Free Half a Crown by Jo Walton

hurried off down the corridor again.
    The guard raised his eyebrows when he saw Carmichael come out again so soon, but said nothing. Sergeant Evans was waiting under the portico, a capacious black umbrella under his arm.
    There was a black police Bentley waiting outside, as there always was. This was another of Carmichael’s improvements over the Yard, where getting a car was almost as bad an ordeal as being put up for a club. Carmichael nodded to the driver and then to Evans. “Is there room for us both under that thing?” he asked.
    “Should be, sir,” Evans said, putting it up and holding it more over Carmichael than himself. “Nasty day, isn’t it. April showers!”
    They hurried down the steps and into the waiting car.
    “Paddington Police Station,” Carmichael said to the driver. Then he looked at Evans, who was one of his favorite subordinates, being steady, intelligent, and with a sense of humor. He was also Welsh, and Jack had said once that he had the typical look of the British before the Romans came—small-boned, dark-haired, and clear-skinned.
    “What’s up, sir?” he asked.
    “It seems my ward, Elvira Royston, Sergeant Royston’s daughter, you remember, somehow got mixed up in the Marble Arch riot, and I need to bail her out. I’m just bringing you along for company, and in case we want to overawe the Mets with a uniformed presence.”
    “You should have brought Sergeant Richards for that,” Evans said.
    Carmichael laughed, despite his worries about Elvira. Sergeant Richards was six foot two. “You’ll do.”
    Paddington Police Station, when they reached it, seemed a grim place in the rain. Carmichael gave his name to a stern-faced constable at the desk who checked his papers thoroughly, squinting conscientiously from the identity photograph to Carmichael’s face. “Inspector Bannister wanted to see you, sir,” he said, when he was confident of Carmichael’s identity.
    “I’m here to collect Elvira Royston,” Carmichael said. He didn’t want to waste his time talking to the Met. Bannister, he remembered from his reports, was one of Penn-Barkis’s creatures, and Penn-Barkis’s continued supervision over the Watch was one of Carmichael’s constant irritations.
    “Yes, sir. Mr. Bannister would just like a word first.”
    Carmichael frowned, and the officer quailed a little.
    “Just in here, sir,” he said.
    Evans followed Carmichael into a little office as directed, where they waited for a few moments.
    Bannister proved to be a redhead in his late twenties, and a middle-class southerner, as Carmichael learned the moment he opened his mouth. “Good afternoon, sir,” he said, coming in, followed by a uniformed bobby. “This is extraordinary.”
    “Good afternoon, Inspector. I’d like to take Elvira home without wasting too much time,” Carmichael said.
    “Yes, certainly, but this is a very unusual situation. We’re anxious to cooperate with you, of course, but there are certain formalities inthe case of any arrest. And in this case, we’re supposed to keep all the rioters and check on them thoroughly.”
    “Those are my orders,” Carmichael said. “I hardly think they apply in this case. My ward was caught up in the riot by mistake.”
    “It doesn’t look that way to me. Why did Elvira—”
    “Miss Royston.” Carmichael stressed her formal name. He didn’t like hearing “Elvira” on Bannister’s lips.
    Bannister looked surprised, but corrected himself at once. “Why did Miss Royston go to the rally?”
    “She no doubt went to the rally for the fun of it, probably never having heard of British Power until the fighting started.” It would have helped, Carmichael thought, if he’d had any real idea why Elvira did go to the rally. He should have asked Betsy Maynard.
    “Probably,” Bannister said. “She said she was your niece. Now you say she’s your ward?”
    “She calls me Uncle, but she’s my ward,” Carmichael said, trying to be calm but knowing that