Adele Rawlins chapter 7 Lynched on the Links part II

 

Chapter 7 Lynched on the Links II

 

Paulson had a carriage for us. Of course Paulson had a carriage for us. He was that sort of young man; efficient, able to procure hackney cabs in the rain, knew where to book tickets for anything, capable of finding any file, and entirely devoid of anything approaching an imagination. The perfect secretary but not a perfect aide-de-camp. For that, Papa relied on us.

“Which one is dead?” I asked.

“Mr. Corbett,” said Paulson. “His wife didn’t join the men this morning; she saw Sir Geoffrey, and told him she felt unwell. He wondered if her husband had asked her tactfully to stay out of negotiations.”

“I fancy Papa was well aware that the word ‘tactfully’ when allied with Mrs. Corbett could be construed as something of an oxymoron; I am sure he did not say that at all,” I said. Mr. Paulson became flustered.

“Oh, well, I suppose you are used to him,” he said. “What he actually said was, ‘I suppose the worm turned and Corbett told that bloody woman that she is not welcome at business talks as all she does is bellyache on about women in industry without having the faintest idea about her husband’s business.’”

“I rather suspect I could quote more statistics about Corbett Steel than she can,” I said, dryly. “Because I took the effort to research each of our fellow guests, and, too, the seedy little man who calls himself Alfred Docker, who is no such thing, and whom I would suspect of being a spy if I was not well aware that he is a policeman assigned to Papa for his protection and that he has already arrested the bluff steel magnate known as Gregory Oldborough, who I suspect turned out to have a Russian name when shaken hard enough.”

What, did he think Tony and I spent our holiday idling when Papa’s safety might be at stake?

Apparently, for he looked most taken aback.

“And it’s as well the Endicotts are thoroughly vouched for, considering the indiscreet letters Mr. Corbett has been sending to Mrs. Endicott,” I added.

“Er?” said Paulson.

“I searched the underwear drawers of all the women when they were out of the hotel, of course,” I said, patiently. “Mrs. Corbett is all woman underneath, as you might say; she has new frillies and I fancy embraces female emancipation in the frustration of being unable to embrace a good man. Mrs. Endicott reads extremely robust gothic novels and unlike Lady Bagpuss is sufficiently well acquainted with French to manage some rather robust French novels too. Lady Bagpuss reads gardening catalogues and treatises by Poulton and would endear herself more to the aristocracy if she held forth more on the cultivation of dahlias than on her spurious French ancestry.”

I had shocked the poor man into incoherence. Tony was laughing.

I actually felt sorry for Mrs. Corbett; plainly she had been hoping for some kind of second honeymoon, considering her lingerie, some of it still in its wrappings from the shops. But on her rather blocky body, I fancied the effect would be more farcical than fanciable, a bit like when men dress up as pantomime dames, and overdo it for comic effect. I felt sorry for Dora Bagpuss – not Dorothée Bacquepuis – who was so insecure she felt the need to playact.  As to Mrs. Endicott, I had no sympathy for her at all, as her hobby seemed to be seducing other men, or rather, fascinating them. Judging by her reading matter and toys, she and Endicott indulged themselves with games around her apparent straying. Which is all very well, and as they say, à chacun son gout or even if you want the Latin tag from a qualified lawyer, de gustibus non disputandum, or in plain old English, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. And it’s not so much the vice Anglais when the spank is on the other cheek, as you might say.  But I disliked her for involving other men in her games with her husband and doubtless breaking other marriages.

What? You can learn a lot about another woman by going through her underwear and the things she chooses to leave in there to hide them, under the mistaken belief that nobody will be so indelicate as to rummage in one’s frillies. Me, I keep anything of importance for which I wish a degree of secrecy in coat pockets. After all, in a fire, one grabs an outdoor coat, not lingerie.

I had taught Clara the art of searching, now she was old enough to join the family firm, and secure enough to understand. She discovered that one of the chambermaids was a secret scholar [and I should have to send her some good books] and that the wife of the proprietor would have to look out for the yellow-haired hussy who waited tables. It’s all harmless fun and occasionally very useful. And the sort of thing a woman can get away with, and if accused of spying, swear that one had no interest in blackmail, only in knowing who was doing what with whom.  It’s believable; and moreover insisting one is not a blackmailer and failing utterly to understand that one is suspected of being an actual spy is disarming.

