by Elsa Hart
Their eyes met, and any thought Cecily had of coincidence vanished. He looked at her with recognition and, chillingly, with purpose. The alley seemed suddenly more enclosed than it had before. Cecily’s eyes flitted over its other occupants. There was only the peddler, an old woman selling apples, and two inebriated gentlemen making their way to the tavern door with swaying steps. She could not depend on help.
She glanced quickly over her shoulder. The alley terminated in a closed iron gate. From where she stood, there was no way to tell if it was a dead end, or if a sharp turn to the left or right connected it to another alley. Even if there was a way forward, it would only lead her deeper into a maze she did not know. This struck her reasonable mind as the height of folly. She would have to go back the way she had come, which meant she would have to pass the stranger who had followed her. The peddler was still accosting him. It would be best to go at once, before he was left alone.
As she started toward them, the attack in the dueler’s field crept into her memory and she felt again the choking mud and the pressure between her shoulder blades. Her breath shortened. The peddler began to shuffle away. The man remained where he was, standing beside the tavern door, his eyes on her. She drew closer, close enough to see that the whites of his eyes were bone yellow, and to smell his rank odor. She was almost level with him when, for the first time, he moved. She saw his hand slip beneath a ragged edge of his jacket. Dread filled her, slowing her steps as she watched the hand emerge holding a knife. He held it casually, as if in invitation.
Cecily had no choice but to walk almost directly toward the blade. Her heart pounded and her muscles tensed in readiness. Then, in one breathless moment, she was past him. Fear itched her spine as she hurried forward. Sculpted figures carved on church doorways followed her progress with frozen eyes. Perpetual gloom hung about her, as if she were in the place where night stayed hidden during the day, bitterly resenting its exile.
She almost fell into the bright bustle of Holborn. A small fruit market surrounded her with a mosaic of fresh and rotting colors. She looked over her shoulder. The man was not there. This time she did not hesitate to hail a coach, which she took to the door of the Mayne house.
As she knocked, another coach drew slowly past the house and stopped a little way beyond it. The horses stamped and shook their heads, but no one emerged from within. The door of the Mayne house opened and Cecily heard Martha’s voice. She started to turn, then stopped. Something had moved among the trunks strapped to the top of the carriage. As she watched, a figure rose slowly from where it had been crouched between them, and descended easily to the ground. The carriage continued on. Martha was urging her to come in. Cecily stayed where she was, waiting. She knew that if it was the same man who had followed her, he would show his face. A moment later, he did. She thought, but could not be sure, that he gave her a small, malicious smile before he turned and walked away.
CHAPTER 23
The emerald had grown in a vein of quartz fed by the liquid heart of the earth. In the three thousand years between the day it was pried from its rocky setting and the day it became part of the Mayne collection, it had been given to kings and wrested from them. It had been embedded in one of the eye sockets of a sculpted god. It had glittered on the hilt of a sword wielded in sunlit battle. It had adorned the throat of a doomed bride. It had also acquired etchings: on one side the lion-headed Chnoubis, on the other a ring of Greek letters that spelled a long-forgotten name. The label written in Sir Barnaby’s hand claimed that it had belonged for a time to the historian Tacitus, who had found it on the shores of the Baltic Sea.
Cecily stared down at the green stone in chagrin. She had remained in the Stone Room after Martha had admitted her to the house, and had gone directly to the drawer as soon as Martha had left the room. Instead of the empty space she had been expecting, she had found the emerald resting exactly where it had rested the first time she had seen it. To its right was a corroded gray nugget identified by its label as a curious piece of metal found in the ruins of Troy, to its left a few flakes of ash purportedly taken from Mount Vesuvius. It occurred to her that Alice could have been mistaken about which stone Carlyle had taken. She traced a finger along every row in the drawer, but nothing appeared to be missing.
