The Constantine Affliction Read Online Free Page A

and no woman would ever be permitted inside one of those, those—”
    “Clockwork brothels? Temples of mechanical immorality? Gear-driven bordellos?”
    “Yes. Those . How do you expect to get inside?”
    “Deception, of course. I can pitch my voice low—” she demonstrated “—and disguise myself as a man. Such disguises aren’t hard to come by, and at the risk of sounding crude, I am well aware that my figure is better suited than some to such a ruse. It’s not as if I would need to consummate a liaison with a clockwork courtesan in order to write about them.”
    “Nor would we print such details—we aren’t the Lantern , after all, we have depths beyond which we will not descend.” He shook his head. “But, no. I cannot permit this.”
    “Ah, but if I go on my own, despite the lack of permission—would you be interested in the resulting story? Or should I sell it instead to the Lantern ?”
    He sighed. “Ellie… if I were your father, or your brother…”
    “You are neither.” Nor was anyone else. She had no living near relations, which made living by her pen a necessity as well as a choice. Cooper had been a friend of her family—Ellie sometimes wondered if he’d wooed her mother, once upon a time—and had initially given her work out of pity, before coming to count on her for dependable prose delivered in a timely fashion. He sometimes still treated her like a sort of honorary younger sister, but not as often as he once had.
    “It would have to be published anonymously,” Cooper said after a long moment of contemplation.
    “‘E. Skye’ is already a pen name, and everyone assumes it’s a man’s name, besides. Yet you see the need for greater subterfuge?”
    “The men who run these establishments are unsavory characters, and it is better if they cannot easily identify the source of such an article. The truth behind a pen name can be uncovered. Better to have no name attached at all. If you write it—which I wish you would not—we will simply credit it to ‘A Gentleman.’ Let me reiterate, I strongly object to—”
    “So noted,” Ellie said.
    “But of course you won’t heed my advice. Why should today depart from the norm?” He sighed. “When do you propose to undertake this invasion?”
    “Oh, not until later tonight. I doubt such establishments are open before nightfall.”
    Cooper tapped the end of his pen against the desktop. “First you report on monsters in the river, and now you propose to expose the prurience of the city’s elite. You do go from poppycock to scandal, Ellie.”
    “If you don’t like it, send me to be a war correspondent.” She dropped an ironic curtsey and strolled out of the office, visions of mustaches and trousers dancing in her head.

A Meeting with Value
    I n the end, they decided to be more cautious, and hung a not-very-good Chinese tapestry over the two holes drilled for the pistol barrels, leaving only one hole unobstructed and unhidden, for Freddy to peer through. The rounds fired by the air-pistols would not be impeded by the tapestry’s cloth. Pimm sincerely hoped all these preparations would prove unnecessary—even paranoiac—but from what he knew of Abel Value, it was wise to take precautions. The man was in the sort of business where the occasional murder was necessary to keep things running smoothly, and while Pimm did not expect to be assassinated in his own home, it never hurt to be careful.
    When the knock came at the door, Pimm was largely over his headache and taking his ease in the chair under the window where Freddy had been lounging that morning. He waited a moment, then remembered their one servant had quit that morning, and frowned. Another knock, more peremptory, and he said, “Let yourself in!”
    The door swung open, though Value did not enter first. A man roughly the size of a river barge came in, ducking his head to avoid bumping it on the doorframe, and scanned the room. He then stood against the wall by the door,