We reached the links before Mr. Paulson recovered his equanimity, and followed him to the fairway, or rather, just off the fairway, where Papa had managed to prevent the caddies from cutting the body down before it had been examined. We arrived at the same time as Mr. Albert Docker.

“Hello, Officer Green,” I said.

He glared at me.

“Albert Docker, as you know, madam,” he said.

“And you may need to show your credentials so it seems silly to hide them,” I said. He deflated.

“The doctor is on his way to ascertain time of death,” he said. “Mrs. Corbett says her husband got up early for a walk and she has no idea how he came to walk out this far.”

“Eh bien, a cab will be found to have conveyed him, and probably another to the links,” I said. “I think that he did not die by hanging.”

“What makes you say so?” it was Papa who asked.

“Why, the knot is not a proper hangman’s knot, and it has sawed on the neck in the wrong place to hide the thumb mark where I think he was throttled manually,” I pointed out. “Obviously, there is no question that it was suicide anyway.”

“And this is why I call in an expert,” said Papa, to Officer Green. “There have been suggestions that he killed himself over an infatuation, but I have held in mind the fact that it might be to prevent him making a winning bid.”

“I hope he has a credible heir,” I said. “His wife is all squeak and no, er, substance, in her claims of equality.”

“I fear so,” said Papa. “I’m afraid the ground has been somewhat trampled, everyone came to look.” He glared at the two industrialists and their caddies.

“Eh bien, it was inevitable,” I said. “What la pauvre Mme Corbett fails to understand is that no woman who believes in herself wishes to ape the behaviour of men, thus diminishing herself. Because it is the nature of men when beholding something out of the ordinary to come and stare at it, as if it is a great wonder, put their thumbs in their braces, so, rock back on the heels thus, and say ‘eh oop, yon’s gone an’ ’ung ’isself, sithee, d’ye suppose he’s dead?’ and is answered, ‘Aye, happen he must be. We should do something. We politicians need to consider all possibilities, put everything in proportion, decide on an agenda, appoint a committee to agree with our thoughts, and then act decisively by doing as little as possible.’” I used Sir Cyril’s orotund tones when he remembered to forget he was also from Yorkshire.

“Young lady, art ee mocking us?” demanded Endicott, his slight Yorkshire accent bursting out in response to my mimicry.

“Of course I am,” I said. “Now, if you can tell me that this is not the response you and Sir Cyril made, in broad if not in detail...”

He stared. Then he laughed.

“Tha wench!” he said. “Eh oop! Tha has us perfectly!”

I warmed to him the more for being able to accept my mockery with good grace, unlike Sir Cyril who was looking daggers at me.

“Fortunately,” I said, “The body has been arranged with great theatre to be seen from the fairway, and attract attention... oh, here is the police doctor. Papa, he will not listen to me, but perhaps you will insist that he checks for the hyoid bone with great care, because sans doute it is broken from manual strangulation, since any man alive with that ligature would be likely to drop if he struggled, see how it is already passing the ear; and even if planning to die thus, it would take great fortitude to just hang and strangle. And I will observe the path made through this spinney where his body was dragged. Du vrai, it is plain enough, and if you follow, please to walk in my footsteps so as not to spoil the trail, which has been disarranged at the bottom of the hanging tree, by, if I am not mistaken, the golf club, both with careful movement, and as an ultimate disguise, mashed about as though some frantic and inept golfer was attempting to retrieve a ball in the rough. Ah, you say, some poor fool was here yesterday before this tragedy, and enfin moved on. But the footsteps come in from behind.”

“So they do,” said papa Geoffrey. “And drag marks which mostly obscure the footsteps.”

“Whoever killed him tried to obscure their footsteps by dragging him over them,” I said. “The toes are quite pointed. It’s a current fashion conceit in men’s and women’s shoes; I prefer the older style with squared toes, myself. Me, I have feet meant to walk, not to advertise that I can afford to sit about in shoes too uncomfortable to bear to stand in.”

