Page 48 of A Case of Possession
Peyton stared. “Who?”
“Your relative Arabella.”
“What about her?”
“When did you find out she was dead?”
Peyton’s brow furrowed. “Well, when my sister wrote to me, of course.”
“Your sister,” repeated Stephen.
“Yes. Maria. Great-Aunt Belle lived with her, till she dropped off her perch. What the devil does my family have to do with you?”
“Family?” said Crane.
Stephen held Peyton’s gaze. “I want to know about your female relative from the Baptist mission in Shanghai.”
“We’re Anglicans,” Peyton said. “I don’t have any relatives in Shanghai. Never did. And—”
“Have you many here?”
“Four sisters and their children. Look here, I don’t—”
“Shit,” said Crane. “Shit. Stephen…”
“I know. Mr. Peyton, were you in Shanghai when Xan Ji-yin disappeared?”
“What?”
“Answer me!” Stephen shouted, making both the other men jump.
“Yes, I—” Peyton began in wounded tones.
“Do you remember a girl who went missing from the Baptist mission?”
“Is that what this is about? Town’s sister? Lord, yes, she ran off with some man, didn’t she? At least,Iheard—”
Stephen turned and bolted for the door, Crane at his heels. They took the stairs two at a time, and Crane nearly tripped over Stephen as he stopped at the bottom. “Send a note to Esther at the surgery,” he said shortly. “Tell them all to meet us at Cryer’s lodgings. Catch me up.”
“Take a cab.” Crane fumbled for a handful of change. “I’m sorry, Stephen.”
“My responsibility.” Stephen grabbed the money and darted outside.
Crane scrawled the note and paid a messenger lavishly to get it there as fast as possible, then hailed a hackney himself, cursing foully. It hadn’t occurred to him to doubt Town: the man had always been part of the scenery, a reliable gossip, something of a joke. He observed and relayed events; he didn’t take part in them.
But he had sent them off on a wild-goose chase after a man he knew Crane disliked. And Crane should have known there was something wrong with his tale of the solitary man and his only relative because he’d bloody met Peyton’s bloody nephew—at this point he banged his head, hard, against the side of the carriage—and now he had comprehensively let Stephen down. Fuck.
He believed part of Town’s story though. The beloved sister, the lifetime of bitterness. That had rung very true. He could imagine how it would feel to have someone you love vanish forever—he had imagined it, he realised, that time Stephen had gone off after a warlock and not come back for four days without a word. And to have men like Peyton cast casual aspersions on a loved sister’s honour must have been gall in the wound, even before Town knew she was dead.
Who had told him?
The cab stopped, and Crane hurried up the steps to Town’s lodgings. The housekeeper let him in without argument, a blank look in her eyes. Stephen was using fluence with abandon, it seemed.
Town’s door was open.
“Don’t come in,” called Stephen from within as Crane strode up. “He’s long gone. I’m trying to ascertain where. Not very good at it, I need Esther’s nose. Can you stay outside? You play hob with everything.”
That, discretion aside, meant that Stephen was interrogating the ether for traces of Town. He had occasionally mentioned that Crane’s etheric presence was extremely strong, pulling the imperceptible currents towards him. Yu Len, a Chinese shaman, had always said Crane had powerfulch’i, but it had never actually caused a problem before.
