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Chapter Text

“Blast!  This heel’s come loose.”

Cynthia Mackenzie glanced up from the radio she was in the process of disassembling.  A years’ experience with her flatmate had cured her of the surprise she’d felt the first time she’d seen Veronica Mars in one of her investigatory disguises.  They now proved a source of mild but regular entertainment.  “Off to a fancy-dress do?” she inquired dryly, tucking a lock of unruly dark hair behind her ear.

“Something like.”  Veronica frowned at the mushroom coloured jumper she’d pulled on over an exuberantly embroidered skirt.  “I’ve no objection to Bohemia in theory, but its wardrobe does leave something to be desired.”

A champagne blonde capable of inciting envy in half the young ladies so routinely written up in the penny press as popular beauties of the day, Veronica’s disguises generally did their best to render the wearer invisible – not the rather conspicuous invisibility of the cat burglar in popular fiction – but the true invisibility of the overlooked.  Secretaries, maids, factory workers and nurses – Veronica specialized in looking so much the part that you forgot her existence entirely.  

However, in the dwellings populated by the Bloomsbury group and the Pre-Raphaelites, to look commonplace and to blend in were antithetical goals.  Her eyes fixed on the glass, Veronica tried and rejected an acid green scarf, to Cynthia’s private approbation.  Whatever their dress sense might suggest, they could not possibly all be blind.

“And why the sudden need to infiltrate Bohemia?” Cyn asked.

“Attempting to fill a rather hopeless commission, I’m afraid.  Lady Margaret Manning paid us a call this morning.”

“I saw her card.”  Cyn glared at a faulty audio transformer before turning her attention to the tube plate. “Rather awkward that, what if you’d had to tell her you weren’t at home to visitors?”

“Oh she left that with the charlady the other day. Who has since made it clear that she has far too much to be doin’ than to deal with the constant stream of callers that comes of girls living on their own rather than decently at home with their families and she’s of a good mind to complain to the landlord.”

Cynthia shook her head.  Their current char was an ongoing source of discomfort and amusement.  Most of the time her diligence amounted to no more than moving the dirt around the room so that it might take in new sights and form new acquaintances, but that didn’t stop her from expressing her firm disapproval of every activity she didn’t wholeheartedly approve of.  Since both girls were single and living on their own, said disapproval stretched to cover the entirety of their behavior.

 “She’s a regular ray of sunshine, that one.”

“I proposed that in the future we might restrict our visitors to the hours between midnight and six, so as to be sure she wasn’t disturbed, but she rejected the overture.”

“Some people can’t bring themselves to acknowledge a kindness.”

“Fortunately I was in this morning, so I was able to tackle Lady Margaret myself.”

“I wasn’t aware you were acquainted?”

“We used to be playmates, but that was a long time ago.  No in the general course of things I should never have expected to see her, not since I blotted my copybook, as it were, and especially not since she took up with my former fiancé.” 

Cynthia looked up quickly at Veronica’s mention of her time at Oxford, but Veronica was examining the effect a long strand of wooden beads added to her ensemble and quite deliberately not making eye contact.  Cyn would have liked to press further, but didn’t quite dare.  Oxford was one of Veronica’s forbidden subjects.  She didn’t discuss it and wouldn’t allow anyone else to.  She’d speak deprecatingly of the reputation she’d acquired there – one that Cyn could never believe and had never once seen corroboration of – but Veronica never talked about the actual circumstances that led to her being sent down.

“Lady Margaret heard that I’d put out a shingle as a private detective from Sir Alconbury – you remember, the one with the sapphire in the gramophone and the lady's maid who turned out to be neither.  Anyway, she came to enlist my services and I rather wish she hadn’t.”

“While colorful, your style of storytelling leaves a few things to be desired,” Cyn observed. 

“She asked me to investigate her sister’s death.”

“Her sister – of course, I remember, it was in the papers.  Shocking Death of a Peer’s Daughter.  I thought it was a suicide?”

“The jury returned a verdict of accidental death.  Opiate overdose - nothing very definite in the evidence, although the size of the overdose might be considered more consistent with suicide.  The coroner’s summing up emphasized the possibility of accident as a result of the young lady’s unfortunate associations. 

Lady Margaret puts strong odds on foul play, while remaining opaque as to the reason for her suspicions.  Her parents had with Christian charity crossed the girl’s name out of their family Bible years ago, and Detective Inspector Lamb was, I gather, his usual delightful, piggish self when she attempted to broach the subject with him, so she was obliged to venture further and seek my counsel.  Since Duncan’s behavior was none of hers, and since she did in fact maintain courteous terms after my less than graceful public fall, I felt obligated to offer my assistance.

For which courtesy, I shall be beginning my sojourn among the artistes at Stanislavsky’s where I shall look forward to feeding my soul with baddish music and worse poetry and starving my stomach altogether – as well as garnering a convincingly chance introduction to her busom friend Berenice Hadley, whom I gather is doing something quite exciting in the sculpture line and should hopefully give me a bit more to go on than the instincts of a sister that by her own account hadn’t seen the deceased for a year leading up to her death.”

“If Anton’s there, the grub’ll be decent,” Cynthia observed, instinctively cutting to the aspect of the evening she suspected bothered Veronica the most.  To call Veronica Mars merely fond of food would be an understatement on the level of calling Lady Macbeth a poor hostess.

“I don’t suppose you’d care to come along and introduce me and lend some verisimilitude to an otherwise unconvincing narrative?”

Cynthia shook her head.  “I haven’t heard a peep from that crowd since I counseled Max on the effect that latest muse of his was having on his work.   I told him a muddy palate and the vaguest sense of human anatomy worked moderately well when he was confining himself to political subjects, but that if he insisted on attempting to emulate the new Romantics, he would do well to attend the odd medical lecture or two.

Veronica snorted.  “Oh dear.”

“He took my advice, and it has improved his work wonderfully, but he hasn’t forgiven me for it.” Her sigh carried more exasperation than regret.  “Besides, I was always too obnoxiously capitalistic for them.”

Her flatmate raised a single eyebrow.  “And yet they accepted Lady Elizabeth Manning?  Isn’t Lord Stewart positively rolling in it?  Wouldn’t she be persona-non-grata by definition?”

Cynthia paused to consider before responding.  “That’s a bit of a philosophical question, really.  They quite like money.  The having of money, I mean.  Provided one gives a great deal of it away, says the right things, and doesn’t try to do anything so base as to earn more of it.  That being said, I’m not sure whether the Manning girl was ever really accepted.  She didn’t create anything you know, and she wasn’t attached to anyone who did.  At least, not for very long.  She was less a leading light and more a hanger on.  She did give parties though – mostly successfully, and frightfully hot stuff.

“Doping?”

“And other things.  Not what you might consider nice.”

“Cyn, neither one of us might be considered very nice.”

“Which tells you something about what her parties were like.  And it wasn’t just the artistic crowd.  There was a lot of money floating around at her things, and you know most of them don’t have two cents to rub together.  There were names – titles – the type that show up in the penny press every second day for pulling some ridiculous stunt or another.”

“Oh heaven help me.”  Veronica closed her eyes against the images her friend’s words conjured.

“Darling, I’m just afraid this case is going to throw you in with that particular set of Bright Young People you most abhor.”

“Hurrah for the spoilt darlings of society!”  Veronica cheered, flashing that particular bright smile that never reached her eyes.

***

“A young lady to see you sir.”

The young man looked up from the folio he was examining in some annoyance.  There were a bare handful of people whose intrusion he would welcome when he was in for an evening, and the caller’s description excluded those few.  That Ratner had not summarily dismissed the lady in question preempted any possibility that he would be allowed to escape.

“Blast it all to hell!”

“Indeed, sir.”

Logan Echolls’ steps checked in the doorway of his well-appointed sitting room when he saw his visitor.  “I’ve never known Ratner to be wrong before.  Quite disconcerting, what?  Like discovering the truth about Father Christmas.”

The Honorable Lillian Carnathan Kane shook her elaborately shingled halo of blond curls.  “Don’t be tiresome, darling.”

“Miss Carnathan Kane.”

“I’ve come to fetch you out - you simply cannot spend another evening in this dreary hole,” she continued, casually besmirching one of the most elegant bachelor flats in London.  “It’s too wearymaking for words.”

“What happened to your latest victim?”

“Oh, Eli?  Well, he was a bit of a pet, but I had to give him the shove.  He took everything far too seriously – Spanish you know – very hot and heavy and that’s all to the good – but he wanted me to meet his grandmother. Comical and rather sweet, but if I was going to do that I might as well be Duncan and his prim little fiancé.  It was just too too boring.”

“Poor old sod.”

“You’re the only one that’s never boring.”

Logan offered her a cigarette, which she refused, and a drink, which she accepted.  Selecting his own cigarette, he contemplated the woman he had once considered the love of his life.  He shook his head, baring his teeth in a taunting smile.

“Darling, you’ve a short memory.  I bored you too, when you had me.  It’s only now you don’t that I’ve regained my appeal.  The second I chose to wallow again; you’d discover my dullness anew.”

“Try me and see,” she offered, beguilingly as she took a step toward him.

“Perhaps you’d find that you no longer interest me.”

Her eyes glinted dangerously, but before she could decide whether to throw something or develop hysterics, he was speaking again.

“You’ve been doing without my company quite well for the past six months, Lil.  What’s changed.”

“I’m to be presented in a fortnight.”

“Congratulations.  I do hope they take care to hide the gin.”

“Beast.”

“Yes, you’ve said that before,” he observed.

Lillian rolled her eyes with the exaggeration of a film starlet before throwing herself down upon the settee cushions.  She crossed her legs, her skirt rising high enough that he caught a glimpse of garter, and he shook his head.  She sighed, “The Baroness has me dancing at attention all day till I could practically scream.”

He chuckled as he ashed his cigarette on a marble tray.  “Dearheart, no doubt this is just an oversight, but you’ve neglected to mention what any of this has to do with me.”

Lillian bit her lip, momentarily dropping the affectations she’d wrapped around her like a stole.  When she spoke, her voice was quieter.  “Duncan’s no use anymore, and you’re the only one who ever stood up to her.”

As ever, the flash of the girl he’d loved affected him, even as he recognized the ever-diminishing returns.  He might have been cured, but he well recalled the symptoms. 

His smile this time held no mocking.  “I seem to remember you doing a bang-up job of it yourself.”

“But never on my own.  It’s not – I don’t like to do it on my own.  It frightens me.”

Logan frowned.  “What have you gotten yourself into?”

“Nothing! Well nothing much.” She hesitated and then breezed forward defensive armor firmly back in place.  “And if you’d stick your head out of this poky little flat then maybe it could stay that way.”

He wanted to press her, but already she was making her excuses.  Her skittishness didn’t surprise him, it was her typical response to vulnerability, but he was troubled by her unwillingness to expound.  She’d never hidden any of her exploits before.  Rather the reverse.

He supposed it could be embarrassment.  She hated losing face, and if her actions could be interpreted as having to do with losing him – but then she’d moved on long before he’d finally had enough. 

Ratner appeared with her cloak and gloves, and the domestic interlude resolved itself into drawing room comedy, the lady making her farewells with only few light barbs as shield to her weakness.

He recognized the maneuver and let it go, still worrying over the question of her latest excess. He was loathe to draw himself back into the miasma that crowd offered, but he didn’t see how he could bring himself to deny her either.  Besides -

“Dash it all, Ratner, as unwelcome an intrusion as that was, the lady had a point.”

“Sir?”

“I have been hiding in here.”

“A retreat in the face of an emotional upheaval could be considered –“

“I’ve been hiding.  And its time I stopped.”

“Indeed, Sir.”

“Ratner, you know I find it most insulting when you playact a stage comedy solely for my benefit.”

“My apologies.  I shall endeavor to ensure a larger audience next time, sir.”

“That’s all I ask.”

***

The flat was minuscule, and crammed to capacity.  A haze of smoke hovered over the assembled masses, a combination of Turkish cigarettes and the sausages being murdered over a small stove in the corner by a rabbity little man whose shock of red beard was his only distinguishing feature. 

On one side of the room, a young man declaimed passages from his ongoing and unpublished epic to an appreciative audience that ceased their conversation long enough to shriek encouragement whenever he happened to pause for breath.  On the other, a trio of musicians took up the more than the remaining space to great applause and occasional moderate injury.

Berenice Hadley was a sharp featured if not altogether unpretty brunette whose attempts at makeup did much to counter her natural advantages and who clung throughout the interview with a limpet-like tenacity to her young man, a nonentity she introduced only as Stuey.  She was not disposed to talk about Lizzie until after Veronica had procured for her a fourth gin and bitters -  over the mild objection of said young man - at which point she became voluble.

“Lizzie was a darling.  We were the greatest of friends.  She relied on me, especially during those last weeks; she said I was the only one she could count on.”  Berenice assured Veronica in a semi-slurred recitation that didn’t speak particularly well for Elizabeth’s other connexions.

“It must have been a comfort to her, knowing that she had your support.”

“It was!” she agreed in an excess of emotion. “I know it was! That’s why it was so shocking when she did it.”

Veronica permitted herself to show the somewhat malicious interest commiserate with a gossip’s healthy curiosity.  “You mean she committed suicide?  I thought the coroner -”

“Oh that.  Everyone knows that was fixed up – my girlfriend Celia works the dispensary for St. Martins, she said Lizzie took enough to send herself off five times over. 

And Lizzie was brainy, no way she makes a mistake like that.  No, that the bit about an accident was only so much hooey.  Bless that father of hers for that.  Won’t acknowledge her, won’t let her on the property or even let her sisters visit - not that I saw them really pushing to try - but can’t let people talk about how his dismissal led to her suicide either.  Old hypocrite.” 

Berenice’s dismissive handwave struck the gentleman to her right, and they wasted several moments in apologies as neither party seemed coherent enough to identify either the injury or the person at fault.  Eventually it was settled to everyone’s satisfaction that ‘Stuey’ should compel the host to procure some strong coffee for the lot of them, since the size of the venue, and therefore the responsibility for flailing limbs proving a danger could be definitively placed in his hands.

Having dispatched the grumbling and apparently long-suffering young man, Berenice seemed to lose the thread of the conversation.  Veronica judged that another gin and bitters would put her well past communicative and begin the slide into comatose, and that pushing her further on the question of the perhaps not accidental death might sharpen even that young lady’s habitually dulled senses.

The poetry recital had erupted into an argument on verse that seemed likely to descend from celestial ideals to the solid form of fisticuffs at any moment and Veronica wondered if she might do better to cut her losses for the night and call on Berenice some other, soberer, time – surely she didn’t sculpt while fully in the bag - when the young lady’s words caught her attention once more.

“-really blame that man of hers.  God, she was such a little fool.  She talked about him like he was a prince.  Course, they’re all a prince when they want something.  I could have told her it was never going to go anywhere.  Sure enough, what does he do the second she comes to him for anything?  Leaves her flat.  Just the type.  Takes what he wants but doesn’t want to get his precious hands dirty.  I never liked white hands on a man.”

Veronica was all sympathy.  “So she committed suicide because her fellow left her?”

“Stupid reason to have done a thing like that.  I found her, you know – we were sharing a flat at the time– I’d been out at the pictures - Stuey took me; he’s a doll - and I came home and there she was, sprawled out on the bed, cold.”

“How dreadful for you.”

“It really was,” Berenice said almost eagerly, clearly relishing own importance in Lady Elizabeth Manning’s rather sad story.  “They asked me about it afterward, if I’d seen it coming like.”

“You’ve such a sympathetic nature, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d confided in you. I’m sure if I had any troubles I would have come straight to you.”

“But she didn’t!  I never thought for a moment she would do a thing like that.  I wouldn’t have left her alone, would I?  If I’d thought she could be a danger to herself?” For a moment, the girl’s genuine grief cut through, and Veronica felt an unaccustomed pang of guilt for pushing her.

Berenice continued, “Even if she was up the duff, that was no reason to –”

Berenice stumbled as her young man returned bearing the promised coffee, and she flung herself into his arms, sobbing tears that probably owed equal thanks to gin and emotion.

He caught her up with an ease that spoke of long practice, and turned to glare at Veronica, correctly blaming her for the catastrophe.

Veronica’s mind was full of what she’d just learned, but she offered a deprecating grimace.  “I’m so sorry.  You must blame me for oversetting her.  I was just so curious.”

He was not mollified.  “You were pushing in more like.  There was enough of that from the penny press, without having to have it dragged out at every party.”

From what she’d seen, Veronica wondered if the gentleman of the press would have had to do much dragging, but she knew better than to say as much. 

“I do apologize.  I just – it’s such a terrible shame.  Young and beautiful to die like that – it’s like something in a story.”

He spat at the ground.  “Lizzie Manning was a tart.  Title or no title.  She was a bad egg and I was doing my best to get Berenice away from her before she did me the favor herself.”

Berenice’s wails grew louder.

“I’m sorry love, but them’s the facts.  She was no good for you.  Best thing she did in this world was deciding to leave it.”

“I don’t suppose it would have occurred to you to help her on her way?”  Veronica asked sharply, her opinion coming down heavily against Berenice’s beau.

“None of that now.  That’s slander that is.  I never laid a finger on any woman.  She offed herself.”

“If they were sharing a flat, you must have seen her often.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t nowhere near the flat that day, was I?  Berenice and I took in the pictures.  I’m out of it, and she’s out of it, so you can just put your nose back where it belongs.”

Veronica turned to go, judging this particular well to have run dry when Stuey clutched sharply at her elbow.

“Hey, you want to go looking for trouble, go look at the guy who got her into her mess in the first place.  They were thick as thieves those two before he up and dropped her.”

“And who would that be?”

He spat again.  “You just talk to Logan Echolls.”  Veronica sucked in a breath at the name, but he continued, “If anyone had anything to do with her killing herself, it’s him.”

“Thank you for the information,” Veronica said tightly, before turning sharply away, pushing through the crowd elbows first, suddenly unable to take the noise or the smoke or the press of people any longer.

***

Logan Echolls had spent a dull but gratifying day, reestablishing the connections that guaranteed his entrée into the Carnathan Kane circle, however much the Lady of that family might resent it.  The snobby old cat might not like him much, but every Bishop or Countess that maintained his connexion rendered her the more incapable of leaving him off any guest list but the most intimate of family dinners. 

He returned to his flat after a luncheon at Lady Boothby’s to find his study already occupied.

“Echolls, old chum!  Wonderful to see you!” Dickie Casablancas exclaimed with a fervor appropriate for a reunion some years in the making, but perhaps a bit excessive for a man he’d seen at the club the just one week prior.  “Been having a bit of a jaw with that clever man of yours, what? Only I’m in a bit of a fix at the moment.”

Logan smiled.  “When are you not?”

“And you know Balmy Enbom swears by him, ever since that he helped detangle him from that little handful in New York,” Dickie continued obliviously.

“Oh, I think she was rather more than that,” Logan replied after a quick mental estimate.  “But yes, Ratner does wonders with the fairer sex, the more amazing since so many of them seem to have no use for him at all.  But tell me, are you pining hopelessly?  Been thrown over?  Need to impress a father, mother or great Aunt who unfortunately know what you look like already?”

“You do talk rot sometimes, Echolls.”

“And this is how you respond to a friend bleeding the heart’s blood for you?”

“It’s just, Maddie seems to think –“

“Madeleine St. Claire?”  Logan gave a helpless burst of laughter. “How in the world did you let that one get her hooks into you?”

“See here, I’m not hooked.” Dickie said indignantly.  “I have never been hooked.”

“You’ve never faced Maddie St. Claire.  Well, that’s definitely a task for Ratner.  Bit of a Herculean labor though.”

“We took in a show at the Aldwych, that’s all,” Dickie protested.

Logan snorted.  “Terribly appropriate in at least two ways.  Listen, mate, you know I would be happy to stand up with you.  Just give me the time to work on my speech before you make anything official.  No special licenses or trips to Scotland.”

“I’d be on a flight across the pond if I could manage it.”

“Ah, young love.”

“I’m not fool enough for that.” 

This last was quite true.  Although it should perhaps be noted that this was perhaps the only thing Dickie Casablancas was not fool enough for, as his rather colorful record attested.  His most recent summons involved an ill thought out portrayal of Lady Godiva for a fancy-dress ball, which might have been less scarring if he’d not been riding astride.  Still, however terrifying the escapade, it paled in comparison to the thought of one Madeleine St. Claire.

“Beg pardon, and all that,” Logan apologized.  “So, you’ve laid the problem at Ratner’s feet, like a good little boy?  Has he thought up a prescription yet?”

“He says he’s mulling it over.   I’m blest if I can see what he can do except smuggle me out of the country.  She’s already wanting to announce our engagement.  It was all I could do to keep her from contacting the Morning Star to put the announcement in directly.”

“Proactive girl that one.  None of your moony-eyed dreamers about her.”

“Sir,” Ratner reappeared with a discreet cough.

“I say, that was fast,” Dickie said approvingly. 

“I beg your pardon, while I did have some thoughts on Mr. Casablancas’s current predicament, there is a young lady to see Mr. Echolls.  I have shown her into the sitting room.”

“You haven’t decided to sic Maddie onto me to get her off of Dickie here, have you?” Logan asked, suspicion settling over his face.

“An intriguing solution sir, and one that had not, in fact, occurred to me.”

“Good, forget I mentioned it.”

“Well, if you’re entertaining, I’d best be along,” said Dickie with a quirk of the eyebrow and suggestive gesture.  “I suppose I’ll see you at Balmy’s soiree tomorrow?”

“I have already accepted the invitation with every appearance of pleasure.”

After three more protracted farewells, Logan finally escaped Dickie’s company and made his way into the drawing room only to stop short for the second time in two days.

“I have got to speak to Ratner about his careless use of that particular attribution.”

Veronica Mars turned toward him, smiling the vicious little smile that always made him a little breathless, even back when she was his friend’s fiancé.

“Hello again, Logan.”

“Miss Mars.  To what do I owe this punishment?”

She walked around the room, running her hand over his shelves in a baddish attempt to restrain her ever present curiosity.  He had no doubt that if she’d been left alone for another ten minutes she would have catalogued his whole flat, including the contents of the safe.

“As it happens, I’m on an investigation, and wouldn’t you know it, your name came up.”

“Hardly a surprise. I’d be hard-pressed to think of a bit of dialogue that wouldn’t be improved with the mention of my name.”  He smirked as he leaned against the door frame.  “But do tell me about this investigation.  Have you passed secret messages in invisible ink?  Uncovered secret ciphers?  Actually, I’m fairly certain I don’t care.”

“You don’t care about the murder of Lady Elizabeth Manning?”  She said sharply, bringing him to attention.  “And aren’t ciphers secret by definition?”

Logan shook his head.  “Murder?  Lizzie wasn’t murdered.”

“You seem quite certain of that.”

“Should I not be?” he asked.  Veronica Mars was many things, one time friend, long time enemy, pest and self-righteous brat, but she wasn’t stupid.

“Her sister seems to think it’s a strong possibility.”

His mind raced as he considered.  “Meg or Grace?  Meg probably, Grace never does anything without her father’s approval, and Lord Manning was pretty clear about wanting to move on from that particular interlude.”

“The particular interlude being the death of his pregnant daughter?”

That brought him up short again, although he didn’t know why.  If anyone was good at learning things they had no business knowing, it was Veronica Mars. 

“How in the world did you know Lizzie was up the duff?”

She tilted her head as she examined him.  He did not take the opportunity to examine the fairness of her neck.

“I’m more curious about how you knew it.  I’m fairly certain she didn’t announce it to all and sundry, and for some reason the medical details were withheld at the inquest.  Of course, there is one particular gentleman she might have shared the news with.”

So, that was her game.  Naturally.  He closed his eyes against the accusation.  “I see.  So, according to your excellent detective skills, I’m supposed to have killed the girl because she was pregnant with my child?”

“Daughter of one of the leading Conservative Lords?  It would have been a scandal.”

He held his temper by a bare thread, taking care to keep his words slow and deliberate lest he throw a vase across the room.  Again.

“Have you seen the papers lately?  Everything in my family is scandal.   The studios couldn’t keep my father’s proclivities quiet, my mother emulated Anna Karenina, and a couple of newspapers still maintain that I’m a villain because the hood who attacked me later ended up dead.  What possible way could the birth of a child – in or out of wedlock – do anything to worsen my reputation?”

She jutted her chin out, as unwilling as ever to give him anything.  “I understand the two of you were close?”

“Sure, we were close.  We were pals.  Lils had left me for her Spaniard and Lizzie had lost her guy and we both were at loose ends a bit.  But it was never – we were never intimate – don’t look to me for that.”

“You mean there’s a woman of your acquaintance you weren’t intimate with?”

“More than just the one, as I think you’ll recall,” he said, drawing closer to her despite himself.

“Your reputation says otherwise,” she breathed and he paused despite his every inclination. 

He could so easily fall again bringing her with him.  He bit his lip and deliberately moved to the opposite side of the room.

“My reputation?  I wasn’t the one sent down from Oxford after being found blotto in a gentleman’s dormitory after hours.” That brought her up sharply as he'd intended, her eyes burned as she glared at him. But she didn't miss a beat.

“You mean I’ve been misinformed?” she parried, and he couldn’t help but smile.

“Hardly a new sensation for you, I’m sure.  Perhaps you can write another of those slanderous little articles of yours.”

“Not a word of what I’d published about that so-called secret society was untrue,” she said, bristling.  “Which you’d know if you’d bothered to question any of them instead of relying on shared school days as a measure of a man’s character.”

“Well, this has been fun.  But since you’ve absolutely nothing to go on here, I’ll have to ask Ratner to show you out.”

“You don’t deny that you spent a great deal of time with Lizzie Manning for some months?  A carousal that ceased a few weeks before her death?

“No, officer, I don’t deny it.  I do however point out that if I’d overthrown the young lady, as you suggest, I would have had no reason to kill her; she would have had a much greater reason to kill me.  Yes, we got up to a few stunts, but our friendship was a harmless way to occupy the time in the face of mutual broken hearts.”

She snorted but wouldn’t make eye contact.  “Serves you right for falling for the Carnathan Kane girl.”

“If you must believe I was talking about her.”

Veronica chose to ignore his admission, just as she’d ignored all the evidence back then right up until the moment in the library at her fiance’s ball.  She took her seat deliberately, turning her investigator gaze back on him.

“Tell me about Lizzie.”

He sighed and smoothed his hair back.  Of course, he could have her out of the place, in a second.  And of course, he didn’t. 

“She was going off the rails.  I was too, rather, so we were both perfect and terrible for each other.  I started to right myself around the time she began to fall apart altogether.  She’d started doping more heavily – stuff she’d gotten from someone else, not me.  If someone did kill her, it wouldn’t have been difficult to engineer, damn it.”

“You’d gotten dope for her?” she asked, judgement breathing in every syllable.

“Easy enough to get samples at some of those parties, but at the time we were both in rather deeper than that.  She had a couple of suppliers, but they wouldn’t have wanted to kill her.”

“Funny, I thought they were doing just that,” she observed, as prim and suspicious as ever.  “And just to observe the formalities, where were you on the day she died?”

He swallowed, though he should have known it was coming.  “I was at a shooting party in Kent.  Although, I suppose I could have taken an express, poisoned her, and then returned for a late breakfast.  Rather shocking to miss the day’s shooting, but as long I took care to be seen drinking to excess the night before, it’s unlikely I’d be questioned on the matter.  Clearly you need to check with the conductors and ticket agents to firm up the timeline, at which point I will present myself, ready to be shackled.”

“I look forward to the event with pleasure.”  She stood and made to leave, and suddenly he couldn’t allow her to.  Almost before he realized it, the words tumbled out.

“Wait, Veronica.  I’m in this with you.”

“No, you’re not.”  She glared at him and he would have smiled if it wasn’t suddenly vitally important to convince her of his sincerity.

“Lizzie was a friend of mine, so until we can prove this wasn’t murder,” then yes, I am.”

“You do realize I can just leave.”

“And you realize that I have complete access to her social circle?  Something you no longer have, if I recall correctly?”  She frowned and he smiled.  “Barmy Embom’s having a bit of a thing tomorrow, lot of major players will be there.  What do you say I pick you up at eight?”

Veronica huffed in frustration before coming to a decision.  “Six.  You can take me to dinner first and tell me a little bit about these major players.”

“I doubt I can afford it, but sure.  We’ll go to Gatti’s.  I’m fairly sure the chef there still remembers you fondly.  Probably has your picture on the wall.”

“This is business, Logan,” she reminded him and he chuffed a laugh.

“It always is with you.”

***

Chapter Text

Despite repeatedly assuring herself that seeing Logan again had had no effect on her whatsoever, Veronica lay awake for hours before finally giving sleep up as a lost cause.  When Cynthia, who worked overnight on the telephone exchange, came in at dawn, it was to find Veronica scrubbing the kettle, surrounded by copperware in a shining state it hadn’t seen in months.  

Cyn stepped over the mess, depositing her handbag and the detritus of her trade on the table allotted for such activity. “I don’t suppose there’s a chance for of a cup of tea?” she asked casually, a half-quirk of her lips betraying her amusement.

Veronica scowled.  “There will be, just as soon as the kettle is no longer filthy.”

“I take it the visit to the latter-day Byron went well?”  Cyn took the kettle from Veronica’s unresisting hands.

Veronica thinned her lips, but swallowed her instinctive retort.  Cyn knew – or at the least, suspected - rather more about Veronica’s history with Logan than made her altogether comfortable.  If she rose to such obvious bait, she’d only be inviting further speculation.  Instead she affected a smile.

“Oh, he’s still mad, bad and dangerous to know, it seems,” Veronica said airily. “He acknowledges that he and Lizzie were thick as thieves, but denies any personal responsibility for her delicate condition.”  

Cynthia’s expression remained impassive.  “Is he a suspect?” she persisted.

Veronica sighed and brushed an errant lock of hair out of her face.  “Officially, he’ll remain a suspect till I confirm his alibi.”  Her limbs were sore from hours of physical employment and she made her way to the table somewhat gingerly.  “Unofficially?  I can’t believe it of him.  Logan, at least, Logan as I knew him had a temper.  I suppose he might very well be capable of killing someone in the heat of the moment.  But poisoning?  I can’t make myself believe it.”

She didn’t trust him – couldn’t rely on him – but Logan Echolls invariably signed his name to his bad deeds a mile high.  If the child had been his, if Lizzie had threatened him with exposure, Veronica would more expect him to have flout her publicly, setting another scandal hissing, than to seek to silence her.   She was really almost certain.

Veronica gratefully accepted the cup Cynthia set in front of her, carefully doctoring it with so much sugar that the spoon could stand on its own.  She took a sip and continued.  “Whoever killed Lizzie was eliminating a complication – financial, or social, or perhaps a combination of the two.  Logan’s always been one to cut off his own nose to spite his face.  A quiet poisoning to make a problem go away doesn’t fit anything I know about him.”

“Is there any chance her pregnancy was unrelated to her murder?”  Cyn asked, wrinkling her nose at Veronica’s offer of the sugar, reaching for the lemon instead.

Veronica cast a meaningful glance at the ceiling, which stared blandly, obdurately back.  “There’s always a chance.  Point of fact, there remains the chance that this wasn’t murder.  Multiple sources confirmed that she was emotionally fragile and doping heavily in the weeks before her death.  Suicide continues to be the most reasonable theory, on the face of it.”  

Cynthia settled back further in her chair, easing out of her Mary Janes before turning to her own tea with the relief of an addict.

After a few restorative sips, she returned to the topic at hand with a steadfastness that Veronica both admired and resented.  

“Are you chasing this will-o’-the-wisp for the sake of your former friend?”  Her eyes narrowed in speculation.  “Or your former fiancé?”

Veronica could not help but snort at that.  “I sincerely doubt Duncan suspects Meg has so much as written me a line in the last five years, much less that she sought me out on this particular matter.  Even if he thought Lizzie was murdered, which he never would - possibly even if he’d been witness to the event - it would never occur to him to do anything about it.  He would certainly never go so far as to hire a private investigator, and stir up scandal.  It just isn’t done, darling.”

Her imitation of Duncan’s habitual remonstrance was a flawless, uncanny echo of the night in the library when Logan had thrown those words in her face.  Those words and a few others.  She closed her eyes against the memory, expelling a short huff of indignation at the tricks her mind was choosing to play.   

She looked up to discover Cynthia had achieved new levels of eloquence in her silence and she shook her head in warning.  The other girl merely took a further sip of her tea.

When Veronica trusted herself to speak, she deliberately turned the conversation by asking after her friend’s evening and the goings on at the telephone exchange.  

