Primula and Dahlia squealed. The shopkeeper squealed. Alice sighed.
“Hands in the air!”
Immediately the ladies obeyed. Alice, pleased for an excuse to set down the hatboxes, placed them on a small table then raised her own hands. Hopefully this business would be over soon and she could go home for a cup of tea and a biscuit.
“You!” The thief turned to Dahlia’s manservant. “Hands up!”
“Do as he says, Bixby!” Dahlia wailed.
Bixby carefully lowered the carry bags. But instead of raising his arms, he folded them together across his chest. “This is highly inconvenient,” he said in a reproving tone. “Miss Weekle has an appointment with her hairdresser in fifteen minutes’ time and it cannot be postponed. Kindly find another store to burgle.”
The thieves glanced at each other and laughed.
“Just shoot him, Merv,” one said. “Make surehenever needs no hairdresser again.”
“Ahairdresser,” Bixby corrected.
Silence slammed down upon the scene, broken only by a sharp click as Merv cocked his pistol.
Alice frowned. Clearly matters were about to become even more time-consuming. “For heaven’s sake,” she began—
But it was no use. Without further discussion, Merv shot Bixby.
A loudtwangfollowed, and across the shop a gilt-framed mirrorshattered under the impact of Merv’s bullet. Blinking confusedly, Alice realized that Bixby had removed his bowler hat at remarkable speed and utilized it as an apparently bulletproof shield. The resultant ricochet had cast seven years’ bad luck upon the shop but saved the manservant’s life.
“Bloody—” was all Merv had the opportunity to say before Bixby threw the hat at him. It struck his face with more force than brushed felt regularly offered. Merv screamed, dropping his gun. From there it was a simple matter of one kick from the manservant, one punch with a black-gloved hand, two swift and efficient jabs to the throat, and the thief ended up senseless on the ground, his last word having proved prophetic as blood dripped from his nose. Bixby stepped back, calmly straightening his cuffs.
The other thief snatched wildly for Dahlia’s purse. Alice pushed the young woman aside, so the thief grabbed Primula’s purse instead, yanked it from her hand, and was out the door before anyone could react.
“Help!” Primula screamed. “Help!”
“Oh dear, miss,” Alice said with an attempt at comfort that fell so flat a dozen steamrollers could not have crushed it more. “I’m afraid he’s long gone. We should get you home.” She picked up the hatboxes and was turning to the door when suddenly Bixby stepped forth, offering a crisp, shallow bow.
“Ma’am, allow me to recover your purse.”
“Oh!” Primula flushed in singular delight.
“No,” Alice answered, shaking her head. “We cannot ask—”
But apparently a request was not required, for Bixby immediately took off after the thief.
“How exciting!” Primula cried, flapping a hand before her face.
“Goodness me!” Dahlia added, clutching at her bosom.
“Fiddlesticks,” Alice muttered under her breath. And tossing thehatboxes aside, disregarding how they emptied across the floor, she jumped over Merv’s unconscious body and followed after Bixby while Primula wailed about crumpled bonnets (crumpled!) behind her.
“Don’t! Stop! Thief!” she shouted, and gave chase in a most unexpected manner indeed.
Three years Daniel Bixby had worked as a butler for the rogue pirate Rotten O’Riley. Three years flying a rickety, ensorcelled house at speeds one could only describe as improper, smuggling pennyroyal tea into Ireland, and washing O’Riley’s laundry. Yet after just one week in Dahlia Weekle’s service he was exhausted. Criminal life had nothing on the rigors of shopping with an aristocratic lady.
This purse-snatching offered the best entertainment he’d had since his return to London (or, to be fair, second best, since nothing could surpass yesterday’s discovery of aUtopiaedition in the original Latin). Indeed, he might have stopped the hoodlum at once by using a phrase from the magical incantation that pirates employed to fly their battlehouses and witches to move small objects—O’Riley’s witch wife had taught him how to bring down a man with just one enchanted word—but it was invigorating to give chase (not to mention that witchcraft was highly secret, highly illegal—and, according to pirates, highly, er, low behavior).
About three hundred feet along the street, he caught the thief. After a struggle, he twisted the man’s arm behind his back, relieved him of the purse, and held it out of reach.
“Thank you,” said a woman’s voice behind him.
Daniel felt the purse removed efficiently from his grip. Glancing around, he was astonished to see the lady’s maid. Time seemed oddly suspended as he stared, arrested by the sight of her.You,said something inside of him, like a memory or a dream. It had whispered to himin the dress shop but spoke louder now, as if she’d removed a mask and he could see her more clearly. Her delicate face was framed by a coiffure so severe it made him think of backboards and plain, starched undergarments—
