Viva (cantplaydead) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2017-08-27 22:28:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | bertie eden, biddie |
Who: Bertie and Biddie (and NPC!Benny, too!)
What: Bertie is asked to help; Biddie is asked to pay.
When: August 19th, 1888 [backdated]
Where: Kensington Gardens
Rating: R
Warning: Gross overuse of italics.
Benson St.Crane wasn’t enjoying death. It was, in his newly experienced opinion, a whole lot’a whale rot and a waste of time besides. That wasn’t the sort of thing a fella had to take lying down--not matter which way he was buried.
Then again he hadn’t been buried, had he? No, he damn well hadn’t been! Benson enjoyed a glowing spark of anger at the thought; it was the only thing even remotely close to warmth he could feel lately. Who knew how long even that would last, though; he didn’t plan on wasting it. He was going to settle his hash before shuffling off towards any ruddy light, heavenly or otherwise.
He was going to invest.
To bad he had to go through some half-fed rawboned mutt of a schoolboy first.
“Oi, boy-o! Can you hear me, sonny?”
Bertie turned before he consciously realized it, reacting to the call and looking automatically through the crowd for someone who wasn't, technically, there. He was accustomed to ghosts hailing him in unexpected places--even when he hadn't acknowledged them, they seemed to know he would be able to hear them.
So Bertie hoped, anyway. It was far more depressing to think of them calling helplessly to everyone who passed in the hopes that someone would be able to hear.
"Hey, what...?" Cavendish began, but thankfully of all the Night Watch, Cavendish was the one most tolerant of Bertie's eccentricities, his partner-in-crime when they got up to such things as they should, strictly speaking, not be getting into as dutiful officers of the law. When he saw Bertie making for what was, to all appearances, an empty place on the walkway, he simply fell into step just behind and blocked Bertie from being run down by the flow of traffic.
Bertie waited until he'd reached the ghost before speaking, not wanting to draw more attention to this conversation than he already had. "Good day, sir. I can. Is there something I can do for you?"
"I don't suppose he's seen any crimes," Cavendish muttered, low-voiced and hopeful. "Anything that would get us out of going down to the harbor again?"
"We're already at the harbor," Bertie said from the side of his mouth, although he knew what Cavendish would prefer to avoid. There was walking along the docks, and then there was actually going down to the polluted, sludge-mucked riverbank to check for any stranded merfolk, iron-sick fae, dumped bodies, or other unfortunates.
It wasn't Bertie's favourite beat, either.
Lord, but he was even more boney up close. Nothing helping it, Benny supposed. The lad would have to serve, there was none other. Besides, skinny could be a boon in this case. Skinny would be less tempting.
Unless she needs something to pick her teeth with, Benny thought dourly.
“You the man who take care of our lots’ business in the warm world?” Benny asked.
That was an interesting question. Bertie didn't exactly think of himself as such, but he supposed he was the closest thing. "I am a member of the Night Watch, yes. Trainee Inspector Bertram Eden. This is my colleague, Inspector Cavendish. Are you in need of assistance? Do you have a crime to report?"
"Nothing in the river," Cavendish muttered like a prayer to the god of law enforcement. Bertie jabbed an elbow in the direction of his ribs.
“Benson St. Crane, obliged to you both.” Benny nodded. “And none of my business is in the salt, so your lad can unclench. I’ve got a message that needs delivering and some questions looked on. Rumor swears you can do the talking on my behalf.”
He crossed his arm. “I’ve the means to pay for it, after the work’s done. Fair’s fair.”
That gave Bertie pause. Message delivery was not quite the same as official police business, but the ghost was correct that Bertie was the one to take care of spirits' affairs if he could. The fact that rumour had apparently gotten around about him was both flattering and potentially useful--he'd prefer not to change those good opinions if they might assist the Night Watch in the future.
"I am at your service, sir," Bertie pledged. "Nothing in the river," he added to Cavendish, since the ghost had mentioned him and it seemed impolite to leave his half of the conversation unheard. "He says you can relax. I believe we're about to be sent on another errand."
"Oh, that's good news," Cavendish said, optimistically brightening. Bertie hoped he was not about to be disappointed. Cavendish still didn't address the ghost or make any sort of greeting, but Bertie had become accustomed that sort of behavior from his fellow inspectors. It didn't occur to most of them that not being able to hear ghosts didn't mean the reverse was also true, even among the best sort, like Cavendish.
