Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences (27 page)

Anne-Marie shrugged, her indifference causing him to sit up a hint straighter. Exactly as she wanted.

“Agent Tipping, just because it took the Ministry twenty years to activate me doesn’t mean I’m unprofessional. Considering the French government doesn’t know I’m on her Majesty’s bankroll and keep a cache of illegal weapons, ‘jawin’ with whores’, as you say, is better than charging around like a bull in a China shop or stooping to burglary. The murders must’ve occurred before dawn. Do you think Ned Gilly was dragged from his bed, or do you think he was caught on his way home from the cabaret?”

Joe rubbed the stubble on his jaw and gave her a measuring sideways glance. “Possible.” He paused, then added, “You’re not what I expected. Pretty thing like a plump hen, all ruffled and lacy but sharp as a schoolmarm and walks like a...”

“I’m wearing four knives and still have my gun.”

“Bloody good that’ll do us if your aim hasn’t improved. I read your evaluations.” He shook his head and then looked her over from head to toe. “You just don’t seem like a Ministry girl, is all.”

She flicked her fingers at him. “That’s the whole point of keeping me here on inactive duty; no one should suspect I’m anything but a middle-aged Parisian baker. My mother was a Ministry agent, and my father was a French spy. I’d have been in the field already, if not for being mostly blind and having a useful pair of ears. I know I appear out of shape, but I’ve kept busy with several important fact-gathering missions to earn my keep. It will take more than murder and courtesans to give me the vapours.”

“You think they’ll let us walk into the Folies Bergere at breakfast, just like that?”

“Not you. Just me. You may go rustle around flats, if you wish.”

A single eyebrow arched. “And let you handle your first interrogation alone?”

She smirked and adjusted her glasses. “These ladies are my customers,
monsieur
. I know the way to their hearts.”

Anne-Marie balanced a tower of lavender boxes in one hand, knocking on the unmarked door with the other. When it opened a crack, she bustled right in.

“Petit dejeuner.”
Anne-Marie opened the top box, continuing in her best street French, “Compliments of an anonymous gentleman.”

A few sleepy-faced girls hunched over thin porridge at a long table, only to look up licking their lips as soon as the scent of hot bread and powdered sugar wafted from the open boxes.

“You bake these?” one of the girls asked, mouth already stuffed with
pain au chocolat
.

“
Bien sûr
,” another girl said. “Runs a
boulangerie
on Lepic,
oûi
? I saw her giving milk to a cat with kittens, once.”

Anne-Marie smiled and urged them to eat, making polite conversation as more and more girls appeared and fell to the pastries. After her brief time with Joe, she was more than happy to slip back into French. She knew a few names, had been sure to bring their favourite treats. Finally, when they’d mostly forgotten she wasn’t one of them, she settled down between two girls and nudged the redhead on her left.

“Did you hear about Ned Gilly?” she asked, pulling a box of éclairs closer.

The girl shrugged and helped herself to a sweet. “What about him?”

“He was found dead yesterday morning. At Notre Dame.”

The girl crossed herself with bitten fingertips. “Good riddance to bad rubbish. Great, nasty brute. Gave me this last week.” She pulled down the shoulder of her shift to show a yellowing bruise on her clavicle.

“Did you know Badger Leeds and Dickie Edgington, too?”

A younger girl nodded. “Dickie was my first. Didn’t pay.”

“He wasn’t as bad as Badger was, with the cigar burns.”

“Sound like a nasty bunch,” Anne-Marie said. “And all Englishmen, too.”

The girls nodded, their mouths full and their fingers sugar-rimed.

The youngest girl piped up with “Mistress hates the English. One of those three monsters killed her daughter, but we don’t know which one. We’re all glad they’re gone.”

One of the other girls hissed at her, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Is your mistress here? I’ve been wanting to talk to her about some half-priced baked goods.”

The girls stopped chewing and stared at Anne-Marie. The redhead beside her snorted and tossed her oozing éclair on the table. “Tastes funny.” She glared daggers at Anne-Marie. “But thank the anonymous gentleman for his kindness, just the same.”

Anne-Marie shrugged and rose, leaving the ravaged boxes behind. The redhead followed her to the door, slamming it on her lavender bustle. Unless Joe found something better, her money was on the Folies Bergere and the cabaret’s mysterious mistress.

