Page 21 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
“Not in the prosaic sense.” Reaching down, she scrabbled amongst the discarded syringes on the floor for one of her many phials of intoxicants but, in this case, the search proved fruitless. “Still, they’ll probably have a go at killing me sooner or later. Most people do.”
I was pleased that my companion appeared to have been neither incarcerated nor assassinated but, having some medical experience from both my work at the hospital and my time in the Company ofStrangers, I noted also that she still had a bullet lodged in her shoulder, alongside sundry other flesh wounds.
“If you will forgive my bluntness,” I said, “you should let somebody look at your injuries.”
She managed an imperious sneer. “I’m perfectly well, Captain. I require only a good night’s sleep and enough opium to kill a small child.”
“You require a number of sutures and the removal of a lead slug that is currently embedded somewhere in the vicinity of your left clavicle.”
“I shall make a bargain with you. Bring me a glass of laudanum and you may poke me with whatever needles you wish.”
I was not entirely aware that I had been attempting to strike a bargain, but I was also fast coming to the realisation that Ms. Haas would only be willing to accept my assistance if I allowed her to pretend she was doing me a favour. Repairing to my bedroom, I retrieved what medical supplies I still possessed from my time in the company and prepared for Ms. Haas the narcotic she requested, combining the drug with its solvent in a rather less dangerous ratio than was my companion’s common practice.
On my return to the sitting room, I found that the lady had managed to manoeuvre herself into an upright position and she took the glass of laudanum from me with neither thanks nor complaint, which I took as a net victory. Practical necessity taking precedence over regular propriety, I peeled away those areas of Ms. Haas’s clothing that were obscuring her injuries. The process was doubtless rather painful for her, but she seemed at least to derive some pleasure from my evident discomfort at the intimacy. Employing a long disused pair of forceps I was able, with some effort, to locate and retrieve the bullet. For want of a more conventional or appropriate receptacle, I dropped it into a half-empty teacup, where, I seem to recall, it remained for the best part of a week.
At the clink of lead on china, Ms. Haas opened heavy-lidded eyes. “Deftly done, Captain. I shall bear you in mind the next time I get myself shot.”
“Perhaps,” I suggested, “you could instead endeavour not to be.”
“Given what you know of me, Mr. Wyndham, do you think that is at all probable?”
I did not. As fresh blood was now welling from Ms. Haas’s shoulder, a circumstance that caused me rather more distress than it caused her, I cleaned the area as best I could and began to stitch the wound closed. In my childhood, my father had strongly encouraged me to develop those skills he deemed appropriate and, while I have found little use for most of them, I have always found sewing to be of eminent practical value. It is a skill the acquisition of which I would recommend to anybody, for it stood me in good stead as a student, as a soldier, and throughout my adventures with Ms. Haas, around whom things tended to need fixing with disturbing regularity.
Whether as a consequence of the day’s exertions or the laudanum or whatever she had managed to take before I arrived home, Ms. Haas remained unusually quiet throughout the whole process. As I was tending the gash on her ribs, however, she patted me absentmindedly on the head and observed in the dreamlike tones of one who has consumed far too many sedatives, “You know, you’re a terribly convenient young man to have around.”
“Thank you.” Although I was aware that she was not, perhaps, speaking as she would have done were she entirely in command of her faculties, I could not help but feel gratified, for I have ever aspired to be of service to others.
I was loath to take advantage of my companion’s disorientated state, but there had been a number of questions troubling me since the start of the evening and I suspected that if I did not ask them now I would not have another opportunity. “If I might,” I went on, “why did you destroy Mr. Donne’s servant?”
“Former lover.” She flopped back against the cushions and stared at the ceiling. “We hadn’t been close in a decade, but it was the principle of the thing.”
“Meaning no disrespect,” I replied, “I had not thought you to be strongly motivated by principle.”
“Aha.” She gave a hoarse laugh and wagged one finger in what I believe she thought was my face but which was actually a space some inches to the left of it. “That is where I have you fooled. I am, in fact, a woman of deep, abiding principles. And the most personal and most sacred of them is this: nobody touches my things.”
I was not, in candour, convinced that this constituted a “principle” in the generally accepted sense. “Is that also why you sent me to interfere in Miss Viola’s personal life?”
Her hands twitched in what appeared to be the most expressive gesture she could currently manage. “Well, there was some chance that I might have discovered a promising suspect amongst Miss Beck’s associates. But I confess it was always slim.”
“Was that reason enough to risk the happiness of two blameless young women?”
“Firstly, Eirene has never been blameless. Secondly, even a remote possibility of finding useful information is always worth pursuing. And, finally”—here the corners of her lips turned up rather cynically—“I was very, very curious to see the woman who would tame Eirene Viola.”
With the last of Ms. Haas’s injuries dressed, I began to clean and store my apparatus. “Well, I personally found her very charming and thought they made a most handsome and affectionate couple. I am sure they shall be very happy together.”
“Is that what you think?”
“Indeed I do,” I exclaimed. “It seems plain that they love each other very much.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt that they love each other. And that is exactly why they will make each other miserable.”
“That seems a perverse line of reasoning.”
“Come now, Mr. Wyndham. The only people in this world who can hurt us more than those we love are those who love us in return.”
I felt moved to protest at this but, reflecting on the circumstances of my childhood, I found myself unable to. Thankfully I was spared the need to formulate a response of any kind because my companion had closed her eyes and lapsed, with typical abruptness, into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
