So—it’s going to be cooler tonight, and apparently I am supposed to function as a warming pan! she thought with great amusement as she got into bed. At least that means that it will be cooler tonight; they’re fairly good judges when it comes to weather.
As she lay in bed with the mongooses pressed firmly, one alongside each leg, and Charan curled up in the crook of her arm, her thoughts drifted back to that odd interview at the Fleet with the police detective. Of all of the things that could have happened, she would never have expected something of that nature.
I wonder if Parkening ever turned up again? She might have felt a slight twinge of concern about him if his malady had really been heatstroke. As it was, she wasn’t the least sympathetic. If she hadn’t been able to give him a good thrashing for his beggarly behavior, it seemed that Fate had stepped in to give her a hand. It was a good thing that the policeman hadn’t expected a show of “womanly concern” from her, because she didn’t think she’d have been able to produce a convincing expression for him.
And just how would I have explained that, anyway? “Well, officer, the fact is he’s not actually suffering from heatstroke. The man tried to force his attentions on me in that closet, and I used magic to knock him to the ground. So you don’t need to worry that he’s wandering about half-delirious somewhere. The worst he got from it was a well-deserved headache.” Oh, that would have sounded rational! If the fellow didn’t bustle me down to the police station on suspicion, he’d have hauled me into a lunatic asylum!
She wondered if Parkening was the sort to contrive his own disappearance in order to get attention. If he hadn’t turned up by now, he’d certainly be in all the papers, if only because of his connection to his uncle.
If he has engineered this, he’ll likely materialize in a police station or hospital without coat or hat, and with some wild tale of abduction. By Chinese, of course—or perhaps by evil Hindu dacoits! The latter idea made her smother a cross between a snort and a chuckle. They will, of course, have lured him into their clutches with the promise of an Asian beauty—no, wait, that’s not heroic enough. I know! He’ll have seen the blackguards dragging some poor white girl away, meaning, no doubt, to sell her into White Slavery. It would have to be a beautiful and pure, honest serving girl—as if he’d pay such a scene a moment of his attention!—and he rushed to her rescue. They overpowered him, drugged him, and left him bound and gagged in some dank warehouse while they made off with the maiden! And of course, by the time he woke up and freed himself, they were gone without a trace. That would certainly be enough to make Parkening a nine-days’ wonder in the newspapers—and to make life misery for the Chinese or Indian population of London until people forgot about his story.
I hope he is in trouble of his own making, and hasn’t the wit to make up a tale, she thought, sobered. I’ll have to speak to Gupta about this in the morning, just in case. The wretch is mean enough and vindictive enough to make up just such a fantasy so that he can revenge himself on me through my household, and the only doubt I have is whether he’s intelligent enough to think of doing so.
It occurred to her that if Parkening continued to plague her, it might not be a bad thing to gradually turn over most of her hospital work to O’Reilly. The Irishman was her full partner at the Fleet now and, thanks to her, a full surgeon as well. When the “ladies of leisure” returned from their holidays and the theaters opened in full force, she would have plenty of paying patients to occupy her time without taking on the additional work in the charity wards, and besides, less time spent at the hospital would mean more time for the Fleet. Granted, she wouldn’t get as much practice in surgery… and that was definitely a drawback. But she was doing surgery in the clinic, after all. If one of the patients from the Fleet were to be sent to the hospital, O’Reilly could take him in charge—unless, of course, the patient specifically wanted Maya.
But that would be running away.
The admonition stopped her spinning thoughts for a moment. The suffragettes don’t run away. They let themselves be jailed, they even go on hunger strikes knowing that they’ll be force-fed and might even die of it.
True, but sometimes it was a great deal wiser to run from a problem than to confront it. Parkening’s behavior was not something she had any control over, and if he decided to enlarge his circle of potential victims to all those around her, wouldn’t it be better just to take herself out of his purview and hope he would forget about her?
So long as he did forget. Some people continued to pursue even when the object of pursuit was well out of reach.
It seemed such a coward’s portion. And when he stopped pursuing Maya, who could, after all, defend herself and had powerful friends like Lord Almsley, who would he choose to pursue next? With a man like Parkening, there would always be a “next” victim.
I’ll worry about it after he resurfaces, she decided. With any luck at all, Parkening would be made much of, and the attention would distract him from making the lives of others miserable.
And if I’m really, truly lucky, came the nasty little thought, just as she drifted off to sleep, something terrible has happened to him and I’ll never have to worry about him again.
She paid for that nasty little thought with dreams of being pursued through the fog by some nameless, faceless menace. She woke just after dawn with an aching head and a strong disinclination to go out until the sun had burned that fog away. It lay in thick swaths all around the block, and it seemed that Maya’s reluctance was shared by everyone else in the neighborhood, for there was nothing stirring out on the streets.
With the first touch of the rays of the sun, however, the stuff vanished like her dreams, and she packed up her bag as usual to see to her patients at the Fleet. A boy was selling papers on the corner, crying headlines that had something to do with politics in Europe. She bought one for the ride to the clinic. The omnibus was usually empty and she took full advantage of the fact to put her bag on the bench beside her and open the paper.
The headlines on the front page might have been about Balkan unrest, but the first “screamer” inside struck her with the news that social lion Simon Parkening was still missing, and foul play was no longer suspected, but a certainty.
Lord Alderscroft contemplated the saddle of mutton before him with gloom, while Peter Scott waited for the apology he already knew was forthcoming. Finally the peer raised his eyes and looked straight into Peter’s face.
“I asked you here for luncheon so that I could apologize to you, Scott,” Alderscroft said manfully. “I’ve taken down the Great Shield; it’s utterly useless, and the power wasted on it can be put to more productive efforts. You were right about this India business, and I was wrong. There were more deaths last night, and all the signs point to that missing man being mixed in with it somehow. He’s probably dead, too,” Alderscroft added glumly, as an afterthought.
“If it’s any consolation to you, I know something about the fellow, myself,” Peter replied. “He is—or was—more than a bit of a rotter. I doubt he’ll be mourned or missed by anyone but his own family, and possibly not even by them much.”
“Personal information, Scott?” Alderscroft looked at him keenly from under his shaggy brows. “From that little Hindu doctor of yours?”