“I see,” said Lord Darcy. “One other thing, with Your Grace’s permission. What do you know of a Damoselle Tia Einzig?”
“Damoselle Tia?” the saintly old man chuckled. “Ah, there is one, my lord, whom you may dismiss immediately from your mind if you suspect her of any complicity in this affair. In the past few months she has been examined twice by competent Boards and Examiners. She has never in her life practiced Black Magic.”
“I disagree with you that that alone absolves her of complicity,” said Lord Darcy. “A person could certainly be involved in a murder without having been the actual practitioner of Black Magic. Correct me if I am wrong.”
The Archbishop looked thoughtful. “Well, you are right, of course. It would be possible… yes, yes, it would be possible… for Damoselle Tia to have committed a crime, so long as it was not the crime of Black Magic we would not necessarily have detected it.” He smiled. “I assure you there is no harm in her, no harm at all.”
His attention was distracted by someone who was approaching the table. Lord Darcy looked up. Mary of Cumberland was excited, but she was doing her best to keep from showing it.
“Your Grace,” she said. She curtsied quickly, and then looked at Lord Darcy. “I” — she stopped and glanced at Lord Ashley and then at the Archbishop before looking back at Lord Darcy — “Is it all right to talk, my lord?”
“About your assignment?” Lord Darcy asked.
“Yes.”
“We have just been discussing Tia. What new intelligence do you have for us?”
“Pray be seated, Your Grace,” said the Archbishop. “I should like to hear anything you have to say about Tia.”
In a low voice the Dowager Duchess of Cumberland told of her conversation with Tia Einzig, of Tia’s short meeting with the man in the bar, and of the incident concerning the note in Tia’s room, with an attention to detail and accuracy that not even Lord Bontriomphe could have surpassed.
“I have been looking all over for you,” she finished up. “I went to the office; the Sergeant-at-Arms said he hadn’t seen you. It was just lucky that I walked in here.”
Lord Darcy held out his hand. “Let me see that piece of paper,” he snapped. She handed it to him.
“That’s why I was in such a hurry to find you. All I can read on it are the numbers.”
“It is in Polish,” said Lord Darcy. “ ‘Be at the Dog and Hare at seven o’clock,’ ” he translated. “There is no signature.”
He glanced at his watch. “Three minutes of seven! Where the Devil is the Dog and Hare?”
“Could that be ‘Hound and Hare’?” said Lord Ashley. “That’s a pub on Upper Swandham Lane. We can just make it.”
“You know of no ‘Dog and Hare’? No? Then we’ll have to take a chance,” Lord Darcy said. He turned to the Dowager Duchess. “Mary, you’ve done a magnificent job. I haven’t time to thank you further just now. I must leave you in the company of the Archbishop. Your Grace must excuse us. Come on, Ashley. Where is this Hound and Hare?”
They walked out of the Buckler Room into the lobby of the hotel. Lord Ashley gestured. “There’s a corridor that runs off the lobby here and opens into Potsmoke Alley. A turn to our right puts us on Upper Swandham Lane. No more than a minute and a half.”
The two men pulled their cloaks about them and put up their hoods to guard against the chill of the fog outside. Ignoring the looks of several sorcerers who wondered why two men were charging across the lobby at high speed, they went down the corridor to the rear door. A Man-at-Arms was standing by the door.
“I’m Lord Darcy,” snapped the investigator. “Tell Lord Bontriomphe that we are going to the Hound and Hare; that we shall return as soon as possible.”
CHAPTER 15
In Potsmoke Alley the fog closed about the two men, and when the rear door to the Royal Steward was closed behind them they were surrounded by darkness.
“This way,” said Ashley. They turned right, feeling their way down Potsmoke Alley to the end of the block of buildings to where St. Swithin’s Street crossed the narrow alley and widened it to become Upper Swandham Lane. Here there were a few gas lanterns glowing dimly in the fog, but even so it was difficult to see more than a few feet ahead.
As he and Ashley emerged from Potsmoke Alley, Lord Darcy could hear a distant click!… click!… click!… approaching through the fog to their right, on St. Swithin’s Street. It sounded like someone wearing shoes with steel taps. To the left he could hear two pairs of leather-shod boots retreating, one fairly close by, the other farther down the street. Somewhere ahead, far down Upper Swandham Lane, he could hear a coach and pair clattering slowly across the cobblestones.
The two men crossed St. Swithin’s Street and went down Upper Swandham Lane. “I think that’s it ahead,” said Lord Ashley, after a minute. “Yes. Yes, that’s it.”
The sign underneath the gas lantern depicted a bright blue gazehound in hot pursuit of an equally blue hare.
“All right, let’s go in,” said Lord Darcy. “Keep your hood up and your cloak closed. I shouldn’t want anyone to see that Naval uniform. This way, we might be ordinary middle-class merchants.”
“Right,” said Lord Ashley, “I hope we can spot the girl. Do you know her when you see her?”
“I think so. Her Grace’s description was quite detailed; there can’t be many girls of her size and appearance wandering about London.” He pushed open the door.
There was a long bar stretching along the full length of the wall to Darcy’s left. Along the wall to his right was a series of booths that also stretched to the back of the room. In the rear there were several tables in the center of the floor, between the bar and the booths. Some men at one were playing cards, and a dart board on the back wall was responding with the thunk!… thunk!… thunk!… of darts thrown by a patron whose arm was as strong as his aim was weak.
Darcy and Ashley moved quickly to an empty spot at the bar. In spite of the number of customers the big room was not crowded.
“See anybody we know?” murmured Lord Ashley.
“Not from here,” Lord Darcy said. “She could be in one of those rear booths. Or possibly she hasn’t arrived yet.”
“I think your second guess was correct,” Ashley said. “Take a look in the mirror behind the bar.”
The mirror reflected the front door perfectly, and Lord Darcy easily recognized the tiny figure and beautiful face of Tia Einzig. As she walked across the room toward the back the identification was complete in Darcy’s mind. “That’s the girl,” he said. “Notice the high heels that Her Grace mentioned.”
And, he realized, those heels also explained those clicking footsteps he had heard on St. Swithin’s Street. She hadn’t been more than thirty seconds behind Ashley and himself.
Tia did not look around. She walked straight toward the rear as if she knew exactly where the person she was to meet would be waiting. She went directly to the last booth, near the back door of the pub, and slid in on the far side, facing the front door.
“I wonder,” said Lord Darcy, “is there somebody already in that booth? Or is she waiting for the person who sent her the note?”
“Let’s just stroll back and see,” said Lord Ashley.
“Good, but don’t get too close. I don’t want either of them to see our faces.”
“We could watch the dart game,” said Lord Ashley, “that might be interesting.”