Ministry Protocol: Thrilling Tales of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences

  *****

  Miss Snow possessed a remarkable sense of people. Although C. Kensington Kennedy did not particularly look like agency material, there was something to the way she held herself—as if she was greatly aware of her height, yet could not be shamed to bow for the comfort of others. She was a full head taller than Miss Snow, who was not herself a petite woman, and the width of her shoulders beneath her patched coat suggested she was no stranger to hard work.

  If she was half the master crafter her father was, Miss Snow would return to London with a report and a new agent, rather than just the one.

  “I understand that there’s some protest from the Irish Republican Brotherhood,” she began.

  “Hsst!” The girl’s whisper, emphasised by a sudden waving of both hands, halted Miss Snow’s conversational gambit. “The English haven’t any right to go talkin’ about it like that.”

  While poorly phrased, Miss Snow understood the gist. “I’m not here to make trouble for either side. Although,” she added as she strode down the road, towards the city centre, “if the Irish need aid from the monarchy, I see no reason why Parliament shouldn’t grant it. Claiming a country comes with its own responsibilities, yes?”

  The girl had the most remarkable sea-blue eyes, as pretty as the waters of the far-flung Caribbean at sunrise. Miss Snow would wager good money that none of the lads here ever paid her that compliment. Those eyes studied her now, wary but still mostly bemused.

  “I’m not here for that,” Miss Snow added. “Rather, I’m here to put an end to this plague taking your folk.”

  Although her eyes widened at plague, Miss Kennedy was already shaking her head. “The famine—”

  “’Tisn’t the famine that worries me, my dear Miss Kennedy.”

  “You mean the sickness? A bit of ague here and there, but I wouldn’t call it a plague.” A beat. “Ma’am.”

  “Oh, heavens, Miss Snow, if you please.” Dismissing the appellation, she turned her valise to the other hand and shook out her arm absently. “This ague. What happens?”

  The girl was quiet for a long moment. Just when Miss Snow thought maybe she was rather too brisk for a lass who’d just lost her father, Miss Kennedy spoke again. “It starts with a fever in the eyes, ma—Miss Snow. As if they’re made of glass and something else is looking out.”

  Not unexpected, but a rather more intuitive turn of phrase that Miss Snow would have anticipated. “Then what?”

  “They stop working.”

  “Don’t most who fall ill do so?”

  She shook her head, her long-legged pace not at all ladylike—which Miss Snow appreciated, for her own stride was brisk and she had no patience for lollygaggers. “They stop all work, all services, everything. They pine, I think.”

  “For?”

  This time, a shrug from those broad shoulders. “Then the taste for food and drink goes. In the end, me da only wanted whiskey.”

  Miss Snow halted just outside a pub, the faded picture on its placard that of a four swinging bells.

  Inexplicably, the pub’s name was the Bell and Badger. There was no sign of said badger.

  “Exactly what I feared,” Miss Snow replied, and adjusted the handle of her valise into the crook of her arm. “Come, Miss Kennedy. I’d like to introduce you to a reliable source.”