As she slid the drawer closed, a carriage deposited a small group of mourners outside the front door. Visits to the house had become increasingly sporadic. Most mourners had elected to come on the first or second day, a choice due in part to excitement, and in part to the knowledge that despite the undertaker’s considerable embalming skills, the experience lost charm with each passing hour. Martha returned to admit the newcomers, and Cecily went upstairs in search of Meacan.
She located her in the library, along with Mr. Thursby and his two secretaries. Thursby, a papery little man in spectacles, was already presiding over the inventory with an air of querulous self-importance. His secretaries, young and bewigged and difficult to distinguish from one another, were bent dutifully over their registers, their quills scratching across their separate lists almost in unison. Meacan, who had been attending to Thursby with a subtly mutinous expression, brightened when Cecily came in. After performing hasty introductions, she mumbled an indistinct excuse and pulled Cecily from the room.
In silent agreement, they descended to Sir Barnaby’s study. Meacan closed the door behind them. She spoke before Cecily could. “The constable came here while you were gone. Walter Dinley has been captured.”
The words tore through Cecily’s carefully arranged thoughts. “Captured? How? Where is he?”
She had spoken too loudly. Meacan’s eyes flew to the door, then back to her with a look of warning. She guided Cecily deeper into the room. “They found him at a wretched inn at the harbor,” she said in a low voice. “Evidently the constable has had men asking questions there since the day of the murder. Dinley was waiting to board a ship to the Americas, just as Hugh said. They dragged him directly to a justice of the peace, and he’s been committed to Newgate to await trial.”
“Newgate.” Cecily felt a sickening lurch in her stomach. The name of the prison evoked horrific tales of fever, torture, and corruption. She sank into the chair by the hearth.
Meacan picked up the stool from in front of the book wheel and positioned it so that when she sat the fabric of their skirts overlapped in a sea of blue and green linen. Their faces were almost touching. Meacan’s expression reflected Cecily’s feelings. “His chances of surviving until his trial are slim enough,” she said. “There are three hundred prisoners trying to breathe inside walls built to hold half that number. He’ll be starving and sick and surrounded by felons as likely to kill inside as they were outside. And some say the guards are worse.” For the first time since their reacquaintance, Cecily saw tears well in crystal crescents along Meacan’s lower lashes.
“As for his chances of surviving after the trial,” Meacan continued, “they are slimmer still. And there is no hope at all if he pleads guilty.”
“Can we speak to him?”
The question pulled Meacan somewhat out of her dejection, though her expression remained grave. “There’s the official way—that’s a permit from the Lord Mayor—but it would take time, probably more time than Dinley has.”
“And the unofficial way?”
A small smile of approval ghosted across Meacan’s lips. “A bribe at the gates. Of course we cannot count on being successful. It’s no small thing to enter Newgate. But I thought we could make an attempt on the way to Covo’s tonight.”
Cecily nodded agreement. “And in the meantime, we will continue our efforts to discover the truth.”
Meacan wiped her eyes and squared her shoulders. “That is just what I was about to say. So now you may tell me. Did you find the girl? Is she Alice Holt?”
“I did,” said Cecily. “And she is. I believe we were right. Dinley lied to protect her. But I do not believe she killed Sir Barnaby.” Cecily gave Meacan a full account of her conversation wit
h Anthony Holt’s grieving sister. She concluded it with the discovery that the emerald Alice claimed to have seen Carlyle take was not, in fact, missing.
“Carlyle a thief,” said Meacan musingly. “I can see it. He seemed intelligent enough, and I did catch a glimmer in his eye that suggested a modest degree of artistry. But we can’t accuse him of stealing an emerald that hasn’t been stolen.”
“No,” Cecily agreed. “Nor can we save Dinley with Alice’s testimony alone.”
“Certainly not,” said Meacan. “I expect the judge would say they conspired together and send them both to the scaffold.”
“There is something else,” said Cecily. “I was followed.”
“Followed?” Meacan gasped. “Who followed you?”
“A stranger.” Cecily told her what had happened.
