The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall

Author:Alexis Hall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-06-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY

Some Poetry

I confess I was quite relieved to collect my personal effects from the front desk and depart New Arcadia Yard. My encounter with the Augur Extraordinary had been unpleasant in ways to which I had grown unaccustomed since leaving Ey and had left me a little shaken. On our relatively short journey by hansom to 221b Martyrs Walk, I endeavoured to distract myself by asking Ms. Haas how in the world she had contrived to secure our release from the custody of the Myrmidons.

“Commander Pennyfeather,” she explained, “is an odious little twerp, but his ambition makes him biddable. A truly staggering number of influential people throughout Khel, Athra, Ven, and beyond have reason to be grateful to me for various services I have rendered them, and the merest implication that one of them might be displeased by my arrest has generally proved enough to bring the man abjectly to heel. If that fails, I can also remind him of the innumerable high-profile cases that my assistance has been instrumental in solving, and that his reputation as a firm-handed, fair-minded, and above all efficacious commander of Myrmidons may at any point depend on his ability to call once more on my assistance.”

I was somewhat troubled by this revelation, although I was somewhat more troubled by the realisation that I had quite deliberately waited until I was safely out of the hands of the Myrmidons before eliciting it. “I’m not sure being well connected or having been of assistance to the commander in the past should allow one to disregard the law.”

“Oh, I quite agree. I believe the right to disregard the law is intrinsic and inalienable.”

“That’s not quite what I meant.”

“I shall tell you a liberating but terrifying truth, Mr. Wyndham.” Ms. Haas hitched up her skirts and produced from her other intimate garment a book of matches and a packet of Valentino’s Good Rough Shag. “This cosmos which we inhabit is vast and indifferent. Every law, every teaching, and every tenet by which you might choose to live your life is a fiction that exists only so long as those around you agree upon it. In reality, you are entitled only to what you can take, duty bound to do only what you cannot avoid doing, and protected only by what power is in you to protect yourself.”

“Perhaps you are right, Ms. Haas. I am, after all, well aware that the Creator Himself is believed by experimental theologians to be nothing but a seething mass of mindless energy. But it seems to me there are certain things which, even though they may not be the case, our lives are improved if we behave as though they were.”

She put her pipe to her lips and lit it. “That, Captain, is why I got us out of prison while you have spent your life in one.”

“I should perhaps point out,” I pointed out, “that you also got us into prison.”

“Which”—Ms. Haas grinned unrepentantly—“was still more interesting than anything else you could have planned for the evening.

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