The Great Ellini (Book One of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Twenty Nine: The Separate System

The Warder at the Cambridge gaol was called Fletchley—and this morning, at least, he had no difficulty remembering it. When he made the tea for Sam and Jack, in the cold, white-tiled Warder's lodgings at the back of the prison compound, he spilled half of it over the table, and then mopped at it absent-mindedly, as though he couldn't remember whether puddles on the tabletop were a good thing or not.

He was no help on the subject of Ellini Syal. He thought she had been at the prison for seven years—but, on consulting the books, discovered that it had only been five. He thought she'd been no trouble: "a charming, quiet girl, who reminded me of my Mildred."

The Warder turned courteously to Jack and explained, "That was my fiancée, sir, who died of pneumonia when I was fighting the new brats in India—present company excepted, sir."

"Oh," said Jack, who seemed to be in far too good a mood to take offence. "What regiment were you in?"

"The 4th Bengal European Light Cavalry, sir."

"Very brave men," said Jack. "Caused us a world of trouble in Agra."

"Oh, god bless you for saying that, sir! The lads'll be so pleased! They always said you were a fair man, sir, even the ones who said you used to throw babies on the fire when you were low on fuel."

Jack laughed delightedly, and the Warder blushed. "They did have some rather lurid stories about you, I'm sorry to say, sir."

"More lurid than throwing babies on the fire?"

"Oh," said the Warder, waving a dismissive hand. "They're too silly to repeat, sir."

"No, please go on," said Jack. "I collect lurid stories about myself. I'm hoping to rack up as many as Napoleon."

The Warder leaned forward and lowered his voice, apparently oblivious to Sam's impatient sigh. "Well, I did hear one of the lads say as you used to bite virgins on the neck, sir, at the same time as making love to 'em."

"I've heard that one," said Jack, with a disconsolate shrug. "Seems like it would diminish the enjoyment of both activities."

The Warder's spluttering laugh was interrupted by Sam, who'd had enough. "Do you mind if we get on with this? I'd like to get back to Oxford in the next year, if at all possible."

Jack had been like this all day—gossiping, telling anecdotes, noticing everything. Sam supposed he was just excited to be outside the Faculty. He also supposed that Ellini Syal was—somehow—working her horrible brand of magic on him, because every time Sam grunted in response to one of his anecdotes, or told him outright to be quiet, Jack would complain that he wasn't as good at listening as Ellini.

"She's just so... flexible," he had said, during the interminable train journey. "Whatever conversational tangent you go off on, she'll follow you. If you start to create an imaginary scenario, she'll drop everything to help you build it. She doesn't care about getting to the point or following protocol. She just wants to play."

"She's hiding something," Sam said primly.

"Only if you're interested in the boring, factual stuff."

And, on top of this, Sam didn't actually know what he was doing here. Why was he in Cambridge, interviewing Ellini Syal's gaoler, when his murder had taken place in Oxford, and there wasn't the flimsiest shred of evidence to connect it to either Cambridge or Ellini Syal?

Of course, he didn't have any other options. That 'Charlotte Grey' clue provided by the Last Gasp Lass had come to nothing. According to the census, there were two Charlotte Greys in Oxford: a widow in Iffley, and a precocious female scholar at Lady Margaret Hall. Sam had been to see both of them yesterday afternoon. The widow had been deaf, and the scholar had been tedious, but neither of them had seemed to know anything about apple-sellers or demonic footprints, or why their name should be on the lips of a killer.