„The hunting dog can be a good friend too”

„I’m really sorry, Miss Stonebridge,” Keen told Eva, with real regret in his voice when she burst crying finding out about Albert’s death.

Brian, who was standing next to Eva, sitting on the sofa in the living room, hugged her to his chest while trying to give her some comfort. But… no matter how much he tried to make her feel his love and preoccupation for her, Eva couldn’t stop crying.

„How… did he die?” Eva asked eventually through tears, soughs, and stutters, staring at Keen that was sitting on a chair somehow with his head bowed even if he had no idea of why he was feeling like this.

„Poisoned!” the detective murmured barely heard and this made Eva burst again crying even if she had just stopped a few seconds ago.

„Let’s go, Eva! You must have some rest! Crying isn’t something good for you!” Brian whispered to her, slowly caressing her hair, but even so, Eva didn’t calm down.

Barely standing on her feet, she stood up eventually off the sofa and, supported by Brian, they headed toward her room. But… before going, Brian whispered to the detective: „I’ll be back as soon as she’ll be calm,” and Keen only slowly nodded yes.

Then, when he was alone, Keen stood up and took a few steps across the room, watching in amazement the emptiness of the living room that seemed to be even bigger than it really was due to many objects that had been lost when Charlotte had decided to sell Stonebridge’s fortune and many of those objects couldn’t be recovered despite Brian’s efforts to find them.

Keen suddenly turned, feeling steps approaching him, and he was amazed to see Stan there, waiting in silence next to the door. „Who are you?” the detective asked in amazement.

„Me? Stan!” the boy hurried to answer and, he also didn’t know why, but he was feeling certain intimidation in front of this imposing gentleman because Keen really looked like a strong and influent man, of those people that even if they didn’t do anything or didn’t say anything offensive to someone they managed, in the end, to make that person feel bad as if he was a very small and insignificant man, or somehow unhelped in front of the others.

„Stan? And what more?”

The boy smiled because he knew very well what the detective was asking about, but he had no idea what to answer because he had never had a surname or at least he didn’t remember about something like this. „Simply, Stan. Or… Stan, the beggar.”

The boy’s bold answer amazed Keen because Stan managed, in the end, to control his emotions after remembering in a few seconds all his life, especially those events that made him stronger because not only once did Stan meet influential people as Keen was and with whom he had to fight to survive. But it was the first time when Stan felt respect for such a man as the detective was and he also hadn’t a damn idea about wherefrom he got that feeling.

Smiling, Keen took a few steps toward Stan. The boy instead stood in the same place even if he had the intention to step back. Arrived in front of Stan, the detective deeply looked into the boy’s smart eyes and told him: „If you are in someone’s house, well-fed and dressed in means that you aren’t a beggar anymore,” and it was Stan’s turn to look in amazement at the detective, listening to his answer.

„Why?” Stan’s foolish question came after a long time of staring at Keen.

„Because when someone takes care of you and you of him or at least you serve in his home or live with him, eating at the same table as he does you can say that you are someone’s dear friend or man and you definitely don’t look like a beggar.”

„Aaa! I didn’t know that,” Stan murmured confusedly. „I thought that if once you’ve been a beggar, you are a beggar for your entire life.”

„Who told you this?”

„I thought so.”

„Why? Or what conclusion did you reach now, listening to what I said?” Keen told him in a cheerful tone because that young man managed to awake him from that latent state and of concern in which he lived the last few days.

„Because you have nothing assured in life, not even one’s life, as it happened with that teamster that kicked the bucket not that long ago.”

„It is said that he died, not that he kicked the bucket,” Keen corrected the boy, smiling. „And… did you know Albert Shin well?”

„Whom?” and Stan stared with wide-open eyes at the detective, having no idea about who Keen was talking about because even if the boy met Albert personally, he didn’t ask his name, or at least he didn’t remember to have listened to it.

„The teamster that brought Miss Stonebridge to London.”

„Aaa, the fellow with the horse.”

„The fellow with the horse?” Keen asked in amazement.

„Yes. He left Bachaco with me before going. He said that the horse will live better with me because he has a long way to travel and he also doesn’t know the difficulties through which he must pass in the future and that because of this he prefers not to take the horse with him.”

„So then?! And… what else did that man say?”

