A Lynchman's Owl Read online

puddle of spillage left by his beer mug before tracing a name or two over the countertop. Those green eyes held his unblinking, waiting on his answer.

  He cast a sidelong glance at the names, and then shook his head.

  Her eyes fell, somewhat crestfallen. “You can’t say? Or you won’t tell.”

  “I am a man of my Word, and you have guessed wrong.”

  Then he turned fully to face her, the lines running from the corners of his eyes tightening into deep canyons. He studied her up and down in that shrewd, alert manner which came so naturally to him. As an inquisitor we can safely say that under his gaze a person—men and women alike, for that matter—might feel as if they were stripped wholly naked, with every beat of the heart, every organ and invisible thought turned inside out. Long practice in his line of business allowed him to learn from someone their most intimate of secrets by nothing more than a lingering look; but today he had not gotten partway through laying this most powerful of his weapons on the charming visage seated next to him before a tall shadow fell abruptly over both of them, and a large hand pressed down against his shoulder.

  Opposite him the subject of his investigations uttered a small cry of shock, but not for his sake.

  “Harry, no!”

  As if afraid an untimely altercation might take place at the counter her hand shot up to the wrist over his shoulder, fasting it tightly. At the same time, she drew down the short wide brim of her beret over her brows.

  But the man she grabbed seemed unbothered in the least. He was a strapping, virile fellow barely into his twenties who interjected his face rudely between them, showing trimmed whiskers bristling at the edges and a pair of hard eyes set above long, hooked nose. The imposing physique of a sportsman backed the unfriendly glower he was sending the way of the young man as a shield before the object of his attentions, all the while keeping the young woman protectively behind a slanted, massive shoulder.

  There was the very real possibility that things would have taken an ugly turn then, for this burly protector went on acting as if he meant to pull the young man from his seat on the high stool. But suddenly there appeared a little something in the right hand of the inquisitor, conjured as if by magic from thin air. It dangled lazily from his fingertips from a short red tassel, a thin rectangular block of iron catching for a moment the light to give off a mean black glint. In that instant they both of them saw clearly an iron imprint of a hand with four and a half fingers, set deeply into wedge of wood nearly about the size of the palm holding it. Across from them the proprietor of the parlor, a thin sullen man with a meek countenance, was the only other person to get a clear look. And looking he hastily averted his eyes, swiftly returning to scrubbing out tankards behind the counter.

  Such was the power of a bauble then, or trinket if you will, bearing the ominous sign of an agent of the governing body in that day and age, which did not command the same reluctant cooperation or relieved gratitude we reserve for the officers of law enforcement in our own time. The police back then were little more than dogs, commonly unleashed by Parliament upon their own citizens. And amongst them there was a body of plain-clothed agents who were by far the most loathed, the most detested, for they made their living ferreting out the secrets of others and twisting them into threats for their own gains. They were well-known by the golden brocade they wore sometimes over their shoulders, or the dull black iron hand they carried in their pockets—the one and the same as we have seen revealed just now—which marked its owner out as one of the invisible Handymen whispered of in hushed, fearful tones by the general populace.

  Against this revelation it will come as no surprise that the sportsman visibly deflated, and might have beaten a quick retreat if he were not compelled to stay put out of fear of that very thing which was just shown to him. Behind him his ward paled as well. But even half obscured as she was by his bulk there was no missing the glow of vindication passing swiftly over her cheeks as a flush.

  “So,” she said, a quiver coming into her voice.

  The young man put a finger to his lips, and gave her a playful wink as he replaced the badge in his pocket.

  “Look,” she began at once, “I don’t know anything about anything.” It was a voice which was almost pleading. “I only asked because I was curious. It is a strange subject to broach in these parts, for nobody has needed an answer to that question for twenty years.”

  She was trying to throw off any suspicions he might have held towards her for approaching him the way she did. He, however, was nobody’s fool.