“It probably started with someone whose toes naturally grow that way being feted as beautiful,” said Papa, cynically. “The tiny feet of upper class women in China are made that way by the foot being folded in half and tied up when they are babies, because of a deformed Imperial concubine whose tiny bent feet were admired.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked.

“Excrutiatingly, as I understand,” said Papa. “But that’s how it is with fashion; people whose bodies don’t fit fashion suffer to be forced into it.”

“Well, the foot is on the small side but no smaller than Tony’s,” I said.

We came upon where two pairs of shoes entered the rough on the other side, which I think was near the seventh hole, but don’t quote me; I had very little interest in it, after all. There was an area of crushed grass which looked as if someone had lain there and thrashed about a bit.

“And here he was strangled,” I said. “How he was wrestled down isn’t clear, I’d expect more confused footwork. It almost looks as though he walked here, spread something to soften the impression and lay down.”

“Why would he do that?” asked Papa.

“Well, it isn’t the tiny shoes that Mrs. Endicott totters about in, to have supposedly passed out to facilitate a lurking husband killing him if Corbett knelt down to tend to her,” I said.  “Yes, that is far fetched,  but it’s plain the square toes Corbett wears and is wearing where he is hanging. Endicott has huge feet; Sir Cyril’s are smaller and he wears a pointed toe to be fashionable.”

“So, you think it is Sir Cyril?”

“Not necessarily,” I said.

I did a bit more searching. And I saw something gleaming in the sunshine; something that would not have showed in the lower sun of early morning. I bent and picked it up.

“Gaudy, if a tie pin,” I said, displaying the sapphire pin, surrounded with small diamonds. The sapphire was a good half inch across, rather vulgar for a tie pin. I had seen it elsewhere, however. I held it out to the men.

“Do either of you recognise this?” I asked.

“No, never seen it before,” said Endicott. Sir Cyril fancied himself a gemologist, and produced a jeweler’s loop which he screwed into his eye.

“Flawed,” he grunted. “Nothing I’d buy for my wife.”

“Ah?” I said. “May I borrow your loop?”

He let me use it; and he was right. There are those flaws in certain sapphires and emeralds which produce star effects, and are prized for the same, but this stone was indifferently cut and the flaw merely detracted from its colour and shine.

“A sentimental belonging, I fancy,” I said, returning the loop and carefully wrapping the pin. “Bought by someone when less well off.”

“Do you know who did it?” asked Papa.

“Yes, and it wasn’t these two,” I said. “Have someone search for a young man who hired a pony and trap for very early in the morning, not far off dawn. They might have found him a little odd.”

I had a hunch.

 

 

oOo

 

Having returned to the hotel, I went with Papa to break the news to Mrs. Corbett that her husband was dead.

She did not want to let us into her room but Papa was forceful.

She heard the news with dull horror.

“It hasn’t solved anything, has it?” I said. “By the way, you lost this,” I passed her the pin. “Did he like you dressing as a man?”

“I... we met when I had borrowed my brother’s clothes and used my hatpin as a tie pin,” she said. “He saw through my disguise, and rescued me, and... and it inflamed him, and we got married; but we got very conventional apart from my politics, and then there was that woman. And... and I thought we could rekindle things if I dressed up and made an assignation with him; and it seemed to work, but then he said something about me embarrassing him by being mannish in women’s clothing and asked if I could not be more like Mrs. Endicott. And I saw red and I strangled him.  And all I could think of was making it look like a suicide, but oh! I miss him so much!” she burst into sobs.

“What a tangled web,” I said. “And what games these rich women play. Me, I prefer intimacy with the clothes off.

And that, dear readers, was it. Papa decided to leave it to the local police who got as far as an inquest declaring it murder by person or persons unknown; and I fancy Mrs. Corbett had a worse prison of her own making without him.

 

For my own part, I took Tony firmly to bed whilst Clara was out with Mama, to prove the point that we needed no props or games.

