The Cutthroat (Isaac Bell 10)

“As I was dining late at my club, they lent me a key. Good night, Constable.”

“Good night, sir.”

Bell closed the door on the officer’s salute, locked it, and glided silently from the front hall. The collection room was lit dimly by the gleam of a streetlamp that penetrated the curtains. Bell went straight to the German chastity belt, guided by reflections off its glass case.

The thief-catcher strongbox was next to it. He closed the lid carefully, pocketed the key, and slung the heavy box under his arm. He counted a full two minutes and then glided to the front window to check the street.

He could not see the constable.

Joel Wallace’s hansom cab rounded the corner at a quick trot. Bell had no choice but to ease out the door, hoping the constable had moved on, close it behind him, and hurry down the steps. He crossed to the garden side of the street, let the cab overtake him, and passed the strongbox into Joel Wallace’s hands.

“Where did the constable go?”

Joel Wallace pointed.

Bell went the other way.

“And then the Frenchman said to me . . .”

Commander Abbington-Westlake was holding forth at the long and raucous members’ table in the dining room of the Savile Club in Mayfair. A wine bottle stood beside each of the dozen men at lunch. When its contents drained low, a white-coated steward replaced it from the member’s personal stock.

Formed by wealthy writers and artists, and currently occupying a pleasant house on Piccadilly, the Savile prided itself on a distinct absence of stodginess. This would have surprised the many who had fallen for Commander Abbington-Westlake’s pomposity act, proof that, as espionage masquerades went, stuffed shirts were as likely to be underestimated as drunkards. He was a large, round man, with fleshy cheeks, an officer’s mustache, and hooded eyes. His plum-toned voice carried.

“So the Frenchman said to me, ‘I’ve learned enough about you English to know that one is in deep trouble when a gentleman addresses one as “sir.”’”

He paused for a significant glance up and down the table and twitched a bushy eyebrow. “I replied, ‘You are correct, sir.’”

The dining room echoed with laughter, cries for new bottles.

After lunch, he joined the others for cigars and bustled into the bar, calling, “A very large brandy, my good man.”

“Make it a double,” said Isaac Bell, materializing from a dark corner. “The commander is buying.”

Abbington-Westlake covered his surprise. “How the devil did you get in here, Bell?”

“My introduction from the Yal

e Club of New York City was greeted hospitably.”

“Standards are falling everywhere.”

“Especially in the quality of shadows.”

“All right!” said Abbington-Westlake. The bar was crowded with after-lunch cigar smokers. “Perhaps we should—”

“Find a quiet place to talk about why you’re having me followed?” asked Bell.

“I said, ‘All right!’”

The club had a little patch of garden in the back. They sat there and smoked.

“Why have you tackled me here in my own club?” Abbington-Westlake asked aggrievedly. “It’s not done, Bell. Not at lunch. What is it you want?”

“In addition to calling off your shadows?”

“They’re off. What do you want?”

Bell said, “I told you years ago, that behind a scrim of amiable bumbling, upper-crust, above-it-all mannerisms, and a witty tongue, you are extremely well informed about your fellow spies.”