The Underwater Ballroom Society

A Spy in the Deep ^{The Casebook of Harriet George}

If Harriet George had ever thought that training to become a spy would be easy, she had been disabused of that notion within a week. Spy training in the British-Martian Intelligence Service, it appeared, alternated between unending, droning lectures in poorly lit rooms and exercises in appalling danger and stupefying terror. Worse, Harriet never knew which she was in for when she arrived each morning.

When she had been recruited for the intelligence service, she had been filled with confidence. And why not? She had been sixteen years old, had just solved the case of The Glass Phantom and the dinosaur hunters, and had caught a murderer. How hard could spy training be?

Within a week, she had realized that her previous success had been more down to luck than expertise. It had only been by chance that she hadn’t been eaten alive by dinosaurs. Spy training was a lot harder than she’d expected. Sometimes, she winced remembering just how unprepared she’d been. That was when she wasn’t wincing at the flying daggers, exploding booby traps, hideously murderous Martian creatures, and out-of-control clockwork mechanisms that made up a large part of her everyday lessons.

Now, almost a year later, everything seemed to be getting more difficult rather than easier. And none more so than her current exercise. She was crouched in a cramped, sweltering stone passageway trying—and failing—to disarm an absurdly complicated trap before she could be poisoned by gas, filleted by swords, swarmed by spear-spiders, or whatever delight awaited her today. She had solved the code scratched into the rock, aligned the dials, extracted the correct carved stone and reinserted it, but now the blasted lever WOULD NOT LIFT. A persistent ticking told her time was running out. Her hands were sweating, her hair was tangled across her face, and her dress was too tight around her chest. Why did she have to do this in a dress, anyway? The male trainees were free to wear trousers. Escaping from a hail of poisoned darts had to be easier in trousers.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Come on.”

Something touched her waist. Harriet jerked. Her hand twitched. The lever dropped. She threw herself backwards, colliding with the person behind her.

A block of stone, which must have weighed several tons, smashed into the passageway, throwing up a cloud of dust and sand. Harriet coughed and furiously wiped her eyes clear.

“That,” a voice said, “was the most pathetic display I have ever seen.”

Harriet pushed herself up and twisted around. Reginald Pratt, Viscount Brotherton stood looking down at her, sneering.

“You blasted idiot!” Harriet exploded. “You could have killed me.”

“Not if you knew what you were doing. But then, you’re not much good at this, are you, George?”

Reginald Pratt had already been a trainee spy when Harriet had joined the British-Martian Intelligence Service, and he had finally graduated in the last month. If he had been unbearable before that—which he had been—then it was nothing compared to the way he was now. It wasn’t the fact that he considered himself better than everyone else. Harriet could deal with that. It was the cruelty that hovered just below the surface, and his delight in the failure of others. Harriet could see why the British-Martian Intelligence Service had been so pleased to recruit an agent already able to move in the highest levels of British-Martian society. But that didn’t mean she had to like him, and it certainly didn’t mean she had to put up with him.

“What do you want, Reggie?”

Reginald’s face twitched and his expression darkened.

You really hate being called that, don’t you? The first time they had met, Reginald had instructed her to call him Lord Brotherton. No chance of that. He’d set her skin crawling from that first moment.

“The director wants to see you.”

Harriet’s mouth suddenly became very dry. “Sir Clive Rose?”

“Not the director of the service, idiot. Why would he want to see you?” His eyes slipped over her as though she were a week-old ragfish. “The director of trainees.” A tight, humorless smile creased his face. “You’d better hurry. You’re already an hour late.”

Harriet’s jaw dropped. “Why the hell didn’t you—” She cut herself off at the sudden delight in his eyes. “You can tell her I’ll be there very shortly.” She flipped a hand as though to brush him away. The look of transparent fury that flashed across his features gave Harriet a warm feeling of satisfaction.

She waited for Reginald to stalk off, then made an attempt to straighten her dress. It was futile. Her sister, Amy, would have been horrified to see her like this. She was covered in dust and dirt, and her dress was unforgivably creased. After their parents had died, Amy, along with Amy’s husband, Bertrand, had tried to raise her as a proper, dignified young lady. As far as Amy and her husband knew, they had succeeded. If Amy could see her now…

This wasn’t the first training exercise she’d managed to mess up. The satisfaction she’d felt at Reginald Pratt’s irritation was quickly replaced by dread. She knew there were several black marks in her file. Had she failed one time too often? After the affair with the dinosaur hunters and the Glass Phantom, she’d known she had a natural aptitude for this. It was just that, somehow, that aptitude seemed to have gone missing since she’d started her training. I can do this. I know I can. So why couldn’t she prove it to anyone?

Amy and Bertrand, of course, had no idea that Harriet was training to be a spy. They had been told that Harriet was one of half-a-dozen live-in companions of the eccentric Lady Felchester, a widow whose husband had made a fortune in the Mars-Earth trade. She funded and ran the School of Martian Entomology at Tharsis University. Even on Mars it was unusual for a lady to teach at a university, but as Lady Felchester funded the department singlehandedly, the university deans tried to think about it as little as possible.

It was all a cover, of course. While the department was real and Lady Felchester was indeed an expert on Martian entomology, she was also the director of trainees at the Tharsis City branch of the British-Martian Intelligence Service. A good proportion of the trainees passed through the School of Martian Entomology, either as students or as companions to Lady Felchester.

Harriet hurried through the quadrangle towards Lady Felchester’s study. The morning mists had cleared from the flanks of Tharsis Mons, and the mist birds, which had a habit of dive-bombing her head whenever she forgot to wear a sufficiently robust hat, had gone with it. The Martian spring was well underway, and the warmth had finally reached the upper slopes of the mountain. Harriet found she was sweating again. The warm weather. That’s all it is. She should have chosen a lighter dress.

Lady Felchester was sitting behind her desk in her study when Harriet reached the tower room. Worse, Reginald Pratt was lounging in a comfortable chair to one side. Blast the man! He must have decided to hang around for her humiliation. She could just imagine the stories he had been telling Lady Felchester. The worst thing was, most of them were probably true.

Harriet straightened her back and studiously ignored Reginald.

There were bugs everywhere in this study, specimens collected from across Mars. In display cases, in bottles, crawling and fluttering in glass tanks, a nightmare of poisonous, venomous, ravenous creatures in every possible shape, and some shapes Harriet would have assumed impossible before she’d come here. The job might be a cover, but Lady Felchester had a passion for all types of creepy-crawlies. She could name every single one of them and tell you where they lived, what their lifecycle was, and how they would kill you.

“I apologize for my tardiness, Lady Felchester.” Harriet was pleased her voice didn’t shake.

Lady Felchester closed her notebook, smoothed it flat, then looked up at Harriet.

“I have told you, Miss George, that I prefer to be addressed as Lavinia or Mrs. Cartwright in private. It is our actions, not our ranks, that matter in the service.”

A muffled snort escaped from Reginald. Lady Felchester turned to him, an eyebrow rising, and Reginald dropped his gaze. He might have outranked Lady Felchester socially, but it would have taken a far braver man than Viscount Brotherton to try to pull rank in this study. Harriet forced her surge of pleasure at his discomfort not to show on her face. A moment later, though, Lady Felchester’s words sank in. It is our actions that matter. All her delight drained away. Harriet had let herself down with her actions, not just today with the failed task, but in a dozen other failures over the last few months. She just hadn’t been good enough. Don’t beg. She would never change Lady Felchester’s mind. Don’t demean yourself.

“You have been training with us for almost a year,” Lady Felchester said. “It is at this point that we usually send recruits on their first true mission. Something simple, within Tharsis City, to take the skills we have taught them out into a real environment.”

Usually. Usually.

“Unfortunately”—here it comes—“we are not able to offer you such a mission.”

Harriet nodded. Of course not. I understand, she tried to say, but she couldn’t make the words come out. Failed. She had failed.

“You mission will take you rather further afield. I have been assured by certain parties that you have the instincts necessary to carry it out.”

Harriet stared. “But… I thought you were going to…”

Lady Felchester tipped her head enquiringly to one side.

“Nothing.”

“Speak less, my dear. Listen more.”

Harriet couldn’t look at Lady Felchester. If she did, she might let her emotions get the better of her. She wasn’t being kicked out. Not yet. She fixed her gaze above Lady Felchester’s head and found herself staring right at a… thing… with a long, yellow, spiky body, a cluster of fins and wings, and what looked like a dozen gaping mouths. It made her skin prickle with primitive terror. For all Harriet knew, it might have been staring back at her from its nest of leaves, only she couldn’t tell where its eyes actually were. She quickly looked back at Lady Felchester.

The director of trainees was peering quizzically up at Harriet. “Is there a problem, Miss George?”

“N—.” She cleared her throat. “No, Mrs. Cartwright.”

“As you are aware, the British-Martian Intelligence Service has been tracking a smuggling ring that has been selling restricted artifacts to, among others, the Emperor Napoleon. The Emperor has turned his eyes to Mars, and we believe he plans to invade. We cannot allow him access to any further Ancient Martian technology. We have not been able to track down who is behind the ring. Until now. We have had word that an informant has retrieved information that may lead us to the ringleaders. Your mission will be to meet this informant, retrieve the package of information, and return it here. You will be supervised throughout your mission and assessed on the retrieval of the package carried out without raising suspicion or giving yourself away. It is a straightforward mission, but it is of utmost importance and it is essential that is completed efficiently.”

Harriet’s lips were dry. “Who… who is going to supervise?”

“That,” Reginald said, “would be me.”

Of course it would.

She forced a smile onto her face.

“Your brother-in-law, Bertrand Simpson, will this morning have received an invitation to attend a ball held at the Louros Hotel beneath the waters of the Valles Marineris. He will not be able to take your sister with him”—that made sense; Amy was six months with child and certainly not up to travelling hundreds of miles across Mars to an underwater hotel—“so he will ask you to accompany him. You are fortunate that, despite being my companion, I have allowed you two weeks off. The informant will already be at the hotel. He will be carrying a copy of the Tharsis Times dated the twelfth of April, 1816. You will make contact and retrieve the package. That is all. Do you have any questions?”

Harriet shook her head.

“Good. Then be prepared to leave in two days. I trust that I don’t have to remind you that we are relying on you.”

Reginald followed her out of Lady Felchester’s study. Harriet kept her eyes firmly fixed ahead of her. Right now, she couldn’t bear to see the expression on his face.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered into her ear. “If you make a mess of it, I can step in and save you.”

“Oh, you’d love that, wouldn’t you? And then you’d love to tell everyone all about it.”

He sniffed, sounding offended. “Reports have to be accurate.”

Unless you would come out badly. Harriet had seen Reginald’s reports before.

“I shall be attending as myself,” Reginald said. “I received an invitation some months ago, of course. It is the event of the Season. We shall have to pretend that we don’t know each other. Someone of my station could never”—he paused and sucked his lip—“associate with someone like you.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Harriet said, letting acid slip into her voice. “I think I can manage that very well indeed.”

So it was that, two days later, Harriet and her brother-in-law, the Honorable Bertrand Simpson, arrived at the Clockwork Express station beneath Tharsis City. Tharsis City had been built over the ruins of an Ancient Martian city on the slopes of the extinct volcano, Tharsis Mons, where it had grown, spreading and branching and twisting, only to come to an abrupt halt at the Tharsis Cliffs, an escarpment which plunged hundreds of feet. Anchored to and hanging from the cliffs were Tharsis City’s famous hanging ballrooms, unbreakable Ancient Martian structures enclosed with steel and glass.

Below the cliffs were the Tharsis Botanical Gardens and the Clockwork Express hub, from which glittering bronze tracks arced out across the surface of Mars, from Ophir City in the east to Chinese Mars in the south. Clear glass elevators descended the cliff face.

They were still high up the mountain here, two full miles above the Pavonis plain. Far, far to the east, Harriet thought she could just make out the glittering waters of the Valles Marineris at the limit of her vision.

“I say,” Bertrand said as the elevator doors closed. “Did Amy tell you that I’ve been promoted to Deputy Chief Inspector? It turns out that catching jewel thieves, murderers, and smugglers does get you somewhere after all.”

Bertrand looked tired, Harriet thought. His always messy black hair looked like it had been attacked by a mist bird, and he had only made a half-hearted attempt at tying his cravat. His clothes were smart and fashionable—he and Amy might not have much money, but Amy was always insistent he looked as well as his peers in the police service—but rumpled, as though he’d already been at work for hours.

It had taken the Tharsis City Police Service long enough to promote Bertrand. They had set him on the case of the Glass Phantom knowing full well he would fail so they would have an excuse to get rid of him; his superiors believed he was incompetent. Instead, between them, Harriet and Bertrand had succeeded. It had gotten Harriet into the British-Martian Intelligence Service and finally it had gotten Bertrand his promotion. He would need the extra income when he and Amy had their baby.

“They’ve put me in charge of the Extraordinary Investigations Department.” Bertrand looked suddenly glum. “Only there haven’t been any extraordinary crimes to investigate yet. All distinctly ordinary, apparently.” He perked up. “Although I’m certain there will be soon. Something is bound to go wrong.”

“That’s the spirit.” In truth, Harriet was having a hard time focusing on what Bertrand was saying. Her insides were knotted in and over themselves, like a nest of confused tangle-eels. She wasn’t by nature a nervous person, but too much rested on this mission. Mess it up and her nascent career as a spy really would be over. She would become no more than another eligible young lady hoping to make a good marriage. Mars would be closed off to her. Her life would become a constant circuit of witless social occasions and obedience to some husband. She might never go anywhere interesting or do anything worthwhile. She couldn’t give all this up.

“It must be good news, though, mustn’t it?” Bertrand said.

Harriet realized she hadn’t really been listening to her brother-in-law.

“What’s that?”

“The invitation! To the ball. It must mean someone high up is pleased with me.”

Harriet winced. She hated misleading Bertrand like this. As far as she knew, most of Bertrand’s superiors still wanted him gone. They thought he was a terrible detective, and if Harriet was honest with herself, he was. The public pressure from the Tharsis Times following Bertrand’s success with the Glass Phantom—her success, in truth—had forced the promotion, but that didn’t mean he was in good favor. If Bertrand believed they were rewarding him, he might poke his head too far above the parapet and end up catching an arrow. Harriet would never forgive herself if she were the cause of Bertrand losing his job. But what choice do I have?

“Are you all right, old thing?”

Bertrand was squinting at her. Harriet smoothed her face.

“Just the elevator.” It was decelerating as it approached the bottom of the escarpment.

Bertrand nodded knowingly. “Ah. Yes. It can be like that. Jolly good of the old bird to let you off like this.”

“What?”

“Lady Felchester. Letting you accompany me on such short notice. Good old bird. Or maybe I should say, good old beetle, eh? Ha! Come on, Harry. Let’s go and have some fun.”

The Clockwork Express train that would carry them to Candor City on the shore of the Valles Marineris was already waiting at the station. It was a long, sleek, steel machine with five smooth carriages and an arrow-headed engine on which were mounted two vast, flat springs, which would drive the train across the surface of Mars.