Cyn accepted the change of subject with good grace, but, as usual, her responses were vague watercolor washes when Veronica longed for the crispness of pen and ink. The two girls had been flatmates for fourteen months, and Veronica really knew no more about her friend than she had learned within the first week.  No matter how ingenious Veronica’s question, nary an anecdote ever seemed worth sharing, none of the other employees managed to be worthy of either exasperation or invitation – Cyn contrived to suggest the entire enterprise was stultifying.  

The façade was perfect but for the obvious fact that Cynthia Mackenzie would never have stayed employed at a company if it were really as dull as she contrived to convey.  As always, the lack of forthrightness itched at Veronica’s skin.

On one of her less disciplined days, after just such a conversation, she’d taken it upon herself to search Cynthia’s room.  She had found a little pearl handled revolver in a hatbox in Cynthia’s wardrobe and a stack of unopened letters from an Eleanor St. Claire in a box under her bed, in a room otherwise as impersonal as the day she’d moved in.   Although Veronica hadn’t thought she’d left any sign of her intrusion, her flatmate had returned the favor the following afternoon, leaving one of Veronica’s old Oxford programs conspicuously in the middle of her bed in a room that otherwise looked untouched.  

Somewhat inevitably, Veronica marked that day as true beginning of their friendship.

Though she hadn’t succumbed to further searches, she still idly probed for answers whenever the inclination struck, and today she welcomed the mystery as even a momentary distraction.  It might not offer her insight into Elizabeth Manning’s demise, but it could grant at least a brief respite from the re-emergence of Logan Echolls.  

She probed idly, every question a loaded one, never particularly sure of what she was looking for, or what she would do if she found it.  Cyn parried them all with a patronizing ease that Veronica suspected reflected badly on her own ability to marshal her thoughts away from the one figure occupying so much of them.

In truth, Veronica didn’t know how she felt about seeing Logan again, except to think that it was something like the breaking of a seal.  Logan, Oxford, the Black Castle, the events surrounding her expulsion – every association had been carefully stored away, so carefully, in fact, that Veronica had begun to believe the experience no longer affected her.  

But Logan had a way of obliterating her carefully constructed walls.  Everything was pouring back out and it was all she could do to stay standing, let alone retain her equilibrium against the deluge.

Rather earlier than was probably quite acceptable, Veronica was on the phone, chasing the alibi with the relentlessness of her father’s old terrier. No matter how carefully she reminded herself that Logan was an unlikely killer, she needed to know.

***

Logan Echolls sat at table, abstractedly neglecting his breakfast, his dressing gown, an elaborate affair splashed with improbably coloured tigers, wrapped slackly round him.  He gave no sign that he’d seen Ratner re-enter the room.  

Ratner loathed that dressing gown, and had gone so far as to forget to pack it on more than one occasion, but he’d arrange the purchase of three more if he thought it might serve to distract his master from the return of Miss Veronica Mars.

He didn’t permit himself to frown, but his expression grew politely, professionally blank and fury coiled like a spring beneath the surface as he recalled their earlier encounter. Less than twenty-four hours and she’d already begun to work her damage.  

Ratner hadn’t yet joined Logan’s service the last time the girl had embroiled herself in his employer’s life, but he had been there for the vast majority of the fallout, and Ratner found himself idly wondering if they could escape to the continent until Miss Mars’s influence was no more than a fever dream.  He could tolerate the relaxed disorder so popular with watering holes to safely remove Logan from her clutches.

It was a futile thought. Logan Echolls never did a thing he didn’t want and if he wanted to pursue his own destruction, no amount of distraction or argument was going to turn him from his course.

Ratner crossed to the table, veneer of professional remove carefully in place.  

Logan had eaten nothing. Eggs and a couple of rashers of bacon sat congealing in their own fat.  A muffin had been reduced to crumbs without the slightest indication that any portion had been consumed.  The marmalade had not even been opened. He shook his head with a slight, but audible tsk as he removed the cold plate.  

Logan looked up, the clouds lifting slightly as something like amusement crossed his face, no doubt ready to accuse Ratner of ‘mothering him’ again.  Ratner cleared his throat.

“Would you like something else sir?  Something lighter perhaps? An omelet?”  

The possible humor deepened to a definite smirk that heartened Ratner even as it irritated him.  Logan Echolls was never fully gone if he was capable of being obnoxious.  Logan waved a dismissive hand.  “I eat the air, promise-crammed, you cannot feed capons so.” This last was offered with a theatrical sigh.

A long history had taught Ratner to gauge Logan’s levels of discontent, and evasive theatricality was practically the baseline, so ingrained was it as a defensive habit.

Emboldened, Ratner decided to venture further.  “I trust you slept well, sir?”

The humor left Logan eyes but neglected to inform the rest of his face, leaving Ratner to wish he’d stayed silent on the subject.  

Logan grimaced a grin as he neatly capped his own quotation.  “I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself king of infinite space but that...”  He trailed off, giving a slight inclination of the head for Ratner to supply the rest.

The dreams had returned, then.  It had been some time since he’d suffered them, but they were new to neither servant nor master.  Ratner had seen a few cases of shell-shock after the War, and the minor detail that Logan had been too young to serve did little to differentiate his symptoms – he just feared a different set of shadows.

Neither said anything for an interminable moment.  Logan poured another cup of coffee, clutching the cup to him as though suddenly cold, and Ratner busied himself with straightening the disorder the younger man habitually left in his wake.

“Ratner, who the devil was on the ‘phone so early?”  Logan asked suddenly, and Ratner froze.

It was not an unreasonable question, as the majority of Logan Echolls’ acquaintances were far more likely to see dawn from the wrong side round than otherwise, and might in fact be astonished to discover that the AM played host to an eight o’clock as well as the evening.  Still, Ratner paused, his back still to the other man, using his absorption in his minor duties to allow him to neglect the fundamental one, if only for a brief moment.

When he turned, it was to find Logan staring him down, all traces of preoccupation gone.  Ratner did not give vent to his frustration.  He’d hoped the man hadn’t awoken, that he might protect him from at least that much.

“Miss Mars telephoned early this morning, sir.”

Logan sat upright, setting his coffee down with such haste the liquid slopped onto the saucer.

“And you didn’t wake me, what?”

“Forgive me sir, but she called not to speak to you, but to me.”  Though calling it a conversation would be putting the terms rather generously.  Interrogation was more accurate.

“To you?  Why would she ask to – “Logan ducked his head when he twigged to it, imperfectly concealing the flush that suffused his cheeks.  “She wanted my alibi.”

“She wished to confirm the details, sir,” Ratner acceded unwillingly, hating Veronica Mars with all his heart.

Logan ran a hand through already disordered hair.  “I don’t know why I expected any differently.  Do you suppose, that is – she truly suspects me, doesn’t she?”

“I couldn’t speak to that, sir, but rest assured that I did my best to disabuse her of the notion.”

She hadn’t sounded suspicious, she’d sounded cold.  An empty shell of a woman devoid of proper feeling.  He’d returned the favor in a manner that would win him little support from his employer should he ever learn of it.  

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  She must think me capable of all manner of ills.”

Ratner stepped forward.

“Sir, if I might venture to suggest-“

“You may not.”  The half-strangled words were harsher than his habitual usage, but Ratner only nodded automatically, concealing his concern behind professional standards.

Logan closed his eyes for a protracted heartbeat, before apparently shaking himself of both the moment and his malaise.  “Never mind the lady sleuth.  No doubt she’ll discover my guilt in her own time.  There’s a luncheon at Lil’s today.  I need to select something loud enough to serve as an irritation to the elder Lady Carnathan-Kane, yet not so much so that it raises any eyebrows at the club later.  Perhaps the blue stripe?”  He smiled.  

Ratner recognized that smile.  It was the mask Logan wore in public – a caricature calculated to keep the curious at arm’s length.  He’d never before used it between them.

Ratner chose to ignore the suddenly widening chasm and directed his attention instead to the question.  “While the blue stripe certainly possesses something of an insolent quality, I think I’d employ the grey check, sir.  I’ve noted in the past that that particular pattern, while perfectly unobjectionable in and of itself, invariably seems to irritate the lady in question.”

“As ever, I bow to your superior judgement in what’s likely to aggravate the ladies.” He flashed another quicksilver grin and stood, equanimity restored. “Away before me to sweet beds of flowers,” he said, with a flourish, abruptly substituting one melancholy mug for another.

Ratner didn’t comment, but he couldn’t help but worry as he recalled the remainder of the couplet.

***  

Veronica’s heels tapped steadily upon the pavement as she made her way toward her next call of the morning.

She’d extracted the details of Logan’s alibi as best she could from his rather disagreeable valet, a conversation less pleasant and only mildly more successful than a dental visit.  She was loath to think what Logan must have told the man about her.  

As the aptly named Ratner had demonstrated immediately and all too clearly that he could hardly be considered an impartial alibi, she’d then followed up at a slightly later hour with a trunk call to Lady Griffith who’d quite unsuspiciously confirmed Mr. Echolls’ presence at a shooting party just after the New Year.  

It was, perhaps,  a small consolation, but she hadn’t allowed a murderer to assist her.  Probably. Veronica censured herself for the qualifier.  She knew, she thought – she thought she knew – that she hadn’t genuinely believed it of him, that her due diligence was just that.  She could hardly leave her commission incomplete because of personal feeling.  And certainly, it was better to know for sure that he could have had no hand in it.  

Logan Echolls, cad who leaves a girl to ruin?  She’d been willing to accept that possibility.  She’d lived that possibility, even if the ruin hadn’t been precisely of his doing.  But not murder.  And if her stomach twisted a little at the confirmation of his innocence, it was probably no more than the unprepossessing kipper on which she’d breakfasted.

Veronica shook her head in an attempt to dislodge the image of Logan from the night before, leaning indolently in his shirt sleeves and a waistcoat that was a too-persuasive complement to his tailor’s expertise.   Logan excelled at disrupting her equilibrium, and she had a murder case to solve.

Always assuming that it was a murder.  Her steps faltered slightly at the thought, and she forced herself to keep walking.  Her conversation with Cynthia earlier had drawn a clear circle around how little she knew in this case.  She was acting on instinct, which was hardly a new experience for her, but it wasn’t her instinct she was following, but Meg’s.  

But though suicide was a reasonable solution, it wasn’t a satisfactory one.  And it didn’t match the image of the vivacious girl that remained fixed in her mind.  Veronica hadn’t seen Elizabeth since childhood, and not much then – Lizzie had been four years younger and not a welcomed playmate by mature young ladies of twelve years old – but she remembered the harum-scarum creature always up a tree or down at the brook – quite different from her quieter, gentler older sister.  People rarely changed at their core, whatever veneers their personality took on later in life, and Veronica would have said that Elizabeth was not the sort to take her own life.  

Veronica bit her lip and wrapped her coat more closely about herself, forcing herself to keep moving.  She was missing something vital, some necessary link.  Lady Margaret had not spoken from blind conviction or out of knowledge of her sister’s character.  Veronica had been in a position to remove the blindfolds from more than her share of grieved relatives, so many of whom refused to believe the truth even when presented with the evidence.  

But that utter unwillingness to accept a darker possibility always carried with it a hint of desperation and uncertainty - even on the few occasions where such faith was justified.  No matter how strident the claim, there was always a fear that perhaps they didn’t know their loved one as well as they had believed.

Not so, the elder Manning girl.  Lady Margaret had spoken with assurance.  She had not asked Veronica to investigate her sister’s death, but her murder, and her tone had not invited speculation or alternate theories.  Whatever had sparked her suspicions had been concrete enough that she wasn’t merely questioning.  

And whatever it was, she was deliberately withholding it.  

But Veronica couldn’t tackle her client until she had more ground under her feet.

At her behest, Cynthia had made a call to the detested former boyfriend, Max to get some further context on the flatmate. He began by updating her on his so-called revolutionary exploits and demanding funding for same, but he eventually confirmed that Lizzie’s flatmate, Berenice Hadley was a regular member of the circuit.  That she had widely recognized nightly habit of drinking even more than that generally immoderate group was wont; and that, while generally liked, she was inclined to become increasingly indiscrete as sobriety slipped further away, the last of which had caused more than a few dustups when she had unwittingly shared confidences with the wrong party.  

That she shared a portion of a largish sculpture studio in Hampstead with rather more like-minded individuals than the space allowed, but had been producing less lately and was generally to be found still living in the quarters she had shared with Lizzie Manning.  That she currently lived alone, but she was widely expected to begin sharing her accommodation with her boyfriend shortly, as the proposal that had formed the basis of her continued refusal to cohabitate had been permanently shelved.

About the boyfriend, Max had offered no information, seeming to think him not worth the time it would take to form an opinion.  Veronica had done some covert questioning at the party, given his obvious distaste for Elizabeth Manning, but no one seemed to have much to say.  He was at the fringes, forgettable, and, except for Berenice’s persistent fondness for him, happy to remain that way.  No one could say what he did for a living, and many had trouble placing him at all.  There was but one exception to this brief and uninteresting biography, and it was a humdinger.  Her source, a confiding young man who reveled in the unlikely nickname of “Corny” had, upon being asked about Stuey, demanded to know if Veronica was looking to score dope, and then earnestly attempted to direct her to other suppliers that would be less inclined to cheat her.  She’d asked a constable that owed her a favor or two to look into the matter further.

Veronica glanced absently at her wrist as she closed in on her quarry.  It was half-past-ten, which hopefully meant Berenice Hadley should have moved past the somnolent stage of the previous evening’s indulgences and be well into the period allotted for regret.  Veronica could only hope that the other woman’s state was not such that she might seek to solve the problem with the immediate reapplication of its cause.

As she neared her destination, crowds of children swarmed around her, their cries carrying a conflicting mix of childhood innocence and taunting cynicism.  Veronica moved quickly, head slightly down, presenting as little a target for attention as possible, wishing she had been willing to charge a taxi to Lady Margaret’s account.  

Berenice’s was one of a series of flats some vandal had carved roughly out of a row of Victorian family homes.  Larger tenement buildings loomed on either side, and the little block of attached houses appeared to crouch in the shadow of these newcomers.  Though the neighborhood was such that Veronica wished to clutch her pocketbook tightly to her – despite knowing that such behavior would peg her as an easy mark – someone had made an effort with the building itself.  Veronica tripped up a set of recently scoured steps and pressed the button for the second-floor flat – making a note as she did so to interview the individuals above and below.

It took three rings of the bell before Berenice came down, the wreckage of the previous evening showing clearly on her sleep-slackened face.  It took a moment of bleary indignation before she recognized Veronica, but the difference was startling.  Shock, fury, and yes, fear, moved across her face like ripples across water, and she stepped outside rather than ushering Veronica in.

“What are you doing here?” the girl lifted her chin after having evidently decided to lead with antagonism.

Veronica briefly considered resuming her persona of a cheerful, somewhat malicious gossip anxious to get her hands on something impressive in modern sculpture, but the sober light of morning had taken with it much of Berenice’s guilelessness, and she doubted it would work.  She opted for a more straightforward approach.

“I’m investigating the death of Elizabeth Manning, and I was hoping you could tell me more about her.”

The other girl glared, the smeared tracks of her makeup settling into the lines of her face like a macabre mask, and Veronica mentally revised her age upward by close to a decade.  “I’ve been told what you are, why you were at that party the other night.  You lied to me.”

Veronica inclined her head in acknowledgment.  “I frequently lie to people.  Though, to be fair, they generally lie to me as well.  For example, you were lying when you said you didn’t know the name of Elizabeth’s lover.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” the other said in a furious whisper, after first glancing around as though their interview was being observed and no doubt attracting the attention of every neighborhood busybody.

She maintained her composure with some difficulty.  “You’re telling me a great deal.  You’ve indicated that someone took the time to inform you of my identity, which means someone either has your interests extremely close to heart, or they’re involved in the case, or possibly they simply have an animus against me.  You’ve told me you resent my subterfuge, and you’ve acknowledged your lie about the lover.  If you choose not to answer any questions, that too will tell me something.”

“I didn’t admit a lie.”

“You did, rather.”  Veronica inclined her head.  “When I accused you of it, you didn’t protest your innocence, you deflected.  You still haven’t said otherwise.  While hardly conclusive, it’s what one might consider strongly indicative of dishonesty.”

“I don’t know him.  I’ve never met him.”

“I never said you did. I said you knew who he was.”

“I don’t know anything.”

Veronica decided to try another tack.

“You said you loved Lizzie.  Was that true?”

“What difference does it make to you?  She’s gone, and no amount of prying or picking of her bones is going to change that.”

“Lizzie’s sister thinks she was murdered.”

“Her sister,” Berenice sniffed.  “Funny, I never saw much family feeling among them when she was alive.”

“If there’s a chance that she was murdered, wouldn’t you want to-“

“To stick my nose where it doesn’t belong?”

“To avenge her death.”

“All I want is to be left in peace, away from vultures and sneaks.  You aren’t here for Lizzie’s sake; you didn’t even know her.”

Veronica’s patience left her.  “When Lizzie was seven years old, she broke her arm falling out of a tree on her family’s property.  The nanny was dismissed for not watching her properly.  She cried for a week over the nanny, and not at all about the arm.  Her favorite toy was a woolen lamb she’d had since infancy that she used to drag on all her adventures, growing grey and worn till one fool of a governess took it upon herself to throw it away.  She then deliberately threw herself out of that selfsame tree, in an attempt to get rid of the offending governess.”

Berenice hesitated.  “Did her sister give you that bit of colour?”

“Meg didn’t tell me any of this.  I knew Lizzie.  Not well, certainly not as well as you, and not since childhood, but I knew her, and I don’t think she was the type to kill herself.  You knew her better than anyone.  Did you really think her capable?”

Berenice seemed surprised.  She hesitated before fumbling an answer.  “I don’t, I don’t know.  I wouldn’t have said so, but she was that upset about-“

“You do know his name, don’t you?  You were so close to Lizzie, surely she told you something about him.”

The other girl hesitated, and again cast a frightened glance around her.  From within the building came the sound of heavy footsteps, and something shut down in her expression.

“I don’t know anything about him.  Not really.  All of Lizzie’s talk was that of a fool girl with her head in the clouds.”

Veronica made one last push.  “Berenice, this man is probably a murderer.  Your friend is dead.  Her baby is dead.  Don’t you want to – “

“I want to be left alone,” Berenice snapped somewhat wildly, stepping back and shutting the door with a firm thunk.

Veronica worked her jaw in frustration as she considered her next steps.  The canvassing of the neighbors would have to wait – if she tried it now, there was every possibility Bernice would call the police, and there were far too many detectives and constables alike who’d found themselves embarrassed a time or two and would relish the opportunity to bring her down.  

She shook her head and walked away, casting one last glance at the building behind her.  She thought she saw a curtain shift on the second floor as she did.

***

Logan leaned back and closed his eyes, barely recollecting the need to give a direction to the driver before lapsing once more into distracted reverie.  The other man was the garrulous type happily complaining about his fares, the traffic, the weather, and the money he lost on a nag of a horse the previous week.

Logan typically relished such characters.  On another morning, he would have extracted all the details of the disappointing derby, thrilled to learn that a another cabbie named Bill kept edging out the spots that seniority demanded belonged properly to his hackey, tried to learn of any gossip attached to disappointing customers.  Today it merely provided a soothing background noise, as his mind was decidedly elsewhere - caught between the Scylla that was the reemergence of Veronica Mars, and the Charybdis that was his reintroduction to the Carnathan-Kanes.

To say he didn’t know why he’d offered to help Veronica would be both true and fundamentally dishonest.  It had been five years since Oxford, and in that time, he’d worked himself into a seeming indifference that somehow vanished the moment he laid eyes on her.  She’d looked very much like herself, the best version of herself, the one that could smile and smile while she cut to the bone.  She’d stopped blunting the razor-edge, and he couldn’t help but be drawn in, even knowing that she’d tear him to ribbons.

Part of him thought he saw the same reaction in her, but he’d thought as much before.  She’d taken great steps to prove him wrong.  He worried his cuffs and tie, determined to banish thoughts of her.  The day was shaping up to be difficult enough without time lost tilting at windmills.  Lils had garnered him an invitation to one of Celeste’s luncheons, and he hadn’t found it in himself to refuse, but he wasn’t altogether relishing a renewal of terms with the family.

Logan’s history with the Carnathan-Kanes was long and rather complicated.  He’d been close to the son, Duncan, since their schooldays, where the simple act of putting a frog in the teacher’s desk could bond two boys forever.  They hadn’t seen much of each other since university - Duncan was towing a fairly careful line these days and Logan couldn’t even pretend an interest in his political connexions – but they’d never had a falling out.  

Duncan’s sister, Lillian, had been nothing more than an obnoxious brat to him for years – and another excellent candidate for frog disposal - till she came back from finishing school, quite nicely finished indeed.  He’d treated her like spun sugar, till he learned she wouldn’t melt, and then they’d fought as intensely as they had loved.  It had taken some time for him to recognize that a continual atmosphere of squalls could not help but overset the boat, to recognize that however peaceful the calm after the storm, he wanted his feet on dry land.  Her defection to her Spaniard was only the most overt betrayal of trust, it was hardly the first.

So, he’d let her go, and had found that as easily as she’d discarded him, she could not respond in kind when the movement came on his end.  It had been a year of back and forth before they reached détente, and half of him feared what doing this favor might entail in the long run.  Of course, it might be easier to take the ‘devil he knew’ approach with Lil, and save himself from the almost certain disaster of Veronica Mars back in his life.

He pressed his palm to his temple with resignation.  Almost a full minute without thinking of her, probably the most he’d managed since the previous night.  He paid the cabbie, and went inside.

The Carnathan-Kane mansion stood centrally in Grosvenor square, as staid and stolid as though it and the family both had been there for centuries, though in fact, the family title was still stiff and shiny and new from the box.  Said acquisition had been a reassuringly cyclical bit of tittle in more than one drawing room, with the somewhat catty conclusion being that the honor had been purchased from the crown.

Perhaps that knowledge explained Celeste Carnathan-Kane, Baroness of Mitford’s unwavering rigidity – socially, personally, and most especially maternally.

Most of the lads with a right to the ermine one day didn’t take much of anything seriously, certainly not their own selves.  And their female counterparts were much the same.   Whereas Logan wasn’t sure there was even one thing the Baroness didn’t give more consideration than it deserved.  While she was not quite the storybook villain her daughter made her out to be, her determination to always behave with absolute correctness – and demand of others the same - made her company a universal bore, no matter how lavish her parties or exclusive her invitation list.

Lady Carnathan-Kanes’s status as elderly killjoy had been so firmly fixed in his mind since those early days, it had always astonished Logan – and that morning was no exception – to recall she was not far past the wrong side of forty.  She made an impressive figure against furnishings he would wager had been chosen to compliment her colouring, her hair cunningly styled in the latest offering from one of the finest beauticians in Bond street, wearing a dress her daughter might have chosen for herself.  

Celeste’s smile, more manufactured than genuine under the best of circumstances, disappeared completely when she turned away from a rotund little finance minister Logan knew only by sight to find him standing on the threshold.  

Even without any personal antagonism, his very existence caused difficulties for the elder Carnathan-Kane. Celeste lived in a world of absolutes and he had never managed to slot neatly into a box for her.  True, his mother’s people had been in the stud book for a donkey’s ears, but then she’d up and married his father, who’d always delighted in telling people that he’d come from nothing even as he worked out any slights - real or imagined - on the members of his household.  

Logan would have been the first to agree that said elopement hardly spoke to his mother’s good judgement, but then she’d compounded the error by refusing to slink away in quietude.  Pops had made heaps of money, and rather than being disowned as the family embarrassment, they’d successfully positioned themselves as the cosseted darlings of society.  Till a rather rapid fall, of course.

Celeste could never decide whether her condescending pity for ‘poor Lynnette’ or her outraged disdain for the studio upstart she’d married should come to the forefront in her dealings with the offspring of both.  She frequently settled on a confused combination of the two.

Logan’s smile stretched as hers faded.  “Lady Carnathan-Kane, as ever, you present a picture.”  It was a scrupulously truthful observation, particularly as he did not specify what sort of picture.

“Mr. Echolls, so good of you to make the time for my little gathering.”  She paused.  “I was beginning to believe you weren’t able to attend.”  

Hoped was more like, he suspected. Logan had long since taken the measure of his friend’s mother, and he knew that nothing infuriated her so much as the appearance of courtesy in those she disliked.  His father might have been run out of the studio in disgrace, but the man could control a scene, and Logan hadn’t forgotten every lesson in his eagerness to put daylight between the two of them.  His response therefore held all the warmth hers had lacked.

“I beg your pardon, Lady Carnathan-Kane, I know the luncheon was for one o’clock, and nothing would have prevented me from a prompt arrival, but that mysterious act of God that is the traffic in Piccadilly.”

“I see.”  She said, her expression not dissimilar to the one she’d worn to a memorable party out at her Hertfordshire estate, when the gardener had mistakenly deposited fresh loads of fertilizer round the most picturesque walks.

“I was just talking to Dickie Casablancas –  I understand Lord Carnathan-Kane is doing rather well for himself out of that Mendelvian Trust business.  Rather heartening, I’d think.”

“I don’t pretend to follow my husband’s business,” she demurred in an outrageous falsehood.  She turned on the offensive.  “Tell me, was that you I saw in the papers the other day?”

She was referring, of course, to that blasted fool’s contribution to the disreputable press last week.  A night on the town with Logan Echolls or some such blather.  He’d been astonished to learn that when dining in the West End in anticipation of a show, he’d managed to break half a dozen hearts and sully twice as many reputations before demonstrating a boxing prowess that could serve him well in the ring should his financial situation ever suffer a reversal.  

It was a weak sally on her part, as he had long grown used to the intrusions of the bottom-feeding populace, and he did not have to reach very far to arrive at indifference.  “Oh doubtless, doubtless.  ‘Tis a burden to be so truly run after,” he said.

“It would seem you did a great deal of the running after yourself.  But then, I suppose such behavior is a common thing on film sets,” she observed smartly, and if his game was chess, hers was croquet, scoring careful points until there came the chance to roquet her opponent. He raised an eyebrow and decided to stop playing defensively.

“I had no idea you were so devoted to that particular publication. Ratner polices my reading don’t you know.  I’ll have to tell the man that it’s not nearly the low-class rag he believes it to be, perhaps he’ll allow it in the house.” Logan said.

“I’m so happy to hear that you’ve developed standards in some things at least,” she said with a dismissive sniff, even as her brows knit.  “I’d rather despaired of poor Lynette’s ability to impose any self-discipline in the household, it went so against her own custom.”

The shot struck home, and she knew it.  He took a step forward almost without realization, before grabbing ahold of his temper with both hands.  He nodded, almost for something to do, as he hardly trusted his voice. “I must say, I’ve missed the welcomes I get in this house.  I don’t think there’s an establishment in London that equals your hospitality, Lady Carnathan-Kane.”

“No doubt your experience is broader than most,” she parried, a cat in cream.

His eyes glittered as he observed casually, “An unvarying social circle can get a bit tedious, I find.  Doubtless you’ve experienced the same from time to time?  I’m sure I’ve discussed as much with your husband.  Or was that regarding his domestic arrangements?”

It was checkmate and a strike on the centerpeg at once, and Logan watched in fascination as fury stamped her features into the very likeness of her daughter.  Her arm fluttered in an aborted gesture that might have convincingly been intended to fix her hair.  “Well, if you find our society too tedious Mr. Echolls, there are obvious sources of remedy.”

“Mother!  What is this shocking lack of hospitality?”

A clearly, defiantly, sozzled Lillian chose that moment to make her appearance.  She stood in the doorway making a picture no less striking than her mother had, despite – or perhaps because – of the disorder to her toilette.  Her hair was rumpled, her lipstick half gone, her dress was in a disarray.  Somehow it served only to enhance the artificiality of Celeste’s perfection.

Spotting Logan, the girl crossed the parquet floor quickly, flinging her arms round him.  “Darling, you simply must come into the drawing room and defend me from Mumsie’s version of entertainment, I feel like I’m going to waste away from lack of stimulation.  Can one die of boredom?”

Her skirmish with Logan reduced to irrelevancy, Celeste turned, cobra-like on her daughter.  “Lillian!  What do you mean by appearing in such a state?  I told you to entertain Lord Brunswick.”

Lil beamed as she untwined herself from Logan.  “Don’t worry, mother, I wouldn’t dream of neglecting such a responsibility.  I’m certain he was entertained, in fact, you’ll be pleased to note that I took it upon myself to entertain the room.”

Her mother drew in her breath in a sharp hiss.  “Why are you so determined to drag this family down into the muck?” she breathed, and Logan felt Lillian go still beside him.  “Bad enough, that you’re spiking your season, after I worked so hard to get Lady Archdale to represent you.  But have you no consideration for your brother’s expectations?”

Lilly’s eyes narrowed as she regarded her mother.  “How could I possibly escape them when you remind me daily?”

“You might be willing to play the fool in public, but you should understand the ramifications of your little stunts.”

“Well, mother, if you didn’t fritter away the first hour of your luncheon without producing anything edible, I might not have had to abandon decorum, lest anyone notice that my darling brother never offers any opinions without having them previously approved by you,” Lil spat.

“Your brother is taking the necessary steps to propel this family forward, and if you had any sense of decency, you’d do the same.”

The younger woman snorted.  “You’ve turned him into sketch from a Brylcreem advert, only less lifelike.”

Logan decided it was probably time to interject, before the two ladies forgot their guests entirely in the stoking of their animus.  “Speaking of food, I must admit to being absolutely ravenous – anticipation of the tophole grub here is the only thing that kept me going today.”

Celeste ignored him; her furious gaze stayed on Lil. He couldn’t help suspecting she regretted that she could no longer banish her daughter to the nursery whenever she proved intractable.  She drew herself up, somehow straightening her already ramrod posture.   “Perhaps you could inform Mrs. Bell that we will be ready to eat in fifteen minutes.  And compose yourself before you return.”

“Do we have so much time?”  Lilly asked.  “Never fret, Mumsie, I couldn’t possibly abandon you to handle our guests all on your own.”  

“We will discuss your behavior later.”  Celeste did not quite grit her teeth.

“I’ll look forward to it.” The daughter dropped a mocking courtesy that might have worked better had she not still been a shade unsteady on her feet.   “After all, where would you be if I didn’t give you fresh material for disapproval?”

Before the squabble could further escalate, Duncan walked into the room.  Logan had to say that Lillian’s criticism of his appearance was not altogether out of place – he looked so starched, it was half a wonder he could move at all.  “Mother, ought we to be – I say, Echolls, I didn’t realize...” He shot a confused glance at his mother. “That is to say, are you joining us?”

“Duffy,” Logan said heartily, “Good to see you again.  It’s been too long.”

The Honorable Duncan Carnathan-Kane scowled reflexively at Logan’s use of the nickname that had followed him since Eton, but moved forward to embrace his friend.

“Of course, good to see you too, old man,” he said, giving the other a light cuff on the back of the head that quickly devolved into minor scuffle.

“Duncan,” his mother barked, presumably outraged that her son was actually enjoying himself.  “You’re neglecting our guests terribly.”

Duncan shot Celeste a pained glance, even as he straightened slightly under her watchful gaze, and Logan felt a stab of pity for his friend.  Not that Duncan couldn’t have reasonably told her off at any point in the last five years – probably with his father’s blessing at that – but it was a skillset he’d never learned.

“Of course, mother.  I apologize.”  Duncan grimaced apologetically at Logan.  “Shall we go in?”

***

It was well after three, so Veronica should find her quarry in his office, unless he’d used the excuse of her request to extend his lunch hour rather longer than its properly allotted time.  Given the gentleman in question, that was always a possibility, but if so, she’d simply wait him out.  There were still ages to go before her evening’s engagement with Logan – if one could consider his uninvited and impertinent decision to push in on her investigation an engagement.  

She turned down a shabby little side street, toward a building whose brass plate was almost entirely obscured by grime.  The professional offices of Clifford McCormack exuded a seediness and moral equivalency more to be expected in a penny-ante moneylender than a solicitor, but perhaps the tone was comforting to those who made up the bulk of his business. So complete was the external impression of iniquity, that Veronica could never help but be surprised by its relatively commonplace interior; the rows of lockboxes and shelves of legal tomes might have been found in any solicitor’s office in the city.  

The door jingled as she entered, clerk and secretary both looking up sharply before relaxing in recognition and returning to their tasks.  Their reaction confirmed their employer’s presence, so she moved quickly across the small space without giving either the chance to rise, rapping her knuckles sharply upon the inner door and entering without waiting to be announced.  Mr. McCormick looked up from the papers he was perusing with a sardonic amusement.

“Miss Mars,” he drawled with a complete lack of surprise. “Generally when people come to me for information they give me more than a bare four hours to gather it.”

