A Matter of Life and Death, chapter 3
Jan. 18th, 2011 04:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
minutia_rA Matter of Life and Death, chapter 3
Chapter 1
Chapter 4
Fandom: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2800
Summary: The summer following The Lives of Christopher Chant, Christopher
meets an old friend while investigating a mysterious death.
Note: After rereading The Lives of Christopher Chant, I was somehow left with the impression that Christopher's father took him out of school immediately after he got killed. It has since been pointed out to me that Christopher actually went back to school for a few days. Until and unless I think of some way to harmonize this story with canon, I'm going to fall back on Nan Pilgrim's "stripes of the rainbow" theory of slightly-alternate universes.
Thanks to:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dracutgrl and murmbeetle
Tacroy and Rosalie were already there, and bickering, when Christopher got to the pentagram next morning.
"If she can't influence people who are drunk, that would explain why the clerk wasn't deceived when the others were," said Tacroy. "It would also explain her enthusiasm for temperance."
"So would having a husband who drinks all his pay when he's got small children at home," said Rosalie.
"All the more likely she killed him, then," said Tacroy.
"Not if he'd been dry for more than a year," said Rosalie.
"So maybe he fell off the wagon," said Tacroy.
"I'm not arguing that she had no motive to kill him," said Rosalie. "There's that thousand-pound insurance policy, after all. But if there's no evidence she did—"
"Weren't you two taking opposite sides of this argument yesterday?" said Christopher.
"Well, Rosalie's very convincing," said Tacroy.
Rosalie tilted her chin up towards Tacroy, and dimpled. "And Mordecai loves to be contrary," she said. "But as I was saying, it would be silly to come to any conclusions before talking to Dr. Choudary. So let's go."
Instead of arriving at the pentagram at Gabriel's London office, Christopher, Tacroy, and Rosalie came out in a room filled with desks and bustle and uniformed policemen. Christopher had the feeling that things would quickly become unpleasant for anyone who arrived that way and wasn't welcome, but the three of them only got glances, nods, and one or two smiles before everyone went back to their business. Tacroy led the way through a tangle of corridors. He knocked on a stout wooden door, it opened, and there was a smell. Christopher was suddenly reminded of his second death again. The death itself had been almost instantaneous, but the waking up afterwards . . . Christopher didn't like morgues.
The man who opened the door was browner than Tacroy and shorter than Rosalie. He wore a voluminous white coat and a small pair of spectacles on the bridge of his impressive nose. "Ah. How nice to see you again, Miss Rosalie," he said. "Roberts," he added. "And?"
"This is Christopher Chant, Gabriel's ward," said Rosalie. "We're looking into the death of a man called Richard Bede."
"Bede," said the man, who was obviously the same Dr. F. Choudary that had signed the coroner's reports. "Bede. Cardiac arrest."
"Are you certain?" said Tacroy, as they followed Dr. Choudary back into the morgue.
Dr. Choudary's spectacles glinted. "I don't make guesses, Roberts," he said.
"Cardiac arrest, then," said Rosalie. "But what caused it? Richard Bede wasn't an old man, or a sick one. Might it have been magic?"
Dr. Choudary slapped a file down onto a table, making knives and saws and mirrors rattle. "I'm not a witch," he said. "But the subtlest death spell leaves traces on the body that one doesn't need witch-sight to see. Here," he pointed to something in the file. Christopher, upside-down to the file, couldn't read any of the words—nor did he think he'd be able to read Dr. Choudary's handwriting right-side-up. "The lines on the palm, the blotches on the liver—nothing."
"Poison?" suggested Rosalie.
"Nothing in his stomach but whiskey," said Dr. Choudary.
"He did fall off the wagon, then," said Tacroy, with some satisfaction.
"Off?" said Dr. Choudary. "I would be astonished if the man had been sober for a day in his life."
"Is it possible," said Christopher, "that the man you examined wasn't Richard Bede?"
Dr. Choudary looked at Christopher as if the table had spoken, but since it had said something sensible he might as well listen. "That is an interesting question," he said. "What makes you ask it?"
"Richard Bede's daughter said it didn't matter that he died, since it wasn't her real father," said Christopher. "Maybe he and his wife pulled a switch with the body, and Richard Bede is still alive somewhere."