„Nothing important. Only to take care of Bachaco and that the horse is a real good friend. After this, he spent the night in the stable with Bachaco, caressing his feather and he even wept bitterly, hugging his old friend’s bent neck while Bachaco was making a feast of hay.”

The detective liked the freedom that Stan used to talk to him and the fact that he wasn’t asking many questions about what happened to Albert, because namely that freedom was something that many people of those time lacked in their souls, no matter what trials they went through in life, and Keen was sure that Stan passed through many more harsh times in his life than others, but he still could keep his mind clear, his soul innocent and the most important: the respect and trustiness in people.”

***

„Do you think that Emily Davis had been really capable to kill her teamster only to take revenge?” Brian asked preoccupied, about an hour later after he left Keen to wait for him in the living room and he went with Eva to her room.

Now, both men were in the former Alfred’s cabinet, which was the same as the living room - almost empty because of the things that „had been lost” eventually after Charlotte’s auction. „I don’t know if it was for getting revenge or to show others that she still has some power, but the matter is that Albert Shin is dead, left somewhere at the edge of the forest, without a headstone while Emily Davis and Lorenne Fabeau are missing and I don’t know where they can be,” Keen answered after taking a sip from his drink that Brian offered him.

„Lorenne Fabeau! I don’t know why, but this name sounds familiar to me,” Brian murmured, staring at a blind spot behind the detective.

Catching Beneath’s lost glance, Keen looked in the same direction. But, not seeing anything worthy of his attention, he turned back to his drink, continuing his thought. „It’s because she’d been your father-in-law’s mistress or at least she pretended to be during his last days of life.”

Contrary to the detective's expectations, who had thought that this news will turn Brian upside down, Beneath only sketched a smile, reproachfully shaking his head: „and he dared to reproach me my affair with Eva,” Brian murmured.

„You don’t seem amazed,” Keen said, staring at Brian that was nothing daunted, catching the detective’s cunning glance.

„I should have been surprised?! The environment where I live was also well-known by Edward and none of those who met him was blind or mute. As my ears aren’t deaf.”

„Wise remark.”

„But yet, detective Keen, where do you think Emily Davis went?” Brian asked and Keen finally felt preoccupation in his voice because he found Brian extremely calm at first when he heard about Albert’s death and he didn’t even blink or his face revealed any emotion of sorrow about the dead one, a fact that made Keen suspect Brian at first as having something to do with that crime, but he understood eventually that his doubts had been proofless.

„I have no idea, to be honest. But… I intend to investigate this. Why? Do you think that she can hurt Miss Stonebridge too?”

„I wouldn't be surprised if she does it. Let's not forget that she dared to get rid of the man that was next to her for the last 20 years only to get revenge or to punish him for helping Eva to leave Ms. Fabeau’s house and to hurt Eva… I think it won’t be something difficult for her or something to make her feel any remorse.”

„I don’t think she suffered too much when she killed Albert if she left him breathless at the edge of a forest. She could have at least buried him. A good master never leaves his faithful dog behind him, and if that dog dies, he cries at least two tears: formally.”

A short silence came between the two while they drank a few sips of their glasses with whisky they had in front. Then, after fixing his glance on Brian’s face on which the preoccupation could be read, Keen asked: „how well did you know Emily Davis, Mister Beneath?”

„Not that well. Only of sight: in town, at receptions, or in Christine’s house where I was often.”

„And Ms. Bircham? Is she an old acquaintance?”

„Let’s say we have some family connections. She’s my second maternal cousin. But … even if we had businesses together, we’ve never been good friends, and nor we had respect for the other one.”

„Why so?”

Brian bitterly smiled. „Because you’ll never consider a friend the wolf that wants to eat you, detective Keen, and Christine Bircham always tried to take what is mine.”

„But yet… you’ve been seen always around her.”

„I won’t deny this, taking into consideration your remark as part of your investigation, detective, but I want to mention the fact that until a year ago I and Christine met only when it was necessary for business.”

„And … what changed a year ago?”

„Eva. I found out that Christine has her in her claws and, as Eva was the woman, I considered worthy of my interest, I’ve decided to play into my cousin’s hands for a while, at least till I would have found a way to take Eva from her house.”

„But this is something you didn’t make it, eventually, from what I could understand.”

