The
Iron Key (or The Seeker)
Long past midnight the three young gentlemen staggered out of the gambling hell and into the teeth of an icy storm. The Honorable Elfrid Deargrace slipped on the steps, and only the swift reaction of his slightly less drunk companions saved him from an undignified fall.
Wind howled down the street. An old cab rocked in the gale, windows shut tight. The poor horse waiting in the traces shivered convulsively with only a ragged blanket to protect its back. Lord Harcourt pounded on the door with his walking stick.
"You there! Let us in! I say! Open up!"
They received no answer. The door remained shut, and when Harcourt tried the handle, it seemed to be locked from inside.
"I damned well paid the man enough that he ought to have waited for us!" exclaimed Harcourt, looking aggrieved.
"Surely he wouldn't have abandoned his horse in such weather?" cried Mr. Deargrace. "Not a very gentlemanly thing to do, what?"
"Deargrace," said the third man in his softly accented voice, "do you mean to say that you'd call a hansom driver a gentleman, or that poor creature a horse?"
Deargrace's nose had begun running. Beads of water dripped from its aristocratic tip. "It ain't right to leave a horse out in a storm like this," he insisted, stuck on this point as sleet battered their coats. A gust of wind lifted his hat right off his hand, and as he scrambled down the street after it, Harcourt tried the door again and swore explosively when it remained fixed shut.
"Here," said his friend. He slid a hand inside his coat and drew out a slender, almost delicate knife.
"Good Mother!" said Harcourt, wiping sleet from his chin. "What kind of criminal instrument is that, Alessio?"
"My trimming knife," replied Alessio curtly. "My brother and I often used to break into locked rooms at the palasso." He stuck the point of the knife in the key-hole and jiggled. After a moment, he bent down as if to listen to the small noises made by the knife's point as it worked against the lock.
Deargrace loped back up, hat thrust back upon his drenched head. He had spent a great deal of his youth at race tracks and boxing matches, and was so adept at pitching his voice to be heard over any amount of noise that his vigorous swearing could be heard even over the screaming wind. "Damn all, my hair's soaking! Sat for two cursed hours yesterday to get this cut, and now it's gone in a tick of an--
"Bassda!" hissed Alessio.
"I say, what?"
"He's telling you to shut up, Deargrace," said Harcourt genially, pulling him away. "And he's got a knife in his hand, and a famously bad temper, so I suggest you do so. Or have you forgotten the incident with his ornamental Flower Court dancer and poor love-struck Wallingsted?"
Deargrace's expression was a study in contrasts: fear, and remembered admiration. "Heard Wallingsted'll sire heirs, but always walk with a limp. It was a damn close thing."
"It wasn't close at all," said Harcourt, drawing Deargrace a step farther back. "Alessio's a master painter, my friend. There isn't much about human anatomy he doesn't comprehend. He knew exactly where he was cutting."
Deargrace had the wits to stop talking, although he still shuffled restlessly from side to side while wind and sleet did their worst. One of the street lights farther down the street blew out suddenly, and its little glass and iron door, come unchained, banged distantly and then shattered as a blast of wind slammed it shut.
Alessio gave a sharp sigh of satisfaction. He pulled out the knife, turned the handle, and swung the door open.
A body fell out.
"Drunk!" proclaimed Deargrace sagely.
"Dead," murmured Alessio as blood
from the blow that had stove in the back of the coachman's head melded
with rainwater in the gutter and flowed away down the street.