“Most people underestimate your ability to stand every solicitor in town to drinks.”

“A minor talent, I confess it,” he acknowledged, spreading his hands wide, while she took the seat opposite.  “Now, as to your questions – I’m afraid Lady Elizabeth Manning’s finances were somewhat ensnarled and I’m still working on unraveling them.”

Veronica cocked her head.  “If I acknowledge your lack of immediate omniscience, will you air the cloth?  I can play Penelope rather well, as you know.”

McCormick remained silent but his eyebrows showed no such restraint.

“Come on, and tell us a story.  I promise to say oooh at all the proper intervals.”

The older man sighed.   “Very well.  Lady Elizabeth Manning was, essentially, penniless.   Lord Manning had responded with nobleman’s grace to his daughter’s wayward ways by determining to punish her, while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge her existence.  The fortune she’d stood to inherit upon reaching the age of majority had been revoked almost in its entirety.

She did inherit a sum of a few thousand pounds from her mother, that money having been tied up in such a way that her father had been unable to get at it – and I have reason to believe that he tried.  But as she apparently made no effort to curb her spending upon being separated from her family, rather the reverse, she had got through the whole of it in rather less than three years.  She continued to spend, amassing considerable debts from an impressive variety of tradesman.  Her father paid off the initial creditors - but about a year ago, he refused further monetary assistance.”

“Pecuniary interest or moral principle?”  Veronica wondered.

He gave the barest shrug.  “Principle of some sort - its morality is probably debatable.  Manning has a decent head for business, he’s not hurting for dough. Lady Elizabeth’s extravagances were never so objectionable as the company she kept, or so I am given to understand.”

“So, Lizzie Manning was in some considerable debt at the time of her death,” Veronica mused.

“Actually...” McCormack’s smile bore the vindication of a winning hand.  “June of last year, some seven months before her death, the young lady  began to make rather large entries on the credit side of her ledger.  All to cash.”

“Regular entries?

“Regular in their timing though not in their amount, according to my sources.”

“And among these legal lights was there any knowledge as to the source of this financial windfall?”

“Knowledge?  No.  Speculation?  Quite a bit, although whether one theory was likelier than another I’m afraid I couldn’t say.  If I were a betting man –“

“Which of course you aren’t, notwithstanding the occasional flutter.”

“Certainly not.   One swallow doesn’t make a summer.”

“But perhaps a mass migration does.”

His mouth quirked into a half-smile.  “All charitable donations in the interest of equine development aside, if I were a betting man, I would put my money on an irregular establishment of some kind.”

“Not blackmail?”

“Blackmail is less predictable and widens the field a bit, of course.  But it’s the rare blackmailer who stops at a single victim.  The timing of the payments suggests a single source.  I would plump for her having a keeper rather than a victim.”

“Of course, she could collect payments from multiple sources only to deposit them at the same time.”

“She could,” he acknowledged with a negligent roll of his shoulders.  “If so, I’d make it a priority to study her papers for some sort of memorandum.  It’s a sloppy blackmailer who doesn’t keep records of payments.”

“Judging from what I’ve heard of the young lady in question, I have every reason to believe she might be that careless – were it not that I have further information to support your original conclusion.”

“Oh?

Veronica smiled.  “We both have our methods.”

“Not that you’ve ever revealed yours.  Somehow, whatever the investigation, you simply manage.”

“I’m efficient.”  She turned brisk.  “Did these payments continue up until the point of her death?”

His fingers tapped an irregular pattern on the blotter as he considered his answer.  “They did and they didn’t,” he said, finally.

“McCormick, you know I’m not paying your hourly rate,” she warned, eyebrows raised.

“And for that, you must allow me my amusements,” he retorted.  “The quibble was not meaningless.  She did make a sizeable deposit shortly before her death.  However, the regular deposits had ceased some six weeks previously.”

Veronica allowed him the point with as much grace as she could manage, before turning the conversation to lighter subjects.  McCormick waxed eloquent about his latest client, a woman who’d attacked her laundress over a tuppence. Veronica offered the occasional riposte, but the absurdities barely kept her attention, while she pondered what she’d learned.

It tracked.  When Lizzie Manning’s lover had thrown her over, the money had stopped, naturally enough.  Only a highly unusual man would pay for the continued maintenance of a lady whose favors he was no longer enjoying, at least without further incentive.  Had Elizabeth’s pregnancy provided that incentive?  And if she had, was the money an attempt to do the honorable thing?  Or just to shut up someone with a particularly dangerous story?

Was it possible Elizabeth had turned to blackmail… not initially - but afterwards?  

She needed a line on the gentleman in question.    Berenice knew more than she was saying, Veronica was sure of it.  Although it was doubtful they’d been rooming together before the dissolution of her relationship – expensive mistresses were generally unlikely to share a bare handful of rooms in a furnished flat – she must have had an inkling.    If not a name, then something else – his direction, his age, his occupation – always assuming he had one.  Perhaps he was married.  If so, the addition of a child could prove an extravagant complication.  

And not just for the lover.  Stuart Manning was making moves in the current party; that he had not yet bid to head the conservative wing was considered a matter of timing more than anything else.  His middle daughter’s antics would reflect back on him, no matter how clearly he claimed a separation. Veronica had little doubt that he was the true reason the pregnancy had not been made public at the inquest.  Would he have done more to keep her from embarrassing him?

Or could it have been someone else?  A jealous spouse or girlfriend?  Someone with a financial stake In the lover’s future?

It was all futile until she found the lover himself.

***

Given its less than auspicious start, it was perhaps not surprising that luncheon was a decidedly uncomfortable affair.  The food, which was certainly good, did little to make up for the stifling atmosphere, and Logan found himself wishing he’d opted to dine at his club, or even stopped for a bit of bread and cheese at some corner pub – not that Ratner ever let him eat at pubs. Which just went to show how little the man really understood things, because even the grimiest little two-bit hole surely had a wholesomer atmosphere.   

Logan shook his head as the quails in pastry were replaced and the meat dish brought out.  Celeste never stinted when it came to the details.  It was a shame her parties were fiascos oftener than not.

Lillian seemed to approach the meal determined to push her mother’s every button – and by inference, the woman might have been an automat.  The younger Carnathan-Kane drank heavily throughout the meal, despite its being earlier than even the most liberal interpretation of the cocktail fad allowed.  And she had been tight before they ever sat down.  Why her mother didn’t choose to exercise authority in the one way it would be useful – instructing the staff not to serve her daughter – Logan would never know, but she didn’t.  

Lillian was not the type to quietly or cheerfully go half-seas over.  Instead of a somnolent slide into her soup or an awkward but more-or-less cheerful tendency to shout down the table dialogue intended only for her seatmate (which would have been socially embarrassing, but so typically so as to almost be unworthy of comment) alcohol turned Lillian poisonous.  Enough so that one might almost think the temperance people had a point.  

She had been seated, possibly with some misguided intention of reining in her behavior, between her brother and a newly elected Canon of Christ Church, and she turned toward the poor man, the light of malice in her eyes.  

“Such a thrill to have you here.  You know, you weren’t in the least who mother wanted.  She was ever so disappointed to get stuck with you.  She was hoping for the new Dean of Balliol, but he had to run back to Oxford, and couldn’t make it, and you got left holding the baby.”

She smiled sweetly.  “You look far too nice to be an intimate of hers, so you must not have known any better.  A lot of people decide to stay in the country when mother throws a do, especially one where you can’t easily just stick to the opposite side of the room.  Although… it would be rather a giggle if you tried that here.”  

The canon, a rather meek and humble sort to begin with, grew quieter as Lil continued.  His face registered an astonishingly vivid crimson behind his glasses, so that he looked rather like a befuddled tomato, and he kept darting anxious looks at his hostess.

Lillian caught his glance and laughed.  “Don’t worry.  Mother won’t say anything.  If she did, then she would have to admit that this was happening.  She’s not an especial fan of reality, especially not where I’m concerned.”

Lil had accurately forecast her mother’s response.  Celeste sat in outraged martyrdom as her daughter proceeded with deliberate malice to wreck a gathering that had doubtlessly been the work of weeks, and if Lil’s maliciousness hadn’t cast a pall, then Celeste’s near visible strain certainly did.  Duncan had withdrawn into silence as well.  He had a  queer tendency to go utterly blank whenever he was angry.  One might think he was merely wool gathering, unless one knew him well - and Logan did, enough to suspect that he was very angry indeed.

Duncan’s betrothed did her best to smooth the way, talking brightly about an installation at the National Gallery that had been in the papers that morning.  She made a good show of it, but as half the table had been frozen still by Lil’s audacity, she was sailing against the wind.  Logan didn’t feel inclined to assist - he felt obscurely that to do so would be to set himself up against Lil, when she’d explicitly asked for his support -  but his attention returned to Meg throughout the meal.  Somehow he couldn’t reconcile his previous conception of the girl with the knowledge that she had gone behind her father’s back, beyond the scope of the police and – he was willing to wager – against the influence of her fiancé.  That she had sought Veronica Mars, of all people, to investigate her sister’s death.

Logan had always thought of Lady Margaret Manning as something of a pallid replacement for Veronica, but he was not entirely sure that he was doing her justice.  It was more that Meg genuinely possessed the qualities that Duncan had thought he was getting in Veronica, qualities Logan had never particularly rated, gentleness and kindness among them.  Among the majority of his acquaintance, to call someone gentle, or kind, or merely nice, was merely something one said when one wished to pay a compliment and came up empty - it indicated the absence of a vice rather than the presence of a virtue.

Yet when Lils turned on Meg with her devastatingly sweet smile, Meg was the only one to shut her down.

“I do adore your frock.”  Lillian said, eyes glittering. “ I remember last year, telling everyone how much I admired it.  You’re so clever not to let the changing fashions affect your decision to wear it.  I wish I could do that, but I simply must have everything new.”  

Meg smiled rather faintly into her glass and said merely.  “No doubt you wear your clothes harder than I do.  One would hardly think the frock you have on today wasn’t several seasons old.”

It was enough that Lil didn’t risk another attempt. and Logan was impressed, despite himself.  There was a strength there, quiet but genuine.  He wondered if Duncan realized it.

The saving grace of the afternoon would have been considered a minor social disaster by any normal reckoning, and that was the behavior of the little finance minister. For when Logan asked a rather disinterested commonplace about his involvement in a new regulatory bill, the man proved himself that highly dependable character – the first-class bore.  Logan cast hearty mental congratulations as the man’s response took a staggering three quarters of an hour, one long sonorous monologue that cut across all other efforts to countercede it.  Even Lillian was hard pressed to continue making digs at her mother in the face of such a wall of dialogue.   One by one they all fell silent - the safe silence of enduring a pedant, rather than the poisonous silence that had preceded it as they all awaited Lils latest outrage.

After the pudding was cleared away, he found a moment to speak to Lils.  

“Was that performance in aid of anything in particular?” he murmured, as they wandered the upper gallery.

Lillian made a wry face, and Logan realized abruptly how much of her intoxication had been put on.  “Blackening my reputation.  But I don’t know how effective I was.  Peabody’s such a bore, no one would listen to him even if he did spread tales, and the poor little Canon seemed far too discreet.”

“I hadn’t realized your reputation was so pristine it required the extra effort,” Logan remarked.

“Don’t be a beast,” she admonished halfheartedly, but her eyes were troubled.  “Thank you for being here, but I’m afraid it’s all too late.”  

“Lils, you know I’m happy to help, but I would like to know the cause I’m championing.”

“My cause, of course.”

“Lil.”

“She wants to marry me off,” Lillian said, with the hopeless finality of a soldier reporting that the enemy had carried the day.

Logan laughed a little despite himself.  “Dearheart, she’s wanted to do that since you were born.”

“No!”  she protested.  “ I mean, she wants me out of the way.  Now.  Before I ‘completely ruin Duncan’s chances.’  She’s found some odious Marquis with a pile of bricks in Scotland somewhere who must be eighty if he’s a day.  If I can’t convince him I’m not a safe purchase, I’ll be shipped off before the season’s even over.”

“Sweetheart...”

“You’d think it would be enough that I ran off to Capri with my riding instructor, but somehow she turned it into youthful folly and he still thinks me charming .”  This last was said with disgust.  “If I can’t put him off soon, I’ll have to do something really drastic.”

“You could marry the chimneysweep.”

“I’m serious, Logan.”

“I know you are, but darling, she can’t actually force you to accept him. You do have options.   Have you even talked to your father?”

“Daddy’s abroad with the woman mother pretends he doesn’t have.  He’s useless when it comes to defying her anyway.”

“We’ll find an answer.  Don’t do anything drastic just yet.”

Lil nodded her assent, but abstractedly, the reckless light still in her eyes and the two of them made their way back down.

“Sorry about all that,” said Duncan awkwardly, when the drawing room had emptied of all but the two of them.  He offered Logan a cigarette as a maid brought in some rather excellent coffee.

“Nothing like a bit of familial struggle,” said Logan, striving and – he feared – failing to keep a light touch.

Duncan sighed, his face screwed up in frustration, and took another drag, but failed to answer.

Logan had forgotten how difficult it could be to get Duncan to talk when he didn’t want to, and he half-smiled, despite himself, despite his worry for Lils.

A quarter of an hour passed in almost complete silence.

“She never does the easy thing.”  Duncan said finally, his melancholy tinged with anger.  “It doesn’t matter that it’s the right thing – or even the thing she wants – the mere fact of it being easy makes her resent it.  And she despises me because I – I prefer the easy thing.”

This was an unexpected insight from a man who’d had the way carefully paved for him since before Eton.

“I know she thinks me a coward.”  Duncan gave a short, mirthless laugh.  “You probably do as well.  I could have – after your parents – I should have been more present, I know that.”  Logan opened his mouth to protest, but Duncan barreled relentlessly on.

“Mother and father both thought it wasn’t – politically, it wasn’t ideal for me to get involved.  And it was easier to go along.”

It wasn’t an apology, but it was an admission.  

“My whole life has been a series of pitched battles.” Logan raised an eyebrow, not sure he’d ever witnessed Duncan actually engage in any himself.  A placid self-satisfaction had been one of Duncan’s most endearingly frustrating qualities at school.  “My whole family fights – they enjoy it.  Mother would happily argue for days over a floral arrangement, or the new drapes for the drawing room.  With my father.  With the staff.  With Lillian.  And Lilly is the same way.  They fight because they can.  If they ever agreed on anything, I think they’d battle all the same just to keep in practice.  I – fighting exhausts me.  It’s easier just to go along.”  He laughed mirthlessly.  “Lilly would never go along.  She wanted her season, but I don’t think she realized that meant bowing not just to mother’s whims, but to Lady Archdale, and every other elderly matron with an eye to her behavior.”

“You really think this is little more than a tantrum?”  Logan wondered if Duncan didn’t know about the Scottish Marquis, or if he’d just decided it was unimportant.  

Duncan shrugged, a futilely passive gesture.  “I think she’s unhappy.  And that she wants everyone else to be as well.  But it will pass.  She’s mercurial, you know that.”

“And,” Logan hesitated.  “You’re sure it won’t amount to more than that?”  

“What are you saying?” asked Duncan, sharply enough that Logan backed down immediately. Duncan knew as well as he did that Lils on a tear could mean anything from addiction to gaming debts to front page scandals, but she was his sister.  It was not on Logan to chuse whether or not he should be worried.  

“Forgive me, old man, I spoke out of turn.”

“No, I’m sorry.  I – I’ve been under a bit of a strain, is all.”

Logan wasn’t sure if he was referring to Lils or something else, and Duncan didn’t elaborate.

The two men finished their coffee without speculating further on Duncan’s sister’s antics.  Logan felt obscurely that he’d failed Lils.  She’d wanted him here to help and he’d done blessed little.

“I’m glad you came,” Duncan said, as if in answer to his thoughts.  “Between your efforts and old Peabody’s droning I could almost pretend they weren’t at loggerheads the whole time.”

Logan thought such pretense would stretch even the most fertile imagination, but did not say so.

“Meg did far more than I did,” he offered, finally, acutely aware of the silence.  

Duncan nodded absently.  “She’s good at this.  Far better than I am.  Father says she’ll prove an able helpmeet.”  

When Duncan had been engaged to Veronica he’d been inclined to pseudo-poetic ramblings likening her to moonbeams and gossamer.   There was something unsettling about his dismissive approval of Meg.

“Such a moony-eyed romantic,” he said offhandedly.  After all, he’d always assumed the arrangement with the Manning girl was more political connexions than an interest in the girl herself. Perhaps it was better that Duncan was being realistic this time around.  As long as they were both going into the situation with their eyes open.

Duncan shook his head, soberly, refusing to take the out.  “I can’t afford to let my heart get involved.  That sounds terrible to admit, I know.”

Logan rolled his shoulders as if trying to physically alleviate the awkwardness.  “Well, yes, generally.”

“But I’ve tried it.  And romance tore my world apart.  For a long time.  This time around I’m going with pragmatism.  Meg is fundamentally different than –“  As usual, Duncan stopped himself before he said her name.  

As far as Logan knew, his friend hadn’t spoken of Veronica since they’d been together, excising her from his history as easily as he might cut her from a photograph.  At the time, Logan had followed suit almost automatically.  He couldn’t forget, but it certainly helped to feel that others could.  But given he was supposed to meet the girl for dinner it seemed disingenuous to let her very existence slide.

“Than Veronica?” he asked.

Duncan reddened, interestingly enough.  “Meg would never do anything inappropriate.  Ver- Miss Mars ultimately cared more about her vendettas than whether pursuing them would do me – or her, or anyone else  – any good.  She had to keep pushing, even when I told her to stop.  Meg has better sense.”

Logan schooled his features in the hopes that he might not show what he thought of the idea of telling Veronica Mars to do anything; but he thought Duncan was rather lucky she hadn’t responded by razing Oxford to the ground.

“Does she though?  I would say Meg shares some of the Mars girl’s most adorably infuriating qualities.  Nosiness among them.”

His friend looked at him without comprehension.

“You know she’s looked into her sister’s death, don’t you?  She’s hired a private dick and everything.”

“Who told you that?”  Duncan’s words didn’t sharpen, in fact they were almost devoid of expression.  His face was a mask of calm that was far more unsettling than a scowl would be.  Logan hesitated, and Duncan repeated himself.  “Who told you Meg was looking into Lizzie’s death?”

Logan sighed.  “The detective in question.  I’m fairly sure the two of you are acquainted – you used to be affianced after all.”

Duncan’s expression didn’t clear.  “You mean –“

“That your current fiancé and former fiancé are comparing notes and any idiosyncrasies of yours are bound to come up?  Yes.”

“You spoke to her?”

“Not about your idiosyncrasies.”

“Logan.”

“Yes, I spoke to her.  Actually, we have something of a date this evening.  Purely professional though,” he added hastily.

“You have an engagement with –“ Again Duncan choked on the words.

This time Logan decided to push.  

“With Veronica Mars.  Yes.”

Chapter Text

Bell out of order.

Logan frowned as he peered at the notice plastered above the row of labeled nameplates.  He awkwardly shuffled the boxes in his arms before chuffing out a bleak little snort of laughter.  No telling how the author of this unsatisfactory communication expected visitors to gain admittance.  The building had no doorman, and even a very firm rap could hardly be expected to be heard through the inner vestibule to the flats within.  He’d half-wondered if he was to be reduced to chucking gravel at the window in an absurd echo of his misbegotten youth when it occurred to him to try the outer door. 

The door was on the latch, something he found both a profound relief and an alarming prospect, given that – from what he had learned – time had not affected Veronica Mars’s disinterest in self-preservation.   The woman was always first in line, come time to bell the cat.   She needed razor wire and patent burglar alarms at a minimum, not this trusting lack of security.  

For a few minutes, he ventured no further than the little antechamber, with its neatly sorted pigeonholes.  There was something soothing about them, something orderly and methodical.  A pity his mail was always whisked away by Ratner the second it came to the door.  It must be quite nice to sort mail.  He was dithering, he realized. 

A blousy woman came in the door behind him all of a fluster, dropping handbag and scarf together just inside the doorway.  She started suspiciously when she saw Logan, clutching at her belongings as though he might have designs on them, and he realized the die was cast.  He could hardly slink back to the car unnoticed at this point.  He gave the stranger a fulsome smile and she dropped her latchkey.

Enough foolishness, he counseled himself, sternly.  This was about Lizzie only.  Not that the lie did him much good.  Highs or lows, there was no only when it came to Veronica Mars.

It was difficult to remember from their current state of détente, that there had ever been a time when relations between them had not been fraught, when they hadn’t buried a hundred words for every ten they spoke.  Not that that happy state had lasted long, but it had seemed remarkable for its air of possibility.

And yet, in some sense just being in her sphere of influence brought him right back to the youth he’d been when they met, and he wondered for the thousandth time what might have happened if he’d met her first.

The freedom one seemed to have back then was remarkable, when he considered the numerous obligations weighing on his time.  Days unfolded like fans, hours upon hours of coaching and revision, and yet somehow there was always still more time.  Time for a drink, or to get up a rag, or a stop for a bit on the river.  Or for nothing at all in particular.

That morning – he mentally underscored that morning allowing it the full significance he’d later tried so hard to dismiss – had featured a delicious lack of occupation.  He’d had something - a lecture probably - later in the afternoon, and a paper that he strongly suspected of being rubbish to hand in to his tutor.  There were a host of things he could have been doing, but nothing he actually should have been doing, and he’d gloried in momentary idleness, whiling away a peaceful hour on the grounds of Somerville.

He’d stretched his legs, negligently, with the insolent ownership of youth to that which it has no proper claim, and watched.

The little grass oblong of the ladies’ college could hardly be called a quadrangle in the traditional sense, and had none of the majesty or architectural pretensions of the University’s greater institutions.  For all that, he was not the only undergraduate to find something restful about those surroundings.  The view was infinitely better, and he’d always preferred figure studies to landscapes.  Students had hurried along to lectures, gowns hitched hastily over a rainbow of frocks, or sauntered along in pairs, eyeing him with curiosity and occasionally speculation.  A lady don, reading as she walked, her brows furrowed, looked up from her measured steps in time to spot him at his observation post, and her expression darkened from mere concentration to something more ominous. 

He was about to step along – no reason to beard the dragon without some greater cause than idleness, not when he was trying so carefully to avoid occupation – when he saw her.

She was a slight thing, her scholar’s gown layered over a carefully modest sub-fusc ensemble, golden hair tumbling from her soft cap down her back in defiance of current fashion.  Her face was dreamy, abstracted, as though merest chance had led her to matriculate in a woman’s college. Her delicacy made him think of Victorian storybook illustrations, too pretty to exist beyond the page. 

Then she caught his eye and rather than the confused blush of the wallflower he was half-expecting, she held his gaze, her little chin coming up pertly, automatically answering a challenge he hadn’t made. His interest, which had been something rather rote, sharpened immediately.  He winked at the girl – really, she was very little – and she grew fiercer.  She looked ready for battle, defiance sparking in her eyes, and he grinned. 

He was too far away to tell her eye color, was his next, somewhat ludicrous, thought.  He found himself needing to rectify the problem immediately, and without further conscious consideration, he crossed the grass in a few brief steps, stopping short on the path before her.

“Logan Echolls, Balliol.”

The girl tilted her head, birdlike, to look up at him.   Her eyes were blue, and he hugged the information close, almost giddy with something that felt like relief. 

“I wasn’t aware that I had asked,” she said.  She spoke smartly, but not altogether dismissively; he had a bizarre feeling she was giving him just the rope to hang himself.  A terrifying and intriguing thought, and his smile grew.

“Fortunately for you, I’m willing to overlook the oversight.”

Her nose crinkled at that, but her voice remained dry.  “How generous of you.”

His delight was too much; he couldn’t trust it.  Greater pleasure meant a greater fall, and no fairytale gave without taking threefold. The news that he was currently unencumbered by emotional attachments had apparently made the rounds in swift order, judging by the number of pitches thrown his way, some of them not in the least bit subtle. He’d learned it was best to find out immediately whether a transactional acquaintance was the most he could hope for.  He didn’t object in principle to purchasing companionship, but he’d be damned if he’d be subject to hidden fees.

“I think you’ll find I can be very generous,” he therefore said, meaningly.  

Her eyes flashed again at the obvious implication of his words, and she took a step back. She was still pretty, but it wasn’t the insipid prettiness of the fairies of a children’s story.  Hers was a wilder, dangerous beauty – faerie who could take men to their destruction.

“I’m sure this is just an oversight on your part but you’re blocking my path.”  There was a sharpness to her tone that hadn’t been there before.  He couldn’t begrudge it.  He had, after all, deliberately set out to offend, though far too few of her set would have actually acknowledged his impertinence.

He planted his feet.  “I suppose you could stray from the path,” he offered invitingly.  “Or you could pass the time with me.”

“Why do I have the feeling that the latter would inevitably lead to the former?”  She studied him warily, but one corner of her mouth quirked almost invisibly, as though she was amused despite her best intentions, and he felt an intense possessiveness clench inside him.  He wanted that amusement, the sparkle in her eyes, even, perhaps especially, the glinting edge just showing under layers of cotton fluff.

He blinked and forced his mind back to the present, and he dipped his head in acknowledgement.  Nothing more fun than stepping off the tried and true into the unknown, after all.  “Try me and see.”

But like all denizens of fable, she knew the proper responses to walk the woods unscathed.

She shook her head, a grin lighting her face like a candle.  “It was nice to meet you, Logan Echolls, of Balliol.  But while you might have the afternoon free to idle amusement, I have a lecture in a quarter of an hour.” 

She stepped around him and he made no move to stop her.

“Not even a name?” he called after her retreating back.

She flashed him a quicksilver smile over her shoulder.  “Veronica Mars, Somerville.”

He hadn’t thought about that day in years, it took place long before he and Lils had begun their tortuous tangle.  But he remembered the feeling – the feeling of being hit by a lightning bolt – from almost the moment of their meeting.  Unfortunately it had stricken only him.

***

They had agreed to meet at Gatti’s at six, so it was with some consternation that Veronica discovered Logan on her doorstep at a half past five.  The more so because she hadn’t been so reckless as to give him her address.

Foolish.  Anyone on the ‘phone could be tracked down with relative ease.  And yet the fact that he’d taken the time to do so sparked something uneasy in her.

“Either I misunderstood our appointment or you did.” 

She was speaking too quickly.  The words poured out all of a jumble, and she frowned, as she reached vainly for some command of the situation.

Logan gave an awkward shrug from around an armful of cardboard boxes, and she fixated on that detail, almost in relief.  What in the world could he have brought with him?  Was he expecting them to go disguised?  If she needed a disguise then surely that called into question his argument that his influence would open doors.

“I was hoping I’d catch you before you left,” he said, presumably in explanation, though it answered none of her actual questions about his presence.

“I was just about to step onto the tube,” she murmured, irrelevantly, and not entirely accurately.

He looked appalled at the very notion of the Underground, and Veronica almost laughed, despite her confusion.

“May I enter?  These aren’t precisely heavy,” Logan indicated the packages in his arms, “but they do come a bit awkward.”

She stepped backwards with some reluctance, part of her still longing to bar the way.  There was little point in pretending that she hadn’t taken a step or two down the ladder since her student days, determined as she was not to rely on her father’s meager income, no matter how willing he would have been for her to do so. 

The flat was tidy, mostly, and serviceable… again, mostly.  But there was little that could be said for its aesthetic qualities.  She’d been reminded anew just yesterday of the sort of luxury to which he was accustomed, and she bristled with preemptive protectiveness.

Her eyes ran anxiously over the set of rooms, their many deficiencies made obvious by fresh and critical eyes.  That spot by the cooker that no amount of elbow grease would get out.  The table with one leg cantilevered so it didn’t wobble.  Bits and pieces of electronic debris that had drifted from Cyn’s worktable like dandelion fluff, settling in the most unlikely places.  Her lock picks lay abandoned on the counter, and she cursed herself for leaving them about, inviting speculation, as though Logan hadn’t already offered every possible condemnation of her profession long ago.

She set her jaw in stern remonstrance.  She liked being a PI.  It was a role that suited her far more than the future she’d originally envisioned for herself, once upon a time, and she owed no apology to Logan or anyone else.

Logan set the packages down on a chair just inside the doorway, but made no immediate move to explain himself or them.  Instead his eyes roamed over the set of rooms as well, bright with curiosity.  Without asking permission, he prowled through the space, reading book titles and running his fingers across the various surfaces.  He lit on the lock picks, turning them over in his hand with a delicate, reverent solemnity, like a pianist testing the tuning of a strange instrument.

There was something intimate about this intrusion, something unsettling.  The fact that she had done the same to him the day before niggled at her consciousness before she thrust it ruthlessly down. She had been, quite deliberately, in control and on the offensive – and it was obscene that he’d managed so efficiently to turn the tables.

Logan was still exploring.  He’d always been something of a snoop – never able to keep his eye on his own paper, when someone else’s might entertain.  It was one of his more charming qualities when it wasn’t directed at her.  She wasn’t half surprised when he busied himself lifting the lids off the canisters in the kitchenette.  Coffee, sugar, flour, tea, all present and accounted for.  Still, it was probably best to interrupt him before he conducted a full inventory of the pantry.

“Logan, what are you doing here?  What’s happened?”

Perhaps he couldn’t get her into the party despite his assurances to the contrary?  She couldn’t much remember the Enbom boy – he was part of a larger circle Logan and Duncan would occasionally refer to, but he had gone down from Oxford before she’d gone up.  Theoretically, that meant he’d have nothing against her, but it had seldom been those with genuine cause who had condemned her for her past.

 A corner of her mind began sorting options to storm the barricades, if she needed to proceed without Logan’s championship.

Logan appeared to recollect himself and ceased his exploration with some reluctance.  “I know I promised you dinner,” he began, somewhat awkwardly.

“I hope you aren’t expecting me to feed you.  There’s not a thing in the flat unless you wanted a boiled egg,” she said briskly, determined, whatever the difficulty, not to help him. It had the added benefit of being quite true.

Well, not a thing besides the biscuits in the barrel on her nightstand, but she wasn’t prepared to share those. 

He looked slightly pained, and she tried not to roll her eyes. “Logan, if you’ve come to cancel, it’s perfectly all right.  I don’t actually need you to come along – if you’ll recall, you invited yourself.  I assure you that I’m capable of doing my job without your assistance.”

“You misunderstand.”  He shook his head, and she spoke hurriedly over him.

“I only ask one favor.  I know restraint is not your forte, but I’d rather you didn’t announce the subject of my investigation to the whole of your social circle, immediately.”  Her attempt at a wry smile didn’t quite meet her eyes.  “At least give me an hour or two before you disclose it to all and sundry.”

Logan looked almost insulted by the insinuation – and she wondered that he could so easily hold her history against her, but rebel when someone pointed out his own.  “I have no intention of allowing you to go alone.”

“Allowing me?”

He ignored this objection.  “It’s simply that I’d rather forgotten an important detail about tonight’s gathering, and it’s not quite the thing that we could easily leave until later.” He paused again, deliberately this time, she thought.  He marked his time with the ease of a seasoned performer.  Logan had always had facility with language – demonstrated by hurling abuse, of various degrees of subtlety, at some idiot who had the temerity to cross him – and he understood the power of timing.

“You see, it slipped my mind – self-preservation being what it is -  that the horrible thing is fancy dress.”

He grimaced as he waited for her to respond and there was something comic about his apprehension.

She searched for her own reaction and was surprised to find herself not especially aggrieved.

In fact, it was almost alarming how accepting she was.  She wondered what terrors she’d expected, that she felt only minor concern at the thought of masquerading for her former friends like a bear for baiting.

Logan made an unconvincing show of penitence, so she schooled her features into the storm he evidently expected.

“It’s remarkable the things that can slip one’s mind.  I can’t believe I neglected to mention that a hat pin inserted in the right spot through the ear can cause paralysis without killing the victim outright.”

He smirked, evidentially reassured by her bloodthirst, and she took care not to examine her reaction to that.

“Actually, you’ve mentioned that on several occasions.  When you weren’t reminding me that you kept a lead weight in the bottom of your bag and threatening to cosh me with it.”

“Ah, memories,” she said with a sentimentality only partially feigned.   “Nevertheless, I’m sure you could do with the reminder.”  She fixed him with a stern look, before letting him off the hook.  “I suppose I should have expected as much.  None of that crowd seems able to endure each other without the assistance of paint and haute couture.

“You’ve met most of them.  Could you?” he pointed out.

She ignored this.  “It’s all Bath and Bottle parties one day and Circus parties the next.  You know I loathe a masquerade.”

“I thought it was your bread and butter these days,” he said. 

 “Only what’s necessary for my business, not what passes for entertainment among your lot.”

