Good Man Friday by Barbara Hambly

Author:Barbara Hambly [Hambly, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery & Detective, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780727897022
Google: oM1JngEACAAJ
Publisher: Severn House Publishers, Limited
Published: 2014-04-30T04:00:00+00:00

‘What the—?’

January turned. Pitcher in hands, Mede stood at his side.

‘It’s them things that were in Mr Singletary’s notebook.’

‘They are,’ agreed January. ‘But this isn’t a page from the notebook—’

‘No, sir, I know. That’s Mrs Bray’s stationery from her desk. I get sent to buy it from Moffatt’s all the time. But that’s Mr Luke’s hand, the way he shapes his numbers, with the four open at the top.’

‘Did he ever see Singletary’s notebook?’

‘No, sir. He never even spoke to Mr Singletary, but the once. And then afterwards he’s laughing about him – not mean, just shakin’ his head over him goin’ on the way he did about French money and Turkish money to a total stranger he’d never met before, in a lady’s parlor. And it was kind of funny,’ added Mede, with the tiniest ghost of a reminiscent grin.

Voices in the stairwell outside: ‘—isn’t any reason for you to remain,’ said Mr Oldmixton, like coffee-brown velvet. ‘I shall be leaving the moment Congress adjourns and won’t return until December. I can easily escort you back …’

‘It’s kind of you to offer, sir.’ Rowena Bray’s voice was faint, but steady. ‘But I think we both know that my place is here. It’s just that I’m afraid—’

Mede stepped quickly to the doorway of the chamber. ‘Mrs Bray—’

‘Mede!’ Through the half-opened door, January saw Mrs Bray run from the top of the stair and clasp the young valet’s hands. ‘Oh, thank God you’ve come!’

‘M’am, please forgive me if I’ve done what I shouldn’t. I brought a fellow who stays at the same boarding house as me, a surgeon, Mr January. He trained in Paris—’

Mrs Bray looked startled, as if trying to work out what a black man was doing staying in the same boarding house with a surgeon, but Oldmixton clapped Mede on the shoulder and said, ‘Good man! Quick thinking!’ He strode into the little bedchamber as January tucked all the cards, and the sheet of notepaper, into his vest pockets, and stepped away from the folded clothing.

‘Mr January—’ Oldmixton paused on the threshold, his hand extended. It wasn’t an American’s frown of startled disapproval (What’s this Negro doing in Mr Bray’s bedchamber and where’s this surgeon Mede spoke of?), but only the momentary puzzlement of unexpected recognition.

And then, ‘Good Heavens!’ as he clasped January’s hand. ‘I’d never have thought … You play like a professional, sir.’

‘I am a professional, sir,’ January replied. ‘You don’t think anyone in this country would hire a black surgeon, do you?’ He turned back to the bed. ‘How long before anyone found him?’

‘Not long, I don’t believe.’ The Englishman knelt beside the bed, studied Bray’s slack face in the lamplight. ‘He’s lost a shocking amount of blood, of course. Isn’t there some new operation they’re doing now in cases like these, to infuse the blood of a healthy man into the veins of one who’s lost a great deal?’

‘Is that true, sir?’ Mede’s eyes blazed with such hope that he looked almost foolish. ‘Can you do that?’

‘It’s been done,’ said January.

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