“I don’t like it,” said Meacan darkly when Cecily had finished. “He sounds too similar to the villain I shot in the field.”
“He didn’t try to kill me.”
“I don’t find that sufficiently reassuring.”
Cecily’s eye was caught by movement over Meacan’s shoulder. Someone was in the garden. She stood and went to the window. John was returning to the kitchen from the greenhouse, a bright posy of leaves and sprigs in one hand. The sound of the clock on the mantelpiece chiming four brought her attention back to the room. “Did you say it was about twenty past five when you found Sir Barnaby dead?”
Meacan had also risen to her feet. While Cecily was at the window, she had picked up a crystal ball from the mantelpiece and was now passing it back and forth between her hands. She made a humming sound and squinted one eye as she considered. “Twenty past or half past,” she answered.
“That makes sense,” said Cecily. “It was a few minutes to five when Sir Barnaby went downstairs. As far as we have been told, no one saw him alive after that, which means he must have been killed roughly between five and five thirty. It is a narrow window of time.”
“But wide enough for a murderer to climb through,” said Meacan sagely.
“Let us set aside the question of motive and speak only of opportunity,” said Cecily. “Could anyone in the house have committed the murder?”
Meacan spoke slowly. “The servants say they were all together in the kitchen. Unless two are lying to protect the third, they have alibis. Otto Helm was not at his desk when I came in search of him, which means he could have been in the study stabbing Sir Barnaby. Alice told you she fled through the garden door, but no one saw her go. Dinley has given no account of himself, but we can assume, at least, that he was searching for Alice, having returned to the greenhouse to find it empty. Carlyle—” Meacan looked questioningly at Cecily.
“Claims to have been wandering the collection rooms alone,” said Cecily. “According to him, Warbulton was absorbed by the guestbook in the library, but Carlyle only glimpsed him there. Warbulton could easily have slipped down to the study and returned without anyone noticing. Inwood says he was in the dining room reading, but we know he left it at least once, earlier, when he met Alice and Dinley coming downstairs.”
“So we cannot eliminate any of them,” said Meacan.
“No,” said Cecily. “But to me, Helm’s is the story that seems the most suspicious. He told me he was at his desk all afternoon, intent on his serpents, oblivious to everything around him. What was it that took him away? And why did he then depart the house with such haste?”
“I agree,” said Meacan. “And being robbed doesn’t excuse him from being questioned. He’s alert, you know, and has been poring over books and specimens all day. What style of interrogation would be best? Should we challenge him, or put him at ease?”
“Neither. I will speak with him. You will resume your work with Thursby. Our task will become more difficult if Lady Mayne terminates your employment. How does it go with him?”
Meacan sighed. “It is not as terrible as I expected it to be. I have divined that Thursby simply wants an excuse not to work on his latest book, which he claims is going well but isn’t. How could it? A compendium of all history, philosophy, and language—it is no wonder he’s running from the project as if it has teeth.”
While Meacan was speaking, Cecily’s gaze had fallen on the smooth oaken sheen of the three closed cabinets. She waited until Meacan had finished, then nodded toward them. “I cannot help but think that the Rose cabinets are somehow connected to Sir Barnaby’s death.”
Meacan followed her look. “Rose. That’s the traveler who left Sir Barnaby his collection.”
“Yes, and remember that, according to Hugh Ashton, Dinley thought his employer was devoting an unwarranted amount of time to studying Rose’s objects.”
Meacan crossed the room and tugged the handles one by one. “Locked,” she announced. “As you said.”
Cecily joined her. “The objects are all listed in the register upstairs. They appear to be mostly shells, stones, bones, and birds. They come from distant places, but I saw nothing to indicate that they are of particularly high value.”
“There must be keys somewhere,” said Meacan. She surveyed the room, her face alight with new interest. She began to move along the shelves, shifting birds, peering into vessels, and turning over shells. Cecily did the same. Meacan let out a short exclamation when she reached into a porcelain vase glazed with blue dragons and pulled out a brittle brown object as large as her fist and pocked with holes. She sniffed it, grimaced, and handed it to Cecily, who examined it. “It’s a sea sponge.”