Harriet and Bertrand boarded and found their cabins. Harriet dropped her valise on one bunk, while an automatic porter placed her trunk on the other side of the cabin. The Clockwork Express would reach a top speed of almost two hundred miles per hour, but the trip was almost fifteen hundred miles and the train would stop at several towns and cities on the way, as well as to exchange its spent springs. They wouldn’t arrive in Candor City until the early hours of the next morning. Harriet tested her mattress. Surprisingly, it was softer than her bunk in the trainee’s dormitory. Good. She’d need a proper night’s sleep to be on her mettle.

Bertrand stuck his head around the door. “Why don’t we go and get a cup of tea?” He licked his lips. “And maybe a spot more breakfast. Amy’s got me on this terrible diet. She says only one of us can be as round as a whale at any one time, and as she’s with child, she gets priority.” His face fell. “You won’t let on, will you?”

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

The dining car was half full when they arrived. Bertrand slipped cheerily behind a table and waved to an automatic waiter. The impassive, silvery machine glided over to him in an almost silent whirr of cogs. Harriet settled in opposite and looked around the dining car, taking in the other passengers, assessing them with a single glance. That was one of the things they were always banging on about in the academy. Be aware of your surroundings. Assess the risks. Evaluate threats. It was exhausting, but she had found she couldn’t turn it off.

At the far end of the car, near the second-class carriages, two men and a woman sat shoveling enormous portions of breakfast into their mouths. The way you eat when you don’t know for sure when you’re next going to get a meal. The larger of the men sat with his back to Harriet, taking up a full two seats by himself. If he stood, Harriet reckoned he’d be almost seven feet tall. The smaller man facing him was dressed like a dandy, with a bright green jacket, a yellow, patterned waistcoat, and an elaborately knotted cravat. The woman, by contrast, could have disappeared into any crowd. If you were looking for a picture to illustrate “inconspicuous”, you’d pick her. Except you wouldn’t, because you wouldn’t notice her in the first place. They were keeping themselves to themselves, but even so, they radiated a sense of danger. Watch them.

A family with two little children crowded around a too-small table nearby, the mother leaning over the children and urgently whispering to their mutinous faces. For some reason, the family reminded her of Bertrand and Amy. They would have their own children soon. She would be an aunt. An aunt. The thought filled her with a mixture of terror and delight that, just for a moment, made her dizzy. I’m only seventeen!

Don’t let your emotions get in the way, she heard Lady Felchester say in her head. Emotions undermine logic. They erode caution. A spy does not have emotions. Which was easy enough for Lady Felchester to say. But then Harriet didn’t think Lady Felchester had ever had an emotion she hadn’t chosen to have in her entire life. It was infuriating.

On the opposite side of the aisle, a young man sat holding a book. He was reading in silence, but his face twitched furiously as he snapped through the pages. He really mustn’t like that book, Harriet thought. University student. She’d seen enough like him arguing in the Tharsis University quadrangles, gesturing passionately, voices raised, as they debated obscure bits of academic theory.

Assumption, she heard Lady Felchester snap. Don’t classify. Classification is lazy. It leads you into traps.

Another dozen well-dressed couples sat at tables, eating or drinking. Harriet’s eyes slid over them. Nothing unusual about any of them. Harriet wondered if anyone in the dining car could be her contact. If they were, Lady Felchester would expect her to identify them before they made themselves known at the ball. Lady Felchester had said her contact would already be at the hotel, but this whole exercise was a test. A little bit of misinformation to assess her instincts and training wouldn’t be so unlikely.

But then why would her contact travel all the way from Tharsis City to the Louros underwater hotel when they could just pop around the corner to give her the package?

Because that’s the kind of thing spies do, she thought grumpily. Nothing is ever straightforward.

The train kicked into motion, accelerating cleanly along the bronze rails. The mounded greenhouses of the Tharsis City Botanical Gardens slipped past the window, then the train tracks dipped, and the train picked up speed, hurrying down the long incline toward the Pavonis plain. The hum of the great springs was scarcely audible in the dining car.

“I’ll have the full breakfast,” Bertrand told the automatic waiter. “With extra eggs. And, ah, extra toast. And extra kippers.” He licked his lips. “And some more extra eggs. How about you, Harry?”

Harriet glanced up. “Hm? Oh, just some tea.”

Bertrand blinked. “But it’s all free.” He turned back to the automatic waiter. “She’ll have some cakes.” He cleared his throat. “And if you don’t eat them, Harry old thing…” He rubbed his stomach.

A shout sounded from further down the dining car. Harriet looked up in time to see that one of the children had broken free from his parents and was barreling down the aisle like an out-of-control tumble-ox, bouncing off seats and tables and setting crockery clattering like approaching alarm bells. Harriet shot out an arm as the boy rushed past, snagging him and bringing him to a halt. She looked up to see the boy’s mother hurrying after him, her face as flushed as fire-bloom.

“Forgive me,” the woman said. She had runny egg down her gown, Harriet noticed, and a buttery handprint planted firmly on her jacket sleeve. “He just can’t sit still.” If anything, her face was turning even redder.

“Ha!” Bertrand said. “Nothing to forgive. You should have seen Harry when she was little. Bouncing around like a Martian slug fly. Couldn’t stop her…” He trailed off as he noticed Harriet glaring at him. “Anyway,” he rallied. “No harm done, eh?”

Harriet held her withering glare for another second before turning to the woman. “Don’t worry. I’m Harriet George. Where are you traveling to?”

The woman got a good grip on her son’s hand. “Mr. and Mrs. Edgeware.” She shot a look at her son. “And children. This one is Marcus. Eleanor is back at the table. For now. We’re on holiday. We’re going to the Louros Hotel.”

“To the ball?”

“Oh, good gracious no!” Mrs. Edgeware laughed. “That’s not the kind of event people like us are invited to. We’re just staying at the hotel. My husband has a fascination for Ancient Martian ruins. We’re hoping to take a submersible trip around the more impressive submerged buildings. I have heard that some are large enough that a submersible can slip inside. You can still see the decorations on the walls.” She leaned closer. “I must admit, though, that the timing is not entirely coincidental. I am hoping to catch a glimpse of Sir Lancelot Coverdale. I hear he is attending the ball. It will drive my sister wild with envy. She has such a tendre for Sir Lancelot, even though she’s never met him. She reads all about him in the newspapers, you see. Oh.” She looked up. “I see your breakfast has arrived. I shall leave you to it. Once again, thank you for capturing my little runaway.”

“Sir Lancelot Coverdale, eh?” Bertrand said, once the woman and her child had returned to their table. “I once almost arrested his father. By mistake!” he added at Harriet’s raised eyebrow. “He took it rather well. Considering.” He leaned back to let the automatic waiter set out their breakfast. “So, were you going to eat those cakes, do you think?”

Harriet glanced around the carriage again. The dangerous-looking trio had disappeared. They must have left in the confusion. Harriet cursed herself. Watch them, she’d told herself. Then she’d gotten distracted. Blast it! She couldn’t afford to let that happen. She reached absently for a seed cake.

“Oh,” Bertrand said. “Oh well.”

By the time they reached Candor City in the early hours of the next morning, Harriet had learned two things. Firstly, although she had always wanted to see more of Mars, she didn’t want to see more of this particular part of Mars. The strip of British Mars over which the Clockwork Express ran, from the high Pavonis plain, along the precipitous north coast of the Valles Marineris to Candor, was given over almost entirely to farmland and small towns. It made sense, Harriet supposed, but every time she glimpsed the bustling, tangled wilderness on the horizon, she felt the kind of sharp longing that left her shaking. When she and Bertrand had taken an airship to the Great Wall of Cyclopia and the dinosaur-infested wilderness beyond in pursuit of The Glass Phantom, the feeling of liberation and freedom had been almost overwhelming. I have to get this right. As an agent of the British-Martian Intelligence Service, she might be sent anywhere on Mars or even Earth. As a single young lady, or, worse, a married woman, she might never leave Tharsis City again.

The second thing that Harriet had learned was that, despite the comfortable mattress and the gentle lulling of the spring-powered train, she simply couldn’t sleep. It was the way the bunks were arranged, she’d decided sometime well after midnight. They were side-on, so that every time the train slowed, Harriet felt like she was going to roll out of bed. Somewhere near two o’clock in the morning, Harriet managed to manhandle the mattress off the bunk and onto the floor only to find that the cabin was a good foot too narrow to accommodate it the proper way around.

By the time Bertrand finally knocked on the door with a cheery shout of, “Wake up, sleepyhead,” Harriet was ready to strangle someone. She dressed quickly then slid back the door. Bertrand stood outside, beaming widely.

“Haven’t slept so well for months,” he burbled, in a peculiarly irritating way, Harriet thought. “Not to speak ill of the heavily pregnant, but your sister does snore rather these days. I say, you look a bit rough.”

Harriet shot him daggers.

“I, ah, I’ll let you get ready, shall I? We’re only half an hour from Candor.”

It took the full half hour to get respectable, and even then, Harriet thought she looked like a storm-tossed hedge. It was not a good look.

I’ll sort myself out when we reach the hotel, she told herself. After all, the ball wasn’t until the evening and it wasn’t yet dawn.

The train decelerated hard as it came down the slope toward Candor. Harriet stumbled awkwardly along the corridor, dragging her luggage behind her and muttering under her breath.

A door in front of her opened at exactly the wrong moment. An elegant, middle-aged lady stepped out without looking. Harriet lost her footing and tripped right into the lady.

She pushed herself upright from the door frame and took a step backward.

“I do beg your pardon,” she managed.

“Well, really!” the lady exclaimed. “How utterly disgraceful.”

“It was hardly my fault!” Harriet said, bristling. “I wasn’t the one who stepped out into the corridor without looking!”

A man—the lady’s husband, Harriet supposed—emerged behind her. Cold, hard eyes stared down at Harriet. She had to repress the urge to shudder.

Bertrand’s hand closed on Harriet’s shoulder, easing her back. “You must accept our apologies,” he said easily. “Our fault entirely. This train won’t stand still, eh? If there is anything we can do to make up for the inconvenience.”

The elegant lady turned her face away, as though the very act of looking at them was too much to bear.

“That will not be necessary,” the man grated. Then, with a stiff nod, he took his wife’s arm and escorted her down the corridor.

“What are you doing?” Harriet hissed. It was bad enough to be treated with contempt by that woman, but to have Bertrand apologize on her behalf when she wasn’t to blame was humiliating. “She was the one who stepped out!”

“Didn’t you recognize them?”

Harriet shook her head. “Why should I?”

“That was Colonel Fitzpatrick. Don’t you read the newspapers? He’s just returned from Earth. They say he’s killed a hundred men in the war against Napoleon, and just as many in duels.”

Harriet glared at Bertrand. “Well, I’m not scared of him.”

“I am. And you’re not the one he would have challenged to a duel.”

“Oh, please. Dueling is illegal, and you’re a policeman. You could have arrested him.”

“Only if he didn’t shoot me first. Come on, Harry. Let’s just enjoy the trip. I’ve never been to Candor City before. Let’s see the sights!”

Unlike many of Mars’s cities, Candor wasn’t built on Ancient Martian ruins. It had grown as a fishing port here where the cliffs that bordered the Valles Marineris for hundreds of miles gave way to gentle hills and sheltered harbors. The Clockwork Express tracks swooped down low into the tangle of tall, twisted native Martian houses close to the docks. On the hilltops above the native Martian quarters and the docks, well-ordered lines of Earth-style houses would, when it was light, look out over the Valles Marineris. At this hour, though, only the glow of friction lamps lit the train station. Around them, most of the city was in darkness.

Harriet watched as the passengers disembarked. Colonel and Mrs. Fitzpatrick were among the first to alight, accompanied by two of their own automatic servants. Mrs. Fitzpatrick gave an audible sniff as she spotted Harriet and Bertrand, then looked away. They were followed shortly after by the angry University student, still clutching his book tight in one hand. The dangerous-looking trio Harriet had watched at breakfast came next, pausing on the platform and looking carefully around. Harriet tensed, but they turned away from the docks and began trudging up the hill. Several other passengers followed, disappearing into the sleeping city. Just before the train was about to pull away, the young family—the Edgewares—tumbled out in a confusion of luggage, excited children, flustered parents, and impatient whistle-blasts from the train guards.

“Guests for Louros Hotel,” a voice called.

Harriet turned to see a young Chinese woman waiting at the far end of the platform. She was accompanied by a dozen automatic servants, which moved forward to collect luggage, and dressed in a uniform similar to that of an airship captain. Her long hair was held back in a straight braid.

“Follow me,” the young woman called.

“Are we to walk?” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said.

“It’s not far. My submersible is waiting at the dock.”

“Well,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick exclaimed. “I was told this was a civilized occasion. I do not recall the last time I was required to walk.”

Bertrand rolled his eyes and picked up Harriet’s valise. “Come on, old thing. Let’s grab the best seats. I’ve never been on a submersible before. I hope it doesn’t sink.”

“I think it’s supposed to.”

“What? Oh, yes, right. Sink. Ha! Of course.” He cleared his throat. “But… you know.”

“I’m sure the Louros Hotel wouldn’t use it if it had a habit of drowning passengers.”

“I suppose you must have a point. First time for everything, though, eh?”

The submersible was larger than Harriet had imagined, although she wasn’t sure what exactly what she had been expecting. Perhaps a tight, claustrophobic space, like an automatic carriage, bitter with the smell of oil and metal? Instead, it was seventy or eighty feet long, maybe twenty wide at the bows, and shaped like stubby cigar. A gangplank protected by handrails and lit by photon-emission globes led up to an open iron doorway. Inside, the submersible was as plushly decorated as the Clockwork Express, with velvet drapes tied back at each wide porthole and comfortable armchairs beside each. A small bar stood at one end, attended by a ro-butler.

“I should like,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said, as she entered, “to meet the pilot of this… thing.”

“That would be me,” the young Chinese woman said.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you know how to drive this, girl?”

Harriet bit her lip to prevent a sarcastic comment escaping. Keep a low profile. A spy doesn’t get noticed, unless they choose to be. She saw the young pilot’s eyes tighten, but the woman kept her voice steady.

“My father built the submersible.”

Mrs. Fitzpatrick met her husband’s cold eyes. “How… singular. Well, no doubt he had assistance. What are you waiting for, girl? I shall require the best seats.” She glanced around. “If such things exist.”

The pilot was showing remarkable restraint. If that had been her, Harriet considered, she probably would have punched Mrs. Fitzpatrick.

“Come on, Harry,” Bertrand urged. “Let’s grab these ones.” He slid into a seat beside a porthole. “We’ll get a good view from here.”

Harriet joined him. Water lapped against the thick glass. It was still dark outside, but Harriet thought she could just see the faint watercolor of dawn spreading on the far horizon. It would be darker still beneath the waves, and she wasn’t sure they would see anything. She obviously wasn’t the only one who had come to that conclusion. A couple of red-headed young men—brothers, perhaps?—had headed straight to the bar, ignoring the portholes entirely.

