Blameless - By Gail Carriger Page 0,47
seaside attitude. Madame Lefoux, however, hinted darkly that the city’s “Italian troubles” of ten years ago remained, hidden but unabated, and that this upsetting situation gave Nice a restless undertone not always sensed by strangers.
“Imagine! Trying to contend that Nice is really Italian. Pah.” Madame Lefoux flicked one hand dismissively and glared at Alexia, as though Alexia might side with the Italians in this matter.
Alexia tried to think of something reassuring to say. “I am certain there is hardly any pasta in the whole city,” was the best rejoinder she could come up with on such short notice.
Madame Lefoux only increased the pace of their skulking, leading them around a pile of discarded rags into a dingy little alleyway.
“I do hope the ornithopter will be safe where we left it.” Alexia tried to change the subject as she followed her friend, lifting her skirts away from the rags. There was hardly any point in the effort at this juncture, but instinct dictated one’s skirts be lifted.
“Should be. It’s out of gunpowder charges, and very few, apart from Gustave and myself, know how to fly it. I shall send him a note as to its location. I do apologize for that unfortunate landing.”
“You mean that unfortunate crash?”
“At least I chose a soft bit of ground.”
“Duck ponds usually are soft. You do realize, ornithopter only means bird? You don’t actually have to treat it as such.”
“At least it didn’t explode.”
Alexia paused in her skulking. “Oh, do you believe it ought to have done so?”
Madame Lefoux gave one of her annoying little French shrugs.
“Well I think your ornithopter has earned its name.”
“Oh, yes?” The inventor looked resigned.
“Yes. The Muddy Duck.”
“Le Canard Boueux? Very funny.”
Floote gave a tiny snort of amusement. Alexia glared at him. How had he managed to entirely avoid the mud?
Madame Lefoux led them to a small door that once might have been colored blue, and then yellow, and then green, a history it displayed proudly in crumbling strips of paint all down the front. The Frenchwoman knocked softly at first, and then more and more loudly until she was banging quite violently on the poor door.
The only reaction the racket caused was the immediate commencement of an unending bout of hysterical barking from some species of diminutive canine in possession of the other side of the door.
Floote gestured with his head at the doorknob. Alexia looked closely at it under the flickering torchlight; Nice apparently was not sophisticated enough for gas streetlamps. It was brass, and mostly unassuming, except that there was a very faint etched symbol on its surface, almost smoothed away by hundreds of hands—a chubby little octopus.
After a good deal more banging and barking, the door cautiously opened a crack to reveal a mercurial little man wearing a red and white striped nightshirt and cap, and a half-frightened, half-sleepy expression. A dirty feather duster on four legs bounced feverishly about his bare ankles. Much to Alexia’s surprise, given her recent experience with Frenchmen, the man had no mustache. The feather duster did. Perhaps in Nice mustaches were more common on canines?
Her surprise was abated, however, when the little man spoke, not in French, but in German.
When his staccato sentence was met only by three blank expressions, he evaluated their manners and dress and switched to heavily accented English.
“Ya?”
The duster ejected itself through the partly opened door and attacked Madame Lefoux, gnawing at the hem of her trouser leg. What Madame Lefoux’s excellent woolen trousers had done to insult the creature, Alexia could not begin to fathom.
“Monsieur Lange-Wilsdorf?” Madame Lefoux tried tactfully to shake off the animal with her foot.
“Who would be wishing to know?”
“I am Lefoux. We have been in correspondence these last few months. Mr. Algonquin Shrimpdittle recommended the introduction.”
“I thought you were of the, uh, persuasion of the feminine.” The gentleman squinted at Madame Lefoux suspiciously.
Madame Lefoux winked at him and doffed her top hat. “I am.”
“Leave off, Poche!” barked the German at the tiny dog. “Monsieur Lange-Wilsdorf,” Madame Lefoux explained to Alexia and Floote, “is a biological analytical technician of some note. He has a particular expertise that you may find rather interesting, Alexia.”
The German opened his door farther and craned his neck to see around Madame Lefoux to where Alexia stood shivering.
“Alexia?” He scanned her face in the faint light of the street torch. “Not the Alexia Tarabotti, the Female Specimen?”
“Would it be good or bad if I were?” The lady in question was a little distressed to be engaging in a protracted