 

Adele Rawlins chapter 6 Lynched on the Links part I

 

Chapter 6 Lynched on the Links part I

 

We were on holiday in Brighton with Mama and Papa Rawlins. This is to say, Clara, Tony, and I were on holiday, as was Mama, and I had managed to call them Mama and Papa quite happily now, and Papa was on some kind of business-with-pleasure trip with three industrialists. They spent their days playing golf and dancing around what Papa could tell them whilst bidding to make parts for something, presumably made of steel as they were all steel magnates, or possibly steal magnets as each was attracted to the idea of royally shafting the government if he could. Parbleu! I must be thoroughly English if I can manage such puns. All of them had wives, and two of the wives were what is known as ‘golf widows’ whilst one of them determinedly played, and must have put quite a crimp on talking secret weapons. Me, I see no point in spoiling a good walk by knocking about a little ball whilst damaging the turf, or giving yourself a sand shower bath, and if forced to play I always aim my little ball at the water feature so I might say, ‘Tiens! What a shame, I shall go to the clubhouse now.’

If talking to any of the steel magnates, I pretend to think they are watching birdies, and ask if they saw any greater spotted niblicks, or the warbling mashie, and if they managed to see that rare birdie, the eagle. It drives them to gobbling incoherence, and they cannot seem to help themselves in attempting to explain, and I listen, so charmingly winsomely, me, with my head on one side, and my eyes wide open and interested, and ask what bird lives in the holes if they are trying to catch them and ask if a shotgun  might be more efficient if they are hunting them.

“Stop playing with your food, Adele,” said Papa, when he found I had entrapped Samuel Endicott with a desire to know how he heated his driving iron and why he did not leave his laundry to the hotel maid.

“I’m just trying to explain golf to the lass,” said Endicott.

“She doesn’t care,” said Papa.  “When I told her to use a spoon to drive down the fairway, she produced a tablespoon.”

“I had it to open my hard boiled eggs,” I said. “And the ball is about the size of an egg, only rounder.  It reminded me I wanted to mashie it with salt and pepper and niblick it slowly.”

Mrs. Corbett, the lady golfer, took me to task.

“My dear Mrs. Rawlins, pretending to be stupid is not good for the cause of womankind!” she said. “I know you have more understanding than you pretend, or you would not use golfing terms with such... such unerring inaccuracy. Surely you can manage to display some proper feeling?”

“But why should I?” I said. “It is, in my opinion, a game of the most boring. Me, I am very English now, and appreciate the brisk walk, the plunge in the cold sea, but the golf, no. It is tedious, and listening to the tales of the prowess of men playing with their little balls and poking them into as many holes as they can is to me the epitome of ennui, the paradigm of purgatory. So, I irritate them until they go away. Me, I think it is most improper in the advancement of womankind to pander always to the little foibles of men, who need to be laughed at.”

“Do you laugh at me?” she demanded.

“Not as much since you manage a phrase like ‘unerring inaccuracy,’ which I like a lot,” I said. “And truly, it is not my place to laugh at those women who slavishly follow their husband’s interests.”

She gaped.

“I play golf to show that a woman may be as good as any man!” she yapped.

“I am not so insecure that I feel a need to prove it,” I replied. “I already know.”

Dear reader, had she but known that I had spent three years as a man to gain my degree!

She stared at me then strode off.

Me, I have no time for fools.  And she is a fool, because there is only one reason that I can see that men turn a stroll together into a game requiring the technical understanding to hit their silly little ball round the whole course without losing it too often, and that is to have an excuse to be men on their own, enjoying a walk, to speak or to be silent as they wish, without women filling all the silences with chatter, as, I fear, my sex is too often inclined to do. Tony likes my capacity for silence. Notably he does not play golf, go hunting, shooting, or fishing, nor does he spend time at a club.

Mrs. Corbett was a woman I would describe as ‘tweedy.’ By this, I mean that she chose to wear tweed jackets as the upper part of her garb, tailored to her figure.  She also wore tartan a lot, less, I thought, in devotion to our dear queen and her love of Scotland than to declare an allegiance to those very masculine country sports. She had a loud, hearty voice, and probably believed in cold baths and not sparing the rod on children. I disliked her. Mr. Corbett was a quiet sort of fellow, who said, ‘yes, dear,’ and ignored his wife.

The other women were Mrs. Endicott and Lady Bagpuss, Sir Cyril having been knighted for services to industry.

