Page 59 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
“And you’re just mentioning this now?”
“I didn’t want you to think less of me.”
“It’s a sweet sentiment, but if it gets me killed I’ll be quite hacked off.”
“Oh, Eirene.” Ms. Haas clasped her hands over her heart with surprising sincerity. “She’s delightful. I deeply regret calling her a dreary bourgeois kipper-peddling fart.”
Miss Beck’s generous mouth thinned a little. “I’m so glad I’ve got your blessing, though I’ll have you know there’s good money in kippers. Now can we get back to my being murdered?”
“We need to run, Cora,” said Miss Viola, stepping clear of her fiancée’s embrace and reaching for her hand instead. “I’m sure we can get lost in the city.”
“I’m not sure that’s going to work. I mean, she’s tracked us this far and I don’t want to spend my entire marriage running from an immortal.”
Miss Viola cupped Miss Beck’s face and drew her close. “Trust me, I’ve been doing this my whole life. There’s a time to think about the next ten years and there’s a time to think about the next ten minutes.”
“Well, isn’t this adorable,” purred Ms. Haas. “But, have no fear. I didn’t fly three hundred miles and let a witch destroy my best aeronautical jacket just to watch you get exsanguinated on a railway platform. I have a plan.”
“Is part of the plan,” asked Miss Beck, with the air of someone who has been troubled by something for a while and only just found the right opportunity to mention it, “having a bird on your head?”
“No, darling, that’s just for fun. The plan involves Wyndham and I taking your place aboard the train while you two have a lovely romantic evening by the Verdun and take the first airship back to Khelathra-Ven in the morning.”
“And what if your plan doesn’t work?”
“Then we’ll all be dead. What a silly question.”
They took a little more persuading, but neither Miss Beck nor Miss Viola was able to raise any serious objections to Ms. Haas’s proposed course of action. They surrendered their tickets to us and left the station, arm in arm once more, although no longer painting quite so ideal a picture of carefree young love. Ms. Haas and I, for our part, turned and boarded the Austral Express, there to settle ourselves into our cabin and await the coming of the vampire.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The Austral Express
It was perhapsa rather tragic condemnation of my lifestyle that the suite which we had taken over from Miss Viola and Miss Beck was substantially more pleasant than our lodgings at Martyrs Walk. Indeed, it was rather more pleasant than any of my prior residences, save the two terms at university when, owing to a clerical error, I was permitted to reside in one of the sets of rooms normally reserved for the masters. The cabin where we waited was oak panelled and sumptuously upholstered, with a double bed set into an alcove at the back of the room. Obviously, we did not make use of this particular item of furniture, as it would have been both unseemly and strategically unwise. Instead, I settled into a velvet-covered armchair and Ms. Haas, with no regard for the comfort or convenience of her resident jackdaw, stretched out on the sofa. The bird itself finally quit her hair and perched on the complimentary bottle of Avienese sparkling wine that had been set out in readiness for the couple’s return.
We did not have to wait long before there was a hiss of steam and we pulled smoothly away from the station. Under different circumstances it could have been a quite charming experience, there being something almost magical in travelling so comfortably through the darkness that enfolded the valleys and rivers of the Nivalese countryside. But it was hard to enjoy the fairy-tale glimmer of the moonlightacross the landscape when you knew that at any moment a night-stalking she-devil could fall upon you from the shadows.
I prepared for this eventuality by reloading my pistol with silver bullets and loosening the cap of the hip flask that contained the water of suspect holiness. Ms. Haas prepared by taking rather too much of the wine, to the chagrin of the jackdaw, which was forced to seek alternate lodgings on a corner shelf holding a variety of decorative objets d’art.
“Ms. Haas,” I remarked as she poured herself a third drink, “should we perhaps be taking steps to secure the points of entry?”
“I agree that would ordinarily be sensible, but any ward I could place would not only rob us of the element of surprise but also reveal at once that we are not Eirene and her fishmonger.”
“But surely we are at a significant disadvantage if we take no measures to limit our enemy’s lines of attack.”
Ms. Haas tossed back her beverage with an alacrity that did not trouble me at the time, but in retrospect I realise was a criminal waste of a fine vintage. “We’re talking about a vampire, not a Marvosi raiding party. However she gets in, which I suspect will be either through the window or door, or percolating through the floor like mist, she will undoubtedly take a moment to savour the end of the hunt.”
“I hope you are correct.”
“I am always correct, Mr. Wyndham.” She rearranged herself languidly on the sofa. “The Contessa is feeling betrayed and thwarted. She is seeking to confront her ex-lover as much as to eliminate a rival.”
“Perhaps,” I said slowly, “I am being overly romantic, but I do not quite understand how the Contessa expects that murdering Miss Viola’s fiancée in front of her will be of assistance in winning back her affections.”
Ms. Haas shrugged. “Vampire.”
With that we both fell silent. Minutes passed, then hours, and mygaze kept returning to the small carriage clock that sat on the shelf next to the jackdaw. As its hands neared midnight I could not conceal my concerns any longer.
“Ms. Haas,” I whispered, “if the Contessa does not arrive soon, Granny Liesl’s potion will cease to be efficacious.”
“That is a distinct possibility, but shh. The Contessa is almost certainly on the train already, and vampires have excellent hearing.”
