The Flying Scotsman by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Bill Fawcett Page B

olives, and cumin, as they prepare it in Egypt, one of the dishes I learned to make there. There is new bread and fresh-churned butter. I have to finish the buttered turnips and green peas in creamed cheddar in order to put all on the table in twenty minutes ...
    When supper is on the table, I will prepare a full report of my errands and the two men who followed me. MH will want it in his hands before he retires.

CHIEF INSPECTOR Calvin Somerford set down his sherry, the pony still half-full. “If I drink any more of that, I won’t be able to think during dinner.” He offered a small deprecatory nod. “I don’t have a head for wine?” His habitual upward inflection made it seem he had doubts about it.
    “No matter, Chief Inspector,” said Mycroft Holmes, as if remarking on a minor blemish. “Not all coppers have to be hard drinkers.”
    “If you ask me,” said Somerford, “too many of them are? You can’t do your work when you’re foxed.”
    The old-fashioned expression took my attention. “That’s what my old grandmother would call it,” I told him, glancing at my employer as I spoke.
    “So did mine,” said the Chief Inspector. “I think it describes the state of slight intoxication very well, don’t you?”
    “It does create an impression,” I said, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Mycroft Holmes was encouraging these observations.
    “Yes. So many of the old expressions are so vivid? Foxed. Disguised. Bosky. Swallowed a spider?” He shook his head. “No. That means got into debt, as I recall.”
    “Like being in the River Tick,” said Mycroft Holmes, unctuous as a cat.
    “I believe so,” I agreed, curious why Mister Holmes would want us to have such a discussion, for plainly he did, encouraging it in his oblique way and signaling me covertly to continue. “I’d reckon those phrases change quickly to keep in the mode.” It was a safe observation and one that would open more doors to language, if that was what my employer was seeking. “Those phrases serve as a kind of code, to give information to those who have need to know it.”
    “Yes, the cant will do that, and occasionally they use it to obfuscate,” said the Chief Inspector. “So many of the terms used by the criminal classes are intended to mislead anyone overhearing them?” He pursed his lips. “That is one of the reason our spies are so useful—they understand what they hear?”
    “So you do use spies,” said Mycroft Holmes, as if this revelation were astonishing.
    “Of course. We sometimes use other words for it, but that’s what it comes down to? They are men—and very occasionally women—of the criminal class, who are willing to help us in order to preserve themselves; Commander Winslowe has said that we must make the most of any aid we can, and that includes the use of spies. What else would you call them?” He rocked back on his heels, looking more than ever like a lecturer in a good school. “Anyone in my position must find dependable men who can ferret out answers for me where I cannot go?”
    For an instant the porcelain prettiness of Penelope Gatspy crossed my mind, and I remembered how well she did her work. I owed her my life, a debt that I began to think I would never repay. Indeed, after that one shameful lapse of three years ago, I doubted she would ever be willing to give me the opportunity to do so, for she lived in that dangerous twilight world of spies and assassins, embracing a life most women did not know existed. My tongue felt like flannel in my mouth, and I could not speak the words that jangled in my thoughts.
    “A prudent approach, I would think,” said Mycroft Holmes in remote approval. “And have your ... ah ... ferrets told you anything about the killing today?” His bluntness brought Chief Inspector Somerford up short. “I would think you would have every spy you have ever used on the hunt for this man.”
    “I haven’t had time to speak to them all yet, but the word is out,