"That might have worked with a supposed corpse who had not been arrested so often for public drunkenness," said Dr. Choudary. "Unfortunately for your theory, the police assembled quite a file on Richard Bede over the years. Description, birthmarks, measurements." He thumbed through the file on the table again. "It was his body."
Tacroy stretched his arms over his head. "Well, how and who are getting us nowhere," he said. "How about when?"
Rosalie looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"
"There's more than one way to defraud an insurance company," said Tacroy. "Suppose Richard Bede died of a perfectly natural heart attack. And then walked into Pugh's and took out a life insurance policy the next day. Necromancy, right, Christopher?"
"Even you would be able to distinguish a year-old corpse from a week-old one," said Dr. Choudary. "Bodies decay."
"If they're let alone, they do," agreed Tacroy. "But what if they're kept going by magic?"
Dr. Choudary stood for some time without speaking. "Bede's body was used very hard," he said finally. "Not with work, but with drink, and anger, and hidden sickness. If I were to tell you that all of that use was done by Bede himself, while he was alive . . ." he shrugged. "I would be guessing. I prefer to leave that sort of thing to witches and detectives."
"Thank you," said Rosalie pleasantly. "One last thing, Dr. Choudary—have you ever met Vesta Bede?"
"No," said Dr. Choudary. "I don't like grieving widows in my laboratory."
Christopher inhaled deeply as they left the morgue. So did Tacroy and Rosalie.
"That might have been more informative," said Tacroy.
"Obviously we've been speaking with the wrong doctor," said Rosalie. "Richard Bede must have been examined before Pugh's issued him a policy. You'd think whoever did the examination would have noticed his patient being dead."
They took a cab to Pugh's to consult the files. After seeing Sachs at work, Christopher could see why Oneir was unwilling to believe he had made a mistake. That he knew the exact location of Richard Bede's file was perhaps not surprising, but in the following quarter-hour various people came into the office and asked him for a dozen different pieces of paper, and nobody had time to finish their request before Sachs handed them what they wanted.
One of the people to ask Sachs for a file was Oneir. When he wasn't being spooked by Christopher, Oneir at the office was quick, and businesslike, and comfortable. Christopher thought that he must have been deceiving himself about not being cut out for insurance as much as Christopher had been deceiving himself about not being cut out to be the next Chrestomanci.
"How's the case, Chant?" he said, almost friendly, on one of his trips between offices. Christopher thought that he and Oneir could be friends again, if only they had time. But soon enough Rosalie was finished reading medical records, and had the name and address of the doctor who'd approved Richard Bede for a life insurance policy, and they were off again.
Unfortunately, Dr. Gerald Atwell had met Vesta Bede. She was charming, a veritable flower of English womanhood. He remembered Richard Bede's visit perfectly as well. He'd been in fine health, exactly as Dr. Atwell had written in the records. In fact, whenever Tacroy or Rosalie asked him a question, he answered with the same words he'd used in the records, though he didn't have the records in front of him, and the answers didn't always quite fit. When this was pointed out, he got annoyed. He insisted that he remembered Richard Bede's visit perfectly, and there had been nothing unusual about it.
"Completely bewitched," said Tacroy disgustedly as they left the clinic.
"He'd have to be, wouldn't he?" said Rosalie. "But it does leave us rather without anything to hold on to."
"Dr., er, the coroner, said that Richard Bede's stomach was full of whiskey when he died," said Christopher. "Maybe whoever sold it to him saw something. At any rate, Mrs. Bede isn't likely to have got to him."
"That," said Rosalie, "is an idea."
It was an idea that entailed a lot of walking around the neighborhoods where Richard Bede had lived and worked, and ducking into pubs. Gabriel would probably not have sent Christopher on this particular mission if he'd known that in advance. On the other hand, perhaps he would have. Christopher was certainly learning that pubs were dull places full of unhelpful people.
It was the fifteenth or so pub, a place called the Guttering Candle two blocks from the Bedes' flat, where the landlord acknowledged that he knew Richard Bede.
"We're looking into his death," said Tacroy.
The landlord's head came up, and he set the glass he was polishing down on the bar with a surprised thump. "Richard Bede isn't dead," he said.
"According to the coroner, he is," said Rosalie. "Two weeks ago, of a heart attack."
The landlord let out a little puff of breath, almost a laugh. "Two weeks," he said. Then he shook his head solemnly. "Poor man. His life was cut short by trouble, no mistake."
