Garrett Investigates - By Elizabeth Bear Page 0,8
knife.”
***
Whatever other errands she ran after retiring up the stairs, Garrett was still the first Crown Investigator to appear again in the hall, though the Enchancery’s housekeeper assured Cuan that soon there would be more. Cuan’s experience had prepared him for many things, but the sight of DCI Garrett in navy trousers and a coat like a man was not one of them. She had swept her bobbed hair up under a bowler and buttoned all four buttons on the jacket rather than leaving the bottom three open to flash her waistcoat, and still he found he couldn’t look at her directly. His discomfort seemed to amuse her, however, especially when he blushed and turned his head when she bent to lift her carpet bag.
“Can’t fight devils in a dress,” she said, facing him.
Cuan extended a hand, ready to take her bag, but she shook her head and shouldered it. He stepped back, still tasting the bitter coffee the housekeeper had poured him. In the street before the Enchancery, he heard the rattle of many hooves and the whir of steel-shod carriage wheels on the stones.
He said, “So how do you catch a devil?”
“We didn’t catch him last time. We only ran him off. If we had anything to do with it.”
“And now he’s back.”
Stairs creaked, Garrett’s and Cuan’s heads pivoting as one. Two more sorcerers paused their descent at the first landing, one a tall man with grizzled hair and a moustache that draped his upper lip in luxuriance, the other shorter, stouter, and sprightly of step despite curls shot through with silver and a powder-blue coat gone shiny at the elbows.
“DCI Rice,” Garrett said, nodding to the taller before turning her attention to the man in the worn suit. “Commander.”
Cuan caught himself correcting his posture. So this was Sir Nigel Lain, Commander of the Crown’s Own. As he descended, Cuan could see that he was not a big man, neither tall nor broad across the shoulder. But he wore the unmistakable cloak of authority, which neither his genteel manner nor the careless manner of his dress could diminish. He extended his hand, and Cuan hurried to accept it, stammering as he tried to remember if the proper form of address was Commander Lain or Sir Nigel.
“Commander,” the Commander offered, with a disarming smile. “The Crown’s Own reserve titles for social occasions; it confuses the issue otherwise. Don’t you agree, Lady Abigail Irene?”
“Of course, Commander,” she said with an amused smile. “DCI Rice, Commander Lain, this is Detective Sergeant Coen. He’s been cooperating on the prostitute murders.”
Rice winced when Garrett said prostitute, and Cuan would have had to be a blind man to miss his disapproval of her mode of dress and the casual banter Commander Lain offered her. Cuan squelched—hard—any unworthy speculation on how exactly it was that DCI Garrett had come to be the only female among the Crown’s Own. Perhaps Sir Nigel had been a friend of her family; there was only so much peerage, after all.
“Excellent work, Detective Sergeant,” Lain said. He had a cool, dry handshake, papery but still strong. “I’ll be sure to put in a good word with your superiors.”
Ouch, Cuan thought. But out loud, he said, “Thank you. May I ask what our next course of action is?”
Three more sorcerers had appeared at the landing while he was shaking the Commander’s hand. The men filed down, arranging themselves against the hallway wall. By the tilt of his head, Commander Lain appeared to note their presence, but he didn’t turn. “To start? DCI Garrett has turned the tissues you recovered over to a team of technical sorcerers, who will be providing us with locator amulets. Once that’s done…”
“We put a lot of men on the street,” Garrett supplied. “Station the Crown’s Own near every neighborhood affected—then or now—and then we wait for him to emerge.”
***
A mustard-colored blend of coal smoke and London fog, thick as gravy, licked the windows of the carriage and trailed across the street in tendrils that seemed firm enough to touch. Cuan balanced awkwardly on the bench seat beside Garrett, trying not to stare as the drape of her trousers resealed the outline of her knee. He hunched over the amulet cupped in his palms, watching a needle of light flicker in the jewel at its center. A real cat’s-eye would have maintained its orientation, but this one spun lazily as the needle of a demagnetized compass. When Cuan sighed, his breath blew across it, and—impossible as that