Tall & Dark by Suzannah Rowntree

Author:Suzannah Rowntree
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bocfodder Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVI.

“I’m in the fourth floor hallway,” Nijam told me, her transmitted voice now quite crisp and clear.

“Oh, thank goodness. Half a moment.” I threw open Mimi’s door. Nijam stepped within, saw the tableau (“The Dying Slave, Or, When Rome Was Grand”) and turned to stone.

“This is my collaborator, Miss P. Nijam,” I announced. Nijam remained in a state of perfect congealment: only her eyes kept flickering from Alphonse, to Mimi, to the ceiling, and back again. She was evidently in shock. Trying to be helpful, I added, “You never told me what the P stands for, Nijam.”

“It’s Padma,” she said in a thin, strangled sort of voice. She blinked and looked at me as though realising that she had been startled into an admission she would never have made of her own free will. “But if you use it I shall never speak to you again.”

“Believe me, of all the threats I have received this evening, that is by far the nicest.”

Too late, it occurred to me that this was not very flattering to Nijam; but she had not even heard me speak. Setting her valise down beside Alphonse, she said very fiercely, “What happened? Who is responsible for this? Was it Jaime?”

Vasily had been watching her laughingly, with eyes that missed nothing. “I believe the responsibility lies with Miss Dark. It was she who folded the paper dart—very badly, I might add!”

On the contrary, the dart had been folded—as it had performed—beautifully. But just then it seemed unwise to enlighten him. “May I remind you who threw it straight at the one man in Vienna who knew your face?”

“You were throwing paper darts?” Nijam was bewildered. “Wait: you told the Baron your name?”

“Not a Baron,” I said.

“Well, of course not. That was always clear—”

“Allow me to present the Grand Duke Vasily Nikolaevich Romanov,” I continued. “Wanted by the Okhrana—whose attention we attracted by throwing paper darts.”

Nijam gave me an incredulous look. “Even you could not be so gullible, Dark! This man isn’t a grand duke: if he was one of that cursed brood, he’d be a vampire!—Will someone please tell me what is going on, in a rational manner, from beginning to end? And for the love of God, will that man please put on a shirt?”

In the end, while Mimi finished bandaging Alphonse using the contents of Nijam’s valise, Vasily and I took it in turns to relate the events of the night.

“So,” I finished brightly, “what do you say to taking the Grand Duke into our confidence?”

“It appears we have no choice,” Nijam said, exchanging a mistrustful glare for Vasily’s faint, mocking smile. “What’s the proposed split?”

“Half and half,” Vasily said at once.

“There are, excuse me, three parties to this agreement. You cannot be proposing we should give you half the inheritance merely for not exposing Miss Dark.”

“Why not? I did more than that, anyway: I secured your admission to the house. Without that, you would scarcely have had the opportunity to display your tail.—How the

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