Bertie retrieved his notebook from a pocket and opened it to write down the message faithfully, where the ghost could see it. He hastily flipped past the half-formed poem in progress on the page before, which likened a burial shroud to a wedding veil, and asked whether the former should be lifted to reveal what lay beneath, when it was no longer truly the person who had been known and loved in life.
It seemed in remarkably poor taste to show that to a ghost.
"Your message, sir?" Bertie inquired. "And to whom should it be delivered?"
Benny eyed the notebook, and then Cavendish, with something that could’ve been suspicion as easily as sympathy. He hadn’t reckoned on the ghost talker on having a partner, albeit one blind and deaf to him. The notion of backup wasn’t unappealing, but it’d make things trickier. She’d already be wary at speaking to the Night Watch--and hadn’t that been a lark, learning of magic coppers atop of everything else--she wouldn’t relish the idea there being two of them. Or three, for whatever he counted now.
“It’s a bit personal, the message,” he hedged. “Private-like. I know it’s an imposition on your time, but I’d be heavy grateful if you saw to the delivery yourself, son.”
A pause and he added, “There’s a lady involved, you see.”
And if that lie wasn’t enough to set him ablaze where he was standing, Benny thought, then nothing would.
“She’s at Kensington Gardens right now,” Benny sad. “Seems as fit a time as any, if you’re willing.”
"Ah," Bertie said, biting back a grin as his lips twitched upward. "Sorry, Thomas," he told Cavendish. "It looks as though it will be the riverside for you, after all. Personal message to deliver. I'll meet you back at the office after?"
Cavendish made a noise of mingled disgust and resignation. "I hate you," he returned unconvincingly, and turned to make his way along the docks.
With his notebook out, Bertie could at least use the cover of writing notes to himself, which was less-incriminating than holding a conversation with empty air. "Would you prefer I didn't write it down?" Bertie asked politely. "If it's brief enough, I should be able to remember it for long enough to reach Kensington Gardens."
“No need to waste paper,” Benny said. “I’ll march along and feed you the word when we get there. It’s a good day for a stroll through some green. ‘Sides, not much else on my agenda today. Or any day after, come to think of it. Lead on--Eden, was it?”
Benny shook his head. “The good Lord had a bit of fun when he sent you to this pile of rocks, didn’ he? I spent three years in this town and not saw much of Paradise to be found.”
The ghost grinned. “Except the bits you rent by the hour anyway.”
That bit of news widened Bertie's eyes, and nearly made him drop his pen. "You can move, sir?" Bertie had even more questions to follow that, about how, and whether the freedom could be replicated, if there was a limit to the ghost's boundaries...if there was a way for Jamie to see the sky again.
He regretted the exclamation as soon as he'd made it, however--if the ghost only believed he could move, he would not be in for an unpleasant surprise, and the question was rude to begin with.
Then again, there was not much else to what the ghost had said that Bertie could respond to politely, so perhaps it was better to be slightly rude and avoid less respectable subjects.
"Does the lady know of your current condition, sir?" Bertie asked, hoping to redeem himself with something slightly more professional. "Will it be an unpleasant shock to hear the news?" Perhaps he should stop along the way for some smelling salts. And a fresh handkerchief.
“Of course, I can move. I died with my legs on, didn’ I.” There was no saying what little remained of those legs now, though; Benny tried not to think too graphically of that. “I can’t leave this damned city, true enough, but I’ve been able to walk around it aplenty.”
He’d done his share of wandering, too: to the docks, the workshops, the housing where he and some other lads put up, the libraries. He’d even taken in some sights he’d never bothered with before like the Natural History Museum. Although to be fair, he’d only gone there to see why she had--
The realization struck him like a club.
He’d gone where she’d been. He’d gone only where she’d been.
Benny was still choking on that knowledge, when the lad asked him about ‘the lady’. About whether his death would unpleasant to her. Benny laughed and felt it core him like a knife.
“Oh, she knows,” he said. “Don’t you worry about upsetting her sails. She’s a stout soul, my lady. Steel nerves and Iron stomach, she has.”
Bertie nodded in astonishment, mind reeling with the possibilities. "Do you know how you can do so, sir? I beg your pardon for asking, only I have a particular friend for whom it would be useful to know. He...well, to be frank, he misses the sky. He's taken up residence in a building, and while we managed to move him once, it was not a situation without risks."
Bertie still didn't like to think about it too closely, in truth. The memory of Miss Bakst on the ground praying fervently just to keep Jamie together was one that would haunt him a great deal more than Jamie himself did.
"I apologize if that's too personal a question," Bertie added hastily, his thoughts still scattershot. "I mean no offense, and I understand if it's something you cannot answer with certainty."