"So," said Tacroy, "when didn't Richard Bede die?"
The landlord looked at Tacroy for a minute, clearly deciding whether to say anything. Then he shrugged. "It was last May," he said. "I remember, because those balloonists had caused such a ruckus, and Bede and Merriman were arguing about that. They were always arguing about something, mind, but that evening it happened to be the balloonists. Merriman was pounding on the table, and Bede was shouting and he heaved himself to his feet. Then he was sick and fell over."
The landlord snorted. "Well, that wasn't any unusual either," he said. "But when I went to help him up, he was dead. Heart stopped, not breathing, dead."
"Are you certain?" said Rosalie.
"I was in the wars, in Greece," said the landlord. "I know dead."
"And then?" said Tacroy.
"And then Vesta Bede came through the door," said the landlord. "Waddled, more like, eight months pregnant if she was a day, begging your pardon, ma'am. Someone must have gone to fetch her. She crouches down beside Bede and starts to talk to him in that voice she's got, like she's forgiving you for nailing her to a cross. I was wondering how to tell her that he was past hearing, when he stands up on his own two feet."
The landlord shook his head. "I've never known Vesta Bede to be able to fetch her husband out of a pub without a screaming row, if he was still sober enough to walk. But that evening he followed her without a word, meek as a baby. Later I hear he's taken the pledge, and I think, he'll never stick to it, Bede. But I never saw him again."
"If you knew he was dead," said Rosalie, "why didn't you say anything to anybody?"
"Strange things happen, don't they?" said the landlord. "There was that in the papers a couple of months back, about a boy who got up and walked out of a morgue after having his head smashed in."
"What nonsense," said Christopher. "The papers will print anything."
"That's as may be," the landlord said tolerantly.
Tacroy grinned. "Today's youth," he said. "Think they know everything, don't they? Thank you, you've been very helpful. Come along, Christopher."
"I believe that is enough to lay charges," said Rosalie. They took a cab to Bow Street, and then a police van, with two uniformed officers, back to the Bedes' flat.
Vesta Bede answered their knock. "What can I do for you, Miss Lovelace?" she said. Her eyes narrowed as they took in the crowd outside her door. "Mr. Roberts . . . gentlemen," she added.
"We've talked to Dr. Gerald Atwell, and Hugo Donovan down at the Guttering Candle," said Rosalie. "Do you have a neighbor, or a friend, that I can take your daughters to, Mrs. Bede? There's no need for them to hear this."
"If you think they ought not to hear it, maybe you ought not to say it," said Vesta Bede, folding her arms. Behind her, Christopher could see Temperance's sharp features come alert, and hear Patience's stream of babble to her doll dry up. Even the baby took its foot out of its mouth and looked around itself in perplexity.
Rosalie pressed her lips together unhappily, and nodded. "Vesta Bede," she said, "you are under arrest on suspicion of the following counts of misuse of magic—"
"What does that mean?" said Patience, high and frightened.
Temperance wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "It means they're going to take Mum away," she said. Her eyes, which were the color of weak tea, glared directly into Christopher's. "Doesn't it."
It isn't my fault! Christopher wanted to protest. But he had been Chrestomanci, and would be again. Consider it part of your training . . . Someday, everything like this would be his fault. He had better have an answer for her.
"Yes, it does," said Tacroy. "I'm sorry."
"Using witchcraft to commit fraud," Rosalie went on implacably, "and disturbing the peace of the dead."
"Disturbing his peace!" said Vesta Bede scornfully. "Isn't it a man's duty to provide for his family? What right did he have to die, and leave us with nothing? Weak, Richard was always weak. It's a terrible thing when a woman has to be strong, because her man is weak."
The persuasive magic was coming off her like a stinging wind. Christopher didn't need his witch-sight to feel it. One of the policemen took a step backwards.
"Come along, Mrs. Bede," said Rosalie.
She dropped to her knees beside her daughters instead. "Temperance!" she cried, throwing her arms around the oldest girl. Then she sat back, adjusted Temperance's hair ribbon, and tucked a flyaway strand behind her ear. "Take the girls to Mrs. Gardiner, dear. She'll take you in. Remember, it's your job to take care of Patience and Fortitude now." She hugged Patience, who clung back, eyes wide and confused. "Be a good girl, Patience. Here's a kiss for you, and a kiss for Baby Rachel," she added, pressing her lips against the ragged fabric of Patience's doll. She scooped up the baby, and laid her cheek briefly against its fuzzy head. "Mummy loves you very much, Fortitude," she said, and handed the baby to Temperance. Then she stood. "All right," she said. "I'll go quietly."
