“She does, doesn’t she?” said Darla, stepping out from behind her counter. “A little make-up, a few simple street clothes, and I believe she’s ready for life in the big city.”
Gertriss blushed, deeply and suddenly. She kept her hands together, as if hiding them, and Darla grinned and caught them both up in her own.
“We’re going to get you a manicure right now,” said Darla, with a sideways wink to me. “Mary, wrap up her things, will you? And see that Mister Markhat here gets the bill.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Darla took Gertriss by her elbow and led her toward the door. “We’ll be back in a bit, Markhat,” she said. “By the way, I left you a note.”
And then she blew me a kiss, and left with Gertriss in tow.
I shook my head and grinned. Mary darted up to me, curtseyed and handed me an envelope.
“Thank you,” I said, as she busied herself wrapping and hanging what appeared to be the entire shop’s inventory of clothing.
The bill wasn’t as bad as I thought, and since that would be Mama’s burden anyway I managed a smile and put it away. Darla’s note was folded in the far-too-intricate way of hers, so I took again to my chair and unfolded it and read.
Darling,
it began. I grinned. She always pronounced the word with a put-on aristocrat’s air, and I could hear it plainly in the letters she’d written.
Your new protégé mentioned Lady Werewilk, and the case, and it just so happens one of our clients has a brand new Coltin—that would be one of Lady Werewilk’s resident artists—hanging above her mantle. It also happens that our client is to have a gown delivered this very morning—so if you could be persuaded to take a parcel to her, you might strike up a conversation about Lady Werewilk from someone who knows her. I have no idea how well they know each other, or if my client will even speak to such a rogue as yourself, but I know you’d prefer tramping around Rannit to sitting comfortably in my chair. Mary will give you the gown and the address. Mind you don’t let the hem touch the ground. Dinner tonight at seven. Love, D.
And there was Mary, grinning that female-conspiracy grin, address in one hand and gown wrapped in linen on hanger in the other.
“I’ve never worked at a dressmaker’s shop before,” I said. “Do I curtsey before I hand over the gown, or after?”
Mary wordlessly handed me her things and darted away. I tramped out the door, the famous finder Markhat abroad, gown in hand against a sea of troubles.
Mary, at least, had the good grace not to giggle.
Chapter Four
The name on the card was Mrs. Adorn Hemp. The address was a complicated mess of turn lefts at the butcher’s and go right three blocks down from the Hanged Man and then look for a half-painted house—half red, half white—that stood next to a cab-stop.
I wondered how many half-red half-white houses I was likely to encounter, next door to cab-stops or not, as I plunged into traffic and headed south and east. I judged the Hemp residence to be about five blocks, total, when I set out. It turned into an easy fifteen by the time I backtracked and wound through the old Spice District and finally gave up and asked a blue-capped Watchman for directions.
Turns out they’d finished painting the house just that morning. All red, this time. I pondered the danger of relying too much on assumption all the way to the Hemp’s sturdy, tall walk-up.
The stairs were freshly swept, and the door was ajar, and there were voices inside. Raised voices, a man and two women, the man choosing to employ bellowing and the women opting for a duet of high-pitched shrieks.
I looked about. There were people nearby a—woman digging in a flowerbed, a man and a boy playing catch on a lawn smaller than my office, another woman staring at the sky while her poodle-dog defiled a rather nice rosebush with fertilizer of its own. I know they had to hear the voices, but none of them so much as glanced in my direction.
I was about to knock when the man bellowed out “I’ll kill you both,” and then a woman screamed.
I dropped the gown and charged through the door.
The door opened into a foyer, and it opened into a great room, and I came stomping through it. There was a man a good four strides from me, his hands clamped around a tiny woman’s throat, while another woman looked on in horror.
The man was wearing a badly fitted black suit and a monocle. The woman being choked was a busty brunette who managed a healthy squeal despite the large hands wrapped around her pale white throat. The other woman, a tiny blonde, stood by the fireplace and screamed, her hands raised to her chin in a useless expression of horror.
The man doing the choking and the woman being choked were far too occupied with the business at hand to even notice me. A fireplace poker was leaning against the wall, and I took it and raised it and would have brought it solidly down on the gentleman’s murderous head had not the tiny blonde woman spoken.
“You’re not Robert,” she said, in a voice far too casual to be used at the scene of a brutal murder. “Don’t tell me he’s claiming sick again.”
