Read India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy (A Madam of Espionage Mystery) for Free Online Page A

much obliged to you if you could provide further specifics, as I have little information about her.
Yours sincerely,
India Black
     
    It was short and to the point, which, I recalled, the marchioness was herself in her communications, though this one was undoubtedly more polite than anything I’d ever heard the marchioness utter. I sealed it up, relieved that the chore was done, and consigned it to the hall table, to be delivered to the post office by Mrs. Drinkwater. I returned to my study to find Vincent seated by the fire. The brat had deliberately chosen one of my prized Queen Anne chairs, upholstered in a watered silk of china blue.
    “How the devil did you get in here? And move out of that chair immediately. You know you’re not allowed on the cushions.”
    “I came in the back door. Mrs. Drinkwater’s asleep in the kitchen. Put your ’air back on, India. I’m movin’.” He gave me a little smirk, to let me know he could stay in the Queen Anne if he chose to but for reasons of his own, he was relocating. Vincent is like that, you see. He’s a veteran of the London streets, more used to taunting authority than complying with it. I judged Vincent’s chronological age at between ten and fourteen, but he could be thirty for all I knew. He had a cracked voice that could shatter glass, the cunning mind of a Russian arms dealer, the morals of a Bedouin raider and the personal hygiene of a cave dweller. Save for the cleanliness issue, he was the perfect ally in the London underworld. I trusted him implicitly, except with my bolsters, and as long as he stayed upwind.
    “’Eard from French?” he enquired.
    “Not directly,” I said, wincing as I caught a whiff of
eau de filth
, “but the prime minister passed on a message to me.”
    “Ole Dizzy? When did ya see ’im?”
    “Last night.”
    Vincent sat up eagerly, eyes sparkling like those of a mongoose who’d sighted a cobra. “We got spies to catch? Or is the Queen up to her knickers in hassassins again?”
    I hesitated. I needed Vincent’s help, but I knew the bugger would want to be in the very heart of things. All I needed was a messenger at the moment, but knowing Vincent, I feared he’d figure out a way to apprentice himself to a bomb maker in some anarchist cell and blow up half of London.
    “I’ve been asked to hire a bint who is associated with an anarchist group. I’m to try to get information from her and pass it along to Superintendent Stoke at Scotland Yard.” Well, that was half my assignment. I’d let Vincent know about the spying half when I deemed it necessary.
    “Is that all?” Vincent was disappointed. “We could do a lot more than that. We could join one of them groups and find out who they’re gonna bomb next. That would be better than sneakin’ around after some tart.”
    “At the moment, all I need is a messenger. Are you willing to help me?”
    “’Course I am,” said Vincent. “I just wish we could ’ave some fun while we’re at hit.”
    “You never know what will develop. Just look at what happened in Scotland.”
    The thought that we might encounter fanatics who would wish to kill us cheered Vincent enormously. I cracked a window, and we spent a pleasant half hour discussing my meeting with Dizzy and the superintendent and whether I’d encounter any difficulties in prizing away Martine from Mother Edding. Vincent had a few suggestions for getting the girl out of the Seven Dials brothel, but as all of them involved violence in some form or another, I dismissed them.
    “Really, Vincent, the girl would be stupid not to recognize that Lotus House is a superior situation. I’ll make it worth her while to come here. She won’t turn me down. Certainly Mother Edding won’t have any difficulty in replacing her. There are dozens of girls in the Communard community who would jump at the chance to earn a few pence.”
    “Wot makes you think this Martine is one of them anarchists?”
    I shrugged. “I’ve only