Rosalie helped the policemen put the magical bindings on Mrs. Bede as they loaded her into the van. Flavian had somehow neglected to teach Christopher how to do those yet, and they still made Tacroy twitchy, so they waited on the pavement. Rosalie soon joined them, and the three of them watched the van drive off in glum silence.
"I suppose it's back to lessons for me tomorrow," said Christopher, with decidedly mixed feelings. Investigations were much more interesting than lessons. But lessons never ended with taking anyone's mother away.
Tacroy and Rosalie shared a look. "Or you could come back to London for one more day, if you'd rather," said Tacroy. "Rosalie and I have a few last things to take care of."
Writing up reports, no doubt. One of the least pleasant things Christopher had learned from the affair with the Wraith and the Dright was that everything you did for Chrestomanci's department, you had to write a report about. Christopher wasn't sure why they couldn't write their reports at the castle, but he liked going to London with Tacroy and Rosalie. And maybe they would have some reason to stop off at Pugh's. "Miss Rosalie," he said, reminded, "can I invite Oneir to visit at the castle?"
"I don't see why not," said Rosalie. "I'll have to ask Gabriel, of course—"
"No, you won't," said Christopher wheedlingly. "You just write it down in your little book, and when Gabriel says, 'What's on the schedule today, Rosalie?' you tell him, 'There's a meeting with the Warlock's Guild at 9:00, and then you really ought to look at those reports from the Committee on Magical Education, Christopher's friend Oneir is arriving at 1:00, tea with the Minister at 4:00 . . . .' He'll never notice. Easy."
"But I'm sure he'll say yes," Rosalie finished. "Honestly, Christopher, why do you act as if the only way you can have the things you want is by getting around Gabriel somehow? It isn't true."
"I don't-!" said Christopher, looking appealingly at Tacroy.
"She's right, Christopher," said Tacroy. "You have to watch out for your habits. They'll trip you up."
Christopher thought of Vesta Bede and her gusts of persuasive magic, and didn't answer.
Chapter 1
Chapter 4
Fandom: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 2800
Summary: The summer following The Lives of Christopher Chant, Christopher
meets an old friend while investigating a mysterious death.
Note: After rereading The Lives of Christopher Chant, I was somehow left with the impression that Christopher's father took him out of school immediately after he got killed. It has since been pointed out to me that Christopher actually went back to school for a few days. Until and unless I think of some way to harmonize this story with canon, I'm going to fall back on Nan Pilgrim's "stripes of the rainbow" theory of slightly-alternate universes.
Thanks to:
dracutgrl and murmbeetleTacroy and Rosalie were already there, and bickering, when Christopher got to the pentagram next morning.
"If she can't influence people who are drunk, that would explain why the clerk wasn't deceived when the others were," said Tacroy. "It would also explain her enthusiasm for temperance."
"So would having a husband who drinks all his pay when he's got small children at home," said Rosalie.
"All the more likely she killed him, then," said Tacroy.
"Not if he'd been dry for more than a year," said Rosalie.
"So maybe he fell off the wagon," said Tacroy.
"I'm not arguing that she had no motive to kill him," said Rosalie. "There's that thousand-pound insurance policy, after all. But if there's no evidence she did—"
"Weren't you two taking opposite sides of this argument yesterday?" said Christopher.
"Well, Rosalie's very convincing," said Tacroy.
Rosalie tilted her chin up towards Tacroy, and dimpled. "And Mordecai loves to be contrary," she said. "But as I was saying, it would be silly to come to any conclusions before talking to Dr. Choudary. So let's go."
Instead of arriving at the pentagram at Gabriel's London office, Christopher, Tacroy, and Rosalie came out in a room filled with desks and bustle and uniformed policemen. Christopher had the feeling that things would quickly become unpleasant for anyone who arrived that way and wasn't welcome, but the three of them only got glances, nods, and one or two smiles before everyone went back to their business. Tacroy led the way through a tangle of corridors. He knocked on a stout wooden door, it opened, and there was a smell. Christopher was suddenly reminded of his second death again. The death itself had been almost instantaneous, but the waking up afterwards . . . Christopher didn't like morgues.
