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I knew better than to try and track Trinity just now. If she was determined not to be found, it would be very difficult. Anyway, there was no point. She would turn up when it suited her, probably just after I left her a message about that old reprobate Garrick. I was quietly confident I would be doing so, although I didn't have too many leads just at the moment. Nether had noticed Trinity's disappearance too, judging by the wry look he gave me. Gumshoe affected not to notice, or perhaps not to care. Rosie was looking stunned, in shock perhaps, frozen, but still holding Nether's hand. "Okay," I said to Gumshoe, "Let's get to your car pronto and get out of here." The Oldsmobile was still where we had left it and there was no sign of anybody lurking about. Mercifully we had parked far enough away to be well clear of the cordon of police whose blue lights could be seen reflected from shop windows. We piled into Gumshoe's car which, much to everybody's evident relief, started at the first turn of the key. Gumshoe put the monstrous old thing into gear and set off with a screech of tyres. "Where to?" Gumshoe called over his shoulder. He was driving fast and only moderately like a lunatic - that is, like almost everybody else in New York. "Back to Chill's Bar," I suggested, "Let's takie Rosie home." Gumshoe grunted, swung across two lanes of traffic without indicating - to a chorus of driver-feedback horns, of course - and ran a yellow light unhesitatingly. Definitely a native New York driver. An hour later, we were in Rosie's cluttered little office at the back of the bar. Rosie herself had been marched off to bed by Nether, with a mixture of brooking-no-nonsense firmness and touching tenderness. When he re-appeared, he looked distinctly careworn. "Is she okay?" Gumshoe asked from his perch on the end of the desk. "She's asleep," my brother replied, "I've slipped her a little something to calm her nerves, so she’ll probably sleep for a few hours now." Gumshoe nodded. Nether hopped up into Rosie's worn office chair and sat back, then closed his eyes. I had found a bottle of whiskey and three shot glasses - this was an Irish bar, after all - and poured a modest measure for Gumshoe and myself. The remaining glass and the nearly full bottle I had left on the other end of the desk. "You look like you could use a drink," I said to Nether. He looked up blearily, seeming to catch sight of the booze for the first time. "Not just now," he said, "Maybe later." I was beginning to wonder just how much of an alcoholic Nether really was. In fact, I was beginning to wonder all sorts of things about my elder brother. Fortified by the whiskey, I had been pacing up and down, chain-smoking cigarettes and either thinking or just trying to wear out the carpet. There was definitely more going on here than met the eye. "Right then," I said in a determined voice, loud enough to make both Nether and Gumshoe sit up and take notice, "That little escapade was all very exciting, but we're no closer to finding out exactly what happened to Rosie." "Oh, we've learned something," Nether said wearily, "We know that our sister and Urquhart Garrick were running a grey-area import-export business" - flat-out illegal was my view, but I let it ride - "and it was almost certainly the route by which Rosie was returned to the surface. And possibly abducted, too." "Yeah, well," I replied laconically, "But we don't know who, and we don't know why. And you said you wanted to know those things." Nether just nodded. "So what next, then?" he said, half to himself. While we had been waiting for Nether, I had called my message service, using one of those nearly-secret telephone numbers that allow calls to be made to numbers in the Lower Realms from a phone on the surface, or vice versa. There was just one message, from Luncardy and typically terse: "My office. 4pm." "You, just stay here and look after Rosie," I instructed Nether, then turned to Gumshoe, "I take it you've not got anything out of your contacts in the NYPD?" "No," he replied, "I'll better go bother them some more." "Okay. But do me a favour. Come back here this evening. Hang around in the bar. Maybe the regulars will be a little more talkative. Besides, you might get a free drink." Gumshoe shrugged. "That wouldn't be too much of a hardship," he said, his face breaking into a wry grin. Nether roused himself. "And what are you going to do?" he demanded. "Put some more enquiries in motion," I said obscurely, "Down below. And before that, I'm going to visit a lady."
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Part 37