Just as the bird seemed about to hop up his elbow and into the office, it blinked at something over his shoulder, then whirled away in a storm of feathers and disappeared into the fog.
“It’s alive after all?” Mr Grigsby asked as Wren shut and locked the window. Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “Very good. Far preferable to the inverse outcome, I think we may all agree.”
Felix belatedly returned Mr Grigsby’s beaming smile. “Yes, well—thank you for the tea—I’m afraid I must be going.”
“So soon?” asked Mr Grigsby.
Indeed, the kettle had not yet begun to whistle. Wren indulged in a raised eyebrow at Felix’s expense.
“Yes,” said Felix, pointedly avoiding Wren’s gaze. “I’ve just remembered an appointment with another friend in town. Must dash. But thank you for your offer of tea and your advice. I shall use it in good health.”
With this, he made a very pretty bow, which gave Wren enough time to fetch his hat from the cupboard. He handed it over to Felix, who did not trouble himself to thank him.
When the downstairs bell rang again the next day, Wren’s heart leapt to think Butcher had come at last. He hastened to temper his enthusiasm; more likely it was Felix Knoll returned to make another attempt at his trust fund.
Mr Grigsby, absorbed in his newspaper, took no notice of Wren rising from his desk and crossing the office to answer the door.
Yet when Wren ventured into the foyer, he found not Felix Knoll, nor Butcher, but a gentleman with sandy hair, snub nose, and a receding chin propped up by the voluminous folds of his cravat.
Wren hurried to shut the door behind himself and hissed down the stair. “Humphreys? What are you doing here?”
Indeed, for a member of the Restive Quills to confront another in his place of work broke all the club’s rules of secrecy. Though, since Wren had tendered his resignation, he supposed the tenets of membership no longer applied to him.
Humphreys bore a look that strongly implied he didn’t care what rules he flouted in that moment. He mounted one foot on the stair and furiously stage-whispered, “What the Devil do you mean by sending over such a ridiculous creature to give us your regards?”
“What?” said Wren.
“When we asked him how he’d found us, he said the bones had shown him the path. The bones! Is that what you’re calling yourself now?”
“What?” Wren repeated.
“Don’t play coy. We all know it was you who set him on us and told him where he might find our gathering place.”
“Humphreys,” Wren said with complete honesty, “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re on about.”
Humphreys scoffed. “You know perfectly well! That actor you hired to play the part of your medieval Dick Turpin—Butcher, he said to call him.”
Wren stared at him.
“Which, while it certainly cuts to the point of the matter, can hardly be considered a particularly clever pseudonym,” Humphreys continued. “I’d thought your pride in your craft would demand something more. A pun, at the very least.”
“I didn’t hire him,” Wren said stupidly. “You hired him.”
“Me!?” Humphreys recoiled from the notion.
“The collective you,” Wren elaborated, not bothering to disguise his impatience. The farce had gone on long enough. “The Restive Quills. You hired him to play a prank on me.”
“We most certainly did not!” insisted Humphreys, sounding almost as indignant as Wren felt. “Of all the absurd—”
“It is exactly the sort of absurdity in which you all delight,” Wren snapped. “Though I’d considered you better gentlemen than to try and convince me it was all my own idea.”
“Whether or not Butcher was your idea remains to be seen,” Humphreys sniffed, “but he certainly wasn’t ours.”
Wren knew he hadn’t hired Butcher. However, he also knew that Humphreys couldn’t spin a convincing falsehood any more than he could spin dross into gold—or ink into prose, for that matter. The man had no capacity for lying. Which meant Humphreys, at least, had nothing to do with Butcher.
This by no means cleared the remainder of the Restive Quills of such a charge. They all knew as well as Wren that Humphreys couldn’t lie and might have wisely chosen to keep Humphreys in the dark as to their actual plans, lest he give the game away.
But it did give Wren pause.