The man who opened the door was browner than Tacroy and shorter than Rosalie. He wore a voluminous white coat and a small pair of spectacles on the bridge of his impressive nose. "Ah. How nice to see you again, Miss Rosalie," he said. "Roberts," he added. "And?"
"This is Christopher Chant, Gabriel's ward," said Rosalie. "We're looking into the death of a man called Richard Bede."
"Bede," said the man, who was obviously the same Dr. F. Choudary that had signed the coroner's reports. "Bede. Cardiac arrest."
"Are you certain?" said Tacroy, as they followed Dr. Choudary back into the morgue.
Dr. Choudary's spectacles glinted. "I don't make guesses, Roberts," he said.
"Cardiac arrest, then," said Rosalie. "But what caused it? Richard Bede wasn't an old man, or a sick one. Might it have been magic?"
Dr. Choudary slapped a file down onto a table, making knives and saws and mirrors rattle. "I'm not a witch," he said. "But the subtlest death spell leaves traces on the body that one doesn't need witch-sight to see. Here," he pointed to something in the file. Christopher, upside-down to the file, couldn't read any of the words—nor did he think he'd be able to read Dr. Choudary's handwriting right-side-up. "The lines on the palm, the blotches on the liver—nothing."
"Poison?" suggested Rosalie.
"Nothing in his stomach but whiskey," said Dr. Choudary.
"He did fall off the wagon, then," said Tacroy, with some satisfaction.
"Off?" said Dr. Choudary. "I would be astonished if the man had been sober for a day in his life."
"Is it possible," said Christopher, "that the man you examined wasn't Richard Bede?"
Dr. Choudary looked at Christopher as if the table had spoken, but since it had said something sensible he might as well listen. "That is an interesting question," he said. "What makes you ask it?"
"Richard Bede's daughter said it didn't matter that he died, since it wasn't her real father," said Christopher. "Maybe he and his wife pulled a switch with the body, and Richard Bede is still alive somewhere."
"That might have worked with a supposed corpse who had not been arrested so often for public drunkenness," said Dr. Choudary. "Unfortunately for your theory, the police assembled quite a file on Richard Bede over the years. Description, birthmarks, measurements." He thumbed through the file on the table again. "It was his body."
Tacroy stretched his arms over his head. "Well, how and who are getting us nowhere," he said. "How about when?"
Rosalie looked at him sharply. "What do you mean?"
"There's more than one way to defraud an insurance company," said Tacroy. "Suppose Richard Bede died of a perfectly natural heart attack. And then walked into Pugh's and took out a life insurance policy the next day. Necromancy, right, Christopher?"
"Even you would be able to distinguish a year-old corpse from a week-old one," said Dr. Choudary. "Bodies decay."
"If they're let alone, they do," agreed Tacroy. "But what if they're kept going by magic?"
Dr. Choudary stood for some time without speaking. "Bede's body was used very hard," he said finally. "Not with work, but with drink, and anger, and hidden sickness. If I were to tell you that all of that use was done by Bede himself, while he was alive . . ." he shrugged. "I would be guessing. I prefer to leave that sort of thing to witches and detectives."
"Thank you," said Rosalie pleasantly. "One last thing, Dr. Choudary—have you ever met Vesta Bede?"
"No," said Dr. Choudary. "I don't like grieving widows in my laboratory."
Christopher inhaled deeply as they left the morgue. So did Tacroy and Rosalie.
"That might have been more informative," said Tacroy.
"Obviously we've been speaking with the wrong doctor," said Rosalie. "Richard Bede must have been examined before Pugh's issued him a policy. You'd think whoever did the examination would have noticed his patient being dead."
They took a cab to Pugh's to consult the files. After seeing Sachs at work, Christopher could see why Oneir was unwilling to believe he had made a mistake. That he knew the exact location of Richard Bede's file was perhaps not surprising, but in the following quarter-hour various people came into the office and asked him for a dozen different pieces of paper, and nobody had time to finish their request before Sachs handed them what they wanted.
One of the people to ask Sachs for a file was Oneir. When he wasn't being spooked by Christopher, Oneir at the office was quick, and businesslike, and comfortable. Christopher thought that he must have been deceiving himself about not being cut out for insurance as much as Christopher had been deceiving himself about not being cut out to be the next Chrestomanci.
