The Shadow of Great Britain

This sentence instantly wiped out the last trace of her hesitation.

She’d been at Nightingale Mansion for a year now, but had never once seen this elusive, mysterious Sir.

Still, never having met him didn’t mean she didn’t know what he looked like—after all, his portrait was hanging right there in the prayer room at Nightingale Mansion.

Rumor had it the boss had paid quite a handsome price for that painting.

”Yes, yes, of course he’s in.” The girl hurriedly shifted aside half a step, one hand already on the door: ”Terribly sorry, Sir, I thought it was... I mean, at this hour, hardly anyone ever comes.”

She didn’t finish the sentence, but the implication was clear enough.

Nightingale Mansion in daytime never welcomed guests.

Anyone knocking at this hour could only be one of two kinds of people—either they didn’t know the rules, or they were the rules.

Arthur clearly belonged to the latter.

”Fiona’s upstairs.” The girl spoke as she quickly opened the door wide: ”I’ll go and announce you right away.”

”No need.” Arthur raised a hand to stop her. ”I heard there’s some idiot here eating for free, and you’ve got him detained?”

The girl froze for a moment, then suddenly understood.

So the Sir had come over today specifically to help Nightingale Mansion deal with trouble.

”There is something like that, Sir.” The girl almost immediately found someone to vent to; she lowered her voice, but couldn’t suppress the anger in it: ”He claims he writes articles. Two nights ago he ordered a girl, and after that he ordered wine. Halfway through drinking, he complained the room was cold and ran us ragged. But when dawn was about to break, that was when he finally started patting his pockets. First he said the money was in his coat, then he said he must’ve left it in the carriage, and later he started ’reasoning’ with us.”

”What kind of reasoning?”

The girl rolled her eyes so hard they almost flipped: ”He went on about how literature shouldn’t be tainted by the stink of copper, and how a place like Nightingale Mansion ought to support writers like him. But the bill was right there on the table, and he didn’t even dare give it a proper look. At first Miss Ivan thought there must’ve been a mistake in the calculation—most guests don’t blow that much in one go. And on top of that, he’s got a sweet tongue, knows how to talk, and puts on a pretty decent show of being respectable. But once we read the total out loud...”

She made an exaggerated gesture. ”His face went completely white.”

Arthur asked, ”How much does he owe?”

”For a proper gentleman like you, it wouldn’t count as much. But for someone who eats for free like him, it’s obviously not a small amount.”

”So you detained him?”

”Miss Ivan actually hadn’t planned to hold him at first. Normally, in cases like this, as long as he can get someone to bring the money over, it’s fine. But then the bastard got rude, saying he had people ’above’ him! The moment Miss Ivan heard that, she was furious.”

”Someone above him?”

Arthur repeated, very softly, as if checking whether he’d misheard.

The girl nodded hard; clearly the moment she recalled those words, her anger flared up again.

”Yes, Sir.” She ground out the words: ”He said it loudly, like he was afraid we wouldn’t hear. He even slapped the table and said if it really blew up into something big, we’d be the ones to suffer.”

”He’s quite bold, then.”

”Isn’t he just.” The girl let out a cold little laugh. ”Miss Ivan asked him, who’s above you? The Home Office, or Scotland Yard? He got stuck right there on the spot.”

She spread her hands. ”In the end he squeezed out a line about how he knows plenty of important people, and said he’s supplying copy to a lot of Fleet Street newspapers. If he wrote something in the paper one day, it’d be bad for everyone.”

”So Fiona got annoyed.”

”Annoyed is putting it lightly.” The girl pointed up toward the ceiling. ”He’s in the little parlour at the far end of the second floor right now—and much better behaved.”

Arthur nodded and asked no more. The situation was clear enough.

He set his foot on the stairs, the metal tip of his cane making the faintest crisp sound on the wooden steps.

The door to the small parlour at the very back of the second floor was slightly ajar.

The door itself wasn’t thick, but someone had deliberately stuck soundproof felt to it; the noise inside was smothered down low, as if even breathing had to be measured out cautiously.

The door was pulled open.

The parlour wasn’t large: one small table, two chairs; the fireplace unlit, cold to just the right degree. The chair by the wall held a man tied to it.

Lewis.

He had clearly been there for quite some time. His coat had been taken off and draped over the chair back, the collar of his shirt was creased all out of shape, the cuffs slightly darkened. His hair should have been carefully groomed, but now a few locks hung down in disobedient wisps.

This was the look of someone who had once tried hard to make himself appear ”respectable,” and what he looked like after that effort failed.