A Broken Vessel Read Online Free PDF Page B

whoever he was.”
    “Yes, sir,” Dipper said quietly.
    Julian could see that Blinkers would be in a very bad way if Dipper ever ran across him. “She’ll stay here for the present, of course. She can have your room, if she’s able to walk up to the attic, and you can sleep on the sofa in the parlour.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    MacGregor’s thick, grizzled brows shot up, but he said nothing until Dipper had gone. “You think that’s wise? Keeping her here, I mean.”
    “What else can we do? She can’t go out again at this time of night, injured as she is.”
    “No, I suppose not. But I don’t like it above half.”
    “My dear fellow, what is this all about?”
    MacGregor set down his tea-cup with a clank and leaned forward, hands propped on his knees. “Do you know what she wanted to talk about the whole time I was in there?”
    “I have no idea. Repeal of the Corn Laws?”
    “No—you! How did I meet you, what did I know about you, what did I make of you—”
    “You must have found the deuce and all to talk about,” said Julian, eyes dancing. “Just making a catalogue of my faults could have occupied you an hour or more.”
    “She’ll make trouble for you, Kestrel, mark my words.”
    “What sort of trouble?”
    “What sort do you think?”
    “Oh, really, my dear fellow!”
    “You can laugh, but if you’re shut up long enough with her, it could lead to anything: She’s a taking little thing, and you’re a young man, with a young man’s weaknesses.”
    “I think I can manage to spend a night or two under the same roof with her without my passions overcoming me. For God’s sake, she’s Dipper’s sister. I should as soon think of dangling after my venerable landlady.”
    “Hmph! I still say there’s trouble in store for you, one way or another.”
    “I shouldn’t mind a little trouble. I’m frightfully bored.”
    “I can’t understand that,” MacGregor said tartly. “You change your clothes at least three times a day. That ought to be occupation enough for anybody.”
    “I know you think my life is somewhat lacking in purpose.”
    “I think you fritter away your time, if that’s what you mean.”
    “I liked the way I put it better.”
    “Yes, well, fine words butter no parsnips.” He added more quietly, “I’ve seen what you can do when you’re roused to a purpose. That’s something I’d like to see again.”
    “But not another purpose like the last one, surely?”
    “If you mean, would I like to see another murder—no, I could get on very well without that!”
    Julian said nothing for a time. He had conflicting feelings about the Bellegarde murder. The hunt for the killer had been fascinating—hardly any experience he had ever known could match it. But his solution to the crime had caused so much grief that he had felt more guilt than triumph. At least it was over and done with, he had told himself when he returned to London. His unlikely career as a Bow Street Runner was closed.
    It was not so simple—he understood that now, three or four months later. He glanced ruefully around his study. Well-thumbed editions of the Newgate Calendar, with its lives of famous criminals, mixed themselves in with the history and music books on his shelves. Today’s Morning Chronicle was tossed aside to make room for Bow Street’s police gazette, the Hue and Cry . Like it or not, he was developing a consuming interest in crime—its motives and methods, and the clues that brought them to light. Perhaps he had always been drawn in that direction; that might be one reason he had taken on a pickpocket as his servant. Then, too, the Bellegarde murder had made him vividly aware of the anomaly of a bustling, modern nation with almost no professional police. Of course, the English were jealous of their liberties, and convinced that a large, ubiquitous police force like France’s would undermine them. But to Julian, who had lived in France, it seemed that one of the foremost liberties any