Mrs. Endicott was the complete opposite of Mrs. Corbett, being almost ethereal in appearance, with languid movements and attitudes, golden ringlets, and a penchant for soft, draping fabrics like georgette. She fluttered like a bird and managed to open her eyes wider and more winsomely than me. She was the sort of woman men automatically want to help. She tried to drape herself all over Tony, since he was the only man who did not go off playing golf, and Tony pulled the bell for a servant and asked for the hotel nurse as Mrs. Endicott was feeling faint, and needed to go and lie down. It was more amusing watching Papa handle her – and he had the cheek to accuse me of playing with my food! Papa pretended to be deaf. The conversation went something like this, when she cornered him.

“Of course, I’m so terribly delicate, but I try to support Samuel,” she said.

“That’s dreadful,” said Papa. “Hernias must be a terrible trial to him.”

“He doesn’t have a hernia!” she was indignant. “And nor do I, I’m just fragile, but I don’t like to fuss.”

“What, he’s lost his support? Perhaps you should suggest he goes to the hospital,” said Papa.

“No! I support him in his work!” she shouted at him.

“Dear me, there’s no need to shout,” said Papa. “We don’t need to advertise his need for a truss. And I’m sure you are right, that he doesn’t shirk.”

She had hysterics, so Papa copied his son and called for the hotel nurse.

Sir Cyril was a man who had grown into the role of knighthood, and gloried in it, booming about a desire to enter politics.  His wife was, not to put too fine a point on it, a snob. She had discovered that her husband’s name came from the old French town Bacquepuiss, and insisted on people using it.

I spoke to her exclusively in French, of which she had a smattering from having been to a fairly good girls’ school, but not enough to keep up with my fluent discourse.

She forced a laugh and said that perhaps it was impolite to speak French in front of those who did not know it well. I spoke English in front of others and continued speaking French to her if I was so unfortunate as to find myself alone with her.

 

“Damned industrialists,” growled Papa. He was treating us to dinner in a very fine restaurant overlooking the gloriously monstrous Royal Pavilion. “I know they are out to make a profit, and that this drives world trade, but you’d think an ounce of patriotism might counteract a pound of greed.”

“If that were so, the professions of solicitors and barristers would be obsolete,” I said. “What can you tell us that does not leave you sounding so mysterious, papa?”

“Oh, it’s simple, really,” said Papa. “They are bidding to build certain parts for the most recent warships. And most of them build parts for things like mine pumps or steam engines, and I had to explain in words of one syllable that, immersed in salt water there is a galvanic reaction leading to the hulls being more readily reduced to rust because of the weak battery acidic effect; I don’t know if you know about sacrificial anodes, introduced by Sir Humphrey Davy?”

“No, but I understand the principle,” I said. “The loss of material from a more reactive metal preserves the hull. Aren’t ships copper bottomed to stop fouling?”

“Good girl; that school you went to was excellent,” said Papa. “And he iron disappears leaving a wafer thin layer of copper without an anode of zinc. It works better than sheathing the bottom with wood sheathed with copper. The problem arises when one of my idiot manufacturers wants to make some parts out of cheap iron coated in tin, which will vanish as if by magic, as well as reducing the effect of the sacrificial anode. Why can my daughter in law understand this, and by the way she’s listening, my granddaughter,” he nodded to Clara, “But three of the steel magnates of experience and supposed understanding of metallurgy fail to grasp something which is scarcely impenetrable science?”

“You’ll have to test every part they send, Grandpapa,” said Clara. “I don’t understand it all, but if some of the metal dissolves for being in salt water if it’s the wrong sort, they won’t believe you and will try to get away with doing it on the cheap.”

This was one of the longest sentences Clara had managed, and I was so proud of her.

“She’s right,” said Tony. I only nodded; I had a mouth full of the most delectable cauliflower florets deep fried in savoury batter.

“Some of these fools think that government contracts were invented purely for their own enrichment,” said Papa, bitterly.

“Make it clear that standards are to be followed, and substandard work will be treated as treason,” I said, when my mouth was clear.

“I don’t know if it would count... I don’t think the statute books cover that sort of thing.”

“Well, they don’t know that, do they?” I said. “Tell Corbett that his wife will never let him forget it if he is indicted for treason, tell Sir Cyril that it would kill any chance of entering politics, even if he evaded gaol time, and tell Endicott that his wife is likely to be prostrated with grief and needing to sob all the time about it.”