She never lowered her hands from her mouth, or lost her expression of dawning horror.
“He’d better not be,” added the woman being choked. Her tone indicated the sort of offhand annoyance one might express as being short-changed a penny by the kindly old apple-seller. “Or I swear I’ll see him replaced, today.”
The monocled choker nodded, released the chokee, frowned at the poker in my hand, and then reached into his jacket pocket and produced a dog-eared sheaf of papers.
“I thought I got hit with the poker in Act Three,” he said, rifling through the pages. “They haven’t changed it again, have they?”
I lowered my poker.
The woman being choked produced a similar document and, frowning, began to leaf through it.
“You’re not Robert,” repeated the blonde. She finally lowered her hands, and looked confused rather than terrified. “You’re not even in the cast, are you?”
“My name is Markhat,” I replied. Confused glances were exchanged all around. “I heard what sounded like a woman being murdered, so I let myself in.”
The blonde raised an eyebrow. “So when you lifted that poker…”
“I was about to enact Act Three a bit too early and a bit too hard,” I said. I leaned the poker carefully back where I’d found it. “I apologize for barging in. Are you Mrs. Hemp?”
“He thought we were real,” said the brunette, beaming. “He thought you were really about to kill us.”
The man grinned. “Not bad for a stand-in, huh? I haven’t rehearsed Robert’s role.”
I stuck out my hand. It was the least I could do, after nearly braining the man.
“You had me thoroughly convinced,” I said. Then I turned again to the woman while we shook hands.
“Mrs. Hemp?”
“Oh, yes, yes, I’m Mrs. Hemp,” she replied, smiling. “I’m sorry. I should have closed the door, but I didn’t want to leave Robert out on the stoop.” She stepped forward, laughed again, and offered me her hand to shake. “We’re rehearsing,” she said, as we shook hands. “Of course we rehearse at the theatre as well, but this scene is so sticky we wanted to work on it here.” She brightened suddenly. “Are you with the theatre, Mister Markhat?”
I grinned back. “I’m not, Mrs. Hemp,” I said, while the brunette and her murderous male friend sat down on the couch and began a whispered exchange punctuated by numerous stabs at the script. “Actually, a friend sent me by with a parcel for you. She knows I’m interested in art, and I understand you have a new piece by—”
I trailed off as Mrs. Hemp flew into a silent but furious flurry of shushing signs at me. She glanced at the pair on the couch, sighed in relief when she decided they hadn’t been listening, and ushered me out of the room, through the foyer, and out the door, which she closed with a solid bang.
“That’s a secret, Mr. Markhat,” she said. “I’m not even going to hang it until the evening of our cast party for
Three Murders by Midnight
. It’s a Werewilk,” she whispered. “The best I’ve ever seen.”
I winced. Darla’s linen clad gown lay crumpled on the stoop, so I bent and picked it up and handed it ruefully to Mrs. Hemp.
“It’s from Darla’s,” I said. “I dropped it when I thought your friend was being throttled.”
She brushed it off and smiled. “Well, I can hardly blame you for that,” she said. “I doubt it’s hurt. Darla always double-wraps.”
“I’ll make it good if a stitch is out of place,” I said. “Now, about the you-know-what.”
“You can’t see it,” said the blonde. “Not unless you come to the cast party.” She grinned a sly grin. “It’s two weeks from Saturday,” she said, looking up at me with an ever-widening smile. “If you’re interested?”
I smiled back. I’m a generous fellow, with my smiles.
“Oh, I’m interested,” I said, with commendable accuracy. “Do you know Lady Werewilk? Personally, I mean.”
Mrs. Hemp nodded a happy yes. I began to wonder where Mr. Hemp might be, and if he himself had access to any wrought iron fireplace pokers.
“Erlorne? Oh yes, I know her quite well,” said Mrs. Hemp, with an unwifely gleam in her eye. “Very well indeed.”
Mrs. Hemp’s hand had made its way to my collar, and was adjusting it. Ordinarily, I’d have made mention of Darla and her collar-straightening duties, but in the interest of keeping Mrs. Hemp talking I let her correct whatever imperceptible flaw had crept into my shirt.
Inspiration struck. “Let’s say I wanted to get my hands on a Werewilk right now, Mrs. Hemp,” I said. “You know the art community. How would an outsider go about that?”
“Well, Mr. Markhat, if you’re so eager to get your hands on something, I suppose you could just go visit the woman herself,” she cooed. “You know, like you did with me. Just show up at the door.”