The boy’s sincerity was bright as gold. That was something the holy books almost got right; the clarity you gained with dying. It wasn’t so much in terms of illumination for his own circumstances, but there was something new in how he could see people. How he could see the gears and steam of them.
And then there was the lad’s words of his dead friend missing the sky…For a moment, Benny looked away towards a different sort of dock to where his ships (her ships, damn it) waited to rise.
"I don't know how I can when your boy-o can't," Benny said. "But I've an idea on who to ask. Help me finish this business for now and you can--” Benny paused.
It was starting to dawn on Benny of just what he was asking this young man to stomp into. The idea of it had seemed a lot lighter before he saw the lad’s honest eyes.
“You wouldn’t happen to be one of the witch folk, would you?” he asked. “Able to conjure up, say, fire and the like with one hand?”
"No, I'm sorry," Bertie apologized. "I'm afraid that hearing and seeing you is my only talent. Not that I'm not grateful for it," he assured his companion quickly, in case he seemed disdainful of the gift. "But for anything more complicated, I'm afraid you--we," he amended, since he doubted all witches could hear ghosts as Miss Bakst could, "would need to ask someone else. Would you like me to make an enquiry for you?"
For a moment, Benny was sorely tempted to insist. Putting a witch on the bitch’s tail was a merry thought, almost as cheerful as forcing her to face the Night Watch. Let her worry about it, let her feel stuck, let her…
What, he thought. Let her deal with newcomers like she dealt with you, old man? You signed on with the devil for wages, no matter that you didn’t see the horns till too late. It takes a different breed of bastard altogether to lead innocent strangers into bargaining at such market.
“No,” he said. “No, that’s...it’s kind of you, but no. No point chumming the waters by dragging more folk into this.” The big man seemed to shake him more awake, his transparent form sharpening a fraction.
“We’d best be getting to Kensington if you don’t mind, son.”
Being reminded that Bertie was meant to be doing something besides getting distracted in his own thoughts and questions was familiar territory. "Oh, yes," he said with a start. "Of course. Please let us know if the pace ever becomes uncomfortable for you."
He'd never traveled with a ghost in precisely this way, and wasn't certain what might be comfortable or not. Bertie struck out toward Kensington Gardens, relying on his hard-studied mental map of the city to find the quickest way there, and kept an eye on the shimmering trick of light that kept pace with him. He thought of asking for the lady's name again, but the ghost would provide it when necessary.
Bertie then thought of what Miss Bakst had warned him about, of possession and the haunting of a person rather than a place, and promptly wished that he hadn't. He had no particular reason to trust this spirit, but then, Bertie preferred trusting in general over distrust without reason.
Once they were near, Bertie let the ghost guide him, staying in step while relinquishing the lead. The ghost showed every sign of knowing exactly where he was headed--all there was for Bertie to do was to follow.
Benny hadn’t bothered much with places like Hyde Park before. It seemed like something of a loss now, when he walked past greeny he couldn’t smell and sunlight he couldn’t feel. He’d still trade every shrug and sunbeam for a pint and whore kiss, but still: he wished he’d bothered a little more with London.
It didn’t take them long to find her. Benny didn’t have to think of where to go, he simply had to walk. There was a hook caught in the core of what was left of him and its line reeled cleanly back to Kensington Gardens.
There was a woman sitting on one of the benches, dappled by the leaf shadows. She was fair and mostly young, small’ish, plainly dressed in very dark brown: remarkably unremarkable. There was a small sketchbook in her lap and an unopened bottle of lemonade near.
Benny stared at the figure and waited to feel--something. A reignition of rage, betrayal, fear even because why not? Why not fear the monster dressed as a friend, if he had anything left to fear at all? None of it came.
Instead all he could see were leaves rustling in a breeze he couldn’t feel and the woman who shook his hand one afternoon, asking him to reach high. He hadn’t trusted her an inch when they met and he hadn’t trusted her much five years later either. But he’d liked her. Even when he’d argued with and cursed her, he’d liked her.
Things like that had no business going around on God’s clean earth being likeable.
“That’s our gal there,” Benny said. “Miss Lindy. Mrs. Linden to you, I suppose.”
Bertie nodded, surprised by the look of the young woman the ghost had indicated. He could have met her at any of the academic lectures he'd attended during his Cambridge days, or even at some social gatherings. She wouldn't have looked out of place at the mummy-unwrapping he'd just stood watch at, although she might not have appreciated the gruesome subject.
