Storm and Silence (Storm and Silence #1) - Robert Thier Page 0,201

the tears away. I had to keep my eyes open if I didn’t want to get my throat cut here. Quickly, I took in my surroundings.

Several dirty tables stood against the back wall, grouped around a half-open door. A number of dirty sailors and dirty factory workers in dirty clothes sat there, together with a couple of dirty women with very dirty, low-cut dresses, playing dirty cards, and from time to time joining the even dirtier song played by a dirty piano player to my left. To my right, there was a dirty, long bar with large, dirty barrels of drinks behind it, and a bartender whose largeness and dirtiness could easily compete with his barrels. He was polishing a dirty metal tankard with an even dirtier cloth. Several people were sitting at the dirty bar. They too - surprise, surprise - were dirty, and staring into dirty tankards. Only a few, who didn’t have dirty tankards to drink out of, were staring in the direction of the women. But I bet at least their thoughts were dirty.

So, on the whole, the establishment was not really clean as a spring shower, if you catch my drift.

And there, lounging against the corner of the bar as if he were a regular patron of this den of iniquity, was Mr Rikkard Ambrose, one leg leisurely crossed over the other, an elbow resting on the bar, a tankard in his hand. As I watched, he emptied the tankard in one large gulp and slapped the surface of the bar.

‘Aye, this ain’t half bad! Another one, me good fellow!’

I blinked, stunned. Had I just heard correctly?

It was Mr Ambrose’s voice, and it came out of Mr Ambrose’s mouth, but… Mr Ambrose would never in his life call anybody ‘My good fellow’, let alone commit the gross grammatical incorrectness of substituting a ‘me’ for the ‘my’. This kind of behaviour was reserved for the lower strata of society, the people who weren’t the second-richest, or maybe even richest, man of the entire British Empire!

Maybe you’re dreaming, Lilly. Maybe this is a nightmare.

‘Didn’t ye hear me?’ The Pseudo-Ambrose roared like a drunken lumberjack. ‘Another drink!’

A really, really strange nightmare.

‘Don’t you make no fuss,’ the barrel-bellied bartender growled. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming.’

‘You’d better!’ The person at the bar with Mr Ambrose’s voice and looks growled back. ‘I’m dying for a few pig ears!’

Correction: a completely crazy dream!

When the landlord turned his back on the Pseudo-Ambrose - or was it him? It had to be! - to fill a tankard, I sidled up to him.

‘Pig ears?’ I hissed into his ear. ‘What the heck do you want with pig ears? I thought we were here for the file.’

He jerked.

‘You!’ Mr Ambrose’s usual, cold, cultured voice came out of the corner of his mouth and let me tell you, I had never been so relieved to hear it! Hooray! This was not a nightmare, and not a body-snatching double either! Mr Ambrose was still alive and right in front of me!

He, however, didn’t seem so overjoyed to see me. Dark, sea-coloured eyes bored into me. ‘What are you doing in here?’

‘Don’t try to change the subject! What do you want with pig ears?’

He growled. ‘I do not want pig ears. It is cockney rhyming slang for “big beers”. I was ordering a drink whilst trying to fit in with the natives. Now tell me, what are you doing here, Mr Linton?’

I drew myself up to my full height - which, unfortunately, was nowhere near his. ‘I’m coming with you, Sir.’

‘I specifically ordered you to stay outside!’

‘Yes, Sir. That’s why I came in. I find it very hard to be docile and obedient.’

About one hair of his left eyebrow twitched, betraying a desire to rise. ‘Indeed? I hadn’t noticed.’

He eyed me coolly.

‘I have the feeling that it will not do any good to argue with you about this.’

‘You’re right.’

‘And of course you know I can’t argue with you, really, because it would draw attention to us.’

‘You put it succinctly, Sir.’

‘You are a devious individual, Mr Linton.’

I dipped my head courteously, doing my best to conceal a grin.

‘Thank you, Sir. So can I stay?’

‘Agreed. You can remain.’ He leant a bit closer. I had to strain to hear him now. ‘But if you value your life, behave inconspicuously. I will see if I can find our man at the tables.’ With his head, he motioned over to the dirty tables, where the patrons were just now singing a song that seemed