He frowned and shook his head.  “We play at parts every day – all of us.  We play at who we say we are, who we wish to be, and who we wish others to see us as.  If we’re truly lucky, perhaps they overlap on occasion, but mostly, we pretend.”

“You do, perhaps.”

“You think you don’t?  That this hard-bitten jade act is all you are?  Veronica, we’ve read poetry together.  No one who appreciates Keats and Coleridge is completely devoid of romanticism.”

“I don’t-“

He spoke over her, light sparking in his eyes the way it always did when he dropped his pretenses. 

“We’re never more vulnerable than when that mask slips, and someone exposes us for who we truly are.  Especially if it’s a mask we didn’t know we were wearing.”  He looked her in the eye, and they both thought back to a time their masks had fallen.  She broke away first and he continued, almost lightly.  “None of us willingly show our true selves to the world at large.”

Veronica kept her gaze carefully on his smooth expanse of white shirtfront.  “What mask do you hide behind?”

“Me?”  He gestured expansively.  “You’ve only to pick up a paper to see it.  I’m a dilettante and playboy, a wastrel, a good-for-nothing studio brat.  At least most days.  Some days I’m a child of tragedy; others a remarkable survival.”

“Does anyone really believe that nonsense?”

His lips quirked in acknowledgement.  “I’m nothing if not an accomplished actor.  Those who know me know it’s a façade.  Those who don’t will never think to look.  Does anyone fall for your masquerade?”

“I’m not pretending to be something I’m not,” she countered.

“You’ve been pretending the whole time I’ve known you, Miss Mars.  You’ve just changed roles.”

“I’m don’t pretend,” she persisted.  Then quieter, “Maybe I used to, but-”

“Maybe?”

“And then the truth came out and I was punished for it.”

“So, you stopped pretending to be something you weren’t and now pretend to be something you are.  It’s still a game, still an act – and why not?  There’s fun in the portrayal.”

She shook her head, sadly.  “It’s always a game, isn’t it.  All that time and money. Haven’t you children got anything better to do than play all day?” 

“Because heaven forbid anyone enjoy themselves.”  He gave an exasperated chuff “Not everyone views pleasure as a suspicious moral failing, Veronica.”

“No, some view it as the be all and end all of their existence.”

It was a conversation they’d had before – but then it had become rather more heated.  And somehow, simultaneously less so.

“So, you can keep us properly somber, lest we forget for a moment and actually enjoy ourselves.” 

She sighed in resignation.  “Dare I ask if this little charade has a practicable theme?”

“If you want to give the evening a pass we could still go to dinner,” he offered, and she chuckled.

“That bad, is it?”

“I must say this one’s quite respectable in its concept.”  He said, knitting his fingers together.

“And the less said about the execution the better?” She asked sardonically.  “Well, no sense delaying the blow.  I trust my nerves can take it.”

“Barmy Enbom wanted an excuse for a Greco-Roman bacchanalia or a reasonable facsimile thereof, so the party is officially entitled Myths and Legends.  I was tempted to go Norse for that reason alone, but sadly fear he would miss the joke.”

“Wasn’t Enbom the one who failed his Latin Schools every term?”

“I suspect that if you’re looking for historical accuracy, you are like to be disappointed.”  Logan shrugged and Veronica rolled her eyes.

“Myths and Legends.  Because goodness knows that circle doesn’t spend enough time worshiping their own existence.”

“Seldom with as legitimate a cause.”

She took in his impeccable but conventional suit and raised a brow.  “And you’re going as an honest gentleman?”

“Nonsense.  No one would ever believe me in the role.  My costume is in the bottom box.”

She tapped her finger to her chin as she considered.

“A traveler on Circe’s Isle?”

“I’d hate to duplicate anyone else’s concept, and half the guests wear that ensemble every day.  No, I repurposed these from an amateur theatrical we did over the summer.”

Given his connexions to the studios, Logan’s amateur productions tended to exceed those put on in the West End.

“Shall we make an evening of this guessing game or did you actually expect us to attend the entertainment at some point?” 

“I thought we might go as Venus and,” he raised his eyebrows, “Mars.”

Veronica was already shaking her head in dismissal.  “So that you get armor and weaponry, and I get… a conch shell?”

“There’s a full stola in there. I would never shock your sensibilities.”

“Since when?” she asked.

“I suppose you could just keep that expression on your face and go as Medusa.”

“Medusa was supposed to be stunningly beautiful,” she reminded him.

“I never said she wasn’t.”

This wouldn’t do at all.  This was unconscionable. This was almost flirting.

And she’d made that mistake with him before.  She held his gaze and he knew that he was remembering as well.  Just after they’d met, before he’d been established as Duncan’s friend to her and her as Duncan’s girl to him – there’d been that suggestion of possibility.  They’d never quite tamped down the spark.  Little wonder that eventually the flames had consumed them.

She’d reaced Magdalen Bridge at ten minutes after nine, late for an outing on the river, only to find herself the first to arrive.  The bridge was practically deserted, the only other figure in sight a solitary fellow arranging some baggage in one of the larger punts – presumably his party was as behindhand as hers.  She took the time to study him as she waited.  There was something familiar about him, she thought, though his back was to her.  He was tallish, his orange and blue blazer swore acidly in the sun, and he moved with the grace one would expect of a member of one of the rowing clubs.  She couldn’t for the life of her place him.

Then he turned around, a smile breaking broadly over his face, and she recognized her friend from the day before.  She shook her head as she walked over to him.  “Once again I find you skiving off from actual coursework.  When you said Balliol, I’d assumed you matriculated there, but I’m beginning to wonder if they’ve adopted you as some sort of mascot.”

He laughed.  She was struck by the complexity of that laugh.  It was bright and open – apparently delighted – but there was a sour note somewhere, as if something had struck him the wrong way.  She looked keenly at his face, but his expression revealed nothing.

“And you’re dawdling by Magdalen bridge in that rather dashing hat because you despise frivolity?” he asked.

“How can you possibly take my mere presence as evidence of dawdling?” she asked, putting a hand to the hat in question.

“I beg your pardon, you’re idling by the river because you despise frivolity.”

“Much better,” she allowed.  He chuckled, and for a few moments the two of them stood in a companionable silence.

She finally gestured toward his abominable jacket.   “I thought Balliol’s rowing club wore crimson?”

He looked down at himself as if surprised to see what he was wearing.  “Oh, they do, on occasion, but this is the Pirate’s blazer.”

Veronica inclined her head.  “I’m sure that sentence made some sort of sense, but if so, I cannot see it.”

“It’s rather an elite badge of membership, they’ve only awarded a half-dozen of these since their inception.  To qualify for the Pirate’s jacket, you have to come from behind to win in three consecutive races, survive a rules challenge, and relocate the bust of Brasenose from Trinity’s hall to the site of your choosing.  I selected the top of Magdalen tower on Bell Day. The Trinity lads got rather huffy about the missing ear, but as I pointed out it, could have fallen the other way, and they might not have gotten it back at all.”

“I must say, I’m feeling a bit miffed,” Veronica said.  “No one gave me a jacket the last time I stole college property.”

“That is shocking.  Were there no witnesses to this theft? No handy second of unimpeachable character?  Although, come to think of it, if they are playing witness to a theft, I suppose they couldn’t be considered above reproach.”

She raised her eyebrow.  “No one has an unimpeachable character.”

“Ah, you’re an idealist,” he said, sounding for all the world like he was classifying a biological specimen.

“Actually, I’m fairly sure there were no witnesses.  Just as well, since unlike you, I did not return the pilfered items.” She admitted.

“Items plural.  I’m dealing with a hard-bitten criminal then.”

“Oh incorrigible.  One of our Fellows – Miss Kittering, the modern language expert – has a particular fondness for cinnamon drops.  And by fondness, I mean she sucks them throughout the day, so much so I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s worn a groove in her teeth.”

“Disgusting habit,” he observed, and she nodded.  “And you stole them?”

“Not only that.”  She grinned at the memory.  “I also arranged that the sweet shop should be sold out.  She wasn’t able to get any for nearly a week.”

“And no one acknowledged the magnitude of this feat?  What injustice!  Here,” he said, suddenly divesting himself of the loathsome blazer and making as though to hand it over.  She allowed herself to notice that he wore the singlet underneath rather well.  “Allow me to rectify the situation.”

She laughed. “You’d relinquish such a hard-won prize?  I’m honored.”  Holding the jacket up to examine it, she paused.  “Pity about the color.”

“Any comments on the color and I’ll demand the return of my property.”

“But we’ve already established that I pay little attention to the niceties of ownership.”

They were still laughing together when a halloo from behind her cut across their conversation like a shock of cold water, and she realized she’d forgotten she was supposed to meet Duncan half an hour ago.  More than that, for several minutes, she’d forgotten Duncan altogether.  Her cheeks reddened as she turned. 

“You haven’t been waiting long, I hope?”  He stood there, jovial and unsuspicious, and she felt a horrible clench of guilt.  She hastened over to him, realized her hands were still full of Logan’s blazer, and hastily tossed it back.

Logan caught his property with one hand, a fixed smile on his face, his eyes wary. “Duffy, old man, good to see you.”

“Echolls.  Just taking my girl for a punt.”  Duncan said unsuspiciously, with a congenial nod of his head.  “I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”

Veronica felt she couldn’t look at anyone, her sense of wrongdoing was so intense.

For his part, Logan seemed to have retreated into a distant shell.  “We only just met the other day,” he offered blandly.

“She’s a wonder, isn’t she?”  said Duncan with an offhand sort of pride, and she writhed.

Logan’s eyes were still hard, but his mouth softened a little, quirking in an already familiar smile.

“Can you possibly expect me to answer that honestly?”  At Duncan’s frown, he rolled his eyes.  “My friend, she’s too low for a high praise, too little for a great praise.”

Veronica couldn’t help herself.  “Little again?  Nothing but low and little!”

His eyes went to hers for a moment.  There was a grimness there beneath the smile he wore for Duncan.  “Only this commendation I can afford her: were she no other than she is, she were unhandsome.”  He didn’t say the rest.  He didn’t need to.  She’d behaved badly and she knew it.

“A fine concession,” Duncan said with a disgusted shake of the head, not seeming to notice the line that had been drawn.  “You could do worse than to find a girl of your own, you know.” 

A trio of laughing female undergraduates approached, calling hellos and half-hearted apologies for their tardiness to Logan, and he grinned ferally.  “And deprive the multitudes?  I couldn’t manage such an unkindness.”  He helped his party into the punt with unnecessary care.  “We should really be off.  Duty calls and all that.”  He glanced once more at Veronica.  “You two be careful on the water, now.  The muck’s pretty bad down river, and Duncan isn’t the best with the pole.”

It was the first shot of venom she’d ever seen from him. It wouldn’t be the last.

There was a dangerous charge in the memory-fogged air, and Veronica moved with purpose toward the boxes.  She appropriated his pen-knife as she did, cutting the strings and the atmosphere both.

She shook the gown out and studied it, feeling oddly disappointed, though she wasn’t sure why.  There was nothing objectionable on offer – certainly it would get her in the door.  The costume was clearly cut for someone rather larger than herself, but that was nothing a few hasty stitches couldn’t rectify.  Still, she found fault with its very moderateness. Logan had never been one to play things safe.

She examined the contents of the other box.  In addition to a short Roman tunic, he had come equipped with a centurion’s helmet and breastplate and, somewhat inevitably, a sword.  She suspected any number of pitched swordfights – and accompanying bruises – as a result of the evening’s entertainment.  Sometimes she wasn’t sure men ever grew past the age of seven.

In the end, she appropriated helmet and sword for herself –  padding the former to fit her head.  The armor was rather comically large on her, and she was forced to give it a miss.  After pressing a curtain rod into service as a spear, she thought she made a rather passable Minerva. 

When Logan pointed out that she’d gutted his own costume in the fashioning of hers, she smirked, and told him she trusted to his creativity. 

She wasn’t altogether prepared for him to rend his tunic, and - using the cords from the much-abused curtains – array himself as a shipwrecked Odysseus, that they might still be a matched pair.

He carried the absurd costume with the same ease as his proper habiliments, and as they laughed, it was so easy to forget they were friends no longer.

***

Costume preparation took up all the time they had allotted for dinner and then some.  It was nearing nine o’clock by the time they reached the party.  Torches lit the squat square façade of a modern mansion block, the young and beautiful poured through the gates, swarming like ants at a picnic.  At the top of the steps, Logan turned to Veronica, the humor abruptly leaving his face. 

“Listen,” Logan said, “I need you to promise me you won’t stray from my sight, tonight.”

Veronica bristled automatically.  “If you’re under the misapprehension that I…” she began, but he cut her off.

“Investigate to your heart’s content, stir every pot – upend them over the floor if you need to – but allow me to stay close enough to mitigate the fallout.”  He somehow contrived to look up at her despite his height advantage.  It gave him an oddly suppliant mien, like a dog hoping for a crumb of affection from a harsh owner.  “Please, Veronica.”

It was the please, more than anything else, that stopped her.  She regarded him curiously.  “You think I’m in danger?”

His pursed his lips till his mouth was one thin line.  “I think danger is your métier, and this is a dangerous crowd, regardless.  By your presence here, certain things will be assumed.  And there are those that might not wait for corroboration before acting on them.”

She wasn’t naïve enough to misunderstand his meaning.  Not after Oxford, not after the night she could barely remember.  Yet she balked at the suggestion that she hadn’t learned perfectly well how to care for herself.  It had been a hard lesson, rigidly enforced, but she had learned it.

“I’m more dangerous than I look,” she pointed out.

“You’re the most dangerous person I know,” he acknowledged, with a devastating simplicity that caught her in the chest.  “But ferocity isn’t a protection. Surely every great tragedy has at its heart a dangerous person who pushed too far.”

Ultimately, she acquiesced.  She could hardly see her way to doing otherwise when his objection was so moderate.  While it might not have occurred to him that she was relying on his introduction to enter the party, she realized there was something uncouth about using him for access, then abandoning him at will.  Especially as he looked so strained by the very notion.

As they walked into the front room, Veronica felt the strangest sense of Deja-vu.  These Bright Young People had access to funds the Bohemians could but dream of, but here was the same energetic mass of bodies, the same din, the same smoke.  John “Barmy” Embom’s bachelor quarters could easily quadruple the occupancy of the dismal little flat that had played host to the art scene, and he had made up for this defect by packing at least five times as many people into it.  Everywhere she looked there were drinks being thrust into eager hands, and a babble of high-pitched voices rose in the corner where a band was prepping.

Still, there were distinctions.  The furnishings appeared to have started the evening in a state of opulence, although they now stood rather the worse for wear.  She pitied the domestics who would presumably be required to return the place to something like its original condition.  The fancy dress appeared to be mostly comprised of hastily sewn linens – so hastily that a number of partygoers were now rather less clothed than otherwise.  But there were several ensembles that had clearly cost the earth to obtain.  Much to their owner’s chagrin, she suspected; those so situated looked on with envy at others, whose less well constructed garments left them unfettered.

And she wasn’t altogether sure that she could attribute the smoke in the air to anything as wholesome as sausages.

They made their way to the main room, skirting by several rather ominous niches, each equipped with little more than a settee.  Veronica raised an eyebrow as she realized the purpose of the surrounding curtains, only because one couple had been negligent about shutting them.

“Where do we begin?” asked Logan.  He looked unsettled himself, although she doubted he was shocked.

Veronica scanned the room.  “Where in this mass of virtuous souls could one acquire dope, were one so inclined?”

Logan’s eyebrows shot up.  “Veronica, these parties are always floating in the stuff.  You’d be better put to ask who couldn’t supply you.”

“You?” she asked, eyeing him with disfavor.

“Not I, honest.  I’m playing the good little boy.  Everyone knows I haven’t crashed the scene in months.”

“Who did Lizzie get her stuff from?”

Logan shook his head blankly.  “I think she used a few sources, but I couldn’t name them.  I wasn’t – I don’t pretend I never partook, but I always only shared what others had on offer.  Lizzie’s habit was rather more advanced.”

Veronica bit her tongue on an angry retort regarding his usefulness.

“I know who could tell you, though,” he continued.

Veronica wasn’t sure by what measure Logan propelled them through the press of flesh without becoming hopelessly entangled.  The crowd parted for him, seemingly of its own volition; as he made his way over to a tow-haired man whose crooked nose added interest to a vacantly handsome face.  That face lit up when he fixed on Logan, before darkening with an almost comic rapidity when he recognized Veronica.  She grinned, despite herself.

“I say, Logan,” the blonde began, rather urgently, grabbing hold of Logan’s arm.  Veronica was reminded irrepressibly of the small boy in the flat below hers.  A suspicious little monster, he was always clutching at his mother’s skirts, trying to draw her away while she chattered endlessly on - usually about the son’s numerous escapades, all told with a sort of disbelieving proudness.  The teacher kicked him out of class last Tuesday, and instead of going to the headmaster’s office, he walked all the way to the pictures by himself!  Veronica quite liked the woman, who was a harmless, if ineffective, soul and very good about making sure packages and things never went astray.  But she sympathized deeply with her son’s desire to cut all interaction short.

She looked at the dull face of Dickie Casablancas, speaking to Logan in an undertone so loud that even the surrounding din failed to completely mask it, and wanted to laugh.  Don’t worry, Dickie, I don’t want to see you any more than you want to see me.”

Logan removed the offending hand with a dignity not at all diminished by his ragged attire.  “She’s here as my guest tonight, Dickie.”  His tone was mild, almost sweet, to anyone who knew him, it was an obvious warning signal.

Dickie was famously dim, but not so much so that he didn’t recognize the signs.  He shook his head, dolefully.   “And I thought my situation was bad.  Madeline might eat me alive, but she won’t destroy me.”

“I could destroy you,” Veronica offered brightly.  “Flat fee, no extras.”

Dickie’s expression turned mulish, and she wondered if he’d forego whatever marching orders Logan had implied in the space of that one brief sentence.  She wasn’t alarmed – if anything, it might be interesting to see how effective the curtain rod might prove as a weapon.  However, she was never given the opportunity.  Wilting almost visibly, the young man looked back to Logan with something akin to pleading.  Logan’s expression stayed firm – she was again put in mind of a parent-child relationship, rather than any sort of friendship in which she herself had engaged.  He sighed before turning to Veronica, all friendly gaiety, as though she might not have noticed his prolonged struggle with her very presence.

“Miss Mars!  Simply top-hole to see you here.  Long time and all that.”

She forebore to answer this inanity and Dick deflated a bit. “What can I do for the two of you?”

“She need to ask a few questions about a mutual friend of ours,” Logan began, almost gently.

 “Got a lot of friends.  Always a good to make more.  Made a new one at that little dance hall the other night Logan – what was that street again?  Oh, you weren’t there that night – anyway dark hair, great,” he paused abruptly, shooting a glance at Veronica and she wondered wildly what description he’d decided was unfit for a lady’s ears, given the brouhaha surrounding them.  Behind him, a young lady whose costume made it clear she hadn’t bothered with undergarments was attempting to climb atop a table.  The applause was enthusiastic except from those whose drinks she’d upset. 

Having failed to find a suitable descriptor, Dick moved past the subject of the dance-hall lovely, “Always making friends.”

His expression remained vague.  Veronica wondered if he was even listening, or if he had just picked the word out of Logan’s sentence like some sort of echo.  If they abandoned him now, might he spend the rest of the evening repeating variations on friendship?  She was wildly tempted to try the experiment, and had to force her attention back to the situation at hand.

“You and Lizzie Manning were chums, weren’t you Dickie?” Veronica asked.

“Lizzie?”  Dickie looked moderately horrified.  “You want to discuss Lizzie?  Here?”  It hadn’t occurred to Veronica that Dickie Casablancas had anything in the way of a sense of propriety; it was interesting to see two manifestations of it in as many minutes.

“We just need to ask a few questions, Dickie.”  Logan said patiently, clearly used to navigating every point of dialogue like a caretaker leading the blind.

“You mean she needs to ask a few questions,” the other man said sullenly. 

“Very well.  She needs to ask you a few questions.  And I need you to answer them.”  Logan’s voice brooked no argument, and Dickie turned his eyes Veronica’s direction with the unwilling slowness of an excitable dog brought to heel.

Veronica smiled as kindly as she could, although given the object, she wasn’t sure how successful she was.  “To the first question, were you and Lizzie close?”

For one striking moment, Dickie Casablancas’s face dragged with something that might have been guilt; but to Veronica’s surprise, the expression mingled with something rather like grief.  A second later, he regained his habitually vacuous expression; Veronica thought she might almost have imagined the glimpse of something more.  Except she was sure she hadn’t.

“She was a sport,” Dickie pronounced grandly, his tone imbuing the term with more meaning than it generally deserved.  “Lizzie was always up for some fun.  Didn’t matter if it was three in the morning and you knew there was a raid coming.  She’d find somewhere else we could knock up for an after-hours drink.”

“Where did you all meet for these drinks?”

Dick snorted.  “So that you can get them in trouble for passing a bit of the Blue Ruin after closing?  They did us a favor, Mars, I’m not a rat.”  He looked over at Logan, who seemed relaxed, almost bored, except for the tension in his hands.  “You know, the second she’s got what she wants she’ll run to one of her pet policemen, and then we’ll all be up the barrel.”

Veronica ignored this diversion.  “Did the person who obliged in the matter of drinks also see you in dope?”

Dickie guffawed at the idea.  “No, he’s a class act.  He doesn’t mind if we partake, especially, long as we don’t damage the property, but he won’t traffic with the stuff himself.”

“Who did traffic with the stuff?”

Once more, Dick’s glance to Logan went unanswered, as Logan cleaned his nails with the paper knife that had served as Odysseus’s dagger.  Dick shuffled his feet.  “Lizzie wasn’t particular.  To her, if you remembered the night before you weren’t doing it right.  She bought from whoever had anything handy, I think.   Carrie’s shadow, that cricket-obsessed nitwit of Gia’s, Red’s pet fairy, the German – she used to say the worst thing in the world was to be bored, and she’d give anything to those who could keep her entertained.”

Veronica turned to Logan.  “Are you understanding any of this?”

“One learns to translate after a bit,” he confirmed.  “Anyone else?”  He looked at Dick expectantly.

Dick hesitated.   “There was another fellow.  Not – he wasn’t someone anyone invited to these things, but he would turn up sometimes.  We’d all forget about him till we needed the stuff.  I think – I think Lizzie was in it pretty deep with him.  Haven’t seen him in a while though, not since before she-”  He stopped talking.

“Did he have a name?”  Veronica was losing patience with stultifying parody of conversation.

Dickie shook his head.  “Well, I mean he had a name.  Stands to reason.  Everyone has a name.  Name is a good thing to have, gives a man a sense of support.  Hard to know who you are if you don’t even have a name.”

She closed her eyes for the briefest of minutes.  “Did you know his name?”

Dick looked around as if hoping to find it helpfully written down for him, perhaps emblazoned on the wall.  “Funny sort of name.  I know that.  Carrie called him Strudel, and we all laughed.  Good for a joke, Carrie.”

“Care to share the joke?” 

Dick shook his head, hopelessly.  “Can’t remember it.  But it was a good one, a good laugh.  Like a good laugh.”

Veronica gave him up as a lost cause.  She turned back to Logan.  “Putting aside the issue of Mr. Strudel, are any of the others here?”

Logan nodded briefly, and they spent the next hour interviewing an astonishing array of drug peddlers.

There was a gawky young woman who introduced herself as Ruby with the sort of deliberate exaggeration that suggested it was not the name she had been christened.  She seemed to be trying on the drug trade like one might a hat – doubtless to cast if off again once fashions changed.  Veronica thought at first that she had foregone a costume altogether until Logan indicated, with delicate gesture, the chanteuse in the corner; and Veronica realized that everything about Ruby, from the straight black bob to her heavily painted face, to the spangled dress slipping off one shoulder had been less than successfully copied.  Even her attempt at melancholy seemed to be a mask covering a naturally bright and buoyant personality. Veronica felt a sense of pity for the girl buried under the affectations.

Luke Haldermann was a solidly-built sandy-haired young man, weak about the chin, who likewise did not give the impression of being particularly suited to illegal narcotic sales.  Darty-eyed and stammering, it was a wonder he hadn’t been caught a hundred times over, as it would hardly need a dedicated raid to bring him in.

His interview was followed by one with a delicate-looking youth named Seth, in an excessive state of undress, even for the rather generous standards of the evening.  He laughingly declared himself cupbearer to the gods, and assured them that he had the means to transport them wherever they wished. 

Finally, they spoke to a young man with a German accent, lank dark hair and a blotchy complexion who Logan referred sardonically to as Herr Freidrich.  This one smiled in their faces as he lied about his involvement in the drug scene.  Of the four, he was the only suspect she found credibly capable of murder; but even then, she doubted he would go so far as to get his hands dirty.  He was the type to encourage someone else to action – the boy who urged his friend to throw punches, but never threw one himself -  so he might sit back and claim uninvolvement when his instigations proved successful.

None of them confessed to supplying Lizzie with anything beyond the occasional party treat, although Seth acknowledged that her habit was advanced enough that she needed a steady supply.  Asked about the mysterious Strudel, they all claimed ignorance – rather badly, Veronica thought.  It seemed more and more likely that this was the man they needed to see.

“One imagines drug gangs are nefarious and powerful – deeply connected.”  Veronica shook her head.  “There’s something so pathetic about that lot.”

“They’re purchasing favor.” Logan explained.  “None of them have the money or connexions or sheer charisma this crowd feeds on, so they found something else to supply.”

“That’s rather sad.”

“They’re building a fortress on a hill of sand, I’m afraid.”

“And so many of them - I thought the police were supposed to be cracking down,” Veronica said wonderingly.

Casablancas, who had somehow got caught up in their wake – Veronica wasn’t altogether sure they’d ever be rid of him - smirked.  “They’ve tried of course.  Every now and then they raid us and it’s a great scramble and to do.  I’ve been brought before the magistrate four times,” he added, proudly. 

“They don’t want anyone here,” Logan explained.  “Or, they probably do, but they want the big fish more.  Someone’s bringing the stuff in by the boatload.  Whoever they are, they’re far more dangerous than the likes of Luke or Ruby.”

“Can’t they put pressure on the others?  Get them to give up the head of the operation?”

“They might, if they knew the head of the operation.  The way these things operate nowadays, no one’s met anyone else.”

“Anyway, they all know not to talk if they don’t want something to happen to them,” Dick said, callously.

“You mean – “

“Just because that lot looks rather harmless does not mean you’re dealing with nice people, Veronica.  You’re talking about individuals who exploit the weakness of others.  It requires a certain ruthlessness.”  Logan’s voice was gentle, and Veronica realized she had allowed herself to be shocked again.  Every time she thought she’d gotten over her parochial primness, something like this would happen and she would remember just how provincial she was.

***

Logan removed himself to a bit of a distance while Veronica waited for Carrie to finish her set.  She was hopeful that Carrie, at the least, would remember Lizzie’s supplier… a fellow who seemed to cast a long shadow for such a minimal presence.  Logan thought it best that he not be right underfoot while Veronica went forward with her questions.  While he’d considered his history with Carrie to be a mutually beneficial arrangement, it wouldn’t be the first time that the lady had cherished rather different memories.  He doubted a reaction in either extreme would be helpful to Veronica’s case. 

He was debating the merits of that pink gin they kept circulating when a commotion at the door drew his attention; the Honorable Duncan Carnathan-Kane entered the room. Logan stared, rather.  Duncan was about the last person Logan would have ever expected to see at one of these dos.  It was almost hard to place him in such an out-of-context light – like seeing a policeman out of uniform – and it took him a moment to recollect himself.  He cast a sidelong glance at Veronica, but she was watching the singer with the intensity of a cat at a mouse hole, and hadn’t noticed. 

Logan risked another look at Duncan, halfheartedly cursing himself for a fool because, of course, his friend’s presence there was utterly his own doing.   Logan had been irresistibly tempted, that morning, to discover if Veronica Mars was still one of Duncan’s sore spots.  And it looked like he had his answer.  He couldn’t think of another thing that would have Duncan out at such an hour, in an atmosphere he despised, in the company of those he openly disparaged.

Duncan had not elected to masquerade, and the bandbox perfection of his Savile Row suiting looked almost when juxtaposed with all the variations in white sheeting.  He stood stiffly, like he was afraid of contamination, and Logan found himself growing almost deliberately languid in response.

His friend – odd how he had to remind himself that he was, in fact, his friend – was attempting to talk to a well-known writer of popular fiction about his one decidedly unpopular attempt at a literary masterpiece.  The maneuver was so typical of his friend, in both earnestness and tactlessness, that Logan could hardly help but smile.  He felt an odd and out of place fondness, though he would have said his feelings at the moment were anything but tender. 

The author, a dark, bearded fellow with the build of a gorilla, was nonetheless known for being rather a meek and mild sort; he managed to look smaller and more fragile as the conversation wore relentlessly on, till Logan quite felt for the man.  When the shouts of an argument began somewhere behind them, the writer seized the opportunity to make his escape, leaving Duncan alone in an empty little circle of space in the otherwise crowded room.  No one else attempted an approach, and it was somewhat intriguing to see the golden boy so out of his element.

Once upon a time he would have considered it his duty to rush into the breach.

Duncan had been his truest friend at University.  They balanced each other perfectly, him pulling Duncan out of his dry academic shell, Duncan reminding him to turn in the occasional bit of coursework.  Logan knew the pressure Duncan was under, and had never envied his friend anything.  Until Veronica.

Duncan was late to hall that evening, having attended yet another meeting beforehand – the JCR this time, Logan thought, although it might have been some other worthy institution.  Truth was, the poor fellow was a member of so many societies, Logan wondered that he had any time to attend his lectures.  And yet he knew the other man could often be found up in Bodley for hours on end, swotting away at his coursework.

He himself took a more relaxed view of the whole enterprise.  Education came in many stripes, and that which was to be had at a gaming table or town excursion was the no less worthy to be had.  He could think of little worse than coming down from University with nothing but an education to speak to the experience.

There was something grim about Duncan’s passive acceptance of every new responsibility, even as he bowed under their collective weight.  Logan was accustomed to seeing the other young man, quiet and withdrawn, drained by the leeches of constant expectation.  He did what little he could to force his friend out of his contained shell, if only momentarily. 

But today Duncan looked lit from within.  It took Logan only a moment to guess the cause, and his stomach knotted, even as he forced a chuckle from his lips.

“I see a man transfigured.  Don’t tell me the lady fair has finally entertained your suit?  You’ve turned a fetching scarlet, by the way.”

“You will stand up with me?” his friend asked.

“Naturally,” Logan assured him, and if his voice sounded a little strangled, he could surely blame the dryness of the air.  “But is it as settled as that?”

“It will be a few years, yet. I have to finish my coursework, and find a suitable position. Her father doesn’t think – but I had to be sure of her.  I couldn’t let an angel slip through my fingers.”

Logan shook his head.  It was like his friend really couldn’t see the needle-sharp claws under her kittenish exterior.  Like it had never occurred to him to look.

He shook his friend’s hand with as much warmth as he could manage, even as objections, practical and otherwise, clamored for his attention.

“Do you really expect the Baroness to clutch some Oxfordian bluestocking to her chest?”  He paused. “Strike that thought, that’s a terrifying notion.”

He looked keenly at his friend, but Duncan made no response, which said more about his infatuation than words could have.  His head was still clearly occupied with his light of love, and Logan reminded himself that he was happy for them.

“I could not be more pleased for you old chap.  Really.  Felicitations and the whole nine yards.”

“We’re having a little weekend party at the house to celebrate.  I’m hoping you’ll be one of the set.”

“Leaving me to the depredations of your mother’s friends?  Have a heart old man.”  He could do this.  He knew the piece.  He’d learned the words off by heart.

“I’m sure Veronica could bring along a friend or so.”

“So, I must endure some grubby little undergraduate because you’ve been fool enough to become engaged to one?”

Duncan frowned.  “Just because you refuse to take on anything of a serious stamp yourself, doesn’t mean there is no merit in those that do.” 

And there was that thread of disapproval; the reaction that reminded him he didn’t deserve the affections of an angel, whether the lady could be fairly called one or not.

He plastered a look of unconcern on his face.

“No indeed.  And were I seeking a party for a philosophical dissertation, I’m sure a female student would be my first choice of refuge.  But I’m not fool enough to take one for my inamorata.”

“It’s one weekend.  I believe you’ll survive.”

“Do you?  My constitution isn’t what it once was, and romancing some little twig might do me in altogether.”

“No one has asked you to romance her.  You can spend a few hours in a woman’s company without taking liberties, I hope.”

“Perhaps I could, but where would the fun be for her?  I’m not completely heartless, you know.”  There was something depressing about this game, something he hadn’t noticed until now.

