Ghosts by Gaslight - Jack Dann [159]
We were sitting on a bench on the sixth floor and when, at the end of my report, I brought the question of my finances to his attention, he pulled out his wallet, slapped it against the bench, and demanded to know how much I wanted. I replied that he had mentioned twice my usual fee and named a figure. He extracted a sheaf of banknotes in excess of the figure I had named and flung them at me.
“I am nearly two months along in this investigation,” I said. “I’ve reduced my commitment to my other patients and I have bills. I don’t think it is unreasonable to ask for payment. But this . . .” I indicated the banknotes. “It’s too much.”
“When dealing with whores,” he said, “it’s my habit to pay more than the going rate. It inspires them to perform their duty with a certain brio.”
“Listen to me, Richmond,” I said evenly. “Christine’s case is a remarkable one and if my financial position allowed it, I would work for nothing. But should you address me again in that fashion, I will quit your employ and have nothing more to do with this investigation. Is that understood?”
He snorted, pocketed his wallet, and strode off toward the elevator, leaving me to puzzle over his extreme behavior.
IT WAS SEVERAL weeks later, on a Ladies’ Night at the Inventors’ Club, that I came to terms with the fact that I had fallen in love with Jane, though I should have reached this conclusion long before—I had found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on my work, thinking of her to the point of distraction. I had tried to convince myself that the subject of that work, Christine, so resembled Jane that the waters had been muddied, and that my feelings were mere sexual infatuation complicated by psychological stress. That evening, however, I was forced to admit that a more base consideration—one of which I was aware but had shunted aside, not wishing to see myself in its light—was to blame.
On Ladies’ Night the membership were encouraged to bring their unwed daughters (and their spouses, but this was a secondary consideration) to the club in order that they meet the unwed, younger members, the objective being to spark romance and subsequently create the bloodline that would produce the Great Inventor . . . at least this was my jaundiced view of the proceeding. For probationary members such as myself, attendance was mandatory. I told Jane not to expect me back until the wee hours and that I would likely not see her until the following day. The club’s banquet hall had been cleared of its long oak table for the event and was decorated after the fashion of a gala, with floral displays everywhere, a champagne bar, and a string orchestra whose insipid strains had induced several dozen couples in evening dress to dance. Shortly after arriving, I was pinned into a corner by Constance Mellor, the youngest spawn of Sir Charles Mellor, an officer of the club whose work on the London underground and the electric tram had earned him the accolade, and Preshea Liddle, the daughter of Archibald Liddle, whose advances in nonflammable dry-cleaning solvents had made him wealthy. Whether either of these ladies could be considered beautiful was a matter of conjecture—their appearance was artificially enhanced to such an extent, they might have been refugees from the cast of The Mikado, and they were both strapped into corsets so cruelly tight, they were forced to speak in gasps. They fluttered and fussed with their gowns, cutting their eyes this way and that, tittering and giggling, exclaiming, as Constance did at one point, “Oh, do look, Presh! Isn’t Margaret’s gown the absolute be-all and end-all?