“There!” he said. “Undetectable! But now if we just…” He picked up a small phial from the bench; its contents were equally colorless, and when he tipped a drop into the beaker, it looked at first as if he had simply added water to water. “Come on,” he muttered, stirring vigorously once again.
Then the liquid clouded up, and as we watched, a bluish-green sediment began to precipitate at the bottom of the beaker.
“Blood!” the angel shrieked in delight, and behind us, where I had forgotten about him, Stamford laughed.
The angel turned to scowl at Stamford; then he blinked, his wings rustling like those of a startled bird, and turned back to stare at me. “I beg your pardon,” he said. “I don’t know you at all, do I?”
“Crow,” said Stamford, “this is Dr. J. H. Doyle. It’s no good asking what the J or the H stand for—he won’t tell you. Doyle, this is the angel Crow, who is looking for someone to go halves on a flat in Baker Street.”
“But … how?” I said weakly.
The angel—Crow? Truly?—made that shoulder/wing hunching gesture again and said, “It’s unimportant. I’m very pleased to meet you. Have you been back from Afghanistan long?”
“Only a few months,” I said on reflex, but then realized with a jolt—“Wait. How did you know I’d been in Afghanistan?”
The angel giggled, and I could feel myself trying to decide if it was worth the effort of taking offense. It was a very peculiar feeling, and one I did not care for, showing as it did how weak and exhausted I still was. Thus, I was doubly grateful when Stamford said, “No, no, it’s his parlor trick. Crow can guess everything about you just by looking at you.”
“I never guess,” Crow said stiffly. “If I were to guess, I would say that Dr. Doyle returned to London four months ago. But it might be as many as six, depending upon frugality.”
My jaw dropped open. “That’s astonishing!” I said.
“It’s nothing,” the angel said, although he looked pleased. “A parlor trick, as Dr. Stamford says.”
“But truly. How did you know I had been in Afghanistan at all?”
He gave me an odd, sidelong look, halfway between coquetry and apprehension, then said, “It was really not very difficult. You came in with Dr. Stamford. You were clearly comfortable in a laboratory and familiar with St. Bartholomew’s, indicating that you were a doctor yourself. Your manner toward him and his toward you indicated that you were his colleague rather than either patron or patient. But I had never met you before—and you had clearly never heard of me. Given my notoriety in St. Bartholomew’s and other hospitals, that means you cannot have lived in London, or even come to London regularly, for several years at least. You have been in the tropics, as the contrasting color of your face and wrists shows. You have been recently and grievously wounded, as the stiffness and hesitancy with which you move demonstrates. All of that indicates an Armed Forces doctor serving in the endless conflict in Afghanistan. You were wounded by a blow from one of the Fallen, for the miasma lingers about you—I could have known where you had been from that alone, of course. I include the other details so that you can see I wasn’t cheating. But really, as Dr. Stamford says, it’s just a parlor trick.”
“Then I have been spending my time in entirely the wrong parlors,” I said, “for I have never encountered anything so remarkable in my life.”
Angels lack the wherewithal to blush, but he was clearly both pleased and flustered. “The rest is easily deduced from the fact that Dr. Stamford brought you to meet me. It was only this morning that I was asking him if I had any hope of finding someone with whom to share lodgings. Therefore, you are trying to live in London on an inadequate pension and have come to the conclusion that you cannot do so alone. Four months probably, but certainly not more than six. Really, it’s quite obvious.”
“Four and a half,” I said.
“There,” said Crow, and his wings shook into place as if smoothing literally ruffled feathers. “And you’re interested in the flat?”
“Definitely,” I said and could not even bring myself to frown at Stamford when he gave me an irritating and supercilious smirk, as one who would be congratulating himself loudly on this success every time I ran into him for the rest of our natural lives.
There were reasons I had never been particularly close to him.
3
The Flat in Baker Street
I worried, of course, about what else Crow might have observed about me. I was encouraged by the fact that, whatever he had seen, he had held his tongue—except for that ambiguous hint about miasma—and felt no hesitation in keeping my appointment with him the following evening.
The house was narrow but high-ceilinged, and the flat was actually the top two floors: sitting room, bedroom, lavatory, and even a tiny W.C. on the first floor, and a finished bedroom on the second floor with a half-sized door leading to the attic. It was a splendid amount of space for its location, and the rent, when split between two persons, was within my financial grasp.
The landlady’s name was Climpson, and she was one of those women born to give meaning to the word “respectable.” I wasn’t at all sure why she was willing to rent to an angel, but the look in her pale blue, exophthalmic eyes told me not to ask. Crow himself provided no hints, although he was clearly anxious for this venture to succeed, saying things like, “You should definitely have the first-floor bedroom. The second flight of stairs is practically a ladder. And you’ll be nearer what I believe are called the ‘usual offices,’ which I of course don’t need.”
Angels did not eat, nor did they excrete. I had never come across a clear answer on whether they slept or not; I might now find out.
“They’re lovely rooms,” I said, “but before I make any decisions, there is a question I must ask.”
Crow did not roll his eyes, but his wings hunched and flared, and his voice was full of disdain when he said, “No, I am not Fallen.”
“Yes, I can see that you are not,” I said, but this was far too important to allow myself to be deflected, and I continued obstinately, “but I need to know that that isn’t liable to change. How can you be an angel, and have a name, and yet not be bound to a dominion?”
“London is my dominion,” he said with grand melodrama.
“That doesn’t exactly answer my question,” I said dryly.
Crow gave me a sharp, unmelodramatic look. “You don’t believe me.” He didn’t sound angry or hurt; he sounded intrigued.
“I don’t know enough about angels to say, but I’ve never heard of one having a dominion as large as London—and do you mean all of London, or just the City? In which we are currently not standing, I might add. And how do you decide which suburbs are in and which are out? Woolwich? Streatham? What about Balham?”
Now he was trying to look hurt, but his laugh bubbled over. “All right! All right! It is not a well-thought-out answer, although I maintain it to be a true one. I do consider London—and all its suburbs, thank you, Dr. Doyle—my dominion, but not in the sense you mean.” He hesitated, looking at me with visible uncertainty. “I can provide a … a character reference. The Angel of Whitehall can assure you that I have existed as I am for many years—and that my position is in no way precarious.” And he looked so delighted at his own pun that I could feel my caution melting.