“Echolls.”

Logan sighed and doffed the hat he wasn’t wearing.  “For your sake, I will be graciousness itself.”

“That novelty alone should be worth the price of admission.” Duncan’s voice was dry, spiked with something that was supposed to be humor, but felt more like judgement.  Logan flinched.

He’d had his friend’s back for so long.  Again and again, he’d been there.  How had he never noticed that it seldom flowed the other way? 

He was determined he wouldn’t come to the rescue this time; but the party was nearing its natural crescendo, and Duncan stood in isolation.  The Carnathan-Kane heir looked nonplussed for a few minutes… but before Logan’s resolution could waver, his friend’s eyes lighted on Veronica and he made a beeline her way.  Logan took a few steps further back with a muttered oath, anxious both to melt into the background and to miss nothing. 

Once upon a time, Veronica had closed her eyes to everything but Duncan.  She’d tried to suppress the sides of her that most intrigued.  She had a terrier like need to worry everything to the bone, but she’d ruthlessly kept that part of herself hidden from Duncan, hidden even from herself.  Even when Duncan had tossed her aside like a broken toy in the playroom, she’d kept her eyes on him.

So much about her seemed different now.  She was sharper, more aggressive – bright and sparkling and bitter.  But she still looked the maiden in the story, even in her too large costume with that ridiculous helmet tucked under her arm.  She and Duncan still seemed like they fit.  That the fit had always been an illusion almost felt like a superfluous detail, compared to the visual rightness that was their coupling.

Logan downed his glass.

He watched the moment Veronica registered that the man approaching her was not in fact another drunken partygoer, but her former fiancé.  She looked surprised at Duncan’s approach, but she wore her masks too well, and Logan couldn’t read the underlying emotion.  Surprised but happy?  Surprised and suspicious?  Surprised and vowing to ruin Duncan’s life?  He couldn’t tell.

He busied himself with mixing another drink, even though he’d told himself he needed to stay sharp, even though to do so was to feed into exactly the comparison between the two of them he least wanted to excite.

Duncan, for his part, seemed to be striving to greet Veronica like an old acquaintance, with no deeper intimacy than he might share with some woman he’d met at one of his mother’s house parties.  Not that anyone would ever make their hasty way across a crowded room to pay their compliments to the Baroness’s friends. 

Duncan asked politely after her health and her father, without one mention of Logan or the fact that she was investigating on behalf of Lady Margaret Manning – and without any allusion to the intimacy the two had once shared.  Logan found himself both grateful for and annoyed by his restraint.

“I wouldn’t have thought this was quite your scene,” Veronica was saying, and Duncan laughed, somewhat awkwardly.

“One could say the same for you, surely.”  Duncan shook his head.  “You’ve far too much sense to travel these circles.”

Veronica’s expression didn’t change, even as Logan felt his own hackles rise.

“Oh, I find keeping my acquaintance narrow rather limiting, don’t you agree?” she said, her voice tipping ever so slightly to saccharine.  Duncan, surely the king of keeping to his own set, nodded earnestly.

“Oh quite, quite.  It does one good to broaden one’s experience.”

Her head tilted, and Logan relaxed. 

This was not the willfully blind Veronica, excusing what she couldn’t ignore.  This was her preparing to drive home the knife.  “Of course, if you disapprove of these circles so much, I rather wonder that you chose to engage them.  Are you here merely from a sense of anthropological curiosity?  Or do you not hold yourself to the same strictures regarding their appropriateness that you seemingly expect of me?”

Logan felt a warmth spreading through him that he could not entirely attribute to the gin.

If Duncan noticed the sharpness of Veronica’s tone, he made no comment.  Logan suspected he was merely oblivious.  Emotional cues had never been his strong suit.  He nodded at her again, and perhaps Logan wasn’t giving him enough credit, because there was a nervous edge to his affect that hadn’t been there before.  “I’m actually my sister’s escort for the evening.  She took it into her head to attend this thing, and I thought it best I tag along and mitigate any fallout.”

Logan wondered if that was true, and if so, where Lillian was hiding.  He hadn’t noticed her entrance, and if there was one area where the lady excelled, it was making an entrance.  Knowing Lils, her choice to play things in a lower key boded well for none of them.  

He could see Veronica too, had picked up on the absurdity of this excuse.  After all, if Duncan failed to keep his sister in sight, he could hardly hope to act as a check on her behavior.  However, she contented herself with asking, the warning still evident in her voice, “What dangers did you anticipate?”

Duncan gave a superior little chuckle, and Logan marveled that the two of them had ever managed so much as a conversation, let alone an engagement. 

“I forgot that you never met my sister.  She’s – she’s subject to enthusiasms.  And mother would have a fit if Lils did something that got into the papers.”

“I seem to remember the two of you shared that particular concern.”

It would have taken a stronger man than Duncan to miss that barb, and he stuttered over something nonsensical in response.

Veronica continued as if he hadn’t spoken.  “My congratulations on your engagement, by the way.  Meg always was a dear.” 

She’d clean bowled him again, the more so because of the disinterestedness of her tone.  If she still felt any personal slight at Duncan’s behavior, (and even when he was most furious with Veronica, Logan had still acknowledged Duncan had acted the dog,) she didn’t show it.  Her voice was all warmth and consideration as she piled the coals of fire on Duncan’s head.

“Oh, ehrm, thank you.”  Duncan coughed a little and flushed still deeper, and cast a look around as though seeking a rescue.  Logan remained where he was.  “I hadn’t realized that the two of yo stayed in touch.”

“Oh indeed. She was so kind during a quite difficult time in my life.  But then, I’m sure you, of all people are familiar with her sweetness of character.”

“Of course.” He swallowed, and then said, with the air of one attempting a course correction in the face of a headwind, “I have to say though, I was a little alarmed to find that she’d engaged you in a professional sense.”

“Alarmed?  How so?”

“Well, you know, Lizzie Manning caused her family quite a lot embarrassment over the years –“

“A murder is such an embarrassing thing to have in the family,” she murmured, and Duncan’s mouth shut like a trap.  He glared at Veronica.

“But the thing wasn’t a murder.  It’s absurd to say otherwise.”

“Is it?”

“How are you qualified to override the medical examiner and the police?”  Duncan was growing visibly hot under the collar, and Logan began to make his way unobtrusively forward.

“For that matter, how are you qualified to declare it otherwise?  I wasn’t aware you were familiar with the details of the case.”  Veronica, as ever, seemed shine the brighter as her own anger got the better of her.  “But then I suppose Meg has discussed it all with you.  You don’t share her concerns?”

 “Everyone knows she took her own life.  Meg was in a state of nervous collapse at the inquest, and now you want to bring it all up again because of some wild start of hers?  Lot of fuss over – not to say nothing, of course it’s not nothing, but it’s unhealthy speculation.  I’ve no doubt it’s profitable to milk your wealthy acquaintances for fees.  But you’re not just spending her money – you’re getting her hopes up that there might ever be justice in a case where there simply is no justice to be had. The whole ordeal was splashed all over the papers for weeks, and now you’re looking to gin it up again.”

Logan was close enough to place a restraining hand on her arm, but it was unnecessary.  Another woman might have slapped Duncan, but Veronica just looked disgusted.  Logan realized the wool was truly gone from her eyes.  Much as it had gone from his own.

 “Perhaps there might be some value in setting her mind to rest.”  Her voice was ice.

“Then you agree that the idea of murder is a lot of nonsense?”  There was no denying the pressure in Duncan’s tone.  He was desperate for Veronica to agree with him, and Logan frowned.  His friend had bought in far too strongly to his mother’s distaste for interpersonal messiness.  An investigation into a murder was so untidy.  The overwrought imagination of a grieving sister was so much more manageable.

Logan snorted, and Veronica shot him a flash of smile before turning that smile on Duncan like a weapon.

“I agreed to investigate the matter, no more.  If my investigations overwhelmingly suggest accident or suicide, of course I will communicate that with my client.  If you have a problem with the investigation itself, I suggest you take that up with her.”

“Oh of course, of course.  Didn’t mean to stick my oar in.”  Duncan was retreating now.  He never did stand up well to attack.

“Didn’t you?  How curious.  I thought that was exactly what you were doing.”

Duncan turned to Logan, abruptly and heartily, as if he’d only just noticed his presence.  He again repeated the nonsense about escorting his patently absent sister (who was probably making use of one of Enbom’s ominous little curtained alcoves.) 

Logan inclined his head in greeting, but Veronica wasn’t prepared to let Duncan off the hook.  She stepped to the side, so that she was back into his eyeline.  “You must have grown quite close to Lizzie, given your relationship to the family.  What was your opinion of her?”

“I wouldn’t say we were close.”  Duncan frowned, and hemmed, and reached for a drink.  It was a careful response, a political response, the response his parents would want him to make.  “Lizzie was always the black sheep of the Manning household – she’d been persona-non-grata for years, long before – I mean, I knew her, of course, but as you said, I don’t really travel in those circles.”

“Except of for this evening,” Veronica pointed out.

“Right, right.  This evening being the exception.”  Duncan’s gaze shifted from Veronica to Logan and then back and his eyes narrowed.  “It looks like we’re both keeping rather strange company tonight.”

“Oh, you flatter me, Duncan,” Logan couldn’t help but interject, though the dart had landed.

Duncan gestured at the two of them.  “It’s not enough that you’re dragging up a scandal that could hurt me? You have to conspire with him to make me look the fool as well?”

Logan felt the accusation like a blow, but Veronica laughed.

“Why in the world should you think any of this has anything to do with you?”  Veronica asked.

Logan found himself abruptly grateful that Veronica didn’t explain away his presence, as she so easily could have done.

Duncan’s face twisted nastily.  “You never did care about the trouble you dredged up – never cared that your so clever muckraking could hurt my standing, my career.  And now you’re conspiring with him.  Again.  Always the two of you and the me on the outside.”

Again, Logan felt the urge to protest, and again Veronica didn’t so much as pause.

 “Perhaps if your associates didn’t delve in the mud, then the details I dredged up wouldn’t stick.  I will give you credit for understanding one thing, though.  Whatever influence your opinion, your feelings, or your precious reputation might have had on me in the past, any claim is long since gone.  You lost that right when I learned from Madeline St. Claire that our engagement had been canceled, because you never so much as bothered.”

“So, this is spite.”

“This is truth-seeking without any reference to you.”  She was practically vibrating in anger, but her voice remained steady.  “Elizabeth Manning was pregnant and jilted. Even if he didn’t murder her, the man who left her that way bears responsibility for her fate.  Some one of her friends will give me the lead I need, and I will find him and make him pay.  And if he did murder her?  He will wish he’d never been born.”  She barreled forward relentlessly.  “If you wanted spite, I could get an item into those papers you fear so much, by tomorrow’s evening edition at the latest.  And as for ‘conspiring,’ Logan is helping me because he actually cares that a woman he knew might have been murdered.  Since you’ve only mustered concern over your image, we’ll leave you to find a mirror. Meanwhile we’ll actually work to help the fiancé you supposedly love so much.”

Duncan spluttered, turning an unbecoming shade of red, but before he could formulate a response, Logan laid a heavy hand on his friend’s shoulder.  “We’re all overtired.  It would be a mistake to take anything personally that’s said at such a late hour.”

Duncan pulled himself free, with a snarl of response. “You always did want to steal every piece of my life for yourself.  You couldn’t have my girl then, so you went after my sister.  Then you threw her aside the second you saw your way to what was mine.”

Logan gaped at this bit of revisionist history, but Veronica just shook her head.  “If you ceased thinking of people as possessions, you might find it easier to hold onto them.”  She quite deliberately turned her back on him, and said to Logan, “Did you see where our vocalist disappeared to?  I missed the end of her set, and want to see if she remembers that name.”

Logan indicated the direction of Carrie’s grand exit, and the two of them left Duncan standing alone once more.

***

Veronica needed to tamp down her fury before she did something she regretted.  She tried to focus on the task at hand, just one more item to check off; but her thoughts kept circling back to Duncan’s accusations, to the ugly sneer on his face. 

She’d long ago accepted that she hadn’t really known her fiancé.  When he cut things cold without so much as discussing it – because she might have potentially hurt his precious reputation – she’d done her best to wash her hands of the whole ordeal. 

But that resolution hadn’t fully erased the daydream quality of their time together.  Her wound had healed, but it was still tender.  Every so often she’d probe it, just to ensure it still hurt.

She hadn’t realized it, but though she’d no longer idealized him, she had still cherished a manufactured view of their time together.  Now she wondered if the whole thing had been her imagination.

She thought back to the day she’d had the first inkling of what was to come; the first time Duncan’s habitual form of punishment caught her unawares.  There was a card party at the Carnathan-Kane’s.  She’d been looking forward to it for weeks, only to be unsure of her invitation when the day actually came, as her beloved fiancé hadn’t bothered to speak to her for close to a week. 

She’d stood at the outskirts, braving the situation as best she could before making her retreat.  She’d wound up in the library.

The Kane library was beautiful and soulless.  It held precisely the catalog considered necessary, but no more – nothing that spoke to the interests of the owner.  Moreover, they all, even the schoolboy standards, gave the impression of having never been read.  Books were crowded together too closely on the shelves, so that it was impossible to remove a volume without dislodging its companions.  Veronica cracked the cover of a volume of Cicero only to find pages still stuck.

They were all new of course.  The Carnathan-Kanes hadn’t been established long enough to inherit a proper musty, ill-sorted library with ancient woodcuts that – to be fair – had also, probably not been read by their owners.  Even if the family name had been of an older vintage, the Baroness’s urge for modernity would have banished all but the most valuable of antiques.

Veronica ran a finger over the beautiful gilded spines that no one but the maid likely ever looked at, before selecting a volume of Pope.  She wanted to feed her general feeling of discontent without examining its source too carefully, and Pope’s all-purpose irritation would serve her purpose admirably.  Here was a man who saw and saw through society’s pretensions, yet retained a sense of humor… if not one entirely without bitterness.

She had settled into that singsony mental rhythm his continuous use of the heroic couplet imparted, and had just come across a line that wrenched a reluctant laugh, when a voice startled her out of her skin.

“How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot.  The world forgetting; by the world forgot.”

She looked up to see Logan frowning down at her in mock consternation, and she forced a not-entirely-successful laugh.  “By the world forgot.  Perhaps that explains it.”

“I’m appalled at this attitude.  Your fiancé hosts a card party, and you hide in the library?  Not very social of you, Miss Mars.”

“Perhaps I’m not feeling very social.”

“No more am I, but I quite like taking other people’s money.  And we all know that behind those innocent eyes, you’re a bit of a sharp.”

“Not feeling especially sharp either.”

He looked at her keenly, before taking a seat on the settee and patting the space beside him.  “Alright.  Confess all to Uncle.  No problem too small.”

She approached the topic obliquely.  “Has Duncan spoken to you?”

“Only to say hello, and all that.  Expect he had his hands full, directing things. “Logan gestured vaguely to indicate the various ‘things’ that might accompany the hosting of a party. “Didn’t want to intervene.”

“That’s more than he’s said to me.”

His brows knit worriedly.

“In five days.”

“What-“

“I expect you saw my article in the Daily Mirror,” she continued, ruthlessly, determined that now that things were out she was going to air them properly.

Logan grinned a wicked grin.  “I saw it.  Good bit of stuff.  Never liked old Peabody much anyway, he was a rotten coach.  Feel quite sure the feeling was mutual.  Would have been nice to know that a judicious donation in the right corner could have smoothed the way a bit, but I expect the department will be better without him. Duncan’s not giving you rot over that, is he?”

“He’s not giving me anything.  We were supposed to have tea the day it published.  I was – I was probably too excited, really.  My first piece that wasn’t some writeup of a social register.  But he canceled.”

“Did he give a reason?”

“Just sent his apologies.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, you know.  It’s just his way.  He takes all his toys and goes to his own corner.  You shouldn’t – it isn’t personal.”

“I knew there would be a storm.  I mean, I’m not that naïve.  But I didn’t think – he won’t even talk to me.”

Logan was kind enough not to pretend to misunderstand her.  “The lad’s never defied authority in his life, Miss Mars, and you not only defied it, you brought it down.  You’ve probably terrified him.”

“It feels more like anger.”

“This is truly upsetting you, isn’t it?”

“Of course, it’s upsetting me,” she cried, a hair shriller than she intended.  “I think it’s more that he finds me unseemly.  That if I had evidence of the bribes, and the faked credentials, I should have gone to the Provost, or his department head, with my information.  That in writing it up, I was airing the University’s dirty laundry.  And so, it reflects badly on me.”

“More likely he fears it’ll reflect badly on him.” Logan said.  He was quiet for a moment, contemplative, and then he shook his head.  “Mars, if you’d gone to someone with the information, they would have hushed things very neatly and maybe scotched Peabody’s bid to take over the department.  But they never would have let him go.  Likely they’d have turned it around on you, and you would have found yourself sent down.  Especially if they’d felt forced to action.”

“That might happen anyway,” she admitted.  “The dean isn’t terribly happy with me, right now.  I suspect if they thought they had an excuse to send me down or even just gate me, it would be done already.”

“No one likes having their noses rubbed in it,” he acknowledged, “but I suspect if you lie low for a term or so, it will become just another bit of history.  Duncan’s not especially good at emotions; give him a few days to sort them out.”

“I thought of this as my great success.”

“And it was.  But it’s not the sort of success Duncan’s people admire.”

“The Hon. Lucinda Newcastle writes up scandal all the time.  And what about those pieces from ‘an Earl’s daughter’?”

“Darling, those already arrived reserve the right to make fun of their set.  But they’re zealous about keeping outsiders from making aspersions.”

“And a country police superintendent’s daughter couldn’t ever be anything but an outsider.”

“Of course not, nor could I, although if one looks at things like moldering piles of bricks in the country, I’m technically one of them.  Duncan’s people are trying to belong, and not in the traditional way of being appreciated for a few hundred years as a tolerable stranger first.  Every time Celeste fails to secure the right invitation, the right guest list, the right mentions in the press, she sees it as a personal failure, hers or her family’s.  She hates the casual asides,  ‘Oh Carnathan-Kane’s something in business – the market you know, made an absolute pile.’  Not seeming to notice that such designations are as close to loving as we get.  You can’t possibly discuss the Duke of Kent without bringing up the third cousin who’s wrong in the head. You can’t speak of my family without mentioning that my mother ran off with a good for nothing studio actor.  That’s just the way it is.”

He sighed and continued, “But Celeste wants it otherwise.  And what Celeste wants, Duncan tries to provide.  I’m sure he doesn’t mean to-“

“To hurt me?”

Logan was quiet for a minute.  “Look, Duncan’s an idiot.  You did good work there.  It wasn’t – if he had any sense, he’d admire you the more for it.”  He paused, and a new note came into his voice.  “I admire you the more for it.”

She looked up in surprise, only to find him staring at her with an intensity that made her deeply nervous.  She made to stand, but his hand closed over hers; and for one brief, endless moment she let herself imagine a world where reciprocation was possible.  His eyes darkened, and he leaned toward her.  She pulled away, and her shame at her moment of temptation made her words biting and harsh.  Gone was the graceful rejection of an unwelcome suitor.  One couldn’t express polite regret when one’s regrets were anything but polite.

She leveled accusations at him, accusing him of disloyalty, of trying to stir up trouble.  His temper had always more than matched her own, and he covered that flash of genuine pain with a damning little speech, wherein he declared that she deserved no better than Duncan’s behavior. That dishonesty didn’t merit consideration, and they were both lying to themselves and to each other. 

“And if you honestly think Duncan will allow himself to be permanently attached to someone who’s managed notoriety without family or fortune, then you’re a fool.  His family would never allow it, and he would never defy them.  It just isn’t done, darling,” he drawled, in an uncanny echo of his friend, before slamming his way out of the library. 

The next she’d heard of him, he was supporting the establishment of a very expensive young lady plucked from the corps de ballet and installed in a city apartment.  Then it was the Carnathan-Kane girl.  Lately it seemed to be a rotating stable of Society’s noted Beauties.

She’d hung on to Duncan for another year.  A miserable year, in retrospect, during which putting a step wrong was to discover herself attached to a stranger.  The man she loved would sometimes go weeks without speaking to her, while she struggled to maintain his arcane good graces, until she finally tipped things too far when she exposed the Black Castle Cabal.

The final separation had been a blow; but it had carried with the relief of a clean cut rather than a long festering wound.

 “It isn’t still bothering you, is it?”  Logan’s voice broke into her reverie.

“What isn’t?”

“Duncan’s accusations.  He shouldn’t have insinuated.  That is to say, whatever I might have done, you were always the epitome of Caesar’s wife – utterly above reproach.”  It was an awkward, hesitant attempt at consolation, as well it might be.  They both knew that two days ago, he might have been the one inflicting the wound.  But she heard his own admission against interest, and vulnerability seemed to cave her own defenses.  She looked steadily at him.

“I wasn’t always above reproach,” she allowed.   A strange mixture of curiosity and jealousy suffused his face, and all her instincts urged deflection.  She ignored them.  “I wasn’t with you.”

Logan gave her one brief incredulous look, and before she had quite realized what had happened, he had hauled unceremoniously toward him, and they were embracing.  And no wonder she’d been afraid to dip a toe in, because surely, she was going to drown.

They might have stayed thus for minutes or hours, till a groan from behind them severed the spell; they broke their clench abruptly.

“I dare say a porcupine would be a cuddlier prospect,” Dickie Casablancas sounded almost mournful.

Logan leveled a long look at his friend, who seemed remarkably unconcerned at how close he’d trod to danger.

“Sorry to break up love’s dream and all that, but I remembered the name of the other fellow, the dealer?   Thought you might want to know.  Could be wrong, I suppose.”

Logan ran a soothing hand down her arm.  “Just give us the name, Dickie.  Before she finishes devising whatever torture she finds appropriate, and decides to actually implement it.”

“Seem to have struck a nerve, what?”

“The name?”  Veronica breathed through gritted teeth.

“Cobbler – knew it was something funny like that.  Stuart Cobbler – goes by-“

“Stuey,” Veronica finished.  Berenice’s beau was Lizzie’s mysterious supplier.

Chapter Text

Veronica made another pot of coffee in blatant defiance of the week’s grocery budget.  She’d said a distracted goodbye to Logan the night before, pleading both the lateness of the hour and the developments in her case. He’d accepted her flight with reasonable good grace, and she hoped he would be willing to consider the interlude as having never happened.  Given his notoriety where women were concerned, there were almost certainly other candidates on the line; no need for the both of them to borrow trouble.

Still, her mind hadn’t settled enough for sleep.

She sat perched at the window seat watching plumes of fog thicken and combine.  They looked like strands of rope, indiscriminate and blind and ruthless in action.  Her hand reached absently to her neck before she could stop herself, then halted as she reflected on the morbidity of the action.  If the case was murder, if she was successful, there would be only one end to the story, as Lady Justice took her toll.  She’d sent people to prison before, but this would be a new responsibility.  Veronica leaned her head against the glass, her unfocussed gaze on the movements on the street below, unsettled by how little this bothered her. 

She’d still been watchful at five when Cynthia had gotten home from her shift at the telephone company.

Veronica sat abstracted in ineffectual, cyclical thoughts till the coffee boiled down and the phone began to ring.  She was still staring an hour later, when the caller rang off for a third time, and still later when Cynthia had emerged from her room, sleep-rumpled and irritable.

“You do realize the ringing is not just in your head, don’t you?” Cyn asked, impressively cool considering her head could have hardly hit the pillow.  She looked at the sad residue of coffee on the bottom of the pot, and clucked to herself as she made more.  The case was growing costlier by the moment.  Although this wasn’t so much the case itself but the memories it had unearthed, memories Veronica had thought lost in countless moves, that had instead turned up, carefully preserved, folded around an excess of tissue-paper, and packed with cedar.

“Veronica.”  Cynthia pushed a cup into her hands, drawing Veronica out of her reverie.

Veronica took a sip of coffee and apologized, letting the cup warm her hands.  Cynthia shook her head and bustled around the kitchen, scraping together some semblance of breakfast, a portion of which she thrust toward Veronica. 

“I gather last night was eventful?”  Cyn said, eventually, around a mouthful of toast.

Veronica tilted her head back and considered – even as the affirmative answer thrummed through her.

“Well,” she said, finally.  “I narrowly avoided being trodden on by several hundred people with no ability to carry their liquor, had an extremely awkward encounter with my former flame, an ill-conceived amorous interlude with said gentleman’s closest friend, and for all that effort, I might have garnered a hint of an idea of who supplied Lizzie Manning with the dope that killed her.”

“So, a fairly noneventful evening, then.”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Veronica agreed.  “By the way, I think your Max might be moving up in the world – I caught a glimpse of him holding court to a host of admirers.  I think his new stuff must be making something of a stir.”

“He hasn’t been my Max for quite some time now,” Cynthia replied automatically.  “Nor am I altogether surprised.  His ambition was never the problem.”  Her friend narrowed her eyes.  “But if you’re thinking of using Max to avoid discussion of these romantic interludes you so darkly hinted at, I’m afraid you will be sorely disappointed.”

Veronica shook her head with vehemence.  “Romantic interlude singular.  The other was about as far from romantic as could be.”

“I’m assuming the latter would be with your fiancé that was?  How bad was it?” Cynthia asked, considerately dropping the first topic of gossip for one of almost equal interest.

“So bad that it came back around to a kind of relief.”  Veronica prodded idly at her plate, eating nothing as she tried to articulate the maelstrom of emotions that had surfaced in seeing Duncan again.  She felt the pull of memory again, threatening to drag her under its current.  She focused instead on her friend’s steady eyes, their usual cynicism replaced with a welter of sympathy and she flinched.  “I’d entertained the thought every now and then – I suppose it’s typical – of what it would be like to see him again.  I confess, I’d hoped I’d be wearing something more striking than a glorified bedsheet at the time.”

“I don’t know, that ensemble sound quite remarkable as it is.” Cyn’s eyebrows rose, and Veronica rolled her eyes. 

“The affair was fancy dress – Greco-Roman by way of the cinema epic.  I suppose when one goes to these parties several times a week, one must do what one can to keep things stimulating.  No wonder so many of them seek relief in dope and drink,” she said.

“Now you sound like a Temperance Unionist.” Her friend objected.  Veronica thought she detected a note of censure in her voice, but when she looked up, her friend was mopping absently at the coffee she’d spilled.

“I felt like one, last night.”  She’d felt staid and about a hundred years older than the fools surrounding her – that is, when she hadn’t felt like a child just out of the nursery.

“I’ll be sure to get you a tambourine,” her flatmate said with obliging condescension, whatever ill-humour Veronica had imagined entirely gone, and yet she was sure it had been there. 

It occurred to Veronica that she had very little idea of her friend’s views on the subject.  The two of them had never thrown a party – even of a milder sort – and Cynthia was not one to bring disreputable acquaintances home with her.  And yet, she must have seen a great deal of such behavior in her time among the artistic set. 

Veronica wanted to ask, but couldn’t think how to broach the question.  Presumably her friend could take care of herself, and would resent any intrusion for the officiousness it would undoubtedly be.

She looked back out the window, instead.  The street had come alive in the time she’d been sitting there, the idle fluidity of the early dawn replaced by the driven purpose of day. She put her fork down.  “You’ve never met Duncan, have you?” she asked, in a voice that startled her in its strength.

Veronica kept her eyes on the bustle outside, but she could feel her friend’s surprise.  As well she might.  Neither girl was in the habit of discussing personal matters.  Under ordinary circumstances Veronica would have resisted even the shallowest of inquiries, and the Bright Young People’s notion of entertainment could have provided easy distraction for an hour without ever treading on dangerous emotional ground.

“We don’t exactly travel in the same circles, no,” her flatmate finally said, after a too long pause.

“Duncan was always…”  Veronica bit her lip as she searched for the right word.  “He had this quality that set him apart from other young men.  A sort of stolid superiority.  He believed in himself so sincerely that you found yourself agreeing.”

“Isn’t that typical public school nonsense?” her friend asked, with a wrinkle of her nose.

Veronica shook her head even as she considered the point.  “Yes, and no.”  It was vital that she express this properly, and she paused again.  “I mean to say, they do all think that the world caters to them, generally with no small measure of accuracy, at that.  But in others of the breed that entitlement might be touched with humor or self- deprecation or nervous strain.  Duncan never questioned himself, even as a First Year, when that’s all the rest of us ever did.”  She smiled a little sadly.  “When you’re questioning everything you ever knew about the world and your place in it, there’s something very comforting in that steadfast complacency – that absolute knowledge that he brought to the table.”

“It sounds a bit of a nightmare, to be honest.”  Cynthia had been bustling round the small kitchenette and generally restoring the room to order.  Now she sat opposite Veronica on the window seat.

“I think it probably was.” Veronica admitted.  “Not that I saw it at the time.  At the time, I thought him as correct as he did.  Any differences between us must therefore have arisen from my failure.”  Her eyes traced the pattern of embroidered leaves on the window seat.  At some point the fabric had been snagged on something, and a rough pull of warped or snapped thread marred one of the largest leaves.  “I did feel like a failure, often.  It was almost impossible to argue his assumptions – because it never seemed to occur to him that they were assumptions.  The original immovable object.” 

Veronica wanted to laugh, but knew the bitterness would betray her.  She frowned instead.

“And has time taught him some measure of deference?” Cyn asked with a refreshing lack of tact.

Veronica smiled and hoped her friend would ignore the effort it took to do so.  “Not in the least.  He was – he is – exactly what he was then.”  Her smile slipped.  “And it was revolting.  I could barely tolerate his company for fifteen minutes together.  I shudder to think that I once blithely offered up the whole of my future.”  Veronica fixed her attention on her now lukewarm breakfast.  She downed several mouthfuls of cold, rubbery eggs, and drained the last of her coffee.  “I’ve been attempting to support the thesis that he didn’t use to be that way, but in digging around the mothballs, my memories won’t bear it out.”

Cynthia turned to plump the cushion behind her, and Veronica felt a warm flush of gratitude overtake her.  Had her friend been overly solicitous or delicate with her feelings; had she even offered a sympathetic moue, Veronica might have been in danger of losing control. 

“What was he doing there at all?” Cyn asked, finally.  “From what you’ve said of him, it doesn’t sound much like his métier.”

Veronica’s grin was wry as she shook her head.  It was difficult to think of an atmosphere Duncan would have been less comfortable in than the previous evening’s revels, and she thought a bit more charitably of the revelers in consequence.

As to Cynthia’s question, she hadn’t worked that out herself yet.  Or rather, she had, but she wished she hadn’t.  She’d gotten used to Duncan the ghost, the memory, the distant stranger.  To be confronted with the foibles of the flesh and blood version didn’t make her doubt him so much as it made her doubt herself, once again, as she could not see how she could have been so blind.  And that made her sound like one of her clients.  She’d been so dazzled by the image of him, a painstaking copy of a man, that she’d mistaken it for the real thing.  He’d made a fool of her back then, and clearly thought he could do so again.

“That’s the worst of it.  He used his sister as an excuse, but I think he was there to warn me off the case.” 

Cynthia let out a low whistle.  “Well that’s a cuckoo in the nest.”

“I suppose Lady Margaret told him she’d hired me to investigate,” Veronica continued.  “He was full of righteous indignation over my exploitation of his bereaved fiancé.”  It was typical of Duncan, and she shrugged, but Cynthia’s interest was clearly piqued.  Her friend took the narrative and tugged at its errant thread.

“What’s his connexion to the sister?”

“Only a passing one.” Veronica waved a hand.  “He claims he knew her to speak to, but that the acquaintance didn’t rise to any degree of intimacy.  That tracks with the timeline of his involvement with Lady Margaret.  Incidentally, you’re correct in thinking that the party was decidedly not his scene – he was less in his element than I was and I felt as noticeable as the proverbial sore thumb.”

Cynthia did not follow her down this rabbit hole.

“He laid down the law on your investigating a woman he had only a passing acquaintance with?”  She asked.  There was a razor edge to her voice and Veronica wondered if there was a plausible way to introduce the two.  Cynthia would insult him to his face, though sadly, he’d never realize it.

Catching her friend’s glance, Veronica shrugged.  “He excels at officiousness.  It’s what he’s best at.  Lady Margaret’s involvement probably gave him the impetus to do so, but I wouldn’t have been altogether surprised to find him equally impossible about some other of my cases, if he could possibly construe it as reflecting on him.  Actually, I suspect he views my entire profession as reflecting badly on him, now that it’s been brought to his attention that I didn’t cease to exist the moment he left off communication.” 

She smiled wanly at the appalled look on the other’s face.  “Meg went to me against his advice – thus injuring his pride.  He had little choice but to act.”

“It is their most vulnerable point,” her flatmate agreed.

