A Soul of Steel by Carole Nelson Douglas

missed unless he had meant to.”
    “But,” I put in, “we had bent down to catch the cat just then, do you not remember? Our heads were down.”
    “According to where it entered the bedpost,” Godfrey added, “the bullet would have passed through your head had you remained decently abed instead of chasing cats with Nell.”
    “Nell?” Our guest stared at me with some confusion.
    “A nickname,” I explained a trifle smugly. “It, too, is short, far more efficient than ‘Penelope,’ and Mr. Wilde cannot make endless coy classical allusions on it.”
    He nodded slowly and savored his brandy. “I forget that you have traveled far, as well. This is better than salty tea,” he declared suddenly.
    “Whyever should you drink salty tea?” I wondered.
    “Sugar is a rare and expensive item in Afghanistan, so precious that they drink their tea with salt. Even salt is so treasured that it is saved for only the tea.”
    “A most uncivil place for an Englishman!”
    “You are right, Miss Huxleigh, which is why, after this second Afghanistan war, we English retreated to the civilities of India. Even the ferociously ambitious Russians appear to have tempered their hopes in regard to the area.”
    “Then why did you stay on?” Irene demanded.
    “I could not return.”
    “Why not? You were unwounded, and you had a medal. That is more than most men take from wars.”
    “How did you—?” He attempted to rise but his weakness— or the brandy, or both—forced him to fall back.
    “I searched your most intriguing apparel and found it in your shoe.”
    “That is no way to treat a guest, Madame.”
    Irene’s golden-brown eyes glittered like murky gaslights through the blue fog of her cigarette. “You are not a guest, my dear Stan; you are a puzzle.”
    He frowned. “I begin to fear I have fallen into the lair of one more lethal even than Tiger.”
    “Your suspected marksman,” Godfrey prompted.
    Mr. Stanhope looked at me. “Your friends are formidably quick, Miss Huxleigh.”
    “They are curious as cats, I admit, but I do nothing to encourage their tendencies. Despite this indefensible interest in the most private affairs of others, they have been of actual assistance to some. Pray do not judge them harshly.”
    My comment brought a bitter laugh. “The opposite case is more likely,” he said. “Very well. I will tell you what you wish to know, though it’s an ugly story.”
    Irene held his gaze. “First, does that medal I found in your shoe belong to you?”
    He started up again, fire burning in his pale eyes. “Before God, Madame Norton, you tread where the Tiger himself would hesitate. I would not dishonor myself by bearing another man’s medal.”
    Irene shrugged. “A good part of mankind is more casual in such matters than you, and I imagine a great many of them populate Her Majesty’s troops, especially in these degraded days.”
    He subsided, noticing that each of his aggressive gestures had caused Godfrey to sit forward in his chair with a decidedly tigerish expression.
    Once again he looked to me for enlightenment. “I trust that Miss Huxleigh does not suspect me of purloining medals.”
    “Never!” I replied. “I fear that my friends are more influenced by your present appearance than your honorable past, Mr. Stanhope.”
    He laughed then, softly, at himself, his hand stroking his beard. “I look a bloody wild man, I suppose. I had forgotten... Even when I first came to Kabul, and found myself adept at the local languages, my fellow officers looked at me aslant. It is not the done thing, you know, speaking the lingo like a native. Better to shout at them in English; they will not do what we wish in either case.
    “Yet a talent I had, and few could speak Afghan or the various dialects. So they made me a spy.”
    “Ah!” Irene exclaimed rapturously, lighting another cigarette with a lucifer snatched from a dainty Limoges box painted with hyacinths.
    The scent of sulfur starched the air.