“This reminds me of that airship we went on,” Bertrand said. “At least we’re not trying to catch a thief this time, eh? All pleasure.” He eyed the ro-butler. “I wonder what’s for breakfast?”

As soon as everyone was seated, the pilot disappeared through a door at the front of the submersible and the automatic servants began to take orders. Shortly after, Harriet felt the submersible’s engines come to life. Water churned, and they pulled away from the dock. Below them, Harriet heard the rush of water entering the ballast tanks, and the submersible sank.

Moments later, powerful beams of light sprang from the submersible, slicing through the dark water. Photon-emission devices, Harriet thought immediately. Big ones. They couldn’t have come cheap, but then this whole venture had been prohibitively expensive. If the British-Martian Intelligence Service hadn’t paid for it, it would have cost Bertrand most of his year’s salary.

At the bar, one of the young men pulled out a newspaper. Harriet’s heart jumped as she saw it was a copy of the Tharsis Times. Was her contact really going to reveal himself here? She squinted. No. The headline was wrong. She’d memorized the right edition of the newspaper. The twelfth of April edition had news of a new manufactory for spring-powered automatic carriages that was to open on the edge of Tharsis City at the top of the front page, and below it a report of a Mars-ship that had somehow crashed into the Valles Marineris (thankfully without passengers aboard). This was yesterday’s newspaper, not the twelfth of April edition. Blast! Why was she so on edge?

She looked up and saw that the young man had noticed her watching. He was grinning, and as she met his gaze, he winked. Harriet looked away, furious and embarrassed, her face as hot as an oven.

Gasps went up from several of the other passengers by the portholes.

“Harry! Look at that!” Bertrand said.

Harriet peered out. At the range of the lights, a gigantic, shadowy shape slipped through the water. It was larger than the submersible, with long, limb-like fins, a tail like an enormous eel, and massive, elongated jaws. Someone screamed.

“No need to worry,” a voice said. Harriet glanced back to see the pilot had emerged from her door.

“What is it?” someone called.

“A mosasaurus. A large predator.”

“A predator?” Mrs. Fitzpatrick demanded. “Why do they allow predators?” Her husband’s eyes were fixed unwaveringly on the porthole. There was something very unsettling about that man, Harriet thought.

“It’s no danger to us,” the pilot said. “It eats plesiosaurs, squid, and sometimes even a small whale, but it has no interest in the submersible or the hotel buildings. I’ve been running trips down to the ruins for almost ten years with no incident.”

Mrs. Fitzpatrick sniffed. “I shall hold you personally responsible should we be attacked.”

“If we’re attacked by one of those,” the pilot said, one eyebrow lifting, “none of us will be around to blame anyone.”

Harriet hid a grin.

Mr. Edgeware, the father from the young family, spoke up before Mrs. Fitzpatrick could respond. “Do you believe that the ruins we are to visit were truly built underwater?”

This was too much for Mrs. Fitzpatrick. “What nonsense! It is clear that the ruins were built on land and that they later slipped into the water and were submerged. An earthquake, I expect. The Martian primitives clearly could not have constructed such sophisticated buildings beneath the water.” She shot a contemptuous glance at Mr. Edgeware. “I mean, look at the creatures. Most native Martians can scarcely speak a civilized tongue.”

These ‘primitives’, Harriet thought, had found their way from Earth to Mars thousands of years before the first British and Chinese explorers. They had built a civilization and developed technology that even the greatest mechanicians alive struggled to replicate. The civilization had collapsed almost two thousand years ago, but many of their artifacts remained in their ruins and in the hidden dragon tombs and were objects of great value.

The pilot shrugged. “The ruins show signs of having once been sealed against the pressure of the water.”

“Nonsense, girl. I’m sure your… type… find such things hard to grasp, but I have been to Vienna and Paris. There are wonders there you could scarcely comprehend.”

Wonders that had been built on the foundations of Ancient Martian technology, Harriet thought. She had visited the Great Wall of Cyclopia in the Martian wilderness. Vienna and Paris would both have been lost in its shadow.

If the pilot was bothered by Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s comments, she didn’t show it. She simply turned and disappeared back through the door to the control room, leaving the passengers to watch the water slide past their portholes.

“Well,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said loudly. “Well, really.”

It took nearly an hour for the submersible to make its way through the waters of the Valles Marineris to the sunken ruins, but eventually Harriet spotted them through her porthole.

“There!” she said, and crowded with Bertrand against the glass. A series of elegant domes rose from a wide underwater ridge. They had once been joined by sweeping hallways, but both the domes and the hallways had been shattered by time or some seismic force, opening them to the water. Still, in places the domes and arches remained, and Harriet could just make out the strange twisted patterns that covered their surfaces. Ancient Martian decorations tricked the eye, seeming to change from abstract, curving patterns to hints of scenes, then away again, but here, in the deep water, among shifting strands of seaweed and darting shoals of fish, the buildings themselves seemed to suddenly disappear, only to reappear again moments later. The sun had finally risen above the surface of the Valles Marineris. Faint light made the whole scene look ghostly.

The Louros Hotel was a squat, new building of white marble and reinforced glass constructed in the middle of the ruins. On one end, a glass and steel ballroom, looking like a bulky greenhouse, had been added to the hotel. The ballroom had only been finished in the last couple of months, and the ball was being held to celebrate its official opening. Harriet understood that the hotel could accommodate two hundred guests, and most would be crammed into that glass and steel bowl. It was a remarkable engineering achievement. Always assuming it didn’t collapse.

The submersible sank below the ridge and entered what Harriet at first assumed to be a cave. But then the submersible’s lights picked out more of the Ancient Martian carvings on the walls, and she realized it must have been a tunnel. Within a couple of minutes, they were rising toward bright lights.

The submersible broke the surface of an enclosed pool. Through the porthole, Harriet saw two other moored submersibles. A grand marble entrance led into the hotel. Water-filled pillars, alive with luminescent creatures, reached to the high ceiling, throwing fluid light in bright green, red, and blue across the walls.

Harriet and the other passengers disembarked, followed by the submersible’s automatic servants carrying the luggage.

“This is the life, eh, Harry?” Bertrand said. “You know”—he laughed—“I really thought they were sidelining me when they stuck me in the Extraordinary Investigations Department.” He threw out an arm, almost knocking one of the red-headed young men into the water. “But look at all this! They wouldn’t have sent me here if they were sidelining me, would they?”

Harriet kept her face still. Bertrand didn’t pick up on much, but he’d been right the first time.

“Let’s find our rooms, shall we?”

Humming, Bertrand led the way into the hotel foyer, where he came to an abrupt halt.

A short, stocky man with bristling sideburns and small eyeglasses had leapt up from his chair and was now striding toward Bertrand, his face furious.

“Sir William…” Bertrand managed.

Sir William Huntsworth, Harriet thought. Head of the Tharsis City Police Service.

“What a surprise,” Bertrand said. “I didn’t know you were coming, too.” He turned to Harriet, who was standing stock still in horror. “See, Harry—”

“Deputy Chief Inspector Simpson,” Sir William ground out. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“I don’t understand it, Harry.” Bertrand sat back on his bed, head in hands. “Why was Sir William surprised to see me? Why was he angry? I thought he’d sent me the invitation.”

Harriet gritted her teeth. Someone in the British-Martian Intelligence Service hadn’t done their research. They should have known Sir William would be here and prepared a different cover story. Or, worse, someone had known he would be here and decided on this story anyway. Someone who wanted to make it difficult. Someone like Reginald Pratt.

“I thought he thought I was doing well. You saw that piece in the Tharsis Times saying what a wonderful job I’d done with the Glass Phantom. Everyone was talking about it.”

Not only had Harriet read it, she had written it, anonymously, after they’d returned from the dinosaur hunt.

“All it means is that you’ve got another well-wisher. Isn’t it good that you have someone important on your side, even if you don’t know who they are?”

Bertrand let out a sigh and buried his hand in his thick, black hair, making even more of a mess of it. Harriet resisted the urge to pat it back down.

“I suppose,” Bertrand said. Then he brightened. Bertrand could never stay miserable for long. “Why don’t we take a poke around? I’ve never been anywhere like this before, and I dare say you haven’t either, even with that Lady Felchester of yours.”

They found a large drawing room with a steel-framed window looking out through the dim water to the silhouettes of the ruins. The glass was no thicker than Harriet’s knuckle. It’s safe. It has to be. The secret to this glass had been discovered among the artifacts of a dragon tomb, and she knew it was strong enough. Even so, it didn’t feel like it should support the pressure of so much water. A shoal of spiral-fish whirled past just outside, sliding through the water like glittering drill bits.

“I’m going to see if I can get us some tea,” Bertrand announced. “And, you know, some cakes or something.”

Harriet waved him off, entranced by the spectacle through the window. This was what she’d always dreamed of, seeing the wonders of Mars.

Light grew within one of the collapsed domes twenty or thirty feet beyond the window. At first Harriet thought it was a passing submersible or perhaps a strange sea creature, but then she saw a train of photon emission globes appear through a break in the wall to glide through the water toward the next set of ruins.

“They must be powered by some inertially-guided device to circulate around the hotel,” a voice said right at her shoulder. Harriet stiffened in surprise then glanced back to see Reginald Pratt standing far too close. He had noticed her twitch and was smirking.

“Well, obviously,” Harriet said, as witheringly as she could manage.

Reginald’s face dropped. He eyed her up and down. His gaze made her feel like she needed a wash.

“You scrub up… adequately.” He tipped his head to one side. “You’ll do, anyway. Probably won’t draw too many looks.” He faked surprise at her reaction. “What? That’s a good thing for a spy. You don’t want people noticing you.”

Harriet’s jaw tightened. The truth was, she didn’t much care what anyone else thought of her appearance. It was simply the sheer audacity of a man wearing two brightly colored waistcoats and a jacket covered in cogs and levers that sprung into motion whenever he moved to comment on her appearance.

A loud gasp made Harriet look past Reginald. Mrs. Fitzpatrick had entered the drawing room and was now striding toward them, her husband almost flowing after her.

“Have you no shame?” she demanded.

Harriet looked around, bewildered.

“Where is your guardian?”

“What? Bertrand?” Coming to think of it, where was Bertrand?

“You are unmarried, of course,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said. “It is true that you are unattractive, but with other accomplishments and a good dowry, that should not be insurmountable. However, you cannot afford to squander what reputation you might have by… conversing… with unmarried gentlemen.” She shot Reginald a piercing look.

Harriet cheeks reddened again. Why couldn’t she control that?

“I am in no hurry to marry, madam,” she said.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s eyes widened. “Well. Well. How very impertinent!”

Reginald offered a bow, but his smirk had found its way back to his face. “I shall leave you. Your guardian is returning.”

Bertrand had appeared at the door, accompanied by the Edgewares. The two young children raced to the window, not even slowing as they shot past an outraged Mrs. Fitzpatrick.

“I say, Harry,” Bertrand called. “Mr. and Mrs. Edgeware are taking a trip out in one of the smaller submersibles to explore the ruins. They’ve invited us along. What do you say?”

Harriet shot a longing look through the window at the enticing ruins. No. She had a mission, and the sooner she completed it, the better. “I fear we must prepare for the ball.”

Bertrand’s face crumpled into confusion.

“But that’s not until—”

“Oh, I quite understand,” Mrs. Edgeware said, cheerfully. “I’m told that it can take hours to prepare for one of these events. Come on, Colin,” she said to her husband. “Let’s see what we can spot!”

Harriet took Bertrand by the arm and led him from the drawing room.

“I don’t understand,” he said, plaintively. “Is it going to take you that long to get dressed? We’ve got all day. Do we at least have time for cakes?”

“I just want to take a look around. You know. See who’s here.”

“Oh.” Revelation spread over Bertrand’s face. “You want to see if you can spot Sir Lancelot Coverdale, too.”

Harriet blinked at her brother-in-law. “Who?”

“The famously handsome bachelor Mrs. Edgeware was talking about.”

“What? No.”

Bertrand kept grinning.

“For goodness sake!”

The hotel was already filling. Harriet and Bertrand passed several dozen couples as they strolled around. Harriet kept her eyes open for newspapers, but while several gentlemen were carrying them, none were from the right date, and Harriet began to wish Lady Felchester had chosen a more unique identifier for her contact. All part of the test.

After half an hour, Harriet relented and allowed Bertrand to guide her to another drawing room where he had discovered cakes.

He let out a sigh of relief. “I was starting to worry they would all be gone by the time we got here.”

Bertrand poured them tea, and Harriet was just helping herself to a thoughtful petit four when a scream sounded so clear and loud it almost made her drop her plate. The room suddenly went silent. Then everyone rushed for the door.

Harriet and Bertrand hurried after them. The screams, which had now quieted to hysterical, muffled sobs, were coming from a wide, marble atrium. A grand staircase rose to a balcony. A crowd had gathered at the foot of the stairs, around a sobbing maid in the uniform of the Louros Hotel. As Harriet shouldered her way through, she saw what the crowd was staring at.

A body lay at the bottom of the stairs, sprawled half on the stairs and half on the floor. It was a young man, also dressed in the hotel uniform.

Bertrand pushed past and knelt beside the body. There was blood spreading from beneath the young man’s head.

Keep calm, Harriet told herself. She’d been trained not to react, to take in everything around her. He had fallen, that much was obvious, away from the balcony, like he’d hit it at speed. How? Had he tripped?

Bertrand looked up and shook his head. The maid let out another tearing sob. Shocked murmurs came from the crowd.

“Did anyone see what happened?” Bertrand asked.

The maid gave a minute nod. “I… I was just walking along when… when… he almost hit me! He almost landed on me.”

“He fell?”

The maid nodded. She seemed to be having trouble breathing.

“We were there, too,” an elderly lady said, “just behind the girl.” Her husband nodded.

“Did any of you see anyone else? Anyone on the balcony?”

A shake of the head.

Harriet slipped out of the crowd and joined Bertrand beside the body.

“Here! What exactly are you doing, young lady?” someone in the crowd demanded.

“I’m a police inspector,” Bertrand said. “She’s with me.” He leaned close to Harriet. “What have you noticed?”

“Not sure.” She reached down and slid her hand under the body, suppressing the urge to shudder. There. She’d been right. Her fingers closed on paper, and she slowly drew it out, careful not to tear it.

It was a newspaper. With a feeling of growing dread, she turned it over. The Tharsis Times. On the front page were the headlines she memorized about the new manufactory and the Mars-ship crash. Inside, on page four, Harriet noticed a story about a scandal at Mrs. Parkinson’s birthday ball, whoever Mrs. Parkinson was. She recognized that story, too.

There was no doubt about it. This was the twelfth of April, 1816 edition.

This man was her contact, and he was dead.

“Make way, make way!” a loud voice bellowed. The crowd around the body parted to admit Sir William Huntsworth, Bertrand’s boss. “What have you done, Simpson?”

Bertrand looked up, startled.

“This man seems to have fallen from the balcony,” Harriet said when it was obvious that Bertrand wasn’t going to answer.