  “If you did not mean something by it,” he replied, “then why would you ask? It is the ‘they’ which gave you away, my lady, and that name which you were so kind as to write for me on this very counter, which I shall not utter for both our sakes.”

  The young woman pressed her lips closed, and at last fear came into her eyes, buoyed by a deep sense of dread. Her companion looked furtively at that moment over the heads of the other occupants towards the parlor door.

  “Oh you won’t make it that far, if at all,” he told them both in an offhanded, careless manner, “Not while I still have a question or two for you.”

  “But what can I tell you, sir?” she asked him somewhat defiantly. “I am a patriot.” It was, in those days, the proper response to give when questioned by the authorities.

  “Then prove it.”

  The faintest hint of menace, of evidence she was being compelled to give up in her own defense put a knot of fear into her stomach. He saw that plainly as she worked her lips over in silence, mulling on the matter. “Not here,” she whispered at last conspiratorially. “I am a true patriot, sir. You will see. Come around again at midnight, and meet me beneath the swinging sign outside the alehouse. I’ll tell you then what I know.”

  “About the Lynchman’s Owl?”

  She nodded.

  “How do I know your words will be any good?”

  “I was raised in these parts, and born into the legend you are asking about from infancy. My own family is six-generations ongoing in this city, and few have a better claim to its inner-workings. Its culture, ethics and lore is in my blood, so it may please you to hear that I can tell the story of your Owl better than most.”

  Then she looked into his eyes hopefully, and he held her fearful gaze without uttering a word for what must have felt an eternity before giving the slightest of nods in her direction, all aloofness and dismissal. She did a brave thing then which he did not expect. She extended her hand towards him.

  “Madine.”

  He looked. Beneath a thick, pointed brow, arched in equal measures surprise and curiosity, dark eyes searched her up and down in what must have been a discomforting moment. But before she could withdraw her hand he had taken hold of it firmly.

  “Bailey,” he said.

  They nodded at one another, and shook on the matter before locking thumbs. It was how people sealed a deal in those days, and such a pact was generally considered unbreakable. The young woman—Madine as I will call her from now on—visibly relaxed, put at ease by the intimate familiarity of the gesture. She tipped her hat to the detective and without a backwards glance melted into the animated parlor crowd, making her way towards the exit with her companion in tow.

  It might be observed that Madine must have had a clever eye and an alert ear to pick out the unusual discrepancy in the topic of conversation before, as well as steely resolve to match to act on it. Whereas others probably would have balked at the very notion, she had acquitted herself well in the presence of so mighty a figure. But we must not begrudge her for her negligence fleeing the scene now, for she was very visibly shaken. It could be excused that her efforts had taken a heavy toll, and probably the entire font of her strength had been nearly used up. Pushing through the press of bodies waiting for their fill in stories and drinks she dared not risk a look from the alehouse door to the counter stools. If she had, she would have found, much to her fear, that the detec
tive’s seat was by now occupied by a body and face which was wholly unfamiliar. Bailey then, had disappeared in that time.

  Stepping outside into the murky, damp fog Madine drew up the collars of her coat. At the end of the street a sentry wreathed in mist lazily shuffled from leg to leg, the long bore of the rifle braced against his shoulder giving off a dull iron gleam in the pale moonlight. For his formidable appearance this common patrolman, the lowest rung of the neighborhood watchdogs, did not bother to look when she hurried past him with her companion, turning a corner at the end of the street and soon disappearing between the tall walls of the narrow buildings. It would stand to reason then that he also missed her unwanted shadow, slipping into the alley behind her only a step or two behind.

  We will observe the young woman was in something of a hurry. She had drawn her shoulders inwards from the bitter chill which was funneled through the narrow spaces between walls to become a forceful wind. Her collars as well were flipped upwards, hiding most of her face from view, and her small hands tucked away inside her sleeves. She hurried on with every footstep ringing lightly over the glistening cobble, passing beneath small windows here and there opened with a faint light showing in them as often as not from behind thick, drawn drapes. She paused in