New Amsterdam - By Elizabeth Bear Page 0,7

blue eyes catching the filtered light.

Sebastien, who was sitting with his back to the windows so he would not be dazzled by even indirect sunlight, saw their bright shapes reflected in Jack's irises.

"Ah," he said, observing the deepening furrow between Jack's eyebrows. "The nightgowns."

"Two nightgowns," Jack agreed. "Hanging, and one unrumpled. Madame Pontchartrain never went to bed last night."

"Indeed she didn't," Sebastien said, holding his wine under his nose before tilting the glass, and flicking his tongue out to collect just a drop on the tip, for tasting's sake. "So the question remains, who rumpled her bunk?"

"And why did Mademoiselle LeClere lie?" Chewing a last bite of salmon, Jack laid his fork across his plate—more yellow Meissen, with cabbage

roses and gilt edges. The tablecloths were eyelet linen, white and fine. "Speaking of which, there's the young lady herself. With Miss Lillian Meadows,

no less."

Sebastien lifted his knife and turned it so the silver blade reflected the dining room behind him. He saw two blonde heads bent close together as the ladies were seated, Miss Meadows tight-trousered and drawing sidelong glances—admiring or censorious—and Mlle. LeClere scandalous with her shawl wound about her neck like a scarf rather than covering the white expanse of her bosom. "While the duenna's away—" Sebastien began, but then his eyes were drawn to the white cloth twisted around Mlle. LeClere's long pale throat.

Jack cleared his throat. "I know where you were last night."

"Indeed." Sebastien laid the knife crisply across Jack's plate, abruptly grateful that he could not blush. "So do I. And also I think it's time for a stroll. Do you not agree?"

Silently, Jack rose, folding his napkin. And together they left the table.

* * *

"Do you think it's Miss Meadows?" Jack asked, when they were safely away from the dining room, strolling the promenade. It was only a little past noon, so the sun was safely blocked from the long windows by the shadow of the airframe, and if anyone did harbor suspicions about Sebastien, it would do no harm for Sebastien to be seen by midday.

"One doesn't find many of the blood in theatre." Sebastien licked pale lips. "Matinees."

"But she's a motion picture actress—"

"And how might she explain an inability to shoot outdoor scenes in daylight?"

"Ah," Jack said. He raked at his hair, pale curls stretching between his fingers and then springing back. "Besides, why would she turn to Mlle. LeClere when she has two travelling companions of her own?"

"Mrs. Smith was wearing an open-necked shirtwaist," Sebastien pointed out.

In answer, Jack touched his own loosely-knotted cravat. He did not

affect the London and Milan fashion of high collars, as Sebastien did. "Mrs. Smith may not be prone to bruising—"

"She is a very pale blonde."

"—or she may be a more intimate friend of Miss Meadows' than Mlle. LeClere, leaving the evidence. . .inobvious." Jack finished, smugly.

"I am scandalized," the great detective answered, a small smile warming his lips. They warmed further when Jack checked over his shoulder, and then brushed them with a quick peck.

"If not Miss Meadows. . .." Jack said, stepping back.

"You make assumptions," Sebastien said. A cardinal sin, and Jack winced to be caught out. "If there is another of the blood aboard this ship. . .and if Mlle. LeClere is of her court"—the polite term, in preference to any of the myriad crass ones—"it would be the rankest sort of stupidity to murder an old woman."

They turned at the wall, and began walking back.

"Because suspicion would naturally fall on any passenger discovered to be of the blood."

"Prejudices die hard," Sebastien said.

"I've known a few Jews," Jack said. The dryness that informed his voice was no happenstance. He was one, blond curls and blue eyes and good plain English alias aside. "It's the same everywhere. And it needn't be your folk,

Sebastien. A disappearance in the absence of any evidence suggests black magic to me. Teleportation, transmutation. . .what if someone turned her into a frog?"

"Or a green parrot? And us without a forensic sorcerer anywhere to be found."

Jack cleared his throat. "We've seen the parrot and Madame Pontchartrain in the same place. So if it is one of yours, and not Miss Meadows, who?"

"Korvin úr," Sebastien said, automatically. And then he checked himself. "At a guess."

"Good guess," Jack said. He lowered his voice; they were still alone on their side of the promenade, but below, in the dining room blurrily visible through the interior isinglass, Virgil Allen and Hollis Leatherby had entered and paused beside the drinks caddy. "I'm trying to remember if

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