“What a devious and wicked little mind you have!” said Papa, appreciatively.

We returned to the hotel, to find Mrs. Endicott busy fascinating Mr. Corbett, under the nose of his wife, who was buttonholing Sir Cyril on the concept of reducing property qualifications for voting, and proposing the vote for women as well, in a country with a female monarch. He looked trapped, and his wife was glaring.

“I might agree with votes for women, Lady Bagpuss,” I said, refusing to change a perfectly well-Anglicised name, “But I should wish Mrs. Corbett to be examined by doctors to see if she qualified, or if she is one of these prodigy automata, which have a wax cylinder inside them with recordings to give the impression of intelligence.”

She managed a spiteful little giggle.

“Well, at least Cyril is not engaged by her charms, if she has any, unlike her husband who is being thoroughly twisted round Mrs. Endicott’s fragile fingers.”

“Some women are too dangerous for their own good,” I said.  What a crowd! I disliked them all.

 Nobody but our family came to the communal breakfast, so presumably the tensions, whether of a fiduciary or fidelity nature, led to room service for more private repasts. Thank goodness! No discussion about Mr. Endicott’s stroke, or whether Sir Cyril would break his par, or Mr. Corbett’s sad affinity for bunkers. He had not appreciated my bright and enthusiastic suggestion that he purchase a tin pail and wooden spade such as the children use to build sandcastles on the beach, because making a sandcastle in a bunker would be more fun than fiddling around getting sand in his clothes whilst he tried to get his balls out.

 

I don’t know if Papa used my suggestions, but it would not surprise me if he did; because the industrialists started to enter bids.

“Why don’t you go to a bronze foundry, Papa?” I suggested. “You are still working on propellers, aren’t you? Bronze propellers won’t corrode, the tin is locked to the copper, and they will last longer.”

“I might, yet,” said Papa. “Someone in my office has a bee in his bonnet about steel being better. It isn’t, but I had my instructions.”

“Don’t tell your colleague, then,” I said.

He stared.

“So simple, so practical,” he said.

I wished him luck on a morning’s golf and grumbling, and took Clara to look over the curiously oriental edifice which is the Royal Pavilion, it having been recently purchased by the town council, refurbished, and opened to the public, that we might wonder at the excesses and extravagances of the queen’s uncle, the former George IV.

“It’s like a fairy tale palace,” said Clara, solemnly. To a child just turned ten, it probably seemed so; and explained a lot about the mentality of the late George.

To my mind, if it came out of a fairytale, it probably belonged to someone’s wicked stepmother. It isn’t made of icing sugar, though, to fatten up children. It rains too much in England for it to have survived intact if it had been.

I suppose I should not be surprised that Papa’s caddy and equerry, a young man named Edwin Paulson, managed to catch up with us.

“Oh, Mr. Tony, Mrs. Tony, please come!” cried Paulson. “One of the golfers has been hanged on the fairway!”

 

the substarosta's casebook 5 - and the ugly

 

 

Chapter 5 And the ugly

 

“I’m not taking you into the Sign of the Three Goats!”

Floriana, currently in the guise of Florek the page, nursed a mead in some resigned resentment at her husband’s protectiveness.

True, the Sign of the Three Goats had a reputation so bad that ‘disreputable’ was left far behind, and ‘wretched hive of scum and villainy’ barely scratched the surface. However, there had been some efforts to clean up a tavern once known as ‘The Church,’ for errant husbands to claim to have been at the church to wrathful wives, and since there had been a brawl in the Three Goats, which had involved Kazimierz and Mariola, there had needed to be some structural repair as well as cosmetic upgrades... or as Dawid Starski, Floriana’s husband had put it, they had been forced to paint the new section of wall required where Kazimierz had thrown a pimp of juvenile prostitutes through the window, taking frame and part of the wall with him. The structure had never been sturdy to start off with.

That, however, was merely incidental, a minor incident in the day of a substarosta. And they were supposed to be covering the more up-market taverns in any case.

“Warszawa has kindly let us know,” Starosta Młocki had said, with biting sarcasm, “That they believe a gang of thieves has fled before the justices in the city and are headed our way. They specialise in taking by surprise those who are half-cut and robbing them, beating those who protest.”