“I know,” said Meacan. “But what is it doing in a vase?”
“And lacking a label,” said Cecily, handing it back. “This is what I meant about carelessness even in the most orderly collections. It’s the reason inventories are never as straightforward as you expect them to be.”
Meacan dropped the sponge back in the vase. They searched for a few minutes longer, but without success. “It’s like looking at a face and not being able to tell what it’s thinking,” said Meacan, staring at the closed cabinets. She tapped her knuckles softly against the oak. “Who is there?” she whispered. Her expression turned speculative and she touched a finger to the keyhole. “I could open it, you know. I have tools for just such occasions.”
The sound of footsteps and voices reached them from the hall. Together, they stepped back from the cabinets. “Later,” whispered Cecily. “You should get back to the inventory. I’ll speak to Helm. As for John Rose, surely if anyone can tell us something more about him, it would be your Signore Covo.”
Meacan brightened. “You’re right,” she said. “Covo will know. We’ll ask him tonight.”
* * *
Otto Helm was sitting up in the cot. He was surrounded by as many specimen jars as it had been possible to fit within his limited range of movement. They covered the floor, as well as a chair and a low table that had been drawn up close beside him. Inside the jars, coiled and still, snakes waited like supplicants at a lord’s hall.
The bed was blanketed in books. Small stones and statuettes were being used as paperweights to hold them open. An army of illustrated serpents, patterned with diamonds and stripes and spots, seemed to slither over the pages. Some of the books were old. The illustrations were woodblock prints and the Latin texts told of oracular dragons and basilisks born of birds. Others were new, and boasted deft engravings and watercolor pigments that mimicked sun and shadow. The page nearest to Helm depicted a viper. The engraver and colorist had captured the sinuous heft of its form so realistically that its fangs appeared ready to sink into Helm’s hand.
Helm’s attention was on an open notebook, into which he was copying neat lines of text. When he heard Cecily on the stair he looked up, then back down. “A moment, Lady Kay, I must beseech of you,” he said, continuing to write. He murmured under his breath. “Belly transversely … black and yellow … sides of neck alternately … head large—” Helm stopped and twisted to consult one of the books. The motion was too quick. With a gasp of pain he froze. His eyes squeezed sh
ut.
Cecily hurried forward. “Mr. Helm? Are you alright?”
Helm opened his eyes and immediately set his pencil back to the page. “It is the Vipera aquatica,” he said. “But this next, I cannot be certain.” He tried to turn again, winced, and slumped back against the wall.
Concerned, Cecily removed two jars from the chair beside the bed and sat down. “You will aggravate your injuries if you do not rest, Mr. Helm.”
With obvious reluctance, Helm placed the pencil in the crease of the notebook. “I wish to make use of time,” he said. “And I am comforted when I am working.”
Cecily understood the sentiment, and believed he meant it. She had seen that the instant he set his pencil down, the lines of suffering on his face deepened, as if work had been holding the pain at bay. “You are very thorough,” she said, glancing at the notebook. It was a new one that had been purchased for him at the stationer’s, and already it was almost half full. “I often think I will be able to remember more than I can,” she went on. “I always regret my arrogance when I consult my notes later and find them lacking in detail. It must have been difficult for you, on the day of the tour, to maintain your concentration despite the many distractions.”
Helm sucked in a short breath. Cecily could not tell whether he was reacting to a jolt of pain in his bruised ribs or to her words. “Always, there are distractions,” he said after a moment. “It is necessary to learn discipline. To set the distractions aside.”
“But you did at least find the time to leave your desk for a little while that day.” Cecily perused one of the books as she spoke and did her best to keep her tone idle.
“To leave my desk?”
“When Mrs. Barlow went in search of you,” said Cecily.
“Mrs. Barlow was in search of me?”