“Tripped and fell, did he?” Sir William said. “Saw him, did you?”

Harriet flushed. “Well, no.”

“Thought not. Chap’s been murdered. What do you have to say for yourself, Simpson?”

“Um…”

“Do something about it, man!”

“But…” Bertrand stared at the body. Harriet knew exactly how Bertrand’s mind worked. Right now, her brother-in-law was thinking Sir William wanted him to un-murder the victim. Unfortunately, it seemed Sir William knew how Bertrand’s mind worked, too.

“Find out who murdered him, idiot. Arrest them.”

Bertrand straightened. “Sir.”

Sir William turned away with a snort, bullying his way back through the crowd. Bertrand slumped and panic overtook his face.

“Harry…”

“It’s all right,” Harriet said. “You’ve solved a murder before, remember? And you found the Glass Phantom. No one else ever managed that.”

Of course it had been Harriet who had done both of those things, but now was not the time to remind him of it.

“Right. Right.” Bertrand’s breath slowed. “Um…”

“Start questioning people. Ask the hotel staff who he was. Maybe he had an argument with someone. I’m going to search for clues here. And you should probably get rid of this crowd. Give the man some dignity.”

“Excellent. Yes. Right.” He puffed out his breath. “Good.”

The moment Bertrand started to shepherd the guests and hotel staff away, Harriet knelt beside the body and ran her hands over the man’s jacket and trousers. All she knew was that he had a package for her. She didn’t know how big it was or what it contained.

The dead man had nothing in his pockets. Harriet ran her fingers over the seams of his clothing, then removed his shoes. Still nothing. She sat back on her heels. So. He’d either left the package elsewhere, or whoever had killed him had taken it. If that were the case, how had they known he was making contact with the British-Martian Intelligence Service? Had someone in the service leaked the information, or had her contact made a mistake and given himself away?

She looked over her shoulder and met the eyes of Reginald Pratt, Viscount Brotherton, her supervisor. He was smirking at her. She felt cold. Could he have done this just to make her fail? Could he have been in on it? Surely not. Even Reginald Pratt wouldn’t betray his country. Would he?

A straightforward mission. That was what Lady Felchester had said. She’d failed it already.

No. She’d never been one to give up. Her contact might be dead, but she could still retrieve the package. If the dead man had hidden it, she could discover it. If it had been taken, she could find out by whom and get it back. She wouldn’t be beaten like this. Not so easily and not so quickly.

“I’m going to look on the balcony,” Harriet said. “Search for clues.”

She stepped past the body, trying not to look into the man’s dead eyes, then made her way up the stairs.

The balcony was wide. A hallway stretched away to more bedrooms. Harriet made a mental note to find out which guests were in those rooms. In one corner, an immobile automatic servant stood awaiting orders from the guests.

“Shame you can’t be a witness,” Harriet muttered. But it was only a machine. A complicated one, but a machine nonetheless. It couldn’t remember what it had seen.

The balcony was higher than Harriet’s waist, almost up to her chest. There was no way the victim could just have fallen or slipped over. He must have been pushed, and by someone strong. And there. A scuff mark on the polished marble. Not something the staff would leave for long. From the victim or his assailant. But that just confirmed what she’d already guessed. Her contact had been murdered.

She joined Bertrand at the foot of the stairs.

One of the hotel footmen was covering the body in a blanket. Then, a couple of automatic servants carried it into a storeroom. The hotel manager, a Mr. Ellis, followed them in.

“His name’s James Strachan,” the manager said. “He’s not been with us a week. Recommended, though. Came to us from Lord Barton in Tharsis City, apparently.”

“Thank you,” Bertrand said. “We’ll want to talk to you later.” He indicated the door. “If you please?”

“Ah. Yes. At your convenience, of course.”

Bertrand and Harriet escorted the manager out. Harriet’s gaze lingered on the body. Should she have found him first, before he was killed? Would Lady Felchester have expected that? Would he still be alive if she had? Would she be dead instead? She shivered. She hadn’t expected any of this. A straightforward mission.

Bertrand closed the door, locked it, and pocketed the key.

“Did you notice his socks, Harry?” Bertrand said, as they made their way to the dining room where the guests had been gathered.

“His socks?” Harriet frowned. “I saw the initials. J.S. James Strachan. That doesn’t really tell us anything.”

“Not that.” He waved a hand dismissively. “The pattern.”

Harriet racked her brains. The pattern. Diamonds, hadn’t it been? With a green stripe. She hadn’t paid much attention other than to assure herself there was nothing hidden within.

“What about it?”

“They’re Queen Anne Academy socks. You know, the big school on the western edge of Tharsis City? Only Queen Anne boys or masters wear those socks.”

Harriet nodded, impressed despite herself. Why hadn’t she known that? It wasn’t important, but she still should have noticed. It was her job.

“It’s an expensive place.”

Bertrand nodded. “So why is a Queen Anne boy working as a footman in a hotel?”

That one was easy. It was a cover to get him close to her unnoticed so he could hand over the package. Only if she told Bertrand that, she would be betraying her role and her oath of secrecy.

“I shouldn’t bother about that,” Harriet said, trying to make her voice sound casual. “I don’t think it’s important. Let’s question people and leave it.”

Bertrand chewed his lip. “I… don’t think I will, Harry, if it’s all the same with you. This feels like a clue.” He grinned. “I am a police inspector, you know. We have a nose for these kinds of things. Maybe there’s someone else from his school here. There might be a motive there.”

Hell. Hellfire and damnation! Harriet was messing up his investigation. She should come clean. But she couldn’t. Where do your loyalties lie? With your family, the people who helped raise you? Or with the service? Or are you just being selfish, more interested in playing spy than helping your brother-in-law? She didn’t know the answer, but she knew she wasn’t sharing her secret. Not yet, anyway.

The next two hours saw Bertrand and Harriet interviewing the staff and guests as to their whereabouts at the time of the murder and their relationships with the victim. Harriet hadn’t realized there were so many people in the hotel, but fortunately, most were able to provide alibis. By the end, they were left with only a dozen people who were unaccounted for or only able to rely on family to confirm where they had been. Fortunately, most of the hotel was run by automatic servants, with human staff only being used to interact with the guests, so, with the exception of the hotel manager, all had alibis for when the death had occurred. Even the young maid who had seen James Strachan fall to his death had, of course, been in sight of an elderly couple at the time. Both the elderly couple and the maid had heard a strange, discordant whistling just before the event, but further questioning of the staff revealed that Strachan was prone to whistling terribly as he went about his work.

They were left with the Edgeware family; Colonel and Mrs. Fitzpatrick; the angry student from the train, whose name was Sebastian Davies and who was trying to write a monograph on the ruins; the exiled Comte d’Arcy, fled from Napoleon’s forces on Earth; guests the Reverend and Mrs. Asheville; the hotel manager, Mr. Ellis; and, satisfyingly for Harriet, Reginald Pratt, Viscount Brotherton.

At the end of it, Harriet was ready to leap out of her seat and go tearing around the hotel in frustration. None of them seemed to have a motive and all claimed to have been far from the incident. There was nothing to contradict their claims either.

Bertrand sat back, running his hand through his hair.

“This is all a bit of a pickle, Harry. I don’t see any of them pushing some chap over the railing. I mean, Colonel Fitzpatrick would be capable, but that’s not the way he’d do it. He’d call the fellow out and run a sword right through him. I hate this, Harry. Remind me why I wanted to become a policeman?” He sighed. “At least we can rule the Edgewares out. They’re hardly going to murder someone with a couple of children in tow. They wouldn’t do that. Children change you, Harry. They’re such a delight.” A wistful smile settled on his face.

“You don’t actually have any children yet, Bertrand,” Harriet reminded him.

“Oh, they’ll be lovely. Any child of Amy’s has to be a delight.”

Only because you didn’t know Amy when she was a child, Harriet thought. She was eight years younger than her sister, but she still remembered how sneaky Amy had been.

“We need to know more about our suspects,” Harriet said. “Why don’t you see if the hotel has any old newspapers? Go through them and see if any of our suspects are mentioned. We need to know if they are who they say they are, and if so, if they’re keeping any secrets. Get some background on them.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I think I should go and search Strachan’s room,” Harriet said. “There might be some clues.” And maybe Strachan had hidden the package he was supposed to deliver to her there.

The staff accommodation was set at the back of the hotel. Here the elaborate photon-emission chandeliers were replaced by hand-wound friction-lamps and there were no windows onto the depths of the Valles Marineris. Harriet was relieved to see that they weren’t using gas lamps like many houses still did. A buildup of gas or a failure of the air supply… Just thinking about it made her chest feel tight. And that made her wonder how many millions of tons of water were pressing down on this structure of stone, steel, and glass.

The hotel has been operating for two years. It’s not going to fail now.

“What the devil are you doing here?”

Harriet’s head jerked up. Sir William was striding down the hallway toward her.

“Um… Deputy Chief Inspector Simpson asked me to examine the victim’s room.”

Sir William narrowed his eyes. “Are you a police officer?”

“No, but—”

“Simpson should do it himself. What’s wrong with the man?”

“He’s interviewing suspects and he doesn’t want to waste time.” Harriet tilted her head, as though an idea had just occurred to her. “Perhaps you could assist? You are a policeman.”

Sir William stepped back as though slapped. “I? I am the head of the Tharsis City Police Service. I am here to represent Tharsis City, not to… to solve crimes.” He stomped past her, shaking his head.

Harriet let a small smile touch her lips as she continued down the hallway. Pompous idiot.

The manager had given her a key to Strachan’s room, but the door was unlocked. She pushed it open.

Someone had been there already. The mattress had been tipped off the bed and slit down the side, its stuffing pulled free in handfuls. The small wardrobe had been flung open, emptied, and tipped on its side. Strachan’s trunk had been upturned and the base smashed in. Even the washstand and the chamber pot had been broken.

Hell! She’d been right, then. Someone knew about Strachan and the packet. Had they searched and, not finding it, murdered him? Or had they killed him first and then come here? And, she thought, looking over her shoulder, did they know about her?

There was no package in the room. Harriet leafed through Strachan’s papers. A couple of letters from a friend in Tharsis City and what seemed like a not very good poem. She pocketed them. Strachan’s information could be written in code. Still, they weren’t exactly a package. After a moment’s hesitation, Harriet gathered up all the blank paper, too. There were a dozen ways of passing invisible messages, and she didn’t have the equipment here to check. She cursed herself again. She should have been better prepared. Just because a mission seemed straightforward, that didn’t mean it was. That had been one of her first lessons after she’d joined the service. Lessons and Tharsis City seemed a long way away.

There was an auto-scribe on the small desk. Its speaking tube was lowered and the pen raised from its pad. Harriet frowned. Not something a hotel would provide for its staff, nor something a footman could afford, but something most gentlemen would own. Careless of Strachan to give himself away like that.

Harriet lowered the pen arm, opened the lid of the auto-scribe, remove the coiled spring, and carefully wound the mechanism backward. It was a useful trick. Often it would cause the last few dictated words to be rewritten. But not this time. The machine had been reset.

Strachan’s clothes were scattered across the floor. Harriet quickly checked them over. There was a fine red dust caught in the cuffs of his shirt, and the clothes were very lightweight. The manager had said Strachan had come here from Tharsis City, but even with the Spring warmth, it was too early in the year for clothes like this in Tharsis. The red dust spoke more of the Lunae Planum, the great desert to the north of British Mars. So, he’d come from the desert—probably Lunae City—to bring his information. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

She let herself out and locked the room behind her. Maybe Bertrand had picked something up, someone who had seen something, someone who had gotten to know Strachan while he worked here.

Two swift footsteps sounded behind her. Harriet spun, but too late. A blanket fell over her head, then was pulled tight. Someone kicked her legs away from under her.

She twisted as she fell, landing on her back with a thump that jarred her teeth. A weight landed on her, pinning her down.

“Where’s the package?” a voice hissed, muffled by the blanket.

Two of them. One holding the blanket over her head. The other sitting on her, hands searching her jacket. Even though she wanted to scream at the violation, Harriet forced herself to keep calm, keep still, listen to the breathing, visualize him. He was just above her. There.

She cupped her hands and brought them up, clapping as hard as she could over his ears.

The man screamed. He jerked back, and Harriet used his loss of balance to hook an arm around his neck and topple him to the side.

“Hey!” the second man shouted. He tugged on the tightened blanket. Harriet went with the momentum, rolling and sending a vicious kick toward her assailant. He let go of the blanket as he fell back.

Harriet struggled to her feet, pulling the blanket free. She shook her hair from her eyes just in time to see two figures disappearing around the corner. One was still clutching his ears, the other was limping. She watched them go.

Damnation. They didn’t have the package either, but somehow they’d identified her. Surely she hadn’t been so obvious, had she? Maybe they’d just been watching Strachan’s room. If not, her cover had been leaked, and that was a disaster. She could see Lady Felchester’s face even now. Contact dead, failed to retrieve package, cover blown…

The package hadn’t been on Strachan’s body and it wasn’t in his room. Where else? Where did he go? Where did he work? It had to be somewhere it wouldn’t be discovered.

Nursing her bruises, Harriet limped back to the dining room where she and Bertrand had questioned the guests and staff.

The room was in chaos. Bertrand stood on a chair at one end of the room, waving his arms wildly. A great crowd milled around the room, filling almost every inch, seemingly focused on something happening near a big glass window. Harriet elbowed her way over to Bertrand.

“What’s going on?”

Bertrand peered down at her. His hair was sticking in every direction and his cravat hung loose.

“Oh. There you are. Sir Lancelot Coverdale has arrived.” He offered Harriet a hand and pulled her up onto the chair next to him. Harriet saw that the crowd had gathered around a tall, blond–haired man who stood framed by the window. “He says he’s going to solve the murder.”

Harriet’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, is he?” She looked at Bertrand. “Did you find anything out from the newspapers?”

Bertrand groaned. “There are tons of them. I don’t think this hotel ever throws anything away. I did find out that Emily used to be an opera singer.”

“Who?”

“Emily. The maid who found the body. A very good one, apparently. Good singer, that is, not good dead body. Ah. If you see what I mean. Her father was a mechanician’s assistant, so it was quite a story when she made it to the opera. And everyone says there’s something terribly scandalous about the Comte d’Arcy, but no one knows what it is.”

“Anything helpful?”

Bertrand looked pained. “I still think the socks are important.”

“They’re not.”

“You don’t really think Sir Lancelot will solve the murder first, do you? The newspapers say he never fails anything he sets his mind to.”

“Not if I have anything to do with it.”

“I hope not. Oh, yes. Did you know the Edgewares had been to the Great Wall of Cyclopia, just like us? That wasn’t in the newspapers. I asked them questions and they just told me. Isn’t that a coincidence? The trip, not the telling. Old man Edgeware really must love his ruins, eh?”

Now that was interesting. Ancient Martian artifacts could still be found deep in the Great Wall, and the smuggling gang Harriet was after specialized in such artifacts. Maybe it was a coincidence, but too many coincidences generally turned out to be anything but.