Bertie moved forward and waited for her eyes to glance in his direction before he stopped and made a bow. "Madam--Mrs Linden. My name is Bertram Eden. I know this will sound peculiar, and I beg your pardon for the interruption and the unusual introduction, but I have a message for you."
It would have been wise, he realized belatedly, to ask the ghost whether Mrs Linden knew already about the supernatural, or whether his claim would be dismissed at once. Carefully, and with only a brief sideways glance at the ghost to check on how his companion was doing, Bertie clarified, "Or rather, I should say - and I do understand how this sounds, forgive me - there is a...presence here, who desires that I give you a message."
Mediums were all the rage, though largely inaccurate frauds. At least Bertie might be written off as one of those quacks rather than deemed a madman.
No peace within her house, Biddie reflected, and little peace without. Clearly, it was her fate to be protection from intrusion at work only. Perhaps she should start camping in Archie's office. He certainly didn't occupy that room often enough to prevent her.
"Young man," Biddie said in her crispest Boston tone, "if this is an attempt at flirtation, desist. If this a paid deed on at the behest of a moneyed, oddly compelling redhead you met last night, abstain. And if you've going to threaten to take out a deck of Tarot cards from anywhere on your person, please note; I can, and will, make you eat them."
"Oh, she's in a good mood," Benny said. "That's lucky."
Biddie frowned.
Bertie took a step backward, brow furrowing as he translated the foreign accent into intelligibility and contemplated taking another step back to be safe. Looking over the ghost, who manifested in shades of unhelpful gray, Bertie hesitated a moment and then said, "I don't believe I'd call him ginger-haired, no. You'd best talk quickly," he advised the ghost. "I don't believe my presence is particularly welcome, and I should hate to fail you in our agreement."
It was difficult to tell sarcasm in a spirit, but if this was a good mood, Bertie was thankful they hadn't come across the lady in a poor one.
"She won't make a fuss, she hates scenes," Benny said to Bertie. The ghost's gaze, however, remained nailed to the woman on the bench. He took a hesitant step forward, then another. Two more and he loomed over her. One hand raised, fist closed—then relaxed. Benny leaned forward to peek at the sketchbook in Biddie's lap.
Whatever he saw there seemed to give a grim and heartfelt satisfaction. "Tell her...tell her the Russians got no Monarch of their own and she's a stinkin' silly bitch to think otherwise."
Benny looked at Bertie. "Tell her that, skipper, and don't silken any of the last bit. I've got a right to speak to her puffed-up majesty how I want now. If you're speaking for me, you do too."
Deaf to this forthcoming address, Biddie was still sitting and still frowning. Hers was not, however, an expression of anger. Instead, it was a frown of mild concentration, like that of a poor student encountering a math puzzle.
Bertie looked on in a sort of mesmerized horror at the ghost's words and actions. "Sir, that is no way to address a lady," he protested at last, but he had offered to speak for the spirit, and to change his words would be to go back on that promise.
Bertie resigned himself to being, if not slapped outright, then at the very least walloped by a heavy handbag.
"The message is that the Russians have no monarch of their own, and you're silly - I beg your pardon - to think...oh, bother." Closing his eyes, Bertie winced preemptively and related the ghost's message, verbatim.
Bertie was incredibly uncomfortable revealing the secret he normally kept well-hidden to a complete stranger, but at least in this case, he thought glumly, he would be beaten off and shouted at as a villain, so it wouldn't create any future problems.
Well-voiced, underfed, unforgivably young, and speaking information that didn’t belong to him; if not for the painful discomfort at the colorful address to her, Biddie would’ve certainly labeled the young man a reporter. As it was though, she had to downgrade the suspicion to mere possibility.
A possibility she was quickly, and unpleasantly, beginning to suspect of being off the mark. This one, she thought dourly, might not pander to the Shade’s paying audience.
Biddie watched the young man's interaction with an unpleasantly sinking suspicion in her stomach. (There were things Biddie trusted more than her stomach.) She had been ready to assume that, at worst, the man was a journalist. He sounded educated, looked underfed, and had information that didn’t belong to him; all sins of the press in Biddie's experience. If not for the painful discomfort at his colorful address to her, Biddie would’ve been certain.
Unfortunately, she was beginning to think that Mr. Eden's audience subscribed to a different edition altogether. A notably late one.
Biddie picked up her bottle of lemonade, opened it, and held it out in clear offer. "Why don't you sit down, Mr. Eden? Wet your whistle. It seems we've got something to talk about."