Veronica had thought herself resigned – or at least accustomed – to this inextricable quality of his, but as she spoke she found herself growing heated.

“Because he’s decided it wasn’t murder, no one else could rationally think otherwise.  Therefore, I cannot possibly have accepted the engagement according to my stated motives.  His fiancé he appears to have excused in light of extreme emotional agitation, but he’s reserved darker intentions for me.  Manipulation, extortion, exposure, ridicule – all roads clearly lead back to him.  It’s how he thinks,” she finished with a smile she didn’t feel.

“Were we attempting ridicule?  I could support the motion.”

Veronica smiled a shade more genuinely.  “I was going to question Lady Margaret later today.   She’s so certain it’s murder.  More so than I am. But if Duncan has started in on her, it’s possible she’ll pull me off the case altogether.”

“Will you allow yourself to be pulled?”  Cynthia asked, as she gathered up their soiled crockery.

Veronica made a face.  “Not lightly, but I can’t necessarily afford to do otherwise if I wind up short one paying client.”  The specter of financial defeat, of having to go home to her father having failed once again caught her across the chest.  Not that he would admit she’d failed, which only made her hurt worse.  The two women shared a look of grim understanding, and for several long moments, neither of them spoke.

Before the silence could grow completely onerous, the telephone shattered it once more, and the two of them stared at the loathsome object until the caller stopped.

“So, do you think it’s Lady Margaret that’s been on the phone since dawn?  Or Mr. Carnathan-Kane?”

Veronica groaned and tipped her head forward into her lap.  “Actually, I suspect that’s the evening’s other fiasco refusing to be decently buried.”

Cynthia grinned in anticipation, and by unspoken agreement, the topics of murder and financial ruin were shelved for lighter, if no less complicated, matters.  “I was hoping we’d get to the amorous clench at some point.”

“I said nothing about a clench,” Veronica protested halfheartedly.

Cynthia leveled her with a look and she capitulated.

“Well, there might have been some light recreational clenching.”

“And said recreation was?”

“Devastating,” she admitted.

Her friend let out a low chuckle.  “Darling, if you’ve Logan Echolls’ attention, there’s nothing else to be done.  Frankly, I don’t know how you resisted him all those years ago.  I’ll wager he was properly in his element back then.”

“He was,” Veronica acknowledged.  “But as it turns out, I was not.  And there was the matter of my engagement to another.”

“The papers are full of young women for which that little complication made not the least difference to their behavior,” her friend scoffed.  “At least, if you can believe the lady who writes the Town Talk pieces, which I most assuredly do.”

“Except that’s half the problem – how could I ever take his attentions seriously when he sends up a signal just by walking down the street?”

“Did you want to take them seriously?” Cynthia asked with some surprise.

Veronica found herself thinking that murder was the easier topic of discussion.

“I didn’t mean…” she balked.

“You might have a bit of fun and leave it at that,” Cynthia said, with an airiness that made Veronica’s concerns feel overwrought.  She tapped her fingers rapidly against her leg as she formulated and rejected several responses.  Finally, she spoke.

“It’s not that simple,” she said slowly, keeping her tone calm by sheer effort.  You’ve seen what happens when a bit of fun goes wrong. You were the one who told me about Vronsky getting locked out of his studio by that jealous model three days before the Exhibition and all his commissions gone – and about the Thompsons each bringing their lovers into the flat because neither was willing to give up the space.  Most of my commissions come about when fun goes wrong.  I see it practically every day.”

“You’re tied in knots over this,” her friend observed, and her very complacency drove Veronica to a frenzy.

“I’m trying to be practical!”

“Veronica,” Cynthia said, her voice burdening the word with earnest censure.  “I have never been one to naysay practicality.  But I feel I obligated to observe that sense is seldom as sensitive as all this.”

Veronica stood, abruptly, the need to escape foremost in her mind.  She had calls to make.  Perhaps she could get to Lady Margaret before Duncan began his inevitable campaign to end her employment.  She was babbling a half-hearted and thoroughly transparent apology to her flatmate, her mind deliberately focused on the growing list of tasks in her head and not on the space where the other girl’s words were burrowing in her consciousness, when a knock came at the door.  She froze.

Not that it would be him.  It was probably a client – some typist or mannequin wanting the dope on her almost assuredly married boyfriend.  Or perhaps it was the bloke to check the meter, or hand out the new telephone books.  It could be any of a hundred people.

Which would be perfectly all right.  Unless she were wrong and it was him.

She stared at the door with something akin to horror, as she stood stock still, unable to commit to a course of action, hoping against hope that – like the phone – the visitor would simply give up and go away.

As if in answer to this thought, the knock came for a second time, and Cynthia moved to answer it, muttering under her breath about living a Moliere.

She opened the door to the blinking befuddled face of Police Constable Sacks.

“No cause for alarm,” she called over her shoulder to Veronica.  “It’s only the police.”

The constable looked uncomprehendingly at Cynthia for several confused moments before he caught sight of Veronica in the background and his expression cleared. 

“Miss Mars,” he said, in his best official manner, that she had little doubt he practiced in the glass at home.  “I believe there may be a problem with your telephone.”

The calls hadn’t been Logan.  The thought was there and gone in an instant, and Veronica carefully did not examine it.  Cynthia beat a retreat back to her room, citing the need for a bit more sleep before her evening shift.  “If he arrests you, do try to be quiet about it.”

Veronica pasted a bright smile on her face moved toward the door.  “Are you making housecalls on behalf of the telephone company now, Constable?  How industrious of you.”

PC Sacks’ face flushed a dull red.  He was a well-grown specimen of about thirty with an awkward, adolescent manner and an ambitious mustache.  Indeed, Veronica suspected that, of the pair, the mustache contained the lion’s share of the ambition.

Veronica had had many dealings with Sacks over the years, and while he lacked the malicious stupidity of his immediate supervisor, he did suffer from a distinct dearth of imagination.  This failing proved no serious hindrance in his regular rounds, which, for the most part did not require much in the way of critical thinking.  For most things - the drunk making a ruckus after closing up time, the young ladies displaying their wares ‘round the corner, the purse snatched – the obvious explanation sufficed.  And when it didn’t, he sought Veronica.

She’d offered him enough help over the past few years that his balance was eternally in the red, though he had returned the favors as best he could by steering clients her way and letting her know when Detective Inspector Lamb was out for blood. 

She looked to him expectantly.  “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be able to liberate the Manning autopsy notes so soon.  Is Lamb on holiday again?”

“I’m afraid that’s why I’m here,” he began, still awkwardly.  Veronica moved to where she kept a tin of ginger biscuits at the ready, knowing the constable’s susceptibility when it came to sweets, and sensing a need for ammunition on her side.  “Lamb’s aware of your investigation.  He’s watching me like a hawk, and sent me down here specifically to require that you ‘stop sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.’  My apologies, but I was told to give the report verbatim.”

“And was that verbatim?” she asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“He might have added the odd erhem... opprobrious epithet as well,” Sacks admitted, “But if he wants to say that, he can say it himself,” said Sacks, with a resurgence of spirit that was perhaps somewhat lessened by its being said around a mouthful of ginger biscuit.

“How did Lamb even find out about my involvement?” Veronica asked.  She snagged two biscuits from the tin, put one back, reconsidered and collected two more.  She looked back up at PC Sacks.  “It isn’t as though this were an open case, or one likely to carry favor with the press.”

“There have been some complaints made.”

“I’ve been investigating for all of two days.  Isn’t that a bit unusual?  Surely I’m not that difficult to deal with.”

Sacks made a noncommittal murmur in response, which was kind of him.  She wouldn’t have expected that much restraint.  Certainly, Logan wouldn’t have resisted.

As though thoughts of Logan Echolls have any place in this conversation, she chastised herself. 

“Very well,” she relented.  “I might possibly be considered somewhat… persnickety.  But I suspect these complaints hold some significance beyond my glowing personality.”

At Sacks’s blank look, she continued.  “I’m digging too close to something, and someone’s gotten spooked.  Not that it’s necessarily case related.  Scandal can be unearthed so easily in an investigation – illicit rendezvous, illegal gaming operations, creditors closing in.  Dredge up enough mud and some of its bound to stick, and I’ve never been particularly careful in my excavations.  Plenty of people might find it beneficial if I never get the opportunity to find them out.”

Certainly, she must have made any number of minor players in the dope business rather nervous.

She turned briskly on Sacks, who was attempting to brush the crumbs out of his mustache.  “How much can you tell me?”

“You know that information is confidential, Miss,” he said.  She heard the reproach in his voice and sighed in overly elaborate resignation.

“I was planning to make a spice cake tomorrow, but I’m not sure I have enough cinnamon.  I could have picked some up while investigating a new lead, but perhaps it’s better to leave things for another time.”

“I don’t have any names on offer,” he said after an interminable pause where he doubtless weighed the merits of spice cake against the prospect of Lamb’s disapproval.

She narrowed her eyes.  “I thought you lot always required names.”

Sacks gave as much of an apologetic shrug as his uniform would allow. “Callers ring off without giving them all the time.  We can’t possibly hunt down everyone who calls the station.”

“But what else does DI Lamb do with his time?  It isn’t as though he’s occupied with actual casework.”

Ignoring this sally by virtue of long practice, Sacks drew the notebook from his tunic’s front right pocket, eyes scanning down the page till he found what he was looking for.  “A woman called the station yesterday afternoon.  Caller was tearful and upset, wanted someone to tell her if Lady Elizabeth Manning ‘was really murdered like that nosy parker Veronica Mars seems to think.’”  He flushed slightly as he looked up.  “I probably should have rephrased the latter bit.”

“I would call it curiosity, myself.” Veronica said, without heat.

“Officer on duty reassured the young lady…”

“She was young?”

“I didn’t take the call.  PC D’Amato – he’s new, Italian – Lamb’s chained him to the desk in the hopes he’ll quit or transfer out. D’Amato referred to her as young in the log.  I assume she sounded so.”

“Of course, my apologies.”  And her sympathies to the new constable as well.  She’d been on the receiving end of Lamb’s bad graces before.  His good graces were a good notch or two below civil, the bad ones not to be borne.

It took him a moment to find his place again, “Officer on duty reassured the young lady that the investigation was closed, and there were no plans to reopen it, at which point she grew hysterical.  Officer attempted to get her name, but she put the phone down.  Attempts are being made to trace the call.” 

The timing of the phone call let off the various masquerade guests, so it was probably the roommate.  She told Sacks as much, and he frowned at her over his notebook, but took down Berenice’s address.

“Then I took a call this morning from a gentleman questioning your authority to operate in these matters.”

“And Lamb chivalrously defended my autonomy?”

He coughed.  “Lamb assured the gentleman that if he had knowledge of a criminal act or any personal assault that he wished to press charges for, that he would be happy to swear out a warrant immediately.  I believe he even suggested a few options.”

“If this conversation is your way of leading up to my arrest then you owe me for the coffee and biscuits.”

“The gentleman declined to give his information, so my business is not so formal as yet,” he said.

“But you’re tracing that number as well.”

“We are, and I suspect the only reason Lamb spared the resources was because he hopes to find legitimate cause to bring charges on you.”

“What did the male caller sound like?”  Lamb’s vendettas could wait.

Sacks looked blankly at her.

“Old or young?  Country or town?  Educated?”

“Just, a gentleman.  He had a gentleman’s voice,” Sacks, said finally.

“The proper Oxford manner?”

That probably ruled out Cobbler, but left in most of her suspects from the night before.  Well, Freidrich might not be able to pull it off, but the others certainly could.  Her thoughts landed briefly on Dickie Casablancas, who had the requisite accent, but seemed unlikely to be able to make it through even a very short conversation without adjectives like featherheaded or dimwitted being applied, then danced on to Luke and Seth.  Seth had seemed unconcerned, but his behavior had had more than a dallop of performance in it, and he might be a good actor.  Luke had been made quite visibly anxious by her questions.  Perhaps not surprising that a drug dealer would resent questioning, but surely the police were the very last people he’d go to in that case.  He might as well be hanging a lantern on his activities.

“The Detective Inspector’s furious, Veronica.” Sacks’ voice broke through her thoughts and she looked up.

 “He generally is,” she agreed.

“He wants you to lay off this, now.”  She suspected he was trying for stern and was blithely unaware of how much the crumbs trailing down his jacket undercut what little authority he possessed.

“You do understand how keenly I strive to live my life by the edicts of Constable Mutton.”

“He says he’ll have you in for tampering with a police investigation.”

Sacks looked almost worried.  It was touching rather.  She hadn’t thought he’d give it a moment’s thought. Still…

“How can I tamper with an investigation that you’ve just assured me doesn’t exist?” she asked.

He shook his head, refusing be diverted by anything so base as logic.  Probably for the best when dealing with DI Lamb, all things considered.

“He can make things very difficult for you if he chooses to.  You need to step carefully, Miss Mars.”

“I’m nothing if not careful,” she said.

The lie was too much for even Sacks to swallow and he frowned in consternation.  “Misrepresenting yourself to an officer of the law, are you?”

She sighed, and began again, as patiently as she could.  “There’s a difference between watching one’s steps and avoiding walking altogether.  There’s something to this case, and the fact that it’s causing complaints only proves it.”

Sacks clucked disapprovingly.

“Mayhap you’re right, but if Lamb brings you up on charges, you won’t be able to enjoy telling him so.”

“I can assure you that I could be on the dock and I would still relish the opportunity to tell Lamb how wrong he is.  About everything.”

***

After Veronica had fled the party – fled him – so swiftly that he’d scanned building’s steps for a stray glass slipper, Logan had anticipated a day of wallowing, an unprofitable cycle of hope and self-doubt shadowed with the ever-present specter of Ratner’s disapproval.

So, it was probably a blessing that he’d somehow been saddled with the care of a thoroughly blotto Dickie Casablancas.

The other young man had shown up in the small hours, still dressed, or rather half-dressed, in his costume, eager to draw Logan out for a continuation of the evening’s adventures.  Logan had been pulled from his bed – he was too honest to pretend he’d been sleeping -  by the sound of his friend hotly debating the fare with an increasingly irate cabbie.  After dispatching Ratner to conclude the business before it came to blows, Logan spent a good three quarters of an hour persuading Dickie to call it a night.  Dickie was a fractious drunk, and managed to occupy him so fully, that for several minutes at a time, he had scarce a thought free for the constant frustration that was Veronica Mars.

Or so he told himself.

Dickie had, of necessity, accepted Logan’s offer of a bed and pajamas, as he had forgotten the names of the people who were supposed to be putting him up, only saying that they were rather dull and retired – which narrowed things not at all, as Tennant and Coward might be considered antisocial when compared to Dickie.  He now sat slumped in his seat with his hair sticking up in all directions, for all the world like a child allowed past his bedtime and feeling the ill effects.  Which, to a certain degree, Logan supposed, he was.

“It’s inhumane!” came the anguished cry from the far side of the table.

Logan Echolls watched, his sympathy tinged with more than a dash of amusement, as Dickie Casablancas winced at the sound of his own overly loud voice, before turning baleful eyes on the concoction Ratner had laid before him. 

“Those who dance must pay the piper,” Logan said, cheerfully, if a bit heartlessly.  He’d been in Dickie’s shoes often enough to remember the misery.  He took up the paper once more, his distracted glance catching on a headline near the bottom of the page.  The Kane empire was still flourishing at the least.

“When I said I said I’d try anything if my blasted head would stop splitting, I wasn’t looking to cease the old whirligig altogether,” Dickie protested. His friend held the glass – three quarters full of an admittedly murky brown liquid – up to the light, made a noise of disgust.

“Even Ratner’s tonics are philosophical.  You’ve got to feel like death to believe life’s possible again.” Logan said soothingly over his own coffee.  “Take a slug.  You’ll be looking at another world, in a moment.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of, don’t you know.”  Dickie gave the tumbler a dubious sniff.  

 “I can assure you that the risk is very minimal, sir,” Ratner said, appearing with that unsettling efficiency of his.

“Can’t you just leave me to die in peace?” Dickie wailed.

Logan raised an eyebrow.  “That depends entirely about how long you take over the business.  I do have other engagements today.”

“You’re a heartless beast, you know that?”

“I believe I’ve heard something of the sort.  Now stop being a child.”

“Heartless,” Dickie repeated, before turning back to the drink before him and evidently gearing up his courage.  “Here’s to a happy life then.”  Dick swallowed Ratner’s cure with the same speed – if not the enthusiasm – as he had the drinks that were causing his current state of distress.  Logan permitted himself a smile.

For several minutes, Logan was able to focus on his paper in peace, as his friend went through the conniptions that inevitably accompanied Ratner’s hangover cure.

 “I have to say, I don’t think your man knows what he’s doing.” Dickie said, when he was able to speak again.

“It always takes me that way at first.” Logan said, nodding at Ratner to bring Dickie something in the way of breakfast.  “But you’ll see, any moment now, the sun will begin to shine again.”

Dickie shuddered, but shook his head.  “Not that foul thing – it seems to have done its job – though I must say it seems to have gone to unnecessary lengths to do so.  I’m talking about Madeline.”

“Ah.”  Logan nodded. “The other foul thing.” 

“I say, she is my fiancé, after all.”  Dickie regarded him reproachfully, as though he hadn’t spent nearly every waking moment since their auspicious coupling reviling that very fate.

The corners of Logan’s mouth twitched, but he made a decent show of contrition.  “My apologies, old man.  I’m sure she’ll make you very happy.” 

“That’s just what I don’t want,” Dickie said, not in the least mollified.

Logan knit his brows.  “Happiness?  Bit a foreign concept to me as well, but I don’t know that I’d throw in the towel altogether.”

“No, not happiness.”  Dickie had never been a wordsmith, but on the effects of too little sleep and too much gin, his vocabulary genuinely deserted him. “Not happiness,” he repeated, finally, “but for her to make me so.”  He gesticulated again.  “Make me happy, make me unhappy, make me toe the line, bring home the cabbage.  There’s something regimented about marriage, what?”

Logan inclined his head.  “There’s something regimented about Madeline, surely.”

“Mean to say there’s certain expectations in keeping a wife.”

Logan had to acknowledge that perhaps his friend’s apprehension was perhaps natural and justified, given that his current employment consisted of toodling into his office once a fortnight or so, giving a bunch of directives (that were promptly ignored by the secretary who did all the actual work) and taking a nap behind his outsize desk.  It seemed likely that such subsistence wouldn’t be approved of by most women. 

Certainly, such a lacksidaisical approach was not to be borne by Madeleine St. Claire, who had some of the sharpest and most mercenary instincts Logan had ever happened to come across.  It was only by purest luck – and Ratner’s intervention – that he’d escaped her clutches himself, that time in Cannes.

“But your fellow doesn’t seem to have the faintest idea of how to proceed.” Dickie returned to his primary grievance.  “I thought he was supposed to have heaps of brains.”

“That’s the rumor, though I can’t say I’ve ever seen much of it myself,” Logan said, as Ratner came back with more coffee.

“Oh, you wouldn’t, sir,” his man agreed, blandly.

“It’s an undetectable brilliance, eh?”

“Perfectly detectable, but requiring one direct one’s attention beyond his own reflection.”  Ratner poured them fresh cups with a deferential air completely at odds with the substance of his words.

“Well, who could ever manage that?” Logan asked of the room at large. 

“It is a mystery of our time, sir.”  Employer and servant shared a look of complete understanding.

Dickie watched this back and forth with a befuddled consternation.  “I don’t understand why you keep him on when he talks to you that way.”

Logan eyed with disfavor the river of cream and great heaping spoonfuls of sugar Dickie used to doctor his coffee, before taking a sip of his own unadulterated drink.  “For three reasons.  He lets me talk to him that way.  He doesn’t talk to anyone else.  And he makes the world’s most perfect coffee.  I can forgive all manner of sins for those three.”

“Not that you’re in a position to offer absolution, of course,” Ratner suggested, with a half-cough that suggested he said no more only by virtue of his own superior restraint.

“No harm in offering.” Logan said carelessly.

“But what’s to be done about my situation?” asked Dickie, judging – correctly – that this sort of badinage could continue ad infinitum.

“I did give the matter some thought, and I suspect I might see your way out of Miss St. Claire’s…”

“Clutches?” offered Logan.

“Good graces,” his valet concluded.

“Well don’t just stand there.  Tip her over, man,” Dickie said, forgetting he was holding his cup and sloshing coffee halfway across the table.

Logan saw the pained look flash across Ratner’s face, and restrained himself from commenting only with effort.

“Very good, sir.  Having previously encountered Miss St. Claire at a watering establishment in Cannes, I believe I formed rather a good measure of the young lady.”

“He rescued me before the situation grew dire,” Logan interjected.

“Indeed.  I believe it would be safe to say that Miss St. Claire is not of a romantic nature.  That is, she’s more likely to be swayed by practical considerations than by an appeal to her better self.”

“The girl’s a nightmare, I’m honestly not sure she has a better self,” Logan mused before catching Dickie’s eye.  “Sorry, old chap, I know she’s your fiance.”

“She’s still a nightmare,” Dickie agreed, having apparently forgotten his previous objections.

“As you say.”  Logan turned to his valet.  “Ratner, we’ll take it as understood that Maddie is a shark.”

“Very good, sir.  And being such, were Mr. Casablancas to suffer a reversal of fortune, she might very well turn her attentions elsewhere.”

At that moment, the bell sounded, pulling Ratner away from his explanation.

“There you have it Dickie,” Logan said.  “If you lose your money you’ll lose Madeleine as well.  Sounds about as simple and straightforward a solution as once could imagine.”

Dickie shook his head.

“Well, the fellow’s trying, I suppose.  Not that it makes a lot of sense.  No one would believe me for the penniless poet.”

“Not a poet, certainly.”

“I’ve not got the personality for poverty – things come far too expensive to manage it.”  Dickie drenched another muffin in butter as he expanded on his somewhat novel economic theory.  “Difficult thing to do, losing one’s money.  Not even sure how one would go about it.  Whenever one’s a bit short, the places just extend a line of credit until father sorts it out.”

Logan wondered idly about getting Dickie to gussie up a piece on this bit of logic – perhaps give the odd guest lecture at one of the smaller schools - but decided, regretfully, that Dickie would notice only the work involved and not the joke.

Dickie started on a small mountain of eggs, apparently forgetting that just an hour ago he’d considered the mere smell of Logan’s own breakfast cooking to be a hostile act.  “I’ve had a shot at the problem myself – applying the old bean and all, and I do think I’ve hit on rather a better idea.  I think it’s bang on sure to get me out of this mess.  Actually, I have to credit your unfathomable behavior last night.”

“I’m astonished you can remember anything of last night, though I am, of course happy to be of help.”

“I’m talking about you and the Mars girl.”

“Oh yes?” Logan eyed his friend warily, but Dickie seemed to have either got over or forgotten the previous evening’s distaste for the lady in question.  Perhaps the horrors of his own predicament had softened him toward Veronica.  Or perhaps it was merely impossible to show disgust while carefully spreading a muffin with marmalade.

“Madeleine has settled on me as her light of love, and I can’t really blame the girl, because she’s seen me.” Dickie said, with an airy wave of his spoon.

Logan praised his humility, and he nodded his head in gracious acceptance.

“She’s decided I’m a fair catch, so I need demonstrate the ways I’m not.”

“Personal hygiene, table manners and the like?”

Dickie ignored this, or, more probably, failed to notice it altogether.  One of Dickie’s great virtues was in providing a continuous subject for wit, but his inability recognize eloquence made at his expense – or more generally – demanded a third-party act as observer.  Logan thought again of Veronica, and cursed himself.

“Right now,” Dickie continued, blithely, “I’m practically synonymous with ‘eligible bachelor’ so it’s up to me to change that.”

“Isn’t this what Ratner was alluding to?  Become less eligible and therefore lose Madeleine?” Logan asked.

“Well, his idea isn’t altogether bad, he’s just being all wrongheaded about it.  Obviously, the financial aspect is insupportable.”

“Obviously.”

“So. I’ll need to address the other half of the equation.  I need to stop being a bachelor.”  Dickie said.

Logan studied his friend, but Dickie gave no indication that he was joking.  “I have to say, I think getting married to avoid marriage might be a bit on the impulsive side,” he said, finally.

“Naturally, I don’t intend to take it as far as that,” Dickie said.  “But if I allowed myself to become engaged to someone, I couldn’t possibly be engaged to Madeleine at the same time.  She’ll have to drop me to save face.”

“Would she though?  Nothing against the lady, but she strikes me as having a bit of a competitive streak. Who’s to say she wouldn’t simply take the challenge as writ and cling all the tighter?”

Dickie was not deterred.  “And look the fool in the press?  You know Maddie fears looking the fool in public more than anything.”

“Well, she’s had so much experience with it than other young ladies of her age,” Logan murmured.  “But which would be more humiliating – to be cast aside, or to cling on and triumph?  Both show a weakness, but the former is perhaps a bit more passive than the lady generally allows for.  Unless you were to simultaneously provide a better option for her.  Not I.” He repeated as Dickie shot him a speculative glance.

“I ran into K. C. Gant the other day, you know his family runs one of the dailies.  He’s agreed to give my engagement several inches.  And if Maddie acts badly, well then so much the better so far as he’s concerned.”

“So, who is the lucky – and I use this term lightly – lady?”

“I considered that since the Mars girl was so obliging as to…”

Logan closed his eyes on a short exhale before turning toward his friend.  “Dickie, I think this is one of those times when it would be best to stop and consider your words before speaking.”

Dickie looked surprised.  “You mean to say you’d mind?” 

“Rather.  More to the point, I suspect the lady herself might mind.”

Clearly this idea had never occurred to Dickie, and he took his time considering it, his nose wrinkling with disgust as at an unpleasant smell.

“Well, there are other girls.”  Dickie sounded rather disgruntled, which was laughable, since he’d been terrified of Veronica on the rare occasions they’d had to meet.  At least Logan thought he had, and Dickie had never been one to mask his emotions.

“Plenty of them,” he agreed, doing his best to keep any suspicion from his tone.  Whatever Dickie thought of Veronica, it was nothing to what Veronica thought of him.  In fact, it might almost be entertaining to see how she would handle such a rapprochement, provided he could be there to witness the result.  Still, out of concern for his friend’s well-being, he said, “I suggest you devote your energies in alternate directions.  It’s a workable plan, with of course, a few notable objections.”

“Objections?  What?”

“Well, for instance, you might have difficulty finding a suitable young lady willing to engage in this masquerade for your benefit.”

“Unlikely on the face of it.  Lots of fillies longing to do whatever they can to benefit me.”

“Would any of those young ladies be the sort that Madeline would find a threat?”

Dickie’s face fell somewhat, as he reviewed what was a doubtless impressive mental list of chorus girls and manicurists, none of whom would survive five minutes around Madeleine St. Claire.

“Then of course, even if you found this paragon, Madeleine might be willing to suffer her pride to drag you down the aisle.”

Dickie blinked and dropped his fork on the carpet.  It really was worse than dining with a small child.  “I never thought of that, but then if she’s okay with me keeping a mistress publicly, then tying the old knot might not be such a bad proposition.  Everyone entering with their eyes open and all.”

“You’re a true romantic, Dickie.  And I said she might tolerate it, not that she’d be okay with it.  She could extract her vengeance in other ways.”

“You’re a gruesome sort of fellow to have a conversation with,” Dickie complained, with a shudder.

“Then again, the other young lady might mistake your intentions, or simply decide she likes the bargain, and you might be stuck higher and dryer than before, linked in such a public way and of your own volition.  

“A bit of the frying pan and the fryer, what?”

“And, of course, the situation might rebound on you in other ways.  What if those holding the purse strings take exception to your behavior, or decide to encourage a union with one of the young ladies at the price of your inheritance?”

“Not much chance of that.  Bulk of it – the property and all – properly entailed.  Not a blasted thing the pater can do about it.  I mean, he does some stuff in the markets – actually I think he does rather well in them, he’s rather a warm fellow, you know – but its pennies on the pile.  He could cut the lot of it out, and it wouldn’t make much difference in the long run.  He never pays much notice anyway.  Not like old Duffy, constantly dancing at attention lest the old man decide to leave everything to the foreign aid society, or that snub-nosed blonde of his in Vienna.”

Logan raised an eyebrow.  “I wouldn’t say Duncan was overly concerned with paternal disapproval.  Not when he has the maternal sort all lined up and at the ready.”

“I just need to find the right sort of female set Maddie off,” Dickie said.

“I’m still not sure that’s all you need, but Maddie’s all about inches in the paper these days.  She’s determined to be remarked as one of the great beauties of the season, no matter how many notices she has to send in to that effect.”

Dickie frowned, and Logan continued.

“You need someone with a greater pull who won’t take you seriously.” Logan wasn’t overly worried about the latter.  He doubted there were many women who would take Richard Casablancas Junior seriously.  The wonder was that Madeleine had.

“What about that other filly of yours?  The Carnathan-Kane girl?”

Logan frowned.  “I’m noticing a suspicious narrowness to your search.  I don’t suppose you’ve considered any young ladies beyond my intimates.” 

“I wasn’t aware your relationship with Miss Mars had progressed to intimacy.”  Dickie’s grin was knowing, and Logan’s hands tightened on the table.

“It would be wise of you to avoid any further speculation along that line,” he contented himself with saying.

“Very well.” Dickie rolled his eyes.  “But what of the Kane girl?”

She’s in a bit of a jam herself at the moment.  I’m not sure saddling her with further difficulties would be the kindest thing I could do.”

Logan had been half-wondering what to do about Lilly all morning.  He knew she wanted him as a shield.  He also knew full well what Veronica’s response would be if the two of them were linked.  Perhaps Dickie’s situation could provide a decent out – after all, the two were in practically the same boat.

Logan leaned forward.  “Tell you what, I’ll drop her a line.  Perhaps she’ll find the situation amusing.  If she doesn’t, well, she’s used to any amount of eccentricity on my part.”

***

Veronica had put a telephone call through to Lady Margaret, but found herself fobbed off by a circuitous series of servants each of whom seemed sure that someone else was needed to put her through to the young mistress.  Veronica wondered if Meg was avoiding her, or if this was all part and parcel of Lord Manning’s protectiveness.

Lord Manning had taken lessons from his second daughter’s scandal.  Veronica rather thought they were the wrong lessons, but he’d neglected to consult her on the matter.  After Elizabeth’s departure, which was not so much a matter of showing her to the door as simply barring it after she’d left, the other two Manning girls were kept so close at home that it was a wonder that thus far neither had broken out in a similar spirit of rebellion.

Manning’s temper was legendary, and it had lately become a bit of a thing to be cut by him.  The inevitable scene often provided a humdinger of a story that far surpassed any cachet to be had in maintaining the contact, except for those poor souls with ambitions in the conservative party.  Veronica was a bit ahead of fashion in that respect, as she hadn’t been on the household’s approved list in years.  Her fall from grace had made her persona non-grata in many a great house, and while Meg had tried to retain the friendship, their connexion had been one of the earliest casualties of Lord Manning’s increasing isolation.  

She fulminated on the matter on the way to Grosvenor Square – whoever was putting her off would have far greater difficulty dismissing her in person, especially since she’d grown a skin thick enough to ignore even the grossest of hints.  Even in that rarified neighborhood, the Manning home was auspicious, large and well appointed, and so grim that one might be forgiven for mistaking it for a public institution of some sort.

The slate grey stone house seemed mired in the previous century, and, standing in the entryway, Veronica felt a distinct chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.  Manning kept his house to a pre-war standard, but instead of a bustle of movement, the servants crept along corridors like they were afraid of their own shadows, or perhaps the butler’s wrath.  The latter was Lord Manning’s guard dog, and none save a select list of visitors was ever allowed to do more than leave their card. In her own person, it was likely Veronica wouldn’t be allowed even so much liberty.  Fortunately, she had no intention of doing so.

The major bar to the great houses was always the front door.  Having achieved entrance, it was tacitly assumed that you had some business to do there, and one could often spend a productive twenty minutes before anyone thought to question the matter.  Veronica’s go-to masquerade in such cases was always mission work.  It put one’s status just high enough that the rank and file didn’t feel comfortable automatically refusing her – especially if she claimed a connection to their master’s pet charity - but low enough that she was generally left to her own devices as the person she’d ostensibly come to call on was informed of her visit. 

And it was an easy mantle to assume.  Drag on some clothing stamped with middle class respectability, and honestly some shops might as well put that on their labels, and wave a pamphlet or two, and even the most suspicious housekeeper would be convinced of one’s charitable bonifides.

