Hello Stranger

The spell was broken by his soft chuckle, the sound rippling gently along her spine. She tried to wrench free of him.

“Don’t laugh at me,” she said fiercely.

Carefully Ransom released her, assuring himself of her balance before handing the cane back to her. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I only liked it that you caught me off guard.” He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, a dance of amusement in his eyes.

Slowly Garrett lowered the cane, while her cheeks burned as red as poppies. She could still feel his arms enclosing her, as if the sensation of him had sunk into her skin.

Reaching into his vest, Ransom pulled out a small silver whistle shaped like a tube. He blew three shrill blasts.

Garrett gathered he was summoning a constable on patrol. “You don’t use a police rattle?” she asked. Her father, who’d had a beat in King’s Cross, had always carried one of the official weighted wooden rattles. To raise an alarm, a constable swung the rattle by its handle until the blades made a loud clapping sound.

Ransom shook his head. “The rattle’s too cumbersome. And I had to give it back when I left the force.”

“You’re no longer with the Metropolitan Police?” she asked. “Who employs you now?”

“I’m not officially employed.”

“You do some kind of work for the government, however?”

“Yes.”

“As a detective?”

Ransom hesitated for a long moment before replying. “Sometimes.”

Garrett’s eyes narrowed as she wondered what he did for the government that couldn’t be handled by the regular police. “Are your activities legal?”

His grin was a brief dazzle in the gathering darkness. “Not always,” he admitted.

They both turned as a constable dressed in a blue tunic and trousers came hurrying along the street with a bull’s-eye lantern in hand. “Hallo,” the approaching man called out, “Constable Hubble here. Did you raise the alarm?”

“I did,” Ransom said.

The constable, a portly man whose blunt nose and florid cheeks were perspiring from exertion, regarded him intently from beneath the brim of his helmet. “Your name?”

“Ransom,” came the quiet reply, “formerly of K division.”

The constable’s eyes widened. “I’ve heard of you, sir. Good evening.” His tone was instantly textured with deference. In fact, his posture became positively submissive, his head lowering a degree or two.

Ransom gestured to the men on the ground. “I found these three drunken sods in the process of physically assaulting and robbing a lady, after threatening her with this.” He handed the sheathed bayonet knife to the constable.

“By George,” Hubble exclaimed, glancing down at the men on the ground with disgust. “And soldiers too, more’s the shame. May I ask if the lady was harmed?”

“No,” Ransom said. “In fact, Dr. Gibson had the presence of mind to drive one of them off with her cane, after knocking the knife from his hand.”

“Doctor?” The constable regarded Garrett with open amazement. “You’re the lady doctor? The one in the papers?”

Garrett nodded, bracing inwardly. People rarely reacted well to the idea of a woman in the medical profession.

Continuing to stare at her, the constable shook his head in apparent wonder. “Didn’t expect she’d be so young,” he said as an aside to Ransom, before addressing Garrett again. “Beg pardon, miss . . . but why are you a doctor? It’s not as if you was a horse-face. Why, I know least two blokes in my division who’d be willing to tie the knot with you.” He paused. “If you could do some cooking and mending, that is.”

Garrett was inwardly annoyed to observe that Ransom was struggling to hold back a grin. “I’m afraid the only mending I do pertains to wounds and fractures,” she said.

The large soldier on the ground, who had risen up on his elbows, spoke in a thick, scornful voice. “Female doctor. Unnatural, I say. I’ll wager she’s got a tallywag under those skirts.”

Ransom’s eyes narrowed, his amusement vanishing instantly. “How would you like a boot to the head?” he asked, striding to the soldier.

“Mr. Ransom,” Garrett said sharply, “it’s unsporting to attack a man who’s already on the ground.”

The detective stopped in his tracks, throwing a baleful glance over his shoulder. “Considering what he intended to do to you, it’s lucky he is to be breathing.”

Garrett found it vastly interesting that the hint of an Irish brogue had stolen into his last few words.

“Hallo!” came a call as another constable approached. “I ’eard the whistle.”

While Ransom went to confer with the new arrival, Garrett went to retrieve her doctor’s bag. “The wound in the soldier’s cheek may require stitches,” she said to Constable Hubble.

“Don’t come near me, y’ she-devil,” the soldier exclaimed.

Constable Hubble glared at him. “Shut your bone-box, or I’ll put a hole through your other cheek.”

Recalling that her scalpel hadn’t yet been recovered, Garrett asked, “Constable, would you mind holding your lamp a bit higher to illuminate the street? I would like to search for the knife I threw at this man earlier.” She paused as an alarming thought occurred to her. “He may still have it.”

“He doesn’t,” Ransom said over his shoulder, pausing temporarily in his conversation with the other constable. “I do.”

Two thoughts occurred to Garrett simultaneously. First, how could the man be listening to her while simultaneously carrying on a conversation a few yards away? And second . . .

“You picked up the knife while fighting him?” she asked indignantly. “But you told me never to do that.”

“I don’t follow the rules,” Ransom said simply, and turned back to the constable.

Garrett’s eyes widened at the calm arrogance of the statement. Scowling, she drew Constable Hubble a few feet farther away and whispered, “What do you know about that man? Who is he?”

“You’re asking about Mr. Ransom?” The constable kept his voice very low. “He was raised right here in Clerkenwell. Knows every inch of the city, and has the run of it. A few years ago, he applied to the police force and was assigned to a beat in K division. A bruising fighter. Fearless. He volunteered to patrol in the slum districts where other officers wouldn’t dare set foot. They say he was drawn to detective work from the start. He had a sharp mind, with an eye for the odd detail. After walking the beat at night, he would go to the division office files and sort through unsolved cases. He cracked a murder that had baffled the division’s sergeant-detectives for years, cleared the name of a servant falsely accused of jewel theft, and recovered a stolen painting.”

“In other words,” Garrett murmured, “he was working outside his rank.”

Hubble nodded. “The division superintendent considered charging him with misconduct. But instead he recommended promoting Ransom from fourth-class constable to inspector.”

Garrett’s eyes went wide. “You’re saying Mr. Ransom moved up five levels of advancement in his first year?” she whispered.