‘Oh,’ said Lady Hardcastle and I together.
‘Yes,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Dear old Dickie Mussellwhite. Lovely fellow. How is he?’
‘He died last year, I’m afraid,’ said Purcell.
‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. He wasn’t terribly old.’
‘Seventy-five,’ he said.
‘Really?’ she said. ‘Good lord. He didn’t look seventy when we met him.’
‘Quite,’ he said, apparently keen to get the conversation back on track.
‘And you deal with the same sort of problems as Dickie,’ she said.
‘I do. When you knew him he asked you to help with an investigation into Autumn Wind, and that’s why I’m here, and why we most urgently need your help. Autumn Wind is active again and is behind the kidnap of Lady Bickle.’
‘How can you be certain?’ I asked.
‘They told us as much. Coded communication. Could only have come from them.’
‘And what do they want?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘They want to run a bus company.’
I’m ashamed to say that we both erupted into raucous laughter at this news. Mr Purcell waited patiently for our mirth to subside.
‘Autumn Wind was behind the story about Bickle and the lady of the night?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘They were,’ he said.
‘And the fraud story?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the sabotage of the electricity substation?’
‘That too.’
‘And the derailments?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the murder of Nathaniel Morry?’
‘Actually, yes. How did you–?’
‘And now this kidnapping.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that would explain why Inspector Sunderland warned us off the Morry case,’ she said. ‘And all because they want to play at being bus drivers?’
‘Many, many thousands of pounds are at stake,’ said Mr Purcell. ‘A licence to operate the city’s motorbus service is a licence to print money. The tram company and its political friends have blocked the application at every turn and greedy men, especially the greedy men of Autumn Wind, don’t think that blackmail, extortion or even murder are beyond the pale when large sums of money and continuing power and influence are at stake.’
‘It makes a perverse sort of sense,’ she said. ‘And where do we fit in?’
‘In the same rather precarious position as before, I’m afraid. Autumn Wind has its poisonous tendrils running through every part of our society, and as before, the only officers we can truly trust are those who cannot possibly be members.’
‘Women,’ I said.
‘For the most part,’ he said, sadly. ‘They have many other prejudices, but as you know from your earlier encounter with them in Bengal, we know we can guarantee that women are free from… contamination.’
‘We’re also unable to infiltrate,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Our talents lie in gathering intelligence from the inside, Mr Purcell. We fit in, we play the part, we become invisible by our familiarity. People let all manner of things slip when they think one is “one of them”.’
‘I understand the business of intelligence gathering,’ he said. ‘But we don’t need someone to infiltrate Autumn Wind, just someone on the ground who can snoop around the upper echelons of local society and see what she can sniff out.’
‘It’s certainly what we’re good at,’ she agreed, reluctantly.
‘And someone who doesn’t mind getting their hands dirty. I’ve read your file – you both have something of a reputation in the Service. Whenever anyone doubts the wisdom of employing women in our line of work, someone will always say, “What about Emily Hardcastle and Florence Armstrong?” The first chap will say, “Champion snoopers, I don’t doubt, but squeamish when it comes to the dirty work, eh?” And then the second chap will recount a tale of one of your more boisterous exploits, only some of which will be fiction, and the first chap will leave with his mouth agape, pronouncing you She Devils of the most terrifying kind.’
We both laughed again at this.
‘So will you?’ he said.
‘Will we what?’ said Lady Hardcastle.
‘Will you take the assignment?’
‘Can we refuse?’
‘Technically no,’ he said. ‘But realistically we have no way to force you to do anything.’
‘We may need access to resources that are beyond our direct control. May we call on anyone? Anyone in the local police force, for instance?’
‘I was coming to that,’ he said. ‘My next appointment will be a clandestine meeting with someone you’ve already mentioned: Inspector Sunderland. We’ve been keeping an eye on him; it’s a shame he loves his job so much – he’d be an ideal officer in Section W.’
‘Will you tell him about Autumn Wind?’ I said.
‘I’d be surprised if a man like that didn’t already know,’ he said. ‘But I’ll let him have any pertinent details he hasn’t worked out for himself. I’d like you to work with him – he’ll know who on the Force you can trust. Or at the very least, be aware of those you cannot.’
‘And what precisely are we to do?’ asked Lady Hardcastle.
‘First and foremost,’ he said, ‘we most urgently need to find Lady Bickle and bring her to safety. But we should also like very, very much to know the names of the members of the local branch of Autumn Wind.’
‘It would be churlish to refuse,’ said Lady Hardcastle after a few moments’ thought. ‘Flo?’
‘Whither thou goest, my lady,’ I said.
She smiled. ‘If there’s anything we need to know, Mr Purcell, you must tell us now.’
And for the next hour, Mr Purcell told us everything that Section W knew.
Once Purcell had gone, we had discussed the matter in great depth. Our deliberations, including the exploration of our many doubts and fears, continued through lunchtime and into the afternoon. At around three o’clock we realized that we were covering the same ground for at least the third time and decided to call a halt to our obsessing and to turn to lighter matters. Our plans were made and there was nothing to do until Inspector Sunderland made contact. We could easily proceed on our own, but it seemed prudent to have an ally who could provide support and keep us apprized of any activity within the police force which might indicate that the forces of evil were on to us.
Neither of us was able to concentrate on work of any sort, so we put together a cold collation (I say “we” but obviously it was mostly my work, with Lady Hardcastle interfering and getting in the way, though she meant well) and divided the rest of the afternoon and evening between card games, another painting lesson (still no improvement) and singing ribald songs at the piano.