“You know,” Bertrand said. “I think I’m going to find out what operas Emily sang in before she became a maid.”

Harriet fixed her brother-in-law with the baleful look. “You’d better not be getting any inappropriate ideas about Emily.”

Bertrand’s jaw dropped. “I would never betray Amy! You know I wouldn’t.”

She did know that. Occasionally, when she’d been younger, Harriet had found Bertrand’s loyalty to her sister a little annoying. The idea he would let Amy down was absurd. You’re just anxious. You’re letting your nerves get the better of you. She wasn’t used to feeling so helpless and lost.

It’s not just you who needs this, she reminded herself. Bertrand and Amy and their baby needed this murder to be solved quickly. If Sir Lancelot really did find the murderer first, it would give Sir William an excuse to dismiss Bertrand. I won’t let that happen.

“Fine,” she said. “But I don’t see what relevance operas have. Emily has an alibi, remember?” There was nothing to connect her to the smuggling ring, and neither of the people who had attacked Harriet had been female, although of course Bertrand didn’t know that.

Bertrand’s face fell. “I know. I just…” He spread his hands helplessly. “I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know what to ask. None of them seem like murderers.”

“Find out about the Edgewares. Mr. Edgeware, in particular. See if he has any connections to any of the other men here or any connections to Lunae City. And keep going with the newspapers.”

“But the Edgewares have children!”

“I know,” Harriet said grimly.

Some strange sense made the back of her neck prickle. She scanned the room. Most of the guests were craning toward Sir Lancelot. But one man wasn’t. Colonel Fitzpatrick had his blank gaze fixed firmly on Harriet, and he didn’t let it fall, even when she stared right back.

The truth, Harriet thought as she strode down the corridor toward the hotel manager’s office, was that she was a drowning woman clutching at straws, and that wasn’t a comforting metaphor in a hotel beneath millions of tons of water. What she knew for sure she could count on the fingers of a closed fist. She was left with suspicion, coincidence, and guesswork, and it wasn’t good enough. Her contact was dead, and there was nothing she could do about that, but if she could retrieve the package, they might at least be a step closer to bringing down the smuggling ring.

The manager had been drinking when Harriet pushed into his office. Fading friction lamps threw heavy shadows from stacks of ledgers and a wilted parlor palm. A window in the ceiling let in faint sunlight, filtered by the deep water, to illuminate the room, but it only served to make the man inside look even more green and unhealthy. A cactus-dog watched mournfully from its burrow in a terrarium in one corner, its red spikes drooping.

“It’s a bloody disaster,” the manager slurred as he looked up and saw Harriet. “A dead body, a police investigation. This is supposed to be the Louros Hotel’s big triumph. I’ve got half the journalists on British Mars coming along to report it. I’m finished.”

The man hadn’t stood when she’d entered, so Harriet didn’t wait on propriety either. She pulled out a chair and sat opposite.

“Do your staff have any storage areas apart from their rooms? A desk somewhere, perhaps?”

The manager was already shaking his head. “My secretary has a desk, of course, and there’s the front desk. Strachan worked there sometimes.”

Too public. If Strachan had hidden the package there, another member of staff might have found it.

“Anywhere else in the hotel Strachan might have gone?”

The manager heaved himself up, reached for his glass, then finding it empty, set it back down.

“There’s a kitchen. The staff eats there. And a staff drawing room he could use when off duty. Mr. Heathcote, our butler, supervises the footmen. He’d know more about it.”

“I’ll need to see it.” Maybe there would be hiding places there. “How about air vents?”

The manager blinked.

“Could he access them?”

“They’re sealed.” The manager wobbled his head toward the grill above him. It was flush with the wall and fixed in. There were no screws or bolts, and Harriet didn’t think she could lever it off. “What’s the point of this? He’s dead. I’m done.”

You’re not the only one, Harriet thought, if I don’t find that package.

“How about maintenance?”

The manager cast a look at his glass. “They access it through the pump room. Only I have a key. I sign them in and sign them out again, whatever the time of day or night. Not that it matters any more. The whole place is probably done.”

The manager’s eyes were now firmly fixed on his glass and his voice trailed away. Harriet wasn’t going to get anything more out of him.

“The kitchens and the staff drawing room?”

He waved a loose hand. “Ask Heathcote. Front desk, I expect. Now leave me alone. Didn’t know the fellow. Nobody did. Didn’t like him, didn’t hate him, didn’t know anything about him at all.”

When Harriet reached the foyer, Reginald was leaning against the tall clock, grinning. He caught her eye, then glanced up at the clock, shaking his head.

Harriet bit the inside of her cheek. Hell. He was probably composing his report in his mind right now, finding some way of blaming the whole fiasco on her and putting himself in the clear.

A sudden thought hit her. Had he already retrieved the package? If so, he wouldn’t tell her. He’d let her flail around and then produce it triumphantly. Reginald Pratt, Viscount Brotherton, here to save the day. She felt physically sick.

The kitchens were hopeless, as was the staff drawing room. The kitchens were fiercely occupied by the cook, Mrs. Blake, and her army of maids and automatic servants. There was nowhere to hide a package that wouldn’t be spotted before the day was out, and Mrs. Blake insisted the kitchens were never left unattended. The drawing room was small and quickly searched.

The murderer had to have been one of the people without alibis. Harriet could rule out the Edgewares’ little children, and probably Mrs. Edgeware, too. That left Mr. Edgeware; Colonel and Mrs. Fitzpatrick; the student, Sebastian Davies; the Comte d’Arcy; Reverend and Mrs. Asheville; the hotel manager, Mr. Ellis; and of course, Reginald. One of them, at least, was a murderer and an agent of the smuggling ring. But which one? She had too many suspects.

Bertrand wasn’t in the dining room, but he was in his bedroom, sitting at the desk, piles of newspapers scattered around him.

“Harriet! There you are!” He sat back in the chair and ran his hand through his hair. “Tell me you found out who the murderer was and I can stop reading these blasted newspapers.”

“Sorry.”

“Ah, well. Didn’t think I would be so lucky.” He gestured to a smaller pile of newspapers on the bed. “These are the ones that mentioned our suspects. There’s one or two things you might find interesting. I’ve marked the places.”

Harriet settled on the bed and opened the first of the newspapers. “Anything else interesting?”

“Oh. Yes. There was something.”

“Well?”

“Reverend and Mrs. Ashville went to the opera. They told me.”

“Um… That’s wonderful for them. How exactly does it help us?”

Bertrand’s brow furrowed. “They saw Emily perform. You know, before she came here to be a maid.”

Harriet suppressed a sigh. “I thought you were going to find out about the Edgewares.”

“I did, and you were right. They have been to Lunae City. Mr. Edgeware took the family to visit the ruins on the Martian Nile. They’ve been all over the place. And they’re not the only ones. That student is an archaeologist. And Colonel Fitzpatrick once led an expedition searching for an undiscovered dragon tomb, although he didn’t find it, so I guess it’s still undiscovered.”

Which would place all three of them in the Lunae Planum at one point to another. The same place that Strachan had come from. It didn’t prove anything, of course, and it certainly didn’t prove no one else had been to Lunae City, but it was somewhere to start.

“You don’t happen to have the twelfth of April edition of the Tharsis Times, do you?”

Bertrand shifted through the piles. “Why? Here you are.”

“It’s the paper our victim was carrying when he died.”

She had taken a look at the paper after she had pulled it from under Strachan’s body, in case there was anything hidden inside, but now she read it more closely. Why had Strachan chosen this issue in particular? Just because it was old so no one else would be carrying it? There was nothing in it about any of their suspects or any other guests. But then Strachan could hardly know he would be murdered. She was missing something, she knew she was. It itched at her.

“Must have brought his own copy,” Bertrand said. “Bit strange. It’s over a month old. Anything about him in it, maybe?”

Harriet shook her head. “Just Mrs. Parker and her blasted birthday ball scandal.”

“Who?”

“No one.” She tossed it onto the bed.

“Voi Che Sapete.”

“What?” Harriet wondered if her brother-in-law had finally gone mad.

“Cherubino. You know, in The Marriage of Figaro. That’s the part Emily sang. That was her aria. Dee dum dee-dee-dee-dee. You must know it. Reverend Asheville said she was very good. Quite convincing in trousers.”

“I literally have no idea what you’re talking about, Bertrand,” Harriet said, turning back to the newspapers.

But when she finished them, she looked up, smiling. “This is very interesting. You know, Bertrand, I think it’s time we had another word with our suspects.”

Half an hour later, the suspects were gathered in the large drawing room, along with the maid, Emily, and the elderly couple who had all seen Strachan fall to his death.

“Well?” Sir William demanded, as an automatic servant moved around in a whirr of cogs, serving tea. “Found out who did it, Simpson?”

Bertrand grimaced. “Just have to ask some questions, sir.”

Sir William shook his head. “How hard can this be? Fellow was pushed. Not many suspects. I expect my policemen to be able to solve cases like this. I will not have you interfere with people’s preparations for the ball.”

“Maybe after…”

Sir William’s glare hardened. “After the ball, guests will be free to leave. There are important people here, Simpson. I’ll not damage the force’s reputation because of your incompetence, you hear me?”

“It’ll be all right,” Harriet whispered to Bertrand as Sir William turned away. She hoped so, anyway. She could feel the pressure squeezing down on her like the water above the hotel. One mistake, one crack, and everything would collapse: Bertrand’s career, her hopes of becoming a spy, and her soon-to-be niece’s or nephew’s future.

The door to the drawing room burst open with such vigor that Harriet almost expected to hear trumpets. In strode Sir Lancelot, blond hair swept back as though by a strong wind.

“I,” Sir Lancelot announced, “will be joining you.” He winked at Harriet. Harriet resisted the urge to punch him. See, Amy. I am growing up. Maybe later, when no one was watching.

“Ah…” Bertrand cleared his throat. “I’m not sure that would be appropriate. Police matters, you see…”

“Nonsense,” Sir William called from the back of the room, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Let the fellow help. He, at least, might have a chance of actually solving the case.”

“Why don’t we start with Emily?” Harriet said, quickly.

The maid started. “Me?”

“If you don’t mind.”

The maid’s face turned as red as a sunset as everyone faced her. Strange, Harriet thought, for someone who had made her living as an opera singer. But then maybe it was different when you were on stage, lights blinding you to the audience. And Emily had given up her life as a star of the stage to work as a lowly maid. Maybe she didn’t like the attention.

“You said you saw Mr. Strachan fall from the balcony?”

The maid nodded mutely.

“But you didn’t see anyone up there.”

“No.” She bit her lip. “I… I didn’t think to look up at first. I was too… too shocked.” She seemed, Harriet thought, to be about to burst into tears, and if she did, that would be the end of the questioning. Bertrand was useless in front of a crying girl. To her shame, Harriet had tried it once when she’d been twelve. It had gotten her out of trouble, but she had never done it again. That wasn’t the kind of person she wanted to be.

“You knew him, though?”

Emily looked down at her hands. “A bit, if it please you. He’d only been here a week. The maids don’t fraternize with the footmen, of course. He seemed… pleasant enough. He never gave me cause to avoid him.”

“And you say you heard him whistling just before he fell?”

“Oh, really!” Mrs. Fitzpatrick pronounced, turning her gaze toward the hotel manager. “What disgraceful standards. I had been led to believe that the Louros was a respectable institution. Whistling, indeed!”

The manager, who was staring blankly into the air, didn’t respond.

“It was… It was how I knew it was James before I saw his face. We all knew how terribly he whistled.”

“And you saw no one upstairs? On the stairs? Descending?”

She shook her head.

“Thank you, Emily.” Bertrand turned to the elderly couple. “Mr. and Mrs. Compton, isn’t it? Did you see anything more?”

The old man shook his head. “We were some yards behind the young lady. But it is as she said. The whistling. The… falling man. I heard him cry out before he hit.”

Alive when he fell, then.

Bertrand peered at the waiting guests. “I, ah, have invited all of you here because, other than by word of members of your own families, we have not been able to confirm your whereabouts at the time of the murder. I hasten to add that this does not make you suspects. Merely that we need to eliminate you from our enquiries as quickly as possible. If it is all right, we have a few questions for each of you. Shall we start with the Comte d’Arcy?”

The Comte didn’t respond.

“Comte?”

Still nothing.

Bertrand raised his voice and waved at the Comte. “Comte? Sir?”

The Comte started. “I beg your pardon?”

“Are you having trouble with your hearing?” Harriet asked loudly.

The Comte shifted his gaze to her. “The pressure of the water. I have always suffered from problems when the pressure rises or falls too far. I endure.”

Of course you have, Harriet thought. The Comte was in his late thirties, Harriet guessed, and fit with it. The right height, too. She remembered cupping her hands and clapping them across her unseen attacker’s ears. Hard enough to burst an eardrum.

“May we ask you some questions?” Bertrand said.

The Comte inclined his head.

“Could you tell us what you are doing here?”

The Comte sighed. “It is a Society event,” he said in scarcely accented English. “One feels obliged to lend one’s presence. It is a bore, but we all have obligations.”

Bertrand shuffled awkwardly. “And did you know the victim?”

“I understand the fellow was a servant. How would I know him?”

Bertrand consulted his notes. “He was previously a footman to Lord Barton. Did you ever visit Lord Barton’s house?”

The Comte shrugged. “It is possible. I could not be expected to notice the servants. I pay no heed to such class of person.” His eyelids slid half closed, as though he were too bored to continue. “I expect I shall have forgotten you, too, by tomorrow. Diverting though this is.”

Harriet’s hackles rose. Slow breaths.

“I’m sorry to hear about your ears, Comte.” She smiled sweetly. She’d been practicing that smile and it was now almost convincing. “I would hate to cause you further pain, but I have one more question. I have been reading about you in the papers. You have made a trip to Earth for each of the last four years.”

“I maintain a house in London. My estates in France have been lost to the monster Napoleon, and London is not what it was, but still. One must respect one’s duties.”

“That must be expensive.”

The Comte turned his head away. “I would not know.”

“The papers say you always travel with dozens of large boxes.”

“Harry,” Bertrand whispered, “I don’t see…”

Harriet silenced him with a raised hand.

“My furniture,” the Comte said. “It has been in my family for generations. I would not be without it.”

Convenient. Harriet could not imagine the furniture would be searched. It would be a easy way to smuggle valuable Ancient Martian artifacts, and a profitable one, too. Certainly enough to keep him in his trans-planetary lifestyle.

“Where were you when James Strachan died?”

“In my rooms, preparing for the ball. As I should be now.”

“And yet your man wasn’t with you,” Bertrand said.

“I sent him to press my jacket. It had become creased during the journey.”

“That’s true,” Bertrand told Harriet. “His man was witnessed by two of the footmen.” He raised his voice. “Thank you, Comte.”

The man lifted his chin and looked away again. Bertrand peered at the other guests. Harriet could see the desperation on his face.

Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who noticed. Reginald Pratt pushed himself away from the wall, smirking. “This is going well. Let me help you out. I came because I was invited. I have never met your victim. I have no interest in killing servants. I have no proof of any of that and no alibi. Is that helpful?” He swept his arm around the room. “I would put a few pounds on everyone here giving you the same answer. Only”—he placed a thoughtful finger on his chin—“I don’t suppose your family have a few pounds to wager.” He let out a bellow of a laugh.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick straightened. “I see nothing amusing in this situation, sir. It is an inconvenience and an unwelcome one.”

“Then, ah, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, might I ask what you and your husband are doing at the Louros Hotel?” Bertrand said.

“My husband is a famous man. He was invited. We did not know the poor young man who died. I do not know why we are suspects. My husband is not in the habit of killing people.”

Bertrand almost choked. Harriet nudged him.

“I beg your pardon,” Bertrand said. “Bit of a frog, you know?”

“We were in our room the entire time,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said.

Sir Lancelot leapt forward so quickly Mrs. Fitzpatrick almost fell off her chair.

“Why should we believe you? How do we know you are not lying?”

Colonel Fitzpatrick’s eyes hardened. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. But it was as though the massed guns of Napoleon’s mechanized divisions had turned as one towards Sir Lancelot. Sir Lancelot paled. He took a step back and cleared his throat.

“Perhaps we should move on?”

“You’ve travelled to the Lunae Planum?” Harriet said.

Colonel Fitzpatrick nodded slowly. “What is the relevance of that, young lady?”

“We’re simply trying to establish information. I hear you were looking for a dragon tomb.”

“I obtained a map showing the location of an undiscovered tomb, but we were unable to locate it.”

“What exactly is the point of this line of questioning?” Sir William said. “We are investigating a murder, not discussing tours of Mars.”

Bertrand shot Harriet a pleading look. The point, Harriet thought, was that Colonel Fitzpatrick could easily have made contact with the smuggling gang in Lunae City, but she could think of no easy way to ask the question.

“Perhaps we should turn to Mr. and Mrs. Edgeware,” Bertrand said. “They have visited Lunae City, too, I believe. Perhaps, Mr. and Mrs. Edgeware, you could tell us the purpose of your visit here? You mentioned an interest in the ruins?”

“Oh yes. My husband has a great enthusiasm for anything Ancient Martian, don’t you, my dear?”

“Their civilization was astonishing,” Mr. Edgeware said.

Mrs. Fitzpatrick snorted in a most unladylike manner.

“My husband was lucky enough to come into an inheritance,” Mrs. Edgeware said. “His aunt, God rest her soul. We decided to spend it visiting all of the great ruins on Mars.”

Harriet made a mental note to check the newspapers for any reports of such a death and inheritance.

“About our victim,” Bertrand said. “Did you meet him?”

Mrs. Edgeware nodded. “I think so. Do you remember, Colin? We couldn’t find our room, and the young man showed us the way.”

“Did he seem nervous?” Harriet said. “Agitated?”

Mrs. Edgeware shook her head.

Bertrand leaned forward. “Was he whistling?”

Harriet closed her eyes. What was this obsession Bertrand had with the whistling?

Mrs. Edgeware gave Harriet a confused look. “Yes. Well, he stopped when we approached him, but he did whistle. Not terribly well.”

Bertrand gave Harriet a meaningful look. “See? I told you.”

Harriet shook her head. “Where were you at the time of the murder?”

“In our room, preparing for our voyage in the submersible to visit the ruins. Colin has been excited for weeks.”

“And you were together?”

“Yes, of course. With the children. Oh. Colin did pop out for a few minutes. We weren’t sure where the submersible would depart from. Colin went to check. But it was only a few minutes.”

So. Mr. Edgeware did have the opportunity to push James Strachan off the balcony. But why would he? Why would anyone?

“Reverend and Mrs. Asheville?” Bertrand said.

The reverend shook his head. “I do not think we have anything helpful, I am afraid. We did not meet the young man, and we certainly would not have wished him harm.”

Bertrand threw Harry a glance. She shrugged. The reverend was clearly frail, and his wife even more so. Certainly neither of them had attacked her, and she doubted that even the two of them together could have pushed a fit young man over the balcony.

“Which brings us to you, Mr. Davies,” Bertrand said. “What is the purpose of your visit?”

The student blinked. “I was awarded a grant by Tharsis University to study the ruins. I have some theories about their construction and use. You wouldn’t understand them. And, no, I never met the chap.”

Bertrand cocked his head to one side. “Are you sure?”

“I think I’d know, don’t you?”

“How old are you, Mr. Davies?”

The student looked around, confused. “Twenty-three. I don’t understand the relevance, sir.”

“Mr. Ellis?” The hotel manager looked up with a start. “Mr. Ellis, how old was James Strachan?”

The hotel manager blinked. “Ah… Twenty-two, I believe.”

“Not much to build your case on, Simpson,” Sir William said loudly. “I expect better than that.”

Bertrand reddened, but he kept his eyes fixed on Mr. Davies. “It is peculiar, though. You see, I read an article in the Tharsis Times on your work. They were very impressed by your theories for one so young. A future star of the University, they said.”

“So?” Mr. Davies shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“So they included a brief biography of you. In it, I read that you had once attended Queen Anne’s Academy. Just like James Strachan. You would have been in the same year as Mr. Strachan, or a year above him. I find it hard to believe that you never met him or that you didn’t recognize him.”

Mr. Davies’s eyes flicked from side to side. Then he slumped back. “Oh, very well. Yes, I knew him. So what?”

“So you lied. Why?”

The student glared. “I had forgotten him, all right? I left Queen Anne’s six years ago.”

Bertrand looked at him askance. “No. That’s not it. The way you talk about him. That’s not the way you would talk about someone you’d forgotten. You resent him.”

The student’s lips tightened, but he didn’t respond.

“Come, now. I can arrest you and haul you back to Tharsis City. We’ll get to the truth there.”

Harriet gritted her teeth. This was wrong. Whatever had passed between Davies and Strachan when they’d been at school was neither here nor there. Strachan had been killed for the package he was carrying. But she couldn’t question him on that without letting her cover slip.

The student let out a sound of frustration. “Fine! But I didn’t kill Strachan. I didn’t even know he was here.”

“We saw you on the train,” Harriet said. “You looked furious.”

“I was reading Braithwaite’s idiotic theories on Fourth Age Ancient Martian culture. You’d be furious, too.”

“What happened between you and Strachan?” Bertrand pressed.

“He had me thrown out of school, that’s what. It was at the beginning of our final year and there was this girl I liked at school, a maid. Strachan took a fancy to her as well. He told our House Master that I’d stolen a watch from one of the other masters, and he planted it under my mattress. I was kicked out immediately, and all so he could have a free run at the maid.”

“That sounds like a motive to me,” Harriet said.

Davies shook his head disdainfully. “It was six years ago, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. My father employed a tutor who was a student of archaeology at Tharsis University. He taught me more on the subject than I would have learned in a lifetime at Queen Anne’s. Under his instruction, I was able to get a place at the University, and I have already made a name for myself in the field of Ancient Martian history. Strachan? It appears he was reduced to a footman. Why would I resent him?”

Resentment could be like coals in a hearth, still burning hot under the cold ashes. When he saw Strachan again after all that time… But it wasn’t proof. It wasn’t even evidence. And it had nothing to do with the smuggling ring.

Sir Lancelot must have thought that the attention had been directed away from him for too long. He strode into the middle of the floor and towered over Mr. Davies.

“I have just one question.”

Mr. Davies shrugged.

“That maid you were interested in. Was it…” He swung around with the dramatic gesture, flinging out a hand. “…Emily?”

“What? No. Her name was Sarah Mason. She didn’t look anything like this girl.”

Sir Lancelot stood frozen, arm held out, for a moment. Then he stepped back. “Just what I thought.”

Reginald Pratt pried himself away from the wall. Harriet didn’t think she’d ever seen his smirk look so malicious.

“How about you, Miss George? Where were you when the murder occurred? From what I’ve heard, you were alone with your… brother-in-law.” He managed to fill the term with unpleasant insinuation. “It seems others may fall under suspicion by virtue of only receiving alibis from their families. By my money, that makes you and Mr. Simpson just as likely suspects.”

Bertrand’s jaw dropped and he turned a stricken look on Harriet.

Harriet was not fazed. “There were a dozen witnesses in the room with us when we heard the scream. Now, may we continue the questioning?”

But Sir Lancelot wasn’t done with the limelight.

“There is no need,” he proclaimed. “For I have identified the murderer.”

A murmur of excitement went around the room. The gathered suspects exchanged glances.

“Exactly as I expected,” Sir William said, sending a satisfied look toward Bertrand.

Harriet surveyed the faces in the room. No one looked nervous. The murderer must be a good actor to hold his nerve. Or maybe he felt confident nothing could be proven.

“The murderer,” Sir Lancelot said, turning slowly, “is… you!” His finger shot toward the hotel manager.

The man blinked blearily. “Me?”

“Yes. James Strachan was stealing from the hotel. You didn’t dare expose him, because that would damage your reputation and the hotel’s reputation. So, you saw your opportunity and you murdered him instead.”

Sir William leaped out of his chair. “You dastardly fiend! Simpson, arrest this man immediately!”

“But it couldn’t have been me,” the manager spluttered. “I was in my office the whole time.”

“No one was with you,” sneered Sir Lancelot. “You could have snuck out, murdered poor Strachan, and returned, leaving no one the wiser.”

The manager was already shaking his head. “No, I couldn’t. The only way I could get from my office to where Mr. Strachan died was to pass through the main foyer. The front desk is always staffed. I could not pass through unwitnessed. You may feel free to test the route yourself.”

“Oh.” Sir Lancelot slumped. “Well, then… I knew that! It was a ruse. I—”

Sir William cut him off. “I’ve had enough of this. Simpson, who is the murderer? I demand you tell me immediately. You have inconvenienced everyone far too greatly.”

Bertrand stared. His mouth moved soundlessly.

It was too soon. Harriet’s fingernails bit into her palms. She had suspects, theories, but no proof and she didn’t know.

“Well?” A cruel smile had worked its way onto Sir William’s face.

Bertrand shuddered, as though he had been stung by an electric wasp. Then his eyes blinked, once, slowly.

“I need ten minutes. Just ten minutes. If everyone would wait here…” He turned and raced for the door.

Hell! He was fleeing. Harriet didn’t blame him. He’d seen the end of his career staring him in the face, and he’d run. Harriet wanted to charge after him, but a dragging lethargy had settled on her, like she was trying to support the entire weight of the Valles Marineris on her back.

She had missed something. She knew she had. Something had been staring her in the face. But what?

Mr. Edgeware, Colonel Fitzpatrick, and Mr. Davies all had links to the Lunae Planum from where the unfortunate Mr. Strachan had travelled. Reginald Pratt knew how to identify her contact. The Comte had every opportunity to smuggle goods to Earth, and he was struggling to hear. One of them had to have killed Strachan. Maybe more than one of them. But which, and how could she prove it?

The guests were becoming increasingly impatient, and still there was no sign of Bertrand. What if he really had made a run for it? Would he climb into one of the submersibles and head back to shore without her?

“This is absurd,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said. “How long must we remain here? I have already been inconvenienced enough.”

Colonel Fitzpatrick rose smoothly from his chair. He turned his cold gaze on Sir William. “We are leaving. I trust you will not attempt to stop us.”

He and Mrs. Fitzpatrick made their way to the door. The other guests rose to follow.

Come on, Bertrand. Where was he?

The door opened in front of the colonel. Bertrand hurried into the room, followed by an automatic servant carrying a large box. Bertrand looked flustered, but he smiled at the guests.

“I am so sorry to have kept you waiting. If I could beg your indulgence for just a moment more…”

“It may have escaped your notice, young man, but the ball begins in only three hours,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said. She looked him up and down. “There may be little you can do to prepare, but I have a position to maintain and I will not shame my husband.”

“Just a minute, I promise.”

Reluctantly, the guests made their way back to their seats.

“Well?” Sir William said. “Are you ready to end this façade, Simpson?”

“I believe I have discovered the murderer, sir,” Bertrand said. He glanced at the automatic servant. “Command: place the box on this table.” The automatic servant complied.

Harriet stared at her brother-in-law. This was going to be a disaster. Bertrand knew nothing about the package or the smuggling ring. Without that knowledge, he had no hope of uncovering the murderer. He was going to make a fool of himself. It would end his career.

Think, Harriet. Think! What had she missed? Who had killed James Strachan? Time was up. She had to solve it now.

“What nonsense,” Sir Lancelot exclaimed. “There is no way anyone could have figured it out.” He brushed a hand over his fine, blond hair. “Even I could not.”

Bertrand smiled. “Indulge me. You see, it all started with the socks.”

Harriet covered her eyes.

“What is this nonsense?” Mrs. Fitzpatrick demanded.

“Mr. Strachan was wearing socks that showed him to be a boy from Queen Anne’s Academy. That seemed peculiar for a footman, and it seemed to me very possible that something from his school days had come back to haunt him.”

“I’ve already told you I had nothing to do with it,” Mr. Davies said.

“Oh, I know you’re not the murderer,” Bertrand said. “But, as it turns out, you did have something to do with it after all.”

Mr. Davies shook his head.

“And there was another important clue. Emily and Mr. and Mrs. Compton heard a discordant whistling just before Mr. Strachan fell.”

“Enough of this,” Sir William growled. “Tell us who the murderer is.”

Bertrand inclined his head. “The murderer is Emily.”

The room erupted into noise. Emily’s eyes widened. Shock, Harriet thought. But shock because it was true or because she was being accused of murder?

“Piffle,” Sir William said. “The girl was observed by Mr. and Mrs. Compton at the precise time of Mr. Strachan’s death. Unless you are claiming that they were in on it, too.”

Mrs. Compton let out a gasp.

“Of course not. But Emily did murder him and she arranged it all so that she would have an unimpeachable alibi. You see, when Mr. Davies here mentioned the name of the maid whom he had been interested in at school, it rang a bell. I knew I had seen that name somewhere before in one of the newspapers. So, I went to confirm it. That maid, Sarah Mason, is now an opera singer. In fact, she was the very one to replace Emily in the Tharsis City Opera Company.”

Mrs. Asheville turned to her husband. “I remember now. We attended a performance of The Barber of Seville the year after Miss Wright left. We saw Miss Wright’s replacement.” She turned to Emily, who was standing rigid to one side. “She wasn’t a patch on you, my dear. My husband commented as much. She could barely hold a note.”

“A little further digging,” Bertrand said, “led me to discover that Mr. Strachan’s father was a patron of the opera company. It became clear what must have happened. Mr. Strachan used his influence to have Emily dismissed and Sarah Mason hired in her place.”

“But the witnesses, Simpson. The alibi.”

“That is where Miss Wright was very clever. If you would allow me? Reverend Asheville. Could I ask a favor?”

The reverend nodded.

“Can you whistle?”

Reverend Asheville looked awkwardly around. “Not well.”

“Not well is perfect. Please would you whistle Voi Che Sapete, the aria for which Emily was famous?”