That was a far better reception than Bertie could have expected, and he was relieved by it. He was still shamed to have not asked for the message beforehand, and resolved to do such in the future. Since, apparently, he had something of a reputation now among the deceased.
"Thank you for your kindness, madam, in the face of such rudeness, but I don't mean to trouble you. I do believe," Bertie warned, with a sharp look at the ghost, "that after such an address, a lady should know who sent the message. And I hope it was not misdelivered. Mr..."
Bertie left his prompt pointedly hanging, waiting for the ghost to fill in the blank.
"Kindness? Kindness?" Benny had no real blood to redden his face, the grey of his face turned richer in the attempt. "She's got as much kindness as a crocodile. One that's missed both breakfast and lunch, besides! But, fine. Fine. Lets thank her for her kindness. Tell her Benson St. Crane appreciated her kindness—and that he hoped she choked on it, too."
Immune to the gathering storm two feet away from her, Biddie idly tapped gloved fingers against her sketchpad. The page's angle revealed a portion of its contents: pipes, tubes, gears, and, almost incongruously, butterflies. The detail of the lines was striking.
"You said it was a man," she said conversationally. "Is he old, perhaps? We lost our man of business in Manhattan last month, though I can't think of why that gentleman would seek an audience. He died rich, fat, and in the bed of a music hall mistress. Then there's a speculator who passed a week before him. Kicked by a horse, if you can believe it. But he and I had the most courteous of correspondence. "
There were, of course, a number of souls who could take issue with her for non-professional reasons. (Like having their earthly remains made over into an excellent goulash.) None of them would come talking about the Monarch engine design. None except…
Biddie's fingers stilled. "Ah."
"Benson St. Crane," Bertie reported dutifully, with a concerned look at the ghost. He couldn't be certain who to believe, a raging spirit (not unreliable sources of information) or the seeming gentlewoman seated in a garden sketching.
Then he saw what was on the page, and his thoughts flew in another direction entirely.
"Is that an engine?" Bertie asked, excitement in his voice causing him to blurt the question without much courtesy. "I do beg your pardon, only I am fascinated by engineering, mechanics and clockworks, there is so much progress being made, such marvels...oh. Sorry."
He belatedly recalled his role in this conversation, and asked the ghost, "Mr St. Crane, my apologies, is there anything else you would like to relay to the lady?" There was a pause, while Bertie debated whether or not that last statement counted as a message, before he erred on the side of caution. "Besides that you thank her for her kindness, and hope that she chokes upon it?"
"It's reassuring to see that even death didn't cut you down to size, Benny," Biddie said. Her gaze remained politely fastened on Bertie.
"You didn't leave it much to work with," Benny shot back.
Biddie extended the sketchbook to Bertie. "An Italian enterprise, too out of date to affect anyone now. It was revolutionary in its day though. Hasn't dear ol' Benny shared what he did in life, Mr. Eden?"
"I was foreman over at the local works," Benny said. "Came up with the Manhattan flyers, but been an MPC man for the past five years. A damn fine one, too."
"More importantly," Biddie continued, "has he told how he left his previous position?"
"I died," Benny said flatly.
"He was dismissed," Biddie said. "On suspicion of selling private information to competitive entities."
"I was suspended!" Bennie roared. The ghost stuck his transparent finger at Biddie's cheek—
—and the woman's head whipped around, staring precisely in Benny’s direction.
Bertie started forward abruptly, startled and raising both hands as if to defuse the situation. "I am sorry, I didn't mean to incite an argument, nor to upset either of you by coming here. Mr St. Crane, I am sorry for your suspension. Mrs Linden...this is lovely," he said, unthinking, as his gaze took in the sketches again. "Do you have an interest in engines?"
Not the point, he reminded himself, and hastened on. "Mrs Linden, whatever suspicion had fallen on him in life, Mr St. Crane's dearest wish in death has been to speak with you. Colourfully, to be certain, but surely that must count for something."
"Thank you, Mr. Eden," Biddie said. "I have some family interests in the business. Some things tends to rub off."
"She owns the outfit," Benny said. "Ever gear and bolt, Jack and Jill, the whole lot. It's why nobody put up questions about my vanishing from the floor so quickly." Something grimmer etched the ghost's face. "Nobody asked about not seeing me anywhere else either."
On the other side of the conversation, Biddie was looking pleasant and thinking furiously. Why now, and why Benny of all the possible returnees? The man had been a fine hand at the gears while alive but his turn, his desertion, left a bitter aftertaste. Metaphorically speaking. The actual aftertaste itself was quite pleasant; Biddie had experimented with a new vinegar blend.
