Pax Britannia: Human Nature by Jonathan Green Page A

an instant.
    "Must you?" Ulysses said, wearily.
    Before the butler knew what was going on, Nimrod's bunched fist connected with his face. He went down, stunned, falling to his knees as he whimpered in shock and pain, his hands pressed to his bloodied nose.
    The two men barged past the stunned retainer and into the house.
    "Carstairs? Who is it?" came a man's muffled voice from somewhere above.
    Saying nothing, Ulysses grabbed his manservant's sleeve and jerked his head upwards, indicating the floor above.
    Trying to tread as lightly as he could on the plush carpet covering the grand staircase, Ulysses dashed up it to the first floor, Nimrod following after. Ahead of him, at the end of a darkened landing, stood a set of double doors, light from the room beyond escaping through the cracks where the doors met the frame.
    "Carstairs?" came the voice again, warier now and closer, as if its owner stood just on the other side of the doors.
    Without hesitation, Ulysses grabbed a brass handle and forced the door open violently, catching the man who had been standing behind it by surprise.
    Gabriel Wraith danced back, hastily trying to regain his composure. He stood there in full evening dress, hair slicked down as smoothly as ever with half a tin of pomade.
    "Quicksilver!" he yelped in what Ulysses imagined was a more nervously high-pitched tone that he had intended. "What is the meaning of this?"
    "With have things to discuss, Wraith," Ulysses announced as he strode into the room, the other man backing into the corner as far as his reading desk, before his unstoppable, glacial advance.
    "Things? What do you mean, man, barging in like this?" he demanded, his voice like cold steel now. "What things?"
    "The Whitby Mermaid, the Whitechapel Irregulars, the House of Monkeys," Ulysses reeled off the list. "What do you know of th -"
    He stopped abruptly, catching sight of the drop of blood, a single crimson droplet oozing from the otherwise almost indistinguishable nick on the consulting detective's otherwise immaculately pale cheek.
    "What happened to your face?" Ulysses asked, eyes narrowing as he pointed an accusing, wrongly-angled finger at Wraith.
    "I cut myself shaving," he answered icily, subconsciously feeling for the wound. With an arrogant motion he tossed his head back. "You're raving man. I would be grateful if you would depart these premises immediately!"
    But even as the words were out of his mouth it was obvious that Gabriel Wraith knew that it was too late, that he had been rumbled. Even as Ulysses went for his blade, pulling the rapier free of its cane-scabbard, Wraith went for his. And then the heavy knife was in his hand again.
    "How did you know?" Wraith demanded as he dropped into a fighting stance, more befitting of his criminal alter ego than a respectable Bloomsbury gentleman.
    "What, that Gabriel Wraith and the Magpie were one and the same?" Ulysses said. "I didn't know, I only suspected."
    "What?" the other man shrieked in angry disbelief.
    "But now you've confirmed that fact yourself, the similarities are clear; you're both light on your feet, balletic you might say, face sharp as a blade, mind to match, a propensity for repeating words and phrases. I suppose it would explain your success as a consulting detective as well, if you were the one responsible for the thefts in the first place." Ulysses flashed the icily furious man a devilish grin. "Oh, and you're both arrogant bastards," Ulysses snarled.
    "Well then, it would appear we have unfinished business, you and I," Gabriel Wraith declared as he shifted his balance from one foot to the other, preparing himself for the moment when he could duck in under Ulysses' guard and deliver a fatal blow.
    "Indeed," Ulysses agreed, hefting the blade in his left hand - not his preferred hand but competent enough, nonetheless. There was the click of a pistol being cocked behind him. "Shame, it appears it's going to have to stay that way, me old fruit. Now drop the knife, or my