Which was why Floriana was sitting in the Sign of the Golden Bells, one of the most prestigious inns in the city of Większy-Bydlin, which Dawid believed was above the touch of the thuggish thieves, whilst he went to shake down some of the regulars of the Three Goats, who might have information on the newcomers.

When the six thugs with heavy clubs came in, Floriana’s eyes lit up with unholy glee. So much for keeping her safe.

“Right, gi’s orl yer valuables!” said the leader.

“Throw down your weapons and put your hands behind your heads and march straight to the jailhouse,” said Floriana, standing.

“Ho! You want to make a fight of it, you snotty little szlachcic?” demanded the leader.

“You are wrong,” said Floriana. “You ask, ‘Do you want to make a fight of it, my lord, you snotty little szlachcic, sir.’ And as I am of the Raven banner, the answer is, ‘Of course,’ as there’s precious little other entertainment in this tavern, because the band can’t play anything but French ballads and the singer’s vibrato is so extreme it makes her look like a blancmange.”

She took the time in which she was speaking to edge to the end of the table so that only one thug could come at her at a time, unless they went over the table. Her back was to the wall.

“Here! What’s wrong with my vibrato?” demanded the singer, offended.

“If it stuck to your voice, nothing,” said Floriana, whose eyes were watching the brigands. “It’s just that it threatens to vibrate everything out of the top of your French gown.”

“I was enjoying that,” said another of the patrons. “I had a bet on with myself that she’d lose a teat if she went any higher. Did you need to deputise a constable, my lord?”

“If you’re volunteering, I won’t turn it down,” said Floriana. The thugs had begun to move. Her new ally picked up a chair and smashed it, taking up one of the legs, and leaping agilely to the tabletop beside her.

“Now, let’s see you villyuns try to hurt the little boy,” he said. “Name’s Dawidowicz,” he told her. “Your brother and his page saved my son’s life and got a load of stolen furs back for me; Substarosta Bystrzanowski is your brother, isn’t he?”

“Yes, that’s right,” said Floriana.

“Can’t mistake that hell-ring in the eyes, my lord, even though your hair’s lighter,” said Dawidowicz.

The leading brigand flicked a finger at two of his men to take down the furrier, whilst he himself advanced on Floriana. He paused, briefly, as the twin hiss of two sabres being drawn signalled that the boy he thought he was about to bully was not unarmed;  but how good could a slender youth be against the strength of a man?

He did not understand the whirling of the two blades, and he was still wondering briefly where to strike the youth with his club when he no longer had a club, because he no longer had a hand holding it. He had little time to ponder on this before the thoughts drained out of his head with the blood as the other sabre swept through his neck. Floriana took sabre drill seriously; and if she was not in the same class as Mariola, she was good enough to outclass any brigand with a club.

Dawidowicz had taken a few lumps but was battling away valiantly, and most important he was preventing any of the thugs from climbing on the table.

Floriana considered, and used the Cossack dancing she had learned to leap up beside him. They tacitly set their backs together and Floriana’s whirling blades quickly accounted for two more. Dawidowicz was keeping another occupied, and the final two, seeing no sense in selling their lives, started to back away.

This was when the door opened.

 The newcomer was Dawid Starski, who took in the scene in an instant.

The two thugs going the other way heard twin hissing blades behind them, and froze.

“Going somewhere, precious?” said Dawid, genially.

The thugs slumped, dropped their clubs, and put their hands behind their necks. Floriana moved in on the one fighting Dawidowicz, and he surrendered too.

“My thanks, good Dawidowicz; will you come to have your bruises tended, give deposition, and receive a day’s pay for a special constable?” said Floriana.

“Gladly,” said Dawidowicz. “Er, what about the dead ones, my lord?”

“We’ll send constables to take out the trash,” said Floriana. She turned to the barkeeper. “Sorry about the mess.”

“Think nothing of it... my lord,” he growled.

“Florek, you whelp! Can’t you stay out of trouble?” roared Dawid, beyond grateful to see his wife cheerful and unwounded.

“But, my lord! I thought you sent them from the Three Goats to entertain me,” said Floriana, opening her eyes wide.

“Whelp!” he said. And her eyes laughed at him.

 

 I've a two-part story about Adele after this