The Serpent's Shadow (44 page)

It occurred to her that if Parkening continued to plague her, it might not be a bad thing to gradually turn over most of her hospital work to O‘Reilly. The Irishman was her full partner at the Fleet now and, thanks to her, a full surgeon as well. When the “ladies of leisure” returned from their holidays and the theaters opened in full force, she would have plenty of paying patients to occupy her time without taking on the additional work in the charity wards, and besides, less time spent at the hospital would mean more time for the Fleet. Granted, she wouldn't get as much practice in surgery ... and that was definitely a drawback. But she was doing surgery in the clinic, after all. If one of the patients from the Fleet were to be sent to the hospital, O'Reilly could take him in charge—unless, of course, the patient specifically wanted Maya.

The admonition stopped her spinning thoughts for a moment.
The suffragettes don't run away. They let themselves be jailed, they even go on hunger strikes knowing that they'll be force-fed and might even die of it.

True, but sometimes it was a great deal wiser to run from a problem than to confront it. Parkening's behavior was not something she had any control over, and if he decided to enlarge his circle of potential victims to all those around her, wouldn't it be better just to take herself out of his purview and hope he would forget about her?

So long as he
did
forget.
Some people continued to pursue even when the object of pursuit was well out of reach.

It seemed such a coward's portion. And when he stopped pursuing Maya, who could, after all, defend herself and had powerful friends like Lord Almsley, who would he choose to pursue next? With a man like Parkening, there would
always
be a “next” victim.

I'll worry about it after he resurfaces,
she decided. With any luck at all, Parkening would be made much of, and the attention would distract him from making the lives of others miserable.

And if I'm really, truly lucky,
came the nasty little thought, just as she drifted off to sleep,
something terrible
has
happened to him and I'll never have to worry about him again.

She paid for that nasty little thought with dreams of being pursued through the fog by some nameless, faceless menace. She woke just after dawn with an aching head and a strong disinclination to go out until the sun had burned that fog away. It lay in thick swaths all around the block, and it seemed that Maya's reluctance was shared by everyone else in the neighborhood, for there was nothing stirring out on the streets.

With the first touch of the rays of the sun, however, the stuff vanished like her dreams, and she packed up her bag as usual to see to her patients at the Fleet. A boy was selling papers on the corner, crying headlines that had something to do with politics in Europe. She bought one for the ride to the clinic. The omnibus was usually empty and she took full advantage of the fact to put her bag on the bench beside her and open the paper.

The headlines on the front page might have been about Balkan unrest, but the first “screamer” inside struck her with the news that social lion Simon Parkening was still missing, and foul play was no longer suspected, but a certainty.

Lord Alderscroft contemplated the saddle of mutton before him with gloom, while Peter Scott waited for the apology he already knew was forthcoming. Finally the peer raised his eyes and looked straight into Peter's face.

“I asked you here for luncheon so that I could apologize to you, Scott,” Alderscroft said manfully. “I've taken down the Great Shield; it's utterly useless, and the power wasted on it can be put to more productive efforts. You were right about this India business, and I was wrong. There were more deaths last night, and all the signs point to that missing man being mixed in with it somehow. He's probably dead, too,” Alderscroft added glumly, as an afterthought.

“If it's any consolation to you, I know something about the fellow, myself,” Peter replied. “He is—or was—more than a bit of a rotter. I doubt he'll be mourned or missed by anyone but his own family, and possibly not even by them much.”

“Personal information, Scott?” Alderscroft looked at him keenly from under his shaggy brows. “From that little Hindu doctor of yours?”

Peter coughed. “Well, yes, actually. The man had a habit of making a nuisance of himself around her hospital.”

Alderscroft helped himself to mutton, chewed thoughtfully, then replied, “I don't suppose the doctor-gel could be mixed up in this....” But then to Peter's relief, he shook his head, and answered his own question. “No, not likely. We
know
her, we've had our eyes on her, and not only has she no connection whatsoever to the men who were murdered—well, bar the rotter—but there's been nothing from
her
quarter but the shields and defenses and a trifling bit of healing magic.”

“I am a bit concerned that she might be a target of this—” he ventured. “My lord, I really do think we ought to invite her into the White Lodge, not only because she is becoming a formidable Earth Master, but for her protection. As long as she must function alone, she will be in danger, if not from this menace, than from others who will wish to gather her into their fold.”

Alderscroft's brows contracted together in a frown, and he stabbed at an inoffensive piece of mutton savagely. “A woman? And a foreigner to boot? Out of the question! East is East and West is West, my boy—
we
don't mix our magic with Eastern magic, that only brings trouble. Well, look at the messes that Blavatsky woman got herself into, and the Besant girl is no better
nor
saner!”

“Yes, but—” Peter began just as stubbornly.

“But me no buts. There never has been a woman in the Exeter Club, nor a foreigner, and there never will be.” Alderscroft stared at Peter as though daring him to attempt a contradiction, but Peter was not about to fight a battle against a windmill, and changed the subject.

“How many victims were there last night?” he asked.

