Jackaby (Jackaby #1)(13)
“You think so?” I found myself eager to impress my strange new employer. “Is that helpful to the investigation?”
Jackaby chuckled, turning away to open the door. “Not in the slightest—but very keen, nonetheless. Very keen.”
Chapter Seven
The fourth floor of the Emerald Arch Apartments was nearly identical to the third. Light stumbled meekly out of the dirty oil lamps, testing the floor without really diving down to brighten it. Jackaby hastened to 412 and knocked loudly.
“What are we looking for, exactly?” I whispered to my employer as we waited. I could hear the shuffling of motion from within the room.
“I don’t know,” answered Jackaby, “but I’m excited to find out, aren’t you?”
The door opened to a middle-aged man in an undershirt, pressed trousers, and suspenders. He held a damp towel, and daubs of shaving cream clung around the corners of his jawline. “Yes?” he said.
Jackaby looked the man up and down. “No, sorry. Wrong room,” he declared. “You’re clearly just a man.” With no further explanation, he left the confused fellow to his morning.
Jackaby rapped firmly on 411, and a woman answered. She wore a clean, simple, white dress buttoned neatly up to her neck, and her red hair was tied back in a prim bun. “Hello? What is it? I already told the last one that I didn’t see a thing.” Her accent was distinctly Irish, and edged with quiet annoyance.
“Simply a woman,” said Jackaby after another cursory examination. “No use. My apologies.” He turned on his heel and advanced toward number 410.
The woman, having been far less satisfied with the encounter than Jackaby, came out of her room. “And just what do you mean by that?” she demanded.
I did my very best to blend into the wallpaper as she stalked after the detective. Charlie, I noticed, had taken a keen interest in the points of his well-polished shoes.
“Simply a woman?” she repeated. “Nothing simple about it! I’ve had enough of the likes of you, going on about the weaker sex, and such. Twig like you, care to see who’s weaker?”
Jackaby called backward without looking behind him, “I mean only that you’re of no use at this time.”
Charlie shook his head.
The woman bristled. “I am an educated woman, a nurse, and a caregiver! How dare you . . .”
Jackaby turned at last. “Madam, I assure you, I meant only that you are not special.”
I cupped a palm over my face.
The woman reddened several shades. Jackaby smiled at her in what I’m certain he felt was a reassuring and pleasant manner following a reasonable explanation. He seemed prepared to let the whole thing wash away as a friendly misunderstanding. What he was not prepared for, apparently, was to be socked in the face.
It was not a ladylike swat or symbolic gesture. The force of it actually spun the detective halfway around, and his trip to the ground was interrupted only briefly by the wall catching him on the ear on the way down.
The woman loomed over him, all silky white linen and fury. “Not special? Simply a woman? I am Mona O’Connor. I come from a proud line of O’Connors, stretching back to the kings and queens of Ireland, and I’ve got more fight in me than a wet sock of a man like you could ever hope to muster. What do you have to say about that?”
Jackaby sat up, swaying slightly. He waggled his jaw experimentally, then snapped his attention to his attacker. Thoughts rolled across his gray eyes like clouds in a thunderstorm. “You said O’Connor?”
“That’s right. Have a problem with the Irish, too, do you?” Miss O’Connor squared her jaw and looked down the bridge of her nose at Jackaby, daring him to confirm the prejudice.
Jackaby climbed to his feet, dusted off his coat, which clinked and jingled as the contents of various pockets resettled, and tossed his scarf back over one shoulder. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss O’Connor. I don’t suppose you have a roommate?”
Mona’s stance faltered. She looked briefly to Charlie and me, finding only equal bewilderment, and then back at the detective. He smiled at her again with charming, innocent curiosity. The left side of his face was red, and the outlines of four dainty fingers were slowly gaining definition. He was behaving in precisely the manner in which a man who had just been walloped across the face should not behave.
“An old relative, perhaps?” he prompted, continuing as though nothing had happened, “Or a family friend? Been around since you were just a girl, I imagine.”
The red left Mona’s face.
“Getting on in years, I expect, but hard to place just how many?” Jackaby persisted. “Been around as far back as you can remember, and yet she seems just as old in your memory as she is today?”
The rest of the color left Mona’s face as well.
“How did you . . . ?” she began.
“My name is R. F. Jackaby, and I would very much like to meet her, if you don’t mind,” he said.
Mona’s brow tensed, but her resolve had clearly been shaken. “My mum . . . My mum made me promise I’d look after her.”
“I mean her no harm, you have my word.”
“She’s having one of her . . . one of her spells. I . . . Look, I’m sorry about—er—that business earlier, but I think you’d better come back some other time.”