Free India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy (A Madam of Espionage Mystery) by Carol K. Carr

on the chest by the wall. I chose the latter.
    Mother Edding smiled grimly beneath her moustache. “So that’s ’ow it’s goin’ to be, is it? Well, come on, then. Let’s get this over wif. The sooner I slice your pretty face, the sooner I leave ’ere with Martine.”
    I did not react to these sinister words; I daren’t give the stocky figure the least impression that she had frightened me. I took three swift steps to the chest and picked up the candlestick.
    “Hah!” crowed my opponent. “You takin’ me on wif that?”
    “Why not?” I said. “You’re old and slow. It wouldn’t be a fair fight if I had a knife.”
    She let out a blood-curdling scream and lunged at me. I’d have thought the old girl was about as a spry as a Clydesdale, but she moved with surprising speed. My fencing lessons stood me in good stead, though, for just as she came barreling in with the knife outstretched, I swiveled my hips and dodged the blade. She might be fast, but stout as she was she had trouble halting once she had a head of steam. She sailed past me, the knife waving in the air, trying to locate my heart. I brought the candlestick down on her arm as she swept by me.
    She stumbled and cried out, and I thought I’d had the best of her, but the blasted creature floundered upright, the knife still in her hand, and turned a venomous glare upon me.
    “Oi, you’ve done it now, you little slag. You’ll be in ’ell before the night is over.”
    “Be reasonable, Mother Edding,” I said soothingly. “You know quite well that we can play this game for some time, and I’ll win every round. Your heart will go while you’re trying to chase me down. Why don’t you just accept the money I’ve offered? We’ll shake hands and call it square, and we can both get back to running our businesses.”
    She answered with a snarl, a switch of the knife to her other hand and another galumphing charge in my direction. I feinted right and went left and by the time she’d pulled up, I was on the other side of room, taking my Bulldog from my desk drawer. I leveled it at her as she turned.
    “That’s quite enough of this. Drop the knife.”
    She did so but with ill grace. Then she spat on my Turkey carpet.
    Blimey. The bitch had no idea what that carpet had cost.
    “Sod you,” I said. “I was going to give you the money I offered and send you on your way, but now that you’ve done that, you can just take yourself out of here before I do something rash.”
    “Sod yourself,” she said, sneering.
    “What a riposte. Now get out.”
    She walked heavily through the study door, casting murderous glances at me over her shoulder, and I followed her down the hall to see that she exited the front door.
    She paused on the step and looked back at me. She was shaking with rage. “You’ll regret this.”
    “I don’t, and I won’t,” I said, locking the door in her face.
    I knew I’d made an enemy. So had she.

FIVE
     
    I t’s all well and good for Dizzy and Superintendent Stoke to sit in their offices, creating elaborate schemes to achieve their objectives, and moving agents and chief inspectors and ministers and other such creatures about like so many pawns on a chessboard. I reckon it amuses them to imagine themselves in control of the board. It would do them both a world of good to come to Lotus House sometime and see how difficult it is to actually execute their plans. All this is by way of saying that over the preceding weeks, Martine had developed the characteristics of a brick wall. The girl had stymied me at every turn when I tried to ingratiate myself with her. Oh, she was pleasant enough; she was clean and sober and good with the customers. In any other circumstances, I would jolly well have been thrilled to have her on the staff. But since my brief was to use her as an introduction to the Dark Legion, I needed more than just a model slut.
    I was also hamstrung by the fact that within my own establishment and on the street, I had