“Eh?” Alderscroft said, surprised. Clearly he'd expected an argument, and when Peter had declined to give him one, was taken a little aback. “Ah—seven, I believe. At least that's the count this morning. All of ‘em, bar the missing one, retired Army. None mages. All smothered, the breath squeezed out of 'em.” He shook his head. “Can't link the missing man in with that set, but Owlswick swears he's getting the same sort of taint on the fellow when he tries to scry out what's happened to him, and I suppose he
could
be linked into Hindus in some other way—” his gaze sharpened, “—if he offered some insult to that Hindu doctor of yours. Did he?”

“I gather that he made some improper advances, yes,” Peter said reluctantly. When Alderscroft pinned a person with that direct gaze, it was damnably hard not to give him what he wanted out of you.

“Huh. So that would be where your information came from. No reason for the girl to lie, I suppose. No, of course not, she's a doctor, she'd have more reason to cover it up to preserve her reputation. What happened, exactly?” Alderscroft's glacial gaze pried every last detail out of Peter, including the little plot that he and Almsley had made up to free Maya from the unwanted attentions.

“Ha!” the old man barked, amused, when Peter was finished. “Clever enough, all of you! Good trick of hers, callin' what she did to the fellow ‘heatstroke.' Ha!” He pondered the tale, stabbing bites of his luncheon and chewing them with deliberation while he did so.

“Well played,” he said at last. “Nothing to connect us, or magic in general, with what went on. Managing to hush the fellow up. Perfectly allowable use of magic in self-defense, especially considering the situation. Though—someone should have
noticed
when she struck him.”

“It was a very transitory phenomenon, my lord,” Peter said cautiously. “It didn't take place at night, nor in one of the venues we've been watching. Under such circumstances, I can see how it would not be caught by a watcher.”

“True, true. But still.” Alderscroft frowned. “Someone should have noticed, use of power like that, and unshielded. I'll have a word with Owlswick.
He's
supposed to be watching by daylight, whether or not anyone else is, and he's supposed to report things like that to me.”

Aha
—
so
that's
why Lord Owlswick never leaves the club!
“She is a doctor, my lord. It might not have been as great a use of power as you are assuming. A doctor would know better than anyone else how and where to strike to incapacitate someone.” Peter had more in mind than merely helping Lord Owlswick out of a reprimand by pointing that out. He hoped that—after later consideration at least—giving evidence of Maya's multiple talents might yet pave the way for her entry into the Club and Lodge, if only Lord Alderscroft could be made to see past his Old School Tie prejudices.

“Hmm. A point. Well, there's the link from the missing man to the killer—the cad laid hands on a Hindu wench, and with intentions, to boot.” Alderscroft nodded. “Don't matter if she never told anyone but you and her servants, or even if she didn't tell the servants. Servants overhear everything, and they gossip. Wouldn't be long before it was all over, at least with the Hindu population.” He brooded over his potatoes. “Wish we had some sort of hook into the ranks of Hindu servants in London. If anyone knows anything that might lead us to the killer, it'll be with them.”

“You surely don't suspect them of helping the killer?” Peter exclaimed, appalled. He hadn't thought Alderscroft to be
that
insular!

But Alderscroft shook his head. “No, no, not a bit of it. For one thing, there wasn't a victim that still
had
Indian servants. No, I'm just thinking that there may be rumors in the bazaar, so to speak, rumors that would be damned useful to us, and of no use to the police, and I wish we were in a position to hear ‘em.”

Peter thought of Gupta and Gopal, and wondered just how open they would be with him. Well, what could it hurt to ask? And that might be yet one more reason for Club and Lodge to feel obligated to Maya. The more obligations that piled up, the less resistance there would be to bringing her into the fold.

“Doctor Witherspoon's servants might be willing to talk to me,” he said cautiously. “Especially if she asked them to. She treats them less as servants and more as family, from what I've seen.”

Alderscroft cleared his throat, and looked a little embarrassed. “It's not my place to criticize how a woman runs her own household,” he said, “But in most cases, that's a mistake—”

“But not in alt—and anyway, this just means they're more likely to talk to me to oblige her,” Peter said firmly. “I take it you'd like me to have a word, then?”

Alderscroft nodded. “I'd be obliged to the doctor,” he responded, much to Peter's pleasure. “Especially if they can tell us anything interesting.”

“Then I'll see to it immediately,” Peter promised. “I'll be happy to.”

And if ever there was an understatement, that was surely a mammoth.

19

I
N the end, Peter decided to approach Gupta privately, rather than going through Maya first. If Maya's chief servant and oldest friend
did
know something regarding Maya's safety, he might be more willing, rather than less, to talk to Peter about it without Maya present. If this ploy didn't work, he could always back-track and go through Maya anyway.

As a consequence, he shut up his shop during the early afternoon when he knew that Maya would be at the Fleet clinic, and took a ‘bus to her home. There had been a dramatic change in the weather at long last, with much lower temperatures and frequent rains. It was now a normal, ordinary English summer in all respects but one. The heat wave had broken, but now thanks to the rains and coolness, fogs marched through the streets at night, and with the fog, came more of the mysterious deaths. Simon Parkening was still missing, and although Peter would have been perfectly pleased if he never appeared again, his continued absence boded little good. And at any rate, although the man was a bounder and a cad, even Peter wouldn't wish him dead.