Now it appeared my neck needed attention. I’d run out of stoop on which to back up. She knew it, and grinned, showing teeth that were white and straight.
“Oh, bugger,” she said. “At least have the kindness to tell me I almost had you.”
I frowned before I could stop myself.
Mrs. Hemp pouted. “That was my best femme fatale,” she said, stepping back. “Or are you in love?”
I stared and she laughed. “You are in love,” she said. “That’s all right, then. No wonder you didn’t succumb to my wiles.”
“I was succumbing, really I was. Another minute, I’d have been in a swoon, proposing marriage, assuming your husband wouldn’t mind.”
“Mr. Hemp did me the courtesy of dying on our wedding night,” said Mrs. Hemp. “But I’d have said no, in any case, Mr. Markhat. I know all about you and Darla Tomas, you see, and I simply couldn’t lose access to Rannit’s best dressmaker’s for any mere man.”
I grinned and wiped sweat I hadn’t known was there off my brow. “Good show, Mrs. Hemp,” I said. “And all that without a script.”
She bowed. “Now then,” she said. “What is it you want to know about Lady Werewilk?”
“Anything you can tell me,” I replied. “I’m not out to hurt her. The opposite, in fact. But the art scene isn’t one I know, Mrs. Hemp. And I don’t have much time to learn it.”
“All right,” she said. She paused to let a gaggle of pedestrians pass. “I’ll tell you what I know. But only because you came charging to my rescue, you understand?”
I nodded.
“Erlorne Werewilk wanted to be an artist, Mr. Markhat,” she began. “But she had an accident as a child. You’ll never see her with her gloves off, but if you do, you’ll see she’s missing three fingers on her right hand.” Mrs. Hemp shook her head sadly. “She’s had a lot of bad luck, now that I think about it,” she added. “That. Her poor addled brother. The Regent’s Council of Arts refusing her admittance, bad-mouthing her artists. And the rumors too…”
She shut up, realizing she’d said something she hadn’t intended.
“Oh, the rumors,” I said, with an air of dismissal. “I’m not interested in those. Nonsense, every word.”
She nodded assent. “I never believed them,” she said. “Her fiancé had no business being on that horse in the first place.”
“He certainly didn’t. And Lady Werewilk certainly had nothing to do with that accident.”
“She couldn’t have,” agreed the helpful Mrs. Hemp. “Even the stable-boy agreed she was never anywhere near the saddle.”
I nodded, hoping more was forthcoming, but the brunette called out to Mrs. Hemp from inside the house and that was all I was going to get.
“I have to get back to rehearsal,” she said. She flashed me another big toothy smile. “But I meant what I said about the party. Bring your Miss Tomas. I’m sure she’d enjoy herself too.”
“Thank you. Tell your strangler he needs to grit his teeth more, and keep his elbows down.”
“I’ll do that, Mr. Markhat.” She suddenly stood on tiptoe and planted a none too chaste kiss right on my lips. “See you soon.”
And then she was gone, gown swirling around her back as her door slammed shut.
I found a handkerchief and mopped away any trace of foreign lipstick as I headed back toward the freshly painted red house by the cabstand and the labyrinth of streets beyond it. I figured Darla and Gertriss would be back by the time I got to the dress shop, which would leave me about three hours to deposit Gertriss back with Mama and get ready for dinner with Darla.
I decided that after I got the finely dressed Gertriss tucked safely away I’d make one more stop before calling it a day. I hadn’t seen Evis in nearly a week, and it was my turn to show up on his stoop. And while I’d never seen much in the way of paintings adorning the dark wood walls of House Avalante, Evis or one of his staff might know more about what happened to Lady Werewilk’s late fiancé than even the knowledgeable Mrs. Hemp.
I briefly considered taking Gertriss along to Avalante. She’d need to meet Evis sooner or later, if she was going to work for me. And that was just the kind of needling I thought Mama needed. But then I made a rough estimate of the pitch, volume and duration of the screeching Mama was likely to emit in the wake of such a visit, and I decided to put off any visits to halfdead Houses until they were absolutely necessary.
I backtracked, using the Big Bell’s spire for reference, and made it back to Darla’s right on time, and a full half an hour before the girls did.
Gertriss was radiant. She’d had a manicure, a pedicure and tutelage in eye makeup, and I swear she was already losing the farm-girl stomp and barnyard voice.