Page 64 of The Affair of the Mysterious Letter
“While I could watch your engagement implode all day,”interrupted Ms. Haas, “I think the key point right now is that the prime suspect in this investigation is a foreign national with governmental immunity who lives in a city orbiting a distant star in an alien reality with which we have no extradition treaty. As such, and painful as I’m sure it is for him, the Second Augur must surely admit that I am far better placed to resolve this matter than he and his men will ever be. It’s a sordid mess of sex and politics, Lawson, neither of which is your strong suit.”
He blinked slowly. “I’ll thank you not to pass comment on my suits, strong or otherwise. So here’s what’s going to happen. You”—he indicated Miss Viola—“are going to give me every item of correspondence you have received from this mysterious extortionist. I will pursue this case on the assumption that Ms. Haas’s theory is correct and that we are dealing with agents of a foreign power. If Ms. Haas chooses to travel to Carcosa and pursue the matter more directly, that is up to her. Now will everyone kindly get the heck out of my office.” He did not say “heck.”
“I’m so glad you’ve seen reason. Come, Wyndham.”
Ms. Haas swept out, her skirts disturbing several important-looking files as she did so. The other ladies followed in her wake, matters clearly unresolved between them. My sense of order and propriety, however, did not permit me to quit the office without making some effort to ameliorate the chaos that we had brought into it. I stooped and began gathering up the fallen papers.
“Mr. Wyndham,” said the Second Augur, “are you attempting to unlawfully access privileged information?”
I stopped dead. “N-no. Absolutely not.”
“You are a right berk, you know that?”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it in those words, but others have expressed similar sentiments.”
“A little bird tells me you were involved with that business on the Austral Express: Vampire Attack Thwarted by Heroic Travellers.” TheSecond Augur swung back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. “No pictures and no names, of course, but for someone who claims to hate publicity, Haas is remarkably good at getting publicity.”
“I’m sure the incident has been exaggerated. The confrontation was brief, and my involvement was minimal.”
He huffed out a sigh. “I’m going to be very upset with Haas if she gets you killed.”
“I thought you said your duty was to the city, not to its citizens.”
“That I did.” His eyes were steady on mine for a too-long moment. “Enjoy Carcosa.”
Somewhat confused, I made my way to the hansom. Ms. Haas did not comment on my lateness but smiled at me enigmatically.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The Coral Towers
The day wewere to depart for Carcosa, Ms. Haas accosted me in my bedroom. She was wearing a crumpled suit that looked as if she had been wearing it for weeks, although I knew for a fact that she had not.
“Come, Wyndham,” she said, “we have a submersible to catch and you will need to change clothes. We are to enter hostile territory undercover and if you persist in walking around dressed like an itinerant preacher at a harvest festival you will be severely compromising our ability to pass as innocuous travellers.”
“Might my cover not be that I am an itinerant preacher en route to a harvest festival?”
“Don’t be clever, Captain. Now change into this.”
She threw a pile of clothes onto my bed. I was pleased to see that they were somewhat more conservative than the last set of garments into which our adventures had forced me, consisting as they did of a grey wool suit with a matching waistcoat, a white shirt, and a paisley print necktie that I personally found a little on the garish side.
Once my companion had decided that more important matters lay elsewhere, thus restoring to me my privacy, I swiftly reattired myself, completing the ensemble with an overcoat and narrow-brimmed felt hat. As disguises went, it at least made up in modesty what itlacked in honesty. I descended to the sitting room, where I found Ms. Haas waiting with her characteristic lack of patience. She extended towards me a document which, on inspection, proved to be a set of traveller’s papers, asserting that I was Mr. Anthony Childers, a citizen of Athra, and that the Council of Interested Parties requested that I be allowed to travel freely without let or hindrance.
“It should go without saying,” she remarked, “that what we are about to do is terribly illegal. On this side of the portals, it will get you into serious trouble with the Augurs. On the other, it will get you shot in the back of the head.”
Neither of these outcomes appealed to me. “And I take it there is no better way to bring Citizen Castaigne to justice?”
“An interesting question. The difficulty, of course, lies in the fact that we have such radically different notions of what constitutesbetter. And, for that matter, of what constitutes justice. Now let’s go, and remember that, once we reach Carcosa, I shall be going by Kim Greene.”
“Are you quite certain,” I asked, as we climbed into the waiting hansom, “that these papers will pass muster at the border?”
Ms. Haas settled herself into the corner of the cab, draping one leg languidly over the other. “Not especially. The documents you carry are designed to withstand casual inspection, not close scrutiny. Fortunately, I do not intend for that to be an issue. We will not enter the city by the conventional route.”
“I was under the impression that there is only one way into Carcosa.”
“My dear man,” she said with a sigh, “there isn’t only one way into anywhere. The cosmos is like a worm-riddled skirting board. It’s simply a matter of wriggling through the right hole.”
“And you can find the, um, right hole?”