Not the point, she reminded herself. "It may count for something, Mr. Eden, but I'm hard pressed to figure out how much." She laced her fingers over her knee, mouth thoughtful. "Your relayed comments regarding Russia, however…"
Biddie shook her head. "I appreciate your efforts in this, Mr. Eden. But you're a stranger and he's a thief. Neither role inspires confidence."
"Tell her I didn't take a copy of the Monarch, but I know who did," Benny said. "Better yet I know he hasn't taken those plans out of the city yet. I'll give her the name if she—tell her, I want to bargain."
Bertie had begun to feel as though he were entirely over his head. The ghost's insinuations made it sound as though Mrs Linden were responsible for his murder, and now Mrs Linden knew that Bertie could speak with Mr St. Crane and learn things about his death. He wished badly that he hadn't agreed to part ways with Cavendish.
To make his role here perfectly clear to Mrs Linden, and not without a querying sideways look at the ghost, Bertie held up his hands again. "I beg your pardon, of course you should have no reason to trust me, and I hardly know or remember the original message. It means nothing to me, nor do I have any stake in this matter. I merely agreed to do a service for a fellow in need."
He could not very well whisper did she kill you? to Mr St. Crane, so Bertie relayed the message instead, word-for-word, ending with, "Again, I'm afraid that means nothing to me, and I shall be happy to be out of it once your business is concluded. Bargaining was not precisely in our original agreement," he pointed out, mainly for Mr St. Crane's benefit, although he made no leave to go in case a translator's services were still needed.
“Your generous nature does you credit, Mr. Eden; I hope that whatever your occupation, there’s a recognition for it. Pity one can’t assign such virtue to our dearly departed Mr. St. Crane.” Biddie said. Again her eyes scanned the air, not quite catching the spot where Benny lurked but never quite missing it either. Eventually she settled for staring at a spot somewhere near one transparent shoulder.
Ghost and woman seem to regards each other with a quiet, edged patience. Neither looked especially optimistic about the matter.
“Give me the name and if it proves authentic, I’ll see to it that your sister’s family receives additional compensation for your...accident,” Biddie said. “I’ll even have someone convince her you died sober. That’s a fair shake, isn’t it, Benny?”
“She’s got an insulting bent to that mouth, doesn’t she?” Benny said to Bertie. “Tell her I want Annie to get three year’s wages full out, a pilot widow’s pension, and a proper grave to my name. Whatever her haughtiness has got left of me can go in the coffin. I’ve no interest in dogging her steps after this is settled. I want my rest, she owes me that.”
Tactfully avoiding the subject of his occupation, Bertie relayed the ghost's counter-offer, skipping over the initial phrase regarding Mrs Linden's mouth. He was intrigued now despite himself--it was true he still had no notion of what negotiation, precisely, was taking place, but he now had a number of leads to follow up on with discreet inquiries later.
When he got to the sentence describing custody of Mr St. Crane's remains, he choked on it briefly, a look of horror averted from Mrs Linden to fix on the ghost. Bertie hoped those words only meant that Mrs Linden's company had Mr St. Crane's body in preparation for burial.
Tentatively, Bertie added to the ghost's words, "Mr St. Crane seems more restless than most spirits. I don't believe he's trying to mislead you by asking for his rest."
"No," Biddie allowed in her mild tone, "I don't believe he is."
Blast it. It was becoming unavoidable clear that this novel tête-à-tête was going to generate a lot of work for Biddie. Provided whatever Benny revealed was genuine (and she doubted he'd crawled out of the ether only to dupe her) then Biddie was going to have go and see a lot of people about a lot of things. It was likely going to be expensive. And messy. And possibly unpalatable.
Furthermore what was she going to do about this Bertram Eden? It almost would've been better if the man had been a journalist. There were a dozen ready ways to handle journalists – some of which didn't even involve cutlery. The man seemed a true medium, that strange lot got used to hearing everything and anything. How much had Benny told him, and how much of it would the young man recognize as being what it was?
Some days Biddie nearly regretted avoiding a duller trade. Porcelain, maybe, or gunpowder. Or that fish that was poisonous everywhere save two percent of its flesh.
"She's thinking about china paste and fish again," Benny said, peering at his old boss' expression. "Every time the rotors jammed, she'd start moanin' and groanin' about selling fancy plates for a living. Crazy woman, crazy."
He grinned suddenly. "Probably the most human thing about her. Maybe the only thing even."