The reverend cleared his throat, then started to whistle. He was right, Harriet thought. He was not good. Not good at all. But Harriet didn’t have time to listen to him mangle the tune. Half-a-dozen notes in, the automatic servant lurched into motion, heading at speed toward the reverend, arms raised. The reverend squawked.

“Command: stop,” Bertrand said loudly. The automatic servant came to an abrupt halt.

“I found this automatic servant stationed on the balcony from which Mr. Strachan was pushed. You, Emily, lost your job and your career because Mr. Strachan wanted to do a favor for the maid he was trying to impress. When he came to work here and you heard him whistling your aria, you snapped. I searched your room, and I found these.”

He reached into the box and pulled out a set of small tools.

“Your father was an assistant to a mechanician in Tharsis City. You were able to pick up the skills necessary to program an automatic servant and these tools would give access to its workings. You had the motive and the means to kill Mr. Strachan, and you were clever enough to arrange an alibi, but I have you.”

There was silence in the room. Then Emily’s face twisted. “You don’t understand! He ruined my life. He destroyed everything I worked for. And then when he realized who I was, he started whistling that blasted tune to mock me! What would you have done?”

“I would not have killed him.”

Harriet stood frozen. She felt like she’d been hit over the back of her head. She was surprised she could still stand upright. Bertrand had done it. He had solved the case, all on his own. Everything she had assumed, everything she had thought she knew, was wrong. The murder had nothing to do with the smuggling gang or the package. And that meant that the people who had attacked her and were after the package were also nothing to do with the murder. The suspects in front of her were unrelated to her mission. Her real attackers could be anyone in the hotel. She was back to where she had started. Worse, she had wasted hours.

“Well done,” she said, the words feeling as dry as sand on her tongue. “You solved it all by yourself.”

“Oh no,” Bertrand said. “I wouldn’t say that. You helped. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Harriet nodded. It was kind of Bertrand to say so, but she knew she had only tried to steer him in the wrong direction. If she had had her way, they wouldn’t have looked into Strachan’s past at all, much less the whistling. Bertrand would never have solved the case.

“Well, that’s that,” Sir William said. “Arrest the girl, Simpson, and take her back to Tharsis City immediately.”

Harriet’s head shot up. “No!” They couldn’t go back now. She hadn’t found the package. Her mission had been a failure. “Please.”

Sir William looked startled.

Reginald Pratt stepped forward. “I really can’t allow that, Sir William.”

Sir William blinked. “I beg your pardon, Viscount Brotherton?”

“The young lady has promised me the first dance tonight. If she and her brother-in-law leave now, whom shall I dance with? I am sure there is somewhere in this hotel where the murderer can be locked up until tomorrow.”

Damn you, Reginald, Harriet thought. I could have handled that. She would have found a way to stay. Now Reginald would get to claim credit. He would blame her for everything that had gone wrong. Couldn’t manage it on her own, he would say. She wanted to strangle him.

Now that the murderer had been captured, Harriet had no excuse to question the hotel guests or staff. Over the next few hours, as she prepared for the ball with the help of an automatic maid, she went frantically over the list of guests and staff in her mind. She and Bertrand had interviewed them all, but only to establish alibis for the murder. There was little that made any of them stand out. The redheaded man who had winked at her on the submersible had waggled his eyebrows and leered at her as she and Bertrand had tried to question him, and several of the guests had been offended at being questioned at all, but she could think of nothing that pinpointed anyone as a member of the smuggling gang. She knew at least two of the gang were male, reasonably young, and of average height, but what did that tell her? There were a good thirty or forty young men here who matched that description.

The automatic maid’s cold metal fingers fastening the ties on her ball gown sent shivers up Harriet’s back. The gown was green, silky, and far too tight. Harriet preferred, whenever she could get away with it, which unfortunately wasn’t that often, to dress in men’s clothing. That way she could run, climb, or fight if the occasion required it. In this thing, she would have trouble eating a pastry. She sat on the edge of the bed to allow the automatic maid to fix her hair, and suddenly realized just how tired she was. She had been up most of the previous night, and today had been exhausting both physically and mentally. She should just fall back on the bed and not get up again for a week. And why not? This mission was a disaster. She would be out of the intelligence service the moment she got back to Tharsis City.

No. She might have failed, but Bertrand hadn’t. She would celebrate for him. He had needed this even more than she had. Amy and their unborn child would now be secure. So what if she never got the chance to travel across Mars? How many people had been to a ball a hundred feet beneath the surface of the Valles Marineris?

She shook off the automatic maid’s attention, strapped her narrow, thin knife to her arm, pulled on her jacket to cover it, even though it looked absurd over the ball gown, and went to find Bertrand.

The ballroom was a domed structure made of hardened glass and steel. The water outside was illuminated by streams of photon emission globes swimming in complex patterns around the ballroom. Within the ballroom, tiny, mechanical glow-bugs darted and dived like shoals of luminescent, multicolored fish. A small orchestra at the far end had already begun to play when Harriet arrived with Bertrand.

Bertrand stared wide-mouthed in amazement at the glittering gowns of the ladies and the jackets of the gentleman which were covered in whirring machinery, but Harriet couldn’t let go of her failed mission. She had missed something, she knew it. It was scraping away at the back of her brain like a burrow-bug. What was it, though?

The hotel butler, Mr. Heathcote, announced Colonel and Mrs. Fitzpatrick. The colonel was dressed in full military regalia, his sword strapped to his side. As always, his expression was unreadable. Mrs. Fitzpatrick would have been impossible to miss from anywhere in the room. Her hat sprouted feathers that were over six feet long and shimmering with color. Harriet had no idea how Mrs. Fitzpatrick had even gotten through the doorway.

Reginald Pratt spotted Harriet from the other side of the ballroom and headed towards her, smirking.

Damn it! He looked like he was having the time of his life. He must be delighted at her failure. Had he forgotten that it was his job to step in and retrieve the package if she couldn’t? Unless he already had it. She set her jaw.

“Miss George. There you are. Just in time for our dance, I believe.”

Very clearly and very precisely, Harriet said, “I would rather dance with a slug-beetle.”

Reginald’s eyes widened in shock. But before he could say anything, Harriet grabbed her brother-in-law’s hand. “I believe it is your duty to protect me and dance with me, Bertrand. You wouldn’t want me to fall victim to anyone… inappropriate.”

Bertrand snorted. “I’ve never met anyone less in need of protection than you.” But he took her hand anyway and led her onto the dance floor.

Harriet had always hated dancing, but it was one of the skills that the intelligence service required, so she had reluctantly learned. She let Bertrand lead her through the steps while her mind worried and prodded at her problem. Assume Reginald Pratt doesn’t have the package. If he did, none of it mattered.

The package had to be somewhere in the hotel. Even at her most optimistic, Harriet didn’t believe the letters and loose papers she’d taken from Strachan’s room were it. So, not in his room, and she hadn’t been able to find anywhere else he might have hidden it. Where, then? It certainly hadn’t been on his body.

Or had it? That nagging feeling in the back of her brain flared as she thought of his body lying there. She had searched him, but what had she missed?

“I wonder if we’ll be in the paper?” Bertrand said.

“What?”

“The newspapers. They’ll be reporting this. It’s one of the most important events of the Season, and there’s been a murder now, too. I wonder if we’ll get a mention? I don’t suppose we will, because of all these important people, but it would be nice to show Amy.”

Harriet stopped so abruptly she almost tripped Bertrand. The itch in her brain had erupted like a lizard-fox larva. “Bertrand. You’re brilliant!”

“I am?”

“Where’s the newspaper Mr. Strachan was carrying?”

“Um… In my room. Evidence, you know. I don’t suppose we need it now.”

Harriet pulled her hands free. “Thank you. I’ll be back.”

Ignoring the astonished looks and shocked comments, Harriet hurried from the ballroom and through the hotel, back to Bertrand’s room.

The evidence was gathered in a trunk that Bertrand had commandeered from the hotel. She scrambled past Miss Wright’s tools, past the carefully clipped articles that had led Bertrand inexorably to his conclusion, to Mr. Strachan’s belongings.

There, at the bottom, carefully placed in a leather folder, was a copy of the twelfth of April Tharsis Times, which Strachan had been carrying to identify himself. With shaking hands, Harriet unfolded it. The headline was the same, the lead articles were the same. The new manufactory. The crashed Mars-ship. Had she gotten this wrong? Was it just a stupid idea?

There! On page four. The scandal at Mrs. Parkinson’s birthday party.

She hurried over to the bed where the newspapers Bertrand had borrowed from the hotel were now stacked. He’d sorted them neatly in order.

Sorry, Bertrand. She pushed the top papers aside and pulled out the twelfth of April edition. She flicked to page four.

She had been right. Not Mrs. Parkinson. Mrs. Parker. It could have been a correction in a later edition, but now that she looked more carefully, there were other differences, too. Just a few altered words and numbers here and there, or an odd paragraph replaced. Nothing that anyone would notice. Except she had noticed, without realizing.

There was a code in the differences between the two newspapers. It was so obvious she wanted to kick herself. The newspaper wasn’t just the means of identifying her contact. It was the package itself, and now she had it.

Using her knife, she slit her jacket’s lining and slid the newspaper inside.

Now, she should grab Bertrand and get him to requisition a submersible and take her and the prisoner back to Tharsis City without delay. Better not even tell Reginald. She still didn’t know if she could trust him. She hurried out of her room, closing and locking the door.

“There you are!”

Harriet turned to see the red-haired young man looming just behind her. He grinned.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Harriet said, trying to step around him.

The man’s grin widened as he moved into her way. “Oh, I saw how you looked at me on the submersible and I’ve seen you looking at me since. I know exactly what you want.”

He took a step closer, blocking her in against the wall.

“Move away.”

The young man’s left hand alighted on her shoulder.

“Last warning.”

He ignored her.

Harriet looked him calmly in the eye. “Take your hand off me.”

The man’s other hand touched her waist and began to move upward beneath her jacket.

Harriet reached up, wrapped her hand around his little finger, and wrenched it back. The man screamed. Harriet didn’t let go. She kept pushing, driving him to the ground. As the man curled into a ball around his broken finger, he shouted, “Her jacket. It’s in her jacket!”

An answering shout came from around the corner. Harriet cursed.

She broke into a run, and almost tripped over her own legs. How was anyone supposed to run in a ridiculous dress like this? It was more like a waddle. Already she heard feet pounding down the hallway. Damnation. She bent over and, using both hands, tore the ball gown up one seam. That’s better. She took off toward the safety of the ballroom.

The man whose finger she had broken was coming after her, still half curled around his injury, but he had been joined by his equally red-headed brother and they were gaining.

Don’t fight if you don’t have to do. Getting the package to safety had to be her priority.

Another shout sounded as a third man came racing after the first two. That decided it. Her odds had suddenly dropped. She increased her pace.

Running in this stupid dress was still awkward, despite the torn seam. The blasted corset made it impossible to take real breaths. As for her stupid slippers, they flapped like a pair of carpet-fish strapped to her feet. Oh, well. She kicked them off.

The sound of the ball in full swing grew louder. Harriet pelted around the corner. There. Up ahead. The lights of the ball, the swirling crowds.

A hand flailed for her, catching her sleeve. Harriet stumbled, then wrenched free. She heard a curse right behind her and she forced extra speed into her trembling legs.

The butler looked up in alarm as Harriet sprinted toward him. He raised a hand, but Harriet ignored him.

The ball was a mass of dancing pairs surrounded by crowds talking loudly. Harriet dived into the chaos. Light flickered from the swooping mechanical bugs inside and the trails of photon-emission devices beyond the metal-and-glass dome.

An outraged shout behind her told her that her pursuers had not abandoned the chase. They had shoved the butler aside were peering and craning over people’s heads. One spotted her and pointed, and they came, shouldering their way past the guests.

Damn it! Where was Bertrand? Where was Reginald? She ducked away, but it was no good. The men spread out, stalking her. How was it so hard to find help?

One of the men rushed out of the crowd, bulling towards her. She twisted and sidestepped, letting his momentum carry him past and adding a shove. The man careered out of control into the wall and dropped, stunned.

A second man grabbed her, bending her arm behind her back and locking an elbow around her neck. She tried to slam her head back, but he was pressed too close. She scraped her heel down his leg, but without shoes it did no damage. She was starting to feel dizzy. The blood to her brain was shutting off. She couldn’t reach his eyes with her fingers.

A fist shot past her head, seemingly from nowhere, and slammed into the man’s face. He dropped, releasing Harriet. She blinked the blackness from her vision. Colonel Fitzpatrick stood over her unconscious attacker.

“What the devil is going on?” he demanded. Mrs. Fitzpatrick was staring from the crowd, her giant feathers swaying.

Harriet’s attackers had found reinforcements. Five tough-looking men formed a semicircle and closed in. Thugs for hire.

One of the men pointed a finger at her. “She’s a thief!”

Harriet’s jaw dropped. She looked up at the colonel. His cold eyes were taking in the scene, emotionless.

She shouldn’t do this. It was against every rule. She could be sacrificing her career. She didn’t even know whose side the colonel was on. But she couldn’t take on these thugs alone. Time for a gamble.

She wet her lips. “I am carrying a package for the British-Martian Intelligence Service,” she whispered. “These men must not get hold of it.”

The colonel’s eyes fixed on her for a second.

“Then they shall not.”

He stepped forward, sword sliding from its sheath.

One of the men rushed him, then reeled back, blood spraying from a slash across his arm. The colonel hardly seemed to have moved. The men exchanged glances. Then three of them closed on the colonel. One went down immediately, but the other two forced the colonel back, away from Harriet.

The final man came for her. He was bigger than her, muscled, his face and fists scarred. She retreated, watching him. Distantly, Harriet realized the sounds of the ball had ceased and had been replaced by shouts and screams, but she couldn’t spare any attention. Her attacker lunged. Harriet ducked under his arms and buried a fist in his stomach.

Or at least she tried to.

Ouch. What was he made of? Stone?

He spun, and she danced out of range.

The second of the colonel’s attackers was down now, the sword taking him through the neck, but the final man was more careful and he was keeping the colonel away from Harriet.

Her own attacker darted at her. One meaty hand closed on her close-fitting jacket. She allowed herself to be pulled toward him and followed the motion with a knee between his legs. The tight ball gown almost didn’t allow it, but at the last moment it tore further, exposing an indecent amount of petticoat and leg, and she connected solidly with his groin. The man roared in agony, and Harriet punched him in the throat. She put the whole weight of her body into it, driving through her shoulder, and she felt something in his throat crumple. She stepped away in time to see the last of the colonel’s opponents fall bleeding to the floor.

Slowly, she realized that the screams and shouts weren’t just coming from around her and the colonel. In fact, most of them were coming from the entrance to the ballroom.

Bertrand burst from the crowd.

“Are you all right?” he demanded. “I couldn’t reach you through the press.” He looked at the choking man on the floor in front of her and shook his head.

Reginald Pratt came running up. His voice was panicked. “Someone has sealed the pressure doors from the outside. We’re trapped in the ballroom.”