"How's the case, Chant?" he said, almost friendly, on one of his trips between offices. Christopher thought that he and Oneir could be friends again, if only they had time. But soon enough Rosalie was finished reading medical records, and had the name and address of the doctor who'd approved Richard Bede for a life insurance policy, and they were off again.
Unfortunately, Dr. Gerald Atwell had met Vesta Bede. She was charming, a veritable flower of English womanhood. He remembered Richard Bede's visit perfectly as well. He'd been in fine health, exactly as Dr. Atwell had written in the records. In fact, whenever Tacroy or Rosalie asked him a question, he answered with the same words he'd used in the records, though he didn't have the records in front of him, and the answers didn't always quite fit. When this was pointed out, he got annoyed. He insisted that he remembered Richard Bede's visit perfectly, and there had been nothing unusual about it.
"Completely bewitched," said Tacroy disgustedly as they left the clinic.
"He'd have to be, wouldn't he?" said Rosalie. "But it does leave us rather without anything to hold on to."
"Dr., er, the coroner, said that Richard Bede's stomach was full of whiskey when he died," said Christopher. "Maybe whoever sold it to him saw something. At any rate, Mrs. Bede isn't likely to have got to him."
"That," said Rosalie, "is an idea."
It was an idea that entailed a lot of walking around the neighborhoods where Richard Bede had lived and worked, and ducking into pubs. Gabriel would probably not have sent Christopher on this particular mission if he'd known that in advance. On the other hand, perhaps he would have. Christopher was certainly learning that pubs were dull places full of unhelpful people.
It was the fifteenth or so pub, a place called the Guttering Candle two blocks from the Bedes' flat, where the landlord acknowledged that he knew Richard Bede.
"We're looking into his death," said Tacroy.
The landlord's head came up, and he set the glass he was polishing down on the bar with a surprised thump. "Richard Bede isn't dead," he said.
"According to the coroner, he is," said Rosalie. "Two weeks ago, of a heart attack."
The landlord let out a little puff of breath, almost a laugh. "Two weeks," he said. Then he shook his head solemnly. "Poor man. His life was cut short by trouble, no mistake."
"So," said Tacroy, "when didn't Richard Bede die?"
The landlord looked at Tacroy for a minute, clearly deciding whether to say anything. Then he shrugged. "It was last May," he said. "I remember, because those balloonists had caused such a ruckus, and Bede and Merriman were arguing about that. They were always arguing about something, mind, but that evening it happened to be the balloonists. Merriman was pounding on the table, and Bede was shouting and he heaved himself to his feet. Then he was sick and fell over."
The landlord snorted. "Well, that wasn't any unusual either," he said. "But when I went to help him up, he was dead. Heart stopped, not breathing, dead."
"Are you certain?" said Rosalie.
"I was in the wars, in Greece," said the landlord. "I know dead."
"And then?" said Tacroy.
"And then Vesta Bede came through the door," said the landlord. "Waddled, more like, eight months pregnant if she was a day, begging your pardon, ma'am. Someone must have gone to fetch her. She crouches down beside Bede and starts to talk to him in that voice she's got, like she's forgiving you for nailing her to a cross. I was wondering how to tell her that he was past hearing, when he stands up on his own two feet."
The landlord shook his head. "I've never known Vesta Bede to be able to fetch her husband out of a pub without a screaming row, if he was still sober enough to walk. But that evening he followed her without a word, meek as a baby. Later I hear he's taken the pledge, and I think, he'll never stick to it, Bede. But I never saw him again."
"If you knew he was dead," said Rosalie, "why didn't you say anything to anybody?"
"Strange things happen, don't they?" said the landlord. "There was that in the papers a couple of months back, about a boy who got up and walked out of a morgue after having his head smashed in."
"What nonsense," said Christopher. "The papers will print anything."
"That's as may be," the landlord said tolerantly.
Tacroy grinned. "Today's youth," he said. "Think they know everything, don't they? Thank you, you've been very helpful. Come along, Christopher."
"I believe that is enough to lay charges," said Rosalie. They took a cab to Bow Street, and then a police van, with two uniformed officers, back to the Bedes' flat.
Vesta Bede answered their knock. "What can I do for you, Miss Lovelace?" she said. Her eyes narrowed as they took in the crowd outside her door. "Mr. Roberts . . . gentlemen," she added.
