, whoever wanted it back would just say so, wouldn’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “But information that people threaten you about, and gentlemen come in search of it and even break in, and not one of them will say what it is—”

  “I know. I was thinking extortion,” Will said. “I’d rather not believe that of my uncle. I didn’t know him well enough to be sure, but I’d have called him a good man. He fell out with my father on some point of principle, since they were both pretty obstinate—”

  “Runs in the family, does it?”

  “—but Ma never suggested that that he did anything bad. And I certainly haven’t found piles of money lying around, which you might expect if he was a blackmailer.”

  “But he wouldn’t need to be doing it himself,” Maisie said. “What if Draven is the blackmailer, and he wanted your uncle to keep something incriminating safe for him? Because if that’s the case, you should let them have it back.”

  “That’s true. But which ‘them’? Because there’s two lots of people who want it, and it can’t belong to them both. And if I give it to the wrong one—”

  “Yes, of course. Ugh, this is a tangle. Is it your job to untangle it?”

  “My uncle left me everything,” Will said. “I was on my uppers, and now I have a shop and an income and a decent bit of money coming my way. That makes me responsible, surely. If Uncle promised Draven to hold on to this thing, or if he had a good reason to keep the information secret, shouldn’t I respect his wish?”

  “I suppose so. Well, it’s simple then.”

  “Is it?”

  “You have to find it,” Maisie decreed. “You can’t make a sensible decision till you know what you’re deciding about, and we’re only guessing it’s blackmail. Maybe it’s the birth certificate of a child from a secret marriage who’ll disinherit the War Office fellow from an earldom. I expect the burglar man is his illegitimate elder brother, only it turns out he’s really the legitimate one. The fate of an English noble house hangs on this, Will Darling.”

  “It does?”

  “Of course it does. Or maybe—”

  Maisie was an avid reader of the romantic story papers. Will threw in a few of the more implausible ideas he’d come up with, and the rest of the lunch passed in increasingly silly speculation.

  It wasn’t useful, as such but it made Will feel a lot less alone, and a fair bit clearer in his head. Maisie was right: he had to find the thing first. He shouldn’t hand over anything to anyone before he knew that was the proper thing to do. Why, he only had Ingoldsby’s word for it that he was War Office at all. He’d obey a warrant; otherwise the fellow could go whistle. And meanwhile, he’d have a look through the boxes of papers and see what he could find. It all needed doing at some point anyway, God help him.

  WILL WAS METHODICALLY working on a pile of papers a foot high, the first of many, when the shop bell jangled. He was less than pleased to see Captain Ingoldsby again.

  “Got your warrant?” he enquired in lieu of greeting.

  Ingoldsby gave a tight, unamused smile. “I hoped to find you in a more reasonable frame of mind, Mr. Darling. You’ve had time to consider your position. You must see that the only sensible and responsible course of action is to offer the assistance your country requir
es.”

  “No warrant, then.”

  “This isn’t a joke,” Ingoldsby snapped. “Your refusal to cooperate—”

  “I don’t even know who you are,” Will said. “You haven’t shown me proof you’re from the War Office, let alone told me why I should help you. If this information is so important, you should be grateful I didn’t give it over to the first man who asked.”

  “So you do have it,” Ingoldsby said swiftly.

  “What? No. Figure of speech. I’ll judge what’s right and do it, and I won’t be bullied into acting before I’m ready.”

  “And what if—the other party—breaks in again? What if they find it first?”

  Will gestured around the shop. “You think you can find anything in here?”

  “Notwithstanding—”

  “No. My uncle left me everything he had. If that includes a promise or a responsibility, I’ll deal with that in my own way. Barracking me won’t help you.”

  “You are an extremely stubborn man, Mr. Darling.”

  “That’s the second time I’ve heard that today.”

  Ingoldsby’s lip curled. “If this is a matter of, shall we say, compensation for your cooperation—”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Holding out for the highest bidder can be dangerous. I would not advise you to do it.”

  “I told you,” Will said. “I’ll give this thing, whatever it is, to its rightful owner. If that’s you, you’ve nothing to worry about.”

  Ingoldsby turned on his heel, then looked back. “You should be careful in whatever game you’re playing, Mr. Darling. Very careful indeed.”

  WILL STAYED UP LATE, clearing out two boxes of papers without finding any sort of communication from Draven, or anything that might be a secret. He started again the next morning after a night without incident, kneeling on the floor of the back room as he went through ancient delivery notes, payment requests, covering letters, invoices. He tried not to curse his uncle for administrative incompetence, but it was difficult.

  By early afternoon, he wanted to curse a lot of people. The shop door bell had only jangled three times since he’d opened up at nine in the morning, and he’d taken a total of four and sixpence. He needed to be selling books, not wasting time on this nonsense.