Page 71 of Evil at the Essex House
“My…?” He watched me pet the top of the seat, and his face cleared. “Oh. Yes, I am. The car can be replaced. You cannot.”
“Dear me,” I said. “I’m glad to know I rank above the vehicle in your estimation, at least.”
“I was referring to Kit,” Crispin said coolly, “but I suppose I might miss you too, if something happened to you.”
“Like a prickly rash, no doubt. Let’s go, then.” I gave his shoulder a nudge. “Out.”
“Grab the tire iron,” Crispin said as he reached for the door handle. “It’s on the floor by your foot.”
I reached down and scrabbled along the floor, and yes, there it was. “Taking a leaf out of Wilkins’s book?”
“It’s a tire iron, Darling,” Crispin said, and extended his hand to help me out of the car, “not a trench club. A tire iron is a perfectly natural thing to keep in a motorcar. The fact that it makes a handy weapon is secondary.”
“It’ll be nice to have, anyway,” Christopher said. He was standing beside the door on the other side of the car, watching the house across the way. “There’s no telling what we’ll find inside.”
“Do we trust Philippa with the only weapon we’ve got between us, or should one of us take it?”
“I need protection more than you do,” I said. It was a galling thing to have to point out, but a fact nonetheless. They are both more capable of defending themselves with their fists than I am. Not that either of them, to my knowledge, has ever been in the habit of getting into fist fights. But as Christopher had pointed out, we had no idea what we’d be walking into, or who may be waiting inside the clapboard house.
“I can swing harder than you,” Crispin retorted, “if it comes to that.”
That was true. If someone had to swing the tire iron at someone else’s head, it might be better to have it in the hands of the one of us who was the most capable of cracking a skull.
Or one of the two: Christopher would be no less capable, I thought, at least physically, but he eyed the tire iron with revulsion, so the idea of having to use it clearly didn’t appeal to him the way it did to Crispin.
“There’s a torch in the glove box,” Crispin told him. “You’d better have that, Kit. And give the tire iron here, Darling.”
I handed it to him while Christopher fished the torch out of the glove compartment. He flicked it on to make sure it worked, before hefting it in one hand and swinging it through the air.
“That’ll do to crack a kneecap or two, if need be. Let’s go.”
He started across the narrow street without waiting for an answer. Crispin and I exchanged a look and followed.
ChapterSixteen
The door was justas old and wooden as the rest of the house, and didn’t fit into the frame any too well. Christopher reached for the handle, but stopped halfway there. “Better not. There may be fingerprints.”
“Use your handkerchief on the knob before you turn it,” I suggested. “At least your fingerprints won’t be on it that way, even if you smudge whatever is already there.”
Christopher glanced around—there was no one in sight but the three of us; in fact, this end of the street appeared abandoned—before he lifted a foot and kicked the door just beside the handle.
“That’s one way to do it,” Crispin muttered.
Christopher must have expected more resistance than he got, however, because the door swung in with no problem—it must have been unlatched as well as unlocked—and he stumbled over the threshold and into a dark hallway.
We all froze while we waited to see what would happen: Christopher inside the house, and Crispin and I on the stoop. When a few seconds had passed without anyone appearing to ask us what on earth we thought we were doing, Christopher beckoned. “Come along, then, if you’re coming inside.”
I cast one last look up and down the narrow street—empty—before following. Crispin did the same, except he shot an apologetic look at his motorcar before he shut the door behind us, plunging us yet again into stygian blackness. There was aclick, and then Christopher moved the torch slowly from side to side.
Crispin wrinkled his nose. “It smells in here.”
It did, a mixture of sweat and rancid food and refuse and a few other things. Eau de Southwark, I supposed.
“Leave the door open a sliver,” Christopher said. “It’s not as if it was locked when we came.”
Crispin cracked the door. “Best be quick about it. I don’t fancy leaving the H6 out there any longer than I have to.”
No, that was probably for the best.