Not that she had any intention of dealing with even so much authority.  Veronica had timed her visit for when the butler took his doctor-recommended daily constitutional, while the footman was engaged in a similarly salutary practice of flirtation with the barmaid at the Blue Grill.  In their absence, the door was handled by a housemaid – a frightened slip of a girl with huge dark eyes and a flurried manner, whose uncertainty led to easy manipulation.  She tacitly ignored the request to ‘wait in here a moment, miss,’ instead choosing to follow the girl, so denying Meg the opportunity to deny her.

Lady Margaret Manning was a statuesque blonde who carried herself with an air of distinction that few managed at twenty-five years.  In her, one saw a natural charisma that her father, with all his bombast, could not hope to touch.  Her hair was not bobbed, but was carefully pinned under so as to give the impression of such, and though her dress was fashionably and impeccably cut, it somehow gave the impression of funereal blacks and an acre of crepe. 

Meg ignored the flustered maid’s garbled explanation, and greeted Veronica without surprise or discomfort.  After ordering tea for the both of them, she turned to Veronica with an air of polite inquiry.

“Have you learned anything about my sister’s murder?” 

She might have been asking the time.

Veronica studied her old playmate.  “I’ve yet to learn that it was murder,” she said, finally, carefully.  “Why are you so certain that she was?”

Meg twitched one shoulder with impatience.  “I know she was.  Anyone who knew Lizzie – you’ve seen the coroner’s report?”

Veronica nodded.

“Then you’ve seen how much of the stuff she took.  It’s nonsense to say that was a mistake.”

“A person with an addiction might very well…” Veronica began, but Meg fluttered a hand. 

“I’ve consulted with several men in Harley street, including one who specializes in opioid addictions.  In their opinion, it’s extremely unlikely that she could have taken what she did accidentally, even with more pronounced habit than she had.”

So, the police had not been her only stop before coming to Veronica.  Interesting.

Veronica chose her next words carefully, knowing that whatever she said would sound awkward regardless.  “Have you considered that there might be a third option?”

“You mean suicide, of course.”  If Meg felt Veronica’s reticence about the subject, she didn’t show it. She shook her head.  “Lizzie would never have killed herself.”

“Not even to save her family from shame?”  Veronica wondered if Meg knew about the pregnancy.  It hadn’t been in the coroner’s report, but if Meg had been doing her own investigations, she might well have learned the truth.

Meg gave a short trill of laughter.  “Saving the family from shame was never one of Lizzie’s concerns.  I rather think it was one of her ambitions for a while there.  But that’s not…”  Meg trailed off, and her hand went to the cross she wore around her neck.  No, not a cross – a crucifix – and Veronica was suddenly brought vividly to a day when she was ten.  Her mother had been tight, as was all too common in those days, and she’d made a laughing comment to Meg’s mother about some new family being papists, apparently forgetting that the Mannings had their own lady chapel built into their estate.  They were Roman Catholic.

Of course, that didn’t negate the possibility of suicide, but it did perhaps explain why Meg was so anxious to believe it impossible.

Veronica nodded.  “I’d forgotten – you’re Catholic aren’t you.”

“My mother’s people always were.  Father converted to please her, before he realized – he thinks it holds him back, not being C of E, but he’s stubborn.  He clings more tightly to it for that, as if he’s proving some sort of point.” 

Meg’s mouth pursed in a tight little frown.  “There aren’t so many of us anymore,” she said, referring to the small circle of Catholic nobility that traversed society but were never quite part of it. “At least few who weren’t in some way gutted by the War.  A common complaint, I know.  And even though my debut was a supposed success, the offers didn’t come.  Duncan would have never been considered an appropriate match before the War, you know.  Son of a manufacturer and stock market dandy?  Father would have been furious.  I think he still is, really.”  She reflexively twisted little crucifix, in what was apparently a habitual gesture.  “Father’s pride takes some odd kinks.  He’ll never admit that to most of his peers, we’re the unacceptable ones. But Duncan’s mother has calculated that he needs someone with a title and money, and there aren’t so many of those either, these days.”   

This was beyond awkward.  She did not need to be discussing Duncan’s engagement, nor what Celeste Carnathan-Kane required in a daughter-in-law.

“Forgive me, but Lizzie seemed to have…” Veronica groped for an inoffensive word, “Cast aside many, if not, all of the religious tenants of her upbringing.”

Meg nodded serenely and Veronica wondered if she herself was being too hesitant.  Either the other girl’s sense of justice had overridden her sensibilities, or those sensibilities were far more hardened than her own. Meg had shown not the least sign of discomfort thus far with what had to be unpalatable speculation. 

“She didn’t go to Mass every Sunday, no.” Meg said.  “I’m sure she would have considered that she’d turned her back on all of it the second she walked out the door, but it’s not so easy to forget your upbringing. And suicide…” The girl shook her head.  “She never would have committed suicide – it’s the only unforgiveable sin.  I was there when she learned her catechism, I helped her to memorize it.  She wouldn’t kill herself.”

“Not even if there was a child coming – and out of wedlock?”  Veronica pushed.

“Especially if there was a child coming.”  Meg’s gaze was steady and unsurprised, either she had an incredible poker face, or she’d already heard rumor to that effect.  Five would get you ten it was the latter.

Veronica felt her irritation rising even as she admired the other girl’s coolness.  She’d taken this case as a favor.  A supposedly natural death six months out with nothing more to go on than a sister’s intuition – if it hadn’t been for the gratitude she’d felt for Meg’s kindness in one of her darkest moments, she never would have accepted the commission.  Now she came to find that Meg had deliberately left her wandering blind.

Veronica felt half-inclined to throw in the towel, to swallow the expenses of the last few days and close the door on that chapter of her life altogether.  But the more she prodded the muck surrounding this case, the more of a stink it raised. 

Elizabeth Manning had been murdered.  She’d still no evidence, but she was certain of it.  And turning her back on Meg would be abandoning Lizzie to ignominy.  She thought of the vibrant child she’d known with the tangle of blonde curls and continual tears in her petticoat, and she couldn’t do it.

She shook her head as she stared Meg down.

“So, you did know she was pregnant.  Why didn’t you mention it before?”

The other woman gave a negligent shrug.  “It is not my responsibility to repeat every idle piece of gossip about my sister.  And if you went into this investigation with my preconceptions, you might miss the truth while focused on the obvious.”

Veronica rejected a number of impolitic responses.

“I’m a PI.  I’m assure you I’m entirely capable of separating threads of information and misconception.  What I don’t deal well with is a client deliberately withholding information from me.”

“I withheld nothing,” Meg insisted, still calmly.  “All I had was rumor.  For all I knew it was untrue, in which case what would it profit?”

Veronica forbade to point out exactly how much rumor had profited her in her business.  She sharpened her toned, done with any delicate consideration for Meg’s feelings.

“But you knew your sister had a lover.” 

“The whole of London knows that or believes they know it,” said Meg dismissively. The girl had not only lied, she evidently had the hide of a rhinosaurus to boot. “I doubt Lizzie would have left home had she not had someone on the line.  Lizzie has – had – an unerring instinct for profit.  She’d be a nightmare from dawn till dusk but for the longest time she was never disciplined because the second father or grandmother set foot on the stairs her whole manner would revert to sweetness itself.”

“You think her lover killed her,” Veronica concluded.

“I think that she was killed.  I don’t know who killed her,” Meg insisted.  “That’s why I came to you.”  She paused before admitting, “But I can think of precious few other suspects.”

“Do you know who the man was?”

Meg didn’t blink and she didn’t look away.  “We weren’t exactly in each other’s confidence.  My sister hadn’t spoken to me for nearly a year before she died.  She hadn’t written more than once or twice since father forbade her the house.  She wouldn’t have contacted me unless she wanted something.  Even then she likely would have taken it, rather than asked.”

“That wasn’t actually an answer.”

Meg’s response, or more likely, her evasion, was cut off by the return of the little downstairs maid.  “The Honorable Duncan Carnathan-Kane.”

Duncan burst into the room immediately following the announcement, apparently having followed the same tactics as Veronica had regarding his admission.  Well, the ones about not staying put, presumably he wasn’t claiming to be collecting for the mission barrel.

Duncan looked at Veronica with poorly concealed contempt.  “I should have known you’d be here, pushing in where you aren’t wanted,” he said.

Veronica could no longer remember a time when she’d received anything but coldness from Duncan, but his anger still unsettled her.  Still, she smiled.  “And I see you’ve profited by my example.  Well done.  Now that you’ve mastered mimicry, I feel confident that you will eventually conquer independent thought.”

Duncan’s expression went blank, for the moment he looked through her, rather than at her.  It was a trick that had worked better back when she cared about being in his good graces. 

Veronica turned her attention back to Meg, who had hardly looked up at Duncan’s precipitate entrance.  The other girl appeared unruffled by the marked hostility of her guests.  She rang for more tea and asked after Duncan’s health as though she had no greater concern. 

Duncan, for his part, appeared ruffled by Meg’s very placidity, and Veronica noted the exchange with interest.

“Meg, how can you let this creature manipulate you?” he raged finally, the violence of his reaction the greater for its delay.

Veronica caught Meg’s eye, uncertain whether the other girl needed her support.  Meg merely gave a small shake of her head before turning back to the young man the papers had only recently called London’s most eligible bachelor, his face scrunched and reddened in his fury.

Meg cocked her head to the side and waited the storm out.

When Duncan finally ran out of steam, Meg asked after his mother.

Veronica expected him to explode again, but Meg’s coolness seemed to befuddle him completely, and within moments he was seated on a monstrously uncomfortable settee, clutching the cup that had been handed him and complimenting Meg on the taste of the biscuits.  Watching the two of them, Veronica thought she could happily put arsenic in the sugar bowl herself.

Duncan ignored her.  She might not have been in the room at all except that his studied refusal to look her direction made his sulking abundantly clear.  Meg kept the talk to lighter subjects, unruffled by the fact that the dialogue never traversed the distance between her guests.

After three cups of tea, Veronica, who had already been feeling a bit waterlogged due to the morning’s coffee binges, was practically drowning, and she apologetically asked for the necessary apartment. 

When she returned, the door to the sitting room was shut, but she could hear Duncan chastising Meg in tones of harsh urgency, and she paused outside the doorway.

“…realize that raking this up again reflects badly on all of us?”

Duncan would, of course, care more about the appearance of scandal than the actuality of murder, Veronica thought, with a shake of her head. 

Meg’s response came through far clearer than Duncan’s.  “I don’t in the least care about how this reflects on anyone.  Lizzie deserves justice, and I cannot abandon her.  I did that once before.”

Another voice cut across hers, booming about defiance and disgrace, and Veronica recognized the strident tones of Lord Manning.

Perhaps in response to her father’s exhortations, Duncan’s voice grew more conciliatory, and unfortunately, harder to make out.  “… clearly overwrought..  manipulated by that Mars woman,” His voice lowered to a murmur. 

Veronica gritted her teeth and wondered if she dared listen at the crack under the door.  Deciding against it, she bit her lip as she strained to hear, but all she got out of the next sentence was a single word.  “…Hazeldon.”

Veronica didn’t know who – or perhaps what - Hazeldon was, and Meg’s response was unintelligible.  

The maid was returning along the corridor, a curious look on her face, and Veronica reentered the room briskly, as if that had been her intention all along.

Duncan and Meg both jumped, but Lord Manning reclined on his chaise as if it were a throne, his eyes opaque black marbles appraising her, a queer look of triumph on his face.

Meg seated herself beside her father.  She reached for her teacup but arrested her hand before picking it up.  Veronica, watching keenly, realized her hand was shaking.  The other woman instead picked up a napkin, and began absently pleating it, her face pale.  She kept her gaze downcast, and her unruffled demeanor was entirely gone.  Duncan stayed standing, his furious look replaced with a curious blankness.

Lord Manning broke the silence.

“Miss Mars, I’m afraid you’ll need to look elsewhere for people to soak.  My daughter won’t be falling for your machinations anymore.”

“I apologize, but as Lady Margaret was the one to hire me, I can only resign my commission at her request,” Veronica said brightly, furiously, her focus never leaving Meg.

“I apologize for wasting your time, Veronica.” Meg said in an barely audible undertone, still not meeting her eyes.  “I will of course pay for any expenses you accrued, if you’ll just send me an itemized bill.

“You know she’ll just gouge you there too.  You’re too trusting, my dear.”  Duncan said benignly, almost affectionately.  And why shouldn’t he?  Veronica didn’t know with what leverage the two men had worked his reversal, but they’d obviously gotten their way.

“Meg, are you sure this is what-“

Meg looked up, expressionless as a gorgon.  “I’m not sure why you think I would be discussing the details of my decision-making process with you. I employed you to perform a service, and I no longer need that service done.”

“So, you no longer believe your sister was murdered?” Veronica persisted.

Meg’s eyes flew from her father to her fiancé and back.  “It was foolish of me to remove the investigation from its proper sphere off my own emotional insistence.  The police have already investigated Lizzie’s death.  I just… I didn’t want to believe it.”

“Meg,” Veronica tried again before faltering.

“Again, I do apologize for taking up your time.  I’m sure you have other appointments to keep, so I won’t hold you further.  Just… sent me a bill for the expenses and I’ll see that they’re taken care of.”

Her tone was still implacable, but she wasn’t quite as good at hiding the anguish in her eyes.  Veronica felt a spate of fury rise up in her and she expelled a heavy breath.

“I’m sorry I was unable to a resolution for you, she said, finally, knowing that to persist in the conversation in front of the two men would be useless.

Duncan was practically preening himself in his delight, the fact that Meg looked to be almost physically ill affecting him not one whit. 

“I’ll contact you later,” she assured Meg.  “About the bill,” she amended, with a further glance up.

Meg nodded mechanically. 

“I’ll have Rose show you out,” she said.

“Oh, that’s all right, Veronica said.   “I haven’t lost my bearings.”  She leveled a steady gaze on Lord Manning.  “Or my nerve.”

She left the room abruptly, fury strengthening her purpose.  She had a case to solve.

Chapter Text

Having, at Dickie’s insistence, dashed off a few rather incoherent lines to Lils, Logan saw his friend into the back of a cab, promising to leave Dickie a message at the club if he heard anything.  Logan then took his second cup of coffee in the library while Ratner restored some semblance of order to the chaos Dickie had left in the breakfast room.  If only his equanimity could be so easily regained. 

He warmed his hands on the cup, and reflected that his actions the previous evening had assuredly burnt the very bridges he – only yesterday – had been so anxious to shore up.  If he had not been declared persona non grata in the Carnathan-Kane household by breakfast, it was only because late hours and a sore head had kept Duncan abed.  Celeste had never been able to abide him, tolerating his presence only in deference to his longstanding attachment to her son.  That bond, he knew, had been well and truly severed when heady impulse and deeply rooted desires had overridden his sense of self -preservation.

Not since their second meeting, not since he’d learned the position she’d held in his friend’s heart, had Logan allowed his hopes of Veronica Mars any measure of free reign.  He’d told himself he was content with meagre morsels of friendship, happy to offer no more than a brotherly affection.  Sometimes he even fooled himself into believing as much.  Granted, there was a time after her fall from grace where his attentions had been anything but brotherly, but even then, he’d been careful to not to cross the line dividing love and hate, knowing that to push those limitations would be to fall irrevocably. 

He smiled a slight, bitterly ironic, smile.  He’d fallen a long time ago; it was only now that he’d allowed himself to acknowledge the depths to which he’d sunk.  Their all too brief interlude had been as a bolt of lightning.   He’d always suspected Veronica was capable of a passion that would have been lost on Duncan.  It turned out he’d underestimated her.  This despite the fact that theirs had, by any reasonable standard, let alone the standards of Enbom’s crowd, been an innocent – even chaste – encounter. 

He had never much gone in for the semi-public displays so common amongst his former set, not from any prurient moral stance, but from a very real awareness that everything they did was likely to be made public.  For so many of that company, so many inches in the morning paper was the entire point of any exercise, but the very public nature of his parents’ relationship had made him closely guard what little privacy was afforded him.  Conspicuous by name and reputation, he had taken care not to be made more so by his actions. 

All it had taken was that slight acknowledgment of Veronica’s, the merest intimation that he hadn’t been alone in his affections, and he’d forgotten it all.  Yesterday’s affair, mild as his own part in it had been, had probably already been written up somewhere, almost certainly to overblown effect.  Though he doubted one in ten could have guessed the actual weight of the moment. 

Did she even guess?

He shook his head.  He was growing maudlin.  He would be of little use to anyone if he came over as goopy as he was feeling.  Certainly, he wasn’t like to impress the lady in question who seemed rather to regard sentiment as a moral failing one must guard against.

He probably needed to get a bead on what – if anything – the papers were saying, actually. Ratner would know.  He knew the man subscribed to half a dozen newspapers as part of his overgrown mother hen instinct, his ill-fated desire to protect Logan from whatever nonsense was brewing in the public consciousness. Come to think of it, there had been something of a stiffness in Ratner’s manner after the morning mail had come that Dickie Casablancas’s poor table manners didn’t quite account for.  Logan’s mouth firmed into a hard line.  He knew Ratner’s opinions on Veronica, and had made his own lack of interest in those opinions quite clear.  Still, he suspected there would come a reckoning, if their association continued.  As he hoped it would.

He beat a restless tattoo on the tabletop as he found himself caught once more in memories of the previous evening.  It was absurd that something so objectively slight had affected him to such a degree.  He’d had his share of women – more than his share, his less fortunate friends might observe. He had kept an apartment for one of the royal ballet’s primas at the delicate age of twenty-two.  He was not some blushing schoolboy.  He hadn’t been the former even when the latter had applied.  Yet one kiss had thrown him out of all proportion.

He only hoped he wasn’t alone in his confusion.

Veronica was a tough read at the best of times, prone to shutting one out entirely at the slightest breach of her defenses.  But he’d seen her face transform, seen her eyes soften and her lips part before the mask came down and she’d fled him and sentiment both. 

He’d still been staring after her, an undoubtedly foolish expression on his face, when he’d seen Duncan.

If he’d thought Duffy had given up his claim to Veronica Mars, his friend’s countenance upon seeing their embrace had quickly disabused him of the notion. Never mind that the two had not been linked for years, that Duffy was very publicly tied to another girl.  His friend’s fixed smile had done little to obscure the same expression of possessive rage Logan had seen cross his face some half a dozen times over the years, on the rare occasion someone else had something he wanted.  The rage of a spoilt child unused to sharing his playthings.

Logan felt curiously little about the severing of what he had, at one point, considered his closest friendship.  While the bonds between them had atrophied a bit over the years, he had had every expectation that their association would continue until they’d together reached second childishness and all that.  Now, he wouldn’t be surprised if Duncan should cut him dead on the street.  After all, Duncan had done it before, to Veronica even, despite – clearly – still being infatuated. 

And yet Logan could not make himself feel the loss.  Not when his head was full of all that he might gain.

He felt bad for Lillian’s sake though.  He’d no desire to return to status quo with her, but he felt guilty all the same.  The creature she’d been the last few days was not the blithe and carefree spirit he’d so admired even as he’d learned to keep his distance.  There had been a desperation in her words to him, a sort of grim determination underlying her hedonic excesses.  He hoped she wouldn’t do anything drastic.  Hoped that pushing Dickie off on her was to the good rather than ill.  Dickie Casablancas was a poor excuse for a chevalier, but he was decent enough company if one took him in the right spirit, moneyed enough and connected enough to be acceptable to Celeste, presentable enough to not horrify Lillian at the outset.  He hoped.

The old Lils would have made him pay for deserting her.  He didn’t know what to expect of the new one.  And yet he couldn’t see a way to keep faith with her after last night.  Wary of the circular tenor of his thoughts, he ran a determined hand over his brow and summoned Ratner.

The man materialized at his elbow with a swiftness and silence Logan swore was the result of long hours of practice, though he had never caught him at it. 

He studied his valet.  He looked disapproving, but that was so much his habitual expression – even when he did in fact approve – that it did little to help Logan form any conclusions.

Logan was tempted to bring up Veronica’s name before the man, to prod the tender area and see what reaction he might get.  He took another measured sip of coffee as he considered this impulse, and found a wellspring of fury beneath the hope and grief he’d been caught between.  Anger at Duncan, which didn’t surprise him.  Anger at Veronica, which did.   The depth of his anger astonished, even frightened him.  He’d spent years feeling a heel for wanting what he could never have, years of being deliberately squashed by the lady in question whenever he’d accidentally backed into sentiment.  Only to learn that he hadn’t been alone after all. 

He wanted, he realized, the satisfaction of a blazing row.

To use Ratner for such a purpose would be unjust.  He’d only wind up feeling more of a heel than usual, especially as the man was unlike to acknowledge the ill use.  It was a shame he’d sent Dickie away, the man was excellent to fight with, as it took him so long to notice the argument that one’s anger could be thoroughly spent by the time Dickie had worked himself into indignance.  And he couldn’t bring himself to consider the result if he had it out with Veronica.

He desperately needed to find some occupation or he would run himself mad.

 “Ratner,” he said finally.  “Who do I know in parliament that could open the bag on Lord Manning?”

“Well, sir, you’ve been shooting with Lord Deerdon a few times.”

“Not Deerdon.  I like the man, but I’d be conscripted for one of his pet causes before the soup had arrived.  Anyone I can bully?”

Ratner paused to consider the request before venturing.  “Well, you might try Mr. Goodman.”

Of course.  Logan should have remembered.  Sir Woodrow Goodman, or Woody, as he was unfortunately known, of the too wide smile and the endless youth athletic engagement programmes, so eager to curry favor with all that even his fellow party members rather disdained him.  But his people were connected to the Mannings in some obscure way he couldn’t be bothered to remember.  And best of all, Logan despised the man.

It didn’t take long to get ahold of Goodman, or to get him to agree to a meeting.  Logan allowed himself a faint smile as he took himself off too dress.  Perhaps he’d be able to vent his spleen somewhat harmlessly after all.

***

Somewhat in defiance of expectation, Lillian Carnathan-Kane was an early riser.  Even on those mornings, ever on the increase, when she wanted nothing more than to burrow under the covers for a fortnight, she never allowed herself the indulgence of even an extra fifteen minutes.  In her own way, she was nearly as controlled as her mother – a comparison she would resent even as she acknowledged its accuracy. 

It was an adaptive practice for the younger woman, a way of surviving the highly regimented attitude of the mater.  Lillian knew that,while no one could accuse Celeste of being relaxed about her affairs, no small part of her mother’s rigidity came from an overweening desire to belong.

Celeste Carnathan-Kane was as painfully aware of the levels above her as she was of those below and, determined to keep the Family’s movement an upward one, had adopted an outlook that allowed for not the slightest faux pas.  In this she managed to be both wise and incredibly short-sighted.  It was true that the smallest flaw in her social arrangements would have been unmercifully picked over by the overly-critical set she was most anxious to impress, but her unwillingness to allow for human fallibility or – even a sense of humor – itself often served as fodder for society’s cats to sharpen their claws.  At the same time, the desperation evident in her transparently aggressive attempts at social navigation only alienated the greater portion of the upper echelon, used as they were to less blatant maneuvering.

Lillian’s own discipline came from seeking autonomy rather than approval.  Given her parents’ general lack of interest in her, she might have expected a judicious helping of accompanying benign neglect, and from her father that was very much the case.  Though the senior Carnathan-Kane could be warm, even affectionate on those occasions he chose to act the father, Lillian sometimes suspected he forgot she so much as existed when she wasn’t in view.  It was a trait she shared with much of the rest of the world, including his wife and even his mistress of the moment.  Everyone and everything save Duncan, and perhaps, his business, although she did not feel certain even of the latter.  Duncan was the center of both parents hopes, and she, the superfluous girl, the first attempt before the promised heir, had never held his attention for very long.  Her mother was similarly indifferent, but whereas her father had generally let her go her own way, her mother had never let the unimportance of a detail prevent her from attempting to control it.  Lillian had long ago learned that the only way to eke out even a modicum of control over her life was to wrest it where she could.

As a child, she’d found that freedom in the small hours.  While Duffy had been tutored and coached and bullied into a simulacrum of her parents’ dreams, his days accounted for even to a quarter of an hour, her own education had been tossed, more or less carelessly, into the hands of a series of similarly strict, but ineffective women.  Nursemaids and governesses, not always noted for their discernment, invariably associated early rising with virtue, and Lillian had discovered that embracing this minor deprivation led to a pleasing lack of oversight.  The actual occupation of said hours always seemed to matter less than the fact that they were occupied, it having apparently never occurred to this coterie of excellent women that the snake put in the bed at night might well have been caught in the morning.

After working her way through more governesses than she had years, she had been shipped off, slightly sooner than was strictly decent, to the most eminent Parisian school that would grant her father’s financial status more weight than his background.  Her academic achievements at said institution were largely forgettable – indeed she deliberately forgot most of her lessons almost as immediately as they were learned, but it could not be said that she’d forgone intellectual pursuits entirely. 

She’d been diligently devoted to exploring the local culture, or as one disagreeable girl in her hall had put it, allowing the local culture to explore her.  Necessarily, this had entailed the cultivation and perfection of elaborate systems for the kindly deception of well-meaning authority figures.  She’d become quite the expert, drawing and expanding as she had on her childhood experience.  Once she’d worked out the particular pet policies of each tutor, she’d been allowed to pretty much go her own way.  And she had, with a will.  Eventually, the school deemed her finished without ever comprehending the extent of her education.

Her two years back in the country had been a halcyon experience, freeing her for the first time from even a measure of official oversight.  As long as she paid obeisance to the wellspring at the proper times and kept up a pretense of respectability, her parents had operated on a policy of non-interference, more or less.

Until the debacle that was last season.  In the fallout of the Navarro business, the limelight had burned bright on her activities and the resulting parental hammer had come down hard.  She blamed the Ford girl.  A shocking lack of tact that one, even for an American.  Lillian herself felt quite certain her Latin interlude could have resolved itself quietly, even after the scene he’d made at the Newscomb Club fete, if that nitwit from New York hadn’t been breathing every word in the ear of some slimy newshawk.

The whole affair had been something of a sensation, as various rags seized on the story, billing her as either tormented innocent or femme fatale according to some obscure cycle of their own.  Not that she’d minded the attention, per say, or even the prurient interest on display.  After all, there had been something quite exciting – if a little frightening – to discover his letters and realize he’d been inside the townhouse.  But the aftermath had obliterated much of her carefully curated independence.

Celeste had never shared her enthusiasm for scandal, and she seemed to view the entire escapade as some sort of deliberate slight.  It was ridiculous, of course.  If Lillian had planned to start a hissing, she could have been so much more methodical about the process.  In fact, she thought, her thoughts drifting to the disagreeable reality that was never far from her mind these days, she was doing her best to suppress something so much more explosive than that silly affair – but it wasn’t like her mother would ever be swayed by anything so base as logic.  The thing had gone public and Celeste had been in fits.

Her allowance stopped; Lillian found herself called home.  Her mother had, for some obscure reasons of her own, determined that the best way to put a stop to wagging tongues was to make her daughter’s debut as elaborate an affair as possible.  Lils was thus forced to dance attendance for every bore in society to scrape what approval – and parental cash - she could.  As if the whole concept of her as a deb wasn’t absurd to begin with, given that all of London had considered her debut as good as made long before she’d allowed the family silver to tarnish.  Pretending otherwise was not going to open doors that had been previously closed.  Not to her, and not to her mother.

Lillian suspected her mother’s intentions were well meaning, if heavy-handed – it was at the least a show of familial support unlike the De Momerie girl or even poor Lizzie Manning – but that suspicion didn’t improve the day to day. Outings had to be pre-approved, drives chaperoned, invitations vetted.  It was a frustrating return to the nursery, and Lillian found herself drawing on every trick she’d ever learned to escape attention.  Her habit of early rising thus stood her in good stead.  Although, she noted, somewhat ruefully, that as a child she’d never had a champagne head to deal with.

Lillian groaned as she maneuvered herself into a sitting position.  Her limbs felt wrapped in cotton wool, and her skull throbbed.  Probably she’d gotten a little too sozzled last night, but it wasn’t as if there was anything else to do at one of Barmy’s parties.  At least, not when Duffy was there too.  The boy was a born fire extinguisher.  Which, of course, did have its uses, if only he could be properly stored away between times.

She wondered for the hundredth time why old Duffy had bothered to make an appearance last night.  She’d claimed his championship, as she always did when mother’s questions on an evening’s entertainment became too difficult, his bland respectability and the eye of maternal favor a useful screen for all manner of excesses, and he had as usual supported her story.  But she’d assumed that, also as usual, he would see her to the door and then toddle off to his club, or whatever it was he managed to fill his evenings with.  She hadn’t expected him to stay.  It wasn’t as if he enjoyed the company of that set, herself included, and the few times he’d ventured it, he’d invariably wound up in bed with a upset tum and a worse head.

She shook her curls and immediately judged it a mistake.  Her own head was none too steady itself, and she was still far too wobbly for any such drastic movement.  Making her way to the dressing table, she winced at her reflection in the glass, forgetting her brother in an instant.  She looked a wreck.  Today they were supposed to have tea with that awful Swaffleton creature, and her looking like something that had washed in overnight.

She was sure she couldn’t face it unsupported.  Lillian hesitated, her mind on the pretty enamel box hidden in the curtain rod.  Nothing cleared the head so well, but she was running low, and Duncan’s appearance last night had meant she hadn’t dared to replenish her supply.  Still if anything warranted a little bracing it was the company she was due to face.

  Before she could make up her mind to act, the door opened and the little housemaid she’d coopted to her side came in with that slightly flurried air that said Mrs. Pebmarsh was on the warpath again.  She felt a surge of common feeling – Mrs. Pebmarsh was nearly as bad as her mother.

“Excuse me miss,” the girl said, carrying her customary order – sweet strong black tea and four slices of toast, which was as much as she could make herself face in the morning – and a stack of envelopes from the morning post.

Lillian flipped through the latter quickly, extracting the envelopes she wouldn’t care to discuss with her mother, leaving the invitations, as well as the notes from the dressmaker and milliner.  There were a few bits of nonsense from a couple of silly boys, a missive from Logan, sadly unlikely to contain similar sentiments, and, she flinched slightly, another of those ominous blue envelopes.  She wasn’t foolish enough to hesitate over the last, it would be as good to shine a beacon on it, and while she might trust the girl – Agnes?  No, Agatha – to bring her her mail without telling, it would be another thing to put herself so much in the power of the girl.  She set the little blue square smartly on the stack of more innocuous correspondence, a squat little toad in the garden.  

She made sure her face was under control before returning the rest of the mail to the maid to surreptitiously reinsert into the general post.  It made Celeste so much happier to think she’d monitored all of Lillian’s correspondence.  And really, considering the latter, she was probably saving her from an attack of apoplexy.  That reminded her – she extracted the brown wrapped parcel she’d picked up the day before and added it to the stack before dismissing the girl.  The little book had been difficult to get a hold of, but with any luck the mere sight of Marie Stopes name would send her mother to bed with a headache and she’d be free for the rest of the day.  And if not, it would certainly be entertaining.

She glanced back at the bland blue envelope.  Heavens knew she could do with the entertainment to take her mind off of things.

***

Veronica supposed she ought to be feeling defeated, and, indeed, one small corner of her being was hastily calculating what losing this client might do to her overdraft.  But the rest of her felt surprisingly light.

Lord Manning might have cowed his daughter along with the house of Lords, but he was hardly the first titled bully she’d handled.  Indeed, she felt almost at home as she contemplated exactly how she would go about circumventing his attempt at authority.

There was something queer in the Manning household, something more than the loss of a child.  Nothing in Manning’s behavior suggested any feeling for the girl herself – or in fact for the daughter that was left.  He was praying to the alter of reputation at the expense of his children, and whatever he was hiding, it was clear that Duncan was complicit.

Veronica examined that last thought, a little surprised by her lack of surprise.  There had been a time – too long a time, really – when she’d associated Duncan with everything golden, when the loss of him stood among the grouping of her own failures. 

His own assumptions of rightness had been so strong, it was like battering a wall to run counter to them.  Logan was more like a body of water, slipping and twisting from every effort to corral and yet steady for all of that.  Just as she’d been foolish to try to make herself fit Duncan, it would be foolish to try to make someone like Logan fit her.  Either way, it could never be enough. 

Veronica sighed as her thoughts drifted again to the night before, and her ill-considered behavior.  It was an unworthy distraction, one she needed to get a handle on.

She shouldn’t have run from him, that much she was sure of.  However ill-conceived a pairing they might make, she’d behaved badly.  Fortunately, the inconvenience of her firing gave her a simple excuse to send him firmly and kindly on his way.  She could simply say that as she no longer had a client, she no longer had need of his assistance in the matter.  Undoubtedly, it would be the easiest way through things without anyone getting hurt.  Without getting hurt herself.

