Live and Let Drood

said carefully.
    “I have. Mostly. You have to remember: It’s not just armour. Moxton’s Mistake is a living thing. I think it just likes to remind me it’s still there occasionally.”
    “Can we get moving?” said Molly. “I’m starting to feel just a bit conspicuous, standing alone in the middle of the street. Your torc can’t hide us from everyone.”
    “Of course,” I said. “Moving right along.”
    “You do know where we’re going?”
    “Do you want to read the map?”
    We moved on down the well-lit but now completely deserted street. Evening was fast fading into night. It had been a long hard day, and it wasn’t nearly over yet. I did my best to make sense of the hand-drawn map the Regent had scrawled for me, and carefully checked the numbers on the doors we passed. Not far now. Not long at all until I could finally get my hands on Crow Lee and force some straight answers out of him.
    “What did you make of the Regent?” Molly said suddenly. “Your long-lost and suddenly found grandfather.”
    “Seemed straightforward enough,” I said. “Given the game he’s playing. Decent enough stick…Played his cards a bit close to his chest, but then, you’ve got to expect that from someone who’s still technically a rogue Drood. What did you make of Patrick?”
    “Something not quite right there,” Molly said immediately, frowning. “He didn’t come across to me as any kind of Armourer.…Not that I’ve known many.”
    “He knew his stuff,” I said. “And the Regent did say that Patrick had been one of his Special Agents. Working out in the field, like us, getting his hands dirty…But even so, you’re right; there was something…off about him. He reminds me of someone, though I’m damned if I can think who.”
    “Someone you’ve met before?” said Molly. “In the field?”
    I shook my head uncertainly. “ Are you happy?… That’s what he asked me. What kind of a question is that to someone you’ve only just met?”
    “You gave a good answer, though,” said Molly, slipping her arm through mine and pressing the side of her body up against mine. “You earned yourself some major boyfriend brownie points there.”
    “Can I cash them in later?” I said. “Let us not forget, the Department of the Uncanny is part of the Establishment, and therefore no one in it can be fully trusted. On principle.”
    “Well, quite,” said Molly. “But let us concentrate on taking down Crow Lee and getting your family back, and worry about everything else afterwards.”
    “Good answer,” I said. “Sufficient unto the day are the scumbags thereof.”
    We ended up strolling along beside a long tenement building, big and grand in the old Regency style, punctuated with a whole lot of barred and shuttered windows and really big doors bearing the gleaming brass nameplates of the very old, very long established private-members clubs they represented. I counted them off, comparing them to the Regent’s map, until finally I stopped before one particular door that didn’t look any different from all the others I’d already passed. In fact, it looked so ordinary I got Molly to check the map to make sure I’d got the numbers right. She snatched the thing out of my hand, glared at me, sniffed loudly, glanced briefly at the map and then snapped her fingers and set it on fire. It blazed up quickly, and Molly shook her fingers, letting the dark ashes fall to the street.
    “We don’t want to leave any evidence behind, do we?” she said. “Nothing that might lead back to Uncanny, and the Regent.”
    “Show-off,” I said.
    A small brass plate set above the door gave the name THE ESTABLISHMENT CLUB in blunt and blocky letters. A club so well established it didn’t need to advertise. Either you knew how to find it or you didn’t belong there, anyway. The door itself was bland and uninteresting, with no letter box or door handle. The giveaway was that it stood half-open, the way in thoroughly blocked by a large and formidable doorman, resplendent in an old-fashioned bright scarlet frock-coat uniform, complete withfancy waistcoat, knee britches and well-polished boots. Plus a gleaming tall hat any stage magician would have been proud of. For all his finery, he was large and solid and openly menacing, and gave the impression he should really have been standing outside some downtown nightclub, snarling, No trainers! and You’re not on the list! He had a square, brutal face and looked like bullets