The Seventh of Loshis, the Small Hours
No, this house is something altogether more precious. A perfect perch, shadowy eaves, a fine old ivy plant on the north side, a proper thief’s ladder, and a small attic window with a flimsy lock. An observation post. Perfect for watching the two houses without being seen. Fortune had smiled on him. The house was occupied by only one scholarly gent and his aesthetic servant. Fortune had pissed on him. He had met the servant before. In a tavern north of the river. Doily. The world’s politest man.
Well, nothing’s perfect.
He keeps to the attic and the eaves, keeps to his observations. Mostly. A missing bottle of brandy or two, a lifted pair of cufflinks, and a small elegant paperweight didn’t signify. He needs to keep in fine form. Needs to stay on the game. Once he finds the house, the haunt of the Red Madame, he’ll have to slip inside. He hopes the gents who frequent the place like lively girls. A few forced cries of feigned delight can cover a world of quiet footfalls.
The house on Carnelian Street, a fine, elegant pile standing in its own grounds, nearly matched the description. A pair of fine old walnuts, black ones, outside. Their limbs spreading out and giving shadows to the street. Well done those trees. It’s always nice to have friends about. No macadamia trees though. Whatever the hell they were when they were at home. Damned foreign trees. So, no macadamias, but a couple of new tulip trees, probably no more than a year old, grew outside the house. The macadamias had probably failed to thrive. No backbone, these delicate tropical trees. No taste for city life.
The house on Carnelian Street did not have yellow trim, leastways not any more. A little knife work by the shade of the obliging walnuts had revealed that beneath the current white trim, so fresh and bright, there had been a marigold-yellow paint. Hideous stuff. So, one certainty in the description and two likely. Trees die, houses get painted. Nothing strange about either.
One the Way of the Orangeries, on which not a single orange grows, the house is perhaps a little closer to the mark. At least at first blush. Still, he has his doubts. Quiet street, walnut trees outside, yellow trim. A terraced house, one of many in a long stately line. Fashionable, yes, but less discreet. Shared walls, no matter their thickness, still transmit sound. And a brothel, however slathered with fine veneer, is a damned noisy place.
The night of the sixth, or the early hours of the seventh and the rain in driving hard. The shelter of the eaves is cold comfort. The attic will serve better. There’s nothing he can see out in the streets tonight. Rain’s the burglar’s foe, fog’s his ally. Like shadows. No fog nor anything like the hope of it. Just rain, more rain, and then some torrential rain. If he’s lucky, it will only shower tomorrow.
Cold, wet, and stiff from hours perched like a damned gargoyle, he pries the attic window open and slips into the musty gloom beyond. Dust tickles his nose and sticks to his wet clothes. A fine grey coating. No sense in slinking off home, not through half of Uptown and up to Lesser Larch Street. He curses. He’ll have to make a nest here, among the old trunks and the inevitable taxidermy beasts. What possessed rich tossers to collect these things and then squirrel them away? He’s at least on speaking terms with the pale gazelle head hanging on the south wall. He looks like a Jarvis. Jarvis ain’t too bad, as far as taxidermy goes. A raffish, sly sort. A gazelle who knows his business. Whatever business that is, old Jarvis ain’t telling.
No easy way to lift the old fellow. Probably covered in arsenic preservatives and gods know how many spiders. A nice piece, but not worth the time to pinch. Sorry Jarvis.
Hours drag on. The night closes and the morning draws in. Dark still. Doily and his master are likely still abed. Gollies, as a rule, sleep late. Mr Shrike doesn’t seem to sleep at all. The scholar ain’t anything like Mr Shrike. The scholar seems a comfortable man. An easy-going sort. Doily’s well kitted out, so the scholar’s likely a reasonable master. All to the good. A fine, quiet, complacent house. Just the sort of place that makes it easy to nip down to the larder for a bit of cheese, some stale bread, and the dregs of a bottle of wine. The scholar keeps a good cellar. Very passable.
He is still drying out and his stomach is growling. A swift dash down the attic ladder, barefoot, then on to the kitchen. It is no great way. And past the library. All manner of fine small items to lift. A thief has to keep in practice, after all.
He slides down the ladder in utter silence, and pads along the carpeted corridors raising no more noise than a diffident and retiring cat. Swift and quiet he goes, pausing from time to time to admire an objet d’art upon a civilized plinth, or a portrait of some glowering ancestor. Why do all golly ancestors look dispeptic? Must be a style. A damned silly one.
Light leaking from under the library door. Shit. Someone is abroad. Worse, the drying dust is rising from his clothes, tickling about his nostrils. For a moment he thinks he can avoid the inevitable. No luck. Fortune pisses on his yet again.
The sneeze, when it comes, is not loud. It is loud enough.