No Good Deed 69

Ishmael was staring slack-mouthed at the argent towers of bars filling the vault. For myself I wondered how many escaped slaves I could persuade onto the the Grand Turk, and how many ingots I might prevail upon them to carry. Of course, I had no clue as to how – or indeed where – I was to gather up the passengers for the Freedom Train. A figure stepped out from behind a stack of the silver bullion and I heard a familiar voice unheard those many years;

'Well, well, the redoubtable Mr M – no, I shan't say it. It's no more likely your name now than ever it was, I'm sure.'

It was a woman: to all appearances she was aged no more than 30, although she must have passed ten more on her God's green earth. She was still not-quite-beautiful, being possessed of the same nose slightly out of true, the over-handsome jaw and dark eyes inherited, not from a ship-wrecked Armada sailor as once I had thought, but from her own Sephardic forbears. However, it was the curl of her lip that I recognised, and the bold stare that no woman of quality – no matter what her age - should ever bring to bear on a gentleman. I wondered what had brought Ellen Pardoner, spy and off-shoot of the House of Jedermann, to the New Orleans Mint.

Sketching a bow, I introduced myself as 'Anson Northrup,' which provoked the most unladylike guffaws, to the point where her gloved hands were forced to hold her sides. From time to time she managed to utter but one word: 'Priceless!' Ishmael had the look of a besotted spaniel and I was forced to admit his faculties extended to an appreciation of women, if nothing else. Holzbein was shuffling his feet, as though he could not decide between offering assistance to the helpless woman or running to the upper floors to escape her lunacy. She recovered herself moments before I entirely lost my patience and held out a hand to me,

'Very well, Anson Northrup. Eileen Fitzpatrick.'

She dropped an inelegant courtesy and seemed on the brink of another inappropriate fit of hilarity.

I raised an eyebrow, and informed her of my pleasure at making her acquaintance.

'Ah well, it's a new world, after all.'She answered.

'Indeed it is,' I admitted.

Her back straightened and she gave me the look I remembered so very well, that of a Duchess at a dustman.

'So, Northrup? What plans have you made? There isn't much time.'

My heart sank as I realised that some responsibility had fallen to me.

'Why must we hurry? Surely we are reliant only on the vagaries of the Grand Turk's time of departure up-river?'

'The Confederacy intends to reopen the Mint, to produce its own currency.'

Her smirk was almost a smile and I was sure she knew me for a fraud, who was no more interested than Jefferson Davis himself in assisting the Underground Railroad

'Let us depart then for a restaurant, Miss Fitzpatrick, and I will enlighten you in more salubrious surroundings,' I said.

At least the walk to the city itself would allow some time to ponder what indeed such plans should be, I reflected.