„Right. I miscalculated some of my movements, and this led to the breakup between me and Eva, and the fact that she went without telling me about this or about that she expects my baby.”

„However, mister Beneath, with all the respect and mentioning the fact that my words have nothing to do with reproaching you about this, you kept hiding her the fact that you were married to Sophie Anderson Bell.”

Brian nervously moved in his chair. Then, he finished his drink and stood up to serve another whisky.

Looking from behind at Brian that was forced to keep his inner balance while he was taking off the lid of the whisky bottle to pour alcohol into his glass, Keen understood that it had been difficult for Brian too, to fight on two fronts. And… even if Keen never loved and the women for him were only part of his social life with whom he was spending some time without forcing them to do something or to pay for their company, the detective yet understood well that there was love in the world and for some people, it gets to be the last breath of air in a world suffocated of lie and struggle for survival.

It wasn’t Brian’s situation, who managed, in the end, to become a free man, using his influence and his acquaintances. But yet, Keen seemed that Brian paid a too big price for his freedom, even if he wasn’t sure which price Beneath paid. Then, to appease the spirits, Keen also finished his drink and stretched the hand with the glass toward Brian: „I won’t refuse another drink. Of course, if you offer me another one!”

Brian liked the detective’s diplomacy. Especially, Brian liked the manner Keen used to approach again the people he was investigating after he had managed to displease them by asking them inconvenient questions that they didn’t want to answer.

„Mister Beneath, how do you think, is Christine Bircham really the leader of the „Red Ants” or we can talk here about a „puppeteer” well-hidden in the shadows and who manipulates everything as he wishes?” Keen asked, seeing that Brian finished pouring liquid into the glasses.

Turning to his place while putting the full glass in front of Keen, Brian took a short time to think about what the detective asked him because this wasn’t something unreal. More than this, he also thought, and not only once that Christine was controlled by someone and that she wasn’t free to control „Red Ants” as she was bragging of. „It can be,” Brian murmured, eventually, taking another sip from his drink. „But… who that person can be - I have no idea.”

„And… what if we find out this together?!”

Brian looked into Keen’s eyes, but that harsh glance of the man that saw a lot of human cruelty in his life was reflecting a vivid curiosity and a drive that only a detective like Victor Keen could have.

„We can try it, but I don’t see what you’ll win from all this. Or… did someone hire you to do this?” Brian murmured, with a slight irritation in his voice because he wouldn’t have liked to be „used” again for solving others’problems: he had been used in the past so many times for others’benefit and especially he had to pay a too big price to get his freedom, to accept to be used once again by the same man he previously hired to do a job he eventually couldn’t do well because even if Keen found Eva in Brighton, he told Brian about this only after Eva left the town, and Brian had considered this being suspect.

„Even if my past decisions and maybe the present ones too discomfit you, I still have nothing to hide, mister Beneath, and the fact that I’ve decided to investigate this is because I want to gratify an old curiosity I had.”

„Like?”

„To find out what happened to Baron Beneath and why the man who had decided to meet Helen Walker and to ask her for an explanation for her betrayal was found breathless the next day and why he didn’t write at least a farewell letter to his son.”

Brian winced: he had forgotten that previously Keen had been the detective who his father had hired to find Helen. But even so, he had never expected Keen remembered a man who died 20-years-ago. „Let’s say that I’m only paying an old debt, a bond that brought me on my dying bed many years ago and that took a lot from me, leaving me soulless till nowadays after I managed to recover from that hell in which I’ve lived for a long time,” Keen eventually added.

„Yet, Keen, I don’t understand your point!” Brian murmured because he really didn’t understand what the detective wanted to do or what Keen was expecting from him.

„Help me to frequent the same social circles you are frequenting, mister Beneath because even if I’m an influential person and I also have money, I’ve never managed to approach sufficiently the gentlemen and ladies from the Upper Class, and for reaching our goals and for finding out the truth about Albert Shin’s death, Emily Davis and Lorenne Fabeau’s escape, and your father’s suicide many years ago, it’s absolutely necessary to live with the ravens if we want to find one.”

Brian smiled: Keen was right, especially when he compared the Upper Class with the ravens, but what the detective really didn’t know was that no matter one’s social class, a man can be a real beast if he considers being attacked or in a fight for supremacy.