Late For The Wedding

Seventeen

The new commission was an extremely lucrative one. The Memento-Mori Man was quite pleased with it. True, Sir Rupert did not meet all of the specifications set down by the one who had trained him, but he had concluded that those requirements were too stringent.

It was all very well for his mentor to carry on about the noble objectives of the firm, the Memento-Mori Man thought, but the reality of the matter was that the commission for Sir Rupert would earn him twice as much money as he had been paid for any of the last three projects.

In addition, it was a simple, straightforward operation. Sir Rupert was elderly and bedridden. True, his only crime was that, in the eyes of one of his very greedy heirs, he had lived a little too long, but that was not a great concern.

A farsighted man of business could not allow outdated notions of honor to stand in the way of profits.

The details of the new commission would be handled in the usual anonymous manner. The client was to leave the full payment at the appointed place in the small lane behind Bond Street. The Memento-Mori Man would retrieve his fee later, when there was no possibility that anyone would notice.

Business was picking up nicely. Word of mouth was, indeed, the best sort of advertising. In addition, the dangerous chess match with March added a euphoric excitement that no drug could equal.

He was well on his way to proving that he was as skilled and clever as Zachary had been. When he had surpassed Zachary’s record of successfully completed commissions and made certain that March knew of that accomplishment, there would be time enough to take his revenge.