"Three years wages, five years' annuity after that, and I'll let the lads know you died with clean hands." Her voice sharpened. "Lets not beat the bush, Benny; you may not have stolen the Monarch design, but you shared more than you should've with people who had no right to it."
"They were plans three years out of date and fat lot good to anyone worth worrying about," Benny snapped. “She sold a pile of them herself just to keep the buggers lazy.”
"If you're squawking the 'out of date' excuse again, I will reach into the ether itself and strangle you." Biddie said nearly in echo with Benny's outburst.
"Crazy woman, Bert. Just plain crazy."
Bertie was frantically taking notes now inside his head, the most human thing about her having sent Night Watch training screaming to the forefront of his thoughts where before he'd only had idle curiosity.
"I'm not here to judge crimes," Bertie said, directed toward Mr St. Crane, but very much for Mrs Linden's benefit as well. He needed her to forget about him, to let him move on without any attempt to track him down and tie up any loose ends.
Because once he was back at the station, then it would be his place to investigate crimes, and it sounded as though he'd stumbled on a minefield of them here.
"Do you agree to those terms?" Bertie asked Mr St. Crane, his mind still spinning frantically. He needed to speak to the ghost again, alone, and as quickly as possible. If Mrs Linden found a way to silence him before Bertie could interview him properly, he'd have no witness, and essentially no crime. Mrs Linden had the ghost's remains, and Mr St. Crane wanted to be laid to rest and find peace...the clock was already ticking.
It wouldn't be as simple as returning to the docks, either--Mr St. Crane was mobile, and there was every chance he wouldn't go back there. He was a whole, coherent, rational spirit with intimate knowledge of a crime, and Bertie was about to lose him.
Not here to judge crimes...well, that was a very nice thing to hear. Unfortunately, Biddie had heard similar version of the sentiment before; it was usually said a few days before a vibrating crowd shows up on the doorstep asking about a missing hunting party, or missing nurses, or missing publisher, or missing alchemists. People’s reassuring sentiments were seldom a match for Biddie’s dinner plans.
“He can have the money and his headstone,” Biddie said. “I’ll even toss a bone in the coffin if that’ll soothe him.”
Benny scowled. “Bitch.”
“He’ll have none of that if the name provided bears no fruit,” Biddie added. “Conversationally his recent experiences, I’m sure, are a reminder that death is not the last option. It would be best for all if Mr. St. Crane doesn’t employ any...unfortunate tricks with his information.”
“What do you think, son?” Benny looked at Bertie. “You’re the expert, you reckon there are things worse than death for us cold folk? Because I wager that was her kindly way of promising to find some.”
“The name, Benny.” Her smile was bright as frost. “While some of us are still living.”
The ghost’s shoulders stiffened, and then fell.
“Bitch,” he repeated with none of the earlier steam. “Kramarov. Lev Kramarov. He went by Saul Cornett when he was with us, did work as a smith when he had to bring in the temporaries. Has a buddy he runs with. They’re both Russian, or at least they both sound it well enough to pass in Whitechapel. The buddy, Abraham, he’s got some pull with the gang boys too. Neither of them has left the city yet. Kramarov turned sick or something, maybe that’s why.”
The ghost looked up suddenly with a flicker of realization on his face. His mouth, however, stayed resolutely shut.
Bertie didn't like the sound of that at all. He repeated Mr St. Crane's information, but left off the final sentence, gazing at Mr St. Crane as he finished, the information incomplete. By that reaction, Mr St. Crane suspected foul play might have befallen this Russian contact, and from what he'd said and his expression now, he thought Mrs Linden to be perfectly capable of it. Bertie didn't know enough yet to judge whether the suspicion was accurate, but if it were, the last thing he wanted was for Mrs Linden to know that Bertie held even more witness statements which might be used against her.
"I think, in order for this to be a fair bargain, there must be some proof of fulfillment on both sides," Bertie said, instead of saying in front of Mrs Linden that he suspected spirits could be tortured, in their own way, by someone with the skill. He thought of Miss Bakst praying fervently with Jamie's soul held in a locket around her neck, and shuddered to think of what might have happened to him without her diligence. He could have nightmares about Jamie being pulled apart, deteriorating, screaming into the void while Bertie stood unable to aid him.
Bertie didn't know what caused ghosts to decay as they did, to become nothing more than hazy shapes or fragments of memory. He didn't want to take the chance that Mrs Linden did.
"May I do anything for you, to confirm that the conditions have been met and your physical body has been laid to rest?" Bertie asked Mr St. Crane, who of the two of them, kindly-looking woman with a sketchbook and foul-mouthed apparition, suddenly seemed the safer option.