Anne-Marie did her best thinking while baking. By the time Joe squeezed through the front door, her face shone with sweat and her arms ached from furious kneading. She led him into the office where she did the bookkeeping.

“What’d you find?”

“Don’t bark at me,
monsieur
. What did
you
find?”

He sighed and emptied his pockets onto her spotless desk. “Receipts, bills, bits of his bloody poetry. No reason for the poor lad to be murdered.”

“The girls hadn’t heard about Gilly’s death. Described him as a nasty piece of work. They didn’t care for Dickie or Badger, either. Said their mistress hates the English and one of the three dead was responsible for murdering her daughter.” Joe grunted and pawed through the crumpled papers, holding up a wine-stained bill.

“He owed the Folies Bergere a decent sum. Payable to Madam Allemande last week. Guess it might be worth keeping the debt to get your revenge.”

She tapped the piece of paper. “We know they were all customers. We know they were all suspects, according to Allemande. Should we visit Dickie and Badger’s flats next?”

Joe removed his bowler to run a hand through wild brown hair. “Forget them. Worry about Gilly. We find how he was murdered, we know what happened to the others.”

“Is that the usual Ministry procedure?”

He bristled. “You correcting me? On the job less than a day, and you’re telling me what’s what?”

She calmly raised an eyebrow.

“Bien sûr
, I’m telling you. This is my city, my home. Until you’re the head of the Ministry, I do not work
for
you. I work
with
you.” They locked eyes, and she refused to look away. He blinked first. “But in this case, I think perhaps I do agree. Did you bring a dinner jacket?”

He grunted. “I can get one.”

“Bon.
Tonight, we’re going to the Folies Bergere, and you’re going to chat with the other Brits, see what they know.”

“Let’s say I agree to it, just out of curiosity. What are
you
going to do tonight?”

She grinned.

“I’m going to pick every lock in the cabaret until I find Madam Allemande.”

He thought a moment and nodded. “Roight.”

“You’re giving in, just like that?”

“File says you’re good with locks, love. Besides, what man wouldn’t want to spend a night at the cabaret?”

Anne-Marie looked him up and down, contemplating how one found a behemoth-sized dinner jacket in just a few hours and whether it was possible anyone would believe him a gentleman. “Are you sure you can pull this off? You never told me of your past training or specialties.”

His grin was as crooked as his nose. “Don’t worry, pet. Undercover
is
my specialty.”

That evening, as she went to turn the sign in the window from
Ouvert
to
Fermee
, Anne-Marie couldn’t help noticing the figure posing across the street. The suit fit him perfectly, and with his hair slicked back under a gentleman’s topper, he looked less like a bare-knuckles brawler and more like an aristocrat—or two aristocrats stuck together in a black sack. Seeing her gaping, he tipped his hat and grinned. She hurried upstairs to change into her own guise for the night.

He was sitting at the bakery table when she emerged, her cheeks hot with a blush.

“Don’t laugh.”

He looked up, face blank. “Why would I?”

She smoothed her hands down the black leather corset and over her fitted trousers. They were far too tight, blast it all. Thanks to the bakery’s bounty, her stealth uniform barely fit. But she couldn’t sneak undetected into the cabaret in her usual frilly dresses, so she would just have to hope her pants didn’t split up the back. Still, it felt good to put on men’s boots and pack her waist belt with gear she hadn’t had call to use in years, guns and knives and poisons and gadgets. She was ready.

But was he?

“What’s your play?” she asked, and he stood and bowed.

“Reginald Cumberbatch,” he spoke in a manner that gave her a start. “A humble shopkeeper on holiday from London.”

The stuffy accent was flawless.

“
Touché
. Undercover really is your specialty.”

He grinned. “You underestimate me.”

She tried to bow in mock apology, but the seams on her pants creaked dangerously.

“Of course I underestimate you,
monsieur
; that means you’re a good agent. We’ll meet back here at midnight. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” Joe went to open the door, but she stopped him with a tentative hand on his jacket sleeve.

“Wait.” Her fingers hovered over the Ministry-issued ring, a slightly different fashion than the one she had been assigned twenty years ago. “How do these new rings work? If I’m in trouble, will it alert you?”

He nodded. “If you push it, I’ll know.”

“But how will I know if
you’re
in trouble?”

He pulled back his jacket to show a pair of derringers, their chased brass accented with wood so polished that they’d clearly seen their share of Ministry action.

“I never am,” he said in his usual, gruff manner.