“Typewriter idle, Miss Brewster?”
I jumped, but it was only Falcon. For half a second, I considered being infuriated. He invariably stepped heavily up those stairs on the day when I needed peace, and then stole in behind me whenever I found myself in the midst of something foolish. Then I noted the worn aspect of his eyes, and I felt a twinge of compassion. I doubted whether he paid much attention to my silliness. I felt the vanity of my own ire, and softened still more towards him.
“Only waiting for you. Do you have something for me to draft immediately, sir?”
“You needn’t feel sorry for me, Miss Brewster. The Inspector Hound and I kept late hours the last night; my poor mother struggled to rise at her usual wee hours this morning, because she would stay up to put the fires in their proper state after we were through jawing. There is something about this business I cannot shake…” He placed one hand on the desk. I watched as he moved the other in a sleepy gesture to his pocket and withdrew a paper. This went into the top right drawer with a sudden, fluid movement that belied his previous laziness. Perhaps it was simply one of Falcon’s mood quirks. He had been very particular about my not opening that drawer the previous day. But he never liked having his messes fussed with; it disrupted his organized chaos, he said, for someone else to impose their inferior idea of order onto it.
“Miss Brewster?”
I blinked stupidly. Apparently, I had missed something. “Sir?”
“I only asked whether you slept well last night. Shall I take that as a no?”
“I find myself easily lost in thought this morning, sir, though I fear I cannot attribute it to such cheerful causes of late entertainment as you and the Inspector Hound.”
“The discussion of a stupid case in a stupid town are hardly cheerful,” he said, and then frowned. “Are you often alone in the evenings?”
“Except when the suitors call, but they are always gone by nightfall,” I scoffed. “Gooseberry! Who would come to see me?”
“Mother and I have been remiss.”
“Rot. I do not have any means of entertaining you. I like being alone.”
“How utterly proper and obliging of you. You know, Ingrid, we talk but you never seem to tell me anything.” He drummed his fingers a few times on the desk, and then buried them into a stack of papers. “I need you to stop by Briarmoor.”
“Briarmoor, sir?”
The hand sent a few papers flying. “Yes, madame, Briarmoor! Why must you always call me sir? Why does no one in this infernal place know Lady Jane? One cannot speak to a sir! Most people cannot describe her face. Does no one talk to a titled Lady, just as no one seems to talk to their employers? Beard on my face, I wish the address sir had never been crafted! You infuse it with all the mockery of an enemy and still use it to turn on me the reproach of a friend. You would kill me with that word, I believe. Yes, Briarmoor! Madame! But I cannot call you Madame; it does not work. Marm! M’lady! I have no such dagger to use against you as the one you turn on me. I suppose the best I can do is – Miss Brewster.”
I pondered this barrage of tangled thought a moment. His mother must have continued her haranguing from the other evening. I chose a tactically evasive maneuver. “But you have no beard, sir.”
That touched a nerve. The silence that followed was decidedly injured. Finally, with a visible effort to speak in a manner lofty and detached, he retorted: “Speaking metaphysically, every man has a beard, rooted deep within his soul…”
He seemed to flounder, so I took pity on him and interrupted. “Did you have an errand for me, or are you not quite finished?”
“Yes! I am. Quite. Finished. Miss Brewster, will you go to Briarmoor for me, this afternoon, forsaking your typewriter and all the fascinating reports of the nothings this office accomplishes?”
“I would count the walk a pleasure. And—” I hesitated.
“And?”
“May I ask, sir – what exactly am I to do there?”
“Deliver a letter.” He reached for a piece of paper and scribbled absently for a moment. “For Twinings the butler. One of my devilishly clever ruses, Miss Brewster, but if anyone asks I’m trying to set the poor fellow at ease.”
“By which I gather you to mean, ‘wrangle a confession of his long-held and undying passion for the absent lady, the declaration of which has prompted her to abandon the household forthwith’?”
The pen ceased its scribbling for an appalled silence. Then—“Miss Brewster, do you think it wise to take what was surely a privileged opportunity to observe two of the greatest investigative agents at work and use it to taunt the one on whom (if I may be allowed to point out in all modesty) your whole career depends?”
I reached out a respectful hand and obtained the letter, which was by now dribbling its address all over itself. “If I were in the habit of using such a course of wisdom, sir, I should scarcely follow any of your advice, much less work for you in the first place.”
Excerpt taken from The Brew. All characters and respective whatsits property of myself, copyright 2011.
Disclaimer: Metaphysically speaking, Falcon really does have a beard.
