A Monstrous Regiment of Women - Laurie R. King [78]
“I should like to buy you a drink, Inspector.”
For some reason, this did not seem to meet with wholehearted enthusiasm. On the contrary, his habitually cramped features tightened into open suspicion.
“Why?” he asked bluntly.
“Or dinner, if you have the time.”
“Why?”
“You will become uncomfortably damp if you persist in that position,” I commented mildly. It was drizzling.
“You’re right. It’s time I took myself home.”
“Just one drink, Inspector, and a few questions. And, I may have some information in return.”
“About?”
“Iris Fitzwarren.”
“Not my case,” he said immediately, his eyes sharpening.
“I am aware of that.”
“Why me?”
“A drink, Inspector?”
His long day and a strong disinclination to put himself into my clutches battled with a simple curiosity, the policeman’s innate desire for information, and other, more elemental urges, as well. With the circumspection of a male black widow spider approaching his beloved, Lestrade climbed in beside me. The driver stood waiting.
“Where to, miss?”
I looked to Lestrade for advice, and he in turn spoke to the driver.
“You know where the Bell and Bugle is?”
“I do, sir,” he said, and climbed into his seat, fastened the rain cape over his legs, and we started up.
“But,” Lestrade said to me, “I’ll pay for the drinks.”
The darkness hid my smile. I had thought he would.
I allowed Lestrade to hand me out onto the wet pavement, then arranged with the driver, whose unlikely name was Mallow, to wait for me. The man had definite possibilities as an ally, and I did not wish to lose him.
Lestrade had a pint of ale; I ordered a mixed cocktail, a monstrosity I normally avoided like the plague but which fitted my present persona. He swallowed a third of his glass at one go, put it down, and fixed me with a beady eye.
“Very well, young lady, what is this all about?” he demanded. I smiled pityingly, to tell him it hadn’t worked, and began deliberately to remove my purple gloves, finger by finger.
“Ladies first, Inspector. Before I tell all, I need to know the things the newspapers are not saying about the Iris Fitzwarren case.”
“What makes you think I know anything about it?”
“For pity’s sake, Inspector, it’s obvious you do. I should think you had a meeting with the investigating team just this afternoon.” The ventured shot sank home, to my relief. I pressed on rapidly. “There was something strange about her death. What was it? What connexion did it have with the club? And why are you looking for Miles Fitzwarren?” His head came up fast.
“Do you know where he is?” he demanded.
I fluttered my eyes at him and complained prettily.
“You see? No one ever tells me anything. I didn’t know you’d lost him. How could I? I don’t know what you people do know—how could I possibly suspect what it is you don’t know?” I ran one polished finger around the rim of my glass and looked up at him. “However, if you’d like to tell me what you do know…”
“Oh, stop that,” he said irritably, and I laughed and settled back in my chair. “All right, but it’d better be worth it, and no one’s to know where it came from.”
“No one but Holmes,” I agreed, and he nodded and drank deeply.
“You’re right,” he said in a low voice, “though I don’t know how you guessed.” He stopped and shot me a glance not lacking in humour. “Oh, right, I forgot. You never guess. How you deduced, then. Yes, there was something peculiar about her death. A couple of somethings, but most of all was the way she was killed. We’ve had three other deaths like hers in the last few months, two during the same night back in July, then one in late November. There was… a kind of mutilation common to all four, after death.”
“Facial?” I suggested. He started to ask me how I had guessed, then visibly changed his mind.
“Yes. The earlier ones we knew about; the two who got it first had given us information concerning a certain importer, shall we say. The other one had a grievance against him, too.”
“A personal one?”
“Yes. He was apparently not involved with the use of… the importer’s wares, but his cousin, who was also his