A grubby lad halfheartedly pushed a paper at her, seemingly unconvinced of the value he was touting.  Veronica was prepared to rebuff him – the rag in question specialized more in sensationalism than reporting, and the boy’s lackluster performance didn’t incline her to overlook the paper’s reputation – when the words of the screamer penetrated her consciousness.   She dug out a coin and paid, smiling grimly when the seller’s apathy continued even to the point of sale.  He’d turned away, her change still in hand, remonstrances falling on deaf ears.  Veronica let him go.

She was aware that she was standing in the street, but she couldn’t quite stop staring at the paper in her hands.  The words glared back at her in thirty-two-point font.  “Peer’s Pregnant Daughter Murdered.”

She nodded in recognition when she saw the byline.  Last she’d heard, Vincent Lowe had been let go from the Morning Star for creative interpretation of the facts.  The Bugle was more his style for sure.  He wasn’t bad at digging up dirt, but he was unparalleled in his ability to sling it. 

Almost without realizing it her pace had quickened.  This was an unlooked-for opportunity, sure to rattle the self-satisfied complacency of both Duncan and Manning.  They’d closed ranks, carefully leaving her out.  No doubt they were congratulating themselves on their escape, although Duncan at the least would be a fool if he really thought she’d drop it.  Still, she’d wager none of them had anticipated the papers getting involved.  This was setting a cat among the pigeons and no mistake. 

She stepped down the road into a public booth and made a phone call.  It took several minutes - the Bugle did not appear to be run along the most efficient lines - but eventually she managed to make the woman on the switchboard understand who she wanted.  An age seemed to pass, until finally a male voice came over the phone.

“-lo”

Veronica had never before found the two syllables of hello to be particularly onerous, and it took her a moment to register that that was all the greeting she was like to get.  In her momentary silence the cockney voice barked again.

“This is Lowe.  Who is this,” pausing not a bit before rushing on with “Deborah, I swear to all that is mighty-“

“Marital problems, again, Mr.  Lowe?” Veronica interjected, diverted despite herself. 

“Not at the moment, thanks to the wonder that is the divorce courts, but I suppose it’s only a matter of time,” he returned easily, good humor apparently restored. 

Vinnie Lowe was seldom out of temper for long.  A sometime PI before Lady Penelope Hurst went on a tear that saw his license revoked, his supreme confidence in his own magnificence bolstered him through humiliations that would have sent any sensible man crawling away to lick his wounds.

“I’d forgotten you had such a romantic sensibility,” Veronica nodded in mock solemnity.  “This is Veronica Mars, by the way.  I saw your byline in the Bugle.”

“Secret Drinkers in the Temperance Movement? Or Mallaby-Deely’s Secret life after Parliament – that one would have been the making of me if they hadn’t butchered it six ways to Sunday.”

“The one on Lizzie Manning.”

“Oh, that bit.  Good, wasn’t it?”  He preened.  “‘Course it should have been ‘Peers Daughter Poisoned’, for the alliteration you know.”

“How’d you miss that one?” she asked.

He snorted in disgust.  “Editors, nothing worse on this planet.  Wouldn’t know genius if it walked up to them an tipped its hat. You’d know, you tried your hand once upon a time, didn’t you?  Of course, not everyone can make a success of it like I have.  But your stuff wasn’t bad.  A little worthy, maybe, but quality dirt all the same.”

“Such praise.”

“I tell you what, give us some stuff on your boyfriend, and I could see about getting you a line in here, nothing grand you understand – my editor might be a moron, but he’s not such a fool that he’d give a bit of skirt free range – but we need someone to take over the ladies housekeeping hints for a bit, our current girl is leaving to get married.  Just a dozen or so easy tips for keeping linen fresh, that sort of thing.  Nothing too complicated.”

Such a pronouncement could only be made by someone who had never actually kept house for himself.  Veronica shook her head.  She wondered what exactly he meant by ‘her boyfriend’.  Duncan?  Or Logan?  Duncan was old news, of course, he must know she wasn’t likely to have any up-to-date info on him.  But how could he have heard about Logan? 

She refused to give him the satisfaction of pressing him on the issue.

“How shall I resist such an inducement?” she returned, lightly.

“Don’t knock it.  From what I hear tell, you’re currently short on paying clients.”

He was better informed than she would have thought, considering that that development was scarcely an hour old.  This time she couldn’t resist.

“And how did you hear that?”

“Investigative skill, Mars.  Some of us have it.”

Veronica bit back her immediate rejoinder to that one.  Vinnie wasn’t without investigative skill, the fact that he ignored the facts when it suited his pocketbook had nothing to do with his ability to discover them.  And she needed him onside at the moment.  Someone had gotten into his ear.  The Manning case was dead in the water and had been so for months.  For his paper to be pushing the story now, well, however fruitless her efforts might appear from this side of the glass, they were clearly having an effect.  She turned to the point of her call.

 It took some prolonged wrangling – the operator had to break in to tell her that her allotted time was nearly up – but he’d agreed to meet in two hours time.  As she’d known he would, despite his protestations.  She wouldn’t claim much kinship with Vincent Lowe, but they both carried the curiosity of the original cat.  He could no more resist her invitation, and the promise of knowledge it foretold, than she could have done so if the positions were reversed. 

Continuing along the road, she stopped at a little café settled just where the neighborhood shifted from those who had always had money to those that were hastily acquiring it.  She needed a slice of pie before continuing further.  Pie and a plan.

***

Lillian lay supine on her bed in fine disregard for what such an attitude was doing to the delicate silk pleating in her frock.  She felt emptied out.  Celeste’s fury over the copy of Married Love had been greater than she could have hoped for, and Lillian’s own spirits had risen to match her mother’s emotional intensity.  She always thrilled when flouting parental instruction.  But the thrill hadn’t lasted.  No sooner had Celeste retired from the field than Lillian felt the bottom of her will drop out.  Sometimes Lillian worried she hadn’t any proper feeling of her own, that her entire emotional being was nothing more than a reflection of those around her.

Logan had once expounded on the theory that Lillian suffered from the eternal need to push – that she saw every restriction, from someone’s personal privacy to the law, as something to work against. He’d gone on, somber in the way he only was after drink, that as with all those who danced on the edge, she needed a boundary to work against.  If nothing pushed back, she’d just sail over the edge every time.  She’d laughed at him, at his earnestness, utterly sure of herself.  And continued to break every bond that she could.

Logan Echolls had treated her like spun glass, and in return she’d betrayed him in ways he’d never even known, beating against the walls of his sincerity and shattering herself to pieces.

She hadn’t been thinking properly when she’d gone to him for help.  He’d acquiesced, like she’d known he would, like he could always be trusted to, but that was only because he didn’t know the truth. 

She looked again at the dirty little paper that had come hidden behind such a bland blue envelope.

Her anonymous friend was growing bolder in his threats.  At least, she assumed it was a man.  She supposed there was nothing stopping a woman from being the blackmailer, although how she would have gotten ahold of those photographs – how anyone would have gotten ahold of them - was beyond her comprehension. 

It wasn’t that she objected to their publication exactly – she’d always known that was a possibility, from the moment she’d realized her lover’s fondness for film went beyond his professional capacity.  But if their affair went public, she wasn’t the one who would be hurt. 

Aaron Alexander Echolls, magnetic star of so many cinema epics, who’d won the heart of the country and the eldest Lester girl, had carried that magnetism into his personal life, but sadly, nothing else.  He’d none of the quiet dignity or passionate devotion of those beloved silver screen heroes.  He was a picture on celluloid, pretty to look at, but no more.  Nor did he have his son’s bent for fidelity.  He’d so many entanglements on the sets of his various films, that there was an entire staff devoted to negotiating the fallout. 

Lillian shook her head.  It wasn’t like she’d fallen for the image; her choice of Aaron had been entirely cynical.  Logan was talking marriage and she’d wanted nothing so much as to run away completely, and to render any union impossible.

Still, when it came down to it, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to actually use him for the purpose she’d intended.  However, much she’d thought she’d wanted to hurt Logan, she’d never wanted to see his face when he realized what she was. 

She thought the whole sordid affair had come to an end when the wretched man’s house had burnt down – one of a series of drunken debacles that led to the cancellation of his studio contract and retreat to the continent.  His death shortly thereafter in a motorcar accident, an incident attributed to wet roads and yet more drink, had seemed to consign her folly into ancient history.

Lillian worried her nail. 

And then the letters had started coming.

The past year had seen a new letter every month.  Her own hands were rapidly becoming tied.  She hadn’t the money he was demanding.  For the vastness of her personal fortune, she’d barely the money for a stamp.  It was easy enough to put a dress or a pair of gloves on account, but she couldn’t see her father’s secretary blandly making good on invoices to cash. 

The demands that had started small had grown beyond her limited purse, and she’d had to pop that rather sweet necklace Daddy had given her for her twenty-first into hock until she’d been able to beg the money from Duncan and redeem it.

Duncan had been astonishingly severe on the subject, claiming, quite absurdly, to be hard up himself.  Since pater had never kept him short, and since mother would happily write a check for any amount should he express even the slightest inclination, he’d really been most unreasonable.

He’d looked worried much of last winter, now that she thought about it.  Although if it was money issues, she couldn’t think what he’d done with it.  It was quite impossible to imagine Duncan getting himself into strife over gambling debts or the like.  Even when he played at cards, he hardly dared to bet.  Perhaps an investment of his had gone south.  That seemed likelier.  He was always trying to prove himself worthy of father’s legacy, and it was just the sort of dully respectable trouble he was likely to get into.

Whatever it was, it had seemed to clear up around the new year, and she’d hoped to apply to him to get her through until she could address the situation in a more permanent way.  Any such hope had disappeared over the course of the last week. 

She knew the cause of his current emotional turmoil, of course.  She’d never met Veronica Mars, having been abroad still for the whole of her brother’s entanglement with the creature.  While she was eager to approve of anyone who so effortlessly drew her mother’s ire, Duncan had responded to Veronica’s reappearance in his life as though it were a personal affront.  He shared their father’s habit of assuming all his connexions simply dropped off the face of the planet when he ceased the acquaintance, and to be reminded so remorselessly of his own lack of omnipotence had roused him in a way she hadn’t seen in years.

Ordinarily, she’d welcome the development.  Duncan’s general emotional keel was so low and steady that he might as well be a mannequin in a window, she was personally of the opinion that a little sturm and drung did him nothing but good.  But it would make begging the money off him rather difficult.

Lillian rolled over, burying her face in the pillow.  She couldn’t help feeling that it was unfair, somehow, that he be having an emotional upheaval, now, when she needed him.  It wasn’t as if she could get the money from Mother, and Daddy had barely remembered to send her birthday wishes, so intent was he upon that mistress of his.

And if she couldn’t come up with the money, she was set for.  At the first hint of another scandal, Mother would sign her over to that decrepit old fool in Scotland before she could so much as breathe, and she’d be buried at the back of beyond for the rest of her days.

And Logan would know what she’d done.  Somehow, that was worse.

She needed time.

Logan would give her the money, she knew.  He wouldn’t even ask why, and that was what made it impossible.  She couldn’t use his money to save herself when the whole thing would have never happened if she hadn’t rejected him.  She might be callous, but she couldn’t pick him up and put him down again as casually as all that.

However unpalatable, Duncan was probably still her best choice. 

She looked up as the same little maid entered the room once more.  She was a fair thing, so pale as to be almost colorless, the severe black and white of her uniform doing her no favors.  Lillian’s fingers itched with an urge to dress the girl in the soft blues and pinks that would actually suit her.  She could contrive some errand take her along to the modiste’s easily enough, then surprise her with a gift of a dress.  It wasn’t like the child would say no.

She sighed regretfully.  It was no use; she’d only lose the girl her station.  Mother hated it when she ‘corrupted’ the servants, coming down as though the gift of a frock or perfume was tantamount to a trip to a bordello.

The girl looked even more alarmed than she had this morning and Lillian forced a more amiable expression to her face.  Honestly, a little corruption would probably do the girl good. 

“Excuse me, miss,” the maid said, her tone apologetic. “Your mother wants you in the green saloon.”

Lillian’s eyes hardened even as her mouth stretched into a wider smile.  “My dear child, you might stick to saying she expects me.  She’s never wanted me a day in her life.”

It was too much.  The girl was shocked, she could see.  Lillian trilled a laugh, and the girl smiled uncertainly, her eyes still wide.

She glanced at the clock on the mantle.  Too early to be summoning her for their tea at Lady Swaffleton’s.  The earlier row had lasted most of the morning and Celeste had withdrawn from the field pleading a headache only an hour ago.  That she was reengaging so soon was probably not a good sign.

She stood, making half-hearted attempts to repair the damage an hour’s wallowing had done to her toilette, but before she could make her way to the green saloon, she heard the sharp tapping of heels on parquet and her mother entered the room in a flurry.  Or perhaps frenzy.  There was something strained in her affect, more than the general distance she held herself from her only daughter.

Lillian’s first thought was that she was ill.  Or that perhaps the earlier contretemps had affected her more than she’d believed. Her mother never so much as appeared at the breakfast table without powder and lipstick, hair carefully waved, imperious and pristine.  Now she looked haggard.  Her face was drawn, ashen grey beneath a careful layer of powder.  She looked older than her age, lines around her brows and mouth accustomed to meekly submitting to Celeste’s obfuscation attempts at last asserting themselves.  She looked, Lillian thought, alarm thrumming in her ears, like death.

Celeste’s gaze swept over the room and her daughter with equal impartiality and disdain, and whatever fear Lils had felt was swept away in a flood of defensive ire.

“I thought as much,” Celeste said, brisk and dismissive.  “I’ve an errand to run, and as you’re obviously in no fit state to make a decent impression on Lady Swaffleton, I’ve made my excuses for us both.”

Lillian’s brows rose.  Not that there was anything new about Celeste’s disapproval of her choice of dress, but she could count on one hand the times she’d been allowed to opt out of a planned engagement even accounting for illness.

“Honestly, Lillian even if you are determined to scotch your own chances, you might have a little regard for your brother.”  Celeste began the familiar routine.

Lillian shrugged elaborately, still unsure what had brought on this attack.  “Duncan could do with stepping down from his pedestal now and again.”

“So, you knock him down to keep him at your level, never mind what you’re doing to his future.”

“What is it I am supposed to have done?”  Not that it mattered, Duncan’s transgressions were generally laid at her feet regardless of her level of involvement, so much easier than holding him responsible for his own actions.

Celeste pursed her lips and Lillian knew that whatever followed would not be the truth, or not the whole of it.

“That sordid little affair you dragged him to last night was written up in the papers.   Your brother’s name is all over the scandal sheets along with some of the worst specimens in society.”

Lillian rolled her eyes.  Nothing at last night’s party was enough to alarm the citizenry, rather to its cost, she thought.  Even the expense and wastage were annoyingly contained.  Barmy was unimpressive even in excess, and nearly as dull as the nice-nelly’s that Celeste thought appropriate.  Although it wouldn’t be the first time that the determination to get a story had overcome the minor complication that there was no story to be had.

“I hardly think he’ll lose any political standing for having his name mentioned as attending the party.  Isn’t Barmy’s father leader of Lords or some such thing?”

“Shadow leader, and agitator of the first rank.”

“Well, if one must be an agitator, best to be a supreme one. And surely, we’re splitting our hairs too finely to consider him the wrong sort, considering Duncan isn’t even a member.”

“And not likely to be, what with tales of drunken carousing on top of furniture.”

Ah, thought Lillian, that. 

Well, Duncan would do it.  At least this time the incident had come late enough in the evening that the witnesses were mostly too inebriated to remember anything with clarity, thus mitigating her own mortification.  Duncan himself remained imperturbable on the subject, continually asserting in the face of whatever witness to the contrary that he never did any such thing, so immured in drink and denial that he believed it.

She rolled her eyes, “I am not the one who made him drink his weight in single malt and get up on a table to serenade the party, mother.  Nor was I capable of dissuading him from the act.  My own evening was perfectly unobjectionable.”

At least, as far as her mother needed to know.

Celeste was not one to be dissuaded by logic.  “He would never have even been with that set without your insistence.  You’ve made him a laughingstock.”

“No, that was his rendition of ‘The Laughing Policemen.’ Anyway, it would probably good for him to appear to have something of a personality.  Your determination to keep him boiled and starched and laid in tissue paper isn’t doing him any favors in that sphere either, you know.”

She could feel her mother tense, a cobra, rearing back to strike and she pushed forward.  “It’s one party from a set that, as you’ve pointed out, gives them nearly continually.  If Duncan can avoid doing a drunken version of ‘My Man’ at the next one, I feel confident the incident will safely pass out of everyone’s consciousness.”

Besides, everyone already knew Duncan’s musical inclinations when ossified.  The fact that everyone now included the readers of the Daily Bugle was hardly a disaster of the first rate.  Certainly not enough for Celeste to get herself into high dudgeon over.

She really looked unwell, Lillian thought.  Not that she would go so far as to express concern.  Not that her mother would thank her for the observation if she did.

Her mother eyed her coldly.  “I will not allow you to ruin your brother’s future, Lillian.  If you insist in such behavior, I will be taking steps.”

She swept out of the room once more.

***

Veronica had situated herself in a corner of the little café that gave her a good view of both the front and rear exits and, on the recommendation of the tired-looking woman behind the counter, had settled in with a piece of rhubarb pie.  Pulling a notebook from her handbag she began to compile a frustratingly short catalog of known facts and a much more comprehensive list of next steps. 

She needed more info on Stuey, whose disapproval of Lizzie seemed less than genuine, given that she’d apparently been a major source of income for him. She needed some sort of leverage to induce further communication from Berenice. She was sure the girl was holding back, and if anyone had knowledge of Lizzie’s mysterious benefactor, it was her.  And she needed a line on whatever Hazeldon was. 

Logan might be able to help with that last one, she realized with dismay. 

Veronica’s hand stuttered ever so slightly at the thought, her pen making a great blot on the page.  She swore quietly to herself, scrabbling in her pockets for a handkerchief that had seen better days.  The waitress lost something of her faded look as she glared in Veronica’s direction.  Veronica smiled sweetly back at her.

She really needed to address the Echolls situation, she thought, wondering if situation was exactly the right word, but hesitating to use a stronger one.

She added Logan’s name to her list and almost laughed at the absurdity of corralling the man so neatly, another task ready to be checked off.  His very name scrawled across the page before her, taking up more than its fair share of room.  So much for order.

Before allowed that thought to take hold and further her devolution into a dithering mess, Vincent Lowe appeared at her elbow.  He’d used the rear entrance of course, no doubt thinking that it gave him some sort of edge, even though that approach was actually less obscured from her vantage point than the front was.

It was typical of him, and she smiled at the predictability if not at the man himself.

Lowe slid into the seat across from Veronica.  There was a fluidity to his movement that might have been called grace in another man, but put Veronica in mind of a worm, or perhaps an eel.  He did have something of an air of having been packed in oil.  Even his suit, cheaply made and some fifteen years out of date, had a greasy sheen, like the wax on a Barbour jacket.

She nodded at him, her expression a professional blank, and the broad smile on his face fell for a fraction of a second before plastering itself back into place.

“You’re late,” she observed.

“Veronica Mars,” he nodded as he collapsed into the chair opposite her.  His tone was overly familiar, they had never been friends, or even congenial competitors, and she felt her own back stiffen in response.

“Mr. Lowe,” she said.

“Actually,” he said, flagging down the waitress for his own cup of tea and an absurd number of cakes, “I been working on that.

“You’ve been working on your name?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.  It occurred to her that it might be entertaining to engineer and interview between Dickie Casablancas and Vincent Lowe.

“Professionally speaking, I think Van Lowe might serve better, double barreling it you know, speaks to a certain segment of society.”  His food arrived and he looked up at her.  “I gather that you’re taking care of this?” He gestured at his overly large order.

The idea that adding a second syllable to his surname might confuse some portion of respectable society into mistaking him for one of their own was an idea so breathtakingly audacious that Veronica quickly through amusement and disbelief around to admiration.  Whatever else one might say about the man, and she herself had said plenty, he wasn’t lacking in initiative.

Oblivious to the tenor of his companion’s thoughts, Vinnie continued, “Besides, I think Van Lowe rather lends me an air of distinction.”

 “I’ll grant that it lends you something,” Veronica said.  She wished she could be certain that her expression was under control.  “About that piece of yours in the Bugle.”

“Oh that,” he made a dismissive moue.  “Well, were coming up a bit short for content.  Always good to suggest a bit of drama. Really thought, my piece last Friday about Lord Swindon was far better.”

“I’m here about the Manning girl,” Veronica said, with a shake of her head.

Unlike with her other witnesses, she recognized his cageyness as pure and automatic self-interestedness.  He was never one to risk giving information to a rival.

“It was a one-off piece,” Vinnie insisted.  “A bit of flash to fill a slow day.”

“Lizzie Manning died six months ago, but she suddenly became newsworthy?”  Veronica pushed.  “Who gave you the tip about the pregnancy?”

“Now I hope I know better than to reveal my sources.” Vinnie said, with an affront that melted away as her wallet made an appearance.

“You’re a model of journalistic integrity,” Veronica said, as several notes changed hands, “But someone was whispering in your ear.”

“So many people reach out to me.” Vinnie said vaguely, hand on the table before them, as though another note might stray his direction.

Veronica exhaled sharply.  Working with Vinnie was always an exercise in patience she did not possess.

“Berenice Hadley?” she hazarded.  The girl seemed to be combining genuine grief with healthy self-interest, she might very well see merit in selling her story to the Bugle.

He shook his head.  “The flatmate?  She was willing enough to talk to me, not that she made a lot of sense – a bit fond of the bottle that one, I think - but she wasn’t the one who put me onto it.  It was that boyfriend of hers, Coddle.”

“Cobbler.”

“What I said.  He was the one who called the Bugle, wanted to know what we’d pay for a scoop on the dead girl.  Kind of a weasel, my editor didn’t put a lot of stock in what he said, but, like I said, it was a slow day.  I managed to get a line on the doc who signed the certificate, and his story checked out.”

That Lowe should call anyone else weaselly was a spectacular diversion she wished she had the time to pursue. 

“And what made him suddenly come forward after all this time?”

“Says he wanted to do right by the girl.”

“You believed him?”

“When someone drops a gift horse in your lap, you don’t question it.”

Veronica bit her lip.  “That’s… very true.”

“Coddle seemed to think the killer was her father, but my editor wouldn’t go with it unless I had a little more.”

A little more.  Such as Manning blackmailing his own daughter to get her to drop her inquiry, for instance.

“I hear you paid a call in that neighborhood this morning,” Van Lowe continued around a mouthful of cake.

“You are singularly well informed.”

“I might have ears in the household.  Manning doesn’t pay enough to ensure loyalty, not that they knew much more than that you’d been given the boot.”

So Stuey hadn’t repeated his accusation about Logan.  Interesting.  She doubted it was fear of a suit that had silenced him.  Manning was twice as likely to go after him as Logan was, and anyway the Bugle was always very careful in how they couched their more outrageous claims.  Had he since learned the true identity of the man in question? And if so, why open the bag for one and not the other?  Why direct public suspicion toward Lord Manning?  Or – unsettling notion – had his choice of Logan been a deliberate attempt to lead her up the garden path?

After an astonishing number of pastries on his part (and another slice of pie on her own) she extricated herself from Vinnie’s company with some difficulty and the insincere promise of an exclusive. 

Her thoughts refused to settle into any sort of sensible order, but whirred about rather.

Stuart Cobbler’s fingers were all over this case.  He’d supplied Lizzie with the dope, alibied himself with the continually inebriated Berenice, pointed the finger at Logan.  Still, if he were the killer, surely the last thing he’d want to do was to raise public notice in such a way.

Nor could she credit him as simply a concerned citizen.  He’d something to gain by pushing the Manning death into the press, and she needed to discover what it was.

***

When Lillian ventured out of her room again the house was quiet.  Celeste was out on whatever errand had caused her to cancel on the Swaffleton woman.  Duncan had come home from some morning appointment, all nerves, only flounce out again in a pet when their mother was unavailable.  Mrs. Pebmarsh was ‘taking her rest’.  Not that Lilly ever saw their housekeeper do much more than browbeat the lesser staff, but perhaps that was tiring. 

She knew better than to try to get the money from her mother’s room.  Celeste was annoyingly exact about her possessions and just as prompt to blame Lilly when they went missing.  They’d actually had a sticky-fingered housemaid a year or so ago, and it had taken a solid six months for Celeste to blame anyone but Lillian, and even then, it was only because the girl had grown bolder over time and more obvious in her exploits.

Nor would there be anything in the room ostensibly kept for their father.  It had been ages since he’d stayed in the house.  Even when he was in the country, he’d hole up with friends or at his club rather than make more than a pro forma appearance at his wife’s side.  The room was as impersonal as any of the guest rooms and rather less comfortable, as though her mother thought an inhospitable room was punishment enough for her husband’s lack of attention.

Finally, she attained her goal, although one could be forgiven for assuming that the blandly decorated room that she found herself in was yet another guest suite.  Large, well appointed, and as personal as a furnished flat.  Duncan had long since given up any overt signs of rebellion.  His very existence was ordered to Celeste’s decree. 

Lillian made her way to the large, undoubtedly expensive, and exceedingly ugly desk occupying the far corner of the room.  Duncan had never cared to be careful, and she wasn’t surprised to find his checkbook out and ready to hand, not even stowed away in a drawer.  Cash would have been too much to hope for, but she wasn’t troubled.  She’d taught herself all the family signatures when she was twelve. 

She carefully made out a sizeable check to herself for cash.  Duncan might not have given her the money had she asked, but he would never give her away, even if he noticed the money was missing, which, from the untidy state of his bank book, she doubted he would.  She brushed a hand through her hair, breathing easier at the ease with which she’d been able to negotiate this latest demand.  Granted, anything she did today was just a stopgap.  The letters would keep coming and sooner or later she wouldn’t be able to pay. But she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

Rifling around for an envelope and some stamps – because why use half measures - her knee knocked the supposedly secret panel of Duncan’s desk, causing the compartment to swing open.  She winced and uttered a few words that were best not repeated. Then she examined the interior of the compartment.  Her own writing desk had one of these hidden drawers too, but she wasn’t foolish enough to use it, except on the occasions she wanted to tweak her mother’s nose.  Apparently, Duncan showed no such discretion.  From the back of the little drawer she unearthed a thick and apparently much thumbed journal.  She glanced at the clock, and settled in to read.

***

Veronica was still nearly a street away when she spotted him.  She had never asked – never needed to ask – why Logan had chosen not to follow in his father’s footsteps, but it occurred to her anew how much he could have excelled at the role.  Even now, it was like there were lights on him, a careful spot showing him up against his surroundings.  No wonder the papers couldn’t get enough of him. 

He lounged rather, his expensive suit no doubt sustaining lasting damage from its position against the none too clean pillar abutting her front steps but it put her in mind of one of the great cats, a hunter impossibly at ease.  She wondered that he could be so relaxed, but then that had always been his way, even when she knew he was feeling anything but comfortable.  They were neither of them inclined to display their weaknesses, but he was much, much better than her at concealment.

She could tell the instant he spotted her.  Whereas she had frozen dead, he grew alert, and she thought again of a predator, its quarry in its sights.   She braced herself as she crossed toward home, toward him.  He was a distraction she could ill afford. As she neared, he smiled that slightly lopsided smile at her and she felt the tension coil in her stomach.  More than a distraction, he was a danger.  She’d almost lost herself before, and she couldn’t risk it again, no matter the temptation.  

She felt his eyes on her as she attained her stoop.  He was attracting far too much attention, simply by existing.  Everything about him from his suit to his bearing demanded attention.  Theirs was a solidly respectable neighborhood with genteel aspirations, which meant it was more than usually supplied with its share of busybodies, all of whom where most certainly taking an interest, who would have taken an interest even without the presence of the sleek green Daimler parked out front, apparently in the care of the young man of fourteen or so, whom Veronica recognized by sight as the ringleader of a group of half a dozen or so neighborhood boys.  Generally this crowd spent industrious afternoons finding new and exciting ways to endanger themselves in the spirit of competition, whether by climbing to absurd heights or by facing oncoming traffic in games of chicken, so it was interesting to see how alert the boy was in making sure no one molested the vehicle.

She cocked her head at Logan.  “How in the world did you get Charlie Conyers onside?  I would have expected him to be the first to liberate your car for his own purposes.”

“I suspected as much.  Which made him the only safe one to entrust it with.  If I’d left it to one of the other lads, Charlie there would certainly have made some attempt even if the others had laid off.”

“That explains why you chose him, but not why it actually worked.”

“Doesn’t it?” He asked with a grin.   He looked her up and down, eyes dancing.  “I have to say, in my imagination your detecting ensembles tended more Mata Hari than Major Barbara.”

“What are you doing here Logan?”

The words came our more sharply than she intended and she winced as his eyes lost something of their warmth. She would swear he hadn’t moved a muscle and yet he’d somehow gone from being a picture of relaxation to tense all over.

“I thought we could exchange information on the case,” was all he said, but her heart sank all the same.

He wasn’t here about her.  He was going to ignore last night like nothing had happened.  That she had been anxious this morning for him to do just that was a detail that conveniently escaped her notice.

“There is no case.”  She managed to get the words out before she turned away from him. She needed to get inside.  Away.  She was keenly aware that she’d had too little sleep and too much of a battering this morning to be able to face up to Logan’s all too intense scrutiny.  Especially as he’d apparently already judged her and found her wanting.  She fumbled with the yale lock on the door, shaking fingers slipping twice before managing to get the thing unlocked. 

He followed her into the little vestibule on the ground floor of her building.

“Veronica,” he began.

“I told you there’s no case, Logan.  So, there’s no need for us to discuss anything.  I can go back to my unsavory exploits and you can go back to seducing opera singers.”  She was giving too much away, and this, this was why he was a danger.

His eyebrows shot up as if they’d been pulled by a wire.  “Music was never really my line,” he said easily enough.  “I always had more of an eye for the dancers.”

She waved a hand, expansively.  “Well, have at it then.  I’m sorry for bringing you into a wild goose chase.”  Any second now one of her neighbors was going to come charging out laying her out for making a row.  She tried to pitch her voice down.  “Meg has canceled my services.  As I no longer have a client, I no longer have a case.”

“Since when has a paying client ever stopped you from seeking justice?”

She pursed her lips.  Of course, he was right.  She had not intention of dropping Lizzie’s case.  Not that she had the faintest idea of how she was going to manage.  No paying client, and the rent still due on a frustratingly regular basis.  But there was also no need for him to push his way into it any more either.  “Since I tossed away my future in pursuit of the truth and discovered the results weren’t worth it.  You should know, you were there.”

“You never gave in.”  His tone was quiet, assured and her stomache flopped in response.

“Much good did it do me,” she pointed out.

“I know you, Veronica, you don’t back down from a fight.” 

She smiled at that, a little sadly.  “Well, it’s been nearly five years. Perhaps I’ve discovered the folly of tilting at windmills.”

“Tell me what happened,” he insisted and she resented the ease with which he could let her go while this he held on to. 

She closed her eyes.  This was not an interview she was inclined to have where anyone might overhear, and yet her mind resisted the thought of allowing him to invade her flat once more.  If she insisted he leave, he would do so, but she wasn’t naïve enough to believe that would be the end of it.

As if sensing her hesitation, he took a step back.  “I never did get you that dinner at Gatti’s,” he offered, eyes down as he fussed with his immaculate cuffs.

She shook her head automatically.  “I’ve had four pieces of pie this afternoon.  I’m not sure I could do Gatti’s justice.”

“As ever, you underestimate yourself,” he said, looking back up at her, and she felt her resolve fading.

“And as you pointed out, I’m hardly dressed for an evening out,” she attempted, but he shook his head.

“I like this look.  How else will you collect enough subscriptions to fix the choir loft?”

She couldn’t help but laugh, and he looked unbearably pleased with himself.

“Lord love a duck,” she retorted, “We managed that ages ago.  This collection is for the rectory roof.”  His answering smile was blinding, and she shook her head.  “I’m afraid I was serious though.  Lady Margaret canceled my services.  I don’t – I won’t necessarily be able to continue the case without a client.”  She shot him a wry look.  “We don’t all have your reserves.”

“But there’s no difficulty about that,” he said, and she arched an incredulous brow.  Only someone ensconced on wealth could be so cavalier.  “I’ll hire you.”

Veronica stared at him, a little stupidly.

“Whatever else has happened you’ve convinced me that Lizzy’s death was neither suicide nor misadventure, and for good or ill, she was a friend.  I want justice for her.”  He stooped slightly his brown eyes fixed on her, and she felt her resolve giving way.  “So let me hire you.”

Without allowing herself to dwell further on the thought, she invited him upstairs.