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‘Ah.’ Slowly I nodded. ‘I see.’
Mr Ambrose nodded, too. ‘Exactly. And now…’ He took a deep breath. If he were capable of something like emotion, I could have sworn it sounded satisfied. ‘Now I can deal with him as I see fit.’
Deal with him as I see fit.
The sentence reverberated in the air with dark promise.
Mr Ambrose raised his cane and knocked against the roof of the coach. ‘Take us to Empire House,’ he called to the driver. ‘The back entrance. We have something to deposit safely in the cellar.’
The cellar? What did he want to put in the ce- oh.
My eyes flicked to Simmons. Of course.
Unbidden, something I had once read in one of my father’s old history books fluttered into my mind. What did earls and lords do when they discovered a traitor among their men? If I remembered correctly, after prolonged torture in some dark dungeon, the traitor in question would be hanged, drawn and quartered.
Oh my God. If Mr Ambrose really was an aristocrat, I fervently hoped he wasn’t one to keep up old traditions.
Making Lieutenant-Pancake
My ear pressed against the solid metal door, I listened intently for any sound of torture. Not that I knew exactly what torture would sound like, apart from the screaming, of course, which was pretty much a given. Still, it couldn’t hurt to try. Not me, at least, I thought with a tiny shiver.
Considering Mr Ambrose’s words, and even more than that the expression of his eyes, I had no doubt that something terrible was happening in there right now. But I couldn’t hear a single sound. Was something the matter with my ears?
But then I suddenly heard footsteps approaching from the other side and hurriedly stepped backwards. A key turned in the lock, and Mr Ambrose exited the room, a ring with a large assortment of keys in his hand.
‘And?’ I asked. God, I was becoming as monosyllabic as he.
‘We’ve managed to get him awake, but he won’t talk.’ Looking down, I saw that Mr Ambrose’s hand was clenched to a fist around the ring of keys. ‘Whoever paid him to do this, they must be powerful and frightening.’
‘How do you know this?’
He fixed me with his steely dark gaze. ‘Because I am powerful and frightening, and he hasn't told me a single thing yet. But he will, eventually.’
How do you know that? How can you be so sure?
Yet those thoughts were not what I spoke out loud. Instead, out spilled the question that had been plaguing me the entire way back to Empire House, the question which I never thought I would have the gall to ask:
‘Will you torture him?’
He looked at me, supreme disdain in his eyes. ‘No. Of course not.’
A momentous weight, which I hadn’t really known was there, dropped from my shoulders. ‘Thank the Lord!’ I breathed. ‘I almost thought…’
‘Why would I sully my own hands?’ he continued, cutting me off. ‘I have people who attend to tasks like that for me.’
‘Oh.’
The weight slammed right back in place.
My mood swing had apparently gone completely unnoticed. He motioned towards the closed steel door behind him with a careless finger. ‘I have put Karim in charge of the investigation, and he has his methods.’
‘Methods like what?’ I demanded. Darn, this was… frightening. Something inside me told me I should report this to the police. But if I did that, I would end up on Mr Ambrose’s list of traitors, barring all chances of my independence. I was too selfish to risk my entire future on behalf of some greedy little thief I didn’t know from Adam. All right, I know I’m not a very good person! But at least I’ll get paid for it soon.
Mr Ambrose still hadn’t answered. He was looking at me intently.
‘Methods like what?’ I repeated the question.
‘That’s nothing a lady such as yourself needs to concern yourself about.’
‘Oh, I’m a lady now, am I?’
‘Currently, it looks like it,’ Mr Ambrose said, gesturing towards my dishevelled dress. ‘More or less, at least. It’s high time that you got back into your trousers though, Mr Linton.’
I narrowed my eyes.
‘Why? Do you have work for me, Sir?’
‘No. I’m sending you home early.’
I was about to protest when he raised his hands. ‘I know. I agreed…’ he paused to take a deep breath and with effort said: ‘I agreed to let you work for me, just like any other private secretary. This is not an attempt to get rid of you early. I’m giving you half the day off because you’ve had an exhausting day so far. Trust me, even if you don't notice it now, you’ll notice once the excitement of the hunt goes away. You need to rest, and I need to stay with Karim for a bit longer, so right now I don’t have anything for you to do. Tomorrow you will come back, and you will work for me as hard as anybody else.’
For a moment I searched his face, trying to determine whether or not he was being truthful. Of course it didn’t work. Not with his standard stony expression.
‘Promise?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘I promise on my honour as a gentleman.’
‘But…’ I hesitated before asking the question. ‘But I’ll still have to come dressed up as a man?’
‘Yes.’ His voice was as hard as granite. ‘I cannot and will not accept a female secretary. I will not be made a fool of in front of the entire city. Either you come dressed as a man, or you never return.’
I nodded. This was hard for me to accept, but it was unavoidable. I turned to leave, but Mr Ambrose called me back, and so I turned again.
‘What is it, Sir?’
‘You know very well what it is. I want to know.’
‘Want to know what?’
‘Your method, of course. Well?’
‘What method? What are you talking about?’ I asked, truly bewildered.
A muscle in his jaw twitched in an annoyed sort of way. ‘Don’t play games with me! How did you do it? Find out where Simmons was?’
Ah! That was what was eating him. I struggled mightily to constrain my grin but probably failed.
‘How about a deal?’ I said. ‘I tell you my method, and you tell me what’s in the stolen file?’
His silence was answer enough.
Once again, I saw that mountain of money in front of my inner eye. And he had said it was too little payment…