"We've talked to Dr. Gerald Atwell, and Hugo Donovan down at the Guttering Candle," said Rosalie. "Do you have a neighbor, or a friend, that I can take your daughters to, Mrs. Bede? There's no need for them to hear this."
"If you think they ought not to hear it, maybe you ought not to say it," said Vesta Bede, folding her arms. Behind her, Christopher could see Temperance's sharp features come alert, and hear Patience's stream of babble to her doll dry up. Even the baby took its foot out of its mouth and looked around itself in perplexity.
Rosalie pressed her lips together unhappily, and nodded. "Vesta Bede," she said, "you are under arrest on suspicion of the following counts of misuse of magic—"
"What does that mean?" said Patience, high and frightened.
Temperance wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "It means they're going to take Mum away," she said. Her eyes, which were the color of weak tea, glared directly into Christopher's. "Doesn't it."
It isn't my fault! Christopher wanted to protest. But he had been Chrestomanci, and would be again. Consider it part of your training . . . Someday, everything like this would be his fault. He had better have an answer for her.
"Yes, it does," said Tacroy. "I'm sorry."
"Using witchcraft to commit fraud," Rosalie went on implacably, "and disturbing the peace of the dead."
"Disturbing his peace!" said Vesta Bede scornfully. "Isn't it a man's duty to provide for his family? What right did he have to die, and leave us with nothing? Weak, Richard was always weak. It's a terrible thing when a woman has to be strong, because her man is weak."
The persuasive magic was coming off her like a stinging wind. Christopher didn't need his witch-sight to feel it. One of the policemen took a step backwards.
"Come along, Mrs. Bede," said Rosalie.
She dropped to her knees beside her daughters instead. "Temperance!" she cried, throwing her arms around the oldest girl. Then she sat back, adjusted Temperance's hair ribbon, and tucked a flyaway strand behind her ear. "Take the girls to Mrs. Gardiner, dear. She'll take you in. Remember, it's your job to take care of Patience and Fortitude now." She hugged Patience, who clung back, eyes wide and confused. "Be a good girl, Patience. Here's a kiss for you, and a kiss for Baby Rachel," she added, pressing her lips against the ragged fabric of Patience's doll. She scooped up the baby, and laid her cheek briefly against its fuzzy head. "Mummy loves you very much, Fortitude," she said, and handed the baby to Temperance. Then she stood. "All right," she said. "I'll go quietly."
Rosalie helped the policemen put the magical bindings on Mrs. Bede as they loaded her into the van. Flavian had somehow neglected to teach Christopher how to do those yet, and they still made Tacroy twitchy, so they waited on the pavement. Rosalie soon joined them, and the three of them watched the van drive off in glum silence.
"I suppose it's back to lessons for me tomorrow," said Christopher, with decidedly mixed feelings. Investigations were much more interesting than lessons. But lessons never ended with taking anyone's mother away.
Tacroy and Rosalie shared a look. "Or you could come back to London for one more day, if you'd rather," said Tacroy. "Rosalie and I have a few last things to take care of."
Writing up reports, no doubt. One of the least pleasant things Christopher had learned from the affair with the Wraith and the Dright was that everything you did for Chrestomanci's department, you had to write a report about. Christopher wasn't sure why they couldn't write their reports at the castle, but he liked going to London with Tacroy and Rosalie. And maybe they would have some reason to stop off at Pugh's. "Miss Rosalie," he said, reminded, "can I invite Oneir to visit at the castle?"
"I don't see why not," said Rosalie. "I'll have to ask Gabriel, of course—"
"No, you won't," said Christopher wheedlingly. "You just write it down in your little book, and when Gabriel says, 'What's on the schedule today, Rosalie?' you tell him, 'There's a meeting with the Warlock's Guild at 9:00, and then you really ought to look at those reports from the Committee on Magical Education, Christopher's friend Oneir is arriving at 1:00, tea with the Minister at 4:00 . . . .' He'll never notice. Easy."
"But I'm sure he'll say yes," Rosalie finished. "Honestly, Christopher, why do you act as if the only way you can have the things you want is by getting around Gabriel somehow? It isn't true."
"I don't-!" said Christopher, looking appealingly at Tacroy.
"She's right, Christopher," said Tacroy. "You have to watch out for your habits. They'll trip you up."
Christopher thought of Vesta Bede and her gusts of persuasive magic, and didn't answer.