Harriet frowned. Why seal the doors? What good would it do to trap them all in here? She couldn’t see any more attackers.

The ballroom darkened. Harriet’s head snapped up in time to see something massive come rushing toward them through the water. She saw fins, a long tail, and extended jaws. It hit the dome, and the impact shook the whole ballroom. Metal creaked and protested. Water sprayed into the ballroom, hard enough to knock a grand lady from her feet.

Mosasaurus, Harriet thought, as the shape swam away. Then it turned. Hell! It’s coming back.

“Get that door open,” Harriet said, shoving Reginald towards it.

“It can’t be opened from the inside.”

“Find a way.” That was one of the British-Martian Intelligence Service’s maxims. Find a way. When she had first heard it, she had never imagined a situation like this.

The submersible pilot had told them the mosasaurus had no interest in the hotel or the ruins. Why was it attacking? Was it the lights? This could hardly be the first time the mosasaurus had seen the lights down here. Surely it couldn’t mistake them for its prey. Perhaps the sound of the ball had unsettled it. But it seemed too much of a coincidence that the doors should be locked just as the creature attacked. Perhaps this wasn’t an accident.

And that meant this was her fault. If the smugglers couldn’t get the package off her, they would drown it and her beneath untold tons of water and debris. The package would be destroyed and all evidence with it.

“This isn’t natural,” Colonel Fitzpatrick said.

Harriet agreed. Someone must have persuaded the creature to make this frenzied assault. Even as she thought it, the mosasaurus crashed into the ballroom dome again. More joints buckled, and more water sprayed into the ballroom. It was already an inch deep. Another impact like that and the whole dome might give way.

But how were they forcing the mosasaurus to attack? There must be something here that was attracting it. Something sending a signal.

The mosasaurus began to turn again, readying itself for another attack. Harriet squinted up at the dome. There. Something had been attached half way up the dome. A large box just where the mosasaurus had made contact. Whatever it was must be transmitting a sound through the water that had attracted the creature and driven it mad with fury.

“I need to get up there,” she told Bertrand.

“You think that’s what’s causing the creature to attack?”

Harriet shrugged. “Do you have a better idea?”

“I’m not letting you climb up there. Amy would kill me.”

“She won’t get the chance unless you let me,” Harriet said. “I know what I’m doing, Bertrand.”

I hope.

Bertrand gave her an appraising look. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing at that university, but if you’re just Lady Felchester’s companion, I’ll eat my hat. Um. Although, you know, not my good one.” He shook his head. “You don’t have to tell me. What do you need me to do?”

A week ago, Harriet might have said, “Keep out of the way.” But Bertrand had solved the murder without any help from her, and she knew she’d been underestimating him all her life.

“Help me stack some tables.”

A loud, protesting creak sounded from above, then more screams as the gush of water increased, pouring in like a mini waterfall. People were slipping on the slick marble floor. The dark body of the mosasaurus grew larger and larger.

This ballroom won’t take another hit. She would never get up there in time.

A glittering shape with lights blazing from its front and sides, and almost the size of the mosasaurus, powered into view from behind the ballroom. The submersible. The pilot must have seen what was happening and decided to intervene. The submersible drove into the side of the giant reptile. The mosasaurus flipped, distracted by the new attacker. Its tail smashed into the submersible, sending it into a spin.

The submersible might be fast and made of metal, but this wasn’t a battle it could win. The mosasaurus was bigger, more agile, and faster.

“Come on,” Harriet yelled to Bertrand.

They splashed their way across the ballroom to where tables had been abandoned in the rush to the sealed doors. Along with Colonel Fitzpatrick and a couple of gentlemen who had hurried to help, they dragged the tables over and began to stack them.

“These will never stay up,” Bertrand muttered.

“It’s your job to make sure they do.”

All she had to do was balance. She’d spent hours teetering across poles and along ledges as part of her spy training. Why hadn’t they practiced on stacks of wobbly tables?

The second table rocked as she pulled herself onto it.

“I should be doing this,” one of the gentlemen called. “This is no job for a lady.”

“Do you know how to disarm that?” Harriet nodded toward the device.

“Um…”

“Thought not.”

Colonel Fitzpatrick and Bertrand stretched up, holding the feet of the third table. If it slipped, they wouldn’t be able to stop it.

The submersible and the mosasaurus were still fighting their duel in and out of the Ancient Martian ruins. The submersible was clearly trying to draw the reptile away, but it was equally clearly losing. Most of its lights had been broken and it was maneuvering awkwardly. Even as Harriet watched, one of the photon-emission spotlights shattered in a burst of contained light, which made the reptile shy away and Harriet screw her eyes tight.

She didn’t have much longer. She crawled onto the third table and carefully straightened. The whole edifice felt unstable. She stretched for the box attached to the dome.

Nope. No good. She still couldn’t reach.

“Pass me a chair.”

“You can’t,” Bertrand said.

“I can.”

She would.

The chair turned out to be a terrible idea. It slid on the smooth surface of the table, not helped by the water that was soaking everything.

Perfect balance. Like an acrobat. She really wasn’t cut out to be an acrobat.

She raised herself inch by inch, swaying. Like a reed… The chair shifted. Don’t panic! She took a slow breath.

The metal box was right above her. It was twice the size of her head and it was attached to the glass panes around the crossed metal struts by suction cups. She could break the seals and pull it off. If it wasn’t booby-trapped somehow. She removed her thin, sharp knife from inside her sleeve and carefully levered the cover from the device. Inside was a tangle of whirring cogs, twitching levers, curling springs, and vibrating discs. Harriet peered closer. Behind the mechanism, heavy metal spikes rested against the glass. It was a booby trap. If she made the wrong move, those spikes would drive into the glass, shattering it, and letting the Valles Marineris pour in.

There were so many components all connected and interacting. Half of them must be fake, parts to trip her up and trigger the booby trap. If only they weren’t all moving so fast… She stared at them. Don’t try to follow them. It’s like a magician’s trick. Don’t let your eyes follow the distractions. See the whole thing.

She had trained for this. If only she’d actually managed to disarm any of those blasted traps during training.

“Harriet,” Bertrand shouted. “Look out!”

Harriet snapped her gaze from the device. There, in the water, heading right toward her, was the mosasaurus. The submersible was nowhere to be seen.

She was out of time.

She stared at the device. How could she stop it? No time to wonder, no time to second-guess herself.

That cog. It had to be the one. If it weren’t, she would never know. She would be crushed beneath the water before she could even realize her mistake. She inserted her blade under the cog, then, with a quick prayer, flicked it out.

The mechanism stopped. Harriet closed her eyes, clenched her jaw, and waited for the impact. It didn’t come. She opened one eye. The device was inert, the spikes still resting gently against the glass. The mosasaurus was swimming calmly away into the depths. Harriet slumped.

Which was the worst thing she could possibly have done. The chair went one way, the table beneath it another, and for a brief moment Harriet was flying. Then she crashed down, right on top of Reginald Pratt, Viscount Brotherton.

She struggled up, picking the random bits of clockwork that had come off Reginald’s jacket from her ball gown. Her back ached where she had bounced off Reginald’s shoulder and her head thumped. Reginald sprawled beneath her, blood streaming from his nose.

Bertrand helped her up. The crowd of panicking guests was still packed solidly around the entrance, shouting and calling.

“What the hell is going on, Reggie? Why aren’t you getting the doors open?”

He stared up at her, eyes white and wide. “I can’t do it.” He wiped his sleeve across his nose, smearing the blood.

“What do you mean you can’t do it? Is it jammed? The dome could collapse at any minute. Anyone locked in here will die.”

Reginald’s eyes flicked from side to side. Harriet saw the panic crouching in them.

“Did you even try?” Harriet demanded.

Reginald didn’t reply. His hands were shaking.

She swore. “Get out of my way.” She splashed off across the ankle-deep ballroom. Bertrand and Colonel Fitzpatrick ran after her. The crowd of people was so thick and so panicked that Harriet had to let Bertrand and the colonel drive a path through for her.

The pressure doors were made of heavy, thick steel with only a small glass porthole at head height. Harriet peered through, looking for any of the hotel staff who might be outside, but all she saw were two slumped bodies. Whoever had locked them in had made sure no one would let them out.

There were no obvious wheels, levers, or handles on this side of the pressure doors, and although some of the gentleman had been heaving at them, they had not managed to budge the doors.

“There must be a way to release them,” Harriet said. “They can’t be designed in such a way as to lock people in.”

Bertrand looked helplessly at her. “Don’t ask me.”

No mechanism that could be released accidentally, Harriet thought. Should the worst happen, it would be important that the doors could not accidentally spring open. A concealed mechanism, protected from the water and any debris or sea life that might happen to come in contact. That must mean a panel. She peered closely. There. Near where the two doors joined. The panel fitted tightly, no doubt to prevent seawater seeping in, but it was there. Using the blade of her knife, Harriet quickly unscrewed it and swung it open.

A crash sounded behind her. Harriet risked a glance back. A glass pane had given way completely. Water poured in faster and faster. It spread across the floor in a calf-high wave. Around the powerful jet of water, metal bent and glass began to splinter.

“It’s giving way,” Bertrand said, his voice breaking in alarm.

There was a single, heavy lever inside the panel. Harriet jerked it up and heard bolts release along the door joint.

“Now!” she called.

The men who had been trying to force the door heaved. Slowly, the heavy doors slid apart.

“Out!” Harriet shouted. “Everyone out!”

She didn’t have to give the command again. The crowd surged forward, pushing, jostling, and fighting to get through the entrance, slipping and falling, and scrambling to their feet again. The water that had been rising flowed rapidly into the hotel with them. Harriet saw Reginald Pratt elbow his way through and out, almost knocking Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s feather-topped from her head. Harriet looked back at the dome. If it gave way while they were evacuating, the whole hotel would flood and not a single one of them would escape. Come on. Come on. She pushed and hurried the guests onwards, not caring for propriety or station. She grabbed a duchess by one arm and swung her bodily at the gap.

“That’s it,” Bertrand said. “They’re all through. Come on, Harry. It’s our turn.”

They dashed through the open doors. Behind them, the dome gave an alarming creak. Glass splintered. Another pane burst, then another. Water roared down almost deafeningly. The men who had helped pull open the doors were gone, fleeing down the corridor.

“Come back!” Harriet shouted. “We have to close the doors.” But the men kept on running. Only Bertrand and Colonel Fitzpatrick remained. She met the two men’s gazes. “We’re going to have to do this ourselves.”

“I’ve got this one,” the colonel said.

Bertrand and Harriet took hold of the other door and together they rolled them shut. Harriet seized the locking handle and threw it down. The bolts jolted into place. And not a moment too soon. With a shriek like a dying leviathan, the dome gave way. Water hammered down, driven by the pressure of a hundred feet of ocean above it. It smashed into the marble floor and roared toward them. The impact of the wave hitting the massive metal doors knocked Harriet back. For a second, she thought they would give way, but they held and through the glass porthole Harriet saw swirling water, mud, and the debris of the broken ballroom.

She stepped away, raising a hand to her jacket. The package was still there. And although it was damp, it was still intact.

The submersible had sustained damage in its fight with the mosasaurus, but it was still thankfully functional. One group at a time, it evacuated the hotel guests back to Candor City. A tally of the guests showed that, in addition to their assailants who had fallen in the ballroom, two guests were missing, along with one of the smaller submersibles. They must have fled when they had sealed everyone in the ballroom. One was listed as a Mr. Smythe. Harriet recalled very little of the man, and Smythe undoubtedly was not his true name. The other, though, was the Comte d’Arcy.

I knew it! Harriet thought fiercely. If only she had been able to apprehend him. She doubted that she or anyone else would see either man again.

It took two days to return to Tharsis City. When they finally arrived, Bertrand took Emily to the police headquarters where she would be held for the murder of Mr. Strachan. Harriet headed with a deep reluctance to the School of Martian Entomology at Tharsis University and her meeting with Lady Felchester. She passed her report to Lady Felchester’s personal man of affairs, then waited an interminable three hours in her dormitory until she was finally summoned.

At least Lady Felchester was alone in her study when Harriet entered. If Reginald Pratt had been there, smirking, she didn’t know what she would have done. It had been supposed to be a simple mission. Make contact. Retrieve the package. Return home. Instead, her contact was dead, the Hotel Louros was half destroyed, and the smuggling ring knew the intelligence service was onto them.

Lady Felchester looked up from her desk as Harriet approached and laid the package in front of her.

“Miss George. I have received and studied the reports on your mission.”

Harriet tipped her head to one side. “Reports? In the plural?”

“Indeed. Colonel Fitzpatrick was kind enough to provide a report of his own.”

Harriet winced. She had blown her cover by telling the colonel what she was doing. In the eyes of the service, that was a worse sin than failing a mission. Now that people knew, she could never go undercover again.

“He was very complimentary. He spoke highly of your initiative and performance in the face of an unexpected and overwhelming situation. You should know that the service thinks highly of Colonel Fitzpatrick’s opinion.”

Harriet stared. Her face reddened. “But—”

“The colonel is a longtime friend of the service. I think we can trust him to keep your secret, and he has spoken to the other gentlemen who witnessed your exploits. One thing I will say for the dear colonel: when he speaks to someone, they remain spoken to. Which just leaves us with the matter of your brother-in-law. Can we trust him?”

Even a week ago, Harriet would have been sure Bertrand would let something slip. Now, though?

“Yes. Yes, we can.” There was more to Bertrand than she had been able to see until now.

“Good. Now, Viscount Brotherton also submitted a report.”

Every vestige of the thrill that had swept over her upon hearing Colonel Fitzpatrick’s report drained away just as quickly as it had appeared. Here it comes. Everything she had done wrong, committed to record, laid out so that her failings would be obvious for all to see.

She wet her lips. “Should I… Should I pack my bags?”

“Viscount Brotherton’s report was short. He tells us that family obligations require him to resign from the British-Martian Intelligence Service with immediate effect. He was of the opinion that the mission was carried out… adequately… for a trainee. Now, you are dismissed. I will expect you back in training in two days’ time. That will be all.” Her face was as untroubled as if she were issuing an invitation for morning tea.

“Yes, your ladyship.” Harriet’s back stiffened. Her chin lifted, as a bubble of excitement filled her chest. She’d survived her first mission. What more could be thrown at her? Whatever it was… “I’m ready.”

A Note from Patrick Samphire

A Spy in the Deep is the second of the adventures of Harriet George on Regency Mars. If you would like to read more about her, you can find her first story, The Dinosaur Hunters (The Casebook of Harriet George: Volume 1), on any ebook store. And if you want to read more stories set on Regency Mars but with different characters, why not try out my novels Secrets of the Dragon Tomb and The Emperor of Mars, which are available… everywhere.

As well as these Mars books and novellas, I’ve published a bunch of short stories for teenagers and adults. You can find out more about them and read several of them for free on my website.

And if you want to keep up to date with future stories and novels, you can sign up to my occasional newsletter.

When I’m not writing, I design websites and book covers (such as the cover for this delightful anthology).