This is what came from promoting outside the family, Biddie thought sourly. She’d kicked Benny up the ladder for the sake of his touch with metal, and what did she get as reward? Not only had the man run afoul of corporate espionage and suffer a drunken crash in the middle of the work week. It wasn’t even bad enough that he’d come back as ghost, no, he had come back as a ghost with a lawyer.
“Do the dead have so little faith in the living?” Biddie asked lightly. She tilted her head, again uncannily near Benny’s standing. “I stick to the letter of the contract, Benny. You should know that.”
Benny looked at Bertie. He had one coin left to bargain with, now that she had the names; the truth of what was done to him. True, it was a crime against his dead flesh rather than what used to walk around alone, but it was a damning truth nonetheless. He could leave it with the boy and let the Night Watch worry about the terrible woman.
Was that fair, though?
“This is what we always comes down to, son. Doesn’t matter if you’re living or dead. Doesn’t matter if it’s money, magic, ships, or just that the guy on the side of the fight is two feet taller; in the end, it’s always us plain folk against the big shots.” Benny straightened and absentmindedly patted his pockets, feeling for the cigarillo that wasn’t there. He’d meant to get some new ones rolled on the night before - well, before.
“I can ask about that friend of yours. The stuck one?” Benny offered.
"No, it's all right." Bertie offered a weak smile at Mr St. Crane's unexpected kindness. "Thank you for the offer, though. Are you satisfied? I could check in on you sometime next week, or...would you like...?"
He couldn't quite bring himself to offer to speak with the ghost's sister--if it had occurred to Bertie, it had occurred to Mr St. Crane, so Bertie wouldn't be the one to hurt him by mentioning it.
"Any final words?" Bertie asked instead, glancing to Mrs Linden and back. "I don't want to leave you with unfinished business."
“Tell her you’re to be paid for this,” Benny said. “Two weeks primary pilot’s wages. It’s a fair bit of tosh, you deserve least that for taking care of this. None of this--”
“Would you have given permission if I had asked?” Biddie said suddenly. The ghost halted mid-sentence, staring at her. “You weren’t a religious man, Benny, so it’s not about last rites. You once bet Milt Glaeser you could knock out your own tooth and sell it for a half a pint and a laugh. Arch--Captain Curtis even took that bet, do you remember? So, then. If I had asked before making use, if I had paid in advance even...would you have said yes? Some have.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to ask a man,” Benny said. “Especially after the oven’s gone cold. Hell and tarnation, woman, i’d have to be wet as the sea to have that sort of talk and--bloody hell. Hell and bloody, stinking, festering, goddam tarnation. Why couldn’t you let it be a man’s death?”
The ghost’s gray face was suffused with animation: anger, frustration, regret, exhaustion,longing. “Why couldn’t you have asked, Lindy? I crossed the ocean and went into the air for you, woman! What was one more mad thing to add to all that? Why didn’t you ask?”
“I’d have let you, you stupid bitch,” Benny said tiredly.
After a moment, he added, “Don’t tell her that. Please.”
Bertie remained silent until the echoes of the exchange on both sides had faded away. He shook his head slightly, and then spoke up quietly, "I don't need payment for helping someone in need, though I thank you for the kind thought. Unless there's something else, I should be on my way, to let both of you get on with your days. Will you be all right?"
The question was directed toward Mr St. Crane, to whom, if anyone, Bertie was obligated. This might be slightly outside the bounds of Night Watch duty, but only because Bertie was currently the only one qualified to see to it.
It was Biddie, however, who answered. "I think we shall be as fine as the circumstance allow. Thank you for your help, Mr. Eden. It was very…charitable of you."
She stood up, gathering sketchbook and lemonade bottle in hand. Upright, she proved notably shorter than Benny; the comparison was all the more obvious with how near ghost and woman stood.
"She's right, son," Benny said. "I'm—we're finished here." He reached out to offer his hand to Bertie for all that they'd never shake on it. "You've a good soul, Bertram Eden. If the word of an old sinner counts for anything in, in the after, then I'll speak your graces. Thank you. Truly."
Then suddenly the dead man turned and put his face close to Biddie's ear, whispering something too low for Bertie to hear. It didn't seem a great many words, only a few moments worth before he was stepping back. Biddie’s gaze tilted slightly aside as if to follow the him...or merely to turn away from a passing breeze.
It was odd though, that a breeze should make her smile so.
"Crazy woman....”