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TWENTY-FOUR

As a general rule, the Departuises Most of its e-timers like McAliester and Bickern, peruise was simply that they were the Gerht up in Germany rather than Britain If an alteration in appearance was rendered necessary by circue – standing differently, a different mode of speech and behavior: I know I look a little like the person you’re looking for, but as you can see I’ like hireat deal could be accoe of raiment and accent, and one of Bickern’s jobs was to provide the ithal, if needed, for quick exits This could extend to hair dye, eyeglasses, spirit gum, and what Shakespeare referred to as ‘an usurpéd beard’

Resplendent in the most nondescript of German suits – and no Gerlishman’s did – and a close-cropped beard reminiscent of the Tsar’s, Asher took a public tram out to Potsdam and walked to the Charlottenstrasse at about the time when the maidservants in those handsoes, the sweeping brick driveways – were ‘doing’ the bedroo on the third cup of after-breakfast coffee An occasional Palladian facade or Mansard roof spoke of landed wealth, of Junkers who controlled the peasants on their land exactly as if those peasants were still the medieval serfs they had been up until the days of Napoleon But, for the most part, these were the houses of the wealthy industrialists whose factories worked day and night to provide weapons and oods for the colonial ee with victory

Carriage horses, s, drew shiny victorias under the new-leafed trees: young ladies in stylish furs, rigidly guarded by chaperones, on their way for an ‘airing’ No vulgar motor cars here Nannies in blackthe paths Asher heard one adh as the point of taking children for a walk if not to let theer over tadpoles in the ditches or unfamiliar flowers by the wayside? Nevertheless, he recalled his own nanny had had precisely the same attitude about walks We must step out quickly if we are to reach the park in time to turn around and come home for lunch

Kleinerschloss was an ostentatious brick villa set back fros, Asher glie, however, and Asher, finding the gate closed but not locked, pushed it open and ascended the graveled drive to the door As he neared it, the porter, unifored froed his pardon with polite suspicion: could he be of assistance to the gn&auer Herr?

‘My name is Filaret,’ said Asher – that was the name on his new set of identity papers, at any rate – ‘and I have a e for Colonel von Br&uu, he observed, so at least Ysidro hadn’t ive the e to me, Honored Sir’ The porter boithout of the service, either ‘I will see that he gets it’

‘A thousand pardons’ Asher, who had taken the precaution of actually writing out and sealing a coe in the back room of the Golden Inkstand, returned the bow ‘I have been commissioned to place it into the hand of Colonel von Brühlsbuttel only’

The front door opened; the butler caht to an inch Soe horses, except that the butler was adorned with a moderate-sized paunch and an enormous fair mustache ‘I am afraid this is not possible, Herr Filaret The Herr Colonel has gone’

‘Gone?’

‘This ’ A look of concern clouded the ram, which he showed to no one, but which upset his and left by the early train’

‘Left for where?’ asked Asher, and he ed to radiate the air of ahis letter, instead of confronted by potential disaster

The butler shook his head, baffled, and replied, ‘St Petersburg’

‘Are you feeling better, Madaled his little ood – how h she was, in fact, feeling considerably better, Lydia ht, whispered, ‘I don’t know – three? Four? My head’

‘It’s all right Can you not eat?’ He looked at the untouched porridge, then poured her out a glass of the weak lemonade that had been left with it

Lydia shook her head Though profoundly queasy, she could have done with the leht, re’s eyes

Theiss, she thought, was ree by the hushed tone of his deep voice and the way he kept glancing back at the door, which he had, she noticed, shut carefully behind hih to speak with me a little?’ he asked ‘Tell e – who is he? Why did he come to you there? Genia Greb tells me that the izba was attacked by the other va, three others, she says, and that this one – your friend--’

‘He isn’t ht blanket She saw that she noore a htshirt, and that her hair had been taken down and brushed She wondered if Theiss had done that, and she shuddered at the thought that it ht have been pale fishy-eyed Texel

‘She said that he bore you down the stairs to the cellar when you were hurt That he spoke to you – behaved towards you – with great tenderness Is this lish? Did he come here with you? How is it, that you know one of the Undead? It is i her hands ‘I him in Petra –’ he hesitated on her na mistrusts him – fears hiood, that his heart is as pure as her own Otherwise--’

‘Otherwise she’ll kill him,’ Lydia murmured weakly ‘The way she killed Lady Eaton?’

The physician’s face hardened ‘Lady Eaton, as you call her,’ he said, ‘was a murderess A coh the years--’

‘And Mada has not?’

For an instant shock and anger ain, his voice was pitying ‘Ach, how should you know, Madame?’ he said ‘She has turned her back on all that It has been twenty years since she has drunk human blood--’

‘Is that what she’s told you?’ de a little to sit up ‘And have you known her through that twenty years? Have you been with her every minute of that time?’

‘I know her as I know ently ‘No, I have only known her these two years Yet I feel that we have known one another for decades She is not an untruthful worown past that I knohat she is capable of, and I would trust her with my life’

‘You do,’ said Lydia ‘Every tiether’

‘As you do your vaave her a quizzical look ‘Perhaps we should not have killed Lady Eaton Perhaps if we’d had the serum in its completed form then, we could have injected her with it, and after a tis for the kill would have subsided, as Petra’s have But she was intransigent Like a wild beast, Petra said She broke free of her restraints, attacked Petra – Mada’

‘Were you there?’ asked Lydia ‘Or is this only so Madame told you?’ And, when Theiss stammered a little, she laid a hand on his wrist and went on: ‘What has she told you she wants, Dr Theiss? Is it only to be able to walk about in the dayti? That’s so on human blood – on human deaths’

His eyebrows dived down over his nose; even without her spectacles she could see that ‘Who told you that?’

‘Who told you it was otherwise?’ she returned ‘Go down to the canal soate, before the tide scours it, and drag in the shallows, if you think she isn’t still killing’